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THE CEA TEAM ARRIVED that afternoon and they looked serious: two inspectors and three armed guards. Komodo, far from wanting to murder them, went out of his way to be the perfect host. He offered them every legal substance he could think of, even if he didn’t have it on the premises. They accepted nothing but water, which they tested before drinking. The Club was dead. It was three in the afternoon. A few of us hung around, curious. Besides, we weren’t going to leave Komodo alone with this pack of droogs. They’d be cat-meat.
Komodo, seeing that we weren’t going away, introduced us.
“Ah yeah, this is my Inspector-inspection Team – to make sure you guys don’t plant any evidence.” He didn’t raise a smile out of any of them.
We thought it was immensely funny.
The CEA guys went through the place like a dose of salts and eventually failed it on forty-three counts; all the way from ‘sub-standard light bulb in refrigerator’ to ‘non-approved flooring, bench surfaces and wall linings.” Komodo took the document graciously (almost too cheerfully) and saw them to the door. A three hour inspection. Must have cost the bureaucrats a few thousand creds, not counting airfares.
By then the truckies were coming back from their tourist runs. We all mooched outside, in a very non-threatening way, and watched as the inspectors and their goons got into a big yellow taxi and whirred away towards the airport.
As soon as they were out of sight Komodo ceremoniously lifted their eight-page indictment and tried to light it with a small welding torch. “This is what I think of their bloody inspection!”
The plazper failed to ignite. It was Officialdom Grade. Unperturbed, Komodo turned up the oxygen until it burst into a satisfying blaze. Everyone cheered.
“Now let’s party!” He left it burning in the middle of the street and led the crowd back to the club. What a magnificent piece of marketing, I thought. He even put his prices up especially for the evening.
#
SOON AFTER, KOMODO brought us a round of drinks at our table and said, “Well guys, how long do you reckon it’ll take us to get things going at the Doc’s place? Two days? Three?”
Tipper shrugged and glanced at Tyge. “Ah, give us three.”
“And what about the piano?” asked Komodo.
“It’s got handles. We’ll just carry it up the street...”
“No way!” squawked Komodo, “I don’t want it off the edge in an earthquake.”
“We’ll use my truck then,” said Tyge.
“My truck dock’s broken, remember? Still waiting on those bloody parts.”
“Oh yeah. That could take weeks. Stevo, what d’ya reckon?”
Stevedore just got up and shambled to the piano where it was clamped to the floor. He squatted in front of it and studied it intently. Then he stood and lifted the lid, peering inside. Next thing he started taking the whole upper housing off it.
“Hey, whoa!” called Komodo, rushing over.
“S’okay” grunted Stevedore, “meant to.” He lifted the housing away and we all gazed in wonder at what we saw. It was full of stuff. Absolutely pack full. Stevo knocked his knuckles on the big frame thing that anchored the string bits, mumbled something vague, then took out a screwdriver and started removing the housing below the keyboard, which he laid reverently aside. We all moved closer to look.
“What are they made of, Stevo?” asked Tipper, peering at the inside of the panels. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen that stuff before.”
“Wood,” he said.
“Would what?”
“No, that’s what it’s called, wood. Comes out of trees.”
“So that’s what it looks like.”
I reached out and knocked experimentally on the wood. Where had I seen something like that before, and quite recently too? Komodo growled and I took my hand away fast.
The insides of the piano were fascinating. There were no electronics. It seemed to actually have hundreds of real moving parts, all made of tiny, beautifully shaved pieces of wood. No one dared touch it, not after that preliminary growl. (Komodo was rumoured to have once bitten off someone’s hand.)
After some time Stevedore stood back. “Hmmmm.”
That sounded positive, I thought.
“You know,” he said unexpectedly, “I reckon I could make one of these myself.”
“Just get it up to the other club,” growled Komodo.
“Okay.” He replaced the covers and headed away, muttering about getting some parts.
“And don’t bugger it in the process!” Komodo called after him.
Stevedore stopped at the door, turned slowly, and for the first time ever I saw fire in his eyes. Very slowly and menacingly he said, “Don’t insult me.”
Tipper, Notch and Angle made a long in-breath sucking noise and looked warily towards Komodo. Everyone seemed braced for something. I stood back, my heart suddenly pounding. The conversations in the room suddenly died.
Stevedore filled the exit. Komodo bristled beside his piano, his skin pulsing purple and red. There were about twenty seconds of terrible silence, then slowly Komodo’s spikes deflated. To my amazement he then bowed his head in shame.
“Er... sorry, mate,” he mumbled.
“S’okay,” mumbled Stevedore in return, and he went on his way.
#
BEFORE THE PARTY REALLY got going I ducked back to the clinic, just in case I had an urgent case, but the waiting room was empty. But instead of the usual smell of rotting chitin, this time the place smelt of Crush air. I checked around and eventually found the cause. The sphincter in my parking bay had finally jammed. It was about three-quarters closed. (Spare me your jokes about anal clenching, okay?) I stomped a few times around the edge to no avail, and even tried a few cautious bangs of my fist on the sliding plates themselves. Nothing. Bugger!
I needed Stevedore, but I knew he was busy on something far more important. So I went to the Integrated Building Control and boosted the settings on the osmosis pump. Tyge had shown me all the tech stuff. Considering that her life depended on it, I guess she had a right to, but it had still worried me. What if some of the telemetry was still working?
