“You throw up on Stepyan’s training range, and he’s going to have you in there with a toothbrush and nail file for a month.”
“How’s he gonna know?”
“Man’s got his own direct feed from the range cams.”
“I could fix that.”
“Let’s not go there.”
Fine. I guess if I’d thought Tens was touchy about having his system hacked—and by his system, he meant the entirety of the Shady Marie—I shoulda know Stepyan was ten times as sensitive about anyone playing with his security. You know, him being an assassin and all.
I picked up my kaff, and changed the subject.
“This isn’t a deal we should keep.”
From the look on Mack’s face, that wasn’t anything he’d expected to come out of my mouth.
“I gave my word. To a wolf. We’re keeping it.”
“I don’t think—”
But that was as far as I got. Mack was in my head, and dumping files into my implant like he was the front-end-loader of information. Worse than that, he’d set them to open on landing, and I was sucked inside my head as I tried to keep up with the data flow. It was like drowning, but not. I struggled to sort the input and absorb it, horrified and angered by what I found.
I didn’t even notice when the files stopped coming, or register the fact that Mack kinda stood to one side in my head and watched me work, until I had my head around what it was we were going into—and precisely why. It wasn’t about the contract, anymore. It wasn’t even because he’d given his word.
Man was pissed and—by the time I’d finished sorting through the files—so was I.
“We’re doing the job,” I agreed when I surfaced back into the real, and then the smell hit me. “What, in all the Stars, is that?”
Because it smelled great. It smelled more than great; it smelled delicious, and I was starved. Mack picked up his knife and buttered a slice of bread, and I looked down at the space in front of me. Breakfast was long gone, its remains cleared away, I don’t know how long ago. Lunch sat in its place.
“How long was I in there?”
“Four hours.”
That was a lot of data.
“You were supposed to absorb it while you slept.”
Given what I’d just read, I wouldn’t have slept real well.
“I think I preferred wading through that while I was awake.”
“Eat your stew. You’re late for training.”
At least he wasn’t arguing the point. I ate the stew, and we hit the mats.
“I thought we were heading out to the range.”
“We missed the boat with the reading you had to catch up on. I’ll book you in for double, tomorrow.”
Fantastic.
We hit the mats in triple quick time, and I hit the mats a hundred times more. Damn. Mack might have a point when he said I was out of practice.
“Yuh think?”
And over I went, again. This time, I tried hooking my legs around his and bringing him down that way, but I was exhausted, and he weighed a ton. For most of the week, we continued working in perfect concert, in full agreement that the operation that had let the Rennet’s World wolves take the cub had to be shut down, and I spent the first three nights comatose as my body repaired the damage I’d done in less time than it was meant to. On the fourth night, I started doing my own digging. After hours. Without Mack’s supervision. On the fifth night, I hit a snag.
“We might need to bring Odyssey in,” I said, and Mack scowled.
“What have you got?”
“The Rennet’s Wolves aren’t just tied into the government of Rennet’s World; they are the government... and the building we’re planning on hitting isn’t some private enterprise; it’s a government asset.”
He was silent for a moment. Both the points I made usually meant he’d be calling Delight and Odyssey for advice, but calling in Odyssey meant he’d have to tell them about the contract, and he’d have to break his word to the wolf captain back on Alpha 9. Personally, I was pretty sure we’d stepped into some intra-wolf politics, and that the stuff was going to stick.
And stink. Let’s not forget that. It was sure as all the Stars above going to stink.
“Mack?” I asked, when the silence extended far longer than I’d realized.
“You’re going in alone,” he said. “Boy can cut his teeth on something else.”
“You want me to go ahead?”
“No choice, girl. This business is built on us keepin’ our word—and Stepyan and Case need us back on time to pick them up.”
I wondered exactly how Stepyan and Case and their nominated targets were involved in this, and decided that knowing didn’t change what needed to be done. I could only think of one flaw to the plan.
