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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: WIPO | AUTHOR: S RUSHDIE |
DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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Between shame and shamelessness lies the axis upon which we turn; meteorological conditions at both these poles are of the most extreme, ferocious type. Shamelessness, shame: the roots of violence.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING |
DOCUMENT STATUS: UNEDITED VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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The grotto is empty.
Zolotisty turns in place. She brushes hair from her eyelashes and listens closely when there's a soft scrape, like a chair being drawn out, from just beyond the door that leads outside into the foot passage. She can hear breathing, too. Heartbeats. They're not familiar.
“Mn.”
She considers Dex's wariness and sighs. Touching a bruise on her neck, Z doesn't move toward the door for her girl's sake. Instead, she steps toward the mouth of the passageway, meaning to doubleback down toward the door to see who's there. Her sudden appearance shocks the two men on reinforcement duty. She hesitates, equally startled to see them, and one of them moves faster than she does - - that's how these things go, that's what it comes down to.
He cracks the butt of a baton into her temple and she crumples. The other man moves forward to gather her into his arms.
“Hey - - she came out this way, we got her,” the first calls down the tunnel. He spins his baton, pleased, then checks the end for blood or skin. It's clean.
“Huh. This anime shit's for real,” the other man says, leaning close to Z's face. He hefts her one-armed so he can test the range of one of her ears, pinching the tip between his fingers. One of her legs begins to slip.
“You fuckin' drop her and the lieutenant will ream your ass,” the first says, holstering his weapon with a scowl. “Dickhead.”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING |
DOCUMENT STATUS: UNEDITED VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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How does a girl who shuns clocks and watches measure time?
Spandex walks. Eight of her long even strides along each wall of the empty Loft space downstairs. Sixty-four steps, thirty-two seconds, two laps per minute, one hundred twenty per hour. Keeping time is important. She knows this game.
four
Average number of minutes grade-school Ann Beatrice spent on the slick-seated chairs bolted to the wall outside the principal's office, staring at the strategically-mounted wall clock: 945 per year.
sixty-six
Average number of minutes juvenile Ann Beatrice spent handcuffed to a steel desk in an interrogation room, staring at the grill-covered wall clock, before an exasperated nanny-cop would come in to hear her reply 'fuck off' to every question: 86 (102 as her record grew).
eighty-three
Average number of minutes 13-year-old Ann Beatrice spent locked out of her so-called 'temporary family situation' for 'aggressive and anti-social behaviour': 'until you can behave like a civilized member of society' (228. Her record was 4300)1).
Time is a weapon in trained hands. It isolates, makes you prey to yourself, and only after it's broken you do they come to say time's up, you're free. You can go if you just answer this one question.
one-hundred-twenty. One hour.
The door lock chu-chunks. She doesn't change her stride and only when her route takes her to the door does she check. They've locked her in, right on schedule. She played the paranoia right.
She slams her palms on the door, keeping time. “No! You fuckin'fuckersmotherfuckin'evilwhoreratbastards you touch her I'll put my boot so far down yer throat you'll be picking teeth out of your shit for weeks! Let me the fuck out you moronic corporate teat suckin' ratpigs..”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION |
DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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“You're upset.”
Simpert flaps his hand at Cooper. “Fuck off, I'm fine.” He picks up his coffee cup for the twenty second time in as many minutes, takes a sip of nothing for the fifth time, then rolls his chair away from the feedscreens. The transcribers are diligently keeping up with the latest spew of obscenity. “Just..”
“Here, take one of these.” Cooper flips open a slim tin case of tablets. “Brahmi. I understand, sir, many operators get attached to their contestants.” There's a hint of snobbery in his tone, as if because it is strictly against Network rules, it'd never happen to him. “One has to admit they've really only brought it upon themselves. What other options did we have? Besides, Ms. Ogilvy knows exactly what she's doing.”
