Only Forward Read online

  I fumbled in my wallet and produced my card. Zenda got it for me a few years ago, and without one they just don’t let you in.

  ‘Destination?’

  ‘Department of Doing Things Especially Quickly.’

  ‘Contact?’

  ‘Zenda Renn, Under-Supervisor of Really Hustling Things Along.’

  He tapped on his console for a while, taking the chance to snap up a few more lines of Total Quality Management at the same time. The computer flashed a curt authorisation, not wasting any of its time either, doubtless keen to get back to redesigning the Centre’s plumbing system or something.

  ‘Wrist.’

  I put my hand through the gap in the window and he snapped a Visitor Bracelet round my wrist.

  ‘You are authorised one half hour this visit. Take the A line mono to your destination. Your journey will be free, with no cash or credit transaction involved.’ They like to make a big thing about the fact that they don’t use money in the Centre, like it means they’re some big egalitarian happy family, yet there are 43 grades of monorail attendant alone. ‘May I suggest that you make productive use of your travel time by reading or engaging in some other constructive pass-time?’

  I guessed my attendant was at least a 10: he was pretty sharp.

  I got on the mono, and again had a carriage to myself. Seven till eight is compulsory relaxation time in Action Centre, and all the zappy Actioneers were off busily relaxing in the most complex, stressful and career-orientated ways they could find. I was glad the carriage was empty. It meant that no one was using any of the phones built into each seat, there was no meeting going on round any of the meeting tables, and no one was heading for a stroke on the exercise machines.

  I sat in my seat, steadfastly ignoring the bookcases and the tutorial vidiscreens. Triggered by my Visitor Bracelet, the carriage’s synthetic voice assured me that my journey time would be at the most four minutes and thirty-two seconds, and went on to suggest several constructive tasks I could accomplish in that time.

  The deal with the bracelets is this. When you visit the Centre, they want to make damn sure you leave again. They can’t have just anyone slouching around the place, diluting the activity pool. So they give you a bracelet, which has a read-out of how long you’ve got. If the read-out gets down to zero and you’re still in the Centre, it blows up. Simple, really. You’ve got business, you’ve got half an hour to do it in, and if you don’t get it done you get blown up. I guess it’s what Actioneers feel like all the time.

  People from Natsci Neighbourhood, which is to the south of the Centre, can get two-day passes. The Natscis specialise in technology. It’s their life. They’re sweet really, little men and women in white coats dashing about the place, twiddling dials and programming things. They have better computers and gadgets than everybody else, and the Centre has to buy their mainframes from the Natscis, which pisses them off no end.

  As it happened, I did do something constructive during my four minutes and thirty-two seconds, which doubtless made the carriage very happy. I got my seat computer to print out a map of the current layout of the area round the Department. This week, I saw, they’d arranged the buildings to make up the ancient symbol for Diligence when seen from a particular point in space.

  When the doors opened at my stop I stood politely to one side to let an Actioneer get on first.

  ‘Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep,’ he was saying into his portable phone, ‘yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.’

  He struck me as a can-do kind of guy.

  ‘Stark. You’re early. Congratulations.’

  Zenda was sitting behind her ridiculously large desk when I finally made it to her office. This time they’d rearranged the inside of the building too, and used an industrial strength Gravbenda™ so they could have the floors at a 45° angle to the ground. They probably had a reason, but it made finding your way around sort of mentally strenuous. The elevator I took was clearly very annoyed about the whole thing and spent the entire journey muttering to itself instead of telling me the history of the Department in the way it was supposed to.

  Zenda’s desk is about forty feet square, literally. As well as her computer, pens, paperclips and stuff like that, it also has an aquarium on it, and a meeting table with six chairs. I made my way round to her end of it and kissed her hand. They don’t do that in the Centre, but they do in the Neighbourhood where she grew up, and I know she kind of likes it.

  ‘Good to see you, Zenda. You’re looking very diligent today.’

  ‘Why thank you, Stark. Cool trousers.’

  ‘Yeah, the streets loved them. Am I tidy enough?’

  ‘You’re fine.’

