Free Cates 04 - The Terminal State by Jeff Somers

looked fast and mean, her face all angles and shadows, her eyes set too deeply into her face for beauty. Both of the kids looked too clean and scarless, which was either an expensive surgery habit or they were two jumbo softies who’d never scraped a knuckle.
    I was careful: I contained my body language and followed Belling slowly, nonthreateningly. The weight of the glass was comforting in my sleeve. I asked myself what Michaleen would expect from me; he’d expect anger, so I stared at him and ground my teeth—that was easy. He’d expect something reckless and immediate, so I had to stutter the timing, try to throw him off. This was the man known as Cainnic Orel, I reminded myself. He’d had weeks to case me, and he’d done it well enough to play me like a fucking child back in Chengara—I had to go random, try to shock the fuck out of him, and count on Belling to be the unlovably selfish piece of shit he’d always been in the past.
    Physically, Michaleen hadn’t changed at all. He was the same short, powerful-looking fellow, old as sin with a craggy, leathery face that was always screwed up into a fantastic expression that resembled either incredible pain or incredible amusement. His nose was long and rounded, his eyes bright and young in that tanned face, framed by thin, ghostly threads of white hair. He looked prosperous, like he hadn’t spent the last six months drinking paint and eating wild rabbit, shivering with the fumes over Bixon’s. Like he hadn’t even thought of me once since leaving me to be processed into an avatar in Chengara.
    As Belling and I approached, unbelievably the little man smiled and threw his arms wide.
    “Avery Fucking Cates as I live and breathe,” he shouted. “I told these pups here that a great hero from the past was comin’ to lend a hand to our li’l enterprise. Pups, you’re lookin’ at the genuine article, a man who has done things.”
    Belling stopped a foot or two away, and I stopped too. “Hello, Mickey,” I said. “Got a cigarette? ”
    His eyes were merry, on me at an angle. His tiny hands, his plump middle—it was immediately unbelievable that this man was the most dangerous Gunner in the world.
    He roared laughter, a good, natural sound pouring out of him. “Cigarettes! You fucking ballbuster. Sure, I got—”
    A split second of peace settled on me. I’d been thinking of Michaleen for months, kicking ass on spec in Englewood, plotting, sending out my feeble feelers. Here he was, the cosmos rewarding me for a change, for years of steady service. I unkinked my hand and the tumbler dropped into it like gravity had been designed for that express purpose. I swung my arm up and leaned forward, and when the glass actually shattered against Mickey’s tiny head I was fucking shocked .
    He staggered to his right, absorbing the impact, and as blood splattered everywhere he ducked under my arm and drove his bleeding skull into my stomach, knocking the breath out of me. I hung onto the broken glass desperately, the edges digging into my skin and peeling the flesh away from my fingers, but it was the only weapon I had and I wasn’t going to fucking drop it.
    Michaleen was heavier than he looked, and he put me off my feet and we fell as a unit to the broken asphalt beneath us. My head smacked into the ground and I heard Gupta for a second, distant, telling me how many fucking concussions I’d had. Then I dug my elbow into the ground and pushed off, rolling us until Michaleen was under me. I raised the lump of raw meat and shattered glass that had once been my hand into the air, and Michaleen squirmed under me, suddenly yanking his arm free, swinging his hand up between us. In his hand was the world’s smallest gun. It was an old Roon model 56—a peashooter, small caliber. At a distance, it was like setting off a firecracker—the best you could hope for was to annoy your target. Two inches from your face, it would do the job.
    For a second, we were frozen like that,