“I’m sorry, Mr. Oxbow.”
“You’re not the only one.” The dwarf zipped up the body bag and turned around. His jaws clenched tight, his lips stretched thin. His forehead wrinkled in anger. The doctor stepped back, expecting the dwarf’s tension to explode in a fury.
“I…I just need your signature on the death certificate, Mr. Oxbow.” He handed the dwarf the pad and a stylus.
The dwarf took it and scribbled, nearly throwing it back to the doctor. He stalked out of the morgue.
“Mr. Oxbow! Mr. Oxbow!” The doctor called, hurrying after the dwarf who strode down the hall at a great pace. “I have to ask if you have made any funeral arrangements.”
The dwarf did not stop, but the doctor caught up to him.
“Yeah. Riverview Funerary Services.”
Dr. Salma-Scott-Scott nodded approvingly. “A very good choice, Mr. Oxbow. We have them on file. We will have the deceased prepared for their arrival.”
The doctor watched the dwarf continue down the white hallway toward the exit. He shook his head in pity and turned back, looking down at his pad. He punched a few keys and saw that Pamela Kniginyzky was the last of the twenty-three Stiltzkin victims at the hospital to be identified. He now had valid death certificates, and could provide the police with up-to-date information.
28
Noose pushed through the hospital doors, his mood in no way matching the bright and sunny skies that still blessed the city. He walked across the street, hands in pockets, and watched the ground pass by beneath his feet.
He entered the parking tower but didn’t wait for the elevator back to the eleventh level where he had left his car. He jogged up the stairwell, faster and faster. His wounded side began to ache on the third floor, but he didn’t stop; he concentrated on the pain lancing out of his wound, willing it to increase and help him forget.
Crashing through the eleventh floor door, he let out a wheeze and held his side as he leaned against the wall, coughing and spitting on the floor. He heard footsteps and looked up to see a tall dark-haired man in a grey jacket walking between the cars. Noose had started to turn away when he noticed the edge of a keyboard sticking out beneath the man’s jacket.
Noose moved away from the elevators and into the lane, looking back in the direction the man had come from. He could see his own skycar at the end of a short line of spaces, with no other cars nearby.
“Hey!” Noose called after the man, who quickened his pace. Noose ran after him.
A black four-door Ford sedan pulled out ahead of the fleeing man and sped toward him. It squealed to a stop and the man dodged aside as the passenger door swung open. He jumped inside as the driver roared forward.
Noose stopped in the lane and pulled out both his Colts: the 10mm Stormer and his 9mm Wardog backup. The sedan bore down on him. He fired both pistols but the shots ricocheted off the armored windshield. They swerved to hit him, and he leapt up onto a parked BMW Stutzcar. The Ford crashed into it. Noose bounced off the high-domed windshield of a hatchback. As he hit the ground, he heard the Ford squealing back. He scurried behind the Stutzcar and looked around just in time to see the Ford speed away toward the ramp.
Swinging his guns around, Noose fired again. One of the rounds punctured the Ford’s left rear tire and the vehicle swerved, bounced off a support pillar and smashed into his car. The Detonator exploded in a massive fireball. The blast lifted the sedan off the floor and slammed it into the low ceiling. Plastic shattered, metal crumpled; the Ford landed on its side, fell over, and came to rest upside down. Debris clattered across the garage, and Noose held his head in his arms as plastic rained down around him.
The parking tower’s fire suppression system kicked on immediately, spraying foam throughout the entire level. The Nissan and the Ford continued to burn despite the concentrated attention of four or five foam nozzles. He watched through the Ford’s shattered windows as the two men inside burned and screamed, struggling wildly to escape the flames that engulfed them. It didn’t take long for them to stop moving.
Noose put his guns away under his coat. Reaching into his pocket, he removed Ipplitz’s memory cartridge and smirked, thankful that he had removed it from the computer. He hurried back down the stairwell and, winded and damp with sweat, left the parking tower. People pointed up at the smoke. Noose ignored them and turned down the street, moving quickly away even as the sirens of fire engines and cop cars neared.
