Extinction (44 page)

Mouse wished that Shirka had eaten
him; it would’ve been better than knowing death was coming for him. No sooner
had that thought crossed his mind than he saw the two marines, human and
Shirka, walk out of the alley Mouse had originally come through. Crap, was
there a God, and was he actually delivering prayers today? Sending the Shirka
to finish the job?

The human approached the hitman,
who was already looking leery about the encounter. “Excuse me, sir”, the
lieutenant began. “I’m looking for a young man who might have come through here
a few moments ago.”

“I haven’t seen any kids”, came
the terse reply.

The lieutenant smiled. “I haven’t
even described him to you yet. How do you know you haven’t seen who I’m looking
for?” He paused. “And I never said he was a kid.”

Mouse saw the hitman twitch a
little. He was waiting for a young boy to kill. Now these two other men show up
at the time and place the boy was supposed to be, asking about the kid. It was
too much of a coincidence for him. He immediately thought these two marines weren’t
real marines, just other hitmen in disguise waiting to take his mark.

No human liked taking on a Shirka
but apparently this man thought something special of himself. “Look. I don’t
know what Z-man is trying to pull here, but this is my job. Both of you fuck
off before I make a throw rug out of you both!” He was now pointing back and
forth between the two marines.

The lieutenant just smiled. “First
off, I have no idea what you’re talking about or who this Z-man is. Second,
that might have been funny if both of us were Shirkas but I’m not, so it just
sounded dumb. Third, I don’t think you’re here for anything that’s good for
anyone, so I’m going to ask you to leave. Now.” The hitman looked at the
lieutenant in such a way that he decided he should add a threat to the end of
his paragraph in order to be taken more seriously, just because that’s how it’s
apparently done in these parts. “Or, I’ll take that gun from your waist that
you think you’re hiding, and I’ll shoot you in the face with it.”

The lieutenant smiled, happy with
his threat and ready to follow through as he knew he most likely would have to.
The hitman twitched and started to go for his gun. The lieutenant moved in and
slid off to the man’s right side, the side with the gun. The hitman smiled to
himself. This dumb marine, or whoever he was, was too slow; the hitman already
had his hand on the grip of his pistol.

As the gun came from the
waistband, the hitman knew he needed to shoot the furbag first. He was
surprised to see his intended target just standing there with his muzzle open
and tongue hanging out, like a dog he remembered from his childhood, who looked
the same way before they went for a car ride. Why was he happy? He was about to
get shot and he wasn’t even moving.

As the gun cleared the jacket and
started to press forward, the hitman felt another hand over his own, guiding
the barrel of the gun back around and towards his own body. That wasn’t right,
not at all. He realized that the lieutenant was now moving back in front of him
and was the one controlling the hitman’s hand and the gun it held.

The gun was now fully and
painfully pointed at the hitman’s own chest, with his hand still clasped to it,
and the marine was looking square into the hitman’s eyes. The lieutenant slowly
moved the barrel upward from the hitman’s chest and said, “I told you, in the
face.”

The hitman’s eyes went wide as he
realized the lieutenant was following through with every word of his threat.
The gun spat lead and fire into the hitman’s face and in turn, he spit bone and
brain matter out the back of his head.

The body slumped and the lieutenant
looked to his companion. “I think that boy is in some trouble.”

“So?”

“So…I’ll let you kill the next
guy if you help me find him.”

No response.

“The next three guys?”

“Okay, let’s go. I can still
smell him—should be easy to track him to wherever he went.”

~

Mouse hadn’t seen the last
exchange between the two marines; he was already heading away and barely saw
the hitman’s death. The sound of the gun made Mouse run faster than he ever had
before, hunger and fatigue be damned. He still had to think of a way to get
into the hub and get his brother out before Zinner found him.

When Mouse reached the hub, he
decided that a direct approach was the best way. He would hand Jenny a receipt
and that would leave him free to roam the hub without anyone caring. It would
take between five and ten minutes for the receipt to get to Zinner and then a
few minutes for him to formulate a response and a few minutes to get it moving.
Just to be on the safe side, Mouse would give himself ten minutes to grab his
brother and get the hell out of the hub.

