Prime Deceptions

by Valerie Valdes

  “Dead end, then.” Eva winced as Mala jammed a paw into her leg wound. When had the cat climbed into her lap? So damn sneaky. “Well, I’ll get everyone else together and we’ll keep thinking. There must be something The Forge missed.”

  Sue gasped and scrambled to her feet. “I’ve got it!” Her welding mask fell again, and she pulled it off entirely and tossed it to the ground.

  “Got what?” Eva asked.

  “The piggy bank!”

  “The what?”

  “We have a special account, for, um.” Sue’s cheeks flushed pink again. “Miscellaneous? It may not be, you know, legal. Maybe.”

  “A lot of things are legal that probably shouldn’t be,” Eva said. “So this account was what you would use when you wanted to hide purchases, I assume?”

  “Sort of. It’s for stuff that maybe wouldn’t qualify as a business expense, like . . .” Sue stared off into space, half grinning. “Once my parents took us on vacation and charged everything to that account. My dad said it was okay because he talked about business with my mom a few times.”

  “Sounds like something my dad would have done, too,” Eva said. “So this account gets a fair amount of use, and nobody is really tracking it?”

  “Pretty much,” Sue said. “They charge random things there all the time so it doesn’t look too suspicious.” Her pale skin flushed pink. “I use it to buy parts for my bots sometimes. Hold on, let me pull it up.”

  Eva rubbed Mala’s head and face while Sue fiddled with her commlink. After a few failed login attempts and fumbling around with the interface, which Sue grumbled was “as intuitive as quantum physics,” she was able to pull up a list of transactions from the account. Sue snapped an image and pinged it to Eva, who stared at the lists of numbers and codes for a minute before shaking her head.

  “I have no idea what any of this means,” Eva said.

  “Me either,” Sue said gloomily. “And I can’t call my parents to ask, assuming they even know. They still think I’m working at a parts depot in Atrion until I ‘find myself’ and come home.”

  “Yeah, my mom went through that phase of denial, too.” Eva slapped her forehead and groaned. “Of course. I know exactly who can help us.”

  “Really?” Sue clapped in glee.

  “Really. But I need a few minutes to get my story together, because this call is going to suck.” Eva lifted a highly offended Mala out of her lap and carefully got to her feet, the sharp pull of her regrowing leg skin and muscle reminding her that it was time for more pain meds. She started to limp out of the cargo bay, avoiding the bits of robot strewn around the floor and the cats who had decided she needed emotional support in the form of aggressive leg rubs.

  “Who is it?” Sue called after her. “Who can help?”

  Eva took a deep breath and sighed. “My mom.”

  Chapter 3

  Mamitis

  Eva sat on the bed in her cabin and stared at her closet door, from which a holo image would be projected as soon as she summoned up the intestinal fortitude to call her mother. Fuácata rested at the foot of the bed, out of sight so Eva could avoid having to make any bullshit explanations. Her commlink assured her that local time in Libertad was midcycle, so this wouldn’t be a rude awakening in the literal sense, just a figurative one. She’d been sitting there for several minutes already, running possible conversation starters through her head, but they all sounded forced and awkward under the circumstances.

  She and her mother had stopped speaking to each other thirteen years ago, more or less. A few years after Eva had left home to live with her dad, Pete, she’d gone back to visit her family for her birthday. She’d been a sullen ass the whole time, because instead of celebrating with booze and friends, she sat in the Florida room of her mother’s house and watched telenovelas with her abuelos for a week. In retrospect, they’d had plenty of fun, playing dominoes and Cubilete and comiendo mierda while stuffing themselves with albondigas and bistec de pollo and congrí. Her abuelo had even unearthed his ancient deep fryer and made old-fashioned churros, and her abuela had made flan twice because she knew how much Eva loved it. She’d listened to stories about Earth that her abuelos had heard from their bisabuelos, and helped harvest oranges from the big tree outside, and patiently untangled skeins of yarn while her abuela knitted a baby sweater for a pregnant cousin’s daughter’s niece.

