Danger Money (14 page)

I looked at myself in the mirror while I waited. I was a real mess! I didn't look anything like myself, I was so cut up and swollen in so many different places. The bandage on my shoulder was still there, but was totally blood encrusted. There were patches of fur ripped out all over as well.

"Here," she said entering the room again. "Is this good enough?"

I took the phone first, "Its fine, thanks. uhh?"

"Oh, Rosalyn," She smiled supplying her name.

"Thank you Rosalyn, I'm called Draco."

"You’re welcome Draco." She hesitated a moment, "Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure," I wondered what it could be, a lot of things went through my head.

"Why do you Animen always have such weird names?"

I laughed, for the first time in days, then gasped. My ribs hurt too much! "I'm okay," I said waving her back, "just a few broken ribs. The answer to your question is simple, we don't pick 'em, the nursery attendants do." I tried to smile, "And some of them have very active imaginations."

She smiled back and I started to dial the phone.

"Um, excuse me for a moment," I said but she didn't seem inclined to leave. I guess I'd just have to be careful about what I said.

The phone rang once and was picked up immediately, "Hello?" I recognized Azelett's voice, this was the emergency line and I was happy that she was still manning it.

"Hi, this is Draco. Sorry I'm late," I started. I heard a sigh of relief on the other end.

"Are you okay?" She asked concerned.

"I ran into some really bad trouble, and I'm in bad shape." I heard an intake of breath, "Fortunately a very kind woman helped me. I'm at her house now, but I really don't want to press my hospitality."

"Okay Draco," she sounded worried, "Just tell me where you are, and I'll be there right away."

"Umm, I honestly don't know," I looked over at Rosalyn. "Where am I?"

"Oh I can give them directions!" She smiled.

"Fine," I turned back to the phone, "My savior here will tell you where it is. I'll talk to you later.

"Okay, put her on. I'll be there as soon as possible."

I handed the phone to Rosalyn, who started giving directions. I eavesdropped as she went out into the living room, so I heard her say: "Listen, he really needs a doctor, those rednecks did a real job on him. I think he's been stabbed too, but I'm too afraid to ask. What? Oh, okay. You know, I've never met a Morph before, and they're not as bad as everybody says."

There was a little more in that vein, obviously she didn't know just who she was talking to. I went back to trying to clean myself up, it wasn't easy, and eventually I just laid down in the tub and went to sleep. I woke up for a moment when somebody put a blanket over me, and quickly rolled up in it. I fell back asleep warm and reasonably content.

I awoke to a knocking on the door, and opened my eyes to see Rosalyn and Azelett examining me from the doorway. Azelett looked sick as she looked me over.

"Like I told the lady I talked to on the phone," Rosalyn was saying, "They must have done a real job on him."

I started to carefully unwrap myself, it wasn't an easy job. Seeing my difficulties Azelett came over and helped.

"Did you see any of it?" Azelett asked.

"Oh, no. I found him in the gorge west of here that they threw him in. It's a miracle that he survived."

"He won't think so when he gets back," growled Azelett. "He wasn't supposed to go sightseeing on Earth alone. Some of these off world guys just don't know any better it seems."

"Hey," I protested weakly, "I was just minding my own business, I swear!"

"This happen a lot?" Rosalyn asked.

"More than we like, it seems some people just refuse to learn their place." She looked at the ruined blanket, and my body as well. "The company has authorized me to pay any damages on the spot, and don't be afraid to pad it a little," She smiled then. "He's paying for it, so the company sure doesn't care."

"Well, I don't know. He's been through a lot already ..."

"Give her a couple thou," I said quietly, "She deserves it for saving my life. I don't mind."

They both looked surprised, and Azelett handed her the cash.

"Give me a hand, and let's go. I don't want to cause anymore trouble here."

"Sure," and Azelett took my arm and just hoisted me up over her shoulder with a grunt.

Rosalyn just looked on in surprise as Azelett lifted my body into a fireman's carry.

"Oh don't worry," She grunted, "I'm stronger than I look. Get the door please Miss?"

