Streetlethal

  STEVEN BARNES

  STREETLETHAL

  A Tom Doherty Associates Book

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

  book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is

  purely coincidental.

  STREETLETHAL

  Copyright © 1983 by Steven Barnes

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or

  portions thereof, in any form.

  Lyrics from "Home Is Where the Hatred Is" copyright © 1976 by

  Brouhaha Music. Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates. Inc.

  49 West 24th Street

  New York, N.Y. 10010

  Cover art by Martin Andrews

  ISBN: 0-812-51034-8

  First Tor edition: January 1991

  Printed in the United States of America

  0987654321

  Contents

  1. Maxine

  2. Aubry

  3. Spare Parts

  4. Therapy

  5. Knight Takes Pawn

  6. Cyloxibin

  7. Luis

  8. Deep Maze

  9. The Dead Man

  10. The Scavengers

  11. “Love for Sale"

  12. Out of Mind

  13. Invitation to the Dance

  14. The Hollow Woman

  15. Dark Within the Earth

  16. Warrior

  17. Alpha-Alpha

  18. Endgame

  19. Old Friends

  20. The Tribunal

  Epilogue

  Home is where I live inside

  White powder dreams.

  Home was once an empty vacuum That's filled now with my silent screams.

  Home is where the needle marks Try to heal my broken heart

  And it might not be such a bad idea If I never went home again...

  —Gil Scott-Heron

  "Home Is Where the Hatred Is"

  1. Maxine

  She ran the edge of her tongue into his mouth. "Don't get scary, lover. I won't spider on you."

  They walked through the marching shoe with only a slight flinch as the hologram came down on their heads. The phantom waves splashed by the waterbike brought a smile back to Aubry's face, as if a long-abandoned memory were stirring to life. She pretended to gather a handful of the "foam" and sling it at him. "You shouldn't waste water like that." He laughed, spinning her into his arms for a long, deep kiss. "You make me happy." He shook his massive head in wonder. "I don't know if I've ever said that to anybody." He roiled the words past his lips again, savoring. His eyes were very gentle. He took her hand as they walked through the naked body of the belly dancer. "I'm not used to good things."

  "You'd better start, lover. Your life is headed for big changes." There was something in her voice that made him uneasy, and he squinted at her in puzzlement. She felt the tension in the air and dissolved it with a chuckle. "Good things. You're a contender now."

  He nodded, satisfaction and pride replacing unease. "But I half-killed myself for that. Any idiot who can thump heads wants to ride the big rocket, do his thing up there in the clouds." He stopped, looking up in wonder. Barely a handful of stars shone through the overcast night sky. "Nullboxing. I still can't believe I made it."

  "You made it because you're good."

  "Because fighting is all I know, and they need dudes who don't mind killing each other for money. That's just guts. But you—" His eyes ravished her for the thousandth time: the maddening curves of her body, the face that seemed a master's collage of ovals and crescents "You're the only thing that doesn't fit. You just fell into my lap and turned everything around." His low, rough voice almost cracked, belying his twenty-eight years. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me, and you just fell out of nowhere."

  Maxine ran her fingertips over his heavy eyebrows, the puffy rise of his cheeks, down to the fine wire stubble on his chin. She felt her throat constrict. "Let's not talk about it," she said huskily. "Let's just have the night."

  She steered him further down the street, past the fluxing, beckoning projections that lined Pacific Coast Highway. Sound-loops triggered by their passing cajoled, promising the finest in services and goods, the ultimate in intimate experience. A hungry taxi-drone paused on its eternal run down the central guidestrip, and Maxine waved it on.

  "Come on," she said, pulling at Aubry. Then she pushed him away and started across the street without him. She made it a race, and he let her get halfway across before he moved. Without preparation of any kind he was moving fast, a fluid streak crossing the yellow pools of light.

  Maxine shrieked, laughing, and wasted a moment finding the gate through the low fence that sealed off the beach. Aubry hurdled it effortlessly, slowing his pace as he neared her. He pretended to stumble, whoofing, but dove into a roll, springing up to snare her at the waist.