  But then Eva had gotten a message about a party she was missing on the other end of the universe, and she’d gotten into a screaming match with her mom about something else entirely so she could feel justified in storming off and going back to Pete. She’d apologized to her abuelos, at least, who then spent the next several years begging her not to be such a cabezona and talk to her mom already.

  When she finally got fed up with Pete and left, finally owned up to all the ways she’d been a shitty human for years, Eva also reached out to her mom. But they’d never managed to mend the rift, not with so much hurt between them. They still talked rarely—on birthdates, some holidays—with most of their communication coming in the form of q-mail forwards of things her mother thought were funny. A lot of them were anecdotes about working in an office, which Eva had never done, so she didn’t really get the humor.

  “Just call her, comemierda,” Eva muttered to herself. She opened a line, ran as many security protocols as she could manage to hopefully avoid eavesdroppers, and sent the code through.

  The low buzz of the resolving connection was the only sound breaking the silence as Eva held her breath and waited.

  The buzzing stopped, and Eva exhaled slowly. No holo image appeared, which was just as well; Eva wouldn’t have to control her expressions along with her voice.

  “—her to give me one moment. Hello, this is Regina Alvarez?” Her mother’s tone was artificially bright, and in the background someone else was speaking in a low, soothing way to a more agitated but equally quiet person.

  “Hi, Mami, it’s me,” Eva said. “It’s Eva. Is this a bad time?”

  If not for the people arguing on the other end, Eva would have assumed the call had dropped as her mother failed to speak for several long moments.

  “Cómo estás, mi vida, is everything okay?” Regina asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine, things are fine. How are you?” Eva hated small talk. She stuffed her knuckle in her mouth and tried not to scream from impatience.

  “Bueno, you know, poniéndome más vieja cada ciclo,” Regina said. “Did Mari tell you I got promoted?”

  “No, um, she didn’t.” Mari hadn’t told her a lot of things. But when Eva was in cryo for a whole year after being kidnapped by The Fridge—Mari’s fault, technically—at least Mari had the presence of mind to cover for Eva so their mom didn’t get suspicious.

  The background noise shifted, like her mom had moved. “Ay, you two, que Dios te bendiga. I’ll tell you about it later, pero let’s just say I used to be catching little fraud fish, and now I’m catching big ones.”

  As if on cue, Eva’s fish tank spat food out of a hidden compartment, and the various fish swarmed to the surface. The hermit crab was unimpressed and continued to dig in the gravel.

  Regina sounded so proud of herself. Considering that she’d left Eva’s dad because he was a criminal, and Eva herself had spent years doing the conga all over the line between right and wrong, it was hard to share her enthusiasm for law and order. Justice, though, was something Eva could get behind.

  “That’s great, Mami,” Eva said. “How are Abuela and Abuelo?”

  “Ay, don’t get me started, that’s a whole other call.” Regina sighed dramatically, and someone in the background shouted something Eva’s translators didn’t catch. “Mira, I’m working on a big project right now, so I can’t really talk for—”

  “I need a favor,” Eva said, wincing at her own abruptness.

  Regina paused. “What kind of favor?”

  “I need you to look at some account records and tell me about the transactions,” Eva said. “What they were, whe
re they were made, that kind of thing.”

  “Eva-Benita Caridad Larsen, that is extremely illegal. Where did you get those records?” Regina’s voice was quiet but her tone was angry, suspicious, and Eva’s own temper rose as her body regressed to being a teenager.

  “From the account holder, Mami,” Eva said, barely controlling her sarcasm. “What am I going to do with random stolen bank records?”

  “Bueno, okay then,” Regina said, more calmly. “But why wouldn’t the account holder know what they were? And why aren’t they just calling the bank to ask?”

  The green chromis that Eva associated with her mom bullied the red hawkfish away—her father’s, amusingly, which swam back to the bottom of the tank.

  “It’s complicated,” Eva said.

  “Uncomplicate it for me,” her mother replied.

