by Chris Bunch
Acheery voice called “Aay! N’anju! Angie!”
Njangu jolted … shit, blown, saw a smiling, long-haired beauty. Deira, of long months ago. He sagged in relief, lifted a hand in greeting. Then he saw Angie’s face, cold in rage, and her hand came out of her jacket pocket holding a heavy pistol, and she crouched, bringing her offhand up in support, the gun aiming, in utter madness, at Deira. Njangu reacted without thinking, snapkicking, the gun spinning away, into the park. Angie scrabbled after it, snarling incoherently, and a gun blasted behind Njangu, blowing a hole in a parked lifter.
Njangu rolled, hand going for his bootheel, not as nonsensical as it looked. One heel had been modified by ’Raum craftsman, and held two old-fashioned shot-shells, each in an alloy barrel, with spring firing pins. He had the weapon, brought it up, saw a heavyset man he thought he remembered from the Force aiming at him, not five meters away, and snapped the first pin. The gun blasted, nearly breaking his wrist, and the pellets spattered the man. He screeched, dropped the gun, grabbed his face, and staggered backward.
Angie recovered her pistol, was aiming, and Njangu let the other barrel go. Both of them missed. Njangu ducked away, into some brush, heard Angie screaming, “Kill him! Kill him!” and for the first time in his life, the cops came to the rescue.
There were three of them, big men wearing riot gear, and they saw Angie, pistol in hand, and reached for their guns. She shot one, he grabbed his arm, and she ran toward the monorail station.
Njangu went after her, cutting through the park, not sure what he’d do if he beat Angie to the station, hoping to hell his backups had seen what’d happened and were coming, but seeing, hearing no one, the crazy thought repeating, all right, bitch, all right, you went and made it personal and now it’s gonna be payback time. Behind him, the cops shot again, then a third time, and he wondered at what. Someone shouted “Halt,” and he threw a rude gesture over his shoulder, kept going.
He stopped behind a tree thick enough to stop a blaster bolt. He looked back, and saw Deira on her hands and knees, scuttling behind a grounded lifter, felt an instant of relief, then dashed on.
A grenade boomed ahead of him, then he was out of the park, seeing smoke curl outside the ‘rail station/town hall, two sprawled bodies and shattered glass jeweling the ground. Angie was going up the steps, two men with her. One paused, aimed carefully, and shattered the top of the com tower on the hall’s roof.
A ‘rail car was inside the station, turbine whining. Another grenade blasted, and shots echoed from inside. Njangu, a crazy whirl in his guts, ran up the steps of the hall, used a shattered window frame for a step, pulled himself to the roof of the hall. He shinnied up the lattice of the blasted tower, just as the ‘rail eased out of the station, two meters below him, three meters away.
Not letting himself think, he jumped, and thudded down on the car’s roof. He slid, almost going off as the car picked up speed, found a pressure hold, squirmed to a rotating beacon, clutched it as the wind roared about him.
Now what, you silly bastard, now what, hoping they didn’t hear the thud as you landed and this goddamned thing doesn’t go fast enough to knock you off, and didn’t you forget something important like maybe a bang-stick? His fingers fumbled at his other heel, pulled it off, and whipped the antenna free to flail in the wind. He touched the POWER sensor, the SEND button.
“G … this is N.” Static crackled, and Njangu winced, knowing this half-assed lashup the half-assed ’Raum techs had built, swearing it’d never be found, swearing it was set away from any Force frequency, was screwed and pretty quick blaster bolts would start punching holes in metal and then Njangu Yoshitaro.
“G. Go.” Garvin’s voice was quite calm, and Njangu forced himself to sound the same.
“In a world of shit,” he said, and briefly explained what’d happened.
“What do you need?”
“Wings, asshole … but maybe somebody knows the ‘rail routes, and can be waiting at the station with a hundred gazillion Zhukovs.”
“Negative on the Zooks,” Garvin said. “But there’ll be people there. The Big Man’s here, and he’s giving orders. Hang on. We’ll pull your ass out.”
“You better.”
But the ‘rail never reached the main Leggett station. As the silver rails curved over the Heights, then down toward Leggett, it came close to the ground, not ten meters above a thickly brushed hillside. Blaster fire came from inside, then screams, and more shots. The turbine screamed up the cycle, then there was sudden silence.
