taped hilt. The blade came out between his shoulder blades like a crimson shard. I held his weight upright with my cybernetic hand as I shook the rail pistol from my pocket.
Tork was ready to fire first, shoving the rifle stock against his body and squeezing a few rounds at me. I kept my kneeling posture and turned Gram's body to catch the bullets in his back. They landed with wet thuds; the force pushed him against me, like holding a punching bag while someone throttled it. I let Gram's body fall and took aim on Tork, squeezing the sensitive trigger on the rail pistol. The turbine made a rising hum as it charged the rails inside the barrel, hissing as the bullet was flung from the mechanism, charged particles ejecting from its vents.
The bullet plunged into Tork's throat and lodged deep in the wall behind him, spraying his blood like an aerosol against the cement. He collapsed to his knees and held his hands over the wound in vain, dark blood spilling between his fingers.
I turned the weapon on Rask, who had fumbled getting his hand over the trigger. He sprayed a few shots from his hip, the recoil sending the rounds high. I jerked my head away and they struck the wall behind me, throwing shards of cement. I pulled the trigger twice and the rail hammer charged and hissed, sending bullets into Rask's chest. The first landed on his right side, just under his breastbone, and the second tore into his collar bone. He collapsed into a desk littered with small gears and motors, tumbling to the floor as it fell.
I pressed against the girder near the ledge. The ruined city was quiet and empty—no evidence of the transport returning. Gram had said they'd been here cleaning up Devin's mess. I supposed that meant whomever Devin was working for had hired the Razors to take me out. I needed to speak to Devin again before he got smart and boarded a transport planet side.
Finding my way back to the surface proved to be faster this time. The marks I had left kept me from getting lost and I emerged behind the dumpster in under thirty minutes. There hadn't been any surveillance in the Gamma sector. Hopefully, I had some time before they discovered what had happened to their assassins.
I used my mobile to hack open Devin's door and drew my rail pistol as I stepped through. He was sitting at his bar with a steaming bowl, one long noodle dangling from his mouth as he made eye contact with me. He slowly reached for a pistol poorly concealed under a washcloth, but I stopped him with a shake of my head.
“Shit,” Devin pulled his arm back and wiped his chin.
“The man you're working for sent those men to kill me,” I tossed the washcloth aside and moved his gun into my pocket—I didn't want him to be temped, “Who is he?”
“I don't know, okay. He never gave me a name, the credits were good, and he promised to keep the Agents off my back,” He took out his mobile and showed me the call logs, “He called me from an encrypted number.”
“How could he promise that? Is he a hacker?” I passed the mobile back and lowered my gun.
“No, he's not.” Devin let out a breath and ran a hand into his thin hair, “He'll have me killed for telling you. He's an Agent.”
I told Devin that we weren't quite even after he had initiated the attempt on my life but that I was willing to let it go if he did a favor for me later. He said he would do whatever I needed and gave me his mobile number. I put his gun on top of his refrigerator before I left.
I took the tram back to the city and found the cluster of buildings where Tara's address was. I stopped at a security checkpoint at the entrance to a long set of stairs. It was staffed with a handful of Agents and I wondered if any of them were friends with the man who wanted me dead. I passed my hacked clearance card through the receiver, displaying my identity with a dead man's clearance code. The Agents let me through. It's hard not to be cleared for entrance into the slums.
Tara's apartment building was on the next floor down, an X of bright yellow tape over the door. Thin black letters along the lemon colored strips read that it was an active crime scene—entrance was prohibited. I used my mobile to check the door camera for photos, but the camera's data core had been wiped. I tried to recover the lost data but it was encrypted with a key I couldn't crack. At the end of the hall, I found an access panel which tore away easily under the grip of the cybernetic arm. The cables ran in a multicolored flow, finding the right set was a process of elimination. I twisted two wires that controlled the door circuit and it slid open behind me.