29
“But how do you know they weren’t just common thieves after the computer?” Cori asked, placing a sandwich in front of Noose as he sat in the kitchen.
“Thieves don’t plant bombs on cars.”
Cori sat down opposite him with her own lunch. “You sure your car was rigged?”
Noose grunted in amusement. “I’d say that my twelve years on government and corporate demolition squads weren’t wasted. I recognize a bomb when I see one. And Nissans don’t usually get blown to smithereens when another car hits them.”
“Well, I was just wondering.” She took a bite of her sandwich. “But what do you expect to happen when you buy a car with a name like Detonator?”
“Very funny, Cori.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a grin, “but I couldn’t help it. I am sorry about your car, you know.”
“It’s a small price to pay to find the bastards who started all of this.”
Cori nodded. “Did you get a chance to question them?”
“No. We exchanged lethalities, and then they blew up.”
“Do you have any idea who they were?”
“Never saw them before. But they had to have been the hitters that smeared Ipplitz. Or at least they were there, watching his place to see if anyone else showed up.”
“And you did.”
“Yeah. They probably saw me leave with the computer and realized they hadn’t been as efficient with Ipplitz as they should have been.”
“So they waited for the right time to get the computer and then plant a bomb?”
Mouth full, Noose shook his head. “I’m not too sure about that. I mean, what better place to kill me than in the Blackzone? Reggies would take hours to get there, if they decided to show up at all. And nobody’d care about another dead dwarf in the Blackzone.”
“So why’d they wait?” Cori asked, not voicing the fact that she would care about another dead dwarf. This dwarf.
“They had to call in and ask the big man what to do.”
“And who’s the big man?”
“That’s the megacredit question. I’d have to say it’s the fixer that bought the Akbar from Ipplitz.” Noose finished off the last of his sandwich and washed it down with half a bottle of cola.
“Then I guess it’s time we checked that memory cartridge,” Cori suggested. “What do you suppose is on it?”
“The fixer, I hope. But it might just be an old Super Bowl CVII vid.”
“Let’s hope not.”
Cori led the way back into the living room and turned on the vidwall.
“Good afternoon, Cori,” the computer said in a rich, seductive male voice. “How are you?”
“Fine, Carmen,” Cori replied, noting Noose’s smirk at the voice. “Carmen voice off.”
“Aw,” Noose complained, “I wanted to get to know Carmen better.”
Cori slapped the dwarf’s arm lightly and turned back to the wall. She pushed the Ipplitz cartridge into a port and a list of files appeared on the screen.
“Looks like they’re vid files, categorized by date, with data files appended.”
Noose pointed at the first file. “Only goes back five weeks.”
She touched the first file in the list. A video started playing. It showed a green-tinted lowlight picture of an alleyway, with date and time displayed in a bottom corner.
A man walked into view and passed underneath the camera. The view switched to a color shot of a small room where a goon talked to the man.
Noose reached out and touched the stop icon. “Yeah, ye
ah. This is Ipplitz’s place. The alley outside and the entry room where his friendly neighborhood goon pats down the visitors.”
“Ipplitz recorded everyone that came in?”
“I sure as hell hope so. This first file is too early. Two weeks before the arms convoy even got hit. Let’s start at the files about two weeks ago, and work our way down to the last one.”
“Dump that,” Cori said, tapping computer icons. The screen changed to text. “Yup, just what I thought. The attached files are purchase orders and other data. All I have to do is search those files for keyword ‘Akbar’, and we’ll get the accompanying vid.” She smiled at the dwarf.
“You’re the computer genius, Cori.”
It took only seconds for a list of three files to appear.
“Try the last one,” Noose suggested.
Cori did so, and a short list appeared on the screen, an Akbar missile launcher, a Violator assault cannon, and a Thumper grenade launcher. A good supply of ammo filled out the order.
