Part 4 (2/2)
”Both eyes, brother.”
Rico was right. After the first rush of the flight, when the initial bustle of people finding bunks, deciding they hated their neighbor, then finding a new one was over, people were mostly settled in. The Belters bunking on Belter decks. The inners on decks split between Earth and Mars. Amos was on a Belter deck, but he seemed to be the only one mixing.
Prison rules for sure.
On the sixth day, a small group of toughs from a deck up came down the lift together and fanned out through the compartment. With fifty people on the deck, it took them a while to hit everyone. Amos pretended to sleep in his crash couch and watched them out of the corner of his eye. It was a basic scam. A tough walked up to a pa.s.senger, explained about in-flight insurance policies, then took a credit transfer with a cheap disposable terminal. All the threats were implied. Everyone paid. It was a stupid racket, but simple enough that it worked anyway.
One of the extortionists who looked like he wasn't a day over fourteen headed their direction. Rico started to pull out his hand terminal, but Amos sat up in bed and waved him off. To the junior extortionist he said, ”We're all good over here. No one in this corner pays.”
The thug stared at him without speaking. Amos smiled back. He didn't particularly want to be ga.s.sed and tied up, but if that's how it had to happen, he'd live with it.
”Dead man,” the thug said. He put as much macho as he could into it, and Amos respected the commitment. But much scarier people than a skinny p.u.b.escent Belter had tried intimidating him. Amos nodded as if considering the threat.
”So there was this one time I got caught in a reactor crawls.p.a.ce when a coolant pipe blew,” he said.
”What?” the kid asked, baffled. Even Rico and Jianguo were looking at Amos like he'd lost his mind. Amos s.h.i.+fted, and the couch's gimbals squeaked as they reoriented.
”See, the coolant is radioactive as f.u.c.k. Hits the open air and it vaporizes. Getting it on your skin ain't good for you, but you can survive that. Washes off, mostly. You don't want to breathe it in though. Get a bunch of radioactive particles down in the lungs where you can't get 'em out? Yeah, you pretty much melt from the inside.”
The kid glanced over his shoulder, looking for support dealing with the crazy ranting guy. The rest of team extortion was still busy.
”So,” Amos continued, leaning forward, ”I had to get into a maintenance airlock, open an emergency locker, and get a rebreather strapped to my face without breathing any of that s.h.i.+t in.”
”So what? You still -”
”The point of this little tale of woe is that I learned some facts about myself.”
”Yeah?” The situation had gotten weird enough that the kid actually seemed interested in finding out.
”I learned that I can hold my breath for almost two minutes while engaging in stressful physical activity.”
”So -”
”So you need to ask yourself, how much damage can I do to you in two minutes before the knockout gas gets me. Because I'm betting it's a lot.”
The kid didn't respond. Rico and Jianguo seemed to be holding their breath. Wendy was staring at Amos with a wide-eyed grin.
”There a problem?” One of the junior thug's buddies had finally come over to check on him.
”Yeah, he -”
”No problem,” Amos said. ”Just explaining to your a.s.sociate here that this corner of the room doesn't pay for insurance.”
”Says you?”
”Yeah. Says me.”
The senior thug looked Amos over, sizing him up. They were about the same height, but Amos outweighed him by a solid twenty-five kilos. Amos stood up and spread himself out a little, making the point.
”What crew you run with?” senior thug asked, mistaking him for a rival banger.
”Rocinante,” Amos replied.
”Never heard of 'em.”
”Yeah, you have, but context is everything, ain't it?”
”Might be you f.u.c.ked up, coyo,” the thug said.
Amos gave an expansive Belter shrug of the hands. ”I guess we'll find out sooner or later.”
”Sooner or later,” the thug agreed, then grabbed his junior partner and headed off to the rest of his crew. When they took the lift to the next deck, they left junior behind. He openly stared at Amos from across the room, not trying to hide anything.
Amos sighed and grabbed his towel out of his duffel. ”Gonna go take a shower.”
”You crazy,” Jianguo said. ”No crew in there. They'll jump you.”
”Yep.”
”Then why?”
”Because,” Amos said, standing up and throwing the towel over his shoulder, ”I hate waiting.”
As soon as Amos walked toward the head with his prominently displayed towel, junior started talking on his hand terminal. Calling the troops.
The head was five flimsy sheet plastic shower stalls against one bulkhead, and ten vacuum flush toilets against the other. Sinks lined the bulkhead directly across from the door. The open s.p.a.ce in the middle had benches for sitting while you waited your turn in the shower or dressed afterward. Not the best s.p.a.ce for hand-to-hand. Lots of hard projections to get mashed into, and the benches were a tripping hazard.
Amos tossed his towel onto a sink and leaned against it, arms crossed. He didn't have to wait long. A few minutes after junior had made the call he and five of the thugs from team extortion filed into the room.
”Only six? I'm a little insulted.”
”You not a little anything,” the oldest one said. The leader then, speaking first. ”But big dies too.”
”True that. So how does this go? I'm on your turf, so I'll respect the house rules.”
The leader laughed. ”You funny, man. Dead soon, but funny.” He turned to junior thug and said, ”Your beef, coyo.”
Junior pulled a s.h.i.+v out of his pocket. No weapons made it into the pa.s.senger compartment through security, but this was a jagged piece of metal torn off of something in the s.h.i.+p then sharpened down. Prison rules, again.
”I'm not going to disrespect you,” Amos said to him. ”I killed my first guy at about your age. Well, a few guys really, but that's not the issue. I know to take you and that knife seriously.”
”Good.”
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