Cates 05 - The Final Evolution Read Online Free PDF Page B

flesh. The other eye was bright blue and glared at me with force, as if daring me to challenge him. A soldier, I decided. Someone pressed into a unit just like I’d been, but not lucky enough to get sold out of the army—if you called getting fucked over by Cainnic Orel and Wa Belling for about the fiftieth time and being left for dead—also for the fiftieth time—as lucky .
    “I saw ’im,” the cripple said in a hoarse voice. “What you got for it?”
    I studied him. “I could not shoot you in your good eye.”
    His smile was the worst thing I’d ever seen. I would have paid him just to stop . “Naw, you won’t. I hearda you. C’mon, make me an offer.”
    Hearda you . A deep pulse of anger went through me. That was how people got killed, especially old people like me, staring forty down and waking up every day with a new set of aches. Word got out you were soft, that you could be safely fucked with, and it was only a matter of time.
    Time’s what I didn’t have, though; every moment made getting surprised by the Tele-K more likely, so I swallowed my irritation down. <

“Five hundred yen,” I said. “Paper. And I don’t find you later and finish what the war started, one arm at a time.” I leaned down, fishing a wad of notes from my coat. “And if you haggle, I swear I will tip you over right here and step on the back of your head until you stop struggling.” I put some grin into it, and he blinked, reaching out with one calloused hand and snatching the bright green notes.
    “Third building down from here,” he said, hurriedly putting some back into sliding away. “The barber’s.”
    I watched him make impressive speed through the mud, then looked up and over at the building he’d indicated, where someone had painted a swirling design in red, white, and blue. It was a heavy-looking building, big slabs of gray stone with the delicate carved facade still clinging to the doorway, an archway of faux bricks and tiny carvings I couldn’t make out. The rest of the building was like a scar, like someone had peeled the outside off, leaving just the bones.
    I put two fingers in my mouth and whistled. A moment later Remy was at my side, his revolver down at his hip, his face blank.
    “There,” I said, pointing. “Go around back. Count to fifty, then come in hard and noisy.”
    I didn’t really have to tell Remy that. Hard and noisy was his only way.
    He hesitated for a moment like he was going to argue, then shrugged and sauntered down the narrow alley between the buildings.
    I checked the Roon again and then held it out as I walked, finger on the trigger. I crossed behind the line of carts first and approached the door from the side, keeping my exposure low. I couldn’t see anything inside the doorway. When I was a foot or so from it, I took a deep breath, my HUD fading for a moment and almost disappearing, and then took three quick, long strides and entered the building.
    My eyes adjusted immediately, thanks to my old, damaged augments. I was in what had once been the foyer of the building, now sporting a single large metal chair bolted to the bare concrete floor and several scratched and dented wooden tables. A large mirror had been balanced against the wall on top of one of the tables, and the rest of the tables sported a scattering of jars and tools, brushes and razors. The floor was almost as wet and muddy as the street outside.
    The barber stood behind the chair, one hand tilting his customer’s head, the other holding a razor that looked like it had started out life as a thin metal file. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at a spot on the wall above the mirror, stock-still. Standing against the rear wall, next to a closed, heavy-looking wooden door, was the Angel, hands in the pockets of his elegant coat. The second I saw him, I was enveloped in the invisible fist, unable to move.
    “Fuck me,” I gasped, finding it hard to breathe. “You’re not going to make another fucking speech ,