Rising Sun Read Free

Noriker. “Nice truck. Where’d you steal it?”
    “I’m not a thief,” Vienne says, stowing her armalite behind the front seat. “I borrowed it from a Ranger who spent too much time enjoying his supper.”
    “Hey, Stringfellow!” Malinche calls. “You’re deserting us?”
    I stop. Take a long look at her. “Vienne, what about the others? You’re just going to leave them?”
    Vienne surveys the chain gang. “They’re criminals. They deserve their fate.”
    “Not all of them,” I say. “Some of them are innocent.”
    “Criminals always say they’re innocent, but they’re always guilty.”
    “What about us?” I ask, holding up my left hand to display the stub of a pinky. “Are we guilty?”
    Vienne knocks her forehead with her palm. “We don’t have time for your idiotic heroics!”
    I hold out my hand. “Give me the carking key.”
    Vienne fires the key at Malinche, who easily catches it and begins unlocking her shackles.
    “Happy?” Vienne asks me. “Now get in the truck!”
    I start to open the driver’s door.
    Vienne grabs it.
    “I’m the driver,” she says.
    “Since when?”
    She looks me straight in the eye. “Since always.”
    “It’s your truck.” I stare back into her eyes. My stomach turns flip-flops. “I reckon you get to drive.”
    “Glad you see it my way,” she says, and grins, which makes my belly button feel like it’s spinning counterclockwise.
    As soon as my door closes, Vienne slams it into reverse. The truck bounces backward down the dry creek bed, throwing rock dust into the air. She pumps the clutch. Rams it into first. And hits the accelerator.
    My skull slams against the headrest. “I’ve got whiplash!”
    “Quit whining,” she says, cutting me a look that could strip paint. “Or I’ll take you back.”
    A moment later, as we bound over deep gullies, we come upon Jones, who has slowed to a jog, his face streaked with sweat and rusty dirt, his tongue hanging out.
    Vienne swerves toward him, laying on the horn.
    “ Aiieee! ” Jones screams, and dives into a copse of gorse bushes.
    “That was harsh,” I say. But funny.
    “He shot me—”
    “You’re wearing bulletproof armor.”
    “— in the back . The Tenets forbid shooting an adversary in the back.”
    “He’s not a Regulator,” I say. “Our rules don’t apply to him.”
    We cut from the creek bed, climbing up an embankment and pulling onto a road. The tires bark when they hit pavement, and the truck surges.
    “You and I are not officially Regulators,” Vienne says, “but we still follow the Tenets.”
    The Tenets are the guiding principles that govern Regulators’ code of behavior. Vienne is a strict adherent to them, following them with an acolyte’s zeal. But I don’t want to argue with Vienne, who has all the flexibility of wrought iron when she’s made up her mind, so I check the rear to make sure we’re not being tailed.
    “Mimi, what direction are we headed?”
    “South,” Mimi says, “with a general heading that will intersect with the Bishop’s Highway.”
    South? Interesting. I’d guessed we would be heading back into Christchurch, the capital city. “I assume there’s reason for this daring daylight rescue?” I ask Vienne. “Other than the fact that you missed me.”
    Vienne cuts me a look that says you wish . “When we get to the job, don’t use my old name. They call me Sidewinder now.”
    “Who is they?”
    “The rest of my davos.”
    I can’t hide my surprise. “You’re working with a crew again?”
    “That’s right. Now you are too.”
    “What if I don’t want to work for some piker’s davos?”
    Vienne hits the brakes. “We’ve got a job and could use a good extra hand. Either you’re in, or you can get out right here and take your chances with the Rangers. Your choice.”
    I rub my whiplashed neck. “That’s not much of a choice.”
    “Hard choices never are,” she says.
    I look out at the unforgiving horizon. Either go on a job under the