by Selina Rosen
The bed was too weird, and the floor was too hard, and she was lonely. She’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it.
On a whim, Tarent physically went in to check on his daughter instead of running a computer scan of her room. He wanted to see for himself that she was all right. At first glance he didn’t see her, and he started to panic. When he saw that she was sleeping in the floor, he was outraged.
He went back to his office, flopped down behind his desk and started mumbling to himself. “That fucking dyke has done unspeakable things to my daughter. She took an innocent girl who had been sheltered from all the cruelties of the outside world and exposed her to every sort of disease and danger, but worse than all of that she has changed Elantra into a filthy Constructionist.”
He let his rage reach an appropriate level before he screamed, “Dacker, Squat! Come to my office immediately.”
Seconds later the two men, looking disheveled and wearing bathrobes, were standing in his office.
He looked slowly up from his desktop. “I want a hit put on Mishy. I am tired of dicking with him.”
“You sure, boss?” Squat started uncertainly. “Some of the other syndicates... they ain’t gonna like that too much.”
The veins stood out in Tarent’s neck as he screamed. “I’m the biggest fish in this barrel! I’m going to remind all these pencil-dicked morons just who runs FreightCity. If any of them dare balk, they’ll be next on Mr. Tarent’s hit parade. But even more important than Mishy’s death is the death of that walking piece of hardware, Hammer McVee. I want her found, and I want her killed. Tell all of our associates; get the word out on the street. I will give five hundred thousand dollars to the man who brings me Mishy’s head, but I will give a million dollars to the man who brings me the head of Conner “The Hammer” McVee.”
“With an offer like that it shouldn’t take long, sir,” Squat assured him.
“It had better not. You imbeciles failed dreadfully in finding and retrieving my daughter. First they have to follow Mishy to find her. Then they let Hammer get away...”
“They was dead, boss.” Dacker reminded. Tarent glared at him, he cringed and quickly looked down at his feet.
“If it wasn’t for that freak goody-goody bringing Elantra home because she wanted to come home… Well, I begin to believe that all of the idiots in my employ wouldn’t have been able to track her down, let alone bring her in. Now, I want the head of Conner McVee, and I want it yesterday. So I suggest you get out of your jammies and get to work. Because if Hammer isn’t dead and dead soon, I’m going to become very angry. And you know what happens when I get angry, boys, heads roll. You hear me!” He slammed his hand into his desk to show his displeasure. “No one in this organization is inexpendable. No one beyond punishment. If I don’t get what I want and soon... do I have to get vulgar?”
“No, boss.” They started to leave. almost running into each other in their haste.
“Oh, and one more thing...”
They both had to jump off the moving walkway to keep from being carried out of the room.
“Yes sir?” Squat asked, panting from all the exertion.
“As of this moment PowersTower is a closed building. No one gets in without a screening, and no one leaves without one. All of Elantra’s pass codes are to be erased from the memory banks, and under no circumstances is she to leave this building. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, boss,” they answered.
“If there is a breach in security, no matter how small, I am going to hold you two personally responsible.”
They waited to make sure he was done this time.
“God damn it! I told you ass holes! Get to work!”
They bumped into each other again as they raced to get on the walkway. Once out of the office they looked at each other.
“The computers run the security in this building, and he tells the computer what to do, but it’s going to be our fault if something goes wrong. That don’t make a damn bit of sense,” Dacker said.
“So, why didn’t you tell him that?” Squat asked.
“Are you out of your tiny fucking mind? That man is a killer, I never want to make him mad.”
“So here’s another question for ya,” Squat swallowed hard. “What’s scarier? Going up against Hammer McVee or disappointing the boss?”
“I don’t know, man,” Dacker said shrugging “I think either way we’re fucking hosed.”
Chapter 12
Conner got up early the next morning, took a shower, got dressed, and wrote the Contractor a note of thanks. Then she walked out of his house onto his porch and looked out at HammerTown. The air was already filled with the sounds of people working, and Conner breathed deeply of the creation. She could drive to one of her many cabins in a Constructionist town, get a job either in construction or law enforcement, find a new woman – one who was neither the sister nor the daughter of a crime boss – settle down and live a simple life.
Except that wasn’t who she was. She was a Constructionist and proud of it, but that didn’t just mean you lived a simple life. It also meant you worked towards the things you truly wanted, truly desired. She loved Elantra, and she wanted a life with her. That meant she was going to have to work for it.
She walked to her car, got in and headed straight for PowersTower.
Anything worth having was worth working for. She would become exactly what God had made her to be and use all that man had made her. She would win absolutely and have what she wanted, or she would die. Either way she would have fulfilled her destiny.
She knew Tarent better than she wanted to. She for sure knew him a hell of a lot better than Elantra did.
She had defiled Tarent’s daughter and made him the laughing-stock of the underworld. These things could not and would not go unpunished by him. He would put a price on her head, and every goon in town would be trying to cash in. So she would go to the one place he and his goon squad might be afraid to touch her, which happened to be the only place she wanted to be at the moment. She pulled into the parking garage of the building across from Powers Tower, and parked in a spot on the third tier that gave her a perfect view of most of the west side of the building.
