I had a certain level of sympathy. That was a vending machine for you these days. They might forget what was happening in the middle of a transaction. Sometimes they lied about things, too. Sometimes, they just flat-out stole your money. I didn’t trust any of them.

  I walked up to the fellow and struck up a conversation. “Hey,” I said.

  He glanced at me, startled. “What do you want?” he asked. His voice was a bit like a jockey’s and distinctly unpleasant.

  “Is this machine giving you trouble?”

  “No, it’s nothing. It’s fine,” he said, turning away.

  “Wait a minute,” I said, grabbing him by one skinny arm. “Don’t I know you from someplace?”

  “Certainly not, Centurion. Unhand me.”

  He wasn’t scared, and that was a bit bewildering. The reality was I was at least twice his size and wearing a Legion Varus uniform.

  Sure, Intel men held their own mystique. They were spooks. They knew lots of secrets. But Varus guys like me? We were just plain killers.

  Still, this guy wasn’t afraid, so I let go of him, somewhat impressed. I squinted at him.

  “Do you know a man named Dickson?” I asked.

  His eyes widened a fraction. Those two narrow slits opened, but then they sealed back up again. He returned to his poker face.

  “Never heard of him,” he lied. “I must be going.”

  “No problem,” I said to his back. “The next time I talk to Dickson, I’ll give him your regards.”

  The man stopped and turned around, cocking his head quizzically at me. He took a few steps back toward me. “Are you looking for trouble, Centurion? Because if so, I believe you’ve found it.”

  “Oh,” I laughed. “Now I know you’re a spook, just like Dickson. All you Intel boys have the same M.O.: big swaggering attitudes. You’re all like small-town cops with your first hard-on.”

  As I spoke, the man’s slitty eyes widened to an improbable size. In fact, they almost bulged. I don’t think he was accustomed to being accosted and talked to in my unique fashion.

  “As long as we’re name-dropping, McGill,” he said, finally admitting that he knew who I was. “Oh yes, of course. I know your name—and I know that you know I know your name.”

  “Huh…?” I said, a bit confused by this exchange.

  He sighed. “Ah, yes. That was in your file as well. ‘Likes to play the part of an imbecile but is sharper than he seems.’”

  He read this bit off his tapper and looked up at me, cocking his head again. “I dare say that must be true. No one could have reached the rank of centurion or spotted an Intel man tailing him unless he had at least two brain cells to rub together inside his oversized skull. Therefore, you must be faking idiocy.”

  “That’s right,” I told him. “I’m a genius with bells on.”

  He nodded. “Anyway, now that we understand our roles, I’m here to escort you down deeper into Central. I’ve been charged with making sure you arrive at your destination in a timely manner.”

  “Oh yeah? To what floor?”

  He shrugged. “Minus one hundred and six.”

  It was my turn for my eyes to squint. That wasn’t right. I was supposed to go all the way down to five hundred and something.

  One hundred six below? That deep in the Intel zone. That’s where spooks like this dude ruled. Heading down there could be unsafe for a man like me. It wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill torture center with detention cells. Down there—that’s where people who knew things were questioned.

  “What do you want with me down there?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “Wurtenberger’s office simply informed me they were sending a man down into the region of my personal office. That’s on the one hundred sixth. There’s an approval process to be done before you go any… farther.”

  “Ah,” I said, as if catching on at last. “Okay,” I said, extending my hand to shake. “Since you know who I am, tell me your name.”

  “Brinkley,” he replied. “Agent Brinkley.”

  We shook hands, then we marched off toward the dark tunnels that led to the second elevator lobby—the one that led downward.

  On the way through more security, I kept the air full of harmless banter. Brinkley seemed bored, but at least he wasn’t alarmed.

  He should have been. If he’d known me better, he might have realized I was having some very dark thoughts.

  I didn’t like how things were going. I’m an independent man, and when I embark on an independent mission, I like to remain independent. In fact, few men like Brinkley had survived attempts to follow me pretty much anywhere. One of them was Bevan, a guy I knew and liked—someone I’d met on the Moon years ago. He was such a harmless and clueless hog that I’d let him keep breathing.

