She didn’t even blink. “Done. Five hundred it is . . . with a one-thousand bonus after he’s buried.”

  A bonus! It was as if I had died and gone to heaven. She stood and we left together. That’s when I noticed the nicely dressed man with the hard eyes. He was staring at us in a predatory sort of way.

  Not too surprising, I thought to myself. Cleopatra Jones is a handsome woman, not to mention a wealthy one, and I’d stare too.

  Her security detail was waiting outside. There were two men and a woman. They had the sleek, well-fed appearance of family pets. They had it good and wanted to keep it that way. I was entitled to a weapons permit because of my military service. They were too damned young so there’s no telling where they got theirs. I could sense their hostility.

  “Here’s everything you’ll need,” Jones said, slipping a disk into my hand. “Instructions, release forms, limited power of attorney, contact numbers, the whole nine yards. Questions?”

  I had the horrible feeling that a normal person would ask questions, lots of questions, but shook my head. “No, ma’am.”

  She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. I could feel the heat of her fingers long after they left my arm. “Thanks, Max. What would I do without you?” Then she was gone.

  I returned to my apartment to check voice mail (nothing, as usual), pick up an extra set of clothes (all dirty), and print documents off the disk.

  Everything I needed, including the clothes, shaving kit, candy bars, ammo for the Super, and some other odds and ends, all went into the small duffel bag.

  Once that was accomplished I stepped out into the hall, checked the door, and headed for work.

  I don’t know how many people die in my particular urboplex every day but there must be thousands of them.

  Given the fact that most of the residents are day workers, and have none of the benefits accorded to the corpies, they tend to wear out by the time they reach sixty or so.

  Menials, homeless people, and professional criminals are lucky to hit thirty and most never see that.

  But no matter who they are, or how much money they have, everybody leaves the same way.

  It starts with a call from a relative, the police, or some shoes hung on the door. Nobody’s sure where the shoe tradition came from but everyone knows what it means: We have a body inside—please come and get it.

  Most droids have to be on the lookout for Jackers, but not the Takers. The Takers are easy to spot. . . . Their plastic faces are frozen into expressions of sadness, their costumes are unrelievedly black, and they move with a slow, nearly ponderous dignity.

  Each machine pulls a cart capable of transporting two bodies, one stacked over the other. Nobody messes with them—nobody. Some pretty weird diseases sweep through the plex from time to time and the Jackers stay clear.

  Once loaded, the carts are taken to the Level 25 morgue and held for transfer. The death train arrives once a week. After being loaded it winds through a maze of underground tunnels, breaks the surface somewhere beyond the urboplex, and heads for North Dakota.

  Though controversial at first, especially to those who wanted to live there, the concept of turning the entire area into a gigantic graveyard has been enormously successful. The bodies have to go somewhere, and, like it or not, North Dakota was available.

  We’ve all seen the footage. Mile after gently rolling mile of tombs, headstones, and cheap aluminum markers. More than twenty-five thousand square miles of them and still growing!

  Maybe that’s what Earth will become . . . a graveyard for the race to which it gave life.

  That’s where Jerimiah Jones had been sent the first time . . . and that’s where he would go again.

  I stepped off the escalator on Level 25, checked my back trail more from habit than anything else, and hit the jackpot. There he was, the man last seen ogling my client back at the Celestriala, now following me. I looked a second time and he was gone. Lost in the crowd.

  But why? It wasn’t as if I had a live client to protect. No, my man was dead, twice dead if it came to that, and supposed to stay that way. Assassins seemed not only unlikely but redundant.

  That left Cleopatra Jones and her relatives. Maybe the tail belonged to them, an insurance policy of sorts, hired to keep an eye on me.

  The theory made sense. So much sense that I let the matter drop.

  Though somewhat ghoulish, the skull-and-crossbones icons were unmistakable and led me straight to the morgue. Like its brother and sister facilities located all around the world, the urboplex is so crowded you can’t take a dump without standing in line. That being the case, there were plenty of people waiting to identify a body, say a last good-bye, or pay the inevitable death tax.

