“How do you know our competitors didn’t send him to find out where we’re taking delivery?” the same woman asked. “While I was unable to get the identity of whoever bought him from Tantalus, I do know they were very rich. They were also Advanced.”
So this mystery woman had enough connections to know the ins and outs of Tantalus prison. A woman that connected was far safer as an ally than an enemy. “Ah, a moment!” Jan shouted toward the door. “I can explain that if you like!”
Utter silence from the other side of the door. Then the lights went out. Then the door slammed open, and spotlights on the wall ignited with a flash that caused Jan to yowl. He squinted his eyes and failed to make out anything.
“Well, look at that,” the woman who wasn’t Emiko said. “Your little shit magnet is awake. Did you miscalculate the dosage on your lip gloss?”
Emiko said nothing, which was practically an admission of guilt. Had she really miscalculated? Emiko was as precise as they came, so the idea that she had made a mistake ...
“No matter,” the woman said. “Might as well interrogate him before we dump the body.”
The lights went out again with a loud click, but the afterglow left Jan all but blind. He heard cloth rustle as narrow heels clicked on biocrete, approaching. He felt what might be the first trace of genuine fear.
“Do you know who I am, Sabato?”
Jan did a quick mental inventory of very dangerous people in heels and came up blank. His knowledge of Ceto’s criminal underworld was at least five years out of date. Whoever this woman was, she was likely quite fashionable.
“My apologies, madam, but I do not.” Jan was always polite to people capable of killing him. “I have, as you say, been in orbit for the last five years. If I could trouble you for your name, I’d be happy to tell you everything you wish to know.”
“That’s a lot more words than I expected before I put a knife in you.” Cloth rustled, and Jan made out the shadow of a dark-haired female figure crouching in front of his chair. “But let’s cut the bullshit. My name is Elena Ryke, and you have now stumbled into an arrangement I would very much like you to not.”
Oh shit. Oh shit. Of all the crime lords Jan had hoped to never encounter, Ryke was highest on his list. Tyler Ryke, Elena’s father, had kept his enemies alive for weeks as he tortured them half to death, then brought them back with expensive Supremacy regeneration drugs. It seemed now Ryke’s daughter had seized his criminal empire, and if Elena had inherited her father’s flair for the sadistic ...
“Now tell me, Mr. Sabato,” Ryke said “Who freed you?”
Jan knew any hesitation or dissemination could get him killed. “The woman who purchased my freedom was Senator Tarack.”
Silence for a moment, then a moderately heavy sigh. “Did she give you any hint as to why?”
And now the more complex part. Should Jan reveal the true nature of his job to Miss Ryke? A woman who might be Emiko’s ally, but was also the most ruthless and powerful crime lord in Star’s Landing? What if that tipped Fatima off he was coming for her? What if not saying anything got him killed?
“Senator Tarack hired me to retrieve an item for her,” Jan said, hoping Ryke would let him get away with just that. “I came here today to ask Emiko to assist me.”
“That’s far more vague than I deserve, isn’t it?” Ryke’s shadow rose and glanced over her shoulder. “How tough is he?”
“What?” Emiko asked from outside the door.
“The two of you ran together, did you not? Do I need to go out to the car and get my knives, or will he break with one good kick to the balls?”
Jan couldn’t close his legs. “Ah, please don’t kick me in the balls. I’m telling the truth, as Emiko can assure you.”
Ryke’s shadow turned back to stare at him from the dark. “Can you?” she asked. “Assure me?”
There was a very long, very pregnant pause, followed by four words that hurt Jan where he least expected it.
“He’s holding something back,” Emiko said.
A crushing impact between Jan’s legs sent white-hot fire screaming into his thighs, through his stomach, and into his chest. He coughed so hard he couldn’t breathe and gasped as muscles clenched uselessly. His body tried to curl into a fetal position, but couldn’t, given the restraints.
Getting kicked in the balls was never fun, but knowing he was going to get kicked in the balls again, very soon, made it far, far worse. The moment he could breathe again, he heard a heel click and a rustle of cloth.