  But Brinkley? I wasn’t so sure about him.

  We breezed through the checkpoint, as both of us had perfect credentials. In no time, we boarded an elevator alone and rode down into the abyss.

  “What do you know about Dickson?” Brinkley asked.

  I shrugged. “He joined my legion for a while. You know, I think he drifts through a lot of them. Didn’t he serve for a time in Victrix?”

  “That information isn’t widespread.”

  “I get it. I get it.”

  Around the fiftieth floor below the surface, I decided it was time to make my move. I held out my hand to Brinkley, as if wanting another shake. He took it slowly, looking kind of bewildered.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Just a farewell and a hearty well-met. Give my regards to Dickson next time you see him, okay?”

  “Farewell? I don’t think so,” the smaller man said. He frowned at me with fresh irritation. He lifted his tapper again and read from my file.

  “Boobish, rude, and prone to ham-handed trickery,” he said aloud. “I’m certainly beginning to understand this report. You, sir, are going down with me to floor minus one hundred and six, where—”

  I hit the emergency stop before he could finish his sentence.

  It was the end of the line for Brinkley. I murdered him quickly and efficiently, crashing one fist into his skull and the other at the base of his neck at the same moment. I snapped a number of his vertebrae like crackling twigs.

  This kind of kill wasn’t always as clean as it sounded, of course. It’s a matter of severing the brain from the spinal cord, disconnecting the nervous system itself. You didn’t die from the broken bones themselves, but rather from not being able to draw breath or pump your own heart.

  It’s not the quickest death, but it’s definitely a humane one. I suspect people were relatively numb while they were lying there, suffocating and going through cardiac arrest on the floor.

  With a couple of sweeping motions of my size-thirteen boots, I kicked his body into a corner.

  There were cameras on us. Naturally, I knew that. I was now on a timer to get out of Central before I was caught.

  I’d stopped the elevator at floor minus fifty, which I happened to know was a quiet maintenance level. I’d been down in this region many times due to insubordination and countless punishments, both fair and unfair, so I had the layout of the place in mind.

  I stepped off the elevator, spotting only a single, distant figure. He was wielding a robotic cleaning machine of some kind.

  “Hey,” the janitor shouted at me, “you can’t be down here. This is a maintenance level. Who are you, anyway?”

  I waved to him as if he were an old friend. Tapping the buttons and hopping clear of the elevator car, I sent Brinkley’s corpse all the way down to the very bottom levels that my newfound security clearance could reach. That was somewhere around minus five hundred—which, believe you me, was going to take a long time to reach.

  “Sorry!” I shouted to the janitor, who was now heading my way, wagging a finger and lifting his tapper to make a report. “Sorry! I just got off on the wrong floor.”

  Fortunately, another elevator—there were four of them—stopped soon thereafter. I was allowed to step aboard.

  The janitor was glaring at me and prattling about clearances.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ve got the run of the place.”

  Then the doors closed, and the elevator whisked me away. This time, however, it was going upward rather than downward—back up to the main floor.

  Let me tell you, I was a bit nervous during this long ride. After all, I’d just committed my first murder in months, and the victim had been a stranger from Intel, no less. Would I make it out of the building? Only dumb luck or a nod from the heavens could help me now.

  Why had I struck Brinkley down? You see, the simple fact was I didn’t trust the Intel community. Brinkley had suggested he was there to escort me on Wurtenberger’s behalf, but Wurtenberger had mentioned nothing of the sort. He hadn’t said anything about putting a man on my tail to ensure I’d go anywhere.

  In fact, that wasn’t Wurtenberger’s style. He was a very direct man who thought in straight lines. If he’d wanted to assign me an escort, he’d have probably sent that little butthole-mouthed primus down with me—and in that case, we’d have gone all the way to the bottom.

  I was mistrustful. I didn’t believe anything Brinkley had told me, except possibly that he actually knew Dickson.

