by Jody Wallace
“This is a bad idea,” Lincoln said, but since he couldn’t stop Briar and Mighty from pursuing it, he’d better go along and keep them out of trouble.
Briar had no idea what she was getting into with Mighty involved. And he was starting to wonder if any of them had any idea what they were getting into with Briar Pandora.
Chapter 6
Briar dabbed the blood off her arm and thanked the medic for making the nanobot update painless and quick. The sting of the tiny operation reinforced her determination to get to the bottom of Steven Wat’s treachery.
Lincoln, standing like a pillar next to the door, watched quietly as she rolled her sleeve down and the medic left to tend the next client. Not that she expected Lincoln to revive the conversation anytime she fell silent, which was admittedly not often, but the extent of his reserve was beginning to make her self-conscious.
Did he think she was a babbling idiot simply because she did her best thinking out loud? Mighty seemed to appreciate it, when he was present. They didn’t know where he was most of the time, but he’d promised to be discreet.
Briar paused at the clinic reception desk and paid for the procedure, draining her savings significantly. She had to face the fact that she was now without income. Hoff would probably hire her to do something…but it would be in Hazer Union space, and she wasn’t interested. Working in hazardous materials was the quickest way to sterilization outside of medical procedures, and she didn’t want to end her best chance at a family before she even decided if she wanted one.
Once outside in the bustle of Yassa Port, the biggest city on Trash Planet, she and Lincoln could speak more freely. Or she could.
“I’ve asked my friend to meet us at the freelancer bar,” she told Lincoln. “Or, more like, I verified he was going to be at the bar today.”
Lincoln’s hands were deep in the pockets of his overcoat to combat the chill in the air that was a little too much for plain coveralls but not enough for hail parkas. “And that is?”
“When you don’t have a factory or union job on Trash Planet, it’s where you go to find work. Nearly everyone here is employed by a union. It’s safer that way.” The weather was too precarious to go it alone. Safety was literally in numbers, in community effort. And then there were the raids, the inhospitable land, the tardipedes, and the ship rat infestations. Bristlebacks were only a danger in their own territory, and they were a protected species anyway.
But if you lived in one of the ports, it was possible to freelance, find employment in one of the city businesses like the clinic not connected to a union, or subsist on day labor.
And that made freelancer bars the place to go when you needed help—or information.
“I made a habit of frequenting them as much as my schedule allowed in case, you know, I ever needed clandestine connections for my work,” she explained. They were within a reasonable distance of the bar, so she led Lincoln along the paved sidewalks and past the businesses. The city was still obviously part of Trash Planet, with the hail drifts, the grey everywhere, and the solid buildings with peaked roofs, but it tried. It surely tried. “Where do you suppose Mighty is?”
“Around.” Lincoln, instead of walking behind her as he had in the gen ship framework, kept pace, looming beside and slightly over her like an umbrella. Or a guardian. A black fitted cap covered his bare head. “He’s good at staying out of sight.”
“Do you think he’s cold?” She had changed into her blue coveralls for today’s venture, having nothing else to wear or any of her possessions, really. She’d borrowed an overcoat from one of the box factory employees. She preferred to blend in at the freelancer bars, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“He’ll let us know,” Lincoln said with a quirk of his lips. “Been known to ride inside my coveralls.”
She inspected Lincoln’s large body. His clothing didn’t exactly fit like a second skin, but to stuff a cat inside would create a definite disfiguration. Which would be a shame, to disfigure such a nice, healthy… She jerked her gaze back to his face and said, “People don’t notice?”
He glanced both directions before stepping off the curb to cross the avenue. Something about his attention to the street signs, the passersby, the cars, and even the drizzle of frozen precipitation made her feel protected. But she was the one with a gun. “People don’t notice anything if you don’t act like anything.”
And, she imagined, with the size of the Hazer Union and the frequency of mutations there, a misshapen torso wouldn’t be noticed—and it wouldn’t matter if it was.
If anyone spotted her in town with Lincoln, she would claim to be escorting her Oka Conglomerate client to other factories on Trash Planet as a freelancer and guide. It made sense…and it was probably what she’d have done for a living if she’d gotten fired for more standard reasons. Anything was better than returning to the toxic fumes of Hazer Union’s factories.
They reached the bar, a slog down a sordid alley near the outskirts of town. You had to know where it was to find it. Lincoln’s frown deepened the further she led him into the rough neighborhood, and he inched closer to her on the sidewalk. The denizens of this part of the city were unrefined, to say the least. It took a lot to be the human dregs on a planet literally full of the galaxy’s garbage. Lincoln had definitely grown up in Oka Conglomerate if he was concerned these Trash Planet drifters would hassle them. They had bigger things to worry about than two strangers prancing around.
But his concern for her was flattering. Nobody was ever concerned for her. No parents, so no concern there. No other family, so no concern there. Friends—but none close enough that they’d known about her secret job. When she’d been sent to Hazer as an apprentice, after growing up in the crèche in Yassa Port, Hoff had trained her and then told her to choose between probable infertility or the dangers of corporate espionage, so no concern there, either.
