Free Sparks in Cosmic Dust by Robert Appleton

the giant jogged down to the premier cube door. Predictable, the man’s response also made it certain that Varinia was not at work. He keyed the code into the door panel, then dashed in, clearly eager to find that treasure in the sand and keep it for himself.
    This next part was going to be the trickiest. Hell, the bouncer was twice his size. Not necessarily stronger, though. Solomon had broken up enough miners’ brawls, pummeled enough bullies on his various tours that he no longer feared a man’s size as much as his potential for turning psychotic. Someone who knew when to stop was not a threat. What would this one be like?
    It was wiser not to confront him at all, so Solomon crept to the cube door and waited, fist at the ready. If someone else came along, he’d give the same cufflinks story. No one did. The bouncer took his time, the whir of his scanner working overtime oddly soothing to the ear. It stopped. Solomon clenched his jaw, braced his shoulders and coiled his frame, ready to strike. The gentle hiss, hiss of displaced sand sank beneath the thump of his pulse. He’d have to punch up, meaning less power. Lean in, then, full body. The man’s muttering drew closer, a string of expletives preceding him…
    Crunch!
    The momentum from Solomon’s right hook launched them both through the door onto the sand. The man squealed onto his side in agony, blood jetting from his nose onto the violet—now almost black—sand. Quick as he could, Solomon shut the door and lunged at the man before he recovered from the shock. Gripping him by the throat, Solomon threatened him with another fist. “What’s happened to Varinia Wilcox? Where is she? Tell me or I start beating on your throat.”
    A groan. A gurgle.
    “I’ll count to three. One—”
    “Aqua Three, she…she’s not allowed out ’til Mr. Delaney…he’s off-world ’til—”
    “I don’t give a shit. Take me to Aqua Three, right now. ” Solomon pressed the sharp point of a credit shard against the man’s jugular. It must have felt like a blade for all the dazed bouncer knew. He struggled to his feet and lumbered down the next corridor, one hand held to his nose, the other feeling his way along the wall. The nose break had obviously affected his vision as well.
    “Right, what’s the code?” Solomon demanded when they reached Aqua Three.
    “Seven, Nine, Seven, Nine, Zero.”
    Solomon’s adrenaline almost got the better of him. He made two mistakes but nailed the sequence on the third try. After kicking the door open, he shoved the bouncer inside, down a half dozen steps. Hardly any sand in this cube, and what was here was deep blue and wet. Water pooled against the far right-hand wall after some kind of drainage. The rest of the floor was slick and damp. Solomon reckoned the entire room flooded during game hours, perhaps as much as four feet, going by the faint discoloration on the turquoise walls up to that height. Some kind of kinky mermaid striptease?
    “Varinia? Varinia! ” He gasped with relief as she dashed out from behind the bedroom partition—a similar design to her premier cube. Dressed smartly in skin-tight black pants and a warm black sweater, she looked ravishing. A prisoner, then, but a well-groomed one.
    “Solomon, how did you—”
    The bouncer slid across her path and smacked the alarm sensor with his boot. There were no wailing sirens, no flashing lights. Had the system packed in? Varinia’s quick, desperate shake of the head suggested otherwise.
    Shit. He ran over and kicked the man in the jaw with full force. Lights out. No time for words. He took Varinia’s hand and led her outside. The gathering pit-pat of running steps from somewhere behind forced them into a sprint, all the way down Aqua corridor and prem block, past the janitor’s closet where he’d left his first victim, a suited employee with a quick tongue but slow reflexes, and back to the foyer, past the receptionist whom he’d paid fifty clips and his tale of two