ABC - Penance
Chapter 20

Alvarez Apartment, South Bank District

January 16th V27 (2047AD)

Dawn was peeking over the horizon in the east as I pulled into the basement parking lot. I was damned tired, my hip was aching and I was hungry enough to eat the crotch out of a dead cow.

I parked my bike in the usual bay and hooked it up to the wall mounted recharger. She still had plenty of juice in the batteries, but keeping them topped up was an old habit. With an affectionate pat on the seat I strode towards the elevator at the back of the basement, passing the small electric sedans and bikes of the other residents.

“Hi, Lou!” a cheery voice called out to me and I turned in their direction. Dianne Somersby, who lived on the floor beneath mine in 2-C, was getting ready to head off to work on her electric scooter. It was a dark, lustrous hue like British Racing Green, either an homage to her country of birth or perhaps she just liked the colour.

“Hi, Di!” I replied, my face cracking into a smile despite my weariness. She naturally brought out the smile in everyone she met, one of those perpetually cheerful people you either adored on sight or wanted to mow down with a truck. I was in the former camp, and not just because she was a good looking woman. She also made a great coffee and toasted sandwich in her tiny coffee shop a few blocks over.

“You just getting in, Lou?” she asked me genially. As wonderful a human being she might be, she always got my name wrong. I had given up trying to correct her, since it felt akin to abusing a small adorable puppy.

“Yeah” I agreed. “You heading out to work, Di?”

“Yup” she smiled at me. “I have to make sure I am open for all the early morning workers” We chatted a little longer about inconsequential things until she checked her watch and told me she had to get a move on. I was relieved because I was dead on my feet and my bed was calling me from four floors up.

“Oh, before I forget” Di suddenly called out. She had her helmet on and lifted the visor to speak to me. “I was checking my letterbox this morning as I came downstairs. There was a man at the front door, asking after you”

“Huh?” I answered. “Did he say who he was?”

“Now you mention it, I never got his name” she pondered. “He was tall with a really strange hair style though. One side of his head was shaved and the other side hung down in a long wave of hair. He was quite the looker so I wondered if he was from your father’s gym”

My insides had gone cold, although my pulse and breathing had accelerated. I had to stop myself from grabbing Di and shaking her to get more information. With a deliberate attempt to calm myself, I asked her if she knew where was right now.

“He left, heading up the street towards the Canal” Di answered easily. “Do you know him?”

I was sorely tempted to tell her about Victor, but the truth was if she stayed ignorant it was probably her best chance of staying out of his path. He would gobble up a tasty morsel like her without a second’s hesitation.

“He’s someone I knew from my fighting days” I lied instead. “He looks nice but he’s a bit of a dick towards the ladies if you know what I mean”

“Ahh” she replied. “The pretty ones are always trouble, aren’t they?” She laughed and turned on her scooter engine, then with a final wave rode out of the basement and up the access ramp to street level.

I hit the emergency stairs at a run, keying them open with my smart card and dashing to the ground floor lobby. The entrance area was empty and the street front showed the usual early morning traffic beyond the glass doors. Next to the lobby doors were our mailboxes, arrayed and labelled in rows.

They were accessible from the street for mail and parcel deliveries, with locked hatches on the inside for residents to get their post. I opened mine with my smart key and saw a collection of local flyers for restaurants and services. I grabbed them in a bundle and was about to toss them in the recycler when a plain white sheet of paper caught my eye.

I drew it out of the other papers with two fingers, dropping the flyers into the waiting chute. Then I unfolded the solitary piece of white paper. Written inside was a short message:

“Found you”

It was signed with a single capital V.

I folded it up and threw it into the recycler, then walked slowly and a little unsteadily to the elevator. I summoned the car to me, all the while watching the outside street through the front doors.

“Fuck” I said rather eloquently I thought.

=====

“When did you get home?” demanded Minke, rousing me from a deep slumber on the couch. I had Clancy’s sleeping bag draped over me and was still in my uniform pants and sports bra. I would have fallen asleep in my shirt too but the armour vest I had strapped underneath was not comfortable so I had stripped it off.

“What time is it now?” I mumbled in reply, shielding my eyes from the overhead light.

“Just after noon” she answered and sat on the coffee table facing me. I opened my eyes into narrow slits and could see my new room mate was wearing striped panties and one of my old shirts. Her hair was a nest of tangles so I guessed she had only just gotten up herself.

“That means I have had about five hours asleep” I told her with a big, jaw cracking yawn. “What’s your excuse?”

“I waited up until three AM for you” Minke answered a little sulkily. “I was worried about you”

“Oh” I said. “Sorry, I should have called you and let you know it was going to be an all-nighter. The interview turned into a robot revolution so it took some time to square everything away”

“That’s fine, Luisa” she conceded. “I am just glad you came home Okay”

“Yeah, me too” I agreed. I stood up, leaving the sleeping bag in a bundle on the couch. Minke immediately moved into the spot I had vacated, pulling the still warm bag around herself.

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be getting up now as well?” I wanted to know.

“But I like your warmth, Luisa” she smiled at me, grinning like a Cheshire Cat from within the enveloping sleeping bag.

“I don’t have warmth, Minke” I told her. “It’s the fires of Hell that burn inside of me. Helps make me appear human”

“You are such a liar” she scolded me mildly, still remaining firmly seated.

“That is very true” I answered her. “I am going to have a shower because I reek of sweat and blood. How about making me some breakfast while I am getting clean?”

