Angeleyes - eARC

by Michael Z. Williamson

  We didn’t find anyone else, and after two hours she leaned over and whispered, “Let’s move.”

  She knocked back a shot of something and we headed for Halfway Inn.

  I’d thought it would be a meat market. Godsdamn I was right. I think ninety percent of the cooze was for hire, and at least twenty percent of the cock. The rest were all trying to give it away. That really wasn’t safe, even this distance from Earth proper. I’d bet someone here had had an Earthie grounder or six, and someone had a disease from it. Most of them aren’t lethal, but they are nasty.

  They did have the spy theme, even calling the servers “agents.” But it was over the top and not real. I now knew what spies were actually like. They weren’t like this.

  Still, we played along.

  We got a booth as far back as possible, which in this place meant as inviting as possible.

  A guy came by and nodded. I nodded back.

  “How are you ladies this evening?”

  “Passable,” I said. “And you?”

  “Quite well. Would you like to dance?”

  “In a bit,” I said.

  Teresa added, “We just got here.”

  “Can I order you a drink?”

  Right then the server showed up with drinks we hadn’t ordered, but Teresa jabbed me with her thumb under the table and said, “We already did, but if we’re here later, we’d enjoy that.”

  He bowed marginally and strolled away, to the next table with more women than men.

  It wasn’t long before another guy came by, stood facing away, and said, “I’m looking for Sasha.”

  He actually looked pretty good in a dinner jacket, mandarin collar and fitted pants.

  “I’m Sasha,” I said. “Sasha Godentyt.”

  “I’m Rod Stouffer.”

  It was pretty clear what he wanted.

  Teresa said, “I’m Mitzi Graben.” That wasn’t bad. I thought we were doing okay.

  “Do you have the goods?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure if he was playing a role or being direct.

  “Do you have the password?”

  “Legs,” he said.

  “Legs?”

  “Yeah. That’s the word. Help spread it.”

  I didn’t roll my eyes.

  Still, I got a buzz on my phone that said he was on the list.

  “We have a safe house nearby,” Teresa said, getting into the theme.

  “Take me to the safe house,” he said.

  We went back down two levels to our room, giggling all the way. Once inside, we each took a side of his neck and started kissing, and I felt his whole body arch. I got my mouth on his and an arm around his middle and steered him to the bed. It was big enough for three.

  Teresa came back over with three drinks. “Sasha, you wanted a light Sparkle, right? Do you want anything, Rod?”

  “What is it?”

  “Just spiced ginger ale. I’m not mixing Sparkle with booze.”

  “It’s fine plain.” he said.

  But he put it on the side table and didn’t drink it. Smart man.

  I tried mine. It had the barest dusting, just to give me a hint of how to act silly.

  I went back to necking while she clutched him through his pants and rubbed his chest. We had him panting. He had a hand down the back of her skirt and was trying to wiggle up mine.

  He was a bit rough with his fingers, and the sudden touch made me jump. He liked that.

  I let him finger me, though I did grab his wrist to slow him down. He took the hint.

  I gathered he needed to be drugged, so I did a lot of open mouth kissing. It took about ten minutes, but his mouth dried out enough he grabbed for the glass. I sat back and let him sip.

  Then I went back to work on his neck, because I had no idea how potent that stuff was.

  I could feel him start to get woozy and slow, and he began slurring his words.

  “Can I halp you take the shkirt off?” he asked.

  “Sure!” I turned so he could pull the zip, and let him get a good view of my ass. He had us side by side, fingers in each, and I tugged at his velcro and belt, teasing him along.

  He was nodding off, but I kept squirming, and so did Teresa. Then he slipped and his hands fell on the quilt.

  She bounced off the bed, grabbed something from her bag, and squeezed another dose between his lips.

  “Okay, move fast. We have about fifteen minutes.” She got his phone and dropped it into a shell that I assumed imaged it. His ID all got scanned, and his right hand for his chip went into the same scanner. This was a lot more detail than the previous ones.

  “What do we do after that? Slip him in the alley? Wake him up and finish?”

  She winced. “I’d really rather not finish him, but I guess we have to so he doesn’t think he got rolled and reports it.”

  “How does that drug work?”

  “It’s a neuro inhibitor. Memory processes and prefrontal awareness are down, but everything else works.”

  “Okay.”

  I got his pants off, and the trunks he had for undies. He was still stiff, and a few seconds of mouth got him wet enough I could start stroking. He reacted just like he would awake, and I followed the twitches to find the best spot. I dribbled and stroked and in about three minutes he gushed pretty well. I wiped my hand on a towel.

  I left him like that. “When we wakes up, make a show of kissing me and we’ll get dressed.” I finished pulling my skirt off and pulling the tunic halfway around my waist. She nodded and followed.

  When he started twitching and blinking, I grabbed her shoulders and went for a vigorous kiss. She muffled and panted and gripped me back.

  “Oh, damn,” I heard him mutter.

  “Hey! You’re awake. You came pretty hard.”

  “I guess. I’m sorry. I didn’t think I drank that much earlier.”

  “It’s fine, you gave us what we needed.” I handed him the towel.

