The Demon and the City

rosy edge of snow in the dying light of the sun. She was running, faster than she'd ever run before, leaping the boulders and sliding down a long apron of scree. The air tasted of frost, and stars filled the sky. Robin had never seen anything so bright. Before her, the spotted, doglike creature leaped and pranced clumsily. It looked at her over its shoulder and said in a harsh human voice, "Come with me—"
    —and they were back in the ward. It was dim and quiet. Robin, still dreaming, followed the animal out through the door of the ward and down the stairs. Their way was illuminated by a pale, unfocused light, which grew stronger as they neared a doorway. Robin thought they must be somewhere on level eight, below the atrium but above the main labs. The beast led her into a room full of lockers, like an old-fashioned chemist's store. It squatted by a cabinet set into the wall.
    "Why don't you open it?" it said. Now its voice had become seductive, enticing.
    Why not? Robin thought. She pulled the heavy drawer and it rolled forward smoothly under its own momentum.
    She found herself staring down onto a woman's body. The corpse was covered by a sheet of stiff, slightly oiled plastic. Its face was gone. In the dream, Robin, cold with shock, pulled the sheet down and saw that the breast was marked with long, parallel rips, the flesh on either side ruffled and frayed. Below the ribcage, the abdomen had been torn away to reveal the internal organs; very neat, like an anatomical model. There was a strong, synthetic smell. Robin pulled the sheet back up with shaking hands. The animal pushed sympathetically against her bare shins. It's only a dream, Robin's mind whispered to her.
    "It's me," Deveth's voice said, filled with malice. "Not so pretty now, am I?"
    The animal was suddenly nowhere to be seen, but Deveth's spectral face hovered over the ruined visage of the corpse for a moment, a snarling mask, before it faded. Robin could not seem to bring herself out of her trance, and as she stood in wonder and revulsion over the corpse it dawned on her that she was awake.
    Robin slammed the drawer shut. The noise reverberated throughout the narrow room and there was a little click. Looking up, Robin saw the red monitor eye swivel and focus. She bolted for the door, shut it behind her and started to run through the warren of corridors. It all looked the same. She came upon a perspex-paneled door . . .Looking through, she saw row upon row of beds, like a dollhouse, each containing a subject attached to dripfeeds and monitors. The wan ambient light, set at constant for the duration of the experimental run, made each face look the same. Much more distinctive than personalities, histories, names: the individual neural and biochemical basis of the organism. What is it to be the same, to be different? Robin could not have cared less. She knew where she was now. She turned right at the end of the corridor and came out by the elevator, directly underneath the wards. She thought she would get her things and go, leave forever, but the exertion made her legs shake. Her skin was clammy and hot. The fever had returned, and all Robin could do was sit on the edge of the bed trying to clear her streaming vision and eventually passing into unconsciousness.
     

Thirteen
    Zhu Irzh blinked up into the anxious face of Sergeant Ma, which hovered over him like an untethered balloon.
    "Where am I?" he heard himself say, croaking feebly, but it was not Ma who answered.
    "You're in a cell," a crisp voice said. Zhu Irzh turned his head, to see the woman in the fatigues sitting on a nearby bench. Her pale green eyes were as cold as a winter's night, set in a thin, drawn face. Painstakingly, Zhu Irzh reconstructed what had happened and said, surprising himself, "Fair enough."
    "Seneschal, what came over you?" Ma pleaded. Painfully, Zhu Irzh hauled himself to a sitting position and leaned back against the white plastic wall of the cell. It was some kind of mobile arrest unit; he'd seen them before. The woman's hand stirred in her lap. He could see the glint of the gun.
    "Good question," said Zhu Irzh.
    "And the answer is?" The woman's voice was as arctic as her gaze.
    "I have absolutely not the faintest idea. One minute I was fine, the next—I was freaking out. I'm as amazed as you are. I had no desire whatsoever to kill Paravang Roche. He might be a pain in the ass, but if I attempted to murder everyone in a similar position, I'd have no colleagues