Katja from the Punk Band (13 page)

So whenever he’s out of the comfort of the arcade, it’s twelve steps forward and two back (not just one, one might not be enough, he could have miscounted so two, two steps) and then starting from zero again.

He almost loses count when the sound of tires screeching across the wet tarmac comes from somewhere nearby and he freezes. Two blocks west, a battered old car careens around a corner, dark but splattered with lighter patches as if it’s been vandalized, and for a moment Kohl is ready for it to drive past him and fill him with bullets, but it keeps going west, toward the heart of the city.

Joy riders or junkies, who gives a fuck.

He begins counting again, and he’s wrapped the vial in tissues, got it in his breast pocket because if he does fall it’s probably the safest place for the thing to be. He counts his way through an alley whose drains have started to choke on the rainwater and are vomiting their contents onto the street. He slows as he approaches another car, this one tucked up behind a dumpster, looking for signs of occupation, but it seems to be abandoned. As he gets nearer, he realizes the tires are all flat and he relaxes slightly as he passes it.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Stop. Back one. Back two.

One. Two. Three . . .

He leaves the alley, can now see the arcade across the junction. The place is deserted, too quiet to be comfortable in, but he keeps going and as he gets nearer he sees that the shutters are down.

He stops dead in the street.

Swallows.

There are a dozen streets, alleys and passageways, all of which could conceal . . . could conceal what?

Ignore it.

Counting again: one, two, three, four, five, six . . .

Stops.

There’s a gun lying at his feet.

A shiver of panic runs through him and for a brief moment he has to suppress the desire to turn and flee, but he remains rooted to the spot. He bends down slowly, thinking this could be yet another trap. Pokes the weapon with a fingertip. Picks it up, releases the cartridge and sees that there’s still bullets in it.

A sign from whatever gods there might be? Or a warning?

He opens a small compartment at the base of his jacket, a secure pouch he built into the garment to enable him to quickly and securely hide chemicals if he was caught short.

Then one, two, three, four, five, six . . .

Stops at the corrugated metal entrance on the twelfth step. Stretches for the buzzer but can’t quite reach. Just one more step.

But no.

Two back.

Then three forward.

One.

Two.

Three.

Presses the buzzer.

Several moments pass, then there’s a shrieking and Kohl’s heart rate suddenly triples before he realizes it’s the shutters and they’re slowly being raised.

Booted feet and heavy trousers and a shining belt buckle and Szerynski, Szerynski, Szerynski.

“Vladimir.”

The man rolls his arm to invite Kohl inside.

A single light leads them into the main games room and Kohl is distinctly aware of the shutters automatically closing behind him again.

He considers that perhaps he should have brought someone along with him, Misha or one of the others, but it’s too late now.

“Sit,” Szerynski commands, motioning toward the only lit booth.

Kohl sits, uneasy in the brooding, oppressive atmosphere the dead machines create. He would always retire to his room on the top level of The Digital Drive-by before the machines were shut down. It always felt to him as if an execution squad were at work as the plugs were pulled and the screens went blank.

There is a ticking somewhere.

“I’m glad you came, Vladimir.”

Kohl nods, unsure of what other response to give. His hand lingers over his breast pocket, fingers twitching.

Szerynski’s eyebrow arches. He holds out one hand, palm up.

Kohl reaches inside his pocket, pulls out the vial, lost in amongst a mass of sodden tissue. He unravels the clotted mess onto the tabletop then holds out the vial, hovers it above Szerynski’s hand.

He sees the fat lines of chemical scarring that reaches up to the webbing between the man’s thumb and forefinger, crosses over toward his knuckle.

The vial drops.

Szerynski flicks it with two fingers, twists it into an upright position.

“This is the vial?” he asks, and at first Kohl doesn’t realize it’s a question.

“Yes, Mr. Szerynski.”

“You got it from the mule like I asked you to?”

Slowly this time. “Yes, Mr. Szerynski.”

The chem lord has a small torchlight in his hand now, flashes it across the surface of the glass.

Then he presses down on the rubber cap that seals the container, squeezes it out.

