Under Dark Sky Law by Tamara Boyens Page B

member, he suddenly struck her as odd.
Everyone else she’d seen working in the hotel had been homogenous
enough for it to be disturbing—everyone was tall and white with
blonde or very light brown hair, like some inappropriate Aryan
holdover from previous centuries. This guy was short and Hispanic.
It was total instinct, and she briefly thought about how she would
look like a racist fuck if she was wrong, but instead of handing
him the platter, she chucked full force at his face.
    The man reacted like a true pro, knocking it
away from his face with his arms in the way that only a trained
combat soldier or martial artist would be able to pull off. Anyone
else would have gotten nailed with the fast moving platter, leaving
them with a broken nose or worse. It was the only information she
needed to process the next decision, and her brain clicked over to
autopilot.
    She withdrew the steak knife from the back
pocket of her jeans, very grateful to have had the forethought to
stick it back there. Argon made fun of her for stashing weapons in
any crevice possible, but time and again her paranoia was proven
right. She stabbed towards the man’s neck with enough strength to
force the blunt blade through his carotid, but with the powerful
thrust she sacrificed speed. Even though he was short, he was
incredibly fast, and he moved with the kind of grace that made her
think he had gymnastics or more advanced martial arts training. She
knew Calavera sometimes hired ex-luchadors, and as hilarious as
some people thought pro-wrestling was, she’d tangled with more than
one luchador that really proved their salt. He dodged her stab and
rolled past her into the threshold of the doorway.
    Whirling around to face him again, she saw
that he had withdrawn a large knife from within his uniform.
Fortunately within the dome he was very unlikely to have a laser or
other firearm—the dome itself did a good job of tracking firearms,
and most businesses had detectors set up around the entryways.
After the rioting several decades ago had nearly collapsed all of
the major domes, the government got dead serious about gun control.
Knives were much harder to detect and enforce, but at least if you
knew what you were doing you could pull off a decent defense. In a
laser fight, dumb luck could get you shot and killed, and there was
nothing you could do.
    Her knife was significantly less useful as a
weapon than the attacker’s, and even with the decent range she got
just from being tall, this guy’s speed let her know not to take him
lightly. One stab wound for the week was enough. It was a gamble,
but she circled right until her back was to the entrance of the
bathroom, and waited. He got impatient and flew at her with all of
his weight, both feet leaving the ground as he lunged. Definitely a
luchador. His short height was actually a benefit in this
situation, and she rolled onto her back, just inches from striking
her head against the toilet or edge of the tub. She flung her legs
upward at a ninety degree angle, catching him in the stomach with
just enough of the right leverage to slow him down long enough to
grab his shirt collar. Using the torque from her legs and the pivot
point where her hand clutched his shirt, she flipped him over her
head. Between the added force from her legs and his own propulsion,
he soared overhead and slammed into the tile wall over the tub.
Tiles crunched and he screamed.
    She had hoped that the impact itself would
knock him unconscious, but he thrashed and burbled when he hit the
water. While leverage was still on her side, she leapt to her feet
and used all her weight to press down on his throat, not caring if
she strangled him or he drowned first. He thrashed in the water
like a diver in the jaws of a shark, but Xero’s significant upper
body strength and her weight advantage won out. No matter how hard
he thrashed, he couldn’t escape her grasp. It felt like several
minutes, but in reality it was probably only a few