The Complete SF Collection

by Morgan, Richard

  The other jacker took a step forward and Chris swung the gun to cover him, willing him to believe.

  ‘You too. Back off, or you’re dead. Michael, get in the car.’

  Bryant opened the door. Chris was feeling for the door handle on the other side when the woman spoke.

  ‘I don’t think that gun’s loaded.’

  She took a step forward, followed by her companion. Chris brandished the Nemex.

  ‘I said, back off.’

  ‘Nah, you would have shot us by now. You’re bluffing, Mr Zek.’

  She raised her piece of railing, took another step forward and Mike Bryant stood up from his side of the car, Nemex in hand.

  ‘I’m not bluffing,’ he said mildly and shot her three times in the chest and stomach.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  The sound of the gun in the quiet street. Echoes off houses.

  Chris saw and heard it in fragments.

  The woman, kicked back two metres before she dropped. The railing, out of her hand and flying, clattering and rolling across the camber of the street into the gutter.

  The other jacker, hands raised, placatory, backing away.

  Face implacable, Bryant put the next three shots into him.

  Boom, boom, boom.

  He reeled and spun like a marionette, crashed into the wall and slid down it, leaving gouts of blood on the brickwork.

  ‘Mike—’

  The sound of pounding feet.

  The final member of the gang, summoned by the gunshots, sprinting across the street towards the fallen bodies. He seemed oblivious to the two men in suits. He hit the ground on his knees next to the woman, disbelieving.

  ‘Molly! Molly!’

  Chris looked across at Bryant. ‘Mike, let’s—’

  Bryant made a sideways hushing gesture with his free hand and lowered his aim.

  Boom, BOOM.

  The kneeling boy jolted as if electrocuted, and then keeled slowly over on the woman on the ground. Blood ran out over the street and trickled down to join the crowbar in the gutter.

  The echoes rolled away into the predawn gloom like reluctant applause.

  They drove back to the checkpoint in silence, Chris wrapped in numb disbelief. The guard let them through with a cursory glance. If he smelled the cordite from Mike’s gun, he said nothing. Bryant waved him a cheerful goodnight and accelerated the big car away into the well-lit canyons of the financial district. He was humming quietly to himself.

  He glanced across at Chris as they were approaching the Shorn block.

  ‘You want to sleep over at my place? Plenty of space.’

  The thought of the hour-long drive back home was abruptly unbearable. Chris mustered a dried-out voice.

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

  ‘Good.’ Bryant speeded up and cornered west.

  Chris watched the towering blocks begin to thin out around them. As the BMW picked up the main feeder lane for the London orbital, he turned slightly in his seat to face Bryant.

  ‘You didn’t have to kill them all, Mike.’

  ‘Yeah, I did.’ There was no animosity in Bryant’s voice. ‘What else was I supposed to do? Fire warning shots? This symbolism of combat shit you talk about doesn’t work with people like that. They’re gangwit scum, Chris. They don’t know how to lose gracefully.’

  ‘They’d already lost. And they were kids. They would have run away.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Until the next time. Look, Chris. People like that, civilised rules don’t apply. Violence is the only thing they understand.’

  Outside the hurrying car, the sky was brightening in the east. Chris’s head was beginning to ache.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Chris awoke with the horrified conviction that he had been unfaithful to Carla. Liz Linshaw was sitting up in bed beside him, buttering a piece of toast and wiping the knife casually on the sheets.

  ‘Breakfast in bed,’ she was saying authoritatively, ‘is so sexy.’

  Chris looked down at the stains she was making and felt a hot lump of mingled guilt and sadness swelling in the base of his throat. There was no way he could hide this from Carla.

  He opened his eyes with a jolt. Daylight strained through chintz curtains just above his head. For a moment the chintz hammered home the dream - Carla hated the stuff with a passion. He really had gone home with Liz Linshaw, then. He turned on his side with the blockage of unshed tears still jammed in his throat and—

  He was in a single bed.

  He propped himself up, confused. Matching chintz quilt and pillowcase, massive hangover. Close behind this sensory surge, the events of the previous evening crashed in on him. The street. The jackers. Bryant’s gun in the quiet night. The relief made him forget the pain in his head for a couple of moments. Liz Linshaw was a dream.