“And just six days before the attack on Stiltzkin’s,” Noose pointed out. “Let’s see the vid.”
The screen revealed a slick, well-dressed man in the alley, and then in the entry room. Cori let the vid play out, and they watched as the man walked down a hall and then into the playroom and over to the bar. There he spoke with Ipplitz. Noose and Cori listened as he described his needs to Ipplitz and cemented the deal. The last exchange piqued their attention.
“What’re you going to use all this stuff for, Smith?” Ipplitz asked.
“What the hell kind of question is that?” Smith replied.
“Oh, just wondering. I like to know where my products get used.”
“Sure. You also like having something on your customers. Don’t get curious, or you’ll end up dancing at the party these weapons are going to.”
“Sounds like our boy.” Noose hit the stop icon.
“Do you recognize him?”
“No, but someone will. Can you get a good close-up off this vid and give me a hardcopy?”
“I can also put his image in a search program and check police records and news files for a match.”
“How are you going to get into police records?”
“I’ve got my ways.” She winked.
30
A smartly dressed woman appeared on the vid, seated in a padded chair. “Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I’m Annette Bernett-Arnette, and today we’re talking about the attack on the dwarven dance club called Stiltzkin’s. As we just learned, the current death toll stands at fifty-two. Two days after the attack, Atlanta is still wondering why? Why did some group of lunatics blow up a dance club? Was it racism? Was it the Purists, or one of the even more radical splinter groups such as Neohuman Obliteration?”
The camera pulled back to reveal two others seated beside the host.
“To help answer that question we have Dr. Janine Judd-Schmelebeck of Neohuman Rights Now, and Reed Skanlen of People For Humans, a human lobbyist association.”
“Thanks for allowing me to be here,” Reed Skanlen replied, smiling. Janine Judd-Schmelebeck merely nodded.
“Now,” Bernett-Arnette continued, “you heard the official police statement. They believe that it was some kind of racially motivated attack. Do you agree with this, Doctor?”
The woman scowled. “Of course I do. Why else would these Purist bastards target a dwarven club? It’s just another example of the racial hatred that permeates Atlanta, and the world, for that matter. Humans fear neohumans. They don’t want to live with us in harmony. They want to live apart, safe in some magic little arcology where drudges and goons and dwarves don’t exist.”
“Thank you, Doctor. Mr. Skanlen, what is your opinion?”
“I’m afraid that I can’t agree about the motivations of the attackers,” Skanlen said, glancing across at the doctor. “I don’t believe the police have positively identified the perpetrators as Purists. While that is quite possible, it could just as easily have been Free Worlders or Paleo-Capitalists, Self-Determinators, or out of work union members angry at gennies stealing jobs.”
Judd-Schmelebeck threw up her hands. “Self-Determinators? Why would neohumans attack other neohumans? The Self-Determinators is a peaceful organization of neohumans and sympathetic humans whose only goal is to end genetically imprinted life choices.”
“Let’s move on,” Bernett-Arnette interjected. “Mr. Skanlen, I understand that you have some concern over the casualty list provided by the police?”
“Yes.” Skanlen glanced down at a pad in his hand. “Twenty percent more humans were killed in the attack than injured. The neohumans came out in much better shape. They have much less to complain about.”
“What?” The doctor nearly jumped out of her seat. “That is the most ludicrous manipulation of statistics I’ve ever heard.”
“I hardly find my statements ludicrous. How do you explain the relatively low serious injury ratio among the dwarves?”
“I can’t believe you’re pursuing this asinine line of reasoning.”
“So, you can’t answer the question.”
“Fine,” Judd-Schmelebeck sighed and rolled her eyes. “The reason is that dwarves are genetically engineered for endurance, fortitude, and resistance to injury. They were, after all, first produced to work mines, dig sub-oceanic tube train tunnels, and colonize Mars. They are designed for hostile conditions.”
“So, what you are saying is that dwarves have an unnatural resistance to bodily harm.”
