“Hey, you!” called the lawyer, and Cosmo fired.
A slug sped from the barrel, striking between the man’s shoulder blades. A pool of gunk exploded from the tiny pellet, pinning the man to the factory floor.
Stefan continued his run, blasting a sea of Parasites from his path. Blue orbs rose like party balloons. He was headed directly for an assault tank. But why? What could he achieve?
No time for questions and less for answers. Two more paralegals had noticed Stefan, and shrugging off their parachutes, brought their weapons to bear.
Cosmo aimed and fired. Too low. The slugs splashed across the floor. Two feet above the head. Concentrate. Concentrate.
He fired again. Two shots in quick succession. The rod jumped in his arms, and the paralegals found themselves entangled in a cellophane envelope.
One on the left. Down low. The paralegal got off a slug that hit Stefan between the shoulder blades, knocking him forward three stumbling steps. Cosmo couldn’t take his eyes off the Supernaturalist. Experience saved him. Stefan shrugged off his greatcoat. In seconds the leather garment was sealed tighter than a football.
Lucky, thought Cosmo. Lucky. He fired five slugs at the marksman. Three found their target.
Stefan had almost reached his goal. Twenty yards to the tank. There was a cluster of troops on a gantry one floor up. The final hurdle, apart from the tank itself. Stefan fired a few Shockers into the gantry. Most of the paralegals were completely insulated, but two had removed their gloves and were holding the rail. They collapsed, smoking. Cosmo covered the rest with a cluster of slugs from his borrowed rod.
A red logo flashed in Cosmo’s sights. An ammunition clip. He was out of slugs. Cosmo hefted the gun aside, dragging the second rod across by the strap. He quickly swapped eyepieces and focused on Stefan.
It was difficult to ignore the surrounding chaos. Parasites swarming, gang members struggling, chargers circling the factory floor in a futile attempt to find an exit. Cellophane coating the floor and walls.
Focus, Cosmo ordered himself. One emergency at a time.
The tank gunner noticed the Supernaturalist, revolving the main turret in his direction. Stefan tried weaving, but the gun barrel was locked on and tracked his movements with fluid ease. Stefan appeared to give up, standing stock-still with his hands raised. Through his rod’s eyepiece, Cosmo saw the index finger of Stefan’s right hand. It was pointing at the tank’s barrel. A message. Shoot the barrel! It was a shot in a million, even with the eyepiece.
Cosmo stood for a better angle, resting the rod on the upper bar. Two feet above the barrel’s nozzle. No point in being delicate about it. Cosmo shot everything in the clip at the tank. At least one found its mark, spiraling into the belly of the tank. At that exact moment a Shocker shell attempted to punch through the gunge. It failed to penetrate, dispersing its charge through the tank itself. Anyone who was touching a control pad got enough of a jolt to knock them unconscious for at least a minute.
Stefan was on the move again. He leaped high, grabbing the cannon barrel, moving inward hand over hand. Below the main gun was a secondary barrel, stubby, with an adjustable nozzle. A water cannon for crowd control. Of course! Water!
Stefan swung again and again, slamming his booted feet against the stopcock. Behind that valve lay twenty thousand liters of pressurized water waiting to be unleashed. The stopcock groaned, jerked, and finally popped, allowing the water to burst forth in a powerful jet. It quickly spread across the factory floor. Troops, vehicles, and gang members were scattered before the deluge, but most important, the Parasites abandoned their prizes, scattering quickly to the upper levels.
Any that were caught in the torrent fizzed and sparked before groggily joining the rest of their kind.
Cosmo turned his empty weapon toward Mona’s hideout. The sights revealed the girl poking her head out from under the track. Then, taking advantage of the complete confusion caused by Stefan, she tucked Ditto under her arm and made a run for a ventilation shaft on the nearest wall. None of the Myishi troops saw her go. The pair scampered inside, disappearing into the blackness. There was nothing more Cosmo could do for them now.
Meanwhile, Stefan had released his grip on the cannon barrel, dropping to the factory floor. He was unarmed now, and in the open. His antics had drawn the attention of several Myishi paralegals, who surrounded him like jackals, rods trained on the teenager.
Stefan raised his arms, fingers spread, but the paralegals were not about to let him come quietly, not after all the destruction he’d wreaked. They hit him with at least a dozen cellophane slugs, each one spreading across his frame like an oil slick. Cosmo saw the Supernaturalist go down, fingers clearly clawing the gunk that threatened to squeeze the life from him. On the wall, several Parasites sensed his pain, and took hesitant steps in his direction. But there was too much water.
Cosmo pounded clenched fists on the railing. There was nothing he could do except watch.
