But he would not be fast enough. It is difficult to do much in the time it takes for a man to utter the words “Kill him.” He knew he never should have left his car, and he decided that, in retrospect, being a live monster was better than being a dead human.

  The fatal sentence, however, did not come out of the Olorisha’s mouth. Akuchi scrambled toward the door, waiting to hear words, or gunfire, or anything that indicated his death was on the way, but he didn’t hear anything. He looked up, and he saw that the Olorisha was not moving. His hand was poised in mid-air, frozen. His face had a blank expression. There was not much that Akuchi knew about magic, but he knew what it looked like when someone was receiving a message through a mindlink. It looked like the Olorisha looked—eyes unfocused and distant, face somewhat slack because the mind is somewhere else.

  Akuchi was not stupid enough to stand and do nothing. He moved, into the car, and started the engine. He felt much safer when he was inside.

  He looked at the road, ready to gun through them, but the Olorisha was parting his people. There was a path opening for him. Part of Akuchi said screw it, run them over anyway, but there was no point to damaging his vehicle unnecessarily.

  He made a thought, and his car moved. The acceleration was perfect.

  He did not hit a soul as he moved through the crowd, but what mattered was that he was past. He was free again, at least for a short time.

  If he were inclined to analyze the situation, he would ponder just who it was on the other end of the mindlink. The Olorisha was ready to kill him, but someone decided to keep him alive. Akuchi found that a bit surprising—he, like most runners he knew, could name several people off the top of his head who wanted him dead, but very few who would go out of their way to make sure he stayed alive. It would be an interesting puzzle, and it might even make him think about just what larger mechanisms were moving in the city at this time.

  But he was not so inclined to think along those lines, so he did not.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I have told you before that there are stories about Akuchi and there are stories about Halim. There is at least one story about Agbele Oku, and you know that this is so because I have told it to you. I am not as familiar with the stories of oyibos, but I am led to believe that there are some stories about Cayman and X-Prime that have been told, though since I do not have firsthand knowledge of them I cannot vouch for their quality.

  So that leaves us with Groovetooth. Some people believe that there are no stories about Groovetooth, that she is a quiet mouse who avoids noise and trouble, but they would be wrong. There are stories about her, but they do not have her name attached to them. While Groovetooth acknowledges that getting one’s name out there can have a positive effect when it comes to building a reputation and bringing yourself business, she believes those benefits are far outweighed by the benefits of anonymity. There are many stories in the world where it is better that no names are attached to the actions those stories describe.

  And so, when the fast-moving people on their skates came through and stole the heart that had been flying from X-Prime to Cayman, she was confronted with a dilemma, because, you see, there were things she knew about the people that had just passed through, there were things she could say that might help the other people she was working with, but if she shared that knowledge, that could very well result in her name being attached to stories that had heretofore allowed her to stay anonymous and unknown.

  It is a difficult decision for her, and so she takes some time to think about it. It helps that she, along with all the other runners, is running at top speed and does not have breath for much conversation.

  The runners, they did not have to think or talk about what they were going to do once the heart was taken. They know they want to go south; they know they want the heart. Both goals require the same direction of travel, and so they are moving as fast as they can, and doing all they can to ensure that the skaters are slowed up.

  Some of this involves long-range weaponry. Halim had a rifle out—Groovetooth remains stunned at the size of the arsenal the man has hidden under his robe—and he has taken a few shots as he squints ahead of them. Possibly he sees something, possibly he just intuits it, but whatever the case he has fired, and seems convinced that his actions have had the effect of slowing the skaters down for a time.

  Cayman has followed his example and fired what weapons he has available, but to Groovetooth he does not seem to have the same confidence in his work, the same certainty that what he is doing will make a difference. But he does it, and Groovetooth can only assume that means that he believes some good may come of it.

  But what Groovetooth is happiest about is the expression of concentration on Agbele Oku’s face. She is running easily, with the smooth grace of someone who is not thinking about her movement but is just doing it. Her mind is elsewhere, and Groovetooth is certain it is on the skaters ahead, and on slowing them down. There was no hesitation from Agbele Oku about this—the theft of the heart is a clear case of right and wrong, and Agbele Oku believes she is on the side of the right, so she will help get the heart back. Groovetooth cannot sense the astral plane, so she could not tell when Agbele Oku started working her mojo, but simply from the way the mage looked, Groovetooth believed it did not take her long to send magic after the fleeing skaters.

  The skaters have been left on their own. When they passed and stole the heart, they were on one side of the runners and the bikes on the other, and the bikes made larger targets. Halim had quickly disabled a bike with a handgun, and the surviving bikers took that as a sign to depart. They drove off to the north, and since they did not have anything anyone wanted, were left unmolested as the runners headed south after the skaters.

  As they continue south, Agbele Oku, with a smooth glide of a run, moves next to Halim.

  “They like to run around obstacles,” she tells him. “They do not just bull their way through. You can make them go out of their way if they think they will keep their speed.”

