by Selina Rosen
“Yes, something awful. They pissed me off, and so I killed them. Do you want to piss me off, Gorge?”
“No. No sir, boss,” Gorge said quickly.
“They were talking about double-crossing me, can you believe that Gorge?” Tarent didn’t stop talking long enough for Gorge to answer, and Gorge knew he didn’t expect him to. “All you idiots, listen up. Computer, send to all my employees... This is Tarent Powers. There is nowhere in this city that you can go where I can’t see you. Where I can’t hear you. That’s what your loyalty implants are all about. Anyone else tries to double-cross me, and they’ll end up just like Squat and Dacker. Now all of you quit farting around and find Hammer McVee, kill her, and bring Elantra home. I don’t want to hear any more of your feeble excuses.”
Tarent’s paranoia had just been doubled. Squat and Dacker had been with him from the beginning. He would and had trusted them with his life. If they would turn on him, who could he trust?
The answer was easy. There was no one he could trust.
“Computer, issue this command. All humans are to leave this floor of the tower immediately. Their functions will be performed by droids. Deploy eighteen security droids on this floor, programed with the instruction that they are to kill anyone other than myself that walks onto this floor. The elevator is to be programmed not to stop on this floor. Do you compute?”
“Yes,” the computer droned.
“This will be in effect until such time as I shall order you otherwise. Is this also understood?”
“Yes.”
“Then institute the program now.”
Tarent sat back smugly in his chair. He didn’t need people. They had all out-smarted themselves, Mishy, Hammer, the cops, any of his men who were thinking of taking him down for the money Mishy offered. No one could touch him now. They had played their hand one too many times, and now he was all locked down. No one could get to him. He could stay here indefinitely. He’d just proved to his boys that he could handle them without leaving the building. It was bad for business, but he had enough money to ride it out for years if he had to.
He might lose face, but he’d be alive to worry about it. Sooner or later someone would kill McVee, and Mishy. They’d bring Elantra home, and things could all return to normal.
He’d think of this time as a holiday, he’d relax and enjoy it. Kick back and just let the problem take care of itself.
He was Tarent Powers, the most powerful man in FreightCity. He had nothing to be afraid of. He heard something and he jumped, his chair jumping along with him.
“Computer, what was that noise?” Tarent asked.
“My sensors detected no strange noise,” the computer droned. “All personnel have now left the floor, and the droids have been programmed as you specified and are currently entering. After that the elevator will discontinue opening on this floor as you have commanded.”
“Good.” He felt suddenly cold. “Computer, make the room warmer.”
“Done.”
Tarent’s stomach felt strange, and when he looked down at his hands they were shaking. He knew there was nothing the computer could do about that.
Chapter 15
They had finished breakfast and moved into the living room.
“How soon?” Pinky asked carefully as she sat down in a huge overstuffed chair, covered in the ever-popular floral print.
“The sooner we leave, the safer you’ll be,” Hammer said sitting on a couch across from Pinky with an effort normally reserved for trying to squirm into a place two sizes too small for a human body. She was obviously in a great deal of pain.
Pinky shook her head emphatically. “Don’t you worry about this old girl. I can take care of myself, Hammer. You stay as long as you need to.”
“It will be safer for us, too,” Hammer said. “Everyone knows we’re old friends. Someone will spill their guts, and it will be better for all of us if we’re not here when Tarent, and/or Mishy’s men come looking.”
Pinky nodded.
Hammer saw where Pinky was looking, and answered her unanswered question. “She isn’t used to the sugar.”
Elantra was pacing back and forth behind the couch at a quick pace, looking determined. She stopped when she realized they were talking about her and looked at Conner. “I’m thinking,” she protested.
“About what?” Hammer asked with a sly smile.
“Well, for one thing, how you think we’re going to go anywhere, when you can hardly walk,” Elantra said.
Conner looked at Pinky. “We’ll leave as soon as it gets dark. I’ll need you to go out first and make sure things are clear.”
Pinky nodded.
Elantra had started pacing again. “What if they aren’t?” she asked nervously.
“I’ll call some friends and have them make a diversion,” Pinky said, then added, “You know that might not be such a bad idea anyway. Just to be on the safe side.”
“Good idea,” Conner said nodding. “I’m going to need wheels.”
“I’ll call Justin, have him bring up something from HammerTown and park it in the alley out back.”
“That’ll work,” Conner said, turned her head and just watched in silence as Elantra paced back and forth. They were together, and now she wondered why she had been so convinced that they would be. After all that had happened it was a wonder that they were both still alive. The fact that they were both still alive and together was nothing short of a miracle. The implant suddenly kicked in, and she knew why Elantra was pacing. It had very little to do with either the sugar or any thinking she was doing. Conner got up, displaying less effort than she had sitting down. The pain was suddenly kicked back by a more urgent need. She walked over, grabbed Elantra by the hand and started pulling her back in the direction of the guest room.
“Conner McVee, I swear you aren’t going to be happy till you jerk my arm right out of the socket.”
“So you keep saying,” Conner mumbled.
“What on Earth has gotten into you?” Elantra asked.
Conner turned and fixed her with a stare.