We went out and down the stairs, with Azelett dumping me in the back of a small van. I grabbed her wrist before she walked off.

"Thanks Rosalyn," I said. "You might want to get started on that mess I made in your bathroom, before your folks find out. They'd probably have a fit if they found out about this." I smiled weakly.

"Oh, yeah!" She said wide-eyed and ran back into the house.

"Why'd you do that?" Azelett growled.

"If I wanted her dead I would have killed her myself," I sighed. "Let's go."

She closed the back door of the van then went around and got in the front. She didn't say anything till we were well away from the house.

"Rieselle, and Shotoon?" She asked quietly.

"Both dead," I whispered.

Her breath caught for a second. "You sure?"

"I wasn't about to go back and check, but I heard their people report it."

"How'd it happen?"

"I don't want to talk about it right now." I growled. "How far to a doctor?"

"How do you feel?" She asked keeping her eyes on the road ahead.

"Dizzy, sick and in a considerable amount of pain. I've got a bullet in my shoulder and I think the wound is infected. Also I broke my leg and I don't know what else."

She reached into a pocket in her coveralls and tossed back a vial. "Here take one of these," She turned and looked at me, "better take two."

"What is it?" I tried opening it, but only one of my hands was really working right.

"Painkiller, a strong one."

"Do you want me dead by any chance?" I asked. I was still having problems with the vial. Finally I gave up and just bit the top off, shattering the hard plastic.

"No! Why?" she asked confused, turning to look for a moment.

"Watch the road," I said grabbing three of the pills and swallowing them. "Somebody does. We've been given up by somebody in our organization. Trust no one, I'm going to sleep."

"Great," she mumbled.

Whatever was in the pills was strong, I was feeling giddy in almost no time and passed out shortly afterwards. Several times, I came too, the first is when Azelett dragged me out of the van and into another vehicle. The next was when she dropped me while going up a stair.

"Sorry!" She gasped as I moaned.

"S'okay," I lisped, "Can't feel a damn thing anyway."

When I finally came back to the real world, we were in a room in the dark. There weren't any windows, and it smelled damp and rotten.

"Where the hell are we?" I asked trying to sit up.

Big mistake, I nearly screamed with the pain.

"In
New York City
, you've been out for about six hours."

I noticed the bandage on my shoulder had been changed. "How bad is it?"

"I couldn't get the bullet, it's pretty deep and the bone's been shattered. The leg is beyond me too, I just put a splint on it for now. You've got a fever and the wound is starting to fester, I drained it and gave you an anti-biotic, but you need a doctor."

"So why aren't we back at base?"

"This is as safe as I could find, there are government checkpoints up everywhere. Animen are being round up on sight, at least all the cats are. You poisoned an Earth Gov Senator, they're not sure if he's going to live, and he's going to be messed up for life even if he does.

"You did kill the other one however, so your perfect record is still intact."

I growled at the sarcasm in her voice, "I didn't sacrifice them! They were the first friends I ever had. Maybe the only ones." I looked her over slowly, "If you want out, go! Hell, find a phone and tell them where I am. I'm not going anywhere soon. If you think that little of me, I don't want you around."

"I'm sorry," she turned away, her tail drooping and ears flattened in shame. "But I'm scared. The first two safe houses I set up were compromised. So were all the escape routes that I had planned on paper."

"Then just where are we?" I waved around at the surroundings with my good arm.

"I didn't commit everything to paper!" She grinned deviously. "I'm not that naive!"

"Well, thank the powers that be for that!" I sighed. "So now what? Can you get a doctor here? What happens next?" My stomach growled then, even though my head was still splitting.

"I guess you eat, here." She tossed me a ration pack, I opened it and started to force it down. It took a major effort of will to eat, it tasted like crap and my stomach was rebelling for all that I was starving.

"Ugh, what is this stuff?"

"Deep space emergency rations. They're cheap and easy to come by, but the taste leaves something to be desired."

"Especially when you're sick." I sat up a little and drank the water she offered me.

"I'll see what I can do about getting you a doctor, or whatever. But we're in it deep Jotun, real deep."

