“So get us out,” I told him.
“Where are you taking me?” my father asked,as Singh turned left and trotted down the corridor. Dad’s voice wasstill weak, every word coming with an effort.
“Prometheus,” I said, hurrying to keep up.“Where you can go right back into a dreamtank. Don’t worry, I’m nottrying to get you to take your life back; I just don’t trustSeventh Heaven to keep things running after the city’s fried.”
“Is your mother there? On Prometheus?”
“What? Of course not. She’s been out-systemfor years.”
“Then why?”
I wasn’t any too sure of that myself.“Because someone offered to get you off-planet, and it seemed likea good play at the time,” I said.
“But we dumped you.”
“I know that, you bastard,” I said. I couldfeel my eyes welling up. “God damn it, I know that. But you neverasked whether we intended to dump you.”
Chapter Thirteen
We came out in a maintenance shaft-it wasn’t streetlevel, but it was open to the sky and a cab could get in. I beepedfor one. Then I looked at the HG-2 and checked the read-outs to seeif it had a fix on the invisible floater.
It did. I lifted the gun, pointed it in theright general direction, and fired.
The recoil knocked me back against the shaftwall, so I didn’t get a good view of the explosion, but what I sawwas pretty damned satisfying. Scraps of hot metal and meltedplastic rattled off the walls and floor, and sparking bits ofelectronics spattered in all directions.
“What the hell…?” Singh said,turning around fast. He dropped my father on the way.
“Spy-eye,” I said. “The Ginza cops set it onus.”
“And you killed it?”
“Yes,” I said. I didn’t say anything morethan that aloud, but I was thinking that I really hoped it hadn’tbeen sentient. I had quite enough to explain to my ancestors whenthe time came without adding another murder.
“That blast is going to get the citycops after us!”
“Pfui,” I said. “When was the lasttime you saw city cops do anything down here?”
“You’ve sure as hell pissed off theGinza!”
I shrugged. “I’ve been on their gritlist foryears.”
A weird hissing noise interrupted us, and weboth turned to see where it was coming from.
My father was lying sprawled on the floor ofthe shaft, laughing at us.
“My Carlie,” he said. “Look at you!”
“I look a hell of a lot better than you do,”I retorted.
“You… you’re living like one of my dreams,”he said. “How did that happen?”
“My parents did the dump on me when I wasfifteen,” I said, and I knew I sounded bitter and sarcastic, and Ididn’t care. “I learned to do whatever I had to do to survive.”
“You’re… what, an assassin?”
“A private detective,” I said.
“And you’re taking me to Prometheus?”
“Shut up,” I replied. Something was movingoverhead, and I wanted to be sure it was our cab, and not a Ginzaenforcer.
Then it was sinking down the shaft with theheadlights blazing, a cloud of stardust forming the Midnight Cab amp; Limo logo on its taxi-yellow belly. “Our ride’s here,” Isaid.
“So are those,” Singh said, pointing.
I looked where his finger indicated, andspotted two glossy black floaters-not stealthed, but not lit,either. They were big ones, probably weighed more inert than I did,and were heading directly toward us. I didn’t see a logo-not theGinza’s, not the city cops’ insignia, nothing but gleaming black.They didn’t look like newsies; there were no visible lenses orantennas.
I looked at my gun and thought about it, butthere were two of them, and they might be armed. I could maybe takeout one before they could react, but there was no way I could getthem both, and I didn’t know what the survivor would be capableof.
They weren’t shooting at us, and they weren’tshouting, so I decided we could ignore them for the moment.
Well, partially ignore them, anyway. They didforce me to change my plans. I had originally hoped to call ’Chan,get him to the casino door, then grab him, maybe drug him, and haulhim along to the ship. That would have gotten everyone together,one happy family, and we could have just taken off for AmericanCity before the cops could stop us.
With those floaters there watching us, thatprobably wasn’t going to work.
“Someone called for a cab?” the Midnight cabcalled, its door sliding open as it hung a few centimeters off thedeck.
“Get him in,” I told Singh, pointing at myfather. While he loaded Dad into the cab I watched the blackfloaters, but they had slowed to a stop. They were hoveringsilently at the top of the shaft, noses toward us.
“You coming?” Singh called. He and Dad weresitting in the cab, the door open.
I holstered the HG-2 and climbed in afterthem. The door was closing behind me when a Ginza floater, exactlylike the one that had accompanied the cops-in fact, it probablywas the one that had accompanied the cops-came dropping downtoward us.
“Transparency,” I told the cab. “I want tosee this.”
The roof seemed to vanish, and there was theGinza floater, swooping down toward us-and then the black floaterswere moving again, as well.
But they weren’t moving toward the cab; theywere diving in to cut off the Ginza’s floater.
“Get us out of here,” I said.
“I don’t want any trouble with the casino,”the cab protested.
“Neither do we,” I said, “but it looks as ifsomeone else does.” The black floaters had blocked the cop’sapproach.
I couldn’t see the Ginza floater anymore,since the black floaters were easily twice its size and there weretwo of them between us, but the cab had its external audio on, so Icould hear it. “Hu Xiao!” the Ginza floater called. “You arecharged with the destruction of casino property!”
“I don’t want any trouble with the casino,”the cab repeated.
“And I told you, we don’t either,” I said.“None of us is this Hu Xiao person. See for yourself.” I slid mycard in the slot.
“Thank you, Mis’ Hsing,” it said. “And theseothers?”
Singh threw me a glance, then fished out hisown card and tabbed it in.
“Thank you. And the last of you?”
“That’s my father, Guohan Hsing,” I said. “Hedoesn’t have his card with him, but if you’re set up for a DNAcheck you can verify it.”
“I’m Guohan Hsing,” Dad agreed. “You cancheck my voiceprint if you can’t do a genetic scan.”
I wasn’t any too sure his scratchy whisperwould match any old voiceprints the cab might have access to, butapparently the cab was convinced somehow; it began rising.
“I notice the elder Mis’ Hsing is naked anddoes not appear entirely well,” it said, as it cleared the lip ofthe shaft. “Is medical attention desired?”
I was watching the floaters and almost didn’thear it; the Ginza floater was still trying to get at us, and theblack floaters were blocking it, forcing it back. “Who arethose things?” I asked.
Then the cab’s question registered, and Iquickly added, “Thank you, but no medical attention is needed. Justget us to the port asap.”
“The blue floater is a security unit owned bythe Ginza Casino Hotel,” the cab said, answering my question. “Theother two are refusing all requests for identification, but thespecifications match descriptions of high-level units owned by theNew York Townhouse Hotel and Gambling Hall.”
“Carlisle Hsing!” the Ginza floater called.“You are charged with destruction of casino property and giving afalse name to security personnel!”
They’d ID’ed me. I was a bit surprised it hadtaken that long, but I wasn’t really thinking about that. I wasthinking about the black floaters. They belonged to the NewYork?
That meant they belonged to the Nakadas. HadGrandfather Nakada sent them to protect me? It didn’t seem likely.It didn’t seem like his style, and besides, everyone on Epimetheusthought he was dead. He couldn’t just give orders and expect themto be carried out without any explanation of his reporteddemise.