Orbital Burn

by K. A. Bedford

  Lou blinked, surprised. “Can you play it back over your synth-box thingy?”

  Dog paused a moment, then quite clearly Lou heard the muffled sound of a door slamming, and a hint of a voice, maybe female, saying something. She couldn’t be sure. When the recording finished, Lou stood staring at Dog. “We have to go back.”

  Chapter 9

  It wasn’t easy for Lou to climb back up the two flights and make no sound. Her steps made huge hollow noises in the stairwell. Dog did his best to pad up the stairs, keeping his panting to a minimum in case somebody should hear him and react adversely. Lou was the noisier of the two. It seemed she could hear every creak of every joint. Her boots, on each step, made a deafening gritty sound. Truly, she thought, I am the most useless private investigator in all of human space.

  They stood, again, on the eighth level landing. Lou pressed her ear against the door, hoping to hear something. Dog had not reported any new noises since the first. Lou didn’t like that. She knew Dog hadn’t imagined the whole thing, but this silence was as ominous as the sound had been. Of course, these doors were solid steel, designed for fire-resistance, security, and so forth.

  She gripped the doorknob and eased it over, hearing the gentle clicks of the latch. The door cracked open and Lou peered through the vertical slit.

  Nothing unusual was visible. Dog, below, listened at the gap. Lou flashed Dog a quizzical look. He nodded, and with a front paw, gestured to the right.

  Room 846 was to the right.

  Lou frowned, her lips pressed tight. Pulling out her blank-filled gun, Lou checked that it was ready, then opened the door a little more for a better look around.

  Dog heard something down the hall, Lou thought, straining with her imperfect hearing to pick up the same trace.

  There! Voices, whispering. Tense tones. Grunts.

  She leaned out a little more and saw two women, tall and strapping, dressed in textured leather, carrying the dead body from room 846. And, they were moving towards the stairs. “Dog,” she whispered, “get a quick look at the faces if you can and record them.”

  Dog peeped out, crouching. He shot a look down the hall, paused a few moments, and then pulled his head in. He glanced up at Lou and nodded.

  “Let’s bug out!” she hissed. They set off downstairs, got down one flight, when Lou thought, we should be going upstairs to avoid these two! Too late to change now! She and Dog pressed on, hustling as fast as they could to make good time and the least possible noise. It was exhausting.

  The voices drifted down to them, actual words lost in the bad acoustics of the stairwell. Lou figured she and Dog were about three levels ahead of the others. She was conscious of the noise she was making and she desperately wanted to slow down, to take each step with much more care — she also wanted to bolt and hide.

  A level further down, Lou realized she couldn’t hear the other people; they’d stopped. She swore. They must be listening.

  Lou pulled on Dog’s string. Dog looked back up at her, head cocked to one side. She pointed up and cupped her hand around one ear. Dog nodded and listened. Lou felt her guts knot up again. God, I’m really not made for this kind of work, she thought. Every time I take a case, it comes down to a moment like this.

  Dog climbed two steps, still listening hard.

  Lou tried sending the pooch meaningful looks that said, What do you hear? but Dog remained unaware of her.

  “Ms. Meagher,” he suddenly whispered in a tone so low she hardly heard it, “they’re going up.”

  She blinked and stared at Dog. “Up?” She pointed up the stairwell. “Up?”

  He nodded. “Now what?”

  “We go up, too.”

  They headed back up the stairs. It felt like it took days to get back to the eighth level.

  It was hard to see, in the dim light that seeped in from the landing’s narrow windows. But the blood spatters on the gray foamcrete landing and ascending steps stood out well enough. Some of the spatters were smeared from shoe scuffs. Lou pointed at the partial shoeprints to make sure Dog recorded them.

  From here, Lou could faintly hear the footfalls and grunts of the two body-nappers. She figured that they either had some kind of operations base in one of the high level rooms, or that they were headed for the roof. She tried to remember if there was anything of interest up there, like a hovport, and frowned, unsure. It was so hard to remember some things. She started up the stairs again, taking each step with emphatic care, trying not to step in the blood smears. It would be poor form if she had to flee the bad guys, and they could follow her bloody footprints. Assuming, that is, she could move faster than they could, which was quite a laugh.

