by Jak Koke
A second later, Mole came back on. "Okay, got it."
"Hello?" came a sultry voice. No video on this link. "Cinnamon, this is Hendrix. We’ve got something you should hear. Mole?" Hendrix listened again as the conversation replayed for the fixer’s benefit.
"Very good work," came Cinnamon’s response. "You continue to impress me, Hendrix."
"Just doing my job."
"Of course. Now, when Synthia leads you to Winger, you must capture him since he has the last copy of the data. He must not be killed, just in case the memory is purged at death. Do you understand?"
"Certainly," Hendrix said, pulling the van onto Santa Monica Boulevard a few cars back from Synthia’s. "We’ll keep him alive."
"Good," Cinnamon said. "Keep me posted." The line went dead.
Hendrix followed Synthia’s Saab up the hill and onto the UCLA campus. The green landscape and the ancient buildings brought excited laughter from Layla. "So we don’t have to kill the elf biker?" she said.
"Nope."
"Good, I want to see if he can stay alive long enough to grind Dougan Rose’s face into the pavement at the match tonight."
"Yeah," Hendrix said, then gave a short laugh. "Hope you get your wish."
44
On his way to meet Dougan, Jonathon checked the Westwind’s telecom for messages. He was surprised to see one from Grids, and even more surprised by what he had to say.
"Jonathon," Grids began, his hair messed, his face drawn in pain. "Synthia has changed. I don’t know why or how exactly, but she’s working against us now." Grids’s blue eyes widened. His voice was edged with a kind of hysteria that Jonathon had never seen from him.
"She did something to me, used magic to sift through my mind, I think. Then she took the simsense chip from my head and destroyed all my equipment." He was almost crying.
"The fragging slitch burned it all!" Grids turned away from the screen and wiped his face with his hands. When he turned back to look into the camera, he regained some of his composure. "I hope you get this message before she finds you," he said. "I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing, but beware of Synthia. Watch your back, chummer. Trust nobody. Not a soul."
The screen went black and Jonathon sat staring at it for a minute before shaking himself back to consciousness. What the frag was going on? Jonathon realized he didn’t want to believe Grids. He still didn’t really trust him.
But could he trust Synthia? Apparently not. But then again, maybe there was an explanation for what she’d done. There had to be.
Venny brought him back to the task at hand. The meeting with Dougan Rose. "Leave your gun here," Venny said. "The door guards will confiscate it anyway, and if we have to leave in a hurry, it’ll be easier to get it here than from them."
Jonathon nodded and pulled his Predator II from the right pocket of his duster and slid it under the driver’s seat. Then he set the Westwind in ready mode and climbed out.
Grandma’s Pharmacy and Survival filled an entire block. The first floor was packed with the most popular drek—chips, weaponry, and drugs, including a full pharmacy and a broad, quasi-legal range of over-the-counter chemicals and simsense. They had swords and bows, guns of all types, grenade launchers, and even guided missiles.
Upstairs was survival gear like tents and clothing, camp stoves, plus merc gear like BattleTac systems and combat drones. The top floor was the clinic where cyberware and a limited selection of bioware were installed.
Jonathon had spent meganuyen here, on drones and other chiller toys. But not today. The door guard scanned both Jonathon and Venny for weapons, but found nothing. He waved them through.
Venny insisted on leading the way to the basement, all his senses alert for any sort of trouble. They took the stairs instead of the elevator, more room to maneuver. "More dumb slags get geeked in elevators than anyplace else," Venny said. "Nowhere to run."
The sound of gunfire grew loud as they passed down the hall and through the macroglass doors into the firing range. There were about fifty or sixty lanes, each some fifty meters long, and most were occupied. An armory on the left supplied the weapons, each one with a smart guide that prevented it from firing unless it was aimed toward the target. That way any kind of live ammo could be used without risking anyone’s getting shot, accidentally or otherwise.
Venny held Jonathon behind him as they walked behind the macroglass separator, scanning each firing lane for Dougan Rose. They found him in the last lane, firing a Colt Manhunter at the target. A Hispanic or Amerind woman stood next to him, wearing a black bodysuit adorned with brown and white feathers.
Shaman? Jonathon wondered.
