A DISTANT RHYTHMIC SCRAPE
1563 4D
The train slowed, Andrew reached out to steady himself as he sat, and the engineer anjived with Grendel. Lights stuttered past as they decelerated. He swallowed to clear his ears. The air pressed thick around him. “We’re coming in at Level 552,” Grendel said. Gliding into an arched chamber, braking steadily, the engine halted with a slight jolt. “They uncouple here so the cars can be split out for unloading. This is where we get off. Keeps us out of the dust.”
“Come on,” Ezzar said to Martin and Andrew, “We’ve got to head upstairs a few flights. I’m meeting someone.” They all got off and stretched. Metal squawked and crashed as the engines cut free and moved away into darkness. Andrew stood looking up and down a long platform by the tracks. Back in the City again. Dim lights dotted the high ceiling, glowing down yellow through dust that hung like cirrus, softening the rough stone walls and floor. He coughed.
Hoarse voices shouted echoes from one of several openings in the wall. Grendel looked around nervously. “It’s okay,” Ezzar said, looking up at him, “We’re here with you.” He waved his hand as if batting a fly away, but he stayed close to her. She led them through a short corridor to a narrow stone stair, painted in shiny white now scarred with dirt and scrapes, that corkscrewed upward through darkness and light and back again.
At a landing, Ezzar opened a steel door in the stone wall. Two large men in corp uniforms stood watching them emerge from the stair. One with patched dark skin said, “Going somewhere, Ezzar?”
Andrew studied him. Once before, he had seen dark artificial-looking eyes like those, in a room with one stool, with his own urine in a puddle under it and his feet in the puddle and his neck… he blinked once, hard. It would be good to kill this man now, quickly, before he could move. But it was a different man.
“Elvin. What a surprise.” Ezzar shrugged. “We were taking the lift.”
“Your two friends are carrying illegal weapons,” he said. His partner aimed a large beam gun at them. “They can leave it all right here. And leave us this one too.” He glared at Grendel. Andrew tensed. “You, don’t move,” Elvin said to him. “Set that gun down against the wall. You, too,” he said to Martin. They obeyed.
“Elvin, be reasonable,” Ezzar said. “I’ve got some cash, just like last time.”
“You promised me more than that,” Elvin replied, “and you haven’t delivered. Guns, and something else.” He slowly drew a long knife from his belt and beckoned to Ezzar, who stood still. “It’s time. Come on, or we’ll just cook you all. You do what I want, and you and your friends can go.”
“The shipment is in, it’s all yours. Leave us these guns. We’ll need them.” Ezzar‘s tone came dead flat.
“Depends on how good you are to me. And why would you need guns? You’re not staying, are you? You never do. Come here.”
She went over to him, hands at her sides. He put the point of the knife up under her chin and pushed upward slightly. She raised her head, not moving anything else, as a drop of blood formed and trickled down her neck.
A knot formed in Andrew‘s gut. His tendons tightened; for a moment paralysis gripped him, but rage burst through it. He started forward, Elvin and the other man looked at him, and from the corner of his eye an inhumanly quick flash of metal brought a scream. Grendel stood over the man who had held the large beam gun. The butt of Martin‘s gun lay buried in the man’s face, neatly spanning his eye sockets.
“Thanks,” Ezzar said. She wiped the blood from her throat. “All Rennie needs is a millisecond.” Elvin stood propped against the wall, his knife still in his clenched hand, his mouth sagging open. “And all I need after that is two more.” She pulled her blade from Elvin‘s chest and pushed him over. “That takes care of my business meeting.” She shuddered. Putting his foot on the other man’s forehead, Grendel wrenched the gun free.
“You killed him. He was a human,” Martin said to Grendel.
“Not a human,” Grendel said. “That was an animal.” He cleaned the gun’s butt on the blue and gray uniform and handed it back to Martin. Andrew studied the flesh crater where the face had been. Yes, it had been an animal. He had faced animals like this one. Part of him wanted to feel horror and disgust at this destruction of a human face. No feeling came.
Martin went over to look. He frowned. “Looks human to me.”
“Shut up, Martin,” Ezzar said. She had emptied Elvin‘s pockets. “Take everything on them. I’m taking off their heads. I don’t want the corpos to see the face wound — it’ll be one more thing on Rennie.”
