Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [62]
The apartment was empty, but a note in the bathroom told me where they’d gone:
Taken the day off, it said, in a firm hand. Cone shopping on Indigo Drive. Underneath, in Suej’s much less confident scrawl, was added: Come meet us? ps I tole Nearly about things
I showered rapidly, swearing quietly under my breath. Though I was grateful to Nearly for looking after Suej the night before, they shouldn’t have gone out alone. I was also somewhat annoyed about having been knocked out, though even I could tell I was better for it. The face I saw in the mirror didn’t look exactly human, but at least I resembled some allied species. Back in the living room I discovered a pile of men’s clothes neatly laid out, presumably for me. They were my size at least, a black suit and midnight blue shirt. Rather smarter than my usual attire, and I didn’t know where they’d come from, but I put them on under my coat and left the apartment still clutching a second mug of coffee. So what if I was wearing some John’s cast-offs; it didn’t matter to me. And I could hardly cruise Indigo Drive covered in brown splatters of someone else’s blood.
A local elevator took me up to 98, and a short walk got me to the start of the shopping strip. It was eleven o’clock by then, and from the way the crowds were beginning to swell I realized belatedly that it was Saturday. Indigo Drive is kind of a point of honor in the world below the 100 line. In the original MegaMall the two-story 9495 floor had been the most prestigious of the shopping arcades, plumb in the middle of the aircraft. Pretty lanes of bijou shoplets ranged round sweeping highways of outlet stores, dinky little cafés, and restaurants, with not a bar in sight. All the most chichi stores had since migrated up into the shopping floors in the 130s and above, but Indigo Drive was still hanging on in there. It was the best shopping there was without getting a pass to go higher; and things were a hell of a lot cheaper. The stores had resisted the high life fashion of costs lots-LCD panels in clothes which showed in dollars just how expensive they’d been—which meant that they were no use to anyone from above 130. But for people in the 70s-120s, Indigo Drive was the place to go.
I wandered the main streets for an hour, partly looking for the girls, mainly enjoying the brief sensation of not being shot at. I recognized some of the stores; others seemed to have changed, the partial familiarity making me feel as if I’d never been there before. Then a way ahead of me I saw a face in the crowd which looked like Suej’s, and quickened my pace. She disappeared at Nearly’s side into a clothes store, but not so quickly that I couldn’t see her expression: big smile, bright eyes. I stopped hurrying, to give them a little more time, and hung around outside to finish a cigarette.
When I entered the store, I reached without thinking for some MaxWork. Only when I had a small, half-finished device in my hands did I realize what I’d done, and I ground to a halt in the doorway, staring down at a partially constructed nest of chips and components. People tutted as they walked round me, but I barely heard them. I could remember perfectly what I was supposed to do with the stuff in my hands, but I put it back, turned round, and left the store.
When I reached the outside again I stood for a while, staring ahead but not seeing anything as it was. Everything seemed to have changed, as if in some small way the past had suddenly become married to the present. As I stood there, I thought I felt a child run a hand against mine, but when I looked there was no one there. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or perhaps I was finally realizing that was always the way it was going to be. I walked unsteadily to a bench and sat down, trying to avoid looking at the MaxWork bench just inside the store. I was thinking of Henna, and the past, in a way I hadn’t ever really done since things had changed.
Remembering how, like every man alive, I’d trailed round after my woman in clothes stores, gazing dazed with boredom