Profiteer

It was slow going. He took the time to make sure the bolts were firmly attached and that his grip was solid. His scrupulousness paid off at least once, when one of the bolts bent under his foot and slid out of the wall in a shower of masonry dust.

 

As he climbed down, he tried to avoid thinking about what was happening.

 

He tried.

 

He failed.

 

The world had crumbled from underneath him. Again. The only real surprise was the fact that he hadn’t expected it. He had naively thought that he had finally cemented his niche in the world and could forget his past.

 

He had thought that when the TEC had recruited him and his brother.

 

He had thought that when he had abandoned the TEC after Helen’s death.

 

He had thought that when he had come to Bakunin after ...

 

After he’d stopped being human.

 

A bolt bent in his left hand and he almost fell.

 

He calmed himself. It might be a nightmare. But it wasn’t the worst possible nightmare. He’d already lived through that.

 

When he reached the fifth floor, he began to realize that something other than the chute was burning below him.

 

The signs of humanity had been growing as he descended. On the fifth floor were a few rat-gnawed mattresses and a few words written on the walls. Odds were that the first floor of this place was littered with combustible material.

 

As Dom paused to consider his options, a dull thud reverberated below him, followed by a wave of greasy black smoke that belched up the shaft.

 

He jumped out of the shaft and on to the fifth floor. He was in trouble.

 

He searched for an escape route. And there it was, the mangled drive section of the Hegira, sticking through a window.

 

Dom ran over to it and looked out a neighboring window. The nose of the craft had jammed itself into a window in the building across the alley.

 

It looked stable.

 

Dom climbed on top of the drive section. It was still warm from his escape. Although it felt as if the Hegira was solidly wedged between the buildings, Dom didn’t want to trust that.

 

The floor behind him was already opaque with smoke. Breathing was difficult.

 

Down the length of the craft—a bare ten meters—was only a slight angle.

 

He held his breath and crawled out on to the Hegira’s belly. The underside was smooth metal, and it was all Dom could do to maintain a slow pace that wouldn’t have him sliding off into the alley below.

 

Below him was an inferno. Orange-red flame danced in the gaps between the roiling black smoke filling the alley. As he watched, a storage barrel shot up out of the smoke with a dull foomp sound, trailing fire.

 

What the hell was stored down there? He hoped another barrel didn’t hit his craft.

 

The smoke got denser. Bangs and thuds continued as chemicals ignited behind and beneath him. He finally made it to the opposite window. He put his hand on a piece of twisted molding—

 

Behind him someone kicked open the gates of Hell.

 

The warehouse behind him and the ally below him exploded. No dull thud this time. This was a shuddering roar that belched a sheet of toxic fire up past him. If it weren’t for the two tons of Hegira shielding him from the blast…

 

The sound was overwhelming enough for his audio to cut out for a second, leaving him in a violent whited-out silence.

 

The vehicle took the worst of it. Dom felt the craft rise up underneath him. The echoes of the blast were still fresh as the remains of the car dropped out from under him. Somehow he managed to grab the molding with his other hand.

 

The aircraft smashed drive-end first into the alley below, leaving Dom dangling from a broken window frame, five stories up. He swung a foot up and pulled himself into the window. He rolled, face first, into a rotting cardboard box filled with mildewed clothes. He came to a stop nose-to-nose with a dead rat that had crawled into the box to die. There were other things moving in the box.

 

He stayed until the explosion had dulled and his hearing returned. Then he pushed himself upright slowly, turning to face the warehouse.

 

The first two floors were invisible behind belching smoke, and he could see orange flickering as far up as the fourth floor. The explosion had blown out every window on the building.

 

He needed to get somewhere he could breathe.

 

He turned away from the window. He faced a hallway that was cloaked in graffiti and garbage. The place smelled of rot and mildew, but it was clear that people lived here. He passed open doorways that led into rooms with candles and soiled mattresses.

 

Eventually, he found stairs. He made it five floors down and to an exit without running into any of the natives.

 

Then he made the mistake of counting himself lucky.

 

As Dom opened the door to the outside, a bald punk in an exec’s monocast vest grabbed his arm and threw him down the front stairs of the building. Dom hit the ground and heard his ceremonial slugthrower clatter out of his belt holster.

 

He landed, faceup, in the center of a ring of a half-dozen punks. They had the real weapons out.