Glasshouse - Charles Stross [4]
Blondie tries to rush me, and I fall back carefully, trying to spot some weakness in her attack. She prefers the edge to the point and the right to the left, but she’s not leaving me any openings. “Hurry up and die!” she snaps.
“After you.” I feint and try to draw her off-balance, circling round her. Next to the gate we came in through there’s a ruined stump of a tall building, rubble heaped up above head height. (The gate’s beacon flashes red, signifying no egress until one of us is dead.) The rubble gives me an idea, and I feint again, then back off and leave an opening for her.
Blondie takes the opening, and I just barely block her, because she’s fast. But she’s not sly, and she certainly wasn’t expecting the knife in my left hand—taped to my left thigh before—and as she tries to guard against it, I see my chance and run my sword through her belly.
She drops her weapon and falls to her knees. I sit down heavily opposite her, almost collapsing. Oh dear. How did she manage to get my leg? Maybe I shouldn’t trust my instincts quite so totally.
“Done?” I ask, suddenly feeling faint.
“I—” There’s a curious expression on her face as she holds on to the basket of my sword. “Uh.” She tries to swallow. “Who?”
“I’m Robin,” I say lightly, watching her with interest. I’m not sure I’ve ever watched somebody dying with a sword through their guts before. There’s lots of blood and a really vile smell of ruptured intestines. I’d have thought she’d be writhing and screaming, but maybe she’s got an autonomic override. Anyway, I’m busy holding my leg together. Blood keeps welling up between my fingers. Comradeship in pain. “You are . . . ?”
“Gwyn.” She swallows. The light of hatred is extinguished, leaving something—puzzlement?—behind.
“When did you last back up, Gwyn?”
She squints. “Unh. Hour. Ago.”
“Well then. Would you like me to end this?”
It takes a moment for her to meet my eyes. She nods. “When? You?”
I lean over, grimacing, and pick up her blade. “When did I last back myself up? Since recovering from memory surgery, you mean?”
She nods, or maybe shudders. I raise the blade and frown, lining it up on her neck: it takes all my energy. “Good question—”
I slice through her throat. Blood sprays everywhere.
“Never.”
I stumble to the exit—an A-gate—and tell it to rebuild my leg before returning me to the bar. It switches me off, and a subjective instant later, I wake up in the kiosk in the washroom at the back of the bar, my body remade as new. I stare into the mirror for about a minute, feeling empty but, curiously, at peace with myself. Maybe I’ll be ready for a backup soon? I flex my right leg. The assembler’s done a good job of canonicalizing it, and the edited muscle works just fine. I resolve to avoid Gwyn, at least until she’s in a less insensately violent mood, which may take a long time if she keeps picking fights with her betters. Then I return to my table.
Kay is still there, which is odd. I’d expected her to be gone by now. (A-gates are fast, but it still takes a minimum of about a thousand seconds to tear down and rebuild a human body: that’s a lot of bits and atoms to juggle.)
I drop into my seat. She has bought me another drink. “I’m sorry about that,” I say automatically.
“You get used to it around here.” She sounds philosophical. “Feeling better?”
“You know, I—” I stop. Just for a moment I’m back in that dusty concrete-strewn wasteland, a searing pain in my leg, the sheer hatred I feel fueling my throw at Gwyn’s head. “It’s gone,” I say. I stare at the glass, then pick it up and knock back half of it in one go.
“What’s gone?” I catch her watching me. “If you don’t mind talking about it,” she adds hastily.
She’s frightened but concerned, I suddenly realize. My parole ring pulses warmth repeatedly. “I don’t mind,” I say, and smile, probably a trifle tiredly. I put the glass down. “I’m still in the dissociative phase, I guess. Before I came out this evening I was sitting in my room all on my own, and I was drawing pretty lines all over