  At the main floor, I stepped off the elevator and walked quickly, marching directly toward the exits. I wanted to get out of Central right the hell now.

  As I walked, I stripped off my beret and, with one hand, reached up and ripped the identity patches off my shoulders. This is easily done. In my time, insignia like this were designed to be removable. After all, we died frequently, and when we returned to duty, they issued us fresh uniforms and fresh badges. The uniforms and the insignia had to be interchangeable.

  The nanofiber material had a very firm grip on your shoulder when applied—but it could be removed with a firm hand and a harsh tug. I left on the centurion patch, of course.

  I also pulled on Brinkley’s cap, which I’d stolen. It was an Intel cap.

  Although it wasn’t large enough for my head, I squeezed it onto my skull, anyway. These days, most clothes were smart clothes. They really were one-size-fits-all, as they could alter themselves physically. A given piece of clothing could fit most men of varying dimensions. This was fortunate indeed for me.

  In the lobby area, there was a security alert going. It was silent, but you could tell. A group of four armed men had formed up, and they were looking sternly at everyone flowing in and out of the lobby gates.

  I marched purposefully toward the gathered squad of hogs.

  “Who are you?” The lead hog said, challenging my approach. “Move along.”

  I looked at them, as Brinkley might have—as if they were idiots. “I’m Intel,” I told him, as if this explained everything.

  The head hog frowned at me. He glanced at my lack of patches, noting my rank of centurion and the Intel cap.

  “That’s not—” he complained.

  “Listen, Vet,” I said, “who called you?”

  “Intel…”

  I smiled, and I tapped at my cap, which was so tight it was hurting my skull right now. “That’s right. I’m here to support you. I’m here to identify the culprit and bring him back downstairs.”

  The men frowned at one another. I was lucky, because none of them seemed to have gotten my picture on their tappers—not yet. Intel didn’t like sharing anything about anything if they didn’t have to. Of course, it was only a matter of time before they got desperate.

  “I won’t be any trouble,” I said. “I’ll stay right here.” I moved to the left, standing at the flank of the leftmost man in the line. “I’ll let you know when we see him.”

  They looked at me somewhat grumpily.

  “Eyes front!” I boomed. “He might be here. He might be walking right by. He’s a master of disguise.”

  Confused, they gripped their weapons, staring in every direction.

  Before making my next move, I waited until a particularly attractive young recruit wandered by. She looked as clueless and sweet as Tessie had on her first day, when she’d been tricked into joining Legion Varus.

  Under normal circumstances, my eyes would have been glued to her butt, just like all four of the hogs I was standing alongside. But today was a different day.

  Instead of gawking, I put a big hand on the leftmost hog’s shoulder and reached down with my other hand, popping the pin out of his plasma grenade. He only had one, but I was surprised they’d allowed him to have any explosives at all.

  Unfortunately, I had to give it a hard tug. He was a veteran. He knew what he was doing, and he’d bent the pin so it wouldn’t slip out too easily.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  “Look! There he is!” I said, pointing at a random guy with big teeth and curls. My chosen victim was tall at least, and I guess in another universe, someone could have been convinced he was a McGill.

  The hogs were fooled. They rushed forward as a group to arrest the hapless guy, who was backing up, lifting his hands and facing a circle of carbine muzzles.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he was saying. “Hey, dude, wait!” he said, pointing at the man on the left.

  The hogs ignored him. One of them reached out, grabbed his wrist, and clamped a gravity cuff on it.

  But then, all of them noticed what the teeth-and-curls victim I’d fingered was blabbing about. He was pointing to the glowing, radiating, blue-flashing light of the plasma grenade on the hog veteran’s belt. It must have been set for the default: a long fuse with a slow burn.

  Desperate, they began to scatter. They tried to back away, to run. The guy with the grenade on his belt fought to get it off, but there really wasn’t time.

  A moment later, all of them went up in a blue glare, along with a few startled passersby.

