Eve started off to work humming. Her body felt soft and strong, her mind rested. She took it as an omen when her vehicle purred to life on the first attempt, and the temperature control hung at a pleasant seventy-two degrees.
She felt ready to face her commander and convince him she had a case to pursue.
Then she got to Fifth and Forty-seventh and hit the jam. Street traffic was stopped, air traffic was circling like vultures, and no one was paying any heed to the noise pollution laws. The horns, shouts, curses, catcalls screamed out and echoed. The minute she stopped, her temperature control gleefully pumped up to ninety-five.
Eve slammed out of her car and joined the melee.
The glide-cart hawkers were taking advantage of the moment, slipping and sliding through the pack and doing a monster business on frozen fruit sticks and coffee. She didn’t bother to flash her badge and remind any of them they weren’t allowed the vend off the curbs. Instead, she snagged a vendor, bought a tube of Pepsi, and asked what the hell was going on.
“Free-Agers.” Eyes shifting for more customers, he slid her credits into his safe slot. “Protest on conspicuous consumption. Hundreds of ’em, stretched across Fifth like a pretty ribbon. Singing. Want a wheat muffin to go with that? Fresh.”
“No.”
“Gonna be here awhile,” he warned and stepped onto his cart to glide through standing traffic.
“Son of a bitch.” Eve scanned the scene. She was blocked in on all sides by furious commuters. Her ears were ringing and heat was pumping out of her car like a furnace.
She slammed back in, beat on the control panel with her fist, and managed to knock the temperature down to a brisk sixty. Overhead, a tourist blimp trundled by, full of gawkers.
With no faith whatsoever in her vehicle, Eve rammed it into vertical lift and hit her official warning siren. The siren wheezed on, no match for the cacophony of noise, but she managed a shaky lift. Her wheels missed the roof of the car in front of her by at least an inch as her vehicle coughed and choked its way into the air.
“Next stop, recycling heap. I swear it,” she muttered and she punched at her communicator. “Peabody, what the fuck is going on here?”
“Sir.” Peabody popped on screen, eyes bland, mouth sober. “I believe you’ve encountered the jam incited by the protest on Fifth.”
“That wasn’t scheduled. I know damn well it wasn’t on the boards for this morning. They can’t have a permit.”
“Free-Agers don’t believe in permits, sir.” She cleared her throat when Eve snarled. “I believe if you head west, you’ll have better luck on Seventh. Traffic is heavy there, but it’s moving. If you check your dash monitor—”
“Yeah, like that’s going to work in this piece of shit. Call Maintenance and tell them they’re meat. Then contact the commander, explain that I may be a few minutes late for the meeting.” As she spoke, she wrestled with the car, which tended to dip and cause both pedestrians and other drivers to stare up in terror. “If I don’t fall on someone, I should be there in twenty minutes.”
She avoided, barely, the edge of a billboard hologram touting the delights of private air travel. She and the Jet Star headed in opposite directions with varying degrees of success. She nicked the curb as she set down on Seventh and couldn’t blame the suit and tie pumping up his air skates for flipping her the bird.
But she’d missed him, hadn’t she?
She was just indulging in a sigh of relief when her communicator shrilled.
“Any unit, any unit. Twelve seventeen, roof of Tattler Building, Seventh and Forty-second. Respond immediately. Unidentified female, considered armed.”
Twelve seventeen, Eve thought. Self-termination threat. What the hell was this? “Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, responding. ETA five minutes.”
She beat her siren into life and hit vertical again.
The Tattler Building, home of the nation’s most popular tabloid, was shiny and new. The buildings on its former site had been razed in the thirties for the urban beautification program, which was a euphemism for the decay of infrastructure and construction that had plagued New York during the period.
It speared up in silvery steel, bullet-shaped, and was ringed by circling skywalks and glides with a fresh-air restaurant spilling out from its base.
Eve double parked, grabbed her field kit, and pushed her way through the crowd gathered on the sidewalk. She flipped her badge at the security guard and watched relief drown his face.
“Thank
Christ. She’s up there, holding everybody off with antimugging spray. Got Bill dead in the eyes when he tried to grab her.”
“Who is she?” Eve demanded as he hustled his way toward the interior elevator banks.
“Cerise Devane. She owns the fucking place.”
“Devane?” Eve knew her vaguely. Cerise Devane, CEO of Tattler Enterprises, was one of the privileged and influential people who sauntered in Roarke’s circles. “Cerise Devane is on the roof threatening to jump? What is this, some sort of insane publicity stunt to bump up their circulation?”