The wheel thumped and burned his hands as it turned; the tyres squealed wildly; he was thrown forward and his nose hit the wheel. That felt like a dry patch, he thought. He looked ahead, down the slope, where the ice was becoming patchy, hugging the shadows of buildings where the shade fell across the spillway.
The car was almost straight. He grabbed at the wheel again and tramped the brake. It didn’t seem to do anything. He pedalled reverse instead. Now the gearbox screamed too; his face wrinkled at the appalling noise, his feet juddered on the quivering pedal. The wheel came alive again, for longer, and he was thrown forward once more; this time he kept a hold of the wheel, and ignored the blood streaming from his nose.
Everything was roaring now. The wind and the tyres and the body of the car; his ears popped and throbbed with the rapidly increasing air pressure. He looked ahead and saw the concrete was green with weeds.
‘Shit!’ he yelled to himself. There was another lip ahead; he wasn’t near the bottom yet; there was another length of slope to come.
He recalled the driver mentioning tools inside the front passenger bench; he hauled the seat up and grabbed the biggest piece of metal he could see, then kicked the door open and jumped.
He slammed into the concrete, almost losing his grip on the metal tool. The car started to slew in front of him, leaving a last patch of ice and hitting the section of the slope covered by weed; curved fountains of spray leapt from its remaining wheels. He rolled over, onto his back, spray hissing up into his face as he slithered down the steep, weeded slope; he held the metal tool in both hands, clamped it between his chest and upper arm; forced it down into the concrete under the water and weeds.
The metal thrummed in his hands.
The spillway lip swept up towards him. He pressed harder; the tool bit into the rough concrete, shaking his whole body, jarring his teeth and his vision; a tight wad of ripped-up weed grew under his arm like some mutant hair.
The car hit the lip first; it somersaulted into the air and started tumbling, disappearing. He hit the lip and almost lost his hold on the tool again. He rose and slowed, but not enough. Then he was over. The dark glasses sailed off his face; he resisted the urge to grab at them.
The spillway continued for another half kilometre; the car smashed upside-down into the concrete slope, scattering debris which continued skidding down towards the river at the bottom of the canyon’s great V; the gearbox and remaining axle parted company with the chassis and bounced into some pipes straddling the drain, fracturing them. Water poured out.
He went back to treating the metal tool as though it was an ice-axe, and slowly reduced his speed.
He passed under the fractured pipes, which were gushing warm water.
What, not sewage? he thought brightly. Today was looking up.
He looked, perplexed, at the metal tool still vibrating in his grip, and wondered exactly what it was; probably something to do with the tyres or starting the engine, he decided, looking around.
He negotiated one final spillway lip and slid gently into the shallows of the broad river Lotol itself. Bits of the car had already arrived.
He stood up and squelched ashore. He checked there was nothing else coming down the spillway that might strike him, and sat. He was shaking; he dabbed at his bloody nose. He felt bruised from the battering in the car. There were some people staring at him over the top of a nearby promenade. He waved at them.
He stood up, wondering how you got out of this concrete canyon. He looked up the spillway, but could see only a short way; a final lip of concrete blocked the rest of the view.
He wondered what had happened to the driver.
The concrete lip he was looking at formed a dark bump against the skyline. The bump hung for a few seconds, then came down on the thin coating of water that floated down the slope, staining it red. What was left of the driver skidded past him and bumped into the river, edging past the chassis of the shattered car and setting off downstream, swirling pinkly in the water, revolving.
He shook his head. He brought his hand up to his nose, waggled the tip experimentally, and gasped with pain. This made the fifteenth time he’d broken his nose.
He grimaced into the mirror, snorting back a mixture of blood and warm water. The black porcelain basin swirled with gently steaming suds, pink-flecked. He touched his nose with great delicacy and frowned into the mirror.
‘I miss breakfast, lose a perfectly proficient driver and my best car, I break my nose yet again and get an old raincoat of immense sentimental value dirtier than it’s ever been in its life before, and all you can say is “That’s funny”?’
‘Sorry, Cheradenine. I just mean, that’s weird. I don’t know why they’d do something like that. You are certain it was deliberate? Oof.’
‘What was that?’
‘Nothing. You are certain it wasn’t just an accident?’
‘Positive. I called for a spare car, and the police, then went back to where it happened. No diversion; all gone. But there were traces of industrial solvent where they’d removed the false red road markings from the top of the storm drain.’
‘Ah. Ah; yeah…’ Sma’s voice sounded odd.
He took the transceiver bead off his ear lobe and looked hard at it. ‘Sma…’
‘Whoo. Yeah, well, as I said; if it was those two Governance bods, the police won’t do anything. But I can’t understand them behaving like that.’
He let the wash-bowl drain and dabbed tenderly at his nose with a fluffy hotel towel. He put the terminal earring back on his ear. ‘Maybe they just object to the fact I’m using Vanguard money. Maybe they think I’m Mr Vanguard or something.’ He waited for a reply. ‘Sma? I said maybe they…’
‘Ow. Yes. Sorry. Yes; I heard you. You might be right.’
‘Anyway, there’s more.’
‘God. What?’
He picked up an ornately decorated plastic screen-card, which – against a background of what looked like a fairly wild party – slowly flashed a message on and off. ‘An invitation. To me. I’ll read it out: “Mr Staberinde; congratulations on your narrow escape. Do please come to a fancy-dress party this evening; a car will pick you up at rim-set. Costume provided.” No address.’ He put the card back behind the wash-bowl taps. ‘According to the concierge that arrived at about the same time I called the police after my car went tobogganing.’
‘Fancy dress party, eh?’ Sma giggled. ‘Better watch your ass, Zakalwe.’ There was more giggling, not all of it Sma’s.
‘Sma,’ he said frostily. ‘If I’ve called at an awkward time…’
Sma cleared her throat, sounded suddenly business-like. ‘Not at all. Sounds like it was the same lot. You going?’
‘I think so, but not in their costume, whatever that turns out to be.’
‘All right. We’ll track you. Are you absolutely positive you don’t want a knife missile or…’
‘I don’t want to get into that argument again, Diziet,’ he said, dabbing his face dry and sniffing hard again, inspecting himself in the mirror. ‘What I was thinking about was this; if these people did react like this just because of Vanguard, maybe we can persuade them there’s an opportunity for them here.’
‘What sort of opportunity?’
He went through to the bedroom, collapsed on the bed, staring up at the painted ceiling. ‘Beychae was connected with Vanguard at first, yes?’
‘Honorary President-Director. Gave it credibility while we were starting up. He was only involved for a year or two.’
‘But there is that link.’ He swung his legs off the bed and sat up, staring out of the window at the snow-bright city. ‘And one of the theories we believe these guys have is that Vanguard is run by some sort of namby-pamby machine that’s developed consciousness and conscience…’
‘Or just by some old recluse with philanthropic intentions,’ Sma agreed.
‘So; say this mythical machine or person had existed, but then somebody else got hold of the reins; disabled the machine, killed the philanthropist. And then started spending their ill-gotten gains.’
‘Hmm,’ Sma said. ‘Mmm. Mmm.’ She coughed again. ‘Yes… ah. Well, they’d be acting a lot like you’ve been, I suppose.’
‘So do I,’ he said, going to the window; he picked up a pair of dark glasses from a small table, put them on.
Something beeped near the bed. ‘Hold on.’ He turned, crossed to the bedside and picked up the same small device he’d scanned the two top floors with when he’d first arrived. He looked at the display, smiled, and left the room. Walking down the corridor, still holding the machine, he said, ‘Sorry; somebody bouncing a laser off the window in the room I was in, trying to eavesdrop.’