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  “Maybe so.” McNihil’s voice softened. “I’ll have a long time, all right. All that skin didn’t come cheap; what I owe now, I can’t even generate the interest payments on. But I don’t know about regrets-”

  His voice was drowned out. For a few moments, November had forgotten about the slow sea, the gel filled with soft bones and human neural tissue, surrounding the building, extending out farther than she could see. The rooftop of the End Zone Hotel had become a little world in itself, the place where the last words were being spoken, the final explanations given. As if they-or it-were listening, the poly-orgynism had quieted itself, the waves subsiding for a time. In that quiet, the clouds overhead had grown darker and heavier, another ceiling rolling nearly within reach. The next rain wouldn’t be fire, but ice and steam mingled together. The sound that swallowed up McNihil’s voice was like thunder and earthquake, the coming together of earth and sky.

  The flat world tilted, the rooftop with its gaping holes and solid sections swiveling into a forty-five-degree angle as one entire side of the building collapsed. Falling, November heard the rumble of bricks and girders sliding in chaos onto the gel below. Her spine hit tar paper that flexed like a drumhead with her impact, the edges tearing loose from the surrounding material. She rolled onto her side, head downward, scrabbling desperately for anything to hold on to. Grabbing on to the broken end of a structural beam, jutting out from the collapsing depths of the hotel like the bowsprit of a foundering ship, November found herself shoulder-to-shoulder with McNihil. The dead asp-head’s fingers had clawed a purchase onto the sharp knife’s-edge of a ripped-open ventilation duct; with a kick of his legs, he got his chest up onto the corner of the thin metal.

  “I think… she got tired of waiting…” There was no need anymore, for McNihil to gasp for breath. “She can get… impatient…”

  “What?” November stared at him. “Who are you talking-”

  She didn’t get to finish the question. She’d braced herself for the slam of another wave building up in the slow ocean beneath him, but was unprepared for the butt of a human hand striking her between the eyes. Her head rocked back, as her fingers gripped tighter on their own accord. Through a net of her own blood, November saw Harrisch above her, one of his hands grasping an insulated electrical cable like a mountain climber’s belaying rope. His thin, ugly smile showed as his other hand reached and fumbled inside November’s jacket.

  “It’s been great talking to you.” Harrisch’s voice spat out the words, as his hand came up with the tight-cell phone. “But I’ve got another agenda to take care of.”

  November heard the tiny beep of the phone’s send button being hit, as Harrisch clambered up the cable with furious agility. The far edge of the rooftop had reared up, a straight-line peak against the darkening clouds. Storm winds hit the DZ exec full-force, but he managed to let go of the cable and jump, clinging to the highest point; the phone, no longer needed, tumbled like a smooth stone down the roof’s skewed surface.

  Beside her, McNihil tried to clamber farther onto the ventilation duct, but the flat aluminum was too slick for him to work his fingertips into. “Relax,” said November. She’d managed to get one bootsole onto the edge of the gap behind and below her; with that and the beam, she got herself back on the slanting roof. What was left of it shook beneath her hands and knees, as more of the shattered building fell away. “I’ll settle his account.”

  Harrisch was too busy watching the skies, looking for the corporate jet that had brought him to the End Zone Hotel. He didn’t hear November’s clawing approach, masked by the gel’s rumbling impact, until it was too late. Using one of the smaller gaps as a handhold, she reached up and grabbed his ankle, jerking him back down from the rooftop’s edge.

  Startled, he managed to hang on, sliding only a couple of feet down toward her. His kick caught her on the chin, loosening her grasp for a few seconds, letting him scramble back up, farther than he’d been before. Enough to push himself upright into the open air. Beyond him, November saw fiery sparks falling in the distance. The DynaZauber jet, surrounded by drones and swarming Noh-flies, banked into its approach run.

  November made another grab for the exec’s ankle, but missed. Her handhold gave way, letting her slide painfully across the rooftop’s jagged surface before she could dig in and stop herself.

  She looked up and saw Harrisch, out of her reach, climbing up onto the exposed crest of the roof’s highest angle. He took one hand away from the ridge, signaling frantically to the still-distant jet. That was enough; that, and the next wave that rose up and hit the building. Hot scraps of metal swept across the rooftop as it rolled with the impact. November flinched, shielding her face against one shoulder; she saw only a glimpse of Harrisch’s face as he lost balance and fell over the building’s side.

  When she reached the edge, fingertips digging into the crumbling tar paper, November looked down and saw where the exec had hit. The gel of the soft, slow ocean had cushioned Harrisch’s impact; he was still alive and moving, legs and arms splayed out, dazed face looking up unfocused at the dark sky. Across the surface membrane were the scattered pieces of the network crews’ catwalks and equipment booms; none of the cameramen were in sight. You’re missing it, November told them inside her head.

