Read Online Shadowboxer by Nicholas Pollotta - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nicholas Pollotta
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at the guards at thrice norm speed, his cyberblades swinging like a hundred scythes.
5
Checking the safety of his Fichetti needler, perfect for flatlining people but lousy on telecoms, Adam Two Bears pushed open the double doors to the bar and boldly walked on in.
Icy air wafted over him, and he fought back a shiver only partially caused by the low temperatures. All talk stopped the moment he entered, and a dozen faces went grim as death, hands darting below table tops and into jackets. Two Bears knew the only reason he was still sucking air was the city map in his pocket, a reminder of the Miami gov’s fire-bombing of anybody who harmed tourists. Even still, he was on thin ice here. Cross the line, drek, come close to the line and they’d be mopping his brains off the floor.
The place was decorated in early schlock, with all the usual fishing nets, plastic crabs, and cork things you saw in most of the bars in town. Bloody tourists expected the whole drekking city to be nautical. Walking slowly to the bar, hands well away from his sides, Two Bears hoisted himself up onto the norm-size stool and gave a smile to the bartender, who did not return it, but continued to polish a clean glass and looked ready to spit in his face.
“Fat Jake here?” Two Bears asked, placing both hands flat on the counter.
“Who wants to know, runt?” demanded the barkeep, curling a lip in disgust.
So much for being nice. “The man who saved him from a Morlock axe, that’s who, butt-wipe.”
The bartender’s eyes went wide, and he smashed the glass on the floor. “You ain’t no man, crit!” screamed the norm, brandishing a fist the color of boiled chicken. “You’re a stinking metafreak!”
Two Bears did nothing. He just sat there and waited. Crit. That was new. Short for critter, he supposed. So now they were calling metahumans animals. Made sense for them. Animals had packs and cubs, not families and children. Made his kind easier for them to kill and still sleep at night. I didn’t kill a man today, dear, just a nasty walking animal. Smelly thing had the audacity to wear clothes.
“Your opinion,” Two Bears said low and soft. “But if you don’t get Jake out here pronto, it’s your pecker in the blender.”
Tense moments passed with the bartender just breathing hard, and the other patrons scraping their boots and shifting chairs all around him. Moving into better positions so they wouldn’t be hit in the crossfire? Two Bears knew this had been a wild gamble. Pure dice. But nobody would ever look for him in here, and he needed resources fast. He could get them if Fat Jake still remembered old debt and hadn’t let the fear or hate boil away what honor he used to have.
Long ago, a million years it seemed like nowadays, they had run together. Side by side, they’d ganged against the Morlocks, the very go-gang who’d cannibalized the fragging tourist and got half of Overtown toasted like marshmallows in their sleep a few years back. Including Melinda. Sweet gentle Mel had died in the city’s brutal retaliation—the so-called Night of Law. That same night the various rival gangs put aside their differences and swore a blood oath of peace until they caught and killed every stinking Morlock sublife joybag and did them up a treat proper. There were special chummers for this job—frizoids and glitches who lived in the sewers and swamps, too twisted in the brain for any use except letting them have a hated foe to play with. That’s where the Morlocks went one by one, never to return. Street justice. Hard and permanent. Trans end.
Setting a trap to take down the last few members of the gang had gotten Fat Jake, who was skinny as a laser and hence the name, on their ghoulish dining table. The Morlocks’ turn for revenge. Two Bears had taken a knife in the belly busting the rival ganger free from their funtable, and Jake lost an ear but kept his life. Together they slaughtered the rest of the go-gang, saving the mage boss
5
Checking the safety of his Fichetti needler, perfect for flatlining people but lousy on telecoms, Adam Two Bears pushed open the double doors to the bar and boldly walked on in.
Icy air wafted over him, and he fought back a shiver only partially caused by the low temperatures. All talk stopped the moment he entered, and a dozen faces went grim as death, hands darting below table tops and into jackets. Two Bears knew the only reason he was still sucking air was the city map in his pocket, a reminder of the Miami gov’s fire-bombing of anybody who harmed tourists. Even still, he was on thin ice here. Cross the line, drek, come close to the line and they’d be mopping his brains off the floor.
The place was decorated in early schlock, with all the usual fishing nets, plastic crabs, and cork things you saw in most of the bars in town. Bloody tourists expected the whole drekking city to be nautical. Walking slowly to the bar, hands well away from his sides, Two Bears hoisted himself up onto the norm-size stool and gave a smile to the bartender, who did not return it, but continued to polish a clean glass and looked ready to spit in his face.
“Fat Jake here?” Two Bears asked, placing both hands flat on the counter.
“Who wants to know, runt?” demanded the barkeep, curling a lip in disgust.
So much for being nice. “The man who saved him from a Morlock axe, that’s who, butt-wipe.”
The bartender’s eyes went wide, and he smashed the glass on the floor. “You ain’t no man, crit!” screamed the norm, brandishing a fist the color of boiled chicken. “You’re a stinking metafreak!”
Two Bears did nothing. He just sat there and waited. Crit. That was new. Short for critter, he supposed. So now they were calling metahumans animals. Made sense for them. Animals had packs and cubs, not families and children. Made his kind easier for them to kill and still sleep at night. I didn’t kill a man today, dear, just a nasty walking animal. Smelly thing had the audacity to wear clothes.
“Your opinion,” Two Bears said low and soft. “But if you don’t get Jake out here pronto, it’s your pecker in the blender.”
Tense moments passed with the bartender just breathing hard, and the other patrons scraping their boots and shifting chairs all around him. Moving into better positions so they wouldn’t be hit in the crossfire? Two Bears knew this had been a wild gamble. Pure dice. But nobody would ever look for him in here, and he needed resources fast. He could get them if Fat Jake still remembered old debt and hadn’t let the fear or hate boil away what honor he used to have.
Long ago, a million years it seemed like nowadays, they had run together. Side by side, they’d ganged against the Morlocks, the very go-gang who’d cannibalized the fragging tourist and got half of Overtown toasted like marshmallows in their sleep a few years back. Including Melinda. Sweet gentle Mel had died in the city’s brutal retaliation—the so-called Night of Law. That same night the various rival gangs put aside their differences and swore a blood oath of peace until they caught and killed every stinking Morlock sublife joybag and did them up a treat proper. There were special chummers for this job—frizoids and glitches who lived in the sewers and swamps, too twisted in the brain for any use except letting them have a hated foe to play with. That’s where the Morlocks went one by one, never to return. Street justice. Hard and permanent. Trans end.
Setting a trap to take down the last few members of the gang had gotten Fat Jake, who was skinny as a laser and hence the name, on their ghoulish dining table. The Morlocks’ turn for revenge. Two Bears had taken a knife in the belly busting the rival ganger free from their funtable, and Jake lost an ear but kept his life. Together they slaughtered the rest of the go-gang, saving the mage boss
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