by E. E. Knight
"Naaaah"—Ski let loose with a scream, charging at Valentine with fists flailing. He was big, but a sloppy fighter. It would have been so easy for Valentine to slip under his guard, take his elbow, and use the big hand's momentum to tip him over the point of Valentine's hip. Instead Valentine put up a guard as Ski rained blows on him. He put his head down and rammed it into Ski's stomach. Ski gripped him by the waist and they locked.
A couple of the others saw Ski winning and joined in. Valentine felt himself pulled upright, took the better part of a punch on the temple, a grazing blow to his chin, then another in the gut. Air— and a little coke—wheezed out as his diaphragm contracted. He tasted blood from a cut lip—
Then they were pulled apart, Ski by two of his fellow hands, Valentine by a burly blue arm. Valentine realized it was one of the security staff, talking into his radio even as he put him on the ground with a knee across his back.
Xanadu's security arrived faster than he would have given them credit for—perhaps they were better than they appeared—and didn't let the fight go with a simple "shake hands." Valentine, Ski, and a third hand all made a trip to the long security complex between the hospital and the Grands, where they were put into whitewashed cells to cool down. Valentine gathered from the exchanges at the admissions desk that Ski had caused trouble before, and Valentine had been scooped up in the administrative overkill. Almost as an afterthought they fingerprinted him.
Valentine sat in his cell with a rough brown paper towel, wiping the ink off his hands, wondering—
He'd been printed before in the Kurian Zone. A set of fingerprints existed in the Great Lakes Shipping Security Service, inserted there as part of the long-ago operation that brought him to the Gulf Coast with a good work record that could survive a detailed background check. He imagined the Ordnance had some kind of connection with the GLSSS, and he just might be able to explain away a connection if the old "David Rowan" identity pinged.
But if the connection was made to the renegade officer of the late Thunderbolt . . .
Valentine felt a Reaper's presence in the building. Somewhere above.
A warty, one-eyed officer had the three brawlers brought up a level so they stood before his desk. The Reaper lurked somewhere nearby, not in the room. Valentine felt cold sweat on his belly and back, and his eyes searched the desk and file cabinets for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon.
"Brawling, eh?" the officer said from his paper-littered desk. His desk plate read LIEUTENANT STRAND.
"Hot blood, Strand," Ski said. "Nobody was aiming at murder."
"Little too much hot blood. You didn't join in the blood drive this fall."
"I get woozy when they—" Ski said as his companion winced.
"Corporal!" Strand said. "Take them over to the hospital. Liter each, all at once. They won't feel like fighting for a while."
"I get spells—" Ski's accomplice said. Valentine felt only knee-buckling relief. Anything was better than the hovering Reaper.
They were marched over to the hospital under a single-security-officer escort. The security man had a limp worse than Valentine's. Perhaps a sinecure at Xanadu security was a form of payoff for commendable Ordnance service.
"A nice, big bore. Right in the leg," the security man told the nurse.
Noonside Passions was on in the blood center. Valentine concentrated on it as they jabbed the needle into his inner thigh. Ted's evidence against Holly had mysteriously disappeared, and the episode ended with Nichelle's revelation that she'd stolen it—not to protect her sister, but to force her to steal gasoline for Brick's smuggling ring . . . even as Brick started seducing a virginal New Universal Church acolyte named Ardenia behind Nichelle's back.
"That bastard," the rapt nurse said as she extracted the needle. Valentine didn't know if she was referring to Brick or the guard, who was holding a hand-mirror up to Ski to show him how pale he was getting. "One liter, Ayoob. You're done. You'd better lie for a while until I can get you a biscuit. Coffee?"
"Tea. Lots of sugar."
"All we have is substitute. How about a coke? That's real syrup."
"Great," Valentine said as he passed out.
* * * *
Footsteps in the hall. A blue-uniformed, mustachioed security man turned a key in Valentine's cell. "Ayoob. You're being released to higher authority."
Valentine found he could stand up. Just. Walking seemed out of the question at the moment.