  I began shouting random things about aliens and terrorists. In the confusion, I fled the building with a hundred others. We headed for the emergency exits in a panic.

  I was really screaming. My mouth was wide open, my lips blubbery. Spittle flew as if I was truly terrified.

  The crowd hit the panic-bars, and a moment later sunshine hit my face.

  Soon after, most of the others stopped, as the disturbance seemed to have dissipated. Most turned back, bewildered. But I kept right on running.

  Unlike them, I never bothered to turn. I never bothered to pause. I simply raced off into the city and disappeared.

  -5-

  Marching down the streets of Central City, I snatched a coat off a drunk and stuffed some credits into his hands when he woke up and started complaining. It wasn’t much of a disguise, and it was flat-out filthy, but it would have to do.

  I don’t mind telling you I was seriously worried about my new status as a fugitive. Of course, I’d been a fugitive many times before, but the circumstances were different this time. Instead of doing something stupid on my own, for my own goofy purposes, I’d been tricked somehow into doing someone else’s dirty work.

  And for what? The potential future benefit of intimacy with Galina? Well… that wasn’t all of it. I’d agreed to help her because she was an old friend.

  Still, on the face of it, I’d been shit-off crazy to get involved at all. Sure, she’d asked me nicely. But she’d also managed to run-off Tessie just by calling. Now, here I was on the edge of being disappeared—just like Drusus.

  Overall, I wasn’t totally sure how I’d gotten into this sad predicament. I had to chalk it up to persistent ignorance and my pridefully stubborn nature.

  Trying to think clearly, I paused in an alleyway and took stock of things. No one seemed to be following me—not even a drone. That was something, at least. But it was only a matter of time.

  I decided it was time to contact Galina. I tapped away at my tapper fruitlessly. She wasn’t accepting calls. In fact, there was no way to locate her.

  “Girl…” I muttered, “goddamn it…”

  It was as if she didn’t exist, as if she wasn’t even on Earth—but I knew that was nonsense. She’d called me just this morning. I thought about it and soon came up with a way to flush her out into the open.

  I sent a three-word message to her inbox instead of using the instant-messaging service. I knew my note would linger until she read it—and I knew she eventually would.

  Galina was the kind of woman who got curious about things, and couldn’t leave them be—not even when it was best to do so.

  After that, I searched for a dive bar. That took me several long blocks of walking, as the area around Central was all pretty upscale these days.

  I found what I was looking for in the old alien sector—the Gray Sector, we used to call it, although that was considered a slur these days.

  Some humans lived here now, not just Cephalopods, Blood-Worlders, Saurians, and the like. So, it wasn’t all that odd when I stepped into the dingy bar, ordered my first drink of the day, and a big plate of cheese fries to go with it.

  I munched on the fries, drank my beer, and pondered how likely it was that I’d make it out of this city without being arrested. I’d killed a slew of people, which tended to piss off law enforcement anywhere you went.

  Now, sure, I was out of Central itself, but I was still in the most photographed, surveilled, and AI-swept city on the planet. No city on Earth was less secure for a man like me. Naturally, I’d ditched the stolen cap from Brinkley, torn off my insignia again, and swapped my uniform for a bum’s raincoat. The coat was unseasonable, but I didn’t care. It allowed me to hide everything except my sheer size as I huddled in the bar, hoping for the best.

  About half my plate of fries and my third beer were gone when my tapper buzzed. I glanced at it. The message read: “This had better be for real, McGill.”

  That made me smile. My ploy had worked.

  The three words I’d sent to Galina had been: “I found him.”

  That’s all I’d sent. Nothing else.

  One of the keys to communicating with people who are not in a communicative mood was to give them something they wanted—but not all of it.

  Sure enough, her curiosity had gotten the better of her in about ten minutes. She’d emerged from hiding and sent me a message in return. She’d probably done so using a myriad of protective security measures—private network settings, with proxy bots set up all over the place. Maybe she’d even taken extreme measures, like deep-linking a message to another planet and then bouncing it back to Earth. Such messages were untraceable in terms of their point of origin.