01 Cycops, Joyjockies, Assassins and Senators Read online

  But now he was hungry too. So was Melody, who was looking at him with her huge eyes and waiting for big brother to produce dinner. And there was nothing in the apartment, nothing in the cabinets or the stasis.

  He wished they could go to the neighbors and ask for something to eat, but last time Bileo's mother had called the cops on Mom, and Mom had said to stay away from them.

  So, sighing, he led her out of their tiny apartment, into the long gray halls of the housingplex. Down the hall he spotted a big green bag propped against somebody's door, and he led her toward it. It didn't smell -- much --but he peered at it doubtfully. Mom had swatted him for getting into the trash before...

  Melody was looking at him again.

  Groaning, he tore the light plasti with his hands and reached inside. There was a can in there, and it felt heavy, full. He closed his hand around it ...

  Something clamped his wrist!

  He swallowed a scream of terror as whatever it was began dragging him into the bag. A hand reached out toward him, reached out and sank into his narrow chest, cold long fingers disappearing into his ribs to grab his heart.

  Valcyr yawned, eyes slitted at Radm as he stood cyberdreaming by the console. She knew she was in for a boring watch. The process of infiltrating a system could take anywhere from minutes to hours, depending on the strength of its security. Though it was a blazing rush of excitement for the infiltrator, it was not exactly a spectator's sport.

  Suddenly Radm's green eyes snapped wide and blank, the air leaving his chest in a high, gasping whine.

  He fell, body folding in slow stages until he hit the ground. For an instant Valcyr stared in numb shock, then jumped for his prone body and fisted her hands in his shirt, ripping down.

  "Damn." Under the shredded shirt was the smooth, hard shield of Radm's m-suit, designed to absorb or deflect nearly any force. "Can't work though that," she muttered. Grinding her teeth, Valcyr grabbed his thick gloves in each hand and tugged. They slipped off, and the slick shell seemed to collapse into mere cloth as the battle comp in the gloves disengaged. She ran a finger down the line of his throat to his groin, and the suit slipped open with a hiss. Quickly, Valcyr located the correct point over his breastbone, joined her hands over his heart, and began a rhythmic pumping. "Pirate, situation."

  "He's in cardiac arrest."

  "Yeah, I figured that. What's his comp doing about it? Can you link?"

  "No, they seem to be locked off. Radm must have tripped a security mine that induced a heart attack. Looks like Desron Tec was expecting us after all."

  Valcyr stopped pumping to tilt Radm's head back and pinch his nose closed. "He'd better break out of there in a hurry," she said. "If those mercs catch us, I'll have to stop CPR to fight them off. And he'll die." She bent to blow air into his still lungs.

  Radm punched at the bag, his chest frozen agony, as the thing squeezed his heart.

  "The can." Hari, her voice a pale whisper that came from Melody's mouth. "Dump the can. It's a mine."

  He still held the can he'd grabbed reaching into the bag. He tried to open his fingers. The numbing grip on his wrist tightened in warning, tightened until his bones creaked. He let go anyway. Suddenly the hand around his heart was gone, and he was free to suck air into his aching chest.

  Hari/Melody tore the bag with a vicious rip, trash spraying. She pointed a finger at a loaf of molded bread. "There. That's the data."

  Gathering his courage, he snatched it.

  Information surged into his mind, a silent kaleidoscopic explosion...

  Valcyr rocked back on her heels, gasping.

  He was breathing again. Pale, lips bluish, but breathing, a pulse beating in his throat.

  After a long moment, he coughed and opened bleary eyes. "God..." His voice was a croak, and he coughed again. "I'd forgotten ... how bad it was..."

  Valcyr blinked. God knew what he'd been dreaming.

  He coughed again, looking up at her, awareness slowly sharpening his eyes. Finally he muttered, "Dreamed I was... back on Neogeo ... digging in the trash. Monster...in the bag." He grinned weakly. "Got the data anyway. Told you..."

  She leaned down and kissed him hard. "Yeah, right." she growled, lifting her head. "Jerk."

  Ragoczy sauntered up the hall, following the merc's directions to Desron Tec's private suite. They'd been inclined to be difficult, those guards -- until one of them recognized him. Then they'd practically fallen all over themselves being helpful. It was nice to know he still had some reputation in mercenary circles, though those days were long behind him.

  Before he'd left, though, he'd seen them put the boy he'd knifed into regen. Apparently the little killer was a good customer. No doubt he was up and looking for another victim by now -- on the house.

  Reaching the door the mercs had identified as Tec's suite, he punched its keypad. To his astonishment, it slid open on a instantly familiar smell; blood. Metallic, rich and pungent, tripping memories of a hundred kills. Sensors scanning cautiously, Ragoczy moved into the room.

