When the group of five thugs passed by, their flashlights scanned the pair of huddling hobos and the end of the corridor. One of them cursed, complaining about the smell, and the five kept going. All of them carried plastic guns.
“Thanks,” Delagarza told the woman, who said nothing. He left the way his pursuers had come from.
That little trick had earned him a couple minutes. Enough to check out his route of escape.
He returned to Taiga’s downtown, to Cronos’ ‘ware shop. It was deserted now, not a single soul around, except those past caring.
Past the ‘ware shop waited the private part of Taiga, the mob’s territory, where people like Nanny Kayoko made deals with each other without interference from enforcers or security. It was a lawless place, where not even a connected man, such as Delagarza, could survive alone.
But everyone was hiding behind their beds, right?
He walked right in, like he owned the place. Downtown was richer than most of Alwinter up there, and it showed. The streets were better lit, with neon signs everywhere, showing promises of sex, food, and other recreations, the best that money could buy.
While Delagarza passed a nightclub, he saw the bulky frame of a bouncer behind a window. The man squinted at Delagarza and then closed the curtains. Judging from all the stationed mini-cars outside, the place was packed. Probably filled to the brim with mafiosi waiting out the storm.
Assholes, Delagarza thought.
But their cowardice was his salvation. One of the bikes was unlocked. It probably belonged to some guy thieves were too scared to steal from. Delagarza hopped on.
His plan involved reaching Taiga’s personal exit tunnels. He had never seen them before. Actually, he never thought about their possible existence until now. But they made sense. No way Nanny Kayoko left for Alwinter breathing the same shit-infused air as the normal populace.
So he bet his life on being right.
An hour later, with his reg-suit working overtime to handle the sweat pouring down his body, he found what he was looking for. Rusty stairs connected to the walls, rising a hundred meters and ending next to a single door.
Manager’s personal service tunnels, Delagarza thought. He knew it was the place because someone had installed new, modern lifts next to the stairs, and they seemed well-used.
And guarding those lifts were two men, almost invisible in their black reg-suits, but the plastic glint of their guns was unmistakable.
Delagarza saw them before they saw him. He jumped off the bike and sprinted for the cover of a nearby alley. A second after he reached cover and ducked down, the wall behind him racketed as two impacts peppered it, one after the other.
When Delagarza peeked out, the thugs shot again, but Delagarza had anticipated this and dived as they aimed. The bullets went wide, and without getting up, Delagarza took out his gun and fired three times in quick succession.
The pistol was silenced. He saw the flashes of exploding gas as the bullets exited the chamber, felt the kickback against his wrists travel down the bones of his arm like an electrical current, heard the muffled explosion. One of the thugs wailed and went down as two black, humid flowers spread on his reg-suit, chest-high. The third bullet hit him squarely in the forehead a quarter of a second later. Delagarza caught a glimpse of brain matter spattered on the lift’s machinery. The thug collapsed, dead before hitting the floor.
The remaining man took a look at his partner, aimed at Delagarza, and pressed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“Seriously,” Delagarza told him, “can’t you count? You shot twice already. That 3D printed gun holds two rounds.”
“Fuck you!” the thug said. “I’ll fucking kill you!”
The man ran for cover, fidgeting with his gun to reload it from the rounds in his pocket. Delagarza shot him in the back. The man fell. His plastic gun broke in a thousand pieces as it hit the ground.
Delagarza rushed to the thug who whimpered as vapor rose out of his wound and drops of his blood froze on the floor panels.
“Don’t fucking move!” Delagarza roared. His veins pulsed with such violence he thought he may burst at any second. His throat tasted of adrenaline and fear, but his aim didn’t falter one bit. He kept the gun’s barrel trained on the man’s torso.
“Please!” the thug begged. “Don’t shoot! I’m just doing my job, man.”
Delagarza took a good look at him. Twenty something, barely a man by any standards, fresh out of some Backwater Planet and looking for some easy cash. Working for the enforcers was dangerous, but profitable. Delagarza himself knew that well.
“Why are you and your pals chasing me?” he asked the thug.
“The security lady paid us a lot of credits, yesterday, to silence you,” the thug said. “She didn’t tell us why and I didn’t ask.”
Krieger. Delagarza described her to the man, and he confirmed his description. “What’s your name, buddy?” Delagarza asked him.
“Rex,” he said.
“Today’s your lucky day, Rex,” Delagarza said. “You go and tell that lady I don’t give a shit about her business, and I won’t tell anyone about it, so don’t bother coming after me.”
“Fuck! Can you repeat that?”
Delagarza left Rex there. The lifts required a special code to operate.
Stairs it is.
The rusty steps creaked under his weight, and after he passed the halfway point, the entire structure started to sway.
At least it’ll fall over Rex. I’m sure he’ll mitigate the impact.
More thugs trickled down the street. To Delagarza, they looked like toy soldiers in their cheap reg-suits. But they carried guns. Some shot at him from too far away, and he saw the bullets impact the industrial ventilators next to the stairs.
The others waited until they were closer and took careful aim. Delagarza ducked to reduce the size of their target and rushed the rest of the way. In front and behind him, metal clanged from the bullet impact, leaving visible dents on the handrails.
When he reached the door, one bullet struck it, so close to him, that a sliver of something hot cut his cheek. Delagarza cursed, considered returning fire, and hurried to get the damn thing open when another bullet hit his coat and missed his leg by a hair’s breadth.
The door was locked. Below, enough thugs had gathered that the stream of plastic bullets was constant, but inaccurate. A couple men climbed the stairs, and the tremor of their steps threatened to tear the entire structure out.
Delagarza aimed his gun at a spot under the door’s lock, keeping enough distance between barrel and lock, and shot once.
The door opened, and he rushed inside and away from the line of fire. His face was red and sweaty, and his reg-suit had begun beeping that its batteries were low. A stream of blood trickled down his face from the spot where the sliver had nicked him.
But he was alive.
Delagarza laughed like a maniac, flashed one last look outside, saw the men were still after him, and ran like a devil’s forsaken soul into the darkness of the management’s tunnels, with only his lantern to light the way.
“What a lovely day,” he told himself through gritted teeth. If Krieger had set these fools on his tail, the enforcers wouldn’t give up the chase.
Any normal person would’ve surrendered to panic as they reaching that realization. Delagarza forced his pulse to remain steady as he ran, stumbling in the badly lit tunnels.
He was a loose end, and the only way he’d be getting out of this one was if he made it not worth the enforcers’ time to take him out.
And he had an idea about how to achieve that.
14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CLARKE