Шарон Ли - Agent of Change

The party in the next room was a doozy—both louder and not as loud as it had been from the ramp. She'd lost the vibration of feet on floor that she'd had from underneath, but there was something—

She froze and the sound came again. Party, indeed. That had been pellet whine, or her great-aunt Agnes had been hatched from an egg.

She made her way cautiously across the impeccable expanse of floor to the double chrome doors, eased one barely open, and peered out.

Men and women with guns—about thirty of them—deployed with more caution than tactics around the empty echo of the Grotto. Whatever it was they were after was holed up behind the eastern-most bar. And whatever—or whoever—it was could definitely shoot. Whenever one of the armed horde showed the slightest portion of body, that portion suddenly acquired a pellet-hole. Methodical. Which could only mean that the prize in this tiger hunt was her partner.

Miri frowned, then grinned as another of the enemy was punctured—hole in the shooting arm, very pretty.

Odds look about even, she noted. Wouldn't lay a busted bit on either side . . . .

Her grin suddenly widened and she ducked back into the kitchen.

* * *

POLICEMEN, VAL CON THOUGHT, squeezing off another shot, had no sense of humor.

Or sense of futility, for that matter. Why in the name of all they might hold holy would they just sit out there, shooting and being shot at, taking loss after loss and inflicting no damage? Why didn't they just pack up and go home, call it a day, admit they'd been bested—any or all of the above? And soon. He was running out of pellets.

* * *

MIRI PROPPED THE door at the top of the ramp securely open and a little time later did the same for the door into the cellar.

By the sounds, her pursuers were still beating the rows for her. She grinned and moved toward the nearest sound.

The man was peering into a carton that might have concealed her had it not been full of bottles of cleaner. Miri extended a hand and toppled a near bundle of brooms.

He whipped around, pulling his gun, and she was off, making a lot of noise as she ran.

The racket roused his buddies, who came racing to his aid. Miri rounded the corner farthest from the ramp door on one wheel, skidded to a stop in the face of five of them, then whirled and was going back the way she'd come before they had time to understand that she'd been there.

For good measure, she fired a shot over her shoulder, parting the hair of the man in the lead, then she was moving flat out, streaking past another bunch of them, knocking one into three others like tenpins and twisting around the corner to the ramp door.

Roaring, they came after. She checked for a moment, glancing back to make sure that somebody twigged to the vanishing act.

A lean man with no hair whatsoever rounded the corner, gun leveled.

Miri dove through the door.

* * *

IT WAS NOT possible that he could win. He supposed he would take a formidable honor guard with him, but the thought brought no comfort. Nor did the equation that hung before his mind's eye. He gritted his teeth in a final effort to banish it: Suicide is an unacceptable solution.

The equation faded, to be replaced by another bearing a strong resemblance to the one he had denied in Edger's presence. Very soon now he would be dead. Miri might yet be alive, but the end for her was also quite near.

He leaned out from his cover and fired, striking his man cleanly in the eye. A pellet screamed by, chipping the plastic by his head as he huddled back into protection. Cracking his gun, he loaded the last of his ammunition and eased his position a little, glancing around the corner of the bar to gauge the next shot.

There was a banshee howl that raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and out of the kitchen burst an apparition in dark leathers and white shirt, brandishing a gun, a squad of armed men at her back.

"We're coming, Tough Guy!" the figure in the lead screamed, firing into the group at siege.

Confused, they returned fire as the rushing squad broke up and made for cover, returning fire on their own while their erstwhile leader dove sideways, rolling, taking advantage of the shelter offered by tables, chairs, and bar to work her way toward his position.

Val Con grinned and waited, occasionally adding shots of his own to the melee to distract his attackers from her movement.

She was at his side in a ridiculously short time. Sighing, she slumped against the inside wall of the bar, peering out at the fight through a filigreed screen.

"Hello, Miri."

She shook her head at him. "I don't know how you get into these fixes. Leave you alone for five minutes—"

"I get into fixes?" He waved at the floor. "What do you call that?"

She opened her eyes wide. "Hey, I'm your rescue, spacer. And I want you to know I wouldn't do this for just anybody."

He laughed and snapped off a shot at a woman crawling toward their hiding place. She collapsed and lay still.

Miri peered out from her end, added a few pellets to the general merrymaking, and ducked back. "Nice party."

"You might think so," he told her, "but I've been here for some time and it's getting a bit rough for my taste."

"Yeah?" She jerked her head toward the most accessible exit, half a block down the room. "Wanna leave?"

"If you don't mind." He cracked his gun, showing her the empty chamber. "Give me some pellets and I'll cover you."

* * *

THE CALL CAME over the emergency channel: All available units to the Grotto, immediately. The description, though terse, sounded more like pitched battle than the arrest of two half-sized bank robbers.

His partner was off at once, sliding his sidearm out as he ran. Charlie took two steps in that direction and stopped, near blinded by a flash of brilliance.

Spinning on his heel, he headed for the lot at Ponce and Celeste, moving at a dead run.

* * *

MIRI WENT OVER the fence while Val Con circled around to the front of the lot, checking the street.

She dropped silently from the top and moved quickly in the deepening dusk, using the few vehicles there were for cover, striking out in a diagonal and wondering what she would do if there were two red cars parked in the front row, facing out.

She left the shadow of the last car enroute and stepped out into the open.

There was only one car in the first row. Between her and it loomed a figure, too tall and much too blocky.

She froze, hand twitching toward her gun in reaction before she stilled it.

"Hi, Charlie."

"Hello, Roberta." His own gun was out, steady on her gut. "Where's your brother?"

"Bound to be around somewhere," she said lightly, keeping her eyes on his face, not on the gun. "He usually is."

"He wouldn't be down the Grotto, would he? Shooting cops with the rest of the Juntavas?" He was coldly sure of it, and the certainty kept his gun hand from shaking.

Can you shoot her—kill her—if you have to? he asked himself. He didn't know.

She was shaking her head. "We ain't Juntavas, Charlie."

"No? The cops go in to get you, the Juntavas goes in across the street and—boom! A war. Juntavas protects its own, but it ain't much on helping out strangers."

"It was an accident. And the explanation's complicated." She decided to push it. "Charlie, look, I'm in a hurry, okay? How 'bout I give you a call next time I'm in town, we have a drink and tell you all about it?"

No reaction. She hadn't really expected one, not with him in uniform and all, but it had seemed worth the try. Where the hell was Tough Guy?

"The story out of Mixla 'quarters," Charlie was saying, "is your brother's wanted for killing five people—eight-year-old kid was one of 'em." He watched her face closely, trying to gauge her acting ability.