It was pitch black. Lamaloula Bains was sat stock still sin the drivers seat of her mid range SAAB 611. The dashboard clock unapologetically informing her it was 4.23am. The car had 720,000 miles on the clock and it was only 10 years old. Her partner, Jason Strange took pleasure in suggesting it had been bought second hand from a Deliver Or Die rep. D.O.D. promised global next hour deliveries or your driver’s head on a spike. Truth was Lou had owned the car its whole life. Mostly Lou drove like her father, ridiculously carefully, but she’d been subject to high-speed pursuit training since she was nine years old, so could actually get pretty scary behind the wheel if the need arose and it was surprising how often it did. The interior had been nano-vac'd back to glory every Sunday for its entire life. So when he sat in it Strange always complained that he felt slightly grubby in comparison. He also became mildly hysterical with impatience as he was driven a uniform six mph under the speed limit, riding shotgun across the state. At the moment though the car lay on the top floor of a GigaStorey carpark in downtown New Marseille.
Everything was oversized in New Marseilles. The buildings rose like behemoths and some of the streets were 42 laners criss-crossed with both official and pirate walkways. From the toll-heavy sturdy and plush Skideways that ferried the wealthy between the boardrooms, department stores, clubs and cribs of the city, right through to the temporary, but ever present, slide-bridges erected by the port’s criminal underclass as swiftly as they could be cut down by the NMPD. Slide-bridges were ridden precariously by attaching slings around two ropes and using skategrip boots to propel the rider across the insanely high streets and into a different class of boardrooms, stores, clubs and cribs.
The rising skyscrapers were clamped together by (and presumably only stayed standing because of) these horizontal constructs which had to be navigated outside by the verticars and Baxis that were the only vehicles allowed inside the confusion zone in the heart of the city. Each building farted unwanted gaseous junk into the night, ranging from the noxious poisons of the grindhouses down in the lower levels to the tall chimbleys of the cloneworks higher up. The effect of the gasses against the colourful light pollution from the buildings was as though the aurora borealis blown about and spotted with neon as verticars weaved their way through the haze.
Somewhere across the spot specked car park roof Jason Strange stood trying not to breathe in what he hoped was an invisible corner.
Strange’s skin was dark and kissed with fat freckles. He wore his hair cropped short and neat in a manner that was forgiving to his receding hairline. Behind an ingrained sadness were deep set, puffy eyes that smiled by themselves. He had a small round nose and a strong jaw softened by a little chubbiness that had come to him with age; he’d been a reasonably athletic man in his youth, despite spending so much time on the grid. His clothes were comfortable and practical, spandenim jeans cut fat, but not too fat and he wore short sleeved shirts, rarely tees. When it came down to it shirts were less restrictive and lighter in Strange’s opinion. He was sporting a black, ultraweight cyclist’s jacket over the top. Strange didn’t even own a vélosphere, but he took care in buying his coats and this was good fibre technology; super-lightweight, warm, water resistant and breathable, with plenty of pockets. Perfect, but for the reflective elements whcih Strange had picked away or sewn barriers over. High viz not being a look he cared for, ‘specially on a surveillance gig like this.
The police issue charge pistol felt cold in his clammy palm. These new guns were supposed to be state of the art, but Strange found them so light you could hardly tell you were holding them. This was a problem if you had wet, or sweaty hands, because you could drop one without realising until you heard it bounce off the floor. The Police Intel wire was currently reading an 83.7% chance that their target was crouched a level down aiming a plasma rifle at a gskY research lab. As far as his bosses at the NMPD were concerned this reading was high enough as to be taken as gospel; Strange had no choice but to act. From where he was standing this just meant there was a 16.3% likelihood that the freak was stood behind him wielding an incineration stick stylishly engraved with the words ‘This Weapon Has Been Designed To Speed The Death Of Jason Strange’.
Strange was tired. The rookie partner they’d given him had been good for him no doubt; she’d got him off the booze and back on the case. But tonight was about as hairy as it had gotten since she started. She was ruthless, that was for sure, and he wondered if she was getting a kick out of the danger. She didn’t show it of course, she had a pole up her arse in the way a lot of military kids did, not really showing anything. Mostly they’d been tracking the Pastor W. Lane and his cronies around the South Western states, slowly closing in on him again. Good old fashioned detective work, monotonous and lonely. Strange had pretty much lived in Premier Western Hotels for over a decade now and was used to their ‘mostly slightly crap’-ness and comfortingly unpredictable breakfast quality. He preferred them to Robotels because it forced him to interact with human beings.
On the whole he tried to keep life-on-the-line type situations, like this, to a minimum, but they came with the territory and he was prepared to do the Dirty Harry thing occasionally, he just didn't think it was wise to push your luck. But hey, who needs luck when you've got an 83.7% chance of survival, right?
