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didn't work. Regardless, the two toughs facing each other a few feet away weren't paying attention.
Toyas squeezed between a couple of business types, trying to get close before things got worse.
Everyone leaned away, though, and there wasn't room to move. Toyas shifted to get his stun prod out of
its holster, but a heavyset guy in a gray overcoat trapped his arm against him.
A young tough said to an older man,  Are you pulling blade on me? A skin-art forest fire blazed on the
young man's face and shaved head. Flame images circled his cool, blue eyes. He tapped his dueling
knife's hilt that hung on his chest just below his shoulder, handle down for a quick draw.
The older one, dark-bearded, wearing pale leather, held his knife delicately between thumb and finger,
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sliding it slowly in and out of its chest sheath.  I'm pulling it.
 But are you pulling onme? 
Faces surrounded them, mostly Shotgun City domestics heading down-canyon for day jobs. They
pushed back, creating a four-foot arena. Behind them, the curious stood on their toes, peering over
heads for a better look. The tram rocked, and, through the windows, building after building whipped by.
The tableau froze, pale-leather holding his blade so that an inch gleamed, fire-face resting a finger on the
hilt. Toyas yelled,  Break it up! Police!
Fire-face turned toward him, and the tram lurched. Pale-leather lunged forward, blade beside his ear.
Someone screamed. People pushed together so hard that Toyas lost his breath. The tram slid onto the
platform and stopped. Doors on one side opened, releasing the commuters. Behind him, other doors
opened and new commuters pushed in. Toyas rode the crush out, panning the crowd for the two toughs.
Nothing. People riding slideways and escalators. Others milling around soy and drink kiosks.
He almost tripped over the body ten feet later. Lying on his back, fire-face stared into the sky. Toyas felt
for a pulse, but knew the boy was dead. A stab wound just left of center bled little. The blade had gone
straight to the heart, a rare thrust for a dueling knife, which by law could be no longer than three inches.
The neck was warm and placid. Sweat slick. Toyas guessed that the boy had died before he left the
tram, but the crowd had carried him upright to this point before he dropped. Fire images still crawled up
his cheeks, licked his ears, flickered across his forehead, the skin-art dyes following their programmed
display, living on the dead skin. False fire. No heat. A woman brushed against him, her eyes locked
forward; he was sure she didn't see him.  Step wide! he called.  Crime scene. Step wide! Still, they
came. Crouched over the body, he saw knees and feet. A flattened cup leaked coffee until someone
kicked it, and only the stain remained.
Toyas tongued a transmit switch on the back of a tooth and called for clean-up. He ordered a tracer on
the tram and a download of the securitycam files, but he held little hope they'd show much: backs of
heads, fuzzy faces, motion not enough for court-worthy ID's. Another corpse-fifteen to twenty a day
on this tram line alone.
Tiny voices filled his ear: a rolling riot had spread to Idaho Springs, fifteen miles down canyon; there was
a hostage situation in Dillon and another in Shotgun City. A dozen All Points Bulletins. Another cop
called for a clean-up while he waited. The violent recital: situations droned on. He half listened, tuning in
to his calls and not the others, but he had nothing to do, leaning over the dead boy.
People stepped over the body. Toyas fended them off the best he could until clean-up arrived. The
human tide inexorably flowed, a herd on the move.
By the time he got to Bellamy Labs, where he was to arrest Reanna Loveday for unauthorized genetic
manipulation, it had turned into a suicide standoff.
Not much to the building itself. Undistinguished signs marked the slideway platform as private, and the
afternoon's light reflected off the door's muted silver sheen. People in a steady procession on the
slideway moved up and down canyon behind him. Toyas leaned back; the sky, a luminous blue ribbon
cut by walks and bridges, stretched between the buildings tops. Trams scooted overhead on magnetic
rails. The population's weight pressed around him, above him, below him. It smelled of fish and
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deodorizers, of dusty, clammy skin, of people that never saw the sun and slept too close together. This is
no place for a Masai warrior, he thought. I should be trotting across a grassy plain, spear in hand, my
fate's master. Not that there are any Masai left or grassy plains, for that matter.
He imagined how easy it would be to pull his own dueling blade in a crowded tram and stab and stab
and stab. He rubbed his hands together. He still felt the dead boy's sweat on his fingertips.
The door scanner okayed his warrant, opening to a wide hallway crowded with frightened lab staff. A
young man in a medical smock turned to him when he came in the door. Something in his eyes struck
Toyas. They darted wildly, and the man trembled. A skin-art rose rotated slowly on his cheek, and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]