  He hauled up his wrist and looked at his watch which he had evidently been in no state to remove the previous night. Quarter past twelve. He spotted his clothes hanging on the door of the tiny guest room and groped his way out of bed towards them. The door was open a crack - beyond, he could hear kitchen sounds. The smell of coffee and toast wafted under his nose.

  He dressed hurriedly, stuffed his tie in his jacket pocket and picked up his shoes. Outside the guest room, a white-painted corridor hung with innocuous landscapes led to a wide, curving staircase. Halfway down, he met a woman coming up. Auburn hair, light eyes. He made the match with Michael’s wallet photo. Suki.

  Suki had a cup of coffee, complete with saucer, in her hand and there was a tolerant smile on her perfectly made-up face.

  ‘Good morning. It’s Chris, isn’t it? I’m Suki.’ She offered one slim, gold-braceleted arm. ‘Nice to meet you at last. I was just bringing you this up. Michael said you’d want to be woken. He’s in the kitchen, talking to work, I think.’

  Chris took the coffee, balancing it awkwardly in his free hand. His head was beginning to pulse alarmingly.

  ‘Thanks, uh. Thanks.’

  Suki’s smile brightened. Chris had the disturbing impression that his hands and face could have been painted with blood and she would have smiled the same way.

  ‘Had fun last night, did you?’ she asked maternally.

  ‘Uh, something like that. Would you excuse me?’

  He slipped past her and found his way down into the kitchen. It was a large, comfortable room with wooden furniture, and tall windows along one wall letting in the sun. The scrubbed wooden table was laid for three and covered with an assortment of edible breakfast items. At the far end a two-year-old child sat in a high chair, belabouring a plate of unidentifiable sludge with a plastic spoon. Over by the window, and well out of splash range, Mike Bryant watched her with a tender expression on his face and drank coffee out of a mug. There was a mobile pinned between his ear and shoulder and he appeared to be listening intently. He nodded and waved as Chris came in.

  ‘They certainly were. What, you think I imagined it? Who says that? Right, get him on the line.’

  Bryant cupped a hand over the phone.

  ‘Chris, call your wife at work. She’s been screaming down the Shorn switchboard since eight this morning. You sleep well?’

  He pointed at a videophone hung on the wall near the door. Chris put down his coffee, picked the phone up and dialled from memory. He waved at Ariana, who regarded him in silence for a moment and then grinned and started bashing her breakfast again. Bryant went back to his conversation.

  ‘Yes, this is Michael Bryant. No I’m not, I’m at home, which is where I’m likely to stay until you can promise a little more safety on the streets. I don’t care, we don’t pay you people to stand around scratching your balls. We were less than three, don’t shout me down detective, three klicks inside the cordon. Yes, you’re fucking right I shot them.’

  The screen in front of Chris lit up with a grimy, gum-chewing face.

  ‘Yeah, Mel’s AutoFix.’ He caught sight of Chris. ‘Need a tow?’

  ‘No,’ Chris cleared his throat. ‘Could I speak to C
arla Nyquist please.’

  ‘Sure. Be a moment.’

  Behind him, Bryant went on with his tirade. ‘They were just about to take me and my colleague to pieces with machetes. What? Well, I’m not surprised. Probably got scavenged by someone last night. Listen, there were five of them to two of us. Hardcore gangwits. Now if I can’t claim that as self defence then—’

  Carla appeared, knuckling grease across her nose. There was a fairly obvious scowl under the black marks. ‘What happened to you, then?’

  ‘Uh, I stayed over at Mike’s place. There was some, uh.’ He glanced at Bryant who was listening to the other end of his own call with a face like thunder. ‘Trouble.’

  ‘Trouble? Are you—?’

  ‘No, I’m fine.’ Chris forced a grin. ‘Just a headache.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you call me? I was worried sick.’

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you. It was late, and I was going to call first thing this morning. Must have overslept. Look,’ he turned to Bryant again. ‘Mike, are you going in to Shorn today?’

  Bryant nodded glumly, covering the phone mouthpiece again. ‘Looks like it. I’ve got to fill out half a hundred fucking incident reports, apparently. Say an hour?’

