Rising Sun (2 page)

Jones removes his wide-brimmed hat and wipes his forehead. “Well, well, little susie,” the guard says. “You lost?”

“I’m never lost,” Vienne says, and whisks past him.

Jones shifts his weight, like he’s not sure of how to handle the situation. “Is there something we can do you for?”

Vienne waves him off. “I just need water. My truck’s overheating.” She keeps walking until she’s nose to nose with Brown, who blocks her path.

“My, my, my. Blond hair. Been years since I seen that. You’re a looker, ain’t you?” Brown says. “How about you and me head over to the bushes for a little personal overheating? Then I’ll see about some water for your vehicle.”

Vienne flashes a smile frosted with mischief and grabs Brown’s shoulders.

“That sounds—”

Then knees him in the yarbles.

“Completely disgusting.”

“Mommy,” Brown squeaks, his voice three octaves higher.

Vienne grabs his shotgun, then drops him with a leg sweep. She twirls and sticks the barrel into the captain’s gut. “Drop your weapon or I’ll drop you.”

“No, you drop it,” the captain says.

Vienne shakes her head, as if to say,
These fossikers never learn.

But she’s cocky. Doesn’t sense Jones sneaking up behind her, ready to let loose with his scattergun.

I jump to block him. But the chains yank me short. “Vienne!” I yell. “On your six!”

Jones opens fire.

Blam!

The force of the blast knocks Vienne forward. Shredding the fabric of her shirt and flowing skirt. Revealing the body armor beneath it.

“Oh, shite,” Jones says softly. “She’s a Regulator.”

He drops the scattergun and backs away, hands in the air.

“Pick up your weapon, Jones!” Brown bellows from the ground, where he’s writhing and cupping his nether region. “Shoot her!”

“Won’t do no good!” Jones calls, still backing away. “She’s got symbiarmor on.”

Vienne stalks toward him, barrel pointed at his gut. “You carking
shot
me.”

Panic washes over Jones’s face. He drops to his knees. “I was just doing my job!”

“You shot me
in the back
,” she yells, outraged.

“It wasn’t personal!” Jones says, hands laced together in prayer. “Listen, Regulator, I got no truck with you. I surrendered, okay? See. I put my weapon down.” He lifts his hands to prove that they’re empty. “I don’t want no trouble. I got a wife and two mouths to feed.”

Vienne pauses, thinking. “See that dry creek bed?” She points with her armalite. “Start running.”

Jones swallows hard and croaks like he’s got a mouthful of salt. “Yes, ma’am. How far should I go?”

“It’s not how far.” She pumps the shotty. “It’s how fast.”

With a glance back at the other guards, Jones starts running as quickly as his bowed legs will carry him.

Vienne fires into the air—
boom!
—to inspire him. “Faster!”

Apparently unimpressed with Vienne’s lighting reflexes and willingness to insult a jack’s manhood, the captain takes aim at the back of her head.

Where the symbiarmor is most vulnerable.

“No!” I dive forward, cutting him down at the knees, as his gun fires, blowing buckshot into the air.

I grab the captain’s feet, pinning him down. Then wrap the manacle chain around his throat.

“That susie’s a friend of mine,” I hiss, “and I don’t take kindly to you blowing her head off.”

The captain claws at the tightening chain. His face turns bloodred, and he rasps, “Why’d a susie like her care . . . about a lowlife
dalit
like you?”

Vienne glides over. She kicks the guard’s weapon away. Waves her left hand in his face. The pinky has been cut off at the second joint. “Because I’m a lowlife
dalit
, too,” she says, and knocks him cold with a hammer fist. She turns back to Brown. “Am I going to have more trouble out of you?”

Brown cups himself again and squeaks. “No, ma’am!”

“Good boy,” she says, and begins unlocking my shackles.

“Where’d you get the key?” I ask, rubbing my ankle where the iron has chewed through my skin.

“From the first guard,” Vienne says. “Why else would I get so close?” She grabs my overalls and hauls me to my feet. “Get in the truck. We’re leaving.”

I kick the shackles loose, and with a glance back at Malinche, who looks at me with pleading eyes, I follow Vienne to the Noriker. “Nice truck. Where’d you steal it?”

“I’m not a thief,” Vienne says, stowing her armalite behind the front seat. “I
borrowed
it from a Ranger who spent too much time enjoying his supper.”

