Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [8]
She unclipped the centcomp glove and glasses from her belt and slipped them on. The heat of her hand activated the system, and a glowing yellow menu appeared in the air before her. She reached out and pressed a virtual button. Feedback mechanisms in the glove gave her the sensation of having actually pressed something physical. Within a few seconds she had progressed through a series of different menus and discovered where her lodge was based today. Centcomp put a map up, and Forrester knew enough about the area to find the quickest and, more importantly, safest way along the walkways, ladders, roofs and bridges of the Undertown. Nowhere was there a line of sight that ran for more than a few metres. No path could be walked for more than a minute before there was a corner, a set of steps or a ladder.
She found the lodge in the centre of a flooded plaza. Having cordoned off all the canals leading into the plaza with floating security fencing and illuminated the surrounding area with hoverlights, the Adjudicator Secular had obviously felt safe enough to relax security. Officers were walking freely across the catwalks between the rafts with their robes hanging loose. Securitybots lumbered to and fro. Flitters were lined up along the primary raft like an armoured Imperial Landsknecht division ready to roll into some small offworld city and impose the will of the Empress.
She found her way down to water level and strode out along the single floating catwalk that led to the rafts.
‘Justice . . . ’ said Lubineki as he held out the gene-tester. ‘Adjudicator Forrester, good to see you.’ He was sweating freely in the heat. Forrester shoved her hand into the device’s opening. ‘How’re you feeling?’
‘Fairness . . . ’ she said wearily, wincing as the device removed the standard cell sample from her finger tip. The gene-tester was clumsy, but more reliable at proving identity than the ubiquitous biochips, which could be surgically removed and reimplanted, if the price was right. Even body-bepple couldn’t 14
faze it. ‘I’m feeling like shit. What have they moved the raft down here for? I thought we were still anchored over beneath the Eastern Towers.’
‘Didn’t you read the memo yesterday?’ Lubineki seemed genuinely surprised. ‘Big case going on: some guy had his head cut off. They wanted the lodge close at hand so they moved the whole shebang down here.’ He looked around, and sniffed. ‘Least they could do is issue us with masks,’ he said.
‘That water smells like puke.’
The gene-tester buzzed. Lubineki studied the display carefully. ‘You’re the real Forrester,’ he said finally, and grinned.
After leaving the shower and locker raft with her black robes flowing around her, and after the minimum amount of meditation on and recitation of the Adjudicator’s Creed in the Shrine of Justice that she could get away with, Forrester diverged off to one side and stood on the edge of the catwalk. Beneath her feet the dark water lapped sluggishly at the plastic, depositing a thin film wherever it touched.
‘Excuse me?’
Forrester turned, then wished she hadn’t when the inside of her skull failed to move as quickly as the outside. The man behind her looked as if he had just climbed out of a body-bepple tank. His golden fur glowed, his small black nose was moist and shiny and his little button-eyes shone with health and vitality. He was so muscular that his robes were tight around his chest, and bulged at the seams. For a moment, Forrester hated him.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she said.
‘Cwej. Chris Cwej.’ His eyes scanned her in the usual way that people did when they were looking for examples of body-bepple. He’d have to look a lot closer than that if he wanted to see how she’d changed herself.
‘Isn’t it pronounced “Shvey”?’ she asked.
‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘Too many people got