Jak Koke - Clockwork asylum

Around the room, four heads seemed to nod in unison.

"All right, we go wheels up in forty-five minutes. Full combat gear. Now let's head out."

The room cleared, all except for Dhin. He approached slowly and put his callused hand on Ryan's shoulder. "I've been rigging for most of fifteen years. Rigged more kinds of drek than I can remember. For the first time, your story about Roxborough has got me wondering just what it would be like to have somebody else rigging me. Welcome back, Bossman."

Dhin turned and left.

Ryan stood alone in the command room. "Jane?" he said.

There was a moment of solemn silence, then Jane's voice came on grave. "I'm sorry about what happened, Quicksilver. I don't think you're totally clean of Rox- borough yet, but I'm committed to this run, and I'm going to see it through."

"Good, I need your expertise and your support."

Jane's voice held more conviction now. "You've got it, let's take this fragger out."

"Thanks." Ryan made his way quickly back to his quarters, and opened the door to find that someone had already laid out his gear. Within minutes, his body was encased in his armored nightsuit, form-fitting plycra with Kevlar III panels intercalated to maintain flexibility and absolute freedom of movement. Ryan needed to maintain silence and stealth even in heavy combat situations.

He checked his vest for his grenade pistol and narcotic throwing darts. The darts were habit; he brought them even knowing they wouldn't be much use against the cyberzombie. The clips of explosive and armor-piercing bullets for his Ingram should more than make up for it.

When he was ready and had achieved focus, Ryan pressed the earpiece for the Phillips tacticom into his right ear and attached the adhesive wire microphone to his throat. When it was all connected, he triggered the unit on his belt. "Everyone ready to roll?"

Axler's voice was full of droll humor. "Everyone except you, Quicksilver. We're suited up and boarded already."

Ryan chuckled. "Be right there."

The wind whistled in his ears as he made his way to the LAV. The Saeder-Krupp Phoenix II was a huge low-altitude vehicle, sitting where the Mistral had been an hour before. Ryan stepped under the Phoenix's wedge-shaped nose and walked back toward its tiny stub wings, to the ramp. Inside, the rest of his team was outfitted in matte-black Esprit full battle armor, including helmet and integral commlink.

Miranda was the exception. She was wearing camo T-shirt and pants and combat boots. On closer inspection, Ryan could see the yellow smiley faces on her socks where they stuck out just above the boot tops. She carried a small jeweled cane, and her wrists and neck seemed overloaded with charms and foci. The matte-black headset looked out of place on the small woman's head.

Miranda looked up and noticed Ryan's inspection. She shrugged. "You said full combat gear."

Axler hefted a Panther assault cannon and checked its clip. "We're ready to go wheels up on your mark," she said.

Behind Ryan, the ramp started to close, and he turned toward the cockpit. Dhin wore his armor, minus the helmet, and he was jacked in-slumped low in the cushioned seat.

"Jane give you the locale grid?"

Dhin's lax body didn't respond, but his voice came over Ryan's headset. "Copy. But I hope this is a fast trip. The sat-feed says we got God's own thunderstorm heading this way. It's going to cover the whole area just around noon."

Ryan nodded. "Wheels up."

The Phoenix roared to life, and Ryan barely had time to find his seat before the vehicle screamed into the air.

In the pre-dawn gray, the bulky Ford Canada Bison's off-road tires caught the loose gravel at the edge of the pavement, kicking up rock and dust. Burnout leaned into the turn, swiveled to the left and lashed out with his foot.

The driver's-side door, which had refused to latch after Burnout's forced entry, sailed into the chill air, landing with a crash as the Bison accelerated down the cracked asphalt of old Highway 83. Wind swept through the big cargo truck's interior, sending candy wrappers and bits of refuse through the cab.

In the hours since he'd bailed from the track-train, Burnout's mood had grown foul. The constant presence of Lethe inside made him think too much about everything, and it was starting to slot him off something fierce.

"She was a pig," Burnout muttered to himself, not really expecting Lethe to have any comment. The spirit was still angry over the way Burnout had geeked the Bison's driver.

"She was an innocent." Lethe's voice dropped into his head like Burnout's long-forgotten conscience.

Burnout grunted. "Innocent, my hoop. You think that old slitch was out for a pleasure cruise at oh-four-hundred? Ten-to-one we jacked ourselves a drekload of red-hot BTL chips headed for Seattle or Spokane. If it makes you feel any better, we probably just saved the lives of fifty chipheads." Burnout didn't give a frag for anyone addicted to Better Than Life simsense, but he wasn't sure if Lethe would know that or not.

There was a long pause, then, "No, it does not make me feel any better."

Burnout laughed. "That's what I love about you.

Everything's so black and white. Well, here's a reality check for you, chummer. The world doesn't work that way. There's no such thing as good and evil, just different shades of gray."

"Explain yourself."

Burnout sighed and pushed the Bison up another twenty klicks an hour. According to his GPS, they should reach the abandoned mail road in less than forty minutes, provided he could keep this tub on the roadway. "There are always reasons for apparently evil acts."

"Justifiable homicide?"

"Yes."

"No such thing."

Burnout slammed his fist into the dash, trying to contain his anger. "All right, let's just forget for a minute that our little old lady was a piece of trash who has made the world a better place with her hasty departure."

Lethe chuckled, a low soft thing that Burnout found oddly comforting. "All right, it is forgotten."

Burnout nodded. "That's better. Let's say she was a granny out for a joyride to visit her brat's brats. I chose this vehicle for a reason. It's been years since I've been along this route. I don't know just how the terrain has changed. I passed up two Jackrabbits and a Westwind before this ride came along."

"You have lost me again."

"Then listen, slot it! Granny comes along in the perfect vehicle for our purposes. Now, it doesn't matter that she hadn't been doing anything wrong, that she'd led an innocent life. We needed this truck, right?"

Lethe chuckled again. "Well, at least I am still following you."

Burnout slowed to take a long, winding curve, then punched it in the short straight-away. "Now suppose we left Granny alive. What's the first thing she's going to do when the next car comes by?"

Lethe's voice took on the cautious tone Burnout had noticed him using whenever he was beginning to fall behind Burnout's logic. "She would signal the car to pick her up?"

Burnout laughed. "Fragging right. And when that car stopped, what's the next thing she would have done?"

"I think I begin to see your reasoning. She would have notified the authorities of our activities."

"Score one for the spirit. I think you're getting it. You see, even if she hadn't been a smuggler, I'd still have had to geek her to keep Mercury from picking up our trail."

Another long pause. "That is, of course, where your reasoning goes astray."

Burnout grunted and slowed the Bison to maneuver around some deep potholes. "Astray? And what do you mean? My logic is rock-solid. I had to do what I had to do."

"Maybe I'm being a bit presumptive, and forgive me if I've not followed everything exactly, but if she was a smuggler, then…"