Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [27]
It all went back to the war, like everything else.
The thought that really terrified her was that they didn’t know. They didn’t know that she’d actually got results. Her sponsors did, and she had no way of knowing if they could keep that a secret from the secret police.
So they might be back. In an executive capacity.
Janis knew there was only one place to run to, and that, to get there safely, what she needed on her case was a committed defender, not the state cops or the Campus Security or Office Security Systems…Kelly girls, all of them.
She found the card Kohn had left. She looked at it and smiled to herself. When the card was held at certain angles to the light, centimetre-high figures sprang into view around its edges: little toy combatants, in watchful pose. She tried the first number on Kohn’s card. Was that a holo of Kohn himself, at the lower-left corner? ‘Pose’ was the word.
‘—insky Workers’ Defence Collective, how can I help you?’ a man’s voice sing-songed.
‘Oh. Thank you. Uh, is this a secure line?’
‘Sure is. It’s illegal. Would you like to switch to an open one?’
‘No! Uh, look. My name’s Janis Taine, I’m a researcher at Brunel University’ – at the other end somebody began tapping a keyboard with painful lack of skill – ‘and I’ve just been leaned on by a couple of guys who are probably, that is I think they were from…’
‘Stasis?’
‘Yes. Can you help?’
‘Hmm…We can get you to Norlonto. That’s out of their jurisdiction. Can’t say beyond that.’
‘That’s just what I want. So what do I do?’
‘We got a guy on site right now, Moh Kohn…’
‘I’ve got his card.’
‘Good, OK, call him up. If you can’t raise him, he’s probably crashed out, but you can go and bang on his door. Accommodation Block, one-one-five cee. You got that?’
‘One-one-five cee.’
‘Right. Any problem, call us back.’
‘OK. Thanks.’
She tried Kohn’s personal number. A holo of Kohn appeared, squatting on her phone like a heavily armed sprite.
‘I’m busy at the moment,’ it said. ‘If you would like to leave a message, please speak clearly after the tone.’
After a second there was a sound like a very small incoming shell, followed by a faint pop and an expectant silence.
‘Damn,’ Janis said, and cut the call.
She marched out of the lab and hurried down the stairs and stalked out across the campus, glancing sidelong at the far corners of buildings, half-expecting to see an infiltrator coming for her: crank or creep or…no, don’t think about that.
She thought about it. It was possible. They could be coming for her right now. She didn’t want to think about it – if you thought about it you’d just stop: the fear would fell you where you stood. She stopped thinking about what she might be getting away from and concentrated on where she had to go, the one place that might be safe from them, and within reach. She began to walk faster, then broke into a run.
She sprinted across grass and paving, splashed through a little stream and glanced into five identical stairwells with different numbers at their foot before she reached 110–115. At the top of the stairs she forced herself to slow down, back off from the adrenaline high. Picking out Kohn’s door was easy: it faced her at the end of the corridor, with that annoyingly congregational variant of the commie symbol scrawled on it in what looked like dripping fresh blood.
After a moment’s hesitation she pushed the door open. Kohn sat with his back to her, one hand resting on the desk, the other on the gun. The screen was blank. Kohn turned and looked at her. His glades were on, and behind them she saw bony orbits, empty sockets. She stood frozen. Kohn rose and reached towards her.
She tried to back through the closed door. His hands grasped her upper arms. The skull half-face loomed down at her.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
She just stared, her mouth working.
‘Damn,’ Kohn said.
She saw his cheek muscles