Paradigm (6 page)

Because he’d seen it before.

In a drawing. A drawing of a strange box. His mother had shown it to him. Just in case. That’s what she’d said: just in case. It was a long time ago, when he was very young and he hadn’t understood much. Only that there was something bad about this box. That it was a box that no one could have.

It was supposed to be hidden where no one would ever find it. He ran his hand over the cold surface. It wasn’t a weapon. It wasn’t a bomb. It was just a box. Yet people had died for it before and would probably do so again.

It was the Paradigm Device.

Chapter 5

“Y
ou’re late.”

Nathan was leaning against the wall outside the Entropy Inn. He looked like he’d been there for a while and he didn’t seem pleased about it. He also looked really tired.

“Why aren’t you inside?”

“Because nowhere in this poxy city takes real money, that’s why! I mean, I have been everywhere and they don’t even have places where you can exchange it—what is the point of that?”

“Control, I guess.”

“Control of what? How are people expected to do business if you won’t let them take any money? All anyone wants is these stupid Century City Primos, whatever the heck they are. Have you seen them, by the way? They’re yellow and blue. Yellow and blue! What kind of color is that for money?”

“I think they want you to use credit.”

“What? But I don’t have any—”

“I imagine they’ll make it
very
easy.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. “Oh, I get it. Then you’re on their radar for life. No thanks. Let’s get out of here.”

Sam nodded and they strolled back to the parking lot.

“It’s weird, though, isn’t it?” said Nathan, looking up at the glass-clad skyscrapers. “Like pictures in an old book.”

“Yeah. But not…it doesn’t seem right somehow. Like nothing here is real.”

“No. Y’know, I think we should—”

He didn’t get any further. They both just stood there—stunned.

The elevator doors, the ones that should have taken them back to their car, were barred by a set of gleaming steel gates. Sam’s heart sank.

“What…they can’t do this! That’s our car!” Nathan looked around frantically for someone to complain to. “This is…Wait, maybe there’s another way in. Stairs or something.”

“No. Look.”

Sam had noticed a large sign above the elevator doors, in exactly the position no one leaving the parking lot would ever see.

WELCOME TO CENTURY CITY

NOTICE

Parking facility is closed between

6:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. daily

Except for approved holidays

Have a Nice Day

“What!?” Nathan stared at the sign in disbelief. “I mean, setting aside the fact that they put ‘Welcome to Century City’ on a sign that you’ll only see when you’re leaving, how can they stop us from getting our car? It’s
our
car. They were the ones who insisted we park it in their poxy garage.”

“Yes, well, now we know why.”

Nathan sighed. “So we’ll spend more money.”

“Yeah.”

“Which we don’t have.”

“Maybe we could break in,” suggested Sam. “That door doesn’t look any too sturdy. Kinda pretty, but not that strong.”

“Yeah, uh, I’d just like to address the tour’s attention to the remarkable detail on the decorative eaves of the lovely bar across the street.”

“What?”

Sam glanced back at the Entropy Inn. It was a sort of faux Victorian structure, trying to look old but probably not predating the skyscrapers. Up near the gutters was a frieze of interlocking geometric shapes…and a small bullet-shaped object.

“Oh. Cameras.”

“There’s always someone watching in places like this.”

Sam nodded, then stared at the camera more closely.

“Hang on…” He crossed the street and stood underneath it, then turned back, grinning. “And someone’s watching the watchers. Look.”

Nathan peered up into the shadows where a much smaller device had been carefully patched into the larger one. As they watched, it swung around and stared directly at them.

“Whoa!” said Nathan, backing away.

“Yeah,” Sam turned his back on the cameras. “Come on, let’s raise some money so we can get a bed for the night.”

“What? How are we gonna raise money with no money to start with? And what’s that thing under your arm? Can we sell it?”

“Almost certainly, but we’re not going to. We need to find a game.”

“What kind of game?”

“Any game. Just so long as people bet on it. Come on.”

