Profiteer

The exit was a fairly normal chromed metal door, but above it was a red blinking light that said “on the air.” This was a staging area, a holding cell for guests about to go in front of the audience.

 

“What now?” Tetsami asked.

 

“We dispose of the guard. Go over and hit the switch for the cell’s field.”

 

Tetsami did so, and Dom dragged the guard into the cell.

 

“Do you know the layout of the building?” he asked as he patted the guard down for IDs or card keys. No such luck.

 

She shook her head. “I was as zoned as you were when they brought me in. All I know is that this room is right off the stage, and they can only open it from the other side.”

 

The room was small enough that Dom could see at a glance that there was only the one door. He searched around a bit, but nothing offered itself as a control to open it. Tetsami was probably right.

 

“We’ll have to ambush them when they come for us.” He went to the desk and pulled the holo projector upright. One of the lasers inside it had been knocked out of alignment, wildly distorting the blue part of the image, but they could still see the show. “This should give us some warning.”

 

They stood in silence for a while on either side of the chrome door.

 

The show went on.

 

They had fried the rapist. The emcee, a slick hawker in a cassock and black pompadour, was going on about the next criminal. A mass murderer, he said.

 

After a few minutes, Tetsami asked, “How’d you put your arm through that thing?”

 

Dom kept watching the show. They were showing a video of the current subject emptying a Dittrich Hyper-Velocity Railgun into an East Godwin apartment complex.

 

“A biofield has to intersect a human nervous system to disable someone. My arm’s a construct.”

 

Tetsami gave him an appraising look, and they went back to waiting in silence.

 

They topped ten kilograms on the murderer. They burnt him alive, to the applause of the studio audience. Once the corpse sputtered out, the emcee came back. “Once again we’ve achieved divine retribution directed by your pledges. When we come back from our sponsor’s message, we have a very special person to put on the block. The target is going to be a hundred kilograms. You won’t want to miss this one.”

 

The holo started to play a recruitment commercial for the Girolamo Commune. It took a dozen kilograms to buy a share.

 

Tetsami leveled the laser at the door. “A hundred K! You’ve got to be on next. Get ready—”

 

As if Tetsami had cued it, the door whooshed open.

 

Two guards were coming in. They weren’t expecting trouble. Dom reached through and grabbed a wad of faithful. He held the leader by the gun arm and kneed him in the crotch.

 

Tetsami fired through the open door and a pulsing polychromatic beam burned the air. It got the second guard in the shoulder.

 

Dom brought his left fist down on the back of the leader, who was doubled over in front of him. The guard dropped to the floor.

 

The one with the burned shoulder committed a tactical blunder. He should have ducked for cover and called for help. Instead, he tried to close the door. The chrome door closed. The first guard was draped across the threshold and the door slammed into his side, prompting a groan.

 

Dom jumped through the gap. The mobile guard pulled his weapon and tried to track him. Tetsami shot him in the other shoulder. The guard’s arm jerked, sending his shot wide as Dom got behind him.

 

Dom linked his hands and slammed both fists across the guard’s back. The guard bounced off the far wall with a thud. The guard’s laser dropped. Dom didn’t wait for Tetsami to shoot again; he rushed the guard’s back, grabbed him by the hair, and slammed his face into the wall.

 

The guard collapsed at Dom’s feet. Dom glanced back at the door and saw that both guards were now unconscious. Tetsami stepped through the door as he bent and retrieved the guard’s weapon. She was holding two guns herself, having disarmed the guard blocking the door.

 

They were in a short hallway with only one open exit. First came a half-dozen closed chromed doors. Then there was a curtain at the end of the hall. Beyond the curtain, Dom could hear a roaring crowd and the emcee’s patter. No one seemed to have heard the commotion.

 

Tetsami stared at the curtain. “Think the alarm’s raised yet?”

 

“Not yet. Not until the end of the commercial break.”

 

“What now? Got to be a thousand people out there screaming for blood.”

 

Dom started adjusting his audio pickup. He ran it through the onboard computer, and there was something repetitive about the waveform. “I don’t think so.”

 

“What did you say?”

 

“Have you ever seen that studio?”

 

“No—”

 

“Come on.”

 

Dom headed straight for the curtain. He emerged right behind the emcee, put his arm around his neck, and put the guard’s laser up to the man’s ear. Dom faced the cameras. “This is called a powerful negotiating position.”

 

Tetsami followed. She covered the broadcast studio.