Mindjammer

Mindjammer

First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.

This edition published in 2016 by Mindjammer Press Ltd,

35 Altham Grove, Harlow, Essex CM20 2PQ, United Kingdom.

www.mindjammerpress.com

[email protected]

ISBN: 978-0-9574779-0-2

Copyright © Sarah Newton 2012, 2014, 2016

Cover Art by Paul Bourne

The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has

been asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any

form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,

recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the

copyright owners.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the

British Library.

Designed & typeset by Rebellion Publishing

To my husband, Chris,

with whom I already merge

in the Mindscape.

From a distance it was beautiful. In the middle of the stark gunmetal cityscape it blossomed orange like a flower. A brief, brilliant flash against the ruined monochrome wasteland, momentarily too bright to look at, then fading again, leaving the shattered building like a jagged hand as the debris cloud mushroomed around it. All in perfect silence; but looking closely you could make out tiny dust motes of bodies plummeting hundreds of storeys to their deaths.

From the flash ballooned a vibrant crimson glow, a shell of light which partially vaporised the building’s plassteel sides and liquefied its supports, and the entire edifice began to collapse free-fall into its own footprint. The blaster bolts which had been arcing between the ground and its upper storeys trailed away, replaced by explosions of fire as two million tonnes of complex polymer swept in a pyroclastic flow through the ramshackle streets of the Solenine undercity.

Incoming! Jackson Stark’s face was a stop-motion picture of adrenalised coordination; mouth yelling alarm, eyes panning the rubble-strewn concourse, virtual vision scrolling vectors and exit windows in ghostly orange and blue plasma. He hurled himself horizontal, disintegrator rifle clutched in his hand. Then the pressure wave hit, sending him tumbling. Thaddeus Clay threw himself upwards, tackling him mid-air, crashing them both to the sharp ripping ground as the backs of their heads were scoured by a four-hundred-klick hurricane. Their force armour flickered and flared its coppery glow, zip cells straining in an audible whine.

Stark lay on his back, staring at the pale green sky through shreds of dispersing smoke, as though struggling to remember. Clay lay on his chest, looking directly into his face. So close he could feel his hot wet breath, his heart pumping through the p-suit vest.

It had been a routine surveillance. Unauthorised, of course. The moment the Mindscape had rippled with traces of unrest on the outskirts of Sol City, Thaddeus Clay and Jackson Stark had cloaked up and vanished from the Corporacy’s oppressive but slipshod gaze. This sort of thing they’d never have seen if they’d remained above radar like their Corporacy watchdogs had requested.

Thaddeus Clay’s biomed array confirmed he was uninjured, and he rolled to one side and focussed on the site of the attack. While it was still fresh, he thoughtcast the memory up to the Mindscape: the visuals, audio, even the sense of shock and fright as the building began to fall.

"What was it the report said? Traces of social tension and unrest? I’d say that counts, wouldn’t you?"

Yes, sir. Stark’s enhanced frame lifted him lightly to his feet, the repulsors shocking the debris off him in a halo of dust which drifted slowly to the ground. I’d say we’ve got more than enough to kick some Corporacy ass.

Clay stormed through the doors of Solenine Security, flashing his identity codes angrily at anyone who challenged him. Stark followed, jaw set grim and eyes fixed ahead, active sensors rippling around him. The assembled security mechanicals withdrew uncertainly like corn falling to a scythe.

Sirens sounded everywhere. Sirs and Agents, I must ask you to desist. A hefty organic—mostly human, but bristling with security enhancements—raised a hand the size of a dinner plate before them. Clay shot him a glance which overrode his defence routines and sent him staggering back. Sirs! Alert...!

The security station was in uproar. At the far side a defence detail snapped smartly to attention, and everywhere lambent green lenses turned violent red as a myriad unseen protocols jumped to readiness. The air crackled with repulsors and active sensor beams.

