Spin State - Chris Moriarty [154]
“Pretty,” she said, pointing. “Where’d you get it?”
The girl giggled and put a protective, embarrassed hand to her throat. “My boyfriend?” she half-said half-asked, giggling again.
“What’s it made of?”
“Crystal? It’s entangled?” Another giggle. “With his?”
“Oh. Right,” Li said. “It’s pretty,” she added, since some comment along those lines was obviously required at this point. After all, someone must think the gimmicky little things looked good; she’d been seeing them everywhere lately.
Then her oracle shook loose the right file, and she remembered who she’d last seen one on.
Gillian Gould.
Li turned back to stare at the pendant. The girl flinched and stepped backward under the intensity of her gaze. “Are you all right?” she asked, looking frightened.
“Yeah,” Li said. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.”
She stepped into a stall and squatted to relieve herself, trying not to touch anything she didn’t have to. When she opened the door and stepped out again she ran head-on into Bella.
“Christ!” she gasped, heart pounding. “You scared me. Why the hell didn’t you say something?”
Bella didn’t answer. The cleaning girls had vanished, though the smell of standing water lingered.
“What are you doing here, Bella?”
The construct turned without acknowledging the question and walked toward the door. “Follow me,” she said, the words barely a murmur. “Not close. They’ll be watching.”
Li trailed her down the main axis of the spaceport, through the baggage claim, out past the taxi lines, into the yawning cement-smelling darkness of the underground parking. She must have let her guard down, because though she knew that she was gradually losing satellite access she didn’t see the trap until it had already closed on her.
“How ya doing?” said a voice high overhead, just as she heard the soft click of a safety being eased back.
She was crossing a ramp with no cover in sight—and even if there had been cover it was far, far too late to take advantage of it. She looked up and saw McCuen’s friend Louie sitting one level above her, legs swinging lazily, sighting down the snub-nosed barrel of a rebuilt Sten.
“Too bad about those Yankees,” Louie said.
“It’s not over yet. McCuen know what you’re up to down here?”
Louie grinned. “Let’s just say Brian doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.”
A flick of his eyes drew Li’s own gaze to the shadows below the ramp, and she found herself staring down the black barrel of a Colt Peacemaker, close enough to see just how long it had been since the gun had had a proper cleaning.
“Take it easy,” Ramirez said from the driver’s end of the Colt. “Both of you.”
Li glanced toward Bella and saw her standing halfway down the garage’s central aisle, looking poleaxed.
“Let Bella go, Ramirez. She’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Not an option.” He gestured to Bella. “Go on. Over by Li. Now!”
Bella scurried to Li’s side and stood there shivering while Ramirez frisked both of them with depressing thoroughness.
“I’d better get that back,” Li said when he took the Beretta, but it was pure bravado and they both knew it. She’d seen enough of Ramirez underground to know he wouldn’t hesitate or lose his nerve. And even if he did, Louie was up on the exit ramp training the Sten on them.
“I hate to burst your bubble,” Li told Ramirez, “but jail time for kidnapping isn’t going to look good on your college transcripts.”
“I got my master’s degree two years ago,” Ramirez said. “And they have to catch me before they can put me in jail, don’t they? Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
Li did it, knowing it was a bad idea but unable to think of an alternative. Ramirez pulled a pair of virusteel cuffs out of his pocket and snapped them around her wrists, locking her arms behind her. As the cuffs snapped shut Li felt a slight sting at the nape of her neck and realized Ramirez had