The Curve of the Earth

30




Dinner had been unsatisfying. Not because the food hadn’t been good, or plentiful, but it had been like eating in an experiment, closely observed by the researchers. Newcomen had been in turn sullen and nervy, and Petrovitch’s own emotional state had even now barely dropped below incandescent.

That they’d been served by Reception Guy, a known secret service plant, just added insult to injury. Petrovitch had gone to sleep with his gun in his hand.

[Do not move, Sasha, or show any sign you are awake.]

He lay perfectly still. Even the finger curled around the trigger guard didn’t twitch.

“Problem?”

[Several men have entered Joseph Newcomen’s room.]

“Are they going to kill him? I sort of promised him I’d try and stop them from doing that.”

[If they were intent on an extra-judicial assassination, they would have done so already. His door was opened with a master key card: Newcomen had placed a chair against the door jamb, as per your instructions.]

“So he’s awake. What’s he doing?”

[I have built up a soundscape of his movements. Without visual confirmation, I am only ninety-eight per cent certain he is pointing a gun at the intruders.]

“Tell me he’s wearing pyjamas this time.”

[I am eighty-five per cent certain of that.]

Acutely aware that he should be hearing raised voices, and possibly a bit of gunplay, from the next room, Petrovitch flexed his ear.

“So. Spooks in Newcomen’s room. What do they want?”

[There have been no spoken words as yet. It could be that they wish to take revenge for his act of defiance this evening.]

“Or?”

[They want to parley.]

“Maybe I should intervene.”

[Perhaps I should make him aware that we know of his situation. If he was a member of the Freezone collective, it would be my duty to ask whether he needed assistance.]

But Petrovitch didn’t stir, and Michael didn’t speak.

“What’s he doing now?”

[There is no change in the situation. His breathing and heart rate, initially elevated, are now slowing again. His arm will begin to tremble in another minute or so, and eventually he will lower his weapon. The men facing him are most likely unarmed.]

“He won’t shoot.”

[No. Despite all you have told him. Perhaps even because of it. He still possesses huge psychological barriers to killing.]

“Unlike me.”

[Now is not the time to discuss this.]

“I want to get up and find out what’s happening.”

[We have a better chance of finding out if you do not.]

“They wouldn’t be so stupid to try and cut Newcomen a deal while we’re listening. They do know we’re listening, right?]

[It seems likely that they do, since they have not uttered a word. The link earpiece is still visible when inserted, and there would have been ample opportunity to discover that Newcomen was linked while he was being observed in the restaurant.

“You want to find out whether Newcomen is going to betray me or not.”

[We have told him we can punch a hole in his heart at a moment’s notice. You held a gun to his head this morning. You nearly flew him into a mountain range earlier. He owes us no loyalty.]

“And yet he pulled his gun on the spooks in the teletrooper hangar.”

[A perfectly sound psychological response to seeing a vulnerable person repeatedly hurt by larger, more aggressive people. Even you have that reaction, Sasha. When you are caught off guard.]

The shade of Sonja Oshicora drifted through the hotel room. It felt colder, and Petrovitch risked turning over and wrapping himself more tightly in the duvet.

“Yeah, okay. He doesn’t owe them any loyalty either, though. They’ve pretty much taken everything he thought important away from him.”

[And still he persists in entertaining the fantasy that there might be a way back.]

“It is just that, though. A fantasy. They’re not interested in him at all.”

[Yet it is his room they have entered. We must assume therefore that your analysis is flawed in some way.]

Petrovitch, face down in his pillow, worried at his lip. There was no sound at all.

“Give me the live feed.”

He could hear Newcomen, his laboured breathing, the faint rustle of his clothes, the odd pop as he swallowed and forced air up his Eustachian tubes. Behind that, the hum of the hot-air ventilation system, and after a quick analysis of the waveforms, three other people.

There was a rustle and a sigh. Newcomen lowered his arm. The light switch clicked on, then came another noise that Petrovitch couldn’t quite make out.

[Notebook.]

A pen rasped across the rough cellulose surface of a fresh white sheet of paper.

“I don’t suppose you can…”

[My powers are limited to the possible, Sasha. Guessing the shape of words from the sounds they make when written?]

“They have cameras in every room.”

[They are watching for any hint of intrusion. Naturally, when the time comes, I can hijack their entire system, but then they will know that I have. Theirs is not an insecure public network: it has been constructed with care as well as haste. They might not be able to keep me out – something they hope they can do but fortunately cannot – but they will know I am there.]

“Then we should have bugged Newcomen better.”

[The threat of immediate death not being enough to keep him in line?]

“Funny how things turn out. We’ve turned a craven, incompetent Reconstructionista into a decent human being, and he doesn’t do what we want.”

[I have several pertinent literary allusions ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.]

The piece of paper used to write the note was scrumpled up, and – it sounded like – eaten. Then another page was turned, and another message made.