“Nice shooting, kid,” said a voice.
Cosmo turned. A Myishi paralegal was standing farther down the walkway, his rod trained on Cosmo’s chest. Red crosshairs flickered on Cosmo’s jacket. At this range, there was no need to aim high.
“Do you have any idea how many dinars it’s going to cost to repair that assault tank?”
Cosmo shook his head. He didn’t speak because he was holding his breath, inflating his chest as far as possible. This would make it easier to breathe if he got wrapped.
The lawyer noticed the tactic. “Hey, kid. Don’t worry, I’m not going to wrap you. You’re going to come peacefully, right?”
“Right,” said Cosmo warily.
“Well, okay, then,” said the paralegal, pulling the trigger on his rod. A cellophane slug arced along the walkway, hitting Cosmo’s chest. He watched helplessly as the virus spread across his torso. In seconds he was inside a malevolent cocoon that squeezed every bone in his body to groaning point.
Through the silver tint of the cellophane, he saw the lawyer lean over him.
“Oops,” said the man, his voice dulled by the wrap. “My finger slipped.”
Myishi Tower
Cosmo didn’t remember much about the trip to the Myishi Corporation HQ on Journey Avenue. Cellophane slugs had some sort of mild sedative in the sealant, which was just as well, because if a person got too excited in there, he could break his own ribs with deep breaths.
Cosmo was lifted from the back of an assault truck and dumped bodily into an enormous plasti-glass vat full of viscous yellow dissolving agent. Cosmo had been in a vat before at the institute. The agent would have him puking for hours once it got into his system. Cosmo’s nose and mouth were kept above the liquid by a plungerlike device attached to the top of his head. If that was removed before the dissolving agent did its work, he could get plunger burn and end up with a large circular bald patch. But there was no point worrying about that now. There wasn’t anything he could do, even if the sedative allowed him to summon some willpower. The best thing to do was to float here and keep his breathing regular. Short, even breaths that put no pressure on his ribcage.
In a way, it was a relief to have nothing to do. No crazy missions, no death-defying midnight antics, and no supernatural creatures staring at him through round eyes.
Then a Parasite did attach itself to the outside of the vat, staring through the plasti-glass. But Cosmo was safe in here. The creatures could not brave the liquid.
Any other time, it would have been unnerving to have the creature so close. The sparkling blue pads of its four-fingered hands stuck to the plasti-glass. They stared at each other, boy and creature, through a yellow haze. In Cosmo’s mind, the Parasite’s eyes spoke volumes.
There is no escape from me
, they said.
After several minutes of implacable staring, the Parasite detached itself from the plasti-glass. Doubtless there was life to be siphoned elsewhere.
Cosmo sank into a near trancelike state. The events of the past few days bounced around his head like blobs of oil in a lava lamp. Who was he now? Cosmo Hill fugitive no-sponsor, or Cosmo Hill Supernaturalist? Who was Cosmo Hill anyhow? A product of Clarissa Frayne, with no personality to speak of. Fourteen years old and he had never kissed a girl.
Mona Vasquez. What was it about her that made his stomach lurch? Cosmo had once been injected with a mild strain of malaria as part of a vaccine test. The malaria had had pretty much the same effect on him as Mona had now. It was a pity really. His feelings were pointless. What girl in her right mind would notice Cosmo even if he were standing on a birthday cake wearing a neon heart?
Nevertheless, Mona’s image grew in Cosmo’s mind until it displaced all others. Her smile, the black hair curling over her collar. Those dark eyes like two chocolate buttons. She seemed to float in the liquid before him, reaching out a hand to stroke his cheek.
The sedative made Cosmo speak. Might as well, he reasoned. It’s just an hallucination. “Mona,” he said, and strangely there was no cellophane covering his face anymore. “I really like you.”
“Is that so?” said the large bearded vat man, who was winching Cosmo’s plunger. “I really like you too, sweetie.”
The bearded man hosed Cosmo down, snickering the entire time, then tossed him shivering into a padded holding cell. As he left, he threw a kiss over his shoulder.
“Adieu, my prince, until we meet again.”
Cosmo was too busy throwing up into the aluminium trough to respond. Not that he would say anything even if he could. In Clarissa Frayne you learned to keep your mouth shut. Every one of the no-sponsors had known that, except Ziplock.
When he had recovered sufficiently, Cosmo tore some paper from a wall-mounted roll and wiped himself down. Then he dragged a steel cot across the room until it was directly beneath the warm air vent, and lay down.
His orphanage habits were returning, as if he’d never been away. After all, what was a few days in fourteen years? Not even one percent. Nowhere close. And yet, he felt he had lived more in the past few days than in all those years combined.
