Spin State - Chris Moriarty [117]
“Or?”
“Or incorporation. What you would call political sanctuary. Into the Syndicate of your choice.”
“Christ, Korchow. I’ve seen the Syndicates. I’ve seen how you people live. Why the hell would I want that?”
“I’ll leave you to answer that question for yourself, Major.”
The bells on the shop door tinkled. Li turned just in time to see a new customer walk in. A tall man, dressed in ministerial gray. A diplomat or banker. Definitely not local.
“Mr. Lind!” Korchow beamed at the new arrival. “You’ve come back to look at the Heyerdal again? I’ll be at your disposal momentarily.” He pulled a knickknack off the shelf above his desk and began wrapping it in hand-printed rice paper. “I know you’ll enjoy this,” he told Li as he tied the package with a length of green ribbon. “It’s really quite an exceptional little piece. One of my personal favorites.” He smiled. “Consider it a symbol of my good intentions. And . . . other things.”
Li took the package without having actually seen what was in it, let herself be propelled to the counter, swiped her palm across the portable scanner Korchow held up. She wondered how he explained the absence of a credit implant to his clients. Probably faked allergies or religious objections.
“How can I reach you?” she asked.
Korchow smiled a bland, guiltless shopkeeper’s smile. “I’ll put you on the mailing list,” he said—and Li felt his hand in the small of her back, politely but firmly propelling her out into the street.
When she turned the corner, she stopped, looked back to make sure she couldn’t be seen from the shop, and unraveled the elaborately folded rice paper. Korchow had sold her a generation-ship-era figurine, molded in plastic. It had once been brightly colored, but the paint had flaked and faded, leaving the figure’s skin—or were those scales?—mottled.
It was a woman, or rather a caricature of one. Long hair cascaded over her bare shoulders, and her breasts were only hinted at. Instead of legs, she had a silver tail with fins and scales. A mermaid. Half one thing, half the other, at home in neither world.
Li felt the ridges of raised lettering on the base of the figurine. She turned it over and read MADE IN CHINA, in block letters, and, immediately below it, DISNEY®.
She rewrapped the figurine carefully, returned it to the bag, and unfolded the credit slip Korchow had tucked into the wrapping.
“Son of a bitch!” she said when she read the figure at the bottom of the printout.
It was for four times her monthly salary. And it was a credit, not a debit. A transfer into an account Li had never opened, in a Freetown bank she had never heard of. It looked like Korchow had decided to pay in advance . . . and leave Li to do the explaining if anyone put the pieces together.
Zona Libre: 20 Mar 48.
Even shunted through an organic interface, an Emergent as vast as Cohen left a wide wake in streamspace.
Li found him in the Zona Libre, at a back table in a place called the 5th Column. She had to flash ID to get past the bouncers, and when she finally convinced them to let her in, she thought at first she’d come to the wrong place. Then someone called her name, and she looked over and saw Roland’s coppery curls gleaming against the oxblood velvet of a long banquette that curved along the shadowy back wall.
“I need to talk to you,” she said, sliding onto the empty place beside him. “Now.”
He smiled—an open, uncomplicated smile that was a million light-years away from any look that had ever crossed Cohen’s face. “Sorry,” Roland said. “I’m just the hired help.”
“Where’s Cohen, then?”
“He stepped out for a moment. Drop him a line and let him know you’re here.”
“No, I’ll just wait.”
“Okay.” Roland shrugged. “He’ll figure it out soon enough. And he won’t be gone long anyway; dinner’s waiting.”
Li followed Roland’s glance and saw pale creamy butter over ice, bread rolls as crisp and brown as chickens’ eggs, an open wine bottle with a French label. Two waiters hovered expectantly in the wings, waiting for the