Carbide Tipped Pens Part 33

It has a certain rhythm to it, and the rhythm matches the song in Paris's head.

Jewel gets a message.

She's been sitting in her room, the number one hit love song running through her head, crying until her eyes hurt.

It's a high-priority message, on a sub-public frequency.

It's from Larry.

I am with Rudo.

I'm coming, she types, already standing, already stepping toward the door.

No! High-priority ping.

I have to see him. I'll die.

He is up for murder.

She stares at the words.

Up for murder. Of course he is. That video.

Death is the penalty for murder. Eye for an eye in this b.l.o.o.d.y and fragile world.

Jewel feels a p.r.i.c.kling over her scalp, up her forearms, like electricity. Is this what people mean when they say their hair stands on end?

The feeling inside is terror, rage, pain. Something else too.

Love.

She doesn't care. She loves him. She can still feel his hands on her body, taste him on her lips. His name is love.

She will not live without him. It will be easy enough, here. Just walk outside. If the minus-one-hundred-and-sixty Celsius temperatures don't do it, the radiation will.

Rudo and I have a plan, Larry types.

The longing in her body threatens to overwhelm. Let me talk to him.

He is in cryo.

What the f.u.c.k?

The corporations want the two bodies-Mercury and Tybalt-sent to Luna base. And they want Rudo extradited to Luna for trial.

She'll do anything to see him again.

You and Rudo have to disappear.

YES. How?

A pause.

You and Mercury have more or less the same ma.s.s.

So?

We cut out the online connections. Mercury's, Rudo's, Tybalt's, yours. We dispose of Mercury's body here on Europa, and exchange him ...

For me.

Yes.

So we destroy my connection permanently?

Yes.

The connections are inserted shortly after birth. To be permanently offline ...

I'll do it.

Slow down! She can almost sense Larry's laughter at her tempestuousness. Here's how it works. We fake an accident with Tybalt's corpse, and put Rudo's connection in that cryopod.

She forces her brain to work. A cryo-accident turns the cells inside out; no one will be able to tell whose body it is, not without a DNA a.n.a.lysis ...

And Mercury's connection is in my pod so when they scan on arrival they will think I'm him, and Rudo is Tybalt, and Tybalt is Rudo. Right?

Right.

But when the pods arrive on Luna, the sensors will tell them that two of us are in living cryo. They'll revive us, it's the law ...

Yes, they'll see who you are. You will have to subdue the technician on the Luna end. Buy time, Larry types.

Why are you helping? He could be in the pay of one of the corporations-after all, he works for the mysterious Prince. There could be some kind of agenda ...

I'm sick of the bulls.h.i.+t, Jewel.

Sick enough to risk your life?

Because if Rudo is up for murder, then abetting him also carries the death penalty.

I'm here for a good time, not a long time. Remember?

His cancer. She sits, cannot type.

Jewel?

I'm here.

I have contacts on Luna. They can forge new ident.i.ties for you.

Hiding out on Luna is vaguely possible. There's an underworld there that swallows people whole.

$$$$????? she types.

I have savings. Enough.

She reads the message, and reads again. Why is he helping? Even if he's dying, it's implausible.

But it's her only hope.

Paris will put you in cryo.

I don't trust that jealous worm.

He's your technician, remember? He's responsible for your safety. Don't worry. I've worked it all out with him. He trusts me.

Jewel, uncharacteristically, submits.

Everyone trusts you.

Jewel's gazing down at Rudo in his cryopod like she is a dying man in a desert, leaning over a pool of water.

How she loves him. It curdles Paris, makes his hands shake and his stomach knot.

Rudo's face has the pallid, faintly green tinge of cryo. There's a b.l.o.o.d.y line on his forearm where his connection was cut out and Tybalt's inserted.

Tybalt lies dead, flooded with cryofluid, in another pod, Rudo's connection in the pod with him. No one's gazing down at him. Paris and Larry have fixed it so that the pod will leak in transit and his body will turn itself into a cryogenic mess.

"Where's Larry."