Without warning the whole place lit up. He winced at what he immediately realised was the LED’s of Lou’s SAAB and wondered what the hell the crazy bitch was doing when he'd told her to sit tight and not make a sound in case she drew attention to them and blew the whole thing. He was assessing what kind of new liability rating he could invent to include in his report about her when he noticed the arm of his shadow being raised. His own arm was still down by his legs and his brain concluded that it could only be the shadow of someone stood behind him lifting up a three foot long truncheon. And now he thought about it he could hear a very faint high-pitched hum.
Strange leapt to one side as the incineration stick sizzled through the air sounding like a soprano light sabre being dragged by a speedboat. He executed a sideways roll, of which he was reasonably proud of for his age, and brought his shooting arm up, intent on blowing the head off whoever was trying to kill him. At the same time he heard the tinny chink of a very light metal object bouncing on the tarmac as his charge pistol fell at his attacker’s feet. It was Lane. He was in his early 50s and had an eerily calm and dark, yet somehow jolly face. His fat head boasted a shock of black hair shot with explosions of white that drew the eye away from his leathery features, so you didn’t really see him even when you were looking directly at him. He had a bearded muzzle and wild eyes under a heavy brow, his cheekbones were still visibly high under thundering jowls. Lane moved quick for a man of his bulk, his weight serving only to reinforce his overbearing presence. His arm had grazed the hairs on Strange’s head as it had swung past and incinerated a stairwell door about 11 inches away from his right cheek. Strange could feel the warmth on his face as the metal door instantly became a matrix of shining shards which slowly faded as they fell.
He sprung towards the car headlights and when the SAAB growled into life first attempt Strange said a little prayer to The Gods of motor maintenance. If he were lucky a mixture of his heightened fear and Lou’s anal nature in the area of auto care would ensure that he reached the vehicle before Mr Wrath-of-God-Pastor-Freak got his bearings.
Lou spun the car around and the passenger door flew open. Strange dived in, smashing his knee on the doorframe and losing a shoe. Lou pushed the close door button as Strange pulled himself up in the car only to see Lane throwing the incinerator stick towards the windscreen. Luckily Lamaloula Bains was a 12th dan black belt in advanced driving and threw the car back so they could watch the stick flip past them and incinerate a hole in the floor which it promptly disappeared down. Strange caught himself wondering how long it would fall and if there was any chance it would go straight through the earth’s crust; he could then add lava to the list of things likely to kill him this evening. He was thinking this as he watched Lane picking up the lost charge gun. These musings quickly dissipated however, when, to his horror, Lou snapped the SAAB into gear and hurled them at approximately 150mph towards the walled edge of the 194-storey building. So far as Strange knew the 611’s never had hover ability and even a top range Japanese Beemer would have a hard time vertical navigating at that speed. He didn't even want to think about the landing and quickly assured himself that Lou was the most straight laced and rational person he'd ever met, so never, in a million years, would she drive her pride and fucking joy spotless drone-mobile through an 18 inch thick cement wall to certain doom. But that's exactly what she did.
Strange passed out. When he came to the car was just about reaching terminal velocity, speeding face first vertically toward the street. He looked over at Lou to see if she was freaking out, but she was poker faced, in the zone.
“Well,” he said, “I thought that went quite well don’t you.”
Lou shushed him, “I’m trying to concentrate,” she hissed.
Strange passed out again. When he came around this time they were in a lake outside the Hilliot, the car horn was blaring and he had his face encased in FoamEAZ. Lou was sat rigid in the seat next to him drawing deeply on his inhaler.
“I thought you didn’t smoke” he said, head pounding.
“I don’t”.
*
Lamaloula Bains’ Dad was a real bastard. Not the hard drinking knocked her around kind, but the successful authoritarian who always knew best. Her alcoholic mother, having died when Lou was young, had left Mr. Bains to raise his daughter as he saw fit. The fit he saw was to groom Lou to be the greatest Officer the European Army had ever seen. He himself had been highly decorated and the fact that he‘d wanted Lou to follow in his footsteps only served to remind Lou that he’d been a man of very little imagination. The single decision she made that went against him in her whole life was the one not to take his career advice. But Dad’s training, from the age of way-too-young, in unarmed combat, firearms, strategic thinking, stealth, hostage negotiation skills, wearing very practical clothes and not taking no shit from nobody, proved to be very useful in Lou’s chosen profession of cop. Daddy dear had died disappointed in his daughter and Lou was surprised to find she’d not been that upset when it happened. With his death came freedom, but with that freedom she’d felt a little directionless.
She would never, of course, let directionless-ness give her away as being weak. So the day she marched into the life of Jason Strange she did it with such confidence he knew he was heading for changes. Her trouser suit was so sensible it tended to go home at 8.30 for a mug of cocoa and an early night, usually with Lamaloula in it. Her lips were the plump product of a multi-ethnic heritage and her olive skin was smooth, like she’d never taken it on holiday anyplace sunny. Her hair was chestnut brown and pulled into a severe bun, but she had good bone structure, easy freckles and a sweet, fat nose. Strange guessed she must be quite good looking beneath the charcoal anti-rape uniform she wore religiously. When she’d walked in on that first day she just looked at him for a while, her pale blue eyes framed by perfect eyebrows that dare not put a hair out of line. The way her eyes were taking him in had caught him off guard. It was not the way most people had regarded him then, usually with pity or as though he was something they’d stood in, more like she was looking at a cell beneath a microscope; she wasn’t so much sizing him up as dissecting him.
