He turned and strode away. I would have called him back, but I knew it was useless. When Hunter is set on something, nothing short of demolition could stop him. In no time he vanished in the billowing fog.
Rob gave me a questioning look. “That’s one damn strange synoid.” He frowned, tugging on his mustache. “And that was one damn strange goon we ran into. What the hell did he do to us?”
“He must have had some sort of device.” Poddar looked uneasy. “Some kind of synaptic scrambler or something he took us out with.”
Rob nodded, and I couldn’t blame him. It was a lot easier than admitting someone took you out with some sort of mental wasp attack. But then again, there had to be a rational explanation besides freakish super powers. There’s no telling what kind of weapons the labcoats stewed up these days. The thing had probably gotten his mitts on a new prototype or something.
“Well, whatever he was, he’s gone now. Looks like we’ve done enough damage here. We gotta head to the Fortress. There’s a guy in lockup I need to jaw with.”
“The Fortress?” Poddar stared. “The maximum security prison?”
“I hear only the top brass have access,” Rob said. How’re we supposed to just scoot on in?”
“Don’t rattle your eggs, boys. I can get us inside.” The confidence in my tone seemed to satisfy them for the moment.
Good thing they didn’t know I had no clue in hell how I was gonna pull that one off.
Chapter 9: Inside the Meat Locker
The Fortress wasn’t the most cheery of places. When you consider the majority of the populace of New Haven has criminal ties in one way or another, it takes a special type of rube to actually get buried there. No one has ever gotten out. Ever.
Which made it ironic certain chumps were trying to get in.
Those chumps, of course, were my conspicuous new associates and myself. Poddar the Prince fumed with impatience over wanting to look for his missing dame, while Rob the Cowboy tended to his mutt, Stinker. We had to take the skimmer barge since the slammer was located on its own island in the middle of the West Bay, lined with razor-edged rocks and treacherous tides. Air traffic was strictly forbidden, so the only way to access it was an automated trip across the dark, choppy waves. I tried not to look at the water. Reminded me too much of the holes in my memory.
Visitors sometimes went to the Fortress, brave souls who actually defied logic by wanting to see their gonzo relatives who enjoyed the deluxe suites there. There were only a few other passengers, but they eyeballed us warily when they thought we weren’t looking. Maybe it was Poddar’s murderous scowl. Or my bandaged hand in a tattered sling and the Wild Turkey spilling down my throat. But I think it was because Rob was actually dressed like a cowboy, from the Stetson to the boots with spurs.
I mean, who the hell does that?
Good thing they didn’t know we were all heeled and had just left a yard full of stiffs fertilizing the West Docks, or they probably would have decided to take their chances with a nighttime swim.
I figured a little conversation would brighten the mood.
“So. You two used to work together?”
The Cowboy nodded. “Yeah, me and ol’ Poddar go back a ways. Brought down quite a few tags together before he went soft on me.” He grinned at Poddar, who didn’t appear in the mood for levity.
“Now look at him. Fretting over a woman. I told him a pretty slip is a dime a dozen, but Mr. Romantic has to be a one horse rider, if you know what I mean.”
I offered him a gasper. “I do, but not from experience. I take it you don’t have that handicap either.”
He guffawed. “Me? Not in my line of work, pardner. I gotta move with the money. Been all around this wild country of ours. Man can’t wheel and deal while trying to keep one of those… whaddya call ‘em?”
“Relationships.”
“Yeah, those. It’d never work. ‘Sides, there’s only one thing I want from a woman, and it takes me about a minute and a half to get it. Then I’m on to the next thing.”
I blew a casual smoke ring over the waters. “What’s it like out there? You know… Outside.”
The Cowboy puffed on his gasper like it was his last before dying. “You mean beyond the Havens? Wild, brother. The arm of the law don’t go far beyond the Havens, so it’s every man for himself. Lots of roaming marauders, smugglers and scavengers. But there’s a few nice towns too. Even a few nice sized cities. Folks are spreading out in spite of the dangers, if only to get away from the Secret Service and the constant oppression of the United Havens.”
I contemplated that as I smoked. “People really feel the Havens are that bad?”
The Cowboy shrugged. “It’s pretty ugly out there. This place is pretty cut off, so you probably don’t know how bad it is. It took all kinds of tricks to get into this Haven. Even harder to get out. That’s why I’ve been in a rut, because I’m kinda stuck here. Getting the proper clearance to leave is a sonovabitch.”
I glanced at his wrist. “Is that why you don’t have a holoband?”
“That’s right. Haven residents only. Not that I mind. Those things are nothing but a way for the feds to keep tabs on you. I’ll keep my business portable, thank you.” He pulled a thin unit from his pocket. “Does the same job, except I can toss it if things get hot. The info backs up to a private mainframe.”
I tapped my holoband. “You can get a holoband fixed to keep from being tagged. Just costs a pretty penny is all. That’s the thing about tech. No matter what the feds do, there’s always a guy on the outside working to get around it. The smartest eggs are always on the other side of the law.”
“Amen to that, brother.” He scratched Stinker between her ears.
I glared at the dog. “Did you have to bring the mutt? I mean, this is gonna be hard enough to do without the canine companionship, unless you’re planning to attack the joint with fleas.”
The mutt came with the Cowboy in lieu of a horse, I guess. I knew that already, but I was in a foul mood from my recent few hours which had left me blackmailed, wounded, thoroughly humiliated, reeling from some pretty potent absinthe, and almost smoked by a shadowy inhuman who left a mob of gremlins doing demolition work in my head.
“Stinker don’t like your tone.” Rob’s voice was low and raspy. “And she don’t like the word mutt neither. She’d like an apology. Real quick-like, too, or she’ll get offended. You won’t like that.”
“She is a mutt, for crying out loud.”
Then I noticed his hand resting on the butt of his Colt pistol. Normally I’d put the Mean Ol’ Broad against another heater in a heartbeat, but the Cowboy actually was a pretty quick draw. I wasn’t exactly feeling a spring in my step right about then either.
“All right. I’m sorry, ok? We friends now?” I reached out to pet ol’ Stinker. I had to yank back real quick when she snarled and tried to take my hand off in a flash of blurred fangs. Rob brayed like a pregnant mule while the ungrateful mutt continued to snarl her hatred of me.
“Nice.” I hated dogs as a rule. You’d have thought they’d have gone extinct like most everything else, but for some reason people treated them better than their own kids even when the Cataclysm upended most of the world. I'd thought German Shepards were supposed to be a decent enough breed, but I'd already seen Stinker's murderous streak.
Fortunately the ferry had stopped, saving Stinker and the Cowboy from a nice swim to shore. We got off with the other passengers and walked toward the twenty-foot walls topped with laser wire. A massive door slid open, and three gorillas shuffled out.
Ok, they weren’t real gorillas. They were androids. Standard military sentinel versions, although I’d never seen larger models in my life. The shortest guard still topped me by head and shoulders. They were armored like walking tanks.