He strode into the bar, followed by a very nervous Nathan. The place was almost dark inside, with a miasma of smoke that stung the eyes and made it even more difficult to see. Sam waited by the door until he could make out the room better. If there was one thing he’d learned in his travels, it was never to march into a darkened room unless you knew exactly what was in it.

The Entropy Inn was small and not unlike most of the bars and cafes in the Wilds. Although, judging by the glittering rows of bottles behind the bar, it was much better stocked. The bar itself had been made to look like a single long piece of gleaming mahogany. But as there hadn’t been any trees of any size for nearly forty years, it was clearly synthetic. The barman was grey and hunched but not as old as he looked, and Sam noticed that, while he seemed to be deep in conversation, he was actually watching the newcomers with a practiced gimlet eye.

The clack-clackity-clack of dominoes drew Sam’s attention away from the bar and to a table near the door. Two old men were playing and they seemed to be wagering on the result, but the amount involved was too small to be of help. There was a game of chess on the far side with a little knot of observers. Chess was good—he could always win at that, but again the stakes were clearly going to be too small. Then he saw it. In the darkness near the back, lit by an ancient overhead lamp: six men and two women playing poker. They were using one of those old randomizer devices to deal—it printed each card and shot it across the table to the players. At the end of the hand the cards were re-inserted into the machine, which wiped them clean and started again. They’d been popular in the Wilds a few years back, but most of them had eventually broken down and everyone had returned to the old-fashioned decks, which was a shame because Sam had discovered that he could predict every card with almost one hundred percent accuracy. He had no idea how or why, but had assumed the machines must make some kind of almost imperceptible noise when they produced the cards. Whatever it was, he couldn’t believe his luck in finding one in Century City. Not to mention that the stack of money in the middle of the table was exactly what he had in mind…and there was an empty chair.

“There!” he whispered to Nathan. “That’ll do.”

“But—”

Nathan began to protest as a couple of new customers came in through the door, pushed past them and made their way to the bar. He waited until they were out of earshot.

“But what are you going to use for money?”

Sam smiled and held up a slim blue stick.

“What? Where’d you get…?”

One of the men at the bar was going through his pockets and looking around. His friend slapped him on the back and paid for their drinks.

“You picked that guy’s pocket?” hissed Nathan. “But you can’t…I mean, they’re linked to the owner’s subcut—you won’t be able to use it!”

“I won’t have to use it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ll win. Then I can use cash and we can give the nice man his stick back. No one will be the wiser.”

“What d’you mean, you’ll win? You can’t know that!”

Sam handed Nathan the box.

“Watch and learn.”

Nathan hung back by the door as Sam strode confidently through the crowds of people and up to the table. He wasn’t actually as confident as he’d tried to sound—it had been years since he’d done this and while he nearly always won, it tended to irritate the other players. The best plan was to go in, play a couple of high-stakes hands and leave before anyone noticed that the laws of probability were being shattered before their eyes.

“Hi,” he said, cheerily. “Space for another?”

The people at the table looked him up and down, then a grizzled man with his back to the wall nodded once. Sam sat down and pulled his chair in. No sooner had he done so than it started again—the sibilant sounds of whispering and the piercing headache. He took out his pillbox and threw another green pill into his mouth with a shaking hand. When he looked up everyone was staring. The grizzled man didn’t seem pleased, but a few of the others smirked at each other. Obviously the kid was going to be an easy mark.

“You okay now?” growled the grizzled man.

“Yes, thanks.” Sam smiled and leaned forward in a way that he hoped made everyone think he had never done this before.

“Ante up.”

The grizzled man pushed a small box toward him. There were already three credit sticks inserted so he added his newly acquired blue one and pushed it back. The grizzled man perched a pair of impossibly small wire spectacles onto the end of his nose and peered at the tiny screen.

“Jeb,” he read. “Jeb Belloq. That how you pronounce that?”

“Yep.”

“Now you understand house rules says that we don’t charge your card until you lose a hand. You win a hand, you’re free to take your stick back and play on with cash. Right?”