"I know," I groaned. "If you have to run, run. Don't worry about me. This is quickly becoming everyone for themselves, what's left of us that is." I looked up at her, "I mean that too, if you have to cut me loose to survive, do it."

I laid back and closed my eyes, "Good Luck."

"You too," She whispered and placed her hand on my head as I fell asleep.

The next time I awoke, the fever was back and Azelett was still gone. I checked my watch and saw that a whole day had gone by. I crawled over to the pile of food bags, and looked for the med kit. What was there wasn't much, and I fell asleep again before I could do anything more. I awoke a few times more on and off, getting more and more feverish all the time.

I was starting to have delusions now, Shotoon and Rieselle were the first to show up and they weren't pretty to look at either. I'd seen bodies cut to shreds by machine guns before and they looked worse. Other people showed up too, some of my old team members, some of the other assassins, both dead and alive. But mostly my victims came to visit, to crow at me in my moment of pain and defeat. To laugh as I died.

Azelett showed up too, she looked normal and stuck me full of needles and looked worried. She kept trying to tell me things, but the noise of the others kept drowning her out. Eventually of course she helped them put me in my coffin and nailed down the lid.

That was worse, the noise got louder and louder, but I was too weak to do anything. My victims weren't around to gloat any more at least, but I could hear the wailing of their voices. So this was eternity, a small, dark, noisy place. It was cold too, and I could barely move. At least the box was padded with stuff, lots of stuff. I noticed that I was packed in pretty tight, and getting tighter. I couldn't breath, I tried gasping for breath but my chest was being pressed too tightly. Things started to get quite cramped as I passed out of being. My last thoughts were, if I'm already dead, what's happening now?

9

I wasn't dead of course, just drugged. It turned out Azelett was able to come back for me. She put me in a box and had me shipped by unpressurized freight to the moon. It took three days and I was nearly dead when I got there, but I got there all the same.

She didn't however.

It took a month before I was even allowed to regain consciousness, another three weeks before I was allowed out of the hospital. Azelett had used some fairly potent drugs on me to slow my system down, then sealed me in plastic. The day I spent in Deep space transit hadn't been the tough part, it was the two days that the crate took in the company mail system to get to the right place that nearly killed me.

Nobody in intelligence ever found out what happened to her, one of them even suggested that she might have been the spy. I would have killed him for it if I had been strong enough; instead I just gave the doctors a lot of interesting reconstructive work to do on his face.

Nobody ever suggested that to me again.

Once I finally made it back to the Palace, I locked myself in my room and for the first time in my life I cried. I didn't venture out until my stomach forced me too, and even then my forays were brief and far between.

Eventually I did come out of my shell a little, Dara had started coming to my room again and wouldn't stay away. Teri had died in the latest surge of work, actually about half of the whole section had been wiped out. So she was the only one of my 'lovers' left alive. As she was another assassin, I was surprised she even wasted her time trying to help me. We weren't a very caring and sharing bunch.

Especially to each other.

Eventually I rejoined the world, or what bizarre piece of it that I actually lived in. I was back to spending nearly all my time out in the garden, I rarely slept in my room anymore. Dara was still hanging around, actually I noticed everybody who was still alive was at the Palace. There were only about eighteen left, so it wasn't exactly crowded. I hadn't seen Mr. Siedman since I came back, or any of my other 'Handlers' for that matter. My entire debriefing had only been that one conversation with the Intell people. It wasn't right, but then everything was getting strange, if such a thing could be possible here that is.

I was lying among my Lilac's when I heard the intercom say "We have an uninvited guest! Attention, we have an uninvited guest!" I was wondering who or what could be crazy enough to still try and break in here when a large explosion shook the complex.

"Attention, we are under attack! Attention we are under attack!" The computer started, until another explosion cut all power. I could hear the sounds of small arms fire being exchanged, and quite a few smaller explosions. We were being raided!

I grabbed the Lilacs and started ripping them out for all I was worth, then dug through the dirt another foot or so. It was tough going with the gravity plates dead, but I still managed in the lighter gravity. I quickly found what I had buried so long ago, my 'escape' equipment.

