Like a Boss (23 page)

The woman blinked, and I could see her eyes focus in the torchlight. I hadn’t realized that I’d taken that look for granted. All day long, I’d talked with people who hadn’t used their pais because the Public was down. She looked like it was still running. “Excuse me,” I said, “but do you actually have access? Is the Public back up?”

That broke her concentration. She pointed her flashlight at my face, and I threw up my hands to block the glare. “You need to keep quiet.”

I snorted. “Man, if I had a blue boy for every time someone said that to me.”

“Could you please not antagonize these nice people until we’ve gotten some help?” said Onanefe. “My side’s killing me.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Force of habit.”

He sighed. “Your habits are going to kill
you
.”

The welder shone her light on Onanefe. “You, too. Quiet.”

He nodded and shielded his eyes.

The welder blinked again. I looked around the crowd to see if anyone else had that faraway stare, but I couldn’t tell from the torchlight. Eyes were hollowed out by shadow, and exhaustion turned faces into death masques. I knew that one day of action couldn’t have done this. People had been tired and angry for a long, long time, and all that simmering resentment had been given voice. It didn’t have to be Saarien leading the charge. It could have been anyone who was willing to get them to focus their anger enough to pop.

The welder’s face softened a bit. “We can help.” She nudged the people next to her, and the crowd parted. I helped Onanefe to his feet and led him into the ocean of angry, tired faces. The welder walked behind us, and the crowd came back together in her wake.

“I’m afraid I can’t blink up your name like you can with mine,” I said, glancing over my shoulder. She answered by pursing her lips in a thin smile. “What may I call you?” She just put a finger to her lips, and I sighed. To hell with it.

We got to the edge of the crowd, and the welder got in front. As we walked up Proctor, the crowd shuffled back toward the alley, off to join with the rest of the masses stomping up Shahjahan. Within minutes, the street was empty but for the three of us.

She led us to one of the row houses and beckoned us up the stairs to the stoop. She knocked three times, then once. The same pattern came back from the inside, and six locks clicked loose. The door opened a crack, and she motioned for us to go inside. I peeked in and saw nothing but darkness.

This was a bad idea. My gut knew it was a bad idea. Even The Fear hissed this was a bad idea. Then Onanefe shuddered and yelped. “Can’t breathe,” he gasped.

I turned to the welder to ask if someone could come out here, but she was gone, faded into the shadows. Onanefe groaned and sagged from my grip. “No, no, come on, get up,” I said, fighting his bulk as we slipped to the ground. “Help! HELP!”

The door flew open, and metal glinted in the moonlight. My brain screamed
MACHETE
just in time for my leg to lash out. I connected with something solid, and there was a muffled scream from above me. Then my attacker fell on top of me, his chest hitting my shoulder. The machete
clang
ed off the stoop’s pourform bannister. I let go of Onanefe and reached behind me until I felt hair. I grabbed as much of it as I could and brought my attacker’s head down on the bannister. I felt the crunch of cartilage on pourform, heard a wet scream fill my ears. I shoved the wailing weight off me, back toward the door. There was a stumble of bodies, a mass of shoving and
Get ’em
!s. I scooped up Onanefe and dragged him down the steps. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP!” I yelled. “THEY’RE KILLING US!”

We got to the street, Onanefe now dead weight as I pulled him away. The people in the murder house had gotten their feet and clattered after us. I set Onanefe down and turned, my feet planted, my fists up. “Come on, you fuckers! Come on and try to take me!”

They stopped a few meters away. I could make out three shapes in the moonlight, all of them hunched forward and hungry. They held up their machetes, the purple moon dancing on the blades. One giggled, then let loose with that howl I’d heard on Shahjahan. I pointed at the one in the middle. “You! You’re going to lose an eye. You’re gonna kill me, but everyone will know I took your eye.”

He laughed, that cocky sound of someone who knew he was hearing bullshit. It probably was. But I’d sure give it a go. “You talk way too much,” he said, then lifted his machete.

