Shall Machines Divide the Earth, Benjanun Sriduangkaew [large screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

me, of me. Cologne and coolant-tinted sweat. “I want to collect a few more overrides before we commit to anything. Are there more functions to them than the three I’ve seen—Seer, Retribution, and Bulwark?”

“There are several more.” She nuzzles my bare stomach and giggles. “Oh, this is so firm. I love your muscles. I love your body, I can hear the nanites inside you: they make such an orchestra. There are several duelists remaining, and if any of them possesses overrides you could always . . . persuade them you’re in greater need of those.”

Recadat, Ensine Balaskas, myself, Ouru. The rest of the duelists are unaccounted for. “Any override function I should look for?”

“Bulwark is good—that’s for you, but you need me to activate it. Fortress is better; that’s a function for the regalia to deploy. Assembly is situationally useful.” Daji pouts. “More than that I can’t tell you. It’d violate the few rules I have to abide by.”

“It’d help if these things had normal, descriptive names. Whose idea was it to implement so much obscurantism?”

To that she only laughs, a bright ringing peal.

There’s a niggling suspicion that I have. Over and over Daji has told me the rules are as bendable as blades of grass. That this is as much a game of deception as it is a game of might. “I’ll be heading out,” I say.

“I’ll stay near.” Her tongue darts out, licking my thigh. “Walk without fear, Detective.”

I don’t quite put on every piece of armor I own, but it comes close, and I leave the suite well-armed. No telling what to expect.

In the lobby I pass by a wedding party: two brides in red, surrounded by people variously in qipao or shalwar-kameez, chattering excitedly and passing around gilded mandarins. There’s a sense of unreality to this—they’re attempting to lead normal lives on a world that’s anything but, when any moment they might become collateral damage to duelist conflict. I suppose life goes on, and eventually they’ll get the chance to leave this place for the paradise that is Shenzhen, where they will walk glittering streets and purchase gorgeous saris. Eat shark fins and abalones and elephant meat all day. Whatever people do in utopias: I haven’t had the chance to live in one, and I don’t really believe in any. For every surface of frictionless ivory and priceless gemstones, strata of rot throb underneath.

The day is blistering. Libretto is only bearable indoors, and I wonder why every city here is intentionally uncomfortable—there are more hospitable climes on Septet, the Mandate could have built their stage-cities there. Instead they’ve chosen miserable swamps and scorching deserts, as though to make the conditions as dispiriting as possible, and to foment desperation.

I reach Ostrich’s home; he’s less quick to answer this time.

When he does, it is to part the door a few centimeters and peer out. I can smell the stench of his hygiene, or rather the lack thereof. The heat doesn’t treat him well, and he doesn’t appear to shower often. “Yes, Detective?” His voice is tremulous.

“I need a little more information, Ostrich. Mind letting me in?” In my coat pocket, I grip my sidearm.

A long pause during which I consider whether I need to show him my gun’s muzzle, that narrow deadly mouth. Guns can be an expression of the owner, for all that I am not sentimental. Mine is larger than average, the grip coated red-black, the rest of it matte. Fit for conventional ammunition of mid-high calibers, among other types; I like to think people I point it at can appreciate a little of its beauty. In my callow youth I thought of weapons as much like women, temperamental and lethal, compliant once they’ve found the right wielder. These days I’m less pretentious. But there’s still elegance in a weapon, the way it handles, the way it demands attention.

Ostrich steps back. I step in. On his work desk there are stacks of new paper, some already filled with his notes. I pick up one sheet—from a quick skim, these are records of the current round. It contains information to which he could not possibly have been privy, including a list of duelists who fell in the Cadenza arena.

“Preparing for the next round, Ostrich?” I page through the rest. Considerable level of detail, including how Daji and I met. Duelist pursued by Chun Hyang’s Glaive . . . late-game regalia activation, without precedent . . .  “You’re thorough. It’s such specialized ethnology, isn’t it, such a unique society. Tell me, is there anything you want the most in life? You can’t possibly want to be stuck on this miserable world, in this miserable town, for the rest of your natural life.”

“I’m content, Detective.”

“No plans to go home? You must have friends and family back in the Catania Protectorate.”

He shifts his weight uncomfortably, his eyes flitting to one of his statuettes, as if they might provide protection or solace. “I was banished.” With difficulty he adds, “For various reasons, but mostly because I didn’t want to marry a woman—any woman. Once word got out, it brought dishonor to my family and my congregation.”

I’m aware, of course, that there are places where certain lines of attraction are censured or outright criminalized. It didn’t occur to me that Catania would be one of those, but then I know little of their religion. “Like a shrine maiden getting exiled because she engaged in a little carnal relation? That’s a raw deal.” Carefully I put down his papers. “Now tell me about your regalia, I assume it is still active.”

Ostrich blinks rapidly. “I’m sorry?”

He’s a lanky man, not that much shorter than I am but so thin as to be skeletal. I lift him off his feet with one hand and slams him into the wall. He chokes on his own breath and saliva; drywall chips and rains down around him. One of the statuettes topples, its white cheek cracking against the grimy floor, its resin wreath fracturing. Brittle—these are not works of art built against impact but cheap replicas, badly