Free IGMS Issue 18 by IGMS Page A

jutted his scarred face forward until it was only inches away -- not a flicker of emotion crossed it -- it could have been carved from stone.
    "Oh, he's skilful, but no matter; you make him famous, Mr. Whistler." His lips barely moved as he whispered. "Or I'll send your son back from Jinglang in small pieces." He pursed his lips. "We clear?"
    I just nodded. I didn't trust myself to speak. His words didn't seem real, like lines from a holo-drama. I felt the insane urge to laugh at him, but the steel in those eyes stopped me cold.
    "Here is the artist's address. He will expect you tonight -- eleven p.m. My details are on the back. You will contact me when you are done."
    Hei Long spun a small white card through the air to land precisely on the table. "Good evening, Mr Whistler."
    With a quick bow, he turned and left.

    My cable-taxi clattered along rigid struts suspended above Ratak Street's night-market while a river of humanity weaved through the countless stalls twenty feet below.
    Clutching the thin metal side of the swaying taxi with one hand, I punched the info menu on the egg-like taxi's nav-display. It bleeped shrilly, showing the artist's studio on nearby Gala Avenue, just off Ratak Street. The taxi clattered slowly onwards along the metal filament, swaying gently back and forth.
    I ejected the white card Hei Long had given me from the nav unit and turned it between my fingers.
    Violix. It was an odd name -- reminded me of violins. Already I sensed the artist had nothing to offer. If he'd had something original, I would have heard whispers. I would have remembered the name.
    Damn Hei Long. My reputation could take the battering -- I could present a six-year old child as an art prodigy and people would still buy the stuff, but it irked me.
    I reminded myself that all I had to do was see the artist's works, present a little show, and Justin and I would be out of the gangster's clutches.
    It was that simple. I hoped . . .
    Cable changers clanked overhead, guiding the taxi round the corner. After a few moments on the new cable, the taxi shuddered to a halt, hissed, then sank slowly to street level.
    A small holo of the taxi-owner swirled into life on the taxi's main display; the man bowed. "Fourteen sys-Dollars,
Sah-Si
."
    I keyed over the dollars with a swipe of my thumb, then stepped onto road.
    Gala Avenue was a hotchpotch of architectural design. Most buildings were built from brightly painted baulks of local sumza wood, intricately carved and shaped by laser mills into three-dimensional jigsaws that could be slotted together in a few days, but would last centuries.
    The mills boasted they could cut any design, and the residents on Gala Street had apparently tested this claim. Replica Cambodian temples jostled with medieval Japanese towers.
    Wedged between a faux-Indonesian long-house and a scaled-down Venetian palace, lay a simple grey cube of concrete, its lower windows cracked and dark. Out from fractures in the concrete façade snaked gatorweed vines. Its blood-red flowers were the only splash of colour evident on the otherwise drab, dilapidated, and decidedly unoccupied-looking building.
    The skies opened like a sluice and the nightly downpour of warm rain decided the issue for me; I sprinted into the warehouse.
    It was worse inside.
    I shook the water off my jacket and looked around.
    The place was fetid and dank. Water dripped in an almost endless stream down the lobby stairwell. I angled the card towards the dim light and checked; it was the right address. Outside, the rain drummed against the decaying door relentlessly.
    "M . . . Mr. Whistler? Is that you?" An amplified voice echoed off the bare walls.
    I glanced about for a sensor strip.
    "Yes?"
    "G . . . good, yes. I'm Violix." The voice suddenly faded, became quieter, as though the man had walked away from the microphone. "The lift w . . . works, or you can take the stairs. The fourth floor."
    I glanced at the ancient looking lift -- a simple,