A lifetime ago, back in the WalWa Business Academy, I learned the delicate art of street fighting. Baily Barnes, our instructor, first taught us ballroom dancing so we could get used to being close to other people, feeling how they moved, feeling their weight close in. We learned the importance of protecting our partners as we spun each other around the squeaky floorboards. After six months and two regional competitions (I came in fourth place in the rhumba), he changed up the curriculum. “Fighting,” said Baily, “is just dancing. Except your job is to fuck up your partner before
she
fucks you up.”

When my new dance partner brought the blade down, I stepped toward him. He was a bit taller, which made it that much easier for me to spin into his body. I grabbed his wrist and tugged, adding my momentum to his as I drove the back of my head into his nose. I felt the wet pop and dug my thumbnails into the meaty base of his thumb. The machete clattered to the ground. I kicked it aside and spun away, leaving my partner staggering.

His friends weren’t sure what to do, so I charged them. They outweighed me by twenty kilos, but I outmatched them in anger. I actually heard myself scream as I brought a knee into one of their crotches. Screaming, Baily had said, was bad for the ballroom judges, but it was a great thing to do in a fight. My voice bounced off the silent buildings, echoed off the pavement. The man yelped as I grabbed his hair and pushed his head to the ground. I screamed again as I smacked his forehead on the street, forcing myself to stop as The Fear egged me on:
More! More!

This dance partner, he swung at my ankle. It hurt enough to let go. That gave him enough opening to launch himself at my shins. I tried to hop back, but he connected. My ass hit the pavement, and sharp pain shot up my spine. I couldn’t stop the yelp, but I could still kick. One boot sole to the crown of his head. One boot heel to the back of his head. He stopped moving. That left the third.

He was the biggest of all of them, but I could see his shoulders quivering in the moonlight. Either he was high or he was freaked out. I got to my feet and snarled, the way a cornered dog does before it goes for the throat. I took a false stompy step toward him and howled, louder and crazier than I knew he could ever go. He dropped his machete and ran.

“Hey.”

I glanced to Onanefe. He was on his feet, but only because my first dance partner had a machete to the cane cutter’s throat. His eyes were calm, though his forehead shone from the sweat. The man smiled, his face painted black from the blood running down his nose.

“Put it down and walk away,” I said. “I don’t care why you want to hurt us. Just go right now and this can all end.”

He shook his head and pointed the machete at me. “You’re going to be my bonus.”

A light flickered on in a front porch.

We froze at the soft
click
of the LED bulb. It was a gentle bluish light, the kind that meant it was time to go home, have dinner, read a book. The kind of the light that said
safe
.

Another porch light switched on. Then another, and another, until the entire block was lit up like any other day. Front doors opened, spilling warm orange light into the narrow street. People walked out on their stoops and aimed flashlights at us. They came out into the streets: families, retirees, singles in various states of undress. Within minutes, we were surrounded.

“Back off!” yelled the bloodied man. “I’ll cut them both! You can’t stop me!”

The crowd was silent. People in their bathrobes and shirtsleeves stared at him.

“None of you can get in my way!” yelled the man.

A rock sailed out of the crowd and beaned him on the forehead. His eyes rolled up in the back of his skull, and he fell over like a dropped plank. Onanefe looked down, then took a wobbly step toward me. I closed the distance and helped him stay upright. “Does this all count as doing the work?” he asked, giving me a weak smile.

“With overtime,” I said.

A blue light bounced off the buildings, and the crowd parted. There, for the first time in two days, was a yellow-and-black police bumblecar, its bubble lights clicking and rotating. Behind it was a beat-up ambulance. The caravan pulled up in front of us, and the bumblecar’s driver side door swung open. The driver herself took her sweet damn time climbing down and walking over. “Well,” said Soni Baghram. “This looks like quite the scene.”

Two paramedics ran from the ambulance; they looked at the men on the ground. “Forgot those assholes,” I said. “Help
here
.” They eased Onanefe onto a stretcher.

Soni was wearing her street uniform, but the other cops that got out were in black-and-yellow riot gear. The plates on their legs and chests clattered as they hunkered over the unconscious thugs. Soni took off her cloth patrol cap and whapped it in the palm of her hand. The stubble on her shaved head stood up in the night chill. She looked at the bloodied men on the ground, then gave her head a single shake. “Quite a scene, indeed.”

