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mashing fingers, breaking teeth and most unfortunately shattering the very
same kneecap the moron with the collapsible steel baton had failed to even
dent.
The figure skater's career was over.
Godfrey Grant's career with Beasley would have been over, too.
Except for the fact that they had miked the Mousemobile.
When he was summoned before the Beasley overseer, Grant expected they'd want
his head. The rodent head. And his resignation.
They took the head, all right. But instead of firing him, they consigned Grant
to Utiliduck duty, the lowest niche in the the Beasley food chain.
"You're not firing me?" he had asked.
"Normally you'd have been out on your curly tail in a flat minute," the
overseer had barked. "But you lucked out. The networks picked up the bitch's
whinings and broadcast them clear to Tokyo."
"That's why I tried to nudge her," Grant had protested. "To keep her quiet. I
knew the company wouldn't want people to hear. It would spoil the moment."
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"The moment," the overseer had shot back, "is not only spoiled, but the bitch
is suing us. The cameras caught it all, so she'll probably triple her fee for
that one stupid ride."
"I don't get it."
"The big cheese saw and heard it all. He thought she deserved to have her
kneecap broken for mouthing off like that. In fact, he was distinctly heard to
say that it was too bad the horses didn't bust both of them and put her in a
wheelchair."
"That's why I'm not fired?"
"That's why you're not fired," the overseer had said, handing Godfrey Grant a
long-handled push broom and saying, "Now get to sweeping."
So Godfrey Grant got to sweeping. A year of sweeping had not endeared him to
the job or Utiliduck or mouthy ingrate figure skaters, but in these hard times
a job was a job and the truth was that between the heat and the bratty kids,
being a greeter could be murder.
At least down in Utiliduck, it was cool and quiet and not much happened to
spoil a man's workday.
So Grant was surprised when the white ceiling lights suddenly turned yellow.
He had never seen that before. A moment later they shaded to orange, and
section control doors began slamming shut.
The lights then became red, and a Klaxon started hooting.
"What's going on?" he asked a squad of security men as they pounded his way.
"Intruder alert."
"Someone trying to sneak in for free?"
The team leader stopped. "Can you handle a gun?"
"Gun?"
And he handed Grant a machine pistol with a mouse-head silhouette stamped on
the buttstock.
"Be on the lookout for a guy in a T-shirt with thick wrists. If he comes this
way, shoot on sight."
"Shoot?" muttered Godfrey Grant. "Who'd try to sneak into Utiliduck that would
need shooting?"
The security team leader didn't reply. They kept running as if they were on a
deck of an aircraft carrier during a strafing attack.
So Godfrey Grant tucked his machine pistol into his belt and went back to
sweeping the trash that periodically dropped from the nest of ceiling
pneumatic terminals.
It was his job to push the incoming trash into the waiting valve of a floor
trash compactor. It would have been just as simple to have the stuff go
directly into the compactor, but that was Beasley World up above. Anything
could come dropping down with the trash. Wristwatches. Wallets. Guns.
Medicine. Even cranky baby sisters who kept their older brothers from the
Buccaneers of the Bahamas ride.
So Godfrey Grant maneuvered his push broom through the trash, keeping an eye
peeled for valuables and inconvenient children.
When a pair of loafers dropped from above, bringing with them a tall skinny
guy with thick wrists and the deadest eyes Godfrey Grant had ever seen, he
dropped his broom and stammered, "You're the guy."
"What guy?"
"The guy with the thick wrists everybody's looking for."
The man seemed unperturbed. "That's me."
"I'm supposed to shoot you," said Grant.
"Go ahead."
"But I don't want to," Grant admitted.
"Suit yourself," the guy with the thick wrists said in a bored voice. He
looked around, saw he was in a white room with slick walls and asked, "Where's
Uncle Sam?"
Grant hesitated. "Beasley?"
"Yeah."
"He's been dead longer than I've been alive."
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"They don't tell the custodial staff very much around here, do they?"
Grant looked blank.
"Where's the warmest room down here?" asked the man.
Grant frowned. "Warmest?"
"You heard me," said the guy with the thick wrists, drifting up to Grant.
Grant backed off, thought he succeeded, but then his machine pistol was [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
