Halo | Page 5

down his spine
and up his gut, up his throat and nose, as close as his skin; death with a
bad smell ... burning, burning
----
2. Anything I Can Do to Help You
As the morning passed, the sun moved away from the stained glass, and
the room's interior went to gloom. Only monitor lights remained lit,
steady rows of green above flickering columns of numbers on the light
blue face of the monitor panel.
A housekeeping robot, a pod the size of a large goose, worked slowly
across the floor, nuzzled into the room's corners, then left the room, its
motion tentacles beneath it making a sound like wind through dry
grass.
----
The cockpit display flashed as landing codes fed through the flight
computer, then the swing-wing locked into the Bangkok landing grid
and began its slide down an invisible pipe. They went to touchdown
guided by electronic hands.
The pilot turned to Gonzales as they descended and said, "I'll have to
file a report on the attack. But you're lucky--if we had landed in

Myanmar, government investigators would have been on you like white
on rice, and you could forget about leaving for days, maybe weeks.
You're okay now: by the time they process the report and ask the Thais
to hold you, you'll be gone."
At the moment, the last thing Gonzales wanted to do was spend any
time in Myanmar. "I'll get out as quickly as I can," he said.
Now that it was all over, he could feel the Fear climbing in him like the
onset of a dangerous drug. Trying to calm himself, he thought, really,
nothing happened, except you got the shit scared out of you, that's all.
As the swing-wing settled on the pad, Gonzales stood and went to pick
up his luggage from the open baggage hold. The pilot sat watching as
the plane went through its shutdown procedures.
Do something, Gonzales said to himself, feeling panic mount. He
pulled the memex's case out of the hold and said, "I want a copy of
your flight records."
"I can't do that."
"You can. I'm working with Internal Affairs, and I was almost killed
while flying in your aircraft."
"So was I, man."
"Indeed. But I need this data. Later, IA will go the full official route
and pick everything up, but I need it now. A quick dump into my
machine here, that's all it will take. I'll give you authorization and
receipt." Gonzales waited, keeping the pressure on by his insistent gaze
and posture.
The pilot said, "Okay, that ought to cover my ass."
Gonzales slid the shock-case next to the pilot's seat, kneeled and
opened the lid. "Are you recording?" he asked the pilot.
The man nodded and said, "Always."

"That's what I thought. All right, then: for the record, this is Mikhail
Mikhailovitch Gonzales, senior employee of Internal Affairs Division,
SenTrax. I am acquiring flight records of this aircraft to assist in my
investigation of certain events that occurred during its most recent
flight." He looked at the pilot. "That should do it," he said.
He pulled out a data lead from the case and snapped it into the access
plug on the instrument panel. Lights flashed across the panel as data
began to spool into the quiescent memex. The panel gonged softly to
signal transfer was complete, and Gonzales unplugged the lead and
closed the case. "Thanks," he said to the pilot, who sat staring out the
cockpit bubble.
Gonzales stood and patted the case and thought to himself, hey, memex,
got a surprise for you when you wake up. He felt much better.
----
A carry-slide hauled Gonzales a mile or so through a brightly-lit tunnel
with baby blue plastic and plaster walls marked with signs in half a
dozen languages promising swift retribution for vandalism. Red and
green virus graffiti smeared everything, signs included, and as
Gonzales watched, messages in Thai and Burmese transmuted, and new
stick figures emerged with dialogue balloons saying god knows what.
A lone phrase in red paint read in English, HEROIN ALPHA DEVIL
FLOWER. Shattered boxes of black fibroid or coarse sprays of
multi-wire cable marked where surveillance cameras had been.
Grey floor-to-ceiling steel shutters blocked the narrow portal to
International Arrivals and Departures. Faceless holoscan robots--dark,
wheeled cubes with carbon-fiber armor and tentacles and spiked sensor
antennas--worked the crowd, antennas swiveling.
All around were Asian travelers, dark-suited men and women: Japanese,
Chinese, Malaysians, Indonesians, Thai. They spread out from Asia's
"dragons," world centers of research and manufacturing, taking their
low margins and hard sell to Europe and the Americas, where
consumption had become a way of life. Everywhere Gonzales traveled,

it seemed, he found them: cadres armed with technical and scientific
prowess and fueled by persistent ambition.
They formed the