Simpert makes a low noise and smothers the urge to ask why Cooper didn't call him again before following through with this fucking chip order. Wake him up sooner. Something.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION |
DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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All four screens in Ogilvy's office are on: two on Spandex, two on Zolotisty. She refuses to stop watching to read the report in front of her despite being assured that they aren't going anywhere. She jumps on her phone before it finishes its first ring: “Put her through.”
“Yes.. Yes.. I'm aware, but.. Yes.. I understand the risks, but my.. Spandex won't hurt me because .. Yes. Yes, ma'am. ” Never taking her eyes from the screens.
“Idiots.” She wanted in. It's almost as if she misses Spandex.
She calls Simpert. “Prepare Camera L-13-14-d for two-way comms and visual and patch feed from BHC-5-6-restricted. I'll be down in thirty.”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING |
DOCUMENT STATUS: UNEDITED VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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“You got her?”
“Yep.”
“Keep her still, I don't want to redo this again.”
“Why aren't we giving her another 20cc of amtelizepam?”
“'Cos the doc says that might compromise her bronchus, so restraints it is.”
The med tech on the restraints smiles encouragingly down at Zolotisty. Her expression is genuine. “You're alright, puppy, s'okay.” She continues rubbing 'round the bases of Z's ears as the other tech moves the x-ray into position again. Z draws another rasping breath and doesn't close her eyes.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING |
DOCUMENT STATUS: UNEDITED VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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Two hundred ten laps. Almost two hours. The walking's good not just for time-keeping, but to calm her rage, and to make her appear like a trapped rat. Best they don't suspect she's taking the time to make a plan.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION |
DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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“Start on those panicked eyes then pan down to her limp tail there- - Spandex is obsessed with that filthy thing.. now zoom out. Slowly. Both those girls respond strongly to traps and cages so keep on the overhead and to a wide angle- - make her look small and helpless within the room. That's it.. we're keeping complete control over this, so I want her only watching pre-recorded and nothing that's not run by me. Increase the volume on her breathing. Okay, hold it there for as long as we can.” Working in the editing suites isn't normally Ogilvy's thing, but she seems to be enjoying herself.
“Can we project this somehow? This'd look great on one of those huge walls in my Loft. Hell, on all four if we could.”
“We've got a PT-4LCX95 - - sorry, projection bulb - - in one of the cameras; I'm bringing it online now. The others, I'll see what I can do. If not, I can reroute the patch.”
“Cut right to it on my cue. It's got to look live.” Ogilvy lifts her head to smile at Spandex pacing. “It's been so long, my girl,” she says to the screen, “and you never write.”
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING |
DOCUMENT STATUS: UNEDITED VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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At two hundred forty laps of her loftspace- exactly two hours- Dex stops. She pulls on her clothes. Just her usual ripped jeans, shirt and zippit, and boots. She's not fooling anyone who's been watching her for long enough- - they'll know that snugged into about a dozen hidden pockets are her knives. How do you face an enemy that's had the opportunity to study your techniques, to rewind and replay, to learn your habits, your tells, your weaknesses?
She ties a scarf around her neck. The only thing that can hold her girl is a lack of Improbability.
She lands on the ground floor of their Loft when the film starts. The projection lens is dusty and the image resolution isn't meant for the meters by meters expanse, but it's clear enough what they're showing her - - Z half-conscious and bound to an examination table with a man in crisp lab whites standing by her head, talking to someone off camera as he slips his hand under her temple to readjust the position of her head. He has a scalpel held in his other hand, gloved fingers comfortably loose on the grip. Another person moves into the frame, plucking at the end of Z's shirt with an enquiring slant to his shoulders. The doctor wags his head back and forth, thinking, then nods.
There's no audio except the labored rasp of Z's breathing, and it picks up as they move to physically surround her. More assistants now, med techs by the look of their scrubs. Z tries curling into herself, and there's just the slightest half-whine between the rattling wheezes before bodies block everything but the tip of her tail.
