Mainline

by Deborah Christian

"You are Lish?"

  She turned to face the visitor, and looked up, and up, into the leathery red and black mottled visage of an alien. A minimal bodysuit revealed lanky muscles on arms and legs of the same oddly marked flesh as his face. Piercing yellow eyes stared unblinking from a countenance of harsh planes and angles. His intensity was unsettling.

  "What can I do for you?" she asked, hiding behind the cool facade of a disinterested businesswoman.

  "I need to discuss the hex-pack special."

  Though it was a little late for that kind of trade, it was what really paid the bills. "Sure," the Holdout said. "Let's step into the office."

  She motioned the alien toward the door and accompanied him. They were soon inside and Lish sat behind her desk. Her customer shut the door behind them, then came to stand before her. She pointed to a chair; the alien ignored her and remained standing, straddle-legged, his arms crossed upon his chest. "My name is Yavobo," he declared, "and I will ask you this only once. Do you sell time patches?"

  A sudden fear gripped Lish's heart. This was not how clients approached a Holdout when they had to dicker over price and delivery arrangements. She could bet this fellow didn't want anything she had to sell.

  "Are you interested in buying one?" she countered, stalling for time.

  Yavobo gave a half-shake of his head, almost regretfully, then reached out with a long, quick arm and grabbed her by the front of her jumpsuit. The slender woman flew through the air to slam against the plassteel wall on the far side of the room. She slid down the partition and slumped on the floor, stunned, winded, with her right shoulder nearly out of joint.

  Yavobo was standing over her again. "I am not repeating my question. Answer, yes or no."

  It was beyond Lish to answer anything at all. Curling forward around her middle, she gasped for air, a paralyzed diaphragm failing to cooperate in her efforts to breathe. The alien waited

  patiently, until, a moment later, air wheezed back into her lungs.

  "Yes ..." she managed to choke out to her interrogator.

  "Good." Yavobo leaned down, pulled her to her feet with a grip on her clothes, and pushed her back up against the wall.

  "Second question. Who bought a time patch from you last month?"

  A feeling of terror stirred in her. Taken unawares, she'd had no chance to defend herself, and was not psychologically prepared for such an assault. This Yavobo was clearly ready to hurt her. If she didn't talk, she might end up dead.

  And if she did talk, she might end up dead. The shadow community of backstreeters and fronts would never buy from her again, and some individual might well decide to eliminate her as an untrustworthy link.

  Yavobo reached down, grabbed her left little finger. "You are taking too long to answer," he said, and snapped the bone like a twig.

  Lish screamed.

  The pain and the fear had already sent adrenaline coursing through her body; now this wanton injury gave her conscious intent as well. With a mental command directed through a select cybercircuit in her brain, she activated the adrenal boosters she had equipped herself with long ago, when streetfighters sought out an unwanted young smuggler and brawling had been her only defense in the byways of Raffin.

  Finger and shoulder became mere throbs, to be ignored. She gained no muscle mass, and did not grow to a height to match Yavobo's, but boosted reflexes and temporary strength flooded her system in a wave never matched by natural biochemistry. Lish yanked out of Yavobo's grip and before he could react, she darted across the room and had her hand on the latch of the door.

  She was halfway through the door when he pulled her back into the room. His reach and speed were remarkable as well. Iron fingers sank into her injured shoulder, magnifying the throb back into a spear of agony. Her collarbone broke under the pressure of the alien's grasp as he lifted Lish off her feet and threw her across the room again one-handed. He was growing angry, and this time he put his strength into it.

  Plassteel does not dent. Skulls do. Lish's head crunched against the wall loud enough to drive the sickening sound echoing through her own ears.

  Yavobo kneeled before her. Through red spots in her vision she saw him draw a utility knife from its sheath, hold the blade threateningly near. "You will give me a list of your customers now, or I will kill you." He said it matter-of-factly.

  Lish tried to collect her thoughts, too much adrenaline to fall unconscious, too little reason left to remember the client file names. Trying to form words, trying to explain how hard this would be ... nothing coming out.

  "Do you wish to die, then?" The question was dispassionate as the alien's face receded down a black tunnel.

