The Long Run | Page 5

to hear about it." At the other end of the plaza, seventy-five meters distant, Trent caught sight of Tammy, a too-skinny girl with platinum-white hair, deep in conversation with a tall black man wearing BloodSilks colors, waving her arms as she spoke.
"Why ain't you going to get a job?"
"I already have one and I don't need two. What time were the Peaceforcers here?"
Near Trent, clustered around a small bench just the other side of the walkway, three teenaged girls were conducting a loud argument about where they would eat dinner. Two of them faced Trent and Bones; the third stood facing her companions, and Trent could see only her back. She wore a tight green leather dress that came down to mid-thigh, black ankle boots and pale green silk stockings. Her hair was jet black, straight and long.
"Everybody gots to work, Trent. Everybody needs something to make it worth gettin' up in the morning." The old contortionist chewed on the thought for a bit. "That's the fact. 'Sides," he said suddenly, "you keep up boosting, eventually the Peaceforcers going to catch you."
The girl in the green dress, immediately in front of Trent, stood clutching a handbag by its closed top. She had an exquisite bottom. A glowing scarlet zipper began at the dress's hem, just over her right thigh, and spiraled up around her buttocks, waist, and breasts; taking her out of it would be like peeling the skin off an orange. "What time, Bones?"
Bones sighed. "Seven-thirty, I guess. I was having breakfast upstairs on the second floor, at the cantina. I don't know the names of any of them, but I seen them in the crowds before sometimes when I performs. They're assigned regular to this stretch, us being so close to the Fringe and all. Cheap bastards," he added thoughtfully. "Don't never throw nothing into the kitty when I'm done."
"They recognize you?"
Bones shrugged. It was a curiously fluid motion; most of the major bones in his body had extra joints surgically inserted. "Who knows? I was dressed; I don't look much the same when all the ceramic joints are locked up and I'm wearin' clothes."
"Oh." From across the crowded length of the plaza, Tammy reached up and casually scratched her left shoulder.
Bones looked at Trent with a perturbed expression on his seamed black face. "I'm really serious, Trent. You're still young enough to get out of here."
"Out of the Patrol Sectors?" Trent grinned at Bones suddenly, a quick flash which brought unnaturally still features alive for just a moment. "I took six years just getting out of the Fringe, Bones. I love the Patrol Sectors."
"That's not what I meant. Geography got nothing to do with gettin' out of here." Bones pulled on a long-sleeved shirt and buttoned it up as he spoke. "I gots me a whole lot of contacts; been tying myself up in knots here in the Plaza for a long time, and I met a lot of folks. I could probably get you a job with"
Seventy-five meters away, Tammy tugged gently at the lobe of her left ear; Trent cut Bones off. "I have a job, Bones."
The old contortionist snorted. "Boosting," he said with gentle derision.
It was Tuesday, April the thirtieth, 2069.
Trent said softly, "Not exactly." He closed his eyes and went Inside.
"Trent said to me once, 'A theft is an act of communication. So is a blow. Unlike words, neither one can be ignored. A properly executed boost consists of three elements: what you steal, how you steal it, and from whom you steal.
'You cannot catch a thief who knows this and employs the knowledge properly. If the thief is a very good thief, you may learn, in time, why he stole what he stole.'"
--The Peaceforcer Elite Melissa du Bois, as quoted in The Exodus Bible.
"I never ever talk like that."
--Trent the Uncatchable, according to the historian Corazon de Nostri.
The sunglasses had cost Trent more than the rest of what he was wearing put together. The lenses filtered ultraviolet from bright sunlight; in dim surroundings they stepped infrared up into the visible spectrum. The arms of the glasses, where they crossed his temples, held the contacts for the traceset in the handheld InfoNet link in the right hand pocket of his coat.
The Down Plaza was run by Frazier Enforcement, the firm which ran many of the shopping districts located either in the Fringe proper or at its edge; Frazier got along acceptably well with the Peaceforcers, and they were experts in the unique problems of Fringe-area security.
They also had the worst software in the state of New York. Trent's Image, a program named Johnny Johnny, said softly, Boss, somebody's messed with Plaza security.
I know, Johnny. Standing with his eyes closed behind the concealing lenses, Trent merged with his Image, and ceased to be Trent.
Johnny