Звезда Пандоры

“One day someone will turn up at your chapter, and I want to know about it. I can’t give you his name, he changes it every time. But he’ll be looking to buy things, weapons most likely, or kaos software, or samples of diseases, or components with the wrong specifications which will screw up whatever they’re installed in. That’s the kind of person he is. A very unpleasant individual. He’ll claim to be a Party member, to be doing what he does for a noble cause. But he’s lying. He’s a terrorist. An anarchist. A murderer. So I want you to tell me when he visits you. Okay?”

Sabbah didn’t like to think of the alternative. She was still pointing the weapon right at him, aiming low. “Yeah, sure. I’ll do that.”

“Good.”

“When’s he coming?”

“I don’t know. It might be tomorrow. It might be in thirty years’ time. It might be never. Or I might have caught him before he ever reaches Velaines.”

“Uh, right, okay.”

“Now turn around.”

“What?”

“You heard.” She got to her feet, the little weapon still pointing at him. Sabbah reluctantly turned to face the door. His hands were grabbed, forcing him to drop the maidbot box. A cold band of malmetal coiled around his wrists immobilizing them. “What the hell…”

“You’re under arrest for theft.”

“You’ve got to be fucking joking! I said I’d help you. That was the deal.” He turned his head to try to look at her. The weapon was jabbed into his jaw.

“There is no deal. You made a choice.”

“That was the deal!” he yelled furiously. “I help you, you get me off this rap. Jesus!”

“You are mistaken,” she said relentlessly. “I didn’t say that. You committed a crime. You must face the consequences. You must be brought to justice.”

“Fuck you, bitch. Fuck you. I hope your terrorist blows up a hundred hospitals, and schools. I hope he wipes out your whole planet.”

“He won’t. He’s only interested in one planet. And with your help, we can stop him from damaging it further.”

“My help?” The word came out as a squeak he was so shocked. “You stupid bitch, you can suck me and I’d never help you now. We had a deal.”

“Very well. I will lodge a plea with the judge, asking him for leniency.”

“Huh?” This was so weird it was doing his head in. Right from the start the woman scared him. He wasn’t even sure she was a policewoman anymore. More like a serial killer.

“I will tell him you cooperated fully, and agreed to be my informer. The file will not be encrypted when it is attached to your court record. Do you think your friends will access it when they see you receiving a light sentence? Will they be happy about what it says? My colleagues have already arrested them for tonight’s robbery, by the way. I expect they’ll be curious about how we knew.”

“Oh, goddamn.” Sabbah was near to tears. He wanted this whole nightmare to end. “You can’t do that to me. They’ll kill me, a total death. You don’t know what they’re like.”

“I think I do. Now, are you going to tell me when my target turns up?”

So through clenched teeth he said, “Yes.”

And that had been the way of it for nine years. He’d been given a suspended jail term for the robbery, and made to perform two hundred hours’ citizen service. It was the last time he’d done a job—well, anything major, anyway, just the occasional rip off.

And every three weeks there would be a message in his e-butler’s hold file asking him if the man had come. Every time he replied no.

Nine years, and that superbitch had never let it go. “Time,” she’d told him on the way to the police station, “lessens nothing.” She’d never said what would happen if he didn’t tell her. But then, it wasn’t something he wanted to find out.

So Sabbah walked for several blocks, leaving the chapter house behind. That way his e-butler would be operating through a cybersphere node that wasn’t anywhere near the building. The chapter had several tech-types; heavily idealistic about total access they all sailed close to anarchistic beliefs, believing all information should be free. They also smoked things they shouldn’t and played sensory immersion games for most of their waking hours. But they did have an unnerving habit of delivering the goods when databanks had to be cracked for the cause. Sabbah wouldn’t put it past the Party’s senior cadre to mount a simple surveillance operation around the chapter building.

His e-butler entered the code she’d given him. The connection was placed immediately, which was unnerving if not entirely surprising. Sabbah took a deep breath. “He’s here.”