The Lucifer Deck by Lisa Smedman Read Free Book Online

Seattle are ork. Nearly eighty per cent are human. Those figures have been documented by the Ork Rights Committee. And their numbers don’t lie. Prejudice against metahumans runs long and deep in the Star. Chief Loudon’s going to have a lot to answer for the day the coalition takes over the city. And that day is coming—soon."
    Pita was impressed by all the facts Yao had at his fingertips. He was informed. He was determined.
    He stopped talking as the waitress came to clear the table. She was a pretty girl—human—a little older than Pita. But Yao looked at her with open contempt. "Wait until we’re finished eating, drekhead." he snapped at her.
    Pita pushed her bowl away. "I’m done." she said quickly. But the waitress had already scrambled away.
    Yao stood up, motioning his friend forward. He took the trideo camera from him, then spoke quietly to him. Anwar grinned, then loped out of the restaurant.
    "I want you to take me to the spot where it happened." Yao told Pita. "I’ll interview you there, on location, while Anwar monitors the uplink. We’re using a portable dish to go live. Save your story until we get there. That way it’ll sound less rehearsed. When I give you the sign, you start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out." He smiled grimly as he motioned for Pita to follow. "This could be just the story we need to spark the uprising."
    "Uprising?" Pita echoed, trotting along behind Yao. He walked quickly, threading his way through the crowded corridors. She had to hurry to keep up.
    "Look around you." Yao said, lowering his voice. "The overcrowding, the condition of these tunnels. You don’t think we orks are going to be penned up in the Underground forever, do you? The day isn’t far off when we’ll rise up into the city and push the weaker races aside. When we’ll take what’s rightfully ours and pay the fraggers back for what happened in ’39. The Night of Rage is going to look tame compared to what’s coming."
    "My parents told me about the Night of Rage." Pita said. "I was only two, but Mom used to tell a funny story about how Dad made us hide in the basement, then sat at the top of the stairs with his shotgun to protect us. It wasn’t until the next morning that he realized he’d forgotten to load the gun. When I was little, I didn’t understand what could have sent him into such a panic. But now I realize he was afraid of the—"
    Pita stopped herself. She’d been about to say, "of the metahumans." Thinking back on it now, she wondered at her father’s extreme reaction. Seattle’s metahumans had responded with violence to the city’s attempt to forcibly relocate them outside of its boundaries, but that violence had been tightly focused. Their rage—and the burnings, lootings, and attacks it sparked—was triggered by a series of explosions in the warehouses being used to hold the deportees. A militant wing of the Humanis Policlub was rumored to be behind the bombings. Pita knew her father sympathized with the Humanis Policlub, but now she wondered just how deep those sympathies ran. Was her father a member of the racist group, and thus a potential target for the metahuman retaliation?
    "Yeah, the Metroplex Guard were even worse than Lone Star." Yao said, interrupting her thoughts. He glanced at Pita. "You weren’t at the warehouses? Then your family hadn’t been rounded up yet by the Guard when the trouble began."
    "Uh, no." Pita realized that Yao assumed her entire family was ork. Given the arrogant, hostile tone he’d used when speaking to the waitress in the noodle bar, she was afraid to tell him she’d once been a member of the "weaker races" herself.
    "You were lucky, then." Yao continued. "My father died when the first explosion hit the waterfront. My mother was never the same afterward. She tried to reverse the confiscation order on our house, but the city appealed every court decision, and eventually our money ran out. After that, she didn’t have the strength