Read Online Hammerjack by Marc D. Giller - Free Book Online

drew closer, Cray could see how that youth was belied by a detached vacuousness. It was an expression Cray recognized from the street.
    The kid was a hustler. A pale torso was exposed beneath an open silk shirt, probably something Yin had given him to wear. Cray noticed the uneven ripple of his muscle tone, evidence of a botched myostim implant some butcher had given him in an illegal clinic. Pimps provided the service for their younger hustlers to accelerate their bodies past puberty and put them on a paying basis. Kinks liked their meat that way. From the looks of this one, he had been in the profession for some time.
    “You here to see the man?” the hustler asked. His head was lilting to the side, a neuropatch visible beneath a shock of dirty blond hair. He looked right through Cray.
    “Yes.”
    The hustler smiled, amused by something only he could see. “Follow me.”
    He made a lazy turn and shuffled across the atrium, not caring whether Cray was behind him or not. The hustler was only half-there in any case. Neural and chemical stims had long since robbed him of any capacity to feel emotions, let alone pain—the evidence tracking across his back in a patchwork of scars Cray saw through transparent silk. Kinks also liked their meat tenderized.
    Flying on autopilot, the young hustler led his charge through a maze of rooms that ended at Yin’s office. Unlike the rest of the sanctuary, this space was actually elegant in its simplicity—but it was no less an exhibit. Artificial gaslight kept the atmosphere dim, like something out of a previous century, the rows of ancient books that lined the walls lending a faint undertone of must to the otherwise sterile air. The only intrusion from the modern world came through a large window that opened upon a panoramic view of Kuala Lumpur’s transport grid—pulser vehicles suspended on intricate tendrils of laser light, a complex dance of perpetual motion.
    The hustler flopped down on a calfskin couch, closing his eyes and zoning out.
    Cray stayed on his feet, walking over to a huge marble desk that sat in front of the window. He ran a hand along its smooth, cold surface. The piece had been fashioned from a single slab of rock, its origins probably as ancient as everything else in the room.
    “Remarkable, isn’t it?”
    Yin made his appearance as he always did—out of the dark, with no warning. Cray was used to the theatrics, and paid it no mind.
    “That depends on what you’re talking about.”
    It had been at least two years since he had last seen Yin, but the man looked exactly the same. Laotian by birth, he lacked the striking features of the Japanese—his face round and soft, solid black hair flanked by gray at the temples. With his demeanor, he could have been mistaken for a businessman if not for his eyes, which radiated an unmistakable intensity.
    “The same old Cray,” Yin observed as he stepped into the light. “Still no appreciation for the finer things.”
    “I know the score,” Cray replied. “That’s enough for me.”
    Yin strolled over to his young charge, who remained prone on the couch. “Then it’s the score you’ve come to settle,” he remarked, running a hand through the kid’s hair. “It’s a pity your needs aren’t simpler. Your life would be so much the better for it.”
    “You want to have this conversation in front of Sleeping Beauty?”
    “I prefer not to have this conversation at all. This isn’t part of our arrangement, Cray.”
    “
What
arrangement?” Cray snapped. “The one where you tell me what to do and I do it?”
    “I believe those were the terms.”
    “Null and void when you don’t give me the whole truth.”
    “
Ahh . . .
” Yin pronounced, circling around the marble desk and taking a seat behind it. He leaned back and regarded his guest in an amused way, like a teacher with a slow student. “The betrayal. The righteous indignation. You play the part of the wounded soldier quite well.”
    “I’m not