The Solenine intendant strode through the mayhem. His tall, thin silhouette swayed between the pods and c-stations, his height accentuated by the featureless grey-white smock the Corporacy middle ranks wore. He was speaking long before he came into earshot: ...must protest at this outrageous behaviour! This was a classified mission with a high risk factor. We have enough of a problem with social unrest without your precipitate action jeopardising—We will of course protest in the strongest possible fashion—

Clay’s voice rose to a shout, his p-suit issuing sub-audio harmonics which sent the fainter of the intendant’s retinue quailing. Protest all you like! What the hell are you people playing at, Schau-Sel-An? What kind of ordnance was that?

The intendant came to a halt mere metres from Clay. The remainder of his retinue fanned out behind him, a timid audience of spies and backstabbers who eyed Clay and Stark with barely-concealed loathing.

Schau-Sel-An stared at Clay, his chest heaving. When he spoke, his voice was tight as a wire. "They were standard Pacifier-class assault synthetics, Doctor Clay, nothing more. Armed with twin gravity cannon, modified from a model provided by your Commonality—"

Clay interrupted. Gravity cannon? You put gravity cannon on ground assault robots? Those things aren’t even cleared for atmospheric use! The casualties must have been—

Avoiding casualties was not our priority, Doctor Clay. We had a real and present threat to neutralise...

"Those people were protesting...!"

...a real and present threat, and the mission was accomplished with no losses on our side...

Clay spat out an exasperated laugh of disbelief. Stark bristled behind him, huge fists clenching and unclenching. I should say not... you used heavy starship weaponry against unarmed civilians. The collateral damage alone... He cast the intendant the exomemory of the vast plume of cloud and debris which shrouded the collapsing building.

Schau-Sel-An ignored it. The collateral damage was acceptable. I realise you do not approve of our methods, Doctor Clay, but you must understand: these are extraordinary times, and extraordinary measures are sometimes called for. Security is paramount.

Clay turned and looked at Stark. The monitors would detect no thoughtcast traffic between them, but none was needed: a Death Squad needed no further embellishment. Intendant Schau-Sel-An’s gaze flicked from one to the other, his expression impassive.

May I remind you you are here purely as observers, Doctor Clay. The Commonality has given us free rein with how we deal with the Unjoiners. You were in a restricted zone without authorisation; anything could have happened. You were very lucky you weren’t killed. Collateral damage is often high when we encounter resistance like this.

Thaddeus Clay’s biomed array dialled a mild sedative, and his heart rate reduced immediately. The pounding in his head and the tendency towards irrational, rage-filled tunnel vision subsided as nano-scrubbers eradicated the adrenalin from his system. As the hive of activity that was Sol City Security Station clicked and gibbered around him, his perceptions sharpened, his sense of time slowed, and his exomemory analysed and catalogued the experience out in the undercity.

Year 194, day 47—fifteen days ago—four juveniles sanitised while engaged in terrorist operations against a food distribution centre. Year 194, day 50—twelve days ago—thirty-seven terrorist activists sanitised while rioting outside a security station. Year 194, day 52—ten days ago—a single man sanitised after attacking a security services representative in broad daylight. Subject was subsequently revealed to be unarmed, and the unlicensed parental unit of one of the thirty-seven activists. Clay cursed: his son had been thirteen...

It was happening everywhere, as bad as any Clay had seen: the systematic murder of an oppressed and rioting underclass. Small wonder the Gentility headquarters sentience had flagged this world as a culture conflict hotspot: SCI Force would have its work cut out stopping this place going straight to hell.

An alarm pinged in his sensor array. He shot a scan at Stark, eyes widening as his virtual vision flashed yellow and orange at raised adrenalin and cortisol levels, pulse rate, alpha wave emissions. He saw Stark’s pupils dilate, start to tremble.

Clay blinked out of the Mindscape and looked directly at the Solenine intendant. Very well, Schau-Sel-An. You have my formal apology for complicating your mission. Rest assured it won’t happen again—we will take much more care in future. Much more care. I hope I make myself clear.

Schau-Sel-An said nothing as Clay and Stark stepped into the grav lift. As they vanished out of view, the servos in Stark’s power armour fading into inaudibility, the intendant turned to one of the opaque lenses mounted in the wall.

—Patron, I would recommend we follow them, he thoughtcast. Especially the killer. SCI Force never leaves a job that easily.

