Rogue-ARC (36 page)

“Hello, Kimbo. How are you doing? You were supposed to be discreet.” I Boosted.

The expression on his face was priceless. He’d known I was still around, but coming face-to-face with me was something else. And, I was always in adequate shape, now back in good shape. He’d aged a bit, too, and hadn’t quite kept up on it. Not fat, but no longer a warrior athlete.

I could see him consider running, and realize he couldn’t turn or back fast enough to avoid me. He almost went for it, then realized that would leave him unguarded for a moment. Each of these was a bare twitch, but I could read them.

He was not a confrontational person. He was a lurker.

Still, he had a good block up, and was slightly younger than me and a little taller. I didn’t want to rush in. If he made a move, I’d take him down, otherwise I’d psych him out and wait for an opening. We had a loading alcove next to us, and he tried to slip into it.

He didn’t panic. He was steady, but I managed to maneuver him into the box and he tried for a feint and a rush. I let him come, twisted around his punch, leapt above the foot sweep easily in the light G, and wrenched.

Then I had a grip on his wrist. This fight was about to be over. I reached out and dislocated his elbow.

I saw his other hand flash back behind him, then come forward. He wasn’t going to dislodge me like that, and I started to twist his damaged arm as he shrieked. My options from there were to strike his rear, force him to his knees and down, break his neck or just shatter his wrist, shoulder and elbow and step back.

Heated pain and wetness splashed over my knuckles. I assumed it was acid, or maybe he had a self-heating vial of something. It was a fast but clumsy reaction on his part, but I wasn’t going to let go.

Except I was. He was twisting free and I couldn’t get a good enough grip. I clenched, but he slipped free. Whatever was over my hand was slick. Hot oil?

Blood. I caught a glimpse of it. Lots of blood. It might be either his or mine, but it wasn’t important right now; he was turning. I followed his hand with mine to keep some semblance of control and shifted to kick his ankles, hopefully shattering one. All I had to do was slow him down.

This kid was
fast
. He didn’t have a CNS bioplant, and he was almost keeping up with me. I couldn’t have slowed down that much over the years, and he was only a couple of years younger himself. Okay, five. Still, he wasn’t young.

He came back at me with that left hand, and I saw a flash of something dark. Then the nerves in my arm stopped sending signals. Then they sent lots of signals. Pain, heat, cold, electricity. Massive trauma has a sameness to it, though every particular type has its own subtle spice. But I’d been injured and he was disengaging like a pro. I threw a foot out as a trip or strike, and
he
kicked
me
, making me yelp and causing my calf to seize up with cramps. Shit, that hurt. Then he was running as I tried to limp upright. I forced through the pain ripping through my ankle and right arm and pumped my legs after him.

There was too much blood. As we clattered along a depressing gray corridor, it all coalesced. He’d opened me up with a korambit. It’s an old Filipino and Indonesian weapon, consisting of a ring for the finger, a short grip and a double-edged sickle blade. It cuts coming and going. And it’s even under the eight centemeters legal limit for personal possession here. He’d sliced it across my knuckles, which was how he could get free—I had no tendons there anymore. Then he’d ringed my forearm just below the elbow, severing veins, muscles, tendons and nerves. Three quick cuts and that was that. Two outside curves, one inside, and Ken Chinran is crippled and leaking like a hydraulic press with ruptured seals.

I’d been banged around from day one of my career. I’d been scared, beaten, gassed, abused, tossed out into vacuum, kicked, whipped, crashed into trees, left to freeze in ice or cold mud, cooked in hot Sun/Iota/name your star, starved, sleep deprived and just smashed myself in a hurry to take cover. But in all that time, I had never been seriously injured or wounded in combat. A few close calls had torn at body armor or helmet, but never me. It was frightening.

I triggered Boost again, to deal with the shock and pain. That was good, except it also increased circulation. As I recalled from my medical training, I wouldn’t likely bleed to death for several thousand seconds. Call it a sixty minutes or thirty-five segs. But it hurt like hell, it was making me nauseous from the thought and from the gouts of red running down my arm as if from a small hose. It was a psychological bombshell. I needed some time to recover. And I was seeing splotches in front of my eyes from the injury, exertion, and overuse of Boost. Three times in a row is the safe max. Beyond that you’re looking at a hospital and nanos to repair the damage to the cells caused by overexertion at the mitochondrial level.

