neck backwards to see the top floor.
Standing on a street corner wasn’t getting him where he needed to go. He checked the time on the GPS. He’d beaten his own estimate by half an hour. Still, he was sure Uncle Bruce had expected him long ago. He realized he should have called when the flitter broke. Since he’d used the parts of the holo-vision set to repair the flitter, the point was moot.
Inside the door, he found a sign with lists of who was where. Readily, he spotted a listing for the place his uncle worked for, the Saronno Produce Lobby Associates. They were on the eleventh floor and there were no listings for residences. Maybe Uncle Bruce and his friends had rooms where they worked.
The address Uncle Bruce gave him said he was to go to room 211A. That was obviously on the second floor. Tasso could see why his grandfather wanted him to study manuals. Finding his way around this building would be like assembling a component machine. He was Part A. Part A went in Part B. Part B was room 211A. A diagram showed where Part B was and how to get there.
He saw the access corridor to the elevators. He snorted. He wasn’t such a rube that he didn’t know what an elevator was. He looked around until he found the stairs. After all, he only had to go to the second floor.
The stairs opened onto a broad entrance hall on the second floor. People were coming and going from all directions. He saw a guard standing off to one side. The man’s shirt didn’t have ‘security’ written on it like the guards at the processing facility, still Tasso decided the man had the same look about him. He smiled at the man and waved politely, but the man ignored him.
There was a huge sign across the hallway. It said ‘information’. Additional knowledge was exactly what Tasso needed. He was halfway across the hall when lights flashed and sirens hooted. Someone jumped on him from behind and pushed him onto the hard floor. Three men kneeled on his back, shouting at him not to move, to put his hands behind his back, and give them his bag.
Tasso couldn’t figure out how not to move and put his hands behind his back at the same time. Since he could hardly draw a breath with three men kneeling on him, he opted for not moving, even when they ripped his bag away from him.
CHAPTER 7
VARIOUS MEN DRAGGED TASSO from room to room, sitting him in a series of successively harder chairs. He’d long ago lost track of his bag. It’d only held a change of clothes, a toothbrush and the like, plus a few miscellaneous items from home. It didn’t hold his extra socks, he’d left them in the flitter when they somehow got enough burn holes to make them effectively useless. The pack did have Grandpa’s old shotgun in it, however the weapon didn’t seem to have much value in the city. He wondered why he’d fought those two boys to keep it. His dataport was stuck in place on his shirt where it always stayed. The men didn’t seem interested in taking it. With his hands tied behind his back, even if he wanted to access the dataport, he couldn’t. The men searched him, repeatedly going through the same pockets and patting the same parts of his body. They didn’t find his main stash of cash or his pocketknife. Secret pouches deep in his boots kept those items well hidden. The men did find a few dollars in one pocket, but they didn’t take it.
Another man grabbed Tasso by the collar and dragged him out of a half-rusted steel folding chair to his feet. “Move it, junior,” the man growled. “I don’t have time for this kind of crap.”
“I don’t—” Tasso started to say.
“Shut up,” the man interrupted. “I don’t want or need to hear it, so exercise your right to remain silent. Keep up or I will gag you and drag you, got it?” The man rushed along a corridor, pulling Tasso behind him. A second man joined them. He had Tasso’s bag.
“211A?” the first man asked.
The second man nodded and matched their pace.
The first man returned the
Standing on a street corner wasn’t getting him where he needed to go. He checked the time on the GPS. He’d beaten his own estimate by half an hour. Still, he was sure Uncle Bruce had expected him long ago. He realized he should have called when the flitter broke. Since he’d used the parts of the holo-vision set to repair the flitter, the point was moot.
Inside the door, he found a sign with lists of who was where. Readily, he spotted a listing for the place his uncle worked for, the Saronno Produce Lobby Associates. They were on the eleventh floor and there were no listings for residences. Maybe Uncle Bruce and his friends had rooms where they worked.
The address Uncle Bruce gave him said he was to go to room 211A. That was obviously on the second floor. Tasso could see why his grandfather wanted him to study manuals. Finding his way around this building would be like assembling a component machine. He was Part A. Part A went in Part B. Part B was room 211A. A diagram showed where Part B was and how to get there.
He saw the access corridor to the elevators. He snorted. He wasn’t such a rube that he didn’t know what an elevator was. He looked around until he found the stairs. After all, he only had to go to the second floor.
The stairs opened onto a broad entrance hall on the second floor. People were coming and going from all directions. He saw a guard standing off to one side. The man’s shirt didn’t have ‘security’ written on it like the guards at the processing facility, still Tasso decided the man had the same look about him. He smiled at the man and waved politely, but the man ignored him.
There was a huge sign across the hallway. It said ‘information’. Additional knowledge was exactly what Tasso needed. He was halfway across the hall when lights flashed and sirens hooted. Someone jumped on him from behind and pushed him onto the hard floor. Three men kneeled on his back, shouting at him not to move, to put his hands behind his back, and give them his bag.
Tasso couldn’t figure out how not to move and put his hands behind his back at the same time. Since he could hardly draw a breath with three men kneeling on him, he opted for not moving, even when they ripped his bag away from him.
CHAPTER 7
VARIOUS MEN DRAGGED TASSO from room to room, sitting him in a series of successively harder chairs. He’d long ago lost track of his bag. It’d only held a change of clothes, a toothbrush and the like, plus a few miscellaneous items from home. It didn’t hold his extra socks, he’d left them in the flitter when they somehow got enough burn holes to make them effectively useless. The pack did have Grandpa’s old shotgun in it, however the weapon didn’t seem to have much value in the city. He wondered why he’d fought those two boys to keep it. His dataport was stuck in place on his shirt where it always stayed. The men didn’t seem interested in taking it. With his hands tied behind his back, even if he wanted to access the dataport, he couldn’t. The men searched him, repeatedly going through the same pockets and patting the same parts of his body. They didn’t find his main stash of cash or his pocketknife. Secret pouches deep in his boots kept those items well hidden. The men did find a few dollars in one pocket, but they didn’t take it.
Another man grabbed Tasso by the collar and dragged him out of a half-rusted steel folding chair to his feet. “Move it, junior,” the man growled. “I don’t have time for this kind of crap.”
“I don’t—” Tasso started to say.
“Shut up,” the man interrupted. “I don’t want or need to hear it, so exercise your right to remain silent. Keep up or I will gag you and drag you, got it?” The man rushed along a corridor, pulling Tasso behind him. A second man joined them. He had Tasso’s bag.
“211A?” the first man asked.
The second man nodded and matched their pace.
The first man returned the
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