Gridlinked (26 page)

'That's OK,' said Svent. 'I wanted a coffee anyway. See you shortly.'

Stanton made an adjustment and spoke again. 'We got all four and are holding them,' he said.

Pelter's voice in reply was cold and correct. 'That was the easy part. Now we have this ECS machine to deal with,' he said.

'Where are you now?'

'I'm at the dump outside the spaceport.'

'The Golem still with you?'

'As far as we can ascertain. It is very good. Maybe it has chameleonware.'

'Need any help?'

'I have Mr Crane.'

Stanton shut off the unit. That was all Pelter had wanted him to say. He popped his door and walked round to Corlackis, who was searching the man he had stunned. Corlackis removed a thin-gun which he tossed in beside the one in the passenger foot-well. He then removed a small flat comunit which he studied closely.

'Chuck it,' said Stanton. 'Might have a tracer.' He looked around. Still no one in sight, but it was best to get this sort of thing done quickly. He opened the back door, which no longer closed properly anyway since Mennecken had blown the lock, then got hold of the man's shoulders and dragged him back to it. He then caught hold of his collar and belt and tossed him onto the back seat. Corlackis simply watched. He knew that with his boosted musculature Stanton was more than able for this task.

'Now let's find that brother of yours,' Stanton said.

They got back into the AGC and Stanton reversed it back to its original location.

'How long will he be out for?' he asked, stabbing a thumb to the back.

'Half an hour to an hour,' Corlackis replied.

Stanton watched him carefully. 'Right then. You stay here and keep an eye on him. I'll go and see what your brother is doing,' he said.

'I could do that,' said Corlackis, returning his look.

'Yes, but you're not. You'll stay here.'

'As you say.'

Stanton opened the door and got out. As he headed for the alley he noticed that the ground skate was now at the edge of the flooded gully and was there squeezing out a long and slimy white worm. Further down the gully more of these worms were wriggling in the torrent. From what he recollected of tüese creatures, this meant it was male. The worms were motile sperm packets on their way to find an egg-laden pool to burst in. The wounds Mennecken had made were superfluous. After this effort the creature would the anyway. Leaving it to do this, Stanton went to find more death.

Stepping into the darkness of the alley Stanton intensified his vision. He pulled his comunit and keyed it to pick up the signal from Mennecken's. A small arrow behind the transparent touch-console indicated Mennecken was ahead and to the right. The numbers below showed him to be eighty-five metres away and receding. Stanton set out at a jog, careful of his footing. Here there were more skate, and the ground had been slimed by their passage. This was a nightmare. He had water running down the back of his neck and soaking into his clothing despite the rainfilm. It occurred to him that, though Mennecken was an efficient killer, his enjoyment of the act was probably becoming a liability. Stanton now realized he should have refused when the man volunteered. He himself, or Corlackis, would simply have got into the back of the car and shot the two ECS watchers.

A yell cut the night and Stanton accelerated. A glance at his comunit showed him Mennecken was no longer moving away. Soon he came to a side branch to the alley, lined with walls made of welded-together slabs of plascrete. The swing of the arrow showed him this was where Mennecken had gone. Another yell and Stanton saw the mercenary grappling with the catadapt. Obviously, with them not being so far from the car, Mennecken had been playing a stalking game with her. Stanton supposed she must have been hiding behind the old hydrocar that was rusting here. As he approached, Mennecken back-handed the woman and laid her out on the filth-caked ground.

'Want to play, little pussy?' he asked.

Still moving in, Stanton drew his pulse-gun and let it hang at his side. Mennecken pinned the woman down and started to cut away her clothing. She shrieked as he started to work the point of the knife into the skin between her breasts. Stanton aimed and then hesitated. At the last he hardened himself and pulled the trigger. The woman jerked under Mennecken as most of the contents of her head sprayed out across plascrete. Mennecken leaped up and around, a snarl on his face and his dagger held ready. Stanton readjusted his aim. He reckoned Pelter's team was just about to be short by one member.

'Mennecken!' yelled Corlackis from behind Stanton.

Mennecken froze, staring at Stanton with open hate, then he became calm. He turned and wiped his dagger on the catadapt's clothing, then sheathed it, keeping his back to Stanton and Corlackis all the while. When he did turn, his expression was casual.