  Chris turned back to Carla’s waiting face. ‘I’m going in to pick up the car with Mike in about an hour. I’ll pick you up from the garage and tell you all about it then. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ It was grudging. ‘But this had better be a fucking good story.’

  ‘Deal. By the way, I’m in love.’

  Mike Bryant shot him a peculiar glance across the kitchen.

  On screen, Carla kept her scowl. ‘Yeah, yeah. Me too. See you at four. And don’t be late.’

  She reached for the phone and the image faded. Chris turned just in time to catch the last of Bryant’s call.

  ‘Yes, I am aware of that, detective. Well next time I’m attacked on the street, I’ll be sure and remember it. Goodbye.’

  He snapped the phone shut angrily.

  ‘Asshole. Get this, the corporate police, our fucking police want to conduct an investigation into whether this was an unlawful shooting. I mean.’ He gestured helplessly, lost for words. ‘Defend yourself, and you’re fucking breaking the law. Meanwhile, some piece of shit gangwit cracks a fingernail in a back alley and you’ve got Citizens’ Rights activists screaming for someone’s neck. What about us citizens? Who’s looking out for us? What about our rights?’

  ‘Michael!’ Suki appeared in the kitchen doorway, a coffee cup in each hand. ‘How many times have I told you, don’t use that language in front of Ariana. She just comes right out with it at the playgroup, and I get dirty looks from the other mothers.’ She put the coffee cups on the table and went to clean some of the surplus food from around her daughter’s mouth. Ariana made half-hearted protests, all the time squinting shyly at Chris. ‘That’s right, don’t you listen to Daddy when he talks like that.’ She turned a fraction of her multi-tasked attention in the same direction as her daughter. ‘Take no notice, Chris. He’s always moaning about citizens’ rights. This’ll be the second time he’s been in trouble, there, is that better darling, the second time he’s been in trouble with the police this year. Use of undue force. Yes, who’s a clean girl? I think he just likes living dangerously.’

  Bryant made a disgusted noise. Suki went to him and put an arm round his waist. She kissed him under the chin.

  ‘Maybe that’s what I see in him. You’re married, aren’t you Chris? Was that her on the vid?’

  ‘Yeah.’ To Chris, his own voice sounded unfairly defensive. ‘She’s a mechanic. Got to work most Saturdays.’

  He sipped his coffee and watched for a reaction, but Suki either didn’t care one way or the other or had been trained to black belt in social graces. She smiled as she unfastened Ariana from the high chair.

  ‘Yes, Michael said. You know, one of the Shorn partners had a girlfriend who worked in auto reclaim. Now what was his name?’ She snapped her fingers. ‘I met him at the Christmas bash.’

  ‘Notley,’ said Bryant.

  ‘That’s it, Notley. Jack Notley. Well, you must both come over for dinner, Chris. What’s your wife’s name?’

  ‘Carla.’

  ‘Carla. Lovely name. Like that Italian holoporn star Mike gets so turned on over.’ She put a playful hand over Bryant’s mouth as he protested. ‘Yes, ask her to come over. In fact, why don’t you come over tonight? We’ve got no plans, have we, Mike?’

  Bryant shook his head.

  ‘Well, then. I’ll cook sukiyaki. You’re not vegetarian, either of you?’

  ‘No.’ Chris hesitated. There had been some notion of going to visit Carla’s father today, and in the whirl of the week just gone, he wasn’t sure quite how solidified the plan was. ‘Uh, I’m not sure if—’

  ‘Not to be missed, that sukiyaki,’ said Michael, draining his coffee and setting down the mug. ‘Beef direct from the Sutherland Croft Association herds. Hey, you reckon Carla’d like a look at the BMW? Seeing as she’s a mechanic and all. That’s the new Omega Injection series under the bonnet. State of the art, not even on general release outside Germany yet. I bet she’d love to watch it turn over.’

  Chris, aware suddenly of the exact depth to which he did not want to visit his father-in-law, made a decision.

  ‘Yeah, she’d like that,’ he said.

  ‘Good, that’s settled then,’ said Suki brightly. ‘I’ll get the beef this afternoon. Shall we say about eight-thirty?’

  Mike insisted on dropping Chris right beside his car. The underground parking decks beneath the Shorn block were largely deserted and the level Chris had parked on showed only three other vehicles. Bryant slewed to a halt across the battery of empty spaces opposite, killed the engine and got out.