  "No one's dying here, you bastard, except maybe you."

  Reva's voice rang out in the confined office space. It was the last thing Lish heard as she slipped from consciousness.

  Yavobo spun in a knife-wielding crouch to face his new challenger, and paused, assessing the ordinary woman who dared defy him. Tall, slim, red-haired; garbed in a sea green, body-clinging weave of semi-cellophane, one arm clad, the other bare: the fad of the month that humans considered alluring. Hazel eyes met his squarely.

  "Leave us," he barked. "I have no business with you."

  "You do now." Reva stepped out of her unstable high-heeled shoes and moved away from a toppled chair, balancing her weight on the balls of her feet. She recognized Yavobo immediately from her stalking of Murs and Lanzig. She knew of his great strength and reputation for a violent temper, and knew she must be ready for anything. She pulled her vibroknife from the sheath concealed on her fabric-covered arm, and thumbed the power tab. The blade became a deadly vibrating blur in her hand.

  In all his years among the human-populated worlds, this was the first time that a thin-skin woman had ever challenged Yavobo as an equal, taking him on with a knife in a stance that called to combat, warrior to warrior. If his mission had not been so grim, he would have been amused.

  He stood up slowly from his crouch, lowering his blade slightly to one side in a disarming gesture. "What is this to you?" he asked. "Leave, and I will do you no harm."

  Reva did not alter her stance one bit. She stood silent, caught between two warring instincts. Catching this brutish creature in the act of murdering her only friend left the assassin with an angry bloodlust she had never experienced on contract hits. This was different. This was personal. She wanted to kill the Aztrakhanii and do it now.

  And this was problematical. Reva seldom killed with her bare hands. She used technology, carefully staged accidents or apparent flukes of circumstance. Oh, she could kill with the knife, was quite good at it, really. But she was more comfortable moving between Timelines, leaving her victim in a different Now when the hit was done. But this time was different. For once, when it might be convenient, perhaps vital, Reva felt reluctant to move between the Lines.

  She didn't want to risk losing the Lish she knew in this Mainline, or leave her on the floor in this Now, dying, while Reva killed Yavobo a Line or two away. That wasn't good enough. She had to stay in this Mainline, with the newfound friend whose personality she knew, where she could hurt in turn the same Yavobo who had hurt Lish.

  That made everything a lot harder. There was no easy way to duck out, if she didn't switch Lines. There's no room for error, she told herself, and her knuckles whitened as she gripped the knife hilt harder.

  Yavobo watched her grip tighten, and smiled. He risked a glance at the Holdout, and scowled at the sight of her eyes rolled up, a pool of blood collecting beneath her blond head. "Do you work with this one?" he demanded. "Answer my questions and I will let you live."

  The Aztrakhani's reach was longer, but Reva thought she was more agile. She needed to draw him out of the office, where she would have room to maneuver. She thought of his temper, and decided to talk.

  "That's my partner," Reva lied. "You can't kill me, you backwater slimeworm."

  He ignored the insult. "Tell me who bought time patches last month," he demanded, "and I
will not kill your partner." He toed the defenseless body at his feet.

  His words hit Reva like a physical blow.

  He was on her trail.

  She struggled to slow her breathing, grown suddenly fast and shallow. There was no point in holding back. Lish's life was on the line, as well as her own. This erstwhile bodyguard had to be taken down now. No one had ever gotten close to catching Reva at her work. No one would.

  "Time patches?" Her mouth was dry and she forced the words out. "There's only one you're interested in. That's the one I used."

  Yavobo went utterly still, with the quietude of the stalking kria.

  "The next one will get you, and Lanzig, too."

  With a ululating battle cry, Yavobo sprang at Reva.

  Ready for an extreme reaction, she leapt sideways and backward, through the office door and out into the warehouse. Labormechs were unresponsive to the uproar and continued to stack shipping components. Reva tumbled past one, dodged around a stack of cryocases, Yavobo close on her heels. In the open loading area near the back bay door, she spun to face her attacker.