  It took the better part of an hour to wait through the line and approach the open window. Rather than the droid I expected to see, there was a real live human being. She shifted an enormous wad of pink chewing gum from one cheek to the other. Her eyes were glued to my skull plate. “Yeah? Whaddya want?”

  “I’m here to claim a body,” I said with all the dignity I could muster. “And accompany said body to the North American Interment Center.”

  The clerk was just about to blow me off when I shoved a one-inch stack of perfectly executed forms under the window. I could have given her the disk, but was reluctant to part with it, and knew paper was acceptable.

  For some strange reason the crats love paper. Maybe it’s because you can’t trust the electronic stuff. Files get erased, hackers alter them, and shit happens. That’s why they print stuff down and squirrel it away. They like to touch it, sort it, and stamp it. This woman was no exception. She took what I submitted, scrutinized each page, and looked suitably impressed. “You’re green to go. Through that door.” Her nod pointed the way.

  I was glad to hear it. The Jones family might have understood had old man Jones seen fit to get up and leave prior to my arrival but it didn’t seem likely. I opened the door, stepped through, and heard it lock behind me.

  The clerk handed me a wand, jerked a thumb over her shoulder, and deleted me from her life.

  The wand tugged and I followed. First through an office filled with crats, all of whom appeared to be on break, then through a door marked “exit,” but which really served as an entry to a now defunct mass transit system.

  Constructed right after the turn of the century, it had been advertised as the transportation system of the future.

  I knew because some badly eroded holo-posters continued to creep across the tilework walls, along with the usual collection of tiresome graffiti, 3-D advertising, and public service announcements.

  My body heat triggered one of them and it sputtered into life. It was an interactive model programed to make the viewer more comfortable by keying off their appearance. The woman looked silly wearing a skull plate.

  “Hello, citizen! And welcome to the future. As you move onto the escalator ahead, be sure to hold the handrail, and . . .”

  I never learned the other thing I was supposed to do because sparks flew and the video snapped to black.

  The escalator ran smoothly enough, but was kinda spooky due to the fact that it was wide enough to accommodate six people standing abreast, and I was the only person in sight.

  Not too common in the overcrowded urboplex and a fairly good indication of how many people (those having a pulse) chose to ride the death train. Me.

  The real subways are deeper now, down where my neighbors and I live, hauling our butts from one dead end to another.

  My boots made a hollow clacking sound as I strode the length of the once busy concourse, followed the wand to the right, and entered the one-time shopping mall.

  The sign said “morgue” in letters two feet tall, but there was no mistaking the alcoves and what they had been used for.

  But the brightly lit signs, busy fast-vendors, and net kiosks of yesteryear were gone, replaced by stacks of boxed bodies, the harsh odor of chemicals, and the chill of heavy-duty air-conditioning. There was a large box with two wands at the bottom. I added mine to the pile.

  “Can I help you?”

  The voice came from somewhere behind me and my hand darted toward the .38 Super.

  I turned to discover that what I had dismissed as some sort of specialized forklift was actually an android. It had rubber-clad wheels, a lot of safety decals, and a pair of forklift arms.

  “Yes, I’m here to escort a body to North Dakota.”

  “Well, aren’t you the lucky one?” the robot asked sarcastically. “And which of the dear departed were you planning to hold hands with?”

  “Citizen Jerimiah Jones.”

  A stalk-mounted eye whirred as it looked me over. “You got an RG-74821-4?”

  “I think so,” I replied, producing my somewhat thinner wad of forms.

  “No frigging way,” the machine replied as it backed away. “Paper isn’t going to work. . . . I’m a machine, for God’s sake.”

  “How ’bout a disk?” I asked soothingly, pulling the object in question out of my pocket.

  The droid stopped. “You got a disk? Why didn’t you say so in the first place. Drop it in.”