SCI Force never did. In fact, major conflagrations, collapsing buildings, and furious local administrators were usually all reliable signs that a SCI Force job was successfully underway. Out of context, the mandate of the Security and Cultural Integrity Instrumentality sounded bookish and positively benign: to ensure, by any means necessary, the cultural stability of the New Commonality of Humankind and its member worlds, and to assist newly-welcomed cultures to integrate themselves with minimal disruption. It was the coy ‘by any means necessary’ which meant the work place was less a venue for sophisticated diplomatic soirees and more one where aggressive deployment of body armour and disintegrator rifles was often the order of the day.

SCI Force was two centuries old, and Thaddeus Clay remembered all of it. After the unexpected discovery of planing—faster-than-light travel through the strange dimensions of 2-space—and the beginning of the rediscovery of its numberless lost colonies, Old Earth had seemed poised on the brink of a golden age.

They had been exciting days. For millennia, Old Earth had seeded the stars in vast, slower-than-light colony ships, their crews frozen in stasis fields; most had never been heard from again, and those that did attempt to communicate often took centuries just to send a single signal home, making any meaningful contact or commonality of civilisation impossible. Only in the Core Worlds, those habitable star systems within fifty or so light years of Old Earth, did interstellar civilisation develop. But for thousands of years the Commonality of Old Earth was an introverted, small-minded affair, obsessed with minutiae and stagnating as the changeless millennia passed.

The discovery of faster-than-light travel changed everything. Suddenly distances which would have taken centuries to cross could now be travelled in weeks, and with the exploration of the galaxy a new excitement and optimism infused humankind. Starships spread out from Old Earth to contact the thousands of lost colonies and welcome them with open arms back into the bosom of humankind.

They had been horribly naive in those early years. Many of the colonies they found had lost all memory of Old Earth, and viewed the bright-eyed crusaders as invaders from the sky. And even if they did remember, thousands of years of cultural divergence meant the worlds they encountered were alien and twisted beyond recognition: divergent evolution and genurgic engineering meant some of their populations were no longer even human.

The result was chaos. Anger, confusion, and disillusionment from the Commonality, when its best intentions were thrown back in its face; fear, violence, and resistance from the colonies, in the face of this irresistibly dynamic civilisation. SCI Force was the child of that conflict: an instrumentality of the New Commonality’s fledgling interstellar government, which would manage the Rediscovery of a lost Old Earth colony and its integration into the expanding Commonality. With SCI Force, the process might take decades, even centuries; but it could shield a Rediscovered world from the cultural destruction which contact with the overwhelming Commonality often entailed. SCI Force prevented conflict; it prevented war. It preserved cultures, and safeguarded the frontiers of the Commonality from unwanted cultural contamination.

Or at least that was the theory.

Are you all right, Agent?

Jackson Stark had stopped just outside the grav lift, and stood by one of the viewports, looking out over the teeming city. His knuckles gripping the handrail were white.

Thaddeus Clay waited for Stark’s thoughtcasts, a sense of the frustration, even the fear, that he felt. But there was nothing; Stark hid his thoughts and emotions behind a perception blind, his eyes flicking from side to side, as if searching for something within. I don’t know, he said, guardedly, as though to himself. I remember... snatches... just images. None of it joins up... None of it makes sense.

Clay observed him closely, forcing down the memories of their recent encounter, concentrating his attention here and now. He could almost hear Stark’s heart pounding, see the sheen of fear on his skin. Something not even a perception blind could hide.

What triggered it this time?

Stark shook his head. I have no idea. I don’t think it was any one thing... The intendant was making me angry... his callous disregard for— He broke off. But no. That wasn’t it...

He turned and faced Clay, helpless. I don’t know, Doctor. It’s happening more and more. The conditioning’s breaking down, isn’t it?

Thaddeus Clay nodded. The block. It’s the block that’s breaking down. Your conditioning is a whole collection of responses, all jostling for dominance. But the block—the thing that stops you remembering who you were, what they did to you... He forced some energy, some lightness into his voice. Well, at least it means we’re making progress, if nothing else. Mm? He smiled.

