Richard Kadrey - Metrophage

Jonny was already backing up the stairs when the fat man caught sight of him. A scream welled up from the fat man's throat; he bared his yellow teeth. But not real teeth, Jonny knew, just plasti-steel implants, sharpened with care to needle points. In the thin unreal light of the street lamps, the fat man's teeth glowed like a trap.

Pirhanas, Jonny thought. A whole gang of them. It had been a stupid mistake, entering the old hotel. It reminded Jonny just how tired he was.

The abandoned hotels and apartments that fronted the warehouse district were useless to most gangs, lying just beyond the lights of Committee headquarters. That is why the Pirhanas, septuagenarians mostly, for there were no Pirhanas under sixty, held them. Used for target practice by the younger gangs, lied to and finally abandoned by the government, the old discards and defectives banded together to hold some piece of ground for themselves. Using the few weapons they could find, principally government issued teeth- filed and set firmly in angry, withered jaws- they were tolerated because they consumed nothing but the leavings of others. Besides, even in Los Angeles, slaughtering old people in the streets would have been frowned on.

As Jonny watched, more Pirhanas began to crawl from the hotel. The fat man started up the fire escape. He carried a sharpened pipe in his hand. Jonny started climbing, too.

He vaulted the low wall onto the roof clumsily, and sprawled on his stomach. Gravel dented his cheeks. As Jonny pushed himself up, he saw a thin, but steady stream of blood running from under his chest. The fat man was a few yards away. Jonny started running again.

Behind the fat man, more Pirhanas appeared, running like a ragged army of the dead. They waved their pipes and broken bottles wearily, more, it seemed, to remind themselves of the connection they still had to the flesh they inhabited, than to menace Jonny.

When he reached the other side of the roof, Jonny looked frantically for a way down. What he found puzzled him more.

An entire network of home-made bridges and catwalks, like some outrageous model of the neural pathways of the Pirhana's brains, criss-crossed the roofs, connecting all the buildings within a dozen blocks. Ribbed conduits, old antennae, the rusted drive shafts of decades-dead jet turbines were hammered into the surfaces of the roofs. Secured to these were lengths of rotting rope, pilfered from the docks. Flattened cans of krill, backs of discarded computer terminals and insulation tiles from L5 shuttles filled the gaps between rough planks to form walkways over the street, a hundred feet below.

The bridges did not look all that secure, but the Pirhanas were closing in. Jonny stepped onto the closest walkway and hurried across. The support ropes stretched and tightened as things cracked and shifted under his feet.

He leaped off onto the adjoining roof. The bridge strained behind him, weighed down by the gang. The fat man was still in front, holding the pipe before him. Jonny moved in circles around the roof, frantic for something to throw. He knew that if he used his gun, Zamora's man would find him and all this would have been for nothing. In the end, he decided that the situation did not cry out for subtlety. Fumbling in the folds of his tunic, he pulled out the sweat-soaked Futukoro and waved it in the face of the fat man, who pulled up short at the sight of the gun. The Pirhanas bunched up behind him, growing silent.

"That's it!" Jonny shouted. No more games. The first one who moves is meat for the others.

It was rubbish and he knew it, but it sometimes worked, as it seemed to be working now. The Pirhanas, including the fat man, remained where they were. They stared at Jonny with empty, feral eyes.

Sentiment had always been Jonny's undoing. At heart, all cops are romantic slobs and ex-cops are worse. A terrible wave of sorrow overcame his fear as he backed away from the pathetic group. They were defectives, not unlike the losers and one-percenters that he knew, that he was a part of. Jonny scanned the faces of the crowd, wondering if whatever errant gene that had sent them out here to the wilds was present in his blood. He regarded them with a certain awe.

From behind, a brick fell and shattered hollowly. Jonny turned quickly, keeping the gun on the fat man. Dozens of Pirhanas had crowded onto the other roofs, pipes and heavy connecting rods in their hands. Many grinned, showing sharp, stained teeth. Jonny was surrounded.

He shuffled to the edge of the roof, turning in slow circles, trying to cover himself in all directions. When Jonny reached the fire escape, the bridges were packed with Pirhanas. When he stepped onto the ladder, a few were moving toward him across the roof.

When he was straddling the wall, the fat man threw his pipe and screamed, charging him.

Jonny managed to duck the pipe and dropped over the edge of the wall, landing hard on the fire escape platform. He rolled onto his back and pointed his Futukoro. Too late. The Pirhanas were over him, pelting him with pipes and stones. But even under that hail of debris, Jonny could not bring himself to kill any of them. He settled for spraying three sides of the sky with bullets.

The Pirhanas fell back, unaware of Jonny's good intentions.

With his gun straight up, Jonny squeezed off a few more rounds and clattered down the steps.

When he hit the ground, he hung in the shadows, pressing himself tight against the building, waiting for the sounds of pursuit.

But there were none. Jonny breathed through his mouth, swallowing great gobs of hot, wet air.

He was in a blind alley; at the far end lay a vacant lot dotted with discarded dressing dummies and barbed wire rolls. Jonny remained against the building, feeling it solid against his back. He checked the rounds left in his gun and carefully slid down the wall toward the alley's mouth.

He did not stand a chance.

A gleeful cry echoed from above. Jonny looked up just in time to see the junk raining down on him: pipes, bottles, jet canopies and electronic components, all the technological refuse of the city. He leaped and rolled, groaning at a sharp pain in his shoulder.

The first wave of junk crashed behind him. The second wave caught him in the open with nowhere to hide. Compassion vanished.

Hunkering down behind a dressing dummy, he opened fire at the roof, his bullets chewing the head off a sexless stone cherub. Its companions made no comment and the Pirhanas, who knew better than to stand close to the edge, just laughed at him. Jonny remained low in the dirt, cursing himself for not having blown a few of them away when he had the chance.

"DO NOT MOVE. STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE," commanded a bland, amplified voice.

The Committee hovercar roared by suddenly, like an angry metal wasp- all sleek and deadly- its belly lights casting angry fingers of brilliance over the empty buildings. Shadows moved like a year of nightmares across deserted storefronts. Dust and grit billowed from the roof into the alley, filling it with smoky phantoms.

Jonny coughed, trying to clear his throat. The clamor on the roof picked up as the Pirhanas turned their anger toward the hovercar, pelting it with junk. Jonny took the opportunity to move into the street. His shadow circled him like a nervous cat, then appeared in a dozen places at once- thin and diffuse.

Crouching by a gutted lamp post, Jonny found a sewer grating and gave it a tug. By rocking it back and forth, he worked the grating loose and pulled it free. Peering down to see if the way was clear, a sudden attack of vertigo tilted the street toward the dark hole. Jonny grabbed the lamp post, fighting to keep his balance, and turned back toward the hotel.

Overhead, the hovercar was hanging in the air like a patient predator, waiting for an opening. Abruptly, a mechanical whine filled the air. Jonny squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears as the pacifiers kicked in.