Yoshitaro chanced looking, saw an emergency exit screech open, locks protesting. A man jumped, gun in hand, arms wide, coat flapping, landed, then Angie followed, then the third man leapt free. Angie glanced up at the car, and Njangu hastily ducked out of sight. The trio pushed through the undergrowth toward a nearby street.
Njangu Yoshitaro, unarmed, listed three dozen sorts of fools he was, jumped into the middle of a thornbush, rolled, and went after the three beards.
• • •
“G … this is N.”
“Go.”
“Obviously the party didn’t make the station.”
“No shiteedah. What happened?”
“They jumped off outside Leggett, infiltrated into the city.”
“Eeesh. So we’re starting all over again?”
“Big negative, my friend. I stayed with ‘em. Present location Yoke Itchie Seven Unyoke Q as in Queen, Yoke Medal Doolie Gik Gik Pod Sif Medal Pod Unyoke. Bring some big guys with sticks. These people aren’t friendly at all.”
“On the way.”
• • •
The warehouse sat in the grimy port industrial area to the east of Leggett’s main shopping district, with no signs of ownership. Njangu scouted the entrances — one on each of the streets the building fronted on, a fourth on the wharf to the rear. He found a vantage point in an alleyway and waited. Three times lifts with RADA MARKETS came and went. Subtle. Njangu shook his head. More proof P&A are really incorruptible coppers. Twice he talked Garvin closer, wondering what sort of big guys with sticks he’d been able to arrange.
A short man with a broom wandered up the street, paused at the alley, and grinned toothlessly. “Go back one block,” he said. “We’re waiting for you in that burned-out building.” The street-sweeper ambled on. Njangu checked for watchers, obeyed.
The building had been a cargo-lifter park and maintenance works, and flame-twisted machinery still sat here and there on the grease- and smoke-blackened floor. Njangu blinked as he smoothed inside. There were at least fifty ’Raum gathered, none big with sticks, dressed in every guise from workman to soh, two-thirds men, some very young. But all were armed with a disarray of weaponry, holding their weapons fiercely. There were paired guards at the two entrances.
Garvin crouched atop an overturned, burned-out lifter. He saw Njangu and stood. He held a pistol in one hand. “Brothers and sisters to be,” he started. “I would have your ears. My brother, Njangu, has tracked these enemies of the people, these ones they call the beards, to their den. We know there are three of them in there, probably more. We do not know what the building contains. We do not know what weapons our enemies have inside. We do not have time to make further investigation.
“I hope I have brought you to the center of this conspiracy who have slaughtered your women, your children, your men. I would like to take one prisoner, to interrogate later, to determine how many more of these beards we shall have to find and eliminate, but if we cannot, we cannot.
“We must strike hard and fast, for the police will arrive shortly after the fighting starts. When you see no more targets, leave at once. If there are wounded, dead, try to take them with you, and don’t leave them to the cruelties of the police. If you must, abandon your arms and attempt to melt into the people, for you, as a fighter, are more important than any gun, any bomb. I shall begin the attack, after I have been told each group is ready. Expect anything when you enter.
“This is the heart of the enemy. S
how no mercy, and remember the blood on their hands, and repay them for their evil. Work well, for the Task is at hand.”
There was a murmur, and the men began filing out. Garvin jumped down, walked to Njangu. “Ready?”
“Yeh,” Njangu said. “I say again my last: What about the fancy talking?”
“In the circus,” Garvin said blandly, and went toward the exit.
• • •
The warehouse served not only Rada Markets, but, through them, another dozen smaller emporiums. To the nineteen deserters Angie Rada had recruited, it was, with the exception of sexual opportunities, fairly close to nirvana. They’d sectioned off the rear of the building, closest to the bay, for living quarters, set up bunks and stoves from the stored camping equipment. They made periodic forays into the warehouse for food, liquor, holos, and such, taking a case at a time so there’d be little obvious sign of their presence.
Sixteen beards were listening to Angie Rada, who stood in front of a large-scale tri-dee pictomap of Leggett. A seventeenth guarded the main entrance the lifters used, and two others were in the city on surveillance duties.
