by Korza, Jay
Too few moments had passed before Jenny unceremoniously dropped a small package on Mouse’s stomach. “Thanks, Jenny.”
“This one needs a receipt.” Jenny was back to business.
“Of course it does.” Mouse rolled out of the beanbag and stood. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
Receipts were a pain in the ass. The runner had to get the person receiving the package to lick a piece of paper. The runner brought that paper back and it was given to Zinner through a long line of intermediaries. Zinner would then run it through a stolen law-enforcement DNA scanner to determine whom the package was delivered to. There could never be any question or argument from these people whether they had received their package or not. That meant that whatever was in this three-inch square box was very important, expensive, or both.
Mouse left the hub after looking at the recipient’s name and location. He didn’t recognize either. Based on the numbers, the location had to be somewhere in the tool district but nowhere Mouse had ever been before. He scampered over to a bus terminal and used its mapping software to locate the address. Mouse knew that using any form of traceable technology to make a run was strictly forbidden but he was tired and didn’t feel like getting lost or taking an absurdly and unnecessarily long route to his destination.
When the map pulled up the location, Mouse knew exactly the best route to get there. He realized he had been in that area before; something seemed familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. It didn’t really matter. He now knew where to go and how to get there so he was off to get it done.
As Mouse trotted through the streets, he decided that he should’ve taken Jenny’s roll-o, even if it did have hair and pocket lint stuck to it. He was getting hungry and he wasn’t even halfway to his drop-off. He had a few dollars in cash, enough on him that he wouldn’t need to commit any crimes to get some food. He just needed to decide what he was in the mood for.
A quick detour and he stepped out of the alleyway and onto a market street that had dozens of food vendors. The first few he passed because the food they served was deadly to humans. No Trizite food today—he had shrimp yesterday. He passed a new booth he hadn’t seen before; it was run by an alien that he had also never seen before and couldn’t identify. The food actually smelled good and didn’t look horrible, but he didn’t want to take any chances with it.
When he ran into the tall and furry immovable object, Mouse was still concentrating on the alien he couldn’t identify. He turned to apologize to whomever he had run into and had to look up, and up some more to see the face of the angry Shirka whose leg he was now wrapped around. Shirkas kind of always looked mad but Mouse was pretty sure this one actually was.
“Get off me, you dirty cub!” Saliva dripped from the angry maw of teeth.
“I’m, uh, sorry, sir”, Mouse stammered and realized that maybe this was a female Shirka. He wasn’t good at telling the difference sometimes. When he saw the military uniform the Shirka was wearing, he figured it probably was a male.
Mouse was backing away and apologizing only so that he could now bump into another man that he wasn’t paying attention to. This startled him so much that he flipped around and ended up almost giving the man a hug. Luckily this being was human and of a much nicer disposition than the Shirka.
The man wearing a marine uniform with lieutenant bars and no name tag said, “Hey there, son, it’s okay. My friend here won’t eat you; he just likes to act tough.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I just, uh. I’m hungry, trying to find something to eat.”
The lieutenant started to reach into his pocket to fish out some money and Mouse realized what he was doing. “Oh, no, sir, I have money. I wasn’t trying to beg. I’m just hungry, just a little off my game, that’s all I meant.”
“You sure, son? I have plenty. The military gives us a pretty good per diem when we’re on a business trip.” The lieutenant started to reach again but Mouse actually physically stopped his hand from going into his pocket.
“No, sir. My father would be very mad at me if I took your money.” And with that, Mouse turned and walked away, forgetting that he needed to eat.
The real problem with the lieutenant offering him money was that Mouse had already stolen his wallet. When he accidentally bumped into him, his hand landed on the marine’s wallet. When Mouse felt the bulge of the wallet, his hand automatically did what years of training had taught it to do and it took the wallet from the pocket. Had the marine reached into his pocket to give Mouse some money, he would’ve realized what had happened.
