From: km4j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kip G. Moore)
Subject: Fugue, Part 2
Date: 14 Apr 92 03:57:33 GMT


A continuation of Phyllis' "Lead-Lined Nights" side of Argent and
Leadfoot's story, with more to come.  Argent is copywritten by Phyllis
Li Rostykus (li%polari@uunet.uu.net), used with permission. Leadfoot is
copywritten by me, Kip Moore.  Use him without permission and suffer
consequences.  All errors of consistency are my own.  Comments welcome.
With that, on with the show.....

____________________________________________________________________


	It was only a month, but Leadfoot felt as though he'd met the wrong end
of a shockrod after a kick-boxing match with an H-K drone.  He was bone
weary, tired, frustrated, angry, nervous, and generally in a bad state.
He still even had scars from the encounter on the roof of ARES' Cadaemus
Division complex.

	A gaunt, ghostly pale shadow of a man stood before him, grinning the
grin of a man who is not laughing at you nor with you, but somehow in
spite of you.  Argent was turning this almost into a rite of passage.
Leadfoot had spent sleepless nights dreaming of this moment, but like
the truly inexperienced headstrong young man that he was, he had never
thought past this point.  His ecstasy that had thrilled up from the base
of his spine upon reanimating Argent, giving him back the life that he
was here to protect, had turned into smoke and wafted away at the
appearance that grin, and the tension and activity of the past, lost
month settled down upon him like a gilden lead overcoat.

	Argent didn't even know how truly he had lost his life, how truly dead
he still was.  Leadfoot's job was far from finished.

	"O.K.  We get me out.  How?" said Argent.

	Leadfoot raised his head to meet Argent's eyes once again.  "Well, uh,
lessee here," he began unsteadily.  "Uhm....okay. Can you walk?"

	Argent took a tottering, unsure step, catching himself by falling
backwards onto the bed.  Leadfoot grasped Argent's arm firmly,
cautiously, and helped him to his feet.  With a look of fantastic
concentration on his face, Argent took several doddering steps around
the room, with Leadfoot carefully holding on to Argent's arm.  His arm
felt funny, kind of warped, almost deformed.....

	"Well, that's about it," wheezed Argent.  "If we're going to get out of
here, you're going to have to carry me."

	Leadfoot frowned darkly.  He had hoped that Argent would be able to
move under his own power, but it didn't seem like that was going to be
the case.  And the climbing pads he had used to get in wouldn't hold up
two people, no way.  "Hold on, I'll be right back."

	Leadfoot slipped out of the oversize coffin that had been holding
Argent, taking care to make sure that the carefully jimmied door didn't
slide completely closed.  He looked around, searching for the best way
down and out.

	Argent had spent the last three weeks of his pseudo-life in an
organleggers version of a coffin hotel.  An open metalloy scaffolding
held about twenty-five removable oversized E-Z Kare Medical Grade
Minimal Life Support Units in a flimsy structure about five stories
high, five coffins per story, arranged in a circle with an open center.
In the center was a shaky old chooh-powered freight elevator that moved
by hauling itself along three of the primary supporting columns.  The
whole affair could be collapsed and ready to move in about an hour, and
judging by the shiny scratch marks evident everywhere, it moved often.

	Its present address was in an old abandoned parking garage. The exposed
reinforcing rods in the crumbling concrete had been scavenged long ago.
The original jaundiced color of the concrete had been covered over by
tens of layers of spraybomb paint, graffiti declaring this the turf of
long-dead boostergangs.  The subliminal roar of a nearby superhighway
and the plinking of condensed moisture dripping off of the support
members were the only sounds Leadfoot could hear.

	It was very dark.  An ancient streetlamp sputtered dimly down the
street, and a thin fog that reeked of free monomers was staggering along
toward the decrepit parking structure.  An occasional ray of actinic
light from the streetlamp filtered through gaping holes of the lot,
sending shivers of light along the worn scaffolding.

	Leadfoot took stock of the immediate situation.  Argent's coffin (3-D)
was on the third level, and Leadfoot's motorcycle was across the
potholed street.  The monitoring trailer lay behind the stack of
coffins, away from the street.  Good.  That might buy us a little time,
Leadfoot thought, and ducked back into coffin 3-D.

	Argent looked up from his study of the medical equipment around him.
"This stuff is wired.  Ten seconds after I pull off the last 'trode, an
alarm goes off somewhere.  They'll know, Leadfoot, and someone will
probably come running."

	Leadfoot rummaged around in his coat and pulled out a slim, flat gun
with a narrow, long barrel and an oversized target-pistol grip.  He
extended it out to Argent, who shook his head flatly and opened his
mouth to say something, but was cut off.  "It's loaded with
3-meth-Teraxone mercy slivers; fast acting nerve stuff.  Non-lethal.  It
shouldn't be too heavy.  Ten seconds of sustained fire, and aim for
exposed skin."  Leadfoot jammed it into Argent's hand.  "You'll have to
cover me, I'll be too busy climbing and carrying you."

	Argent mumbled something about choosing your enemies, but it fell on
deaf ears.  Leadfoot unsheathed his monomol-edged tonfa and began to rip
the sheets on the bed into long strips.  "I saw this on an old flatvid
once," he said.  "I hope these sheets hold."

