Slab City Blues: A Song for Madame Choi

By Anthony Ryan

Welcome to the Slab. A vast orbiting slum where rats grow big and sweat falls in rain. In the sequel to Slab City Blues, an old enemy embroils recently widowed Inspector Alex McLeod in the hunt for a kidnapped girl. With no leads he finds himself reluctantly seeking help from drug dealer and fellow war veteran Madame Choi. But can he really trust her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony Ryan
• Release date: May 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458193445

Anthony Ryan

Anthony Ryan was born in Scotland in 1970 but spent much of his adult life living and working in London. After a long career in the British Civil Service he took up writing full time after the success of his first novel Blood Song, Book One of the Raven's Shadow trilogy. He has a degree in history, and his interests include art, science and the unending quest for the perfect pint of real ale. For news and general wittering about stuff he likes, check out Anthony's blog at: http://anthonystuff.wordpress.com.

Book preview

Slab City Blues: A Song for Madame Choi

By Anthony Ryan

Copyright 2011 Anthony Ryan

Cover Image Design by Humblenations.com

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Doc Owuga cast a dubious eye over the old 2D I’d given him then took a long look at my face, propped none too comfortably on a chin support in front of his dermal scanner. You sure? he asked.

Sure I’m sure, Doc, I said brightly. Surer than sure.

Doc Owuga rechecked his screens, he hid it well but I noticed his hands were trembling a bit as he punched the keyboard. We’d done some business back in the war and I guessed I’d left a lasting impression.

This, he waved at the screens where the face that I wore revolved in all its flawless glory. This is art. This… he glanced at the 2D, …is -

It’s me, Doc, I told him. You remember me right?

Doc Owuga sighed and sank into a swivel chair that was two parts duct tape to one part faux leather. Sure, you’re a tough guy Demon who killed a shit-load of people during our glorious revolution and a shit-load more since.

And you sold the Resistance anti-biotics at a three hundred percent mark-up, when you weren’t trafficking organs to both sides of course.

There was an amnesty…

Not from me. I undid the velcro strap from my forehead and freed myself from the scanner. I can pay. You want the work or not?

Doc Owuga had been through eight faces in the time I’d known him, each more youthfully handsome than the last. But whilst the faces grew younger the rest of him didn’t, he was pot-bellied with liver spotted hands and an old man’s stoop. The face he wore now, darkly handsome and reminiscent of some old action-movie star I dimly recalled from late-night free-flix reruns, looked like a particularly bad joke.

Hear they’re doing accelerated, full-body remodelling on the Downside, I pushed. Asking price is twenty thousand in folding green if you know where to go, and I’m sure you do.

He arched an eyebrow and I got a part fix on the face. Roves was it? Reeves maybe? Where’s a Demon get twenty thou in green? he asked.

Fuck d’you care?

"Why not go to a Yin-Side clinic? Nice and