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  Blacklists were illegal, but everyone knew they existed, and why not? After all, why would a corporation use a freelancer who opposed them? And not in regard to one particular issue but on everything. Because that’s where the greenies were coming from. They advocated the complete demechanization of society and a return to the land. Land owned by—you guessed it—the corporations.

  The two groups came together and exploded. A greenie hit a bullet-catcher, the latter hit back, and the brawl was on. I stepped forward into the thick of the battle.

  A woman with hollow cheeks, bad teeth, and fire-filled eyes swung at me. I hit her harder than I should have. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell. It was only as she went down that I realized she was a bullet-catcher. Somebody hit me from behind. It was a glancing blow and didn’t hurt, but I fell anyway. Once on the floor, and hidden by the tightly packed bodies above, it was easy to undo the velcro fasteners and pull the Trans-Solar poncho over the woman’s head. I had it half on by the time I stood.

  One of the lifer’s bodyguards, a Hispanic woman with muscles on her muscles, pistol-whipped a boy and attempted to rally the troops.

  “Come on! A fifty-credit bonus to everyone who makes it to the Trans-Solar checkpoint!”

  Most of us would have murdered our mothers for fifty credits. We staggered, then surged forward, pushing our way through the greenies. The protesters fell away, hopeful their demo had changed some minds, knowing it hadn’t. The status quo was the status quo, and a lot better than some vague “return to the soil” movement. Especially when most of the soil is covered with concrete, contaminated with chemicals, and completely worn out.

  Though unable to stop us, the greenies gave chase. We moved down the corridor at a pretty good clip, took a right into a hallway marked “PRIVATE TRANS-SOLAR PERSONNEL ONLY,” and headed for a rather elaborate checkpoint. It consisted of a partition made of steel bars, a “kill zone,” and another partition of steel bars. It was personed by rent-a-cops, and they were armed with everything short of antitank weapons.

  A bodyguard shouted, “Open the gate!” and waved an I.D. card in the air. Laser beams scanned it, a computer approved it, and the gate slid open. We rushed through and it closed behind us. Those towards the rear tried to stop, shoved those in front, and pushed them against a second gate.

  I turned to find that the greenies had pushed the man in the green sports coat up against the bars. Our eyes met, and he yelled something, but the crowd noise drowned him out.

  A beacon flashed, a buzzer buzzed, and I turned in time to see a female rent-a-cop point towards me from the far side of gate two. “He has a gun! Grab him!”

  The .38! Like the idiot I am, I had entered the checkpoint packing a gun. The autoscanners had found it and were busy spreading the word.

  I shoved a middle-aged man with long scraggly hair towards the Hispanic woman. He tripped and fell against her chest. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Her gun went off. A bullet hit the ceiling and screamed away.

  I took two blows to the chest and heard the gunshots that went with them. I staggered backwards and knew I’d been shot. I looked down, expecting to see a big mess, and realized that the Trans-Solar poncho was bulletproof. Of course! The longer the bullet-catchers stayed alive during an ambush, the longer the lifer would be protected.

  The second bodyguard, a white dude with tattoos all over his face, fired as I stepped behind a fat guy. Having raised his hands in protest, the bullet-catcher took a round through the palm of his left hand before it hit the center of his poncho and bowled him over.

  I dodged the falling body and felt the gun fill my hand. I brought the weapon up, put a round through the white dude’s left thigh, and flinched as a bullet whipped by my ear. The third bodyguard, a twin to the second, corrected his aim. I shot him in the shoulder, realized that his bulletproof underwear had blocked it, and put a round through his gun arm. His pistol clattered as it hit the floor. I was still alive but couldn’t understand why. The fourth bodyguard should have nailed me by now but hadn’t. I turned, saw the crumpled body, and figured her for a ricochet.

  The rent-a-cops, still penned behind gate two, tried for a clear shot but couldn’t find one. Bullet-catchers scattered every which way. The lifer did his best to get behind them, but it didn’t work. A pair of women pushed him forward. “Here…shoot the bastard and leave us alone!”

