“I really feel privileged, Coolhand. This is indeed an honor. Those Greenies make my skin crawl.” We called the Mocains Greenies because of the faint green tint of their pale flesh.
“Scope out the giant at the end of the table. That’s an Inner from Picos. If I was his size, I wouldn’t let any Greenie push me around.” Coolhand held a datascreen. There was so much information flashing around that room that I half expected our screens to start blowing out.
Psycho leaned toward us, interrupting. “Coolhand, can I shoot that slimy bald Greenie with the gold on his shoulders? Can I?”
“Now settle down, Psycho. We’ll tell you when to start shooting. Not yet!”
“Please? Just one guy, the green slime. Just one, tenners?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Have you girls heard enough of this nonsense? If so, we’ve got work to do.” Snow Leopard seemed anxious to get moving. Gamma had already filed out. Every move we made had been planned in advance. If we accomplished nothing else, we would keep a lot of Systies very busy. The negotiations would continue for days, maybe weeks. Beta and Gamma would be busy elsewhere.
Outside, our aircars hovered right at the entrance to the Government Center, metal skins shining silver in the sunlight, armored plex all black.
It was a bright, clear day. Crowds of scruffy Coldmarkers lined the tall wire mesh fences surrounding the compound, and a ragged shout went up when we appeared. Coldmark militia stood around nervously, armed with local SG clones, while DefCorps troopers stood guard by the doors, whispering into their wristcoms.
We entered the first car and Gamma took the second one. As I got in, two more Legion aircars flashed across the sky, followed moments later by two Systie aircars. Our day had begun.
Redhawk grinned at us from the pilot’s seat. He was the only troopie I knew crazier than Psycho. The assault door sealed shut abruptly. “Strap in, kiddies, or you’ll be sorry!” Redhawk slammed the thrust forward and we shot away from the compound at blinding speed, powering up into the sky at a steep angle. Since nobody had strapped in yet, this caused us some distress. Warhound landed on my face, and all our loose equipment shifted position immediately to the rear.
“Will you kindly remove your knee from my throat?”
“Sorry!”
Redhawk laughed madly. He hit the sounds, and the cabin filled with wild lektra music, shattering our ears. “They’ll never catch us!” he screamed over the music. He arced the aircar into a steep dive.
“Strap in, girls!” Snow Leopard ordered. We knew Redhawk, and we didn’t mind his driving. We knew he was the best. I settled into a seat and strapped in. Psycho found a seat next to me. He always enjoyed these little rides.
Now we flashed at treetop height right over Coldmark City, only there were no trees and it wasn’t much of a city. As the aircar bounced and shuddered through rough air and sunlight exploded across the darkened plex, the entire panorama of Coldmark slid by below. We saw a seemingly endless slum, hundreds of thousands of squalid little shacks constructed from trash, wood and plastic and metal scraps, set in a smoky, cratered wilderness full of slow-moving people, looking up in surprise as we flashed overhead. A city of mud and burning garbage, inhabited by slaves. Down below, a bewildering variety of groundcars bounced over rutted roads, and in the middle, a tiny child ran gleefully away from a furious old lady shaking a broom.
We flashed over a polluted green canal. It looked like people were urinating and defecating on one side and washing clothes in the other. Off in the distance, Government installations rose from the sea of shacks like islands, surrounded by high wire-mesh fences.
Snow Leopard sat next to Redhawk, shouting into his ear. “Can you turn down the music!”
“What?”
“The music! Turn it down!”
“What?”
“Turn down the bloody music!” Snow Leopard’s face was bright red.
Redhawk pointed to his earphones, and leaned over close to Snow Leopard. “I can’t hear you! The music’s too loud!”
Grimacing, Snow Leopard turned it down himself. We were so low I thought we were going to collide with some of the shacks. We darted over a sea of mud, full of naked laughing children, chasing a ball through the filth. Priestess tapped my shoulder. She sat just behind me, and she was upset. “Thinker…how can they live like that? What kind of a world is this!”
“It’s a world of rich and poor, Priestess. You read the sitrep. This is just what it said.”
“But I…but…I didn’t think they would live like this! In filth! What is the matter with these people? Don’t they know about public sanitation? Or personal hygiene? Isn’t anyone watching over those children?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Priestess trembled, glaring out the plex. “This is criminal! What kind of a government is this! They don’t care! It’s treason! High crimes against humanity! Nobody should treat human beings like this, not even mortals!”
“Keep that Manlink away from her, Psycho.” I did not know what else to say.
“You want me to kill somebody for you, Priestess?” Psycho was no help at all. He loved to drive people over the edge.
“Filthy scum! We should put a strike in on every one of those Government compounds. Antimat the lot!” Priestess really meant it, I could tell. “Kill them all! Blow away all those wire fences and let the mob in to tear them apart! They’re subhumans, Thinker! Subhumans!”
“You got that right!” Her fingers dug into my shoulder. She stared fixedly out the plex, convulsed. She came from a Legion world, a very sheltered existence.
“Is anybody back there?” Snow Leopard asked the pilot.
“Oh, yeah. Big ten on that. We got one Systie aircar way, way back there, still on us. But not for long! Hang on!” Redhawk whipped the aircar around in a wicked tight turn. The gravs pulled at us as the car arced dizzily in a great circle.
“Hey, we were just here!” We ripped over the field full of children again. They waved wildly at us, frozen briefly in mid-stride. Redhawk put her even lower, right along the stagnant canal, booming past the line of Coldmarkers at their communal toilet. We passed so close to the surface that we sprayed water all over them.
“That guy fell into the canal!”
“What a way to go!”
“You’re heading right for the aircar!” The Systie aircar was rapidly approaching, a flashing red light on the console.
“That’s a ten! I’m locked on!” Redhawk had a wild look in his eyes. The sensors were shrieking. Redhawk eased the controls back and we arced upwards into the sky. I saw it coming, right at us, a speck, a dot, a dart, an aircar! It flashed past so fast and so close it was just a silver blur, and an ear-shattering sonic boom rattled our car. Redhawk shrieked with laughter as he slammed the controls forward and we dived for the deck once again.
“That should slow him down just a tad.” Redhawk gave us his craziest grin as he stood the car on its side again and the world came rushing at us from above. It would have slowed me down, I knew that. I would at least have wanted to change my pants before continuing the pursuit.
We found a river, dotted with ancient wooden fishing boats powered by ragged sails, and followed it upstream, almost on the surface. The water rippled in golden sunlight, a river of diamonds sailed by black phantom ships. A morning shower sparkled in the sunlight, raindrops vaporizing against the skin of our aircar. “They’ll be on us again shortly, but the first target is right ahead.” Redhawk had settled down. He liked to fool around, but he always got the job done.
We gained a little altitude, left the river, hurtled over a line of rocky hills, then straightened out, booming laser-straight over flat marshy lowlands.
“There it is.” The sensors lit up again. I could see it now, a sprawling complex, metallic fences glittering in the sun, a series of low, windowless buildings, bristling with antennas. Redhawk put it on max, and we shot right over them, trailing another sonic boom.