'I thought I told you to stay at the car,' said Stanton, glancing aside at Corlackis. Corlackis held up his own comunit. 'I could see he wasn't far. Thought I might help.'

Stanton nodded and holstered his pulse-gun. 'Mennecken, bring her to the car,' he said, then turned away. Corlackis fell in beside him as they returned to the AGC.

'He's becoming a liability,' Stanton said.

'He's not so bad,' Corlackis replied.

Stanton had to wonder just what precisely this mercenary's definition of 'bad' was. On reaching the AGC he waited in the pouring rain. He could have helped Mennecken to carry the corpse back, but felt no inclination in that direction. It was Mennecken's fault she was so far from the car anyway. He was just about to speak into his comunit when he saw a drunken trio swaying down the street towards him.

'Wild party,' said Corlackis.

From a distance it seemed as if the three of them were drunk. Closer inspection revealed that the one in the middle did not have his feet on the ground and any movement was imparted by the two on either side, those two being Svent and Dusache. Stanton reached inside the car and popped the boot.

'I thought you were going to wait,' he said as the two mercenaries drew close.

Svent nodded at their burden. The man had a trail of dark blood from one nostril and his head had more movement at the neck than was natural.

'Sonny here started to get anxious when we walked in. I walked over and gave him a friendly hug. Few people in there, and I got fed up with his lack of conversation.'

Stanton motioned to the boot of the car and looked around. Apart from a few revellers that had gone into the metrotel, there was no one about. It was a perfect night for murder. Svent's victim went into the boot too, shortly followed by the catadapt Mennecken dragged out of the alley.

'Phew! You stink, Mennecken,' said Svent as they all crammed into the car. He pointed to the unconscious ECS men on the back seat. 'Who's this?'

'Pelter wants a chat,' said Corlackis.

There was general laughter Stanton felt no inclination to join in with. He flung the AGC round and headed out for the wasteland.

Pelter pocketed his comunit and stopped. He stared blankly into the rain-curtained night. How would the Golem react? That it had overheard that conversation he had no doubt. He peered around at the rain dripping from the acacias, then at a nearby wrecked AGC and, further back in a tangle of growth, the corroding cargo section of a small carrier. It would have worked out what had happened and perhaps now be considering how it might rescue its companions. It wasn't to know about their little rehearsed conversation. He reached up and touched the scaled aug on the side of his head and from it, through the command module, he gave Mr Crane his instructions. So clear and precise was this aug, it almost made him see the world in a different light. Crane held out the briefcase for him and he took it. Crane then stepped to one side. Pelter watched through the android's night vision. Shortly, as expected, the Golem broke cover and walked towards him.

'What are your intentions, Pelter?' it asked.

So very much like a very beautiful woman, Pelter diought. It was almost a shame.

'I intend to kill a man,' he replied.

The Golem woman stopped and tilted her head to one side. She seemed puzzled. It annoyed Pelter that even in these circumstances she still went through the charade of human body language and reaction.

'I do not understand,' she reluctantly admitted. 'You have my three companions.'

'Yes, I do.'

'What are your intentions toward them?'

'You should, really, worry about my intentions towards you.'

'I should?' She tilted her head and shot a look of contempt at Mr Crane.

'You should. I lured you out here so my men could deal with your companions without interference. I also lured you out here because I knew that even though Mr Crane here will have no problem scrapping you, it will be a noisy affair.'

Again the look of contempt. 'I am a Golem Twenty. That creature is a metal-skin. He is somedüng manufactured Out-Polity from Cybercorp leftovers and sold for far too much to the likes of yourself.'

Pelter smiled his nasty smile. 'You couldn't be more wrong. Mr Crane was a Golem Twenty-five who used to work for ECS. His moral governors were broken by full sensorium downloads from the mind of a psychopath, and then he was reprogrammed for our purposes. The metal skin you see is case-hardened ceramal, netted with superconductor, over his usual ceramal skeleton. He runs from four different micropiles and all his joint motors are somewhat more than Cybercorp standard.'

'I am to believe this?' the Golem woman asked.

'Let me convince you.'