Between the money for the hitman
and the money he found in the marine’s wallet, he should be able to get to
another city and set up there with his brother. He was fairly certain he would
make it out of the hub. He was more worried about getting to transportation. Zinner
would send people to all of the public transport areas first. He would have to
deal with that later.

Mouse entered the hub and tried
to act calm, even bored if he could pull that off. “Hey, Jenny.”

She looked at him and just put
her hand out. “Receipt.”

Someone missed naptime today, he
thought. “Here you go. I’m gonna go find my brother. If you have anything else
for me, let me know.”

Mouse started to walk away when
Jenny said, “He’s not over there.”

“Huh?”

“He’s not at the skateboard ramp.”

“Okay, do you know where he is?”

“Yup.” Jenny rang the bell so one
of Zinner’s private runners would come get the receipt from her. “He’s with
Z-man. He was asked to run some sandwiches to him a while ago and he hasn’t
come back yet.”

Mouse could feel his blood drain.
Sweat popped out on his forehead. “Oh. Okay. Um, how about I take the receipt
to Z-man? That way I can get my brother for dinner.” He stammered, “And, I, uh,
haven’t seen the guy in a while. I wanted to talk to him about my retirement
party.”

Jenny rolled her eyes and then
clinched them shut before she opened her mouth as wide as it could go. “Nooooooooooo!”
This was a girl destined to work in public service somewhere. “You know the
rules! No one sees the Z-man unless he comes to you OR you’re one of his
private runners. You. Are. Not. One. Of. His. Private. Runners. Go away, turd
face.”

Oh crap. Mouse knew that this
wasn’t by accident. Zinner had his brother, had planned to have his brother,
just in case Mouse came back.

The apartment was at the back of
the hub and had tons of security in place. All of the security was lo-tech but
its strength lied in its simplicity and the overkill of redundancies that were
in place. Everything was based on the idea that cops were coming for evidence
or a rival bad guy was coming for Zinner and his money.

If the cops were coming, he just
needed enough time to make sure there wasn’t any small bit of evidence he
hadn’t accounted for and then just sit and wait to surrender.

If other bad guys were coming, he
needed enough time to get his barricades in place to hold off the attack for
eight minutes. Eight minutes was the average response time for the patrol
officers in this area. He didn’t keep evidence in his apartment so why wouldn’t
he call the police to come save him?

Mouse had to figure out how to
get to the apartment undetected, get inside, get his brother out, and not get
caught. Or, do all that and instead of getting out, kill Zinner himself to make
sure he and his brother were safe. They didn’t call him Mouse for nothing; time
to put the name to the test.

Mouse had already walked away
from Jenny as he mulled all of this over in his head. He walked by a
refrigerator and grabbed a sandwich without bothering to see what kind it was.
He knew he needed fuel so he ate it as he walked towards the back of the hub.
He had also grabbed a bottle of water for himself and threw two in his bag for
later. If there was a later.

He would have to use Zinner’s own
system against him. Take that healthy and well-spent paranoia and use it to
Mouse’s advantage and not Zinner’s. But how?

If he called the cops, then
Zinner would just open his apartment up and let them walk right in. Mouse
didn’t think the cops would let him ride their coattails but his brother would
be able to walk right out and then Mouse could snatch him up and tell him what
was happening. But if that backfired, Zach would be trapped in the apartment
with a very angry Zinner who might just do something to Zach out of spite.
Mouse couldn’t risk that, even if it wasn’t a big risk.

If Mouse called in a rival gang,
then Zinner would call the cops himself and wouldn’t hurt Zach. But a lot of
people would get hurt in all the fighting and how in the hell would Mouse just “call
in” a rival gang anyway? If only those two marines had followed him here, that
might be enough of a distraction.

