Meiko stood on the grassy strip between the runway and shuttle hangar and faced the sun, arms at her side and eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the sun and the cool of the morning breeze off the bay at once. She caught the waxy scent of gardenias and the sweeter aroma of jasmine along with a sharper, crisper smell she couldn’t identify.
Captain Teng stood next to her, his yellow kaftan trimmed with green piping rippling with the wind. “First time groundside in a while?”
“First in nearly four standard years. First time without needing an exosuit of some kind, that is.” She had a flashback to her disastrous last mission, of bounding across the frozen, airless surface of Haem IV’s third moon, racing to get one of her critically injured companions to their shuttle’s nanostasis tank in hopes the doctor could stabilize him enough for stasis. She suppressed a shiver, not from memory of cold, but from the knowledge of how close they’d all come to dying in that remote, desolate place. She rubbed her injured left arm and turned back to face the sun again.
She and Teng stood a bit apart from the others. A pair of civilian investigators, one Meiko’s age and the other in her early thirties, stood together a few meters away with a trim young Constabulary officer, clad like Teng in civilian dress. The constable displayed better taste, to Meiko’s eye. The trio talked quietly between themselves, as if leery of standing too close to the spies.
Teng looked on expectantly, and she indulged him with an answer. “Not since I was home last, in fact.”
“Have you been on Ileri before?”
She couldn’t fault him asking, but only smiled faintly in response. Either he knew already, and was trying to catch her in a lie, or he didn’t know, and was fishing for intel.
No freebies here, young man.
Teng didn’t press and shifted topics, instead asking about her recovery. Truth be told, she felt pretty good; Dr. Tran’s treatments were doing their job, and she’d scrupulously followed the supplements regimen to keep the nanosurgeons fed. She wasn’t used to the weight of the cast on her forearm but, then again, she wouldn’t have it on long enough for that to be a factor. Or so she hoped.
He relented and let her enjoy her brief communion with the relative novelty of an unregulated environment in silence. All too soon she heard the soft whir of an electric motor. She opened her eyes, scooped up her go-bag, and joined the others as they ambled towards the gray van come to deliver them on the next leg of their journey.
She found herself sitting next to Okereke, the older of the two civilian investigators, while Teng sat in the back next to the woman’s partner, with the policewoman settled in up front next to the driver.
“It seems we have some mutual friends,” Okereke said as the van’s gentle surge of acceleration pushed them back into their seats.
“Excuse me?” Meiko asked, startled.
Her seat mate flicked a glance back at Teng, who was chatting with the younger woman, Tahir. Okereke leaned towards Meiko, speaking softly. “Fari and I are the ones that saved your ass yesterday.”
Meiko laid her hand on Okereke’s arm. “Thank you,” she murmured. “That could have gone very badly if you hadn’t come along.” The rush of gratitude she felt was tempered with caution. The woman had connections with both the Fingers and the police. Interesting. Whose side is she on?
“Thank our friends. They’re the ones who vectored us in.” Okereke eyed the cast around Meiko’s left arm. “You look pretty good considering how they were working you over.”
“Timely rescue and a good doctor.” Her fingers twitched and she called up Okereke’s public profile, something she’d have done earlier if she hadn’t slept through the flight down. “What’s your involvement in the case?”
Okereke leaned away in surprise, her eyes widening. “You truly don’t know?” She nodded towards her partner. “Fari’s brother was Minister Ita’s bodyguard on-station. He was one of the victims.”
Meiko cursed silently as she flashed up the victim list. There was the name, Saed Tahir, along with a picture of a grinning young man. “I’m sorry, I didn’t make the connection,” she said aloud. “My condolences. You knew him well, then.”
“He was family,” Okereke affirmed.
“We both want the killers brought to justice,” she said. “Trust me, I want this as much as you do.”
