Chapter 03: A Nice, Ordinary Past“Mr. Saunders?”

  The voice reached me through yers of pain. The darkness slowly receded. I took a shaky breath. I wasn’t dead, but the pain nearly left me wishing I was. I knew when I looked down my chest would be a Rorschach test of bd blue.

  I opened my eyes. K was watg me closely. She didn’t look all that sympathetic, but the moment she saw I was awake she reached out of my line of sight and brought back a gss of water.

  “Sit up,” she ordered.

  Wonderful bedside manner, a real Nightihat K. Agony fred ay chest as I struggled to sit. Just as expected: one massive bruise. My whole chest and upper abdomen urple and yellowed mess. K pced some pillows behind my back to prop me up. My vision swam momentarily and my head throbbed with the effort. I reached up and found a sticky spot near my temple.

  “These will help,” she said and for a moment, as she handed me the gss of water and two tablets, she actually looked worried. Who khe frosty secret agent could actually show for my well-being? I popped back the pills and knocked back the gss of water.

  “You’re tougher than I imagined, Mr. Saunders,” she tihat moment of sympathy apparently gone. “The assassin was standing right outside the door when you stepped through. He fired two shots that caught yht over your heart. The impact sent you bato the doorway. Your head ected with the edge of the doorframe. A third bullet caught you in the side and the st one in the back, before the assassin was dealt with.”

  It was hard to focus on what K was saying. My vision swam for a bit. Four bullets at point-bnk range? I oint to the bastard that desighe body armour. No wonder each breath was like sug on a hot coal.

  K handed me anss of water that I eagerly drained. Breathing deeply helped clear my head a bit, and finally my vision stopped swimming and the buzzing in my ears eased somewhat. There was still a faint w hum in the bay mind, simir to a mild cussion but different somehow.

  K pulled up a chair and sat o me. She looked the same as before: same clothes, minimal makeup, angur features pinched into an expression of severity. Too bad, really: she’d be damn fine if she tried a little harder. I looked around and saw that I ropped up in a dirty single bed in a small, pin room with peeling and yellowed aper. Probably some kind of safe house or something. Still, the question had to be asked. “Where the hell am I?”

  “I pulled you into the car and we mao escape before any more of Mr Steele’s assassins appeared. We took a very i route; it is uhat we were followed to this location. However, it would be uo stay here for ah of time.”

  “Yeah, great.” Sunlight beamed in through the open door leading into the room. I must’ve been out for awhile. I gently probed my chest--it felt a bit like tenderized beef. I should’ve hurt more, but those pills of K’s worked fast and seemed to be keeping the pain at bay. The cloudiness in my head wasn’t retreating, though, and that had me a little worried. “K? I’m not feeling so hot.”

  K nodded. “I see.” She stared me straight in the eyes. It was a bit eerie, really. When you think about it, people almost are you straight in the eyes. It’s a challenge, in a way. Or a sign of intimabsp; I’d be damned if I’d look away, but it actually made me a bit nervous, the way she looked at me. She looked hungry. ry. “Mr. Saunders, I want you to uand that I will do everything I do to keep you alive.”

  I nodded. I already khat. Like I said, I’m a good judge of character. I know who my friends are, as few as they are. I know who’s a proper asshole and who’s likely to screw me over and when someone’s a phoney and a liar, usually within a few minutes of meeting someone. And I know who I trust.

  “And Mr. Saunders? I need you to trust me.”

  I’m not a trusting person. I’ve been screwed over far too often in the past. But staring K straight in the eyes as I y battered and bruised in that bed, my head all foggy and buzzing--somehow, it renewed my belief that I could trust her.

  “This is just a temporary safe house,” she said. “To call the medical facilities here ‘limited’ would be generous. Those shots you took were at very cle. Even with the vest,” and here she gestured at the discarded armour heaped at the side of the bed, “I am ed for your well-being, especially with the hit to your side.” The gealed shear thiing liquid had erupted from between the Kevr sheets a in brownish blossoms, trapping the bullets.

  Staring dumbly at armour, I nodded.

  “You may need professional medical assistanbsp; Bringing you to a nearby hospital would pce your life at greater risk.”

  I nodded again.

  K gave me a long look. “I have a proposition for you,” she said.

  She’d done a pretty good job of gettio the hearing alive and out of the courthouse--even sidering I’d been shot four times. I mean, this was fug Jeremiah Steele; I couldn’t help but wonder how many ents turned down the assig because they were afraid of the guy. But not K. I wouldn’t say I trusted her implicitly, but even with the whole dyke thing going on she seemed to actually have a clue, pared to most other authority figures I’d met. Besides, who said shit like “I have a proposition for you,” anyway? People just don’t talk that way. But K did. I think I liked her.

  “Yeah? What is it?” I tried to sound fident but could hardly stay awake.

  “I fear you won’t like it, David.” Her attempt at normal, sympathetic human unication worried me more than anything she could’ve said. Calling me David certainly woke me up a bit. Every unication we’d had, every meeting, she’d called me Mr Saunders. Just like she called that bastard Mr Steele and Tom, Mr. Hunter. So if she was suddenly calling me David, then this had to be bad.

  She sighed. She pulled out a thick folder, one of those pin beige ones, with a paperclip holding printouts in pbsp; It seemed so anaistiearly ughed. “This is you,” she said. I looked at the folder and focused aually could read my name. David Saunders, age 39. She flipped it open and the top sheet of paper had a picture and a small summary of who I was and where I’d e from. The picture was from my test ID photo at NeoPharm. I had to strain to read the summary of me. I leased looking through my educational and childhood history. Her officious background check hadn’t turned up anything about the gangs. Or the other stuff, Sakura and all that. Just as it ought to be. Just a nice, ordinary past, high school and good grades, a smooth ticket into uy and a top degree. A couple years w in bars and clubs and then—moving onto the bigtime, the first rung on the corporate dder leading to now.

  “And this is who I suggest you bee.” K hesitated a moment and slid a sed folder in front of me. It was muewer and thinner. I flipped it open.

  There wasn’t much to read on the cover sheet. Only a name and an age:

  dy Belmy. Age 20.