Second’s fist was cocked and in that second Ko thought the other man would knock him to the ground-he was bigger and it would have hurt a lot-but at the last moment he spat and pushed Ko away. “You’re so smart, Chen, how about you walk home tonight, huh?” Lei snapped out an order and no one argued. “Nobody gives Ko a lift, understand? He don’t deserve to roll with us!”
“I got a car.” The lie came from nowhere.
“Oh?” Second faced him again. “Your sister has that crackerbox Ranger of yours, I saw it down in Central! Where are these new wheels, then?”
A glimmer of movement caught Ko’s eye. A formation of three gunmetal Mercedes Vectors were pulling into the corporate waiting area near the airport terminal. “There it is,” he replied. “I’ll just go get it.”
Second mumbled something under his breath about “idiot” but Ko was already walking away.
Feng jogged after him. “What are you going to do, boy?”
“A daring and stupid thing.”
Frankie watched Alice’s man jog away with his carry-on in his hand, toward the stand of silver cars waiting on the slip road outside the terminal. She gave him a small, controlled smile. “If you prefer to drive yourself in the city, I can have my department arrange something suitable for you. For the moment, though, I would recommend you opt for a pool car and driver. Hong Kong has changed a lot since you left.”
“It, uh, always does.” He glanced at the masked man again.
“Mr Tze takes the security of his personnel most seriously,” said the woman, answering the question before he spoke it.
Frankie frowned. The night air was cloying and strange somehow.
“Is something amiss?” asked the woman.
“It’s nothing,” he replied after a moment. “Just… I was born here. But now… Now I’m home and it feels… Foreign? ”
“The thing about the Euros is,” began Ko, “they got what you call an ‘engineer mindset’.”
The man came up from the back seat with a start, dropping Frankie’s bag and slamming the door. Where the hell had this punk come from? “This is a restricted area-”
Ko was still speaking. “See, they look at fine ride like this and can’t think past the test track and the wheel lab. They forget that cars drive on the Street.” He pointed at the dashboard. “And the Street’s got a manner of finding its way around things.”
“You can’t be here,” said the driver, shooting a quick glance to where his passengers were waiting. “I’m calling security-”
“You know about the design fault, though, huh? Otherwise you wouldn’t be driving one of them, right?” Ko pointed again. “One in every six… That’s a pretty serious risk, neh?”
“What risk-” The driver turned his head to look where Ko was directing his attention and in the next second the armoured glass window was rising up to slam him in the face, the ganger’s hand on the back of his head. He reeled with the unexpected impact and Ko propelled the man away on to the pavement, deftly removing the ignition tag wristlet from him as he fell. The dazed suit dropped to his knees and emitted a moan.
“Sucker.” Ko slid into the driver’s seat and felt it go firm around his waist. From the corner of his eye there was the firefly glow of a cigarette tip and there was Feng, ill at ease on the passenger’s side. He didn’t like cars very much.
The soldier gave him a look, using the cigarette to indicate the sprawled man outside. “That one, he’s going to get whipped because you stole this carriage.”
Ko ignored the phantom smell of tobacco smoke and shifted the car into drive; the fool had left the motor running. “What, I should shed tears for him? He shouldn’t have become a corp, shouldn’t have signed his life away to some rich old breadhead.” Reaching under the dash, he found the cut-off remote and tore it out. With relish, Ko slammed the gears and spun the Merc from the kerb, launching out into the night past the shouting faces of the men in the waiting area. He sounded the horn- Ba! Ba! Ba! -as he blazed past Second and the rest, grinning.
Feng shook his head. “When are you going to learn, boy? Everyone serves a warlord, even those who think they don’t.”
The Merc threw Ko right and left against the restraints as he slalomed past the security gate and on to the airport highway. “Not me,” he insisted, “not ever.”
On the back seat, Frankie Lam’s carry-on bag rolled over and spilt its contents.
The Osprey 990. Man, that’s a cherry cyke, y’know? Fast like a bat outta hell, got those pannier-mounted rear smokers and a cyclops gun in the nose… Badda-bing, can come on you like death hisself if you ain’t, whatchacall, alert.
On the highway I seen one duel wit’ a couple NRG-500s and clean up the blacktop like they was pushbikes. That’s why the cops in the Denver Death Zone use them for race-and-chase. Fine choice. Fine, fine choice.
The point? Oh yeah. Well, last thing I reckoned I’d see was one of them fine machines flyin’ through the air like it ain’t no thing, straight through the window and blazin’ alight. Came through the glass-crash-and straight across the floor. What? A warehouse. That was where we were. A warehouse. Can I tell it my way, or d’you wanna read it off the cop’s books? No? All right then.
So. Gabby, she takes the Osprey in the face and she dead right there. Landed on her, burnt her up. All hell’s breaking loose, Walt’s scramblin’ for his pistols and that little Poindexter, whatever he call himself Doctor Bloom, he’s screamin’ and shoutin’ at me like it’s my gorram fault. And the pigs. The pigs is making this noise like all get out.
But that’s not the thing of it. In through the bust glass comes some tear gas shells, but that’s nothing on a big ship for me, ’cos I sprung for nasal filter implants last year, after I got a capsicum load from the Coast Guard bulls offa Kennebunkport. I got me a Mossbach Tactical Autoloader. Y’know, the kind wit’ the snail drum mag? Yeah? I’m packing double-ought gauge shells in there, ’cos we’re fixing not to mix it up with no one but maybe local five-oh. Shit, we were, whatchacall, wrong about that.
Roscoe and Dooley, they’re fast lads and they got them carbines. I don’t see what they’re shooting at, but like this (snaps fingers) Roscoe has a hole in hisself’s chest like the size o’ my fist and he falls all the way down from the gantry up high and lands-crunch-in the pigs. I reckoned them stories ’bout pigs eatin’ man meat was hooey but no, they start in on him. Still squealing. Guess it was no surprise, though, considering. Roscoe was always gettin’ into arguments with Doc Bloom when he kept hurtin’ the little porkers for shits and grins. The Doc, he got mighty angry ’bout it. See, he got them pig’s brains wired up like into one big ’puter, making them all think alike, or somethin‘. He was usin’ them to play the ponies, screw wit’ the lottery, whatever. Turned the little bacon-balls into a big pink, whatchacall, processor. Illegal as all get-out, so I reckon, but no one gives a rat’s ass about pigs, so who’s gonna stop him?
Well, shit, we found out who.
There’s this pop and the roof grows a new skylight, just like that. Down comes this dark fella-yeah, that’s him-and he sends Dooley straight to hell. Bam-bam-bam, never laid a shot on this guy. He had this sword, see. Blade so sharp you could cut the virtue from an angel. Dooley’s carbine, he slices that sucker in two, takes the boy’s hands off into the bargain. Walt… Well, by now he’s got his irons… What? Oh, they were some nickel-plated sissy guns. Anyhoo. Walt shoots at him, the dark fella, he does a gorram back flip and nails Walt with a crossbow. A crossbow! Like what they used in olden times, for Kylie’s sake!
Well sir, by this here time I’m filling the air wit’ lead and can I hit this boy? Can I hell! He’s on me like white on rice, breaks this arm and shoots me in the leg. Takes the Mossbach just as polite as you like, puts me on the dirt. Now, I’m thinkin’ that this is the end for ol’ Billy, but your man just reaches in a pocket and gives me a card. Like offa poker deck, ’cept it’s got a pitcher on it. A pitcher of a dancin’ loon and the guy smiles at me, he says: “The Fool. This is your lucky day, William. ”And he lets me live.