No clamped arms over her head this time, no plea to stop. Take it all in, Spandex- - the metal table, the webbed restraints, the struggle for breath. Three assistants, one doctor, no one armed. Guards outside.
The feed cuts and the wall returns to its stasis state. Years of paint layered over rough plaster and brick.
“Hello Spandex.”
She turns slow, knowing Ogilvy wouldn't dare risk coming here, to look into the camera which embodies her anger.
forget everything except vengeance
The red mist is powerful, relentless, and until she trained it with pulpy knuckles and broken ribs, uncontrollable. She lets it rise and scream, “LET ME IN,” gulps a deep-diving breath of Improbability, lifts the scarf over her nose and mouth and grabs hold of Z's desperate hotpanic to be let out.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: NOT RELEASED TO PUBLIC | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK CLOSECASTING | AUTHOR: NETWORK CLOSECASTING |
DOCUMENT STATUS: UNEDITED VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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“She's coming back around again.” The female med tech's hands haven't left Z's ears and she watches curiously, feeling the pull of them as they both try to angle toward door at the end of the room.
“Pffhh.. maybe we do give her another 20cc and see what happens, fuck.”
“Think it's the biochem?”
“Maybe. Can't keep some of these guys sedated. Hey John? She's shaking off the sedative again, Pree says - -” Z's fingers are free. She curls them into a long-distance demand and barks a cough as she pulls. There's no Improbability to draw on here except what she's made from, and she's feeling like a sea-thing drying in the sun at low tide. “- - so do we give her another shot, or..”
Good girl, Dex thinks as she bowls over the largest male assistant. The impact sends her somersaulting and he yells with surprise as he flails into a supply cart. Drawers rattle open, spilling empty plastic syrettes across the floor. The female tech at Z's head shrieks and backs off as the guards outside the door shoulder it open with arched eyebrows and half-primed guns. The heart monitor Z's hooked up to is about having a conniption fit, and the only calm people in the room seem to be the man in the crisp whites and Dex. They are about to be introduced. He takes three steps backward as he draws his cellphone from his breast pocket, and finds himself backed right into Dex. One hand knocks the phone from his hand; the other holds her tanto against his throat.
“Drop your weapon!” one of the guards barks, raising his gun.
He's not pointing it at Z.
If Dex takes another breath in the room, she'll start losing the capacity to think clearly. She draws the tanto across his throat an inch- - a brief note, as if the long knife is Z's viola bow. Touched my girl. And she almost stretches it out so his blood will sigh as it pours from his split neck. He gasps. She can feel him trembling.
“Don't you fuckin' dare - -” the guard says.
He can't see her free hand, the one wrapped around a throwknife sheathed at the small of her back. She peeks from behind the doctor enough to see the guard's adam's apple rise slow as he swallows hard. She sees her knife in it. She sees another knife in the nape of the male tech, another lodged in the flesh under the woman's ribs, in the weak necks of the other two guards, and they'll all drop, near as dead. All of them.
She draws, throws, and the knife's fuckin' invisible as it slices past the tech's ear so close he'll be checking it in the mirror for days. When the knife thuks into the wall all hell breaks loose.
The tech screams and throws himself at one of the guards, the woman drops to the floor to cower, and the other two grip their guns tighter, trying to find a shot at Dex. Hidden behind the doctor and the mayhem, no one sees her bump backward into one of Z's hands, but Dex can feel the sluggardly twist of Z's wrist as she hooks her pinkyclaw on a tear in her jeans.
Sometimes it's the little gestures that no one else sees that burn hot on your hipbone and shoot through your nerves like fire finds roots underground to your heart and you feel as happy as you were just a day ago - - swimming and playing like otters in an underground river.
“Step away from the table and drop your knife. This is your last warning.”