"C'mon, Ayoob, I don't have all night."
Had the fingerprints been processed?
The guard led Valentine out from the catacombs, up some stairs, each step taking him closer to the Reaper, past a ready room, a briefing area, and out to the entryway.
Away from the Reaper!
Valentine caught a whiff of familiar perfume.
"Tar-baby," Fran Paoli said, from across the vastness of the duty desk. "Your face! You need to see a doctor."
* * * *
The damage wasn't as bad as it looked.
She took him back up to her apartment, dressed the small cut on his cheek, and gave him a pair of cream-colored pills that left him relaxed, a little numb, and with a much-improved opinion of Kurian Zone psychotropics.
"There's a little halloween party tomorrow night at the top floor of Grand North. You won't need a mask."
"I might be working."
"I'll get you off," she said, snapping the elastic waistband on her scrubs. He liked Fran Paoli better in her plain blue scrubs than in any of her more exotic outfits that were designed to impress.
"Undoubtedly. But I don't know that I should miss any shifts. I think I have to keep my nose clean here for a while. If they even let me keep my job. Otherwise it's back to Kentucky."
"Let me worry about your reputation. And your job. Besides, it's going to be a fun party. North has this beautiful function space, and even Oriana's going to get dressed up."
Valentine found it easier to talk with his eyes closed. He felt as though he were drifting down a river on a raft, and opening his eyes might mean he'd have to change course. "I don't have a costume."
"Yes, you do. That biker getup of yours. I've been working on something to match all those spikes."
"Easily done."
"You nap. I have to get back to the wards—I'm missing an operation." She left.
Valentine didn't nap. He wondered—agonized—about the efficiency of the fingerprinting procedures. Would it go in an envelope, off to some central catalog for a bored clerk to get around to? Or would it be scanned into a Xanadu computer, which would spit out a list of his crimes against the Kurian Order as fast as bits of data could be shuffled and displayed? How long before that long, low building, resting at the center of Xanadu, a crocodile keeping watch on his swamp, woke up and came for him? The Kurian Order, like a great slumbering dragon, could be tiptoed around, even over, by a clever thief. Make too much noise, though, rouse it through an attack, and it would swallow you whole without straining in the slightest. .
The sensible thing would be to blow this operation, tonight; take Ahn-Kha, find Ali, and be across the river in Price's bass boat before the next shift change.
Could he face Post, tell him his wife was a drugged-up uterus for the Kurian Order? Better to lie and tell him she was dead.
He wouldn't even be able to bring the news himself. He was an exile, condemned by the fugitive law. Ahn-Kha or Duvalier would have to find him in whatever rest camp was helping him adapt to an artificial leg and a shortened intestine.
Getting her out, hopefully in time to beat the fingerprint check, would mean he'd have to bring more people in on the effort. Could he trust the doctor?
Madness. He was right back where he started.
Would William Post do the same for you? How much can one friend expect of another?
No, that's a cheat. The question here is what is a promise, hastily issued from beside a hospital bed, a tiny promise from David Valentine, worth?
&n
bsp; * * * *
Doctor Boothe yawned as she came to her surgery door. "Ayoob. What happened?"
He tried to show the good half of his face through the strip of chained door. "A fistfight with Ski and a few hands. Can I come in?"
"It's eleven at night."
"It's important enough."
She shut the door and Valentine heard the chain slide. He looked around. The cool night air was empty.
She brought him into the tiled surgery and turned on a light. "What's so important, now?"
"I'm leaving the Ordnance. Going back to Kentucky."
"Good for you."
"I was wondering if your assistant might like to come. Anyone with veterinary training would be welcome there."
"Pepsa? A rabbit-run? Why should she do that?"
"She's mute. I'm surprised she hasn't been culled out of the herd before this."
"How dare—"
"Just cutting through the bullshit, Boothe. Or are you the type who only likes to see half the truth? I know people. We could get her somewhere safe from the Reapers, a lot safer than your dog kennels and dairy stalls."