“Where in the holy hell have you people
been
?” I yelled. “This city’s a mess, and the police have been nowhere!”

The crowd tittered. I heard mumbles of
She’s right
and
Where
were
they?

Soni pointed at me. “You and I have a lot to talk about.”

“I’m sure we do,” I said, crossing my arms.

Soni looked around. “I’d prefer we talk inside. And far away from here.”

“Do you?”

Soni leaned in close. “Padma, I’ve got riot squads standing by all over the city. I’ve got precinct houses on lockdown. I’m trying to keep the mob from dropping the torches and getting the pitchforks. Help me out.”

I didn’t move.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Jesus.
Please
.”

I nodded and pointed at the ambulance. “Wherever he goes, I go.”

Soni worked her jaw. “This one’s one of us, right? Not another Ghost?”

I gave Soni the finger. She threw her hands in the air. “Fine! Jesus, I just want to talk, not hold a crisis negotiation. We’ll all go in the ambo.”

One of the cops nodded to the men in black. “What about them?”

“They get the premium seats with you, officer.” Soni walked to the ambo. “You coming?”

I climbed in after her. Onanefe lay on the stretcher, an oxygen mask on his face. “This feels nice,” he said.

“I gave him a little painkiller,” said the EMT. “Nothing too strong. We’re saving it for later.”

“What’s later?” I said.

“Oh, just the end of the world,” said Soni. The driver slammed the doors shut, and off we rolled into the night.

Soni sagged against the ambulance’s bulkhead. In the soft LED light, I could see bags the size of cricket balls under her eyes. Even her head stubble looked tired. “This is just about the perfect way to cap off today,” she said. “Every precinct has been on tactical alert since the strike started, and that means making all my people wear armor while carrying half their bodyweight in water bottles and riot foam. You know how unbreathable our armor is?”

“Is that why you’re not in it?”

She gave me a weak smile. “The advantages of command. My armor is back at the Fourteenth Street Precinct, air drying in my office. I’ve been on my feet since four this morning.” She closed her eyes. “Believe it or not, I am happy to see you. I heard about you walking around today, talking with people. But you vanished for a bit after the fire at your building.”

“I went back to Tanque.”

She made a face. “How? The outbound buses had stopped.”

I opened my mouth to say,
Letty gave me a ride
, and realized I had no idea whose side Soni was on. That made my stomach roil. We had pissed each other off as much as we’d made each other laugh. Maybe more. I could count the people I trusted on one hand, and she was right there. That was before all of this chaos, and I now had no clue where she stood. Was she loyal to Letty? Saarien? The general good? How the hell do you ask your friend if she’s really on your side?

“I got a lift,” I said.

“And you didn’t think to call?”

“Well, Soni, considering how the fire brigade didn’t bother to show up, I wasn’t sure what would happen with the police.”

She didn’t protest. “Yeah. I’m sorry I couldn’t spare the hands. I had to deal with looting on Kuttner.”

Now it was my turn to make a face. “There’s nothing but clinics there.”

Soni sighed and nodded. “A bunch of footie thugs raided the dispensaries. Made off with a whole lot of painkillers. Everyone’s convinced the city’s going to burn and we won’t be able to buy meds for a year. Half my people are just standing guard at every chemist in town.”

I rubbed my temples. “Soni, what the hell is going on? This apocalyptic crap pops up every now and then, but it’s never more than a dozen people. The whole city’s losing it.”

She quirked her mouth. “I’m sure you’ve heard about our friend, the Good Reverend Saarien?”

I nodded. “I even went to see him.”

Her eyes went wide. “What the hell for?”

“Because I was helping Keiko Nakamura. Remember her? Runs that omusubi-ya?”

Soni’s face darkened, and she looked at the EMT. “Would you mind leaving us for a moment?”

“I have to monitor this guy,” said the EMT.

“I can handle that.” She jerked her head toward the front of the ambulance. The EMT shook her head, the beads in her cornrows clattering. She threw her hands in the air and climbed into the front, sliding a panel behind her. Soni looked out the back of the ambulance. “This isn’t how it was supposed to go.”

I cocked my head. “What horrible thing are you not telling me?”

Soni clacked her teeth. “Did I ever tell you about the night I came to Santee?”