Free Black Glass by John Shirley Page A

baroque to ever ... to ever actually ...” He stammered. “I mean, really, such a ... a travesty couldn’t ... You could never ...”
    “What would stop me? The police? I own them.” An exaggeration. A hyperbole. But he did have a lot of influence. And Slakon did own certain segments of the police. “My own security forces are enough to take over the city of Los Angeles. Two hours notice and I can call in enough security to overwhelm the California National Guard. We didn’t just buy Blackwater—we expanded it exponentially, Sykes. I can do exactly as I said and never be prosecuted for it. Your rewards for success, on the other hand, will also be great. Just do it. And get control of the thing—it’s been leaving trails. They know we’re prowling through their systems. And just remember ... a quick hour with the surgeons and–”
    There was a faint buzzing at Grist’s ear. Targer on three. He accepted the call, turning his back on Sykes.
    “What is it, Targer?”
    “I’m sorry, sir. Candle’s slipped past Halido.”
    “We should have had more people on him.”
    “You didn’t want to use the in-house pros. But Halido’s usually reliable. ”
    “Seems Candle’s better. Do something about it, Targer.”
    “Targer’s on it, sir. As it’s you, I’m authorized to tell you that I’m only his semblant, but I can assure you, he’s–”
    “Oh, shut the fuck up.”
    Grist cut the connection and stalked out of the room. “Fight back, Sykes. Get it done.”
    Grist slammed the door shut behind him.

    The night wind was damp, but it wasn’t quite raining. Candle was walking through the polymorphous cooking smells, the multicolored crowds of Borderbust, in southeast L.A. First and second generation immigrants from around the world, many of them refugees from cities flooded or desiccated by global warming. The crowd elbowing, pushing thick on the sidewalk; in the street dull colored, soft-line cars, mostly electric, a few ethanol exuding their own “cooking” smells—not many after the big ethanol bust of 2016. A swarm of pert little electric cars darting past a few rusty, stubborn oversized, technically illegal gas-burners; a couple of the pricier hydrogen humvees bulked over the rest.
    Borderbust had a rep for providing sanctuary for illegal immigrants in line for amnesty; for being densely polyglot, the melting pot of melting pots, but it seemed to Candle that each foreign culture here had tried to keep its own character; that Chinese still grouped near Chinese, Koreans near Koreans, Mexicans near Mexicans, Filipinos with Filipinos, Albanians with Albanians, Pakistanis with Pakistanis, Armenians with Armenians, Laotians with Laotians. But the melding was there, too; a Mexican/Chinese restaurant, and there the Calcutta and North African Digital Movie Store; a small place since most of its business was online. There was plenty of genetic crossbreeding: there were faces, especially the young on the crowded street, that seemed a sweetly indefinable genetic meld. To Candle, the African-Asian girls were the prettiest combination.
    Candle stopped at a booth, bought a curried vegetarian burrito and a meal-in-a-bar. He stuck the food bar in his pocket, drank a ginseng coffee and ate his burrito using the domed top of a trash can for a table; watching the crowd sift by, a flow of faces: eager, incurious, defeated, focused, hungry, jonesing, angry, amusedly tolerant.
    Lots of faces but never Danny’s.
    So far Candle hadn’t found anyone who’d tell him where the illegal VR was. The chances that Danny would be in the area weren’t bad, but he could be thirty feet from him, here, and not see him. And if Danny saw him first, and if he were still actively addicted, he’d go the opposite direction.
    He could show Danny’s picture around, but time had passed, and Danny would have changed his look—maybe even gotten a face forming. And anyway they’d look at Candle, his clothes, his eyes, and think he was a cop or