Parlour Games
"Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to
the Fly,
"'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things to show you when you are there."
"Oh no, no," said the Fly, "to ask me is in vain;
For who goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again."
Thorne had done his fair share of rep retirements for Rep-Detect
during his years working for them and any number of 'special assignments'
since he'd left the force. And he was still alive. Some of those
assignments had earned him a reputation as a man who would get a
job done with no complications. And yet ... something stank about
this job.
Rule number one: Trust nobody. He'd known Alexia a long time; could
almost consider her a friend. Well, as close as anyone got to being
a friend in this stinking business. He'd done a variety of jobs
for her and everything had always been exactly as specified. He
didn't want to believe she wasn't being straight with him. And yet
the hackles on the back of his neck were telling him something was
different this time. Unfortunately in this business, everyone eventually
tries to sell you out.
"A crema job. No questions. I think not!" he muttered
to himself. The cheque was big - irresistible - but too much. Corps
only paid that sort of money to freelancers when they expected to
get it back somehow. The Czech beer started to taste rank in his
mouth.
Staying in a public place for any length of time was not Thorne's
style, so he quickly shuffled the dossiers back into the guts of
the V-K case and snapped the catches shut. Grabbing the steel handle
he stood slowly and headed to the exit. Just another guy going about
his business, a mastery of orchestrated blandness. It did not escape
his attention that one of the bartenders looked at him fractionally
too long as he left.
Thorne stopped in the lobby to light another Boyard. He reflected
that back when he was learning the ropes, smoking in public places
was strictly forbidden in L.A. Now the air was so toxic nobody even
noticed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the bartender,
now in buttoned-up black trench coat, was lurking, ready to follow
him. Thorne ambled with studied ordariness past the elevators to
the stairwell door that was partially obscured by a fake potted
tree. The bartender dutifully followed. Bartender? Corporate agent
more like. Or maybe cop. Perhaps both.
Thorne slipped through the door. As soon as he was out of sight
of anyone in the lobby, he transformed from the shambling, slightly
hunched anybody and bounded up the stairs with panther-like grace.
He was through the door on the floor above before the Corp dick
made it into the stairwell. Thorne imagined his blank look turning
to panic when faced with the deserted staircase. "Bet he'll
catch hell from his superiors when he tells them he lost his mark
in less than 30 seconds!"
He moved swiftly now out to the spinner parking area. The thick
air breathed into the edges of the building - not nearly as bad
as at street level, but foul nonetheless. Dark spinner shapes etched
outlines against the blackness of the night. Thorne identified the
police vehicles, the Ferraris of the jet setters, and the dull black
oblongs belonging to so-called 'officials'. He made his way through
the shadows to a plain, dull grey spinner - one of the early police
jobs that had become obsolete. He'd lied to Alexia about not owning
a spinner - a habit, born out of his instinct for survival. Trust
nobody.
With elegant efficiency, he was already firing the engines before
the door had fully closed. Focused thrust pushed Thorne's spinner
into the empty night sky. Why have him tailed at all? He didn't
have time to ponder that now. Thorne turned his thoughts to the
assignment he'd accepted from Omni Biogenics. Three doppelganger
replicants at Tyrell. High positions and unnoticed? And what interest
did Omni have in them being 'cleaned'. First priority was to get
the cheque paid into a bank account, and immediately shift the money
elsewhere. He could worry about the implications of his assignment
later ... and how it tied in with what Sandeman had told him.
Options
Option 1 - Alan Thorne pays
it in
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Date: 2002-06-02 01:10
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