He thought a moment, then started collecting cans of instapaint, swirlers, and the illegal tag decals from various cubby holes in the store. I’ve never known Ed to be generous or trade without dickering. The fact that he was pulling out everything I needed without a fuss drove home the fact that I was in pretty deep trouble and that he probably wanted to get me out of his store as quickly as possible so he wouldn’t be there with me.
“Anything else?”
I thought a moment and then remembered the magazine I’d taken out of the pukers assault rifle (which was in the back of my van). I pulled the magazine out of my hip pocket, “Got any ammunition for one of these? And I need some more nine millimeter, too.”
Ed held the magazine a moment as he studied it, hiked up his thick spectacles on his broad nose, then handed the magazine back. “Hummm.” The turned and sunk from sight behind the counter. I heard him rummaging about in a drawer.
“These are hard to come by. Cost ya extra.” He shoved three dog-eared boxes of ammunition across the counter toward me.
I fished for a moment in my front pocket for my last barter chip: an electric screwdriver.
Ed’s eyes twinkled, “Done…And…” He reached under the counter. “Here, you’ll be needing this, too.”
My eyes must have displayed my surprise: A Mastivisa card.
“It’s stolen. But should be good for another day or two. Just don’t go over fifty creds at a time.
I figure you’ll need it.”
I didn’t know what to say but just nodded. I scooped everything up and headed toward the door, “Thanks Ed.”
“Be careful.”
After inspecting the lot behind Ed’s store, I backed into the abandoned building next to his.
Out of sight, I quickly placed the decals onto the tag impressed in my rear bumper. Soon the numbers of a different van appeared on the bumper. It wouldn’t pass a check, but if they were looking for my specific tag number, it might get me by. The tag number changed, I set up the instipaint on the swirl pattern controller and painted the latest of bopper designs on the van.
I hoped the van would now look enough different enough to get me out of the area. I stowed the extra cans and the controller in the back of the van, jumped in, and pulled out onto the street.
There was just one place to go. I started the long trip with the sound of my growling stomach filling the van.
Chapter 6
About a full minute into the journey to New Denver, I realized that using the stolen Mastivisa card could get me killed because using it would leave an electronic trail that, once the authorities figured I’d been using it, would lead them directly to me. Until I knew just who was trying to ace me, I didn’t want anyone to be able to track me.
That meant retracing my route for about fifteen minutes, crossing back into Missorark under the east side of the old and—in the smog of the late evening—nearly invisible KC dome. As I traveled under the edge of the giant dome that spanned most of the New City area, I left the darkness of the night, and the blue-green of the city’s sky lamps startled my eyes; I turned off the van’s headlights and darkened the tint of the windshield.
Knowing I’d need food, I watched the old concrete storefronts which were interspersed with new plastic buildings and slowed at the first auto-grocery store I came to and turned pulling into the line of vehicles in front of the huge yellow bubble store that proclaimed: Happy Dog Groceries and Supplies.
After waiting in line a few minutes, I eased the van to the window and opened the van window so that I could place my order. My nose was assaulted by the stale fumes of garbage and burnt coal that seemed to always float in the decrepit city’s air.
“Good evening. Generic or name brands?” the purple dog asked with a crazy, toothy grin.
I wondered why adults would want to talk to a robot dressed like a dog. “Whichever is cheaper for each item,” I answered, figuring paupers with stolen cards had to get the most they could for their money.
“Please speak slowly as you give me your list of needs,” the “dog” instructed with a wink.
Off the top of my head I recited a quick list of the freeze-dried and irradiated foods I might need, wishing I’d thought to make a list while sitting in line. “And a few of my favorite unsugar candies,” I finally finished.
“Is that all?”
I nodded.
“Total is 65 creds. Card?”
Great, I thought. A card can’t go over 50 creds without a quick scan. That would be a disaster with a stolen card.
“Uh… I don’t have that much in my account,” I said with a blush creeping up my neck. “How
’bout cutting it down?”
At this moment I noticed the growing din from the group of vinyl-and-leather-clad bikers just behind my van. They were tired of all the waiting and expressed their anger by loudly voicing obscenities. I glanced into the rear- view mirror to see what kind of brain-dead beings I might have to contend with.
“Any preference as to what we remove?” the bot asked, its mechanical smile now having vanished.
“No. Anything. Just get the total to… Uh… 48 creds. Leave the candy.”
“OK. Card?”
“Yeah,” I handed it over. The bot held it in front of its eyes and videofaxed it.
Obscenity, obscenity “Hurry up!” came from behind me.
“Retina, please,” the bot said.
I gave the bot a wide-eyed stare while it videofaxed my eyes.
“Drive on around to the loading dock and have a good evening.” The smile was back on its face. The card had passed the cursory check and all was forgiven. I let out a sigh and was thankful that my actions hadn’t tripped any programs in the bot to cause it to do a detailed credit check on my card so that it would compare my retina to that of the card’s owner. As it was, when the banks discovered that the card was stolen, the authorities would be able to find out who had used the card by checking my retina pattern. But that would take a while and I would be long gone by then.
Besides, I figured my death had already shot my credit rating to hell.
I eased the van around to the back of the building and stopped. I ordered the bots to be careful when they placed the food into the back of the van. But like typical work bots, they managed to throw the packages of food around despite my instructions. Added to their clumsiness was the fact that they were all configured as pink dogs, all the while barking as they worked. As I leaned against the scarred loading dock, I made a mental note never to shop at a Happy Dog store again.
No sooner had the Happy Dogs finished than the bikers came around the corner of the building to snarl at me since I was between them and their order of synthjuana. They quit griping when I stood up to face them for a moment and pulled back my jacket to reveal the Beretta I’d stuffed into my waistband. I put the worst look I could on my face—which wasn’t hard since I was down-wind of the bikers (most bikers must develop body odor to attract attention).
The sight of the firearm brought a quick mood change; one of the greasers even flashed a reasonable imitation of the Happy Dog smile at me. Bikers can be friendly given the proper motivation. The old saw that an armed society is a polite one quickly was proven.
I didn’t hang around to see how long the transformation would last.
