rewired his brain and soon he would break.
Connolly flung himself into me, arms stretched out and fingers reaching for my throat. He got one hand around my wrist and tried to find my neck under the helmet with the other. I forced the cybernetic forearm against his throat, careful not to force it through and break his neck. He pinned my gun arm with a knee, the point of it grinding painfully into my elbow.
His newly freed fist rose past his shoulder before slamming into my helmet's glass visor. The force of if pounding my head against the steel floor, burning pain spreading from the base of my skull, despite the helmet padding. He brought his fist back to his ear, a ribbon of crimson oozing from one knuckle.
I knew he would continue to beat against the visor. He would break the glass if he landed another punch. Even a single crack could compromise the suit's seal. With numb fingers I pointed the gun away from him, training instead on the honeycomb glass cell at the end of the landing platform. The reinforced glove touched the trigger just as Connolly hurled the punch.
The pistol charged and hissed, flinging the bullet along magnetized particles. The projectile found its mark near the center of the glass and punched through, leaving a ragged tunnel where it escaped. In less than a second the cracks spread the length of the cell and ruptured it. The rest of the cell collapsed and blasted out into space. The force of the atmosphere tore Connolly away from me, his grip remaining under my helmet at my neck. I tumbled along the floor, my gloves pressing against the smooth steel. My fingers found the corner of a heavy plastic crate, but it lifted with us and flew out through the hole. The loader hurtled through a connected glass cell, the crystal-like shards blowing through space like buckshot from a shotgun.
Connolly and I tumbled and spun into the black of space, his hand still squeezing at my throat. His mouth opened and I thought he was trying to scream. Inside the sealed helmet, there was only the sound of my own breathing. Connolly's muscles stiffened and he became utterly still, his eyes frozen wide in a crazed stare. The cheeks bloated as his skin became pallid, the neck beginning to swell. I pealed his frozen hand from my throat and grabbed his clothing around the sternum, balling up the stiffened fabric in the reinforced glove. With the strength of my cybernetic hand, I flung him away. His body spinning with inertia as his form disappeared into Earth's shadow.
I closed my eyes behind the visor. My heart beat like a drum in my ear. I tried to slow my breathing, focusing on the act of it and nothing else. The cold of space bit into my skin like the long fingers of squeezing hands. The suit was insulated, if only for brief emergency exposures. I tried to lean against the force that somersaulted me, the contents of my stomach lurching up into my throat. There was no pull of gravity, artificial or otherwise, even the blood in my veins slowed. Without a supply of oxygen, I had four minutes to breath at most. I wondered what I would think of before I died.
08
Of all the things it could have been, my mind took me to the spring I met Ashley. It had been raining in Chicago for over a week, I had been standing on a street corner trying to use the cold of the rainwater to nurse a split lip. I had taken a punch from a Japanese boxer who could have grated cheese on his abs. The second bar I had been kicked out of that night.
A shadow in a long black raincoat had been watching me for a few minutes, eyes hidden by the shade of an umbrella. I wondered if it was the boxer's friend. I took wobbling steps toward an alley, my shoe skidding in a puddle of something slick. I pitched sideways and wheeled my arms as I collapsed into a pair of trash cans. The small of my back landed on something that crunched like eggshells inside a black plastic bag.
The shadow with the umbrella crossed the street, stood over me and watched, a woman's voice coming from the high collar of the coat, “Are you okay? Do you need a hospital?”
I looked up at her through a stream of rainwater and got to my feet, “I'm okay, just a little sore in the area of my pride—don't think they make a pill for that yet.”
She had auburn hair that was soaked and laid flat against her head, little glasses with round lenses resting on the end of her nose. She stepped closer to me and put half her umbrella over my head, “I was going to call a cab and go to this dumpling place on one hundred third, have you heard of it?”
I ran a rain-soaked sleeve over my lip to wipe the blood away, “I haven't, but dumplings sound good. I may need some ice for my face.”
“I think they'll have ice.”