  I grabbed the sonofabitch, put the gun to his head, and marched him towards the second gate. The rent-a-cops shuffled their feet and wondered what to do. The smell of expensive cologne filled my nostrils. I spoke into his right ear. “Open the gate and do it now.”

  Sweat trickled down his temple and his hands fluttered helplessly. “Don’t hurt me! I’ll double what they’re paying you!”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “Lepforg gortnoy. Open the gate!”

  A well-manicured hand came up, hesitated for a moment, and stabbed the keypad. The gate started to move, and the rent-a-cops surged forward. I took the gun away from the lifer’s head long enough to bounce a round off the floor in front of them. They backpedaled in a hurry.

  “Place your weapons on the floor and do it now!”

  The ranking rent-a-cop, a woman with a blue Mohawk, looked doubtful. The rest waited for orders. I shoved the .38 into the lifer’s ear. He got the hint. His voice quavered. “Do what the man says.”

  Blue-hair frowned unhappily, did a squat, and placed her handgun on the floor. Her troops did likewise. I figured most of them for backup weapons, but didn’t plan to push my luck. I edged the lifer around until the rent-a-cops were between me and the cage. I waved the .38.

  “All right…into the cage.”

  The rent-a-cops backed into the cage palms out. A snarl hurried them along. I kicked the door closed, hoped it would take them a few minutes to get it open, and motioned towards the far end of the corridor. “Come on, pretty boy…let’s run.”

  He did as ordered, huffing and puffing after the first hundred feet or so, expelling the words one at a time. The floor was cleaner than most of the plates in my apartment, and our shoes made squeaking sounds as we ran. The corridor turned to the right, and we followed.

  “What”—pant, pant, pant—“are”—pant, pant—“you”—pant, pant—“going”—pant, pant—“to”—pant, pant—“do”—pant, pant—“with”—pant, pant—“me?”

  “Well,” I replied, glancing over my shoulder, “cross-country competition is out, and that being the case, I’ll trade you for a girl named Sasha.”

  He looked at me sideways. His eyes grew bigger. “Sasha”—pant—“Casad?”

  “That’s the one. Where the hell is she?”

  “And your name”—pant—“is?”

  I started to get annoyed. The tables had turned somehow, and he was interrogating me. I reached out, grabbed his collar, and skidded to a halt. The .38 wouldn’t fit inside his left nostril, but I did what I could to shove it there anyhow. “My name is ‘tell me where the girl is or I’ll blow your sinuses out through the top of your head.’“

  His eyes grew even bigger. “I know who you are! Please, forget the girl, and listen to what…”

  I turned the gun to the right and squeezed the trigger. The bullet went out through the side of his nose instead of up through his brain. Blood sprayed all over the place and the lifer screamed. He covered his nose with his hands and I rammed the .38 into his gut. “Now listen, asshole, I’m done playing patty-cake with you. Take me to the girl, or I’ll drop you right here.”

  I wouldn’t have dropped him right there, but he didn’t know that, and did as he was told. His voice was muffled. “All right, all right, just leave me alone.”

  There was a shout from the other end of the corridor. It was the Hispanic bodyguard. She was pissed, and so were the rent-a-cops.

  I sent two rounds in their general direction and gave pretty boy a shove. He staggered, caught his balance, and began to run. I followed. The steel door was fifty feet ahead. The lifer slowed,
used the wall as a brake, and fumbled with the keypad. His blood-covered index finger skidded from one key to another. He started over. I turned, aimed low, and sent three rounds down-hall. Eight, nine, and ten. That left me with four rounds and a spare magazine.

  A rent-a-cop threw up his arms, tumbled head over heels, and grabbed his right knee. The Hispanic woman shouted something obscene, raised her gun to return fire, and stopped when she realized that even a slight miscalculation could result in her client’s death. I grinned.

  The door opened. Pretty boy dived through in hopes of leaving me stranded outside. It didn’t work. Bullets clanged off the door as it closed behind me. I looked for and found the inevitable keypad. I clicked the “emergency lock” button five or six times and heard the heavy-duty bolts shoot home. The door shook as the rent-a-dorks discovered what I’d done and expressed their displeasure.

