Finity's End - a Union-Alliance Novel (63 page)

Fletcher ran, heart pounding, dodged around the sparse foot traffic of the end of alterday, just before maindawn, the time when the docks were slowest and most quiet. He'd run all the way from the two hundreds. The kid had gotten past security—and so had he, just advised Lyra he was going to try to catch the kid short of his goal and left Linda and Vince on orders to go explain to Lyra or any senior they could knock out of bed.

Arnason Imports. The sign wasn't neon. It was painted, in the way of the better shops, at its end of the nook position next shops far gaudier. He ran across deck plates washed in neon green and red from a souvenir shop, dodged a drunk window-shopper, and walked the last distance, trying to get his breathing under control.

He'd say the kid had ducked curfew and the captain was looking.

That was why he'd run. He'd shake the kid till his teeth rattled when he got him out of there.

The inconspicuous sign in the window posted hours as Mainday & Alterday Service.

The smaller one said: Back in an Hour… with no indication how long ago that hour had started.

He tried the latch.

Knocked on the double window… quad-layered plastic that could withstand space itself, if the dock should decompress.

The kid had gotten here. There was trouble, and the kid had found it. He was sure of it. He wasn't quite to panic. But he hit the window hard enough to bruise his fist.

Hit it again.

It wasn't discreet. It wasn't, probably, smart. He didn't think he should have done that. But he'd flung down the challenge in a fit of temper, and if he walked off now, they might have Jeremy, and a notion that questions were about to come down on them.

If they were in there, the
they
who were dealing in stolen goods, he'd become a problem to them vastly exceeding the problem a kid posed.

And if the alterday man was still there, that man knew Jeremy's face, knew Jeremy's business, and knew his face as part of the same sticky problem.

He was in it. He couldn't let them keep that door shut. He couldn't walk off. He could just hope that Lyra got JR or somebody. Fast.

He hit the window again, hard enough he thought he might have broken his hand.

The door opened. He was facing a man he didn't know. "Come inside," the man said, seizing his arm, and pulled. A hard object came against his ribs. He was facing the man he'd met last night, two others—and Jeremy.

That was a weapon up against his side. He didn't know what, and didn't complicate his situation by moving. Jeremy kicked a man to get free, and the man hit him.

"My captain knows where we are," Fletcher said, caught in a time-slowed moment in which he had not the least idea what to do, but his priorities were clear: not to get himself or Jeremy shot or taken elsewhere. "They're on their way. Now what?"

"Son of a bitch!" The man from their first meeting was livid. And scared. "They've got to have a warrant…"

"Not our captain," Jeremy said in his higher voice. "You're in deep trouble."

The man slapped Jeremy—far too hard. Dockside years of bullies schooled Fletcher to keep absolutely still. Jeremy wasn't dead. Bleeding, yes. They stood in a shop full of oddments, shelves, specimens, and three guys in a serious lot of trouble with two prisoners and an artifact they didn't want—and with a whole network involved, Fletcher would just about bet.

"Seriously," he said to the man from last evening, "I'd consider making a phone call to your lawyers."

"Shut up!" the guy said, and the one holding him jerked his arm—not steady-nerved, Fletcher guessed; and in the next second the man hit him in the head. Dark exploded into his sight. He went to one knee…

"Fletcher!" Jeremy yelled, and he had the make on them, that these were men who
used
guns. He was blind for the moment, and wanted just to get close to Jeremy, get his hands on the kid. There were two ways out of this place. There was that storeroom; and the front door. And they'd think about the front door, but maybe not the other.

"Move!" The guy with the gun jerked him by the collar, and he staggered up and moved toward Jeremy. There were four of them, last-night holding onto Jeremy, short-and-wide between him and Jeremy, man-with-the-gun behind him and skinny-man to the side with another gun… he tracked all that, saw the door, and stayed docile while he passed short-and-wide with a gun in his back and last-night holding onto Jeremy, steering him for the back door to this place.

"Captain's going to have your guts!" Jeremy said, and kicked at the man's shins. The man maintained a grip on his arm and shoved him at the door, using one hand to open it; and they were on the verge of going where they'd have a simultaneous accident.

No time. Fletcher spun around and knocked man-with-a-gun into the shelves. Boxes came down; and he didn't wait for skinny-man to close in. He dived at last-night and saw a knife—feinted as if
he
had one and the fool's nerves reacted. The knife went out of line just that far, and he shot an arm past the man's guard, and rammed him aside, trying to get through the door; but a shot ricocheted off it; and last-night was getting up.

He grabbed Jeremy and they ran past a row of stacked shelves, knocking down displays and merchandise on their way to the door.

And man-with-the-gun showed up in their path.

He stopped cold. Kid and all.

The man motioned back toward the storeroom.

The man would shoot. He believed that. But the police had sniffers. Blood anywhere and there was hell denying who'd been where. And now they were thinking; now man-with-the-gun was in charge, last-night being down and nursing a cut on his head.

"In there," man-with-the-gun said; and Fletcher kept a hand on Jeremy's shoulder, stifled one attempt at a revolt, and steered him on through the door.

They'd gotten smart. Skinny-man was waiting inside with a gun on them.

"All right," he said. "You want a deal—"

"Get them out of here!" last-night said. "Use the safety-exit."

The tunnels, Fletcher thought. The maintenance tunnels. The dark network of through which the conduits ran, the air ducts, emergency systems, wiring, everything.

Every station, like every other station. Same blueprint: just the neon signs were different. The whole might be different, but structure, on a modular level, was absolutely identical.