  Halim nodded. “Cayman and I will keep fire in the center, with a few shots to the side. Keep them weaving.”

  “Okay,” Agbele Oku said, and glided away.

  And there it was, the reason why Groovetooth might have to tell what she knew. Any information she had about these people, it might help. Especially to someone like Halim, who had fought almost every group in the city, and knew how they fought. He knew how to prepare for them, and knew how to strike. The sooner she tells him what she knows, the sooner he will be able to make specific plans.

  She takes a breath. She opens her mouth to talk, then pretends she was just gulping in air. Her mouth closes. She swallows. Then she opens her mouth again.

  “The people ahead of us?” she says. Then she pauses. “The people on skates,” she says, as if clarification was needed. “They belong to a group.”

  Halim does not look at her. She has seen this from him before, where when he is not interested in what has been said, he does not acknowledge that words have been uttered. She has not yet said anything of interest.

  She swallows again, and feels like she has just gulped a mouthful of fetid bay water.

  “These skaters,” she says. “They are Tamanous.”

  And her words are acknowledged. Halim looks at her, a quick movement, and she has his interest, which is terrible to her.

  “How do you—” he starts, but then he stops. Just like that, he knows.

  Just like that, they all know.

  A silence falls over the group, a quiet so profound that Groovetooth cannot hear the individual footfalls of the runners around her. Her revelation has exploded in the air, absorbing all the noise around her. Or maybe it is that the blood pounding in her ears has covered every other sound.

  She is pleased that no one has been sufficiently shocked that they have stopped running. She hopes the fact that they are out of breath will prevent them from speaking the condemnations she is certain are on their lips.

  At first she is relieved by the silence, but the longer it continues, the tenser she becomes. Her imagination goes to work, dreaming up all manner of things they will do to her because she has associated with some rather unsavory characters, characters generally more unsavory than the ones running beside her at this moment. She wishes they would stop making her wait, that they would just decide what they wanted to do and do it. Shoot her, tell her to go home, whatever. Just do it.

  That is when something extraordinary happens. Halim speaks, and it is not about her.

  “Tamanous almost never stands and fights,” he says. “We don’t have to worry about them setting an ambush or anything—they’ll just keep running until they get away.”

  “What if we give them no choices?” Cayman says. “What if they run out of places to run to?”

  “Any cornered animal fights,” Halim says. “But they will fight to get past us, not to kill us.”

  “I’d rather they try to take us head on. Then we’d kill them, and it’d be over,” Cayman says.

  “That’s why they will not do it.”

  Cayman thinks for a time while the running, the spells, the occasional gunfire continues. “And we don’t really have anything they want. Not anymore.”

  Halim remains silent, as he believes Cayman’s statement is obvious enough to stand on its own without confirmation.

  But then Cayman sees it. “If we corner them, we know what they’ll do. Which is a good thing.”

  Halim nods.

  “Then how do we get them to turn around?” Cayman asks.

  Halim looks at Groovetooth, and she flinches, ready for the conversation to turn back to her, and for Halim to deliver whatever punishment she deserves.

  “Tell me where the next break is,” he says.

  Groovetooth had not, of course, started the day with a detailed map or photos of the Third Mainland Bridge, since she had not expected to have to deal with it. She had tried to find one while they were marching across it, but Matrix traffic has been so spotty that she was not able to find anything that she judged helpful. When she was washed ashore, though, she had Matrix access, and while she could not know for sure what the rest of the day held, she had an idea that up-to-date information about the bridge would be a good thing to have, so she sent some agents after it, and as it happened they returned, before she traveled to the north end of the bridge, with usable data that she has not yet had an opportunity to examine. Now, though, seems like the right opportunity.

  She looks at the data the same way she looks at any data, barely seeing it, but having the information bury itself deep into her brain so that she knows things without being exactly sure how she knows them.

  “There are no more complete gaps until Lagos Island,” she says. “But there is a spot a few hundred meters away where there’s only about a three-meter wide piece of bridge intact.”

  “How far ahead? Exactly?” Halim says, his voice crisp.

  “326,” Groovetooth says, then she takes two running strides. “325.”

  Halim turns to Agbele Oku. “Can you see it?”

  She nods. “I believe so.”

  “Put something in their way,” he tells her. “Make it good.”

  Agbele Oku nods. Something happens, and the effect is immediate. There is a rumbling, a cracking ahead. They feel it where they are as a slight tremor that passes through their feet. The beleaguered skaters, who had been slowed by regular gunfire, are now coming back toward them, and the runners see what made them turn around.

  The bridge has come alive in that narrow section, heaving to life, blocks of rough concrete cracking out of the surface and rising up in a shapeless mass where each block can be a limb, each chunk of concrete can deliver a punishing blow. It is a spirit of earth, and the bridge, for a short time, will be its home.

  The people from Tamanous, they want no part of it.