Stark was unconvinced. Are you prepared for this, Doctor? For who I might turn into when I finally remember? Stark stared at Clay, his eyes dark and intent, his thoughts still masked.

Memories rose unbidden to Clay’s mind, visions of shouting and gunfire, flashing lights, pain and tears. And finally death. Not this time, he thought, grimly.

Yes, he nodded, looking away. I’m ready.

There was a hole in Stark’s mind. Not even the Mindscape held a record of his memories. At the highest security clearance Thaddeus Clay could muster, for a two year period from 191 to 193 EE (Expansionary Era), Stark had made no thoughtcasts, uploaded no memories to the Mindscape, did not even register in the residency records of the thousands of worlds on the Rim. It was as though, for two years, he had ceased to exist.

There were people who could do that, of course. There were agencies in the Commonality with enough clout to close off whole areas of the Mindscape, manipulate its form and content in ways that were supposed to be impossible. Hell, he belonged to one of those agencies himself—the Security and Cultural Integrity Instrumentality was expert at these kinds of shadowy dealings. But SCI Force had no idea what had happened to Jackson Stark. And if SCI Force couldn’t find out...

The High Reach domiciliary was one of the many tessellated spires which surrounded the Solenius Arcology like a forest of gleaming crystal. Especially at night, when the bright cityscape shimmered and coruscated with d-beams and arch-lights, the delicate tracery of hyper-intelligence which bound the four worlds of the Solenine Cluster and the Commonality together, it was possible to forget the grey and barren bedrock and lifeless dustbowls covering most of Solenius’ non-urbanised surface, the legacy of centuries of rapacious industrialisation.

They’d left their planeship in high orbit, assigned quarters by the Corporacy on the fortieth floor. Their quaint, unsophisticated apartment looked out towards the concourses of the central arcology, glowing golden in its antique protective cocoon; many offworlders stayed here, and those from the more alien of the Cluster’s other worlds—an exhibition of the Commonality’s cultures and lifestyles, in all their divergence from the Solenine Corporate norm. There were aquatic habitats for visitors from Belomor, the Cluster’s waterworld; hive dwellings for the green-skinned Solenine from agricultural Amphalas; even apartments for biological families from beyond the Cluster’s borders. The Corporacy aggressively discouraged its own members from engaging in unrestricted sexual reproduction, preferring instead a rigorously structured in vitro programme; but, to curry the Commonality’s favour, it seemed it was willing to tolerate any obscenity, however atavistic.

The arrival of Thaddeus Clay and Jackson Stark was registered by a myriad of sensor suites, including a few approaching Commonality sophistication. Their life signs and monitor bands were traced entering the lobby, past the blank-faced helpers standing motionless by the doors, up the turbolift and down the corridor to their quarters. At the door, as they passed the threshold, a SCI Force special-ops sensor sleeve deftly intercepted their active sensor emissions, seamlessly returning ghost images which the Solenine apparatus couldn’t distinguish from the real thing. Intelligent marker routines busied themselves insinuating a fictionalised and innocuous scene of SCI Force R&R, even down to audio and video virtualities complete with non-existent conversations and bogus smiles.

The tension in the room was thick as Clay and Stark entered. There were a couple of seconds of silence as Lyra Da Luz monitored the marker routines, then nodded as the sensor sleeve confirmed.

Okay, Stealth Field re-established, she said, with obvious relief. Mother of god—you guys look like crap! She forced a grin and planted a crimson kiss on Stark’s still battered face, ignoring his coldness and avoiding Clay’s eyes. You found what we’re looking for?

Frowning, Stark unshouldered his disintegrator and lowered it in a corner. Permission to stand down, sir? the weapon asked in a fine-timbred female voice, I need to run diagnostics and recalibrate after that fall we took.

That’s fine, Dizzy. At ease, he smiled, turning away as the rifle powered down and began to rebuild lost and damaged components.