Tara's apartment was cold, a breeze drifting through some hole that was out of sight. A sound, like a curtain flapping, echoed down the empty halls. Her entry room was stark and dirty, clothing cast onto the floor in heaps that reeked, furniture that was slumped and torn. The sink in the kitchen was clear of any stains and free of dirty dishes. The refrigerator was empty and still contained the manufacturer's instructions. It looked like she'd never eaten here. The bedroom, on the other hand, seemed to see frequent traffic. The carpeted floor was beaten and stained; the bed was large and covered in tussled blankets and ragged pillows.
A yellow tape barricade came down with a brush of my hand, like a cobweb, before I could enter the living room. A wide window had been along most of the back wall. In its place was a gaping hole rimmed with broken glass and dressed with ragged curtains. Through the jagged hole, the strip my office is on was a circuit of neon lights, ringed with streetlights and shadowed buildings. Against the opposite wall, a sunken couch still had a man's shirt draped across the back, a set of wrinkled violet panties on the floor. The coffee table was clean but showed dust that had crusted into old cracks. I made a slow breath over the table's finish and wiped at it with my fingertip. The streak vanished like fog on glass. It seemed the table had been recently and thoroughly cleaned. I checked under the table for anything taped to it, nothing had been.
I set my shoulder against the couch and slid it away from the wall. The carpet smelled like cleaner between my fingers. Pushing the couch further revealed a vent in the wall, maybe for heating or oxygen flow, I wasn't sure which. A boxy shape rested in shadow behind the grate. I tested the bolts that attached the vent to the wall—they weren't screwed in. It was a box with a hinged lid and a simple low-tech lock. I peeled back the lid, the metal hinge squealing as I broke it.
Inside was a few cred sticks, a folded square of paper, and a small handful of what looked like black grains of rice. I raised one to my eye, balancing it delicately between thumb and finger. At one end was a tiny speck of silver, like a data port, and I recognized them for what they were. They were micro data cores and they were illegal—just like the implants they connected to.
During my military service, I had encountered spies that had used covert implants that were linked to the ocular nerve and the tiny bones in the inner ear. The implants recorded anything that was seen and heard into a video file and saved them to a micro data core. Under the data cores was a long cable with an adapter to play the recording over a screen. I jacked a data core into the sleeve-shaped adapter and plugged the other end into my mobile.
The video feed started with a full body view of Tara, although the view was first person, it appeared she was looking into a tall mirror. She was completely naked, giving the mirror a wave and a little blown kiss. She slipped her leg into a pair of panties, something that was all black lace with tiny red bows. She pulled a matching bra over her breasts and fastened it in the back, reaching into the satin material to tweak one nipple, it showed hard against the smooth material. She gave the mirror another wave and turned away from it, the view following her gaze to a broad-shouldered man in the hall who was taking off his pants.
I stopped the video playback, unplugging the cable and coiling it into the box. I didn't need to see any more. It seemed that was how she had been making rent, probably broadcasting the feeds over a private underground network. I checked the balance on the cred sticks and found their total to be near twelve hundred. If she had saved that much, why hadn't she moved from the slums? The square of paper unfolded easily, the creases were dee
p and old as if it had been opened several times. It was a brochure for a city on Titan, a place called Radiance. The photo showed the city by night, lights dotting the silhouetted spires and highrises, the hazy shape of Saturn and it's colorful rings visible over the horizon.
The lid landed crooked as I closed the box, stuffing it into my jacket's secret pocket. It was just small enough to fit. If I was caught with the data cores, I would be convicted. Probably get my license taken after I served time in detention. I didn't need to add anything to my rap sheet.
I left the apartment building and found my way back to the cement stairs, reaching the security checkpoint at the top. The machine still accepted the false security card but an Agent told me to stop and wait before passing through the scanning gate.
He produced a tablet device and clicked it open, the screen showing a collection of sine waves and graphs, “Please present your left hand.”
I showed him the palm of the electronic hand, flexing the fingers to show the black cords of muscle fiber, “Left one's a fake, you'll have to use my right.”
If he showed any acknowledgment of my comment, I couldn't read it on the reflective black visor of his helmet.