Ghosts of Punktown by Jeffrey Thomas Read Free Book Online

hand he reached up to touch his face. He felt the raised bands on his cheeks. He did not need to set his comp screen to mirror mode to confirm it. In fact, when he set his handgun down on the corner of the bed and squeezed into his minuscule bathroom to splash some icy water on his face, he could not even bring himself to lift his eyes to his reflection.
     
         An extended beep from his computer system, followed two seconds later by another. Face dripping, Stake turned around. Someone was phoning him. He moved back toward his comp system, drying his hands as he went. Rather than seat himself in front of the screen, not expecting there to be anyone he really wanted to converse with at length, he leaned down over the back of his chair to check on the caller’s ID. It read: ANONYMOUS. In another mood he might not have answered, because it was likely some obnoxious marketer. Then again, what if the person who had taken over his father’s apartment had lied about not knowing him? What if that man had told his father someone claiming to be his son had come seeking him out? And what if his father had got his number, then, through the Veterans Administration?
     
         A too-hopeful, illogical reasoning as he tapped a key to receive the call.
     
         The comp’s screen changed to show him the caller, and to show the caller him. Stake saw a man leaning far back in a car seat, and pointing a rifle at him. He threw himself to one side as a dark purple beam of light launched itself straight out of the screen and burned a deep groove across his left hip.
     
    *     *     *
     
         Another of Cal’s gun’s tricks.
     
         His new hovercar was not new. It had even been slathered with bright yellow graffiti already, last night when it was parked outside his flat. But its comp system worked fine. Before calling the imposter who claimed to be a man named Jeremy Stake, Cal had collapsed the stock of his rifle and its telescoping barrel, to make its use more practical in the vehicle’s confines. He leaned his back up against his door to give himself a bit more distance as he aimed his weapon at the monitor mounted on the dashboard.. His eye was pressed to the rubber cup shielding the scope’s tinier computer screen. His finger, on the trigger...
     
         But his first shot had only grazed his target. The man was quick. And why not? He was obviously a soldier, too.
     
         Cal twitched the gun’s barrel to follow him. He must not get excited. He must keep his cool. He was shooting fish in a barrel.
     
         He fired a second ray bolt through his monitor. And then a third, resisting the temptation to switch to fully automatic. It was an art. He took pride in it. It was what he had been trained to do.
     
    *     *     *
     
         Stake tried to ignore the blazing pain along his hip, as he hit the floor and shoulder-rolled fast to his feet. Peripherally, as he came up, he saw a second bolt flash from the computer’s screen. It passed inches in front of his chest. He dove across his bed. A third bolt followed him, ploughing into the mattress. Before thudding to the floor on the opposite side, Stake scooped up the Wolff he had left on the bed before going into the bathroom.
     
         A fourth ray burned straight through his bed and hit the wall; a blind shot, based on where the caller thought him to be. He was good, too, because the bolt almost skimmed Stake’s shoulder.
     
         “Who are you?” Stake bellowed across the room.
     
         His answer was a fifth beam, that passed so close to his face he felt its heat.
     
         Sure that the sixth or seventh would kill him, Stake popped up from behind his bed with his own gun extended. The bulky pistol fired solid projectiles. And however elusive his unknown attacker was, the computer screen was a stationary object.
     
         One good shot struck the screen dead-on. But Stake shot it two times more, just for