"We?"
"Me. Ahn-Kha. You. Someone on the outside. I don't want to say more."
"You just offered your heart up, you know that. You'd be gone tonight if I told security. I'd get a seat at the head table at the next Ordnance Gratitude Banquet."
Valentine didn't want to kill this woman. But if she moved to the phone— "If you're such a friend of security, why haven't our guns ever left your office? Or have they?"
She couldn't help but look over her shoulder at the corridor to her storage room.
Boothe seemed to be fighting with something lodged in her throat.
"You could come along," Valentine continued. "Disappear into the tribelands, or relocate into Free Territory."
She frowned. "Free Territory's a myth. Some clearing full of guerillas does not a nation make."
"I've been there."
"As if it's that easy."
"I didn't say anything about it being easy."
She lifted her chin. "Let me talk to Pepsa."
Valentine followed her with his ears and listened from the surgery doorway as she went into a back room and spoke to Pepsa. The quiet conversation was one-sided; Valentine couldn't see what Pepsa communicated back on her kiddie magic tablet. This would be an all-or-nothing gamble. Every person added to a conspiracy doubled the risk.
Dr. Boothe, with Pepsa trailing behind in a robe, joined him in the surgery. Pepsa looked at him with new interest in her gentle eyes.
"You have people who can help us get all the way to Free Territory?"
Valentine thought it best to dodge the question. "There are plenty of animals to take care of there. Herds of horses."
Pepsa wrote something on her board.
"But you do have people outside Xanadu to help us get away?"
"Absolutely."
Boothe and Pepsa exchanged a look. Pepsa wrote again.
"What do you need us to do?" Boothe asked.
"We need some food that can be preserved. Pack some cold-weather clothing and camp-mats, and have it all ready by tomorrow afternoon. Make some excuse for not being available until November first or second. And one more thing. I need a quick look in your pharmacy."
* * * *
Valentine walked all the way back to the rec center to use the phone there. He could have used the phone in Boothe's office, but just in case she or Pepsa turned on him, he could warn Duvalier.
The phone rang fourteen times before a gravelly voice at the hostel answered it. "Yeah?"
Valentine asked to speak to Duvalier's Ordnance ID pseudonym.
"No calls after nine."
"It's urgent. Could I leave a message?"
"She'll get it in the morning, Corporal."
The attendant must have thought Valentine was Duvalier's would-be boyfriend, Corporal Thatcher.
"Tell her my migraine is back. I'll come by tomorrow night, then we can get to the party."
"Migraine?"
Valentine spelled it.
"She'll get the message at a decent hour. Reread your phone protocols, Corporal—dating doesn't give you special privileges to disturb me."
"Tell her some new friends will be along. We'll have transport."
"I'm not a stenographer, son. Call her tomorrow."
Valentine thanked him and replaced the receiver. Next he'd have to wake Ahn-Kha. He looked at the craft table with the Halloween costumes.
* * * *
Xanadu had its share of children, and while it was still light out they paraded around in their costumes from building to building, collecting treats from the security staff at the doors. The kids sang as they collected their candy.
A Reaper, a creeper
Goes looking for a sleeper
Waives him up, drinks him down
And packs him in the freez-zer.
Valentine, dressed in his Bulletproof "leathers" and carrying a large brown market bag full of costuming, was a little shocked to hear the realities of life in the Kurian Zone expressed in nursery-rhyme fashion. He watched one young child, dressed in the red-and-white stripes of a frightening, bloody-handed Uncle Sam, pull his cowgirl sister along as they sang. He'd been at sea during his other Halloween in the Kurian Zone, so he couldn't say if it was a widespread practice. Or maybe on this one night mention of the real duties of the Reapers was allowed.
Valentine passed in to Grand East and nodded to the security staff. They were used to him by now.
"Nice costume, Tar. You really rode those things?"
"Sure did," Valentine said, trying to put a little Kentucky music into his voice.
Valentine went to the smaller of the elevators, the one that went to the top and garage floors, and rode up.
