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  He thrust the sword at me. I blocked with the headrest, did a tight spin-kick, and knocked him upside his diseased head. Sata staggered, pitching onto some chairs, leaving his back exposed. If I got my arm around his neck, I could choke off his air and end this right now. I dropped the headrest and jumped at him, bracing myself to land on his shoulders.

  But instead of landing I sailed right over him, heading straight for the rear wall of the lift, moving in what felt like slow motion.

  We’d ascended high enough to reach zero gravity.

  I held my hands out in front of me, Superman-style, and soared into the wall. My fingertips brushed against it, and I bent my elbows, kissing the metal, and then pushed myself back toward Sata.

  He was waiting for me, his shinai resting on his shoulder. I flailed my arms, trying to change my speed and/or trajectory, but I kept drifting straight at him. I was about to learn how it felt to be a slow-pitched hypersoftball.

  Sata smacked me in the arm. It hurt, but before he could get his zap on I was floating away from the blow in the opposite direction. Thank you, Mr. Newton, for your Third Law of Motion.

  I hadn’t spent much time in zero-G, but I knew the challenges it posed from the few times I’d had space sex with Vicki. Unless we held each other tight, a single pelvic thrust would send us in flying opposite directions. Amusing at first, but it eventually got frustrating. That was why space hotel bedrooms came equipped with suction cups and bungee cords.

  There were no such luxuries in the lift car. But I did remember the can I had taken from the security bin earlier. It was one of those feminine deodorant sprays, guaranteed to make your nether region smell like cherry pie. While I’m pretty sure nature never intended for women to smell like bakery goods, Vicki told me the reason these sprays were so popular was due to an ingredient that stimulated nerve endings. One spritz and sensitivity quadrupled.

  But I had a different use for it. I pressed the spray button and the hissing gas functioned as an accelerant, halting my momentum. Another quick spray and I was able to spin around in midair. I rotated too far, twirled three hundred and sixty degrees, and then slowed myself down and faced Sata. He sniffed the air.

  “Do I smell . . . pie?”

  I sprayed it again, heading for the ceiling. It was just high enough that Sata wouldn’t be able to reach me, even with his sword.

  My relief didn’t last long. Sata walked up the wall in his magnetic shoes, and then clomped onto the ceiling.

  I sprayed myself back down to the floor. He followed. By then, the can was almost empty, and my mouth was watering for cherry pie. I tucked the can into my men and tied a seat belt around my leg, waiting for Sata to approach, believing I could defend myself if I was anchored down.

  Not my wisest move.

  The word piñata came to mind as Sata let loose with an electrically charged barrage of hits, pummeling me so quickly that all I could do was cover up and hope he got tired.

  He didn’t get tired. Luckily, the knot around my ankle came loose and I floated away from him, a blob of blood trailing from my mouth and floating silently through the air in my wake.

  This time, Sata didn’t chase me. He drew his Glock.

  My hands and head were my vulnerable spots, so I covered my face with my padded forearms, and kept my palms on my scalp. I heard the shot, felt the impact in my chest, and waited for the Tesla bolt to come.

  It didn’t come. Instead of a wax Taser bullet, Sata had fired a mollybond round. Newly attached to my bōgu was a length of jelly rope. I watched Sata reel in a bit of length, then shoot himself in the leg.

  We were now tethered together.

  He grabbed the rope and tugged. It stretched, then contracted, and we began to drift toward each other. Sata raised his shinai. Once again I thought about the Nife, wondering if it was still too soon. Sata was better at hand-to-hand combat. He could block it, and take it from me, and then Chicago would be lost. Then I thought about getting hit with the sword again, and decided to risk the chance.

  I reached around, grabbing for the blade—

  —and Sata kicked his leg back, pulling the jelly rope like a rubber band. I flew at him at a quick clip as he drew back his shinai.

  My face versus Sata’s sword.

  His sword won, connecting with my cheek. I spun on my axis, lines of blood spilling from my lips and twirling around me like a DNA helix. I pulled in my arms to reach the Nife and spun even faster, the world blurring around me, unable to focus on anything. But I kept my head, closing my eyes to ignore the rotation, feeling around the back of my utility belt, wrapping my fingers around the handle of the Nife and unsheathing it.

