Gina glanced around for someone who looked ready to bolt, but the only other people left in court had been pulled in at the hit-and-run with her. And the guy with the handcam, who had been forced back over the rail into the spectators' area by the other bailiff.
"Permission to approach the bench, Your Honor," said the prosecutor.
The judge nodded. "Granted. This had better be good."
They conferred for several moments while the group from the clinic shifted around, nervous but silent. The guy with the handcam was half sitting on the rail, looking sourly at the gag-sticker the bailiff had slapped over his lens.
"Court finds confidentiality will serve the public good," the judge said abruptly. "Before we clear the court, who else is waiting and why?"
The other bailiff herded the clinic group off to one side as Gina straggled up with Clarence or Claw, and the loser clunking his Boot on the floor, and the rest of the hit-and-run people, to stand before the bench. The judge cut off the reading of the charges.
"Is that it? No first-degree murder, no other unlawful-congress-with-a-machine perpetrators? Very well. The court is dismissing the charges against you," she said, her gaze resting momentarily on Gina, "even though I know a few of you have quite a long list of priors. Since we have managed to apprehend none of the conspirators, and since we have more important fish to fry here tonight, the court is letting you off with full knowledge that you will all undoubtedly be back here on some other night. What's one conviction more or less? Except you," she added, pointing at the loser with the Denver Boot. "You can spend the night canned, and we'll pick up the rest of your story in the morning."
Gina had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning. It didn't quite work. The judge shook her head and motioned for the room to be cleared.
"So, you up to do it again?"
Gina looked up at Clarence-or-Claw's smiling face. Didn't this guy ever get tired? Whatever he ran on, it had to be better than most of the stuff you could get from a hit-and-run pickle stand.
"I'm up for getting the fuck outa here," she said, brushing past him. He trotted down the shiny hall after her.
"No, really," he said, in a half whisper. "I know where it's happening right now, hit-and-run, better than the one where they caught us."
"Get the fuck outa my face." She walked faster, pushing through the fatigue that was weighing more heavily on her by the moment.
"Hey, wait-"
She swung around a corner, half turning to slap at him, when something smashed into her, and she went down hard on the polished floor. Sheets of paper rained down and scattered. There were frantic footsteps as someone chased after them.
Pushing herself up to a sitting position, she rubbed the side of her face and then blinked at what seemed to be a solid wall of business suits. She looked up.
"Mount Rushmore," she said. "Little far west of home for this time of year?"
The faces stared down at her impassively, three men and a woman. Attack of the Living Suits. She shrugged and pulled herself up on the nearest one, using his pockets for handholds. He didn't move or change expression, and she was sorry immediately. His face was familiar. At the moment she couldn't remember what it was associated with, but it couldn't have been anything good. The look in his eyes said he knew her, too, and he didn't like her, a lot.
Fuck him. She ran a hand through her dreadlocks and went into a too-toxed-to-live act. "Gotta stop having these crazy-damn dreams," she muttered, and elbowed her way through the middle of the group.
She got down to the first floor without further incident and also without Clarence or Claw or whoever he was. On the way out some instinct made her divert to the doors right of center, so she had a perfect view, without being seen herself, of Hall Galen and Lindel Joslin getting out of the unmarked limo at the curb. The young guy who got out just after them she didn't recognize. But the last guy out was Visual Mark.
The young guy hesitated at the bottom of the steps as the others, including Mark, started up. Gina drew back farther against the wall as Galen paused to turn to him.
"Come on, Keely," he said in that oozy voice that had always reminded Gina of a perverted baby. "You think they come out and fetch state's evidence off the front steps?"
Joslin put one skeletal hand to her mouth and gave a giggle that only dogs should have heard. Gina still couldn't buy the skinny bitch-twitch as an implant surgeon. Anyone lying on a table who saw that coming on with an implant needle had to be stone-home crazy or dead not to jump up and run away screaming.
"You said I'd have a signed hard copy of the deal by now," the young guy said. "I don't see one." He was even younger than Gina had first thought, barely not a kid; an ex-kid.
"S'waiting for you inside with our lawyers."
Gina winced; only a kid would buy Galen doing casual. You could practically see the words stalking around on stilts. Run, fool, she thought; what the fuck, maybe they don't think you've got the nerve so they won't have anyone to chase you.
"You said I'd have a hard copy in my hands before I ever set foot inside," the guy insisted, still holding his ground. But not very well; he was going to let them reel him in any minute. Gina didn't really want to watch, but there was no way to leave without being seen.
"Now, Keely," Galen said, with the lip-smack that had always made Gina want to pop his chocks, "we said we'd pull for you, but there's no way you can speed up a transcription or a hardcopy machine. They can only chug along so fast, you know."
The kid looked down and mumbled something about a hard copy again.
Galen dropped all pretense of congeniality and stumped down the stairs to stand two steps above the kid and just an inch taller. "There's a whole courtroom and an impatient judge waiting. We're going in anyway. You can go in turned over, or you can go in and get turned inside out. It doesn't really make a whole lot of difference to me personally."
Mark yawned noisily, and for a moment he seemed to be looking through the shadows directly at her. Gina tensed; then his gaze wandered past her. She slumped back against the wall. Even if he had seen her, she probably hadn't registered as anything but more of the video playing in his head. Hell, he probably didn't know where he was himself. When I get ahold of you, motherfucker, Gina thought, oh, when I get ahold of you, won't be nothing left but shit and blood. He didn't look as if there were all that much more to him now-skin and bones, with lank brown Jesus-length hair, a broken nose, dazed, faded green eyes, and a voice permanently buried in gravel. But Mark never had looked like much, even in the early days when they'd first been in the video business together, when it had just been her and Mark and the Beater and a revolving cast of others, hammering simulations into rock-video visions. But that had been back when the Beater had still been the Beater, and Mark had still been a banger instead of a burnout, and Hall Galen the Boy Mogul was still working on hitting the potty with it. And Joslin was torturing hamsters, most likely.
As if Gina's errant thought had activated her, Joslin came to life and went down the few steps to Mark. Don't touch him, bitch, Gina said silently, her mouth moving unconsciously with the words as Joslin's dead white hand came to roost on Mark's shoulder. Get your claw off him, bitch, that meat is mine.
Joslin's hand stayed there, as if she meant to anchor him against a sudden gust of wind that would blow him away. The way he was going these days, it wouldn't have taken much more than a light breeze. But he still had fire enough to make killer video. Not the only reason she wasn't ready to let him go yet, but it was the one that stood when she couldn't get anything else to stand up with it.