As Mouse ducked down another alley, went through three yards, over two low roofs and back into another alley, he thought about how he had broken another of Zinner’s rules. Never commit a crime, no matter how small, while running a job. Damn. He had now committed two offenses that would get most runners caned badly, but a runner this close to retirement might get worse. He shuddered to think about what worse could be. He had seen worse and no one ever wanted worse.
Mouse made it to his target location and didn’t find anyone waiting for him. He looked at his watch and saw that he was within the fifteen-minute time period he was given for the exchange to take place. There was nothing unusual about having to wait a few minutes to pick up or drop something off, so Mouse wasn’t worried yet.
He was, however, careful, so he kept walking past the meeting place as though he had just stopped for a moment to check his watch. He then turned down another alley and circled around a large building and crept into the shadows overlooking the exchange location. His nickname was earned from years of sneaking through buildings, shadows, and deadly places without ever being seen or hurt. And though he was tired and hungry, once he found his hiding spot, he opened his senses to the world around him and focused as best he could.
It only took a moment for a man to show up, looking as though he were expecting to find someone waiting for him. Mouse was about to make contact when he realized that something just didn’t seem right. The man was waiting for someone, not something. Mouse had seen enough dirty deeds to know that this man was aiming to misbehave.
Mouse waited a few moments longer; he wanted to wait just past his scheduled delivery window to see what would happen. Almost on cue, the man looked at his watch and shook his head. Mouse knew the man was there for him, but he didn’t know why. It couldn’t be for his two transgressions on his way here; this hit was set up well in advance of those happening.
Mouse was close to retirement but he had never heard even rumors of Zinner taking out runners before or after retirement in order to keep them quiet. Mouse did have a little more knowledge of the business than other runners because his brother was a private runner for Zinner and Mouse’s girlfriend was one of the other coordinators. But still, was that enough to kill him?
Johnny. Johnny was the answer. Johnny and Mouse were pretty good friends. Maybe Johnny had given him up; accidentally or on purpose, it didn’t matter which. If the cops thought Mouse had information that could help take down Zinner, and one of Zinner’s paid cops told him that, Mouse was as good as dead. There would be no reasoning with Zinner, no plea-bargaining, nothing.
Mouse slowly removed the box from his pouch and opened it, revealing a wad of cash and a small photo of Mouse taped to the outside of the roll of cash. His fears and theory confirmed. He slowly slid the money back into his pouch and thought about what to do next.
On the positive side, because Zinner didn’t use any electronics at all, the hitman couldn’t just call him up and say that Mouse had gotten away. Also, the hitman wouldn’t have direct access to Zinner; he’d have to go find a runner to get a message to Zinner and that process wasn’t all that fast. The flow of information to Zinner was almost completely secure but the downside was that it was very slow.
The negative side was that Mouse couldn’t let Zinner know he was still alive. Once he got back to the hub, Jenny would want her receipt from the drop. Mouse smiled to himself. Zinner was pretty smart. You had to pass the coordinato
r in order to get in or out of the hub. If Mouse returned without a receipt or said the recipient didn’t show and that’s why he didn’t have a receipt, then Jenny would raise all holy hell and alert Zinner at once. And if Jenny was given a receipt, she would hand it to a personal runner who would take it directly to Zinner. Again, he would be alerted right away that Mouse was back, and worse, he would know the attempt failed and Mouse was on to him because he shouldn’t have a receipt in the first place.
Mouse wished that Shirka had eaten him; it would’ve been better than knowing death was coming for him. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he saw the two marines, human and Shirka, walk out of the alley Mouse had originally come through. Crap, was there a God, and was he actually delivering prayers today? Sending the Shirka to finish the job?
The human approached the hitman, who was already looking leery about the encounter. “Excuse me, sir”, the lieutenant began. “I’m looking for a young man who might have come through here a few moments ago.”
“I haven’t seen any kids”, came the terse reply.
