The Proteus Bridge

by M. D. Cooper

  Ngoba gurgled derision and clenched his fists. He hadn't wanted Riggs to completely turn on Fug.

  Tithi’s blonde hair swirled as she turned her head to glare at Riggs. “You told me you did all the planning. Why aren’t you holding the money, Zandi? That would make all this a lot easier. I get the money back, and then I ask the Rack to let you go under my supervision.” She rotated the muzzle of her pistol slightly, twisting Ngoba’s beard hairs. “They owe me what’s mine.”

  “Yeah?” Riggs asked.

  Tithi smiled. “And you’re mine.”

  Ngoba struggled to take another breath. He didn’t like the wild expression on the woman’s face. She couldn’t be much older than he or Riggs, but the extensive implants meant she had to have money somewhere—or that she belonged to someone or something.

  “How long you been with Rack Thirteen?” Ngoba asked.

  “I was born into the Rack,” she said with a proud look. “Harav is my mother.”

  Ngoba’s knees nearly fell out from under him. Harav was the matriarch of Rack Thirteen, famous for murdering whole crews and other people who annoyed her. It was rumored she had a glass-cased airlock in her office where she liked to watch people suffocate slowly before jettisoning them into the Big Dark.

  “You think Harav is going to like Riggs?” Ngoba asked. “You know we’re just street trash from Lowspin, right?”

  “Hey!” Riggs shouted.

  The second match had begun. Ngoba couldn’t get his eyes to focus on the flashing lights over the platform, only seeing multi-colored blobs dancing back and forth.

  “Oh, yeah,” Ngoba continued. “You know Mama Chala? That’s where we come from. Beggars and thieves, digging through other people’s trash. Any hacking Riggs knows, he learned from busting low-level security on dumpsters.”

  Tithi pressed her lips together. “I don’t care. You keep trying to put him down so I won’t care about him, but it only makes you look bad, Ngoba Starl. I know all about you. I’m getting him away from you.”

  She worked the pistol’s muzzle some more, pushing it up under his jaw. He supposed his only options were to let her blow his head off, wait for the Rack Thirteen goons to show up and deal with them, or create some chaos in the crowd and see what happened. He couldn’t count on Riggs, obviously. He was going to have to act and let the chips fall where they may. He wondered how fast a mind-controlled trigger could respond to surprise.

  “Riggs,” he said. “Did you tell Tithi what it really means when Mama Chala wants to cuddle? Did you tell her about the back scratches?”

  “No!” Riggs shouted, turning red. “Why would I do that? Why are you bringing that up?”

  “I think honesty is important in any new relationship. How are you going to form a lasting bond with someone if you don’t start with a full description of what it’s like to pop Mama’s back zits?”

  Tithi’s mouth pulled to one side in horror and Ngoba rolled to the side, jerking his head away from the pistol. As he had wagered, she didn’t fire. He slid around her but didn’t bother trying to grab her. Instead, he pushed her hard into Whoo-Kid, who gave an excited ‘Yeah!’ as the blonde girl fell into him, apparently missing the pistol attached to her arm. They collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs.

  Ngoba gave Riggs a quick glance, motioning for him to follow. Riggs looked thunderstruck, his arms hanging at his sides.

  “Dammit,” Ngoba breathed. He grabbed his friend by the collar and pulled him into the crowd with him, moving quickly toward the platform. He didn’t want to break into a full run—they would stand out among the wandering spectators.

  In a few seconds, they reached the place where Fug had been. The crowd parted to reveal she was gone.

  “The bookies,” Ngoba said. “She’s going to try to cash out on the first match.”

  “Why do we even need her?” Riggs said, sounding morose. “She’s not going to do anything for us against Rack Thirteen. At least Tithi could help us.”

  “You want to take your chances with her, go ahead,” Ngoba said angrily. Then he saw Riggs considering the idea, and caught himself. “On second thought: No. You stay away from her. We’re getting out of here together.”

  With his back against the platform, Ngoba scanned the crowd for anyone coming their way. All he could see were faces gazing up at the match on the platform behind them. The hangar seemed to have become twice as crowded in the last few minutes.

  “You can’t keep trying to run my life, Ngoba,” Riggs said, hanging his head. “We came up together, but I have to do things on my own—sometimes, at least.”

