The Most Dangerous Dame

Vitto shakily pushed himself up to his knees. “What… what are you going to do to me, Mick?”

“You? Nothing. You’re small change. I’m betting large.”

“You won’t win. Not against these odds. This guy — he’s different. He doesn’t make mistakes. He’ll kill you, Mick. And if he doesn’t, that psycho dame will.”

I grinned as I strode toward the elevator. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

I nearly tripped over Vitto’s boys when I entered the parking garage. Their unconscious bodies lay neatly arranged on the garage floor. Benny lounged against the wall few yards away. He grinned when he saw me approach.

“Thanks for showing me that chokehold, Mick. Beats the hell outta having to knock a guy out.”

“Yeah, just make sure you apply the proper pressure if you don’t wanna kill the sap. You’re a big lug, don’t forget that.” I glanced at my wrist when my holoband buzzed and lit up.

“Ms. Sinn. I guess you survived your digital tennis match with your bioroid buddy.”

She smiled from the digital display. “You might say that. I have a location for you if you’re not busy.”

“I’m pretty sure you know exactly what I’m doing if you’re half as good as you say you are.”

“I hope you had fun threatening poor Luther Vitto. There’s a 97.5 percent chance he’d kill himself before revealing any information about Natalie’s location, if he even knows it. The man is righteously terrified. If your aim was to see whether or not he would squeal, you could have just asked me and saved yourself the trip.”

“I’ve been asking you a lot of questions, Ms. Sinn. Not getting many answers. But since you brought it up, who’s this mystery man he was gabbing on about?”

Her lips pursed. “Someone very good at masking his digital signature. Not to worry. We can focus on him after settling the matter at hand.”

I nodded. “Right. One thing at a time. You said something about a location.”

“Sending it to your holoband.”

The location pulled up on my display. “Sanford’s Scrap Yard? You gotta be kidding me.”

“You know how appearances are in this town, Mick.”

“All too well, Ms. Sinn. All too well.”

Sanford’s Scrap Yard was where wheelers and floaters went to die. From there the rolling or hovering vehicles were unceremoniously stripped, crushed, melted down, and shipped to Remanufacturing. It was a sprawling lot of vehicle corpses in the Industrial District on the edge of the Flats. The place was barricaded off with laser wires and electrical fences, while roving drone guns and robotic guard dogs patrolled against the more resilient looters.

None of that mattered when Sinn was on your side.

Maxine barreled through the fencing Ms. Sinn rendered completely unresponsive. We tore across the gravel as the drone guns tracked our movement but never fired a shot. The gleaming mechanized dogs followed for a few tense seconds, snapping at the wheels with their syringe-equipped fangs. But the metallic mutts ate the ground in clouds of dust and flailing limbs when Ms. Sinn worked her digital magic.

She buzzed in over the line. “Your target goes by the name Lord Troll. I just sent his network a present that should bypass his security system and get you inside.”

Maxine squealed to a halt in front of a ramshackle depot in the middle of the scattered heaps of junk. I leaped out and gestured to the door. It ripped off its hinges when Benny rammed it with his shoulder. Loud cursing greeted us as I leaped in and fanned the cramped room over with the Mean Ol’ Broad. I lowered it when I saw the type of skel we were dealing with.

He had the type of scrawny muscularity developed by a regimen of energy drinks and pushups. Biomechanical tattoos covered his bare arms, most of his back and part of his bare chest. Visor goggles covered his eyes, blinking rapidly with alternating fluorescents. His narrow head was topped by a two-toned mohawk fashioned like feathers.

Multiple holographic consoles surrounded him, creating the illusion of being encircled by glimmering light and coding. The rest of the room was filled with trash and junk, as if Lord Troll only paused long enough to consume something and let it drop to the floor.

“Bugger me!” He pounded the static-filled console in front of him with gloved fists. “I just got this bodgy piece of bull dust back up and it goes cactus again? Who the bloody hell is this slager?”

“I’d worry less about that and more about your current situation, Ace.” I pointed the Mean Ol’ Broad his direction. “Unless you like lead poisoning, that is.”

“Get stuffed, ya wanker.” His attention never wavered from the screen in front of him as his fingers flew across the keyboard impossibly fast. “I don’t give a rat’s arse who the hell you are. But you’re a few roos loose in the top paddock if you think you can barge in here making threats. You got no idea who you’re screwing with, do you?”

I nodded at Benny.

His oversized hand wrapped around the back of Lord Troll’s neck. In less than a second Troll’s heavy combat boots dangled above the floor while he gagged and struggled to break Benny’s iron grip.