  He'd expected some kind of office or waiting area in the suite's outer room. Instead there was only a single padded chair and rich wine carpeting -- except for a circle of bare white floor, about two meters across, in the center of the room. In the middle of that was a chrome metal column, and hanging from it was a man.

  Apparently, Ragoczy decided, the bare floor was to make the cleanup of bodily fluids a little easier.

  There was definitely a need for it in this case; the victim seemed to be dripping. He was completely red from hairline to ankles, his condition hidden under a wet sheen. Surprisingly enough, he was still alive, his breathing a low wheeze.

  Ragoczy, sauntering toward him, stepped on something cylindrical. He looked down. Under his boot was the handle of a whip, its lash studded with razored weights. Contemplating it, he wondered if he really wanted to work, however temporarily, for the sort of individual who would use something like that as an afternoon's diversion.

  Then again, Ragoczy had diversions of his own.

  Looking up, he scanned the man Tec had beaten. Ragoczy had assumed at first that the victim was unconscious from the pain, but the man was actually in some other state altogether. Curious, Ragoczy deepened his scan, then frowned as he began to spot anomalies.

  Now, why would one of Tec's whores have sensor implants? Two in the ears, several tiny ones in the finger tips, others scattered here and there under the skin. And biocrystal everywhere. It wound around his spine and down through his neural net, linking with it; he'd have reflexes almost as fast as Ragoczy's own. And his brain was webbed with biocrystal, which in itself was remarkable. The implantation must have been performed while he was a very young child, since the growth of that much virus in a mature nervous system would have killed an adult.

  Ragoczy began to grin. He wondered if Desron Tec knew she'd just beaten hell out of an undercover

  cycop.

  And that was exactly what he was, of course. Ragoczy stepped forward and lifted the agent's head by his bedraggled topknot, intrigued by the possibilities.

  The dark eyes that looked past him didn't seem to register him at all. And probably didn't: according to sensors, the cycop was in a sort of trance state. He'd evidently arranged to absent himself from Tec's little party, though his biocomp had no doubt recorded every whip stroke for posterity -- and the Coalition Senate. Tec's taste in perversities had just bought her a great deal of grief; the Senate would be forced to bounce her from its ranks when the cycop made his little recording public. Running a string of bordellos might be an acceptable hobby for a senator and planetary president, but torturing the proletariat for fun and profit was not. And drugging them with Steel Trap to keep them submissive was definitely bad politics.

  Ragoczy eyed the cycop, considering the benefits of snapping his neck. Tec would be appreciative, no doubt, once she knew who he was. On the other hand, the agent might be more useful alive. More information was needed. Perhaps a little investigating in the
Kagni infonet ...

  A mental command later Ragoczy was complinked with the Kagniport library mainframe and downloading by tight beam squirt. Most of the unclassified information was old news to him, since it dealt with the Interstellar Bureau of Criminal Investigation -- the cycops' parent organization -- and he was certainly no stranger to the IBCI.

  In theory, (though the reality was sometimes rather different) the Bureau investigated "crimes against the Human Coalition" -- one of those convenient umbrella phrases so dear to the legal heart. It could cover anything from grand larceny to unlicensed interplanetary war to human rights violations. Which was, no doubt, where Tec came in.

  In any case, the IBCI's was the sort of work which called for skill and judicious ruthlessness, and its agents were accordingly formidable. Those he'd encountered had been relentless, intelligent and brutally professional.

  Apparently though, some cases demanded abilities beyond even their considerable talents, and members of IBCI Enhanced Forces were called in.

  Cycops.

  The idea, as he understood it, was to combine power, mobility and stealth -- in the maximum possible combination. Each team of three could infiltrate the most fortified installation ever built, rob its computer and escape -- while being damn near invisible doing it.

  They were the ultimate agents; inhumanly strong, superbly trained and keenly intelligent. The cream of the IBCI.

  Tec had apparently done a very good job of pissing someone off.

  "What are you doing here?"

  Ragoczy turned. She was stalking into the room, her merc guard at her heels. Behind them trailed a medtec towing a regenerator. Apparently, she'd decided to let the cycop live. "W e have an appointment," he told her. "Or had you forgotten?"

  "I didn't forget. I was ... otherwise engaged." Tec waved a long, red-nailed hand at the medtech, who moved to hit a button on the arm of the single chair. Tec's victim collapsed, and the medtech, himself a cyborg, coasted the regenerator's floating oblong box to a precise point over him. Powering up at a soundless command, the regenerator washed an energy field over the agent like shimmering waves of desert heat. In minutes, there was a ripple under the blood as his wounds began to close. Watching the forced healing, Ragoczy wondered about the sort of man that would allow himself to be beaten that badly just to make a case. He could have killed his tormentors and escaped with no effort at all, at any time he'd cared to -- yet he hadn't. The cycop was either a masochist or a rabid zealot.

