Everybody's got to make a living, and there are plenty worse than mine.
What I do is... urban renewal. Civic redecorating.
Of the highest caliber. So to speak.
The pay is good, when there's work, which isn't often. I take what comes. Sometimes I think of pitching it and hiring on at the docks.
I was ready for that career change when a job comes in, and it's cake, a walk in Central Park. A rescue.
Save the girl.
So I did. It was easy.
Mostly. Okay, one guy had a 30-.06. I mean, a 30-.06 is for deer or one of those new sabertooths.
It blasted through the front of my vest and punched a dent in my dermal armor. The round only went in a half inch, but I bled all over my vest, my smartleather trenchcoat, and down my pants so there was blood squishy in my combat boots.
There was another joker who popped out of a broom closet. Now who hides in a broom closet? I only knew he was there because the closet's door knob was still warm from when he touched it going in, and my cyber-eyes picked up the infrared.
I found the girl in the basement, popped the goons on either side of her, threw her over my shoulder and jogged out.
#
Funny things happen when you rescue people. It's more complicated than a typical shakedown, and way more than an assassination, in that there are people real close by that you're not supposed to hurt. And not like bystanders, which you try not to hurt on account of neatness, but people you can't hurt on account of if you hurt them too much (I mean kill them), you don't get paid.
That's complicated.
It's also complicated in that you save them from really nasty people who would cut their fingers off or gang-rape them or something.
So they're real grateful to see you. Sometimes they cry and want to hug you and such.
Women are the worst. I don't like women like I used to. They're pretty and all, some of them, but they're awfully fragile and blubbery. And they do go on when you save their lives. They get downright attached to you. That was a perk to this job when I first started, but nowadays, yawn.
#
A couple of blocks away, I turned down a narrow alley between brick apartment buildings. Behind a dented and stinking dumpster, I set her down. She had bruises and rope burns, but she stood on her own. Her hands were cuffed behind her.
Her red hair was mussed every which way. She wore a short dress, with bare shoulders and legs. I figured they snatched her while she was out at night, an easy target.
I braced myself for blubbering, but she just grimaced at my bloodstains on the front of her dress. In infrared, she glowed warmly. She wasn't even scared.
“Thanks,” she said.
I waited for more, but that was all. I grunted an acknowledgement, and she looked me over.
“Wow,” she said. “You're really gross.”
“I'm bloody.”
“No, your eyes. They're freaky.”
My cyber-eyes have no pupils. They shine like chrome spheres in my eye sockets. They're a mark of commitment in my line of work, and I've smoked about twenty fully-armed professionals in total darkness. “These eyes saved your ass!”
“Don't yell at me.”
“Turn around.”
“Why?”
“Cuffs.”
She turned and I triggered the serrated titanium blade that sat just under the skin of my right forearm. It slipped out between my second and third knuckles and locked into place without a sound.
I grabbed her slender wrist and grated the blade across the cuff chain. It split like paper.
She turned her head to see what I was doing and flung her wild hair in my face. “What is that? Did that come out of your arm?”
“If you carry a regular knife, somebody can take it. With this, where I would carry a knife, I carry an extra gun.”
“Nasty.” She wiped my blood off her arms, but it just got on her palms. She pushed her hair out of her face with the back of a hand and looked into my eyes.
And frowned.
And put her hands on her hips.
Somehow, I wished she would blubber, at least a little. I put on a pair of dark, infrared-transparent sunglasses. Very cool.
“Hmph,” she said.
“So,” I said. “I guess you'll be okay.”
“Yeah.”
“See you around.”
I knew I should have delivered her to my employer, her father-brother-uncle-whoever, safe and sound, but I didn't want her over my shoulder again, not for a minute.
#
I dug a little.
Sandra Rosenfeld.
Researching names and whereabouts is often the first part of a job. Not my favorite part, but I knew some moves. She worked at a women's shoe store on Fifth. I went there when the place was about to close.
I stood outside for a minute.
Once I did a job where I took a dive out a fourth-floor window to dodge machine gun fire. If I could do that, I could do this.
I kept my sunglasses on.
The place was full of tiny, funny-looking shoes of all colors. She was there. Her hair was all neat. I decided it looked good neat, too.
There were a couple other women inside. They stopped smiling and talking when I came in. Then they slipped out behind me.
“You,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I shouldn't have left you like that. It was unprofessional. I came by to make sure you're okay.”
“Really? That's sweet of you.”
I looked at the shoes. “Nice place.”
“Right.” She gestured at my combat boots. The blood had dried dark on them and almost didn't show. “Looking for something more casual?”
“Huh?”
She smiled. “What's your name?” Her smile was tough. I liked it.
“Hammer.”
“You're kidding.”
“No.”
“Your real name?”
“Just call me Hammer.”
“I will not. A hammer hangs on a wall in a garage.”
I frowned. Women say weird things sometimes.
“Anyhow,” she said. “Thanks for checking up on me, Ham.” She reached up and squeezed my shoulder. Just for a second.
“Hey, listen...” I said.
“Hm?”
“Do you... like to eat?”
She thought about it. “I suppose I do.”