Catwalks, dark.
Lose
a body in the tunnels and they were lost. Maybe for a hundred years.

The gunman walked them back through the double row of shelves, back to a set of boxes.

"Move those."

"Do it," Fletcher said, afraid Jeremy would try something desperate. The kid was scared. And the kid had reflexes like steel springs. "
Do it, Jeremy."

"Yessir," Jeremy said, and moved boxes back from the maintenance door.

Shopkeepers weren't supposed to have keys to places that gave access to the maintenance tunnels. The doors should be locked to the outside.

"Open it," the man said, and Jeremy didn't know how to work the latch. Skinny-man had to come close and do it, while Fletcher stood with the gun aimed at him.

"Fletcher," Jeremy said plaintively.

"They don't dare do us harm," Fletcher said, playing the absolute, trusting fool. "They know our ship knows where we are. And they'll search this entire section."

Skinny-man swung the door open. The draft that came out was cold, and the depths echoed as skinny-man, gun in hand, went out onto the catwalk.

"Move," the first man said, and Fletcher said carefully, "Go on, Jeremy."

Jeremy went and Fletcher followed right against him, took firm hold of the kid's sweater and gave a sharp tug when they passed the door and the gun.
Down
!

"
Run
!" he yelled then, and shoved skinny-man into the rail and slammed the door as he spun around.

Total black. The maintenance doors latched automatically when shut. There was that second of total blindness… but skinny-man's gun went off, a deafening sound, a burst of light that burst inches from him. Fletcher shoved him—shocked when he felt resistance fail and heard a body thump and clang down the pitch-black stairs.

"Jeremy, look out!"

He ran, down the steps in the dark, knew by memory where a landing was, where Jeremy's thin body was huddled, clinging to the metal stairs. The man falling must have gone right over him.

And in the same second, light blazed out from the opening door above.

He jerked Jeremy loose from his handhold and dragged him with him—oxygen atmosphere in Esperance tunnels, no need of a mask. He knew the turnings, the pitch of the stairs that turned and that let them go for another catwalk and along Main Maintenance Blue.

Pursuit came down the steps and thundered along the catwalk, shaking the rail in his hand. Somebody yelled—"Get a light, dammit!"

They were in Blue, in the fives. Next door, in the fours… they'd be in another recess of shops. They could come out there. Get away. Get help.

"Where are we going?" Jeremy gasped.

"Just stay with me!" He didn't want Jeremy behind him as a target… but a buried bit of knowledge said it didn't matter where Jeremy was: they were shooting bullets, not needles, and a shot could go right through him and hit the kid. It was distance and turns that could save them, and he took them in the dark, in the lead.

The tunnel racketed with echoes, with footsteps of their pursuers trying to find them. "Get someone out there on the docks!" he heard. They had a light. The beam zigged and zagged across the maze of catwalks and girders and conduits, crossed ahead of them, and lent him light to see the webwork of structural support and tension cables and pipes.

He ran behind the beam, raced, lungs burning, toward the exit stairs for the next section of shops. Climbed, towing Jeremy after him. His sides ached. Jeremy's gasps were as loud as his as he reached the door and flipped the emergency latch on a locked door with expert fingers.

The door opened into warmer dark, almost stifling warmth after the cold of the tunnels.

Then light blazed around them. A burglar-light had come on. That meant an alarm had sounded somewhere. He tugged Jeremy through the door into the warehouse of some shipping company, and shut the door. It would latch. Please God it would latch. The other one had been jimmied, surely. They
didn't
know how to open the emergency latch: that was a tricky piece of business.

He got a breath. Two. Slid down the wall, feet braced on the store. "What did you think you were doing?"

Jeremy sank down by him, gasping. "Nobody
else
was going to do anything!"

"Dammit, they hadn't had
time
!"

"
Well, they weren't
! They didn't! I walked in there and I asked to see it again and I just ran—"

"Yeah, and they had a shoplifter lock and they triggered it from under the counter before you ever got to the door!"

"Yeah," Jeremy admitted, with a sheepish glance up. "The door locked."

He didn't want to explain to Jeremy how he'd ever learned about such tricks. The kid was white-faced, sweating.

"Thanks for the help," he said, elbow pressed against ribs aching from the running.

Meanwhile there was a burglar alarm reporting their presence to the police. He wasn't averse to being found by the cops. It was a lot better than where they'd been. But he wanted to get out of it if they could; and he'd caught breath enough. "Come on. Let's see if we can get a door open."

"Fletcher…"

He heard the note of fear. Heard the sound of footsteps coming down metal steps, behind the wall.

He grabbed Jeremy's arm, pulled him through the warehoused boxes and barrels toward a door that ought to lead out.

Hoping for a slow-down, for their pursuers to be baffled by the door latch.

Hearing it open behind them.

"Fletcher!" Jeremy had heard it.

He pulled Jeremy with him, ducked over an aisle and spotted a door with Fire Access in red and white letters. That
had
to have a simple turn-toggle latch.

They'd broken through. He heard the footsteps, back among the aisles of boxes. He felt the cold draft. His fingers sought the toggle and twisted. He shoved the door open, shoved, against the air-pressure from the docks.
Fools
had left the door open. He strained, established a crack, and a siren went off as a gale streamed into his face. Jeremy pushed. He braced it wide enough for Jeremy to get by him, and scraped his body out, jerked his leg free last, with a bash on the ankle as it slammed.

"Come on," he said, hurrying Jeremy along. He limped, forced the leg to operate despite the pain and ran for the docks.