Programmed for Peril

“Mars man,” he said.
    Nicholas hesitated. Dino shoved him in the kidney. “Keep moving. We gotta get this done.”
    They began to climb the eight flights of stairs. Nicholas felt ill. He reached out for jazz, but the chords chirped weakly in his mind, crushed out by the fall of their soles on the heavy steel stairs.
    Below they heard muffled thumps. “They’re following us just like—”
    “Forget them. They’re pussies. They try something, I’ll prove it.” Dino started taking the stairs two at a time. “Let’s get up there and get the door open.”
    They rushed down the eighth-floor hallway, more stale and sour-smelling than Nicholas remembered. He was short of wind. Exercise played no role in his life. Dino raised a big fist and beat on the door of 836. “Open up, pal! You got trouble now, or trouble soon!”
    Silence.
    “He’s not there,” Nicholas panted.
    Dino glared at him. “Or he’s laying for us. Paisan, you got no smarts, do you?” He nodded at the lock. “Can you open it?”
    “Of course.”
    “Do it!”
    Nicholas pulled one of his inventions out of his leather bag. He unstrung its earphones and put them on. He knew this type of lock was activated by a generator producing a certain frequency. This device would tell him what it was. All he needed was a little time. He heard footsteps at the end of the littered hall.
    “Punk alert,” Dino said contemptuously.
    Nicholas’s fingers shook on the dials. The footsteps drew closer. His concentration fled. He saw Eddie and his big friend a few yards away. Both were grinning. “Can’t stay away from that door, Mars man, can you?” Eddie said. “You can’t open it nohow.”
    “Take off, you two,” Dino said evenly. “Or you’ll get hurt.”
    Zak snickered. Unlike his comrade’s bright-toothed smile, his was marred by a missing tooth and black spots of decay. “Din’t you hear we cleaned his clock, man?”
    “I heard. Today he brought along the cavalry.”
    Eddie frowned. “The what?”
    “I’ll make it easy for the stupid,” Dino said. “I’m trouble for anybody who messes with us.”
    Dino’s voice had lowered. Color climbed in cheeks beneath which muscle rose over clenched teeth. Nicholas remembered Trish telling him the man had been in Vietnam. Dino spread his feet slightly, wholly on balance now and menacing. Like a cobra, Nicholas thought. “Now you creeps buzz off before you get hurt,” Dino said.
    Eddie’s kick came incredibly fast. The heavy boot flew up toward Dino’s crotch. Faster than Nicholas could think, Dino somehow moved backward. He clutched the exposed ankle at waist height and lunged forward. Eddie went over backward. The back of his head hit the floor with stunning force. His yelling mouth took the full force of Dino’s own kick. He screamed as four of his front teeth flew out.
    With a curse Zak came in hard and low. Dino jumped aside and lashed at the big man’s ears and eyes with curved fingers. When Zak came at him a second time he had a tire iron in his hand. Eddie’s whines of pain echoed in the hall.
    Dino’s smile was horrid, more a rictus exposing his teeth like the fangs of a warring ape or baboon. Was it blood lust or madness? Nicholas felt a bolt of panic. What kind of man was this?
    A whirl of black cotton duster and Dino was facing Zak with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands. “My scrawny pal here told me about your chest, paisan. You could be the first one on your block with matching blasts.” He extended the shotgun, finger on the trigger. “You know about semiautomatics like this? Every time I pull the trigger you get a lead bouquet. At this range it’ll tear pieces off you like a bear.” He stepped forward and raised the twin metal Os till they were pointed at Zak’s skull. “Or take the top of your head off like a can opener.”
    “Jesus, man, don’t—”
    Having been frightened badly by the two thugs, Nicholas found himself almost as frightened by Dino.
    He sensed Dino wanted to pull the trigger.
    Zak broke and ran. Dino swung his weapon down toward sprawled Eddie. He whimpered, scrambled up, and rushed after his companion. On the floor lay a smear of blood and pieces of his smile. “Come back and die!” Dino shouted.
    When he turned back to Nicholas his face was florid. His eyes burned like torches. “Scum! Beneath contempt.”
    Nicholas couldn’t bear that hot gaze. He busied himself with the lock, aware of his companion’s heaving breath, knowing his blood