The lieutenant smiled. “I haven’t even described him to you yet. How do you know you haven’t seen who I’m looking for?” He paused. “And I never said he was a kid.”
Mouse saw the hitman twitch a little. He was waiting for a young boy to kill. Now these two other men show up at the time and place the boy was supposed to be, asking about the kid. It was too much of a coincidence for him. He immediately thought these two marines weren’t real marines, just other hitmen in disguise waiting to take his mark.
No human liked taking on a Shirka but apparently this man thought something special of himself. “Look. I don’t know what Z-man is trying to pull here, but this is my job. Both of you fuck off before I make a throw rug out of you both!” He was now pointing back and forth between the two marines.
The lieutenant just smiled. “First off, I have no idea what you’re talking about or who this Z-man is. Second, that might have been funny if both of us were Shirkas but I’m not, so it just sounded dumb. Third, I don’t think you’re here for anything that’s good for anyone, so I’m going to ask you to leave. Now.” The hitman looked at the lieutenant in such a way that he decided he should add a threat to the end of his paragraph in order to be taken more seriously, just because that’s how it’s apparently done in these parts. “Or, I’ll take that gun from your waist that you think you’re hiding, and I’ll shoot you in the face with it.”
The lieutenant smiled, happy with his threat and ready to follow through as he knew he most likely would have to. The hitman twitched and started to go for his gun. The lieutenant moved in and slid off to the man’s right side, the side with the gun. The hitman smiled to himself. This dumb marine, or whoever he was, was too slow; the hitman already had his hand on the grip of his pistol.
As the gun came from the waistband, the hitman knew he needed to shoot the furbag first. He was surprised to see his intended target just standing there with his muzzle open and tongue hanging out, like a dog he remembered from his childhood, who looked the same way before they went for a car ride. Why was he happy? He was about to get shot and he wasn’t even moving.
As the gun cleared the jacket and started to press forward, the hitman felt another hand over his own, guiding the barrel of the gun back around and towards his own body. That wasn’t right, not at all. He realized that the lieutenant was now moving back in front of him and was the one controlling the hitman’s hand and the gun it held.
The gun was now fully and painfully pointed at the hitman’s own chest, with his hand still clasped to it, and the marine was looking square into the hitman’s eyes. The lieutenant slowly moved the barrel upward from the hitman’s chest and said, “I told you, in the face.”
The hitman’s eyes went wide as he realized the lieutenant was following through with every word of his threat. The gun spat lead and fire into the hitman’s face and in turn, he spit bone and brain matter out the back of his head.
The body slumped and the lieutenant looked to his companion. “I think that boy is in some trouble.”
“So?”
“So…I’ll let you kill the next guy if you help me find him.”
No response.
“The next three guys?”
“Okay, let’s go. I can still smell him—should be easy to track him to wherever he went.”
~
Mouse hadn’t seen the last exchange between the two marines; he was already heading away and barely saw the hitman’s death. The sound of the gun made Mouse run faster than he ever had before, hunger and fatigue be damned. He still had to think of a way to get into the hub and get his brother out before Zinner found him.
When Mouse reached the hub, he decided that a direct approach was the best way. He would hand Jenny a receipt and that would leave him free to roam the hub without anyone caring. It would take between five and ten minutes for the receipt to get to Zinner and then a few minutes for him to formulate a response and a few minutes to get it moving. Just to be on the safe side, Mouse would give himself ten minutes to grab his brother and get the hell out of the hub.
Between the money for the hitman and the money he found in the marine’s wallet, he should be able to get to another city and set up there with his brother. He was fairly certain he would make it out of the hub. He was more worried about getting to transportation. Zinner would send people to all of the public transport areas first. He would have to deal with that later.
Mouse entered the hub and tried to act calm, even bored if he could pull that off. “Hey, Jenny.”
She looked at him and just put her hand out. “Receipt.”