Her voice was low, cold: “Obviously it was a trap, or else no one would have been backing up the traitor Yoshitaro. It was lucky I sensed something going awry, or none of us might have made it out of that armpit alive.”
One of the men who’d been with Angie thought of asking why she’d shot at that girl, who didn’t seem to be doing anything but waving, but thought better, remembering three other deserters who’d challenged her, and been dumped out the back door into the water, wearing sleeping bags wrapped in chains and neat holes in their foreheads.
“I don’t know who he’s working for, the Force, the police, the ’Raum, but we’ll find him, eventually,” she promised. “But in the meantime, we need to strike back, strike hard. Here is our next target. It’s the main place of worship for the ’Raum, just at the entrance to the Eckmuhl. Elt, Wiglaf, you’ve been surveilling it, right?”
“Right,” one man said. “It’s a go target. Nice, soft, easy in, easy out.”
“We’ll use a bomb this time,” Angie said, “and station shooters around the sides. After it blows, we’ll run two magazines through our weapons, then break contact.”
The first beard to die was the sentry. He turned, surprised, as the small door next to the lifter entrance opened and a spring knife went into his throat. Two ’Raum eased his body to the floor, and Garvin, Njangu and the rest of the first attack group slipped inside.
The huge room was bright, lights hanging in rows along the curved ceiling. It was filled with aisle after aisle of goods, some stacked, some on shelves. Steps led to an upper level with darkened offices. Njangu went up the steps, scanned the long aisles below, heard voices from the rear, pointed the way to the ’Raum, came back down.
The ’Raum on the other two street entrances got inside without raising an alarm, but the last group, closest to the beards, grated their door open.
Angie’s hand blurred for her gun, and she shot the first two ’Raum, and another beard pitched a grenade into the doorway. The blast sent the group stumbling back.
Garvin, down an aisle at the warehouses’ other end, saw a man with a blast rifle, shot him, knelt, and sent bolts spitting down the aisle. A beard shot back, and Garvin, as he rolled to the side, was blinded by a warm, sticky fluid. He wiped his hand across his eyes, saw red, had a panicked moment, realized the bolt had shattered a carboy of some sort of sweet drink on the shelf above him, rolled into the next aisle, and sent half a magazine roaring down toward the deserters.
The warehouse was a chaos of shouting, screaming, shots, and explosions. The two groups from the side deployed across the open loading area. Five beards, knowing they’d see no mercy from the ’Raum, were behind a stack of loading pallets, methodically dropping their attackers.
“Surprise,” Njangu said, stepping out from an aisle behind them, a seized rifle at his shoulder. They spun, but too late as his blaster chattered, and four men and a woman curled, screaming.
Njangu couldn’t hear anything, momentarily deafened by the ferocity of the firefight, and then a ’Raum was shaking him, his lips forming words — “All down! All of them are down!”
An instant later he was proved false, as Angie blew the ’Raum’s head off and charged toward the wharf exit, shooting as she went. She changed magazines, jumped over the doorsill onto the wharf. Her partner paused to fire back into the warehouse as flames flickered and smoke billowed from a pile of boxes.
Garvin took careful aim, and blew half his chest away, then started shouting, “Break contact! Break contact! They’re gone!” and slowly the ’Raum came down from battle madness, standing in haze amidst scattered bodies.
He thought, not surprised, So much for prisoners, shouldered a wounded, moaning ’Raum, saw one of the beards writhing in pain, shot him in the head, then ran, stumbling, toward the eastern exit, the farthest from where the police response should come. ’Raum streamed after him, their leaders shouting commands to pick up the wounded, the dead. Some obeyed, some just fled, Njangu was at the rear, the body of a ’Raum woman over his shoulder, then they were out of the warehouse. The fire inside was spreading, leaping from aisle to aisle, and smoke poured from the ceiling vents. Njangu heard the scream of sirens across the city, told his mind to disregard that, and began zigging through back alleys toward the Eckmuhl.
• • •
Angie Rada skidded around a corner, breath searing, saw the police lifter blocking the narrow street and the half dozen riot cops crouched behind it, guns aimed. “Drop the weapon,” the lifter’s PA set boomed.
