The Albino Knife by Steve Perry Read Free Book Online

bright. He was doing it now.
    He stood at the front of a long line waiting to do business with the woman behind the counter of the computer message service. As backrocket as Fox was, most people didn't carry personal comps capable of linking into the larger com and info nets. Therefore, such places as this did a fair amount of work requiring personal contact.
    It was nearly lunch time, and Bork was being deliberate in his speech and action.Very deliberate. The place had that stale office smell that came from recirculated air, along with a slightly acrid tang due to overused computer solidstates. The line of operators was busy, and looking forward to a break soon; that was fairly apparent. Nobody really wanted to be here, not those in line, not those servicing them.
    The woman behind the counter was already overworked and Bork was politely making things harder for her.
    The four men who had attacked him had gotten their contract via this compservice; at least, that's what the two who'd survived had said. He hadn't hurt them, only lifted one of them up by his shirt front and held him dangling in a one-armed curl that frightened the other one so bad he was willing to talk. Nothing personal, the man allowed, and Bork had nodded and said fine; killing them wouldn't be personal either.
    The guy had gotten positively loquacious at that point. They were supposed to send a message when Bork was dead, and pick up a response thereafter. So Bork had the talker send the message; that could be done over any comcircuit, but the response had to be obtained in person, and the cools had arrived too soon for that to happen.
    Talk to the cools about this, Bork had said, and I will be displeased with you. Neither of the survivors wanted that.
    "What did you say the name was?" the woman behind the counter asked Bork. She was not far from the edge of her patience.
    "Timmer su Lock," Bork said, allowing a big grin to spread over his face. That was the name of the man who'd been so eager to tell him anything he wanted to know.
    The woman spoke to her computer, giving it the name. "You have identification?"
    Bork nodded slowly. "Yes, I have identification."
    "May Isee it, please?"
    He gave it another two seconds. "Huh? Oh, yeah. Sure." He reached into his jacket pocket and produced Timmer su Lock's credit and ID cube. This was a standard thumbtip-sized chunk of hard black memory plastic with information embedded in it. The would-be assassin hadn't been so unprofessional as to have it on him when he and his friends had tried to splash Bork, but he'd been almost eager to tell him where it was.
    Bork watched as the woman inserted the cube into her computer's scanner slot. The UV lasers played their invisible questions upon it.
    After a second, the air over the comp lit with the holoproj of the cube's contents. Bork could see the back of the image; the words and everything were reversed, but he could easily see that the cube had been damaged: where the picture and eye and brain stats were supposed to be was badly fuzzed, so much so that the computer couldn't rectify it. Changing an ID cube was a tricky business, only an expert could do it and have it pass undetected, but wiping a portion of one was relatively easy. A few minutes with a magnetic inducer and a simplewit computer and anybody with even a little programming skill could do it. Few did, because a damaged cube wouldn't get you very far. In this case, however, it only had to pass this one harried and busy woman. Bork had done the work himself.
    "This cube is damaged," the woman said. The anger peeped through her forced politeness.
    "Really?Gah, it was fine when I used it yesterday. Musta been hit when I fell off the hovertruck this morning."
    The woman looked up at Bork, then back at the bad readout. "I can't give out messages to somebody with a damaged cube."
    Bork counted to three mentally. "Uh, right, I can understand that. What do I do?"
    She shook her head. He could almost read her mind: I