  Yavobo was on her with a lunge. She sidestepped and momentum carried him by; before she could connect a slash with his ribs, he twisted and was facing her once more. The two stood poised for the blink of an eye, and then began to circle warily in the ancient dance of knife fighters.

  Mechos had shut the dome lights off for the night. The warehouse held dusk and the red glow of sunset, casting the combatants' shadows far along the loading bay floor. When they turned so that his back was to the twilight sky, Yavobo stabbed toward Reva's midsection. It was a trick she would have used herself, and she was ready for it, sucking in her stomach as she leapt backward, slashing toward his extended arm as she dodged the thrust. She nicked him with the vibroknife, not feeling any resistance, but seeing the ocher gleam of Aztrakhani blood as he drew his arm back.

  They continued to circle. She feinted, he dodged; he tested her reflexes with a swipe and a lunge. Each getting the measure of the other.

  Then Yavobo came in for the kill. A feint; another feint; he reached out as if to grab Reva's free arm, and she leapt to the side—straight into his slashing blade, that laid open the flesh of her thigh.

  His jubilant war cry echoed off the warehouse dome walls. It would not be enough, of course, until he had her head, but it was a start. Unlike the wound he bore, this one was deep, and bleeding freely. Soon she would tire, and then she would be his.

  Reva sidled away to avoid the sticky-slick spot where blood ran down her leg and onto the floor. The wound was numb for the moment, not yet burning, and she couldn't judge its severity.

  She sensed it was enough to take away her edge of nimbleness, though, and slow her to a deadly pace. If he got his hands on her she could not hope to fend him off. Now, before she was noticeably weakened, she had to do her best.

  The next flurry of exchanges showed that that was not good enough. Her leg began to buckle when she put weight on it, and without footwork she was hard put to avoid the alien's blows. He, on the other hand, was very good at avoiding her vibroknife. She tried to slice through his blade to disarm him, and failed. Another slash from the warrior's knife took her in the left forearm, not a crucial wound by itself, but one that would further slow her down by blood loss.

  A triumphant smile bared the Aztrakhani's vicious canines. "I will drink your blood!" he taunted, as Reva stumbled behind a stack of cryocases. Her options were looking grim, and she wondered with a growing tinge of desperation if she could get away. It didn't matter if she wanted to move between Lines now; the fact was, she was too full of fear and anger to control a shift. Yavobo was between her and the closest exit, the broad bay door that gave out onto the ocean.

  The twilight shadows that baffled the dodging assassin were no obstacle to the warrior. He anticipated her next evasion and vaulted shipping boxes to land by her side. She made a wild slash with her knife; Yavobo effortlessly grabbed her wrist, slammed it against the stack of cases behind her until the weapon flew off somewhere into the darkness. Towering over her, he ignored the wounded left arm that dangled by her side as he brought his blood-flecked blade up to Reva's throat.

  The assassin saw death approaching. She tried the only thing left to her, something she knew would work on a human. She had no idea how it would affect this alien body, but it was all she had left to try.

  She thrust out with her wounded free arm, gritting her teeth against the pain. She stabbed in and up with one stiffened finger, then clutched at a nexus of nerves that in a human would be near the solar plexus. A human would have convulsed, and fallen, stunned or dead, at her feet.

  Sobrani nerve-fighting techniques were deadly, but tailored to a certain physiognomy. Yavobo did not share that design—yet being humanoid, his structure and central nervous system had much in common with that of the scorned thin-skins. His eyes widened, his muscle tone loosened, and he stood swaying, virtually senseless, while Reva wriggled from his grasp and limped hurriedly away.

  Beyond the Lairdome entrance on the land side were intruder alarms and slidewalks. Ways to call the Grinds or escape her pursuer. She was heading for that door, uncertain what to do on the other side, when Vask strolled into the Comax Shipping warehouse.

  Reva had never been really glad to see the Fixer before. Shock appeared on his face as he registered her condition. Her hasty words cut off his questions.

  "You carry a gun, don't you? A needier? Is that all? It'll have to do. Come on." She turned to lead the way back to Yavobo.

