Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [68]
Two minutes fifty.
Three. Three ten.
I mean what sort of crap programmers do these guys have?
And then it all started coming in, a whole structure of links and inferences building up around them like the result of some cartoon character making a cast with a fishing-line and snagging it, hauling in seaweed, a chain, a wreck, a whole rustbucket fleet pelting down on the quay…
The four of them stood looking at the mass of recovered data.
‘Oh,’ Donovan said at last. ‘That Kohn.’
‘What was that all about?’ Jordan asked. He and Janis were hard put to keep up with Kohn. The best place to walk was immediately behind him.
‘Donovan was trying it on,’ Kohn said over his shoulder. ‘I interdicted one of his sabotage teams last night. There’s something else. Personal. Too complicated to go into right now…Plenty of time to sort it out in the morning. Whatever, he found out where I was and tried to rouse against me any opportunist bounty-hunters who might be around. Not very successful.’
He turned away, ‘Renegade…’ His laughter floated back.
‘Slow down, willya?’ Janis gasped.
‘Oh. All right.’
Suddenly they were a threesome, moving through the shifting crowds in a normal way. Jordan felt a heightened alertness, the effect of the drink creeping back after a sobering shock had banished it. A woman in a militia uniform stared back at him defiantly as he noticed the division of her face, half mature and half twisted baby-features, growing in. She had one chubby doll-like arm to match, sticking out of a hole torn carelessly in the top of her sleeve.
‘Why doesn’t everybody use that to stay young and beautiful?’ Jordan said after she’d passed.
‘Regen? Some do,’ Kohn said. ‘It’s expensive. Most mercenaries have it as part of their insurance package, but the no-claims kickback is crippling. Probably just as well. You don’t want people getting reckless just because no non-fatal wound is permanent.’
‘Better reckless than wrecked,’ Janis said.
When Jordan had gone into the bar he’d hoped to get not just more information but also a rest from Norlonto’s restless streetlife. He’d got more of one and less of the other than he’d hoped. Now he was partly supported by his arm around Janis and by Moh’s arm, also around Janis, locking his in place. It seemed appropriate. He felt knocked sideways by both of them.
Like a hatchling imprinted by the first large moving object it sees, he reflected. So be it. He had never seen a woman as beautiful, as fascinating and free, as Janis. And Moh, he was something else: everything Jordan wasn’t – thin, tough, clued-up – but he made Jordan feel at ease and accepted. What it would be like to be so open, so at home in the world!
‘You know something?’ Jordan said. ‘I’ve always believed in you people.’
The others laughed.
‘You must have a lot of faith!’ Janis said.
‘Reason, not faith,’ Jordan retorted. ‘I never had any proof that people like you existed, but I knew you had to. That rational people existed – somewhere else. They damn’ well don’t exist down there. So I never actually met any. I just read about them in books – read their books. Also I suppose I saw their works. Sort of like the argument from design.’ He looked up, waved his free fist at the sky. ‘Every aeroplane is a proof that there must be a rational mind somewhere!’
‘Yeah, well, we know that,’ Kohn said. ‘What amazes me is the uses they can get put to, not to mention the pilot’s birthsign hologram medallion, satellite televangelists—’
‘—and Creation astronomy kits—’
‘—credulity drugs to make alternative medicine more effective—’
‘—designer heroin for dying soldiers—’
‘—instant access to more lies than you could refute in ten lifetimes—’
‘—Well, that’s freedom for you,’ Janis said, grinning up at the two men’s faces. ‘From each as they choose, to each as they are chosen, right?’
Jordan shrugged off the rucksack in the hallway and stood still for a moment, trying to recover a sense of balance. His