Okereke nodded. “I’ll take your word for it.” She cocked her head and said, “Your social profile says you’re a planetary surveyor from Novo Brasilia. Your other profile, the one our friends passed me, also claims you’re a surveyor but that you’re an Ileri.” She looked Meiko straight in the eyes. “Is any of that true?”
Meiko hesitated, but Teng seemed caught up discussing some kind of fighting competition with Okereke’s partner, seemingly uninterested in whatever Meiko might say to the civilian. “Let’s just say my current profile is correct but not complete,” she said at last.
Okereke nodded as if she expected an evasion, but she stayed relaxed. “I hear surveyors get around. You’ve been to a lot of worlds?”
“I’ve seen my share, yes.” The van slowed as it pulled up to the canal-side quay where a Constabulary boat waited to carry them to the city center. “More than most. I’ve been lucky.” She glanced at Okereke. “How about you?”
Okereke shook her head. “I’ve never been out-system,” she said. “Born on the station. Hardly ever come planetside.” The Ileri woman eyed the gently bobbing watercraft sitting quayside dubiously, and Meiko noticed the sheen of sweat on her forehead. Nerves? Meiko wondered. Afraid of open water? Okereke caught her looking and grimaced. “Not a fan of unmanaged weather.” She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face.
Transferring their scant luggage—it seemed they all traveled light—went quickly, and the team settled in to enjoy the early-morning view of Ileri’s largest city from water level.
Meiko had caught a few overhead views of the city on her seat’s vid panel during their landing approach, including the bright flashes of the canals which served as the city’s arteries in the early-morning sun, a patchy web of silver between the districts. New Abuja sprawled across its island near the center of Lake Perpaduan, hugging the bay that cradled the lower terminus of the space elevator. She’d only glimpsed a few towers; the capital tended towards shorter buildings, four and five stories tall, arranged in blocks around central courts, many of which served as green spaces.
Now, from the water level, she looked up and saw the brightly colored facades of these buildings as they zipped past. Residents walked or rode bikes or the tramline on their way to school, or work, or wherever they were headed, but fewer than Meiko expected. It was hard to tell from some meters away, but she got a vague sense of nervousness, or even fear, among the people; they clustered together in packs, heads down, eyes scanning for... something. It had been nearly twenty years since she’d last come down the cable to the city, but she remembered the sounds of music, even in the morning hours, people singing as they walked, of buskers getting an early start. A major war had swept through the systems on their doorstep but that hadn’t repressed the jaunty boisterousness of New Abuja’s citizens.
Now, they looked as if they feared the demons which had haunted the streets of Shenzen’s and Goa’s cities were poised just outside of view, waiting to sweep in and wreak havoc.
Okereke, again seated next to her, noticed it too. “It’s worse than on-station.” She scanned the meager crowds and frowned. “Heard there were more disturbances here than we’ve had. Wonder how bad they’ve gotten.”
“Bad enough,” piped in Zheng, the stationside policewoman. She was taller than average, long-legged and built like a swimmer, with a round face framed with straight black hair bobbed short. Her comment earned her a disapproving look from Teng, which she blithely ignored. “No fatalities yet, but last night there was a pretty significant fight between One Worlders and the Harmonians, believe it or not.” She stretched her long legs carefully as the boat slowed to negotiate an intersection of canals. “The Commonwealth ship coming for the referendum had them stirred up plenty, but the Saljuans popping up unannounced, inside the exclusion zone to boot, and shouting about the Accords? It’s like poking a stick into a nest of flare ants.”
“What about the inspection team?” Okereke asked.
Zheng got the distant look of someone reading a private AR window on their implants. “They’ve docked but they’re still bottled up in the hub. Their commander wants them to be under arms in the station and our people are having none of that. Standoff, phase two.” She focused back on her companions, and her eyes settled on Meiko. “We might need to do something about your social profile, broadcasting you’re an off-worlder, when we reach HQ. We’ve got enough to do without needing to spend cycles keeping people from wanting to tear your face off.”