  She also tried to remember how many levels the Raffles had. Again, she was not sure. When she looked up — not a good idea for her neck — the stairwell disappeared into darkness. At one point, she thought she saw one of the body-nappers come close to the railing, but it was hard to tell. She pressed on, trying to pace herself, yet also trying to keep up.

  Level ten came and went. Fatigue-toxins soaked her camo and chafed her crotch. Dog, she noticed, moved several steps above her, probably to avoid her stink. She didn’t have the strength to feel embarrassed about it. Her oxygen debt pain was excruciating.

  Level fourteen. How much bloody further?

  They kept following the blood trail. Now, it wasn’t so thick. It occurred to her that the dead guy’s blood was clotting and not oozing out so much. Lou was wheezing, trying hard not to make noise. Dog stopped here and there, looking back at her. There was pleading in his brown eyes.

  “We have to find Kid, Ms. Meagher. He trusts me to look after him. I can’t do it without you.”

  She kept on pulling herself up the railing. One step, two steps. Oh boy. So hard to focus. Her arms and shoulders ached and her hands were slippery with sweat on the cold steel rail.

  Level seventeen. Where the hell are those bitches going?

  Lou realized Dog was pulling on his leash-string, trying to drag her along. She was tempted to let him.

  Weird thoughts danced across her mind. What the hell is Tom doing here? Gotta throw him out. Plenty of old hotels in town. Look, here’s one now. Lotsa rooms.

  And she thought of things her mother had said. I’m too busy to get together for a while, honey. Stalk project here’s entering a crucial phase. Must supervise, troubleshoot, these things don’t build themselves, you know.

  Mother, you’ve been giving me this crap all my life!

  Now you’re pulling the martyred daughter routine? Is that it? I don’t think this is helpful. Can we reschedule this?

  I’m not a bloody leper. I’m not a monster.

  Let’s get together again, how would the eighteenth be for you?

  Yeah. Whatever. Tell Dad I said hi.

  I will, but you know he…

  Lou remembered cutting the call at that moment and then walking around Stalktown all night, hitting things, then watching the tink fix her torn hands. She’d wanted to pull herself apart she was so disgusted. Her parents hated her. My own parents.

  She’d wound up in Sheb’s that night, her first time there. The place had been alive with customers: both regulars and tourists. Nice place. She’d got to talking to the skinny pale guy with the funny white hat. She stayed till closing time, and came back the next day and ended up nursing a glass of ice water long after it went room temperature. At some point she said, “I’m dead.” And Sheb, wiping the counter, said, not missing a beat, “We all got problems, lady.” And he smiled at her with his big white teeth. She’d felt warm for the first time in months.

  That was four years ago.

  Suddenly she became aware of awful pain, down in her legs. It hurt too much to even yell about.

  Where am I?

  What level is this?

  How’d I
wind up on my knees?

  Crawling, climbing. Her knees were screaming.

  Gonna have bruises from here to next week.

  Next week whole world gonna be slag.

  Gotta get up the damn Stalk.

  Lou gasped for breath. She was crying now, or at least trying to. Dry tear ducts and stinging eyes made for an awful ache. Everything ached. She tried not to think about family.

  How much bloody further?

  Her vision was dimming.

  “Ms. Meagher? Ms. Meagher? We’re there.”

  She smelled dog-breath close, warm, moist, and rank. A warm dog tongue touched her cheek.

  She climbed; she crawled.

  Gotta follow bad guys. Gotta find out who…

  “Look — see, blood smears on this doorknob? It’s the roof. We’re there, Ms. Meagher.”

  She felt Dog licking her face. His voice was urgent. “Ms. Meagher. I need you to open this door. It’s too high for me.” He licked her; he was warm and wet. “I need you, Ms. Meagher. I need you now.”

