Maelcum was prone against the cabin ceiling when Case removed the trodes. A nylon sling around his waist was fastened to the panels on either side with shock cords and gray rubber suction pads. He had his shirt off and was working on a central panel with a clumsy-looking zero-g wrench, the thing’s fat countersprings twanging as he removed another hexhead. Mar- cus Garvey was groaning and ticking with g-stress. “The Mute takin’ I an’ I dock,” the Zionite said, popping the hexhead into a mesh pouch at his waist. “Maelcum pilot th’ landin’, meantime need we tool f’ th’ job.” “You keep tools back there?” Case craned his neck and watched cords of muscle bunching in the brown back. “This one,” Maelcum said, sliding a long bundle wrapped in black poly from the space behind the panel. He replaced the panel, along with a single hexhead to hold it in place. The black package had drifted aft before he’d finished. He thumbed open the vacuum valves on the workbelt’s gray pads and freed himself, retrieving the thing he’d removed. He kicked back, gliding over his instruments–a green docking diagram pulsed on his central screen–and snagged the frame of Case’s g-web. He pulled himself down and picked at the tape of his package with a thick, chipped thumbnail. “Some man in China say th’ truth comes out this,” he said, unwrapping an ancient, oilslick Remington automatic shotgun, its barrel chopped off a few millimeters in front of the battered forestock. The shoulderstock had been removed entirely, re- placed with a wooden pistolgrip wound with dull black tape. He smelled of sweat and ganja. “That the only one you got?” “Sure, mon,” he said, wiping oil from the black barrel with a red cloth, the black poly wrapping bunched around the pis- tolgrip in his other hand, “I an’ I th’ Rastafarian navy, believe it.” Case pulled the trodes down across his forehead. He’d never bothered to put the Texas catheter back on; at least he could take a real piss in the Villa Straylight, even if it was his last. He jacked in.
x x x
“Hey,” the construct said, “ol’ Peter’s totally apeshit, huh?” They seemed to be part of the Tessier-Ashpool ice now; the emerald arches had widened, grown together, become a solid mass. Green predominated in the planes of the Chinese program that surrounded them. “Gettin’ close, Dixie?” “Real close. Need you soon.” “Listen, Dix. Wintermute says Kuang’s set itself up solid in our Hosaka. I’m going to have to jack you and my deck out of the Circuit, haul you into Straylight, and plug you back in, into the custodial program there, Wintermute says. Says the Kuang virus will be all through there. Then we run from inside through the Straylight net.” “Wonderful,” the Flatline said, “I never did like to do any- thing simple when I could do it ass-backwards.” Case flipped.
Into her darkness, a churning synaesthesia, where her pain was the taste of old iron, scent of melon, wings of a moth brushing her cheek. She was unconscious, and he was barred from her dreams. When the optic chip flared, the alphanumerics were haloed, each one ringed with a faint pink aura. 07:29:40. “I’m very unhappy with this, Peter.” 3Jane’s voice seemed to arrive from a hollow distance. Molly could hear, he realized, then corrected himself. The simstim unit was intact and still in place; he could feel it digging against her ribs. Her ears registered the vibrations of the girl’s voice. Riviera said some- thing brief and indistinct. “But I don’t,” she said, “and it isn’t fun. Hideo will bring a medical unit down from intensive care, but this needs a surgeon.” There was a silence. Very distinctly, Case heard the water lap against the side of the pool. “What was that you were telling her, when I came back?” Riviera was very close now. “About my mother. She asked me to. I think she was in shock, aside from Hideo’s injection. Why did you do that to her?” “I wanted to see if they would break.” “One did. When she comes around–if she comes around– we’ll see what color her eyes are.” “She’s extremely dangerous. Too dangerous. If I hadn’t been here to distract her, to throw up Ashpool to distract her and my own Hideo to draw her little bomb, where would you be? In her power.” “No,” 3Jane said, “there was Hideo. I don’t think you quite understand about Hideo. She does, evidently.” “Like a drink?” “Wine. The white.” Case jacked out.