The Lucifer Deck Read Online Free Page A

outstretched wings. She reached for it.
    "Ouch!" One of the light beams brushed her arm. Even through the dulling effects of the Mindease, she felt it burn. A bright red line now creased the inside of her wrist. She jerked her arm back, afraid the burning light would catch it again, but the man had already stopped flopping and lay still, his head to one side. The beams now focused on the wall beside her, slowly charring the cement. Still giggling, Pita experimentally held the hardcopy she’d pulled from his pocket in the path of the beam and watched it burst into flame.
    Suddenly, the light beams slid away from the man’s head. They merged into a single ray of light that ricocheted off one wall and did a zigzag across the alley, bouncing back and forth from one tinted window to the next. The night was filled with strobing light as the light alternately broke apart into a scattering of laser-thin beams, each a different color, then melded again into a solid white flash that left Pita blinking. It was weirdly beautiful, and at the same time terrifying in its intensity. At last seeming to find its way out of the alley, the light shot up into the darkened sky like a reversed shooting star. Then the sky lit up with a flash of sheet lightning. Pita waited for the thunderclap, but none came.
    The smell of burned meat was overwhelming. Pita couldn’t help but gag when she saw that the skin around the man’s lips and nostrils had blackened and was beginning to flake away. She glanced down at his wrist and saw a DocWagon wristband. A winking light indicated that it had been activated.
    Drek! The meatwagon could be here any second!
    The artificial calm of the drug dampened her fear. She wanted to curl up and sleep. But instead she willed herself to rise to her feet. The last thing she needed was to be questioned about a corpse—especially one whose pockets she’d just rifled.
    It took Pita a moment to orient herself. The Mindease was making her fuzzy, making it hard to think. With one hand on the wall, she staggered out of the alley. Dimly, she registered a man across the street, fiddling with a trideo camera. A tiny red light glowed above its lens. Pita smiled and waved at it, remembering how the cat’s eyes had glowed red with reflected light.
    The man’s head jerked up. He flattened against the wall, looking wary, tucking the trideo camera in against his body. Then he relaxed as Pita staggered past him.
    "Fragging druggie." he whispered under his breath. Lulled by the Mindease, Pita let his comment slide away like oil down a gutter.
    "Hey, Carla! Got a minute?"
    Masaki grabbed Carla’s arm, jerking her to a halt in mid-stride. Angrily, she turned on him.
    "No, I don’t have a minute, Masaki." she snapped. "In just thirty minutes I’m doing an interview at the Chrysler Pacific showroom. It’s going to take me twenty-three minutes to get there—longer, if traffic is bad. I’m already cutting it fine." Tucking the coil of cable she carried under one arm, she used her free hand to pry Masaki’s fingers away.
    "Spare me thirty seconds." Masaki insisted. "I want to show you a trideo clip I shot last night."
    "Jack off, Masaki. I don’t have time to give you any editing tips."
    "Twenty seconds! That’s all it will take!"
    Carla turned and strode away down the hall. Masaki trotted after her, speaking as rapidly as he could and wheezing with every word.
    "I went out last night to shoot an interview. I had a tip from a junior exec at Mitsuhama Computer Technologies. He wanted to tell me about some top-secret project the corporation’s research and development lab was working on. Some radical new tech that he thought the public should know about. He was going to spill his guts, give me an exclusive. He promised the story would be the biggest one of my career. He was going to give me both hardcopy and a datachip with the project specs on it."
    Carla snorted. "Yeah, right. So why didn’t your source take it to the majors?"
    "He