“Hey, Stringfellow!” Malinche calls. “You’re deserting us?”

I stop. Take a long look at her. “Vienne, what about the others? You’re just going to leave them?”

Vienne surveys the chain gang. “They’re criminals. They deserve their fate.”

“Not all of them,” I say. “Some of them are innocent.”

“Criminals always say they’re innocent, but they’re always guilty.”

“What about us?” I ask, holding up my left hand to display the stub of a pinky. “Are we guilty?”

Vienne knocks her forehead with her palm. “We don’t have time for your idiotic heroics!”

I hold out my hand. “Give me the carking key.”

Vienne fires the key at Malinche, who easily catches it and begins unlocking her shackles.

“Happy?” Vienne asks me. “Now get in the truck!”

I start to open the driver’s door.

Vienne grabs it.

“I’m the driver,” she says.

“Since when?”

She looks me straight in the eye. “Since always.”

“It’s your truck.” I stare back into her eyes. My stomach turns flip-flops. “I reckon you get to drive.”

“Glad you see it my way,” she says, and grins, which makes my belly button feel like it’s spinning counterclockwise.

As soon as my door closes, Vienne slams it into reverse. The truck bounces backward down the dry creek bed, throwing rock dust into the air. She pumps the clutch. Rams it into first. And hits the accelerator.

My skull slams against the headrest. “I’ve got whiplash!”

“Quit whining,” she says, cutting me a look that could strip paint. “Or I’ll take you back.”

A moment later, as we bound over deep gullies, we come upon Jones, who has slowed to a jog, his face streaked with sweat and rusty dirt, his tongue hanging out.

Vienne swerves toward him, laying on the horn.

“
Aiieee!
” Jones screams, and dives into a copse of gorse bushes.

“That was harsh,” I say. But funny.

“He shot me—”

“You’re wearing bulletproof armor.”

“—
in the back
. The Tenets forbid shooting an adversary in the back.”

“He’s not a Regulator,” I say. “Our rules don’t apply to him.”

We cut from the creek bed, climbing up an embankment and pulling onto a road. The tires bark when they hit pavement, and the truck surges.

“You and I are not officially Regulators,” Vienne says, “but we still follow the Tenets.”

The Tenets are the guiding principles that govern Regulators’ code of behavior. Vienne is a strict adherent to them, following them with an acolyte’s zeal. But I don’t want to argue with Vienne, who has all the flexibility of wrought iron when she’s made up her mind, so I check the rear to make sure we’re not being tailed.

“Mimi, what direction are we headed?”

“South,” Mimi says, “with a general heading that will intersect with the Bishop’s Highway.”

South? Interesting. I’d guessed we would be heading back into Christchurch, the capital city. “I assume there’s reason for this daring daylight rescue?” I ask Vienne. “Other than the fact that you missed me.”

Vienne cuts me a look that says
you wish
. “When we get to the job, don’t use my old name. They call me Sidewinder now.”

“Who is they?”

“The rest of my davos.”

I can’t hide my surprise. “You’re working with a crew again?”

“That’s right. Now you are too.”

“What if I don’t want to work for some piker’s davos?”

Vienne hits the brakes. “We’ve got a job and could use a good extra hand. Either you’re in, or you can get out right here and take your chances with the Rangers. Your choice.”

I rub my whiplashed neck. “That’s not much of a choice.”

“Hard choices never are,” she says.

I look out at the unforgiving horizon. Either go on a job under the command of a chief I’ve never met, or walk the twenty kilometers to the next town without water, hoping a Ranger patrol doesn’t pick me up.

“My chief is dead.” I open the door. “I’m not hankering to take orders from another one.”

Vienne grabs my arm. “Mimi saw something in you. Don’t turn your back on that.”

I pause, thinking. Then close the door. “If I’m going to be working again, two things: I need to pick up my gear and get some grub. My stomach’s as empty as a black hole mine.”

“Where’s your gear?” she asks.

“In a high-security facility that can only be hacked into by one person on this planet.”

“How do we find this person?”

“By putting the Noriker in reverse.” I point my thumb toward the salt mine. “She’s one of the convicts you left behind.”