“Hello Mr Strange, I’m Lamaloula Bains. Lou.” She held out her hand. Jason Strange had accepted it and managed a smile, which creased some of the lines in his forehead in a way that hurt a little. “Jason Strange” he said, “nice to meet you.” Then he’d turned right round and plugged back into the Jack Daniels he’d been cradling. It was a Tuesday afternoon, but Strange was past caring what anyone thought and judging by the fact that most people left him to sit in his room, occasionally hacking into something for them, he figured most people were past caring about him too. Strange had turned the radio off. It had been playing an old Jazzbomb track, the one with the genuine 808 on it, a fine number, but he could tell Lou wasn’t the sort to appreciate to good music.
Then she had sat down next to him. Strange remembered noticing she didn’t really smell of anything, no perfume like some women.
“You want?” he’d said, glass nodding toward the bottle.
“I don’t drink.” She said. Strange made a noise like a half laugh and set the glass down.
“I’m your new partner.”
“Yeah, I heard all about you.” Everyone had heard about Lamaloula Bains, Strange had the low down on her even before Belmont had told him he’d assigned him a rookie. She’d graduated, age 22, from the New Marseille Police Academy with higher marks than a bullwhipped giraffe and immediately went on to become one of the NMPD’s shining stars, outclassing anyone she worked with. As a result no one really liked her, which is why, Strange guessed, she’d won the grand prize and been given a depressive alcoholic for a partner, poor cow.
“I know all about you too” she’d said, “I also know that Intel’s given a 92.4% likelihood the Pastor Lane will be in New Marseille this week, with a 89.5% chance that he’ll attack gskY’s harbour lab on Tuesday evening.” Strange let the jack slip down through his fingers, thunking on the desk. He took a short breath. When she’d mentioned Lane, all official and bureaucratic like that, a kind of hate washed over him and brought with it a fearsome, but positive energy. Right there he knew he could beat the drink, no problem.
Never one to skip homework Lou actually knew a considerable amount concerning her new partner and mentor. She knew he was considered a screw up. In his day he’d been an A grade hacker, a real pro. The man who could get any system to believe anything he wanted it to believe. And seeing as no one made a decision these days without reading it off a holo-screen that meant he was like a ghost, drifting unseen in and out of places. Even against ludicrous border controls and paranoid security he seemed to be able to go anywhere and do anything. They always said it was a good job he was a cop because no one would ever have caught him as a robber.
Strange hadn’t had a partner in the three years since the same group that had killed his son blew Toby Shakespear to pieces. Toby had been a genuine friend and Strange missed him. Most of his police work had seen him sat at a holo-desk tracking people through the grid. But mostly that ‘people’ was just one person; the Pastor Lane, self styled leader of The Ghost of Cain, a fundamentalist Christian end-time group whose manifesto was all about bringing around conditions for the end of the world. What with the current global Flu pandemic and civil unrest as it was it felt to Strange like Lane was half way there. So, in the years that followed Shakespeare’s death nobody really noticed him getting quietly more pickled. And if they noticed they didn’t say, so he guessed they didn’t care.
Lou had learned a great deal about The Ghost of Cain too. It seemed to her that ever since Europe had legislated against the teaching of creationism in schools the problems with religious fundamentalism had reached boiling point. Strange’s obsession might have turned into a personal vendetta over the years, but the Pastor Lane ranked pretty highly in Lou’s list of insane-people-who-need-stopping-before-they-seriously-mess-things-up-for-a-lot-of-people. So, with Bains precision gusto, she’d thrown herself her usual 220% into his work.
She looked across at Strange. And as it had turned out all he needed was someone to pick up the flag and fly it for his cause. Lou didn’t have a cause of her own and was glad of something to focus on. Within three months Strange was back on his feet and feeling like his old vengeful self again, though he pulled at the old THC inhaler.
A lot.
*
Back in their sparse, brightly lit, slightly tatty office Strange cradled his head and thought about gin. Lou tapped awkwardly at a console breathing a lot. All of a sudden she stopped the breathing, then, remembering herself, started again, but more slowly this time, like she was doing it on purpose.
“I just got a freaky mail,” she said.
“Right.” Strange managed, he still wasn’t exactly sure whether he actually still liked Lou after the evening’s events, “What’s it say?”
“It says Ak002-b3, but that’s not what’s weird.”
Strange’s forehead creased gently. “I know that from somewhere.”
“What’s nuts is it’s from you. You sent it yesterday.”
“I didn’t send it.”
“I know you didn’t send it, I’ve been with you the whole time.”
“Who sent it then?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s pretty weird.”
“I know.”
“I’ve got passwords on my mail. No one can get into my mail. I’m more anal about data protection than you are about your car.”
“I’m not anal about my car.”
“Sorry, did I say that out loud?”