In the distance, Alex heard the rising tritone of sirens. Breath by breath, they grew closer. For a long moment, he thought the deck was being shaken, then realized it was just his body, trembling. At the side of the room, one of the gunmen lay slumped against the wall. His neck was at a strange angle, and blood was drying on his chest. He wasn’t bleeding though. Dead, then. The man in the suit coughed and gagged, choking. The sirens got louder. There were voices now too. A woman identifying herself as police and warning them that people were coming in.

“I was coming to tell you,” Alex said. “I’ll stay. I’ll help.”

“Thanks.”

“This was about the black market stuff, wasn’t it?” Alex said. “I guess you’ve been asking the right questions.”

Bobbie managed a smile. Looking at her now, there was a lot of blood on her shirt.

“Don’t know,” she said. “All they asked me about was you.”

Chapter Twelve: Amos

“Want some coke?” Erich asked. “Not synth. Real stuff that came from a plant.”

“Nope. But I’d take a drink if one is handy,” Amos replied. The pleasantries were just ritual, but ritual was important. In Amos’ experience the more dangerous any two people were, the more carefully polite their social interactions tended to be. The loud, blustering ones were trying to get the other guy to back down. They wanted to stay out of a fight. The quiet ones were figuring out how to win it.

“Tatu, bring the El Charros,” Erich said, and one of the two guards slipped out the door. To Amos he added, “Been on a tequila kick lately.”

“I haven’t,” Amos said. “Earth is still the only place you can get good tequila. The Belter stuff is undrinkable.”

“Not a lot of blue agave up there, I guess.”

Amos shrugged and waited. Tatu returned with a tall skinny bottle and two narrow shot glasses. Erich filled both then lifted one in salute.

“To old friends.”

“Old friends,” Amos repeated and tossed back his shot.

“Another?” Erich asked, pointing at the bottle.

“Sure.”

“Seen much of the neighborhood?”

“Just what was between here and the train station.”

“Hasn’t changed much,” Erich said, then paused while they both drank off their shots. He refilled their glasses. “Faces change, but the corners stay the same.”

“Funny, I was just thinking that same thing on my way in. Things have changed for you though.”

“Not the important ones,” Erich said with a grin and wiggled his small, withered left arm.

Amos gestured at the room, the guards, the renovated building around them. “When I left, you were running for your life. So, at least one thing’s different.”