Frances smiled and nodded, looking Juliet in the eyes the whole time as she said, “The refuge? Oh yeah, there are some good people there, but they’re a little protective. If you’re friends with one of the women staying there, and she confirms it, they’ll let you in. I mean, they’d probably let you in regardless, so long as you follow their rules. They’ve taken the anti-corp, anti-net stance around here to the extreme.”
Juliet followed as Frances guided her to a particular section of the beer aisle, asking, “Anti-net? I know about the anti-corp sentiment around the protectorate and believe me, I can get on board, but what’s the deal with the net?”
“Well, I won’t give you a history lesson—you know about the AI war. Much later, here in the protectorate, when the corps pushed back against our pro-individual laws, the only way we won, the only way we pushed them out, was by enlisting some competing corporations in the war; they took out most of Cybergen’s sats and people around here have been resistant to go back to having everything online again.”
“When you say Cybergen, you’re not talking the same . . .” Juliet knew the answer, but her feigned ignorance played well, keeping the woman talking.
Frances chuckled and shook her head, picking up where Juliet paused, “As in the big war? Yeah, same company, but only a neutered fragment of it. When the coalition split ‘em up and executed or imprisoned most of the suits, we got stuck with the piece that was left with the old name. Guess we got stuck with a lot of the bad apples that fell through the cracks, too. Only took ‘em thirty years or so to start acting up.”
Juliet nodded, reached out for a bottle of beer with a colorful sunflower label, and looked it over. “They’re gone now, though, right?”
“Oh yes. Nearly ten years now, and things are looking up.” She looked at the dark brown bottle in Juliet’s hand and added, “Don’t let the sunflower fool you. That’s a stout.”
“Ah. Any good? One of my friends drinks dark beer.”
“I’m more of an amber ale girl, but my co-worker swears by it.”
Juliet nodded, picked up an empty cardboard six-pack container, and slipped the beer into one of the slots. “Is it okay to mix and match?”
“Yep! So, what’s your poison?” She gestured to the rows of beer.
“IPAs. Dunno why, but I like that bitter taste.”
“Oh, you aren’t alone. We’ve got a big section.” She started toward the far end of the refrigerated aisle, and Juliet followed, trying to think of a way to ask what she wanted to know.
“Um, you said the commune took the anti-net thing to the next level?”
“Oh, right! They don’t allow modern PAIs inside their fenced-off area. If you don’t want to take it out, they let you put an inhibiter into your data slot.”
“An inhibitor?”
“It’s like a hardware version of Grave’s watchdog, Juliet,” Angel supplied. “I wouldn’t worry about it; I’m sure I can fool one.”
At the same time, Frances said, “Yeah. I went up there once to shop in their craft store, and they made me wear one. It’s like a tiny drive you plug in. When you leave, you just unplug it and hand it to the security team at the gate. They were really nice about the whole thing. I guess all it does is disable your sat connection and turn off recording—protecting the women being sheltered there, I suppose.”
“They have a craft store?”
“Mmhmm. Here. If you like bitter, you’re going to love this one.” She handed Juliet a beer with a green-skinned monster with a bug-eyed, puckered expression. It was called Troll Face. “Funny name, but lots of locals buy it regularly.” Juliet chuckled and took the beer, slipping it in next to the stout she’d picked for Dora. Meanwhile, Frances kept talking, “Their shop was kind of neat—lots of hand-carved wooden things, some clothes, art, even a poetry book. Everything’s also listed on their online catalog, which is funny considering their stance on the net. They say it’s for a good cause—helping to fund relocation for the women and children sheltering there.”
“Kinda hard to make a living selling hand-made nick-nacks, I’d think.”
“Yeah, I suppose. They spend a lot of money in town, too, even stopping here twice a week to buy supplies.”
“Really?”
“Yep! They buy up a few thousand bits worth of staples every Monday and Thursday.”
“Guess they gotta keep all those mouths fed. There must be some kind of benefactor, though, right?”
“I’m sure! They probably get donations from all over the world; they really are doing good work up there. Are you worried about your friend?”
“Kind of. It’s been tough to get ahold of her.” The words came easy because they weren’t a lie.
“I’m sure she’s all right, hon.” Frances reached out to squeeze the back of Juliet’s arm, just above the elbow, and Juliet couldn’t help smiling at the older woman; she was trying to be kind to a stranger, and that was something you didn’t run into very often. “Come on now, you’re going to need more than two beers, right?”
