Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

“Good for you,” gasped Elroy. “I bet you’re proud of yourself.”

“Take me to Spider,” said Rakkim, still hanging on to him.

“If I wanted to ditch you, I would have already done it. Wouldn’t be the first time.” Elroy wriggled but couldn’t pull free. “Hands off, okay? I don’t like being touched. Please?”

Rakkim let him go, then waited for him to leave him alone in the dark.

“I bet you thought I was going to run off,” said Elroy.

“Not at all.”

“Liar.” Elroy sniffed. “Stick your right hand out until you find the wall. Did you do it? Okay, keep your hand on the wall as we walk. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

They made good progress, maintained a slow but steady pace for the next half hour. Rakkim kept count of his steps and turns, making a mental map. Forty-seven steps, right turn, two hundred and eighteen steps, left…They seemed to be on a slight downward spiral, and he was sure that Elroy was doubling back from time to time, trying to confuse him. Sometimes Rakkim heard the rumble of a subway in the distance, felt the vibration through the stone floor. Twice they splashed through pools of cold water. Rakkim bumped his head three or four times, tripped once. He almost lost his count when he fell, but he repeated the numbers and turns in his head, reestablishing the pattern. He heard things run past on the floor, claws skittering. Never a glimmer of light.

“We’re here,” said Elroy.

Rakkim hadn’t realized how loudly his heart was beating until they stopped. He blinked as Elroy opened a door, the boy standing there in the light. Rakkim followed him inside.

They were in a storage room of some kind, a small space with a sink and towels. Elroy was already washing up, soaping his hands and face, splashing water everywhere. He quickly put on a pair of oversize clean coveralls from a hook on the wall, tossed a pair to Rakkim, and removed his shoes. The water from the tap was icy, but Rakkim was grateful for the chance to wash the grime off. Blood was on the towel when he dried his face, and the mirror showed a gash in his forehead.

“I’m Spider,” said the man waiting for them, a barefoot gnome with a dark, luxuriant beard and a black skullcap. He shifted from one foot to the other. “Pleasure to finally meet you.” Rakkim offered his hand, but Spider turned away and started walking. Elroy hurried beside his father, the two of them talking as Rakkim followed.

The interior room was softly lit, and the size of a small warehouse. Thick carpets covered the floor, museum-quality Persians in reds and blues, and silk ornamentals in subtle shades of pink and yellow, so delicate that he didn’t want to walk on them. The room was warm and clean, the air fresh, smelling faintly of garlic and roasted chicken. Not a hint of the dampness of the stone corridor that had brought them there. The walls were hung with rich tapestries, dozens and dozens of them. He had been in wealthy households with Redbeard, homes of senators and business leaders-just one of these tapestries would have occupied a place of honor. Rakkim was looking around so often that he fell behind and had to hurry to catch up. At last, Spider pushed aside some embroidered curtains and stepped into a small office. He waited for Rakkim to sit on a pile of purple cushions, then sat across from him. Elroy stayed outside.

Spider was an intense ball of tics, his skin white as a pearl. He wore black silk pajamas, his hands and feet knobby. His beard was long, his graying hair plaited into a single braid that fell past his shoulders, and, just as Rakkim had heard, his nose was an imperial beak. It was hard to gauge his age as he had been out of the sun for so long, but he didn’t look older than forty. “My son said you did well on the trip through the tunnels.”

Rakkim glanced around. The office was bare, except for shelves along the back wall containing rows and rows of glass snow globes. Pretransition tourist items. He saw the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hollywood sign, the Space Needle, Santa Claus and his sleigh…even the Twin Towers. From another part of the warehouse, he could hear women’s voices, and the sound of a baby crying. “How far underground are we?”

Spider didn’t respond. Another baby was crying now, a regular howling chorus, but Spider didn’t seem to notice, intent on Rakkim. The pupils of his eyes were hugely dilated. Given the whiteness of his skin, the only spots of color on his face were his black pupils tracking Rakkim. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time. Did you know that the Blue Moon is the only club in the Zone that doesn’t pay protection?”

“That’s fascinating, but why am I here? What did you find on the-”

“You don’t even pay off the police. You give gifts to the officers. Birthday presents for their wives and sweethearts, graduation gifts for their children. Generous gifts, but no bribes.” Spider blinked. “They must appreciate not being treated as thieves in uniform.”

“What did you find on the computer cores?”

“When you first started the club, I was curious to see what would happen when the local goons showed up.” Spider twisted his neck from side to side. “The Hammer Trio were the first to call…and the last. Vicious bastards. Those three left a trail of cripples all over the Zone. Not anymore though, right?” His smile jerked. “Two former army special forces and a retired Fedayeen-”

“He wasn’t Fedayeen. He washed out the first month.”

“Really? Everyone said…” Spider nodded. “Not that it matters anymore. The three of them came around…and then they were gone.” He blinked at Rakkim. “Is it true you left their hammers on the bar for a week afterwards? Three ball-peen hammers?” Rakkim shrugged. “I deplore violence, but no one tried to collect from you again, did they?”

A couple of Spider’s children, twin girls about eight years old, burst through the curtains, giggling. They pointed at Rakkim, whispered to each other, laughing now.

Rakkim waited until the children had darted away. “How many kids do you have?”

“Not enough,” said Spider, completely serious.

“What am I doing here, Spider?”

“Yes. Of course.” Spider blinked. “The core from the university computer had nothing of interest on it, but the one from Sarah’s home unit contained a very ingenious security system.” He folded his arms around himself. “I’d love to know where she got it.”

“I’ll ask her when I find her.”

Spider’s fingers twitched. “There was a dual memory on her personal core. One was readable to anyone able to crack her access code, which was no great difficulty, but behind that primary memory was a second, a ghost memory much more difficult to penetrate. Even more interesting, the ghost memory had an autodestruct timer. If a code word wasn’t typed in every seventy-two hours, a virus would tear through the files, but leave the primary memory intact. So, someone examining the core would find it filled with nothing but the usual academic clutter. No one would even know that there had been anything to delete. Impressive. I have no idea who created it, but it’s not Russian, or Chinese, or Swiss. None of the usual suspects for top-flight code. It was an individual. An individual using backwater code…but with a very high-level intelligence. Just like me.” His fingers fluttered. “Maybe that’s why I was able to crack it.”

“You cracked the ghost memory?”

Spider’s smile jerked.

“Could you tell if anyone else had read the files?”

“Like Redbeard?” Spider snorted. “No, I was the first to pop them.” He pulled at his lip, flashed nubs of white teeth. “If you had been able to get the core to me sooner, I could tell you a lot more. The virus wiped out most of the files, but there was enough left for me to reconstruct certain parts. I saved the prologue of a book she was working on. It must have been one of the last things she entered. First in, first wiped, that’s the way the virus worked.” A tic started under his right eye, lifting his cheek several times before subsiding. He leaned forward, stared at Rakkim as he recited: