They surveyed a few nearby dumpsters to see if any were the one they were looking for, then quickly determined that none matched the vague description they had been given. In fact, most of the buildings and dumpsters in the immediate vicinity did not match the description they had been given, so they were left to walk through the district, occasionally glancing at brick buildings and dirty streets to see if their surroundings were starting to look like where they were supposed to be.

  As they walked, X-Prime talked, because, as Cayman had noticed, his feet and mouth seemed to be directly connected.

  “Do you want to play Who’s On Top?” he asked brightly, almost skipping as his feet skidded on the dusty streets.

  “No,” said Cayman.

  “Come on!”

  “No.”

  “You never want to play!”

  “That’s because it’s stupid!”

  “No it isn’t!” X-Prime said. “It’s information. A long time ago, you told me that was the most precious thing we had. So how can it be bad?”

  “Because it’s not information! It’s just guessing!”

  “But we could guess our way to the truth!”

  Cayman scowled. “How would you know when you get there, though?”

  X-Prime tapped his stomach. “You feel it. You feel it right here, when you get it right.”

  “Bullshit,” Cayman said.

  “Okay, maybe you don’t feel it, but that’s not my problem. I do. So I’m going to figure this out, and you can help as little or as much as you want.”

  “Thanks,” said Cayman. He turned a corner and felt a faint breeze that was welcome on his sweat-damp skin. Then it faded and was gone.

  “Okay. So it’s someone with cash, because Halim could afford to bring us out. We may be pretty much acting like couriers, but the job’s being treated as more than that. So we know that.”

  Cayman studiously refused to reply.

  “And there’s more than just money. If they’re bringing us in instead of using somebody local, it’s because they think it’s not a bad idea to have some people in the group without local entanglements.”

  “Then why not make the group all outsiders?” Cayman said, then immediately hated himself for contributing to the conversation.

  “Good question!” X-Prime said. “That’s the spirit! I don’t know—maybe it’s that all conflicts aren’t created equal—some they want to avoid, some they’re willing to embrace.”

  “Why would they embrace local conflicts?”

  “Ah, they’re always good for something,” X-Prime said. He looked one way and then another, back and forth rapidly, the way he did when he was excited or happy or both. “Tensions exist to be exploited.”

  “How?”

  “Hell if I know. Can’t say I’m up on all the local politics and stuff. I’m still learning the names of the tribes. But they don’t seem to like each other much, do they?”

  “Of course not,” Cayman snorted. “Any time you’ve got people divided into groups, one group always find reasons to not like another group.”

  “The question is, what tribe are the people in our group from? Maybe that’s why they were chosen.”

  “Halim’s Igbo. I think he said Akuchi’s Igbo, too. Don’t know about the rest.”

  “Maybe they’re all Igbo?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe whoever’s on top here figured an all-Igbo team would be the best, Most likely to be loyal, right?”

  “So you think whoever hired us is Igbo?”

  “Could be,” X-Prime said. “Makes sense.”

  “Then why bring us in? Igbo got no faces?”

  “Good point. Maybe it’s organized crime, then. Maybe these other four are all known mobsters or gangers or whatever, and everyone else in the city knows this and refused to work with them, so they had to bring us in.”

  “What kind of mobster lets everyone in the city know what they do for a living? And what kind of runner flat-out refuses to work with mobsters?”

  “See, this is why you should play this more often,” X-Prime said. “You always ask about things I forget.”

  “Being smarter than you is not much of an accomplishment,” Cayman muttered.

  “Pardon?” X-Prime said.

  “Nothing,” Cayman said in a normal voice. “So, it could be mobsters. Hell, let’s say it is. We’re working for mobsters. Does that work for you?”

  X-Prime frowned and stood still for a moment. “Nope,” he finally said. “The gut’s not telling me this is right. Have to move on to another theory.”

  “Oh good,” Cayman said, carefully scrubbing his voice of any inflection.

  “Corps have enough money to pay for whatever it is we’re doing. And we all know what corps use out-of-towners for.”

  “Deniable assets,” Cayman said. “Out-of-towners either die or go home. Either way, they don’t spread stories around.”

  “And we’re heading for Lagos Island, which is corp central.”

  “Not just corps. Anyone with money is there. Just because we’re going there doesn’t mean it’s a corp.”

  “That’s a point. But who else is there?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Cayman said. “This is your game, not mine.”

  “You’re no help at all. All right, well, let’s be radical. Let’s say they brought in outsiders because they’re dealing with some shit that’s scary or secret or both. Who deals in shit like that?”

  “Everyone,” Cayman said.

  “You know, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s not a tribe hiring us. I mean, if you’re doing tribal work, you’d keep it in the tribe, right? You get more loyalty from your runners then, anyway. Tribal pride and all. So I’ll bet it’s something else. And if we want a scary or secret something else…” He stopped.

  Cayman almost stopped too, but then remembered he didn’t want to spend any more time in the smelly alleys behind abandoned warehouses than he had to, so he kept walking and waited for X-Prime to catch up.

