Chains of Freedom (3 page)

"What's that?" David asked. By now, he was thoroughly confused, and looked it.

"If a rebellion ever starts, it's a fair bet that it will start here in Alsterase, the home of the malcontents. If you know where your enemy is, you know where to go to crush them quickly and completely."

David nodded his understanding.

"As long as there's a place for the malcontents to go, they'll go there. As long as they're here, they can't be in the towns stirring others into a rabble. As long as they're not stirring up any trouble, it's in the Reliance's best interest to leave them here to attract those rebellious souls who slip through the system." As RJ finished, she picked up the whiskey and downed it, then started on the beer.

David allowed his brain a few minutes to soak up what he'd just heard."OK, I think I get it. But if all that is true, what are we doing here? This place is no doubt crawling with Reliance spies." David glanced nervously around the bar as he spoke.

"Oh, no doubt about that at all. Which means that nobody asks any questions or gives out any information. See, everyone's either afraid that you're a spy, or afraid you'll think they're one. Spies in Alsterase are more or less useless."

David nodded slowly. "But that still doesn't answer my question. Why are we here?"

"A little reverse logic. You see, the Reliance knows that Alsterase is the festering place for a rebellion, but then so does anyone with half a brain. So, they don't really expect anyone to try. Oh, there's talk—there's always talk, but nothing ever comes of it. Therefore, this is the perfect place to start a rebellion. A town full of people who all hate the Reliance is the perfect cover, because only an idiot would seriously try anything here. Therefore, a really intelligent person who plays her cards right can march right into a ready-made army. Or at least a unit," she gulped her beer down.

It took several seconds for all of that to soak in. When it did, David still didn't understand, and he didn't like not understanding. He didn't like her drinking, either. While he sat sipping on his single beer (which was making him giddy already), RJ put away six of the combination drinks. Her speech wasn't slurred; her movements weren't clumsy. In fact, the only indication that she'd had anything to drink at all was that her right arm was flopping around like a fish on a pier.

He'd noticed the arm thing before. She seemed to have a habit of jerking it at odd moments; it could be a little distracting. Right now, the damned arm thing was enough to drive him crazy. When she started to order another round of drinks, he decided she'd really lost it.

"Don't you think you've had enough?" David asked quietly.

RJ laughed and patted him on the back, none too gently.

"More than, probably. Bartender! Do it again!" she yelled.

Just as the bartender set her drinks on the table, she felt a hand on her shoulder, and hot breath in her ear.

"Hey, baby, why don't you and me blow this dump?" The man was huge, six-foot-eight if he was an inch. He was gigantic, humongous, fantastically enormous, and damn near as blond as the woman he was coming on to.

"Well," RJ drawled slowly, not even looking at the man. "For one thing, I'm not your baby."

David gulped, and decided to give RJ charm lessons as soon as he got the chance.

"You could be," the big man said.

"You could be well-mannered, too. But you're not," RJ said coolly. "Any man can see that I am with this gentleman."

David looked around for several seconds before he realized that RJ meant him. The smile he gave the big man was sickly at best.

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't mind," the big man said, and added menacingly. "Would you, buddy?"

David gulped again. RJ had strapped a gun under his arm before he put his jacket on, but he didn't know if he could get to it—or if he should even try. He wasn't ready for this situation; he wasn't exactly sure how he should react, or if he should at all. Goddamn RJ! She was just sitting there, grinning at him, as if waiting for him to do the right thing. Whatever the hell that was.

"Actually, I do mind," David tried to sound cocky, but somehow, just didn't quite make it. He went for the gun, which turned out to be the wrong thing to do. Someone—he never knew who—hit him in the head with a beer bottle before he could clear leather. His head spun, his vision blurred, and he hit the floor just seconds after his gun.

RJ came off the stool, bringing a knee up into the big man's groin. He let out a howl and bent double. RJ brought her cupped hands down on the base of his skull, and he hit the floor shortly after David.

Some guy took exception to his friend's nose-dive and slung his fist into RJ's gut. It hit the chain-now hidden under her jacket, and he jerked his hand back, screaming. She delivered a well-placed kick to his head, and the second man fell beside his friend.

David kept trying to get up, but couldn't figure out which way that was. He didn't even know where he was, or what had happened. He didn't feel the blood running down his face. The noise around him registered, but it was just that—noise—no words, no sense.

RJ turned just in time to deliver a roundhouse kick into the ribs of yet another attacker. When the girl fell to the floor holding her ribs, she yelled out, "Elite! She's a fucking ELITE!"

"No doubt she remembers the boots," RJ said in the sudden stillness. She announced, "I used to be an Elite. I have been well trained, and I don't have any qualms about killing anyone. So if you're feeling froggy, go ahead and jump."

With this said, she proceeded to kick every willing ass in the bar. She threw one poor man out the window, and another down the bar. In ten minutes, anyone who had thought it was a good idea to kick this stranger's ass had either rapidly changed his mind and left, or was suffering from some degree of bodily disrepair.

RJ stood up straight and took a deep, cleansing breath. Then she walked over to the bar where, by some miracle, her drinks still stood, and slung them down. Turning to David, who lay practically comatose on the floor, she picked him up, threw him over her shoulder, and started for the door.

Pausing in the doorway, RJ turned, "I'm not paying my bill. I didn't have a good time, and I don't think my date had a very good time either. What's more, the atmosphere in this place stinks." Having said her piece, she stomped out the door, slamming it behind her so hard that the rest of the glass fell out of the broken window.

When they reached the bike, RJ tried to set David's limp body on it. She put her hands in his armpits and sat him up, but as soon as she let go, he almost fell.