We saw your little adventure from the observation deck. Max Proffitt sprawled on the viewport sofa, grinning his trademark gap-toothed cynical grin and feigning a relaxation he clearly didn’t feel. He nodded up through the ceiling, theatrically stifled a yawn, leaned forwards for a beaker of roast Howzatian from the makepoint. Stark saw his fingers tremble as the rich aroma filled the room. Hell of a show you boys put on, he drawled. The ship said it could even see the explosion from orbit... Very mellow, dropping buildings like that... Scaring the shit out of the natives... Hearts and minds... His eyes ranged around the room, looking everywhere but at Lyra.

Nothing in the room was broken, observed Clay; whatever they’d been fighting about this time, they hadn’t come to blows. Or to bloodshed, at least, he reflected, eyeing the angry rash stippling Proffitt’s neck. He sipped his drink, wincing at the temperature, frowning. Not us, Max—them. Not even a chance to surrender. It was barbaric, against all the normalisation protocols. And it wasn’t an isolated event. Look at this—he thoughtcast the report his Mindscape implant had been collating to all of them—"Hundreds of people, thousands even, over the years. I did some digging into the pre-Rediscovery collective which Solenine had before they joined the Mindscape, and there’s records of these... Unjoiners... back even then. But then they were just eco-freaks—your standard percentage of social dropouts and non-conformists, every culture has them, yes? Even by not belonging, they still had their place. But now there are thousands; there are even rumours of Corporacy members defecting—and their numbers are growing."

Lyra stared into her drink, reviewing the report in her virtual vision. Rediscovery?

Clay nodded. Of course, Rediscovery. Isn’t it always? Some cultures can’t cope; some cultures cope too well. Some make it look like they’re coping, but in reality they’re sweeping all kinds of garbage under the carpet and trying to make it look pretty for us. Some of the horrors these people get up to make even the Venu look humane...

So we start there?

We start there. Standard insertion protocols—I want to know where the weak points are and what kind of cascades we can trigger, stat. A list of axial memes as quickly as we can. And be careful—I don’t doubt we’re already being watched, so be stealthy. Gentility-4 said there were traces of the Transmigration Heresy in the Cluster’s Mindscape; we’ve all seen the thoughtcasts, so that’s our way in, yes? Those people weren’t administrators, intendants; they weren’t functionaries in Solenine’s glorious corporate society. They were disenfranchised, desperate, angry. I’m guessing there’s going to be a lot more fresh anger we can tap into after what just happened today.

Uh... Doc? The cynical voice drawled. What d’you want me to do while y’all out having fun doing your secret agent thing?

Stark muttered under his breath, receiving a dry thin smile from Proffitt in return. Lyra glared with undisguised contempt.

Clay rubbed his eyes, suddenly tired. Right now, Mister Proffitt, I’d be obliged if you could stay out of trouble. You can do that? Mm?

Proffitt flashed his gap-toothed grin. Sure thing, Doc, he drawled. Whatever you say...

The Transmigration Heresy was endemic on primitive colony worlds rediscovered by the Commonality. It was characterised by a logical fallacy resulting from an immature grasp of the Mindscape and the thoughtcasts it contained; that an eidolon—a synthetic intelligence—possessed of the thoughtcast memory engrams of a dead person was somehow a continuation of that person. That somehow in that eidolon the dead person lived again. Even if the thanogram thoughtcasts which dying beings cast into the Mindscape were somehow perfect and complete enough to replicate their source personality absolutely—which they weren’t—Commonality genurgy and Mindscape science had long since proved beyond doubt that individuality resided as much in the physical gestalt of a being—its body, and all the periphery that entailed—as in any pattern of information. There was no persistence of identity, and eidolons which believed otherwise contravened a rigorous set of compliances and were destroyed before they could leave the eidolon rig in which they’d been forged. Reincarnation was a lie; there could be no transmigration in the Commonality. Memories, and the pale shadow of the eidolons, were all that was left of the dead.