As I snicked the cabinet closed, the events of the morning swept over me once again. I felt dirty. I felt guilty. I wanted to re-run time. I wanted to save Hickster. I couldn’t. I tried to remember the wording to that letter. I wondered if it was still stored in my implant...
Oh fuck!
No! I was safe. All the transponders were out. Nothing was getting back to ICONN. Panther couldn’t track me. Hell, she didn’t care! I had no memories now except my organic ones. And that got me thinking. We were all organic. Squash us hard enough and we really did die. Sure, my stored memories would be downloaded into my re-clone. I’d almost entirely come back again. But dying was still dying. What the hell was it like? What had Hickster gone through in his last few hours? I mean how horrid: to actually be dying of an organic disease! But there was more than that. The way Hickster had been talking. He despised himself! What had he done? Why had he ended up here? Everyone hated him, he had money, but he’d stayed. Self-loathing. Depression. I’d heard about it.
In fact, if I were to be honest with myself, I’d been there only yesterday. This place was getting to me. No wonder the previous flake had run out on his contract. You’d be mad to stay, except some people did. To them, it was the greatest place in the Galaxy. They’d do anything to save it.
It did not compute.
Too much. Too many thoughts. Fatigue overwhelmed me, and a sense of powerlessness in the face of death. I fell onto my bed under a gently spinning fan and gladly surrendered.
#
TYGE STOOD OVER ME, shaking me awake. “Doc? You okay?”
“Yeah. Just fell asleep.”
“You’re missing a great party.”
I sat up, decided an apology would be strategic. “Sorry.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it,” she said, strangely distant, and strangely indifferent to her usual pass-time of getting pissed and being raucous, “It's the same as last night.” She sat down, smelling of beer and onions. I was aware that I probably ponged as well, and scratched at my T-shirt. Somehow I’d gone a whole day without showering. What was I coming to?
“What a day, eh?” she said.
“What a day.”
“Poor old bugger.” That was strange coming from her.
“Yeah, but he did something good before he died.”
“Yeah! Gave you all that stuff!”
“No, no, I mean he looked into his own soul. He – he resolved his life.”
“Yeah, I s’pose so,” she agreed, then quickly changed the subject. “You wanna go back?”
“Not particularly. What time is it?”
“Ten-thirty.”
“I think I’m going to have a big rush on tomorrow. Early start.”
“Can I watch? Just for a while?”
That surprised me. “Sure.”
“I brought you this.” She hoisted a half-finished slab of beer up off the floor.
“Thanks, but you’ve already brought me the best part.”
“What?”
“A bit of human company.” She almost groaned. I’d seen the look; the discomfort, so I quickly added, “You don’t have to talk.”
She considered this, then surprised me, “It’s okay. Um .... so; you wanna talk?”
“Hey, no big deal. Nothing personal, I don’t need a medical history or anything. Just...” I took a breath and edged out the question that had been nagging me for some time, “So – what brings people to this place? Actually, more like: what holds them here?”
She was silent a long time, gazing away into her own thoughts, until I decided she really didn’t want to answer. I’d once again strayed too close to her pain, whatever it was. “Because life out there is the prison, Doc,” she pointed towards the airport, which meant Crush Central, which meant the entire Galaxy, “You know what it’s like: everyone’s got an implant and everywhere you go it’s ‘buy this,’ ‘buy that,’ ‘time for an upgrade,’ ‘do ya want fries with that?’ Every-bloody-where! You were never alone, were you? Freedom? HAH! Then I came here. Oh my God what a relief! The neuro-net was still here in those days, but it was getting pretty ratty. That was fine by me. I learned to stay out of range. We’d share the news, ‘Net’s gone down in the bowling alley.’ ‘Great! Now I can get a game in!’”
I was watching her. Despite the tattoo and the coloured hair and re-shaped ears and the fangs, she seemed, tonight, to be more human than I’d ever seen before. And as she talked, her enthusiasm for Edgetown edged higher and higher.
“Finally, after that airport fuckup was finished and Hickster got dumped, They decided to shut it down. But it was more just a matter of letting it die of neglect. So for the first time in almost forever I felt completely free. I was working with people who were actually glad their implants were fried. And they weren’t getting a replacement; they were living just fine without, and that really appealed to me. Who needed e-funds? People were stamping out coins before it even became official. It just seemed right. And you know what, Doc? It was fantastic! I was free! Free at last!”
“Totally free? No past? No ghosts haunting you?”
She was up off the bed, suddenly prickly again, “What’s with you!?”
I looked up, met her eye, and replied very soothingly, assertively, “Just checking your meaning of the word ‘freedom’, is all.”
She glared at me, boiling with some inner fury, her tiger face burning bright. “Just back off, Doc! Don’t touch me on that spot, okay?”
“Okay.” I broke contact, rubbed at my messy hair, thought about a late dinner of Instant Cheesy Stuff. Ugh. Contemplated a shower. Yes, definitely a shower. I looked up, expecting the room to be empty, but to my surprise she was still there.
“Still friends?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, trying to think of a suitable peace offering, “Wanna sit up late, have a beer and eat junk-food?”
“Sure. You ever played cards?”
I shook my head, “You’ll teach me?”
“No worries, mate!”
So we did. It was alright. Fun. We got drunk and laughed and she taught me five different games and beat me at all of them. We bet our underwear. I quit when I was down to three pairs. Anyway, I sensed something that night: One day she’d tell me.
She’d tell me.