“Did Tens get that message off to Delight?”
Delight was our contact point. When she wasn’t available, because she was off doing some kind of sneaky beaky black op, our messages went through to her Operations department, and sometimes the help or advice we got was somewhat unexpected. Given what Mack was asking me to do, unexpected would be bad. Mack, of course, had an answer for everything.
“Yeup, but it doesn’t matter. They’ll be looking in the Alpha Nine system, not over at Rennet’s. By the time they connect the dots, we should be done and heading back.”
“You know Delight is going to kick your ass three ways to stardust when she finds out.”
“If she finds out.”
“It’s Delight, Mack. Of course she’s gonna find out.”
“Just make sure you can get the job done, Cutter.”
He might have cut out then, but he was back inside my head, shortly after.
“How much access does Delight have to your head?”
“Access?” I thought about it, remembering the times when she’d appeared inside my implant without so much as knocking. “I don’t know. I think Tens can lock her out, but not always, and not with any guarantee. She has a pretty good hack team, and they’ve been inside my head often enough.”
Again, he was quiet, so I tinkered around with the building and the plans, trying to isolate how I was going to work out where the wolf captain’s pup was, and how fast I could get in to retrieve it.
“Did he say how big the kid was, or how much he weighs?” was the next question that came to mind.
Mack flicked me a copy of the contract, and, while I wished I could say it came as a surprise, the fact those details weren’t included didn’t.
“You find him; we’ll port you out of there,” Mack said, as though that settled things.
I only wished it did.
“I was hoping to pack him a vest.”
“What if he’s in dog form?”
“What did we use for Cascade when he was a puppy?”
“Girl, that thing has never been a puppy.”
I waited. With a sigh, Mack gave in.
“Fine. We stuffed him in a locker.”
“You what?”
“You heard.”
I had; I just hadn’t wanted to believe it.
“Cope.”
Screw you, Mack.
“Not today,” which gave me a vague sinking feeling I had no time for, as he continued, “Now, what have you come up with?”
I gave him what I had, and then added, “I’ll need to refine it.”
“You’ve got until this time, tomorrow.”
“You gonna waive tomorrow’s training?”
“You wish.”
Fantastic. I wondered what Delight’s range was, and whether she’d bother to drop by via the Shady’s comms before paying my head a visit. Mack was silent, but I could feel him thinking about the implications and wondered what he’d make of them.
“She has to find us first,” he said, and I wished he wouldn’t be so sure she wouldn’t.
“Girl, your attitude is making me downright cranky.”
Exactly how cranky I didn’t discover until two days later.
21—Ope
rational Extras
I woke up in an alley, with a pounding head like someone had slipped something into my food, or hit me with a sedative guaranteed to put me out until... well, now.
“Fuck...”
The sound of my own voice made me take a quick, sharp breath, and close my mouth. I was in an alley, for the Stars’ sake. Not on the ship. Why the fuck wasn’t I on the ship? I scanned my surroundings and tried to remember what I’d been doing when I’d fallen asleep.
Last thing I recalled was letting Mack know I’d finalized the plan, and forwarding him a copy. That, and a jolt through my head that ended in blackness.
“Sonuvabitch! What the fuck was that for?”
Still no answer, so I ran a check of my implant to see if it had been damaged. Honestly? Without Tens there to tell me otherwise, the damned thing looked fine, right down to the message flashing in the corner of the screen. I took a careful look at it, and realized it was from Mack, with Tens and Rohan cc’d in. That didn’t stop me from wishing I had an excuse not to open it.
I didn’t, so I reached out, and flipped it open.
“Cutter,” Mack wrote. “I’d apologize, but I don’t see the point. I did what was needed for operational security, and that’s it. You’re safe. Tens and Rohan are on overwatch, and we left you snoozing comfortably behind the biggest dumpster we could find. I also put up a low-level force screen around you to keep the creepy crawlies out, since we know how well you react to those and I don’t want to jeopardize the mission.”
