Slab City Blues - The Collected Stories: All Five Stories in One Volume Read Online Free Page A

work.”
    “Let me guess. She’s selling him out.”
    “Decryption complete. I’ll patch you in.”
    A click then a woman’s voice, educated Downside vowels grating on my underclass ear: “-uarantee my reinstatement with the UN Medical Ethics Committee?”
    Male voice, not so educated: “Our Chairman plays golf with the Secretary General, Doctor. He’s a very compassionate individual, and a Christian. He knows the value of forgiveness.”
    “Well, what I have is also very valuable.”
    “You have my personal assurance. And if you check your Zurich account you’ll find a substantial gesture of good faith.”
    A pause as Janus checked her smart. “I see.” Her voice was actually quivering. “I am now transmitting the whereabouts of the item.”
    “Get me there, Freak,” I said.
    “Clear the carriage.”
    I looked around. Four Jeds, a couple of them too Blissed to care either way, but Freak has this morality problem. I waited until we pulled into Yang Twenty then showed them the Sig. Had to slap the Blissfuls around a little before they followed the others onto the platform.
    “OK.”
    “Hold tight.”
    A lurch as Freak diverted the carriage from the main line to one of the rapid access tunnels. The Pipe main lines run around and through the Slab in gravity-change friendly spirals but the techs need to move around the system quickly hence the vertical tunnels intersecting the network. First time I used one I found out the true meaning of free-fall. I gripped the nearest hand-hold with both fists and braced myself against the wall, mentally saying goodbye to my lunch.
    “You’re not going to scream again, are you?”
    “Let’s go!”
    The floor tilted, my guts tried to wrap themselves round my spine and I screamed. I couldn’t help it.
    *
    The Yin Extremity is a symphony of architectural elegance and a wonder of engineering where dolphins play in shimmering pools and young lovers stroll the tiered forests hand in hand beneath a square mile of pre-tensile glass revealing an endless canvas of stars.
    The Yang Extremity is equally spectacular but it’s also a garbage dump. There are mountains of the stuff, all the stinking, unrecyclable crap we’re not allowed to flush into space any more. A few years ago several tons of junk collected into a ball and failed to burn up on entry, leaving a pretty big crater in Toronto.
    Unsurprisingly, the Extremity is one of the places Demons generally avoid which makes it an attractive locale for Slab fugitives. They’re grouped together in three unhappy, constantly feuding shanty towns called Faith, Hope and Charity. Whoever said criminals have no gift for irony? If you thought Yang-side was bad you should take a walk down here, just don’t expect it to be a long one.
    Freak guided me from the Pipe exit, through the foothills, stumbling over non-biodegradable shit and keeping a wary eye out for an opportunist with a crossbow. Janus’s place was an aluminium hab-pod surrounded by razor wire, floodlights and automated mini-guns. “How the hell do I get in there?”
    “I’ve already cut the power. Left the lights on to keep the locals away.”
    There were a few corpses in advanced stages of decomposition littering the no-man’s land between the hills and the pod, testament to the fact that Extremists took a long time to learn some obvious lessons.
    The outer gate was on an electronic seal and swung open at the first touch. “How many inside?”
    “Just Joe and the Doctor. She’s jacked him into an immersion couch, we’ve been having an interesting conversation.”
    “Glad you’ve made a new friend.” I kicked the door in. Janus, tall and Downside elegant in an obligatory white coat, was speaking into her smart. Joe, four hundred pounds of fur and muscle, lay on a couch with a king size drip in his arm and immersion leads on his temples.
    “Hello, Doc” I said. “You’re under arrest for conducting an unlicensed medical procedure. Hope there’s enough in