  The bits of half-molten shrapnel had weakened the slow ocean’s surface, the membrane studded with scars and hissing, cooling bits of metal. She could see that Harrisch had hit with enough force to split the transparent layer underneath him; the gel oozed up through the narrow opening. Below, the gel swarmed thicker with the tangled, interconnected form of the poly-orgynism; the new sensation, like a whiplash sharp enough to draw blood, had drawn the strands and knots of the excited neural tissue, the thin black tattoos darting among the nerves and cortical material like quick shadows.

  Silently, the tear in the surface membrane lengthened, like Harrisch’s own thin, ugly smile. The exec had recovered enough consciousness to roll onto his side and try to grab the retreating edge of the opening, as the gelatinous liquid welled up around his legs and torso. His fingertips missed; the shallow wave that rolled through the slow ocean was enough to slide him under the other side of the membrane.

  Clinging to the rooftop’s edge, November watched, wondering how long it would take for the exec’s skin to start dissolving. Maybe it already is. She couldn’t tell; she’d only been able to see Harrisch struggling for a couple of minutes, before the stranded net of the poly-orgynism, shivering with the advent of an addition to its substance, had pulled Harrisch deeper and out of view.

  “Here. Take this.”

  November turned her head and saw McNihil beside her. He held on with one arm over the rooftop’s crest; with his other hand, he extended the black shape of his tannhäuser toward her. The asp-head’s face was wet; she realized that real rain had begun, the storm clouds’ contents hissing downward with the hot metal bits.

  “Take it,” repeated McNihil. “When the jet gets here, put it up against the pilot’s head, and have him take you wherever you want to go. I don’t think he’ll give you any argument.”

  Obediently, she took the weapon. “But what about you?” November watched as the asp-head began working his way back down the angled rooftop. The heaving motions of the slow ocean below had subsided; the building still trembled and shook, but held its remnants together. “Where are you going?”

  McNihil had reached a gap large enough to lower himself down into the unlit reaches of the hotel. He stopped and looked back up at her. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ve got someplace else to go to.” He smiled. “I’ve always had it.”

  He dropped down inside the building, where she could no longer see him. November could hear him for a few moments, then those faint sounds were gone as well. She turned away and looked up, watching the jet as it approached, surrounded with fire.

  AFTER

  The fundamental element of the fox-trot derives from mechanisation, suppressed eroticism and a desire to dead
en feelings through drugs.

  – ANATOLY LUNACHARSKY (1875-1933)

  Peoples’ Commissar for Education, USSR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE KIND OF THING THAT HARDLY EVER HAPPENS ANYMORE

  Tell me a story,” said the professional child.

  “All right.” November laid her hands on top of the briefcase in her lap. The Asian shores of the Gloss rolled by outside the train. She took a deep breath before starting. “Once… there was a man and his wife. And they died.”

  “That’s sad.” The professional child’s lower lip trembled. “Did they die together? At the same time?”

  “No, they didn’t.” November gave a slow shake of her head. “She died quite a while before he did.” Her hands smoothed across the expensive leather surface of the briefcase. “But it’s not really so sad. Because they didn’t die the way people are supposed to. In some ways… they’re not really dead at all.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  A nod. “And because he died for her-kind of-now they are together. Forever and ever.” November managed a smile. “So he got what he wanted. That’s the kind of thing that hardly ever happens anymore.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” agreed the professional child.

  “So you see-” November wiped the corner of one eye. “It’s not really a sad story at all.”

  “Then why are you crying?” The professional child sounded genuinely concerned for her.

  “Just for myself.” She let the smile turn embarrassed. “Because I’m not as lucky as those people are.”

  “Nobody is.” The professional child regarded her with a wise, ancient gaze. “Nobody ever is.”

  She gave the professional child the standard fee, and let her skip down the passenger car’s aisle to the next customer. November closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the padded seat. At the edge of sleep, or something like it, she felt the motion of the train’s iron wheels, the ocean’s stately tide, the meshing of all the earth’s gears.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  K. W. JETER is one of the most respected SF writers working today. He is the author of over twenty novels, including Dr. Adder, The Glass Hammer, Wolf Flow, and Farewell Horizontal. His previous novels, Blade Runner 2:The Edge of Human and Blade Runner: Replicant Night, achieved international bestseller status.

  After residences in England and Spain, he and his wife, Geri, currently make their home in Portland, Oregon. He owns two pairs of Dahlquist DQ-10’s, but none of them are wired with human neural tissue-yet.

  An essay on the copyright issues raised in his novel NOIR can be located at http://www.europa.com/~jeter/copyrights.html

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