  Time to give this son of a bitch a bunch of new orifices.

  That was when the lift stopped and bounced me off the ceiling, making me drop the Nife.

  The impact slowed my spin, but I still had no idea which way was up. Though I suppose in zero-G there was no up. I blinked a few times, and peripherally noticed the lift doors open. I hit the floor, focusing on the door, wondering what was going to happen next.

  The cab filled with light as our welcoming party of cops unleashed a torrent of Taser fire.

  That lasted half a second before Sata imploded them, flying bullets and all.

  “It’s cold out there,” he said. His voice was wistful as he glanced out the lift window into the blackness of space. “Only three degrees above absolute zero. I hope they were wearing warm socks.”

  I tried to call him a monster, but my mouth wasn’t working right. Instead, I took a frantic look around, searching for the Nife. Sata walked out of the car, his magnetic soles clomping against the metal floor, dragging me behind him like a child’s balloon on a string. I tried to grab onto something, missed a chair’s arm, and was pulled out of the elevator, Nifeless. I shouldn’t have ever unsheathed the damn thing.

  The space station’s décor liberally borrowed from science-fiction movies, with a lot of polished chrome and bright lights. Doors were circular and they opened automatically using proximity sensors. Hallways were large tubes with twenty-foot diameters, the walls rounded and smooth. A large projector flashed a WELCOME sign at us in thirty different languages. Muzak played the classic theme from Star Wars Episode 19: Darth Jar Jar.

  “The trick is adjusting the focal length of the wormhole,” Sata said as I trailed behind him. “If I zoomed out too much, I could have taken out the entire space station along with those morons. But don’t get any ideas. Once I set the timer, I’m locking the focus. You won’t be able to change it. Unless you can somehow make the entire space station face the opposite way, the wormhole will hit Chicago.”

  Sata imploded two more security guards, who were flying at us with jet packs on their backs. An alarm went off, red lights flashing. I tried to get a handhold on the ceiling, but it was smooth and I bounced off. Sata tugged me past a giant picture window, and I stared, impotent, at the enormous blue-green earth. So beautiful. So vulnerable.

  Sata caught me looking.

  “Don’t be depressed, Talon-kun. There are infinite other earths, and this one is vastly overpopulated. Besides, I’m only sending them to a dinosaur planet, where they have a fighting chance. I could send them to an earth that’s entirely covered in lava. Or one where it rains sulfuric acid. Or where everyone has incurable jock itch. I actually found an earth like that. As expected, the people there are grumpy, and there’s an understandably high rate of suicide.”

  I stretched, and caught my fingers in the grating around a lighting fixture. “Are you enjoying playing God, Sata?”

  “Yes. Very much so,” he said, continuing to walk away. “I read the Bible in college, in a mythology class. That Old Testament God was a rascal, but He didn’t have nearly the fun He could have if He’d abused his power a bit more. Ah, here we are. The air lock.”

  Sata came to a set of square double doors and pressed in a code on the keypad. They hissed open. I wound the jelly rope around my wrist, taking up the slack.

  �
�Once I enter the air lock and seal the doors behind me, you won’t be able to open them again until I’ve gone,” Sata said. “So this is it, Talon. We’re on the one-yard line, and I’m about to make a touchdown. If you want to stop me, this is your last chance. The clock begins . . . now.”

  Sata removed the TEV from his chest and flipped it around. Then he closed his eyes.

  An LED—apparently for my benefit—appeared on the back of the device. It flashed 20:00, and then began to count down.

  I gave the jelly rope a big tug, then released the ceiling, flinging myself at him.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  The look of surprise on my sensei’s face told me he hadn’t been expecting my attack. He barely had time to raise his sword when I was on him, wrapping my hand around his TEV strap. Then I reared back and punched him in the face.