“Oh! Are you sure you’re...”
Pinky laughed, and Conner just growled and pulled Elantra along.
“Are you all right?” Elantra asked, placing a gentle hand on the dressing on Conner’s ribs.
“I’m wonderful, what about you?”
“Yeah?” Elantra said with a sigh. “I suppose we better make some sort of plan.”
Conner didn’t know how to explain to Elantra that there were certain things that you couldn’t plan for. Hoping you were prepared for anything they threw at you was sometimes the best you could do. Most of her life she’d just flown by the seat of her pants and hoped for the best. It was easy when you had no one to worry about but yourself. This wasn’t just about getting herself out of a scrape, though. This time she had someone else to protect. She had to get out of this dragging Elantra with her the whole way, and what plan could she possibly have?
“Conner?”
“It’s not that easy,” Conner said. “Everyone in this city who has a gun wants one or both of us dead. Pinky’s right. With the kind of money your daddy’s put on my head, there’s basically no one we can trust.”
“The Constructionists...”
“They aren’t going to make it easy for us to get out of FreightCity, much less to HammerTown.” Conner was thoughtful then, because saying all that made it sound completely hopeless, in which case maybe the best thing to do was just stay put and have sex till someone came and killed them.
“Conner, tell me what you’re thinking. It’s my life, too.”
She was right of course, but Conner was reluctant to tell Elantra just how screwed they were. Suddenly like an epiphany the answer came to her. “They expect us to try to leave, so we won’t. We have to attack them before they can attack us.”
“What?” Elantra asked, not understanding.
“We have to go on the offensive,” Conner said. “There are too many of them. Runnin
g and hiding isn’t going to work. They’ll run us till we get tired, and then they’ll kill us.”
“So we’re going to attack them?” Elantra asked in disbelief.
“Exactly,” Conner said.
“With you all busted up, and me knowing nothing more than point, pull the trigger, and hope for the best?”
“Yeah. You wanted a plan, and now I’ve got one. So you want to hear it or not?”
Jason Hunter easily gained access to James Rank’s room. A nurse was busily working at the computer that was basically taking care of Rank. She was a problem, because she didn’t seem like she was in any hurry to leave.
Jason moved to Rank’s bedside like a concerned friend. “So, Buddy, how you doing?”
“He ain’t none too good,” a familiar voice said from behind him. Jason felt a needle slide into the flesh of his ass, and then he felt nothing.
Conner made sure the nurse’s uniform she had acquired still covered all her weapons. The wheel chair had followed her into the room on her request, and now upon her command it rolled out of the corner and over to the unconscious man. Conner searched Hunter, found both of his pieces, and hid them in her tool belt under the nurse’s smock. Then she stripped him naked, put him in a hospital gown, and loaded him into the chair, not without a great deal of effort and pain. Then she told the chair to take Jason to the parking garage. She followed. If anyone noticed anything amiss, they didn’t say so. Still, she didn’t start to breathe again till she had loaded Jason into the trunk of the car, got in and drove away from the hospital.
“Could I please sit up and look about? I feel like a total idiot down here in the car’s floor.” Elantra looked up at her from where she sat with her knees curled up in the floor and her head on the seat. “The windows are smoked, no one can see in...”
“They can with the right equipment...”
“With the right equipment they could detect my body heat, not to mention the guy you just threw in the back.”
“Point taken. You can sit in the seat.”
“Good.” Elantra popped into the seat. “Seat belt on,” she ordered, and it slid into place over her.
Justin had found them the perfect car. It looked just like all the other self-drivers on the road and had all the amenities, but it could still be driven manually if the need arose, and it would arise where she needed it to go.
“How did you know he’d show up there and then?” Elantra asked.
“I hacked into the hospital computer and planted a false report that James Rank was coming to. I knew Jason couldn’t risk that,” Conner said.
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Use him.”
Chapter 16
Gorge and Fred had been on the streets of SlumTown all day. Walking, of all things. Forcing guns in every lowlife hood’s face and questioning them. Barely avoiding the dozens of police agents who were doing the same thing. They were exhausted, and God only knew what germs they’d been exposed to.
SlumTown’s small-time hoods, while easily intimidated by their size and their firepower, were tight lipped for the most part, but by the afternoon they had hit pay dirt. Hammer had several good friends in SlumTown. Most of them had seemed to have miraculously disappeared. However, she was apparently in very tight with a crossdressing Constructionist who was something of a celebrity. She had been easy to find, as she did three shows nightly in one of the more popular clubs in FreightCity, a place called Down Lows. Which was good, because when they’d showed up at her apartment building to accost her, a bunch of queens had started a huge bitch fight, screaming and throwing pieces of their drag at each other.
Fred and Gorge wanted no part of that, so they went to the club and waited for the guy to show up. They decided it was time to show a little muscle, so when the aging drag queen took the stage to perform to the packed house, they and six more of Tarent’s top men stormed the stage. Fred and Gorge punched the queen and knocked him to the ground while the others stood at the edge of the stage, weapons drawn pointing at the audience. Gorge had startled the guy, and had him by the collar.
“So, freak, where’s Hammer McVee?”
“Boy, did you just make a big mistake,” Pinky said.