Juliet laughed and nodded. Having learned what she needed, she allowed Frances to talk her into filling up three of the six-pack containers. Before she left, she’d loaded a cart with beer, the ingredients, according to Angel, to make homemade pizza, and a rhubarb pie to go with the cookies she’d picked out for Barns. She’d grabbed the pie from a display simply because she’d never had it before, and it sounded exotic. When she asked what rhubarb was, Angel displayed a picture of a long red stalk that reminded her a little of celery.
Having paid, she walked out toting a heavy cardboard box and saw Barns leaning against a building on the other side of the street, doing just what she’d suggested—smoking a cigarette. It was a gross habit, but when he and Hawkins did it, they reminded her of Mark back in Tucson and his weird, self-rolled cigarettes. She knew it wasn’t logical, but for some reason, she approved of it—something about giving the finger to corps and their vape cartridges full of mystery chemicals. “Of course, not smoking would be better . . .”
“Thinking about Mark again?” She and Angel had had the same conversation a few times when she’d caught Barns and Hawkins smoking.
“Yeah.” She raised her voice and waved at Barns. “Ready?”
He nodded, snuffing his cigarette out on the side of the building and tucking it into his pocket. Juliet walked to the SUV, and he met her there. “You were in there a while. Learn anything interesting?”
“Yeah. Either I gotta wait until Thursday to meet my contact, or I’m going to have to approach her at the . . . other location.” Juliet hated having to keep so many details to herself. She frowned and said as much, “I hate that I can’t just tell you the details.”
“Eh, I’m used to it. Oh, hell yes! Beer and cookies and pie!” He was rifling through the box Juliet had just sat in the back seat. “That guy you were wondering about rides a bike. Some kind of old road bike with a loud-ass muffler.”
“He act weird at all?”
“Just like he had someplace to be. You get into it with him?”
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“He was asking about my sword and set my nerves on edge.”
“Gave you the heebies, huh?” Barns chuckled, and she had a feeling that if he had normal eyes, he’d have winked at her.
“You’re all right, you know that, Barns? Seems like you behave a little better when Leo’s not around.” She felt a little bad saying it, especially with Leo being hurt, but the words just came out.
Barns, of course, called her on it, “Jeez, kick a guy while he’s down, why don’t ya?”
“Eh, he’s going to be fine.” Juliet climbed into the driver’s seat. “Besides, I’m the one who pulled his dumb ass outta that dollhouse.”
Barns grunted as he climbed in, reaching down to slide the seat back immediately. “Some kinda shrimp musta been sitting here last.”
“Oh, please!” Juliet laughed.
“Anyway, don’t beat up on the guy too much. He’s got a good heart, you know? He wouldn’t have been in that mess if he wasn’t trying to help that girl.”
“Belinda?” Juliet carefully maneuvered the SUV through the busy streets, following Angel’s directions on her AUI.
“That her name? I didn’t pay attention to that part. Them legs, though . . .”
“There he is!” Juliet laughed, slugging him in the shoulder as she turned toward the highway. Barns laughed and rubbed his arm; Juliet pulled the punch, but her cybernetic hand was heavy. His arms were bulbous with muscle, and the impact had made a satisfying thwack.
“Guess I deserved that. Anyway, yeah, Leo’s always picking up lost puppies, if you know what I mean.”
“Tanaka said something to that effect. Well, good for him.”
“Sure, good for him. Until it isn’t.” He shrugged and put his window down, letting the air whistle through his fingers. The wind coming in had a chill to it, and Juliet yearned for her jacket, which Barns had tossed into the back seat, but she didn’t want to complain; the breeze was too fresh, too invigorating, especially for someone who’d been breathing recycled air for months on end.
“A little chilly?” Barns’s cyborg eyes stared at her arm, and Juliet realized she’d broken out in goosebumps.
“Nothing worth giving up that fresh air for.”
“Show you a trick,” he grunted, leaning forward and jamming his thick fingers against the air conditioning buttons. A few seconds later, hot air blasted out of the floor vents, and he said, “Now put your window down!”
Juliet laughed and complied. The wind whooshed through the car, cool and fresh, stirring up the hot air from the vents. Juliet could almost believe the air coming in was a warm spring breeze if she didn't pay attention and let her mind wander. “Ridiculous!” she laughed again.