  Ngoba raised his hands. “Hey, brother. I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. But in this case, I got us into this job and I want to get us out. That’s it. Afterward, if you want to go looking up Miss Tithi, have dinner with her Mama Harav and all the rest, you do what you want.”

  “You want us to start a crew.”

  “Of course I do, but you can make your own choices.”

  “Riggs!” Tithi shouted. They both jerked their heads in the direction of her voice, and found her climbing over a tall man’s shoulders. The black circle of the pistol muzzle wavered their direction. She fell backward, apparently losing her grip with the other hand, and the pistol went off in a series of rapid bursts.

  The sound of the pistol came just as the characters on the platform had rolled away from each other, creating a lull. As a result, everyone in the Hangar heard the gunfire. First, the crowd froze, people looking around as they tried to figure out if the shots had been real, or part of the show.

  Then another set of shots went off at the back of the Hangar near the main doors. Automatic weapons fire answered.

  “Holy shit,” Ngoba said. “That must be Fug and the bookies.”

  The crowd broke as people started to run. Ngoba caught sight of Tithi fighting to move in their direction, but everyone was running away from them, pushing her back toward the outer perimeter.

  “Come on,” he told Riggs.

  Turning, he ran toward the platform and jumped up to grab the lip of the concrete structure. His right hand slid, but his left held. Riggs moved up behind him to push his legs up. Ngoba pulled himself onto the platform, and then lay on his stomach to reach down for his friend. It was just like the thousand other times, when they’d climbed through ventilation shafts to burglarize storage lockers.

  Standing on the stage, they had a full view of the Hangar and the pandemonium happening in the crowd. Down near the player’s pit, Slarva’s red cape moved in a swirl of bodies. Ngoba barely made out the blue hair surfacing and then it got lost again. The two players were huddling under the cage that protected the antique console, but a series of looters were trying to pull the cage off the wall of its enclosure.

  More gunfire cracked around the space, quieting the crowd for a second before the shouting and scuffling filled the Hangar again. Ngoba couldn’t see the guards that had been present at the entrances anymore. He glanced up at the over-bright projector in the ceiling, squinting into the light, and realized they must be standing among the still visible avatars.

  “I think Rack Thirteen must be running all the Crash books,” Riggs said, staring out at the crowd.

  Ngoba glanced at him, heartened by the sober quality in his voice. “Just Rack Thirteen?”

  Riggs shrugged. “I think Fug chose the wrong system to hack. If there were more crews involved, no one would care if one of the others took losses. Here, it’s all going back to one syndicate.” He motioned at the crowd. “Look at all this.”

  “You would have done the same thing, if you could.”

  “Sure.” He bit his lip. “Tithi didn’t say anything about being in a family, Ngoba. You have to believe me.”

  “We’re not done with this yet, brother.” Ngoba pointed at him and grinned. “Plus, I saw the way you were looking at that woman. You’re not free, yet.”

  Riggs smiled sheepishly. “I’m fucked,” he admitted.

&nb
sp; A bullet screamed past Ngoba’s head, and he hit the deck, his heart pounding in his ears. Riggs followed him.

  “They know we’re up here, I guess,” Ngoba said.

  “Maybe it was a stray shot.”

  Concrete chipped and exploded around them as more bullets followed.

  “Sure,” Ngoba said.

  “Are we going to die?”

  Ngoba lifted his head for a second to scan the perimeter; the main doors were blocked by bodies trying to get through. He saw several thugs bashing faces with the butts of their rifles, or pushing people back into the Hangar. He couldn’t see Slarva’s blue hair or red cape anywhere. Thinking of Slarva, he checked the door to the corridor that led to the briki club. There was a clot of people near the door, but no guards that Ngoba could see.

  “Come on,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “We’re going to set a parrot free. And save our asses. I hope.”

  CORGI POWER

  STELLAR DATE: 03.23.2956 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Crash Games Hangar, Night Park

  REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol

  There was a gap in the crowd next to the platform.

  Ngoba hit the hangar floor and stumbled sideways. Riggs apparently didn’t look before he jumped, and hit Ngoba in the shoulder on his way down. They fell together.

