Chapter Seven—Ex-Cop

“This one looks good,” said Nova as she opened up the manhole cover to the sewers below. “It’s not blocked like those other two.”

Koto glanced down the hole with his flashlight, then looked around to make sur they weren’t being watched. They had left Mairu back at their first exit, just in case Jon arrived while they were still out exploring.

They had even found a good perch for Mairu to hang back with her rifle that was nearby an entry to the sewers in a steamy alley between a couple of restaurants. The alley was so full of trash and boxes and dumpsters full to overflowing, that she could easily dart down it and make her way into the uncovered hole and pull back the cover before any pursuers caught up with her.

There was no guarantee that if she did that they wouldn’t suspect she had jumped into the swearers, but at the same time, the alleys back there were like warrens, so they’d probably just run around looking for her and think she lost their trails.

Besides the alleys, there were a lot of back doors used by the restaurant staff, giving plausible escape paths. It was wily enough to throw most of the trail if they weren’t dogging her heels close enough to grab the back of her hoddie.

Nova nodded, “Mm,” this one is not as well placed as Mairu’s, but it’s not bad either.

“All right,” Koto said. He covered it back up. “That leaves us three manholes.”

“Let’s head back to Mairu. I think it’s more than enough.”

“Now to see if Jon manages to score his explosives.”

“Do you trust him,” Nova said from behind as he started leading her back.

He stopped and looked at her. Gods, she was so beautiful. Then with a shrug he said, “Why not?”

“Just like that?”

He shrugged again. “It’s not like we’re high profile enough for the authorities to do some kind of undercover operation on us. We’re just a bunch of dumb kids with guns, like most of the dregs. They have their hands full with other problems.”

And by other problems, he meant the resistance, which had just weeks ago launched an attack on the space port. They had failed, but not without causing the port to shut down for several days and severely hampering incoming and outgoing traffic.

The news nets called the attack cowardly and the resistance fighters terrorists intent on spreading anarchy and violence.

But of course, that wasn’t true.

Maybe there would be no need to attack the green zones, if they would leave people in the red zones alone, but there were shadowing characters at the heads of the government and the mega corps who had them in their pockets.

They seemed to want to control everywhere everywhere, no matter what. It was almost unnatural—like badly written villains from a panel story on the side of a wall.

Hungry and insatiable for magic, most of the red zoners who had sorcerous powers were hunted, captured and taken away, never to be seen again. But what happened to them?

And then there were the Rems. They were dangerous, but not nearly so dangerous that the government needed to treat red zoners like enemies. They got along fine out in the wilds, even with those alien remnants from the wars hunting and killing people.

Was every world like this, or just Gelomora?

“Hello?” Nova asked, and she snapped her fingers. “I’m losing you.”

He blinked. “Sorry—I was just thinking.”

“Yeah, well let’s think less and kick our feet.” She laughed and grasped his hand.”

Koto looked at her and nodded. “Mm.”

*

It was a real bad part of town. If the wackos on the streets and the quite obvious criminal elements were visible where the hospital was, this area was even worse, except it didn’t have an air of added protection, because Jon didn’t see any cops anywhere.

Jon had been here once before, after putting bits and pieces of the evidence he had obtained together, leading him to Sosai’s lab, which was in the basement of a high rise apartment complex.

Graffiti was everywhere, the streets were dark, and the mentally ill and drug addles of the district clung like filth to the walls and loitered darkly on every street corner, their eyes sunken and dark, their gazes incoherent or clearly desperate.

They eyes him like a piece of meat, either to rob or buy something off of. He made no bones about pushing back his jacket and placing his left hand on his gun holster, not as a deterrent—but it was that too—but simply to be ready in case he was assaulted by these freaks.

Overhead the siren of a police cruiser whaled on the other side if the district as they did a flyby, probably looking to close in on an arrest warrant.

Dogs barked and people screamed.

From one building the sounds of a baby crying could be heard.

This whole place was noisy and there constant disturbances, mostly involving crime and domestic disputes which often led to death. The lowest of the low—the dregs of the city, lived in neighborhoods like these.

Not far off there were some suchi joints with red lanterns. Across from them was a pay by the hour hotel and a casino parlor where some guards with assault rifles stood. The vice businesses often banded together and provided a strong front for protection against would-be criminals who thought they could make some easy cash.

Sometimes the truly desperate tried anyway and ended up bleeding out in the parking lot, like Jon could see further off. A few police land cruisers were parked and yellow tape was strong about, coordinating off the crime scene.

The cops milled about, and Jon didn’t spent a lot of time glancing in that direction. Instead he weaved through the crack in a fence, pushing back a panel that was supposed to block people from seeing though, and he made his way through an dark alley.

The alley opened up into a courtyard filled with trash and cardboard flattened to the cement. Some teenagers were smoking hard drugs on the corner while some gangsters on the other side talked and laughed, just hanging out and probably scoring some drugs themselves.

The building was right in front of him, the doors open and the sign reading Newfound Horizons with half the letters broken off or painted out of existence to form some new words that made no sense whatsoever.

What a heap this place was.

It was hard for Jon not to glance about with a scowl on his face and an inner contempt for all the people around here. As he walked in a woman who looked to be coming down off of something as she twitched and muttered with a cigarette in her hand and a baby in the other stalked about.

She said something to him, and Jon just looked at her, realizing she was trying to score some credits off of him. He spread his hands. “I got nothing.”

And it was true.

He moved down the hall under flickering lights. The walls, a dark grey and a lighter cream separated by a line of trim about three feet from the wall were scored and broken and plastered with all kinds of adds for products and menial slave labor type work.

Of course, none of these folks wanted to work, otherwise they would be asleep right now instead of wandering about in the dark.

Jon made his way down the halls amidst muffled yelling and disturbances. A few guys next to some vending machines leaning up against the wall eyed him and he looked right at them, his hand still on his holster.

Glancing about, he made sure there were no cops about. He was paying attention to these low lives eyeing him like carrion birds, but if the cops were here, that would mean his partner had followed up on his heads, which meant Sosai’s lab or hideout or whatever it was, would be off limits to him.

He went to the door on the end, number 104 and glanced about. The stairwell leading up to the next floor was on the other wise of the hall and elevators were further down, though those probably didn’t work.

The door was closed.

He tried the knob.

Locked.

Of course it was.

He grunted, raising his foot and kicked it in. The door slammed open and cracked against the wall as little bits of the frame rained down. When he turned, he saw a guy look at him, startle slightly as he backed into his own room.

He needed to be quick, or else the cops were going to show up. Maybe.

Jon stepped into the the apartment.

*

Outside in her unmarked police cruiser just half a block away, Lieutenant Ushiara Kenn waited impatiently.

The coms unit blipped and the spec ops sergeant’s voice came through. “He just went inside.”

Ushiara snatched up her coms unit. “Do not engage yet. I’m coming to you.”

“Roger that.”