How did those guys find him in
the first place? Mouse’s mind began to wander a bit. He knew he hadn’t left any
tracks in the alley; it was cobblestone. He hadn’t been followed, not directly
anyway—he would’ve spotted them. The Shirka, that had to be it. The Shirka
scent tracked him. The way they walked out of the alley it was obvious they
weren’t following ground clues; it had to be air scent. And that gave him an
idea.

Mouse hadn’t seen Zinner’s
personal runner with the receipt pass him yet so he just stopped and waited.
Mouse saw the runner talk with Jenny, take the receipt, and then head in his
direction.

Mouse called out, “Hey, Billy.”

“What’s up, Mouse?”

“Not much. Are you runnin’ to
Z-man?”

“Yup. With your receipt, dude.”

“Cool, yeah, hey, would you mind
taking my satchel to Zach? He’s with the Z-man right now. I guess he’s been
there a while. I want to head out for the night but I don’t want to carry this
thing around with me. Can you ask him to hold on to it for me until tomorrow?”
Mouse was already draping the satchel over Billy’s head.

“Sure. Anything good in it?”
Billy patted it jokingly. It was beyond taboo for a runner to go through
another runner’s satchel.

“Only about twenty thousand
credits.” Mouse wasn’t lying.

“Hah! You wish! See ya, buddy.”
Billy was unknowingly off to do two things: one, to alert Zinner that Mouse
hadn’t been killed yet, and two, to drag Mouse’s scent through the hub and lead
the Shirka right to Zinner’s apartment.

Mouse tried not to run, tried not
to catch anyone’s attention as he slid through the smattering of kids relaxing
throughout the hub. He nodded a few times when he had to, waved to a few
friends, said hi only when he couldn’t avoid it. Mouse was fairly popular and
he tended to draw a crowd when he hung out, so he had to be careful not to let
anyone glom on to him as he tried to get to his target.

Mouse finally made it to the
bathrooms and walked in, hoping it would be empty. To his dismay, there were a
few kids just hanging out and talking. They probably bumped into each other
while they were washing their hands and just started talking and didn’t think
to leave.

Without overthinking it, Mouse
walked in holding his stomach with one hand while cupping the other over his
mouth, all the while making horrible retching sounds. Heading to the garbage
can, he began to dry heave into it, hoping he would be able to bring up some of
his sandwich for added realism. He didn’t have to; the actions were enough to
move the three kids along and they left the bathroom.

Mouse pulled his head out of the
garbage can and thought about locking the door but decided not to. That might
draw attention if someone found it locked. Instead, he focused on making his
next move quickly so no one would walk in on him.

He crossed to the rear of the
bathroom and pulled up a service grate that was in the floor. He slid himself
down the shaft and pulled the grate back over his head after he was in. The
smell was absolutely horrendous and he wasn’t sure how healthy the kids could
be eating if they were the cause of what he smelled now.

The hub was actually an old
school that had been abandoned many years before after a natural disaster made
it unsafe for the students to continue going there. The irony was not lost on
Mouse. He knew that this faculty bathroom actually connected to the boys’
locker room showers through this service tunnel. The locker room was Zinner’s
private entertaining area because it had a hot tub and steam room. It wasn’t
directly attached to Zinner’s apartment, but it got him much closer than he currently
was.

The lieutenant approached the
dilapidated security fence around the abandoned school and looked to his
companion. He knew better than to ask his friend if he was sure this was where
the boy had gone.

“Thoughts?”

The Shirka grunted, “A criminal
syndicate hideout. No perimeter defenses, automated or living. A couple of cubs
have walked by here recently, probably on watch. But it’s cold.”

“But it’s cold”, the lieutenant repeated.
Even grown men who were guarding secret military installations tended to get
tired and lazy when it was cold out. Why not go back into the base to the
comfort of a heater? What’s the worst that could happen?

Feeling comfortable that the
child-sentries had retreated to the warmth of the building, the two men simply
pushed the gate aside and walked to the front door. Jenny was falling asleep
and barely noticed the two as they approached her station; she really should
have napped today. When she realized the men were there, she reached for her
alarm bell but the Shirka gently picked her up with one of his massive hands
and then licked the whole side of her head.