Consider Us Even (New Eden Series:Rexall Cycle, #0), Page 3

  “Stop,” he said, the end of his gun a few inches from my face. I looked past the barrel of the gun. My eyes met his. He wasn’t joking.

  A gunshot rang out and Carroll jumped. I dropped to the ground and snapped my head to the side. Berger was pointing the gun I’d given him back at the technician monitoring the feed. He’d blown a hole in the wall just above the man’s head. The technician cowered, his eyes opened wide. He shook. The man with the feed in his arm had rolled to his stomach.

  “How about you tell my man what he wants to know and let us get on with our night,” Berger said. “It’s getting late.”

  Carroll kept the gun pointed at me and started to laugh. “Feisty,” he said through a chuckle. “I like this one. I’m still not telling you what you want to know, but I have a proposition if you’re willing to listen.”

  I nodded and Carroll took the stacks of cash left on the table and pulled them towards him. He reached below the desk and pulled out two more. “How does that look? Three grand for each of you.”

  Berger gave me a small nod and I turned back to Carroll. “Make it four.”

  Carroll considered it for a moment. “If it’ll keep the guns put away then I think I can do that. But you get half now, the rest later.”

  “No, keep it all here for now,” I said. “I’m not carrying that much money with me into the rail district.”

  * * * * *

  We walked in a tight group this time. We were heading toward trouble, not away from it and it was safer if we all stayed close to each other. Berger was nearest to the street, I was next to the buildings, and the runner was between us.

  “So that was fun,” he said to the two of us. “It happen much?”

  “No, that was a first,” I said. “But you seem like a special delivery. This works better if we don’t do a lot of chatting. You can ask all the questions you want on the way back.”

  He shut up and took a few steps ahead of us. Berger dropped back to stand next to me. He pointed at a few guys standing across the street.

  “Concerned?”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  The ships along the south bay were loaded with mismatched boxes and shipping containers. Men worked through the night getting cargo ready to drop onto the overstuffed decks. Cranes groaned over our heads, pulling boxes up and onto the ships. Men called out instructions and the ships fought against the ropes holding them close to the docks.

  Berger watched the action and shook his head.

  “Horrible job,” he said. “I don’t care how much you paid me, I wouldn’t do it again.”

  Spray from the bay caught the men working around the ships. Most wore long pants and t-shirts that were dripping wet.

  “I don’t know,” said the runner, his jacket now off and thrown over one shoulder. “It can’t be as bad as what we’re doing now.”

  “Nah,” said Berger. “That work is worse. You know how much I’d have to work to make what I am going to make tonight?”

  “Yeah, but it’s a risk and reward thing,” I said.

  “How many guys you know died doing that job?” the runner asked.

  “You mean physically or otherwise?” Berger asked. “Because I’m not sure there’s a difference.”

  “Then you’re an idiot,” the runner said. Berger popped him in the back and the runner stumbled forward.

  Across the street from the docks were dive bars and diners. Patrons of both milled about the sidewalk. Some were walking to the diners to try and eat away the drunk they’d just spent the last few hours working on. Others were going to drink away the last few hours they’d spent working.

  Just past the bars the streets got dark again. No more ships on our right side, no more open establishments on our left. That meant no generators powering any lights, only the moon reflecting off the water. I put my arm on the runner’s shoulder and pulled him back between us.

  “Stay here,” I said and slipped the gun from my waistband. I showed my piece to Berger and he pulled his. We were entering what used to be the rail district. What remained of a few locomotives were up ahead. Most of the hulls of the diesel engines had been picked clean by scavengers. Groups of people roamed between the remains.

  Two sets of tracks were on our right and just past them the water from the bay. When this place was vibrant and alive with activity there would have been hundreds of men unloading freight and getting it ready to send it to either the shops or the ships. Combine this area with the ships tied to the docks at the south bay and you had near constant activity. Men working at jobs that paid well. Feeding families. Earning regular incomes. The restaurants that were across the street were mostly abandoned now, but not then. Then they would have been busy even at that time of night. Guys would be dropping in either on the way home after working the night shift or coming in for lunch break from the third shift. But not anymore. Now the street was mostly boarded up windows and doors. A few shop keepers were still trying to make a go of it, selling whatever they could find that people wanted to buy.

  I reached behind the runner and tapped Berger on the shoulder. “You watch that side.” I gestured toward the long-closed shops. “Keep a special eye on the alleys.” Berger nodded. There were more tracks on our right side now. We were getting to the heart of the district and there must have been a dozen sets, most with train cars still sitting on them. I could hear men talking, more mumbled noise than actual words. Fires burned in barrels and I moved my index finger to the trigger of my gun.

  The air had become electric. The volume of data running through a hothouse gave off a current, and I could feel the air begin to crackle. There was a buzz. We were getting close to the hothouse. Strung out data freaks were stumbling around the streets after getting a fix. Others were passed out on the sidewalk, only able to walk a few hundred yards before their legs turned to mush.

  Lights on a standard lit the side of an old warehouse like midday. It was made of poured-concrete and was a deathly grey. The building was four stories tall and graffiti covered the lower third. An ornate, hand-painted H was on the wall next to the bay door that everyone seemed to be entering. I put my arm in front of the runner to get him to stop.

  “You know where to go from here?” I asked him.

  He nodded and said, “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Think so?” I shook my head. “Well, we’ll be waiting here.”

