Juice, p.12
Juice, page 12
Around me, other operators seemed to be bedding down on benches and the lumpy contours of webbing and kit.
Get some rest, said the voice beside me. There’s a way to go yet.
I was woken by someone yanking my sleeve. I heard movement in the cabin. My ears squeaked again. I got to my feet. Through the porthole I saw we were descending toward a dome of red light. After a minute or so, a dim outline began to resolve as the superstructure of a vessel. The red light glowed at the tip of the mooring mast.
This is you, said the voice as the stat was anchored.
When the hatch opened, I followed five others down the ladder. On the deck of the ship we stood in the gloom for a moment before being led down a companionway into the bright light of a hold full of kit and materiel. A crew of provisioners from Supply issued us full gear – rubber boots, tactical fatigues, body shells, hard hats, waterpacks. Three of us were given bows. The rest of us accepted noisier tools.
Then came the briefing. It was given by a tall fella from Planning with a grey beard and a red bandana.
The job, he said, is straightforward. Your senior will deliver you to the target. You all have climbing skills, and you’ll need them. You’ll rope up to the stronghold – it’s a monopod – and you’ll breach and clear. Intel anticipates minimal resistance – there’s no discernible defensive posture – but don’t be complacent. Your object is a woman. You’ll know her when you see her. The entourage is entirely female – last reliable count is twelve. All to be acquitted. That includes the informant. Who, no doubt, will be seeking indemnity. Given the situation and sensitivity, this is not a job in which we can extract the source. Senior?
From our midst a woman stepped forward.
Questions? she asked.
No one had any.
Overhead, thuds on the deck. Chains rattling.
Right then, comrades, said the senior. Strap up. Let’s go.
Up on deck, three foils were cranked out and lowered to the water. Once they were secured, we rappelled down in pairs and started them.
I rode pillion. I’d never even seen a foil before.
We pushed away, got up to speed until we rose on our blades, clear of the smooth sea, and skated toward the tiny white light ahead. Eventually that single glow blossomed to become a series of lights high over the water. Closer in, they spilled a glittering slick on the sea. We paused at its outer rim, cleaving to the safety of the dark, while the bowmasters loaded their bolts and set coils. Then we idled on into the glare, down on our hulls, hunched instinctively against exposure, until we reached the foot of the towering steel monopod.
As per the briefing, there was no ladder. The bowmasters sent graps up with ropes in their train. We gained entry as directed. And the acquittals themselves were the work of a minute or two. It was one of the simplest, cleanest jobs I ever did. But being my first, it took some digesting.
At Basic, the List was discussed in fairly abstract terms. As if it were an historical outcome rather than a literal roster consisting of actual people with names and faces. Operators like us would never know those names, of course. But we did have to confront the faces. There was no hiding that. Still, nothing could prepare you for the reality of the moment. What an object was. And exactly what the job entailed.
But the biggest shock of that first job was not the killing. Awful as it was. No, what disturbed me most was the object herself. She was very short and yet she had the body mass of two operators in full kit. Her skin was sleek and unblemished, as if she’d never stood under the sun. And her glittering green eyes were so close to her nose she looked deformed. She wore slippers with flecks of shiny stone in them, and her manner was bizarre. Back then, I wouldn’t have had words for it. But she was grandiose. And yet ethereal. Managing to seem both childlike and preposterously high-handed.
When we broached the hatch and poured up into the great wide hab, she hoisted herself from a throne-like chair and regarded us with an eerie, fey smile. She spoke to us as if we were naughty children, so wild and messy, with our sodden boots and silly toys. She treated our intrusion as if it was some sort of prank. She’d hardly got out a few words in her lispy accent when the senior cut her down.
After she fell, and the chamber filled with the ozone reek of lightning and the stench of burnt flesh, the rest of her entourage got to their feet, staring at us in disbelief. They uttered no expressions of outrage, no shrieks of terror. Offered only an awed, puzzled silence. As if they couldn’t credit our sudden appearance, what had just occurred, the very existence of us, even as we stood before them real as death. I don’t know if they were drugged. Or maybe just simple. It was the most peculiar thing to witness. None of them came forward seeking clemency. I didn’t even discharge my tool. I just watched as the more experienced operators despatched them, each in turn. All watched the others die with a stupefied curiosity I’d never seen before and did not yet understand.
Then the senior kicked us into the second phase of the job, which was the search and secure. The stronghold ranged over three levels. The lowest, where we’d entered, was mostly common space with kitchen facilities and included a massive, refrigerated chamber for perishables and a freezer room the size of a domestic storm shelter. The deck above seemed to be the quarters of the entourage, which was more comfortable than anything I’d ever seen before – soft furnishings, rugs on the deck, appliances I didn’t recognize. Above that, with its own sealed companionway, and another degree of lavishness altogether, the top deck was clearly the object’s domain. The bed was enormous and overhung with a tasselled canopy. The coverlet was heavy and shot through with glittering thread. The air temp was so cold it made me shiver. I watched as the senior took up a small device from a tabletop and bagged it.