When they threw you in the hole in Clarissa Frayne, there were certain survival methods the no-sponsors all knew. First of all, sleep as much as possible. That took your mind off food and your situation in general. A seasoned orphan could sleep for as much as sixteen hours a day.
Secondly, don’t think about freedom. Wishing the days away just made them seem longer. And finally, try not to want anything, especially parents. That just broke your heart.
Cosmo lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. Sleep would not come. There was too much happening inside his head. Supernaturalists, Parasites, Sweethearts, Bulldogs, a Bartoli baby, and, of course, Mona.
Thank goodness he had only declared his affection for a vat man. Mona would probably laugh in his face. Not that he would ever see her again. Cosmo had no doubt that once they DNA typed him and found out who he was, he’d be on the first tube back to Clarissa Frayne and Marshal Redwood.
Sometime later, the vat man returned, still grinning hugely. A man happy in his work.
“Okay, sweetheart,” he said, scratching a patch of stubble between two drooping chins. “On your feet. Someone wants to talk to you.”
“Who?” asked Cosmo swinging his damp boots to the floor.
The vat man lifted Cosmo’s chin with a baton. “What did you say? Did you just ask me a question?”
“No,” said Cosmo hurriedly. “I mean; no, sir.”
“Better,” said the jailer, turning his back. “Follow me, and stay between the yellow lines, or one of the guards will wrap you again.”
The vat man led him down a long corridor to a bank of elevators. There were two solid yellow lines on the floor, with scuffed linoleum between.
Cosmo stopped before the first elevator.
“No, no sweetheart,” said the vat man. “You’re going to the
observatory
.” He said it reverently. Like it was a big deal. Cosmo followed him to the last elevator in the bank, a gold block with no call button, just a video intercom.
The vat attendant stood before the camera, smoothing his hair with one licked hand. “I got the kid here. The one who junked the tank.”
There was no reply, but the door slid open noiselessly. “In you go, sweetheart,” said the man pushing Cosmo inside.
“Miss you already,” said Cosmo as the door closed. Why not? It was unlikely he would see the man again.
The elevator rose so quickly that it appeared to stay absolutely still. Cosmo didn’t realize he was moving until one wall slid back to reveal a crystal window. The elevator was on the outside of the building and was shooting upward like a projectile from a cannon. Outside, the city flashed past in speed-blurred lines of light. Soon the golden box had outstripped the other buildings and was sailing upward toward the heavens. Cosmo felt that if the elevator stopped now, he would continue upward, losing himself in the universe.
There was no time to consider escape, and nowhere to escape to. You might as well talk about escaping from a parachute. Before the notion had even occurred to him, the elevator began decelerating, eventually coming to a halt somewhere near the edge of the atmosphere. It seemed to Cosmo that if he reached up a hand, he would be able to touch the Myishi Satellite.
The door slid open and a very large hand reached in, grabbing Cosmo by the throat. He was dragged into the most opulent room he had ever seen in his life. Illegal stuffed animal heads were mounted on the walls. Elephants, bears, a gorilla, and hundreds of birds. Even an extinct dolphin, flapping robotically in a vat of blue preservative. Low couches lined the walls, draped with luxurious throws. Expensive-looking art vied for attention, including a mime hologram in a suspended cube.
“Welcome to the Myishi Corporation,” said a female voice.
Cosmo looked across the huge room to a sunken lounge area. A slender woman was reclining on a fur-lined sofa, running a finger around the rim of a crystal flute. There were at least half a dozen bodyguards within six feet of her. Cosmo could feel their eyes through the black lenses of their sunglasses. Sunglasses at night. Weirder and weirder.
One of the bodyguards adjusted a tiny dial on the arm of his glasses. “He’s clean,” he said in tones that could have sanded wood. “No weaponry.”
Not just ordinary sunglasses then.
The woman stood. She was tall and slim. No surgery, though. This woman looked as if she could bench-press a couple of the security men. Her features were tanned and strong. The tan must have been painted on, because no one in their right minds stayed out in the sun anymore. Her hair was cropped short, blond with gray streaks at the temples. She was dressed in a loose linen suit, almost like pajamas, and wore flat leather thong sandals with a gold ring on the second toe of one foot. “So you’re the one who took out an assault tank,” she said. Her voice was musical, almost mesmeric. “Do you know how much one of those tanks costs?”
Cosmo shook his head.