  “Just … a minute. Gimme a minute.”

  Dog whimpered. “Listen! Listen, can you hear that?”

  And she could, sort of. There was a humming, rumbling noise. “Wha…?”

  Then, Oh yeah. Hov. “It’s a hov.”

  “Ms. Meagher! Open the damn door now! We’re missing them!”

  Lou stared up at the doorknob. All she saw was a blurry shape and dark smears. I’m lying on the floor, she understood. How’d I get here?

  Her lungs ground in her chest; her throat stung; there was no moisture anywhere inside her — and yet she was dripping wet.

  She reached up for the doorknob, trying to ignore her aching muscles. “Oh God,” she gasped through her parched lips. Her tongue felt enormous, like someone had stuffed an elephant in her mouth. Her teeth were cutting into it, and she was suddenly struck by the memory of seeing her mother eating sliced cow’s tongue on a sandwich. The image sickened her afresh.

  “Ms. Meagher! Come on!”

  She forced herself to reach for the handle, pushing her shoulder into the floor, ignoring the bellowing noise coming from her mouth, and disregarding, too, the spots and odd lights in her vision, and the darkening, the pain…

  Her fingers slipped on sticky blood. She slumped.

  Lou wailed, but tried again, infant noises coming from somewhere inside of herself.

  Then she had hold of the handle. Her whole weight hung from her hand, now firmly gripping the handle.

  Dog barked approval and licked her face. “You can do it! You’re doing great!”

  Through the pain, she recalled that Dog didn’t like her smell. Must taste worse. Dog must be very keen…

  He trusts me.

  “How’d I get into this?”

  She pulled. A strange high piping whine came from her. She felt her body move. “Yes!” she said. Her body was moving; her blazing wrist joints straining. She worried her wrists would tear apart. Hold together, Lou. Must hold it together. Dog yelped, giving her another lick on the nose.

  She hauled up some long-forgotten strength from somewhere deep within and pulled on the handle—

  The door, however, opened inwards, and here she was leaning against it. She managed a dry sort of swear, which turned into agonizing coughing. She wanted to laugh at the perversity of the universe.

  “Can you still hear the hov?”

  Dog cocked his head and was silent a moment. The silence itself was a bad sign. He looked at her. “Not really.”

  “Whaddya mean, ‘not really’? Listen again.” It had to still be there.

  Pissed off now, Lou levered herself up and got her legs under her. She felt like her knees were about to explode. She felt her mouth gasping like a stranded fish on land. “Oh my…”

  Lou pulled herself up, holding the doorknob like her existence depended on it. She nearly lost her grip; her vision was bad.

  Right.

  She was up.

  Standing — more or less.

  Her knees wobbled.

  So dizzy.

  She shivered, drenched in cold sweat.

  Hey! How about this? I got up!

  Lou turned, wincing, and pulled open the door, and leaned on the door’s edge. A blast of icy late-afternoon Kestrel wind pushed against her. She squinted into the lowering sun. “C’mon, Dog…” She stepped through the doorway.

  “Ms. Meagher, maybe you could leave your gun in the doorway so we don’t get locked out?”

  Still dizzy, Lou said, “Yeah.” She fished out her gun and dropped it in the doorway. Dog picked it up and positioned it properly.

  She cautiously stepped onto the smooth surface of the Raffles Hotel roof. Forests of antennae, vent-towers, and elevator works were everywhere. There was also a hovport and an autolander array.

  There was still a strong whiff of burned thruster fuel in the air. Lou hobbled across to the hovport, and climbed up onto the warm pad. She saw the thruster burns on the concrete and the blood-smeared shoeprints. Dog was next to her, panting. “These burns are still very hot, Ms. Meagher.”

  Lou swore; it sounded strange and stupid coming from her dry mouth. She smiled bleakly, never afraid to see the funny side.

  Turning around, she stared into the sky.

  There was no trace of the hov.

  Could’ve gone anywhere.