  They wrestled for a moment and he went down, Maxine astride him, triumphant and panting in the moonlight. She beat her chest, growling. Gritting his teeth and snarling back, he staggered to his feet, her legs still wrapped around his waist.

  "Jesus, you're heavy " She smothered his words with a kiss and pressed her body to his, twining her legs and arms tightly.

  When she pulled her face back, there was fire in her eyes, flames that flickered in a cold wind. She peeled herself off and stepped back, reaching out for his hand. "Come on, big man. Let's go bite some moonlight."

  The arm he slung around her as they walked was gentler now, warmer. The night breeze was heavy with wet decay, but like true city-dwellers they shut that information away, concentrating instead on the echoing roar of the breakers.

  The beach was almost totally theirs. Only one lone figure sat quietly in the sand, a dim outline in the pale light.

  "I like his attitude," Aubry murmured. "Nothing can stop me from going where I want to go." He shrugged his big shoulders and swung his arms forcefully, then pointed to the rows of highrise office/apartments lining the beachfront. "Damned if I'd live like them. Sitting tight in their cubbyholes, hooking together over their facephones to make their bread. Won't even come out onto the beach except in gangs. Makes me sick."

  He dropped his arm around her again as they walked towards the coiling, hissing breakers. The moonlight crested the waves with glittering silver patterns that shattered into darkness on the shore. "Are you cold?"

  "Why?"

  "I felt you shaking a little, that's all."

  She moved closer to him. "Maybe."

  "Well, it looks like our friend over there is sitting on a blanket. I bet if we asked him real polite, he'd let us borrow it."

  "Aubry..."

  He smiled evilly.

  "You'd better not..." she snagged one of his hands, and he pulled her along behind him. She dug in her heels. "Aubry, don't be crazy."

  Aubry was only three paces from the man now. The figure was still immobile, a slender dark silhouette against a silvered backdrop. With elaborate politeness, Aubry addressed the silent one. "Oh, excuse me—"

  There was no sound or action, but suddenly something red and hungry was in the air, and Maxine stumbled back.

  "Walker?" Aubry whispered. The seated man seemed to unscrew from the ground. Slowly, gracefully, he came to full height facing them. His hands were empty.

  "Where is it, Knight?" Walker asked, his voice low and hollow. He was lanky, with arms that seemed disproportionately long. The sinuousness of his rise contradicted his clumsy build. His hair was cut squarely, without style, and in the darkness his eyes seemed wet smears.

  Aubry scanned the beach uneasily. "Where's your sleeping buddy?"

  "Don't need D
iego for this, big man. Don't need nothing but little Loveless."

  Aubry's voice shook with tension. "I got no hassle with you."

  Walker's laugh was ugly. "That's not what Luis says." He turned his palms front and back, exposing their emptiness. "C'mon, Knight... where is it?" The thin man lunged forward. Aubry jumped back, his heel catching in the sand. Walker laughed nastily. "Maybe I didn't even bring little Loveless."

  "You brought it." Aubry's eyes never left the hands of the man who approached him, step light as a dancer's. "But I don't get it. If Luis wants me, why like this?"

  "He's a sportin' man, Aubry. You know that. He figures that if you're good enough to walk out on him, you're good enough to deserve a chance. Sportin'." Aubry's stomach grew heavy, then hot as the anger began to build. He forced his breathing to steady, and waited. Walker slid forward a meter, and suddenly his right foot hissed in a short arc.

  Aubry pivoted right, and Walker's kick missed his left knee by a centimeter. With phenomenal lightness for so large a man, Aubry continued in a tight circle, spinning a rear thrust kick into Walker that could have broken the man in half.

  But Walker was out of range. He snapped his right hand like a lounge magician performing a card trick, and it suddenly held a gleaming spike. A finger moved almost imperceptibly and the eight centimeter metal tube began to whine.

  Aubry backed up again. Loveless chain-knife: a flexible razor strip whirred around its edge. It could slice effortlessly through bone. Walker thrust, and Aubry moved to the side, feinting lightly with a kick. There was a quick swirl of motion, and they were out of each other's range again.

