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eBook Category: Dark Fantasy Nebula Award(R) Nominee, Hugo Award Nominee
eBook Description: A drug smuggling rat scurries past the feds to sell his stash to the walking dead of New York.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: F&SF, 1986
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2001

57 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [68 KB], eReader (PDB) [30 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [17 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [16 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [52 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [89 KB], hiebook (KML) [66 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [41 KB], iSilo (PDB) [14 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [18 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [46 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [28 KB]
Words: 5026
Reading time: 14-20 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The International Arrivals Hall at Koch Terminal was unusually quiet for a Thursday night. It smelled to Rat like a setup. The passengers from the bullet shuffled through the echoing marble vastness toward the row of customs stations. Rat was unarmed; if they were going to put up a fight the spook would have to provide the firepower. But Rat was not a fighter, he was a runner. Their instructions were to pass through Station Number Four. As they waited in line Rat spotted the federally-appointed vigilante behind them. The classic invisible man: neither handsome nor ugly, five-ten, about one-seventy, brown hair, dark suit, white shirt. He looked bored.

"Do you have anything to declare?" The customs agent looked bored too. Everybody looked bored except Rat who had two million new dollars worth of illegal drugs in his gut and a fed ready to carve them out of him.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident," said Rat, "that all men are created equal." He managed a feeble grin--as if this were a witticism and not the password.

"Daddy, please!" The spook feigned embarrassment. "I'm sorry, ma'am; it's his idea of a joke. It's the Declaration of Independence, you know."

The customs agent smiled as she tousled the spook's hair. "I know that, dear. Please put your luggage on the conveyor." She gave a perfunctory glance at her monitor as their suitcases passed through the scanner and then nodded at Rat. "Thank you, sir, and have a pleasant..." The insincere thought died on her lips as she noticed the fed pushing through the line toward them. Rat saw her spin toward the exit at the same moment that the spook thrust her noteBook computer into the scanner. The noteBook stretched a blue finger of point discharge toward the magnetic lens just before the overhead lights novaed and went dark. The emergency backup failed as well. Rat's snout filled with the acrid smell of electrical fire. Through the darkness came shouts and screams, thumps and cracks--the crazed pounding of a stampede gathering momentum.