Part 18 (1/2)

Falcon could see Sly blinking back tears. ”Good,” she said huskily. ”Good.”

”I'm not afraid, Sharon Louise.” Modal's voice had a terrible bubbling tone to it. ”I'm not afraid, and I'm not sad. I should be, don't you think? Isn't that part of it, after all?” He took a breath as if to say something else. But a sharp spasm convulsed his body, and the air hissed wordlessly from his lungs.

That's two. The thought was enough to chill Falcon to the marrow. Two people dead, dying in my arms like the old fragging cliche'. How many more before this is fragging over?

PART 3..

Out of the Bucket.

19.

0850 hours, November 14, 2053.

They were alone now, just Sly and the kid Falcon. T. S. had offered to help her out, to see her through this, more for old times' sake than anything. Though Theresa had tried to hide it. Sly knew she was relieved when Sly refused the offer.

Smeland had driven her to a particularly unpleasant part of south Redmond, where she claimed to have a good place to hole up until things settled down ... if they ever did. When T. S. pulled up at the curb, Sly was searching for the words to ask the last big favor she needed from her chummer. Fortunately for her, T. S. beat her to it.

”You can have the car,” Theresa said quietly. ”It'll be hot. Whoever those gunners were will have the tag number. They'll get the word out, but it should be able to get you far enough to boost another ride.

”And I can handle . . . him,” she said, indicating Modal with a jerk of her head. ”I've got friends who can take care of it.”

Sly nodded wordlessly, not knowing what she would have done with the body. She wouldn't have wanted to just dump Modal's lifeless form, but what other choice would she have had? She was relieved when Smeland solved the problem for her.

Smeland's destination turned out to be an ork ”hall,” an old store that had been ”remodeled” into communal housing. Theresa had gone into the building, to emerge a couple of minutes later accompanied by three burly male orks. All three were wearing gang-style leathers, but Sly didn't recognize the colors. (He probably knows, she thought, with a glance at Falcon, but didn't bother to ask.) The orks opened the back door and dragged Modal's carca.s.s out. Totally unconcerned about the other people on the street, mostly orks, the biggest of the three had slung the elf's b.l.o.o.d.y body over his shoulder, then carried it into the hall. Sly was looking around nervously, waiting for some bystander to react, to interfere, maybe to run off to call Lone Star. But, if anything, the general reaction was complacency, if not utter boredom. And that, she thought, is about the scariest comment on the Barrens that anyone could make.

Another of the orks had climbed into the back seat with a towel to wipe away the worst of the blood. After tossing the soaked cloth out to his chummers, he spread another piece of fabric-almost like a dropcloth-over the stains.

And that had been that. He bared his chipped fangs at Sly in a quick grin, then he and his ”stymates” disappeared back inside the hall.

To Sly's mixed disappointment and relief, Smeland had not reappeared. No goodbyes, no temptation to tell T. S. something that might get her greased. Sly gestured for the kid to join her in the front seat, then got behind the wheel and pulled away. She rolled down a window, hoping the wind of their speed would dilute the cloying smell of blood and death.

She knew they had to ditch the car, ditch it and steal another one.

But then what? The question was doubly chilling because she didn't have a good answer. Hole up and wait for everything to blow over?

But it wouldn't blow over, would it? The corp war would start. And eventually, someone would track down Sharon Louise Young, torture her until they knew everything she did, and then kill her. Sooner or later it would happen, no matter how deep into the shadows she tried to hide. Sooner or later someone would get lucky . . . and probably sooner rather than later. So what other options did she have?

She glanced down at the cyberdeck lying on the front seat beside Falcon. The kid had rescued it from Smeland's place while Sly had been in a daze of dump shock. And a fragging good thing he had. The optical chip containing the lost tech datafile was in the deck's chip slot.

Maybe I should cut a deal with Jurgensen, she reflected. Some of his arguments made sense. The UCAS military definitely had the resources to protect her from the corps. If they stuck by their agreements, she amended silently. And if they don't geek me themselves, just to keep the fact that they've got the tech secret.

Trust. It all came down to trust. How far did she trust Jurgensen? Did she trust him to keep his word? To keep her alive? To use the tech in ways that didn't destabilize the whole fragging continent?

No, she thought, with a pang of physical pain. I don't trust him. How can I?

So what did that leave? Hadn't she just eliminated all her alternatives?

Sly shook her head slightly, struggled to enforce a brittle sense of calm. Deal with the immediate, she told herself, worry about the eventual later. At the moment, the immediate involved getting another vehicle.

And Falcon. She turned to the Amerindian. ”Where do you want me to drop you?” she asked His head jerked around. ”Huh?”

”I'll drop you off somewhere,” she said patiently. ”Where?”

He was silent for a moment, but she could almost feel his racing thoughts. ”No,” the kid said at last, his voice little more than a whisper. There was fear in his eyes as he looked into her face, but his expression was set, determined. ”Nowhere.”

Sly wanted to rage at him, but forced herself to speak calmly. ”This isn't your game.”

”Maybe it is.”

”Why?”

Sly watched his face, saw from his expression that he had an answer. She could also see just as clearly that he was struggling hard to formulate it in words she could understand-that he could understand. She didn't push, but didn't give him an easy out either. Let him figure it out, she told herself.

After more than a minute, he shrugged. ”It's my choice,” he said quietly, evenly. ”It's my life, I can do with it what I want.”

”It's my life, too, chummer.”

He nodded in acknowledgment. ”If you want to get rid of me, you make the call, you say so. But unless you've got a good reason, I want to stay in.”

It was her turn to think it through. She pulled the Ford over to the side of the road, put the car in neutral. She stared into the young Amerind's face, into his eyes, but she couldn't read this kid. There was fear there, but it was mixed with many other emotions. Plenty of determination too.

”What are you going to do?” he asked her.

That was the question, wasn't it? ”I don't know yet,” Sly admitted. ”What do you think I should do?”

”Get out of the plex,” he answered immediately. ”All this corp drek is limited to Seattle, to the UCAS, isn't it?”

”For the moment.”

”So get out,” he repeated. ”Slip the border, go someplace quieter. Give yourself time-give us time-to figure out our next move. And if you're planning to handle it with this”-he patted the cyberdeck-”you can do it from anywhere, right? So why be a fish in a bucket when you can get out of the fragging bucket?”

From the expression on the kid's face, a tinge of embarra.s.sment overlaying his earnestness, she knew the a.n.a.logy wasn't his, was probably something he'd heard on the trideo. But it hit home all the same.

Why not get out of the bucket?

”Where would you go?” she asked slowly.

”Sioux Nation.” Again he answered at once, as if he'd figured it all out some time ago. ”Fewer corps, less drek going on behind the scenes. The Council of Chiefs keeps tight control over that kind of thing.”

That's not what I've heard, Sly thought. But . . . ”You've been there, then?”

Again that tinge of embarra.s.sment crossed the kid's face. ”No,” he admitted unwillingly, ”but I know about it. It's a good place.”

Maybe. She couldn't be sure how much of the Amerindian's enthusiasm was based on fact and how much on sentimental fantasies.