into the slight hunch which is required for New Richmond's lost ventilation system, and hurried forwards into the gloom. Every now and then I heard some fragment of life floating down from the city. An aged gurgle, soft clanks grown old, the occasional ghost of speech caught accidentally in some twist of corridor above and echoed down to the graveyard below. I had always felt that walking this corridor was like creeping through New Richmond's ancient and barren womb, but then I've always been a bit of a moron.
After about half a mile I passed under one of the main entrances. You can tell because of the sound of hundreds of feet coming in, going out. I stood underneath it for a moment, remembering. I used to come the covert way sometimes for kicks, but the main gates are the way you enter if you want to appreciate what you're getting into. You walk into a foyer which is twenty storeys high, a taster of the opulence you can expect if you've got clearance to go above the 100th floor. There used to be glass windows on all of the levels which tower above you, but they were walled in once they'd become lowlife areas. It's like standing in the biggest and gaudiest shower cubicle of all time. You walked up to the desk, ran your ownCard through the machine, and established your clearance. I used to live in the 70s, and so I'd walk over to one of the express elevators, get in, and be shot up into the sky.
Not tonight. Tonight I was threading my way like a snake through endless tunnels, and I wasn't going to the 72nd floor because there was nothing left for me there. I was in New Richmond because I needed money, and had only one way of getting some. I was going to go in, get the money, get out — and then turn my back on Virginia for good.
We'd reached the Portal settlement in the early evening. It had been raining all day, and was getting colder and darker by the minute. Virginia doesn't fuck around in winter, especially not these days. Virginia says, ‘Here, have some winter,’ and then delivers. The spares had been on their last legs by then, a joke I'd made to myself knowing it to be in bad taste and not altogether caring. They'd never felt the cold before, and the scraps of my clothing I'd distributed amongst them weren't anywhere near enough.
There hadn't been many people on the streets, thankfully. You don't go to the Portal to promenade, particularly not at night – it would be less trouble to stay in your apartment and mug yourself in the comfort of your own home. Howie Amos once ran a service which did just that; you called him up, said you were thinking of going out into the Portal, and he'd send someone to rough you over within half an hour or you got a dollar off. It was surprisingly popular.
I corralled the spares into a tight group and herded them down the streets in front of me, sticking close to the walls and out of the light, trusting Suej and David to help me keep the others in line. I'd explained why we had to come here, and why it could be a problem for me. They all did what they were told, and I hurried us along for about a mile until we were outside Mal's building.
I paused outside and looked back the way we'd come. The roads in the Portal are very straight, running out from New Richmond in the centre like a giant spider's web. You can stand in the middle of one and see as far as the rain will let you. Yellow streetlights lined the way, throwing pools of light which were rich and sickly, like cream ten minutes before it goes off. Beyond the limits of my vision was the edge of the Portal, and beyond that the road which led out into the dark Virginia countryside. A long way down that road were the Blue Ridge Mountains we'd come from, matter-of-fact geology covered with a hell of a lot of trees. For the first time it struck me how much the roads in the Portal looked like tunnels, and that was when I began to accept that the last five years really had happened to me.
I shouldered the outer door open and led the spares into the hallway, which was an inch deep in chill water. Loud music was thumping from somewhere up above. I told the spares to stay still and to hide if anyone came, and vaulted up the wooden staircase which spiralled up into the darkness. When I got to the 3rd floor I took a deep breath, shook some of the water out of my hair, then knocked on Mal's door.
Mal did a double-take which would have done a cheap comedian proud, and then he just stood there, mouth hanging open, hand still holding the door. He was wearing a pair of battered cut-offs which showed off the scars on his legs, and a ragged T-shirt which hugged his new paunch and looked like about five people had lived and died in it without showing it any water other than rain. He was backlit by a bare bulb, and from somewhere deep in the bowels of his apartment came the smell of cooking – noodles, almost certainly. In all the time I'd known him I don't think I'd ever seen him voluntarily eat anything else.
Finally he got it together, blinked and tried to smile.
‘Jack,’ he croaked, eerie calm coming about level with utter stupefaction. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
‘Social visit. Old times.’
‘Yeah, right. The pope's due later too.’ He closed his eyes tightly for a moment, and pinched himself on the bridge of the nose. ‘You in trouble?’
‘Yep,’ I grinned, trying to keep myself from hopping from foot to foot. Tension, of about seven different kinds. I nodded towards the gloom of the apartment. ‘What's cooking?’
‘Noodles,’ he said, eyeing me warily. ‘You want some?’
‘Depends how much you've got. I'm not alone.’
‘How many guests are we talking?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Including me, seven,’ I said. His eyes opened wide and he shook his head – not in negation, just bewilderment. I tried to make it easier on him. ‘Well, six and a half, I guess.’
‘That's a lot of noodles.’
‘Too many?’
‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘I buy in bulk.’ He turned back towards his apartment for a moment, biting his lip, considering. I noticed that he wasn't wearing his shoulder holster and wondered whether that meant he was out of the Life, or just less paranoid these days. More likely he'd been cleaning his gun when I knocked. The two things I didn't think Mal was ever going to get were less paranoid or out of the Life.
Then he turned back to me, eyebrows raised in friendly resignation. In one sighing breath he asked, ‘Where are these guests now and just how much unhappiness am I risking by letting them into my life, however fucking briefly?’
‘I left them downstairs,’ I said, realizing that I ought to get back to them very soon, whichever way this went. Mal's building is where bad people go to have fun. That's why he's paranoid – and also why he likes it. ‘I just need to leave them with you for an hour, then we're out of here.’
‘Why didn't you call ahead?’
‘When I want to ask old friends for lunatic favours I like to do it in person. Also, I didn't have any change.’
‘And the trouble rating?’
‘What scale are you talking?’ I was gabbling, strung tight. I had to let Mal see I was okay, because otherwise he was likely to get freaked. Being freaked would in fact have been a reasonable reaction, but I didn't want him to know that yet.
‘One to ten.’
‘I don't know,’ I said, suddenly giving in and getting panicky. ‘At least ten, possibly higher, certainly getting worse by the minute.’
Mal let go of the door.
‘Get them up here.’
I let out a short exhalation of relief. ‘Mal …’
‘Yeah, all that,’ he said, brushing my thanks aside. ‘And then you're going to go get me a jar of Japanese pickles. I forgot I'd run out.’
‘I'm going into the city. On the way back I'll get you the biggest jar of Samoy I can find.’
Mal rolled his eyes and shook his head. ‘Samoy pickles are from hunger. Get me Frapan or nothing.’
‘For a guy who eats so much you've got terrible fucking taste.’
‘You got that right,’ he said, shaking his head again. ‘Look at my choice of friends.’
I