The Courier (San Angeles) (12 page)

I
WAS HALFWAY TO
the depot before I decided to call Dispatch. The last call I made was a little light on details, and I sure as hell didn’t feel like hanging over Dispatch’s counter having everyone hear how I’d almost gotten myself killed. They’d have some pretty wild guesses just by looking at me, though.

I grabbed the black and chrome comm unit, connected to the voice system, and placed a call to Dispatch. The display flashed red and the unit beeped twice. I looked at the screen.

Connection is not encrypted, continue?

My heart skipped a beat and my stomach flipped. The car suddenly felt confining. Another reminder of the strangeness I was trying to escape. I hesitated before pressing the okay button. Dispatch answered on the first ring.

“Yeah, Internuncio.”

“Dispatch, this is Kris.”

There was a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the connection.

“Where the hell are you, girlie?”

“I’m on my way in. Listen, last night’s package—”

“This place has been crawling with corporate types all morning,” Dispatch interrupted. “Girlie, what happened to the damn delivery?”

I could feel the anger that had been churning in my gut since yesterday spill to the surface. I’d had just about enough. To hell with the job, and the bitch behind the counter. “If you shut the fuck up for a minute, I could tell you.” My voice rose until the last words were yelled into the comm unit.

Dispatch’s tone changed immediately. “What’s wrong, Kris?”

Was that concern I heard in her voice? It sure as hell sounded like it. Maybe I should have tried yelling at her months ago.

My anger dissipated like a popped balloon and the story of what happened last night poured out of me, leaving me feeling empty and tired. I rubbed my eyes with my fingers. What felt like an entire lifetime wrapped up into several sentences. When I was finished, all I heard was silence from the other end of the connection. “You still there, Dispatch?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m still here. Give me a sec.”

“Look, whatever. I’m almost there. I’m coming in and dropping off the package.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. Kris, this place is crawling. If you walk in here, you may never be seen again.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“These corporates, they can make you just disappear, like you never even existed.”

“You read too much garbage. I want to be rid of this damn package.”

“Look, girlie.” The hard edge had come back into Dispatch’s voice. “I’ve got a coffee break coming. Why don’t you meet me outside in say . . . five minutes? I’ll walk out the parking lot door and meet you in the back lane.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen. As long as my name’s off the paperwork.”

“It already is, girlie. Be careful.” Dispatch closed the connection.

What the hell did she mean by that? No way Dispatch ever did your job for you. Sure, she did sound worried, but taking your name off paperwork was something she just didn’t do. Maybe Dispatch actually did have a heart, it just took a boatload of shit to bring it to the surface.

I parked the stolen car a couple of blocks from the depot and walked the rest of the way. My life had had enough fuckups recently, I wanted to make sure I had some sort of getaway planned, and the car was the best one I had. I started out limping, stretching my calf and hip. By the time I got there the pain had lessened and I was moving almost normally.

Walking to the back lane almost felt like coming home. With each step, my feet felt lighter and my pace increased. Soon I’d be rid of the damn package, and things—life—could get back to normal. The cop car wasn’t parked in its spot yet, it was still too early in the day for him.

The back lane was between Internuncio and a strip mall of small business owners, dreaming of making it big. I couldn’t figure it out. What was the point of starting your own business? If you managed to do anything right, one of the corporations would notice and either buy you outright, or set up shop beside you with better prices and service . . . for a while. Either way you were out on your ass and trying to start over. As far as I was concerned, it was better to just collect a paycheck and save as much as you could for the leaner times.

The parking lot was almost full, with only a couple of bikes parked outside. Howie’s was easy to see, with its hideous blue paint. The other vehicles were all large, dark cars with numbers stenciled on the back. Some even had those stupid “How am I driving” stickers with comm link numbers on them. Corporate cars, and the numbers and stickers made them all out to be low-level people. No way anyone higher up the corporate ladder would be caught dead driving around in one of those things. My gut clenched and I almost tripped over my own feet. Something wasn’t right.