Barns just grinned and fished his half-smoked cigarette out of his pocket. He didn’t ask for permission, and Juliet didn’t care; the wind whipping through the SUV was plenty to ventilate the fumes, and besides, she had cybernetic lungs. He laid his seat back and commenced to smoke and look out the window, leaving Juliet to her thoughts.
“I’m detecting traces of THC additives in Pierce’s cigarette smoke,” Angel said after a couple of minutes.
“Not surprised,” Juliet subvocalized, grinning. “Hey, can you get ahold of Tanaka?”
A moment later, a call window appeared in her AUI, and Tanaka’s stoic, tattooed face appeared, “Lucky?”
“I need a little advice,” she subvocalized, letting Angel synthesize her voice.
“I’m here to help.”
“I checked out that co-op, and it might be a good place to run into Ghoul, but it’ll be a few days until she stops by there again. You think I should wait, or just head up to the commune? They put inhibitors on visitor’s PAIs, but I’m pretty sure I can bypass it.”
“If you ensure you aren’t followed and hide your face from cameras and sats, I think you should be safe to visit the commune. Nobody should have any idea that you’re coming. Still, if you feel safer waiting, a few more days isn’t going to make much of a difference.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll sleep on it. If I head up there, I’ll let you know.”
“Something else bothering you?” Juliet wondered if he knew her that well or if she had a tell she didn’t know about.
“Well, that thing you told me about kind of happened. A guy asked about my sword.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re still alive. Is he?”
“He started to back off when I showed him the tattoos, but he made a comment, ‘watch your back,’ which I took as a threat, so I drew my blade and held it to his neck.” Juliet sighed and rubbed her head, glancing at Barns, but he seemed totally out of it, so she stopped subvocalizing; this stuff wasn’t a secret, and she wanted to speak naturally. “I told him it wouldn't be good for him if we ran into each other again. You think I went too far? Not far enough?”
“In my youth, I would have killed him. I’m not sure how I’d behave now, but I don’t see anything wrong with how you acted. If he’s cowardly, he may try to ambush you, if for no other reason than to steal your sword. On the other hand, he may have honor and be unable to live with himself for fleeing without testing you. Either way, stay alert.”
Juliet snorted, “As if I wasn’t already. Speaking of which, our exit is coming up. I better pay attention and make sure we don’t get tailed or anything.”
“Hai. Stay safe.” The vid window snapped closed, and Juliet leaned back in the seat, decelerating as she let the SUV coast down the offramp.
“Probably good you didn’t slice that guy in half in the middle of the market,” Barns said. “Who was that? The boss?”
“Yeah. Well, thanks; I was thinking the same thing. This whole sword subculture is hard for me to wrap my head around. People don’t go around challenging each other to gunfights for no reason, you know?”
“Oh, I know. I’ve seen the boss take down a challenger before. It was fucken’ gnarly.”
Juliet glanced at him again, eyebrow cocked. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Middle of the damn spaceport on New Atlas. Some guy, probably about ten or twenty years older than the boss, wearing one of those reflex suits. You seen one?”
“Reflex suit?”
“Yeah, they’re like skin-tight coveralls wired up to boost a person’s speed. Like an external wire-job. Expensive as hell, a pain in the ass to put on and take off, but I guess some of the old-timers are worried about frying their nerves with a job like you got.”
“You’ve got no idea what kinda job I’ve got, buster,” Juliet chuckled.
“Anyway, we’re walking through the port, just finished a job on a cruiseliner, and this old guy stops in his tracks about twenty meters in front of us. He’s wearing the suit, has a sword on his hip, and has one of those fancy robotic steamer trunks trundling along behind him.” He paused, and Juliet smiled, admiring how he was setting the scene. “Boss sees him stop, and he freezes, his hand on his sword. Me and the others, we’re all walking along, laughing and joking it up and make it halfway to the other guy before we even notice the boss stopped. When we caught on, all it took was a look at his face to know he was about to throw down, so we sort of split up, putting the two between us.”
“What was going through your head?” Juliet could picture Tanaka and this stranger staring each other down, the mercenaries caught between them, no idea what was going on.