He couldn't help but pat the syringes stuck in the breast of his legworm-rider jacket. His .22 target pistol was tucked into the small of his back, held in place by three strips of surgical tape. Hopefully he wouldn't need it.
Fran Paoli just yelled "come in" at his knock. He hurried in, wondering just how—
And he had his answer when he saw her.
She stood in the doorway of her bedroom, a gothic queen spider in thigh-high boots thick with buckles. Black eyeliner, spider earrings, a temporary tattoo of a skull on one fleshy, corset-enclosed breast.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but leather and chains excite me," she quoted.
"What on earth do you use boots like that for?" Valentine asked.
"Turning men on. Is it working?"
"I'll say. Come here, you naughty girl."
She giggled, and came up and kissed him. She tested the hooks on his forearms, and looked down at the spurs.
"You're dangerous tonight," Fran Paoli observed.
"You've no idea."
He sat on the arm of her sofa and threw her across his knee, raising the torn, black-dyed taffeta miniskirt. A black thong divided her buttocks. He gave her backside an experimental slap.
"Ohhhh!" she cooed.
"I may just have to tie you up so other men don't get a chance to see this," he said, snapping the thong. He hit her again, harder.
"Nothing I could do about it," she said.
He hit her harder. She gave tiny giggle-gasps at each swat.
"My, what a strong arm you have," she said, lifting her now-splotched buttocks a little. Valentine extracted the syringe from his jacket, pulled the plastic cap off with his teeth, and held it in his mouth while he spanked her again, even harder. He felt both ridiculous and a little aroused.
"Uhhh—" she gasped. He transferred the syringe to his hand and injected her, threw it across the room behind her, and struck her again.
Six more swats and she was limp and moaning. The large-animal tranquilizers had their effect.
She slurred and tried to caress him as he transferred her to the bedroom. He kissed her several times, gagged her with her bathrobe belt, and tied her up in the clos
et using pairs of pantyhose and leather belts.
She offered no resistance save a dopey-eyed wink.
"Now you just wait there for a little while," he said, and kissed her on the forehead. He shut the closet door.
Valentine took her keys from the dresser, and her blue ID card. He pocketed them and rode the elevator to the basement.
He'd worked out every move in his mind, gone over it so many times a sense of unreality persisted. Was he still lying in bed, planning this? Was it his real hand reaching for the big Lincoln's door, his bag he placed on the passenger seat, his foot on the accelerator as he backed toward the fuel pump?
The pump clattered loudly enough that he wondered that the whole building didn't come to investigate. He topped off the tank, and filled the two spare twenty-liter plastic containers she kept in the back. He climbed into the driver's seat, and put on the seat belt and com headset. He started the SUV and turned it toward the garage door.
"Two-one-six, leaving," he said into her mouthpiece, pressing the com button on the dash.
"Dr. Paoli?"
"Tar Ayoob, running an errand," he said.
"Two-one-six, leaving," the voice acknowledged. "Enjoy the party." The garage door rose.
Valentine pulled the SUV around to the west tower, parked it in plain sight under a roadside light, and trotted over to the basement door with his bag. He knocked, and Ahn-Kha, in his laundry overcoat, answered.
"Here," Ahn-Kha said, and passed Valentine some blue scrubs.
The boots looked a little funny under them, but he'd pass. Once Ahn-Kha checked the basement hallway, thick with conduits and junction boxes, Valentine went to the larger, gurney-sized elevators and pressed the up button.
Ahn-Kha brought a wheelchair out from around a corner. They were easily found all over the building, but it never hurt to be prepared.
He pushed Fran's blue card in the slot and went up to the fourth floor.
Halloween decorations, traditional orange-and-black paper, festooned the hallway over the honor-in-childbearing propaganda.
Vague noises of something that sounded like a Chevy with a bad starter came from the central common room. Valentine walked behind the wheelchair to Room 4105.
The outer cubicle was empty. A woman lay in the next bed, sleeping—but it wasn't Gail.
