The first thought that crossed my mind was that I was dreaming.  But that thought passed through my head at the speed of a bullet, then the panic hit me.  I tried to leap to my feet, but the blankets pushed me back down tight against the flea infested mattress.

   I struggled to free myself from the leaden covers, until I noticed that they had spread a StasisMesh over me.  Faint charges of electric blue light shimmered along the metallic netting in the dimly lit room.  Trapped and helpless, I started to scream.  Boris clapped his hands over my mouth and pressed my head down into the pillow with his whole bodyweight.

   Elvis said: “Keep quiet, son.  You want to be bringing the Execs down on us?”

   His words took a few moments to penetrate my fear stricken brain.  I had assumed they were Executives.  I slowly began to reason it out.  Executives didn't get faced.  Well Groucho did, but he had probably done it to disappear after he went rogue.  And Execs wouldn’t have cared about my screaming.  No one would dare try interfering with them, and certainly no one would come to my rescue.  Not to mention, if they were Executives, I’d probably be in the back of a Stiletto cruiser already – or more likely dead.

   Boris was cutting off all of my air, and if I hadn’t decided on my own to stop yelling, then the lack of oxygen would have forced me too.  I looked into Elvis’s eyes and tried to indicate to him that I was done making noise.  He seemed to understand, and waved his partner off of me.

   As I gasped for breath, he asked: “What’re you doing here, man?  And where’s Marx?”

   “I’m Owen Stewart,” I said.  “Groucho’s dead.”

   “We know who you are.  You kill him?” Boris asked.

   I shook my head.  “No.  Execs shot him.”

   “Uh-huh.”  Elvis nodded knowingly.  “How’d ya’ know about this place?” he asked, gesturing at the room.

   They might not have been Execs, but I didn’t trust these two for a second.  There was too much important information on that Pewter to tell them about the map.

   “Before Groucho died, he told me about this safe house.  He said I could use it to keep out of sight.”  It was close enough to the truth.

   “He told you to hide out here?”  Boris seemed skeptical.

   “You see son, this ain’t no safe house,” Elvis said.  “This here’s a rond-aye-voo spot.  Marx was supposed to come here tonight to make contact.”

   “Contact with you?”

   “Contact with theCavalry,man.” 

   “Who the hell’s theCavalry?”

   Boris rolled his eyes.  “Let’s just kill him.”

   “Now, let’s not be hasty,” Elvis said.

   They spent the next hour or so questioning me.  It was the old good cop, bad cop routine.  I’d seen it in the movies a thousand times.  Still, it was remarkably effective in person.  Also, it didn’t help that I was lying there with my life hanging in the balance.

   I told them everything starting with meeting Groucho.  Once I mentioned the evidence, they got really interested. 

   “Where is it?” Boris barked, glancing around the room.

   “It’s safe,” I said, stalling to come up with a lie.  I’d seen enough holos to know that if they got hold of the the files, they wouldn’t have a lot of incentive to keep me alive.  Fortunately, I’d taken to sleeping with the gun under my pillow and the Pewter in my hand.  The StasisMesh wasn’t only trapping me; it was keeping them safe and hidden.

   Boris went to search the bureau, but stopped when I said, “It’s on a data chip.  It’s hidden in Old Studio Town.  You’ll never be able to find it without me.”

   “C’mon son, we’re all friends here, just tell us where it is, and we can each go our separate ways.”

   A muffled beeping started to sound, and the two of them looked at each other with alarm.  Boris pulled a strange plastic box out of his coat pocket.  It was a lot larger than a Pewter and had a floppy antenna.  When he started talking into it, it became obvious that it was some kind of off-Network device.  I’d heard criminals used such things, but I’d never seen one before.

   Elvis was as curious about the call as I was, but Boris only spoke in one word sentences and grunts. 

   When he put the box away, he pulled Elvis aside and whispered: “Bravo Team spotted an Exec raiding unit moving in.  They cast off and are heading home.  We’re on our own.  We’ve got to move, now.  Let’s just waste him and get out of here.”

   The room was far too small for me not to hear them, no matter how quietly he had tried to speak.  When Boris mentioned killing me, I yelled: “No, I’ll tell you where it is.  Just don’t leave me here.  I’ll trade you: the chip for my safety.”

   It was a desperate gamble, but it was the only card I had to play.  Even if they left me here alive, that situation wouldn’t last very long once the Execs got there.

   Elvis studied me for a second and then said: “Let him up.”

   “Are you kidding?  This whole thing stinks.  He’s probably a rotten Execplant.  There setting us up, I tell you.”

   “Nah, no Executive could ever pretend to know so little.  If he were that good an actor, he’d been in the holos.”

   They removed the StasisMesh and let me get dressed quickly.  Elvis was busy looking out the window, trying to see what was happening outside through the layer of scum.  Boris was by the door checking on his guns.  Each time I looked up at him, he seemed to be pulling another one out from some new hiding place on his person.

   Luckily, they were distracted enough for me to pocket the gun and Pewter without them noticing.

   As soon as I was ready, they rushed me out into the hall and down the back stairs.  It was steep and narrow, and we had to go down single file.

   Boris stopped suddenly at the bottom, and Elvis slid down the last two steps into us.  The thug faced as Karloff pushed us both back with his free hand, before cracking the door open and peering out with the oversized revolver, he held in the other.

   The small opening let in the noxious smell of the swamp and the thumping of rotor blades.

   “Quick.  They’re almost here,” he yelled back at us, and he threw the door open and charged out onto the causeway.

   Outside, the clacking of his shoes against the wooden boards led the way.  Elvis walked with me, his hand firmly on my arm.  I looked back and saw the HeliCongers grow above us.  Their navigation lights glowed like evil red eyes and they helped me pick out the dark shadows of the aircraft in the gray pre-dawn sky.

   We rushed past the bars and brothels that stuck up out of the marsh on rotting stilts.  Occasionally, we needed to step around or over a reveler passed out along the path.  The whole district seemed covered in these people too deep in a stupor to find shelter for the night.

   “They get kicked out when they can no longer stand,” Elvis explained, when he saw me staring at a poor sot snoring face down in a row boat. 

   I wondered how many didn’t make it through the night so safely.  How many fell into the mire and were never heard from again?

   Before I could linger too long on this thought, we turned off onto an old moss covered dock, just as the sounds of the raid on The Swanson began to rouse Heston Ward.  The barkeeps, hookers, and lowlifes would be waking up early to the sound of sirens and doors being blown open.  From where we were, I could see the building bathed in the light of the search beams.  Four copters floated around the rickety rooming house that had been my home until minutes ago.

   Elvis pulled me forward and said, “C’mon we gotta keep goin’.”

   At the end of the dock was a waiting glide boat.  As soon as we were in, Boris started it up and steered us away from The Swanson and Heston Ward.

   He kept the engine low.  I couldn’t tell if it was to keep the noise down, or because he was having trouble navigating through the bog with the boat’s lights turned off.

   I stared out of the back, looking out for signs of pursuit, and listening to the sound of gunfire and panic slowly receding into the distance.

   Elvis said, “Just like in the movies, huh?”

   “Lately, I often feel like I’m in a movie – a bad one,” I said to him.

   “Like the King says, the only thing worse than watching a bad movie is bein’ in one.”

   He took off the scarf that was loosely draped around his neck and said, “Sorry, but I’m gonna have to blindfold you now.”

   “Where are we going?”

   “The Fort: Cavalry headquarters.”

   “I still don’t know what the Cavalry is.”

   “We’re the resistance, man.  We’re going to kick out them stinkin’ Directors and make New Hollywood free again.”