The Forever Man: A Near-Future Thriller Read Online Free Page B

he’s done. By now, the Bird has been notified, as he lounges in his downtown high-rise and barks orders to his minions on this side of the river. They will try to move the bank before they’re hit by the cops, but there’s too much gear and not enough time.
    Lane looks up at the promo cards that line the trolley walls. Most are for the Temp Malls, the big halls that broker transactions between temporary workers and the companies that hire them. Their ads deliver feverish pitches about bigger bucks, shorter hours, and better conditions, when, in fact, they all contract with the same pool of companies.
    Lane closes his eyes. The thought of the Temp Malls, with their long lines and empty promises, makes him even wearier than he already is. Even by the standards of a contract cop, this has been a bad day. There have been fewer than half a dozen times in his career when he’s wound up in a jam like this and resorted to extreme violence. And in all the others, the precipitating circumstances were beyond his personal control. But this time, the whole ugly episode came down to one simple fact.
    He forgot his cover lobe.
    Jesus, that was like forgetting your wallet. Was he losing it? It was a terrible mistake that might’ve got him killed, and there was nobody else to blame. Damn, he’d always had a pretty good memory and an excellent eye for detail, but now he had to wonder. If a major item like this had slipped through the cracks, what else had oozed out?
    Maybe he was just getting old.
    These days, that in itself was terribly wrong. The national safety net was now completely unraveled and the populace left in free fall. No Social Security, no pensions, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no welfare. A world where both nuclear and extended families had dissolved into a transient goo left no one to look after Grandpa and Grandma.
    Lane glances over at the Oldie next to him. The woman senses his gaze, turns his way, and smiles. Lane has to wonder if the smile is genuine or a learned device to solicit compassion, her only defense against the predations of strangers. At the same time, he notices the bulge on her neck. Some kind of tumor, maybe like his mother’s, a lymphoma or some such thing. She’ll wind up at one of the Palliative Centers. He remembers passing one a few weeks ago, with its windowless front and discreet signage. Some wag with an airbrush had scrawled THE LAST PAL YOU ’ LL EVER NEED on the wall beside the entrance.
    For the first time, Lane imagines himself sitting where the woman sits. It frightens him. More than the Bird, more than the Bad Boys. He turns away from the woman and looks ahead, where the sun is setting and little wisps of cirrus stretch across the fading light.

Chapter 2
Street Party
    “Know what they call that?” The desk sergeant at the Justice Center says as he points at Lane’s forearm, which is now grotesquely swollen and radiating a low but persistent pulse of pain. “Hematoma. My uncle had one. A real asshole. Tried to smack my aunt, but he missed and hit the wall instead. Served him right.”
    “Wonderful,” Lane says. “Makes me feel a whole lot better.”
    “You know, you better have that looked at,” comments the sergeant.
    “Yeah, I’ll do that.” Lane wonders if the sergeant has any great ideas about who might pay for all this. Contract cops don’t have any benefits, and a trip to the emergency room is going to tear his financial guts out. What a nice reward for pinning down the Bird, he thinks. Especially since everybody at the briefing seemed so pleased with his work. In fact, the Chief himself popped his head in and gave Lane a nod.
    A second sergeant comes up to the desk just as Lane is turning to leave. “Hey, Anslow, you’ll never guessed what happened,” he says with a self-righteous smirk.
    “I’m not in the mood for guessing right now,” Lane says wearily.
    “Well then, let me be the first to inform you that your genius brother is an overnight guest in our