“Hm.” Meiko glanced at Teng, who shrugged. “I can handle myself, but that’s a good idea.”
“Even with one arm down?” Zheng pointed at Meiko’s cast.
“More than you might think,” she said, as the boat slowed again, rounding a corner onto a broader canal, one of the major thoroughfares.
“Shit,” the driver said. A massive freight barge sat wedged across the canal a hundred meters ahead with One World banners draped across it. “They must have just blocked the channel. Call it in,” he snapped to his assistant before heeling the craft over to the right, cutting across the broad canal, aiming for a narrower intersecting canal midway between themselves and the barge. “Hang on, this might get choppy.” Meiko grabbed hold of a stanchion with her good hand.
“Pop the berry?” the assistant asked.
“Not yet,” Zheng half-shouted over the now-brisk wind they all felt as the driver punched it. “Liable to set the buttonheads off if they see just one Constabulary boat by itself. Might think we’re easy pickings.” Zheng stood and faced forward, hands gripped tightly on the rail behind the driver’s station, her knees slightly bent and flexing as the boat surged forward. Her jacket blew open, and Meiko could see Zheng’s twinned shoulder holsters.
With a start she realized that she was probably the only person on the boat without a weapon.
The boat bucked like an aerobraking shuttle as the driver accelerated. That connection gave Meiko the framing she needed to reach for, and find, a relative sense of calm. Just another ride.
“Shit, someone’s coming after us,” Fari Tahir called out. The driver jerked his wheel to the right and the boat skipped sideways as he aimed to shoot straight up the intersecting canal. Meiko risked a glance at their pursuers and caught a glimpse of Okereke, who had a death-grip on the closest stanchion. The station-sider looked like she was about to heave up her breakfast then and there. Meiko twisted further and saw what Tahir had: two boats about the size of their own, cutting towards them at speed. Any chance the interlopers weren’t after them was dashed by the person standing in the bow of the lead boat pointing directly at the Constabulary craft.
“Pull up the real-time feeds and find us a way around,” the driver ordered their assistant.
“I’m trying, system’s down,” he said.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Zheng said, nearly shouting now between the wind and the whine of the boat’s motor. She let go with her left hand and swept it across each of them in turn, twisting to point at Meiko and Okereke. A fresh contact icon popped up in Meiko’s personal field and she accepted it. Status icons appeared over the heads of each party member as if they were all part of an interactive game. She popped open a map window and saw everyone’s location painted on it. An ad hoc tactical net. She must expect trouble.
They came upon the next concentric belt canal and the driver heeled the boat hard to the left. He’d no more gotten it pointed down the channel when Zheng shouted “STOP!”
Barges were wedged across the new canal in both directions. They were trapped.
The driver spun his wheel hard to the right and cut his speed at the same time. The boat slewed as if to turn down the intersecting canal, but the barge wedged firmly across the way blocked their path. The driver abruptly jerked the wheel to the left as the obstacle loomed dangerously close in front of them. The left side—port side, she remembered—slammed into the quayside wall with a sickening crack, followed by a horrible scraping sound. The impact threw her from her feet, and she found herself the middle layer in a human sandwich, with Fari on the bottom and Teng on top of her. The pressure proved the last straw for her queasy stomach and her plantain omelet wound up splatted across both Fari and the bottom of the boat. Water splashed over them all and added cold and wet to her inventory of discomfort.
The boat slammed to a stop with a second crash and more water cascaded over them. On the plus side, Teng was thrown off of her by the impact, and she herself slid off of Fari’s back only to wind up on top of Teng. Her head slammed into one of the seats, hard enough to have her seeing stars. She heard screams and cries of distress,
but they seemed to come from somewhere away and above.
A strong, thin hand grasped hers and pulled her upright as her vision cleared. “Are you OK?” Ogawa, the Commonwealth woman, asked.
“Mostly.” She gingerly probed the top of her head, finding a lump and wetness. She pulled her fingers back and examined them, finding water and vomit but no blood.
