Authors: Dennis Palumbo
City Wars (14 page)
The wine glass shattered on the floor.
Hadrian’s hand went to the alarm switch.
“Don’t move,” Bowman said. A Service rifle was in his right hand.
Hadrian said, “My sentry …”
“You should keep more than one.”
“Well …” Hadrian drew up the points of his brow. “I congratulate you, Colonel, on your most—”
“I have something to say to you.” Bowman’s face was hard. “I wanted you to know. Chicago is dead. You killed it.”
Hadrian laughed. “Hardly, Colonel …”
“I’m not saying we wouldn’t have done this to ourselves,” Bowman went on, “without you. After the attack on E Sector, it’s pretty certain Government would have retaliated anyway. Even with Gilcrest at the helm. You just hastened the end, that’s all.”
Hadrian took a long, slow breath.
“Bowman, I’m afraid you’ve gone quite mad …”
Bowman stepped closer.
“The funny thing is,” he said evenly, “I don’t think I give a goddam about this city anymore. Or any city. So the whole thing goes up in smoke. How can that be any worse than the way it is now … the way we are now …”
Hadrian began very slowly to move his fingers along the edge of his chair. There was a gun hidden in a niche about five inches below his hand.
“Why, Colonel Bowman, I believe that beneath that apparently coarse exterior there exists the soul of a philosopher … or at the very least, a politician …”
“I don’t care about any of it,” Bowman went on, oblivious. “But I do care about old Gilcrest. I care
about the fact that you killed him. Or had him killed. So I’d just feel better if I did something about it.”
Hadrian’s fingers closed on the gun butt.
“I was given to understand that Minister Gilcrest was assassinated by rebel lunks,” he said. “And as far as I’m concerned—”
Hadrian twisted out of his seat and raised his weapon.
Bowman fired once. The burst took Hadrian in the chest. He was halved cleanly.
Afterward, Bowman joined Cassandra down below the streets of the city.
They waited, together, for the darkness.
Dennis Palumbo is a young writer who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. This is his first novel.