Read Online The Eternal Prison by Jeff Somers - Free Book Online Page A

cigarette behind my ear. “Maybe I’ll see what happens when I save their lives.”
     
“Well, you’ve brought attention onto yourself, ain’t you?” he said after a moment. “You’ve led a blessed life, Avery, my boy—not a lot of prison time logged. Let me give you a lesson: attention’s the last thing you ever want.”
     
“I don’t learn easy,” I said with a sigh, feeling tired, sweating freely. Fuck his tiny air of midget wisdom.
     
The little man cackled. “Oy, that’s right, ain’t it, ain’t it. No one tells the great Gunner what to do, eh?” He sobered and looked down at his feet. “Which is why, Mr. Cates, I ain’t gonna tell you to do anything. I’m gonna ask you to listen to a proposition.”
     
I cocked my head but didn’t look at him. This was it; this was the pitch. I had a feeling my first three days in Chengara had been softened quite a bit by Michaleen, in unseen ways. I was interested to see what he thought all that was worth.
     
“What can I do for you, Michaleen?”
     
“Oh,” he sputtered. “What can you do for me, you murderous bastard. Why, you can help me break out of this shithole. That’s what you can do for me.”
     
     
     
     
    V
    HARD PEOPLE DOING A HARD JOB

     
     
     
     
I awoke suddenly, opening my eyes and completely online in a split second. It was always like that now; I’d never been a heavy sleeper—heavy sleepers woke up with empty pockets and slit throats—but now I lit up from a complete blackout kind of slumber like a switch had been flicked. I’d gotten paranoid back in prison, where I’d been a pretty popular target, but I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it.
     
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” I heard Ruberto say. “Did I tell you this guy could sleep? If I had that much blood on my hands, I would lie awake screaming all night. Mr. Cates shuts down like he doesn’t have a worry in his head.”
     
I blinked around. I was sitting in a comfortable leather seat that spun silently in response to any shift in weight. As I was turned around, I saw I was in a sumptuous hover cabin done up to resemble a luxurious hotel room—wood paneling on the walls, expensive furniture bolted into place, low music in the air. When the two men came into my view, I stared at them stupidly for a few seconds before I recognized Ruberto, sitting plump and primped in a beautiful pink suit behind a tiny built-in desk, his fucking lady hands still moving in silent, complex patterns over his work space.
     
The other man I’d never seen before. He was deeply tan, with shiny black hair cropped close to his head except for the top, which flopped around in an uneven wave. He was tall, too, uncomfortably squeezed into the seat, his legs stretched out as far as he could get them. His suit was dark blue and just as snazzy, a few ten thousand yen of fabric on his back shimmering in the light, and he wore several gold rings on his long, slow-looking fingers. He had a familiar young-old look about him, and piercing, unblinking eyes that were familiar to me. A psionic, I decided. I’d seen enough of them to know, and they all worked for the civilian government—the Spooks. For a moment we sat and stared at each other.
     
“Maybe he cries himself to sleep,” the psionic said.
     
I smiled. “I cried, once. Didn’t enjoy it.”
     
This earned me a smirk, which I also didn’t like much.
     
“We are currently over Ohio,” Ruberto said distractedly, not looking up. “We will be near New York City in about half an hour.” He looked up at me from under his eyebrows. “Can’t get you too close, unfortunately. Director Marin owns New York, and we won’t get into its airspace without an incident. Neely, give our boy the rundown.”
     
Neely and I looked at each other again. I didn’t recall agreeing to the job, but of course, I had: I’d been hoping to have a shot at Dick Marin for years. Problem was, most of the Dick Marins you ran into on the street were avatars, Droids with digital brains, controlled like