War Dance

FOUR: XAYNE - 3

The pickup point was an alley behind a chop shop not far off. Ten minutes before the appointed pickup time, we headed there and, after looking all ways for anything out of the ordinary, headed into the gloom. Walls were tight. Water dripped from crap guttering into stagnant puddles. This wasn't a nice place for a catchup.

Rainbow and her associate weren't there yet, as per her plan.

'Late," Ashrore hissed. 'Why are they late?'

I fumbled for an excuse. 'We are early. And maybe they're waiting for us to get in here before they do. Probably watching us right now, making sure we're alone.'

Informing the police and getting them on side had been briefly discussed before being swiftly dismissed. Double-crossing this lot wasn't a great plan at any time, no matter how much we hated their guts for trying to kill us at any opportunity.

So we waited and waited. We hung out in the shadows. Whistled scraps of songs. Scrolled through the newscreens on our Halo Cores. Watched as people passed by the entrance, jumped with nerves as people stuck their eyeballs in at the other end. One dishevelled man stumbled down, obviously looking for his regular hiding spot, only to grumble to himself upon finding we were already there. "Don't take our places," he said vaguely to us but more for himself. "Isn't fair, you know, stealing our places. Haven't got many as it is, you know."

Five minutes later I wondered if they were actually going to show. After that thought had passed through my head, a second followed it up, and I wondered if someone had already ambushed Rainbow and her accomplice. They'd know we were here, if that was the case, and we were in exactly the worst place possible; a shooting gallery.

We checked the time. Three minutes past the agreed-upon time.

'Two more and we leave,' Ashrore announced. 'Not hanging around here any longer than I have to.'

'I hear that. Let's just go now.'

There must be an unwritten universal rule about saying things like that, because as soon as you do, they happen. Someone's law, probably that mysterious entity known as 'sod'. The alternate-dimensional god of coincidences apparently has a hard-on for screwing with me. As soon as I finished speaking, Rainbow and her companion strolled into the alleyway from the other side.

Rainbow had an identical bag to ours, only it hung down further, weighted. No prizes for guessing that it was that we were going to be switching.

If anyone had said to me a few years ago that they believed in a sixth sense, a feeling that there was something else beyond the tangential processes of our understanding, I would have laughed in their face. Sure, certain species seem to respond to stimuli that might seem psychic on the outside, but that's just how they've evolved. Human beings, for example, have evolved to be deeply suspicious of almost anything that moves, and tend to shoot without giving much thought to exactly why. When pressed on that point, we don't have much of an answer.

When the Red Rose duo got within ten paces of us, ready to make the switch without much fuss, I got that suspicious feeling inside me. It was like a nest of snakes curling up in the pit of my stomach, only one of them was venomous and had decided to bite into my intestine. I felt dread, dread distilled down into a distinct chemical cocktail, felt it seep into my bloodstream and make its way around my body. Something was wrong. Couldn't have told you what it was, but I knew.

The world moved in slow-motion. A complete cliché, but that's what happened. Ashrore stepped forward, played with the strap of her bag, ready for it to slide off with greater ease. I saw Rainbow's friend in silhouette, stood just behind her in the dark. I heard a siren blare a street down. I heard the plink of a drop of water splash on the ground.

I heard it all and felt it all and only knew that something bad was going to happen.

But my mouth was frozen, locked in place by some unseen force. Psychiatrists would probably say it was some conditioning since childhood not to speak out for fear of being scolded by a parent or teacher. Biologists would claim an evolutionary reason; if we're quiet, no threat can find us.

In reality, it was neither of those reasons. I couldn't speak because I was fucking scared.

Ashrore and Rainbow slung their bags off their shoulders. One handed one over to the other, with a quick peek inside.

Something glinted in the corner of my vision behind the two Red Rose girls. It could have been anything. Headlight sweeping off a window, maybe. But I knew. I knew because of the swirling pit of snakes in my stomach.

"Down!" I yelled.

Three of us were quick enough to the floor. The gunshot burned a hole through Rainbow's friend, and the sound hit our ears later. The three of us scrabbled for cover, threw ourselves against the sides of the alleyway. The poor girl, now with a hole through her face, spluttered in the final spasms of bodily reflexes, then collapsed face-down into the cold.

We ran for the end of the alleyway as a second shot hit our heels. It knocked Ashrore sideways and she tripped. Her bag spilled out.

I wasn't sure if it was the one with the artefact in or not, had been too busy being terrified to know if the switch had been made, but Ashrore crawled towards it.

The streets around us screamed and Rainbow pulled me into the crowds as Ashrore reached out for the bag. "Go to run," she hissed.

I tried to wrench my arm free to go back for Ashrore, but bodies obscured my view. Over the sounds of shouting and screaming, a siren coming closer in the distance, I heard a third shot. I didn't know if it was from the sniper, or Ashrore firing back, or someone somewhere else. Could have been a cop involved in a separate brawl. The point was I didn't.

Too dangerous to go back, so we ran, two sides of the divide, for our lives.