Angie ducked into a shop entrance, snapped a shot at the lifter and the PA set screeched into silence. She shot at a cop, saw him grab his leg and convulse. “Come on, you bastards, come on,” she shouted, and there was fierce joy in her voice.
• • •
The Eckmuhl exulted that night, and no one, not the Force, not the police, was stupid enough to send patrols inside the walls. Njangu and Garvin sat in that night’s safe house with Jo Poynton. “Shall we go out and reap our benefits?” Garvin asked. “Not forgetting our ‘escorts'?”
“Wait a moment,” Poynton said. “There’s someone Njangu should meet.” A moment later the door opened, and a medium-sized man came in. He was unremarkable except for his thick chest and muscled arms, and then Njangu met his eyes, eyes that held and burned.
“This is the Big Man,” Garvin said, unnecessarily.
Njangu extended his palm, but Jord’n Brooks nodded instead of using the standard Confederation greeting. “At the moment, I use the name Tver,” Brooks said. “Although that changes. And I do not like being called the Big Man. There is no one in The Movement bigger than another.”
Njangu stared skeptically, couldn’t decide if Brooks believed what he was saying.
“It would appear,” Brooks said, “you two are a positive asset to our cause.”
Garvin inclined his head in thanks.
“My emphasis is on ‘appear,’ ” Brooks said. “You helped us … but you also helped the cause of the Rentiers.”
“How do you figure?” Njangu said interestedly.
“Certainly the Force is delighted to have these lunatics named beards out of the way. Their own killers work more subtly. And the real controllers of this system, those with real intelligence, can’t be pleased with what happened, knowing every atrocity the beards committed drove more and more of our brothers and sisters into activism.”
“Your mind works in strange ways,” Garvin said, a little hostility in his voice.
“That’s why I’ve remained alive, and why The Movement continues to grow,” Brooks said calmly, stating facts, no more. “But I don’t want you to be angry at what I said. Perhaps, even probably, it’s not true, and you’re sincere converts. As time passes, and you perform other missions for us, my words will perhaps be proven false, hateful.
“Perhaps.” He nodded, went back out.
> Poynton shrugged. “He is what he is. And we all serve him willingly.”
“Maybe so,” Garvin muttered. “But I’m not sure I have to like him. I think I’m gonna go out and find some masses to lavish gratitude on me. Coming?”
“Maybe in a bit,” Njangu said. “I want to shave, wash up first. I’ll meet you, where? Around midnight, somewhere around that big church?”
“ ’Kay,” Garvin said. “If I’m not there, I’ve found a better party.”
“The same goes for me.” Garvin gave Njangu a thumbs-up, went out.
“Your friend isn’t afraid to speak his mind,” Poynton said.
“No,” Njangu agreed. “That’s why he’s got me around, to keep him out of trouble.”
“Perhaps I could show you a bit of our gratitude,” Poynton said. “I happen to have a bottle of a very good wine, even if it is just from D-Cumbre, in my quarters I’ve been saving for some sort of victory. I don’t like to drink alone.”
“You have a deal, Fearless Leader and Intelligence Honcho of the Universe,” Njangu said. “But give me half an hour. I still smell scared to me.”
• • •
Njangu shut the old-fashioned shower off, considered its ending dribble through the ancient, rusted head. Not much of a ‘fresher, compared to the omnidirectional water cannons in the Force’s barracks, nor the lavish ‘freshers in some of the expensive hotels he’d blown the profits from a successful villainy in. But it was better than being pissed on by a bandit, and just a bit better than the ‘fresher in the crowded apartment he’d grown up in.
Outside the building, he heard the continuing roar of the celebration. He pulled the curtain aside a bit, and a hand extended a towel.
“I’m not looking,” Jo Poynton said.
Njangu took the towel and dried himself, thoughtfully reevaluating the ’Raum intelligence chief. Just because he was terrified she’d expose him … although not quite this literally … didn’t mean he couldn’t, wouldn’t, at least if she were interested? She certainly wasn’t hard on anybody’s eyes, and was an equally long way from being stupid. Very strange, he thought, knotting the towel around him and putting a smile on.
