The Long Run Read online

  The United Nations Space Force announced that they were placing armed observatory posts in the Belt. Following the expected protests from the SpaceFarers' Collective and the CityStates, Space Force agreed that the observatory posts would be unarmed, while refusing to allow verification.

  The tension between Free Luna and Unification Luna continued to grow. Desertions to Free Luna territory were on the increase again, after a brief decline caused by an infusion of over eighty thousand PKF troops from Earth; a bookie in the Free Luna city of New Vegas had set odds of one in eight for an invasion by the Unification within the next five years, and merely even odds that the SpaceFarers' Collective would actually support their Free Lunar allies in the event of war with the Unification.

  On Luna, for the first time in history, Peaceforcers in pursuit of a suspect entered Free Luna territory, in the city of Alphonse. In the ensuing firefight three Peaceforcers, the suspect, and one Alphonse resident were killed. The United Nations Peace Keeping Force was demanding reparations from St. Peter's CityState, Alphonse's parent corporation, and had filed suit against St. Peter's CityState's downside offices in Manhattan District Unification Circuit Court. The CityState made no public comment, but was expected to countersue; Gandhi CityState at Ceres issued a press release condemning the PKF for the five deaths.

  At Halfway an explosion in a free fall processing factory killed eighty-three people. It was the largest space-based industrial accident ever, and the second largest space disaster of any sort, surpassed only by the destruction of the original Ganymede colony in the disaster of 2049.

  Trent found an editorial by Terry Shawmac on the Electronics Times news Board.

  * * *

  Dateline: Shawmac On Eddore

  It could be worse.

  A lot of people can't see how, but they're, well, not trying. This has not been a bad summer, so far--and summers have not been good times for the Unification. Remember that seven years ago today the Troubles began, and irresponsible bastards like then-Secretary General Darryl Amnier predicted the end of the world. And the numbers seemed to support him; better than one and a half million people were dead within the first half year, and a lot of the rest were missing some of the dots off their dice.

  The Secretary General committed suicide--which made sense, as he'd otherwise almost certainly have been tried and condemned for the criminal behavior that directly led to the Troubles. And the power mongers in France hand-picked Charles Eddore to succeed him. Why Eddore? As Prosecutor General at the time, he was intimately involved in the bizarre final days of Amnier's administration....

  Which may have been reason enough. The full story of Amnier's deadly confrontation with the Castanaveras telepaths never did come out, which means that somebody, somewhere in France, has a hold on Eddore's cojones tight enough to produce serious geeking pretty much on demand....

  It has indeed been a quiet summer. Remember that six years ago, right after Eddore assumed office, the Speedfreaks got ready to swarm down on him in a crazed locust-like swarm--and he had them drowned like stinking rats in the middle of the Atlantic. Remember the Fizzle War of five summers ago when the slithy bastard did his level best to get us into our first interplanetary war, had Space Force shoot down a SpaceFarer flagship over Free Luna, and then stumbled into peace purely due to his own lack of guts.

  Then there was last summer, which saw the fiftieth anniversary of the Unification of Earth, as well as the single most corrupt series of elections to take place since the Unification.

  Of course it could be worse.

  Thursday is the Fourth of July, and the pols are expecting the usual across Occupied America: riots, insurrections, an assassination or two. The Secretary General will be hunkered down in his armored bunker on the island until it all blows over, with two hundred thousand Peaceforcers around to keep him feeling safe. He's hardly the worst SecGen we've ever had: a pure pragmatic with no morals to speak of, a man whose own mother refused to speak to him for three years following the onset of the Troubles. Not that Eddore was likely bothered by that; there were elections to tend to, power brokers to keep happy....

  A tough league, yes, where the weak get eaten alive and their own mothers pretend not to know them...but let's face it, by some standards they're all of them, everybody in Capitol City, stone punks.

