The Eternal Prison (28 page)

 

I knew my escape routes. Two days of being Faliero’s guest hadn’t changed my opinion about him or his bodyguard: they’d both shoot me in the head as soon as they were done with me. I kept gazing out at the sea. The whole city was a series of platforms connected by narrow footbridges here and there. Each of the buildings was ringed by a wooden pier of some sort, and boats drifted past us constantly.

 

“Most of us have a level or two below water,” Faliero went on, impressing me. “That must be pumped constantly to be usable. It is… costly. So you see why I am eager to transact our business.”

 

I watched a small boat, huge solar panels like wings spread out in the back, inching its way around the corner of a far-off building, smaller and less opulent than Faliero’s. Some of the structures were sad, ramshackle affairs of rotting wood and sprung nails, dirty and even sinking into the water. Some, like Faliero’s, were marble and gilding and looked solid, like they would last forever, being built up one level at a time to stay ahead of the rising sea. All of the exposed roofs, every flat surface, was red in color, like drying blood. It was hard to believe that anyone had ever lived here in numbers, that people had been
born
here. The air was rotten and the sun reminded me of prison, and the idea of a whole dark city beneath my feet made me nervous.

 

“Then transact it,” I said tiredly, blinking the dazzle out of my eyes. “And quit
talking
about it.”

 

“A bad habit of mine, I know,” Faliero said cheerily. I wanted to put my boot in his mouth, make him taste it. “I will be up-front with you: we have been unable to discover the current location of this person, this Michaleen Garda, you desire to find.”

 

“An alias, you know,” Gall said quietly over the lapping waves, flicking his cigarette—half-smoked—into the air. My eyes followed it as it sailed down to the ocean and noticed the boat with the solar panels, bumping into the pier just below us and cutting engines. “I pulled a few favors even—but nothing.” He shook his head. “I ain’t giving secrets away when I tell you the SSF is going through some strange fucking times.” He shook his head again and extracted a black cigarette case from his coat. “Anyway, I put together a dossier on Garda. You ain’t gonna like what’s in it. But we can’t tell you where he is exactly now.”

 

I nodded, eyes on the little boat. A short, thin figure emerged from it, holding a line, glanced up at us, and then bent down immediately to tie the boat off. “Sure, I get it. You’re selling a load of shit, and now I’m just waiting to hear what the price is.”

 

“Now, Mr. Cates!” Faliero exclaimed. “Please, be calm. We do not come to the table empty-handed. We do have information.”

 

I watched the figure on the pier, my heart rate kicking up. Off in the distance rhythmic cries rose up on the thick air.

 

“The market,” Faliero said softly. “You can buy almost anything down by the Campanile, if you have the yen.”

 

I looked up and squinted at the tower that still poked its nose up out of the water, adorned with the largest Vid screen I’d ever seen. It was peaceful standing there with these two strangers, with the sun baking me to sleep. I thought I might just let Gall sneak up behind me and slit my throat. It would be easier than raising my arms. I flashed to Pickering’s, me on the floor, laughing as the Pigs came in, waiting to be killed and
wanting it.

 

I shivered and looked down at the pier. The distant figure was walking away rapidly. I watched, my heart rate picking up again. I looked back at the boat, which was almost directly below us. I looked back at the person running down the pier.

 

“We will tell you what we know,” Faliero said smoothly. “As a sign of good faith. Then you can decide whether the information is worth payment. You are known as a man of good judgment and fair dealing. Major Gall?”

 

I translated this in my head:
We will tell you what we know in the hopes that you give up your advantage, and then we can tie something heavy to your feet and drop you into the water.
I didn’t hold it against them. I turned around and pushed my hands into my pockets. I saw Gall straighten up and orient on me but ignored him. He was just doing his job, and I had people on the list before him.

 

Gall stepped forward, producing a small data cube and holding it up so it glinted in the sun. “He was in Europe. Vienna, to be exact. And Dublin, London, and Nuremberg.”

 

I shook my head. I’d been to all those places.

 

“SSF has a standard Observe Order on him and any of the aliases he normally uses. But things are a little… disorganized now, and he slipped past us.” He took his eyes from the cube and looked at me. “You don’t know who the fuck he is, huh? Why in
fuck
are you after this guy?”

 

I spat, watching the glob plummet into the water. “He left me for dead. And he played dirty, and broke the rules,” I said. I saw my father again, that missing-tooth grin. For a few weeks he’d been closer. Now he was almost gone again.

 

With a snort, Gall tossed the cube toward me. I twitched but held myself in check and watched it land about a foot away, bouncing once and then coming to rest right next to Faliero’s feet. Gall smiled slightly, turning back to the railing as the older man leaned down to retrieve it.

 

“We offer no tricks, Mr. Cates,” Faliero said, holding the cube and a small reader out to me. I freed my hands and accepted both, snapping the cube into place and glancing down at the tiny bluish screen. I saw the boat below us in my mind and swallowed back an upswell of panic. He was being honest enough; a bullet in the ear was not exactly a
trick.

 

“You won’t like it,” Gall said as I quickly scrolled through the data, which seemed legitimate. “We can’t get much more on him, aside from the fact that he’s been exclusively using the Garda name for a few years now and doesn’t appear to have shed it, so any current records will be under that tag—I doubt you’ll find anything on him under any other name.”

 

I didn’t like it. I stared for a moment, shock shivering through me, and then looked up, pocketing both reader and cube and touching my charm for its soothing effect on me. “You’re sure?”

 

Gall nodded, sending a plume of white smoke into the heavy air. “I’m sure.” He stared moodily into the distance. “Fuck it all.” He glanced back at me. “By the way, rumor is
you’re
in New York. All the cop nodes are buzzing that you showed up in New York a few days ago. Speculation is you’re either putting up your shingle for work in the old neighborhood, or you’re back to hunting cops.” He looked back at the water. “I hear you killed a lot of cops.”

