Metal Fatigue

by Sean Williams

  "No, it's not that," he said finally, not entirely certain himself it was true.

  "Are you sure? Don't make me use the 'I'm a big girl; I can handle it' line."

  "Cross my heart. You've just taken me by surprise, that's all."

  "Really?" Her eyes searched his.

  "Really." Lowering his voice until it was barely audible and speaking directly into her ear, he added: "If we weren't being followed, I'd be in like a shot."

  She managed to stop herself looking over her shoulder. "Followed?" she echoed. "How can you tell?"

  "A hunch; the same hunch I had before Blindeye, and look what happened then." He shrugged, prepared to admit that he still might be wrong. "I'll just duck back and see. If there is someone, I'll come back after I've shaken them. I promise."

  "Are you sure you'll be okay?" she whispered back, her lips hardly moving. One hand touched his chest. "Do you want me to come with you?"

  "No. It's harder to follow one than two. Besides, you need the rest." The crow's-feet around her eyes deepened, but he wouldn't change his mind. He didn't want Barney involved, if he could avoid it — not because she wasn't capable, but because it wasn't her problem. "Don't worry, Barney. I'll be back before you know it."

  "I hope so." Before he could pull away, she kissed him firmly on the lips. With a tight smile, she added: "You fucking heroes ..."

  He watched her go into her house, waited until she had locked the door, then headed back the way they had come. The street was, as far as he could tell, completely empty — yet a sixth sense still told him that there was someone nearby. Until he was certain whether the sensation was illusory, or not, he wasn't prepared to take any chances.

  He had ignored the itch at least once before when it had proved to be right, when it had warned of Cati's presence in the KCU grounds prior to Blindeye. He couldn't afford to take the chance that the itch was wrong this time.

  Turning left off the main access road between B and C rings, he headed for his own home. No footsteps followed him; no shadows moved in the yellow half-light — ahead, behind or above him. The night was perfectly still. Only the occasional streetlight broke the darkness.

  Without breaking step, he lit a cigarette with his left hand. Beneath his overcoat, through a hole in the pocket, his right hand unclipped the holster of his gun and lifted the weapon free. He gripped it tightly without allowing it to be seen. If Cati was following him again, he vowed not to be the easy tail he had been before.

  Five minutes after leaving Barney's doorstep, he reached the corner leading to his building. Instead of turning into his street, however, he continued past. A hundred metres on lay a narrow alley that led to the entrance to an old restaurant, long abandoned. The ground floor was empty, apart from dust and spiders; an external fire exit linked the second floor to the rear of his building, hidden from the front. He had prepared the route some years ago as a means of making a hasty escape, but knew that it would work just as well the other way.

  When he reached the alleyway, he stopped to light another cigarette and study the street. Still no sign. He counted to five, then dropped the cigarette at his feet.

  Ducking into the alley, he brought the pistol out of his pocket. The first twenty metres, until he reached the shelter of the restaurant, were the most dangerous. Hemmed in by damp, brick walls, he was acutely conscious of his inability to dodge. The entrance to the alley bored like a giant eye into his retreating back.

  When he reached the restaurant, he ran inside, velocity unchecked. The darkness was complete, but he didn't hesitate, hurrying up the stairs, along a mouldering corridor and into what had once been an office. A door on the far wall had a sign saying "Fire" in faded letters upon it.

  There he stopped, breathing deeply and evenly.

  And he listened.

  From far away came the sound of a siren, the sigh of the wind, and a whisper that might have been someone shouting —

  But no breathing, no brush of fabric on skin, no creaking boards.

  Nothing. No-one was following him.

  He allowed himself to relax slightly, and crossed to the door. To a casual glance, the lock appeared intact but a quick tug on the rusty metal had it open. The door sighed softly inward. Still cautious, he waited a moment before looking through it.

  A metal walkway connected the restaurant's building with his. A flight of narrow steps led down to street-level. Six metres below, the floor of another alley was littered with old crates. Behind a pile of rubble —

  He froze.