A pole in the ocean, I said. Imagine looking out there all day, nothing but sea. No wonder they went mad.
I’m just trying to imagine the bodies and blood it took to make this place, she replied. What it took to keep these crooks out here so long. Them, and the generations that preceded them.
What’s that device she had?
She gave me the kind of look my mother offered whenever I overstepped. I lifted a hand to acknowledge my error.
First job?
I nodded.
You did well enough.
I hesitated, I said.
It’s normal. And better to wait than to overdo it. If you’re too keen, you put your comrades at risk. Especially in an enclosed space.
This is so weird, I said.
Does your head in, doesn’t it. Seeing all this shit.
Yes, I said. It’s —
Disorienting, she said.
Yes.
Box it off, she said. Don’t let it distract you.
We set the charges now?
Correct.
And the bodies?
They’ve been logged.
We don’t bury them? They don’t go back to the soil?
I guess they feed the sea, she said.
Why didn’t they resist?
It’s time to signal the stat, she said. Here’s the beacon. That’s the hatch there, I think. To the gyro pad. You go up, set the signal. The rest of us will join you in a minute.
Up in the warm, salty air on the platform whose edges lacked guardrails, or safety barriers of any kind, I set the flashing beacon and had a minute or two alone to regain some composure before the rest of the team came up the gangway.
Jesus Christ, said someone slumping to the deck in a clatter of kit. These people.
Can it, said the senior. Check your gear. Charge tools down, safeties on.
The stat came in low. It illuminated us and the pad and dropped its tethers for the extraction.
I was home inside three days. Everything about that first job was unexpected and shocking. It all happened so fast, it didn’t seem real.
There was so much to process. So much to keep secret.
I’d never seen a gangster before. She wasn’t what I’d expected.
Good God, says the bowman, stepping back into the light. Are you still talking?
I thought you were here.
Well, I wasn’t.
You went somewhere?
Figured I’d case your rig. While it’s still light.
Oh, I say, my mind going straight to the tool secreted in the door lining on the driver’s side.
Not so shabby. Actually impressive. Looks like you know what you’re doing.
Well, I should hope so.
Where’d you get kit like that?
Like I said. I built it. Most of it.
But the materials, he said. Aluminium. H-packs. The watermaker. How does a grub-grower get hold of premium shit like that?
You really haven’t been listening?
Shit, fella, you grind on like a dry bearing. A man needs a break.
So how d’you imagine I got that stuff? If I didn’t steal it. Which I didn’t.
You’re saying you’re connected.
Look at me. You know what I am. What I was. Foraging was my cover.
Big noting yourself now? You want me to think you were that valuable?
Comrade, I served for a long time. I saw some major action. Not something to flaunt. Just a fact.
So, where’s your tool?
There is no tool, I say, catching the flash of the child’s turning face. You know they never let us bring that sort of kit back.
That a fact? he says, running a hand down his bow.
I glance at the waif, who’s studying me in a way that kicks my pulse along. I’m hoping she’s not about to choose this moment to finally pipe up. Her expressions are difficult to read, but after these weeks on the road with her I think I’m safe in guessing she’s weighing my lie against every other consideration. And I think I see her features set. Like a landscape suddenly dulled by cloud.
Oh, there’ll be a tool, says the bowman. Has to be. You’ve been thinking about it all day. Beating yourself up you were so sloppy. Imagine getting this far, finding a spot like this, and getting out of the vehicle empty-handed. Fuck me, how’s that for a blunder?
Might’ve been if that’s how things are. But it’s not. Anyway, that rig’s a giveaway if you leave it out in the open like that.
Don’t worry, pal. I’ve moved it. If you have others coming behind you, they won’t find it.
There’s no one coming. It’s just us.
I guess we’ll see.
We’re it. There were three of us, but —
You misplaced one.
We lost a friend. I’ll get to that. But I wanted to ask you. What did they dig for here?
Gold, he says. Best I can tell.
And you’ve had people come through here before?
Once or twice.
What did you do?
Sat tight. Scoped ’em. Cityfolk. Clueless. They never knew I was here.
What, they just faffed about and moved on?
More or less. One lot stayed an hour. The others slept a night in one of the sheds.
And you didn’t kill them?
Why would I do that? Unless I had to. Why would I expend the energy, give away my position, if there was no need?
I shrug, masking my relief, knowing it mightn’t stand for much.
I could do with some water, I say.
Not surprised. The gob on you.
He walks away, returns with a pannikin.
Don’t get comfortable.
Thank you, comrade.
I pass the tin to the child, and she drinks greedily.
More folks will be coming through here, though, don’t you think?
Stands to reason, he says. The dumb ones – the scared ones – will settle for one of those gated vills.
Yes. But there’ll be others on the road. Smarter folks. Resourceful. Decent. A bunch of us, we could do something here.
Fuck that, he says. I’m done with people.