Someone missed naptime today, he thought. “Here you go. I’m gonna go find my brother. If you have anything else for me, let me know.”
Mouse started to walk away when Jenny said, “He’s not over there.”
“Huh?”
“He’s not at the skateboard ramp.”
“Okay, do you know where he is?”
“Yup.” Jenny rang the bell so one of Zinner’s private runners would come get the receipt from her. “He’s with Z-man. He was asked to run some sandwiches to him a while ago and he hasn’t come back yet.”
Mouse could feel his blood drain. Sweat popped out on his forehead. “Oh. Okay. Um, how about I take the receipt to Z-man? That way I can get my brother for dinner.” He stammered, “And, I, uh, haven’t seen the guy in a while. I wanted to talk to him about my retirement party.”
Jenny rolled her eyes and then clinched them shut before she opened her mouth as wide as it could go. “Nooooooooooo!” This was a girl destined to work in public service somewhere. “You know the rules! No one sees the Z-man unless he comes to you OR you’re one of his private runners. You. Are. Not. One. Of. His. Private. Runners. Go away, turd face.”
Oh crap. Mouse knew that this wasn’t by accident. Zinner had his brother, had planned to have his brother, just in case Mouse came back.
The apartment was at the back of the hub and had tons of security in place. All of the security was lo-tech but its strength lied in its simplicity and the overkill of redundancies that were in place. Everything was based on the idea that cops were coming for evidence or a rival bad guy was coming for Zinner and his money.
If the cops were coming, he just needed enough time to make sure there wasn’t any small bit of evidence he hadn’t accounted for and then just sit and wait to surrender.
If other bad guys were coming, he needed enough time to get his barricades in place to hold off the attack for eight minutes. Eight minutes was the average response time for the patrol officers in this area. He didn’t keep evidence in his apartment so why wouldn’t he call the police to come save him?
Mouse had to figure out how to get to the apartment undetected, get inside, get his brother out, and not get caught. Or, do all that and instead of getting out, kill Zinner himself to make sure he and his brother were safe. They didn’t call him Mouse for nothing; time to put
the name to the test.
Mouse had already walked away from Jenny as he mulled all of this over in his head. He walked by a refrigerator and grabbed a sandwich without bothering to see what kind it was. He knew he needed fuel so he ate it as he walked towards the back of the hub. He had also grabbed a bottle of water for himself and threw two in his bag for later. If there was a later.
He would have to use Zinner’s own system against him. Take that healthy and well-spent paranoia and use it to Mouse’s advantage and not Zinner’s. But how?
If he called the cops, then Zinner would just open his apartment up and let them walk right in. Mouse didn’t think the cops would let him ride their coattails but his brother would be able to walk right out and then Mouse could snatch him up and tell him what was happening. But if that backfired, Zach would be trapped in the apartment with a very angry Zinner who might just do something to Zach out of spite. Mouse couldn’t risk that, even if it wasn’t a big risk.
If Mouse called in a rival gang, then Zinner would call the cops himself and wouldn’t hurt Zach. But a lot of people would get hurt in all the fighting and how in the hell would Mouse just “call in” a rival gang anyway? If only those two marines had followed him here, that might be enough of a distraction.
How did those guys find him in the first place? Mouse’s mind began to wander a bit. He knew he hadn’t left any tracks in the alley; it was cobblestone. He hadn’t been followed, not directly anyway—he would’ve spotted them. The Shirka, that had to be it. The Shirka scent tracked him. The way they walked out of the alley it was obvious they weren’t following ground clues; it had to be air scent. And that gave him an idea.
Mouse hadn’t seen Zinner’s personal runner with the receipt pass him yet so he just stopped and waited. Mouse saw the runner talk with Jenny, take the receipt, and then head in his direction.
Mouse called out, “Hey, Billy.”
“What’s up, Mouse?”
“Not much. Are you runnin’ to Z-man?”
“Yup. With your receipt, dude.”