Ashley took me to the restaurant where we had dumplings and tea. She had told me her name and that she was training in law enforcement administration. I had told her mine and that I was still in college, hoping to be a computer programmer. It was a week before I'd seen her again and I blurted out that I loved her after my second glass of sake. Her eyes had met mine behind the round glasses, a half smile playing over her full lips before they pressed softly against mine.
Something harsh rang inside the helmet, an indicator light on the visor told me the com was on. I touched a gloved finger to a disk on the side of the helmet, “Yeah.”
“It's me. I patched into your helmet's com because you weren't answering your mobile,” The voice belonged to Devin, he was speaking quickly and hushed. Sounded like he was in a hurry, “The shuttle should be outside now, sorry for the wait—took me a while to get into city records.”
“It's fine,” I wasn't sure how much oxygen I had left. I could feel my lungs beginning to burn, “I'm early.”
“Oh shit, what happened?”
“Tell you later. How do I use the suit's stabilizer field again?” I tried to pivot my body to get upright, feeling like I was treading water. A white shape like a tram car with short wings and a painted blue stripe was hanging motionless near the bottom of the dome.
“Make like you're clapping your hands and point your palms behind you—I have to go. I triggered an alert on the network. Now the Agents are looking for me,” In the background, the slide of a gun clicked and a zipper closed.
“Keep your mobile on you.”
I keyed off the com and touched the palms of the gloves together, feeling the pulsing hum of the stabilizer field. The suit only had a small amount of battery and I had wanted to use as much of it for oxygen recycling as I could. I pivoted the gloves to my back and felt the force move me through the void of space.
I reached the shuttle and tucked my legs up, sliding into the open airlock door. I pounded the control panel on the wall with my upraised fist. The door pivoted shut and artificial gravity made me fall hard on my side. The floor was cold and rough through the tight layers of the suit but being on something solid felt like heaven. The vents overhead hissed as oxygen rushed into the chamber. I grabbed my helmet by the chin and twisted it to break the seal, pulling it off my head and gasping as I lay on the floor.
My limbs felt heavy as I dragged myself upright, mashing the panel again to open the hatch into the shuttle's cockpit. The chair behind the instrument panel was soft against my sore muscles. I tapped a glowing square on the screen to disengage auto pilot and terminate the preprogrammed course. A single course was saved in the flight log. I piloted the shuttle toward it.
I took my mobile from my belt and dialed Devin, “Found the shuttle. Where am I taking it?”
His voice echoed against metal and I heard a gunshot ring out, “You need to make a delivery. The jumpsuit's in the back waiting for you. It's been documented—hold on a second,” Something muffled over the speaker and I heard a few more gunshots with the sound of running footsteps on the surface of what I thought was a service tunnel, “Do you know a good way to take down a gun drone?”
“Shoot for the camera lens. If it can't see you it'll power down.”
Two more shots echoed over the speaker, then a clanging scrape against metal, “Thanks, that did it.”
“Did you change the city records?” I set the auto pilot to the new course and moved to the back of the shuttle. The white soy fiber jumpsuit w
as waiting for me on a hook.
“Yeah, just how you asked. I deleted the records of my entry. They shouldn't know what I changed,” He hung up his end and I figured that I knew why. The encrypted line we were using wouldn't be safe for long.
I had asked Devin to falsify a report from city maintenance about a damaged glass cell in the bay where I had taken Connolly. Afterward, he also forged a notice from city power that non-essential electricity would be turned off in the area until it was repaired. I was accounted for, and so was the shuttle he had sent me for escape. I wasn't sure what would happen to Devin, but he had accepted the risk.
The Agent uniform peeled off like a second skin. I ejected it from the airlock, watching it drift away from the cockpit windows. The delivery uniform also came with a mask, a respirator, and a set of goggles that would hopefully hide my identity from security a little longer.
I parked the shuttle in a delivery bay near atmospheric control and wheeled the crates out from their cargo compartment. A worker with a similar uniform to mine took the crates and signed a tablet device with his hand print. The manifest said they contained coolant coils. I found my way back to level twelve, picking up my clothes from the alley and throwing the uniform in a dumpster.
A dealer met me near a