  She turned and bawled a drinks instruction at the unit in the wall.

  ‘Okay, okay already,’ the machine said huffily, ‘I’m not deaf.’

  I grinned. Zenda is very relaxed for an Actioneer. Being in the Centre has changed her much less than it does most of them: I think the only reason they keep her there is that she’s so damned good at Doing Things. The machine burped the drinks onto the desk and slid shut, without even telling us to enjoy them. Zenda smiled, and handed me one of them.

  ‘When did you get back?’

  ‘A few days ago. Went into extra time. Sorry about this afternoon.’

  That’s okay: I assumed you were tired.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Did it work out okay?’

  ‘It worked out fine. You going to tell me what this is about?’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know myself. I got a call this afternoon from a couple of rungs up the ladder, saying there was an ultra-important Thing that Needs Doing, requiring a particular blend of skills and discretion. It sounded like your sort of thing, so I got you here.’

  ‘Is it a normal thing or a Something?’

  ‘A normal thing.’

  Very few people would have known what the hell I was talking about. Zenda is one of the very few who know me well, and knows what I really do, but we don’t discuss it. There are things I have to sort out, and they often come to me through her. I rely upon her, in fact, her and a couple of other people, and yet I’m the only person who can sort these things out, and they know that. It’s an odd kind of relationship, but then what isn’t?

  ‘Good. So. When can I buy you dinner?’

  ‘Next year, possibly. It’s a busy time: I’m on intravenous feeding for the next three months.’

  ‘Okay, so I’ll bring a burger and we can watch the drips together,’ I drawled with a grin.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ she said, lying sweetly. Actioneers don’t date outside the Centre. It’s frowned on, it’s not a good career move, and having your date blow up mid-evening would be a bit of a downer too, I guess. I know that, but it’s kind of fun pretending to try. It’s an in-joke between us, like the private detective impersonation. Contrary to appearances, I don’t have a frosted glass door with my name on it, and I didn’t use to be a cop. I used to be a musician. Sort of.

  At one minute to eight exactly the desk intercom rasped, ‘Ms Renn, your meeting participants are on their way up. Meeting time minus one minute and counting.’

  People in the Centre are never, never early for meetings. Being early would suggest that you weren’t busy enough, that you hadn’t just immediately flown in from something else just as important. These people had timed it very well. I tried hard to admire that.

  ‘Okay, Stark: shall we sit?’

  We climbed onto the desk. Zenda arranged herself beautifully in the chair at the head of the table, and I sat opposite, so that I could monitor her facial reactions during the meeting. Also, so that I could just look at her face, which has high cheekbones, green eyes and a wide mouth. Yes, okay, so I like Zenda a lot. Well spotted.

  ‘Meeting time minus thirty seconds and counting.’

  The doors at the end bounced open and two men and a woman entered in formation, walking fast. The woman I recognised as Royn, one of Zenda’s assistants, and the man in fro
nt wore the distinctive violet cufflinks of the Centre’s Intelligence Agency, ACIA. He was thickset and looked pretty serious. Not much of a dancer, I guessed.

  ‘Hi, Royn,’ I said.

  ‘Hi, Stark. Hey, cool trousers.’

  I made a mental note to use the CloazValet™ incorrectly again sometime. As they arranged themselves around the table I stole a look at the second man. He was in his fifties, tall and thin, with a pale and bony face. That meant that he was senior enough to disregard the compulsory tanning regulations in the Centre, which made him pretty damn senior. I wondered who he was.

  ‘And…Meeting Time!’ sang the intercom’s synthetic voice, ‘On behalf of the building I would like to wish you a productive and diligent meeting. Here’s hoping it will be deemed a success by all participants and by those they work for, with and above in their respective Departments. Go for it!’

  While Zenda introduced us all to each other, I lit a cigarette. Normally that’s strictly forbidden in the Centre, as all the Actioneers want to carry on busily doing things for as long as they can, but I figured I ought to state a presence somehow. The man from ACIA, whose name was Darv, gave me a long stare but I gave it right back to him. I’ve met his type before. They hate me. Actually, they hate what they see, which isn’t the same thing. I’ve been playing this game for ten years now, and I know how to fit in. Curiously, what they see and hate is what they want to see.

