Only Forward. Michael Marshall Smith

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ fact that Zenda had asked me to change meant that I was almost certainly going to be meeting someone. I meet a lot of people. Some of them need what I can do for them, and don’t care what I look like: by the time I’m the only person who can help them, they’re prepared to put up with sartorial vagueness.

      But most of them just want something minor fixed, and only like giving money to people who’ll dress up neatly for them. They insist on value. I hadn’t been able to tell from Zenda’s tone whether this was to be a special thing, or just a run-of-the-mill one, but the request for tidiness implied the latter.

      All that stuff about the disease, by the way, it wasn’t true. Well it was, but it was an exaggeration. There are Neighbourhoods like I described, but I’m not from there. I’m not from anywhere, and that’s why I’m so good at what I do. I’m not stuck, I’m not fixed, and I don’t faze easily. To faze me you’d have to prove to me that I was someone else, and then I’d probably just ask to be properly introduced.

      I was just tired. I’d had three hours’ sleep the night before, which I think you’ll agree isn’t much. I’m not asking for sympathy though: three hours is pretty good for me. In my terms, three hours makes me Rip van Winkle. I was tired because I’d only been back two days after my last job. I’ll tell you about it sometime, if it’s relevant.

      The streets were pretty quiet, which was nice. They’re always quiet here at that time: you have to be wearing a black jacket to be out on the streets between seven and nine in the evening, and not many people in the area have black jackets. It’s just one of those things. I currently live in Colour Neighbourhood, which is for people who are heavily into colour. All the streets and buildings are set for instant colourmatch: as you walk down the road they change hue to offset whatever you’re wearing. When the streets are busy it’s kind of intense, and anyone prone to epileptic seizures isn’t allowed to live in the Neighbourhood, however much they’re into colour.

      I’m not into colour that deeply myself, I just live here because it’s one of the milder weirdnesses in The City, one of the more relaxed Neighbourhoods. Also you can tell the time by the colour of the internal walls of the residential apartments, which is kind of useful as I hate watches.

      The streets thought about it for a while, then decided that matt black was the ideal compliment for my outfit. Some of the streetlights were picked out in the same turquoise as the diamonds in my trousers too, which I thought was kind of a nice touch. I made a mental note to tell the next Street Engineer I met that they were doing a damn fine job. Sort of an embarrassing thing to think, but I knew I was safe: I always lose my mental notes.

      Last time I’d ventured out of the apartment the monorail wasn’t working, but they’d obviously been busily busying away at it, because the New and Improved Service was in full swing. An attendant in a black jacket sold me a ticket, and I had a whole carriage to myself. I took a leaflet from the pouch on the wall and read that the monorail had been shut temporarily so they could install mood sensors in the walls of the carriages. I thought that was pretty cool, and the walls picked that up and shone a smug blue.

      Little Big Station, Pacific Hue, Zebra One, Rainbow North: the stations zipped by soundlessly, and I geared myself up for whatever it was I had to gear myself up for. I didn’t have much to go on, so I just geared up generally.

      I judged I was probably geared up enough when the walls were a piercing magenta. ‘Steady,’ read a little sign that popped up from nowhere on the opposite wall. ‘That’s pretty geared up, fella.’ I took the hint and looked out the window instead. Soon I could see the huge sweeping white wall that demarcated the Colour Neighbourhood from Action Centre. The Actioneers aren’t the only people to have built a wall round them to keep everyone else out, but theirs is a hell of a lot bigger, whiter and more bloody-minded than most.

      The mono stopped at Action Portal 1, and I got off and walked across to the gate. The man in the booth was reading an advanced management theory text, but he snapped his attention to me instantly. They’re like that, the Actioneers. Ready for anything.

      ‘Authorisation?’

      I fumbled in my wallet and produced my card. Zenda got it for me a few years ago, and without one they just don’t let you in.

      ‘Destination?’

      ‘Department of Doing Things Especially Quickly.’

      ‘Contact?’

      ‘Zenda Renn, Under-Supervisor of Really Hustling Things Along.’

      He tapped on his console for a while, taking the chance to snap up a few more lines of Total Quality Management at the same time. The computer flashed a curt authorisation, not wasting any of its time either, doubtless keen to get back to redesigning the Centre’s plumbing system or something.

      ‘Wrist.’

      I put my hand through the gap in the window and he snapped a Visitor Bracelet round my wrist.

      ‘You are authorised one half hour this visit. Take the A line mono to your destination. Your journey will be free, with no cash or credit transaction involved.’ They like to make a big thing about the fact that they don’t use money in the Centre, like it means they’re some big egalitarian happy family, yet there are 43 grades of monorail attendant alone. ‘May I suggest that you make productive use of your travel time by reading or engaging in some other constructive pass-time?’

      I guessed my attendant was at least a 10: he was pretty sharp.

      I got on the mono, and again had a carriage to myself. Seven till eight is compulsory relaxation time in Action Centre, and all the zappy Actioneers were off busily relaxing in the most complex, stressful and career-orientated ways they could find. I was glad the carriage was empty. It meant that no one was using any of the phones built into each seat, there was no meeting going on round any of the meeting tables, and no one was heading for a stroke on the exercise machines.

      I sat in my seat, steadfastly ignoring the bookcases and the tutorial vidiscreens. Triggered by my Visitor Bracelet, the carriage’s synthetic voice assured me that my journey time would be at the most four minutes and thirty-two seconds, and went on to suggest several constructive tasks I could accomplish in that time.

      The deal with the bracelets is this. When you visit the Centre, they want to make damn sure you leave again. They can’t have just anyone slouching around the place, diluting the activity pool. So they give you a bracelet, which has a read-out of how long you’ve got. If the read-out gets down to zero and you’re still in the Centre, it blows up. Simple, really. You’ve got business, you’ve got half an hour to do it in, and if you don’t get it done you get blown up. I guess it’s what Actioneers feel like all the time.

      People from Natsci Neighbourhood, which is to the south of the Centre, can get two-day passes. The Natscis specialise in technology. It’s their life. They’re sweet really, little men and women in white coats dashing about the place, twiddling dials and programming things. They have better computers and gadgets than everybody else, and the Centre has to buy their mainframes from the Natscis, which pisses them off no end.

      As it happened, I did do something constructive during my four minutes and thirty-two seconds, which doubtless made the carriage very happy. I got my seat computer to print out a map of the current layout of the area round the Department. This week, I saw, they’d arranged the buildings to make up the ancient symbol for Diligence when seen from a particular point in space.

      When the doors opened at my stop I stood politely to one side to let an Actioneer get on first.

СКАЧАТЬ