As the woman’s face came into Jonathon’s view, he saw that she was beautiful, with olive skin and straight black hair that hung to her slim waist. She grimaced as Dougan squeezed off shots with the Colt Manhunter in his hand.
Dougan himself was outfitted in loose-fitting blue jeans and a black Maria Mercurial T-shirt. He wore studded synthleather gloves, a bandanna over his black hair, and mirrored glasses that made him harder to recognize.
Jonathon rapped on the glass, and the woman opened it for him. Dougan turned to greet them, setting the pistol on the shelf. He was exactly the same height as Jonathon, but a tiny bit bulkier; he’d gained some weight over the years.
"Jonathon," Dougan said. "Glad you came."
The hiss rose in Jonathon’s head, and he bit back the urge to strangle the elf. "Dougan."
"And this must be Venice Jones," Dougan said.
Venny inclined his horned head ever so slightly.
"Now, Maria!" Dougan shouted, his hands suddenly moving from behind his back. He brought up a plastic drinking bottle of some kind, aiming the poptop toward Venny.
Jonathon sensed threat and tried to move—a reflex to slap the bottle from Dougan’s hand, despite its harmless appearance. But his hand hesitated; he stood motionless against his will. The shaman had somehow taken control of his body.
Time clicked to slow-motion as Jonathon watched Dougan’s gloved finger squeeze the drinking bottle, spraying Venny with a clear liquid. But Venny was no longer standing there; he’d moved to the side, his hand striking out for Dougan’s neck.
The spray missed.
Dougan nearly dodged Venny’s blow, but the troll’s fist glanced off Dougan’s shoulder and sent him flying back into the wall.
A large black man suddenly appeared behind Venny. Heavy-set jaw, cybereyes, smartlink induction pads on his hands. The man’s afro was cut in close stripes along the arc of his scalp. A squirt bottle, identical to Dougan’s, appeared in the man’s hands, the pop-top aimed at Venny’s face.
Frag, he must’ve come from the adjacent booth.
Venny tried to duck, but the man caught him in the side of the head with the spray from another squirt bottle. Venny screamed as the liquid ran down his face, squeezing his eyes shut and covering his ears. He sank to his knees.
Jonathon tried to move again, struggling to break the hold on his body. Suddenly his muscles were his own again, under his control. His hand shot out and grabbed Dougan’s wrist, aimed the tip of the bottle at the black man and squeezed. The liquid stream caught the man full in the face, and he, too, hit the ground a few seconds later.
But Dougan jerked his hand, trying to wrench the bottle away. Jonathon held on, but some of the liquid spilled from the bottle’s tip. Jonathon felt moisture over his knuckles, and seconds later he tasted garlic. DMSO, he thought. Drek . . .
Then light grew to a blinding brilliance, stabbing through his brain like hot spears. As the DMSO carried the drug—hyper—through his skin and into his blood, gunshots in the hall became unbearably loud, each crack splitting his skull with its volume. He tried to block it out, tried to retreat into silence and darkness, but even the scratch of his clothes on his skin burned him. Tortured him.
He sank to floor and crumpled into a ball.
The torture went on for what seemed like hours, though Jonathon’s headcl
ock told him only fifty minutes had passed before it finally receded enough for him to concentrate coherently on his surroundings. He found himself handcuffed, sitting in a chair in the back of a stepvan that wasn’t moving. He kept his eyes shut for a moment, wanted some time to think before he let his captors know he was awake.
Moans and cries came from two individuals next to Jonathon. The one on his left he recognized as Venny. The other was in front of them, most likely the huge black chromer he’d hit with the spray.
A door opened up front and Dougan climbed into the driver’s seat. Jonathon kept his eyes focused on the floor, feeling the scrutiny of Dougan’s stare. Then he heard Dougan’s voice. "Okay, Maria, I’ve set up the exchange with Tashika. Are you prepped?"
"I’m solid," came the soft reply. "When Maurice comes off the hyper, we’ll be set. I can’t wait for all this drek to be over so I can get back to my life."
That’s just what I was thinking, Jonathon thought. The residual effects of the drug amplified the crackle in his nerves.
"The meet is set for four o’clock, El Segundo plant,"
Dougan said. "After that, we collect payment and you can go home."
