Hurt World One and the Zombie Rats Read Online Free Page B

Mas did not
understand except for amla which meant weapon . She dropped her laser-acid gun,
stick bombs and knives into it and a large door at the back of the
room opened. She moved through the doorway into a lavish foyer of
royal blue carpet and strikingly provocative abstract portraitures
on the walls.
    ‘Good evening, madam,’ said the maître de,
stepping forward to greet her. He was immaculately dressed in a
black silk suit and his hair was oiled even blacker. His skin had
the hard marble look of laser skin treatment done too cheap.
    ‘I am a guest of Gustavo Fall,’ said Mas.
    The sly sneer she received in return was
familiar enough. All towns like San Paul had at least one such
restaurant, a place where most things to be purchased did not
appear on a menu. And it appeared the maître de had already been
paid.
    ‘Come this way, madam.’
    Mas was led into an elevator that stunk of
tobacco smoke and perspiration. It was a quick trip to the ninth
floor. The restaurant that emerged from the elevator doors was
breathtakingly beautiful with luscious green carpet and tables
draped in rich Persian silk table cloths upon which the silverware
gleamed. The few diners already in the restaurant were contributing
to the spectacle with seemingly every earlobe, neck and wrist, of
both males and females, taken up with diamonds, gems and gold -
this was a detail Mas was lacking, but she was not the type to
worry about things that glittered, for to her way of thinking they
were just more examples of things taken from nature and tamed.
    The maître de led her to a table near one of
the large plasma-windows, which was currently showing a superbly
colourful tropical beach at sunset, the colours exceptionally vivid
- and they could be enhanced still further for anyone able to
afford the optical implants. The maître de seated Mas and was
promptly replaced by the waiter. Mas ordered Russian vodka with
Canadian ice. She found it amusing: two of the biggest rivals in
the First Artic War now coalescing perfectly within her crystal
glass. Mas closed her eyes to sip the drink and savour it. And she
kept her eyes closed a while longer, for her memory was more vivid
than any plasma-window, taking her back to the jungles of her youth
with the sounds ranging from the lonely cries of solitary apes to
the mad laughter of hyenas. For Mas, they were the sounds of
home.
    Footsteps approaching the table encroached
upon the moment, compelling Mas’s eyes open again. It was the
waiter, bringing on his silver tray an oversized floral porcelain
bowl.
    ‘Gustavo Fall has been briefly detained,’ he
explained, ‘and he humbly requests you to start the entre without
him.’ He rested the tray on the table and slid the bowl across to
Mas. ‘Soup of the Day is seafood. Enjoy.’
    Mas gazed down at the soup curiously. The
thick brown liquid did not look particularly inviting. And Mas
couldn’t quite place the smell. Something vaguely fishy. Probably
the day’s catch brought in on the back of an oil slick. Mas eyed
her spoon with a kind of revulsion. She was a poacher. She liked
hunting big animals and throwing them on the fire and eating them
with her fingers. Anything else was too convoluted for her liking.
She was still gazing at the soup when she noticed a series of
bubbles moving along its surface. It seemed peculiar. Was the soup
still boiling? She cautiously touched the side of the bowl to test
its temperature - it was dead cold. Mas’s eyes widened as she
sensed danger. She started to pull back from the bowl just as the
tiny scorpion lobster sprung out of the soup. Its legs attached
onto her neck and the spike on the tip of its tail plunged into the
skin. Mas grabbed it and ripped it away, but she knew it was too
late: the poison would be in her system and it was fast acting. Her
blood was already turning noxious, a foul taste in her mouth and
she could feel her heart pressing up against her tongue. Her
attempts to get up off the chair were doomed