Free Montezuma Strip by Alan Dean Foster

Access. Same thing you’ve
     been after. ‘Morphological resonance’. That’s wild, man. Immortality? Wilder still. Relax. You’ll cramp your head.”
    “And if you find it?”
    The flashman nodded toward the side of the desk. Cardenas saw the metal and plastic plug-in lying there. He couldn’t see the
     cable link but knew it must be present, running to jacks beneath the desk.
    “One sequence. I finalize, then do a quick store-and-transfer. Anything valuable and there ought to be plenty.” He licked
     his lips. “Never seen a tunnel like this. Nobody has. Construction crunch alone’s worth all the trouble this has taken.”
    “But you want more.”
    The flashman smiled broadly. “Man, I want it
all.”
    “You’ll take it and leave?”
    The man nodded. “I’m a thief. Not a vacuumer. Not unless you make me. I get what I’ve been after for months and I waft.” He
     gestured with the Scrambler. Hypatia flinched. “I’ll even leave you this. Memories can be so much fun.”
    “Assuming there’s even anything in there to steal, what makes you think you can transfer a resonance?”
    “Don’t know unless you try, right? If you can get something in you ought to be able to get it out. It’s only crunch. Key the
     box, key the transfer, and it’s off to friends in the Mid East.”
    “Immortality for the petrochem moguls?” Cardenas’s tone was thick with contempt.
    “That’s up to them to figure out. Not my department. I just borrow things. But they’ll have the subox, if there is one. Our
     farseeing pinkboys are going on another trip. Suppose they can slip in and out of any box they’re introduced to? My employers
     could send them on lots of vacations. A little crunch out of First EEC Bank, some extra out of Soventem. With that kind of
     access petrochems will seem like petty cash stuff.”
    Cardenas shook his head. “You
are crazy.
Even if they’re in there in any kind of accessible shape what makes you think you can force Noschek and Crescent to do what
     you want?”
    “Also not my job. I’m just assured it can be done, theoretically anyway. But then this is all theory we’re jawing, isn’tit? Unless I find something to transfer.” He turned to the screen. “Starting to narrow. I think maybe we’re getting near tunnelend.
     Stay put.” He rose, straddling Hypatia. He wasn’t worried about her moving. The Scrambler assured that.
    The petitpoint pusher in Cardenas’s shirt pocket felt big as a tractor against his chest. The little gun would make a nice,
     neat hole in the flashman’s head, but he couldn’t chance it. If he missed, if he was a second too slow, the man could make
     spaghetti of half Hypatia’s nervous system. Thirty years teaches a man patience. He restrained himself.
    But he’d have to do something soon. If there was a subox holding a resonance named Crescent and Noschek he couldn’t let this
     bastard have it.
    The flashman removed a vorec, still clutching the Scrambler tight in his other hand. He was trying to watch Cardenas and the
     wallscreen simultaneously. Hypatia he wasn’t worried about. As Cardenas looked on helplessly the man spoke softly into the
     vorec. Patterns shifted on the wall. The steady thrum of the aural playback became a whispery moan, an electronic wind. The
     tunnel continued to narrow. They were very near the end now and whatever lay there, concealed and waiting. The flashman smiled
     expectantly.
    Teeth began to come out of the wall.
    The flashman retreated until he was leaning against the side of the desk, but it was an instinctive reaction, not a panicky
     one. Clearly he knew what he was doing. Now he would use the key Cardenas had concocted following his own previous confrontation,
     use it to dry up the power to the psychomorph. Then he could continue on to the end of the tunnel, having bypassed the psychic
     trap. Cardenas watched as he spoke into the vorec.
    The teeth were set in impossibly wide jaws. Above the jaws were pupilless