Soldier of Fortune: Gideon Quinn Adventures Book One

Chapter 7

Gideon picked up the tail two blocks from the tram station.

A quick glance in a grocer's window told him his shadow was small, and clad in the universal urban camouflage of patchwork trousers and hooded tunic he recalled from his own youth on the streets of Tesla.

Gideon remembered a time he would have given the dodger a shot at his wallet, but in those days he'd possessed more than a handful of starbucks and a draco, so, instead of lingering at a dark corner staring at street signs or wandering lost amongst the few pedestrians out in the rain, he decided to shake the kid.

It was quite the surprise, then, when the kid refused to be shaken.

Admittedly, the rain put a damper on Nike's nightlife, making the pickings slim, so Gideon countered the dearth of pockets by detouring down a narrowly winding foot-lane bearing all the markings of the night trade, which never failed to provide a wide variety of marks for a dedicated dipper.

As he meandered down the lane, looking into various windows and greeting the odd brave soul under an umbrella, he found himself propositioned more than once, and not only by the professionals. One woman offered him a very tempting sum for a few hours of companionship.

He could even bring the draco along.

She was an attractive woman, sleek and lean and wearing her silvered hair in a straight rain down her back, but six years of sexual drought notwithstanding, Gideon still felt the sting from the earlier rejection on the tram. Plus there was that dodger on his tail, so he refused, offering his not insincere regrets before moving on.

And so did his shadow, who ignored the trove of pleasure seekers, and their wallets, just to keep up with him.

Maybe he should have taken a tour past a sweet shop or bakery, but, as time passed and the game continued, Gideon found he didn't mind the company. Truth was, compared to the dire implications of the attack at the airfield, the dodger was proving more distraction than a worry.

The fact he needed a distraction in the first place was something of a worry, and not one he could ever have anticipated.

It was only as he continued to wander rain-drenched streets—their muted watercolor of motion and energy a stark contrast to the suns-bleached calcification of the Barrens—that Gideon began to discover freedom to be... not unpleasant, exactly... but certainly uncomfortable.

This truth hit home with particular strength when he stopped smack in the middle of crossing a street, not because of any oncoming traffic, but because he'd been counting his steps and reached 7,852 which, given Gideon's long-legged stride, was the maximum safe distance a Morton inmate could walk from his work party and expect to get back alive.

"These walls are not your prison. The desert is your prison. The suns are your prison. The demands of your own bodies are your prison."

Such was Warden Simkin's standard greeting to new inmates, the single warning he allowed for those taking their first enforced breath of desiccated air. They could either listen from the get or—

"—consign your bones to the suns. I will waste none of my officers on seeking wayward inmates."

Gideon listened.

Others had not.

The ring of a rickshaw's bell and a harried shout got him moving, but once he reached the safety of the curb he stopped again, this time to quell a bubbling resentment for the other people rushing, kvetching, laughing, or cursing their way through these rain-polished streets for not knowing what it was to be so constrained.