Thunder

Chapter Six - 6

Z9 entered the hotel and headed straight for the lift. She ascended swiftly to floor fifteen and got off, following the numbers on the doors as a dog follows a scent. She kept looking behind her, expecting to see someone in pursuit of the woman who blew up the warehouse, but evidently nobody had connected the dots so far. She found the door and used the card. The door clicked open.

The room was slightly larger than hers was, and virtually spotless as well. There was not a dirty cup on the side, not an ashtray with the faintest detectable trace of ash on its bottom. She went further into the room, scanning for anything of interest.

She stopped.

There was someone in the shower.

'That you, Castellione?' It was a woman's voice. It was silky smooth, like an expensive cocktail, with varying hints of accent hybridity interwoven into the timbre. The shower stopped and Z9 heard the woman stepping out. She took out her gun and slid herself into the shadows behind the door.

It opened, revealing the form of a beautiful, slim, fair haired woman in her mid twenties, a towel covering not very much. She was fair skinned, though there were traces of purple mixed into the colour as well. She looked as if she were designed by a clothing range.

Z9 moved out from the darkness and put the muzzle of the gun to her temple.

'Just sit down on the bed, if you don't mind,' she said. The woman froze, stopping statuesque, though she didn't begin to tremble. It was if she had not been expecting it as such, but wasn't surprised either. When she didn't move the muzzle was pressed more firmly against her head. She walked slowly over to the bed, guided gently by the black barrel trained on her, and sat on the bed. Z9 moved around from behind her, gun trained on her at all times, and stood, mouth slammed shut like a prison cell.

'Do you think you can kill me to get to him?' the woman asked.

'No,' Z9 replied, 'I don't need to do that.'

The woman turned her gaze from the gun to look out of the window, out over the plaza. Green lasers shot up out of a building not too far away, a lighting display for some kind of enhancement of the experience to tourists no doubt. Superficial, like jumping fountains for light.

'You can't stop it,' the woman said, turning back to Z9. 'You can't stop it happening.'

'Oh, you'd be surprised what I can stop,' Z9 said.

'Not this.' The woman's voice was quiet, but firm.

'I need to know something,' Z9 began, 'something very simple. Your partner in crime couldn't answer me with a good enough explanation, so I thought I would ask you instead.'

'They will kill me,' the woman replied. 'They will kill me if I say but a single word.'

'Well you'd better say several then, hadn't you?' Z9 said. The two women stared at each other, one into the barrel of a gun, the other down it. In the silence, broken only by the noises of the world outside the room, they shared a kind of mutual understanding. 'Those bruises on your cheeks are new, aren't they?'

The woman, who had previously been fairly steel-plated in her calm, had a flicker in her eyes. It was the flicker of the acknowledgement that something had hit home, that something had made its mark where it wasn't supposed to. In her mind, the first rivet had been knocked loose of the metal wall that sealed off her mind.

'Things not working out too well at home?' Z9 probed. 'What was it? The drink? Pressure from up high?'

'Castellione has been always good to me,' the woman replied sharply, 'for seven years.'

'I'm guessing you've been together for eight then, looking at some of those cuts on your forehead.' Another rivet came loose, and a screw began to unwind.

'You know nothing of him,' she spat. Z9 let a small smile onto her face.

'But I know something of you,' Z9 said, 'and that's what makes the difference.'

The woman sat in silence once more, and Z9 could see her mind ticking over, going through checklists, playing chess with an invisible board with herself as the king with a devastating attack about to come her way. She could almost smell her thinking; almost taste the sweat seeping out of the pours in her forehead, bringing the faint metallic tang of year-old dried blood with it.

'There is a night club,' she began, 'in Region 22. There is a man there. He can help you.'

'You're coming with me then, a guide,' Z9 said. 'Don't worry about the transport; that's sorted.'