Pelter turned to Mr Crane to give his orders, not because it was necessary for him to give vocal orders, but because he wanted the Golem woman to hear.

'Mr Crane, tear this arrogant machine into pieces and scatter those pieces here amongst the rest of this scrap.'

Crane kicked up a huge clod of earth as he went from stillness to terrifying speed. The Golem had time only to turn before he hit her. The sound was like a slab of iron being dropped onto a car. Her feet were driven deep into the ground. She struck at Crane with blows too fast to see: each blow a gun shot, each blow without noticeable effect. He bowed, looped his right arm under her right, his left arm round her hips, and he bent and twisted her. Clothing ripped and artificial skin split. The flashes of shorts and system diodes blowing could be seen through her parting flesh. She started to make a high keening sound, for even androids do not like to die. The sound ceased when Crane finally tore her in half and methodically began to pound those halves to fragments.

'How far are you?' Pelter asked into his comunit.

'Be with you shortly,' Stanton replied. 'Everything OK there?'

'Yes, of course,' said Pelter, shutting off his com. He stared at Mr Crane now and, with the huge clarity he now had through his new aug, he could almost feel the android's longing.

Gridlirtked

'No, Mr Crane,' he said, 'you cannot keep her head.'

Mr Crane reluctantly tossed his trophy into the bushes, then turned, at Pelter's instruction, towards the approaching AGC. Pelter turned his comunit back on.

'That you, John?'

'It is. Where's the android?'

'About, I think would be the best description,' Pelter replied.

The AGC halted and the five men got out. Stanton looked at some of the bits scattered around where Mr Crane stood, then turned to Pelter.

'What now?'

'You have them all, as instructed?' Pelter asked.

'More or less,' Stanton replied.

'And by that you mean?' Pelter asked.

'We got them all, and we've got your live one.'

Pelter stared at him for a long moment, then abruptly turned to Svent and Dusache. He pointed. 'In that old carrier over there. Strip him and tie him.'

The two dragged the still-stunned man out of the car and dragged him off towards the carrier.

'Mennecken,' Pelter said. 'Bury the bodies and lose the car. I want nothing found while we're here. John, Corlackis - with me.'

Mennecken got into the driver's seat and took the car away, while the three others moved over to the carrier. After a moment Crane jerked as if he had just woken, and he followed them. They entered the carrier through a rusting split in the thin wall. It was essentially a small room with alloy walls and a dirt floor thick with the black growths seen in the town. The two had stripped the man by the time they arrived, and were tying his wrists and ankles. His wrists they secured to stanchion along one wall. Dusache cracked a low-luminosity chemical light and jammed it into a rusting crevice.

'Now we see what he knows,' said Pelter.

Stanton studied the object Pelter pulled from his pocket. It was something the Separatist had acquired from that weird shit Grendel. Knowing what was about to ensue, Stanton wondered if it was entirely necessary.

'I knew you… from Cheyne III,' the man said as he fought to regain his breath.

'And?' said Pelter.

Stanton thought the Separatist was taking a bit of a risk sucking on the end of the inducer like it was a pen. You could never tell whether or not the things were on or off until you touched someone with them. Then that someone would certainly know. Mennecken would have wanted to carve the ECS agent up with a knife, but the simple fact was that an inducer hurt more, and the person you were torturing would stay alive longer because there would be no blood loss.

'That's it: I saw you and I told Jill. She was. setting us up to watch you so she could call for instructions and back-up.'

'You think I believe that?'

'It's true, why not? Oh, come on! I'm telling you the truth!'

The man's next scream lasted a long time as Pelter drew the blunt nose of the inducer up his inner thigh and touched it to his genitals. When the inducer was withdrawn he was hunched forwards and sobbing. Stanton pulled his pulse-gun from his coat and pointed it at the man's head. Pelter pushed the gun aside.

'I haven't finished yet,' he said.

Stanton turned and looked out through the gap in the rusting cargo shell at the light of the just-risen sun. Three hours they had been in here. He studied Svent and Dusache. Dusache supposedly didn't like this sort of thing, yet he seemed as avid as Svent and Pelter. Corlackis had, some time ago, suggested someone should keep watch and had gone to do so himself. Stanton looked back at Pelter.