“EVERYONE UN-ASS THE BOAT!” Zheng’s command voice hadn’t suffered from their collision, at least.
“Why?” Noo asked as Ogawa bent to scoop up someone’s bag, stood, and flung it onto the quay, narrowly missing a number of bystanders who’d rushed forward. Several of these crouched down, arms extended, reaching down for the beleaguered company.
“Because we’re sinking,” Ogawa said calmly. She bent for another bag, heaved it up, and passed it to one of their rescuers.
“Shit. I hate coming down the cable,” Noo grumbled. She started to bend down but her head was having none of that.
“Climb out. I’ve got this,” Ogawa said, scooping up another bag and tossing it to one of their rescuers. Noo realized she was doing this one-handed; the woman wasn’t exactly skinny but though she lacked Fari’s muscular bulk, she evidently was a lot stronger than she looked at first glance. She caught Noo staring at her and jerked her head towards the quay. “Go on.”
Noo clambered awkwardly around the scattered bags towards Fari, who had just boosted the driver up onto the grasping hands of the quayside rescue crew. She realized with a shock that their craft was sinking more rapidly than she’d thought possible; the water was ankle-deep and rising fast. She glanced forward and discovered that the bow was a ruin, with water pouring in at an alarming rate.
With a mutter of “Come here, Auntie,” Fari grabbed her and hoisted her halfway up to the quay. Her flailing hands were caught by a pair of men in paint-splattered smocks, who each grabbed one and pulled her up onto solid ground. Noo turned around in time to see the two pursuing boats slowing as they approached, one on either side of their beleaguered vessel. The people clustered at the bows of each glared at her, her companions, and the whole quayside crowd with what certainly looked like malicious intent.
She twisted her fingers and toggled the tactical network Zheng had presciently set up. “Incoming hostiles, right and left. At least twelve,” she said hoarsely. Her djinn picked it up and rebroadcast it to the others.
Zheng, newly hoisted onto the quay, spun to see their pursuers closing in. She snapped her fingers and her Constabulary ID shone above her head. The AR tag’s border turned red as she drew her stunner. The crowd pulled Ogawa and Teng, the last of their little band, onto the quay and the group closed ranks around Zheng, even the Directorate spy accepting the constable’s leadership. Zheng turned to address the crowd, her djinn amplifying her voice so that it rang out and echoed off the buildings across the street. “Thank you, but please stand back while we sort this out.” She waved at their rescuers and the other bystanders, most of whom took a few steps backwards, muttering. She turned back to face the canal. “Non-lethals,” Zheng ordered.
“That’s all I’ve got,” the driver said, but Teng’s hand shifted direction and he plucked a stunner out from under his tunic, instead of whatever he’d initially reached for. Wonder what else he’s carrying? Noo drew her own stunner and stood, wet and sore, covered in her own puke, and waited for the trouble to start.
She didn’t have long to wait. The hostiles, unhampered by things like an abrupt collision or sinking boats, scrambled up onto the quay.
Zheng held up her left hand, holding her stunner low by her right leg. “I’m Lieutenant Zheng of the Constabulary. Do you have something you’d like to discuss?” she called to their pursuers.
They answered her with silence, and as soon as everyone but the boat drivers had clambered onto solid ground, they rushed Noo’s little party from both sides.
Noo braced her feet and swung her weapon up as the first stunner shot buzzed. She tried to sight around the driver, who found himself face to face with a pair of assailants. She stepped to the side as he was driven back and snapped a shot at the one closest to her. Her breath came hard and fast as she scrambled backwards, away from the rushing swarm, and she fired again and again. Even un-aimed, one her shots found a target and one of the attackers crumpled to the ground, tripping up the beefy woman following him.
She caught a flicker of movement on her right and spun, ready to fire, only to see Ogawa fly past upside down. She turned around further, heart pounding, thinking that perhaps their rescuers had joined the hostiles, but for the moment, the shocked crowd was holding back. She checked the others and saw Teng and Fari and Zheng each tangling with at least one opponent hand-to-hand, while the driver’s assistant backed them up with his stunner.
