pulled the safety seal off the aerosol head. “What's the delay?”
“Sixty seconds.”
I checked my watch and pushed the head down, then twisted it into a locked position. Maggie gave me a disapproving look.
“Close me in if you have to,” I told her as I stepped through the bulkhead. She knew better than to try and stop me.
I moved up on the hatchway, my left hand clutching the gene eaters in a cramp-inducing grip. I was tempted to throw it blind, but decided it was worth a peek first so I wouldn't end up tossing it within any of their reaches. I didn't want one of them disarming it before it let loose on the fuckers. I checked my watch again. Maggie had Yuri on the floor, one wrist cuffed to a pipe running along the floor. She was ready to slam her hatch shut at the first sign of gene eaters in the corridor.
I checked my watch. They were having a grand time in there, sounding like a bunch of businessmen three drinks into an office party, or maybe a group of old school buddies yukking it up over a string of remember-whens. I watched the seconds tick by. It was time. I wheeled into the hatchway. I was only there for a second, but I saw a lot in that second. It was a large cabin, maybe a mess hall. Whatever it was, it was large enough to justify a hatch instead of a flimsy wooden door. They were seated at one end of a long table, tall glasses of brandy all around. They were wearing hooded robes, the hoods folded down onto their backs. I recognized the four from the hotel restaurant. They wore puzzled smiles, not sure who I was and whether or not I was a threat.
I threw a grounder into the farthest corner. I swung the hatch shut just as I saw the fogger begin to kick up a cloudy mist. The hatch slammed shut with such force that my hand stung from the vibration. I flipped the latch, but there was no lock. I shoved my back against the hatch, using my legs to push against the opposite wall. I was barely into position when the latch popped back open. They were screaming now, pushing on the hatch. I pushed back with all the strength in my legs, pressing myself into the hatch so hard that I couldn't breathe. The latch snapped back into place, but I didn't let up. I pushed with everything I had. My legs burned, and so did my lungs, and so did my eyes, which were filling up with sweat. They had the strength to overpower me. They were offworlders, for chrissakes. They were all genetically enhanced athletes with glands-on-demand that could serve up superhuman cocktails of adrenaline and endorphins in an instant…
But I had position. I had a wall to push against while they didn't have anything but a damp floor to anchor their feet on. That, and the hatch wasn't very large, too small for all six of them to find a purchase. And then there was the fact that I didn't have gene eaters gnawing at my flesh, digging into my lungs, converting my eyes into jelly.
The latched popped, and there was a sustained push. My legs felt ready to buckle. It wouldn't take much, just the slightest opening would be enough to let the gene eaters out. Maggie showed up next to me. If I'd had any energy to spare, I would've yelled at her to go away. She quickly got into position, pushing with her arms, using the opposite wall to brace her feet.
I thought that I could hear them wheezing as their lungs lost their form. I thought I could hear them scratching at the walls, digging with fingernails that peeled off on the bare metal. I thought I heard a lot of things that I couldn't have possibly heard.
I thought I heard silence. I let up just a tad, just as a test, but as soon as I did, I knew I was done. I slumped over onto the floor, my lungs bursting. Maggie held firm for a few extra seconds, and then she gave in, too.
The corridor began to dim as some of the lightsticks began to peter out. I felt the weight of six more bodies being added to my name. Screw it. I wasn't going to let myself worry about those sadistic bastards. They weren't human. They were trash. Trash with wives who loved them, trash with kids… Stop it. I quashed that train of thought before it went off the tracks. They killed Adela. Fuck 'em.
My heaving lungs gradually synced with the soft rocking of the ship. Maggie was standing next to me, waiting on me, the old man. I stood up, a little too quickly. I had to brace myself by leaning on the wall. I followed Maggie back to Yuri on rubber legs.
He was a weeping mess, his cheeks streaked with running tears. He was on the floor, his wrist cuffs looped around a water pipe. He pulled his hands up as far as they could go, tilting the cuffs' keypads up as if Maggie was going to let him go. “Thank you for rescuing me,” he said.
Maggie frowned at him. “Save it.”
“They s-said they'd k-kill me if I didn't do what they s-said.”
“I said save it. I'm not in the mood for bullshit.”
“I'm s-sorry,” he sobbed like a nasal two-year-old.
Maggie's lips were pinched tight. They parted just wide enough for her speak through her teeth. “Why today, dammit?” she asked. “Her execution wasn't supposed to be until tomorrow.”
“I'm so s-sorry. Please believe m-me,” he said, his voice trailing into wracking sobs.
“Answer me.”
“It was o-one of the offworlders. S-something came up at his work, and he h-had to leave planet early, so Horst m-moved it up a day.”
“We were supposed to have one more day.” Maggie's stony face began to fracture. Her anger crumbled away, and her eyes misted over. “We were supposed to have one more day.”
I looked at Yuri, and I looked at Maggie, both of them crying, and I suddenly realized that it should've been me who was crying. I was the one who'd just lost his wife. I felt emotions beginning to gush up from my gut. I stomped them back down with an enforcer's cruel efficiency. “Where did Ian and Horst go?”
“Horst h-had a dinner to go to, and Ian c-carried the body out. Ian had to bring it b-back to the Z-zoo.”
Already, Adela was an “it.” “How long ago?”
“I don't know. M-maybe fifteen minutes.”
“What about the rest of Ian's crew? Where are they?”
“Looking for you two.”
“Let's go,” I said to Maggie.
TWENTY-EIGHT
I stopped Maggie when we made it back down to the pier. “I'm going after Ian alone,” I told her.
“The hell you are.”
“C'mon, Maggie, you know what has to be done.”
“We're going to arrest him, Juno. We'll get the cameraman's testimony. We'll organize a raid of the Zoo, pick up the guards. They'll talk, and we'll find Adela's body.”
No. We weren't going to do that at all. If that was what we were going to do, Maggie would be on the phone already, briefing her superiors and securing warrants. She knew as well as I did what I was going to do, what I had to do.
I was going to kill him. I was going to hustle down to the Zoo and catch him on his way back out from dropping off Adela's body. I was going to hide in the weeds and gun him down. I was going to murder Detective Ian Davies.
“There has to be another way,” she said.
There wasn't. She couldn't arrest him. Not if she wanted to be chief. She'd be the cop who arrested another cop. It didn't matter that Ian was dirty. The whole force was corrupt. KOP was rotten to the core. Just about all of them were on the take in one form or another. She'd be a threat to the brass. They'd never bring her into their inner circle. They'd be afraid that she might start arresting them once she became privy to their secrets. Her career would be over. But, they wouldn't fire her. She had too high a profile for anything that overt. Instead, they'd neuter her by banishing her to the records department, or maybe they'd put her on river patrol, or they might even give her a position in PR, make her go out to the schools and put on little skits for the juvies. Or if they felt really threatened, they'd arrange for her to die, probably in a “bust gone wrong.”
Killing him was the only way to make him pay, and she knew it. Her conscience was just making its last stand.