“I know a place.”
“Oh. Well... look, Ham. It sounds nice, and I think you're sort of interesting – and strong, which I like – but we're from two different worlds, don't you think?”
“No.”
She sighed. “Okay, the truth is I'm not going to date a,” she whispered this part, “a hired killer.” Then she glanced at my right hand. “Plus you're pretty gross in some ways.”
Once I did a job where I took a baseball bat across the kneecaps. Not sure why that occurred to me just then, but it did.
I didn't answer her.
“You know,” she said. “A lot of the alterations you've had done are reversible now. They can grow you new eyes out of your own DNA.”
I grunted.
She shrugged. “Maybe you're right. Listen, I've got to do inventory before we close, so if you don't mind...”
Once I did a job where I took a shotgun blast in the gut.
Out on the street, the sun was still too bright. I felt blinded and burned, and I walked off half-seeing.
It was almost dark by the time I reached my apartment. I kept on walking. Pretty soon I had wandered down to the docks. The water looked black and cold, and it lapped around quietly. I liked listening to it.
There was a little seafood shack, locked up for the night, where the dockhands must get their lunch.
Maybe I was getting too old for this killer stuff. I mean, how long could I keep it up? Forever?
But an old assassin is a good assassin. Most don't make it for as long as me. That's because I go
t skills.
And hardware. Wharf rats slinked around, big orange sparks in infrared.
And the hardware never bothered me before, so why should it now?
Besides, that DNA self-cloning stuff was pricey. I couldn't afford it, no way. The hardware stayed. I was stuck with it.
Water splashed against the soggy posts down there, over and over. Bits of floating trash rocked back and forth. The tide was in.
I felt the hard pressure of a gun barrel in my lower back. A bitty thing – felt like a .22 maybe.
“Wallet,” said a voice.
I smiled. Poor bastard.
I came around and swung my right fist across his gun arm. My blade cut deep and his cute little six-shot revolver bounced on the wood of the dock and plopped into the water.
The 500 Smith & Wesson in my left hand pressed into the greasy skin of his forehead, under his knit cap.
On any other day, I would have emptied this guy's head.
But as I pressed the barrel harder, he shivered. Tears welled up and cut the dirt on his baby cheeks.
“How old are you?” I rumbled.
He didn't answer. He just stood there and got pale. Blood from his right arm was soaking into the boards.
I lowered my gun. The kid wobbled a little and passed out. He just melted to the ground.
Blow him away? No.
Leave him there? No. Not with that arm.
I, the Hammer, killer of men, carried the little punk to the free trauma clinic downtown. This was a place that does nothing but patch together people who cross paths with guys like me.
I dropped him at the big glass doors. A nurse in pink scrubs saw him fall but stayed behind the glass, nervous eyes watching me, until I backed off.
#
I stood in the shadows outside the trauma clinic for a long time. It was almost dawn before I decided that I was already past the point where I could go back. No more old ways. And Sandra Rosenfeld was worth a little more battle damage.
I took off my sunglasses and placed them carefully in a pocket.
This was going to hurt.
I slipped out of my trenchcoat and let it fall. At the familiar lump in my right forearm that marked the base of the blade, I pressed the barrel of my 500, clutched tightly in my left hand.
The boom that echoed across the parking lot was familiar and soothing, and took the edge off the biting pain that raced up my right arm from the ragged stump. I smelled gunpowder and blood.
It took me a couple of tries to holster the 500.
This was already close to the worst pain I'd ever felt.
And I wasn’t done yet.
I picked up my right hand and shook it. The fingers, wrist, and shredded tendons were wet and loose, and the blade flopped out easily. I gripped it like a scalpel.
I stared hard at the glass doors of the trauma clinic, and estimated the number of paces to them.
#
At the women's shoe store, Sandra eyed me suspiciously. “What is it?”
I kept my sunglasses on. “I just came to say sorry. Shake?” I reached out.
She cautiously took my right hand. “This feels different.”
“It's not mine. The trauma clinic just does transplants. No cloning. But you can't beat the price.” I took off my sunglasses.
We stood there holding hands for a long time. It was only then, and just a little, that she had a blubbery sense about her.
“Your eyes are blue,” she whispered.
“Apparently.”
She was still holding my hand. Tighter now.
“My name's David.”
Her voice came out as just a breath. “Nice to meet you.”
WISE AS SERPENTS
Norman tried not to think about going to prison. He ran the 3V recording again.
The cloudy planet Embla floated over his desk. The million-ton cargo cruiser appeared as an enhanced dot by the door, streaked across the room, and disappeared into the planet. A bloody spray of magma swelled and blew itself into orbit. Norman watched as debris arced across Embla, as the fires burned down the blue forests and crystalline cities, as nine million humans silently died.
Nearly twelve hours had passed since the disaster. Relief was arriving here, in the Delta Pavonis system, from across the Orion Arm. Norman had tried to coordinate it. He was the chief pavologist on the research station orbiting Embla’s sister planet, Avernus. This station had been his home for a decade as he studied the creatures on Avernus, the only intelligent life humans had ever found.