Max Proffitt still counted the days, though it was difficult when no one told you how many were left. At least he was still alive; the bitch hadn’t managed to stick one of her plassteel daggers between his shoulder blades yet. He guessed he had Stark to thank for that, or Clay: though he’d be damned if he’d ever show it. Never mind what insane redemption trip the SCI Force controller was on, Proffitt wanted none of it. Smile and nod, just long enough until they gave him his ship back, and then he was gone, back out to the Fringe worlds beyond the Rim where people looked up to traders and didn’t think commerce was some degenerate perversion practised by deviant throwbacks.

He was used to the hatred and disdain, though—as one of the ‘new breed’ of old-style traders grown up on the Rim, you had to be. Nope: it was the jaw-aching boredom of this whole goddamn mission which was killing him. This white-toothed do-gooder SCI Force shit was a bunch of crap: everyone knew the Commonality was an empire set on ruling the galaxy, and however nicely they dressed it up, they were coming through. Max had just hoped he could keep one step ahead of the shockwave. Fat chance.

So, another day, another fucked-up lame ex-colony struggling to survive culture shock on a galactic scale. It looked different, but it was the same old crap—you could tell by the smell. This Solenine brand of shit had some neat extras—the corporacy thing meant you had a ready-made mafia of treacherous backstabbing slimeballs fucking their countrymen in the ear for scraps from the Commonality’s table. No wonder the natives were revolting. Wouldn’t you?

In fact, this whole fucking planet mirrored Solenine society. First, the ecosystem was fucked up; centuries of over-industrialisation and rapacious exploitation had utterly destroyed the world’s natural balance. Vast tracts were barren, polluted wasteland, empty and poisoned seas. You could smell it on the wind; an acrid metallic taint that got the back of your throat and told you it was doing you no good at all. Then there were the conurbations; every scrap of reasonably flat land had been built on, again and again, for millennia, until there were strata of industrial fill many tens of metres deep below every city. The centres of those cities were marvels of brash, overwhelming arrogance; structures which had murdered their environment in their struggle for supremacy. Sol City epitomised that; the heart of the planetary capital was an endless agglomeration of super-skyscrapers and arcologies, some of them thousands of years old, inhabited by the privileged upper echelons of the Solenine Corporacy.

At the interface between arrogance and wasteland were the faceless slums where the lowest ranks of corporate society suffered in their millions. Places of crushed hope and strangled desperation, the certain knowledge that this cramped living module of oppressive mediocrity was all there ever was or would be. And outside, on and beneath the garbage-strewn streets spattered by polluted rain and swept by contaminated winds, were those who’d fallen farther still. The ones nobody talked about, and averted their eyes so as not to see.

Proffitt loved these places. Best customers in the ten thousand worlds, when they got to know him, purveyor of dreams, backstreet anaesthetist of the human soul.

He found a bar. You could dress it up with all kinds of alternative anthropological shit, but Max knew it by instinct and smell; a place people went to forget, to find vicarious warmth among strangers, to breathe on the embers of youthful hope and see them—if only for a short while—glow.

Say... what does a body have to do to get a drink round here? Or whatever you people do to get off your faces? Max Proffitt shouldered his way forwards to a vacated space on one of the benches, leering forwards at the barman. "I’m kinda used to quick, synthetic service, anyhow. He winked at the low-level Corporacy type in the greasy threadbare one-piece to his right. How ya doing, buddy?"

The bar bristled with tension. Max could have used his language chip for an accent which would have fit in with the natives, but where was the fun in that? Besides, that wasn’t the game.

Izzat so? said the barman, too old and tired to bother, but flashing meaningful glances at a couple of heavies by the door.

Proffitt grinned. Them your friends, pal? he sneered.

The barman ignored him, pouring a glass of something pale and anaemic and putting it on the bar before him. Max looked around; the faded colours, antique fittings hastily and repeatedly repaired; long years of crud sloshed into corners and covering everything with a patina of age.

"You watch your mouth about synthetics, buddy, said a voice from down the bar. Show a little more respect."

Respect? For synthetics? What the hell for?

"I said watch your mouth, trader. Down here, synthetics are your ticket for your memories to live on after you die. If you’ve earned it. That’s serious shit, you don’t go disrespecting that. It’s an honour, pal."

An honour? You shitting me? Everyone stores their thoughtcasts in the Mindscape, bud, that’s just the way it is. It ain’t no honour, it’s Commonality law.