She leaned back in her seat and pulled off her eye patch. Then she dug in her jacket pocket until she found an old half eaten candy bar left over from a stakeout she’d done six months earlier. She looked at it and then ate it. It was hard and crumbly and stuck to her teeth, and she wished she had taken the time to get some breakfast in HammerTown. She washed the candy down with some cold coffee left over from the night before, and wondered why everything in life had to be so damn hard.
She looked up PowersTower to the room that she knew was Elantra’s. She smiled. With her eye implant, she could just make out Elantra’s form. She watched Elantra walk across the bedroom, and then she frowned. If she could see Elantra – with the right equipment – so could Mishy’s thugs.
Conner opened the lid on her computer, and keyed in. “Computer, call Tarent Powers.”
Tarent’s angry features appeared, then glared back at her. “Hammer! You’ve got one hell of a nerve.”
“Yeah, when they was fixin’ me up, I had them add a pair of huge brass nuts.” Hammer wasn’t afraid of Tarent Powers, and she wasn’t going to mince words with him. “You should be a happy little megalomaniac about now. You got your daughter back, if not untouched, at least uninjured, and you’re still free and alive. Yeah, you must be feeling pretty fucking smug.” Her glare turned to a slow sardonic smile. “But wait, you don’t have everything you want, do you? Because I’m still alive, and Mishy’s still alive, and he’s one pissed off mother fucker, and I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to convince Elantra that she actually likes it in there now that she has been out here. So maybe it’s not quite your day after all.”
“You and your friend Mishy are as good as dead...”
“I have no intention of letting anyone kill me till you’re a rotting corpse and
your daughter is back in my bed. As for Mishy, until he’s dead you’d best not count him out. Mishy’s no fool. He outsmarted you before, and it was Mishy who found me, not you. So I’d say he’s one up on you at this stage of the game.”
“What do you want, McVee?” Tarent asked hotly.
“Aren’t you listening, Tarent? I told you, you dead, and Elantra back...”
Tarent laughed. “You’re pathetic, McVee. You and your kind make me sick, with your pathetic code of ethics. I knew you didn’t have the stomach to kill her, but I didn’t think that even you would be so putridly good that you would deliver her back into my hands simply because she wanted to go...”
“The difference between you and me Tarent is that I actually love Elantra...”
Tarent laughed. “And I suppose you’re foolish enough to believe that she loves you, but she doesn’t, McVee, she couldn’t. She was frightened, she was out of her element and vulnerable, you took advantage of that and she reached out to the only person available to her.”
This time Conner laughed. “Think what you like. After all, denial is one of your strong suits. I didn’t call to chat. I can see Elantra in her room, and if I can, with the right binoculars so can Mishy’s boys. I guarantee you they’re watching PowersTower. Mishy’s got nothing to lose, he wants Elantra dead, and he wants me dead. I’m watching my back, and I’m trusting you to watch Elantra’s.”
“I don’t need your hack advice on security, Hammer. The windows are bullet proof.”
“What about rocket proof, bomb proof, airplane proof? Mishy is a desperate man, and about now he’d do just about anything to see you suffer. Basically I brought her home because until Mishy can be defused you can protect her better than I can. If you’ll do it.”
“You’re a dead bitch.”
“Is that any way to talk to your future daughter-in-law? I’m trying to help you, and you’re cursing me.” She clicked her tongue.
“You won’t look so smug when your head’s on a fucking platter on my desk,” Tarent said through tightly clenched teeth.
“Actually, I probably would, I’ve worn this smug look so long it’s probably permanent. Enjoy your delusions, Tarent. I’m a hard mother fucker to kill, and better men than you have tried.” She laughed. “By now you know as much about me as I know about you. You know I’m connected out the ass, and that I could go to HammerTown and just disappear.”
“Then do it and leave my daughter alone!” Tarent screamed. “She was innocent, and you spread your filth all over her.”
“And she spread her filth all over me. It was wonderful.” Her tone changed – got more serious. “I’ll never leave her alone, Tarent. She needs me, she needs me to save her from you, whether she knows it or not. Now do something with the windows, or better yet move her to an interior room.”
“I can take care of my own daughter thank you, McVee.”
“Then do it. Computer off.”
She was gone as she had come – without warning.
Tarent felt the veins throbbing at his temples. He was so upset that it took him several minutes to realize the true implications of Hammer’s words.
“Computer. Hammer McVee can see Elantra in her room through her window. Where is Hammer McVee?”
“Third story of parking garage across street.” It showed a picture of Hammer sitting in her car with her feet hanging out the window. She waved at him. No doubt her hearing implant had heard the camera moving, and she had focused in on it. She raised her weapon, and the next instant the screen was black, she had taken out the surveillance camera.
“Think you’ve outsmarted me. Well, we’ll see about that. Squat!”
The man ran in.
“Squat, see that?” He pointed at the blank computer screen, and Squat nodded more than a little confused. “That’s Hammer McVee. She’s hanging out in the parking garage across the street. She thinks I won’t go after her there because it’s too close to us. Send some men over there and show her just how wrong she is.”
