Working Stiff

burn black holes all over her lungs and it would all be okay in the morning.

She grabbed the gloves from Pansy, who had sunk to the floor to gasp in cleaner air, and began punching at the weakened metal. It sagged and melted, and her blows bent it outward.

Bryn made a hole, then dragged Pansy over and pushed her through it, then went back for Joe, who was staggering blindly through the corrosive air. “Don’t breathe it! Keep your eyes shut!” she yelled at him, and he nodded, eyes tightly shut. She shoved him through the narrow opening and dived through after.

There were guards swarming from both sides, but their little escape party was lucky in one small way…. A Pharmadene van sat at the dock, back doors open. The driver ran when she pointed the gun at him, and left the keys in the ignition. “Get in!” Bryn yelled. She climbed into the driver’s seat and heard the other two clamber aboard; she checked through the wire mesh to be sure as Joe swung the back doors shut and slapped his hand on the van’s side.

“Move it!” he yelled back.

She put it in drive and punched it.

Driving straight at the guards was the only way to go. Some got out of the way; two stood their ground, firing right through the windshield. She took two bullets, one in the shoulder, one in the throat, and the pain washed over her in a blinding, crippling wave.

Not going to die. Not here. Not now. I can‘t.

She held on, kept her foot down, and hit the gates at full speed. The crash almost bounced her out of the seat, but the gates gave way first.

“Tire shredders!” Joe rasped, crawling past her into the passenger seat. “Go off-road; go around!”

She saw the pavement lifting up ahead in a line of black spikes. Automated defenses, designed to stop any cars that made it this far through the gates. Automatic weapons fire was peppering the back of the van, and in the cracked rearview mirror, Bryn saw that three Pharmadene sedans were headed out in pursuit.

She turned the wheel at the last minute and went off the road. There were low stone walls designed to keep her on the path, but she didn’t care about the damage to the van, and the walls hadn’t been reinforced; they smashed apart under the van’s momentum, and she squeezed by the tire shredders with about an inch to spare.

The first pursuing sedan hit them head-on. All four tires blew, and the driver lost control. The car flipped, shedding glass and one rag-doll passenger.

The others managed to avoid the wreckage, and crawled around the edges before accelerating again in pursuit.

“Still with us!” Joe said. “Punch it! Go right at the intersection!”

She took the turn, barely slowing, and fought to keep the top-heavy vehicle from tipping. In the back, Pansy threw open one of the back doors, opened a box marked with hazardous materials symbols, and began throwing the contents onto the closest pursuing sedan. It must have been more acid, because the hood began to smoke and melt, and the mist pitted and clouded the windshield.

The car veered off and smashed full-speed into a pole, which tilted and crashed, downing power lines in blue-white sparks.

The third car stopped, tangled in the high voltage.

Bryn didn’t slow down. Joe kept dictating turns, and finally Bryn eased off the gas as they reached a busier area. “God,” she whispered. “It actually worked.”

“No, it didn’t,” Joe said. “They’re tracking us.” He looked over at her with a strange kind of sadness. “They’re tracking you. And we’re going to have to take care of that right now.”

Bryn took in a deep breath. “It’s not going to be painless, is it?”

“No,” Joe said, and turned to look at the road. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be painless at all.”

Chapter 11

The pain slowed its rush through Bryn’s system to a merely unbearable ache. She tried not to look at her hands, or catch any hint of a reflection, but even so, her eyes wouldn’t stay away from seeking out some sign of regeneration.

By the time they’d switched out of the Pharmadene van to another car, her fingers were starting to look human again. Sickly and bruised, but living.

She was so grateful that it was hard not to sob again, but she couldn‘t. Not now. Not when Pansy and Joe had risked so much, and they were all still in danger.

Joe Fideli had all kinds of unexpectedly criminal talents; he could boost cars (a cargo van from a rental-car lot, taken from the “fixed” part of the repair area, which would cause the most confusion and delay), he could circumvent alarm systems (like the one at the veterinary clinic, where he took surgical supplies and animal tranquilizers), and most important, he had an RFID scanner and blank credit cards.

He sent Pansy for a walk at the Westfield Horton mall with the scanner tucked into her small clutch purse, and taught her the fine art of butt scanning. “Men are the easiest,” he said, as Bryn rested in the passenger seat of the newly stolen van, downing bottle after bottle of water from a twelve-pack he’d taken from the vet’s. “Credit cards are in their back pockets. Just brush the scanner up against them and listen for the tone in the earpiece. A good scan will chime. Get as many as you can in fifteen minutes; then meet us back here.”

Pansy hesitated, looking at the two of them. “You’re sure? You don’t need me to help with this?”

“It’s not going to be pretty. Better leave it to me,” Joe said. “Go on. Get us some money; we need it.”

Pansy went out the back, and Joe watched as she walked across the parking lot and entered the multilevel jumble of the mall. “Bryn? You ready?”

“I guess.” She finished the bottle and set it aside. She felt better. Stronger. Almost herself again. “Where do you want me?”

“Here.” He flipped levers and laid down one of the rear seats, creating a long, flat space. She climbed over and sat on it. “Lie down.”

Bryn complied, trying not to wince, and looked into his eyes as he bent closer. “How bad’s it going to be?”

“Nothing like what you’ve already had,” he said. “How’s the throat?”

She cleared it experimentally. “Not too bad. I sound like a whiskey bum, though.”

“It’s a little bit sexy. All right, I’m going to give you a shot. I’m not sure how long it’ll last; from what Pat said, painkillers wear off quicker than normal, since the nanites clear them from your bloodstream, but we’ll give it a try. I’ll work fast.”

She nodded and tried not to think about it much. The shot was familiar by now, a bright pinpoint of pain, then a flood of warmth that quickly sank into a blissful warm numbness. “Oh,” she murmured. “Nice.” Then she couldn’t talk at all.

“Yeah, I gave you an elephant load,” he said. “Here we go.”

He lifted her right knee up. She felt it distantly, like something in a dream, and then he rolled her over on her side. That felt good, too. She smiled and tried to tell him how it felt but her lips wouldn’t make words, just bright bubbles of sounds.

His knife cut a slash in the back of her thigh.

Bryn made a wordless sound of surprise, betrayal, and pain; even with the numbness and happy, drugged warmth, she felt the invasion, and kept feeling it as the knife cut deeper, separating muscle, digging, probing. She tried to wiggle away from it. Joe’s hand clamped down hard, holding her in place. “Steady,” he said. He sounded weirdly out of tune. “Almost there. It’s in deep, and I’m going to have to pry it off the bone.” She felt another small, bright star of a shot. Another cascade of warmth. This time, it didn’t crest quite as high, and it receded much faster, leaving her cold and horribly aware that the knife was in her, moving, prying. She whimpered and panted and tried not to scream, and then something happened with a white-hot stab of pure agony and she screamed into Joe’s muffling hand and couldn’t stop until it began to subside.

“Good,” he said. His voice was low and soothing. “You did good, Bryn. It’s out. The wound’s already closing. Relax now; relax.”