“A disc,” Jan announced, voice hoarse with agony. “Tarack hired me to retrieve a disc.”
“What kind of disc?” Ryke demanded. “Details, Sabato!”
Was she lining up for another kick? His stomach was on fire. “I only know it has a quantum crux drive! The Golden Widow stole it!”
Cloth rustled, but nothing else kicked him in the balls. “Is he making this up? Emiko, what’s your read on this?”
“He’s telling the truth,” Emiko said, voice trembling. “The Golden Widow stole our ...” She gasped, as if realizing what she was giving away, but Emiko didn’t make mistakes like that.
She wasn’t making a mistake right now.
“So that’s why Tarack pushed back delivery by a week.” Ryke scoffed. “Oh, chin up, Emiko. Everyone slips up. I’ll take it out of your pay, of course, but it’s not like this idiot’s going to tell anyone about our little deal.”
Emiko was throwing him a lifeline. She’d been trying to save Jan’s life this whole interrogation. She’d probably been trying to save Jan since she’d kissed him, which was why she had intentionally applied the wrong amount of lip gloss.
“Ah,” Jan said, “could I offer an alternative suggestion?”
“To killing you?” Ryke asked. “Sure, why not?”
“You seek a delivery from Senator Tarack, yes?” Jan needed to turn this interrogation around before it became fatal, and Emiko was doing her best to give him a way to do that. “And this delivery is, you believe, the quantum crux drive that Tarack no longer possesses. Because the Widow stole it, yes?”
“You can summarize,” Ryke deadpanned.
“As I may have mentioned, Tarack hired me to retrieve the disc you wish to buy.” Jan could only guess where Emiko intended him to go with this opportunity, but this felt right. “I can do that, and if I do that ... and I give the disc to you instead ... that would save you a great deal of money, yes?”
Nothing but silence in response.
“I have no particular loyalty to Senator Tarack,” Jan continued, setting aside the torture nanos as a problem for later. “I have no loyalty, period, save to financial compensation. And, of course, my balls.”
More silence. More inside fire burning from his chest to his toes. Then, at last, words.
“What makes you think you can find the Golden Widow?” Ryke asked. “She’s elusive. She’s a ghost.” Ryke was listening.
“Jan knows her,” Emiko said, before Jan could. “He knows the Widow’s true identity. They were partners before, which means he might actually be able to find her. That must be why Tarack sprang him, for his connection to the Golden Widow.”
Jan didn’t like where Emiko was leading him. Did Emiko want him to give up Fatima to Ryke? Fatima had betrayed him, certainly, but even she didn’t deserve to be tortured to death.
“Who is the Golden Widow?” Ryke demanded. “Her real name?”
Jan hesitated just long enough to hear cloth rustle and feel a growing pain in his stomach. “Fatima Blaize.”
“Wait,” Ryke said. “Really?”
“You have my most sincere guarantee.”
“Her last name is Blaze?” Ryke sounded dubious. “That’s not, like, a name she made up to sound cool and dangerous?”
“No. It is her true name, though one adds an I.”
Five years ago, Jan would have died before giving up such information, but five years ago, Fatima had betrayed him and sent him to orbit for forty years. Also,
Emiko had all but told him to give up Fatima’s name. Also, his balls.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Emiko added. Emiko knew Jan wasn’t lying, of course, but had no reason to admit that. Apparently, Emiko had kept her former association with Fatima a secret, which seemed wise, given Ryke was a fucking psychopath.
“This all smells wrong,” Ryke said, though more terrifying clicking assured Jan she had stepped back. “First Tarack’s random delay, and now this, a solution to that delay offered by a man whose freedom was purchased by the same woman who was going to sell us that disc. For no reason, this thief—”
“Smuggler,” Jan managed.
“—blunders into the most obvious trap in the world, then gives us everything we need to screw over his employer after a basic kid-gloves interrogation.”
Emiko huffed. “We used to shag, like, all the time.” Emiko sounded a bit offended. “That made kissing him a good trap.”
