Company Town Read Free Page B

let it go. Well-trained; he didn’t grab for his broken nose. Blind and bleeding, he gripped the gun crosswise with both hands and shoved it at her face. She had to bounce backward. His head jerked; he was listening for her feet on the steel. Hwa yanked the gun toward herself anyway. He refused to let go.
    â€œI don’t want to hurt you,” he said through the blood.
    â€œYou won’t,” Hwa said, and ducked under the gun to plant her right leg behind his left and throw her weight at his thighs. He tumbled backward and then she was on him, locking her ankles behind his waist and squeezing her thighs together hard. She heard the air leave him in a rush.
    â€œJesus,” he hissed.
    â€œGive up.” She stared hard into his eyes and slowly curled the gun up to her. His shoulders rose with it. Her arms were trembling, but so were his. They shook and rattled together over the gun. She breathed through her teeth. “Let go.”
    His hands fell away. Suddenly she was a million pounds lighter. Her body snapped up, towered over him, the gun absurdly huge and awkward against her chest. Hwa watched his gaze flick over her shoulder. She turned. Above them, against the hazy blue of the sky, was a thin silver disc. A flying saucer. As she watched, a single laser painted her skin.
    Beneath her, the man shouted: “No, wait, stop, don’t—”
    Then the pain started.

 
    2
    Broken Arm
    The holding cell was unlike any Hwa had ever seen. It was a small room. Hwa had a hard time estimating just how small, because the edges of it had a tricky way of blurring away just at the periphery of her vision. Tower Five, then. Five had all the bells and whistles. At least, it had most of the programmable matter in Newfoundland and Labrador. Lynch, then. Not the NAPS. They were wasting no time taking control of things.
    Carefully, Hwa stood up. Both her ankles and hands were gelled together. She knelt down and then sat. The floor beneath her was oddly warm, like skin. It moulded up around her the longer she stayed in place. Raising her legs parallel to her chest, she rocked back and forth until she could fall back on her shoulder blades with her legs and core straight up in the air. Slowly, she slid her legs through the loop of her bound arms. Now, at least, they were in front of her. Where she could use them.
    A seam opened in the wall. It was the man from the platform. And he was carrying a big knife.
    â€œBack for more?” Hwa asked.
    â€œWhat? Oh.” He looked down at the knife. It looked so incongruous in his hand. He’d cleaned up and changed into a blue Lynch polo shirt and cargo khakis. The knife trembled a little in his right hand, until he gripped it more tightly. “Hold your hands out, please.”
    Hwa held them out. He cut the bonds in one quick motion. Experienced, then. He knelt at her feet. Looked up at her for a moment cautiously. He was afraid she would kick him again, she realized. She stood straighter and looked away. He cut the ties, and flicked the knife back into its handle and put the whole thing in a back pocket as he rose.
    â€œSorry about that. How are you feeling?”
    Her mouth worked. It was painfully dry. This had to be some sort of game. It certainly didn’t feel real. He was being too nice. Then she remembered her script: “My name is Go Jung-hwa and I want to speak to my union representative. Séverine Japrisot, USWC 314. I won’t answer any questions until she sends an attorney for me. Also I want to see a doctor. I have a seizure disorder. It can be triggered by things like pain lasers or whatever the fuck was on that saucer.”
    â€œBut…” His eyes flicked back and forth rapidly, like he was reading up on the keywords in their conversation. “The saucer should have picked up your stimplant, or your subscription—”
    â€œI don’t have a stimplant. Or any subscriptions. At all. I take drugs, not machines.