  Because of the lack of gravity, the blow didn’t have my weight behind it. But I was still able to break the bastard’s nose. I hit him four more times in paid succession—pop pop pop pop—blood exploding around his head—Sata choking on it as he gasped for air—then the shinai coming up and digging into my armpit.

  He juiced me, a blue spark and loud crack accompanying the familiar jolt of pain. I released him, planting my feet on his chest, jumping away with all of my strength. I flew backward. The jelly rope stretched. Sata waved his palm in front of his face, trying to push away the floating blood. Then, just like an antique paddleball game, the rope reached its peak elasticity and I bounced right back at him.

  I flew in face-first, knocking his shinai to the side as I latched onto his hair. Then I dropped my other arm, locking his elbow up under my armpit so he couldn’t use the sword again. Knees digging into his sides, I released his hair and gripped his throat, letting out a roar of anger as I did.

  I squeezed, trying to rip out his trachea. Sata made a wonderful gagging sound, his whole body shaking, and I concentrated on putting all of my effort into strangling the son of a bitch.

  Then I noticed the rhythmic motion to his shakes, and how his gagging sounded, in fact, like something else.

  Sata was laughing.

  I brought back my hand, ready to pound his nose again. Sata jackknifed his body and the next thing I knew I was pinned under one of his feet, the tip of his shinai jammed into my mouth and pressing against my very terrified tongue.

  “That was it?” Sata asked, still giggling. “That was all? Such a disappointment you’ve been, Talon-kun. All your years of training and experience, all leading up to this very moment, and that was your best effort?” He wiped a sleeve across his nose. “It was like being hit by a child.”

  “Mmmph mmnmgm,” I said. That was fuck you with a sword in my mouth.

  I braced myself for the zap, but instead he withdrew the shinai and punted me in the ribs. As I floated away, Sata touched the sword tip to the jelly rope, zapping and severing it.

  “Enjoy watching Chicago disappear,” he said.

  Then Sata walked into the air lock and closed the doors behind him as I drifted off, unable to do anything but watch.

  I cursed myself for taking out the Nife too early. Now was when I needed it most. Instead, it was floating around in the lift somewhere, and the lift was fifty yards down the hallway, which might as well have been a thousand miles away. I flailed my arms, trying to swim through the air, with predictably pathetic results.

  Momentum was taking me toward the large picture window, but too slowly. At this rate, Chicago’s entire population would be eaten by dinosaurs before I even got halfway there. I looked out the reinforced glass, at the hotels and casinos tethered to the space station, their flashing neon out of place in this environment. Once Chicago disappeared, the tether would, too. Thirty thousand more people I wouldn’t be able to save. If there were an award for the world’s biggest loser, I wouldn’t win that, either.

  I’d blown it. Big-time. If I only had some antigrav shoes, or a jet pack.

  A flashing billboard on the Hyatt showed an advertisement for a synthetic heroin, with ipecac nanobots in case of accidental overdose. Then it switched to an ad for FDS, now in key-lime-pie scent.

  FDS. Feminine deodorant spray.

  I quickly pulled the aerosol can from my shirt and gave it a shake. Still a little left. I sprayed the remaining contents behind me. There was enough accelerant left to boost my speed and change my direction. I held the button down until the can was empty, sailing through the air, toward the elevator.

  Paranoia kicked in once I entered the lift car. I didn’t see the Nife. If I flew into it, I could easily cut off a limb. Or worse; I could bump the Nife, and it could stick into the wall and breach the hull, which would cause the car, and possibly the space station, to lose pressure and get crushed.

  I opened my eyes wide as they could stretch, looking this way and that way, trying to spot the Nife handle. Scanning the rows of seats, I noticed something floating near the floor. I kicked the ceiling, giving myself a tiny bit of push to get a closer look.

  The object was the headrest Sata had knocked off. I pushed myself off a chair, reached the rear of the car, and twisted around, wondering if I should go left or right.

  Where was it? Where was the little bastard? Why did I have to pull it out? Why couldn’t I have—

  Then I felt it. A tiny tickling at my throat.

  My whole body went rigid. Holding my breath, I glanced down my right cheek and saw the Nife handle, floating alongside my neck.

