Three Read Online Free PDF Page B

sober to massive hangover without ever passing through pleasant drunkenness. Pressure from inside his head counterbalanced the throbbing from the outside in a low-intensity equilibrium of pain. His right ear rang. A tiny silhouette slid into periphery, towering above Three from his worm’s-eye view.
    “Is he…?” a small voice whispered, trailing off.
    “Yeah, baby,” Cass said, from somewhere. “I’m afraid he is–”
    “I’ll be fine,” Three interrupted. “Eventually.”
    Cass appeared, sidling next to Wren, kneeling, eyes bewildered or amazed.
    “We should go,” she said, hushed. “Can you walk?”
    “In a minute.”
    “They’ll be here by then.”
    “Then go on.”
    The weakening sun left the room a murky brownish-gray, making features difficult to distinguish. Three thought he caught Cass biting her bottom lip again; might’ve imagined it. She stood, face enshrouded by shadow, took Wren’s hand, and left.
    Three closed his eyes. Twice now. No “thank you”. At least his ear had stopped ringing.
    A pitter-patter approached, and Wren called from the door.
    “Thanks for my car.”
    Three raised a hand in silent acknowledgement, and Wren was gone.
    T hree didn’t know who “they” were, but he’d lain on the floor five, maybe ten minutes, and no one else had shown up. After recovering his pistol, which was undamaged by the scuffle, he’d set out with the late afternoon sun towards the agent’s office. Three-thousand Hard waited for him. Tonight, he was going to get very, very drunk.
    When he reached the agent’s office, the glass doors slid smoothly open to admit him, snicked closed behind. He ran his fingers absentmindedly over the goose-egg throbbing above his left eye, shook his head to clear it as he walked the long stone corridor. Three reached the agent’s cube, waited for the greeting.
    “State your business,” the voice boomed.
    “Bounty.”
    “State your name,” said the voice. Almost familiar. Something different, maybe. Three was too hazy to be sure.
    “We did this already. I’m just here for my money.”
    The same slot opened in the cube, same metal case slid out, same rubberized interior.
    “Deposit your weapons in the provided secure receptacle.”
    “No.”
    A pause.
    “Please approach the door.”
    Three stepped closer, sarcastic, nose almost touching the flexiglass door. It slid open. He looked down slightly, expecting to find the eyes of the diminutive agent. Instead, he found himself looking at a broad chest. Not the agent.
    Fedor.

Three
    A meaty hand clapped over Three’s face, so huge that having its palm on his chin didn’t prevent its fingernails from digging into his scalp just above his forehead. Before he even finished flinching, Three was hurtling headlong into the flexiglass room, crashing face down into a stack of aged and blinking hardware, which collapsed and buried his head and shoulders under a jagged heap. Behind him, the door slid shut, whirred, and clunked heavily, some kind of magnetic lock-and-seal dropping into place. Three lay still, mind scrambling. He’d barely survived his first encounter with Fedor, with three times the room to maneuver. Three felt Fedor prowl over him. A heavy boot stamped down on the back of his knee, grinding the kneecap into the granite floor.
    “So,” Fedor growled. “You are not so much.”
    He snorted, and spat on Three, then drew a breath to say something else.
    Instead, an ear-shattering blast of white lightning erupted from the back of Three’s coat, slamming through Fedor, spattering him across the inside of the cube. Then, a weighty silence descended, no doubt magnified by Three’s self-inflicted deafness. He hoped it was temporary.
    Three rolled slowly up on his elbow, shoved the broken hardware off himself, surveyed the scene. The wreckage that had been Fedor lay folded near the door. Three’s shot had caught him right through the middle. He wouldn’t be getting up again. Three checked himself,