Venny seemed much calmer now; he’d quit yelling and his hands had dropped to his sides. "Sorry ’bout this, chummer," he whispered to Jonathon.
"Just think of a way to get us out."
"When I can think, I’ll let you know."
Jonathon almost laughed. His own thinking processes were just coming back online. His head ached as he stared at the grooved metal of the floor between his knees. He thought about what had happened. Dougan had betrayed him. But why? He had no idea. And how do we get away? Again, he had no idea.
Better get some fragging clues soon, he thought, wondering exactly where they were. It couldn’t be too far from Venice Beach. But the van had no windows in the back, no way to look out and try to get a fix on their location.
"Maria, please step outside and keep watch for a minute?" Dougan said.
"If you insist."
"I do."
Jonathon heard the door open and close, then Dougan climbed from the driver’s seat into the back. An Ingram SMG in hand, he pushed past the moaning hulk that must be the Maurice they’d been talking about, and came up close to Jonathon and Venny.
"You’ve recovered well, Jonathon," Dougan said. "As I knew you would. Accelerated metabolism has its virtues, neh!"
Jonathon said nothing and glared up at the other elf. The hiss roared in his head, searing his nerves and bringing a flush to his face. He wanted to spit at Dougan, but his mouth was too dry.
"I just wanted to let you know a few things before I kill you," Dougan said. "Oh, yes, I plan to kill you just as I killed Tamara." Dougan sat on the floor, keeping the Ingram trained on the two of them.
"I lied earlier," Dougan continued. "So sorry, chummer. I have a tendency to lie. It’s pathological really. Not something I can control. I geeked Tamara very much on purpose. You can’t accidentally kill someone like her, you know. Have to plan drek like that. Adplaquin, you know what that is? Anticoagulant, leaves no trace. Very effective, very deadly."
The words hit Jonathon’s ears, and on some level, he actually registered what they meant, but the roar in his mind was deafening. "Why?" he said.
"What? Oh, that’s simple. Because Tashika, that’s my associate—the one who so desperately needs the data in your head. Because he wanted her injured." A look of sheer hatred Hashed across Dougan’s features. "I killed her because he wanted her alive, plain and simple," he said. "And I’m going to kill you because you’ve got the information he needs. But first, I plan to—"
Outside, Maria screamed. "Drek! Look out!" Then she let out a long, loud screech that scissored up Jonathon’s back.
Something impacted with the side of the stepvan and exploded, rocking the vehicle up on two wheels. Dougan’s eyes went wide with surprise as he slid into the tilted wall. As the van crashed back down onto all four wheels, Jonathon kicked with all the quickness and strength of his augmented muscles, lashing out for the Ingram gun in Dougan’s hand.
Dougan’s eyes narrowed on Jonathon, and he squeezed the trigger. But Jonathon’s foot had already connected with Dougan’s wrist, making the Ingram jerk to the side. The gun sprayed bullets against the inside walls of the van.
Another blast rocked the van, and the searing heat struck Jonathon as the double doors in the side rattled. Dougan tried to stand, but Jonathon was faster, stomping on Dougan’s hand, grinding the fragile bones of his knuckles into the metal floor of the stepvan.
Dougan’s other hand moved in a striking motion toward the soft of Jonathon’s knee. A knife? A gun? Jonathon heard the snick of extending cyberspurs almost too late. He pivoted and dodged the blow at the last second, again trying to kick the Ingram out of Dougan’s hand.
No luck.
Dougan brought the gun to bear as he struck again with the shiny chrome blades that extended along the bone of his forearm. But Venny had stepped around Jonathon; the troll hit Dougan with a blow that made Jonathon wince. In a lightning-quick motion, Venny’s handcuffed arms came pummeling down on Dougan’s head.
The gun sputtered for a second, bullets singing past Jonathon. Then the weapon flew from Dougan’s hand and skittered across the floor.
Jonathon noticed a wide, spreading crimson patch under Venny’s arm; the troll had been hit. But the wounds didn’t seem to affect him. Venny planted a front kick into Dougan’s gut and sent the elf careening off the wall to land halfway out the open door. Dougan gasped, then began to scramble into the front, reaching for the bottle of hyper next to the seat.
