Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [136]
I ran.
I clattered down three flights, legs pumping like a wind-up toy, then fell out of a door onto 197. Stood there gasping for a moment, trying to work out where to go next. The nearest xPress was the obvious answer, but I had to figure that if Yhandim was already on the case, that’s the first place they’d head for.
I couldn’t think of anything. It had been too long. I ran for the xPress anyway.
197 looks the way the Garden of Eden would if they’d had access to nanofertilizers. I hurtled down a path through the middle of a park, past shrubbery so refined it was probably entitled to vote. Narrowly avoiding knocking down a gaggle of old people, I made it into the xPress and slapped the button.
The elevator stopped at 160 and I waited inside for a second, half expecting to hear the sound of gunfire or something equally discouraging. When none came, I poked my head out the door, and saw I was on one of the chichi shopping floors. Ahead of me stretched a long lane going East—and I knew there was another xPress half a mile away which would get me down below the 100 line.
I ran with my head up, partly to avoid the meandering shoppers and partly in the hope it would help oxygen to flood into my lungs. People stared at me openly as I passed. I guess they had people to do their running for them.
After a couple of minutes I realized I was going the wrong way, and at the next crossroads I veered over into the next store-lined street. My mind was on what I was going to do after the next elevator: I didn’t see Ghuaji until I was only fifty yards away and running straight at him.
He was pelting up the street toward me, the very picture of a man gone rabid. Blood poured down his face, and his running was crooked from the leg he was dragging behind. His skin looked like it had spent some time underground. None of this stopped him from pulling a shotgun from over his shoulder and loosing a round straight through the crowd at me.
There were screams and a couple of people fell, but by then I was careering into an alleyway between an ice cream parlor and Emeralds R Us. There was another explosion behind me and as I ran I gathered from the face of a young woman that Hell was following after. I didn’t look around. I figured I’d know soon enough if they caught me.
Then God threw me a bone, in the shape of some dweeb on a motortrike. He was tootling slowly down the lane, showing off to some giggling Mall-girls who’d never dream of shopping on Indigo Drive. I had him off the trike so fast he probably still thinks he’s riding it to this day, leaped on, and roared off down the middle of the street with my hand glued to the horn. The waves parted in front of me and I rocketed past hundreds of eyes all open as wide as the moon.
Don’t worry about me, I thought wildly. This doesn’t affect you. Just get on with your shopping.
Four minutes of moving violations got me to the xPress. The door was open, for a miracle, and I just drove the trike right in—causing a degree of consternation to the young couple who were already inside.
“You’re not supposed to bring that in here,” the guy said. “It’s a violation of New Richmond road policy.”
From outside came the sound of a shotgun being fired and pellets tinkled against the outside of the carriage.
“You want your internal organs violated by buckshot?” I asked. The guy shook his head, terrified. I winked. “So press the fucking ‘down’ button.”
He did and the doors shut quickly enough, but they were glass and didn’t hide the fact that Ghuaji was only about a hundred yards down the path. Worse, Yhandim was now running alongside, toting a large weapon of his own. My contact with him had been minimal, so far. I wanted to keep it like that.
The xPress took me down a long way. The young couple expressed a keen desire to get out quite early on, but I encouraged them to stay by showing my gun. They admired its craftsmanship and eventually agreed that it would be a shame to say good bye before they’d had a chance to see me use it.
The elevator dropped majestically down to