I don’t believe you.
I don’t give a shit what you believe.
I take the empty pannikin from the child. She settles back into the grit, curls up with her head on her hands.
So, what’s your plan? I ask.
For you?
No, for you. You’re gunna hole up here alone for good?
While it lasts.
I nod sceptically.
She drank it all, I say.
You should learn to control her.
You ever have a family?
Don’t even go there.
Okay, I say. But she’ll need a feed soon. And a wash.
I can smell it. And you.
And I just got her cleaned up.
Not my problem.
There’s food on the trailer, some duds in the rig.
Not interested.
For her, I mean. It’s not much to ask.
You know what you sound like?
Like a comrade, brother. That’s what I am.
You ever get one who wanted to bargain?
I peer at him a moment or two.
An object, you mean?
He nods.
Yes, I say. Yeah. A time or two.
The fuckers’d say anything. Just keep it coming, strafing you with talk until you could hardly think.
But they trained us to resist all that.
Now you’re catching on. Comrade.
I’m not bargaining with you, I say. I’m just explaining myself.
He pulls up a crate, grunts as he sits to haul off a boot, unwind the rag and flex his pale foot. When he sets it flat, I see the angry pink weal. A gel burn.
That would’ve hurt, I say.
No shit.
Still?
He nods again. Some days.
How long ago?
Ten years.
Ah.
First job.
I never copped one.
You were that good, right?
No, I said. Just lucky. Plenty of other burns though.
Where’d you go?
It’s supposed to be secret, isn’t it?
Like it makes any fucking difference now.
Well, I said. That’s fair. I went all over.
Like where?
Petersburg, I say.
Gazprom.
I guess. They never said. I was in Houston, too. Dallas. Otago. Rio. Utah. Plenty other places. You?
Oslo. The Steppe. London. We did a job in Dallas, too – a clusterfuck.
Ever get into the Hermit Kingdom?
What d’you reckon? he says scornfully.
I never knew anyone who did.
They say they ate their own, over there. You believe that?
Sounds like the sort of thing people’d say.
Yeah, when they know jackshit.
What about the Equatorial Belt?
Manila, he says. Malaysian Heights.
Bareback, or suited?
We had suits, thank God. You were in Utah? You were on that show? For real?
I’m sure there was more than one job in Utah. Over the years.
Yeah, he says. But they only ever talked about one.
Man, I said. Crazy, isn’t it. How unnerving it still is. To be talking about this stuff.
You don’t seem all that bashful about it.
Did you never sing the songs?
Yeah, he said. Late in the piece. Sure, we sang them.
That part, I miss. You?
Maybe, says the bowman, cocking one leg over the other to air his foot. A little.
Comrade, are you not gunna feed us?
You won’t starve overnight.
How about some water, then? I’m parched, mate.
I gave you water.
Seriously.
Tell me about Utah, I’ll give you water.
What, specifically, about Utah?
I want to hear it all, go to whoa.
I dunno, I say. Now you want me to talk?
I need to know who I’m dealing with here.
That’s why I was yacking like a maniac before.
But now I’m interested.
Why you interested in Utah?
You know exactly why. And you do look old enough to have been on that job.
Like I say. Had to be plenty of jobs in Utah.
I want to hear you say the name.
Which name you have in mind?
You know which fucking one. The name above all names. Quit pissing about and tell me the story.
But why?
Maybe I just need the entertainment.
It’s a long one. I’ll need a drink.
Tell me first. Then you get water. We’ll see how staunch you really are.
So. My first show. The nutjobs in the monopod.
When I got home, dragging a load of salvage that once again pressed the bounds of plausibility, I told my mother I’d never made it to mine country. Hell, I’d only been gone three days. I told her what I’d been instructed to tell her. That I’d discovered an old homestead at the bottom of the gulf.
I know it, she said. Wrecked in a cyclone, I think. I’m surprised you even got in there.
Wasn’t easy, I said, vamping haplessly. I spent most of the time winching myself out of the mudflats.
Might be worth going back, she said.
Maybe I will.
You’re good at this salvage caper.
I got lucky, I replied, looking up from my bean stew and fresh-picked corn.
It’s given you itchy feet.
A little, I said, putting my fork down. We could trade for some help. If it’s making it too hard for you.
Not necessary, she said. I just miss having you round, that’s all.
I’ll stop going if you want me to.
You know I’d never stand in your way.
I watched her take a cob from the bowl and set it on her plate. She turned it slowly, as if checking a machine part for faults.
Besides, she said with a smile. Think of all the extra trade we can do.
I nodded, sensing something awry, a closing off. Perhaps she was hurt. Maybe this was what mothers did when sons outgrew them.
You know I’ll always come back, I said.
Yes, she murmured. You’ll always have a home here.
Well, I said. This is me. This is where I’m from.
All that mud, she said. You did a good job getting it off the rig.
Found an old well on my way out, I said. Couldn’t drink from it, but it was clean enough to run through the jet.