Sniffs, replaces the stopper.

“You see this, Vladimir?”

And he tilts the vial toward Kohl, the torch still shining upon it.

“The watermark?”

“Closer.”

And Kohl can see a row of tiny numbers glittering on the inner surface of the glass.

“It’s a tracking code,” Szerynski explains. “We use it while we’re developing chemicals, transporting them from one place to another, but particularly when they’re heading to or from the mainland. Dracyev uses them too.”

Kohl, he feels his eyes starting to dry out, knows he should have taken his drops before he left but in the eagerness to get to Szerynski . . .

“The person who told me about the vial also fed me the tracking code.”

Kohl reads the numbers aloud in his head.

Zero. One. Three. One. Six. Two. Zero.

“The code he gave me, Vladimir, is zero-seven-nine-five-zero . . .”

Eight. One. One. Zero.

“. . . seven-zero-eight-eight-nine-seven.”

Kohl’s tongue is like a dead lizard that has been shoved in his mouth.

Szerynski’s light vanishes from the vial and Kohl finds himself following it uncontrollably — to a second vial held in the man’s other hand.

“This was delivered to me earlier this evening,” he explains. “Do you see the code, like the one on your vial?”

“I . . .”

“Read it.”

Kohl’s gripping the table now.

“Read it.”

His eyes are burning; he can’t focus for several moments.

“Zero. Seven. Nine . . .”

Pauses, glances at Szerynski whose expression betrays nothing. “Go on.”

“Five zero seven zero eight eight nine seven,” Kohl finishes quickly.

Two vials, one in each of Szerynski’s hands.

“You see the problem we have. Don’t you?”

Kohl licks away a bead of sweat that has gathered on his upper lip.

What has that little fucking addict done to me?

“I can explain.”

“Of course,” Szerynski says genially.

“Something came up, Mr. Szerynski, something very important. I had to attend to it but . . . but you had asked me personally to do this, this, this thing for you and I had every intention of getting you the vial.”

“Which you just a few minutes ago told me was exactly what you did.”

“Yes. And I did get it.”

“From the mule.”

A beat. “Yes.”

“You got this vial from the man that I sent you to? This is what he had?”

“I . . . believe so.”

“You believe so?”

“Mr. Szerynski, you asked me to get the vial for you and I was going to, I had every intention of doing so but something came up, something important, and I had to attend to it, you see, and so I had to . . . delegate.”

This last word spoken like a doctor would announce a terminal disease.

“Delegate,” Szerynski repeats flatly.

“One of my men, a good man, I trust him implicitly, you see, I gave him the address, the address you gave me, and I told him to go, to go and do the thing that you asked of me, to get the vial, the vial. I gave him the address and I told him what I wanted him to get for me, for you, for me. And that is what he brought me.”

“I see.” Szerynski rolls the two vials around and around in his hands. “He brought you it, you say.”

Kohl doesn’t understand the inflection at first.

“Your man, your trusted,
devoted
man.”

Kohl nods.

“You see, what puzzles me, Vladimir, is that earlier this evening a contact of mine brought me this other vial. The one with the correct code on it. Which raises an interesting question — namely, what is this you have brought me?”

“Mr. Szerynski, I did as you asked, I got the vial for you, the vial that the mule had . . .”

Szerynski shakes his head slowly. “Well that’s not possible, is it? This is the vial that the mule had. This is the vial which I asked you to bring me, Vladimir.”

“I . . .”

“So I’m asking you, Vladimir — what is this you have brought me?”

Kohl is suddenly aware of the fact that Szerynski is between the door and himself. He grinds his teeth together.

“Mr. Szerynski, please. There’s obviously been some confusion somewhere. Perhaps my man, perhaps he picked up the wrong vial or . . .”

“Perhaps.”

And Kohl, he’s thinking,
You fucking junkie, you think you can fuck me over, you little piece of shit.

“You think you can fuck me over, you little piece of shit?”

Szerynski, stealing Kohl’s thought.

“Mr. Szerynski . . .”

A knife, he’s got a fucking knife, where did that come from?

