Voices

Nelson dived into the pipe. His head hit hard and he saw more stars than any night sky. He slid down the pipe like last week's dirty laundry to land in a jumble at the bottom of the pipe. Strong hands hauled him to his feet. He was in a fog, his legs moved like lead. Someone was half hauling, half dragging him along.

"Move, lad!" a voice yelled in his ear. It seemed to come from far away. Mustering the last of his strength Nelson tried to keep up. His trip out of the bottom of Yamato was one long bad dream. Red hot pain. Abstract images. The heavy grille falling. Dutch blowing it with plastique. The outer door wide open. Smoke pouring from the control panel. The long march through the water. His arm, hanging like the mariner's albatross. The fresh air from the open manhole. A million stars. Duffy at the wheel. Then darkness.

Two Weeks Later: Nelson sat on his bed and lit his tenth cigarette. His shoulder was wrapped in bandages as the neomuscles and bone were not healed yet. The docs said he would be faster and stronger than before. Nelson didn't doubt it.

Two packets sat on the bed next to him. The first was red and contained the information he had promised Jolly. Not all that Jolly would want, but the name of the group who had hired the Belgian.

The second was wrapped in brown paper and addressed to a man in Cairo. Nelson wondered idly what long devious route it would take before it reached the Major. Nelson smiled to himself as he crushed out his cigarette.

Now that he had access to the information stored in the Belgian's NAC he understood his friend's quandary. The Major had gotten word that some wannabe gods calling themselves Reality-9 had put out a contract on his lady. He had immediately acted to make himself disappear, and her along with him. Then he finds out they have hired the Belgian to do the job.

Being a direct action guy, his first idea is to kill the Belgian before he could start looking for them. The problem is, to get to the Belgian, he would have to leave the girl unprotected, or even worse take her with him to where the Belgian was. Quite a pickle, even for someone as slick as the Major. It was just the luck of the draw that Nelson was in Singapore and so was the Belgian.

Nelson grabbed the red package and started for the door even before the buzzer rang. He opened it and smiled as the same skycap was there. He handed her the package and tossed her twenty Hong Kong dollars. She looked at him with wide eyes and quickly pocketed the money and disappeared. Nelson had learned a long time ago to be nice to the little people. They saw more and knew more than some of the best information guys, and were a hell of a lot cheaper and less risky. Never hurt to have friends in low places.

The second package went via secure courier. An Olympus man arrived a few minutes after the girl departed. Nelson signed the scanner but didn't tip this man, there was no use in it. Olympus employees were useless for information.

Nelson sat back down. He concentrated and felt the instant reaction of the NAC. Wearing another man's wetware was not exactly to his liking, but the Belgian's NAC had been his own bonus to himself. They were too expensive and getting a clean one was nearly impossible. All too often corps put little friendly reminders in them to keep the owners in line. And no one wanted to have a sudden burning sensation as the damn thing overloaded on command and boiled your brains out.

This one was clean, or the Belgian wouldn't have had it. Nelson had never dreamed of owning one, but after the fixer had removed all the information from it, Nelson had decided to give it a try. The skillsofts would let him tailor his knowledge to fit a job, and the memory access would end his having to search through his mind for pertinent information during a run.

The screen buzzed on the wall. "Answer," he said as he lit a cigarette. Nelson knew who it would be. He knew he was back. He smiled as the screen lit with a familiar face.

"Hello, Jolly."