Laverty closed his eyes for a moment, then said, 'No. It's safe. However, the upper floors of this structure are in flames. You had best get the survivors out of here, Kham.'
'Then let us leave,' Dodger urged.
Laverty nodded slowly, and accepted Dodger's help as he limped toward the door.
'Ya got a car or sumpin' nearby?'
'Something, Sir Tusk.'
'Watch dat elf, chummer,' Kham said to Laverty. 'He don't drive real good.' 'Dodger will do fine,' Laverty assured him. A weak voice rose from the pile of bodies near the door.
'Dodger?'
The elf stiffened at the sound of his name. Slowly he looked down at the wounded raider. The guy was an old man, running on cyberware and booster drugs, but the blood that covered him said he wouldn't be running anymore.
'I used to know a kid called Dodger. We used to run together.'' 'Hello, Zip.'
'Hunh. Zip. Yeah that's me. That's what they used to call me. Ain't Zip anymore.' He coughed, and there was blood in the phlegm that dribbled down his chin. 'Ain't much of anything anymore.' 'He's dying,' Laverty whispered to Dodger. Dodger looked at Laverty, then at the wounded raider. In a voice even softer than Laverty's, he whispered, 'Goodbye, Zip.' Then he hustled Laverty out the door.
Kham moved over to the raider. If he was still alive, maybe he would talk. Throwing off the corpse that lay across the man's legs, Kham then heaved him into a sitting position. The wounded raider groaned under the mistreatment. Kham had no sympathy. This guy didn't deserve any. 'Who sent ya?'
The man's head sagged, so Kham grabbed him by the jaw, tilted his head back up, and repeated the question. The man coughed, a sick sound. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at Kham.
'That was him, wasn't it? The boost makes you see things sometimes. Things that ain't there. Dead and gone. It was him, though. I'm not crazy.'
'Nah, you ain't crazy. You're dead. Why not do sometin' good 'fore ya go, and tell me who sent ya?'
'What's the point?'
Neko appeared at Kham's left and addressed the old man. 'Perhaps you would do it for your old friend Dodger? You were chummers, weren't you? You could say that it was for old times' sake, that you were doing a chummer a good turn.'
The raider's attempt at a laugh was mangled by his coughing. 'Chummers. Yeah. Real good chummers,' he said dreamily. Kham could see that the man was slipping. Without warning the raider reached up and grabbed the lapel of Kham's fatigue jacket, his grip insistent, though weak. 'Stick with your own kind, chummer. It's the wave of the future.'
The raider went slack, his pain-etched features relaxing. The wrinkles were still there, lines that showed years of travail, years that were now over.
'Kham, the building is burning. We must leave.'
Kham looked up. 'Drek! Get everybody out!'
'Where shall we go, Kham?'
'Frag, catboy, I don't know. Hide out somewhere.'
'Lady Tsung's?'
'Fragging hell, not now. We got trouble.'
'I am aware of that. I thought she was your friend. Would she not help?'
'I ain't dragging dis mess ta her doorstep. Look, ya know Cog, right? Well, one of his places is over on Maple Valley and Francis Lane. Can ya find dat?'
Neko nodded. Kham suspected that the catboy had no idea about the location, but that he would find it. Whichever. It didn't matter. What mattered was that they lie low. Maybe if they were out of sight, the fragging elves behind the attack would forget
about them. That was the way it worked in the shadows.
'Perhaps we can meet later. Lay plans to deal with our hunter.'
Smoke was starting to drift down the stairs, heralding the arrival of Ratstomper and the wounded from upstairs. Kham sent Ratstomper to get Kham's family and the rest, then turned to Neko. 'Look, catboy. I got no interest in a war. Go see Cog and he'll take care 'a ya. Okay? Get lost.'
Neko stood up straight, then made a stiff bow. Kham turned his back on the kid's damned Japanese formality. There were things he needed to get before he left. He ran for the stairs.
'Sayonara, Kham-san. '
Kham glanced back, but only for an instant. Through the smoke and flames he could not see if the catboy was still standing where he'd left him, or if he was doing the smart thing and saving his own hide. He hoped it was the latter; the kid was annoying at times and a little spooky at others, but he was mostly okay. Kham grabbed for the banister, but the flame-eaten wood came off in his hand. No more time to worry about the catboy. Time to start worrying about him-self.
Lissa cried all night, and so did Shandra and lord. Tully made like a man, but he still held tight to his father as long as he was awake. It wasn't till the boy was asleep that the tears began to flow. Kham neither cried nor slept. When the last of his family had drifted off to sleep, he went to the window and looked out.
From the upper floor of the abandoned tenement to which they had fled, he could see the hall, or rather the flames that clawed the sky. They lit the sky to the west, brighter than the approaching dawn did the eastern horizon. The plex firemen had finally arrived three hours ago, but it was only after the conflagration had spread to the neighboring structures. But this was the Barrens, and Orktown at that. Those brave civic heroes didn't bother to fight the blaze; they merely worked to confine it to a single block. Not much would be left of the block; the fire was well beyond what the local volunteer fire teams could handle.
Kham watched it burn, seeing his life and all he had built go up in smoke.
Sheila was dead. Like John Parker, she'd been one of his first runners. He'd lost count of the times they'd saved each other's butts in a hot run. She wouldn't be at his back anymore.
Ellie and Tump, the kids on watch, had been killed before they could sound a warning. Their deaths had been quick and clean, very professional, but they were dead nonetheless. Ellie had been barely ten and just coming into her full growth.
Cyg was gone, too. And Guido had joined his dad. Teresa. Komiko. Jed. Bill. Jiro. Charlie…
What was the point?
They were all dead.
Gone.
His nose suddenly picked up a faint scent, and he whuffed a couple of times to be sure. The creaky floor would have betrayed anyone entering the room, and the scent was nearby. That left only one spot. He craned his head around and looked up at the roof.
Above him a small, slender shadow crouched on the coping.
'Whatcha doing up dere, catboy?' 'We need to talk, Kham-san.' 'Den get down here so we ain't making a spectacle fer anybody.'
Neko began to fuss with something at his belt, and Kham stepped back into the room, away from the window, to make room. The next moment Neko swung through the window with a faint rustle of fabric, landing softly on his feet. A deft flick of his wrist sent a ripple along the line from which he had swung, dislodging the hook he had attached to the coping. Kham barely saw it as it whipped back into a small box the catboy carried, but he heard the whine of the automatic line reel.
'The cyber meres are dead,' Neko said without preamble.
That made sense. If the bad guy was as dangerous as Laverty implied and if he wanted the orks gone, he'd want all the runners gone, all at once. That would be the best way, because it wouldn't give them any time to work against him. Still, it could be just coincidence that both the raid on the hall and the deaths of the cyberguys had happened on the same night.
'Howddya know it was dem?'
'How many pairs of twinned razorguys are operating in this plex?'
