Lesser Gods (23 page)

Provided I could steer clear of Death’s goons and the police, all I had to do now was get some e-cash and maybe a new ID.

There was hope.

I sat down, my back against a tree, and closed my eyes for a moment.

I opened my eyes and found myself gazing upward at snow. It drifted down silently, through the frigid Siberian air, whipped into tumbling, zigzag patterns by the wind. I pulled my ragged coat more tightly around me and studied the steam engine cab I stood in. Then I stomped on the iron floor, trying to increase the circulation in my chilled feet. “Why are we stopping here, comrade?” I demanded, rubbing my gloved hands together. “The work camp is 50 kilometers away.”

The secret policeman turned an icy blue eye toward me, the angry red scar tissue of a recent wound hiding his blind eye beneath its folds. “Too many questions. Do you want to be left here with those?” He gestured dismissively toward the peasants the way a man might point toward livestock.

The objects of his scorn were the Lithuanians who had been traveling on the train in cattle cars; now the captives were being herded from the train by soldiers armed with Mosin Nagant rifles sporting spike bayonets. The prisoners were prodded into the open field where they stood alongside the tracks, backs to the wind, huddled within layers of tattered rags. They stood motionless, their ghostly breath floating upward as if their spirits were departing their bodies.

I could no longer hold my tongue. “If we leave them here, they will die of exposure. Where are the homes and tools they were promised?”

“They will need to build them,” the secret policeman replied.

“How can they hope to survive in this wilderness?”

The policeman turned. “Exactly, comrade. Mother Nature saves us the expense of bullets. Now start the engine and let’s leave. Or perhaps you want to stay here with them?”

I said nothing, lowering my eyes to stare at the steel deck I stood on.

The policeman laughed. “I’ll make a party member of you yet.”

I turned away so the ruffian would not have the satisfaction of seeing tears in my eyes as I throttled the engine.

I awoke from my Gulag nightmare, shivering in the warm sunlight, the scolding of a distant blue jay apparently having awakened me. What had the dream meant? What was its purpose? Or was it simply the jetsam of my subconscious mind.

Or perhaps it was insanity.

But there was no time to ponder this mystery shrouded in my subconscious. It was time to move on, if I was to avoid being caught.

Twenty-five minutes later, I left the woods, managing to elude the various forces that were undoubtedly searching for fleeing jailbirds. Shortly I crossed the open field and reached a thoroughfare that I knew (from the road sign) led back into town.

By late afternoon I reached the city where I skated on back streets and though alleyways until evening came. How I wished I still had the e-cash the arresting officer had confiscated the night before. Or the phone Death’s goon had swiped (and a working cellular network for it — might as well wish for it all while I was at it). Or even my ID. And I especially wished for my gun and knives.

But I didn’t have any of them.

So I avoided the places where the cops might be watching for escapees since if any officer stopped me, I would undoubtedly win a free, all-expenses-paid trip back to jail just because of my lack of ID.

Somehow my tactics worked. By nightfall I finally reached my neighborhood almost without incident. There was a light drizzle and the air carried the faint but familiar aroma of sewage that (to my nose) was like smelling roses. It was home and it was nice to be back in familiar territory again.

Everything wasn’t perfect, however.

A block from my apartment, three young punks emerged from the shadows. “Hey, buddy, got a light.”

I fought back a yawn. After all I’d been through, these guys seemed penny ante. “You’re not from around here, are you? Listen, I don’t have time to play games. Step out of the way and no one will get hurt.”

The three youngsters merely smiled, spread out, and attempted to encircle me. I heard the snap of a switchblade behind me, at the same time the one in front of me pulled a gun from under his plastic jacket.

Fifteen minutes later I was on my block, armed with two pistols and three new knives, with only bloody knuckles and a cut on my temple to show for the exchange. I trust I’d taught the kids that crime doesn’t pay — a lesson they’d take to heart once they regained consciousness.

I also had borrowed the undoubtedly stolen but anonymous e-cards they had on their persons. And one of the incipient thugs had a picture ID that looked a little like me. It wouldn’t stand up to a check of the DNA or serious scrutiny, and the kid probably had a record anyway, but it was better than the nothing I had enjoyed before my social encounter.

My conscience didn’t bother me over this thievery. I figured, purely out of civic duty, I should keep the loot, if only to teach the kids the importance of being more selective in whom they victimized. In fact, I felt a tingle of pride, like that of any other model citizen who had taught those in the younger generation an important lesson.

While it was not overly smart to return to my apartment, I needed to collect a few (ahem) “tools of my trade” so I could gather more e-cash.

Then I figured I could lie low for a few weeks and hope Death’s goons didn’t locate me. The government agents had said Death was out of the search, so maybe he wouldn’t be gunning for me.

And, just maybe, with a whole lot of luck, I could buy a better fake ID coded to my DNA, move out of the area, and then start all over with a fresh slate, my next arrest being an apparent first offense that would translate into an automatic release, regardless of how serious my crime might be as the law now stood.

Besides, if the government didn’t pay Death to find Huntington, then I wouldn’t get compensated even if I did locate the scientist. Beyond that, Death’s find-him-in-two-days deadline had passed. If Death found me, he’d try to terrorize me into giving him the information about Huntington and then snuff me.