  "He was something of a disappointment," said Tec, moving to stand over her victim. "It was like beating a brick."

  "Yes, I can see how you'd find that frustrating." Ragoczy observed her with amusement shielded behind lowered lids. A tiny, fragile woman, barely coming to his elbow, she wore a bullwhip coiled around her neck. Her hips were bound by a very tight and very short red skirt, and over that, she wore an open red jacket with gold shoulder boards, stiff and outrageously wide. Under that was nothing at all, so that each time she moved, a varying amount of bare breast was revealed. Her face was painted dead white, her mouth a curve of blood, black slashes over each eye and across the cheeks. Ragoczy searched his memory for a moment. Ah. Japanese No theatre makeup. How appropriate. She did have a taste for melodrama.

  He watched as she walked to one of the doors, emerging a moment later with a thin, transparent green chip that represented one million stells -- half his fee for the assassination of a president. She handed it to him, and he took it, tucking it absently into his jacket.

  The cycop was moving, rising onto hands and knees, almost bumping the regenerator that hung over him. He lifted his head, and for an unguarded moment his eyes met Ragoczy's, burning and flat black. Then he became more aware, and the fury was promptly snuffed into an imitation of the whores' despair-induced stupor.

  "Perhaps you'd be interested in celebrating our venture together," Tec said, reaching up to rest a hand on Ragoczy's thick forearm.

  "Another time, I think."

  She shrugged gracefully and moved to escort him out, the mercs trailing discretely behind. The cycop, acting appropriately cowed, slunk after them. Ragoczy had a feeling he intended to eavesdrop.

  Out in the long, lush sweep of the hallway, the little killer Ragoczy had knifed was trailing a man and woman who walked with arms twined around each other. The woman's amber eyes flicked past Ragoczy, deeper into the group that was following him into the hall. Meeting, he suddenly knew, the cycop's. Ragoczy's teeth clicked. He was looking at the other two members of the IBCI Enhanced Forces team.

  The couple read perfectly normal, but then, so did the cycop now that his comp's efforts weren't devoted to keeping him alive. They must have sensor shields as good as Ragoczy's.

  Ragoczy lifted his head, his gaze sliding beyond them -- to the boy killer, who was running his tongue over the edge of his teeth, eyes fixed on the woman. Apparently he'd heard Ragoczy's lecture on the etiquette of murder after all, dying at the time or not, because without warning, he jerked his knife out of his jacket and dove at her.

  She must have been caught a little off-guard; her reaction had the look of reflex. She spun with impossible speed, grabbed the boy's knife wrist, twisted it down and in so the point was aimed into his belly, and let his lunge ram him onto the blade. Shrieking, he fell at her feet. Shaking her head, she looked up from her victim -- and into the astonishment of Tec and her guards. Chagrin slowly bloomed across the cycop's face as she realized she'd just blown her own cover.

  "Abort it," said the cycop behind Ragoczy. "We have what we need." Ragoczy turned to watch. The agent drove an elbow through one guard's faceplate, sending the merc spinning with an agonized yelp, hands clutching his face. Continuing the same smooth movement, the cycop kneed another merc in the juncture of his armor and put him down with a neat chop that slammed precisely under his helmet.

  Heat blazed across Ragoczy's sensors as the pair of agents ahead simultaneously kicked into overdrive, their metabolic rates skyrocketing. Both lunged toward the group. The two guards in the lead reached for their blazers, but before either managed to clear his shoulder holster, his weapon was snatched away. The blond male, grinning in pure enjoyment, dragged off his opponent's helmet and slammed the butt of the merc's own blazer across his head. The female drove her high-heeled foot against the outside of the other guard's knee, a smashing, brutal kick that snapped bone. He went down screaming, his voice cycling from one shrill howl to the next.

  Ragoczy, vastly amused, stared into the blazer the blond was pointing at him. Beside him, Tec was forcibly spun to stare into a weapon held by the man she'd tortured. Ragoczy turned idly away from the blond's blazer to watch as Tec met the cycop's lethal stare.

  "Tanaka!" one of his mates said, sharp warning.

  The cycop raised his weapon slowly. "You will pay, Senator. Anticipate it."

  In the next instant they were gone, leaving behind a huddle of maimed and moaning bodies. "Ragoczy! Do something, goddamnit!" Tec's nails dug into his forearm.

  "You hired me to perform an assassination," he told her, pulling loose with an effortless twist, "not plug the gaping holes in your security system."

  At Ragoczy's feet, the young killer lifted his head with a groan. "Perhaps," he added, both to the boy and to Desron Tec, "you should consider another hobby."

  End