cameras on every corner, every bridge; otherwise he’d have just taken her off the street.
The team looked at him for orders. He had to decide.
Farouk knelt by the complicated mess of red and green wires. It would be easy enough to patch up the hole and leave no trace of their operation. When they were done, she’d be just another missing person, a flyer on the wall of a bus stop, a photo on the back of a Nutri carton. And they would be five hundred credits richer, more if they believed Shakes.
“’Rouk?” Wes asked.
“Say the word and we can blow the joint and be inside in fifteen seconds.”
“Think she knows we’re right above her?” Wes asked. Nat had crossed the street to enter the same building they were in; she lived in the apartment unit located directly below them.
Shakes grunted and spoke in a low tone so only Wes could hear him. “Don’t take the blood money. Snitching on border jumpers is for cowards. We’re no thieves. C’mon, boss, let’s do the job. Think of what we could get with twenty thousand watts. A warm bath, and not just at the hostel either, but at a real hotel. The Bellagio even. The Sweet Suite.”
“It’s too risky,” Wes argued. “We can’t all die because she wants out.” It wasn’t just about the credits. He couldn’t put their lives on the line. He knew what awaited them in the black waters, and he had no desire to see if Bradley had found someone else to do that job. If he took her out there, they would be targets, vulnerable to scavengers and opportunists, if they even made it that far, if the food didn’t run out . . . “She seems like a nice kid, but . . .” He understood Shakes’s desire to help out, he really did, but the journey was too uncertain, no matter how badly they needed the watts. “Farouk, on my count—”
“Wait! Boss, hold on, hold on, hear me out!” Shakes protested.
Farouk looked up at Wes questioningly. Wes waved off the assault for now. “What is it?”
“I heard she might have the map,” Shakes whispered urgently.
Wes stared hard at Shakes. “And you’re just telling me this
now
?”
His friend looked chagrined. “I know it sounds crazy, so I didn’t want to mention it earlier, but . . .” He looked around to make sure the rest of the team couldn’t hear him.
“Did she show it to you?” Wes asked. “Was it like some kind of stone or something? An opal or an emerald?”
“No. She didn’t even mention it. I was talking to Manny the other day, and he asked me if I knew what the police were looking for in Old Joe’s place when they took him. Seemed real important since they tore the place apart. Whatever it was, Manny thinks maybe she has it. He saw Joe hand her something at the casino, right before he disappeared.”
That got his attention. Like Shakes, Wes had heard that Josephus Chang had won Anaximander’s Map in a legendary card game.
The map the whole world was looking for.
But there is no map, because there’s no such thing as the Blue,
Wes thought. It was wishful thinking on everyone’s part. Escape to another world. Anaximander’s Map was the biggest scam in New Vegas if Wes had ever heard of one.
But Joe had insisted the map was real. The old shark was one of the best poker players in Vegas, and supposedly he’d won it from a guy who had given him a bushel of apples as proof. The genetic code for the fruit had been lost for years; there were no more apples since the Big Freeze. Wes always wondered why Joe had stuck around, why he didn’t just up and leave immediately if he had it in his possession.
So they’d gotten to Old Joe but hadn’t been able to retrieve the treasure he’d held. Now, that was something to think about. If Nat had it, she was worth much more than mere bounty money.
“How much do you think we’d get for it?” Shakes asked.
“Who knows,” said Wes.
“What do they want it for anyway?”
“Isn’t it obvious? This world is dead. If there is another world out
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