I was in my apartment packing in between ice-cold glasses of Tennessee bourbon, snacking on some takeout and trying to watch the sports betting lines on the wall vid. My GISI scanner was running in the background.
You don’t do something for fifteen years and not have at least a mild interest in it afterward. My hacker buddy had spliced a relay into their optic comm cable down at city hall, so I got all of their un-coded passive feeds. A call came through the scanner from the North Bowery Airlock.
The GISI’s were bringing in a suit full of pulp that might have previously been filled with a living human. First look said the regulator went and emptied the entire contents of his O-reserve tank into his lungs. The guy exploded. I felt bad for the guy. This sort of thing happened to the budget miners and ore field rock hounds. It was the price they paid for not working for the consortiums and using well-maintained equipment.
“Yeah, Desk, it’s a freakin’ mess,” the GISI field man said over the comm, “Looks like the guy was equipped to go for a week or two. Must have just left the dome. He was four-hundred meters out, behind a hill. A dome-glass maintenance drone spotted him when it flew off course. Only been here a few hours.”
“Got it, Field, see if you can pull a name from the suit or fish out his E-ram and we’ll ID the poor bastard.”
“Rodger, Desk.” Getting blown up like balloon was a bad way to go. I tossed a jacket in my bag. I was thinking I might take Kinky to a show.
“Field, this is Desk, we just ran the vid and we are seeing a second set of tracks out and in.”
“Sure, Desk, probably mine.”
“Negative, Field, they were there before the call in. Drop everything until a forensic team gets there. Lock down the crime scene.”
“Are you serious, Sarge? That’s a lot of resources in motion just to prove that a fifty-year-old patched up suit’s oxygen scavenger gave up the ghost and went to shit.”
That got my attention. I downed my drink and went to my desk, pulling up my comm. I keyed in a number and waited for an answer. It buzzed three, four, five times.
“Field to Desk,” a voice over the scanner said, “I hear a comm from inside the suit. We can check the ID number when we get this thing cracked. They may know who was inside.”
“Agreed, Field. Now hold tight until relieved.”
I cut the comm and punched my speed dial. Kinky answered on the second buzz.
* * * * * * *
I had Kinky meet me down at the fifth and main tram station so we could go into the office together. I told her we needed to go to the casino early, but I had forgotten my spare B-card and the tickets at the office. I actually wanted her near me to make sure she was still safe.
On the way in, I saw the newsie scrolling across the tram’s monitor. “Denubian Heir to Fold Ship fortune dies in explosion at Madison Hotel. Saviors of Mars literature litters the street.” That bitch. It wasn’t about love, it was about money.
Why go through a messy divorce when you could blame someone else for the murder of your cheating spouse and his mistress? She had found out where he was going to be from me. She must have had someone tail the Mick and decided to clean up that loose end. I figured we were next. I explained that to Kinky and she stared back at me.
“That’s some shit, boss. Let’s get the hell outta here ‘til we can get some play on our side. Gonna’ go full combat mode until we’re safe.” I smiled and realized she would protect me much better than I could protect her.
Her E-ram tweaked to a couple of likely trailers and we took a different route to the office. When we got there, she went in the lobby first and immediately ran into an alternate night security guard that we had never seen before.
“Hey there, big and handsome, where’s Gus? He not workin’ tonight?” She asked as she batted her baby blues and bent forward.
“That’s right, ma’am. He called in sick. They pulled me in from next door. This is my second straight shift and I’m a little tired,” he said as he leaned toward Kinky, eyeing her womanly charms.
“You must be. So tired ya forgot that the guy that’s had this job for the last ten years is named Frank?” She hit him fast, hard and often. He fell to the floor with a lot less teeth than he started with, and he was having trouble breathing through the hamburger that used to be his nose.
Our building managers are cheap. No watchmen they pay could afford to buy a gun. Frank had had to pay for his own nightstick. Kinky frisked the fake guard and found two hypos along with a pistol in an ankle holster.
We took the elevator up an extra two floors over ours and walked the stairs back down. Nobody was there that shouldn’t have been. At the office, Kinky checked the door and security system. Someone had tried to get in, but apparently given up. We went inside and dropped the Enviro-doors. They sealed the room if the dome was breached. They were also strong enough to stop anybody short of a GISI swat team from breaching them. My ears popped as I felt the room air pressure go up and heard the window seals creak.