IGMS Issue 18 Read Online Free

"Guess we're going to find out."
    He put on his helmet and gloves and opened the driver's-side door. Keeping his voice low, he said, "Rules still apply. You lock up after me, stay right where you are, and if I get into trouble you are solid
gone
, yelling for help all the way."
    She said, "I thought we were contraband, not perps."
    "All I'm going to do is look around a little bit, size up the operation -- then we're out of here. Just keep your eyes open and the engine running."
    "All right." Her voice was almost inaudible, a child's mumble. She said, "I wish you didn't have to do this."
    Gruber said, "It's not the D I'm worried about, not so much -- it's the people. People are always scarier than D's, that's the first rule of the job. I'll be fine. You sit
tight
, you got that? You got it, Connie?" It was the first time he had actually called her by her name.
    "I said all right, didn't I?" She frowned at him.
    "Back in a flash." He popped a rack of Winged Monkeys out of the holder in the door and stuffed all six into different pockets of his coverall. The little handball-sized spheres were a cross between an insect fogger and a grenade, only with a payload of burst-release broad-spectrum tranquilizers. Gruber hated them, fully trusting neither their accuracy nor their cargo, but at least this way he could go in without looking aggressively armed, while still carrying something useful at longer range than the standard tapper.
    Walking alone toward the house, he knew from just tasting the air that one of the big D's was nearby, though he couldn't yet make out which breed.
They always smell like garbage dump fires, just different kinds
. Part of him wanted to bolt back inside the Heap and head straight for Weaverville, but he knew the grief he'd catch from Trager's boys if something like
that
ever got around. So he turned, with the Heap already barely visible among the dark trees, and gave Connie a jaunty little wave.
    That's when he saw the green minibike parked off to one side, near the bushes. He'd walked right by it, but hadn't noticed because the angle had been wrong.
    Well
, he thought.
That answers that.
    He turned without letting his face show anything, then walked the rest of the way to the ranch house. When he got there he climbed the three steps to the low veranda, knocked on the front door, and stood quickly to one side, just in case.
    He was not especially surprised when the door was answered fairly promptly, but the wispy, pallid creature who opened it did catch him off-guard. Not quite an albino, having watery blue eyes and watery red hair, the man was still pale as the liquid that pours off yogurt or tofu when the container is first opened. Clearly in his early twenties, he already had the ruined mouth and teeth of a scrofulous old man. But his voice was guilelessly friendly as he inquired, "Yes? What can I do for you?" He stepped over the threshold toward Gruber, pulling the door almost shut behind him.
    "D Control, sir," Gruber said. "Not here for you, just trying to trace a couple of elderly persons, last seen heading in this direction on a motorbike." He gestured vaguely behind him. "Kind of like that one out there, actually. We have some reason to believe that they were running a breeding operation out of their farm. Belgian wyverns, to be precise. Would they be here with you presently, by any chance?"
    "Elderly persons." The young man wrinkled his genuine alabaster brow and uttered a light, soft chuckle. "Well, I suppose that could be Mr. and Mrs. Edward J. Watkins, my grandparents -- I'm Larry Watkins -- but breeding D's?
Please
-- those two couldn't cross the street on a red light. Can't help you, I'm afraid. That's my minibike, and I haven't seen the grandsters for at least a month, not a close family, sorry." He turned back toward the house, saying apologetically, "I'd invite you in, but I've got company just now. Old friends getting together, you know how it is. Please do say hello to my supposedly