“This is too perfect. Too clean.” Ryke clicked closer, and Jan braced his balls for another kick. “It’s safer to just kill him. Do you have the stomach, or shall I?”
“Or,” Jan shouted, “you could roll the dice one last time!”
Another pause. Then, more words.
“Why would you offer to work for me?” Ryke asked. “Why risk the wrath of your current employer?”
“My current employer is not in a position to immediately murder me,” Jan pointed out. “Also, you are extremely frightening. My offer to turn coat is entirely self-interest.”
“Hmm,” Ryke said. “Craven honesty is a good start to any relationship, yet you could fuck off to the middle of nowhere the moment I set you free. How do I know you’ll deliver, given you’ve already offered to betray your current employer?”
Jan thought less than a moment. “You don’t.”
“That ... doesn’t help your case.”
“You can’t know I’m telling the truth,” Jan said, “but you can run the numbers and decide if the possibility of obtaining Tarack’s disc, for free, financially outweighs the risk of not killing me in this chair. It’s your call, Miss Ryke. I trust my life to your financial intuition.”
After a very long, very dangerous moment, Ryke didn’t shoot him in the head. “You’ve intrigued me, Sabato. Not many manage that, at least not before they’ve shed a great deal more blood.” One heel tapped thoughtfully. “I do love gambling.”
Jan said nothing. Ryke didn’t actually expect him to say anything, and she expected him to know that.
“Deliver me Tarack’s disc,” Ryke said, “and I won’t kill you today. I will kill you at the end of the week, if you don’t deliver, but let’s just call that incentive, shall we?”
“You have a deal,” Jan said. “And may I say, Miss Ryke, it was a pleasure doing business with you.”
“Oh, Jan.” Ryke tapped the underside of his chin with one sharp nail. “Don’t tempt me.”
05: Kinsley
Jan walked out the front door of Emiko’s mini-mall with everything he’d walked in with, including his balls, which was better than most who encountered the Ryke crime family. The sun was down, and dusk had settled in, but the recessed light fixtures tucked throughout the Luxury District made it even more gorgeous at nighttime. Or maybe it was gorgeous because he wasn’t dead.
Emiko had saved him. Emiko had led him to say exactly what he needed to say to not get murdered by Elena Ryke, but she had also knocked him out and put him in Ryke’s interrogation chair in the first place. So the question was ... why?
Surveillance. It had to be. Emiko now worked for Ryke — whatever else was going on, that was obvious — and Ryke would not allow Emiko to surveil her business without surveilling that business herself. That meant Elena Ryke had spotted Jan the moment he entered the mall, and had Emiko done anything less than immediately knock Jan out and call Ryke about the wanted fugitive, Ryke would have tortured and killed them both.
Betrayal under duress was not betrayal, so far as Jan was concerned. It was simply a lack of planning, on his part and Emiko’s, but she, like him, was good at improvisation. That was what made sex with her so exciting. Also, she was smoking hot.
So, now, Jan simply had to complete the job he had promised two separate murderous women he would do for them alone, so he could murder a third woman, and not get murdered by any of them in return. He would find Tarack’s disc. He would find Fatima and learn why she’d betrayed him, and the first step in doing all that was linking back up with Rafe and Bharat.
Who weren’t here or anywhere in sight.
Which made it real hard to do those other things.
Jan glanced at his wrist chrono. Twenty-one hours and thirty-two minutes remained. He’d been with Emiko and her homicidal employer less than four hours, so Bharat and Rafe must be wondering where he was right now.
If they’d returned to find him missing, where would they have gone? The library? That Rafe would spend four hours poring over local real estate records was unlikely, given the man’s attention span was, generously, thirty seconds. Had Rafe talked Bharat into shopping for explosives? Had Bharat gotten himself beaten to death by racist locals?
Jan made a mental note to immediately have Bharat purchase comm-links for all three of them. He had thought that could wait until they’d acquired a safe house, but he had obviously been wrong. For now, Jan thought better while walking, so he set off in the general direction of the library.