“Boss... I mean... that’s gonna bring the agencies right to our door,” Squat said guardedly.
“I don’t care! I want her dead. If I have to get into a war with the police agencies to do it, then so be it. Maybe it’s time they learned their true place in this city.”
“Yes sir, boss.” Squat nodded and headed out the door.
Hammer waited until she heard them coming. Then, gun in hand, she got out of the car, shouldered her weapon on its strap, jumped up onto the roof of her car, and then jumped up and grabbed hold of a beam. She wrestled herself onto the top of it and waited.
She watched the car drive up to her car, and watched as its doors opened. Four men jumped out and started looking around.
“Where the fuck did she go?” one asked. About that time another one looked up. The look on his face said that he knew he was about to be the first to die. He got one wild shot off before the nail went through his eye and exploded out the back of his head. She sprayed the area, popping the other three before they could even react.
She reloaded, then jumped off the beam as a second car approached. She opened fire on the second car, then jumped on top of another car and started running across the parked cars as the men in the second car returned her fire. She dove quickly between two cars, then popped up like a demented jack in the box, took careful aim and fired. The nail went in the open window on the driver’s side and into the man’s skull. The car stopped abruptly. As the other three men rushed to exit the stopped vehicle, Conner shot a nail into the alcohol tank. She sprayed the area with nails, and the men fell. She took a flare out of her pocket, lit it, and lobbed it onto the alcohol spill. She ran back to her car, got in and roared off just as the tank exploded. Not as spectacular as the old gas tanks, but still damn impressive.
Conner drove a few blocks away and parked. She got on the computer. “Computer, call Mayor Finkel’s office.”
Mayor Finkel had been eating breakfast. He looked up at Hammer McVee and cringed. “I figured you were going to call that favor up, McVee,” he said.
“All I want is for you to keep them from revoking my permit.”
“That’s it?” he asked in disbelief.
“I also want to keep my tenth level security clearance...”
“McVee, they’re saying you’re crazy. That you are dangerous...”
“What, are you quoting James Rank now? It’s real simple, Mayor. When we busted that illegal whorehouse I could have brought you in. It was all on my computer. We made a deal, and now I’m calling it in.”
“Ya can fuck a hundred prostitutes without a screen, but fuck one sheep, and you’re branded a pervert for life,” the Mayor mumbled. “OK, Hammer, but how do you suggest I convince the members of the council? If it was up to me I’d do it for you, no questions asked. But you’re getting a lot of bad press right now, and...”
“Tell them that I’m about fifteen minutes from bringing Tarent Powers in on charges that will stick.”
“What charges?”
“Bribing a police agency, Brakston Agency as a matter of fact...”
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was. Ask yourself why all of the sudden James Rank has brought these charges against me. I’m his most decorated agent. I was protecting Powers’ daughter from Mishy, and that’s when I found out that Tarent was paying Rank to lose important evidence and look the other way at just the right moment, if you know what I mean. Look at my record and then ask yourself if you really believe this cock and bull story Rank and Tarent are telling about me kidnapping Tarent’s daughter. Ask them where the evidence is. Question the girl, see what she says.”
The Mayor nodded his head. “It does seem a little far-fetched, and it certainly would be a feather in my cap if you could bring Tarent in. OK, I’ll see what I can do, and then we’re even, all right?”
“Debt paid in full.”
“What should I tell them your status is?”
“Tell them I’m working as a free
agent, and I expect to be paid very handsomely when I bring Tarent in. Close transmission.” She smiled broadly. “That will teach Rank to bugger out on me.”
Conner got slowly out of the car. She scanned the area, and then she put the patch on her eye. She locked the car and slammed the door. The streets were silent. It was morning, and anyone who worked any further away than their building had already gone to work. No one parked on the streets. They parked in buildings so that they could call their cars to them. They sure as hell never walked.
This part of FreightCity was not her usual haunt, but it certainly wasn’t new to her.
“I was born here,” she mumbled to herself looking down the street at the row of high-rises, “and if I’m not careful I’ll die here. I don’t know whether that is poetic or ironic.”
She took a deep breath and let it all just soak in for a minute.
After the great plague of 2050, the world had forever changed. She’d never known that world, but she’d read about it. Technology had flourished, the computer age was in full swing and making new advances every day. The world was badly overpopulated because it seemed that some people thought it was God’s own will that they spit out as many children as possible. As had been predicted, a deadly flu was born, one that no medicine could fight. The pandemic swept the poorer nations and areas of the heaviest populations. Two thirds of the world’s population died.
That changed everything. In the wake of so much death, the mega corporations – which already owned most of the world – managed to grab everything they didn’t already have. Humanity conveniently forgot the problems of over-population, misuse of the land, and over-extending resources, blaming human contact for the plague instead. The population embraced technology and used it to keep each other and the world at bay. Since there had been no major epidemic since that time, they assumed their calculations were correct. It never dawned on them that over-population and the subsequent pollution of waterways and food products had caused the plague. That there had been no plague since because with only minimal human contact and the complexity of how babies were now conceived, born, and cared for, there was no chance of over-population.
