Ghosts of Punktown by Jeffrey Thomas Read Free Book Online Page A

good measure.
     
    *     *     *
     
         Cal swore under his breath as the connection was severed. But he had anticipated the possibility. That was why he had bought the hovercar.
     
         He stepped out of it. Directly in front of his enemy’s apartment building. He had hoped not to make a public display of all this, but it couldn’t be helped now. It didn’t matter. He was doing his duty as a soldier. He was protecting this city. And avenging a comrade he had never known.
     
         Cal had left his rifle in the car, but as he strode to the front door he tugged out his pistol. He had loaded it with illegal explosive bullets. He fired at the door as he came. A third blast did the trick. When he reached the decimated door, he kicked it aside, and was through.
     
    *     *     *
     
         Upstairs, on the third floor, Stake heard the three detonations, and knew that his enemy was close at hand.
     
         He also knew he must not allow himself to be pinned down inside his tiny apartment a second time. So he rushed to his door, threw it open, and stepped out onto the landing overlooking the stairs, Wolff gripped in both hands. A woman cracked her own apartment’s door, saw him there, and ducked back inside.
     
         Bluish smoke swirled at the bottom of the stairwell, but Stake saw a dark form darting through it. Starting up the stairs. He didn’t want to kill an innocent, and yet he didn’t even know what his enemy looked like. He couldn’t take the chance to hesitate a moment longer than he already had – so Jeremy Stake leaned over the railing, pointed the Wolff below, and fired shot after shot at the figure as it came racing up the second flight of steps.
     
         He heard a cry. And then he threw himself to the floor as an explosive round took out most of the railing where he had been standing.
     
         Stake lay on his belly, shell-shocked, expecting more of these explosions. But as the seconds ticked on, no more came. Was the man simply waiting for him to poke his head up? When Stake heard multiple voices murmuring to each other below, he realized the situation had changed. He got to his feet and descended the stairs, though he kept his pistol ready.
     
         Another tenant had already taken the gun loaded with explosive bullets out of the man’s hand. He was not dead yet, but he lay on his back in a spreading pool of blood. Stake stood over him, looking straight down at him. And he thought the man looked familiar, though he couldn’t remember where he might have met him before. Then again, he had the close-cropped hair and nondescript look of so many men he had fought beside, not long ago at all.
     
         A woman lay dead beside the bleeding man. From her terrible wounds, Stake guessed that she had been in the vestibule when the assassin had blasted away the door. The dying man turned his glassy eyes away from Stake to look at her. He groaned, and muttered something the others gathered there couldn’t hear. Stake hunched down closer.
     
         “Sorry,” the dying man whispered to the dead woman. “I’m sorry...”
     
         He turned his face to look up at Stake again. Stake expected to see anger there, but instead there was only a kind of bewilderment. And then, he realized the eyes weren’t seeing anything at all. This stranger who had tried to kill him was dead.
     
         “Crazy,” one of the tenants said to another. “On drugs, or something.”
     
         Stake contemplated the man for a few moments more. A tear that had formed before the life went out of him finally unbalanced and sped down the side of his face. The one tear more than the growing puddle of blood troubled Stake, and he rose to his feet. Turned around to face the other tenants, in the hopes that they might enlighten him. But when they saw him, this murderer, they all stepped back with a collective gasp.
     
         Why? Was he the only killer in this