Distraction - Bruce Sterling [130]
Oscar rose from the stretcher. He lay on his back on the floor, and began stamping on the forward bulkhead. He industriously kicked his way through paint, a layer of porous plastic, and hit a wall of solid iron. The perambulating coffin now began producing a series of drumlike booms. This was progress. Oscar continued to kick, and with more enthusiasm.
A speaker crackled to life somewhere in the rear of the compartment. “Would you knock it off with the noise, please?”
“What’s in it for me?” Oscar said.
“You really don’t want us to get tough, compadre,” the speaker said. It was Willis. “You know, just ’cause you can’t see us, doesn’t mean we can’t see you. We can see every dang move you make back there. And frankly, I wish you wouldn’t feel up the merchandise while she’s unconscious. It’s kinda disgusting.”
“You think that I’m helpless back here—but I still have options. I could choke her to death. I could say you’d done it.”
Willis laughed. “Jesus, would you listen to this character? Listen, vato—you try anything stupid, and we’ll just turn on the knockout gas. Would you take it easy back there, please? We’re not your problem. We’re not gonna do anything to you. We’re just your delivery service.”
“I’ve got a lot of money,” Oscar said. “I bet you’d like some.”
There was no response.
He returned his attention to Greta. He searched her pockets, finding nothing useful for chiseling through solid metal. He tried to ease her position. He put her feet up, chafed her bound wrists, massaged her temples.
After half an hour, she emitted a series of groans and woke up.
“I feel so dizzy,” she said hoarsely.
“I know.”
She stirred. Her wrists drew up short with a hiss of plastic strap. “Oscar?”
“We’ve been kidnapped. It’s an abduction.”
“Oh. All right. I remember now.” Greta gathered her wits. “They told me you’d been hurt. That you needed to see me at your hotel. So when I left the dome, they just … grabbed me.”
“That’s my story too,” Oscar said. “They used us as bait for each other. I should have been more suspicious, I guess. But why? How on earth could we live like that? There’s no way to outguess something like this. An abduction is completely stupid. It’s such a weird gambit.”
“What are they going to do to us?” Greta said.
Oscar was briskly cheerful. He’d already worked himself through a black pit of terrified despondency, and was properly anxious that she not share this experience with him. “I can’t really tell you, because I don’t know who they are yet. But they haven’t really hurt us, so they must want something from us. They took a lot of trouble, with the disguise and the ambulance and so forth. This isn’t my usual crowd of assassin lunatics.” He lifted his voice. “Hey! Hello! Would you people care to tell us what you want from us?” There was no answer. This was much as he had expected.
“They can hear everything we say,” he told her. “We’re bugged, of course.”
“Well, can they see everything we do? It’s pitch-black in here.”
“Actually, they can. I think they have infrared cameras.”
Greta thought this over for some time. “I’m really thirsty,” she said finally.
“Sorry.”
“This is craziness,” she said. “They’re going to kill us, aren’t they? This is such a mess.”
“Greta, that’s just a speculation.”
“They’re taking us for a gangster ride. They’re going to bump us off. I’m going to die pretty soon.” She sighed. “I always wondered what I’d do, if I knew I was going to die.”
“Really?” Oscar said. “I never gave that issue much thought.”
“You didn’t?” She stirred. “How could you not think about that? It’s such an interesting question. I used to think I’d react like Evariste Galois. You know,