The Long Run | Page 5

slowly
realigned themselves. Still he did not look at the old man. "Six
Peaceforcers?"
"I don't trust that midget, Trent." Peering through the crowds and
flickering adholos, Bones tried to see what it was that Trent was
looking at, but could not.
"You don't trust who?"
"That midget working for you."
"Which midget?"
"The pretty one."
"Oh, Bird. Bird's a doll, Bones."
"He's the right size," Bones agreed.
"He's only fourteen, Bones. He hasn't started growing yet. When were
the Peaceforcers here?"
Bones sighed audibly. "You got something going today, don't you?

You ever going to get a job, Trent?"
"Bones."
"What?"
"Don't start on me today. I'm not in the mood for it."
"Just wonderin'. You so good with the Net, I knows you could get
work."
"Bones, this is starting to look like a very bad day. I don't want 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