Falling (9 page)

No one can stop you, not after you've signed. Not the police, not Warner, not even you yourself. No going back. I mean, why bother? If you decide you don't like it, it only takes another 48 hours to change back.

Leaning her full weight against the door, an intricate design of steel and glass, Jude eased it open.

They'd done the place up nicely. Knew what their customers wanted. A little class, a little taste of how things used to be down here, before commerce went green and moved out to the Hursts, and greed fell, yet again, out of fashion.

Dim lighting with spotlights picking up carefully placed plants or display boards; the reception desk neatly repaired, the carpets relatively clean. A hand-painted sign over the brass plaque that would have identified the building's original function (and owners): MORPHOTECH INDUSTRIES in big gold letters, solid and reassuring. PURVEYORS OF BIOTECHING SERVICES FOR OVER A DECADE.

The ‘classy operation' act was obviously working. They had customers, even in this weather. She'd never been in anywhere upmarket, but she'd gone window shopping with friends in the cheaper, backstreet places, and she knew all the customer types by sight.

The old man and the fidgety woman hovering around the displays nearest to the doors. They'd be the loiterers. Timewasters, in out of the rain. And the kids. A couple of eight-year-old music fans in Prissy Boy T-shirts, far too young to buy, waiting to see if someone would take their eyes off their wallet before security got round to throwing them out.

There'd also be – yes, there in the shadows – a single, scowling figure waiting for the crowds to dissipate so he could enquire about the availability and/or legality of some dubious alteration. This time it was a young dark-haired man with purple eyes. Eyes right out of a jar. He'd probably be accommodated. They almost always were. People tended to overestimate how original and daring their cherished fantasies actually were.

And then, the real customers. Three girls in short skirts arguing over the shape of a mannequin's nose as they shuffled and smirked. An old woman taking a seat in a consulting room, smoothing her red dress with prim and wrinkled hands.

And Jude. Standing at the reception desk, twisting the strap of her shoulder bag nervously between her fingers, trying to look no more or less nervous than the real customers.

I could walk out of here as anything. Anyone. Warner would probably never even find me.

Is that why I've come back here? Is that what's necessary to stop myself going skydiving without a parachute in a few months time?

But regening can, quite accidentally, damage the genetic accident that gives us our abilities – and if I lose the ability to ReTrace, how will I get back to my present?

Too many questions. Just go with your past and see what happens.

She cleared her throat meaningfully.

The slim, dark-eyed man at the desk looked up with a smile that could have come straight from their catalogue – no. 17, Trustworthy Public Servant. ‘Madam. May I be of some assistance?'

Jude shrugged. Muffled in the neatly buttoned wool coat, the pleated skirt, the trappings of respectability, she found that guilty indecision came easily to her. ‘I was thinking of making a few alterations.'

‘But of course,' the young man said, taking a moment to straighten his ill-fitting jacket as he stood up. ‘Would madam care to step into a consultation room to discuss her requirements?'

Same room as before. Old executive office, salvaged furnishings and a desk laden with catalogues. She paused to scan the titles. Eyes, ears, noses; limbs, upper and lower. Same gentle slant of light through the dirty glass as she hung her coat on the single hook behind the door, registered how cold it was, and regretted it. The receptionist clearing his throat in that same nervous fashion as he joined her, a slab of paperwork under one arm.

Same, same, same.

Why have I come back here?

This was a routine job. Emma DiFlorian went missing. Everyone worried for a while. Someone saw a woman of a different racial type who looked exactly like her, then lost her in the backstreets of the theatre district. Recent paperwork was pored over. An Emily DiFlorian was found to have checked into Morphotech twelve days previously for a complete re-gening. The catalogue pages and photographs of strangers that the surgeon had worked from were still attached to the paperwork, features she'd been interested in ringed or indicated by arrows in smudged red ink.

Leaving your job wasn't illegal, and neither was regening. But when you were a ReTracer, and the government had invested a whole lot of time and money in your training, the situation became – complex.

‘Can I get madam some refreshment? Tea, perhaps?'

Jude blinked. ‘Er, no. Thanks.'

The young man stopped halfway to the sideboard, visibly thrown by this deviation from the procedure. ‘Certainly. Right. Then we'll get straight down to business, shall we? Can I ask madam to explain exactly what she's interested in trying? And please, don't be afraid to be specific. The more exact madam is about her requirements, the more likely she is to be pleased with the end result.'

She'd gone for small talk, the first time round. Asked questions she already knew the answers to: did it hurt, how good were their surgeons, how far could they guarantee the results? But she was tired now, a tiredness of some deep part of herself that was following her from body to body, self to self, and her patience was wearing virtually transparent.

‘I'm a ReTracer,' Jude told him, ‘and I want a full makeover.'

There. Not a reaction, but the absence of one. The surprise, the worry that should have been in his eyes – and wasn't.

‘I see,' he said, lowering himself into the chair opposite. The springs creaked faint protest. ‘Madam does appreciate that changing any part of her genotype, however small, may have unpredictable effects upon nebulous genetic variables – such as her ReTracing abilities?'

‘Oh yes.' Jude found that the dry smile came easily. ‘Madam appreciates that very well.'

His mouth contracted into a thin, pale line.

‘Do I sense a sudden lack of interest in taking my hard-earned cash?'

The receptionist looked briefly away. ‘Madam must also appreciate that what she is asking for is…'

‘Perfectly legal.'

‘In the strict sense, perhaps.'

‘Is there any other sense?'

