Part 7 (2/2)

The flight was peaceful and dreamlike, a slow descent over the gleaming metal city. I was so engrossed with the view that I didn't see the packjackers until they were already on me. They hit me high and low, two kids about my age with tricked-out custom jet-packs with their traffic beacons broken off. One snagged my knees and hugged them to his chest, while the other took me at the armpits. A voice shouted in my ear: ”I'm cutting your pack loose. This is a very, very sharp knife, and when I'm done, I'll be the only thing holding you up. _Don't squirm_.”

I didn't even have the chance to squirm. By the time the speech was finished, I was separated from my pack, and I spun over upside-down, and watched it continue its descent, straps dangling in the wind. My hair hung down, and blood filled my head, reawakening my headache. Reflexively, I twisted to get a look at my kidnappers, but stopped immediately as I felt their grips loosen. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed.

The three of us dove fast and hard, and I tasted that second helping of breakfast again before we leveled off. I risked a peek, then squeezed my eyes shut again. We were speeding through the lower levels of Greater Salt Lake, the unmanned freight corridors, impossibly claustrophobic, and at our speed, dangerous.

We cornered tightly so many times that I lost count, and then we slowed to a stop. They dumped me to the ground, steel traction-plate. The wind was knocked out of me, and I was barely conscious of the hands that untabbed my jumpsuit, then began methodically turning out the pockets of my clothes.

”What the h.e.l.l are you wearing, kid?” one of them asked. It was the same one who'd warned me about squirming. Hearing his voice a second time, I realised that he was younger than I was, maybe ten or eleven. Even then, it didn't occur to me to fight back -- he had a knife sharp enough to cut through the safety strapping on my pack.

”Clothes. I'm from 1898 -- my Pa's an amba.s.sador. I don't have any money.” I struggled into a sitting position, and was knocked onto my back again.

”Stay down and you won't get hurt,” the same voice said. It was young enough that I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. Small hands pressed into my eyes. ”No peeking, now.”

Another set of hands systematically rifled my coat and pants, then cut them loose and gave the same treatment to my underpants and s.h.i.+rt. I blushed as they were cut loose, too.

”You really don't have any money!” the voice said.

”I said so, didn't I?”

The voice said a dirty word that would've gotten it beaten black-and-blue back home, and then the hands were gone. I looked up just in time to see two small figures jetting away upwards.

I was naked, sitting on a catwalk above a freight corridor, three-quarters of a century and G.o.d-knew-how-many miles from home. I didn't cry. I was too worried to cry. I kicked my ruined clothes down into the freight corridor and pulled on the jumpsuit.

Some hero I was!

It was hard work, climbing staircase after staircase, up to the shopping levels.

By the time I reached a level where I could see the sky, I was dripping with sweat and my headache had returned.

Foot traffic was light, but what there was pretty frightening. I'd gone walking in 75 before of course, but Greater Salt Lake was a big place, and there were parts of it that an Amba.s.sador's son would never get to see.

This was one of them. The shopfronts were all iris-open airlocks, and had been painted around to look like surprised mouths, or eyes, or, in one fascinating case, a woman's private parts. Mostly, they were betting shops, or bars, or low-rent bounceaterias. Even in 1975, the Saints had some influence in Salt Lake, and the bars and brothels were pretty shameful places, where no respectable person would be caught.

The other pedestrians on the street were mostly off-worlders, either s.p.a.cers in uniform or extees. In some cases, it was hard to tell which was which.

I kind of slunk along, sticking to the walls, hands in my pockets. I kept my eyes down, except when I was looking around for a public phone. After several blocks, I realised that no one was paying any attention to me, and I took my hands out of my pockets. The sun filtered down over me, warm through the big dome, and I realised that even though I'd gotten myself stuck in 75, been 'jacked, and left in the worst neighbourhood in the whole State, I'd landed on my feet. The thought made me smile. Another kid, say Oly, wouldn't have coped nearly as well.

I still hadn't spied a public phone. I figured that the taprooms would have a phone, otherwise, how could a drunk call his wife and tell her he was going to be late coming home? I picked a bar, whose airlock was painted to look like a brick tunnel, and walked in.

The airlock irised shut behind me and I blinked in the gloom. My nose was a.s.saulted with sickly sweet incense, and stale liquor, and cigar smoke.

The place was tiny, and crowded with dented metal tables and chairs that were bolted to the floorplates. A woman stood behind the bar, looking hard and bra.s.sy and cheap, watching a soap opera on her vid. A s.p.a.cer sat in one corner, staring at his bulb of beer.

The bartender looked up. ”Get lost, kid,” she said. ”No minors allowed.”

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