  “You aren’t going up with me?”

  “Carroll’s not paying us enough to do that.”

  “What do you mean? Is there something I should know about a hothouse?”

  “You telling me you’ve never been to a hothouse before?”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, jeez.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Pull up your sleeve.” A fresh scar. “How long have you had the port?”

  “A few months,” he said.

  “And how long have you run data?”

  “Never. But the pay’s good.”

  “So you aren’t really on the wire then? Not an addict? Don’t have any idea how any of this works.”

  He shook his head again. “No, but I need to make money.”

  “Yeah, I understand.” I paused a moment. “We’ll take you all the way in. Just tell me where we’re going once we get inside.”

  “All I was told was third floor.”

  “Fantastic. Stay between us then. “

  We walked to the bay door and I flashed my gun to the man taking money. He waved us through and we stepped into a large open room, no doubt used to house boxes and crates when this place had a purpose. Now, everything was cleared out and the floor was empty except for the bundles of wires in each of the four corners. They dropped from the ceiling then spread into individual feeds when they hit the ground. Addicts lined each of the walls, feeds coming from the ceiling stuck into ports in their arms or necks.

  We found the stairs on our left and stepped over a man who’d stopped to sit near the bottom step of the first floor. He’d laid his head to the wall and look
ed like he hadn’t been awake for days. A girl was spread across a step just a few above him.

  “This is all so sad,” the runner said.

  “Keep your head forward and don’t stop moving.”

  We rounded the corner on the third floor and the runner stopped. We were at the end of a long hall and doors lined either side. A naked bulb hung in the middle of the hall and provided just enough light to make everything shadows.

  “I’m good from here,” the runner said. Berger and I waited at the top of the steps and the runner found the third door on the left. He knocked twice. The door creaked as it opened. The runner opened his mouth to offer a hello and there was a thundering bang. His head snapped back and bits of him landed on the wall behind him. He stumbled back and his body rode the wall to the ground, blood beginning to stain his shirt.

  Berger reached into his waistband to pull his piece, but I stopped him.

  “What?” He asked.

  “It’s too late and they don’t know we’re here. Let’s get out while we can.”

  “But ...”

  “While we can.” We got to the bottom floor as quick as we could and made double time back to Carroll’s. Back through the rail district. Back through the south bay. And back to Carroll’s just before midnight.

  I tried to barrel a shoulder into the door but the lock wouldn’t give. Berger took a running start and put his massive weight into it. The door swung open and Carroll was in the middle of the room, his gun drawn.

  His shoulders relaxed and he let out a deep sigh. “It’s only you two. Where is he? Where’s my guy?”

  “Depends on whether or not he believed in God.”

  “What happened?”

  “Didn’t get a word out,” Berger said. “They dropped him before he could say hello.”

  “Shot?”

  “Between the eyes,” I said. “Your data’s safe. Big caliber. Close range. No way they get anything out of him now.”

  “Well, at least there’s that.”

  “Yes, the bright side of murder,” Berger said.

  “I was afraid something like this was going to happen,” Carroll said as he began to pace the room.

  “You mean you knew this was going to be an ambush?” I asked.

  “I didn’t know it would be, but I was afraid.”

  “So you sent him in there to die?” Berger asked.

  “No,” Carroll said. He stopped walking and turned to face me and Berger. “I sent him in there to run data. But I was worried that someone had been tipped this drop was taking place.”

  “So, you not only sent him in there knowing he could die, you sent me? You sent us?” I asked.

  Carroll walked a bit closer and pointed at me. “Cop,” he said. Then he pointed at Berger. “Soldier. I figured you two knew how to take care of yourself.”

  “It’s not the point,” I told him. “You sent two men, lightly armed into what you thought could have been an ambush.”

  “You’re standing in front of me aren’t you? Quit being hysterical.”

  Berger sat in a technician’s chair and put his head in his hands. Carroll moved back behind his desk and I followed him.

  “What have you gotten into?” I asked, keeping my voice low. Berger didn’t need to know more than he already did.

  “I’m making a move.”

  “And you’re using us to do it?”

  Carroll pulled a book from his desk and flipped through pages. “I don’t have a choice.” His finger scanned a few lines then he turned the book and slid it in front of me. “This is what he was transporting. We’re trying to wrestle a bit of control away from RomaCorp. Or at least trying to get our share. A few of us anyway.”

  “You’re insane.”

  He was absolutely crazy to think that he could do anything to harm RomaCorp. RomaCorp was too big. RomaCorp was trying everything it could to fill the vacuum that was left when the government fell. Trying to provide everything that anyone could want or need. RomaCorp made and sold everything. Lunch meat? Best around. Bread to put the lunch meat on. They had it. Mayonnaise? Yep. A refrigerator to keep it all in? Of course, cheap too. And if you were in the right parts of the city you could also pay RomaCorp to provide the electricity to keep the refrigerator running.

  “One company doesn’t get to make all the money.” Carroll said. “It doesn’t get to run everything. There’s plenty of business to go around. We’ve been swapping information, a few friends and I, for months now. We thought someone may have leaked something to RomaCorp security. Now we know they did.”

  “So your runner died for confirmation.”

  “No, well, not really. He died for the greater good.”

  “For your greater good,” I said. “What about our money?”

  “Actually, I’ve got a better idea,” Carroll said as he grabbed my arm. He pulled my sleeve up to expose my port. “Here’s my proposition.”

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