Chapter 7

The next day Benni had no answers. He noticed that his presence on the street of the enclave brought an immediate chill to the family preparing for the day shift, which meant that Shasa must have talked away the night. Yet He received no challenge, which was a relief and a disappointment rolled into a confusing desire for resolution and vindication. No one came at him with a knife so the traitor must have failed to convince her audience. He stomped off to work greatly preoccupied.

Once he stepped into his master's doorway, it became clear that Family Volentin could wait; something was happening Upstairs. The slugs flowed with orders for pass cards, corporate cards, and several sets of digitally sealed security passes and papers. Benni couldn't discern any pattern in the requests, but he had never had such a long day or such a demanding one. Yasher took the unusual step of hiring a guard for the doorway and paying for a dinner delivery. The slugs were raining down, indeed.

Benni arrived home far too late to speak with anyone. He poked his head in Dember's room, but his heart-friend was curled around Ceema in a gentle, naked embrace. With a spear of jealousy piercing his gut, Benni crawled into his bed.

Having slept late despite the best remonstrations of his den mates to wake him up the next morning, Benni was shoveling down protein paste at a kiosk on his home level, while he kept watch on a dubious stairwell that reached up two levels, but was known for its Dream Awake tab addicts. He was hoping that this back way would save him a few minutes even if it was a little more dangerous. Eying the stairs as he chewed, he saw that people were moving in and out of the stairwell without hesitation.

Benni stepped out into the human flow of the corridor only to flinch back as the sickly, sweet smell of a chemical reached his nostrils. The woman in front of him slipped a long thin pick dripping with a thick oil into her left hand and expertly thrust the coated point between the ribs of an older man stepping into her range from the opposing direction. So fast was the assassination that the victim didn't even scream, he just sagged to the ground.

The dead man's body guards were not so quiet. They yelled with rage. A needle gun sounded and knives flew through the air. The assassin went down. Benni dove over her and to the side, hoping to avoid both the weapons of the guards and the trampling of panicked walkers. He counted to three and leapt up to flee. He saw the sweeping knife thrust coming and dodged away but not far enough. The knife slashed through his tunic catching the muscles under both breasts and scoring his ribcage.

Screaming with outrage, Benni stabbed back with his own knife and made contact. The smooth handle was pulled out of his hand when the bodyguard turned away from him. Survival was more important than retrieving his knife. He fled.

As he crossed the corridor for the stairwell, he heard the unmistakable hiss of energy weapons. "Enforcers!" a man barked with rage and hysteria. Benni kept pumping his legs.

He climbed two stairs at a time, praying that the Enforcer's plasma rifles were aimed elsewhere. At the next level, he dodged down the first dark passage he could find, hoping to mingle with a different crowd, whose footsteps would smear and erase the blood oozing from his long wound.

Breathing hurt. He needed a doctor, quickly. Benni focused on his surroundings for the first time, instead of just running. After taking a moment to get his bearings, he turned towards one of the main corridors, where he was most likely to find medical attention. He cried with relief when he spotted a hanging white sign with a red square on it.

He stepped into the small alcove and waited. After the count of five, the door opened and an older woman held a gun to his abdomen. Benni kept his hands open for her to see.

"Safe-be," he said as he stumbled inside.

She gave him the once over and tucked away her gun. "You're bleeding all over my clean floor."

"My pardon," Benni said. "I don't really have any choice."

"You have slugs to pay for this?"

"I do." He produced ten slugs from one pocket and she was satisfied. A table was pulled down from the wall for Benni to lie down. With a grimace he perched himself on the ceramic slab while his doctor released tools and machines from the cabinets and drawers. He let out a slow breath as the first scanner ran over his body.

She called out her findings as they appeared: "Skin and muscle damage. No broken bones. No bone fragments. No necrotizing flesh, which means no poison. You will live."

Benni grunted his acknowledgement.

"Muscle knit will cost you seventeen slugs and a skin melt will be another five. Payment is in advance, of course." Benni reached down painfully into another close pocket and counted out his just earned slugs from yesterday. Easy come and easy go.

"Do you want a general or a local anesthesia? I recommend the general for this one."

Benni chose the local out of fear that pursuit was looking for him. Whether they thought he was with the assassin or they wanted revenge for his knife thrust, he wanted to stay alert.

The doctor was cautious. "Are you just a tough guy or is there another reason?"

Benni gave her a rundown of his morning, which she listened to without the least bit of surprise until he mentioned the Enforcers. The doctor went to the keypad by the door and pressed multiple number codes.

"If Enforcers come knocking, the fee doubles," was all she said when she returned, taking up a syringe on her way. The local dope did little as far as Benni could tell. The muscle knit felt like strips of fire crisscrossing across the width of his chest and extending onto either side. The sweat on his forehead dripped into his eyes and down his neck with a maddening tickle.

The skin melt was a semi-alive product that died and pealed off as the fresh skin underneath grew back. Benni had received more than one skin melt, but never on top of a deep knit repair. The slow heat of the skin melt burned through the healing muscle and seemed to scorch the bruised bones underneath. His jaw ached from clenching it.

Forty-five minutes later, the doctor inspected her handiwork and declared him done. Benni sat up and gingerly rotated his shoulders and turned his torso each way, testing the skin melt. He was a little stiff, but he was no longer vulnerable walking down the concourses. His shirt was in tatters and unusable.

He stood up and the doctor handed him a fresh shirt, a cheap, used one that he pulled over his head without much discomfort. Business concluded. Benni moved one of his boot knives to his empty forearm strap, mentally calculating how many slugs his bad luck was going to cost him.

He had just stepped to the door when a low chime sounded and the lights went dim. He took one large step to the side and released a knife into his hand waiting for the worst. The door burst open in a cloud of pulverized filaments and shredded spears of plastic that blew past him. Two Enforcers in complete battle gear charged through the door at the same instant.

Benni closed his eyes as the doctor's pre-programmed flash grenades went off, sending a blinding light into the night vision goggles that were automatically set on wide aperture for the dim room. The Enforcers shrieked in agony as their optic nerves shriveled.

Opening his eyes, Benni saw the Enforcers standing in the middle of the room. The closest of the two had his head turned away shielding his eyes from the flash. Eying that sliver of skin on his neck between the helmet and the chest armor, Benni thrust in his knife without hesitation. When he withdrew it, he was bathed in a spray of dark blood. Benni grabbed the plasma rifle of the stricken soldier and pointed it at the front man. The weapon had a decent kick when he pulled the trigger. The armor held for a beat and then melted. The target screamed and Benni fired a second burst. The screaming stopped.

The last shot had blown the Enforcer's helmet clear off of his head. Benni grunted with surprise at the young face with a shock of brown hair. He had expected a grizzled veteran with a bulbous nose and cruel eyes; instead, he stared into a face that distinctly reminded him of his own. An involuntary cough in his tortured chest from the acrid smoke snapped him out of his momentary reverie.