  Behind the rubble were two men watching the entrance to the alley. From the angle of their heads, he could guess why they were there: anyone trying to sneak into his building either along the alley or across the walkway would be seen immediately.

  He retreated back into the building, thanking his sixth sense for making him cautious — even though, in essence, it appeared to have been wrong about the details. He wasn't being followed at all; the assassins had been waiting for him to come home.

  He had two choices: to make his escape, or to continue onward, somehow. If he fled, then the assassins would simply try again at another time, or even track him down to Barney's. He would have solved nothing. But if he kept going, he could get what he wanted from his home and possibly even learn who had put the price on his head as well.

  Deciding quickly, he scrabbled through the detritus on the floor of the office until he found a piece of plastic building material about the length of his forearm. Hefting it, he returned to the doorway.

  Opening the fire exit a second time — and praying that neither man would choose that moment to glance upward — he threw the stick as far as he could along the alley.

  It clattered to the ground, horribly loud in the silence. The heads of the two men turned to face the sudden noise. One crept out of the shadows to investigate.

  Roads ran swiftly across the metal walkway.

  A voice whispered behind and below him, thick with static. The words were faint, barely intelligible:

  "Everything okay back there?"

  Roads carefully opened the fire exit of his building and eased through it.

  "All clear," replied one of the men. "Just a fucking rat."

  The radio fell silent.

  Roads held his breath in the darkness of his building, trying to will his heart quiet. It had been a long time since he had done this sort of thing, but not long enough to have forgotten the excitement of physical danger and the breathless surge of adrenalin it prompted. He had to force himself to take it slowly, to remember that this wasn't as simple as Blindeye had been. There were two men in the alley behind him, plus, he assumed, an unknown number watching the front — and no security force assembled en masse to cover his back. He had to take every step as slowly as possible; one mistake could be fatal.

  When he was ready, he stalled a second longer to remove his contact lenses. The difference was slight, but he needed every advantage he could get.

  His rooms were one floor down. As he crossed to the stairwell, he noticed footprints in the dust. They didn't match his own, and appeared to have been left by bare feet. The last time he had checked his emergency exit had been three days earlier, and it had been clear.

  He felt safe to assume that his mystery caller had arrived since Blindeye, or even more recently. Perhaps within the last few hours; perhaps he was still in the building.

  Gripping the gun tightly, he descended the stairs one by one until he reached his floor. From there, he could just see the building's main entrance — but not Charlie. Roads cursed his luck. A call for attention was too risky. He would have to warn the elderly guard on the way out, if there was time.

  The door to his apartment swung open when he touched it: unlocked. The hallway beyond was dark and silent, and smelled slightly of dust. Someone had definitely been inside within the last few hours.

  He entered the first room in a running crouch, ready for anything.

  The room was in turmoil; books lay on the desk wit
h their spines broken; data fiches had been scattered on the floor alongside the frames of ripped paintings. The next room, his bedroom, was similar. The kitchen had also been ransacked.

  But the apartment was empty. Whoever was responsible for the break-in had left some time ago.

  The assassins, he wondered, or the man with bare feet? Or were they one and the same, as strange as that seemed?

  Ignoring the mystery for the moment, he holstered the gun and went back into the bedroom. In the dusty darkness under the bed was a loose floorboard; he felt for it and lifted it free. From the shallow airspace below the floor he pulled a slim, leather case and put it on the bed.

  A sports bag lay in the ruins of the cupboard. He put the case into it, followed by a change of clothes and a few other necessities.

  Barely had he finished when he heard a door open downstairs. He ducked through the apartment with the bag in one hand and his gun in the other, and peered down the stairwell.

  Charlie had opened the door to let someone in. The streetlight cast a dull glow across the man's back and head, but a shadow across his face. The elderly guard said something that sounded like, "Evening," and the man turned to nod in reply.

