Company Town Read Free Page A

moving their hands like old people doing tai chi, shaping the smoke. It wasn’t smoke at all, then. Nano-mist. Hwa zipped the collar of her jacket over her mouth. In the shadow cast by the mist, Hwa saw the pulsing glow of a mandala tattoo.
    The kids from the platform. They had done this. From her crouching position, Hwa saw them deploy a swarm of flies that projected words against the mist: T AKE BACK YOUR TOWN. L YNCH THE L YNCHES.
    â€œOh, for Christ’s sake,” Hwa muttered. “Talk about low-hanging fruit. Rusty! Rusty, can you hear me? ”
    She stood up. Maybe they had run away. She hoped they had run away. Far away. Already, she heard sirens. NAPS saucers buzzed low across the sky. What was she going to tell Séverine? She had to find them. She needed higher ground. Through the veil of green fog, she caught a glimpse of the caution-yellow stairways she knew led up toward the refinery.
    She ran.
    She ran as though she were running away, far to the edge of the crowd, keeping her head down, ducking behind a waste bin as the first wave of NAPS officers in riot gear washed across the platform. After they passed, she made for the gate to the staircase. It was locked with only a rusting sign and a corroded chain. She kicked it open and started climbing.
    From the first tier of the catwalks, she saw only the fog. It was rising, now, and she pushed on and up another tier. From that second tier, she saw the fringes of crowd. NAPS kettling the crowd. People already squid-tied to each other. She looked for Rusty’s hair next to Nail’s tall body. Nothing. She kept running.
    On the stairs to the third tier, she saw the man with the rifle.
    He paced the refinery catwalks high above the fray. As Hwa watched, he paused and began examining the rifle. Hefting it in his hands. Peering down the scope. The gun was illegal on the platform; since the fall of the Old Rig there were laws against projectiles and explosives and all the other things that could cause a pillar of fire to vaporize a crew of roughnecks like tobacco leaves. Not that that mattered, in this long and terrible moment. What mattered was that he could shoot into the crowd. What mattered was her promise to protect two men in that crowd.
    The chopper was louder, now. Closer. Who was he with? The riot cops? The protesters? Was he going to shoot the Lynches, or was he going to shoot into the crowd? Maybe he’d had his eyes done. Probably. He would be sharper than she was. Faster. The only thing she had going for her was the ability to surprise him.
    She felt the air whump ing on her sternum as the chopper hovered, seemingly unwilling to land. It was hard to swallow. From behind a girder, she watched as the man rested his rifle on the railing. His eyes remained on the chopper. He snapped open a shoulder rest on the rifle. She gauged the length of the catwalk. She had fifteen feet by three, with a four-foot clearance on the railing. All her kicks would have to be three- and four-pointers aimed at the head. Steel grate, no purchase for her feet. The man was six feet tall or just under it. She would have to jump to make up the difference.
    Well, that was one way of surprising him.
    When he reached into his pocket, she rushed him. He must have felt or heard her feet clanging across the steel, because he looked up: blue eyes, ginger hair, deep lines, mouth open. He gripped the rifle and swung it toward her; it was the opening she needed. She batted the business end of the weapon and pushed it down and away, then turned around as though to run. Her navel met her spine, her right knee met her chest, and her left foot pivoted to rise. Her body became a pendulum. Her eyes met his just before her heel crunched into his nose: he looked oddly hurt, as though he were confused at this sudden imposition of violence, at the rudeness of it. And then he was really and truly hurt, and bleeding everywhere.
    â€œFuck!”
    Hwa grabbed for the gun. He wouldn’t