She turned back and raised her own weapon, then lowered it in stunned surprise as Ogawa simply took the hostiles on their side apart all by herself.
Noo had cracked her share of heads in her day, and while she wasn’t in Fari’s class by any means, she could hold her own in a brawl. She’d watched her partner spar in training, cheered her in a few competitive matches; and they’d had to mix it up with miscreants on a few occasions. She’d seen Daniel fight too, though his style was nothing like Fari’s. Where the younger woman fought like a lorry with a pair of whirling hammers attached, Daniel was like a mongoose, lightning-fast strikes and kicks coupled with sinuous motion.
Ogawa moved in a way Noo had never seen before, flowing and spinning, bouncing from left to right, never still. She looked more like a dancer or rhythmic gymnast than like someone engaged in combat. As Noo watched, dumbfounded, the Commonwealth woman spun on her head and one hand as her scything legs kicked a pair of attackers squarely in the head. Somehow, she turned her horizontal rotation into a sort of flowing cartwheel that brought her behind her opponents, a pair of bruisers each easily half again her mass. They staggered from the force of her kicks but remained upright.
Noo’s senses returned in a rush. She jerked her stunner back up and fired twice, dropping them both.
Hot hands grabbed Noo’s left sleeve and jerked her sideways. She spun, letting her assailant do the work of swinging her weapon to bear as she ducked a wild punch. She came face to face with a short, skinny man with shocking blue hair and a scraggly beard, so she shoved her stunner into his gut and pulled the trigger, then stepped back as he collapsed into a spasming heap.
She turned back and saw Ogawa spinning in a vertical circle as she executed a one-armed handstand. Her legs snaked around the neck of a stocky man and her momentum yanked him off his feet. Ogawa sprang free and landed lightly on her feet, swaying and bouncing side to side as her target tried to roll over to stand. Unceremoniously, Noo stepped forward and stunned him.
With a start, she realized that all the attackers on their side were down. So was the Constabulary boat driver, pinned beneath the two-meter, hundred-fifty-kilo woman who’d driven him to the ground before he stunned her. Ogawa bent down to roll the woman off of him. Noo realized that the attacker’s boats were pulling away from the quayside, and she took a couple of potshots at the drivers, but they were out of stunner range too quickly for her to bag them.
“One thing the vids never get right,” Noo wheezed between shots, “is how fast a fight is over if one side’s playing for keeps.”
“Got that right, Auntie.” Fari’s voice floated from behind her. Her partner came up on her right side, breathing a little heavily herself but otherwise seeming no worse for wear. Zheng appeared on Noo’s left, missing the right sleeve of her jacket, her hair charmingly mussed. “What do we do now?”
“I’ve called for backup and an air extraction,” Zheng said. “But it sounds like things are breaking out all over the city so it might be a while.” There was a low growling sound to their east, perhaps a block or two away. The braver bystanders hovered nearby, goggling at the twitching bodies of the attackers.
As the adrenaline surge faded, the physical toll of the last few minutes came due in the form of muscle ache down her whole left side. Her head hurt too; she probed the lump again, but her fingers came back blood-free again, thank the Mother. At least her stomach wasn’t bothering her anymore, or maybe it was just too far down the damage roster to be acknowledged.
“Where’s the crews of these barges?” Fari asked.
“Good question.” Zheng scanned the buildings fronting the canal as she slipped a fresh charge cartridge into her stunner. She turned to face the locals and passers-by who remained. “Did anyone see who jammed these barges in here?”
One of the painters took a cautious step forward. “No crew, konstebo,” he said. “They bots.”
That made Noo’s headache worse. She made a note on her djinn to call the firm’s senior tech analyst, Haissani, to see if he had any idea how hard that would be. She wasn’t sure just how big a deal screwing up the city’s canal network was, but if it was anything like the time a programming error had brought the station’s transit system to a halt for two infuriating days, it was pretty bad.
