After giving the scene the once-over, Harsk targeted FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
19
a lone uniform who was standing by the door to Zero's. Harsk looked like he wanted to unload on someone. The cop by the door was the unlucky one. Nohar supposed Harsk chose his victim because of the cup of coffee the guy was drinking. Harsk walked up to the guy, and even though Nohar wasn't great at reading human expressions, the way the poor cop bit his lip and gave forced nods indicated that Harsk wasn't having a nice day and was doing his best to share the experience.
Harsk pointed at the Caldera that Nohar was sitting in and yelled something that Nohar couldn't quite make out. The cop shrugged and tried to say something, and Harsk cut him off. Harsk grabbed the guy's coffee and pointed back into Zero's.
Nohar wished he could read lips.
The cop went inside and Harsk started walking toward the Caldera. He took a sip from the uniform's coffee and grimaced. He looked into the cup, shook his head, and dumped it on the asphalt.
Harsk walked up to the door and opened it. "Ra-jasthan, how did I know you'd be involved in this crap?"
"Deductive reasoning?"
Harsk grunted. ' lGet the fuck out of that patrol car. The city just bought those and we don't want you shedding on them."
Nohar ducked out the door and stretched. The misting rain started to dampen his fur immediately. He wished he had worn his trench coat to the meeting. "No apology for treating me like a suspect? I didn't have to call this in."
"Be glad that some downtown cowboy didn't shoot you. Half these kids are just out of the academy and tend to shit if they see a moreau. This ain't your neighborhood. What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Nugoya was a client."
Harsk looked at Nohar. "So when are you going to start selling yourself to the flush peddlers?"
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S. ANDREW SWANN
Nohar had his right hand up, claws fully extended, before he knew what he was doing. Harsk's face cracked into an ugly grin. "Do it, you fucking alley cat.
I would love to put you away and get you out of my hair."
Nohar took a few deep breaths and lowered his arm.
"What hair?"
A lithe nonhuman form left Zero's. The moreau wore a lab coat and carried a notebook-sized computer, the display of which he was reading.
Nohar called out, "Manny."
Marmy—his full name was Mandvi Gujerat—looked up from the display, twitched his nose, and started across the parking lot toward Nohar and Harsk. Manny was a small guy with a thin, whiplike body. He had short brown fur, a lean, aerodynamic head, and small black eyes. People who saw Manny usually guessed he was designed from a rat, or a ferret. Both were wrong. Manny was a mongoose.
Manny reached them and Harsk interrupted before Nohar could say anything. "Gujerat, what have you got on the bodies?"
Manny gave Nohar an undulating shrug and looked down at his notebook. "I have a tentative species on six of seven. The three bodies outside were all a Peruvian Lepus strain. From the white fur and the characteristic skull profile I'd say Pajonal '35 or '36. They all have unit tattoos, and some heavy scarring. Infantry, and they saw combat."
Manny tapped the screen and the page changed. ' 'The bartender was definitely vulpine. Brit fox, Ulster antiterrorist. I think second generation, but I can't be sure. The British ID their forces under the tongue and most of the fox's head is gone.
"The tiger—" Manny looked at Nohar briefly.
"Second-generation Rajasthan. Indian Special Forces.
"The bear, I would guess Turkmen, Russia, or Ka-zaknstahn. That's only on my previous experience in ursoid strains. Her species—"
FORESTS OF THE NIGHT
21
"Her?" asked Harsk.
"Yes. I think she was a parthenogenetic adaption. But as I was saying, her species isn't cataloged. She's either a unique experiment, or one of the few dozen species that fell through the cracks during the war. From the corpse, for all I know, she could be Canadian."
Nohar snorted.
Manny shrugged again. "I suppose you already have a file on the one engineered human. But his strain checks out against what we have on Sony's late human-enhancement projects. The one we have here underwent a massive reconstruction after some major trauma. The hardware in his body was worth a few million when there were people who could make and install the stuff."
Harsk nodded. "Any leads on the suspect?"
"Some hairs from the mirror check out as canine. From that and a description, purebred Afghani, Qan-dahar '24. Attack strain, one the Kabul government 'discontinued' after the war."
"Enough. Rajasthan, I'll get your statement from the uniforms. Get out of here before you attract more trouble. Gujerat, dump the rest into the precinct mainframe.' ' Harsk started to go toward Zero's and paused. "The Moreytown precinct."
Manny nodded. "Where else?"
Harsk left.
Manny folded up the computer and twitched his nose. "So, stranger, what the hell are you doing at thisbloodbath?"
"Bad sense to let Nugoya hire me—"
"Let me guess. Female Vietnamese canine who shot herself so full of flush that she thought she was avian? The one you asked me to ID for you?"
Nohar nodded.
"I know you don't like my advice—" "Then don't give me any."
"—but something dangerous is going on. I don't
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S. ANDREW SWANN
think you want to be involved, even tangentially, with anything that has to do with the flush industry."
Nohar leaned against the Caldera. His fur was beginning to itch. "Sounds like you know something you think I don't."
"Something's in the air. The DBA is crawling all over downtown, and the gangs in Moreytown are acting up. Most of the bodies I'm looking at the past few weeks are young, second-generation street kids."
"I can handle myself."
"So I worry. You were once one of those second-generation street kids."
"I can handle myself," Nohar said a little more forcefully.
Manny backed off. "Anyway, we do have to stop meeting like this. When are you going to come back and let me cook you some dinner?"
You 've been trying to get me back there for fifteen years, Nohar thought. "I'll make it over one of these days."
"The door's always open."
"I know."
Manny turned and started back to Zero's, where a gaggle of pink EMTs were trying to manhandle the ursine's corpse out the door.
Nohar sighed.
"I know," he whispered to himself.
Nohar uselessly turned the collar up on the irritating pink-designed jacket and headed for his car. There wasn't anything left for him to do here.
CHAPTER 2
Nohar's apartment had holes in the wall, a leaky roof, a sagging floor in the kitchen, and wiring that hadn't been up to code when it was put in forty years ago. However, the place had one redeeming feature. Someone had installed a huge stainless-steel shower that Nohar could fit into. Four in the morning was a godawful time to take a shower, but Nohar wanted to get the city off of him—as well as pieces of bear and Nu-goya.
Nohar stood under a blast of warm water, feeling the grit melt off his fur. Through the open door of the bathroom, he listened to the news coming off his comm and tried to forget the fiasco he had left downtown.
"... major demonstrations through the Economic Community. However, despite public pressure and threats of violence, the European parliament followed through on its vote to eliminate most internal restrictions on nonhu-man movement. The French and German states are braced for a massive influx of unemployed nonhumans from the rest of the economically troubled European nation."