JEFFREY THOMAS - DEADSTOCK

Then he recognized the silver and black bands on the appendage, though he had never seen the kawaii-doll itself before, only in pictures he d been shown. Stake understood, and was in awe. A god is owed awe.

The tentacle pulled Yuki backwards. It did not crush her delicate body. It did not lift her off her feet. But it was immensely strong, and insistent. She had to dance backwards to keep from being dragged on her heels. In starting toward Stake, Fukuda had let go of her, but he managed to leap forward and grasp one of her outflung arms. Father and daughter wailed to each other. For a few seconds, they were able to hold on to the other s hand.

An amorphous form began squeezing itself into the far end of the lobby, bulging through the narrow hallway entrance. A shapeless, gray and glossy mass. More and more ballooning out of the doorway. Fluid but weighty. The python-like extremity was rooted in it.

Yuki and her father only held on to the ends of each other s fingers, now. And then, their hands were torn away from each other. Fukuda howled, falling onto the floor with the momentum.

Stake leveled his gun past Yuki, at the mounding tissue that was oozing into the far end of the room. Steadying his aim with both hands, he fired shot after shot into it. Even in his lightheaded state, the thing was hard to miss, and every projectile found its mark. But were there even any organs to hit? Nerves to feel pain? The tumor-like flesh barely rippled. It leaked just the thinnest trickles of clear, viscous fluid before the holes closed up, disappeared.

Fukuda scrambled to his feet. Stake lowered the Darwin and rushed at his employer, as swiftly as his pain and dazedness would allow.

The serpentine arm retracted or shortened. It was withdrawing into that billowing storm cloud of raw flesh. Yuki was pulled back. back. arms reaching, mouth and eyes wide.

Stake collided with Fukuda, threw his arms around him, before he could charge at the creature. "Let me go!" Yuki's father protested.

Yuki was pulled back. back. until all of the arm but the coil around her waist had vanished into the gray flesh. Then, her body impacted against it, as if she had fallen onto the mass from high above, fallen into a pool. She broke the surface. A slow-motion sinking away into that pool s thick gray waters.

"Yuki!" her father called.

Her face with its wide beseeching eyes was swallowed. Just her slim arms now, her splayed fingers. Then they, too, submerged.

"We have to get out," Stake said in Fukuda s ear. "We have to get out of here."

"We have to save Yuki!"

"She s gone. It has her. And it will get us next."

He would come back here later, maybe with Pablo Fujiwara in tow, or at least armed with whatever advice Fujiwara could give him. Or perhaps he d even have to involve the authorities. The police or the Colonial Forces, of which he had once been a member. But for now, particularly in his current condition, there was nothing he could do but get his client safely out of this place.

Stake wrestled Fukuda toward the door. The Darwin fell from his hand in the struggle but he ignored it. The black static had lowered in a curtain over his vision again. He felt his arms around Fukuda weakening, slipping away.

Strong arms lifted Stake up again. Fukuda? Fukuda, coming to his senses and realizing that they had to get out. Fukuda dragging him backwards toward the open front doors.

Before he passed out, Jeremy Stake let his head fall back and stared at an upside-down face with blue skin and black eyes that flashed a laser red.

The Folger Street Snarlers' regular contact was not there when they met the new arms dealer, but he had forewarned Javier Dias to expect a KeeZee. Thus, Javier knew to be looking up high before the motel room s door even opened to admit them. The KeeZee was almost seven feet tall, but that was only part of his ominous aura. The being s jagged-jawed head looked like a monkey wrench with a thin, grayish-black skin vacuum-formed to it. His long hair had been woven into thin braids decorated with glass beads, which reminded Javier of his dead friend Mott. The alien s three tiny black eyes gleamed down at Javier lidlessly. The body under the black jumpsuit was a solid mass of muscle.

Javier had never heard one of them speak before. The jaws barely moved, but the muscles and tendons in the thing s throat seemed to knot and twist with a tortured effort. Even then, what reached Javier s ears was a translation as filtered through a device pinned to the breast of the alien s jumpsuit.

"If you already have weapons on you, you d better hand them over first," the towering being told them. "I ve got a scanner rigged just inside, so it will know if you re hiding even a penknife."

"I thought Rabal told you we were trustworthy," Javier said, referring to their regular dealer, a Kalian. But he obliged by slipping out and passing to the KeeZee the gun that had belonged to Brat.

"I don t even trust Rabal," the KeeZee told him. "That s how I stay out of prison. And how I stay alive."

Next into the room came Patryk, wearing dark glasses to protect his still red and sensitive eyes. He handed over a pistol as well. Then Barbie, of the five faces, entered the rented room. She relinquished her own handgun, followed by a boot knife nicely balanced for throwing. Lastly, in stalked Satin in his new cybernetic pony, though it was actually far from new. It was bulkier and more awkward than his previous sleek black model, its yellow enamel paint chipped and blistered, but at least it moved his pupa-like body from here to there. Scowling suspiciously, he directed one of his mechanical limbs to turn over a stubby little pistollike submachine gun.

"Your iron could be better," the KeeZee remarked, locking the weapons inside a suitcase resting atop a bed too short to accommodate his looming frame. "Interested in upgrading?"

"Maybe next time," Javier told him. "Our finances are limited. Right now we want to concentrate on the stuff that Rabal said you could get for us." "As you wish."

The KeeZee knelt down to drag two larger suitcases out from under the bed. The mattress creaked from their weight when he set them down. He flipped both lids open, and took a step back to let the others see around him.

"Huh," said Satin.

"Whew," two of Barbie's faces said. Her largest face just gurgled and dribbled some saliva.

"That should be enough for what Rabal talked about," the KeeZee said.

"Anything we should know about this?" asked Javier.

"Yeah," the KeeZee s fabricated voice grunted. "Be careful."

Money changed hands. Satin's powerful cybernetic arms hoisted both pieces of luggage, as if he were a bellboy employed by this seedy establishment. Confiscated weapons were returned. Seeing his guests out, the KeeZee asked Javier, "So what are you folks, a street gang or something?" His tone, even translated, sounded a bit derisory-but people of his vocation made their living off street gangs. Javier suspected the derision had to do with the two mutants. Javier wasn t happy about that. Nor was he happy about the being's lack of discretion in asking him such a personal question, but he answered anyway.

"Yep," he said. "We're the Folger Street Terata."

It was well into night, but better than that, it was raining hard besides. Even the most ambitious worker at the office block next door had gone home hours earlier. Except for Quidd's Market and some notable theaters and restaurants in Beaumonde Square proper, this was not an area that seethed with nightlife. During the working week, the moneyed took themselves straight to the safety of their upscale apartments-such as, had it ever opened, Steward Gardens would have provided.

Safe from the stabbing cold of a pounding, late autumn rain. Safe from the criminals, the addicts, the gang members that might venture as far afield as Beaumonde Square if boredom or curiosity or restlessness compelled them, hoping to score one extra-fat wallet to pay for a larger than usual measure of seaweed or purple vortex, buttons or beans, kaleidoscopes or red shockers.