“Run.”
I took off without waiting for her, diving into the only cover we had: the buildings, empty, smashed open, easy to jump from one to the other. Milton was right behind me, but making more noise than I liked.
“What is it? Cates! What is it?”
“Hover displacement!” I shouted over my shoulder. “Distant, but coming.”
She didn’t say anything. She knew what that meant.
I raced through our slim list of options-where could we run? Back to the others so we could all get smashed? The System Pigs weren’t out here by accident; there was nothing to patrol out in fucking Newark. Out here, without crowds and Vids and that peculiar gossip of the crowded cities, whatever thin protection they afforded us was gone. Out here, the cops wouldn’t even feel the need to march us out of sight before shooting us.
We ran. I had plenty of experience running, and I moved as best I could, leaping through empty, crumbling windows and forgotten, sagging doorways. I crashed into walls and tripped over rubble, and before long the roar of the hover got close, and the stinging white light of the search lamps began to track us.
The hover’s PA system crackled to life. “Run, you fucking rats, but we’re on you now!”
I tripped at the sound of the voice and went sprawling, my teeth clicking shut, hard, on my tongue, my gun skittering away. Elias Moje. The smooth, well-fed voice was unmistakable. Milton leaped over me and ran three long steps before skidding to a halt and hesitating, looking back at me.
“Go!” I shouted, staggering to my knees. My head was ringing. “Don’t be an ass! GO!”
“Fuck,” she hissed, and spun back to me. She plucked my gun up, grabbed me by the coat and pulled me to my feet with surprising strength. I spat blood as she handed my gun back, and then she was on her way again, running blind. I sprinted to catch up, my mouth full of the coppery taste of my own blood.
The SSF had a million ways to nail you, of course. They weren’t burdened by ancient concepts of warrants or rights or due process. They could arrest you for no reason and hold you indefinitely without a charge. They were licensed to kill and had nothing more than paperwork to deter them. They played nice with the lords and ladies, the rich and powerful, sure. People who could push on Dick Marin and get Internal Affairs to investigate something. But for me? For all of us scuttling through the packed cities picking up a wage here and there, robbing for food and terrified? They did whatever they liked.
Milton and I darted through empty buildings, taking random turns and trying to stay under cover of crumbling roofs as much as possible. After a few minutes, I stopped and held my hand up for Milton who, an old pro, stopped on a dime, panting. I tried to control my own breathing, and listened.
Nothing. Silence.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s hunker down in here for a few minutes, and then we’ll make our way back. Pick up what we can along the way.”
She nodded, raising an eyebrow in a way I already recognized as a Milton Tanner trademark. “That’s the most amazing plan I’ve ever heard, chief.”
“Just keep your eyes open,” I muttered, spitting blood and finding a wall and settling down against it, catching my breath. I contemplated a short, unhappy life spent being chased down by Colonel Elias Moje, and decided I’d have to do something about the bastard.
Milton started to move out into the open, but I put a hand on her shoulder and held her back.
“Just wait a moment. Make sure the coast is clear.”
She settled down. Useless, of course; if the SSF wanted to stay hidden, there was no way my eyes and ears were going to pick them out. But old habits died hard, and even futile exercises sometimes yielded fruit. So I waited, counting in my head as I let my eyes roam the street outside our warehouse and let my ears soak in the windy silence of the ruined city.
We’d gotten pretty lucky on the walk home, finding a few useful items and a lot of garbage we didn’t know what to make of, brought back to Kieth for inspection. There’d been no sign of Moje, but I didn’t think he’d just give up, go home, and have a cocktail. He was in for the haul, and he had a perfect opportunity here in Newark to kill me without details getting back to Marin. I scanned the black sky and sighed.
“Okay.”
We stepped into the warehouse carefully, nervous, but everything looked okay. Tanner, Kieth, and Gatz were gathered around the Monk, who remained tied to the barber chair. I tossed my skag onto the floor with a crash, and they all jumped and whirled. Tanner had a gun trained on me, instinctively, and sagged in relief.
“Fuckhead!” she snapped. “I could have shot your fucking head off.”
“You haven’t been converted, have you?” I asked, striding forward. “Things looked pretty reverent in here.”
“Avery,” Kieth said slowly, glancing back at the Monk. “Mr. Gatz has something to show you.”
I raised an eyebrow and looked at Gatz, who stared back at me from behind his glasses with what I could only assume was… excitement. Having never seen it in Gatz before, I had to assume what the faint coloring in his face meant. “Let’s have it, Kev.”
Gatz licked his lips, but as he drew in breath to tell us, the dim warehouse flooded with the familiar antiseptic white light.
“Hello, rats,” Moje’s voice boomed from the night. “Mr. Cates, I gave you a warning. I am very disappointed to find you here. Time to run.”
XIV
SO I CAN KILL YOU AGAIN!
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. I ran my eyes over the place, made my decision immediately. “Kieth, Milton, Tanner, take the unit and get out. I don’t care where right now, just get out. Kev, you’re with me. The Pigs want me, so they’ll follow us. Kieth, wait a minute until the hover goes after us, then get the fuck out of here.”
I looked around again. “We meet in London as planned. I’ll find you. And if you fucking screw me, I will find you faster. Move!”
“We’re gone!” Milton shouted, leaping into the garbage hover. “Gonna stay low, a few feet off the ground, and follow the streets. SSF won’t pick us up on their screens that way.”
“You’ll what?” Kieth said, aghast. “Fucking crazy bitches, you can’t steer this thing through streets.”
“Watch us, little man. Get your science project on board and stop bitching.”
Gatz and I ran out the back way. The search lamps hit us immediately, and we pushed into the maze of ruined buildings moments before a burst of gunfire chewed up the rubble behind us. The taste of grit coated my throat as we scrambled through what was left of the ruined city, and we barreled through dark rubble-strewn rooms without regard or thought for the half-million things a man could trip over and impale himself on.
The roar of hover displacement was right behind us. I just ran as best I could, ducking and diving through the endless blasted buildings until we found ourselves back on the remnants of Newark’s streets, facing a blank wall, undamaged. We skidded to a halt and stared around helplessly, and I imagined I could feel the hover cresting the building behind us, searching the ground. My eyes fell on a manhole cover set in the ground, obscured by debris. I shoved Gatz.
“Go! The bastard’s after me. Go and I’ll meet you in London!”
Gatz nodded as the white light, pure and painful, swallowed us. I backed away quickly, trying to stay in the shadows created by the buildings. Gatz glanced back at me as I stepped carefully backward, and I stopped moving, a familiar feeling of listless cooperation stealing over me for a second. He winked and dropped the glasses back in place. I stumbled back into motion.