It's her turn to drive again, and she's got one shot at this before they get a shot at them. She lowers her knife and shoulderbarges the doctor forward with all her strength. The guard fires and misses as she falls to lie on top of Z. The gurney wheels squeal as she drives her hips into Z's and drives this fuckin' flatbed home. Z, Improbability-made, is the 8000HP V8 that revs like a den of pissed-off coyotes. Another shot slams into the wall a split-second after they disappear.
No brakes, and they hit the tunnel wall clocking in well over the speed limit. Dex is the crashtest dummy without seatbelts, Zolotisty with. It's remarkable how bodies bounce.
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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION: RESTRICTED | DATE OF REVIEW: 19.02.2098 ||
AUTHORITY: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION | AUTHOR: NETWORK COMPLIANCE COMMISSION |
DOCUMENT STATUS: FINAL VERSION | VERSION: 1.0
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Ogilvy looks pleased. Simpert looks devastated. “..we'll find them,” he manages after a moment of shocked silence.
She pats him on the shoulder. People on the boat are scurrying around, still panicked. The guards are yelling. One of the techs is trying to disinfect the doctor's throat, and he swats the younger man away with a snarl.
Simpert dully tries to remember the last time Ogilvy touched him. Never, maybe. “We'll find them, I'm on it,” he says again, trying to steady his voice.
Ogilvy's not listening. “Cue two of your screens to the moments before Dex hopped from my Loft to the examination room - - Zolotisty for those too. Get someone who knows what they're talking about to tell us how lucid your little pet would have been. Send me a rapsheet on that prick medic,” she says, pointing to the doctor. And Cooper, stop gaping like a moron and get me a fucking coffee.“
Simpert moves mechanically, queuing up a splitscreen - - one low angle and an overhead shot of Dex turning toward the camera just before the disappearance. He adds markers, sets the dynaclip to an indefinite loop. Then it's back to the boat for the other screen, and just one angle for their corner-mount near the gurney. He matches the timecodes and adds a fifteen second lead for Dex to appear, hitting enter several times for the zoom. Then, because the rapsheet is easier than the sedatives, because the man who knows Zolotisty's biochem best is technically off-limits and under the goddamnfuckingWatcher's protection, he turns toward his dedicated database interface. “Here - - John Stonham.” He leans back from the keyboard.
“Mn. And the one after they disappeared after Lelila stabbed Zolotisty's ass.” She takes the mug from Cooper, takes a sip and scowls into the mug. “Stop hovering Cooper. Look at these.” She gestures to the screens with the girls on loop. “What do you make of it?”
Cooper pulls the hem on his shirt while he watches the tapes. “Look there, there! Zolotisty's right hand. The fingers curve in. Could be a coincidence, but my theory is Spandex can't teleport alone. It must be Zolotisty.”
Simpert thins his lips. “She c- - we have no documented evidence that she's able to pull anything to herself. It's why she leaves, personally, to get something if she's misplaced it - - or to retrieve someone else.”
“Well then Simpert, how do you explain it?”
“I don't know.” He hits pause, gestures to the scarf. Dex's eyes are raging huge, but her pupils are pinpricks. “Maybe you're right - - or that's infused from exposure, but I can't imagine Zolotisty is much capable of assisting Spandex with a long-distance teleport when she, herself, is on the verge of suffocation from lack of Improbability. I'd wager Stri- - Spandex, has the scarf on a rebreather principle.. maybe that's the link to Zolotisty that allowed the teleport, I don't know.”
“Hrm,” she frowns, pushing her mug of coffee into Cooper's stomach. “You two keep watching for any more signs of this. Re-read through transcripts. Find their fucking hidey-hole. And Simpert..” She turns away from him to leave. “Don't exaggerate. We're not going to kill your beloved Zolotisty.”
“Not yet.” As she disappears down the hall.
Simpert flexes his dark fingers over the keyboard, taps the e key several times, then leans back. The fuck kind of job could he find after this.
Dog rustler.
He smiles at his own joke.