  There was a quick scuff of footsteps, and then X-Prime was next to him again.

  “Do you know who it is?”

  Cayman didn’t say anything.

  “Do you want to know? I can tell you. I can tell you who hired us.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Don’t you want to hear it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  And he lost it. He knew the boy didn’t deserve it, but he had a long habit of blowing up at X-Prime whenever he felt like it, and it was not a habit he was of a mind to change.

  “Because it’s a silly game!” he said, yelling so loud that dust on the ground a meter in front of him stirred into small eddies. “Because it’s a lot of talk at the kind of thing that gets people killed!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What you’re saying, all this stuff, it isn’t real, but it gets out, and people think it is, and they act on it, not because it’s true or anything, but because it feels right. It feels right down here.” He mimicked X-Prime’s tap to the stomach. “And so you spout nonsense, and then other people spout it, and it hits the wrong ears, ears belonging to people who don’t know if it’s true or not but don’t care, because if they’re tied to the wrong info it’s bad. So they don’t bother with verification, they kill, all because you talk too goddamned much!”

  X-Prime didn’t respond for a time. They walked quietly for a while, and Cayman listened to the dust flying past his ears and his feet scraping on the ground. He looked straight ahead, and he did not glance once toward X-Prime.

  Finally, X-Prime spoke.

  “Man, you really don’t like this game.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Right, but you still think the idiotic things I might talk about to keep myself entertained are enough to get someone killed. I don’t know if I should be flattered because you think what I say is so influential, or worried because you think the world is dumb enough to be so easily manipulated.”

  “The second one,” Cayman said.

  “Well, you’re wrong. It’s like in the old days, back when the Matrix was new.”

  “How would you know anything about those days?”

  “I read stuff. There were people who thought the Matrix would make it easier to find the truth, because information would be out there, and people would be able to find whatever it was they might be looking for. But there were others who said the signal-to-noise ratio would be so low that things would be more confusing than ever—there’d be all sorts of crap out there, all disguised as something real, and most people would have no idea how to tell shit from gold. Those people in the second group were right.”

  Cayman didn’t say anything.

  “So if I add a little noise to the world, don’t worry about it. Just a little more confusion out there to throw people off.”

  “Fine,” Cayman said. “You can talk all you want. Just don’t expect me to listen.”

  X-Prime grinned. “Same as always, then.”

  They kept walking for a while. X-Prime opened up his mouth two or three times like he was about to say something, then he closed it. Cayman didn’t ask what he wanted to say.

  Finally, X-Prime said it.

  “The new queen of Asamondo. You never asked, but I think it’s her. She’s the one who hired us.”

  “Now I’m sure you’re an idiot. Why would you say that?”

  “You bring in outsiders when you can’t find anyone local to work with. The queen was lucky enough to find four people here willing to hang with the ghouls, but not six. So we were imported.”

  “You’ve got no evidence.”

  “No, but it’s what I believe.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s cool!”

  “That’s a reason?”

  X-Prime smiled. “Best reason I’ve got,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  On a run, you cannot help but picture how you think things will go. Positive visualization, people call it, the practice where you picture yourself succeeding, so that when you actually do succeed, you’re not so surprised. In reality, though, you are lucky if you have two, maybe three moments that exactly match what you had pictured. The rest is all about gaps between ideal and reality, and the improvisations runners use to fill in those gaps.

  There have been plenty of gaps for Halim, Cayman, and the others on this run, but now that they have cleared the Tamanous skaters and are moving south, everything is just as Cayman pictured it what they first started on the bridge. Of course, this is tainted by the regrettable fact that had the mission lived up to its original design, they never would have been on the bridge in the first place, but still, the point is that Cayman had an idea of what travel across the bridge should be like, and for the first time their actual travel was somewhat close to this picture.

  And the better thing for him was that the mission in reality was finally catching up to where the mission in planning was going to be. There had been a plan, a plan that existed only a couple hours ago, but to Cayman feels like days or perhaps weeks, and that plan involved taking a boat to a point just ahead, docking it, and then entering Lagos Island through the security checkpoint that was now just ahead of them. A few more steps, and they would be where they were supposed to be, albeit a few hours later. But they had all the packages, they seemed to be intact, and no one had suffered any ill effects that a night’s rest could not cure. There are mishaps on a run, but if you manage to work around them and get yourselves to the point at which Halim and Cayman and the others now found themselves, then you have done well for yourself, abi?

  The checkpoint, it was not expected to be any sort of problem for the team, since if someone is demanding that you meet them on Lagos Island, then it is only appropriate and fitting that they provide a way for you to meet them there. So the runners had been provided with the necessary IDs and clearances, and Cayman was firm in his belief that they would walk through security, have those clearances scanned, and not have to hesitate. And then they would be on the Island, and it may be the case that the streets of Lagos Island are not paved with gold, but they are, in fact, paved, which gives an immediate veneer of civilization superior to anything the runners have experienced in the past few days, and that veneer is accompanied by security forces and money and all those things that often make runners nervous except for those times when they have the appropriate clearances, and then those things, the people in uniform and the omnipresent cameras and the men and women in unstained suits, they are reassuring rather than threatening.

