Free Cates 04 - The Terminal State by Jeff Somers Page B

nodded in his direction. “Nice work. Expensive? ”
    He nodded. “Very expensive.” He jabbed a finger at his neck. “One for each person I’ve killed. They still live on me.”
    I raised an eyebrow. As I squinted at the freak, my vision suddenly zoomed and the tiny, animated tattoos came into sharp focus. They were very detailed, the faces contorted into masks of horror as they were murdered over and over again: a fat black man in a suit was garroted, his eyes bulging, his tongue popping out of his mouth; a slim woman with graying hair was shot in the forehead, the wound appearing suddenly, her eyes popping wide and staying that way; a dozen others endlessly replaying their deaths.
    This was amateur hour. Maybe the cops weren’t interested in arresting anyone these days, sure, so wearing your own evidence wasn’t so terrible, but bragging and giving your enemies information for free, this shit was worth punishing. I swirled whiskey around in the glass, looking over the rim at him. His arms were...I wasn’t sure if I knew of a bigger word than fucking humongous and looked like good augment work, the muscles not twitchy or taut, but slow as fuck. He was sitting at Michaleen’s table, though; that meant something.
    Michaleen. I knew I was going to have to table that bastard for the time being, and the thought of waiting another year to make him pay for playing me made my stomach sour.
    “You proud of yourself? ” I asked, swallowing the whiskey. It tasted like shit, paint thinner burning all the way down, which was a huge improvement over Bixon’s slush back in Free Failed State of Englewood. The thought that the good stuff out there in the world was now shit was depressing, and all these kids who’d never had a pre-Unification cigarette or a decent glass of gin, they thought everything was fine. The standards had slipped, and people like me who knew better weren’t long for the world.
    He nodded. “I am quality. I do work needs to be done. They call me the Poet.”
    I raised an eyebrow theatrically. “Bullshit. I’ll bet you anything you like not one person has ever called you the Poet unless you had a knife up their ass.” I pointed a finger at him. “I will call you Nancy.”
    He flushed, color coming in black on his cheeks. I felt good; I was running this meeting.
    I smiled and raised the glass over my head. “Sweet-heart,” I shouted. “Another one of these, and a pack of cigarettes, on the Old Man’s tab!” As I set the glass back on the table I marveled for a moment at my hand: The cuts were still painful and visible, but they looked like they’d been healing for days, and I found I had full movement without too much discomfort. These army augments were fucking first class. I felt like doing push-ups. I put the smile on him and set myself, feeling an old dark joy filling me up—feeling this good was eroding my good sense, and I felt like a kid again, having fun, swinging my dick around.
    “Tell you what,” I said, leaning forward. “I think being proud of sneaking up behind assholes and strangling them with your freakazoid monkey arms stitched onto your shoulders is nothing to fucking be proud of. And I think having your crimes tatted on your neck is flash. And I think the Poet is maybe the dumbest fucking name I’ve ever heard.”
    He actually moved his arms, flipping over his hands so he could spread them wide, smiling back. “It is a good thing,” he said and paused, “that I don’t value your thoughts. Feel like teaching me? ”
    My HUD suddenly flashed and I knew someone was creeping along my peripheral vision, a silent little twitch in my head. The girl, eyes wide and hands trembling, was approaching our table like it was a bomb that could go off at any time, which in a way I supposed it was. I turned my head to look at her.
    “No one’s gonna hurt you,” I said slowly. “Don’t worry.”
    “I give no such word,” the Poet said easily. “Take your chances like the rest. See