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Pointing the Browning towards the open door, Lars squeezed the trigger, letting loose a ceramic slug. Muzzle flare lit the cell, and in the echoing crash of that single explosion LizAlec saw Lars for the first time. A fat child dressed in a strange white suit that hung round him like someone else’s flayed skin. Bolted to his hip was a black metal bottle, its hose feeding straight into his chest. His slack-jawed mouth was coated in red. LizAlec saw Mickey too, sprawled dead on the floor, neck ripped open — and then she put the two nightmarish sights together.

“Sweet Jesus,” LizAlec whispered as she backed herself against the wall, crouched low, hands folded even tighter across her knees. Her night-blind eyes had dilated with shock.

“What are you?” LizAlec asked.

“Lars,” said Lars, dropping into a crouch in front of her, rifle cradled in one hand. Part of him was listening to her ragged breathing, watching the way her mouth opened slightly with each little gasp, but most of his mind was tuned to the echoing silence outside. The other guard would come down that corridor, Lars was certain of it. And from the way the corridor had echoed his shot, it was long and straight with no tunnels opening off. Which meant that when the man came it would be down an unlit corridor, straight towards Lars’s waiting gun.

Lars grinnned and allowed himself a sly glance between LizAlec’s pulled-up ankles. He wanted to touch her there for real, see if it felt how it looked, soft and salt. There would be a signature scent to her, Lars knew that, but for the moment all his senses were buried beneath the stink of the guard’s death.

Besides, there would be time enough later and Lars had the advantage, he knew that. The little rich girl was night-blind, while he could see her face, her small breasts where they flattened against her knees and that hungry darkness between her legs. He could watch LizAlec without her knowing he watched, though she sensed he was near. Lars could tell that by the way she twisted her head, trying to follow his movements.

“Lars who?” LizAlec asked finally.

“Just Lars,” Lars said, keeping his gaze on the empty corridor.

“And my mother didn’t send you?”

Lars shook his head, then realized the girl couldn’t see him. “No,” he said. “No, not your mum.”

“Then it was Fixx!” The girl said suddenly, a grin splitting her face. “You work for Fixx!” She was nodding to herself as if it was obvious.

“No,” said Lars. “Not your mum, not Fixx. No one sent me.” He rolled backward in the grit, twisting his legs over his head to pivot on one foot, landing face forward, stretched out, the rifle never even touching the ground. Sandrat style. Even a life as brief as his had its advantages.

He knew the other guard was coming long before Laughing Boy waddled into view. Listening intently to the shuffle of Laughing Boy’s crepe soles on the extruded polycrete of the corridor floor, Lars heard the man move carefully through the dark as he swivelled himself round the far corner, wide hips wobbling as he pushed his bulk against the wall, a pistol of some sort held upright, clutched tight in both hands as he crept forward.

Over one eye was a black lens, fed by optic fibre from a box attached to the side of his head by a flyweight boron-fibre Alice band. The thing looked like an expensive version of the NightRyders Ben used to wear.

Lars flipped sideways in the dirt, rolling out of sight. He’d counted on getting off a clean shot, seeing without being seen, but that wasn’t going to happen.

“Man coming,” Lars told LizAlec. The girl started to ask some question but Lars hushed her into silence. “Don’t move, don’t speak,” he said. He could have told LizAlec that he needed her as his decoy, that battered, dirty and naked she was worth more to him than a free shot. But Lars didn’t have time and besides he didn’t know the words to say it.

So instead he left her there and trusted she wouldn’t do anything stupid, like move. Hunched against the far wall, knees pulled up under her chin and genitals displayed, LizAlec was in Laughing Boy’s direct line of sight through the open door. If Lars had been that guard, then, scream or no scream, he knew exactly where he’d have been looking. Some instincts were hardwired into the psyche: that’s why they were instincts.

Time to get ready. Resting his rifle briefly against the nearest wall, Lars flexed his hands until he heard the bones in his fingers click. Then he swung his head heavily from side to side, trying to release the tension in his neck. According to Ben, rule one of combat was get wired or hang loose, because there was nothing in between. Ben had liked to hang tight but reflex enhancers weren’t Lars’s style. He’d tried ice once, though, but all it did was burn when it hit the back of his throat and give him a headache and a bad case of the shakes. Ben thought it was hilarious, but then Ben thought lots of weird shit was amusing.

No, Lars liked loose; it was cooler for a start. Any shithead could go round radiating psycho but Lars preferred to keep people guessing — is this guy dangerous or not? Is this shit for real? Hefting the Browning up with one hand, Lars swivelled the rifle so its barrel was facing down and took up a position just inside the door. He could hear Laughing Boy’s breathing now, heavy and shallow, on the wrong side of nervous... Mind you, he’d have been brick-shitting if he’d heard a scream like Mickey’s coming over his ear bead. The soft shoe shuffle was right outside LizAlec’s cell door now.

“Lars...?”

“Shut it,” Lars hissed, as quietly as he could. This wasn’t the time to let the guard know there were two of them. In fact there couldn’t have been a worse time for LizAlec to open her mouth — but it was all right. Laughing Boy was too busy dealing with his own fear to be paying proper attention.

And then the guard came in. Beretta held high, barrel up, handle gripped between interlocking fingers, standard stuff. Laughing Boy’s eyes raked to the left, checked that corner and then he kicked back the door, steel hitting ‘crete with a loud clang. Nothing there. His eyes began to flick rapidly across the back wall only to stop, as Lars knew they would, when they reached the naked girl. It was a moment’s hesitation only, but it was all Lars needed.

Stepping quietly out from behind the door frame, he swung the butt of the late Mickey’s Browning hard into the point where neck met jaw. There was a crack as bone fractured and then Laughing Boy crashed screaming to his knees. Pushing the fat man sideways with his foot, Lars aimed his butt at the uppermost vertebra — where skull joined spine — and slammed down, snapping Laughing Boy’s neck. Instant silence.

“Lars?” LizAlec’s voice was high, anxious.

“Still here,” Lars said shortly. He was busy going through Laughing Boy’s jacket pocket. Not that there was much. A cheap Jap inhaler of some kind, pure oxygen probably. Lars didn’t read Nip — or anything else for that matter. Other than that, there was a bubble-pack of derms and a transparent lock-knife with plexiglass handle and zytel blade, the kind of street-punk shit that was meant not to show up on m/wave surveillance cameras and always did.

The nightspex were more interesting. The word “Zeiss” was laser-etched in blue round the edge of the single lens and the autofocus mechanism was undamaged, which was pure luck on Lars’s part. For a brief second, Lars considered letting LizAlec have the spex but then he shook his head. There were advantages to having her remain night-blind. Like, she wasn’t going to be able to see him coming...

As quietly as possible — undoing velcro straps one at a time, rather than ripping them open as he usually did — Lars freed the o/lung bottle from his side and unscrewed its vacuum-proof hose. Dipping one hand into a balloon-suit pocket for the bung, Lars began to undo the front of his balloon suit.