I staggered and slowed. He’d got away, dammit, after I had him in hand. I swore through clenched teeth, held up my arm to examine the running crimson river cascading through white, striated and marbled flesh with gray veins and realized I was about to pass out. I was just aware enough to keep the arm atop me to prevent further damage.

I woke up in only a few seconds, but it hurt like a dogfucker. Or maybe that was why I woke up. There was no way to touch the wound or support it to reduce the pain, either—it was almost totally around my forearm, about three centimeters below the elbow. I peeled my shirt off with my left hand. Every time something hit the bare nerves in the wound I went into a paroxysmic cascade of thrashing pain and had to force myself motionless until it subsided. I got the shirt free in a series of intervals, then drew it down my right arm and wrapped it around, then pulled it tight enough for pressure. That hurt even worse. The jolts of pain lanced through me in metallic lightning spikes.

The blood ran right through and kept dripping in slow, surreal trickle-drops.

I limped, wincing, through the corridor. The few people who saw me recoiled in horror. They didn’t offer to help.

I managed to get phone signal once I was near a more habitable area. Silver answered at once.

“I’m cut. Need medical support fast. Moving along Passage Q, outbound.”

“Okay,” she said, apparently frightened. I wondered what my voice sounded like.

The fatigue, nausea, shock and some initial effects from blood loss were getting to me by then. My ears rang and I heard rushing waves. Eyes fuzzy. I couldn’t Boost again. It wouldn’t be safe. I just kept moving, every step causing burning sparks to shoot through my arm, from fingers to behind my eye.

Ahead, I heard warbling sirens, then I saw the cart, then I heard clattering feet as I collapsed and tried not to throw up.

An hour later I was somewhat more intact, sitting in a bed, trying to recline it even more to ease my churning guts. My arm was now blissfully numb, and under the bandages was glued, stitched, grafted and taped back together.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

I hadn’t noticed the nurse. She was probably pretty under all the protective clothing.

“I am. I got cut pretty badly.”

“Yes, but you should recover completely. You’re scheduled for nerve stimulators and regenerative medicine.”

“How long?”

“A week or so, according to the surgeon.”

“That’s a long time.”

“I’ll let them know you’re awake. I’ll also call your wife.”

“Please,” I said. I should have remembered that as the first thing to ask for. I was not fully responsive.

The nurse left. I’d apparently woken as she checked the room, whether by design or accident.

I didn’t wait long, but the woman who came in was obviously a cop, even in casual clothes and a doctor’s coat.

“Mister Ash,” she started. “How are you doing?” She took a seat and leaned over me.

“I’m not in pain at the moment, but I cringe when I think about it. I hope they can finish fixing it soon.”

“Very good. I need to find out how this happened.”

“I don’t know, really,” I said. “I was in the passageway, minding—”

“—your own business,” she finished for me. “IPMOB. We hear that all the time.”

She continued, “Now, you’re allegedly a tourist, you’re smart enough, and yet you decided to visit an area of the station occupied by lowlifes and thugs. I’m happy to keep things secret. Nor are you in any trouble at this point—” nice disclaimer, I thought “—but public safety means I have to find out. I don’t have to say anything to your wife. So level with me. Drugs? Hooker? Trade deal?”

If she was going to give me easy outs, I’d take them.

“Yeah, I was meeting a girl, or I was supposed to. She didn’t show. Instead, this guy cuts me and takes off with my pouch. Ellie’s not sure what I was doing. I told her I went sightseeing and got lost.”

“They got your pouch,” she said, “but not your very expensive commlink.”

“I had a pretty tight grip on it and I’d already called for help.”

“No, you hadn’t,” she said. “Even if the call didn’t connect, the attempt would be archived. It’s not.

“So, what are you doing that you’d try not to report a fight like that the second it happened? Your first call was to your wife, who called medics only, not police.”