  I looked for pretty boy, found him plucking Kleenex from a blood-spattered box, and whacked him over the head. He collapsed in a heap.

  I checked for people, didn’t see any, and took a moment to look around. Art hung on the walls, plants sat just so, and the furniture invited me to sit down and relax. I didn’t.

  “Welcome to Trans-Solar, Mr. Maxon.”

  The voice came from behind me. I turned to find myself looking down the barrel of a hand-held cannon. My .38 hung straight down, so far out of position that it might as well have been home, sitting in a drawer. I wondered if I could bring it up before he was able to squeeze the trigger. The man smiled and shook his head. I let the .38 drop. It made a soft thump as it hit the carpet. The man nodded approvingly. “Wise. Very wise.”

  The man was bald, or nearly so. What hair he had left was pulled back into a ponytail. He was handsome without being pretty and wore his clothes with negligent ease. His eyes were blue and very intelligent. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Really?” I said stupidly. “How’s that?”

  “Come now, Mr. Maxon,” the man replied. “Even you are smarter than that. My men wore their jackets logo-out so you’d know where to look.”

  Blood rushed to my face as I realized how stupid I’d been. It was so obvious, so god-damned obvious, and I’d missed it. But why? They had Sasha, and that was the objective, wasn’t it? I tried to sound nonchalant. “Yeah, that was pretty transparent, alright.”

  “Exactly,” the man agreed. “But it worked, and you were a good deal more resourceful than my staff gave you credit for.” He gestured towards pretty boy’s crumpled body. “Curt will remember you for a long time.”

  “Ibelsnork mopocky,” I said nonsensically, doing my best to maintain eye contact, while Sasha emerged from a side door and held a finger to her lips. She tiptoed in our direction, selected a piece of stone statuary off a side table, and closed the distance. She wore a bra, panties, and nothing else.

  I was afraid she’d blow the whole thing by giving herself away, or by hitting the man so lightly that it did little more than piss him off. Little did I know. Sasha brought the statue back like a baseball bat, gave him a good thump to the side of the head, and stood ready to follow up if the occasion demanded. It didn’t. The lifer’s eyes went blank, and he hit the floor in an untidy heap. Good. Smug bastards piss me off.

  I kicked the .44 out of reach, checked his pulse, and found it was steady. Sasha seemed somewhat casual for a teenaged girl. “Is he dead?” She retrieved the .44 and held it barrel down.

  I frowned. “No, but you hit him awfully hard. I’m surprised his head didn’t fly off.”

  Sasha hit the cylinder release, checked to make sure that all five of the .44’s chambers were loaded, and flipped the weapon closed. The whole thing was done with a degree of expertise that should have bothered me but didn’t. Her voice was casual but tight. “He tried to rape me.”

  The bra and panties suddenly made sense. As did the swellings around the sides of her face. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged and smiled crookedly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Well it was my fault, or so I assumed at the time, but there seemed little point in dwelling on it. The door shook as something heavy hit it. “Get your clothes on. It’s time to leave.”

  Sasha nodded, strode towards the side door, and disappeared inside. I drifted that way and caught a glimpse of a rumpled bed and the leather straps that had connected her hands to the headboard. She grabbed her tights and pulled them up around her waist. They were ripped. She nodded towards the straps. “They were long enough to use my teeth on.”

  I nodded my understanding. The girl was more than I’d thought at first. She had guts, and I admired that. I gestured to our surroundings. “Any way out of here? Other than the front door?”

  Sasha settled the miniskirt into place and turned her attention to the high-heeled boots. I tried to imagine someone running in them and couldn’t.

  “Yeah, I think there is. I didn’t exactly have the run of the place, but there’s something towards the back.”

  I nodded, hit the .38’s magazine release, and slipped the near-empty magazine into my pocket. The backup slid home with a satisfying click. I pumped a round into the chamber, checked to make sure the safety was off, and slipped through the door. Rats always have more than one way out of their nest. All I had to do was find it.