Chapter 1

Bibliotheca Alexandrina, City Central
Christchurch
ANNOS MARTIS
238. 2. 3. 08:32

Outside the Bibliotheca Alexandrina next to Parliament Towers in the government center, smack dab in the middle of Christchurch, Rosa Lynn Malinche jumps from the back of a delivery lorry. She’s cleaned up nicely since Vienne and I rescued her. Her red hair is tucked under a brown cap, and she’s wearing a brown jumper.

I let her get a head start, then move to the rear of the lorry. Open the back doors and slide out a ramp. Then swing a dolly around—it’s loaded with a tall rectangular wooden box—and steer it toward the loading dock.

When Malinche reaches the dock, she climbs up the stairs and hits the buzzer on the office door. She counts three and buzzes again before calling out, “Hop to! We’ve not got all day! We’re on the clock!”

“Just a minute!” the clerk inside yells over the intercom. “Stand back so I can take a look at you.”

Malinche steps back, spreading her arms but keeping her head down, the brim of her cap pulled closely over her face so that the recognition software in the camera can’t identify her features. Technically speaking, she’s still a library employee. Technically speaking, she’s also a fugitive from justice. Rangers all over the prefecture are hot on her trail.

“Technically,” Mimi says, “that is inaccurate. Malinche may be a fugitive. However, when I interfaced the multinets in the café where you drank too many transfat-laden beverages, there was only one bulletin seeking her arrest. There was no mention of a large-scale manhunt.”

“You suck the fun right out of things,” I say, my stomach growling because we still haven’t eaten. “Did you know that?”

“Fun is not one of my prime directives.”

“It should be,” I say, and roll the dolly up the loading ramp, stopping at the bay door next to the office. “Who wants to be a fun sucker?”

“I am only as interesting as my programming allows,” Mimi says. “Would you like me to establish new programming parameters to accommodate your preferences?”

“Sure,” I say, “but don’t go—”

Before I can finish, the clerk buzzes Malinche in, and the bay door begins to open. I wheel the box inside, where the clerk is tapping a sheath of electrostat with his finger.

“Assorted toiletry items, huh? In a crate like that?” He hands the stat back to Malinche and points to a spot behind him. “Set it over there, next to the other crap I’ve got to deal with.”

“You want to inspect it?” I roll the dolly into the back. “Sure thing. You’re the boss.”

“Son, I’m not anybody’s boss.” He grabs a crowbar from another crate and waves for me and Malinche to follow him. “Let’s see what kind of toiletries take a box like a coffin to ship.”

“Is this necessary?” Malinche says. “We’re on a tight schedule.”

She gives me the nod, and we start backing away from the crate.

The clerk rams the crowbar under the lip of the lid. “Susie, I sign nothing that I don’t know what is,
capiche
? Ten years I got on this job, and I’ve learned a thing or two about—”

Wham!

The lid flies off, slamming the clerk in the face and knocking him backward into a stack of cardboard boxes, which break his fall. The heavy lid lands on the warehouse floor with an echoing
whap
.

Vienne steps out of the crate, knocking packing material from her symbiarmor as Malinche heads for the office.

“Thought that fossicker was never going to shut up.” Vienne grabs her armalite from the bottom of the crate. “This is why Regulators are cremated on a pyre. No soul could ever find Valhalla in a box.”

I kneel by the clerk to check his breathing, which is fine. “Point taken.”

Not that I like the idea of having to send Vienne off to the afterlife. I’m not a big believer in the beautiful death that most Regulators want to have when they shuffle off this mortal coil. Speaking of which, the clerk hasn’t lost his coil, though shuffling is all he’ll manage when he wakes up. There’s an angry knot on his forehead with splinters sticking out of it. I pluck the splinters and roll him onto his back for easy lifting.

With Vienne taking his feet and me his hands, we lift him into a large packing box that is filled with actual toiletries. We secure his hands and feet with zip ties.

“I’m glad he decided to open the lid,” I say.

“He decided to open it,” Vienne says, “the instant your special friend acted like she shouldn’t. Basic psychology. Mimi taught me that.”

I close the flaps on the box, hiding the clerk’s body. “What d’ you mean,
special
? We met each other in Battle School. Years ago.”

Vienne rolls her eyes. “Yes, Battle School. As if I’ve never heard that line before.”

“Line?” I say. “It’s not a line. It’s the truth.”

“Security systems overridden,” Malinche says as she returns from the office. “The lift’s on its way up. Vienne, can you cover us and keep watch on the clerk? This should take ten minutes, tops.”