“Allright, dammit,” I said. I went for the embarrassed whisper. “I was meeting a man.”

She snorted, leaned back and said, “Is it industrial or political spying?”

“What? I am not a spy!”

“Stow the fake outrage. I’m not impressed.”

“I can tell,” I said, giving in with a smile. “You’re very sleek in that coat. What are you wearing underneath?”

She stood, restraining a disgusted look.

“This conversation is not over. You will not be leaving here without escort and interview,” she said. I could feel the heat.

We’d see about that.

I felt my body from inside. I had legs and balance and the pain was controlled with medication. I could walk. Sooner was better, so I gave her twenty minutes to clear the building. Then I eased myself out of bed, turned off the monitor so it read “Disconnected,” not flatline. A nurse assistant arrived at once, but I said, “I need to walk. It helps me focus. Exercise.”

“I need to check with the doctor before I allow that, sir,” he said.

“Of course,” I said. I extended my good arm, and he took it, so to assist me back to bed.

I dragged for just a moment so he thought I was a little weak. He leaned to lift me.

That’s when I hit him, hard up into the solar plexus. He whuffed and curled up, unable to breathe, and I levered him into the bed. I pinned him with my weak hand and my weight on his throat, snagged a restraint, then another and pulled his limbs out like a starfish. It had to make his guts hurt even worse, but he seemed to understand he wasn’t going to be hurt further, and stopped resisting.

His nose seemed clear enough, so I gagged him with a handful of gloves, then selected a mild tranquilizer that would keep his vitals near normal. I slapped it on his arm.

That left me free to walk out.

It hurt like hell, but I put on a calm face and walked out toward the monitor station.

Ideally, I’d walk past with a nod and they’d not question it. Though if they recognized me and connected that to the monitor I wasn’t using, they might question me. Or if the investigator had said anything to them.

One of the monitors saw me and jumped up.

“Sir, you’re not allowed to be out here,” she said as she came around the counter and through the ratchet turnstile.

“I’m much better and I will follow up with a private doctor at once,” I said. “I have some important matters to attend to.”

“You can’t do that. You have to stay here.”

“Says who? I have freedom of travel, don’t I?”

She raised herself up and said, “Not under medical supervision, no.”

Perfect.

It’s a cultural thing on Earth. People don’t talk back to authority figures. If you do, you’re either a criminal, or powerful. I did not present as criminal.

The trick is not to threaten with an “attorney.” No one ever believes that.

“Ma’am, I’m a close personal friend of Assemblywoman Vingai, of Quebec. You may recall her campaign has had considerable hassle from right wing corporatists. We’re taking such attacks very seriously, and they will be addressed after the election. I promise you, if I am detained, it will make the news.”

“Sir, I don’t want any trouble, but the investigator said—”

“That ‘investigator’ is a plant by ADM to embarrass the Assemblywoman. You call up the bureau and ask about her. They won’t tell you anything because she’s not on official business.”

“Sir, you’re hurt, and—”

“I’m only slightly hurt due to a private matter of mine. This has no bearing on the assemblywoman. I have a right to free association. Are you questioning our rights?”

I’d twisted the argument from me, to a politician, and implied the investigator was fake. I’d like to pull out an official looking ID in a moment and make them cringe. However, all my possessions were in their custody.

The icing on the cake was invoking Assemblywoman Vingai. She was one of the intellectual property movement, who’d trademarked her name. Just using it without her consent was an invitation to a lawsuit. If I mentioned her loudly and publicly, of course I had to be associated with her. No one wanted the attention arguing with me would bring. The cop might yell at them, or have someone come down and harass administration. The assemblywoman could have an entire agency come down on someone. Trump card. The irony, of course, is that such an act was as “right wing” as was possible.

It’s amazing how definitions change over time and by location. The entire Earth system was “right wing corporatist.” The only question was how much corporatism you wanted. The government controlled the corporations to ensure jobs for rabble and taxes. The consumers paid for both in the end price of goods and services, and paid taxes on top of it. Earth was the epitome of fascism, which they insisted was “democracy.”

“Sir, of course you have the right to leave. If you’ll sign here, and please come back at once if there’s anything else we can do.”