  "Loveless wants you," Walker said in a hypnotic monotone. The blade made whining crisscross patterns in the dark. "Ohh... don't be mean to Loveless. He just wants to kiss you."

  Before the last syllable was out of his mouth, Walker moved. He seemed to take a single sliding step, but his reach of leg and arm combined to take him much too far into Aubry's defensive space. Aubry parried and dropped to the sand for a leg-sweep that failed, then scrambled back like a crab as Walker lunged. He rolled backwards and sprang to his feet.

  Walker paused, grinning, then started in again. Aubry feinted with his left foot—and threw a handful of sand into Walker's eyes.

  The thin man screamed, slashing the air in front of him as he retreated. Aubry was on him in an instant, spearing Walker's right knee with a kick. There was a grinding snap as the leg buckled. As Walker fell he backhanded with the knife. Aubry blocked with his right hand, and broke Walker's arm with his knee. As the knife fell from nerveless fingers, Aubry twined his fingers in Walker's hair, drawing the head up and back. His hand blurred, and the shuto knife edge slammed down into the exposed trachea. Walker's body slumped facedown in the sand.

  Aubry panted, kneeling to check the body. "We'd better—" He jerked his head around, eyes narrowed. "Maxine?" There was nothing on the beach, no one, only the sound of the breakers rolling against the earth.

  Alarmed now, Aubry jumped to his feet, eyes searching the empty beach. "Maxine!" Fear and uncertainty shook his voice. He ran in a half circle around Walker's prostrate body.

  "Maxine!" Desperate now, he ran towards the highway, towards the distant pools of yellow light.

  He was a dark hurricane of movement, but long before he reached the fence he heard the whirring police skimmers. Their searchlights were glaring white ovals dancing on the sand. Desperate, he broke to the left, then right again in a zigzag that gained him only a few seconds. Then the skimmers bracketed him, pinioning him in their lights, and the grating-glass sound of their loudhailers wracked his ears.

  "Do not MOVE. We are tracking you NOW. Any attempt to initiate hostilities will cause your death. Repeat. We are tracking you NOW." Aubry looked down at his chest and saw the tiny red dot of the targeting laser, and knew that its twin focused on his back. One sudden movement and a burst of hollow-point .22s would rip him into pieces. Numb with the sudden inescapability of it, he lay down on the sand and spread his arms.

  Booted feet approached quietly; a knee pinned him to the ground. A strong arm jerked his own to the small of his back. His wrists were taped together, and he was hauled to his feet. His captors wore the standard dark-blue police armor and reflective face shields.

  Aubry shut his eyes against the light, and a red roadmap of veins exploded into view. He tried to lower his head, but powerful fingers twined into his hair, pulling him erect.

  A man's voice sounded, harsh against the hum of the skimmers. "Is this the man?"

  Aubry wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He growled and tried to shake off the hands, but they held fast. Through the bright wall of pain came the reply: "I couldn't forget a face like that."

  Aubry sagged, only the hands at head and shoulders keeping him from sprawling to the ground. "All right, stow this garbage. Get someone dowribeach to check the lady's friend. Miss—"

  "Black. Maxine Black." Consciousness became a swirl of dark red; Aubry fought to think.

  "Miss Black. You understand that the beach is off limits at night? There will be questions "

  Two faceplated officers hauled Aubry to the waiting skimmer. As he got one foot up on it, he finally left the searchlight's cone of brilliance and could see the face of his accuser. Maxine gazed at him nervously, then looked away at the ground.

  "You!" he screamed in a voice that would have carried at a whisper. "You set me up!" The hands on his back were insistent, but he fought against them in a rage that verged on suicidal.

  Their eyes locked. "I'll get you for this. I don't care what it takes. You... and Luis; but especially you, bitch. Do you hear me? DO YOU?"