Her flat voice, her abrupt questions, why is it all so arousing? "He had to go. Prince called him." There had been some emergency, something to do with the songs.

"Really." She looks suspicious. Paris sighs.

"Let's do this. I'll get an anesthetic for your arm..."

"f.u.c.k that."

Jewel grabs a pair of chopsticks and places them between her teeth. Then, as Paris watches, she slides the blade of a scalpel under the skin of her forearm, and carefully, bloodily, cuts her online connection out from under her skin.

Untraceable, now.

The chopsticks fall from her mouth to the floor with a clatter. "Give me Merc's connection," she says through gritted teeth.

Paris hands her the small piece of metal and she slides it through the b.l.o.o.d.y flux, applies pressure.

"What did you do with his body."

"Never you mind." Larry took care of that. Stashed him in some unused ice cave. All h.e.l.l will break loose when he's discovered. But that's not likely to happen, not for a long, long time.

She still looks suspicious.

"Time for you to go under, princess."

She doesn't trust him, he can tell. But she lies back, sighs.

G.o.d, she's beautiful.

Larry'd had a stroke of genius just before being called away. He put not only Rudo's connection in Tybalt's pod, but also Jewel's ring. The affair between Jewel and Rudo was quite the thing on Earth, and everyone will have a.n.a.lyzed every inch of footage. Jewel's ring has been spotted by followers on Rudo's finger. There's even a top-ten song already called, yeah, Jewel's Ring. Finding it in the cryo-mess, it'll be natural to a.s.sume the mess is Rudo. The Luna technicians might pa.s.s over the DNA test for the ruined flesh altogether.

Paris means to mention this finis.h.i.+ng touch to Jewel. As he checks her vitals, he means to tell her about her ring. As he inserts the tubes in her veins that will drain her blood and replace it with cryofluid, he means to tell her. As he gradually brings her temperature down, he means to tell her. Just before he sedates her, he almost tells her.

Well, it doesn't matter really, right? I mean, a little thing like that.

It skitters across the surface of Paris's consciousness, paired with a slightly nauseous, resentful, excited feeling, almost-if he were to let himself admit it-a vengeful feeling. And Jewel sinks into sleep, and is gone.

He watches over her, brooding, almost tender, as her face drains of color. He disconnects her, seals her pod. He ferries the three pods to the transport s.h.i.+p.

"Here you are. Mercury and Tybalt, bodies cryo-preserved. And Rudo, safely in cryo. That murdering b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

The transport technicians take over.

Paris watches as the s.h.i.+p is propelled from the base. Its light sail erect; a beautiful sight. It hurtles toward Luna.

Good-bye, Jewel.

Strange. He's still hearing that song.

Paris is not alone. Isolated in lockdown, every human on Europa hears that song. This is why Larry was called away by Prince: the sonic structures have become undeniable, dominant. Every human on Europa begins singing the last song to be played at the Only. It's not a particularly good song. But for whatever reason, that's the song they sing, as if that final blast at the bar has infected the entire moonscape. And not only humans sing. Underneath, above, all around them in the ice in which the base is nestled, the song is amplified. There are groans, and whalelike sonar blasts. Deep, almost too deep for the human ear to hear. Like the horns of heaven, if you believe in heaven, when the gates open at the end of time.

The s.h.i.+p hurtles through the Solar System. A reflective outer sail refocuses and reflects a beam from great Fresnel lenses of the Mercury Array back onto the mainsail, enabling the s.h.i.+p to travel back toward Luna.

Jewel lies unmoving, mind wandering through a year of cryo dreams.

Rudo finds her and thinks she is dead. "Why are you so beautiful? Why are you yet so beautiful?" he cries. "Shall I believe that insubstantial death is amorous, and that the lean abhorred monster keeps you here in the dark to be his paramour?"

This is followed by some horrible images: a death-figure riddled with worms, pressing down hard on Jewel's chest, shoving cold fingers inside her mouth, between her legs. She cannot move or breathe.

Then Rudo comes, takes her in his arms. He thinks she is dead. "Yet so beautiful? Why are you yet so beautiful?"