	"Are you crazy?" hissed Argent.  "Those flimsy things'll never hold by
themselves!!  Look, at least wrap them in medical tape, maybe that'll
keep them together long enough to get us down in one piece!!"  Argent
handed the young merc several rolls of cloth tape.  Leadfoot busily
wrapped all of the tape around the strips of bedsheets, then tied all of
the sheets together into a rather motley-looking rope.

	"Ready?"

	"No, not really, but do I have a choice....."

	"Nope.  C'mon, motivate."

	Argent started to remove the monitoring 'trodes stuck to his body as
Leadfoot kneeled and helped Argent to climb onto his back.  Argent
placed his feet into the pockets of Leadfoot's jacket and wrapped one
arm around Leadfoot's neck, leaving the other arm free to wield
Leadfoot's stakkaker.  Ifni, he's light, thought Leadfoot, does he still
have....

	Argent ripped off the last of the 'trodes and Leadfoot grabbed the
makeshift rope and headed out the door, forgetting to stoop so that
Argent's head could clear the top.  Argent ducked just in time.

	One hippopotamus.

	Leadfoot eased out of the door, and wasted a moment closing it
carefully so that it wouldn't shut all the way.  Just in case...

	Two hippopotamus.

	Creeping along the narrow access catwalk now, getting around to the
front side of the tower to the street, taking care not to slip on the
worn-slick metal tubes...

	Three hippopotamus.

	Arriving around front, looking out across the street.  The cloying fog
that had been coming up the street before now enveloped them, and they
were already dripping from the humidity.  Condensation on the cool
surfaces of the slick metalloy honeycomb of the tower made everything
glistening-smooth, slippery.

	Four hippopotamus.

	The erratic light from the streetlamp filtering through the parking
structure seemed sharper somehow.  The fog hadn't penetrated the
collapsed catacomb of the ancient lot, and the light coming from that
direction was still sharp, concise, and cold, when it was coming through
at all.  Leadfoot scans again, nobody in sight.

	Five hippopotamus.

	Leadfoot found a nearby cross-bracing and started to tie the haphazard
rope around it as securely as possible.  A difficult task in the
randomly strobing light around them, and he fumbled.

	Six hippopotamus.

	Leadfoot began to sweat.  He was still fumbling with this rope, trying
to tie it around this now-slick oozing wet metal.  The free-monomer
stench of the fog was carving up his sinuses with blue-cold pins.

	Seven hippopotamus.

	Still struggling with the rope.  Shit!!  Argent's weight was beginning
to dig into Leadfoot's shoulders now, and the acid fog is making his
eyes water.  There, one knot completed.

	Eight hippopotamus.

	Leadfoot began to feel pain.  Tying the second knot now, he felt Argent
tensing on his back.  Light as Argent may be, he can feel Argent's
weight digging into tender-healed recent wounds, pressing, pushing.

	Nine hippopotamus.

	Finished tying the rope to the cross-bracing.  Leadfoot gave it an
experimental tug, nodded approvingly.  He tucked it into a rappelling
grip and swung out into space.

	Ten hippopotamus.

	Recess is over, kids.  The rope was sticky from the fog, and Leadfoot's
having trouble sliding down it, he has to go pretty slowly.  From the
general direction of the support trailer comes a commotion, a door
slammed open, curses float off on the acrid buoyancy of the fog, and the
strobe streetlight pin down Leadfoot and Argent in the dark like
headlamps.

	Second floor and two red-orange laser sights wink out at the pair,
probing the fog.  The light is diffused by the fog and they can see the
whole line, razor-straight, sweeping around, neon tubeflash.  Leadfoot
hears the hiss-swoosh of the stakkaker as Argent sekis the source of the
intrusion.  One floor to go.

	A sudden arc-burst of light from the strobe across and away freezes the
tableau, starkly.  There were two shapes, one arched backwards in a
scream, Argent hit his mark.  The other shape's laser sight is briefly
drowned out by the flash, and there is an astonished look on his face as
his eyes meet Leadfoot's unruffled gaze.  Flash off.  Afterburn on the
retina replays the image of the soundless scream-arch of one of the
organleggers, and the other one wakes up and sends a burst stuttering
off into the fog.  Missed.  It goes over their heads and severs the
makeshift rope.

	Too bad for the organlegger; Leadfoot and Argent are already on the
ground.  Leadfoot shakes the sticky rope off of his hands and the
stakkaker is still spitting softly.  Argent's earning his pay.
Streeghtlight strobeflash and a second scream joins the first.  Not bad.
Not bad by half, thinks Leadfoot.

	Leadfoot dashes across the street, still carrying Argent.  He takes
Argent off of his back and puts him on the 'cycle, carefully.  Leadfoot
hops on the 'cycle, keys the ignition, and the fog swallows their escape.

	The only sounds are the sounds of the subliminal roar of a nearby
superhighway, the plinking of condensed moisture dripping off of the
support members, and a quiet buzzing tone wafting out of the open door
of the support trailer.


-Kay Double You
km4j+@andrew.cmu.edu

Thanks go out to Liralen, who is so patient with me.