  Moustache, receding brown hair, snub nose:

  The Mole.

  Roads crept up the stairwell and back to the second floor, thinking furiously as he went. The thief had impersonated Roads, and Charlie had let him in. That explained how the Mole had been able to gain access to his rooms so often in the past. But why had he come now? The only possible explanation was that the Mole had been following Roads — that his first instincts had been right after all.

  At the fire exit, he paused and slipped the bag onto one shoulder. Opening the door an inch, he listened carefully for movement outside.

  "Right," said the voice on the radio. "He's in. Get to your positions."

  The two men in the alley below moved, their feet rustling through the rubbish. The fire escape creaked as they climbed it.

  Roads sank quickly back into the room: the assassins — like Charlie — obviously thought the Mole was him, and that their wait was over.

  The two men stopped just outside the fire exit, their breathing faint but clear. A minute passed. Roads could think of no other exit from the building apart from through a window. He felt his ribs; the pain was better, but he didn't trust them to withstand the impact of a twenty-foot fall.

  The voice on the radio spoke again. "We're on. You two get inside and keep an eye on the back while the rest of us deal with the old fart."

  Roads' stomach turned to ice. Caught as he was between the Mole and the assassins, he could do little to warn Charlie of what was about to happen.

  The fire exit opened, and Roads hit the first man in the face with a clenched fist. The second man — a short Caucasian with long, blond hair — gaped as his partner went down. Before Long-Hair could yell for help, Roads punched him in the throat and pushed him back through the exit.

  A door slammed open two floors below; then came the sound of a brief scuffle, followed by a single gunshot. Roads winced.

  The first man stirred, and Roads struck him on the side of the skull with the butt of his gun. Feeling through the man's coat pockets, he hunted for the radio. It wasn't there. Acutely conscious that an unknown number of men were prowling through the darkness on the floor below, he opened the fire exit.

  Long-Hair was sitting up on the walkway, clutching his neck. Roads pushed him onto his back and rummaged through his pockets until he found the transmitter. With his foot on Long-Hair's chest, he leaned close and hissed:

  "What's your friend's name?"

  Long-Hair spat weakly in defiance, and Roads pushed the barrel of the gun against his nose until he felt the cartilage snap. The youth gasped in pain and tried to roll free. Roads turned him over, planted his foot into the small of his back and grabbed a fistful of hair.

  "Tell me, you little fuck. I haven't got all night."

  "Andy," gasped Long-Hair, his vocal chords ragged. "His name is Andy."

  "Who pays you?"

  "Fuck you — "

  Roads pressed his heel harder, and Long-Hair gasped with pain.

  "I said, fuck — "

  Roads clubbed him unconscious and ran back to the restaurant. He couldn't afford to waste any more time.

  Right on cue, the radio buzzed.

  "He's not here, dammit. Have you two seen him?"

  Roads raised the transmitter and attempted what he hoped was a credible impersonation of Long-Hair's voice.

  "He just went past — looks like he's heading for the roof — !"

  "Where are you now?"

  "Following him — he took out Andy on the way — "

  "Don't worry about Andy; we'll get him out of the building in time. Just keep after Roads. We're on our way."

  The radio clicked off and Roads reached the exit to the restaurant. He padded silently through the old office and down the stairs until he reached the exit to the alley. There, he stopped.

  Again he was faced with the possibility of an easy escape, and again he turned it down. He needed to know who the ringleader was and, if possible, who had hired him. Then there was Charlie's probable death to avenge. And, besides, he was curious:

  The voice on the radio had assured Long-Hair that Andy would be removed from the building "in time". Something significant was about to happen.

  He crept along the street from shadow to shadow until he reached his corner. When he was sure no-one was watching, he ducked across the intersection. A narrow lane wound its way between the buildings opposite his. He slipped into it, running on his toes to keep quiet. Every ten metres or so, a crack between buildings afforded him a glimpse of the street; he stopped when he reached the one that faced his building.