He tried to swallow the lump in his throat. The militia starship, come to investigate, was now docking in the sunside cargo reservoir. Norman felt hollow, coldly dreading the fate of his creatures, and his own fate, since humanity would soon learn the deadly cruiser had launched from this research station.
#
He met the ship’s commander at the sunside airlock. The commander wore a black militia uniform, was taller than Norman and twice as thick. A chrome-plated gyrojet pistol clung to his hip, bobbing in the zero gravity. He looked familiar, and that magnified Norman’s unease. A squad of armored soldiers floated behind him.
The man extended a tremendous hand. “Dr. Jay Norman? I’m Brutus Wynne, Commander of the Regulus. You look the same.”
Wynne. Who could forget such a name? Quarterback of the skyball team. Norman had been editor of the Comet, and Wynne’s math tutor. “Commander. Nice to see you again.” Norman put his hand into that grip. He knew it would hurt. It did.
The man laughed, a ferocious sound. His mustache flexed. “Once more, with feeling. You lie as well as ever, Normie. And you’re skinny as ever. Don’t turn sideways, or I’ll lose you.”
“Same sense of humor.”
“It’s times like now I need it most.”
They passed from the cargo bay down a corridor lined with storage lockers and empty spacesuits anchored to the walls, floating like underwater corpses. Wynne’s smile vanished like a lost memory. The tendons in his neck surfaced.
“Are you wondering why you’re not in the slammer?” he asked.
“You believed what I told you?”
“I bought it. For now.”
“It’s true, I swear.”
“Where are they?”
“In the darkside airlock,” Norman said. “They’re trapped. Some of my colleagues are trapped behind them, in the adjacent corridor.”
They passed signs:
WARNING
High-altitude/variable-gravity area
The final door opened onto the deck.
The research station over Avernus was a five-by-ten kilometer cylinder spun for gravity. Norman and Wynne floated at the axis at one end, surrounded by six elevators that could take them radially to the surface. Wynne kicked himself to the safety mesh. Norman followed.
It was like looking out from a cave in the side of a cliff. Through the mesh, they could see the landscape of the station, one hundred and sixty square kilometers of green tranquility rolled onto itself.
“Down, across, and up,” Norman said.
“That’ll take too long. Let’s fly.” Wynne turned to one of his soldiers. “Major, keep the team here.”
Norman had flown before, once. Wynne pulled two wingpacks off a nearby pallet. “Come on, Beanpole. Out with it.”
“Well,” Norman began. “It all started on Avernus, when the pavos blew up the scrub tower.”
“Sure, that’s logical. What the flip is a scrub tower?”
“Oh! I thought everyone knew. It caused some debate in academic circles. The pavos are still in an industrial technological stage. They are polluting the devil out of their planet. Acid rain, greenhouse effect, you name it. And no genetic technology, so their agriculture is very fragile. With some decent global warming, they’d all starve. We put a very large... air filter, essentially, in a mountain range on the eastern continent. It couldn’t counteract all of the pollution, but it could buy them a century or two.”
Wynne checked his straps. “So th
ey showed their appreciation by blowing it up?”
Norman shook his head. “All our studies are clandestine. We haven’t made official contact, because no one can quite decide how. We never told them about the tower. They found it, and they didn’t know what it was.” Norman fumbled with his own straps. Wynne reached over and cinched them tight.
“How did they do it?” Wynne asked.
“Nuclear fission.”
“Hah! Low tech, but a nice boom. Were your people killed?”
“No, the staff had time to get clear. Some pavos were killed.”
Wynne climbed to the large ring that opened in the safety mesh. “Let me guess. You evacuated your people, and the aliens hitched a ride.”
Norman swallowed, and climbed too. “Yes. The cruiser dropped off the tower staff at the darkside cargo reservoir, just over there.” Norman pointed beyond the artificial sun. “It went on to Embla for a supply run. But it never slowed down.”
Norman reached Wynne’s side. It was breezy here. The mesh fluttered, rocking their bodies. The station’s countryside spread before him, a two-kilometer drop in all directions. The artificial sun’s bright pinpoint warmed his face.
Wynne nodded, not looking at him. “Yeah, I know that last part.”
Wynne climbed through the hole and pushed off. His body shrank, a black figure superimposed on the blue hourglass of Lake Mathesius. Great pterodactyl wings unfolded, and he rose toward the sun. Norman emitted a ululating squeak, climbed through the hole, held his breath, and jumped.
He jumped too high, and floated in the null-gravity zone of the axis. He had the presence of mind to keep his wings folded until he descended a little, but felt fairly certain he was going to die.
He sank. Coriolis forces swung Norman around the axis, until Wynne was out of sight. He pulled out his wings and flapped. Gravity, like the sun’s heat, settled into his bones. It calmed him.
Wynne appeared at his side. He must have looped back.
“So there must have been two pavo groups on the cruiser,” Wynne called. “One gets off here. The other stays on, commandeers the cruiser and crashes it into Embla.”
“That’s correct!” Norman screamed. He saw a silver road below him, and imagined his broken body lying on it.
Turing's Revenge and Other Stories Page 5