  They must know they are heading into danger, but they are moving quickly, likely hoping their speed will save at least some of their lives. One of them finds that hope in vain, as a shot from Halim’s rifle catches her in the cheek and does many unpleasant things to the inside of her skull. She falls, but she is not the one with the heart, so she is ignored by both groups.

  Cayman pumps a few rounds into another skater, but he hits him below the shoulders, and it seems the skater has enough armor to either keep him from being wounded or to prevent the wounds from being serious enough to stop him.

  Halim and Cayman could be firing more, but they are not. There was a plan made without speaking, a plan made as soon as Cayman mentioned that they would know what the skaters would do. They are to put up a token resistance. And then they are to let them pass.

  The skaters, they think they are doing a tremendous job weaving between the bullets the runners are firing, they see daylight between Cayman and Halim, and they go for it, moving forward quickly. They do not hesitate, they hit the gap accelerating, for they want nothing more than to be gone and free.

  So when a sheet of ice appears at their feet, it is an unfortunate and inconvenient thing.

  They flounder. They are from Lagos, they have skated on many surfaces, they have made their way across rubble and dirt, but they have never had to deal with ice. Both of the surviving skaters keep their footing, but they are unsteady, slipping and sliding, flailing arms over the blinding mirror under their feet. But there is still daylight ahead, this piece of ice is not so long, they can cross it and still get free.

  That is why a second spell pours out of Agbele Oku, and this one creates a glowing wall that the out-of-control skaters abruptly bump into. There are two bumps, then two thumps, then there are two skaters on the ground. There are several guns pointed at them.

  Groovetooth is not anxious to approach the fallen skaters. She had recognized them as Tamanous quickly, but she had not yet recognized them as individuals—she does not know who these people are, and she is quite willing to keep it that way. But the skaters react as many people who believe they might be at the end of their life react. They uncover their faces, both so that they could face death openly, and so that their possible attackers would have to look them in the face as they kill them.

  Groovetooth is relieved not to recognize them, but she wonders how different it might be for her if she did recognize one. She did not have many—any—close acquaintances in that organization, very much on purpose. She did not like any of them. But could she make the jump from not liking them to seeing them die?

  She thinks she could.

  She believes she is about to see them dead, as Halim appears ready to kill them where they lay. She cannot argue with this decision—they have caused trouble, they are in the way, and there is little reason to waste time with negotiation.

  But Cayman speaks before bullets fly.

  “You’re dead as soon as we want you to be. Give me the box, get out quick, and maybe you can stay alive. Don’t turn around. The minute any of us sees your face again, we’ll shoot it off.”

  There are causes that people die for, but organlegging generally is not one of them. There is little hesitation as the skaters toss the box to Cayman, get to their feet, and skate off, thanks to the disappearance of the now-dispelled barrier.

  Halim may not be happy, but Groovetooth has not yet fully learned the subtleties of his narrow range of expressions. He looks at Cayman steadily and does not speak for a time. But then Cayman walks by him, and Halim speaks.

  “I thought you wanted to move quickly. My way was faster.”

  Cayman does not respond. He walks south, and the others follow.

  A few moments later, Groovetooth finds herself next to Cayman, and she is not certain how that happened. She glances over—her eyes are just higher than his waist—then looks ahead.

  “Halim put this team together,” Cayman says with no lead-in or context.

  Not knowing what he’s getting at, Groovetooth can do little but agree. “Yes.”

  “But he didn’t have total freedom. Some people were recommended to him—strongly recommended.”

  “That’s what I hear,” Groovetooth says.

  “You were strongly recommended,” Cayman says.

  “Maybe,” Groovetooth says, and she starts to assemble a remark about how she has cultivated a reputation, and Mr. Johnson must have heard of her, but Cayman cuts through that before she can speak.

  “You were picked because you know about Tamanous. That’s why you’re here. I’m not sure why they picked you for that, or who did it, but that’s why. At least, that’s what I think.”

  “All right,” Groovetooth said.

  Cayman turns his head to look at her. She can almost hear his neck creak as he turns his face down.

  “I’m telling you this because you should know that someone knows. I’m guessing you want it to be a secret. It’s not. Not totally.”

  At that point, Groovetooth lets Cayman pull away from her. It’s not hard—his legs are long, hers are short. She fades away from him, and he lets her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Three hours and fifteen minutes

  before the bridge

  There are quieter moments. Not every part of a run is chasing or fighting or doing loud or violent things. Sometimes a run involves walking, sometimes it involves waiting, sometimes it involves talking. If you have been running long enough, you know that you ignore these moments—or forget about them—at your peril.

  When Akuchi left them, Cayman and X-Prime had, of course, hoped to be right where they needed to be to pick up what they needed to pick up. But they had two things working against them—they didn’t know the exact location where they were supposed to be, and Akuchi did not have time to help them figure out where they were supposed to be. Once they were at a reasonably promising yet empty part of Ikeja, Cayman and X-Prime were exiled from the vehicle and left on their own.

 

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