“Unnatural? Why would it be unnatural?”
“Well, real humans don’t have such durability.”
“Real humans? You Purist!”
“I’m merely representing the opinion of billions of humans.”
“You’re just a bunch of damn breeders.”
“And you are nothing more than a vatjob with a fake diploma.”
“Hold on, hold on!” Bernett-Arnette jumped in. “I think we hit our insult quota there. Dr. Judd-Schmelebeck, surely you must agree that all of this neohuman rioting hardly helps the situation.”
Judd-Schmelebeck paused, swallowed. “Please forgive me for that outburst, but racism tends to annoy me. Now, as to your question, I have some interesting data that throws light on the subject. This information was provided to me by Operations Administrator Chauveau, and I must thank her for it. According to this data, most of the neohumans arrested for rioting are nearing their expiration date. Many are already past it. This can easily explain their violent behavior – a loss of mental stability resulting from genetic failure programmed into their DNA by arrogant corporations."
“What’s wrong with expiration dates?” Skanlen asked. “We can’t have corporations spewing out gennies by the millions without some way to control their population. We have to protect the world’s resources from an exploding genny population.”
“So, artificial life expectancy caps in neohuman DNA coding is acceptable to keep humanity safe from us evil neohumans? Except you need us. Drudges slop your crap. Goons fight your wars. Pleasers get you off. Brainiacs even think for you. But oh, no! You can’t let neohumans lead a normal life over a normal lifetime.”
“In our own defense,” said Bernett-Arnette, “speaking as a human, expiration dates were heavily regulated by United Globe General Assembly legislation in 2115. Only dangerous genotypes get them now.”
“The legislation’s definition of dangerous is very broad. Regardless, the corporations still claim that genetic failure is difficult to prevent. How interesting that they were able to purposely inflict it for a hundred years but now they can’t figure out how to prevent it. It’s just a scheme to continue the persecution of neohumans. You’d think the sterility laws would be enough.”
Bernett-Arnette changed the subject. “What do you think of the government response to the rioting, Doctor?”
“Governor Jones-Utu-Rudeholmer-Xin is unsympathetic to the neohuman plight. We’re continually shunted into neohuman slums. We’re not allowed to
live in the more affluent neighborhoods with humans.”
“Neohuman population management in RAM,” the host replied, “is monitored and approved by the Global Genetics Oversight Board. You can’t place all the blame on the governor. As a member of the United Globe General Assembly, he also voted for the abolition of lifetime indentured servitude of neohumans to their corporate creators.”
“Do you think anyone still believes that line? Corporations genetically imprint loyalty into their neohumans. We have obedience written into our DNA. We’re predisposed from birth to never leave the corp.”
“More conspiracy theories,” Skanlen admonished, chuckling. “This whole genetic obedience story was started by gennies who were unable to advance their agenda by reasonable discourse. You keep claiming there is an organized persecution of neohumans. I just don’t see it.”
“No organized persecution? Have you seen a list of the Stiltzkin dead? You know who’s number twenty-seven on this list? I’ll tell you who: Albert Salvino. That’s right, Albert Salvino! Head of the Dwarven Rights League and the most outspoken proponent of progressive civil rights legislation to end institutionalized racism against neohumans. The only reason I’m here right now instead of him is because he’s dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was specifically targeted and the rest of the dead are just collateral damage.”
“And we’ll be right back,” Bernett-Arnette said, “with Dr. Janine Judd-Schmelebeck and Reed Skanlen. But first, a word from our sponsors.”
31
Munk stared at the screen, a Kokastik drooping from his lips.
“You gonna have a seat, pal?” the tired waitress said. “Or just stand there like a zombie?”
He snapped out of his shock and stepped up to the counter. Some nobody on a political show had correctly guessed the motives behind the attack. He hoped that no one else was watching. “Can you change the channel?”
“Sure thing.” She switched to a recap of the day’s European blood sports.
Dead Dwarves Don't Dance Page 11