Anson wasn’t shocked by the offer – the overlong handshake and soul-searching look hadn’t been subtle – but he would never get used to how easily City people propositioned each other, even country-folk from the Protected Territories. He’d been born ten years after First Contact, so had no memory of how quickly human traditions, social mores, morality had gone into free fall. “I got someone,” he said truthfully, albeit she was dead. “So thanks but no.”
“Hey, I got a new wife on a three-year contract. City girl, twenty-two, real blonde with an ass like a peach. Don’t hold me back none, though. Thought you Wilder folk fuck easy?”
Most city staters believed the same, hence the tourism. “Some. Depends.”
“Be the best you ever had. Make you squeal for more.” A promise made by both sexes since humans first began to speak.
“So I’ll regret saying no.”
Barnes shrugged. “Yeah, well, don’t blame a man for trying.” He reached inside a pocket and took out a slim visor. “Latest 3D,” he said proudly. “So fuckin’ real you’d swear it was. You don’t mind, I got a good vid to watch.”
Greenaway was sourly amused to think he was only a little more desirable than a 3D movie. Barnes had lost interest so quickly it was almost insulting. He thought of the farmer’s contract wife – a Seattle City practice yet to catch on in the Wild – and wondered what crisis had made her sign up, even if it was only three years. He moved ten metres down the platform and watched as the onrushing train began to slow when it was eight hundred metres away, the blur firming into a long metal snake with a curiously beaked head. An engineer had once told him how maglev trains in motion used the hot air piling up in front to clean and clear the track, hence the curiously shaped nose – a genuine human invention. The frictionless coating on the train’s underside came from an alien trade, though. If the magnetic field – human discovery, alien improvement – failed the train would merely coast along the rail until gradually braking to a stop.
Greenaway realised what had worried him about Barnes.
Not the handshake but the hands.
Recently manicured. Perfect quicks. Powerful, yet soft-skinned.
Okay, farming nowadays was as automated as any factory, but even so. He’d recognised the anomaly but that sudden, extra pressure had distracted him... exactly as it was meant to do. And, later, as had the proposition. Somehow the man had been alerted. And then how quickly Barnes had lost interest. You’d think anyone so attracted as to proposition a total stranger within minutes would try a little harder. Anson glanced back and saw Barnes standing stock still, 3D visor covering his eyes, as he seemed to be talking. Perhaps joining in the vid’s dialogue.
But not lost to the outside world.
Barnes’ right hand came up, pointing directly at Anson, who saw a gleam of metal and without thinking dived to the ground, twisted into a rolling break-fall, moved left, checked, moved right, scrabbling for his own gun as tiny chips erupted from bullets cracking into the polished concrete.
One thought in his mind: If I die she won’t be avenged.
He checked again, now gripping his own gun, rolled left, checked, left again desperately hoping Barnes would expect a move to the right, and ended in the classic prone position, both hands around the pistol’s grip, aware of Barnes’ gun swinging around in his direction.
Why had he waited to kill me?
The impulse was to loose off as many shots as possible. Instead Anson took a deep breath as he’d been taught, sighted and fired two rapid shots as Barnes’ gun jerked in his hand.
A sudden, sharp pain above his left eye. He panicked, thinking he’d been shot, realised it was only a concrete splinter and exulted as Barnes lurched to one side then collapsed onto the platform, now more large, shapeless toy than human sprawled at the head of the stairs.
Greenaway glanced down the track. The train was around five hundred metres away. Driverless, with only a conductor to take fares and make nice. There was what – six, seven minutes before it slowed to a stop. He stood up, remembering to control his breathing, and ran towards Barnes. A new thought appeared in his mind: Will killing a man temper my drive for vengeance? Then he half-smiled. The drive to kill was still there, even enhanced.
Barnes was definitely dead, two singed entry holes in his lower left chest signposting an exploded heart. His hand still gripped a modern-looking automatic pistol, his expression angry. He had not died a happy man.
A righteous killing, an escape from death, can help a person forget their troubles, if only for a little while.
Anson Greenaway had never killed before and now felt as alive as the first time he’d seen Sara. The air was clearer than a few minutes ago, the sunshine brighter. He could hear a single cricket singing from a long way away. The scent of gun smoke was strong in his nostrils. The dead man’s mouth was half open, showing a right canine faintly discoloured at the base. There was a tiny patch of stubble just below the left nostril. For a moment Anson knew a moment of total togetherness with the dead man, the distant cricket, the entire universe.
Six minutes to go, tops.
Anson dragged the body – gun still gripped by lifeless fingers – down the stairs, on its side to lessen, hopefully prevent, a smeared blood trail from the exit wounds. Halfway down the bowels voided, the sudden stench making Anson gag.
He looked around, expecting panic to start nibbling at his gut, relieved and curiously amused when it didn’t. At the base of the raised track he found an unlocked door and shoved the limp, stinking and annoyingly uncooperative body into