Smart ass! I kept reading, deciding the second he was in reach I was punching him as hard as I could.
Like usual.
“We set you down...”
Dumped, my mind corrected him.
“...outside the entry point you’d selected for your plan. Your gear is bagged beside you, and attached to your belt. We stuck that inside the screen, as well, so you should still have it. Check for any status updates prior to commencement. And we’ll see you when you get back on board.”
That was typical Mack. No wasted words. No extra advice. He’d just assumed I knew what I was doing, and told me what was happening. The only problem was that he hadn’t told me why.
“What the fuck, Mack?”
His voice, coming in through the implant, made me jump.
“Stop your bitching, and get on with it. The stuff in your hip flask should fix what’s wrong with your head.”
I thought about telling him there wasn’t anything that could possibly do that, but decided I didn’t have time. Judging from the long shadows in the alley beyond the dumpster, full dark wasn’t far off, and that was when I’d decided to commence my little jaunt.
From somewhere along the footpath on the other side of the dumpster, I heard a door creak open, and then footsteps step out onto the pavement. The door slammed shut, again, and I heard the distinctive sound of a match striking.
“Security guard,” Tens’s voice came through the implant next, calm and firm. “Looks like a pre-work smoke break.”
And I hadn’t known these things smoked.
“Makes two of us, although they smoke just fine when you hit them with a flame thrower.”
Boom. Tish. He was just lucky he was out of punching range.
Tens snickered.
“You ready, yet?”
I was. With the arrival of the guard, I was out of time. I didn’t even have a minute to check the boys had loaded the pack with everything I’d listed in the plan...or where in the pack they’d stowed it.
“That’s why I’m along for the ride,” Tens told me. “Your Blazer and Glazer have full clips, and there’s a dart loaded with enough sleepy to send this guy to dreamland until the day after tomorrow.”
“Won’t that kill him?”
“Nope. Wolf, remember? Even if we got the dosage right for his weight, there’s a good chance he’ll be resistant to it enough that he’ll wake up early.”
Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Quit your bitching and move your ass,” Mack snapped. “You’re wasting moonlight.”
I wondered what bug had crawled up his britches and bitten him, but he wasn’t telling. Tens had no such problems.
“Odyssey sent an acknowledgement, bounced it off the Alpha Nine station, and right out to us. Mack’s worried Delight won’t be far behind.”
With good reason, I knew.
“She usually is,” I said. “I’ll try to make this fast.”
“Just make it successful,” Mack said.
I rolled quietly to my feet, coming off my backside and into a crouch. The pack shifted beside me, scraping softly against the dumpster’s side. Holding my breath, I listened, straining my ears for the sound of the guard’s footsteps. I didn’t hear them.
“Tens?” I asked, via the comms.
I’d really like to know the guard was still smoking, and quietly oblivious to the fact I was lurking so close.
“You’re good.”
I lifted the pack, and pulled it onto my back, sliding each arm through the straps. Once it was settled, I checked the Glazer, making sure the dart was ready. Registering the suddenly strong smell of sweet tobacco, I looked out towards the alley.
The first thing I noticed were the boots, standing at the front edge of the dumpster. The second were the light-armor-clad legs. I kept the Glazer tucked in the shadow of my body and tilted my head—up. Stars, but this guy was a tall drink of water.
My eyes travelled over a very broad expanse of chest to where his shoulder met the edge of the dumpster, and then I moved them to follow the line of his shoulder to his neck, and jaw, and face.
“Holy crap!” I said, and wondered why Tens hadn’t warned me he was coming.
“Because that’s not the guard I’ve got eyes on.”
“But he’s smoking, too.”
“Don’t look at me. I mean, I can see him through your implant, but that big bastard isn’t showing up on the scans.”
Well, that was news—and pretty shitty news at that.