The rumbling sound to the east grew louder. She glanced around nervously, looking for cover or concealment and finding both scarce. Aside from a few benches and the ubiquitous sycamore trees lining the quay,
the street was bare of handy obstructions they could use as firing positions. Not that their tiny band would be able to hold off a crowd, stunners or no.
Fuck me, I hate coming down the cable.
Turbines whined overhead as a formation of bots zoomed past, following the canal, their golden AR tags proclaiming them Constabulary bots. “Reinforcements?” Fari asked hopefully.
Zheng shook her head as they sped past in the direction of the ever-louder crowd. “No, or not directly. I think they’re going to try to interdict the rioters, though.” The officer seemed to come to a decision, nodded once to herself, and spun on her heel. “We should put some distance between us and that lot, though. Let’s move.” She began to stride briskly in the other direction, the others at her heels, only to be brought up short by the sight of a large apron-clad woman who looked Noo’s age, her hair done up in the beehive style that hadn’t been fashionable since their primary-school days.
“Auntie Chell!” cried the driver happily. “She runs a cafe a couple blocks from here,” the driver explained. “A lot of the marine branch eats there on the regular.”
Flanking Auntie Chell was a mixed crowd of people of all genders and ages, wearing everything from workout clothes to sharp business suits. They all were armed after a fashion, Noo realized with a start, bearing blunt objects of every description, from Chell’s walking stick to cricket bats, with a couple of donga sticks for good measure. The cafe owner marched directly up to Zheng, who regarded the crowd warily. “The buttonheads give you trouble, konstebo?” Chell asked.
Zheng glanced back at the array of still-twitching bodies lining the quay and started to answer but caught herself. She turned fully and scanned their would-be assailants and Noo did the same, squinting through her headache. Auntie Chell tapped her stick on the pavement while she waited.
<None of them have One Worlder regalia,> Zheng sent.
<Is that significant?> Ogawa asked.
<Every incident I can think of, they’ve worn their markings,> Zheng replied. She turned back to Auntie Chell, whose crowd had been reinforced not just by the bystanders who’d been present all along, but by a steady stream of citizens who joined in ones and twos. “I’m not sure if that bunch are One Worlders or not,” she said aloud. “But the pack making trouble two blocks east are, according to my colleagues.”
Angry retorts from the crowd answered that news but quieted swiftly when Chell raised her hands above her head, her stick grasped firmly between them. The polished wood glinted in the morning sunlight. “Miguna’s dust-touched thugs aren’t welcome in Bluewater,” she proclaimed, and the crowd at her back cheered.
Pleased as she was by the prospect of reinforcements, Noo felt anxious about being part of a much larger brawl than what they’d just been through. Zheng apparently felt the same. “I can’t condone you breaching the peace,” she said, using her djinn’s voice amplifier just a touch, enough to make herself heard without seeming like she was shouting.
“Then you’d best see to keeping it, konstebo,” Chell shot back.
Further discussion was cut short as a phalanx of Constabulary aircars, surrounded by crowd-control bots, came roaring up the course of the canal, screaming past them at just below rooftop height. One set down a short distance away while the others landed up the street, close to the ever-louder rumble of the riot. Constables in full riot-control gear piled out and deployed in double-ranks across the street as their bots took position overhead. The nearest car disgorged a stocky officer whose AR tag identified zem as Captain Thanh. Ze beckoned to Zheng, who trotted over to confer with her superior.
Noo and Chell exchanged glances. “It looks like you won’t need that today, Auntie,” Noo said, with a wave at Chell’s stick.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Chell said, resting one end on the ground and clasping both hands atop it. Her eyes flicked towards the line of police. “But I think I be needing it another day soon, if not today. The yellowjackets can’t be everywhere, all the time. And the pot’s right boiling.”