Islands in the Net

Tactics and strategy. Like someone has to do this, doesn't matter where or who, just to prove it's possible...."

He bent in his chair and rubbed his bare leg, briefly. The cast was gone now, but there were buckle marks on his shin.

"They pla

... not human. I didn't know about it-nobody knew about it. I can do things to this city-me, just a few brother soldiers smuggled in, not many-things you can't imagine."

"Voodoo," Laura said.

"That's right. With the tech they gave us, I can do things you can't tell from magic."

"What are your orders?"

He stood up suddenly. "You're not in them." He walked into the kitchenette and opened the rust-spotted refrigerator.

There was a book on the table, a thick looseleaf pamphlet.

No spine, no title. Laura picked it up and opened it. Page after page of smudgy Xerox: The Lawrence Doctrine and

Postindustrial Insurgency by Colonel Jonathan Gresham.

"Who's Jonathan Gresham?" she said.

"He's a genius," Sticky said. He came back to the table with a carton of yogurt. "That's not for you to read. Don't even look. If Vie

She set it down carefully. "It's just a book."

Sticky barked with laughter. He started shoveling yogurt into his mouth with the pinched look of a little boy eating medicine. "You see Carlotta lately?"

"Not since the airport in Grenada."

"You go

"I sure as hell want to. Officially, I'm not through testify- ing in Parliament. I want to know their decision on informa- tion policy...."

He shook his head. "We'll take care of Singapore."

"No, you won't," she said. "No matter what you can do, you'll only drive the data bankers underground. I want them out in the open-everything out in the open. Where everyone can deal with it honestly."

Sticky said-nothing. He was breathing hard suddenly, look- ing greenish. Then he belched and opened his eyes. "You and your people-you're staying on the waterfront, in Anson

District."

"That's right."

"Where that Anti-Labour fool, Rashak .. .

"Dr. Razak, yes, that's his electoral district."

"Okay," he said. "Razak's people, we can let them alone.

Let him run this town, if there's anything left of it. Stay there and you'll be safe. Understand?"

Laura thought it over. "What is it you want from me?"

"Nothing. Just go home. If they'll let you."

There was a moment of silence. "You go

She set it down. "What's a `Bulgarian pebble,' Sticky?"

" 'Pellet,' " Sticky said. "Old Bulgarian KGB use 'em long ago. Tiny lickle piece of steel, holes drilled in, and sealed with wax. Stick it in a man, wax melts from his body heat, poison inside, ricin mostly, good strong venom... . Not what we use. "

"What?" Laura said.

"Carboline. Wait." He left the table, opened a kitchen cabinet, and pulled out a sealed bubble pack. Inside it was a flat black plastic cartridge. "Here."

She looked it over. "What's this? A printer ribbon?"

"We wire 'em up to the taxis," Sticky said. "Has a spring gun inside, twenty, thirty pellets of carboline. When the taxi spots a man in the street, sometimes the gun fires. An un- ma

Sticky laughed. He was begi

"You shouldn't tell me this," Laura said.

"Because you have to go tell the government, don't you?"

Sticky sneered. "You do that for me, go ahead! There are twelve thousand taxis in Singapore, and after you tell it, they have to search every damn one! Too much work to wreck their transport system, when we can get they own cops to do it for us! Don't forget to say this too: we rig their magnet trains. And we got plenty more such lickle guns left."

She set it down on the table. Carefully. As if it were made from spun glass.

The words began to tumble from him. "By now they know that sticky gum their boss man, Kim, touched." He pointed.

"You see those paint cans?" He laughed. "Evening gloves comin' back to fashion in Singapore! Raincoats and surgery masks, those are smart, too!"

"That's enough!"

"You don't want to hear about the paper-clip mines?"

Sticky demanded. "How cheap they are, to blow a fockin'

leg off at the knee!" He slammed his fist into the table.

"Don't you cry at me!"

"I'm not crying!"

"What's that on you face then?" He lurched to his feet, kicking back his chair. "Tell me you cry when they haul me out of here dead!"

"Don't!"

"I'm the devil in a cathedral! Stained glass everywhere, but me with lightning under every fingertip! I'm Steppin'

Razor, Voice of Destruction, they're go

I can do it, girl! It's easy! So easy ..."

"No! Nobody has to die!"

"It's great! And grand! A great adventure! It's glorious! To - have the mighty power in you, and let it run, that's a war- rior's life! That's what I have, right now, right here, worth everything, anything!"

"No, it's not!" she screamed at him. "It's craziness!

Nothing's easy, you've got to think it through-"

He vanished before her eyes. It was quick, and simple. He gave a sort of sideways jump and wriggle first, as if he'd greased himself to slide through a hole in reality. Gone.

She rose from her chair, legs still a little weak, a pain behind her knees. She looked around herself carefully. Si- lence, the sound of dust settling, the damp warm smell of garbage. She was alone.

"Sticky?" she said. The words fell on emptiness. "Come back, talk to me."

A rush of human presence. Behind her, at her back. She turned, and there he stood. "You a silly girl," he said,

"somebody's mother." He snapped his fingers under her nose.

She tried to shove him away. He seized her neck with whiplash speed. "Go on," he crooned, "just breathe."