I stared at the wolf in front of me, watching as he cocked his head and met my gaze. It took me a second to realize he wasn’t trying to rip my throat out for the offense of looking him in the eye. I remembered to breathe, and felt my eyes go wide and wary. He pushed off from the dumpster, and took a step back into the alley proper.
“Why don’t you come out where I can see you?” he said, making the request sound like the most reasonable thing in the world. “I’m sure you have a license to be abroad...”
I closed my mouth, swallowed to moisten my throat, and blinked.
“A license? Sure.”
“And you’ll be able to produce it,” he added, his tone coaxing.
“Oh. Yes.” I stood up, making a show of patting my pants pocket with one hand, while I tucked the hand holding the Glazer behind my back. “Somewhere here.”
“Good,” he said, “because we need to make sure you’re not from the ship that’s in orbit, right now.”
“There’s a ship in orbit?” I asked, trying to sound hopeful, like I’d been hoping for such a thing, and couldn’t believe it had finally happened.
I mean, the reports had shown the world was totally dominated by wolves, right? I had no idea what the situation was for humans here. I didn’t even know if there were humans here—outside of wolf slaves. The wolves did have slaves, didn’t they?
Tens made an uncertain sound in the implant, and I decided to end the suspense. I whipped the Glazer out from behind my back, and fired three shots in rapid succession. There was no point in relying on the first one landing.
The darts flew up in an arc, the first two embedding themselves in the wolf’s body armor at the stomach and chest. The third one found his throat and punched through flesh, delivering its payload into his bloodstream. I hoped it didn’t prove fatal, but didn’t have time to check. As oblivious as he had been to my presence, before, the security guard was all too aware of it, now.
He came round the side of the bin, drawing a snub-nos
ed stunner as he came, but I was firing as the first piece of him appeared, and succeeded in embedding a dart in his shoulder, the open collar at the top of his chest and his cheek.
“That,” Tens said, as the wolf hit the pavement, “might have been too much.”
“Oops.” Honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I rifled through the fallen guard’s pockets, pulling keys off a chain at his belt, his pass from a cord around his neck, the stunner from hand, and his wallet.
“What do you want that for?” Tens asked, but I didn’t answer.
I rolled the guard onto his back and took hold under his armpits, dragging him round the side of the dumpster and into the shadows where Tens and Mack had dropped me. Once he was tucked in behind it, I turned to where I’d left the other wolf lying on the pavement. He was still there, so I did the same for him as I’d done to the guard: keys, pass-card, weapons, wallet—and then I scanned his fingerprints, which reminded me I should scan the guards’ prints, too.
“Too slow. You need to pick it up,” Tens said, and I bolted for the door nearest where the guard had originated.
“This it?” I asked, and glanced up in time to see the camera. “Shit!”
“I’ve got it,” Tens told me. “Two ticks, aaand there.”
“There?”
“Yup. Looped the feed. That guard is gonna look like he’s been smoking forever.”
“Great.”
I went to work on the lock. It was easy, really. Just a matter of holding the guard’s card up to the scanner. Right up until the screen flashed a brief message—in lupar.
Crap.
“It says ‘Biometrics’, Tens supplied after a short pause—and I assumed he’d used the Shady’s translation function. “Nah. Mack told me.”
“Biometrics,” I muttered, wishing I knew when Mack had picked up lupar, as I plugged in the scan I’d taken of the guard’s fingerprints.
The scanner pinged, and the door unlocked. Now, all I hoped was that the guard worked one-up, and didn’t have a partner waiting on the other side. I caught a break, and slipped into the empty corridor beyond without meeting another soul.
It was an easy matter to lock the door behind me, and walk further into the building. I came to the janitor’s closet as hoped, and slipped inside. There wasn’t a terminal in this closet, and I was faintly disappointed, but it didn’t matter. I found the wireless network, and let Tens access my implant so he could work his magic, and pull me an accurate map—and that’s where we hit the first snag.
Mack 'n' Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9 Page 18