But it was far too late. Venny grabbed his wrist and jerked him back onto the floor. "Cuff keys," he said.
Dougan heaved several breaths before answering. "In my pocket," he said. "Let me—"
"I don’t think so," Jonathon said. Then he reached into Dougan’s pocket and pulled out a small magnetic bar. Jonathon inserted the bar into his cuffs and they popped open. Venny’s did the same.
A searing crackle raised the hair on Jonathon’s arms. Incoming! The doors blew open and twisted on their hinges like foil as the heat of the blast burned Jonathon’s eyebrows. Another one like that and we’re all fried.
Venny ducked and threw Dougan out of the van and onto the pavement in one smooth motion. Dougan landed next to the woman, Maria, who lay slumped with her back against the graffiti-smeared concrete of a retaining wall.
"Get in front and drive us out of here!" Venny yelled.
Jonathon moved toward the driver’s seat as Venny tossed a nearly catatonic Maurice out the side doors. Broken glass crunched under Jonathon’s boots as he fired up the stepvan and slammed it into motion.
"Jonathon!" called a familiar voice, barely audible behind them. Synthia’s voice.
And as he watched her in the rearview, standing beside her Saab Dynamit, Grids’s words echoed in his head. Trust nobody. Not a soul. Synthia looked haggard and spent, and Jonathon suddenly realized the blasts of fire had come from her. She’d nearly killed them all in the attack. Why?
Behind Synthia, the monstrous pipes of a cold fusion plant reached toward the ocean like black tentacles. And seeing the alien curve of the desalinization facility, sitting like a mutant kraken made of concrete and a tangle of oversized pipes, Jonathon knew where he was. He ignored Synthia and drove on, accelerating to full speed.
Sorry Syn, he thought. When this is all over and done with, we’ll talk and sort it out. For now, it’s me and Venny and the whisper of Tamara in my mind.
45
Hendrix risked a quick glance at Layla. "Paydata!" he said. "She led us straight to him." He pulled their stepvan out into traffic, making sure the vehicle carrying Jonathon and Venice Jones was in clear view. Not too close, but not. too far.
"Did you have any doubt?" came Mole’s voice in his ear.
Hendrix didn’t respond to that. He always doubted. Skepticism and caution had kept him alive longer than ma
ny of his cohorts. It was either a blessing or a curse; he wasn’t sure which. He was alive, but nearly everyone he’d ever run with was dead.
It had gotten to the point that losing a chummer was routine. Par for the course. He expected it.
If Layla goes, though, it will hurt. It will tear me up like a belly blade.
Layla sat forward in the passenger seat, like a cat ready to pounce. She’d been getting more and more antsy ever since the long wait at UCLA where Synthia had stopped. Probably to do her location magic, Hendrix guessed. And now Layla was ready for action, especially after watching Synthia nearly destroy Winger in that succession of fireblasts back there. Patience was never really one of Layla’s virtues.
Hendrix just stared at the road and shook his head. He’d almost given the order to take out the mage, but seeing Winger take off in the stepvan, they abandoned Synthia so as not to lose Winger. The Bulldog stepvan that Winger drove was similar to Hendrix and Layla’s machine, except for the blown-open side doors and the blackened scorch marks over the white paint. And Hendrix had made a few modifications to his, just to maintain the edge in case of a fire fight.
Freeway traffic was light as Hendrix followed Winger’s truck up onto the 405. He’s heading back toward Venice Beach, Hendrix thought. Probably going for his car. That would be bad because the Westwind would be able to outrun the stepvan.
"They’re looping back toward Venice Beach," Layla said. "What say we take them down now?"
"Soon, my love," Hendrix said.
"Oh, come on," Layla said. "Broad fragging daylight, middle of traffic." She let out a short laugh. "Why the frag not?"
"As soon as they exit the freeway, they’ll be in Culver City for a klick or so. It’s an uncontrolled zone. No Mafia, no regular Lone Star patrols. We’ll hit them then."
"So ka, omae, " Layla said.
"Nice japspeak."
"You like?" Layla gave a mock bow.
Hendrix just laughed.
A few minutes later, the black-streaked van angled for the exit to Venice Boulevard. "They’re exiting as predicted. Mole, you in virtual position?"