The guy Max was speaking to stood back from the bar, eyeing him up and down. Standard blue collar type, facial scar, ugly bastard. Should go off like a rocket if pushed.

"Look, this isn’t the Commonality, pal. You gotta work to ascend. It don’t come free."

"Ascend? What the hell are you talking about?"

Max grinned, yanking the guy’s chain, watching him jump.

I said, watch your mouth! I don’t give a shit about where you come from. Here you gotta earn it if you want to live on when you die.

"Aw, come on—that’s just bullshit... Nobody lives on. It’s just records of your memories, is all. You wanna upload a thanogram? Knock yourself out. Some synthetic gets programmed with your memories? That’s real nice. But, shit, it ain’t no honour... You dirtsiders gotta wise the fuck up..."

Max picked up his glass and raised it to the bar. To desperate fucking lives and pointless deaths! He clinked glasses with the cheap suit to his right, thoughtcasting a lewd image to him on an open channel. That means you, too, buddy. These natives didn’t get enough fun out of life.

Max counted to three.

What the fuck you talking about? shouted the suit, flaring up.

Hold off, Jada. A hand reached out and gently pushed him back by the chest. Don’t even think about it. This guy’s no trader. He’s Commonality. SCI Force.

Proffitt took a long, slow draught from his drink, eyeing the stranger through the bullseye kaleidoscope in the bottom of his glass. Female, and built. Corporacy one-piece, same as all the others, but new—a dead giveaway. Even without sensors he guessed enhancements; a passive scan confirmed his suspicion.

’Zat true?

Max shrugged. Couldn’t say.

Leave it, Jada. This guy’s pushing for a fight, you can see that. What is it you want, SCI Force man?

Same as ever. Find out why you monkeys are making such a fucking mess of the place. He turned his head to look at the woman, snarled through his gap-teeth. "That crap about ascendance sounds like a good place to start..."

He could almost see the thoughtcasts flailing back and forth from whoever this girl was working for. See the subtle modifications to her stance which were the prelude to action. He knew in a straight fight he probably couldn’t take her; even without SCI Force skill chips and combat thoughtcasts, the Solenine Corporacy had enough of its own custom genurgy to beef its muscle up to some seriously competitive levels. And these guys preferred mechanical extras to organic. Liked the cyborg look-n-feel. Fucking throwbacks.

He was hoping it wouldn’t come to that.

—This one is not cloaked?

—No, Patron.

—Interesting... You’ve done well. We wonder what the agent is trying to achieve...

—If it’s not to start a fight, then I have no idea, Patron.

—No... His actions do seem... stupidly provocative, would you not say?

—I would, Patron. Provocative, and clearly designed to solicit a response. There are citizens here who are already viewing his words as a challenge to our authority. I recommend we don’t let the challenge pass.

If a disembodied voice communicating by pure thoughtcast can smile, then it did.

—Agreed. Use of violence is authorised. But do not kill him, citizen. Send him a clear message which our fellow citizens will understand. And citizen?

—Yes, Patron?

Again the scintillating smile across unfathomable traceries of data.

—Enjoy yourself.

Max Proffitt hated it when he was wrong. It usually hurt. A lot. And required all manner of explanations and remedial actions afterwards. Almost as painful as the mistake itself.

He was right about one thing: mechanical enhancements. He heard rather than felt the knuckles crack as he tried a close-up jab to the solar plexus, coming up short against a subdermal adaptive weave which went rigid at the moment of impact. The woman smiled as his p-suit’s biomed array pumped his arm full of painkillers, but the sensation of badly crushed gristle still made him sick to the core.

The bar was in uproar. Its brooding tension had taken just moments to explode into a spittle-flecked raging mob. There seemed as many for him as against him, and the motley assortment of tables and benches had been rapidly swept into a makeshift amphitheatre as soon as his opponent had got her instructions to kick his ass.

