Gun Machine

A lynx tore past the hunter, making a noise like a riverfront storm. It had a human rider with a flat glass face.

The hunter was frantically trying to match landmarks to memory, but everything was shifting. He got a street sign to resolve through the twisting chaos of his vision, found his orientation, and sprinted down a conduit alley.

Tallow saw a blurred snap on his phone, flicked his eyes to the map, and knew where the hunter was going. He knew that alley, he knew where it came out, and he was now certain of the hunter’s intended destination. Tallow figured that his man, in fact, was entirely too close to it.

The hunter emerged from the alley to see a pack of dogs come around the street corner to his left with a horrific squeal. The hunter shook his head, gripping his gun harder. The pack coalesced into a motor vehicle, one he knew.

The car mounted the sidewalk. The hunter could not stand and fight. He snapped off a shot at the car, turned, and ran for his life.

It was a good shot, and a good reminder for Tallow that the paint-spattered lunatic on the street was the most prolific and efficient killer he’d ever heard of. The windshield crazed, and the right corner of his seat exploded in shredded cheap vinyl and yellow foam. He was blind and had no choice but to stamp on the brake. His right shoulder burned, just at the top. He glanced at it swiftly and saw a neat notch seared at the shoulder of his suit jacket. Not important. Tallow elbowed out a hole in the windshield glass and tried to convince the car to move forward again. The car wasn’t interested and made a sound like a sick dog gnawing on a branch.

The hunter had gone twenty or thirty steps before he realized he couldn’t hear the car running. It was stopped, half on the sidewalk.

The hunter knew he should keep going. Half a minute of sprinting would put him entirely out of Tallow’s sight. But the car wasn’t moving. Perhaps he’d wounded Tallow. Perhaps he’d done some paralyzing violence to the vehicle’s workings. He should run. But Tallow was there to be killed. He wanted to kill Tallow so much. A hunter didn’t just leave prey sitting there. It would have been tasteless to walk away.

The hunter started walking back to the car, quickly.

The damned engine wouldn’t turn over. Tallow didn’t know why. Tallow wasn’t good with cars.

Jim Rosato had always said Tallow wasn’t good with cars. That’s why he drove. Jim Rosato had always said Tallow wasn’t a street cop like him, and that’s why he went first in a street situation.

“Jim Rosato’s dead,” said Tallow as he wrenched the ignition and stamped on the pedals. The car leaped forward like an animal, spitting out a hubcap as it gained the street.

The hunter took a shot. He didn’t trust his vision enough for a headshot, so he went for the biggest mass he could focus on.

The bullet slammed into Tallow’s vest, right over his heart. It was like having the wind knocked out of his lungs by a baseball bat. His heart skipped six beats and the world went black and red around the edges. The car weaved, bumped up the opposite sidewalk, and took out a newspaper vending box before Tallow got it and himself back under control.

Another shot screamed across the hood. Flecks of hot tin torn up by the bullet’s passage flew into the car and across Tallow’s face. A sound like a roar came out of him as he aimed the car down the street with murder.

The hunter had no choice but to turn and run.

Tallow tried to keep the nose of the car on the hunter, but the bastard was threading between streetlights and mailboxes and any other damn thing he could put between himself and the car while running like a gazelle. Tallow swung the car out wide, making a guess. He was getting bright little spikes of pain across his chest whenever he tried to breathe.

The hunter angled left at the next intersection, firing another bullet without looking. The shell plowed into the front of the car, caromed around elements of the engine, and came out low by the driver’s seat. Tallow yelled as a chunk of his right calf tore away. He swore and kicked his leg out to try to shake the pain. His face was wet. He wiped the sweat off it as quickly as he could, before it ran into his eyes, and saw blood on his fingers as they closed around the steering wheel again. He swore twice. The blood was making the wheel slick and hard to grip. His leg was full of burning grit, and smoke was leaking out of the car’s hood.

Tallow had to drive across traffic to stay in pursuit. He missed a sideswipe by inches and had to mount the sidewalk again, clipping some signage as he barreled the wrong way down the next street, praying that no one would be driving toward him.

Ambient Security updates petered out. The storefronts were thinning out. The hunter was out of sight. Tallow had to trust to his knowledge of the city, everything he’d learned over the past few days, and his instinct. There was nothing else left.