“An absolute fortune. Never mind, we’re insured. The point is that there is a seal on the tank’s barrel to stop this kind of thing happening. It only opens for one hundredth of a second before each shell is fired. You managed to put a cellophane slug down there in that time. Impressive, if you meant it. We had you DNA typed, Master Cosmo Hill, no-sponsor. You’re supposed to be dead.”
Cosmo decided that this would be a good time to change the subject. “Are you Miss Myishi?”
The woman laughed, soft peals that made Cosmo want to laugh with her. “Miss Myishi? No. There hasn’t been a Myishi at the corporation’s helm for nearly a hundred years. We just keep the name for public-recognition purposes. The Myishi
zaibatsu
wasn’t suited to the modern business world. Too many Eastern morals. My name is . . .”
At that precise moment, the elevator door opened and Stefan stepped out. His brow was creased in its customary frown, until he noticed the blond lady. “Professor Faustino?” he said uncertainly. “What are you doing here? Did they get you too?”
Stefan shrugged off a pair of security men at his elbows and strode across the room. With a flick of a single finger, Faustino directed the security men back into the elevator. Stefan caught the gesture. He stopped short. “You work here, Professor Faustino? For Myishi?”
“It’s President Faustino now, Stefan.”
Confusion was written all over Stefan’s face. Was this woman an old friend or a new foe? “President? I never thought you would go to work for the corporations, especially Myishi.”
“Fight from the inside, Stefan. Attack from the rear.”
“Well, you certainly are on the inside.”
Faustino reached up, laying a hand on each of Stefan’s shoulders. “Well, well, well. Little Stefan Bashkir. You have grown up.”
Cosmo blinked. Little Stefan Bashkir? Who was this woman?
Stefan looked embarassed by the attention. Was he actually blushing? “It’s been more than two years since I got out of the widows and orphans home. The last time I saw you, you were still with the city police. Now you’ve gone over to the other side.”
Ellen Faustino plucked a wafer-thin remote control from the coffee table. “Don’t believe everything you hear about Myishi, Stefan. We do more good than harm.” She brushed an elegant finger against a button, and the suite’s entire roof slid back, revealing the stars above, and, of course, the Satellite. “The Satellite that saved . . .”
“That saved the world,” completed Stefan. “We’ve all seen it on TV. Every twenty seconds it seems.”
Faustino smiled. “Not like this, you haven’t. Come over here, Stefan. And you too, Master Hill. Sit down, the view is splendid.”
Cosmo crossed the plush carpet, weaving between growling bodyguards. The men probably hadn’t messed anybody up yet today and were just looking for an excuse. He took a seat between Stefan and Faustino on a low sofa. Her perfume wafted over him like something he’d smelled once in a dream, but couldn’t quite remember. “Comfortable?” she asked.
Cosmo nodded hesitantly. He’d never been asked that question before. The marshals in Clarissa Frayne weren’t inclined to get blubbery if an orphan was uncomfortable. Often the marshals were the cause of the discomfort.
Faustino pressed a second button on the remote, and the sofa tilted backward, speakers slid out from behind the headrests. They were now looking directly through the transparent ceiling at the Satellite above. The ceiling flexed slightly, and suddenly everything was magnified by a thousand. It seemed as though the Satellite was about to crash onto the building.
Cosmo jumped in his seat.
“Relax, boy,” said Ellen, placing two slim fingers on his wrist. “The observatory often has that effect on first timers.”
The detail was amazing. Cosmo could pick out individual solar panels on the satellite’s wings. He could see bursts of gas from its stabilizers and dish jockeys floating across the concave surface of the great dish. It was immense, mind-boggling.
Stefan was not so easily impressed. “What are we doing here, Professor Faustino? What is this all about?”
“Be patient, Stefan. That was always your failing. Sometimes a story is too big to tell in one breath.”
Faustino pressed a combination of buttons, and several screens appeared on the giant lense. The screens were running old news footage from the beginning of the millennium. Scenes from war-torn Europe and the Middle East, African famine, and South American earthquakes. Wraparound sound erupted from the speakers.
Faustino supplied the commentary. “Not so long ago, the world was tearing itself apart. There simply wasn’t enough room on the planet for us all. The Myishi Satellite has gone some way to solving that problem.”
Stefan folded his arms, crossing his boots loudly. International body language for
pull the other leg
.
“I know your opinion on Myishi, Stefan,” said Faustino.
“But just give me a chance, and I think you’ll find we’re fighting the same enemy.”
“I doubt that,” muttered Stefan.
“The problem was that countries were not being run as businesses. Decisions were being made on the basis of religion or history, notoriously unsound motives for doing anything. States fell apart because of bigotry and centuries-old squabbles. The Myishi Corporation has taken on all these problems, and I think we’re winning.”