Foxy got a two out of the shoe. The croupier already had eighteen. “So, has anyone here seen this guy? He’s gone missing and we need to find him. He has a virus. It’s complicated.” Foxy showed the registration photo of the dead john, his open necked linen shirt, floppy hair, plumped skin all unsuspecting they were on the final countdown.
Ghabra Behdami looked at it on her feed, looked at Foxy—not just a glance but a real good look—and then without any warning at all bolted from the table, jarring it and knocking over all the drinks as she got a good solid boost off it. In a heartbeat Foxy was in pursuit, bounding over the glasses and the foaming, icy froth, her paws slipping on cards before she was in the air and then on the floor, her arms pumping. She was fast and she was nippy, in and out of legs and around chairs, but Behdami had a front-line soldier’s power-assisted second skin on, and if it weren’t for the fact she had to change direction a couple of times, throwing guests left and right like ping-pong balls as she hurled herself towards the kitchen server entries, then she’d have been able to outpace any regular hotel security.
At the front Tiggs crawled the last few steps to the waiting father and second child, who was whining and swinging at the limit of his father’s arm. A large glob of melting vanilla cream ran down her neck and into her ruff feathers. All sorts of hormones were coming up, readying her for the hunt, and she started to drool uncontrollably.
“Eww, look at it,” said child two as the mother reached up, standing on Tiggs’ foot, and hefted the first one out of the saddle. As soon as she stepped clear, Tiggs whipped her head around and put her nose right in child two’s face. The spit slid off her gold tooth and onto the pavement.
“Y’aint no picture, sweetie,” she said and then she was off like a bat out of hell around the side of the building. She heard the kid screaming and winced as roaches pinged her with the news that the mark was barrelling through the kitchens and, soup catastrophes in progress, would be out of the back and into the service bay in five seconds.
Tiggs sprinted, had to go around a laundry cart, skidded on the corner on loose sand, made the back just in time to see the doors burst open and Behdami come powering out. The silk jumpsuit was baggy on the limbs, tight at the waist, gathered at the bust. She looked like an insane genie from a cabaret in her high heels as she caught sight of Tiggs and made a quick change of angle, away from the street exit and towards the high wall that screened the backyards from the gaggle of two- and three-storey blocks that make up the Hexen—a little district devoted to pirate fantasy fun for adults, thick with roleplayer zombies and cursed sailors packing cutlasses and pistols. It was nearly three o’clock, when the backwaters would be surging with crocodiles as the pirates made their play to steal the “naval” masted ships and make for the open seas of the lagoon, flush with treasure and slaves and all the whatnottery of a very good time. Behdami leaped like a hero, took a stride up the wall and over it, pumped off the top into a cat’s leap that took her onto the roof of a fortune-telling bodega. A chicken squawked as Behdami vanished from sight, and Tiggs was after her, claws scrabbling on the wall top for a moment as she recruited ten rats and a seagull to help her see.
At the kitchen doors Foxy, panting, hat in her hands, paws covered in soup, could only stand and watch. “Go get her, Tiggs!”
The chase was swift and deadly. Behdami could parkour like a goddess, and she did—up walls, onto roofs, ten metre jumps, down the fire escape slides, over the heads of gawping navvies in the burning heat of the afternoon. Everywhere she went, the seagull watched, the rats pursued, and Tiggs came after. Behdami cleared a street in one bound. Tiggs followed and crashed through the roof of a taco stand, got up and was after her in a second. Behdami dashed over the rooftops, doubling back towards the casino, no doubt having realised the only way out of the zone was either the Skim Depot, which would block her now, or by a direct route physically out of the main gates and through the hotel parking zone into the raw wilderness. The gull’s call became a siren wail as more security was called in.
Staff pirates shouldered their way through the groups, but like everyone else they were sidelined as Behdami rolled, somersaulted, vaulted her desperate race using every surface like a rebound board in an effort to avoid the relentless, slavering velociraptor that followed her stride for stride. High in the air, mid-leap, Behdami spun to fling out a line of razor thread, but Tiggs was wise to it—the seagull saw her pulling it out of her sleeve—and she threw herself to the side, tail balancing the zigzag with incredible flexion. The thread fell aside and cut through the fake thatching of the zombie master’s roof where someone will have the unlovely job of cleaning it up soon but not Tiggs—she was wide-eyed and as deadly as an arrow. Behdami feinted left, dived right and dropped into the street, going to cover herself with the milling agitation of the pirates on the quayside. A rat noticed the plan—there were two rights and a left before the gate to the outside world, but if she went through the buildings, it was only two doors and a pedestrian crossing.
Tiggs changed direction and cut her off, bashing her way in through the back doors of Black Blood’s Barbecue as Behdami entered the dining area. A quick-thinking freebooter drinks server shoved the doors closed, trapping them in the grill. Behdami went for a knife but Tiggs was already pouncing and on her. She was not the only one with a skin suit on today.
Tiggs stood, victorious, her prey under the deadly claws of her feet. Ice cream and drool ran off her neck and ruined Behdami’s lilac jumpsuit. Behdami struggled for a moment but felt what she was up against, looked at Tiggs properly and gave up, lay back on the rubber matted tiles, her chest heaving for breath. It was over.
A few rats gathered for a look and then dashed off again, remembering their place. Somewhere in the deep background of her mind, Tiggs saw Foxy approaching with the handcuffs and calmed down. This was how they always operated. Foxy and Tiggs.
“Sorry about the kid,” she said as Foxy calmly trussed up their spy or whatever she was.
“I comped them a cruise, don’t worry about it,” Foxy said, so proud of Tiggs she could hardly speak. “Ghabra Behdami, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of an unknown man in Pirate Bay. You can say what you like but we both know it’ll all come out in the end.”
“God, you people,” Behdami said from the floor as Tiggs reached over to the grill, foot still clasped around her neck, and helped herself to a half-cooked steak. “Will you let me go if I give you your story?”
“Try us,” Foxy said. “Let’s see what it’s worth.”
“It’d be easier without you sanding on my n—”
Tiggs squeezed, just a little. It had been a very long, hot day.
“Fine. Have it your way. Your man’s name is Fantheon Pelagic and he was hotel security, just like you. That’s how come you couldn’t see him—he was never tracked here because he was part of the hotel, only he worked out in the spacelanes, tracing counter agents from rival groups. He came down here looking for some lowlife from the Dream Tripper group—her data’s here, look. She’s a spy.”
“What’s your angle?” Foxy asked, taking a seat on Behdami’s thigh and patting her. “You’re tooled up nicely.”
“I’m Solar Military, I’m on furlough,” she said. “I’m not here because of your hotel, only because of Pelagic. He was the lover of my best friend and he’d been cheating on her. Once you can excuse, but they were going to get married and he was still at it so I came to take him out as a kind of… not wedding present, let’s say.”
Tiggs went for the other steak because it was getting overdone and there was no way any guest would be served it now. “Go on.”