Jay Posey - Three

Cass stepped back involuntarily, and felt the fake greenman close behind her. Seven to one. Very bad odds.

Tyke changed his tone immediately, apologetic now.

“We didn’t have nothing to do with it, I swear. You tell Mr McGann we didn’t have nothing to do with it, we wanted the deal just like we said, just like we said, and we didn’t want to have nothing to do with the Bonefolder!”

Hands gripped her upper arms tightly, surprising in their strength. The pressure applying so smoothly, so steadily. The uniform wasn’t the only thing fake about the greenman. Servorganical arms, at least. They gripped with steel certainty.

The Limper approached, got right in her face with a damaged smile, and without a word he slapped her, hard. When she looked back, he spit on her mouth.

“Easy”, the fake greenman said. “Bonefolder doesn’t want her damaged.”

“She said alive. Didn’t say nothin’ about damaged.”

The Limper grabbed her shirt at the top and ripped it wide open. Seven to one was bad odds.

“There is no decision,” Three said, quick to grab Twitch’s arm under the table. “The woman and boy are yours if you want ’em. But I’m not going to handle Underdown. Killing a governor’s not my idea of repayment. So look, you take the woman, you take the boy, what’s that leave between us? A few thousand?”

The Bonefolder hitched, the slightest hint that something had taken her by surprise.

“These terms are unacceptable.”

Three knew jCharles was straining with all he had not to open up on the crowd and see how far he could get before they cut him down. If they were going after Wren, that meant they were going after Mol. And the thought of that seared Three to the core. He could only imagine what Twitch was feeling.

“Then forget it. Keep the woman and the boy, and we don’t bother with the train. We’ll call it even.” Three stood just quickly enough to make everyone flinch. He snatched jCharles’ bittertonic and downed it.

Four to one, plus the Bonefolder. Ranges were all wrong. One shot for the bartender to open, and after that, it was all close work. Had to assume everyone was packing hate of one form or another. Even at his most desperate, Three had never tried something so obviously guaranteed to end with his death. Why had Twitch come? Even if they managed to clean house, there was no way they’d make it out of the building alive. And then what would happen to Mol? And to Wren? Where was Cass? What were they doing to her?

“Come on, Twitch, we’re done talkin’.”

jCharles stood, slowly, smoothly, all eyes on him. And then, Three did the most dangerous thing he could possibly think of.

He turned his back and walked out the front door.

It was obvious to Cass what was going down. The Bonefolder had arranged for them to be separated. For whatever reason, the Limper was here to handle Cass. She could only assume that meant Three and jCharles were in the heat. And the thought flashed: what if they’d sent someone for Wren? The fake greenman’s fingers were beginning to dig into her flesh. The Limper obviously had plans for her body. She made plans of her own.

“Wait, stop, listen,” she said, suddenly frightened, shrinking back into her captor. “Take the quint, take the money, I don’t care, take it all.”

“Too late for that, missy,” said the Limper. “Bonefolder says I gets to have you, so that makes you mine.”

“You can have me,” Cass answered. She pulled her shirt fully open, letting it fall down her shoulders, her thin compression top the last line of defense. “Take me, take me, just leave my son alone.”

She stepped toward the Limper, felt the greenman’s grip loosen as she went docile. Cass reached up and slid her garment down, baring her breasts.

“It’s OK, take me,” she whispered. The Limper stepped forward, mouth hanging open, hand raised.

She boosted.

They made it out of the building, and picked up the pace to cross the street, both walking as if slightly drunk, hoping any first shots would miss. Across the street, alley twist, another alley twist, and they broke into a full run.

“What was that?!” jCharles shouted.

“We gotta get back to Mol first! Back to Mol and take it from there!”

As they punished the pavement with heavy footfalls, fast as they could deliver them, they crashed through the increasing crowds, knocking people aside and to the ground. Three’s heart pounded with icy fire at the thought of Mol confronted by Bonefolder’s thugs. She would never back down to them. She would do anything to stop them from taking Wren, and that thought, that knowledge, terrified Three.

They’d get to Mol first, find Wren. They were priority. After that, they’d find Cass. If she was alive.

She waited in stillness, as his hand approached. Fingers flexed, shaking in anticipation. The final half-inch. So close she could feel the heat off his palm.

He never touched her.

Cass flashed with her palm, drove it upwards into the Limper’s nose, felt the bone shatter and the cartilage slide back and in. The Limper choked and burbled a blood-filled cry as he stumbled back, lost his footing, and went crashing into the table. She covered herself, and surveyed the scene. With the quint racing in her bloodstream, everything seemed to be taking twice as long to fall. Cass felt faster than ever. The Limper’s head was just above the table, his neck hard against its edge. Cass stomped forward, snapping his neck in an instant, and then reversed the kick and folded the knee of the fake greenman behind her. She spun as he fell, saw his head at her waist level, and struck down on the side of his face with her open palm, ensuring his impact with the planet would finish the job.

As she pulled the jittergun from her coat, she saw with crystal clarity the guard in red drawing a black device from his belt. Two gleaming points shone from the tip, and she recognized it instantly as a stunner. She brought the jittergun to bear on the security man in black across the table. Just as the red guard fired, Cass squeezed the trigger on the jitter, felt it hum in her hand, saw the guard in black’s chest explode in red puffs from the impact of dozens of micro flechettes. In the same instant, she twisted, snatched the stunner’s dart-like probes between two fingers. Whipped them back at the red guard. Tips buried in his neck, the live current of his own weapon knocked him writhing to the floor.

Cass leapt to the table, and off again, plunging from eight feet in the air down onto the last guard, who seemed frozen in fear. Her impact dropped him to the concrete, crushing the air from his lungs and knocking him out cold. Without losing momentum, she rolled to her back and let loose with the jitter, shredding Jantz’s left calf. Before he’d finished collapsing, Cass was up and had Tyke’s head on the table, with the jittergun tight against his temple.

He was crying.

“Bonefolder! The Bonefolder, we didn’t want none of this, you take it you take it I’m sorry, we love your brother, man we love him!”

Jantz was screaming on the floor like a hysterical woman. Cass had to take a second, let the bloodlust lose its edge. She shouldn’t have done that to Jantz. It was payback for staring at her, she knew, and she knew it was wrong. Tyke was quivering under her grasp.

“Take all of it, keep the money, we don’t want it. Please, just take it and go!”

“Maybe you find yourself a new line of work, alright, Tyke?”

“Yeah, alright, definitely, yeah.”

Cass left the pistol pressed against his temple while she resealed the case. She threw the money pack back over her shoulder, and picked up the quint. She nudged the shrieking Jantz with her foot.