  "Wait! What's—"

  The Aztrakhani saved the need for further questions. What would have laid a human low had bought Reva only a short respite. The alien, regaining his senses, followed his quarry out of the cryocase area and now strode purposefully across the darkened warehouse floor. Between the lingering twilight and the office glowrods, there was enough illumination to make out his imposing form.

  Reva staggered, then stumbled to her knees. "Shoot him, Vask. Don't let him get near. He's incredibly strong."

  The Fixer hesitated, and Yavobo came inexorably onward, knife in hand, intent on the assassin half down on the floor.

  "Hold it right there," Kastlin ordered, readying his needle gun.

  Yavobo came on.

  "That's it, friend." Kastlin braced and aimed the needier with two hands, and fired a burst of three closely spaced shots. To Reva's surprise, the silent, slender projectiles arced blue as they struck their target, peppering the tall alien's chest. She looked up at Vask, revising her opinion of the Fixer. Those were electro-charged needles, illegal for general use, and capable of doing greater damage to the target than the standard puncturing rounds. Vask fired again, one well-placed needle spearing Yavobo's wrist. The knife dropped from suddenly-lax fingers, and hung dangling from its wrist cord.

  Yavobo looked at Reva's friend and growled low in his throat, a primal sound eerily unnatural in a sentient being. "My fight is with you, woman, no one else. I will meet you again another time. You and I, alone."

  He turned, and moved rapidly toward the docking ramp that gave into the ocean.

  "Freeze!" Vask ordered. "You're not going anywhere!"

  The alien kept walking, his back turned contemptuously to the man's needier. Vask took aim, and pulled the trigger. Hits peppered Yavobo's back, but as before, they had little visible effect. A moment later a splash came from the docking ramp.

  Smooth green phosphorescence curled over the ripples where the bounty hunter had plunged into the sea. Vask took a halfhearted step in that direction.

  "I think we better help Lish," Reva called to the Fixer. "Au-todoc's fine for me, but her—I think you better call the medics."

  As much as cyberscience had learned with thorough neuronic mapping, brain tissue injuries could play havoc with a patient's system. So while Reva was out of the autodoc by midnight, feeling mean enough to pick a fight and get thrown out of her favorite holoden, Lish passed the evening unconscious in a real hospi
tal, with real humans supplementing the medibot care she received in the Head Trauma unit.

  Vask stood guard during Reva's recovery, puppy-dogging her steps before, during, and after her raucous sojourn in Gaspar's Holo Heaven. He lived to tell about it, too, in spite of her threats, and asked in the predawn hours if she would like to go visit Lish. Reva snarled about that, too, but finally took a detox pill and sobered up enough to go along to the hospital. By then the Holdout was drugged but conscious, tended by a medibot, and setting her own visiting hours. She admitted her callers.

  Seeing Lish surrounded by healing devices brought back an image of blood and bone fragments and a crumpled form lying near death on her account. Reva swallowed past a sudden uncomfortable lump, and had to clear her throat before she could speak.

  "You're looking a lot better," she said.

  The smuggler's voice was soft, hard to hear. "They say I was in shock, and going fast. Thanks, to both of you."

  Again, saved lives. Reva avoided that loaded subject; she nodded instead toward the crystalline half-globe that covered Lish's head in the blue glow of an aseptic field. "What's that?"

  "That wallop I took against the wall crushed bone, and that destroyed some tissue. They grafted on some gray matter from the tissue bank, took a synaptic dump from the old stuff. This is monitoring the healing process now. Can't accelerate the brain quite as fast as they do a finger." She waved her little finger, the compound fracture autodoc-healed and as good as new. "What was that trouble all about, anyway? Do you know?"

  Assassin and Fixer sat by the bedside, conscious of the nearby medibot monitoring instruments and voices in the room. "Seems like your visitor had it in for one of your special customers," Reva said circumspectly. "Remember the last big thing I bought from you?"

  The Holdout nodded her understanding.

  "So I had some words with him about it. I don't think he'll be back to bother you, Lish. It was me he was after."

  "You? Why?"

  "Let's say he didn't like how I used that last special purchase."

  "He tried to kill you for it," Vask remarked.