 

He didn’t seem particularly outraged. “A few. I still got a bunch on my list. Along with your boss and an Undersecretary someday. Ruberto. Anyone who fucks with me, I’ll get around to.”

 

Gall smirked, picking tobacco from his lip. “My boss. Ruberto. Fuck, Cates, don’t you know who Ruberto
is?
”

 

I shrugged. “Just another asshole who thinks he can make me dance. Anyway, I haven’t been to New York since I got pinched to Chengara, though. Your intel’s fucked.”

 

He shook his head. “Then someone’s using your name.”

 

“So, fair payment,” Faliero interrupted, sounding impatient and annoyed. A man unused to being made to wait while his employees chatted shop. “That which is not even yours, Mr. Cates?”

 

I nodded, turning back to Faliero and picturing the pier, the gap between the ancient building and the wooden walkway, the boat tied off almost directly below us. The Venetian was grinning at me in his fatherly way, a fucking asshole, thought because he could spell
yen
and didn’t have to wear the same damp clothes every day he was a fucking prince.

 

I brought out my lucky charm, holding it carefully in front of me, close to my body, for a moment. Through the thin, transparent material, it looked fresh and new, almost exactly as it had the day I’d cut it off Guy’s dead, sunburned body in the Hill Country of Texas. The fingers were curled slightly, but you could see every fine hair, every wrinkle, every splotch of dried blood.

 

Tossing the hand at Faliero, I spun and pulled myself up onto the railing. I didn’t see any point in hanging around to see how they were going to react. I looked down past my grimy boots; I probably had a five-foot margin between me hitting the water and me breaking every bone in my body on the pier. The idea of that brown, greasy water on my skin, soaking into me, made me cringe, but I had a strong suspicion I was very quickly going to want to be anywhere but up on Faliero’s roof.

 

“What is this?” I heard him whisper behind me.

 

“There’s a subdermal chip under the thumbnail,” I said, closing my eyes. “Trace the ping, and you’ll find his servers. Everything’s keyed to his DNA and fingerprints, so you’re gonna need the hand.” I took as deep a breath as I could manage, my chest burning. “You’re gonna want to run now,” I added. I didn’t much care for Mr. Faliero and his pet Pig, but I thought fair warning was in order. “Looks like my friend with the explosives is back.”

 

“What?”

 

Mr. Cates,
Salgado whispered,
you do know how to swim, yes?

 

It does not matter,
Squalor said.
He is dead already.

 

Feeling strangely comforted by that, I stepped forward and allowed myself to drop off the railing. Faliero’s shout followed me down. I kept my legs together, arms at my sides, and looked down just as the water leaped up at me, sending a jolt of searing pain up my back as it closed around me, water pushing up into my nose. Everything went silent for a second as I sank down, an ancient, hidden street somewhere below me.

 

Above me, the world turned into fire and noise, flames flowing overhead like a second ocean, and I was slammed back into the building beneath Faliero’s home by the shock wave.

 

 

 

 

XXIV

FLOAT BACK TO SAFETY ON MY BLOATED, BUOYANT CORPSE

 

 

 

 

Breaking the surface, vomiting thick, black water, the first thing I felt was the heat, close and immediate. I clung to the pier in the desperate hope that it wouldn’t collapse immediately, and twisted around for a moment, snuffling in air and blinking. Faliero’s building had taken a shot; the area of the roof where I’d been standing a moment before was a memory, the charred flower of a stalk of fire that still licked the building. The water where the boat had been tethered was burning, and the pier was collapsing in slow motion, sections of it sinking down under the water every few seconds.

 

I have been trying to decide,
Marin said jovially,
if you are incredibly brilliant or incredibly lucky. Right now, I am leaning toward lucky.

 

Fuck you,
I thought. I’d been avoiding speaking directly to them, in hopes of discouraging their presence, but I couldn’t resist.
You were dying and they vacuumed your brain into a hard drive, and now you’re the King Worm.
That’s
fucking
lucky.

 

Hanging on weakly, I sputtered and dragged in wet, foul air. I thought of Marlena, almost felt her next to me, almost heard her snoring. I could smell her, her skin and hair. I saw her face, peeking out at me from the hover as it shot into the air. The expression on her face stayed with me. I knew she’d been horrified, knew she’d been tricked just as I’d been tricked, and I realized Lena had been the first person I’d felt was a friend since Kev Gatz.

 

I turned my head, water burning my eyes, the slippery, greenish wood of the pier vibrating under my arms like a living thing thrashing against restraints. I froze, blinking; the hooded figure from the boat stood not too far down the pier. The motherfucker had stopped to watch. I stared back at him, rage licking up my arms like electricity, setting my hair on end and drying me off magically. Revenge had been keeping me alive for months, and now it lit me up from the inside like a small sun.

 

“Mother
fucker
,” I hissed, dragging myself up onto the pier, which continued to shake and sink, sections of it sliding under the greasy water even as I pulled myself up onto it. The hooded figure startled, hands flying up before he caught himself and spun, launching into a run. Unbidden, my face spread into a grin, and I reached into my coat to extract the piece-of-shit auto wrapped in plastic. I hadn’t killed anyone on purpose in months.

 

Managing a tortured, staggering gait, I began to run, almost falling over, arms windmilling. I imagined what I looked like, Avery Cates the Gweat and Tewwible, awesome in his deadly skills.

 

After a few seconds I started to warm up, getting loose, and picked up a little speed as the man in the hood veered to his right and leaped up onto one of the ladders that hung down from the buildings. I considered taking a shot at him, but he was too far for any kind of accuracy, and with me staggering about it would be useless. Already breathing hard, I kept my eyes on him.