  The thin man was referred to only as C, which meant he was the third most senior executive in the whole Department. That made him an alarmingly heavy hitter, and though he said nothing for the first ten minutes of the meeting, I could tell he was someone to take seriously. I saw now why Zenda had suggested I make an effort.

  Darv kicked off the meeting by grassing on the elevator, which had moved on to insinuating damaging things about the sexual proclivities of the building’s interior designers. Royn made a call and somewhere in the basement a SWAT team of elevator engineers and hydraulic psychotherapists went into action.

  ‘Now, Mr Stark,’ he continued, swivelling his head on his thick neck to face me, ‘I’m sure you realise that someone like you wouldn’t be my first choice for a Thing That Needs Doing like this. I want it put on record that I think this could be a mistake.’

  I looked at him for a while, and the others waited for me to say something. I blew out some smoke, and thought of something.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘until you give me some idea of what the job is, it’s very difficult for me to tell whether you have a point or if you’re just being a dickhead.’

  Both Zenda and Royn rolled their eyes at this, and Darv clearly thought very seriously about punching me in the face. I detected the faintest whisper of a smile on C’s face, however, and that was far more important. Though Darv was apparently the designated talker, the power in the room lay with C. I raised my eyebrows at Darv and after a heavy pause, he continued.

  ‘The situation is fundamentally quite simple, and very serious. A senior Actioneer, Fell Alkland by name, has disappeared. Alkland was a much-valued member of the Central Planning Department, involved in ground-breaking work in the furtherment of Really Getting to the Heart of Things.’

  Darv stood up and started to pace round the perimeter of the desk, with his hands behind his back. I couldn’t be bothered to keep swivelling round to keep him in vision, so I just listened to the drone of his voice and kept a check on Zenda’s facial reactions.

  ‘Alkland left his Department at 6.59 three days ago, and entered the nearby Strive! mono station at 7.01 p.m. We know this because a mono attendant remembers him clearly. Alkland gave him a useful tip on how to keep used ticket stubs really tidy. He then boarded the mono. As you may know, Mr Stark, seven until eight is leisure time here in the Centre, and Alkland’s chosen regular form of relaxation was to make his way to the swimming baths in the Results Are What Counts sub-section of the Neighbourhood. There he would work extremely hard whilst wearing a bathing costume. On that day, however, he never made it to the baths.’

  He paused dramatically before concluding, ‘No one has seen him since he boarded that mono.’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I said, reeling under the impact of so much bad film dialogue, ‘So put a trace on him.’

  Darv sighed theatrically, as I knew he would. Every Actioneer has a tracer compound inserted into their left arm, so that they can be located within the Centre at all times and have their phone calls redirected. If ACIA were talking to me, it meant they’d already tried that and come up a blank. I knew that. But sometimes it doesn’t pay to let everyone know everything you know. See? I have hidden depths.

  ‘Obviously we’ve tried that, Stark, obviously.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, grinning. Zenda smirked covertly at me. ‘So?’

  ‘Attention! Attention!’ Darv nearly fell off the desk as he jumped at the sound of the intercom’s voice. ‘Ms Renn, your Visitor is due to explode in two minutes.’

  ‘Jesus wept,’ muttered Darv, as he made his way under the table. Clearly a cautious man. I held my wrist out to Zenda and she waved her Extender over it, giving me another half hour. C remained calm at all times.

  ‘Darv?’ I said gently, as he re-emerged, ‘Are you saying that you suspect Alkland has been taken to another Neighbourhood?’

  ‘No, I don’t suspect that,’ he replied coldly, taking his seat again and leaning across to be cutting directly to my face, ‘I know it. Alkland is not in the Centre, we’re sure of that. He was involved in very important and highly classified work. He has clearly been kidnapped, and we want him back.’

  ‘Surely even a class 43 mono attendant at the Portals would have noticed something? How could anyone have got him out without his consent?’

  ‘That,’ said C, slowly turning his impassive face towards me, ‘is what we want you to discover.’