  Five floors up, figures too small to be identified moved on the roof. Within moments, they had searched it thoroughly and realised Roads' ploy.

  "You motherfucker," said the radio. Roads didn't give them the satisfaction of a reply, and the voice, assuming that he had made his escape, continued:

  "Josh, he's gone. He got by Andy and Johns. He's probably blocks away by now."

  "What do you want me to do?" asked another voice.

  "Keep working. We'll be down in a minute."

  "Will do, but I can't see the — "

  The voice of Josh cut off in mid-sentence. Roads could see wild movement on the first floor, but was unable to distinguish what was going on.

  There was a pause, then:

  "Josh? What the fuck's going on down there?"

  The men on the roof vanished. A minute later, someone screamed. Gunfire rattled. Muzzle-flashes flickered erratically on the first and ground floors as the assassins retreated from something Roads couldn't see.

  Then three men suddenly issued from the building and headed for his hiding space, firing to cover their backs. The first was Danny Chong, the skinny bounty-hunter that Roads and Barney had seen at Morrow's bar.

  Roads retreated back to the lane and ducked out of sight into a shallow alcove.

  The three men entered the narrow passage. Whatever had attacked them in the building followed, judging by the sound of continued gunfire. Ricochets whined, followed by a sickening thud and a noise that sounded like someone trying to yell through a gag.

  Chong was the only one to reach safety. He turned with a look of horror on his face and started to run along the lane.

  As he went past the alcove, Roads tripped him. Chong went down hard and slid for a metre on his stomach. Screaming, he tried to crawl away on his hands and knees.

  Roads followed, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and pinned him against a wall. Chong fought with inhuman strength, empowered by fear. It took an arm-lock and all of Roads' weight to keep him still.

  "I'm not going to kill you," Roads hissed, but it didn't make any difference. Chong writhed, bent his head back. His eyes were wide, almost completely glazed over.

  Roads shook him. "What the fuck happe
ned in there?"

  In reply Chong produced a knife from his sleeve, twisted an arm free and stabbed Roads deep in the right shoulder.

  Roads fell back, gasping with pain. The pistol slipped from his numbed grasp and discharged, throwing sparks from wall to wall as the slug ricocheted along the lane. Chong kicked him in the stomach, and he fell to his knees, then Chong turned and fled the way he had come, hesitating only to pick up the gun he had dropped. Roads staggered to his feet and ran after him.

  When he reached the crack down which Chong had vanished, Roads stopped and stared in horror.

  The concrete path before him was slick with gore. Two bodies lay tangled together against one wall as though torn apart by a wild animal. One severed arm reached for him in a mute plea for help.

  His gorge rose, and he fought it desperately.

  Then a bullet whined past his ear, and he ducked by reflex.

  Chong was standing in the middle of the street, waving the gun in Roads' general direction. His face was a mask of absolute terror.

  "What are you?" screamed the bounty-hunter, an hysterical edge raw in his voice. "What the fuck are you?"

  Chong fired a second time and Roads pressed himself flat against the wall of the building. The assassin's aim was wild — the bullet went high and to his right — but it was only a matter of time before another found its mark. He was about to make a dash for it when something caught his eye.

  Behind Chong, on the other side of the street, the solid line of his building bent, as though a heat-haze had passed in front of it.

  Chong turned just as the dimple in the air reached him. It swirled with half-seen motion — like a soap-bubble warping in a breath of wind. Chong screamed and fired at it, then turned to flee.

  Too late. The back of his head blossomed as something punched through his face. He flew backward through the air, a futile motor-reflex making his feet kick. He hit the road with a sodden thump.

  Then, with a flash as bright as the noon-day sun, Roads' building erupted into flame. For a split-second, the plastic composite that normally kept bad weather at bay held the facade together. Then the composite disintegrated, and a fiery shockwave sent fragments of glass and brick hurtling across the street, into Roads' narrow shelter.