I hunkered down in the shadow behind the back wall of the strip mall and waited, watching the parking lot and back door. It smelled as though someone had used this spot as a toilet not too long ago. Despite the stench, I felt myself nodding off, exhaustion sweeping over me, and almost fell asleep before the door opened.

My heart jumped into my throat and my first thought was to run, but my feet felt like they were bolted to the concrete and my legs refused to move. What the hell was
he
doing here? Quincy walked through the rear employees’ entrance and into the bright Ambients. He paused, his slim fingers putting his sunglasses on before stepping aside to hold the door open for the next person.

Dispatch walked through next, shielding her eyes from the light, and scanned the parking lot.

I decided my feet knew what the hell they were doing. I stayed down, dropping to all fours, looking for a better place to hide. Keeping one of the corporate cars between us, I crawled across the back lane to the parking lot. Closer to Quincy, but at least with something more than shadows to hide me. I stopped behind the corner of the car and peered through its windows. Quincy and Dispatch were talking and moving closer to the back lane, scanning the lot as though they were looking for something. Looking for me. What the fuck was going on? Quincy glanced at his watch and sped up,
stepping in front of Dispatch. I ducked, banging my head on the side of the car. He must have seen me. My hands felt clammy and I wiped them on my pant legs.

They were halfway across the parking lot when the world seemed to end.

A burst of light pushed into my eyes, followed by a tide of heat that felt like it would melt the skin off my face. I flinched and ducked as a rush of hot wind surged over the car. The window I had been looking through shattered, spreading its crystallized safety glass across the back lane and into my hair. The car rocked on its suspension, springs squealing in protest. Flaming pieces of wood and shattered chunks of concrete fell to the ground around me. I crawled under the still-shaking car. My window on the world, limited by the twenty-centimeter gap between the bottom of the car and the parking lot asphalt, was a direct view into hell.

Smoldering debris fell from the sky. Anything that was remotely combustible—paper, carpet, clothing—was being consumed by flames. The onslaught of wind had stopped, at least this close to the ground, but I could still feel a wash of heat from the depot. I was enveloped in a blanket of silence. It was as though I was watching a vid with the sound off. Something fell in front of the car and rolled partially underneath. It looked like the charred remains of a human hand. I closed my eyes and turned away.

The deafening silence turned into a tinny, high-pitched whine in my ears. Sound slowly came back. Car alarms rang and lights flashed throughout the parking lot, occasionally looking and sounding as though they were a tightly orchestrated band synced to perfection before losing control and filling the air with loud, random noise. I crawled out from under the car and stood, holding on to it for support, and looked toward the depot. Two of the outer walls were left partially standing, deformed parodies of what they had once been,
now twisted and black with soot. Smoke and fire poured from the hole in the ground, quickly filling the enclosed space of Level 3 with a thick acrid cloud. Car lights flashed through the thickening gloom, eerily lighting the fine dust and grit that was starting to settle to the ground.

I didn’t hear any cries for help. There was no way anyone had made it out of there alive. My body felt numb, and the feeling slowly slid its tendrils into my brain.

The first emergency crews arrived. Quick-response air drones, no more than thirty centimeters across, darted through the thick black smoke only to hover over something on the ground before resuming their flight. I covered my nose and mouth with the crook of my arm and moved farther away from the destruction and death around me. One of the drones—a police identification unit, I thought—followed me out of the cloud and hovered over me when I stopped to suck in a breath of fresher air. Even out here, the fine dust created by the explosion made the pavement feel gritty.

The drone left me, meeting up with a second drone coming out of the dark cloud about three meters away, following another stumbling figure. I watched as Quincy staggered and fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face, leaving a trail of clean white skin in their wake. He looked up at me and grinned.

The slower ground response units began arriving, stopping just outside the ever-expanding smoke cloud. The numbness snapped as piercing fear grabbed control of me. I took several hasty steps back, merging with the still-growing cloud. As Quincy disappeared from view, I saw him lurch to his feet and pull his phone from his pocket, quickly typing on the screen. The drones left him, heading into the smoke. I covered my mouth with my sleeve again and ran down the back lane to a side street.