  The sun hurt her eyes. Wincing, she found herself looking at the silhouetted Stalk.

  The Stalk. There was something she knew about the damn Stalk.

  God, it’s cold up here. So cold.

  She continued staring at the Stalk, still thinking. Her body recovered slowly; the implant stores were running down as nanovirus counter-agents took supplies to depleted tissues to make fresh amino acids, proteins, whatever was needed to keep her biochemical systems running.

  Then, she saw some hovs around the Plex, like bees around an unbelievably tall flower.

  “Ms. Meagher? Are you all right?”

  Still staring, watching the hovs, sunlight reflecting off epoxy aeroshells, diffracting through floatfields, thrusters snapping on and off, flickering points of star-heat, she said, “Hmm.” Any one of those hovs could be the one that just took off from here. Or none. And she had no idea how to open up the hovport data access panels to inspect the embedded flight logs.

  All those hovs, must be a dozen or more buzzing about over there. They never crash into each other, she thought.

  Stalk Sky Control.

  And the nearest phone was about twenty bloody flights of steps away. “Need Paper upgrade. Need phoneware.”

  She looked back at the door, gun wedging it open and thought about going back down those steps. There was an average of twenty steps per level: over four hundred opportunities to break her neck.

  “Come on, Dog. Gotta make a call.”

  Chapter 10

  When Lou got to the dataport guy, she had him give her a chair before doing anything else. She unrolled the thing and collapsed into it gratefully. Lou sprawled there for several minutes, wheezing, sweating. He said, “Ma’am, should I call for emergency medical aid?”

  She swallowed. Her throat and mouth were still dry. The tink wasn’t currently making fresh saliva; it had more urgent priorities. “They’d just say I’m beyond help. I’ll be okay. Gimme a minute.”

  Dog went off to the park to relieve himself. He came back and sat next to the chair, looking around. “I didn’t think you were going to make it down the stairs, Ms. Meagher.”

  She managed a rictus smile. “Truth is, I don’t remember much of the trip. I’m just glad I’m down here.”

  “What about the twelve flights back to your apartment?”

  Lou clapped a hand over her eyes. “I’ll worry
about that later.”

  “I could use some water, by the way. Maybe something to eat.”

  “We’ll stop by Sheb’s.” Which reminded her about her earlier visit to Sheb, and his story about that woman. What the hell is her problem?

  At length, she felt up to making the call to Stalk Sky Control.

  Yes, they reported, they do indeed monitor all air traffic over Stalktown and the surrounding area, all the way west to the sea and east to the mountains. And yes, hov pilots do need to stay in constant contact with Sky Control, and, where necessary, follow programmed flight-plans.

  “All right, then,” she said, thinking hard, “what can you tell me about a hov that took off from the hovport on the roof of the New Raffles Hotel about forty minutes ago?”

  The disposable clerk, speaking through the dataport guy, said, “We have been monitoring that vehicle. It’s following a programmed flight-plan in full compliance with Sky Control regulations.”

  This wasn’t what Lou wanted to know. “I need to know who is piloting that hov, and who owns it.”

  “Do you have an information warrant from the Police Authority?”

  Damn. “No, I don’t have an information warrant from the Police Authority. I’m an unlicensed private investigator—”

  “Under the law, we are not at liberty to provide unauthorized persons with this kind of information.”

  Lou slumped back in the chair, pinching the bridge of her nose. Could this day get any worse? “I realize I’m an unauthorized person, but what harm is there in telling me just the ownership and pilot details of this one lousy hov?”

  “Unless you have other queries, I must terminate this call. Thank you.”

  “Wait! Can you give me the hov’s call-sign, or the registry number?”

  “Not without the proper permits, ma’am.”

  The clerk killed the link. The dataport guy said, “That’ll be five credits, ma’am. Shall I debit your account?”

  Pissed off, she waved a hand in his direction. Sure, why not? Down to my last ten credits. Still, there was just about nowhere in this whole doomed city to spend money even if she had some.