  Nearby, as geographical distances go, but in another universe entirely by any sane person's yardstick, in the Bay Shore Fringe, the Gypsy Macoute allegedly executed a juice junkie by "torching" him at a recent treaty dance with the Temple Dragons. The procedure, once common in the Fringe but recently on the wane, consists of binding the victim to a steel or concrete post, drenching him with kerosene or other lighter fluid, and setting him afire. The Prosecutor General's office has declined to prosecute; Gillian Tresco, assistant DA for the city of New York, said the alleged execution is under review.

  The Gypsy Macoute, in a prepared statement, said the man had volunteered. "It's a great honor, lighting up the sky for a Gypsy dance." Police reported that the juice junkie, whose name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, was so impervious to pain that he did not scream while he burned.

  Outside we still have mostly honest courts, a mostly free press, and one or two tough, nasty bastards still willing to use them the way they were originally intended.

  Things could be worse.

  They could also be a hell of a lot better.

  Have a good Fourth.

  In late July Trent and Denice talked about killing.

  "But what do you do," Trent had said patiently, "if you don't want to kill him?"

  Denice frowned, considering the question. She was half in and half out of the pool in the center of Trent's apartment, reclining against the gentle slope in the pool's shallow end, wet, gleaming black hair slicked back away from her face. "I don't have to kill him. Or her, as the case may be. Trent--the genome Doctor Montignet created, the one that became Carl, and Jany--there were recessives in it. I don't get as angry as Carl did--really, I don't. And I can do things they couldn't. Like this." A pensive expression crossed her features quickly, and then a small waterspout formed in the center of the pool, a whirling funnel of water that lifted up from the surface of the suds, detached itself from the body of water beneath it, and ascended a full meter in the air before slowing, transforming itself first into a sudsy white long-stemmed rose and then into something so explicit that Denice actually blushed while doing it; she held the final form for just a moment, and then let the water rain back down into the pool.

  Trent lay on his stomach on the bed and watched in unabashed fascination; he grinned at the final image.

  Denice looked over at him. "See? That sort of control, none of them had it. And I take a shotokan class in the Village from this really nice old Japanese man; that's the class I go to on Thursday nights. If I was attacked, I mean without warning so that I was surprised, I'd probably kill whoever did it. The anger--" She looked at Trent thoughtfully. "It's bad and it's fast. But if I had time to think it over, Trent, I could--not kill."

  "Christian," Trent muttered.

  Denice laughed. "You make it sound like a dirty word." She was silent for a moment, rubbing dep cream over her right shin. Because she knew it made him uncomfortable, she did not do it often; without looking at him, she said silently, I could say I don't understand you, but unfortunately I do. When you kill, you subtract a possibility from the world. I know that; but sometimes it's necessary.

  "No," said Trent evenly, "it's not. I want you to think about this, Denice. Carl used to get angry. Very and quickly. I'm sure he got something out of it, the adrenaline rush, something. I don't know. But his temper is at least part of the reason that everyone you and I grew up with is dead today. You think about that."

  Denice Castanaveras said slowly, "It doesn't make me happy when you sound like this. I don't know if I can convince you, or how, but, Trent--it's strange to hear someone who steals things for a living lecture me about what's right and
wrong."

  "Denice?"

  "Yes?"

  "There is no problem so large it cannot be run away from."

  She lifted a wet eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

  "Do you want to hear a good magic trick?"

  Denice said cautiously, "Sure."

  "Ask somebody to pick a number between one and ten." Denice nodded even more warily. "Then," Trent said softly, "run away."

  On Friday, August the second, just after 10:00 a.m., Trent and Jimmy and Jodi Jodi and Boris ate breakfast together at the Temple coffee shop next door to Kandel Microlectrics. It was Trent's favorite place for breakfast; no waitbots, no empty food. The portions were small, but fair, and Reverend Andy served seconds, without charging, to those he knew needed them; and, except on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when he preached, Reverend Andy did the cooking himself.

  And Reverend Andy was a fine cook.

  Jodi Jodi had called in sick for her day job on the admittance desk at the Red Line Hotel in Manhattan. Kandel Microlectrics actually opened at 10:00; Trent had left Old Jack and Bird watching the shop, Bird handling the front, Old Jack taking care of any urgent repairs.