  “Her brother is missing,” Eva said, fiddling with her blanket, “and we think he’s using the account, so we’re trying to see if we can track him that way.”

  Regina paused again. “Is he in danger? Have you contacted the police?”

  “He’s fine, it’s just . . . a family thing. She doesn’t want to make it a big deal. She’s afraid he might find out if she calls the bank, and you know how cops can be.” Even as she said it, Eva wished she could cram that back into her mouth. She and her mother had always had very different opinions about law-enforcement professionals, with “bastions of order” at one end and “fucking pigs” at the other. Ironic that Eva was basically dating a cop now. . . .

  “Oh, I know that very well,” Regina said dryly. “Bueno, I really have to get back to work. Send me the information and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Eva’s stomach unclenched and her shoulders softened. “Gracias, Mami,” she said.

  “De nada, mi vida.” There was another shout in the background, and Regina sighed. “Cuídate, hija, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Bye.” The call ended, and Eva flopped backward onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

  That hadn’t been so bad. Then again, her mother had a knack for being pleasant in public, when someone whose opinion she valued was nearby, and for sweeping things under the rug when she felt like it. Eva calling out of nowhere to ask for a favor ranked high up there as a shitty thing to do, given their history; she was basically gifting Regina with ammunition to be used against her later.

  Eva stuck the copies of the transaction logs Sue had given her in a q-mail and sent it to her mom, with instructions about starting with the items from about six months earlier, especially if any of them occurred on Medoral. She only had twenty cycles to earn that bonus, but with any luck, she’d have something to work with by the time they reached the nearest Gate.

  If she didn’t hear from Regina beforehand, they might as well see what they could find at Josh’s last known location. Maybe Sue would notice something The Forge’s agents hadn’t, something only siblings would find significant because they knew each other well.

  It was better than nothing, and Eva had worked with less. Plus now, The Forge was paying for her fuel, so she might as well use it.

  Two cycles to reach the Gate, then a few hours to Medoral. Eva pinged Vakar with ((Busy?)) and then settled back to wait.

  Medoral was a planet, but Medoral Station was where the real action was, orbiting high above the placid chartreuse clouds to make it easier for passenger and large cargo ships to load and unload. Huge, uncomfortable shuttles packed with hundreds of interstellar travelers came and went at regular intervals, dodging the asteroid mine freighters delivering vast quantities of unprocessed ores. Most of the planet was covered in sprawling industrial properties occupied by companies of every size, all storing things and manufacturing things and taking things out of larger containers so they could be repackaged into smaller ones. This was the backbone of commerce, or maybe its entire skeletal structure, supporting the daily lives of a few hundred planets all over the universe.

  Eva had once aspired to having clientele with facilities on Medoral. Now she just aspired to having any clients at all.

  La Sirena Negra docked at the station, with Min staying aboard to search the local q-net for information on what was happening there around the time Josh would have been passing through. Thanks to Vakar’s research while they were in transit, Eva knew about the main corporate and criminal players on the planet, the standard methods for greasing palms and avoiding authorities, and that The Fridge had a presence there, maintaining a variety of shell corporations that helped them quietly move whatever naughty stuff they needed. She wished she had time to fuck with them properly, but her current mission took priority.

  Weapons had to stay on the ship due to security regulations, so Eva settled for bringing Fuácata. The week of travel time meant her leg had finished healing enough that she probably didn’t need a cane, but it wasn’t worth taking the chance. After a leisurely stroll through a sterilizer, she and her crew stood at one of the entrances to the Playa district, which had absolutely nothing to do with beaches and apparently translated to “moderate discount” in the native language.

  The place was an unsettling combination of empty and packed, crowds forming and vanishing and re-forming as shuttles came and went, loading and unloading their passengers for appendage-stretching and rapid, impersonal retail transactions. There were restaurants and quick-sleep compartments, and stores that sold the kind of stuff that could probably be printed if you had the right pattern, but that you might prefer to try on first so you didn’t waste the mats. There were also places to buy more advanced tech, ship parts and electronic gadgets and such, none of which Eva could afford even with The Forge paying her a pleasantly excellent amount of money for finding Josh.