“It’s lunchtime, Luisa” she corrected me.

“Fine. Make me lunch”

=====

Lunch was instant Ramen noodles, curry flavour, with an egg cracked into the warm broth and stirred. Minke had added some freshly diced chilli on top, about half of what she had piled onto her own.

I sat on the couch beside Minke in my underwear and spooned most of the chilli into her bowl. There was enough trauma going on in my body without adding a burning ring of fire, if you know what I mean.

We slurped our noodles in companionable silence, broken only by the wet smacking sound of ramen being ingested. I had fished a beer out of the refrigerator for me and a Screaming Red soda for Minke. It was one of a small stash of cans I had left from when my kids had stayed with me and I made a mental note to buy more. I wanted the girl to feel like she belonged here, not as a guest but as a room-mate.

Once we had finished eating, I took my bowl and Minke’s and put them in the sink to soak for a bit. It was standing there, rinsing the last remnants of yellowed sauce from the bowls that I came to a decision.

“Minke, do you know how to shoot a pistol?” I asked her without turning around.

“Yeah, Bandit used to let me try out his gun sometimes shooting at empty cans” she answered, curious about why I had asked. “It was an old style gun, you remember it, with big bullets that made the cans fly up into the air when I hit one”

I remembered that gun all too well. Bandit had threatened me with it and Sam had shot me in the chest using the same old-fashioned monster. My mesh vest still had the imprint of the lead slug over my heart.

“Good” I replied and left the room, heading into the bedroom. I noticed Minke had left the bed unmade so I tut-tutted to myself as I rooted around underneath. The heavy case slid out from under the bed frame with a concerted tug, the moulded plastic shell inlaid with a carbon-fibre weave.

The code to unlock the case was my mother’s date of birth from the old country, not too original but something I could remember even half asleep in the middle of the night. I swung the lid open to reveal my horde of treasures.

Amongst the items it contained were a pair of charged EMP grenades, two standard Flechette bombs and an unregistered PCD and control unit. Laid on top was what I was after – the slimline pistol I had taken from the Arena owner only a few short days ago. I took it out and locked the case once more, sliding it back under the bed.

“Is that for me?” Minke asked from the doorway. I had not heard her come to the door, proving once again she was light on her feet.

“Uh-huh” I agreed and climbed back to my feet. “Let’s go into the living room and I’ll show you the basics”

Minke was intrigued so she stepped out of the door and went to the sofa. She sat like an attentive school kid so I stood on the other side of the coffee table and adopted my best teacher’s voice.

“Okay Minke, this is a slimline Automatic Pistol made by Aus-Star Industries here in the Zone” I began. “It’s a common design made by 3D printers with a body formed from hardened plastics. Only the barrel and firing bin have metal bonded into them for extra strength”

I slid out the magazine and showed it to her eager eyes.

“The magazine holds up to twenty rounds but it is recommended to load no more than eighteen if you don’t want to damage the internal springs. The bullets are Five millimetre Caseless rounds, unlike that antique Bandit used to shoot. That means the entire round is fired from the barrel, with the propellant inside the plastic outer casing”

Minke’s eyes were starting to glaze over so I decided to move to less technical terms.

“These pistols are designed to be fired left or right handed, with minimal recoil and a lot of punch for their size. One standard round from these types of guns is about the same as an older nine millimetre round”

I showed Minke the various aspects of the pistol after that, how to return the magazine to the pistol and cycle a fresh round. We covered making the weapon safe and the best firing stances, assuming you had the time and space to adopt one.

“The biggest advantage of these pistols is their concealability” I concluded. “You can hide them on your body or in a pocket really easily. Any questions?”

“Only two, Luisa” Minke replied from her seat on the couch. “One, why did you have to show me all that in your underwear?”

“What?” I answered then looked down at myself. I had forgotten to get dressed after my shower, distracted by lunch and then gun talk. “Okay, sorry about that. What was question number two?”

“Is this because Victor has found us?”

Well, fuck I thought to myself and contemplated spinning her a lie.

“Yeah” I told her truthfully.

“Okay” Minke replied evenly. “So are the rounds in that gun any good against armour vests?”

“Nope” I answered in the same even tone. “You can slow him down with body shots, but aim for the head if you can”

“Copy that” she told me and held her hand out for the weapon. I leaned forward and laid it in her palm. Before I let go, she laid her other hand over the top of mine, sandwiching my hand and the pistol between them.

“Thanks for telling me the truth, Luisa” she said.

“You’re welcome, Minke” I responded. She let my hand go and looked the gun over, working the mechanism and sighting down the barrel at a point on my kitchen wall.

“There is one other thing I need to tell you” I ventured, hating that I had to do this. “I need to go up north for a couple of days with my partner. We need to follow up some leads in the case we are working on”

“You’re leaving me here alone!” she gasped. I kind of wished I had told her this some other time when she wasn’t armed with a loaded gun.

“Only for a few days” I assured her earnestly. “But I thought that rather than staying here, you could stay with Papa”

“At the gym?” Minke cried. “That would be excellent!”

“Sure, it’s all arranged” I said smoothly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I had better get dressed”

I left her sitting on the sofa, checking out the pistol again. I casually picked up my phone and took it with me, then as soon as I got into the bedroom I closed the door. With hasty fingers I hit the fast dial option on the phone to my number one saved contact.

“Hey, Papa” I said as soon as my father answered. “I’ve got a big favour to ask”