  I squirmed a bit and sighed. Then I made a show of sucking her nipples for a few moments as she hissed.

  He reached up, and she said, “Well, hell, we’re back on shift in an hour. You want to shower before we do?”

  “I’ll be okay,” he said. “I can go home.” He lowered his hands and looked sad.

  He was disappointed at not remembering it, and seemed a bit more disoriented than the drugs would make him. Probably wondering why he’d blacked out, but I didn’t think he’d tell anyone. He’d gotten off and had two women making out, so he had a story to exaggerate for his friends.

  We each kissed him off, waved and smiled, and closed the door. We cleaned everything up, and she sprayed some bottle of stuff.

  “DNA mask,” she said. “It’s got about fifty people’s traces and this is a nano to break them down into fragments. Ours and his.” She held up another bottle. It went all over the bed, the carpet around it and the door and bathroom.

  We left with our stuff, and I followed her onto another tram, around about ten frames of radius, and we got out at a Claremont. I followed her past the desk and down a passage to a room. She knocked, it opened, we went in.

  Mira and Jack were there with gear. They took the module from her and started processing.

  I was a little bouncy from that hint of Sparkle. She was definitely not. She had been holding something in and now looked ill.

  “Stressful?” I asked.

  “Gay,” she said.

  “Eh?”

  “I am completely femme. Men creep me out,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know. You acted it perfectly.”

  “Yeah. I can act. And I hate myself when I do.”

  Jack handed her a bottle of rum. She eyed it, tilted it, and took three measured swallows.

  “Thanks. I was afraid he was going further than the hands.” She shivered. “Eww.”

  Well, that explained the kiss. She’d presented as all duty, but that had felt real, and apparently was.

  So that’s why she�
�d kissed me so well. That hadn’t been an act at all, or not nearly as much of one.

  I remembered Chesnikov on NovRos. Then there was the interrogation and overall stress. You don’t have to get shot to be a casualty.

  CHAPTER 29

  I wasn’t sure how many IDs we had or from what sources. All I know is we had a variety that could get us in a lot of places, but not everywhere.

  The next day a bomb exploded outside a monitor station. No bystanders were hurt, but three cops took frag and died. I had mixed feelings about that. These guys hadn’t been actively hostile, but their government sure as hell had, to me personally.

  That was followed by a stack of printed sheets left in several office kiosks.

  THE INDIVIDUAL IS THE GREATEST MINORITY.

  The state does not control the individual. The individual controls the state. When the state refuses to serve, it must be made to comply. You have now been shown the penalty for failing to serve the individual. Lessons will be repeated as necessary. The individual must be shown due deference and respect.

  It went on for four pages of ranting. It came across as someone megalomaniacal.

  Then there was a list of demands. They were ridiculous on purpose.

  “Badges will refer to individuals as ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am.’ Badges will be identified by name, and will identify themselves by name when addressed. Badges will not demand ID from sovereign individuals who are not engaged in crime.

  Then there were ten more pages, some of it C/P, some of it original, some referencing what I think were obscure theses.

  “This is weird,” I said.

  “It should be,” Juan agreed. “All nine of us worked on it.”

  “So they won’t be able to identify a single individual,” I guessed.

  “Yes, and went for narcissism, high-functioning sociopathy, paranoia and depressed inferiority. They’ll be analyzing for days.”

  I wondered where you went to school to learn to fake all that.

  At least I hoped they were faking. They seemed normal.

  Mo mailed it in from a cafe through some source strippers or something to all those kiosks. Another copy was messengered to monitor central station. I think they stashed a few at checkpoints.

  The next day they had a fuzzy safety cam image of Juan, and an APB with a reward of M10,000.

  He chuckled over it, and said, “If I didn’t think they’d backtrack any informant and try to take them out of the picture to avoid paying, I’d have you turn me in and take the cash. But since we can’t do that, let’s play through.”

  A div later, he and Mira, Sebastian and Roger followed me down the ramp and along the convolutions of the inner pressure wall of the dock. I was looking for one of the conduit accesses.

  I wondered why they weren’t better protected. Maintenance didn’t go in more than once a week most of the time.

  Roger answered that when I asked him.

  “If they use a standard code or key, there are so many out there, locking it is pointless. You’re not the only girlfriend or slooz to meet people back in those. Even then, a lot of guys won’t lock it because they don’t want to have to juggle keys. It gets worse if each one is a different key and has to be signed out or remoted. They probably all locked at one time, but people stop bothering. As long as the homeless don’t steal or damage stuff, they’ll roust them occasionally and ignore them otherwise.”

  I guess it made sense. I know a lot of maintenance gals used a screwdriver to pop a latch instead of a key.

  I found one that was a crawlway, and thinking about it, only someone homeless or really wanting to fuck in private near the docks, or for a thirty-four, would go there.

  It was a literal crawlway, dusty, dank, unlit because old lamps had burned out, and very tight. That eventually led into a main tunnel that did have proper locks and even scanners. It also had a maintenance crew on one of the power conduits, though they were a couple of hundred meters down.