  Trent had his handheld turned on, set up and recording in the middle of the table. "So we make policy with the Boys on Thursday. Jodi Jodi, you're sure about this porter Tiny?"

  She shrugged. "As sure as I can be. I trust him."

  "How does he feel about the juice?"

  "Hates it," she said simply. "He thinks juice peddlers should be shot. Or wired."

  Trent nodded. "Okay, bring him to the meet. Brief him on Master Tim's Personal Protection System; I don't want the thing going off 'cause the boy does something stupid."

  "We get people wearing PPSs at the hotel," Jodi Jodi said. "We can't refuse admittance on those grounds, though we'd like to. Tiny knows how to behave."

  Trent looked over at Jimmy, who was working on a pair of eggs so lightly cooked they made Trent's stomach do flip-flops. "Anything, Jimmy?"

  "Not really." Jimmy spoke around a mouthful of eggs, washed it down with ice water. "We don't really need to work for two, three months at this point. I thought about going down to the Brooklyn City College, signing up for a class in Unification Law, something applicable toward the bar."

  There was instant silence around the table.

  Trent said cautiously, "What?"

  Jimmy nodded. "Just thinking ahead. At some point we got to go reasonably straight, right? Bein' a lawyer, it seems ideal for that kind of gig."

  Jodi Jodi looked as though she'd tasted something bad. "You must be kidding."

  Jimmy said defensively, "No, I'm not. Why do I have to be kidding?"

  "It's just a bad idea, Jimmy," said Trent quietly. "Maybe you should just think about it for a bit."

  Jodi Jodi said, "You're not thinking this through, Jimmy. You want to go straight by becoming a lawyer?" To Trent she said, "He's been reading Hemingway again, or else Thompson, he always gets like this when he's--"

  Jimmy Ramirez said, "I have to find somethin' to do, guys. I mean, Trent's studying accounting the last two or three times I've dropped by. It's just been very quiet lately. Nobody's working. Syndic Elders are wor--" He stopped in mid-word.

  Jodi Jodi looked away in disgust.

  Trent sighed audibly. "Jimmy. We have no relationship with the Syndic. We have no relationship with the Tong, or with the Old Ones, or with the Corporation."

  Jimmy said easily, "Just talking to them, Trent. It's not a big deal."

  Trent's reply was interrupted; Bird came into the coffee shop, walked over to their table and plopped down next to Jodi Jodi. "You got mail," he announced to Trent. "Paper mail, I mean," he amended, looking down at Jodi Jodi's plate of turkey sausage and eggs. "Can I have your sausage?"

  "Sure."

  "How about the toast?"

  "It's cold, Bird."

  "I don't care. Aren't you going to open your mail?" Bird looked at Trent expectantly.

  Trent had, was looking at two tickets, fifth row, to the opening night production of Leviathan, along with hand-lettered invitations, made up by someone other than Denice, addressed to "Trent" and "Jimmy Ramirez," to the cast party to be held afterward.

  Wordlessly, Trent handed Jimmy his invitation.

  Jimmy scrutinized his invitation. "What are ..." He puzzled out the words. "Whores doov-rez?"

  Jodi Jodi read over Jimmy's shoulder. "Or-dervs," said Jodi Jodi, "is how it's pronounced. It's a frog word that means munchies."

  "Oh," said Jimmy. He studied the invitation a moment longer, then looked up at Trent and Jodi Jodi and Bird. "They could have said."

  It was an incredible three months.

  It was a time like nothing Trent had ever known before, and despite his misgivings, despite the eerie silence, he enjoyed Denice and Jimmy, and Bird and Tarin and Jodi Jodi, enjoyed their company and their love to the fullest, without hesitation, without reservation.

  On Thursday morning, August 8, 2069, at 9:30 a.m., Trent came downstairs, a thermos full of coffee in one hand, to open up the shop for the morning. Old Jack sat in front of one of the workbenches with a disassembled LapVax on the counter in front of him, running diagnostics on the view tracer. He was listening, to Trent's complete lack of surprise, to Mahliya Kutura, the cut called Now.