  Had the blade already severed my throat? Was I already dead and didn’t feel it yet?

  I watched, waiting for the blood to come spurting out.

  No blood came. But that was hardly reassuring. The Nife could be jammed in so deep it was plugging up the blood.

  Carefully—oh, so carefully—I raised my left hand and touched the end of the handle with my thumb and index finger, careful not to nudge it any closer to my skin. I waited a moment, making sure my hand was steady, and then slowly pulled it away, like I was playing HyperJenga and the tower was ready to fall. When I got a safe distance I slapped my other hand up to my throat, expecting to feel the inside of my trachea.

  I had a small scratch, nothing more.

  Breathing again, I carefully sheathed the Nife, and then sighted down the hallway. Coiling my legs under me, I kicked off the wall and headed for the air lock. My trajectory was slightly off, so I made a slight correction by throwing the empty can to my left.

  I was almost halfway there when more security guards showed up.

  There’s no feeling of vulnerability that quite compares to floating in zero-G. There’s a sense of detachment when you leave solid ground, making you feel helpless. I can testify this emotion intensifies when four guys point Tasers at you. I covered my face with my forearms and they had at me, firing round after round, Tesla lightning attacking the entire right side of my body.

  While my armor and food preservative wrap protected me from the volts, the impact of the bullets was significant enough to knock me off course, and I eventually butted up against the picture window, glancing at an ad for McDonald’s extra-value meals, now only $79.95.

  “Our Tasers have no effect!” one of the cops yelled.

  No shit, Einstein.

  “The man you’re after is in the air lock!” I yelled above the crackling of electricity.

  Instead of answering, they fired more bullets at me. I kept covered up, staring out of the corner of my eye at the earth two hundred miles below me, wondering how long Chicago had left.

  I wondered if I could just wait for them to run out of ammo. How much could they have, anyway?

  The billboard changed. Tired of faking orgasms? Get the LLVV package now at the Chicago Sexual Center.

  “Thank you,” I said to the billboard.

  I began to convulse, faking being hit. They stopped firing and watched me. Eventually they turned off the power. I remained limp, my mouth hanging open, hoping they didn’t take the opportunity to shoot me in my exposed skin.

  “Is he de
ad?”

  “I dunno. Go check.”

  “You go check.”

  “No, you.”

  “You assholes. I’ll check.”

  Mr. Tough Guy walked over. When he reached to take my pulse, I decided to give the groin shot one last try, and lashed out with a vicious punch to his manly man bits. He squealed, bringing up the Taser. I used him as a human shield, putting my finger over his on the trigger, shooting his three buddies and turning the final bullet on his leg. I let all four do the lightning dance for a few seconds, then cut the power on his utility belt.

  It took me a minute to tug off my own shoes and put on his magnetic soles. By the time I made it to the air lock, I looked through the glass in the door and saw Sata had already suited up into his skydiving outfit. The TEV had been bonded to a window overlooking the earth. The digital display read 14:45 and was ticking down the seconds.

  Sata saw me standing there and walked up to the door. He hit the comm-link button.

  “I thought you’d run off. You have about fourteen and a half minutes left. After I jump out of the air lock, the outside door will automatically close. I have a suit for you in the locker there. If I were you, I’d put it on and follow me. The controls are on the wristband. Or you’re welcome to stay up here and watch Chicago disappear. But when the TEV goes off, the wormhole will also transport the window it’s attached to, and you’ll be sucked into space. And don’t bother trying to remove the TEV. I mollybonded it to the reinforced glass.” He smiled at me. “Good-bye, Talon. See you in Milwaukee, if you survive the jump.”

  He stuck his helmet onto his head, flipped down his visor, and then hit the hatch button. The outer door opened up, and Sata was shot out into open space, waving to me as he left.

  Thirty seconds later the hatch closed, and I entered the same door code he’d used earlier. I raced right up to the TEV, drawing out my Nife. This was the reason I hadn’t used the blade earlier—I needed it to destroy the TEV.

  I slashed out.

  The Nife bounced off.