“I was thinking the boss must owe this old man some money, you know? I figured they’d start talking shit, and maybe the other guy would threaten him, but then we’d be on our way. You know, until Tanaka sent us to melt the old guy’s house into slag. So, I put my hand on one of my pistols and watched ‘em, just like Leo and the others were doing.”
“Did Tanaka show him his tattoo? The one on his forearm like mine?”
“Oh yeah. I didn’t catch it, but Leo pointed it out later when we were all sitting around watching it in slow motion . . .”
“You have a vid?” Juliet was so excited by the idea that she almost swerved onto the shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll show you later. Listen to the story!” Barns chuckled, then started again, “Boss deliberately pushes up his right sleeve like he wants his sword arm free, you know? That’s what I would’ve thought if Leo didn’t tell me about the tat later. In the replay, the one we stitched together, Dora saw the other guy do the same thing. Neither of the bastards said a word, but they both started walking, moving close, and then, before any of us even knew something was up, they both had their damn monoblades out.”
“The other guy had one too?”
“Oh, yeah! His had yellow and black sparks projected where the blade is, you know, like yours has those red lines.”
“Was Tanaka using this one?”
“Yep. Only one I ever saw him use until recently. Not sure where he gets ‘em, by the way—”
“Tell me what happened!”
Barns laughed and began fidgeting with the cargo pocket on the side of his fatigues until he pulled out another fat, self-rolled cigarette. “You mind?”
“You know I don’t care!” Juliet growled, punching him in the thigh. “Tell the story!”
He continued to chuckle as he took far too long to spark up his drug-laced cigarette. When he’d taken a deep drag, he finally started again, “Okay, so, they both have their swords out, the people in the port are gasping and running this way and that, calling for security. Me and the boys spread out, guns ready, not really knowing what the fuck is going on, even then. Tanaka barks two words, ‘Stay back!’ Then, they start moving, and I mean moving. I gotta admit, if it weren’t for my optics, I would’ve lost track of the whole thing, but these babies don’t miss much.” He tapped one of the big, plasteel-encased lenses jutting out of his left eye socket.
“Okay, so? What did your fancy optics see?”
“It was the weirdest damn sword fight you can imagine. It looked more like a dance than a fight. I guess, with monoblades, you aren’t supposed to parry or anything, right?”
“Yeah, not unless you wanna have your sword cut in half.”
He took another drag, nodding. “Makes sense. So, they danced around, each making about ten half-swings but pulling back when they realized they weren’t going to strike a deathblow or, maybe, when they realized the other guy might hit them too. It was fucking fast, too! The whole thing took maybe ten seconds, then, snick-snack, the other guy’s sword arm fell to the plasteel, blood started spurting from the stump, and Tanaka relieved him of his head.”
“Then what?” Juliet realized she’d been holding her breath, vividly picturing the scene as Barns spun his tale.
“Tanaka bowed to the body, bent down, and picked up the sword . . .” He stopped talking, turned to her, and his eyebrows shot up. “Holy shit! That’s where he gets ‘em!”
Juliet laughed, shaking her head at the goofy mercenary. “Well, what happened when the port security showed up?”
“Nothing, believe it or not. I guess nobody filed any charges, and the boss has connections on New Atlas, so they filed it away as self-defense. Guess that’s the way those duels go. No harm, no foul.” He shrugged and took another drag. When he finished, he held the cigarette out to Juliet, and she almost took it but shook her head. “Looks too good, Barns. I don’t wanna get hooked.”
“Yeah, I could see you turning into a nic fiend. I mean, this is more than nicotine, though, so maybe—”
“No, no. I’m good. I’ll be happy with my beer. We’re almost back.” She gestured ahead, out the windscreen, to where the gravel road slipped into the dark canopy of the pines surrounding their rental property.
As she drove up the last mile or so, she thought about the story of Tanaka’s duel. Part of her found it thrilling, while another shivered at the idea. The dance, as Barns described it, of two monoblade wielders was a serious, high-stakes business where a thousand decisions were made in split-seconds, almost always resulting in one of the duelist’s deaths.
Could Tanaka have let the older challenger live? Was he cruel to kill him or just practical, not wanting to look over his shoulder for a rematch? Or, she wondered, was it some kind of honor code among the old fundamentalists? Would he have shamed the man if he let him live? She hoped she’d never have to test herself that way, but even as she finished the thought, a tiny part of herself balked. A tiny part of her wanted the challenge and wanted to prove she had what it took to win.