He frowned. ‘This is a licensed clinic, madam, not some fly-by-night backstreet operation. Licenses are not cheap, and have to be renewed yearly. If someone in authority decided that we were no longer worthy of holding a licence…'

Exactly what he said last time. I don't need to be here. This is all a waste of time.

‘That didn't stop you,' she said, ‘when Emma DiFlorian came knocking.'

He moved faster than she'd imagined possible.

Bioteching doesn't just change the shape of your nose or the size of your ears. It makes you strong. And fast. And other, scarier stuff. If he'd come at her, in anger or panic, she wouldn't have survived.

But he didn't.

He went over the back of the chair, tumbling it across the room as he rolled, and plunged through the door to the foyer. Jude rose in what felt like slow motion, trying to resolve the blur back into the shape of a smiling man with catalogue eyes, and wondered if there was any point in following.

And then she heard the faint ping of machinery in the foyer and couldn't quite stifle her laughter.

Mr Human Streak here, faster than a speeding bullet and all that, who could have outrun her in any direction he wanted, was taking the lift.

The indicator panel told her where to find him. Nineteenth floor. Of course, if he was smart, he'd have got out of the lift there and hurtled back down the stairs while she was on her way up, using the whole subterfuge to buy himself some escape time.

Jude suspected that he wasn't actually that smart. Which was a pity, because she'd feel a lot happier about going up there if there was a good chance he'd be long gone.

Desperate measures.

What happens if I die here? Will my future just unravel, no falling from windows, none of this ever happening? Will Fitch weep at my funeral tomorrow or the day after, instead of boycotting it in six months time?

In the end, you don't save yourself at all. You just change the date of your death. No one gets out alive.

Ping.

The doors opened.

Blank corridors, still patched with rectangles of bright paint where pictures had once hung. Open doors bled grey light into her path as she emerged. Glimpses of equipment waiting placidly under dustsheets, shelves of papers bleaching slowly in the sun. End of the corridor here. Only one way to turn.

Has the bird flown?

She could hear faint sounds; rustling paper, perhaps, draughts through broken windows. Mice, or worse. Nothing else. Nothing human.

Not good. Smacked of a trap.

‘OK, Superboy,' she called. ‘Let's be sensible about this. You come on out, without the faster-than-light thing, tell me what I want to know, and I walk away and forget I ever had this conversation. Just anonymous information I picked up off the streets. How does that grab you?'

No reply.

‘No, I had a feeling it wouldn't. You just remember, buddy. When they come for your licence. When they fling you in Newgate and all those nice muscleboy Green activists start offering to share your shower cubicle. I offered you a way out of this, you just remember that.'

Still no reaction.

Damn.

Jude started down the corridor.

One thing was for sure. She was going to have difficulty kicking backsides in this skirt. Bloody Schrader and his bloody disguises. ‘They'll never suspect you dressed like that,' says he. I'll bet he only wanted to see my legs, the –

Schrader.

The only person who'd been involved in this complex tangle of ReTracery twice. He'd been the one who'd handed her this assignment. Deputising for Warner while he was in a meeting. Was that significant?

Answer: she had no idea. For all she knew, the clue to sorting all this out could be tied to the price of bean sprouts or her mother's shoe size. Too many variables.

Still. The way he'd looked at her on the Millennium Bridge. ‘I've been meaning to talk to you for a long time.'

About what?

Movement.

Instinct, unhelpful as always, froze her to the spot.

Yes, there. Behind the door. Very slight, just the twitch of a hand perhaps, or a head. Then stillness, and the shouts of the barge-men on the distant river, bellowing for trade or cursing their steersmen as another collision was narrowly avoided.

Well, she thought, I have two choices. I can stand here until this hideous skirt gives me a wool rash, or I can take the initiative.

Deliberately not stopping to think things through, she hurled herself at the door.

With a terrible grinding of hinges, it slammed into the wall and bounced back at her, throwing her off balance. Something rose from behind it with a screech of terror, flapping and fluttering among the cobwebs. Wings beat briefly, desperately against the window glass. Behind the door, she could hear the faint cheeping of small and vulnerable things.

Finding the missing section of glass at last, the raven launched itself out into the rain, crying out in triumph as it spiralled cloudwards.

And then she saw him – felt him, more likely, registering the movement behind her with older, deeper senses than mere sight. Already gone when she turned, leaving just the blank absence of a corridor newly vacated.

He was still here, then.

‘Sorry about the birdbox.'

The deserted chicks twittered panic and were silent, as if she'd somehow confirmed their worst fears.

‘You don't talk much, for a salesman. How'd you get this job anyway?'

In the room the raven had abandoned, a box of cleaning supplies was perched on top of a heap of broken furniture. Stepping inside, Jude picked up a broken table leg, hefted it uncertainly. No. No, that was just silly.

Whereas the spray detergent – well, that would be very useful indeed.

Clutching her new-found weapon at her side, she marched back out to the corridor.

How long would you be able to move at that speed? Not long. Even if your nerves were hyped enough to handle it, your heart couldn't keep up the effort. Couldn't move the blood round the body fast enough to feed the muscles. More than a few seconds and you'd basically suffer a stroke.

No wonder he'd taken the lift. He couldn't outrun her. He could use the speed burst to evade her, yeah, but in the long term, all it would do was wear him out.

The next door. Ultramarine light and barricaded windows; she paused on the threshold, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Realising too late that standing outlined against the corridor lights wasn't such a great idea.

Shelves, glass-fronted and reflecting luminous blue. She raised a hand to shield her eyes. Papers rustled in the frigid currents circulating from the wide grilles in the ceiling. Goose pimples rose on her bare arms.