From the Street to the Stars (Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star, Book 1)

Chapter 16: Stowaways

"Kit!" Meta screamed.

I probably would have screamed, too, if my breath hadn't been knocked out when my foot caught between the topmost rung and the wall and I smashed hard against the outside of the fire escape. I hung there, gasping soundlessly for air, dangling by one leg over three stories of darkness, expecting at any moment to feel the beginning of pain from the bullet wound, or blood running down past my face.

But I didn't. Oh, there was plenty of pain, not just from my back, where whatever-it-was had hit me, but also from my abused ankle, my bruised chest and face, my scraped shoulder, my bleeding cheek, and everything in between. None of it felt like it a gunshot wound, though... or how I imagined a gunshot wound would feel.

I tried to pull myself back up and couldn't. "Meta, help!"

"You're alive!"

"I won't be if you don't give me a hand!" I could feel my foot slipping. "Hurry!"

With her help and a pulled muscle or two I managed to get a safe grip on the outside of the fire escape, free my foot, and swing around onto the first landing, where the fire escape changed from a ladder to a series of switchbacking staircases. Sitting there, I unslung the stringsynth case from my back and confirmed what I'd suspected: Sloan's slug, whether because he was a good shot or a spectacularly bad one, had indeed hit me square in the back—but my poor old stringsynth, heavy, old, and almost solid metal, had saved my life. Maybe luck hadn't completely deserted me after all.

Feeling guilty, as if I were abandoning an old friend, I left the ruined instrument on the landing, pulled myself to my feet, said, "Come on!", took two steps down—and stopped so suddenly Meta ran into me.

"Now what?" she cried.

"Sloan's not here."

"Good! Now go!"

"But he should be here—all he had to do was cross the roof. That means—" I climbed back to the top of the fire escape and raised my head slowly over the edge of the roof. No Sloan. "This way! He thinks I fell—he must be heading for the bottom of the fire escape!"

Back onto the roof we went, back through the door I had kicked open, back down the dark stairs, and out through the lobby. We burst out into the street and ran—or, in my case, hobbled quickly—past a half-dozen men, shouting drunkenly, coming out of the tavern. As we reached the corner I glanced back and saw Sloan emerge from the alley leading behind his flophouse. He shouted something and shook his fist, and I waved at him before grabbing Meta's hand and plunging into the darkness of a side street.

Every step hurt as we zigzagged from block to block, ignoring and ignored by the shadowy, ragged people we passed. Finally, I stopped beneath the flickering blue light of a tube station, panting in time with Meta and contrapuntally to the assorted throbbings in my body. "Should be—safe enough," I gasped out. "Sloan—not one for running."

"I thought you were dead back there!"

"So did I. But no harm done... " To prove it, I ran my hands over my chest—and swore.

"What is it?"

"My pocket is empty!" I checked it again to be sure.

"So?"

"That's where I put my credchip. It must have fallen out when I went over the railing."

"You said you couldn't use it without Qualls or the 'forcers finding out where you are, anyway."

"Yeah, but in an emergency... " I sighed. "Well, better Andy Nebula's fortune falls three stories than Andy Nebula."

"You're not Andy Nebula anymore," Meta said flatly. I wondered how she felt about that. She looked up and down the empty street. "Now where?"