  A servo whined as a box was extruded from the robot’s head. I dropped the disk into the slot and watched the object disappear. What if it never came back?

  But my fears were groundless. The disk reappeared and I was able to snatch it back before the machine trundled away. “You can jump on the back if you want . . . or just run like hell.”

  I chose to ride on the back. The robot whirred down an aisle, turned into a canyon of carefully stacked cardboard coffins, and jerked to an unexpected halt. “J. J. oughtta be right about here . . . eighth from the bottom.”

  The forklift’s arms whirred upward, stabbed forward, and pulled a box out of the rack. It looked identical to all the rest. I frowned and consulted the forms.

  “Are you sure that’s the correct body? The form calls for an oak casket with brass fittings and a duralast finish.”

  “Sure,” the robot sneered, “and my specs call for chromed bumpers and a candy apple red paint job. Get real, chrome dome. The crats took the box and sold it to the scrappers. You got any idea what genuine oak is worth these days? If you could find some?”

  “Couple thousand a running foot?”

  “Bingo, big boy, so cardboard it is. Unless you’d like to file an RG-74823-5, only to have it reviewed by the same people who stole the coffin, and eventually denied. After a year or so.”

  I thought about the nature of my orders, and my urgent need for funds, and came to the logical conclusion. “Insula norgle de pop.”

  “Exactly what I thought you’d say,” the robot replied. “Hold on, here we go.”

  The droid returned the same way it had come, took a right, and followed the downward sloping ramp. It had once been used by pedestrians, but that was a long time ago, and the floor was marred by black skid marks.

  The ramp emptied out onto a long narrow platform. Three freight cars were visible . . . their doors gaped open.

  “She’s just about loaded,” the machine said cheerfully, “so you won’t have to wait for long. That’s important, ’cause there’s some real funny folks hangin’ out down here . . . and you don’t want to meet ’em.”

  I looked back over my shoulder. “How funny are they?”

  “Let’s just say that there’s a market for meat . . . and who’s to say where all of it comes from?”

  I remembered the steak I had enjoyed, swallowed the sudden rush of nausea, and wished I were somewhere else. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “Hey, think nothing of it,” the droid said cheerfully, bumping over a steel bridge. “I like humans who know how to treat a machine and show up with the right forms.

  “There, I’ll put J. J. right on top, and next to the door. That way he’ll be the first one off when you reach North Dakota.”

  I climbed down, gave the machine a pat on the cowling, and stood to one side. “Thanks, I think.”

  “Anytime,” the droid replied. “I’ll keep a sensor peeled for your body . . . and take good care of it.”

  On that cheery note the machine backed up, turned, and trundled away. I was left in a boxcar packed with bodies, the sweet, slightly corrupt odor of death, and some time on my hands.

  Precise though they usually are, machines have no sense for the subjective aspects of time, like the way it drags when you’re sitting on something everybody refers to as the “death train.” So, when the android said I wouldn’t have long to wait, there was no way to know what that would mean.

  The next couple of hours passed slowly. The train jerked forward from time to time so additional bodies could be loaded, and the once elegant platform was replaced by a nondescript wall.

  I didn’t miss the platform so much as I missed the lights that went with it. It was dark beyond—dark and gloomy.

  I heard footsteps once—two sets that passed over my head. Crew members? Heading for whatever pulled the train? Or meat jackers? Looking for prime rib? I checked the .38, resolved to keep my back to the wall, and used a coffin for a couch. The minutes dragged, my eyes grew heavy, and sleep wrapped my mind.

  I awoke to complete darkness, feared I was dead, and cursed my own stupidity. Who but me would fall asleep in a boxcar packed with dead bodies? Nobody you’d want to hire, that’s for sure.

  Well, I was alive anyway, and, judging from the gentle side-to-side motion of the freight car, on my way to North Dakota. But it was dark, real dark, and I couldn’t see. I felt a momentary sense of panic and forced the emotion away.

