Bleak History Read Online Free Page A

thought of itself.
    A drug OD, Bleak suspected. The ghost might have been here for years.
    “You ought to let go, kid,” Bleak said. “You're stuck here. You're dead, see.”
    The kid shook his head, at first like someone shaking their head “no,” then faster and faster, till his face was a blur, as he receded, his denial becoming a retreat through space itself—and Bleak closed his eyes again, focused the power he'd drawn, directed it into the wall above the sink, felt the plaster crack and shudder and give way. Something clanged noisily to the floor.
    Bleak opened his eyes to see a rough oblong hole, a gap three feet high in the wall, the sink broken down on the tiles, water gushing from a pipe, wetting his boots.
    He heard the door breaking down behind him—
    He reached out, caught the still-hot edges of the wall, wincing at the contact, put his right foot on the pipe, and levered himself up and through, out partway into the alley behind the building. Running footsteps behind him; someone grabbed his left ankle but he twisted free, got to his feet in the alley. A car was just pulling in twenty-five yards to his left, one of the dark blue, compact natural-gas hybrids favored by the CCA. Bleak thought about invoking help from the disembodied, but he didn't want to incur debts if he didn't have to. He started to the right, looking for a way out—but it was a dead end. Trash cans against a brick wall.
    He turned back toward the car rolling slowly, inexorably toward him. Someone was hurrying up behind the car—a blond man in a suit, an agent in wraparound mirror sunglasses, raising a pistol. Someone behind him yelled, “Keep your head down, Arnie!”
    “You!” shouted “Arnie” from behind the car. “Hands up! You've assaulted a federal agent! I've got every right to take you down! Hands up, do it now!” He was aiming his pistol over the top of the car.
    Bleak backed up, coalescing another energy bullet in his right hand.
    Agent Sarikosca appeared at the alley's mouth, behind Arnie, her mouth open. She'd been running. She glared past the blond agent.
    “Bleak! Put your hands on the wall, give it up! I promise you won't be harmed!”
    “Don't make promises you can't keep,” Bleak said, looking up toward a fire escape. No, out of reach.
    The car was bearing down on him...and stopped, rocking on its shocks, about thirty feet away.
    He thought he might be able to hit the sedan with a compacted energy bullet to make the engine explode, but if he did that, he'd probably kill the guys inside. And he didn't want to kill anyone if he didn't have to.
    He knew what surrendering to the CCA could mean. Maybe the stories about its prisoners were just rumors, but he thought it wiser to believe them.
    “I'm counting two and I'm opening fire!” Arnie yelled. That made up Bleak's mind for him.
    Heart thudding so loudly he seemed to hear it echo in the alley, Bleak snapped the energy bullet  toward the agent—aiming it so it'd whip close to the man's left ear. Scare him into screwing up his aim. The agent yelled, ducked aside from the meteoric energy bullet, fired his weapon as he stumbled. A bullet cracked past Bleak. He'd heard that sound often enough in his life to know what it was.
    Still recoiling from Bleak's energy bullet, Arnie stumbled back—
    Bleak ran straight for the car coming at him. As he went, he reached out to the planetary field, felt it concentrated between the narrow walls of the alley. A pretty strong water source must run under the pavement. That helped.
    He stretched out his arms wide as he ran, caught the energy in his opened hands, compressed it with the extension of his senses, molding it into a shape formed by his mind.
    The car's driver and passenger were opening their doors, getting out with guns in hand—but Bleak was running up an invisible ramp in the air. Right over their car.
    “Son of a bitcM ” the driver shouted—he was another set of sunglasses in a suit—as Bleak ran through the