  We got behind the pipe, and there were braces and cross-feeds to hide us. This area had some recent wear, probably a lurker’s den. I gestured and we moved about fifty meters the other way, past a huge waste pump that would give IR and noise cover.

  Sebastian had a rough map, and I pointed where we were.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’re good. You need to get back to the ship so we have you later.”

  I wanted to stay, but my job was to be the guide, and I didn’t have their training. I knew it was important, but it was less satisfying than working in an infirmary, or even a rec center.

  “Understood,” I said. “Take care. When will you be back?”

  “We have our schedule aboard,” he said.

  Right. They weren’t going to tell me.

  I was loitering in the galley and not-watching vid when Glenn stuck his head in.

  “Abandon ship, grab a change of clothes and some sanitary kit, move.”

  I sprinted to my bunk, grabbed my overnight and joined him and the rest at the forward lock.

  “We’re going wherever you took them. They said it was a good spot.”

  “Got it.”

  I went there, followed by them about fifty seconds apart. I had no idea how they did that, but they said not to worry. So I walked and they followed at a distance. Distances.

  I got there and the hatch was locked.

  Jack came up behind me and I pointed at it. He nodded, reached down with tools, and a few moments later it was open.

  “Go, wait inside out of view,” he said.

  I took that to mean I should watch for them. I ducked inside, found a spot behind a power box, in shadow, with a stack of polymer panels, and waited in a squat.

  The rest came through in intervals and I motioned them into the shadow with me.

  Now I had to find a place we’d fit.

  I really hadn’t spent that much time in underpassage. I tried to keep jobs and savings. But I did spend about a month in one in Caledonia, and it had been as old as this place. They ran main power through here, and water for ballast. It also served as a main air return to the plant. It was stale and dirty smelling, like a shipsuit after sweaty maintenance and loading.

  I led with them following the same way. I was looking for something we could hide in that wasn’t taken, and wouldn’t get a lot of traffic.

  It was almost a kilometer before I found it.

  It was a large electrical transformer cabinet, and I’d seen one like it before. The dead space behind it was what I wanted. I wasn’t sure if I could squeeze through the access, but Jack came up and slid something into the lock and popped it.

  The gated hatch was still barely wide enough for my ass, but the others were skinnier or male. We made it through.

  When they’d upgraded to a smaller, more efficient setup, they’d stuck this in place of the old one. It left a gap behind it just under a meter wide and eight meters long.

  Jack went back the way we’d come, and returned with two of the cover panels that were stacked near the entrance. Two shots of AdhereHere cement fixed them on the inside of the gate and the rail at the far end.

  We had air and a livable temperature, indirect light, and a little space to stand or sit in.

  “How long do we stay here?” I asked.

  Glenn said, “Indefinite, unless you can find a larger one.”

  “Can we rent a lodge?”

  He shook his head. “Not at this time.”

  “Then this is it. It’s not going to be comfortable.”

  “It’ll do.”

  It was most of the day cycle before the other element caught up with us. They wore clean shipsuits but were filthy underneath. It wasn’t just from the conduit.

  “Here’s the vid from their feed. It’ll be on the news soon,” Bast said.

  He plugged it into his phone and let the file play.

  I didn’t know what I was looking at at first. They showed a replay. Then I got it.

  Juan had presented himself for them to arrest. They’d moved
in with the whole dolly setup.

  Then from the surrounding crowd, Mira, Sebastian and Roger stepped out, fired guns, and stepped back. Three cops fell down, bullets through their vertebrae at the joint of armor and helmet. Then smoke bombs billowed up.

  Then the rest of the cops opened fire in a panic.

  Juan grabbed one, yanked and wrenched his arm out of place, then shoulder threw him while holding his head. I saw the cop’s neck snap.

  He went straight through another, kicking him in the chest so hard the guy bent double, then landing feet-first on the guy’s ribs, and smashing a boot down into his face. His jaw mashed flat. I didn’t think that was deadly, but it was viciously violent and I figured regen and restruct would take weeks.

  More smoke and he was gone.

  I realized I actually enjoyed watching them kill. Part of it was that they were so efficient, so fluid, so deadly.

  The other part was that I wanted the people who hurt me to suffer. They really hadn’t hurt me as much as they could have, and they didn’t kill me, which they could have. It was war. I was a spy. I didn’t get any LOAC protection. But they’d hurt me, and I wanted to see them suffer.

  “How many did you get?” I asked.

  “According to their reports, we killed five and injured three more escaping.”

  “Good,” I said, and meant it. They were cops, not soldiers, but they were still combatants to us, and to them. But I didn’t think it was a very efficient way to fight a war.

  Then more of the story came out.

  The cops shot twenty-seven people. Four of them died. The station was locked down in complete panic. They put up checkpoints everywhere, demanded ID or chips for access to anything even semiofficial. It slowed down departures for as long as we were there and beyond. They wanted to stop civilian ships entirely, but couldn’t. The bottleneck on those slowed down the military ships. Every time a military ship bumped a civilian ship, there was annoyance, and vice-versa. It was a complete mess.

  I realized that had a huge economic effect.