Necroville by Ian McDonald

Author:Ian McDonald [McDonald, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction
ISBN: 9780575098534
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2011-03-10T06:00:00+00:00

It was magnificent to fly in such a storm. There was a poetry to it that could not be contained by any haiku. All artificial senses shut down, Toussaint flew by instinct alone through the atmospheric chaos beneath the storm towards his father’s dark tower. He banked into the updrafts that permanently ascended the arcosanti’s flanks. A blue dot pulsed on Toussaint’s retina: a security code interrogative overriding his display-down command. Now was the Judas moment. One error in the security code patrol lifters hovering out in the indigo night would lock on missiles and launch. Emotions distilled into complex motivations within the curve of his skull. The query was repeated. Toussaint chose. A touch of his mind activated the subdermal transponder. The invisible curtains of watchfulness parted. The gliders soared upward to the spires. Aircraft warning beacons pulsed, pressed up hard against the lowering cloud ceiling. Following Toussaint’s lead, the quartet of gliders wheeled in the air above the chaotic pinnacle of the San Gabriel spire. Warning bee-baws fluttered on Toussaint’s retina; schematics red-lined, screaming proximity and velocity alerts as he came in hard, fast. The adamant black wall of the spire loomed before him. At the last instant he lifted up into a stall, cupped his wings to spill lift and dropped softly on to the balcony from which he had so spectacularly departed that morning.

Let them try that, if they dare. He allowed himself one small vain smile as his wings folded back into their casings and the neural interfacers retracted into his back.

Huen/Texeira dropped on to the balcony beside him with a rush and rattle of moving air.

‘Point to prove, Xavier?’

The houseware opened doors and put in lights for him as

Toussaint re-entered the penthouse. A rattle, a clatter, a thump and oaths from the balcony. Quebec and Shipley coming in for competent if less-than-aesthetic landings.

We’re all together again,

We’re here, we’re here,

We’re all together again.

The sentiment of the childhood rhyme was apt but it failed by one syllable to make haiku. Thunder bawled, terrifyingly close in the dimly lit tower-top apartment. Toussaint’s weather-sense told him the worst was past. Big rain coming. He could feel it, like the cool of blue on his skin.

‘So, Quebec, what is the Neruro Clade’s master plan? Blow away Adam Tesler and hope the whole shebang will fall apart. Corporadas are bigger than just one man these days, no matter whose name is on the corporate ident.’

The squad leader was moving around the apartment, examining the décor as if it should somehow be familiar to him.

‘Xavier Tesler, you have no soul. A man bares the whipmarks on his spirit, takes you through the mirror-maze of his life. Humour him a little. Let him tell it his way, no? He’s waited a long time to tell it to you.’

Again, that assumption of familiarity.

‘There was no shortage of volunteers, though the mission required only four. My background made me an automatic choice. Texeira, Owens: both commando-squad veterans of the Battle of Neruro and experts in the new technology.

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