  “Riggs!” Ngoba shouted. “What the hell?”

  “There were more shots. I had to jump. Do you know which way we’re going?”

  “Yes, I know.” Ngoba rolled away, pushing himself to his knees. When he looked up, he found himself staring at Fug. She was still wearing her green visor.

  Her eyes went wide, and she tried to slide back into the crowd. Ngoba shot forward and grabbed her arm.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Let go of me.”

  “I thought you had already made your way to the bookies,” Ngoba said.

  “Obviously not. I can’t get out that way. I’m trying to keep out of sight.”

  Ngoba flicked her eye-shade with his free hand. “You keep wearing that thing, and everybody will know who you are.”

  She twisted her arm in his grasp but he held tight. “Let go!” she demanded.

  “Now that I’ve got you, I’m not letting go. You reckon you can pick a lock?”

  “Of course I can pick a lock. You got a way out of here?”

  “I think I do.”

  Ngoba checked that Riggs had stumbled up beside them. Fug shot Riggs a dirty look, and he grinned at her. Adjusting his grip on Fug’s thin forearm, Ngoba directed his attention to pushing through to the corridor door.

  Most of the fighting seemed concentrated near the main doors. Here, people were milling around, asking each other what was going on, and ducking whenever a new round of gunfire burst out. Once they were away from the platform, Ngoba could easily make out the two avatars waiting to fight. One was a giant Corgi dog, standing upright and wearing a short vest with blue goggles perched in front of its pointed ears, while the second was a dolphin suspended in a mech-suit. Their wait-animations had them shrugging, scratching, and occasionally making obscene gestures at the crowd. Both avatars were too adorable to look dangerous, despite the missiles hanging from the dolphin’s mechanized cage, and the blazing electric sword slung across the Corgi’s fluffy back.

  The trio reached the door. Ngoba tried the lock, hoping it might be open, but was unsurprised when the control panel denied him access.

  “Get out of the way,” Fug said. She adjusted her eye-shade, smoothing her hair behind her ears, and accessed the panel’s admin menus. Ngoba turned his back to the door to keep an eye on the crowd, but had barely turned around when she announced, “Done.”

  A plasma beam struck the door just above Fug’s head, tearing a burning hole in the metal. Ngoba grabbed her and hit the floor. People screamed and ran in every direction.

  “Plasma!” he gasped. “What the hell is wrong with these people?”

  “I guess they want you dead,” Fug said, her tone nonchalant.

  “What did I do to deserve being made dead?”

  “You stole a million credits by manipulating a major currency-laundering operation that Rack Thirteen was completing during the first match.”

  Ngoba stared at her. Fug’s green visor sat askew, covering one eye. She couldn’t hide her mischievous grin.

  “Riggs!” came Tithi’s shout. “I see you, baby!”

  Glancing back at Riggs, Ngoba found him biting his lip, looking confused on how he should respond.

  “Don’t answer her,” Ngoba growled. He scrambled away from Fug and ripped the door open. It left a smell of burned metal and plas as it swung.

  “Come on,” Ngoba shouted. He grabbed Fug’s arm again, and pulled her through the opening, immediately flattening against the wall once they were inside. When Riggs was in, he pulled the door closed, and pushed Fug toward the control panel. “Lock it,” he ordered.

  “You don’t get to—”

  “Lock it!” he roared.

  Fug shot him a venomous look and tapped the panel. In ten seconds, she was done.

  Ngoba glanced through the hole in the door to see two Rack Thirteen thugs standing in a gap in the crowd, looking around with rifles at the ready.

  “Maybe those boys didn’t mean to hit the door,” he said.

  “Then I guess we should run, huh?” Fug asked. “Where does this go, anyway?”

  “It ends up at Slarva’s briki club.”

  Strangely, Fug perked up. “Really?” she said, glancing down the tunnel. “This is where you followed him?”

  “That’s right,” Ngoba said. He checked the hole in the door again. “We should go that way.”

  “I think Fug here has a crush on Slarva,” Riggs said.

  Ngoba pushed between them to start walking fast down the corridor. It looked much the same as before. “I don’t care who she likes,” he said. “Although, if you got us involved in all this for some crush, I’m going to be very disappointed in you, Fug.”

