“Damn,” I said. “Expecting trouble?”

No one answered me. They didn’t offer me a shredder or more ammo for the Roon I’d appropriated. I watched Happling and Hense fill their pockets and a sturdy-looking satchel with clips, and then Happling swung the bag over his shoulder, immediately making it look tiny. Hense jerked her chin over her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

“Where to?” Happling asked, slamming one of the dense, bricklike clips into the shredder. “Nothing’s gonna be cleared off the roof, boss.”

“Street Field, First and Forty-eighth. Wait.”

She looked me up and down. I surveyed myself with my good eye; the left one was slowly sealing itself. I was blood and spit and dust. Mostly blood.

“Give him your coat, Happ. He’s going to attract eyes.”

I smiled. “I’m pretty, I know.”

Happling cursed and dropped the satchel. “Want me to give him a shave, too? A massage? My fucking gold badge?” He tore the heavy coat from his shoulders and tossed it at me. Snatching it out of the air, I pulled it on over my own coat. It went down to my ankles, but I rolled up the sleeves and it didn’t look too bad.

Happling looked bigger out of the coat, his shoulder holster crowded by his arms. He squinted at me. “Nothing I can do about his face, boss. I think it’s actually improved by the pounding, you ask me.”

“Go,” was all Hense said, her voice taut with that tone of command really dangerous cops had. Happling spun around, snatched up the bag, and we were off, hustling after the big man toward the elevators. I had to walk fast to keep up, feeling every cigarette I’d ever smoked.

“Elevators won’t run for you,” Happling said over his shoulder, “if the lockers rejected your badge.”

Marko had fallen in beside me. “They’ll run.”

I turned to look at him. I loved the fucking Techies. “Now why,” I said, just to make trouble, “would you have a vector set up for beating all these access restrictions, I wonder?”

His jaw tightened. “None of your business.”

I nodded, feeling jolly. I was a valuable commodity, I had a bodyguard and a retinue, and I was going to Paris in fucking style. I was half blind, covered in my own blood and puke, pumping out death from my pores, and things were starting to look up.

Good as his word, Marko stepped forward as we approached the elevators, pulled a box about the size of his fist from his bag as it dropped to the floor, and fiddled with it, making various microgestures with his fingers. He frowned down at the box.

“Fuck, you have to be a goddamn director level to ride the fucking elevators,” he said, sounding astounded. I started to get the loose, heart-pounding feeling, complete with rust in my throat, that always preceded something bad. Marko continued to wave his long fingers over the brick. I moved my eyes from his slim frame to Happling’s gorilla body and caught him staring murder at me with his fluorescent eyes. I lingered on him just long enough to show my balls and glanced up at the elevator’s indicator lights.

“Take it easy, Mr. Marko,” I said, rust flooding my mouth, hands clenching. “Looks like your job’s half done. Someone’s coming down to us.”

Hense’s reaction was immediate. “Step aside, Mr. Marko,” she spat, pulling her weapon as Happling dropped his bag of fun and did the same. I let them take up a crisscross position in front of the doors, their lines of fire carefully chosen.

“Boss,” Happling said, sounding urgent.

“Not now,” the colonel snapped.

Happling’s jaw clenched. “Now is a good time to tell you,” he gritted out as if chewing rocks, “that I’m not killing any cops.”

XVI

Day Six: I’ve been Promoted

For whatever obscure security reasons, the elevator indicator wasn’t labeled; it was just a long string of LEDs sinking from the ceiling to the floor. The bottom three lit up red, one by one, dripping down toward us. I pulled my stolen Roon from my pocket and held it ready, but I was willing to let the two cops take the brunt of whatever was coming out of the cab. Marko pushed himself as flat as possible against the wall, clutching his bag of tricks to his chest and looking ready to shit his pants and run, in that order, at a moment’s notice.

The bottom light glowed warmly and the doors snapped open, and it was difficult to stay still-after being beaten half to death in the Blank Room, my brain chemistry was running wild, dumping adrenaline and sleep into my blood-but I managed it with some effort.

The elevator was empty. We all stood still for a moment, thumbs up our asses. The adrenaline turned into vinegar inside me, curdling my stomach. I looked over at Marko, who had closed his eyes.

“You’re one of those fucking geniuses I keep hearing about, aren’t you?”

The kid opened his eyes one at a time and then visibly sagged, his whole body going jelly. He shut his eyes again and looked like he was going to throw up. I slipped my gun back into my pocket and stepped over to him, catching him under the armpits as his legs gave way.

“Deep breath,” I said, trying to make my voice friendly. “You’ve had a rough hour or so.”

He pushed at me weakly. “Fuck you,” he said hoarsely.

I laughed and let him drop. “Ask the captain to tune you up a little,” I said, turning away. “It’s a wonderful fucking tonic.”

“Shut up,” Hense said in a distracted voice. “Good work, Mr. Marko. But we have to get moving.”

“That was too easy,” Marko said weakly, pulling himself up. “All I did was issue a standard reset and it just came. That shouldn’t have worked.”

“Why do it, then?”

He shrugged without looking at me. “It’s always step one. Just in case it works.”

Fucking Techies. I stood next to Happling and stared into the empty cab, white and clean. None of us moved.

“It’s your fucking building,” I said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hense turn to look at me, but I didn’t look at her.

“Move,” she spat, and stepped into the car. Happling followed, grabbing me by the shoulder and shoving me ahead of him.

“Mr. Marko!” Hense shouted.

The kid appeared in front of us, scratching at his beard. “I don’t trust things I didn’t make happen. Shit does not just happen.”

I was standing behind him, but I could feel Happling’s grin like a change in air pressure. “Kid, keep standing there like a piece of shit and I’ll show you something else that does not just happen.”

I imagined Happling’s grin, feral, his teeth yellow. I could feel him next to me. He wanted to fuck the kid up. Marko sensed it, too, hustling into the elevator, looking around as if he expected it to sprout spikes from the ceiling and walls and start to contract on us.

Hense gestured hesitantly, but the elevator responded immediately, the doors snapping shut. “We’re going out the back through the loading docks,” she said. “They won’t be abandoned, but they should be pretty sparse.”

“Boss,” Happling said slowly, not liking the taste of his words. “What if we get stopped? I’m not here to shoot cops.”

“I thought that was what I was here for,” I said, failing to match the big cop’s amazing grin.

No one said anything to that. There was a momentary sick sense in my stomach, and then a light ding from the elevator.

“Happ, you’re point. Marko and Cates after him.” Hense turned those pretty, static eyes on me, making me regret my smart comments. I didn’t want this woman to ever stare at me for any period of time. The feeling I’d seen her before swept through me like a flame, burning out as fast as it had come upon me. “Mr. Cates, try any bullshit and I will start investigating how badly you can be hurt without being killed.”

She turned away before I could say anything back. “Happ,” she said, “I won’t order you to shoot cops. But if you obstruct my way out of here, I will shoot you. Understood?”