Glitch Rain by Alex Livingston

Author:Alex Livingston [Livingston, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Apex Publications
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

She’s standing when her eyes open, the clean smell of some Art of Manliness aftershave all around her. In an elevator again. There’s a strong hand on her elbow and a man breathing heavily behind her.

There are a few boons life’s adventures have given Akuba. One is a tolerance for poisons far beyond what a woman of her size should possess. Another is substantial experience at breaking a man’s hold on her.

He doesn’t notice when she shifts her weight to her toes, which makes her backward slam remarkably effective. She feels something snap as they hit the unforgiving elevator wall. One of his clavicles, not hers. A kick to the emergency stop button and a spin. The Gray Man’s eyes are wide enough to show full white around the blue. A few long seconds of punching him in the neck and he’s on the ground.

She checks for guns. He’s got a short matte black deal in a holster on the inside of his waistband. She quickly snatches it away. The italic block letters “Sig Sauer“ on the nubby grip panel look like they belong on the poster for an action movie, above some white guy’s floating head. The placer’s gun — she supposes she should call it hers now — is in his left pocket. She grabs that too, and drops the sig into an interior zipper pocket of her shell. She can deal with it later.

The Gray Man starts to breathe just as she levels her gun at the spot between his nose and his brush cut. She pulls out her phone with her other hand and takes a nice high-res photo of his face. No filter.

“Phone,” she says, hoping the single syllable approach will keep the tremor in her voice from coming through.

He snarls at her and coughs, but pulls a phone from his pocket and holds it up.

Easy enough. “Enazim. Call him.”

The skin around his eyes tightens. “What… what the hell… hell are you talking about?”

“Get him on the phone and tell him I’m solving the problem. He’ll have his money soon.”

She has only the vaguest of concepts as to how she’s going to find this David fuck again, but she’s got his face now. With that, it’s only a matter of time and effort.

“Tell him yourself,” the Gray Man snarls.

“I did. He can be a bit petulant now and then.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

He reaches into a pocket Akuba hadn’t realized existed. She motions with the pistol, and he shakes his head in the picture of chagrined disbelief. There are two robins-egg blue pills in his palm, which he tosses into the back of his throat and swallows.

“What’s that?” she barks. “Dexy?”

He smiles. “Ibuprofen. Some of us have to go back to work after this. Would you put that ludicrous gun down? You’ve disarmed me, grounded me, broken my collarbone and given me a real fucking headache. I’m pretty sure having a bullet ricochet off my forehead isn’t going to make things any better for you.”

This has to be some trick.

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