Maybe someone owns this field.
Hard to tell, looking at the derelict warehouses around its edge and the fleet of rusting cargo carriers awaiting a wrecking crew.
‘Through here,’ I say.
We push our bikes to keep the noise down.
Sergeant Leona needs help getting her bike through the mesh. Anton assists her, being the gentleman he is. Between them they manage to get the bars well and truly trapped. ‘Out of my way.’
Moving them aside, I rip the wire with one hand and pick up the bike with my other and drag it after me.
‘Wait here,’ I say. ‘Anybody asks, you’re looking for work. If they want to know what you did before this, ignore the question. That’s answer enough.’
I leave them looking worried.
Probably wondering if I intend to come back.
Guess the landing field looks odd unless you’ve seen one before. A mountain of engine parts, endless scuttling bots chewing steel down to dust, more broken tugs and cargo carriers than you can imagine.
The man I’m looking for lives in a warehouse. Since he’s fucking one of the girls from Golden Memories and he knows that I know he’s been drinking on a free tab for the last six months he’ll probably help.
That’s help, without threats being needed.
It’s his kid I spot first.
‘Sven . . .’ he says.
‘You didn’t see me.’
‘Didn’t I?’
‘Absolutely not. You understand?’
Blue eyes look from under a fringe. I was ugly as sin as a kid. This boy lacks the ugliness but his intensity keeps friends away. He’s ripping legs from a bucket of combat bots he drops in the dirt. After a few seconds, the bots uncurl and begin eating their own weight in shaved metal.
It’s the only way to get the bastards to repair.
I taught the kid how to do that.
From the look of things, he’s repaired thousands, because I can see them eating their way through huge sheets of space plating. And a rust-stained circle now surrounds his dad’s warehouse where other cargo carriers used to be.
‘OK,’ he says. ‘I didn’t see you. Didn’t see your friends either.’ He points into the distance where Anton and the others stand.
‘Your dad in?’
The boy nods.
‘Is he alone?’
A grin greets my question.
‘Angelique’s gone home for the weekend.’
He makes it sound like a trip to the country.
Since I know the furthest she’s been from Golden Memories is eight streets, Angelique’s obviously staying with her aunt, who lives in one of the shacks above the market.
‘Here,’ I say, emptying coins into his hand. ‘Buy me a tortilla and get one for yourself.’
‘What about them?’
I nod, and he scurries away.
The stairs to Per’s office are rusty. They also creak. So I’m not surprised to open his door and find myself staring at the muzzle of a Colt automatic. It’s large calibre, with old-fashioned sights.
His finger is on the trigger.
‘Fuck,’ he says, lowering the gun. ‘Thought you were-’ He hesitates, thinks about whether he wants to finish that sentence.
I leave him to it as I look round his room.
A double mattress, a screen fixed to the wall, an old leather chair with a gash across its back, a stack of something that looks like memory boxes, a bucket full of broken combat bots, half of them waving their legs like upturned crabs.
He’s tidied up since I was last here.
A bottle lies on its side.
‘Angelique doesn’t like me drinking.’
‘So you drink when she’s away?’
He grins, an unshaven grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s been on a bender for longer than a single weekend. Which might explain why his son is already up and Angelique’s staying with her aunt.
‘You can feel it?’ he asks me.
I look at him, wondering . . .
‘Static,’ I say. ‘That’s what I can feel. A flat taste like blood in the back of my throat.’
‘Sven,’ says Per, ‘I didn’t mean literally.’
‘Oh.’ Shrugging, I look at him.
‘All the same,’ he says, ‘that’s a pretty good description.’
‘For what?’
‘Whatever’s happening.’ He stares at me through bloodshot eyes. ‘Van Zill’s refusing to pay his taxes. Neen’s not happy.’
Federico Van Zill is a scumbag, would-be crime boss we let live in return for one fifth of everything he earns. Neen you know, he’s my sergeant. ‘Why hasn’t Neen handled it?’
‘Two days ago Van Zill vanished.’
‘Dead?’
‘Doubt you’ll get that lucky.’
We’re silent, and Per looks down at his gun.
It’s recently oiled, and I’m willing to bet good money he’s field-stripped it and loaded up a few spare clips. Other changes occur to me. The bars over the window for a start.
And those creaking stairs . . .
‘Loosened some bolts,’ he says. ‘To warn me if someone’s coming.’
Nodding at the bottle, I say, ‘Is that because you haven’t killed before, and you’re trying to find the courage? Or you have, and didn’t like it?’
‘The boy doesn’t know that.’
Must be the second, then. When I hold out my hand, he hands me the gun.
The weight’s good, its clips clean and full. The pin dry-fires with a sharp click and the barrel has been pulled through so thoroughly it’s a twist of silvery steel. The broken grip on one side of the handle is recently mended.
All the same.
Pulling a side arm from my belt, I offer it to Per, who looks uncertain. So I put it on the deck beside his empty bottle and add three clips. ‘Explosive,’ I tell him, tapping the first. ‘Take out a truck, no problem.’
He nods.
So I tap the second. ‘Hollow-point. Maximum spread and minimum weight loss. No use against ceramic. But take someone off at the knee and it doesn’t matter what they’re wearing above.’
He looks sick.
Probably because he knows it’s true.
‘Armour-piercing,’ I tell him, pointing at the third clip. ‘A thermite core hot enough to melt steel.’
Per’s looking at a fortune.
This lot would sell to Angelique’s aunt for more than he makes in a month. But he won’t be parting with them. I can see that in his eyes.
‘Take a shower, have a shave, eat something.’
He nods.
‘And teach your boy how to use that.’
Misery twists Per’s face as he realizes I mean his original gun.
‘Alternatively, let him get killed.’
There’s a price to my kindness. I want our bikes serviced and stored safely, I want tyres that don’t look as if they’ve been blasted by a shotgun. And I want Per and his boy to keep quiet about my being here. That means he doesn’t tell his squeeze.
Angelique has tits like a goddess, cascades of blonde hair and no inhibitions. Believe me, I know . . . The night we spent together we shared the mattress with Lisa, her cousin.
The one slopping off the steps in front of Golden Memories.
But tell her something when she’s flat on her back and half the neighbourhood knows by lunchtime. She’s a girl who really can’t keep anything shut.
‘Understand?’
Per nods. ‘I owe you my life already.’
Takes me a moment to work out what he means. A while back, I came through here, having just landed, and stumbled over a small boy trying to mend a spider bot. Helping the boy brought his father. Had to fight myself for six streets before deciding not to go back and kill them both.
Because that’s what I should have done.
‘Tell me you didn’t,’ Per says.
‘Do what?’
‘Ride those up the face.’
‘They’re Icefelds. It’s what they’re for.’
‘Sven,’ he says, ‘gyros exist to stop dispatch riders falling off their bikes.’ Per very carefully doesn’t ask the others their names or introduce himself. He simply drops to a crouch beside my bike and sucks his teeth at the state of its tyre, the cracked dampers and the broken fairing. His eyes widen at the sight of the spray and prays.
‘Expecting trouble?’
‘Always.’