There was silence for a moment while the stowaways considered what the man had said, followed by a howl of approval, and the sounds of movement.
Sasha tried the door, found it still wouldn’t budge, and set out along the balcony. I stuffed Joy into a pocket, checked my weapon, and followed. It’s funny how life works. Just when you think things couldn’t possibly get worse, they sure as hell do.
14
“Surgeon flees after botched operation.”
The headline on a press clipping wadded up in the bottom of Doc’s duffel bag
Our fellow stowaways had been on board at least as long as we had and knew their way around. They swarmed up ladders, dashed through passageways, and burst onto the catwalk. The hatch that refused to work for Sasha opened smoothly for them.
We ran for the other end of the platform. Our boots pounded the metal gratings and our breath came in gasps. I put a dart into every surveillance cam that I saw, but knew that a long sequence of disabled cameras would be like an arrow pointing towards our destination. It felt good, though, and might provide an edge later on.
The catwalk ended where it met the port bulkhead. Sasha pounded on the green button and swore when nothing happened.
We turned to face our pursuers. Knowing we were trapped, and eager to collect the reward money, the stowaways charged. A couple of scroungy-looking men led the attack with some equally ragged women close behind. A collection of scraggly-assed kids brought up the rear. One of the men brandished what looked like a homemade dart gun. The rest were armed with a wild variety of clubs and knives. The balcony was narrow, so they had little choice but to come at us two at a time-a factor that didn’t exactly even the odds but didn’t hurt either.
I turned sideways in an effort to reduce the target profile and felt Joy scramble down my leg. I had no idea where she was headed and couldn’t take time to look. A dart whispered by my shoulder and clanged off metal. I raised my pistol, took aim, and fired. The lead man, the one with the gun, stumbled and fell. The rest jumped over his still-twitching body and kept on coming.
Sasha fired. A woman clutched her throat, staggered, and fell. A little girl cried, “Mommy!” and stopped to help.
I heard someone yell, “Stop! Stop, damn you!” and realized it was me. But they didn’t stop. They screamed their hatred and kept on coming. My stomach felt queasy, and bile filled my throat as I continued to fire. It was a one-sided battle in which their weapons were completely ineffectual and ours were deadly. The imperative “kill or be killed” is written in our genetic code somewhere, and that’s what we did.
Finally, when the last adult had fallen, and the children were sobbing at their sides, it ended. Some were wounded. I wanted to stay and help, but a series of inarticulate yells followed by the clang of distant footsteps forced a retreat. I was about to grab Sasha and drag her the length of the balcony when Joy tugged at my pants leg. “Come on! I opened the door.”
I looked, saw wires dangling from the now-open control box. and realized that Wamba had given his creation something more than a pleasing personality. Joy had initiative, technical expertise, and who knows what else. I made a note to kiss Wamba when and if I saw him again.
The next set of pursuers moved out onto the balcony, saw us, and charged. Their shouts became muffled as the door closed behind me. That’s when I realized that a stranger had joined us: a boy who was crying, knuckling his eyes, and looking to escape.
Sasha held the kid with one hand and a pistol with the other. Her eyes flashed with anger. “We need to find that bastard and find him now!”
I shrugged. “Great. But how? He could be anywhere.”
She gave me one of those looks, the kind that reminds me of how stupid I am, and knelt beside the boy. Her voice was level and tight. “Security cameras imply a control room of some sort, and that’s where the popper will be. Isn’t that right, boy? Where’s the control room?”
The boy looked resentful and tried to pull free. “You shot my sister!”
I expected Sasha to say something nice, to comfort the boy, so imagine my surprise when she put the gun to his head. “Now listen, you little shit! I shot your sister because she tried to kill me. Now, tell me where the control room is or I’ll splatter your brains all over the wall! Take your pick.”
Voices yelled and fists pounded on the door. I looked at Joy. She shook her head and smiled. Whatever she’d done to the lock mechanism would hold for a while. I turned to the boy. You could see the wheels turn. He hated our guts but wanted to live. It didn’t take long to arrive at the proper decision. The tears stopped and his eyes drifted towards my skull plate. “I won’t tell you where it is…but I’ll show you.”
The kid was no dummy. The longer he held onto the information, the longer he’d live. That’s what he assumed, and Sasha nodded agreeably. “Good, very good. Lead away. And remember, one false move, and I’ll blow your brains out.”
The kid knew his way around or was leading us on a wild-goose chase. One or the other. We followed him down the corridor, up a ladder, through an accessway, and out into a large passageway. It was littered with scraps of half-eaten food, empty booze bags, and pools of dried vomit. There was no doubt about it, the poppers liked to party. A box-shaped maintenance bot beeped and ate an empty food pak.
The boy held a finger to his lips; we nodded, and followed him down the hall. I went first, followed by Sasha and Joy. Though nearly obliterated by orange spray paint, the words “Control Center” could still be seen on the hatch at the far end of the corridor. I was proud of my ability to read them. There was no way to know if the popper was inside or not. A security cam stared unblinkingly back at me. Was the popper monitoring that particular shot? Waiting for us to walk into his trap? There was no way to know. He paused ten feet short of the hatch. I checked my weapon. “I’ll go first. Cover me.”
The kid nodded. Her face was pale, and her lips made a long thin line. She was scared, one of the more sensible things I’d seen her do, and a sign of inevitable adulthood.
I turned, planning to lecture the boy, and discovered he was gone. My heart beat a little bit faster, since I knew the little shit had every reason to run for the nearest com set and scream his head off. Time was critical.
I touched the button, and the hatch opened. I dived, rolled, and came up feeling foolish. Control panels lined the bulkheads. Vid monitors displayed miles of empty corridors. Air whispered through the vent over my head. The compartment was empty, or seemed to be, and my pulse started to slow.
The kid stepped through the door, swept the room with her weapon, and looked in my direction. I was halfway through a shrug when the popper dropped out of an overhead crawl space, landed on his feet, and shot Sasha in the back. She looked surprised, took a step in my direction, and fell flat on her face.
My weapon was light-years out of position. I fought to bring it around, cursed the gravity that slowed my hand, and prayed I would beat him.
There was time, plenty of time, time enough to notice that his eyes were cesspool black, that his teeth were very, very white, that he wore a gold crucifix around his neck, that his left shoulder had been bandaged by someone who knew what they were doing, that the weapon in his hand was a Ruger Dartmaster, that his finger was squeezing the trigger, that the pistol was jerking in my hand, that darts were walking their way up the middle of his body and punching holes through his throat.