Count Zero
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Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 Next page Costa nodded. "We're an estimated thirty minutes from amval," Turner said. Nathan, Davis," Webber said, "disconnect the sewage line " She handed Turner one of the Telefunken ear-bead sets. She'd already removed it from its bubble pack. She put one on herself, peeling the plastic backing from the self- adhesive throat microphone and smoothing it into place on her sunburnt neck. Nathan and Davis were moving in the shadows behind the module. Turner heard Davis curse softly. "Shit," Nathan said, "there's no cap for the end of the tube." The others laughed. "Leave it," Webber said. "Get to work on the wheels. Lynch and Compton unlimber the jacks." Lynch drew a pistol-shaped power driver from his belt and ducked beneath surgery. It was swaying now, the suspension creaking softly; the medics were moving inside. Turner heard a brief, high-pitched whine from some piece of internal ma- chinery, and then the chatter of Lynch's driver as he readied the jacks. He put his ear-bead in and stuck the throat mike beside his larynx. "Sutcliffe? Check?" "Fine," the Australian said, a tiny voice that seemed to come from the base of his skull. "Ramirez?" "Loud and clear. . Eight minutes. They were rolling the module out on its ten fat tires. Turner and Nathan were on the front pair, steering; Nathan had his goggles on. Mitchell was coming out in the dark of the moon. The module was heavy, absurdly heavy, and very nearly impossible to steer. "Like balancing a truck on a couple of shopping carts," Nathan said to himself. Turner's lower back was giving him trouble. It hadn't been quite right since New Delhi. "Hold it," Webber said, from the third wheel on the left. "I'm stuck on a fucking rock . . Turner released his wheel and straightened up. The bats were out in force tonight, flickering things against the bowl of desert starlight. There were bats in Mexico, in the jungle, fruit bats that slept in the trees that overhung the suite-cluster where the Sense/Net crew slept. Turner had climbed those trees, had strung the overhanging limbs with taut lengths of molecular monofilament, meters of invisible razor waiting for an unwary intruder. But Jane and the others had died anyway, blown away on a hillside in the mountains near Acapulco. Trouble with a labor union, someone said later, but nothing was ever determined, really, other than the fact of the primi- tive claymore charge, its placement and the position from which it had been detonated. Turner had climbed the hill himself, his clothes filmed with blood, and seen the nest of crushed undergrowth where the killers had waited, the knife switch and the corroded automobile battery. He found the butts of hand-rolled cigarettes and the cap from a bottle of Bohemia beer, bright and new. The series had to be canceled, and the crisis-management team did yeoman duty, arranging the removal of bodies and the repatriation of the surviving members of the cast and crew. Turner was on the last plane out, and after eight Scotches in the lounge of the Acapulco airport, he'd wandered blindly out into the central ticketing area and encountered a man named Buschel, an executive tech from Sense/Net's Los Angeles complex. Buschel was pale beneath an L.A. tan, his seersucker suit limp with sweat. He was carrying a plain aluminum case, like a camera case, its sides dull with con- densation. Turner stared at the man, stared at the sweating case, with its red and white warning decals and lengthy labels explaining the precautions required in the transportation of materials in cryogenic storage "Christ," Buschel said, noticing him "Turner. I'm sorry, man. Came down this morning. Ugly fucking business " He took a sodden handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his face. "Ugly job. I've never had to do one of these, be- fore . . "What's in the case, Buschel?" He was much closer now, although he didn't remember stepping forward. He could see the pores in Buschel's tanned face. "You okay, man?" Buschel taking a step back. "You look bad." "What's in the case, Buschel?" Seersucker bunched in his fist, knuckles white and shaking. "Damn it, Turner," the man jerking free, the handle of the case clutched in both hands now. "They weren't damaged. Only some minor abrasion on one of the corneas. They belong to the Net. It was in her contract, Turner." And he'd turned away, his guts knotted tight around eight glasses of straight Scotch, and fought the nausea. And he'd continued to fight it, held it off for nine years, until, in his flight from the Dutchman, all the memory of it had come down on him, had fallen on him in London, in Heathrow, and he'd leaned forward, without pausing in his progress down yet another corridor, and vomited into a blue plastic waste canister. "Come on. Turner," Webber said, "put some back in it. Show us how it's done." The module began to strain forward again, through the tarry smell of the desert plants "Ready here," Ramirez said, his voice remote and calm. Turner touched the