Unlike the Sledge, whose chief decorations were craters and walls of blasphemous graffiti, the Luxury District of Star’s Landing was an entirely different world. Clear plastic planters hung along the sides of its towering glass buildings, stuffed to the brim with colorful flowers that couldn’t live on Ceto without the irrigation provided by water piped in from the pole.
Bright holo-portals placed tastefully in recessed portions of wall displayed vacation destinations ranging from Valor’s Squall, the nicest set of beaches on Ceto, to the gorgeous hot springs outside Trifold City on Phorcys. Automated and entirely too-clean food kiosks called out gently as Jan strode past, offering delicacies such as clemenapple tarts, sugared aprilopes, and Rafe’s favorite, frosted cinnamon sticks.
Jan passed a few citizens dressed far better than he was, all completely oblivious to his presence. Most wealthy enough to shop in the Luxury District used their PBAs to project augmented reality maps of buildings and shops, but Jan, being old-school, had only holographic signs and his innate sense of direction. He also, unlike them, had the good sense to watch the alleys.
He found what appeared to be a central street — Comet, a decidedly unexciting name — and followed it until he found a sign for Library pointing down another street. He strolled along, hands in the pockets of his surprisingly comfortable vest, and encountered not a single police officer.
The last time he’d been here, before the armistice, the Supremacy had a Vindicator — a soldier in powered armor — stationed at the end of every block, as well as officers in uniform. It was a credit to their discipline that the Patriots of Ceto had only managed to blow up two shops in the Luxury District through over ten years of guerilla warfare, though the body count had, in both cases, been unfortunate ... and not just Advanced. Today, there wasn’t a Vindicator in sight.
A lot could change in five years, Jan reflected. Governments. Presidents. Your trust in people. And, of course, one’s approach to securing valuable areas of one’s city.
Jan glanced up and spotted a faint shimmer. Of course. The CSD had figured out how to mimetically camouflage security drones, just like the drones the Supremacy used during their occupation. Technology had advanced as well.
A drone fleet explained the lack of visible police officers, the presence of which might unnerve wealthy people while they shopped. Cloaked drones patrolled the Luxury District, likely armed with weapons that would fire upon anyone engaged in unsavory activity. One such drone was following him now.
There was nothing Jan could do about that. There was nothing he could do
until he found Rafe and Bharat. Yet when he finally arrived at the Luxury District’s impressive library, they weren’t there. This was getting really annoying.
The library was all of three stories, each wall made of glass that revealed the packed shelves within. In addition to the encyclopedic virtual library brought from old Earth, this library held actual paper books. Few bothered with those these days, but that was part of the charm.
Paper books were so unnecessary that almost no one read them, which made reading them the perfect pastime for rich assholes with too much money and time. You hadn’t truly read it, the saying went among rich assholes, until you’d read it in print. Unlike the library where Jan had grown up, this one had dozens of shelves filled with high-quality paper books.
Also, Jan noticed, as he approached unresponsive doors and a glowing red Closed notice, this library was no longer open. Which made it even more unlikely that Rafe and Bharat were still inside. Where the devil had they gotten off to?
“Hello, Jan,” a posh, lovely voice said from behind him.
Jan spun and chucked a throwing knife at her.
The blade, aimed straight for thigh, passed through thigh instead. It bounced eagerly across the street behind the woman he’d chucked it at. Fatima Blaize stood in what looked to be the flesh, but was, Jan now understood, actually a highly realistic hologram, one wearing a thick jacket, dark shirt, and dark pants. Holograms had come a long way as well.
Everything looked so real on her: Fatima’s tawny brown skin and rounded chin, the perfectly plucked eyebrows above her dark and haunting eyes, and her glossy lips. Fatima had always been the classiest of their small crew, and whenever they’d run a scam that called for an Advanced, Fatima could pose as an absolutely lovely Advanced. Her platinum blond curls dangled like crystal on an expensive chandelier.
Fatima’s disapproving frown scarcely dampened her charm. “A knife, Jan, really?”
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