Steelheart Read Free

inside of his raincoat. Girls lasted longer than boys did, or so the Junkman had concluded, because they placed a higher priority on survival. All of which explained why he hired boys.
    The girl kept her back to the walls as she moved up the corridor, painfully aware of how thin they were, and the fact that it would be easy to fire through them.
    Unlike the Junkman, who had been born on the dole, she came from privileged circumstances. After six years of dance lessons, she still moved on the balls of her feet. That, plus the fact that she had refused to sell her body, would have pleased her mother.
    Wood splintered as the Junkman kicked a section of wall. A man sheltered his family with his body. He held his arms up as if in supplication, and the Junkman nodded politely. Not because he had any compunctions about killing innocent people, but because ammo was expensive and best reserved for serious threats.
    It took the bounty hunter and his assistant less than three minutes to investigate the shabby little cubicles that branched to either side of the hallway, establish the fact that Sojo hadn't hid in one of them, and hit what appeared to be a blank wall. But the Junkman had been hunting androids for a long time now, and he knew what they were capable of. He donned a pair of wire rimmed glasses, selected a stylus-sized flashlight from the inside of his raincoat, and pushed a button. The light wobbled over grimy metal.
    It took a full minute of patient inspection to find the parallel cracks, verify the existence of the door, and place the demo charge. The Junkman motioned to the girl, and she backed away.
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    Sojo was surprised when the charge detonated. A hole appeared where the hatch and a sizeable section of wall had been. Smoke billowed, and a man stepped through. He was at least six feet tall and had ice-blue eyes and a three-day growth of beard. His hand cannon carried fourteen "robot rounds," each formulated to puncture metal but cause minimal damage.
    The android forced a smile. "The name is Sojo."
    The Junkman nodded. "Yeah, I know."
    Video supplied by the android's pickups was fed to a dedicated subprocessor, where it was analyzed. Sophisticated algorithms were used to compute the changes in distance between facial features and compare them to a static model. The result was expressed as a nonverbal content quotient. The scav came up zeros.
    "Can you be bought?"
    The bounty hunter shrugged. "Sure, if you have something I want."
    The synthetic gestured to the room. "How 'bout this?"
    The Junkman shook his head. "You're worth more than all this junk put together."
    Sojo made one last attempt. "What if I told you that I'm a scientist—working on something that could bring summer back. What would you say then?"
    The Junkman raised an eyebrow. "I'd say you were a lying, no-good pile of shit."
    "Could I send some data before I die?"
    "Nope."
    "Why not?"
    "Because I don't have time for this bullshit." The girl had heard the noise before, but it still made her ears hurt. A hole appeared between Sojo's eyes ... and castors rattled as the impact pushed him across the room.
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    Doon slid his hand under the duster, felt the Skorp .44 leap into the palm of his hand, and watched the low-light target grid appear. The boy glowed green as he stepped over the body. The synthetic made his way around the old woman, checked her jugular, and slid along the wall.
    A woman with a baby in her arms stepped out into the hallway. She saw him and backed into her cubicle. The android heard three bolts slide into place—and hoped she had something more substantial than locks to defend herself with.
    Smoke from the explosion eddied down the hall, found its way into Doon's nostrils, and was automatically analyzed. The demo charge had contained Guild-manufactured Hiplex 4.2. Good stuff. .. and the sign of a pro.
    Doon didn't know what human fear was like—only that it was unpleasant. His fear stemmed from the tension between his