  There was a dull thump, a wave of air hit my back, and the door crashed inwards. I turned, waited for the inevitable rush, and punched three rounds through the smoke and dust. Sasha appeared by my side, held the .44 with both hands, and loosed a round through the doorway. The recoil pulled the gun up overhead. She brought it back down. Someone screamed and she grinned.

  “Come on!” I grabbed her hand and jerked her towards the rear of the office. There were cubicles, storage rooms, and yes, a door with the words “Emergency Exit” lit up above it. Bullets whipped past us as we pushed it open, spied the circular staircase, and started downwards. The corpies were only seconds behind us. I had my client back. The question was, for how long?

  5

  “We’re not proposing to pump it dry, for god’s sake…just pave it over.”

  Land Commissioner Donald Siranni on plans to “cap” Puget Sound

  A massive concrete pillar ran down through the center of the spiral staircase. One of Sasha’s spiked heels caught in the open mesh. She managed to pull it out and continued on tiptoes. A door slammed and the stairs shook as the rent-a-cops started down. We had a two-or three-minute lead. Not enough at the speed we were traveling. “Sasha! Lose the boots! We won’t make it otherwise!”

  The kid grabbed the rail and stopped. I squeezed past, turned, and gestured for a boot. She shoved one in my face. I grabbed, pulled, and felt it come loose. The second boot was easier. I threw both aside.

  I heard a shout, sent a slug up the stairwell, and headed down. Sasha followed. We took the stairs two, sometimes three at a time, always conscious of the fact that the corpies were close behind. There were lots of landings, and doors off each, but all of them were locked. I kept going, knowing the stairs had to end sometime, and hoping that maybe, just maybe, there would be a way out.

  The landings were numbered and the numbers got larger. Finally we were on “Level 50,” and nothing but a door stood between us and whatever lay beyond. I pushed and nothing happened. We were trapped.

  “Stand aside.” Sasha held the .44 in both hands. She was already in the process of squeezing the trigger when I yelled “No!” The word was lost in the boom that followed.

  The bullet bounced off the steel plate that protected the lock mechanism, hit the wall next to my shoulder, and whined up the stairwell. I hoped it would hit a corpie and knew that kind of luck had been reserved for someone else. My ears rang as Sasha brought the gun down for another try. I told her what to do.

  “Ebertok asu nabledock!”

  Sasha frowned and her finger tightened on the trigger.

  I tried again. “Aim for the keypad instead!”

  She nodded and corrected her aim.

  I
turned and was watching the stairs when she fired the next shot. It was as loud as the first. A few more of those and I’d be deaf.

  “Maxon! Look!”

  I looked. The slug had transformed the keypad into a mass of shattered plastic and tangled wires. Sparks sputtered and a tendril of smoke drifted away. I kicked the door and it swung inwards. We entered together. I saw a corridor and a second door. There was no sign of a lock. Good. Sasha gestured to the corner next to the door. “Stay here and slow ’em down. I’ll scout ahead.”

  Who the hell had died and left her in charge? I started to ask, but she was gone before I could organize the necessary words. So I stayed where I was, watched the stairs, and fired when I saw legs. They retreated upwards in a hurry. The corpies yelled something, tried to draw me out, and I ignored them. I heard the now-familiar boom of the .44.

  “Maxon! Come on!”

  I wished there was some way to lock the door, couldn’t think of one, and backed away. Sasha held a second door open and gestured with the .44. The bore looked big enough to drive a truck through. I made a note to teach her something about gun safety. Assuming we lived long enough to make the effort worthwhile, that is.

  I moved through the door and out onto a concrete jetty. Dark water lapped all around. There was a variety of equipment, including a pair of light-duty cranes, fuel pumps, cargo modules, and a high-speed launch that sat on a cradle. The line of bullet holes just above the heavily stained waterline gave mute testimony to what had happened. That, plus the fact that the security station resembled a small-scale fortress, hinted at unseen dangers.

  The apparent dangers, both naked from the waist down, stood with their hands behind their heads. The woman had nice legs and an attitude to go with them. Her nudity didn’t bother her in the least. She looked at me and smiled. The man kept his eyes on the deck. Sasha was pleased with herself. “They were busy playing hide the submarine when I surprised them.”