Spacesuits and weapons were not allowed inside of course, the company didn't want us leaving without permission. But I had managed to sneak in an assault rifle over the years, one piece at a time. Along with that and some other stuff I had taken a survival balloon, which the company allowed us to have, and hidden it all out here.

While I had been digging and loading my rifle, a few of the other senior assassins joined me as well. I wasn't the only one who had taken these precautions. We waited until the firefight made it to the garden's entrance, then opened fire as the attackers tried to move inside getting a brief glance of what looked like Earth Force’s armor. That pretty much stopped them cold as we all had excellent cover and could hold them off for a long time. It didn't take the opposition long to figure that out.

I was sitting in my un-inflated balloon, waiting for the attackers to figure out the next step. It didn't take them long, and a few minutes later a projectile came in and hit the heavy plastic dome. The explosion blew out several of the larger panels exposing the entire garden to vacuum. I saw the heavy emergency doors close off the doorway as I quickly sealed myself inside my balloon and turned on the oxygen.

Now came the tricky part, getting down on all fours I rolled and bounced my way over to the hole in the dome. The others queued up behind me, as I checked the opening through my plastic viewport. It didn't look too bad, so picking my way carefully, I rolled through.

I then immediately fell the one hundred or so feet to the bottom of the ridge below. It was a little scary, but in the moon's lighter gravity, it was about the same as a sixteen foot drop in one G. I hit and rolled of course, rolling was all one could do in this inflated ball anyway. I then watched to see which of the others survived, mostly out of curiosity. All four made it.

Then I looked at my compass and headed off on my own as we all split up to try our individual ideas out.

It was tough work moving across the crater, after several hours I started to develop some really terrible cramps from being on my hands and feet. My ancestors might have been good at moving on all fours, but the genetically redesigned me was better at walking upright like my Human creators. After twenty hours I had to stop and give it a break. As far as I could tell, I was making progress to where I wanted to go. But I had no idea of exactly how far I had gone, or had left.

I checked my re-breather, I had another 40 hours of air left, and took care of a few bodily functions, trying hard not to make a mess. Then it was back on to plodding painfully across the lunar surface.

What I was heading for was one of the cargo warehouses that were scattered everywhere across the moon's surface. The palace had been situated among quite a few of them, many of which belonged to other corporations as well. This made it easy to explain the traffic that went in an out and the vacuum helped to keep out unwanted visitors of course. But even with this being a 'populated' area, things where still spread out on a grand scale, and I wasn't making for the nearest one either. I had fifty miles to travel before I got to the entrance I hoped was safe.

Eventually I rolled up to the airlock I had hoped to find, some sixty odd sleepless hours later. The CO2 indicators on my rebreather had started to show dangerous levels, and I knew it was more a matter of luck that I had made it this time.

Now I'm sure you've all seen the rescue balloons before, probably in some deep space disaster movie. They're just a round globe that holds one, sometimes two, people. It has no arms or legs, and while tough, is extremely cheap to make. They had been designed over a hundred years ago by the now defunct NASA for their Space program. The low price made them ideal back then, and kept them popular now. Also I think rescuers liked the idea of having the accident victims all nicely wrapped up. Less trouble that way.

So here I was outside the airlock door with no hands or manipulator to open it. Or so one might think. There is always a work around, if you bother to look for it. I took out a long heavy glove that went up to my shoulder. At its end I had made a wide flange a long time ago. Then I got out a tube of vacuum cement. Wonderful stuff actually, stays tacky until exposed to vacuum, then it seals in seconds. Trying hard not to get any on my fur, I coated the flange. Then taking my knife in my hand I slit open the side of the balloon. The rush of air pulled my arm out, and the glue quickly sealed around the base. Viola! Now I had an arm.

I rolled closer to the Airlock then, and with some careful maneuvering, and a little cursing, got my hand on the controls. Once inside I quickly got out of the balloon as the pressure came up. Gathering my gear together I moved out into the warehouse.

It was empty inside, except for the automated storage equipment, so I quickly found a place to stash the balloon and rebreather, I didn't want them found right away, then I found myself a place to crash. I had barely fallen asleep when I was woken up by the lights coming up all over the place. I crawled over to a better vantage point, and looked out into the warehouse.