throat mike' "I'm sending you some company." He removed his finger from the mike. "Nathan, it's time. You and Davis, hack to the bunker." Davis was in charge of the squirt gear, their sole nonmatrix link with Hosaka. Nathan was Mr. Fix-it. Lynch was rolling the last of the bicycle wheels away into the brush beyond the parking lot. Webber and Compton were kneeling beside the module, attaching the line that linked the Hosaka surgeons with the Sony biomonitor in the command post. With the wheels removed, lowered and leveled on four jacks, the portable neurosurgery reminded Turner once again of the French vacation module. That had heen a much later trip, four years after Conroy had recruited him in Los Angeles. "How's it going?" Sutcliffe asked, over the link. "Fine," Turner said, touching the mike. "Lonely out here," Sutcliffe said. "Compton," Turner said, "Sutcliffe needs you to help him cover the perimeter. You, too, Lynch." "Too bad," Lynch said, from the dark. ~`I was hoping I'd get to see the action Turner's hand was on the grip of the holstered Smith & Wesson, under the open flap of the parka. "Now, Lynch." If Lynch was Connie's plant. he'd want to be here. Or in the bunker. "Fuck it," Lynch said. "There's nobody out there and you know it. You don't want me here, I'll go in there and watch Ramirez . "Right," Turner said, and drew the gun, depressing the stud that activated the xenon projector. The first tight-beam flash of noon-bright xenon light found a twisted saguaro, its needles like tufts of gray fur in the pitiless illumination The econd lit up the spiked skull on Lynch's belt, framed it in a sharp-edged circle The sound of the shot and the sound of he bullet detonating on impact were indistinguishable, waves of concussion rolling out in invisible, ever-widening rings, out into the flat dark land like thunder. In the first few seconds after, there was no sound at all, even the bats and bugs silenced, waiting. Wehber had thrown herself flat in the scrub, and somehow he sensed her there, now, knew that her gun would be out, held dead steady in those brown, capable hands. He had no idea where Compton was. Then Sutcliffe's voice, over the ear-bead, scratching at him from his hrainpan: "Turner. What was that?" There was enough starlight now to make out Webber. She was sitting up, gun in her hands, ready, her elbows hraced on her knees. "He was Conroy's plant," Turner said, lowering the Smith & Wesson. "Jesus Christ," she said. "I'm Conroy's plant "He had a line out. I've seen it before She had to say it twice. Sutcliffe's voice in his head, and then Ramirez: "We got your transportation. Eighty klicks and closing. . . . Every- thing else looks clear. There's a blimp twenty klicks south- southwest, Jaylene says, unmanned cargo and it's right on schedule. Nothing else. What the fuck's Sut yelling about? Nathan says he heard a shot" Ramirez was jacked in. most of his sensorium taken up with the input from the Maas- Neotek deck. "Nathan's ready with the first squirt . Turner could hear the jet banking now, braking for the landing on the highway. Webber was up and walking toward him, her gun in her hand. Sutcliffe was asking the same question, over and over. He reached up and touched the throat mike. "Lynch. He's dead. The jet's here. This is it." And then the Jet was on them, black shadow, incredibly low, coming in without lights. There was a flare of blow-back jets as the thing executed a landing that would have killed a human pilot, and then a weird creaking as it readjusted its articulated carbon-fiber airframe. Turner could make out the green reflected glow of instrumentation in the curve of the plastic canopy. "You fucked up," Webber said. Behind her, the hatch in the side of the surgery module popped open, framing a masked figure in a green paper contamination suit. The light from inside was blue-white, brilliant, it threw a distorted shadow of the suited medic out through the thin cloud of dust that hung above the lot in the wake of the Jet's landing. "Close it!" Webber shouted. "Not yet!" As the door swung down, shutting out the light, they both heard the ultralight's engine. After the roar of the jet, it seemed no more than the hum of a dragonfly, a drone that stuttered and faded as they listened. "He's out of fuel," Webber said. "But he's close." "He's here," Turner said, pressing the throat mike. "First squirt." The tiny plane whispered past them, a dark delta against the stars They could hear something flapping in the wind of its silent passage, perhaps one of Mitchell's pants legs You're up there, Turner thought, all alone, in the warmest clothes you own, wearing a pair of infrared goggles you built for yourself, and you're looking for a pair of dotted lines picked out for you in hand warmers "You crazy fucker," he said, his heart filling with a strange admiration, "you really wanted out bad." Then the first flare went up, with a festive little pop. and the magnesium glare began its slow white parachute ride to the desert floor. Almost immediately, there were two more, |
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