"Oh, come on, David," she said in exasperation. "It's been a long damn day."

After several unsuccessful tries, she finally got David to hold himself up long enough that she could get on the bike. At which point he promptly collapsed against her back.

"Can you hang on?" A gurgling sound was her only answer."Oh, I can tell that this is going to be a fun evening." She jammed David's limp body against the sissy bar with her back, and somehow managed to drive to the motel across the street. Not being in the mood for formalities, she drove the bike right inside and turned it off.

"Hey! Hey!" The fat, greasy, chrome-dome of a manager popped up from his seat behind the desk and waved his black-market nudie magazine in an apparent attempt to shoo them out. Clamping his huge, smelly cigar firmly in his teeth, he screamed, "No pets and no motorbikes in the lobby. That there's the rules. I'm trying to run a classy joint here."

RJ got off the bike and headed for the desk. David fell unceremoniously to the floor. She opened her jacket so that both chain and plasma blaster were visible.

"Lady, I don't care if you have a fucking rocket launcher, you can't bring your filthy motorbike in my lobby." Gun-toting customers were nothing new to him. The sight of a plasma blaster, not even a big one, didn't impress him.

RJ didn't feel like dealing with points of etiquette at the moment. She reached across the counter, grabbed the man by his collar, and lifted him off the floor with one hand. Then she drew her blaster and stuck it up one of his nostrils. Now he was impressed. She didn't even have to mention the fact that she did just happen to have a rocket launcher.

"Me, this pistol, and my incredibly bad attitude all say that I can park this bike up your ass if I like. Do you have a problem with that?"

"All right, all right," the manager huffed. RJ set him down slowly and removed the blaster. He straightened his dirty collar and tried to straighten his now bent cigar. "I swear, you girls are all alike. Give you a gun, and you turn into thugs."

"I need a room for tonight," RJ said.

"Just for tonight?"

"If the room is suitable, we'll be staying longer."

"Oh! How lucky for us!" The fact that the blaster was back in the holster seemed to restore some of his self-confidence, not to mention sarcasm. "Is your friend dead or alive?"

"I don't know. Why?" RJ asked, glancing at the pile of David on the floor.

"Charge more for stiffs. People leave them in the rooms. It makes an awful mess," he said.

RJ nodded. She could relate to that. So she yelled across the room, "David, are you dead?"

The pile of David made that gurgling sound again.

"See, he's not dead."

"He's pretty bad. May die tonight," the manager speculated.

"If he does, I'll take the body out myself." RJ shoved some credits at the man, poured David back on the bike, climbed aboard herself, started the engine and headed for the stairs.

"Hey, you crazy bitch . . . !" The rest of the man's obscenities were lost in the roar of the bike.

They reached the sixth floor in a few minutes. The top two floors of the old eight-story building were in such bad repair that even a "classy joint" like this had them closed off. A few people stepped out into the hall to see what all the noise was, but quickly lost interest. Just another crazy asshole riding a bike in the hall. Nothing very unusual about that. Not in Alsterase.

Outside the room, RJ stopped and shut the bike off. When she got off, David hit the floor again. He had this falling bit down pat. This time, however, he gurgled and stirred and seemed to want to get up. That he didn't do quite so well—not at all, in fact.

RJ opened the door and pushed the bike into the room. After she was sure it was OK, she went back for David. After all, first things first: men were a dime a dozen, but a good bike was hard to come by. She kicked the door shut and tossed David over onto the bed.

RJ bent over David, looking at the cut in his scalp. It was deep, and about four inches long, but the skull seemed intact."You stupid jackass. Anyone with half a brain knows better than to pull a gun in Alsterase unless you have a death wish, or full body armor."

She cleaned and stitched the wound, berating David the entire time. "And another thing, never start anything unless you know what's behind you, you stupid prick." She covered him up after stripping him down to his shorts. "You'll live. You won't enjoy it for a while. Not with the headache you're going to have come morning, but you'll live."

Finished, she sat down on the edge of the bed and unwound the chain. Taking a coin from her pocket, she bent it double around a link, adding it to the small collection of change already bent into its folds. She smiled and let the chain fall to the floor.

He felt as if the sun were trying to drill its way through his eyelids. His head was pounding, but the soft, warm, and undeniably female contents of his arms temporarily distracted him from his pain. He smiled. It had been a dream. Prison, RJ, the brawl, all a dream. He was home after all, safe in his own bed with some delectable hometown girl. Jane? Or maybe Susan. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the pounding in his head became more insistent. Why did his head hurt? He put his hand to his head, and found the stitches.

OK, so it wasn't a dream. He couldn't decide if he was relieved or sorry. Without thinking, he pulled himself closer to the woman, and felt himself drifting off into unconsciousness again. Then it hit him. He was in bed with a woman! But who? He opened his eyes slowly. RJ sat in bed, wearing only her pants. She was cleaning her blaster as if it were the normal thing for a half-dressed woman to do while sitting in bed with a man wrapped around her waist.

David couldn't help realizing just how really built RJ was. Not that he hadn't noticed before now, but clothes did tend to screw up the view.

She blew some debris out of her gun, and it hit him in the face.

"Hey!" He wiped at his face.

"Well, I'm glad to see you're still alive. They charge extra for stiffs around here. Real classy place," she said with a smile.

David let go of her and rolled onto his back. It was the wrong thing to do. The room wouldn't quit moving, and he felt instant nausea.

"You're all heart, RJ." He held his head in an effort to keep it from splitting open. "God, I feel like I've been hit by a tractor."