  I fumbled for the bag, stuck my hand inside, and felt for the flashlight. It was hard and cold.

  The tube threw a circle of yellow light onto the now closed door and wobbled across the cardboard coffins.

  What about Jones? Was he okay? Meaning dead?

  Slowly, reluctantly, I approached his box, fumbled with the release tabs, and opened the lid.

  The light spilled over a handsome craggy face. The old man had white hair, a high forehead, bushy brows, a cleaver-shaped nose, and a determined mouth. True, his skin did seem a little waxy, but the rest looked fine.

  Hell, let’s face it, Jerimiah Jones looked a helluva lot better than I did, and he’d been dead for weeks now. Well, mostly dead, with time off for climbing out of graves.

  I hesitated, made the decision to go for it, and placed my fingers on his jugular. Nothing. Good.

  Satisfied that everything was under control I resealed the coffin, reclaimed my “couch,” and killed the light. Not because I wanted to, but because the power pack wouldn’t last forever, and I hadn’t been smart enough to pack a replacement.

  The darkness closed around me, the train made the same clickety-clack sounds they’ve been making for more than a hundred years now, and my watch glowed green.

  If I’d been sleep earlier, I sure as hell should have been sleepy then, but was wide awake.

  There were some candy bars in my bag so I took one out and consumed it. That’s when the noises started, or, and this is more likely, I began to notice them.

  There was a clacking sound, as someone’s teeth chattered to the rhythms of the train, a sigh, as someone passed a prodigious amount of gas, and the steady beep, beep, beep as a wrist term sought to remind its owner of an extremely important appointment.

  The candy bar suddenly lost its appeal. I used the light to check my surroundings, was reassured to see that nobody was up strolling around, and switched it off.

  I sort of “night” dreamed after that, remembered the way things had been, and wondered if any of it was true.

  Then, after thirty minutes or so, the train seemed to slow, paused, and started up again.

  I didn’t think anything of it at first, until footsteps rang on the metal above, the door started to rattle, and a coffin seemed to explode.

  I hit the light, pulled the .38, and fired two bullets.

  I understand there were some naive types, back before androids became an everyday reality, who believed that humans would never be so stupid as to invent killer robots.

  I don’t think they were paying attention. Any race that would create then use nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons would love homicidal machinery, and this sucker was a beaut.

  The machine had been gussied up to look like a halfrotted corpse, a ploy that would have been a lot more effective in some other context, and didn’t scare me. What did frighten me however were the two 9mm semiautos clutched in the droid’s plasti-flesh hands.

  The robot managed to get one round off before my slugs punched a couple of holes through its chest.

  Unaware of the fact that it was dead, the droid took two steps in my direction.

  The next pair of bullets punched holes through the robot’s head, pushed the machine over backwards, and triggered an avalanche. One of the bodies flew out of her coffin and slid to the floor. Rigor mortis had set in and she was stiff as a board.

  Sparks jetted down into the boxcar as a drill bit dipped through the ceiling, whined, and disappeared.

  I hit the release button, caught the partially expended clip, and dropped it into a pocket. The replacement mag clicked as it locked into place.

  “Maxon? We know you’re in there.”

  Some sort of microphone-speaker thing had been dropped through the hole. It swayed from one side to the other. I put a slug into whatever it was and felt proud of my marksmanship. The object seemed none the worse for wear.

  “Don’t be stupid, Maxon. Why die for someone who’s already dead?”

  It was a damned good question. Why indeed? The only trouble was that it stimulated another: Why kill someone (me) in order to steal a dead body? Unless it possessed more than caloric value.

  Sparks shot in through the door lock. I extinguished the light, grabbed the stiff by her armpits, and positioned her in front of my couch. I needed time—and conversation was the most obvious way to get it.

  “Good point. . . . What’s this all about? There are easier ways to jack some meat. Try the next car back.”