Tails You Lose Read Online Free PDF

stabbed at it with a forefinger until the locking mechanism clicked. As she wrenched open the lid, cold air rushed out of the unit, carrying with it a hospital smell that was a mix of plastic, sterilizing scrub—and another, much more pungent odor that smelled like copper: blood.
    Gray Squirrel lay on his back, cocooned in supercooled blue foam. Monitor patches dotted his chest, and intravenous tubes fed into his arms. A clear plastic breathing tube snaked down into his open mouth. His scalp had been shaved so that CAT-scan monitors could be attached; the skin was nicked in several places. His face was as white as paper, his dark eyes wide and staring.
    Air was still hissing into the breathing tube, but it wasn't going far. Gray Squirrel's neck had been severed down to the spine, and the oxygen-rich mixture sighed out of this gaping wound, fluttering the ragged skin. A thick layer of frozen blood covered his chest and arms—the logical part of Alma's mind noted that his throat must have been slit just after he had been placed inside the containment unit, just before the lid had been closed. Unable to deal with the sudden trauma, the unit had gone into life-support mode, but too late: there was no life left to support.
    Alma touched Gray Squirrel's cheek. His skin was as cold as glass.
    "It's my fault, Squirrel," she whispered. "I should have located you sooner."
    A tremor began in Alma's left hand, but she didn't bother to time its duration. There didn't seem to be much point.

2

Meeting
    Night Owl eased her Harley Electroglide into a space between two parked cars and cut the motorcycle's engine. Rain spattered on the bike's twin exhaust pipes, hissing into steam as it hit the hot metal. She pulled off her leather gauntlets and night-vision goggles, flicked wet hair out of her eyes, and then checked her face in the bike's mirror, making sure the thick blue and black lines of the Beijing Opera mask she'd painted on her face hadn't run in the rain. Then she climbed down from the bike, admiring the winking owl that she'd had custom painted on the gas tank. She heaved the metal monster up onto its kick stand and was just about to jander into the restaurant when a soggy blanket huddled in front of the building unfolded itself.
    Instantly on alert, Night Owl whipped a hand back and under her leather jacket, reaching for the Ares Predator concealed against the small of her back. It was halfway out of its holster before she realized that the grotter under the blanket was just a teenage elf, looking for spare cred.
    The elf was skinny, with pointed ears that stuck out of ragged holes in his black knitted hat. His plastic pants had been made of bubble wrap and duct tape, and the sleeves of his striped shirt looked as though they'd been chewed off at the elbow. He smelled of hydro-gro weed, days-old sweat and moldy blanket, but his eyes were still scanning. He'd savvied her weapon in the second she'd flashed for it.
    "Hey, heavy lady, be chill. I was just going to give your chrome a polish." He held out a dirty rag and a squirt bottle that might once have held liquid polish.
    Night Owl was about to tell him to frag off when she noticed the kid's left hand. It was obviously cybered, its synthetic skin peeling back to reveal the artificial metal joints, plastic tendons, and servos that lay underneath. The middle finger was frozen in an open position, as if the kid were giving the world a permanent "frag you." The hand looked too small for the arm; the flesh around the kid's wrist was puckered like a baggy shirt that had been tucked into a tight pair of jeans.
    Night Owl stepped under the dripping awning the kid had been using for shelter. "How long've you had that hand, cobber?"
    The kid glanced down at his hand as if he'd forgotten it was cybered. "Since I was ten."
    "It's too small for you now. How come you weren't fitted with a larger hand?"
    The elf shrugged. "Couldn't afford it."
    Night Owl stood for a moment in silence, watching