Kohl presses himself back against the booth’s seating, raises both hands in a placating gesture.

“Please . . .”

“Don’t beg, Vladimir. Never beg.”

Eyes itching, itching. And there’s nowhere to go.

Fucking Nikolai! Never should have trusted the junkie . . .

Szerynski stands suddenly and Kohl leaps to his feet at the same time, ready for what might come, hands still raised before him.

And something batters against his hip and he remembers the gun.

“The only thing worse than begging,” Szerynski continues, slowly making his way around the table toward Kohl, “is betrayal.”

“No . . .”

Szerynski suddenly lunges at him and Kohl rolls instinctively, the knife slashing him across his chest as he does so and he cries out, already going for the gun, stumbling away from Szerynski.

“Wait!” he shouts as he slams into the back of one of the games cabinets, bounces off it.

Szerynski stalks toward him as Kohl regains his balance, still fighting with his jacket to pull the gun out. The chemical lord holds the vial Kohl brought him in one hand, the knife in the other.

“There’s nowhere to go, Vladimir,” he says softly.

A short stalemate settles before Kohl suddenly dives around behind the cabinets and Szerynski is chasing after him, charges around the corner and finds Kohl lying on the ground, hesitates for just a moment, and that gives Kohl enough time to pull out the gun, point it — and shoot.

It hits Szerynski clean in the middle of his chest, shattering the vial on its way and sending him crashing backward. Without missing a beat, Kohl clambers to his feet and charges toward his boss, fires another round at him, another.

Szerynski slumps to the ground, motionless.

By the time his final breath has dissipated amongst the pixel-dust, Kohl realizes the mess he’s in.

He drops the gun reflexively, as if it will make any difference.

A little wisp of smoke emerges from Szerynski’s chest.

He rushes back to the booth, finds that the other vial, the real one, is still resting on the table. He picks it up, shoves it back in his pocket. Notices blood splatters up the side of his jacket, wipes at them.

He hurries back along the corridor, then listens for a few moments through the metal shutters of the front entrance. He expects to hear the sound of Szerynski’s men charging across the open lot, ready to cut Kohl to ribbons, but there’s nothing.

He knows he has no choice but to go through, but he can’t figure out the opening mechanism and so has to shove his hands under the small gap at the bottom and force it up until there’s enough space for him to slide under.

He squeezes through and back out into the chill night air.

She walks through the corridors that weave their way around the main complex of labs like a mythical creature fumbling through a haunted labyrinth, but in this case it is she who haunts the place.

Her name is Ylena and this is what she does each day, every day — but only because there is little else for her to do.

She peers through a Perspex window that looks into a room in which a half dozen workers move around, connected to a thick pipe by hoses that plug into plastic casings on their backs. They wear protective masks and goggles as they work on filtering substances through an elaborate series of funnels and tubs that resemble upturned bass drums.

One of them catches her looking at them and waves. She touches her fingers to the Perspex in response, almost longingly reaching out to him until he returns to his work.

More nods and smiles as she walks farther down the corridor, and she can feel them watching her once she has passed, perhaps studying the sway of her hips or the curvature of her lower back where it is exposed by her dress.

She wears the dress hanging from her shoulders, exposing her back and, as she walks, her thighs and calves. She is a princess walking amidst white-coated paupers. But of course, that is what he wants her to be.

She walks past an open door out of which one technician leans, gasping for air as he waves away a cloud of noxious yellow gas. In the background, she sees two others laughing hysterically and it brings a smile to her face. It is not often she hears laughter.

She continues toward the end of the corridor, returns the greeting of a young female technician who wears glasses that make her eyes look like those of a turtle. She leans around the corner and there is a row of seats, perhaps twenty or so, of which about half are randomly occupied.

These people do not wear white coats. Their wardrobe is that of threadbare jackets and torn trousers, of tattoos and scuffed shoes, of dirt beneath their fingernails and swollen purple veins. They each hold a slip of paper containing brief details of the procedures they will be put through that day and, if they are lucky, a note on how much they will be paid in return.