  Cayman wasn’t looking forward to being on the Island, as having things around him that are reassuring tended to make him nervous.

  The towers ahead are beautiful. Tall and shiny, sparkling, looking like new, even if they are a decade or two or more older. They have a look that is different from the rest of the sprawl, and it is different for the simple reason that the buildings here are regularly cleaned. The red dust that is everywhere in the sprawl is on the Island, too, and you can find it in the cracks and crevices, but it is removed from there far faster than from most locations, since at most locations it is never removed at all.

  The security point ahead is not beautiful, because such things were never meant to be appealing. It is a series of open gateways, a few big enough for a vehicle, most for pedestrians since that is who will be coming here along the bridge. A few people are here, but most people are not, because those who travel the bridge are not the same as those who travel the Island, plus the fire on the mainland has made the Islanders even more nervous than usual, so access to the Island has been even more restricted than normal.

  The gate has visible guards with guns purchased for the central purpose of looking threatening, and then there are unseen things that are even more deadly, because security everywhere is nothing more than an ongoing game of poker where most players are very careful to hide their strength. By now someone has seen Agbele Oku’s aura, knows she is glowing with power and with righteous anger, and they are prepared in case any of that anger is directed at them.

  But it will not be, Cayman believes, because they have the clearances, and it is in the best interests of the person who hired them that the clearances work. He does not know if the others share his confidence on this issue, but they seem to be keeping up with him and walking with the same confidence he has, confidence with a touch of weariness. No one has weapons drawn. It should be easy.

  But then the voice of Groovetooth stops him.

  “They are looking for us.”

  They all turn, and Cayman is the first to speak. “What?”

  “There’s been a notification going around. They’re looking for us. They have our names.”

  “So what?” Halim says. “We’re not giving them our names. We’re giving them what we got on the IDs Mr. Johnson gave us.”

  “Those are the names they’re looking for,” Groovetooth says. “Well, one name.” She looks at Akuchi. “Yours.”

  Akuchi shrugs. “Okay.”

  “Cover him up,” Cayman says. “Make him invisible as we go through. We walk through in a group, they won’t compare IDs to heads, he’ll pass through fine.”

  “That’s a risk,” Halim says. “One we don’t really need to take. We have no vehicle on the Island. We don’t really need him there. He can meet us later.”

  “After the rest of you have been paid?” Akuchi says. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

  “They have your account information,” Cayman says. “You were paid once, they know how to pay you again. You don’t need to be there.”

  “And you’ll tell them why I’m not there? That I deserve a full payment?” There is a brief pause. “You won’t say I took off, or am dead, or did something so that my payment shouldn’t go to me?”

  Agbele Oku speaks first. “Of course not!” she says, and her words are immediately echoed by the others.

  “Yeah, yeah, very reassuring,” Akuchi says. “You know what? I’m going through the gate.”

  “I can’t guarantee that I’ll have you covered,” Groovetooth says.

  “No such thing as a guarantee anyway,” Akuchi says. “I’m walking through, and what happens, happens.”

  “Since when did you get suicidal?” Cayman says.

  “Since never. Look, Agbele Oku can do her thing, Groovetooth can do her thing, and between the two of them I’m sure they’ll do enough to get me through.”

  The others, of course, nod so that they show their faith in Groovetooth and Agbele Oku, though all of them, including Groovetooth and Agbele Oku, feel a twinge of doubt that they do not feel it would be right to express in this time. But Akuchi is leading the way, and in some ways he is the most defenseless of all of them, since most of his vehicles and drones are elsewhere, and the runners, especially Halim and Cayman, will not be shamed by a rigger going where they are not willing to walk.

  They do not, of course, draw weapons, because they are not amateurs, and they know there is no better way to look suspicious than to walk somewhere looking like you might have to kill someone, or like someone might want to kill you.

  They walk through the gate, and nothing happens, but then most of them would not notice if anything happened because if it did happen it would not happen to them. There might be astral flares, there might be alarms blinking in the AR displays of the people who are supposed to be alarmed, but those are things that for the most part would stay safely out of sight.

  Groovetooth has agents everywhere, and it feels good to have them, to be surrounded by electronic life and to be sending her programs and tools out into the world to be active. They will tell her if they see anything of note, but she has not heard anything from them yet.

  And Agbele Oku is assensing, waiting for a spell to flare up from any direction, or for the aura of someone, anyone nearby to spike with anger, panic, or just adrenaline, but while some guards look borderline psychotic and others look like they crossed that border long ago and have misplaced the directions detailing the way back.

  And they are through. They are past the checkpoint and on Lagos Island, where everything is bright and shiny, and you can decrease the percentage of people who would be willing to kill you with little provocation to three percent, down from approximately twenty.

 

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