Only Forward. Michael Marshall Smith
isn’t?
‘Good. So. When can I buy you dinner?’
‘Next year, possibly. It’s a busy time: I’m on intravenous feeding for the next three months.’
‘Okay, so I’ll bring a burger and we can watch the drips together,’ I drawled with a grin.
‘I’ll call you,’ she said, lying sweetly. Actioneers don’t date outside the Centre. It’s frowned on, it’s not a good career move, and having your date blow up mid-evening would be a bit of a downer too, I guess. I know that, but it’s kind of fun pretending to try. It’s an in-joke between us, like the private detective impersonation. Contrary to appearances, I don’t have a frosted glass door with my name on it, and I didn’t use to be a cop. I used to be a musician. Sort of.
At one minute to eight exactly the desk intercom rasped, ‘Ms Renn, your meeting participants are on their way up. Meeting time minus one minute and counting.’
People in the Centre are never, never early for meetings. Being early would suggest that you weren’t busy enough, that you hadn’t just immediately flown in from something else just as important. These people had timed it very well. I tried hard to admire that.
‘Okay, Stark: shall we sit?’
We climbed onto the desk. Zenda arranged herself beautifully in the chair at the head of the table, and I sat opposite, so that I could monitor her facial reactions during the meeting. Also, so that I could just look at her face, which has high cheekbones, green eyes and a wide mouth. Yes, okay, so I like Zenda a lot. Well spotted.
‘Meeting time minus thirty seconds and counting.’
The doors at the end bounced open and two men and a woman entered in formation, walking fast. The woman I recognised as Royn, one of Zenda’s assistants, and the man in front wore the distinctive violet cufflinks of the Centre’s Intelligence Agency, ACIA. He was thickset and looked pretty serious. Not much of a dancer, I guessed.
‘Hi, Royn,’ I said.
‘Hi, Stark. Hey, cool trousers.’
I made a mental note to use the CloazValet™ incorrectly again sometime. As they arranged themselves around the table I stole a look at the second man. He was in his fifties, tall and thin, with a pale and bony face. That meant that he was senior enough to disregard the compulsory tanning regulations in the Centre, which made him pretty damn senior. I wondered who he was.
‘And…Meeting time!’ sang the intercom’s synthetic voice. ‘On behalf of the building I would like to wish you a productive and diligent meeting. Here’s hoping it will be deemed a success by all participants and by those they work for, with and above in their respective Departments. Go for it!’
While Zenda introduced us all to each other, I lit a cigarette. Normally that’s strictly forbidden in the Centre, as all the Actioneers want to carry on busily doing things for as long as they can, but I figured I ought to state a presence somehow. The man from ACIA, whose name was Darv, gave me a long stare but I gave it right back to him. I’ve met his type before. They hate me. Actually, they hate what they see, which isn’t the same thing. I’ve been playing this game for ten years now, and I know how to fit in. Curiously, what they see and hate is what they want to see.
The thin man was referred to only as C, which meant he was the third most senior executive in the whole Department. That made him an alarmingly heavy hitter, and though he said nothing for the first ten minutes of the meeting, I could tell he was someone to take seriously. I saw now why Zenda had suggested I make an effort.
Darv kicked off the meeting by grassing on the elevator, which had moved on to insinuating damaging things about the sexual proclivities of the building’s interior designers. Royn made a call and somewhere in the basement a SWAT team of elevator engineers and hydraulic psychotherapists went into action.
‘Now, Mr Stark,’ he continued, swivelling his head on his thick neck to face me, ‘I’m sure you realise that someone like you wouldn’t be my first choice for a Thing That Needs Doing like this. I want it put on record that I think this could be a mistake.’
I looked at him for a while, and the others waited for me to say something. I blew out some smoke, and thought of something.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘until you give me some idea of what the job is, it’s very difficult for me to tell whether you have a point or if you’re just being a dickhead.’
Both Zenda and Royn rolled their eyes at this, and Darv clearly thought very seriously about punching me in the face. I detected the faintest whisper of a smile on C’s face, however, and that was far more important. Though Darv was apparently the designated talker, the power in the room lay with C. I raised my eyebrows at Darv and after a heavy pause, he continued.
‘The situation is fundamentally quite simple, and very serious. A senior Actioneer, Fell Alkland by name, has disappeared. Alkland was a much-valued member of the Central Planning Department, involved in groundbreaking work in the furtherment of Really Getting to the Heart of Things.’
Darv stood up and started to pace round the perimeter of the desk, with his hands behind his back. I couldn’t be bothered to keep swivelling round to keep him in vision, so I just listened to the drone of his voice and kept a check on Zenda’s facial reactions.
‘Alkland left his Department at 6.59 three days ago, and entered the nearby Strive! mono station at 7.01 p.m. We know this because a mono attendant remembers him clearly. Alkland gave him a useful tip on how to keep used ticket stubs really tidy. He then boarded the mono. As you may know, Mr Stark, seven until eight is leisure time here in the Centre, and Alkland’s chosen regular form of relaxation was to make his way to the swimming baths in the Results Are What Counts sub-section of the Neighbourhood. There he would work extremely hard whilst wearing a bathing costume. On that day, however, he never made it to the baths.’
He paused dramatically before concluding, ‘No one has seen him since he boarded that mono.’
‘Uh-huh,’ I said, reeling under the impact of so much bad film dialogue, ‘so put a trace on him.’
Darv sighed theatrically, as I knew he would. Every Actioneer has a tracer compound inserted into their left arm, so that they can be located within the Centre at all times and have their phone calls redirected. If ACIA were talking to me, it meant they’d already tried that and come up a blank. I knew that. But sometimes it doesn’t pay to let everyone know everything you know. See? I have hidden depths.
‘Obviously we’ve tried that, Stark, obviously.’
‘Oh,’ I said, grinning. Zenda smirked covertly at me. ‘So?’
‘Attention! Attention!’ Darv nearly fell off the desk as he jumped at the sound of the intercom’s voice. ‘Ms Renn, your Visitor is due to explode in two minutes.’
‘Jesus wept,’ muttered Darv, as he made his way under the table. Clearly a cautious man. I held my wrist out to Zenda and she waved her Extender over it, giving me another half hour. C remained calm at all times.
‘Darv?’ I said gently, as he re-emerged, ‘Are you saying that you suspect Alkland has been taken to another Neighbourhood?’
‘No, I don’t suspect that,’ he replied coldly, taking his seat again and leaning across to be cutting directly to my face, ‘I know it. Alkland is not in the Centre, we’re sure of that. He was involved in very important and highly classified work. He has clearly been kidnapped, and we want him back.’
‘Surely even a class 43 mono attendant at the Portals would have noticed something? How could anyone have got him out without his consent?’
‘That,’ said C, slowly turning his impassive face towards me, ‘is what we want you to discover.’
I left the Department ten minutes later, in plenty of time to get out of the Centre in one piece. Rather than go directly to the mono I headed across The Buck Stops Everywhere Park and Recreation Area, a little patch of green in amongst the towers