robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain by Robert N. Charrette Read Free Book Online Page B

something."
    "ZzzcMzz-twelve. Still noth -ikkkk crkkkk."
    Great. Why couldn't they have a satellite-laser link like she'd heard they had down in the Bait-Wash sprawl? Probably 'cause it wasn't the kind of half-assed solution that the New England Cooperative's oh-so-wise politicians favored.
    Bitching didn't get the job done. "Dispatch, I'm gonna take a look around and check it out."
    "Nkatck, one-Zulu-twelve. Bzz-chratckkk. KKanzz [pop] xck backup on the way."
    "Say again, Dispatch. What was that about backup?"
    Fuzz and static.
    That was the way of it. Backup was people and things you could rely on. You had to work with what you could count on; Freer's promises of more cars weren't something a smart officer relied on. If she waited and the promised backup didn't show, she would be the one explaining why she'd spent time unproductively. The brass upstairs didn't like timid officers, especially timid female officers.
    Shirley switched her commo to her car's channel. "Hey, partner, give me some light down here. High beams."
    Her link with the Patroller's dogbrain was good; she'd made sure of that. The rent-a-nerd's fee had come out of her pocket, but it was money well spent.
    Gravel snapped out from under the tires aS the Patroller shifted to bring its headlights to bear on her position. The patrol vehicle was small enough but its computer wouldn't allow it entry into the alley; its motion controllers weren't sophisticated enough, another economy. Still, the car could sit at the entrance and block it while giving her some support. The Patroller's lights blinked onto high and flooded the alley with daylight, throwing stark shadows against the building and casting deep pools of dark deeper into the alley. Halfway down the alley something scurried out of the sudden illumination. The filters on her visor were still adjusting and she didn't get a good look.
    Too big to be rats.
    Somebody was still around. A witness, maybe. She ought to find out. Skirting the fire, she entered the alley.
    She found the first body twenty feet into the alley. He wore a shredded synthleather Beasts jacket. The Beasts were a powerful gang in the district. Whoever had messed with them was asking for trouble. She hoped this wasn't the start of a gang war.
    The second body was a Beast too. So was the third. She counted half a dozen and no sign of any other casualties. Shirley recognized one of the corpses as Mag Quidellia, one of the Beasts' toughest warriors. There'd be a war for sure.
    But who could have taken on this squad of Beasts and come away clean?
    "Hey, hey, the lights are itchy making," said a voice from the darkness.
    She turned, searching for the speaker. Even with her enhanced vision, spotting him wasn't easy. He was a shadow within the shadow of a dumpster.
    "Come out where I can see you," she ordered. She didn't reach for her weapon; that would be premature.
    The guy who emerged was a dark-skinned, lanky sort, who moved with surprising, catlike grace. Shirley slipped the restraining strap off her weapon. The guy wore a sleeveless Beasts jacket; by the fit, it wasn't his.
    As he stepped forward he raised a long-fingered hand with pointed nails that glistened in the light. Implants? He turned that raised hand back and forth in the beams from the Pa-troller. "It kinda burns, you know. Makes me feel nasty. Like somebody ought to be hurt for making night into day. Ain't right, you know. The world's got a proper order. Ain't right to mess with the order. We don't like it when people mess with the proper order. Do we?"
    Gravelly voices mumbled agreement as more lanky forms emerged from the shadows around Shirley. There were eight or nine of them. She wasn't sure what they were wearing; somehow they were hard to see. This was trouble. She hoped Freer hadn't been blowing air when he'd said backup was on the way. She needed help. She needed time for the help to get to her.
    "Proper Order? That what you guys call yourselves?"
    Their laughs were