  I left the Department ten minutes later, in plenty of time to get out of the Centre in one piece. Rather than go directly to the mono I headed across The Buck Stops Everywhere Park and Recreation Area, a little patch of green in amongst the towers of excellence. The park was pretty packed, unfortunately, full of people holding impromptu al fresco meetings and starting affairs with people who might be useful to them, so I cut out again and headed for the B line mono on the other side. Remind me to take you to a Centre bar sometime. It’ll be the least fun you’ve ever had.

  There hadn’t been much more to the meeting. C had outlined the brief, and it was pretty straightforward. Find out who’d snatched Alkland, find out where they’d taken him, and bring him back alive. There was also an unspoken sub-brief: don’t let anyone know what you’re up to. The Actioneers don’t like it to be known that they’re not on top of absolutely everything, and ACIA has no jurisdiction outside the Centre itself. Their thinking was that whoever the guys in the black hats were, chances were they’d be holed up in Red Neighbourhood, which borders on the Centre’s eastern side. I wasn’t so sure, but I had to go there anyway, so it would do as a place to start.

  I had a CV cube on Alkland, with his likeness and various other pieces of information about him, and I had twenty-four hours before I made an initial report back to Zenda. A standard, run-of-the-mill, normal thing. Something to do.

  I took the mono to Action Portal 3, and as I had five minutes to spare I found Hely, the attendant who’d last seen Alkland. He’d been reassigned from the inner mono, and Royn told me where to find him. He was eager to help, but couldn’t tell me anything I didn’t know already.

  Before I boarded the mono Hely showed me his used tickets. I could see why they were so keen to get Alkland back. The pile really was very, very tidy.

  2

  I boarded Red Line One at 8.30 p.m., and as always immediately wished that I hadn’t.

  Red Neighbourhood isn’t like the Centre. It isn’t like Colour, either. It isn’t like anywhere. The chief reason the Centre has a fucking great wall around it is to keep Red Neighbourhood out.

  Let me explain a bit about the Neighbourhoods. A lo
ng, long time ago, the old deal about cities being divided by race and creed simply went down the pan. I think basically everybody got bored with the idea and lost interest: spending all day hating your neighbours was just too damn tiring. At the same time, the whole concept of cities started to change. When a nation’s main city begins to cover over seventy per cent of the whole country, clearly things need to be organised a little differently.

  What happened is that neighbourhoods became Neighbourhoods, self-governing and regulating states, each free to do what the hell they liked. The people that live in a given Neighbourhood are the people who like what the Neighbourhood likes. If you don’t like the Neighbourhood, you get the hell out and find one that’s more your sort of thing. Unless you come from a bad Neighbourhood, in which case you’re pretty much stuck where you are. Some things change, some things stay the same. So far, so what.

  With time things began to get a little weird, and that’s kind of how they’ve stayed. Everything is compacting, accelerating, solidifying, but not all of it in the same direction. There’s a loose collection of Neighbourhoods that are pretty much on the same planet, and if any country-wide decisions need to be made, they get together and have a crack at it. Everybody else? Well, who knows, basically. I’ve seen a lot of The City, I’ve been around. But there’s a lot of places I haven’t been, places where no one’s been in a hundred years, no one except the people who live there. Some places you don’t go because it’s too dangerous, and some places don’t let outsiders in. Believe me: there are some Neighbourhoods out there where there is some very weird shit going on.

  Red Neighbourhood doesn’t fall into that category. It’s not that bad. It’s just kind of intense. I was in Red because I needed to buy a gun, and you can’t buy guns in the Centre or Colour. In Red you can buy what the hell you like. At a discount.

  There’s no good or bad time to get on a Red mono. They don’t have hours where you do certain things, or days even. You just pay your money and take your chances. Actually, by Red standards the carriage I boarded was fairly civilised. True, there was both vomit and a human turd on the seat next to mine, but I’ve seen worse. The prostitutes were mainly too stoned to be doing serious business, the fight down the end was over very quickly, and there were never more than two dead bodies in the carriage at any one time.