Newcomen’s breathing and heart rate rose again.

[He is subvocalising. One moment.]

Petrovitch waited in the dark, aware of every point of contact between his bedclothes and his body.

[Incomplete. One word is most likely ‘deal’.]

“We should stop this. Newcomen’s zhopu is mine.”

[Are you not interested in what he will do?]

“Will my knowing help me find Lucy?”

[I cannot say. Wondering whether he will betray you as opposed to knowing he already has? I suggest it is important to know what lies in his heart.]

“But they’re shafting him all over again. They sold him up the river, and now they’re promising him passage back. He has to realise that.”

[And as you have already said: he will fall for it. They will tell him he is the most important part of their mission. That it will fail without him. That he will be a hero. That he can make contact with Christine again. That he will get a medal from the President. Newcomen will forgive them for what they have done because he is just waiting for someone to tell him all these things and make it better.]

“At least when I blackmail someone, my terms are clear and transparent. I’m honest about what I want.”

[Yes, Sasha. But what if they are telling him the truth?]

Petrovitch almost sat up. His muscles tensed, and he caught his breath.

“Say that again?”

[It seems obvious now. We have been operating under the impression that Newcomen is entirely the wrong agent for the task. What if he is not? What if he is, in fact, exactly the person they required? Someone who, for example, they could abuse and treat appallingly, and who would still come back to them when they judged the time was right.]

“Chyort. That’s…”

[Evil? We still do not know their reasons. What looks like evil to us may appear completely different to them. They could reasonably believe they are doing the right thing.]

The paper being shown to Newcomen was screwed up and consumed.

“What’s he doing?”

[He is simply standing there. His breathing and heart rate are peaking, as if he is in a fight-or-flight scenario. I calculate he will decide what to do shortly.]

The pen nib scratched out a third note.

“So: they’re standing in the doorway, scribbling stuff on scraps of paper and holding them up so he can read them.”

[Yes.]

“They’ve actually thought this through.”

[So you must be careful. You know the whole town is a trap designed to capture Lucy. That they have done it well should not surprise you.]

“Then why bring the teletroopers up here? Thirty-two of them? They have to realise that they’re virtually gifting us an army.”

[And yet there they are. Perhaps they have been modified in an unexpected way. Perhaps they want us to think we could take them over, only for us to find we cannot when it is too late. Or—]

“Enough already. Give it to the analysts and tell me what’s happening next door.”

[Newcomen’s vital signs are still running near maximum. His core temperature has increased, and he is becoming hypocapniac.]

“He’s going to faint? Yeah, they’ll want to avoid that. He’s a big man.”

[He is under great psychological stress. His unmitigated physiological responses to that stress are inadequate, as they are in all unmodified humans.]

The note with its hidden message was pressed inside the palm of a closing hand and destroyed in a mouth.

There was nothing for the longest time. Then someone stepped closer to the microphone embedded in the link. The sound of paper and pen was much closer, too. Newcomen was writing a reply.

That part was over quickly. Footsteps: one set out into the corridor, right outside Petrovitch’s door. Then another, moving the other way. The third paused before following them. The light switch clicked clearly off, and the chair used to inexpertly block the doorway clipped the wall with a slight tock.

The third man’s feet brushed against the door jamb, then the door itself was eased back. It closed almost – almost, but not quite – silently, the catch gently released until it engaged.

Another gap, and finally the sound of cloth against cloth as three pairs of trousered legs walked away up the corridor.

Next door, Newcomen let out a ragged gasp.

“They’re more careful than he is.”

[We know this. He is not secret-agent material. His one strength is his closeness to you.]

“So do I get rid of him, or do I keep him? What did he tell them? Who did he decide for? Me or Uncle Sam?”

[There is no way of knowing.]

Newcomen’s gun slithered back into its wrist sheath. Then, with the greatest of care, the American tiptoed back into bed, slowly drawing up the covers as he lay down again.

The mattress sighed with weight.

“I could ask him, I suppose. I could ask him right now.”

[You are disappointed in him.]

“He was good today. He actually cared. He empathised rather than thought about his own skin. It wasn’t an act, he didn’t do it to make himself look good or to win me over. He saved my zhopu from a beating.”

[And, paradoxically, that action may have paved the way to his rejection of your threat to kill him. He is no longer scared of death. He has reached some degree of peace with its inevitability. The only thing he believes he can control is the manner of his going.]

“And you think he’s going to do that in the service of his country.”

[Yes.]

“But you can’t be certain.”

[No. I can, however, recalculate the percentages for your successfully retrieving Lucy and escaping the territory of the United States of America.]

“They’ve all just dropped to zero, haven’t they?”

[Whether or not you keep Joseph Newcomen with you.]

In the darkness, the corner of Petrovitch’s mouth twitched.

“Yeah, well. No one said this was going to be easy.”