A strange sense of déjà-vu swept over him. He’d never exactly been a born diplomat; memories of violent encounters on godforsaken backwaters all through the Rim flashed before his eyes. He’d fought or been beaten up by all manner of monkey-men and genetic throwbacks during his days selling snake-oil to the savages; usually he’d had the sense to place judicious two-way bets on the more outrageous bouts. Not here and not today, though: he knew from the start he was being handed his ass. Message received, whoever the fuck you are.

So tell me, he groaned, spitting blood onto the bar and wiping spilled drink and broken plass from his burning face, who’d’ya have to screw to beat me up, heh? I’ll screw you for free, how’s that? Good enough counter-offer, babe?

She smiled, inhaling hugely and high as a kite on combat boosters. You people... really don’t get it, do you? Hah!

Round-house. Standard defence, but without a skill chip it was hopeless; he was late, felt her foot wrap around his neck before his arms were even half way there, sending him hurtling across the debris-strewn floor into the cradle of waiting arms and eager, frenzied eyes which pushed him back into the fray.

"Ugh... Don’t get what, baby? C’mon, tell me, tell me what I don’t get, you goddamn primitive!"

He yelled the last word, throwing himself on her with all his weight. She was already set up before he got there; he felt the wind sucked out of him as her foot set firmly in his solar plexus, then she rolled, backwards, smoothly carrying him high into the air. He caught a brief, incongruous close-up of the underside of the ceiling—then a sea of raised faces gawping at him as he sailed towards the window. There it was again—that danged sense of déjà-vu.

The sky was the colour of khaki, and another dry electrical storm flickered overhead, endless rumbles tossed back and forth over the horizon. There was a smell of ozone, and Sol City’s distant skyscrapers and anti-pollution aerostats faded into indistinct silhouettes as the smog thickened. Down here on the first sub-level you could almost chew the air, thick with contaminants and particulates spewed out by Solenius’ centuries-long industrialisation. The planet’s ecosystem was shot to pieces. Not that the Corporacy would ever show you, Jackson Stark thought as he pulled his hood over his head; nothing to tarnish the wonderful glow of the Solenine miracle.

People watched him from alleys and windows, repurposed ramshackle buildings which had seen better days. Out here beyond the weather sats and Corporacy surveillance drones was dangerous territory, and his personal sensor array crackled with targeting icons and bio-readouts. His stealth and reflexes chips constantly flicked round his nervous system; he felt calm and like he was about to explode at the same time.

You shouldn’t be here, offworlder, a woman’s voice croaked from the shadows. There’s no friends for you out here. If the squads don’t get you, then the trash collectors will find what the Unjoiners leave in the morning. Go back to the Corporacy zones while you still have chance.

Even across the alleyway he could smell the intoxicants and cheap perfume—the chemical stuff, no one down here could afford implants. He slowed his pace—his PSA registered three energy weapons within thirty metres, at least one target bead hovering like an angry hornet around his head. So you know about the squads?

Her hacking cough broke the thick air. Sure. Who doesn’t?

He looked at her and saw her properly for the first time. Her ruined face, the desperation staring out of her haunted red eyes.

How do you tolerate it?

She coughed out a disbelieving laugh. Tolerate? What the hell kind of word is that?

Why don’t you fight?

She looked at him strangely. Yeah? Maybe one day we will. Maybe one day this whole fucking place will just explode and we’ll all go straight to hell. Would that make you happy?

It would... make sense.

That just means you ain’t got enough to lose. Look, space man, whatever the fuck you’re doing down here, you get to leave, go back to your shining world out there somewhere when you’re done. She waved her arm at the sky­. Down here, when you’re dead, you stay dead. There ain’t no ascendance down here. There ain’t no rejuve. That means we’ll fight, but only when we don’t got no choice no more. And it’ll be as ugly as all hell... Meantimes, we keep our heads down and out of the way.

He looked up and down the street, his sensorview plotting potential targets and attacks. By a corner, twenty metres away, a couple of children stared blank-faced and hollow-eyed from an empty doorway.

The woman followed his gaze.

They let you reproduce down here...? Stark hesitated.

The woman regarded him with contempt. "That’s the Solenine way, space man. We don’t kow-tow to your precious Commonality culture down here. That in vitro shit you got the