Read Prophet Margin for Free Online Page B

point each time. Second tier of the obs lounge, right beside the gallery window. Four times Micky the Trout stood there gaping, wondering why he'd been running, wondering why everyone was staring. Memory like that, the guy must have spent his whole life wondering. Easy enough to phone him, repeat the message, set him off running, like a hare before a hound.
    Entertainment.
    The killer watched him from a security cubicle, cameras tracking his panicky footsteps round and round.
    After the fourth time it got boring. So Stix stepped out of the security cubicle and shot him.
     
    Had the target been a normal human being - or even a slightly less vulnerable mutant - the single blaster round through Micky the Trout's left shin might not have proved fatal.
    As it was, he went down like a sack of hyperdense bricks, toppled forwards on his knees, opened his mouth to warble a watery shriek, and shattered the reinforced plasplex fishbowl that covered his scaly face and gills all over the floor. Glass and water exploded across the obs deck.
    His fisheyes bugged-out even more, gills flapping.
    "S-sneck!" he gargled. "Some... somebody get me s-some snecking water, here!"
    Nobody moved. The mutants present in the obs deck - a menagerie of unfeasible lumps, pointy extremities and out-and-out uglies - looked up from the dying man to the figure that stood over him, smoking blaster clenched in a grey fist.
    Those that had instinctively gone for weapons when the shot rang out made a show of picking up drinks, avoiding eye contact.
    Stix grinned. It wasn't pretty.
    Seven feet tall, crowned by a wide brimmed hat that dropped his eyes into a thick pool of shadow, he reholstered his gun with a flourish, flicking aside the drab brown duster that he perpetually wore.
    A hand dug deep into a pocket, withdrawing slowly, holding something tight. The watching mutants - trying to look busy - craned their necks to see.
    Micky the Trout continued to thrash, eyes spinning in separate directions. Stix crouched beside him.
    "Dyin', Micky."
    "C-c-can't breathe..."
    "Shot you."
    "...hh..."
    "Know why?"
    "...Nn..."
    "Want to?"
    Micky's gurgles contrived to express the view that there were more important issues running through his mind. Staying alive, for example. Stix didn't appear to notice.
    "Documentary," he hissed, voice wavering between a reptilian whisper and a gravel-choked rasp. He spoke in short, clipped bursts - as though a longer sentence might place too much strain on a throat already burning with acid. "Film about Stronts. Shot it last year. Aired yesterday. Channel thirteen."
    Micky coughed, fighting to speak. "R-rings... hkk ... a faint bell..."
    Stix opened his hand and examined what lay inside. The watching mutants jostled for a better view.
    It was a pair of coins.
    "Crew came here. Doghouse. Paid the authorities. Lots of cash. Everyone's happy."
    "S-so... wh-"
    "Everyone but Stix."
    The man flicked his wrist. The coins flipped into the air, clinking lightly. He caught them together, same side up.
    "Stix wasn't here, Micky. On a job. No big deal." Another flick, another perfect catch. "Don't do interviews anyway."
    "T-then what's th-"
    "You do. You did. Saw it yesterday. Channel thirteen."
    "D-don't... hurrkk ... don't remember, Stix!" The gills spasmed.
    "She asked you about me. Lady. Reporter."
    "Don't reme-"
    "Said, 'What about Stix? What's he like?'"
    "I don't wanna, hkk , don't wanna die..."
    "Know what you said, Micky? Remember?" The coins flicked into the air again. Clink . "Said I was good. Said I was one of the best."
    Micky's revolving eyes fixed on his killer's face, bewilderment briefly breaking through. "Then... then why did you shoot m-?"
    "Said Alpha was better."
    The coins flipped into the air again. Micky went white.
    "Shouldn't have said that. Bad for business."
    The coins clinked once then tumbled earthwards.
    "Made me mad, Micky."
    Stix didn't catch them.
    They dropped onto Micky the Trout's face with a quiet thud, settling over