  Her chin lifted slightly, her face tightening. The hands forced him into the skimmer, but he didn't resist this time, keeping his eyes on her as the metallic tape on his wrists was magnetically locked to the restraint bar. He watched her as the skimmer rose whooping from the ground, until she was a tiny vulnerable figure surrounded by uniformed specks.

  At the bottom of a tempered crystal flask were two insects. They were fat and pale, greenish-white, with a row of vestigial legs along their puffy underbellies. They writhed as Maxine burned them alive.

  Her fingers shook as she waved the butane torch under the flask, and she licked her lips. Her tongue was rancid and slimy in her mouth. She watched the dying larvae with eyes that were bloodshot and scratchy. "Please, Aubry. Leave me alone. This time. Please "

  She looked at the anesthetic-steeped tube that had held twelve of the insects—twelve larvae of the South American Coal Moth. Gone now, as these two would be in a moment.

  With a barely audible pop, the first grub burst; and then the second. Vapor from their bodies filled the tube. Maxine clamped her mouth over the top, ignoring the heat, and sucked the mist into her lungs. It had a harsh, minty taste. Whimpering, she sank to the filthy rug of her one-room apartment and held her breath.

  Eyes tightly closed, she could see the light begin to glow in her chest. It crept outward through her bloodstream, penetrating her muscles, her bones.

  She exhaled in an extended whistle, and let the light spread, the weight of her body and mind lost, driven far away by the drug.

  She began to laugh. Just a giggle at first, then hiccuping hysteria. "All gone. Everything's gone "

  Your account will be credited ... Luis Ortega had told her on the phone, his voice and face so calculatingly pleasant that a sneer would have seemed friendly in comparison.

  His face swelled, grew solid and warm, bobbing in the whirlpool of images that filled her mind.

  Luis. What a handsome, handsome man—Latino and Chinese, with a full sensuous mouth and a voice to match. A body that sent chills up her spine. She could use a body like that right now. Now, with the heat and light coiling around her like a nest of snakes.

  Then Luis wavered, snarled, darkened, and became Aubry Knight.

  Knight: his face flayed of all human emotion as the judge pronounced sentence: fifteen years at hard labo
r.

  His eyes had been a light chocolate brown when she first met him. At the moment of sentencing, through some trick of the light, they seemed the deepest, coldest black that any eyes could be, and they held a vast and certain promise. We will meet again, they said, and when we do. ..

  And for the first time during the trial, for the first time since that terrible night on the beach, Aubry had smiled. It was a tight little smile, meant for her and her alone. Then, unresisting, he was led from the courtroom.

  Maxine Black sweated and whimpered in her grub dreams, praying for release.

  There were many Johns, a melange, a morass of flesh in which Maxine tried to drown herself. But every body became Aubry's body, every voice Aubry's voice, and after long months, the time came when even the grubs gave no release.

  She was filthy most of the time, and always ill-fed. The men she rented her body to were as tired and worn as she: laborers and salvage miners, piecework bodyguards, and low-level drug traffickers. When the weather turned cold and rainy, and the streets of Los Angeles filled with holiday cheer, Maxine stayed indoors during the day, deeply into grub toxicosis. She pissed blood in the mornings and was driven to her bed by wracking headaches that shattered her vision into mirrored slivers and magnified distant snoring into the crashing roar of a tsunami. Her gut rejected complex proteins and saturated fats. Her diet was confined to rice gruel and predigested egg whites.

  It was on one of those terrible, fever-clouded days when the serpent beneath southern California awoke. It stretched from slumber, shedding its skin, the screams of its wrath heard in the shriek of tortured steel, of splintering wood and concrete.

  Maxine was torn from her slumber by the moans of the dying and the awful sound of her ramshackle apartment shifting on its foundations. "Earthquake!" She pulled herself from the bed, stumbled from her building into the street, and watched the lurching structures and snapping powerlines, the buckling sidewalks and exploding water mains, as a seismic debt long outstanding came due.

  The days and weeks that followed were filled with hunger and confusion and ache for the grubs she needed. Everywhere, everywhere, was the smell of smoke as central Los Angeles burned.