the motor still running. I put on the helmet, jumped on, and revved it, cutting into an alley, right into a swarm of two dozen peace officers.
They surrounded me, guns raised. I braced myself for the Taser attack, knowing that if more than ten of them shot me, it would likely be fatal.
But no one shot me. They all ran past, oblivious to my presence.
I turned around, confused, then saw what they were chasing.
My raccoon buddy was scurrying along the edge of Chomsky’s roof. But the cops weren’t looking at the animal. They were looking at their DT screens, which tracked my chip. After cutting the chip out of my wrist, I’d shoved it down the sleeping raccoon’s throat. Chips ceased functioning when their biological host died, or if they were removed from the body-with the exception of GPS. That worked as long as there was some biological matter still attached. Apparently I’d removed enough tissue for it to still work for a while.
I stitched myself into westbound traffic, heading to an old friend’s house.
Well, maybe friend was the wrong word. He was an ex-peace officer, and currently a tracer. I’d worked with him when we were both cops, and used him freelance on runaway cases after he was fired. After the Libertarian Act emancipated children, giving them the option of quitting school and living on their own if they got qualified employment, those without jobs but still yearning to be free of their parents went the dissy route. It was possible to track them by timecasting, but the process was painstaking and lengthy, especially since runaways weren’t technically breaking the law.
Harry McGlade had his ear to the ground in the dissy community, and could often find people faster than a timecaster could. He also had his hand in any number of underground, potentially illegal activities, one of which I needed his help with.
I merged onto the expressway, heading north to Rockford. I hadn’t seen him in a few years and hoped he still had the same address.
The three-hour ride was grueling. I was in considerable pain. My arm still wasn’t fully operational from when Sata hit me. The skin left on my knuckles kept scabbing over and bleeding every time I moved my fingers. The hole in my arm where I dug out the chip had clotted, but unless I cleaned it out and took some meds I was sure to get an infection.
The worst pain of all came from my ribs. After a selfinspection I felt two that were wiggly. The stop-and-go traffic, while sitting on a biofuel bike, wasn’t quite torture, but if I’d had to endure it for more than those three hours, I would have gladly confessed state secrets to make it stop.
McGlade’s house was as I’d remembered it; run-down and ugly, his front yard covered with junk, half-buried by weeds. Rockford had a lower biofuel tax, and McGlade apparently paid it in credits rather than foliage, because he hadn’t done any gardening here since Mary-Kate Olsen was elected president.
I parked the bike and limped to the front door, giving his videobell a ring.
His face appeared. Unshaven, sweaty, with what looked like dried egg stuck in the corner of his mouth.
“C’mon in, Talon. Been hoping you’d drop by.”
The door buzzed, and opened.
Apparently, McGlade really had been hoping I’d drop by. He was standing right there when I walked inside, pointing an antique. 44 Magnum between my eyes.
EIGHTEEN
“Is that a real gun?”
McGlade scratched himself in an unattractive place. He was in his midthirties, wearing a dirty undershirt and a bathrobe, both of which were too small for his pudgy body. “Fuck yeah, it’s a real gun. I just saw you on the news. You know what kind of reward I’m gonna get from bringing you in?”
“There’s a reward?”
“I dunno. Lemme check.” McGlade pinched his earlobe. “Hello? I’m calling about the fugitive, Talon Avalon. Is there a reward for his capture?” He frowned. “Excuse me? Why not?… What?… Fuck no, I haven’t seen him. Find him yourself.”
He lowered the gun, scowling at me. “You’re worthless,” he said.
“Sorry about that.” I hadn’t been too worried about McGlade shooting me. At least, not with an illegal weapon. Not unless he wanted to share a prison cell with me. “Where did you get a gun? I thought they rounded them all up after CWII.”
“It was my grandfather’s. I ever tell you he used to be a cop? Then he went private. Just like me. They made movies about him.”
“We’ve had this conversation, McGlade. Several times. My grandmother and your grandfather used to be partners. Remember?”
“Of course I remember. Who are you again?”
“Cute. Lemme see the gun.”
He handed over the revolver, butt first. I’d never held a real gun before, and was surprised by how heavy it was.
“Don’t shoot it,” McGlade said. “The bullets are worth a fortune, and impossible to replace.”
“If it even fires anymore. You could go to jail forever for having this.”
“Fuck ’em. I’ll flee to Texas.”
When the US outlawed guns, Texas refused to give up its firearms and tried to secede from the nation, which lead to Civil War Two. The only person who died during the war was a Texan named Earl Stampton, who barricaded himself in a bunker with more than two hundred guns and ten thousand rounds of ammunition and then accidentally set the compound on fire while cooking some bacon. All they found of his body was a finger.
The remainder of CWII was fought with blockades and sanctions. Texas finally gave up after four years because they weren’t getting the latest Hollywood movie releases.
I returned the gun to him. “I need your help, McGlade.”
“I figured you did. Can you pay?”
“Eventually. I’m having a little chip problem at the moment.” I held up my arm, showing him the hole.
“An IOU from a lifer ain’t worth much.”
“I won’t be a lifer. They’ll kill me in prison. I’ll make sure you’re a beneficiary on my insurance.”
He brightened at that. “Okay. C’mon in.”
The interior of his house was much like the exterior, except for fewer plants. McGlade’s decor seemed to be of the let it lie where it dropped school of design. Dirty clothing, food wrappers, and assorted garbage competed for space amid the mismatched discount furniture. For art, McGlade plastered his walls with posters of old pinup girls. I’d asked once, and these were indeed paper. His favorite seemed to be someone named Heather Thomas, who boasted several different swimsuit poses. It was oddly quaint, because people hadn’t worn swimsuits in decades.
“Have a seat in my office. I’ll get some P and P.”
“Nothing too heavy. I have to keep my wits.”
He snorted. “What wits?”
McGlade veered off. I continued on through a hallway, and stepped in a small pile of shit.
“McGlade!” I called. “You have a pet?”
Boy, did I hope he had a pet.
“Yeah. His name is Peanuts. Don’t step on him.”
“I stepped on something else.”
“Smells awful, doesn’t it? They don’t tell you that at the genipet store.”
I scraped my shoe off on the carpet, figuring he’d never notice, and found Peanuts in McGlade’s office, curled up on the floor. At first I couldn’t tell what it was. Brown and hairy and lumpy, about the size of the raccoon I’d fed earlier. Then it looked up and me, shook its floppy ears, and gave me a deep, loud trumpet.
Peanuts was a genetically modified African elephant.
It trumpeted again, its tiny trunk sticking out like a bugle, and then padded up to me on little round feet.