“Hey!” someone screamed in a shrill voice. “They hit Pinky!”
Fred watched in amazement as weapon fire erupted, and the six boys watching their backs fell like lined-up dominos. He hit the floor, and when he looked up the old queen had Gorge by the front of his shirt and was pounding the living shit out of his face. Fred thought he should probably help his buddy out, so he jumped up, lifted his gun, and watched as it was kicked from his grip to go spinning across the floor. Then the flower-wearing fairy was pummeling his ass.
Gorge and Fred barely got out of the club and into their car alive. “Car drive, drive!” Gorge ordered.
“Fuck!” Fred said. He looked over at Gorge, whose face looked like it had been hit by a truck. “You think he knew where Hammer was?”
“I don’t give a fuck!” Gorge said.
“What the hell happened?” Tarent’s angry face glared at them from the console on the dash.
“They... they must have been waiting for us,” Gorge said quickly. “They killed six of our guys, Fred and I barely made it out of there alive.”
Tarent’s rage was so apparent that you could almost feel his hot breath coming off the monitor. “You mean to tell me that you two morons and six of my best men got your asses kicked by an aging drag queen and a room full of fairies?”
“He was a really big old queen, an the fairies had guns,” Gorge said helplessly.
It was an old abandoned building in the middle of SlumTown. It was in such bad disrepair and so rat infested that not even the residents of SlumTown thought it was a good idea to inhabit it. A flashlight in one hand, and Jason in the other, Conner headed for the basement. Elantra had Jason’s other arm and was helping Conner pull him along.
“If you’re not careful, you’re going to open your wound,” Elantra scolded.
“I’m fine,” Conner assured her.
Elantra took a deep breath then asked, “You sure there’s no other way?”
Conner nodded silently. She walked directly to the old elevator where she dropped Jason unceremon-iously to the floor and handed Elantra the flashlight. “Point it on the control panel.”
Elantra nodded and did so. Conner used her tools to remove the panel cover, and then wired in her keyboard. In seconds the doors opened to reveal a pristine elevator obviously in good repair and in full working order. Conner stuck her foot in the door and undid the keyboard. Together she and Elantra pulled Jason Hunter into the elevator, the doors closed, and they were going down.
“Conner McVee,” a voice hissed at her.
She looked up at the camera and smiled. “Listen, Mishy...”
“Are you committing suicide, or are you finally going to give me the girl?”
“Neither. I’m not going to beat around the bush here, Mishy. You want to kill us, then do it, and let us have some peace. Mishy, Tarent isn’t you, and he’s not me. He doesn’t give a damn about Elantra. Hell, he ordered her killed himself rather than see her go off with me again. I know your people were there and that you heard him do it. There’s only one way to make Tarent pay, and that’s to kill him.”
“Short of nuking PowersTower you can’t get at Tarent Powers.”
“I can, with your help. All I ask is that you hear me out. Otherwise it will be a race to see who kills who down here, and I don’t want that.”
“Hammer, if you try to doublecross me...”
“We both want the same thing, Mishy, because if you’ll admit it, you know I’m right. Killing Elantra isn’t going to make you feel any better about William or Peggy.”
There was silence as the elevator came to a stop. Conner pulled her weapon, leaned over and kissed Elantra. Elantra kissed her back.
The doors slid open, and two of Mishy’s men stood there with their weapons pull
ed.
“Put your weapons down,” the bigger of the two said.
“No. Why on earth would I do that? So that it would make it easy for you to kill us? No, you want to kill us, you’re going to have to deal with the fact that we’re going to be trying to kill you, too.”
“Boss?” he asked, seemingly of the air.
There was a moment of silence, then, “Bring them on back,” Mishy’s voice said.
“Mind carrying my luggage?” Hammer said, pointing to Jason where he lay on the floor. The two men grumbled, but grabbed him and brought him along. Hammer took Elantra’s hand and led the way. After all, she knew right where Mishy’s office was.
Unlike Tarent, Mishy didn’t like to hide in a building and run everything by computer. Mishy liked to occasionally get down in the trenches. This had at one time been a secret government laboratory, built to do experimentation in germ warfare. After the great plague all such installations had been closed. Mishy had bought the decaying building above it for a song, knowing what gold lay beneath it, and had turned it into his private lair. It was where he went when he needed to be close to the business at hand, or when things were hot like they were now.
The door opened before them, and they walked in. The two men dropped Jason unceremoniously on the floor.
“What may I ask is that?” Mishy asked of Jason.
“That is Jason Hunter, a police agent who works for Brakston Agency. He shot me, then he shot James Rank and got every agent in the city breathing down my shirt. See, the bastard actually works for Tarent Powers.”
Mishy looked Elantra up and down and snarled. “So... I’m curious. You’re not stupid, so why did you bring the girl with you? You know I’m packing heat. I could kill her right now. You’d probably kill me, but I think you know I don’t really care about that.”
“Because you aren’t stupid, Mishy.You must have figured out by now that I need Elantra alive to get to Tarent. Besides, there was no place I could have left her where she would have been any safer.”
“You know... when I saw you in bed with her, I wanted to see you dead.”