  ‘Hewitt’s,’ he said, nodding at the nearest of the isolated vehicles. ‘Audi built it for her to spec when she made partner. Fancy seeing that coming up in your rearview?’

  Chris looked at it. Broad black windscreen, heavy impact collision bars that jutted from the end of the raked hood.

  ‘Not much,’ he admitted. ‘But I thought Hewitt was a BMW fan.’

  Mike snorted. ‘Hewitt’s a fan of money. Back when she made partner, Shorn had this deal with Audi. They supplied all our company cars and hardware, and the partners got special edition battlewagons thrown in for free. Two years ago BMW made Shorn a better offer and they went with it. As a partner, Hewitt can opt for any vehicle she likes but when this baby gets written off or superseded, you can bet she’ll just take a top-of-the-line Omega with all the armour options, free to partners of BMW clients. To her, it’s all just a cost-benefit analysis.’

  ‘So what does Notley think of all this?’

  ‘Notley’s a patriot.’ Mike grinned. ‘I mean, in the real, uncut sense of the word. Last of the diehard anti-Europeans. Anti-American too, come to that. He actually believes in the cultural superiority of England over other nations. Shit like that. I mean, you’d think he’d be able to see a little more clearly from the fiftieth floor, wouldn’t you. Anyway, when he made partner, he didn’t want to know about the German makes. He had Land Rover build him a customised battlewagon from scratch. And he’s still driving it ten years later. Fucking thing looks like a tank but it’ll do nearly two hundred kilometres an hour. Except he won’t use metric, so that’d be . . . what, about a hundred and twenty-something? Miles an hour? Whatever. That’s what his speedo reads in.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘No, really. He made them fit an imperial speedo. Miles per hour. Ask him to let you look at the dashboard some time.’

  ‘He’s not here today?’

  ‘No way. You won’t catch Notley working weekends. Calls it the American disease, working all the hours God sends you.’ Bryant’s eyes flicked away with recollection. ‘I remember one quarterly do, I ran into him in the men’s room, we were both pretty pissed and I was asking him if being a partner was really worth all the extra shit, the weekend
work, the all-nighters and he looked at me like I was insane. Then he says, still treating me like I’m a headcase, talking very slowly, you know, he says, Mike, if you make partner and you’re still working weekends then there’s something wrong somewhere. You make partner so they can’t tell you to do that shit any more. Otherwise, what’s the point? You believe that?’

  ‘Sounds like a decent philosophy.’

  ‘Yeah, not like the rest of these fucking wannabes.’ Mike gestured around dismissively. He wandered across to Chris’s car. ‘So what have we got here? This looks Scandinavian to me.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Chris laid a proprietorial hand on the car’s flank. ‘Saab combat chassis. Carla’s family are Norwegian, but she did her apprenticeship in Stockholm. Been around Saabs and Volvos all her life. She says the Swedes were building cars for road-raging decades before anybody even thought of it.’

  Bryant nodded. ‘It looks pretty mean. But I reckon you’d still lose on speed to an Omega.’

  ‘She’s faster than she looks, Mike. A lot of that bulk’s Volvo spaced armouring. Strut-braced stuff. It isn’t solid, and the slip-stream channels through flues on the outer edges for stability, but by Christ you’d still know if it hit you. Volvo’ve crash-tested the struts at aeroplane speeds, and they hold.’

  ‘Spaced armouring, huh?’ Bryant looked thoughtful for a couple of moments, and Chris had the unsettling sensation that he had given something important away to the big man. Then another grin swept the calculating expression out of his eyes. He clapped Chris on the shoulder. ‘Remind me to divorce Suki and get a Swedish mechanic to shack up with.’

  The parking deck was filled with a soft chime. The Shorn elevator voice announced two o’clock for the whole building. Mike glanced reflexively at his watch.

  ‘That’s me,’ he said sourly. ‘Look, Chris, I’d better run. Corporate police can be a real drag when they’re determined to do something by the book. See you tonight, alright?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Chris watched him stride away towards the double doors that led upwards into the Shorn tower. ‘Hey, Mike.’

  ‘Yo.’