  The commwalls between storefronts were covered in ads for corporate products and services, constantly shifting to attract the attention of whoever was passing by based on the information skimmed from their commlinks. Because there were so many people moving so rapidly, the data was aggregated rather than specific, designed to find majority overlap for maximum appeal rather than targeting specific preferences. Eva had rigged her commlink long ago, so as far as the algorithms were concerned, she was an exceptionally average thirty-four-year-old human. Vakar was the sole quennian in sight, so he’d never show up on a feed even if he hadn’t also rigged his commlink, and Pink had turned off the function despite periodic software updates that turned it back on and made it harder to opt out of.

  Sue, unfortunately . . .

  “Oh, wow, that is so cool!” Sue said, stopping to gawk at yet another ad for holographic mech paint. “And you can program in different designs, like tattoos!”

  “Come on,” Eva said, grabbing Sue by the arm and towing her back into the crowd, which scrambled up and down the corridor like hyperactive toddlers. “You’re supposed to be thinking like Josh. What would he notice? What would he think was important?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Sue said. Her attention kept wandering back to the walls, bright and flashy and moving. Eva sighed. This whole trip was starting to feel like a waste of fuel, even if she wasn’t paying for it.

  The crowd thinned suddenly, like someone had punched a hole in the hull and let all the atmo out, leaving them nearly alone except for a pair of kloshians and a chuykrep who was stroking his proboscis nervously. Small service bots zipped out to clean the floors, making tiny agitated beeping noises. On the walls, closer to eye level, there were smaller squares, about thirty to sixty centimeters on a side, advertising jobs and events and professional services. Local stuff, mostly, whatever was able to eke out an existence between the cracks of corporate control like weeds in a sidewalk. Occasionally one of them flickered like it was trying to reboot, sometimes disappearing soon after—hacked, probably, though Eva could never get a good look at what they showed before they were gone.

  Eva opened comms to Min. “Find anything yet?” she asked.

  “Sorry, Cap,” Min replied. “I got distracted. Did you know Leroy was here six months ago?”


  “Really?” Interesting. Crash Sisters did a lot of touring, but Eva wouldn’t have guessed Medoral or its station would be one of their stops.

  “Yeah, they did a big show at some stadium on the surface.” Min giggled. “I was watching the holovid when you called. They did a Grand Melee, which is—”

  “That thing where they get a bunch of locals to fight the regular cast, I remember.” Eva rolled her eyes as one of the commwalls started showing an ad for Crash Sisters, with prominent corporate sponsorship labeling. “I doubt Josh came here to catch a fake fighting show.”

  “It’s not fake!”

  “Sí, claro, totally real. Focus, please.”

  “Right.” Min paused. “The only other thing I’m seeing is a product demonstration. A new robot? I can’t tell what it’s for.”

  Eva continued to walk, the thock of her cane hitting the floor echoing in the wide space. “What does it look like?” she asked.

  “It’s really cute,” Min said. “Like a yellowish mouse, with rabbit ears and red cheeks and a long tail. Oh, wait, there’s another one, kind of like a tiny todyk without feathers?”

  The commwalls shifted again, now showing an ad for what must have been something related to the product. A logo floated into view, a stylized rendering of an ovoid purple-and-white capsule with a button on the front, above words that translated to “Pod Pals” with alternate suggestions of “Shell Sidekicks” and “Ball Buddies”; the latter made Eva bark out a laugh that was uncomfortably loud even to her.

  “Ball Buddies,” Pink muttered next to Eva, shaking her head. “I swear to god.”

  Sue, of course, was enraptured. The ad flashed a series of robots that, as Min had said, looked like adorable animals, right down to fake fur and scales and feathers. Children hugged them, adults played with them like they were pets, but then suddenly they were in what looked like a wrestling ring? Two of them faced off, one spitting fire while the other dodged and attacked with a vicious head-butt.