  They followed him, Fug pumping her arms to keep up. “You were the one dumb enough to do what I asked you.”

  “You paid, didn’t you?” Ngoba said.

  “And then she set us up as the stooges in her little betting scheme,” Riggs said. He shoulder-checked Fug, and she stumbled.

  Ngoba stopped to catch Fug as she fell into him. “Which wouldn’t have had any credence if you hadn’t lied to Tithi about your hacking abilities, Riggs. You need to rein yourself in, brother.”

  “She’s setting us up with killers, and you’re going to defend her?” Riggs demanded. “Let me at least smash her stupid little hat.”

  Fug squeaked and grabbed at her visor.

  “Look,” Ngoba said, facing both of them. “We’re all from the TSS Squat. We know the deal. We can’t get pissed at each other for stumbling into each other’s score. Fug had a process underway, and we walked into it. I take ownership of that. She can’t help it if you happened to shore up her cover with your dick and big mouth.”

  “She saw us and couldn’t wait to dump all of Rack Thirteen on our heads,” Riggs said. “That’s not walking in on someone else’s score, Ngoba. That’s selling out your own for a terrible death. Do you want to get suffocated in Harav’s closet? I sure as hell don’t. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.” He crossed his arms. “You’re trying to act like a crew leader, here, shoring up one party against the other for the common good, and I get that. But in this case, you need to show some respect to both sides. She deserves the fate she would have handed us. I say we space her.”

  Fug gave him a look that said she was about to scratch his eyes out. Riggs fell back into a ready stance, hands up.

  The door behind them exploded. A concussive wave rolled down the corridor, knocking Ngoba down onto his side as hot air blew over his face. His ears vibrated with a high-pitched ringing.

  He barely heard someone shouting, ‘We clear?’ from where the door had been.

&nbs
p; “Clear!”

  Like tiny people moving in the distance, the voices called to each other; invisible forms, lost in the smoke.

  Ngoba rolled over and pushed himself to his knees, coughing violently. He sucked in his breath, but couldn’t stop the coughs wracking his chest. He squinted through the black-tinged smoke, and made out Fug’s arm nearby. He grabbed it and pulled her toward him. She was as light and limp as a rag doll.

  “Riggs!” Tithi shouted, sounding as small as the rest of them. “Are you in there?” She paused, and then she was yelling at someone else. “Why is there so much smoke? The overhead fell down, you idiots.”

  “We’re moving it, Miss Tithi,” a military-sounding voice answered.

  Unable to see anything in the smoke, Ngoba cast around for Riggs. His hand landed on what felt like his friend’s face. He squeezed Riggs’s nose and felt his forehead. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be breathing.

  Stumbling to his feet, Ngoba grabbed each of his companions by the forearm and heaved forward, the smoke burning his lungs. There was heat from the direction of the door—he felt it even with his eyes squeezed closed—so he heaved in the opposite direction, pulling Fug and Riggs after him. He tried to map out the maintenance hatches he remembered seeing in the tunnel, but couldn’t tell how far they were from the main door. He remembered he had walked for about five minutes.

  Ngoba grunted and pushed himself into a faster walk. Fug was easy enough to drag, but Riggs’s big feet kept smacking the old ribs along the bulkhead.

  As he left the smoke, the dim ceiling lights grew brighter and his vision eventually cleared. Banging sounds and shouts followed from the end of the corridor where the overhead had collapsed. He supposed it wouldn’t take them long to either clear the mess of metal and plumbing, or get someone to cut through it. They had the plasma guns, too, although he didn’t like the thought of someone being crazy enough to use a plasma gun on the station. Though this was Rack Thirteen, and at least one of them had already used plasma, so he couldn’t put it past them.

  Without realizing how far he’d come, he turned the slight curve that ended at the door to the briki club. Ngoba blinked. He’d intended to pry open one of the maintenance hatches and drop down into a service crawlspace. He sighed, and let Fug’s and Riggs’s arms drop. Neither stirred, still out cold. Riggs had a bit of blood running from his nose, and Ngoba noticed that Fug’s visor had cracked, and no longer glowed green. Without the ghoul-color on her face, she looked like any other teenage girl. Cute even, Ngoba thought. Her hair was grey with dust.