By the time I reached the car, the smoke was already being
sucked into the air purifiers. They had been switched to high, and the loud thrum of fan blades pulsed through my head, making me feel detached from the world. I unlocked the car door, opened it, and drove slowly away.

Several blocks away, the humming of the fans faded, replaced by a waterfall of emotions. Every fiber of my being was hit by the rushing cascade. I stopped the car in the middle of the street, crying in great heaving breaths. I kept going back to Howie’s hand-painted blue bike, parked just outside the doors.

Only the sound of more emergency vehicles racing past, their sirens blaring, pulled me from the edge. I put the car back into drive and continued to the closest up-ramp, my vision still blurred by tears.

Quincy had grinned when he came out of the smoke, his white teeth and tear streaks deforming his face into a mask of pure evil. Why the grin? What the fuck was that all about? Was Quincy the one who had set the bomb, or was someone else responsible? And why the hell had Quincy and Dispatch left the building together? Dispatch had definitely been looking for me across the parking lot, but what about Quincy? Were they working together? If that was the case, then it couldn’t have been coincidence that I’d gotten the last delivery. Could it? I remember the day going really well until the second-to-last run, when Dispatch had sent me on a long trek. Had it been planned that I got the last “emergency” package of the day? Was I just a disposable item that wouldn’t be missed?

The questions kept coming, pummeling my already tired brain until they blurred into a single mass of doubt. I’d only had about five
hours of sleep in the last thirty-two, and the effects were starting to show. I couldn’t think straight anymore. Every question seemed to bring up another one, another problem, another layer of disbelief. Why me?

A car pulled in front of me and braked hard. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. Quincy? Before I had a chance to react, it accelerated and passed the car ahead of it.

I still had the package. I pulled the crinkled envelope from the inside pocket of my jacket and threw it on the seat beside me. What the hell was in there that would make murder a viable option and cause me this kind of shit? Not just me and the guy at the delivery site either—everyone at the depot. Howie. He had never done anything wrong to anyone.

I grabbed the envelope and stuck the corner between my teeth, biting down on the paper. I gave it a tug. The corner pulled out of my mouth and I flung the envelope back onto the seat beside me.

Fuck! If I really knew what was in it, nothing would stop the bastards from killing me. Just knowing I had the package seemed a good enough reason to them. As long as the damn thing was sealed, I figured I still had a chance. Quincy was still around, and still trying to get the envelope. What if I just gave it to him? Would he let me walk away? I saw the gutted man lying on the floor in his office again, and the grin Quincy had given me at the depot. I didn’t think so.

So that meant I had to go above him, which was easier said than done. I had no idea who his bosses were. The only lead I had was from Frank, and I didn’t think it was related to Quincy at all. I fished the comm unit out from under the envelope and read through the messages one more time.

What if I responded to the message? Would the person on the other end really want the package, or did they, as Frank had hinted,
want me? If it was just me, why? Nothing I had ever done had prepared me for any of this shit. Hell, I didn’t even watch mysteries on the fucking vids.

I could have dumped the package already. Quincy was right there. All I had to do was throw it at him. Stupid! I was so fucking stupid. I’d had my out, and I’d missed it. I almost turned the car around.

I drew in a deep breath and held it until my lungs threatened to burst. It was decision time, and the only one I could see to follow through on was the lead from Frank. I pulled the car to the side of the road and reread the last message, ready to send a response.

What tactic should I take? Was Frank the kind of guy who set the date and time for any meetings, or did he bend to the wishes of his masters? My uneducated guess figured him for a leader, not a follower. Sure, he worked for other people, but mostly on his own terms. That was the impression I got. Okay then, I would play it that way.

I keyed in a response for the last message:
Assignment complete. McConnell Park drop-off at three p.m.
I hesitated over the send button. What if this was wrong? What if it didn’t work?

My finger touched the
screen.