  * * *

  Don't ask me do I love you

  Cause that means you don't know

  It don't mean we won't ever die

  Just cause folks tell you so

  "Morning, Trent."

  "Good morning, Jack."

  "I left a pair of dead tracesets on your bench."

  Trent nodded. "Okay." He glanced out toward the front of the shop, out at the quiet street. "What'd you diag?"

  "Mole circuits are dead. I'm not sure why."

  "I'll look at them." There was not a single person on the streets outside. "Anything else?"

  "Not really. Denice didn't come home last night?"

  Trent stood in the middle of the walkway between the work benches, looking toward the front of the shop. "No," he said absently, "she spent the night with Tarin, over in the Village. They have early practice today. Jack?"

  "Yes?"

  Without quite knowing why, Trent took two steps backward. "You think you can handle things yourself this morning?"

  Old Jack turned around in his seat to look at Trent. "Why?"

  "I think I'm going to take the day off."

  The Peaceforcer hovercar dropped down silently out of the sky, came to a stop hovering, facing the storefront. The hovercar's canopy cracked open, the autoshots fired, and the front door exploded out of its frame.

  Old Jack said, "What?"

  Trent said, "Peaceforcers. Here they come."

  On Thursday morning, August 8, 2069, at 9:35 a.m., three Peaceforcers under the command of Peaceforcer Elite Emile Garon came to Kandel Microlectrics Sales and Repair Shop and with sonics stunned Old Jack, stunned Trent, dragged Trent's unconscious body out of the shop by his ankles and put him in a Peaceforcer cell in Capitol City in Manhattan. And charged him with theft and conspiracy to commit theft and data cracking and illegal operation of Information Network resources and conspiracy to incite others to attempt the same.

  ...and the music slows, melody and harmony coming together, the sounds of a violin and a piano whispering in unison, the piano slowing to a meticulous tinkling string of chords, and her voice, strong and sad all at once, follows the music, rides with it.

  * * *

  I love you today and no other

  Don't ask me bout tomorrow

  I love you but

  Tomorrow never comes

  * * *

  The other shoe had dropped.

  * * *

  8.

  He awoke barefooted, wearing a blue jumpsuit.

  They'd drugged him to keep him under.

  Trent had no idea how long he'd been unconscious. Half a day at least, judging by the lack of muscle tremors.

  He stretched, looking
around at his cell. Gray ferrocrete walls; there was no pressure pad for the door.

  The magpick had been removed from the sole of his right foot.

  There was a toilet in the corner of the cell, a pair of mesh-covered air vents with holes too small for Trent to fit even a finger through, and a cot of memory plastics that extruded from the wall.

  He sat down on the cot, composed himself, and waited.

  They left him alone for, by Trent's best guess, two full days.

  He was brought nothing to eat or drink.

  He was awakened twice when the memory plastic cot withdrew itself into the wall and tumbled him to the floor. The cot re-extruded itself from the wall a moment later. After the first time Trent thought it over and lay back down on the cot; after the second he simply slept on the floor.

  He awoke in a different place, sometime on the third day, to find he'd been stunned while he slept. His muscles were still trembling from the sonics; the Peaceforcers had propped him up in a chair, and his hands were snaked together behind him.

  There were three Peaceforcers standing in front of him, two of them standing at attention at the sides of the door.

  There was a small metal table about a meter in front of Trent. The Peaceforcer Elite who had been sitting outside Chief Devlin's door that night three months ago, Emile Garon, was now sitting next to the small metal table, in full uniform, dark hair styled precisely, three fingers grasping a thin cigar that rested in the ashtray on the table top.

  The Elite said sincerely, "I have wanted to speak to you for a long time."

  Trent said nothing, still taking in his surroundings. There was a spyeye floating in one corner of the room.

  Garon's voice sounded odd, vaguely flat, and the walls looked soft.