Jade Dragon Read Online Free

his
waist. From the corner of his eye there was the firefly glow of a
cigarette tip and there was Feng, ill at ease on the passenger’s side.
He didn’t like cars very much.
    The soldier gave him a look, using the cigarette to indicate the
sprawled man outside. “That one, he’s going to get whipped because you
stole this carriage.”
    Ko ignored the phantom smell of tobacco smoke and shifted the car into
drive; the fool had left the motor running. “What, I should shed tears
for him? He shouldn’t have become a corp, shouldn’t have signed his life
away to some rich old breadhead.” Reaching under the dash, he found the
cut-off remote and tore it out. With relish, Ko slammed the gears and
spun the Merc from the kerb, launching out into the night past the
shouting faces of the men in the waiting area. He sounded the
horn—
Ba! Ba! Ba!
—as he blazed past Second and the rest, grinning.
    Feng shook his head. “When are you going to learn, boy? Everyone serves
a warlord, even those who think they don’t.”
    The Merc threw Ko right and left against the restraints as he slalomed
past the security gate and on to the airport highway. “Not me,” he
insisted, “not ever.”
    On the back seat, Frankie Lam’s carry-on bag rolled over and spilt its
contents.
     
    The Osprey 990. Man, that’s a cherry cyke, y’know? Fast like a bat
outta hell, got those pannier-mounted rear smokers and a cyclops gun in
the nose… Badda-bing, can come on you like death hisself if you ain’t,
whatchacall,
alert.
    On the highway I seen one duel wit’ a couple NRG–500s and clean up the
blacktop like they was pushbikes. That’s why the cops in the Denver
Death Zone use them for race-and-chase. Fine choice. Fine, fine choice.
    The point? Oh yeah. Well, last thing I reckoned I’d see was one of them
fine machines flyin’ through the air like it ain’t no thing, straight
through the window and blazin’ alight. Came through the glass—crash—and
straight across the floor. What? A warehouse. That was where we were. A
warehouse. Can I tell it my way, or d’you wanna read it off the cop’s
books? No? All right then.
    So. Gabby, she takes the Osprey in the face and she dead right there.
Landed on her, burnt her up. All hell’s breaking loose, Walt’s
scramblin’ for his pistols and that little Poindexter, whatever he call
himself Doctor Bloom, he’s screamin’ and shoutin’ at me like it’s my
gorram fault. And the pigs. The pigs is making this noise like all get
out.
    But that’s not the thing of it. In through the bust glass comes some
tear gas shells, but that’s nothing on a big ship for me, ’cos I sprung
for nasal filter implants last year, after I got a capsicum load from
the Coast Guard bulls offa Kennebunkport. I got me a Mossbach Tactical
Autoloader. Y’know, the kind wit’ the snail drum mag? Yeah? I’m packing
double-ought gauge shells in there, ’cos we’re fixing not to mix it up
with no one but maybe local five-oh. Shit, we were, whatchacall, wrong
about
that.
    Roscoe and Dooley, they’re fast lads and they got them carbines. I
don’t see what they’re shooting at, but like this
(snaps fingers)
Roscoe has a hole in hisself’s chest like the size o’ my fist and he
falls all the way down from the gantry up high and lands—crunch—in the
pigs. I reckoned them stories ’bout pigs eatin’ man meat was hooey but
no, they start in on him. Still squealing. Guess it was no surprise,
though, considering. Roscoe was always gettin’ into arguments with Doc
Bloom when he kept hurtin’ the little porkers for shits and grins. The
Doc, he got mighty angry ’bout it. See, he got them pig’s brains wired
up like into one big ’puter, making them all think alike, or somethin‘.
He was usin’ them to play the ponies, screw wit’ the lottery, whatever.
Turned the little bacon-balls into a big pink, whatchacall, processor.
Illegal as all get-out, so I reckon, but no one gives a rat’s ass about
pigs, so