What I saw was a guard searching the stacks, he didn't look too worried and was making a beeline for the lock I had used. I must have set off an alarm when I came in, I hadn't thought of that. I was really tired I guess. So I grabbed my gun and started stalking him, no rest for the weary.

It wasn't too hard to sneak up on him, he was fully suited up and didn't even have his helmet open. I couldn't tell what type he was, but he seemed about bear size. I was able to get quite close to him before he even noticed me. When he turned around I held my rifle up to my shoulder.

"Don't move." I said quietly. He put his hands up slowly. I reached forward and opened his helmet. "For your sake I sure hope you didn't call this in yet." I kept my voice low so it wouldn't carry.

"You kill me, they'll know it!" He said unafraid.

I looked him over, he was a bear alright. A fairly old one too, probably had been retired out here where they could afford to lose him. "You're a P.L.M.D. aren't you?" I asked quietly.

"A P.L.M.D.?" He looked confused.

"Old Human joke, Polish Land Mind Detector. It means you're expendable, they don't care if you get killed, 'cause they'll still find out there's a problem in here."

"So what are you going to do?" He looked me over, I know I was a sight. I also stunk from being in that damn ball without any plumbing.

"You're going to tell them that the lock hasn't been opened. It was just a false alarm. Then you're going to help me get to the city. I'm not looking to kill anyone today, and at your age I doubt you're looking to play hero."

"And if I don't?"

I lowered the gun, "I'll just tie you up and take your suit. What does the company charge for something like that nowadays?" I could see his mind working that one out, most companies charged for lost equipment. "Like I said before, I'm not looking to kill anyone. Or even steal anything for that matter. I'm just trying to stay out of trouble."

"Then why are you here?"

"You don't want to know," I smiled. "So what's it gonna be?"

"They only pay me to keep the place from being robbed," he smiled and put his hands down. "If you're wantin' to move on anyway, I don't see why I should tell anybody. It's not like you stole anything," he looked around, "or even damaged anything!

"Come on, I'll take you where you want to go." And as I listened he called in the report I had asked him to.

Who ever said Bears were stubborn? "Would you unload your gun please?" I asked following him, "It'd make me feel a lot safer."

He did as I requested, and then I let my own rifle point at the floor. When we got to the main lock I looked out the viewport and checked his vehicle. It was unpressurized and ten feet from the lock, this was going to be a problem. I should have realized it would be something like this when I saw him in the suit, to tired to think straight I guess. I turned and looked at him, he was pointing the gun at me.

"You're not to bright you know," He said frowning.

"Actually I'm tired, very tired." I sighed, "I've been running for my life all day. So what are you going to do?"

"Call in the company police I guess."

"I'll kill you if you do," I warned quietly.

"You mean you'll try," He frowned again. "I've got the jump on you boy. And I'd appreciate it if you'd drop that Machine Gun of yours."

I shook my head, "No. You won't shoot me unless I make a jump on you. You're not a killer."

"You sure about that boy?" He showed some teeth.

"And I won't make a jump on you if you don't turn me in," I continued. "I just want to live. Is that asking too much?" I could see this wasn't getting me where I wanted to go. I really didn't want to kill the old bear, but if he didn't change his mind soon I was going to have to.

"Drop it," he warned again.

I sighed and tossed the gun at him, he nimbly dodged out of the way and laughed, "I'm not that dumb boy!" and then jumped in surprise as it went off when it hit the ground. I had filed off the safety a long time ago, I didn't believe in them myself. I knocked the gun in his hand aside then and jumped him, he wasn't able to put up that much of a fight.

"Drop the gun!" I growled with my knife to his throat, "Or I will kill you!" I grabbed it as he did. "Now strip!" He silently complied with that order as well. I tied him up good, then looked for another one of those damn balloons. I found one and stuck him in it. "Okay now, before I zip you up, listen closely. I'm taking you with me, if I'm found, I'm sure you'll buy it in the ensuing firefight. So with that in mind, where's a safe place to head?"