Sam nodded. It was the same everywhere. Most people didn’t want their gambling history all over the net and wouldn’t even sit down if they thought they’d only be able to use a credit card. Plenty of people had been booted into the outlands for less, particularly in the more self-righteous cities. Of course, once they did sit down and play a hand, they were usually there for the night.

The grizzled man loaded the cards into the randomizer with a careless familiarity that Sam guessed meant the machine was his, then placed it in the middle of the table and hit the button on the top. There was a brief pause before the machine suddenly sprang to life, spinning and spitting cards at each of the players.

For a moment Sam thought that maybe it had gone. That he wouldn’t be able to do it any more, but it turned out that it was just a matter of getting back into the swing and soon he knew every card even before it left the deal chute. He won the first hand easily, retrieved the credit stick, and continued to play with the much-sought after Century City Primos, deliberately losing the second hand (no point being
too
good) then winning the next two. By this time a few of the players were beginning to look unhappy so Sam lost another hand and called Nathan over under the pretence of asking him to get a drink.

“Here,” he whispered, handing him a wad of cash. “Bring me a drink and tell the guy what you found on the floor.”

Nathan looked confused but quickly caught on when he felt the credit stick in between the paper notes. Sam watched him make his way to the bar and tap the stick owner on the shoulder. At first the guy looked hostile, but Nathan was all wide-eyed innocence, pointing towards the floor near the door and gesticulating wildly. Eventually the guy nodded, then smiled and took the card back. The next time Sam glanced over, he had his arm around Nathan and seemed to be insisting on buying him a drink.

“This should be interesting…”

“What?” said the woman to his left.

“Sorry. Just looking at my friend, there. He told me he doesn’t drink alcohol.”

The woman looked over to the bar, where Nathan knocked back his drink and was quickly encouraged to have another.

“Well, he was lying. Are we playing or not?”

Sam nodded and threw some notes into the pot. If Nathan was going to get drunk, it would probably be best to get out of there sooner rather than later. Nathan tended to be a bit blunt when he was stone cold sober, Sam shuddered to think what he’d be like once he had a few in him.

The grizzled man dealt once more, but just as Sam picked up his cards there was a loud bang and silence briefly fell as everyone turned to look at the source of the noise. It was the door, which had opened and closed with barely a sound all evening, but this time the person coming in wanted to make an impression.

He needn’t have bothered slamming the door. Sam was reasonably sure that this guy made an impression wherever he went. He was tall, taller than Sam, and much bigger, a fact that was made even more obvious by the patchwork of leather and body armor that comprised his clothing. The man was pretty much patchwork too, covered in scars, with what looked like a titanium arm as well as an imager where his right eye ought to have been. The imager looked like it had been tweaked and improved over many years and bit into the flesh around his eye socket like an invasive disease.

The man walked towards the bar and Sam felt himself tense up. But he strode right past Nathan and the box and was greeted by three only slightly less scary looking companions. All the men were armed to the teeth and, in spite of a notice behind the bar pointing out that weapons were to be surrendered while drinking, no one suggested that they hand over their not inconsiderable arsenals to the bartender.

Sam turned back to the game, just in time to see the grizzled man quickly switch out some of his cards. So that was why he used the randomizer—he had a duplicate deck. It was a bit risky, though. The duplicates would get soiled and used-looking, whereas the ones from the machine always looked new. Plus, he’d have to switch them back at the end of the hand. Sam doubted it could really be worth it. It would only be worth the risk once a night at most, and you’d have to make sure the pot was big enough. The grizzled man glanced at Sam with that mixture of shame and aggression that almost always comes when people are caught doing something they know they shouldn’t.

Sam just smiled as if he hadn’t noticed anything.        

“Who’s the robot?” he asked.

“His name’s Setzen,” growled the grizzled man. “He works for that Bast woman.”

“Bast woman?”

“Carolyn Bast,” said the woman to his left, turning back to the game and picking up her cards. “She runs that company. Deth. Practically runs the city. Don’t know how she gets away with it.”

“Death?” said Sam, grinning. “You’re joking. She actually has a company called
Death
?”

“Devastation Engineering and Tactical Havoc,” explained a small skinny man on the opposite side of the table.