If he hadn’t planned on doing that all along, which was likely, now that I thought about it.

Crossing Death’s path again would be a bye-bye Ralphy moment.

Yet I still needed to locate Huntington if I was ever to have a good night’s sleep — without the possibility of waking up dead after being drawn into his nightmarish games. Huntington held the answers. And I had a rough idea where he might be from my previous computer search; in fact, I was fairly certain he was within a mile or two of where I stood.

And there was Alice. Alice had often been on my mind. There is no explaining for love, perhaps. Or lust, or whatever it was I felt. I had to admit that I would enjoy seeing Alice again. When she was in her more adult attire, she was quite attractive. But I was clueless where she might be, or even what her real name was. I tried to push her from my mind for the time being, though that was not easy to do.

Stealthily, I headed for my apartment. As I neared the complex, I slowed down. The street was barely lit. Snipe usually only targeted the taller lamps to make it harder to spot her on the roofs. Tonight the lower ones were gone as well. Something was wrong.

I stopped and retracted the wheels back into my skates and hid in the shadows to scope things out.

No doubt about it. The street was way too quiet. No one was racing around to avoid Snipe. There weren’t any bodies on the street, either. It wasn’t like Snipe not to leave at least one or two around for the meat wagon. There were no trogs rummaging through the garbage in the alley; no Moravecs dancing hypnotically down side streets.

Everyone was hiding, as if in anticipation of a gunfight at High Noon.

Someone looking for me? It seemed doubtful. It would take a while for the police to sort out whether I had escaped the prison. I thought. It seemed likely. I hoped.

I didn’t think anyone would be looking for me specifically. More likely Harvies, the police, or some other major pain in the butt was working the neighborhood, shaking down citizens or borrowing organs.

I still could get in and out of my apartment and then be on my way, with essential gear for conducting my trade. So hoping Snipe’s dark silhouette wasn’t gracing the top of a near-by building, I scampered across the street toward my abode.

I paused at the main entrance of the apartment building and waited for the automated door to ask for my voice ID.

Nothing happened.

I stepped back and looked around, saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, but wasn’t able to move fast enough to avoid the fat paws that snatched me.

Death’s mesos had me. “You’re dead meat, buddy.”

“Yeah,” the one on my right growled. “Very dead meat.”

“Hey, come on, guys,” I protested.

“Your time’s up, Ralph.”

“The law had me on ice for the last twenty-four hours,” I protested. “There was no way I could meet Death’s deadline. Besides, two government thuggites said Death was off the case. How can you expect me to work when —”

“Death said not to listen to any of your lame excuses. He said you didn’t do the job under the wire so you had to become an object for others in the ‘hood.”

I started to argue, and then didn’t say anything more. Neither did the two henchmen holding me. Because the three of us saw the black limo with government markings silently stop at the curb. Two thuggites in government issue suits climbed out and ambled across the wet street toward us, flexing tree-trunk muscles as they came, blackjacks at the ready.

I wasn’t sure if the thuggites could better Death’s mesos in a two-on-two match. But I was glad to have the privilege of witnessing the spectacle. The trick would be staying out from under the feet of the four monsters as they danced their dinosaur minuet of pandemonium.

“Have fun, guys,” I told my two companions as they let go of my arms. I sat down on the curb and prepared to watch the action from my ringside seat.

Ralph Crocker

I soon discovered that mesos and government-class thuggites were about evenly matched. Yeah, technically they were quite different; one pair represented better monsters through chemistry and the other, better brutes through eugenics. But the result of the chemistry and breeding experiments was about the same in the end: Three hundred fifty pounds of muscle and killer instinct looking for someone to kill.

I awaited the excitement, quietly biding my time until I had a chance to escape. The main event had begun; each pair of killing machines circled, watching for an opening and waiting to see what their opponents would do. I had hoped that the fight would remain hand-to-hand, giving me some time to head on down the street and vanish.

But one of Death’s goons drew a master blaster just a fraction of a second into the fight, causing his friend and the two agents to follow suit, drawing their elephant guns with speed that seemed a blur to my human-slow eyes.

The lead began to fly.

What the four lacked in marksmanship skills, they made up for with firepower. The Super Glock 37s that Death’s men carried were set to full auto, firing long burps of bullets that dispersed in wide paths, chewing up everything the projectiles slammed into.

The government agents carried standard issue Berettas, set to three-round bursts, arguably more accurate but lower in firepower.

One of the agents went down in the initial flurry of shooting, at least twenty slugs lacing his chest and face before he bit the pavement.

Unfortunately for Death’s side, both his men were a little slow when it came to tactics. During their initial salvo, the two had aimed for the same agent. They thoroughly stitched him with bullets, easily killing him at least ten times before he hit the ground. But that left both thugs with empty pistols, facing an uninjured opponent who still had rounds left to fire.

He took his time, aiming carefully, and very efficiently stitched the two with bullets while they frantically attempted to reload.

The only catch was that neither of the goons fell, even though it was obvious they were as good as dead. The reality of death had not yet sunk into their diminutive, chemically energized brains just yet. Despite their wounds, they dropped their guns and charged the agent with howls of rage even as he emptied the last of his rounds into them.