Grendel slung the huge gun over his shoulder. He said to Martin, “Not used to reps like me, are you?”
Andrew said, “Stand back, I’ll do it.” He pointed the beam gun at the smashed-in face. Martin took his arm.
Andrew shrugged Martin‘s hand away and aimed again. When the dirtiest work came up, Martin always lost touch.
“Hold it,” Ezzar said, “That’ll flash back on you in here. Step back.” She moved them all to the far side of the room; and then, with two roaring blazes of light, Andrew blew the dead mens’ heads off. Bits of bone rattled against his coverall and zinged past his head. “These were your friends in the City, right, Ezzar?” he said. She didn’t answer.
They found a liftway, a small steel cylinder with a door. Ezzar summoned it, then turned to Andrew and asked him, “Where do you want to go? I can get you pointed the right way, and then you’re on your own.”
“We lived in Sobi Zone,” Andrew said. “I’ll start there.” He paused. “Would you and… Rennie come with us?” He recoiled inside as he asked, hating to ask, hating to face the search for Engel without them. His scars ached.
“Wait a minute. We can do this ourselves.” Martin said.
Andrew glared at him. “You wanted me to meet these folks,” he said to Martin, “They’ve been great so far. We could use them.”
“You afraid of the streets?” Martin stuck out his chin. “No andro is gonna help you in Sobi. He’s meat down there.”
She spoke. “We’re at 550 now.” She glanced at Grendel, then looked straight at Andrew. “Your brother’s right about Sobi Zone. Andros don’t go down there. That leaves out Rennie, and without him I’m not going in.” She turned her face away. “I’d help you find your son, but this is too much to ask.”
Anger rose in Andrew like food he couldn’t swallow. He remembered Elvin. “Guns,” he said. “What guns was Elvin talking about? Your shipment? You weren’t just being charitable, getting me here, were you?”
Ezzar looked at him. “I needed a cover, just in case,” she said in a flat tone, “and you walked in the door. Did you think this was a free ride? It was no risk for you anyway.”
“That’s garbage. They were looking for me and you know it. Why did you… or is there something else you’re not telling me?” He faced her squarely. “Just what do you want? Help with your guns? And what else?”
Ezzar raised a hand quickly. “Hold it.” She listened. Rapid scuttling footsteps rose from the direction they had come. “Quick, into the lift,” she said, pushing Grendel ahead of her.
The four of them crowded into the small cylinder. Andrew, not waiting, spat out the words, “Six Four Zero.” The door closed just as three figures in black hardshell vaulted from the stairwell into the liftway room. Metal slammed against the door.
Ezzar said, “Those are choppers! Elvin got new friends, the nasty prick. Bug soldiers.”
“What?” Andrew asked. “Aliens, like in Poly Town?”
“Alien crossbreeds. ArCorp‘s been using them more now. But they’re hard to control.” In a dim green overhead light from the lift car ceiling, she shuddered as they plummeted downward.
Andrew‘s ears popped again and again; the air clung closer to his skin.
“I hope they didn’t hear you call the number,” Ezzar said. “They’ll be down after us a few seconds after we’re out.”
“I could change dest—" Andrew began. A crash and a metallic shriek sliced into his words. The car shuddered and they all sagged as it ground to a halt. They hung in a silence marked only by a distant rhythmic scrape that slowly grew in volume.
“It’s them,” Ezzar said. “They’ve jammed the liftway and jumped into the shaft. They’re braking against the walls as they drop.”
“What are they?” Martin‘s eyes whitened as he looked upward.
“They’re mercenaries,” Ezzar said, biting her lip. “They’ll suck your juice if they take you. In their corp contracts.”
Andrew seized on a piece of his long-ago militia training. “Get down and cover your heads. Give me that.” He turned to Grendel, who hefted the large gun to him. He staggered as he took it, then braced its butt on the floor of the car, aimed it upward, and primed it.
“No,” Martin and Ezzar said together, “Wait, you’ll…" The scraping neared the top of the car; Andrew turned his head away and pulled the trigger.
The blast hit him so hard he heard nothing at all.