It would be easy to get used to someone being concerned about her, but that would be presumptuous.
A large woman, taller than Lincoln by several centimeters and wearing a garment that resembled a bristler hide, complete with shoulder spikes, guarded the entrance to the freelancer bar. Marnie wasn’t someone Briar knew well, but well enough for a friendly greeting.
“Heard about what you did,” Marnie said in her melodious voice. She sang like an angel, but she busted heads like a demon. “Bet he had it coming.”
“News travels fast.” Briar bumped fists with Marnie and motioned toward Lincoln. “This is my first client as a freelancer—Lincoln Caster. From Oka Conglomerate.” She allowed herself to preen, for she would have if this were real. To score a client from Oka was noteworthy for anyone on Trash Planet.
“Heard about you, too.” Marnie didn’t offer a fist to Lincoln, perhaps not knowing Oka’s customs and perhaps out of wariness. “What you in the market for?”
“Gen ship parts.” Lincoln executed a flawless richie rich head bow. When elites did it, it felt like they were forcing themselves to be polite to a scrubby little sales associate on Trash Planet. But when Lincoln did it, it was more like he was acknowledging someone as an equal. “Any sellers today?”
Briar had coached him on how to act and what to say so as not to piss anyone off. Don’t force a fist bump. Don’t use fancy words. Don’t talk much, let me talk. Keep an eye out for Mighty. And act like the alky is super harsh—they always get a laugh out of that.
“Probably a few indies. More day hands, though.” Marnie opened the door for them and ushered them inside.
Warmth and noise blasted from the interior of the dimly lit bar, separated from the outside by some very clever soundproofing. Freelancer bars were not adored by the unions. Nor were the folks who frequented them. As long as nobody scabbed jobs or caused trouble, the networking was permitted. Mostly.
And they were necessary to the economy, even if the unions never wanted to admit it. Where else would they find permanent laborers to replace retired or dead ones, for any of the damn jobs? From hazma
t to road construction to the medic at the clinic today, they needed warm bodies for all of it.
The nameless bar employed occasional musicians or bands, especially if they could get Marnie to sing, but today the small stage was empty and the floor teemed with a rousing game of skimbles. A couple tables for pikka were set up in the corner, and the rest of the tables were occupied by drinkers, wheelers, dealers, and spectators. One side wall displayed the giant job board with handwritten notes and flyers all over it.
“Busy night,” Briar shouted to the bartender and held up three fingers. No sense telling him what she wanted—there was only one choice. Homebrew alky. Made from one of the few comestible plants on Trash Planet, if you counted alky as comestible. It wasn’t as intoxicating as the alky from other parts of the galaxy, but it was cheaper, so it was the only thing this type of establishment had.
She paid, collected the tumblers, handed one to Lincoln, and wove through the crowd. The pikka game was going hot and heavy when she reached her contact’s table.
He was there, losing, but barely. Briar didn’t recognize the other players, which meant he’d be beating the pants off them later, when they were no longer suspicious. She set a tumbler on the table beside him. “Lady Luck with you tonight, Han-Ja?”
“Nahhhh.” He flung his cards, a hand with no meat, on the table’s surface. Briar knew just enough about pikka to feel grouchy about losing, so she didn’t play. “Better soon.”
Han-Ja knocked back the alky and tilted his head to view her and Lincoln. A short topknot held his wavy black hair out of his face. “You got fired, girl. Your new man busted up your boss? That is bad ass.”
“This is Lincoln Caster. My client,” Briar corrected. The rest of the pikka players started a new round without Han-Ja. “I was hoping we could…” She tilted her head toward the back room, where one could convene for conversations without yelling.
Instead of answering, Han-Ja eyed the glass in Lincoln’s hand. “You gonna drink that?”
Without a change of expression, Lincoln sipped the alky, blinked, and then drank the whole thing down as smoothly as water. Then he said, “That burns.”
Han-Ja rolled his eyes and shook his head at Briar. “You coached him, didn’t you?”
Briar sighed. Lincoln had done well with Marnie, but his acting skills were on the dim side of never. She’d have to keep that in mind. When he’d first visited her office, he’d attempted to buy the gen ship within a minute. On the Sikong, he’d lurked near a machine, stared at stuff, picked up a wrench, and broken Steven’s arm with it. But on a personal level, she enjoyed his company. Her whole life was acting, acting, acting, and the thought of a person who didn’t and couldn’t act was refreshing.
“I wouldn’t want another,” Lincoln said. “No lie.”
“Han-Ja, can we talk?” Briar asked flat out. “I need some information.”
He grinned. “I need another drink.”
She handed hers over, and he stretched and rose from his chair like a lazy cat. Now that she’d experienced cats for herself, she recognized the quality about Han-Ja that she’d never been able to put a finger on before.
“Come to my office,” he told them and gestured with the drink toward the back. Standing, Han-Ja Gee was taller than Briar, but not as tall as Lincoln, and his neatly trimmed moustache and beard accentuated his angular features. As a tribute to his mother, who had thrown him out of the family fabric recycling business some years back, he always wore the worst, most garish clothing of anyone on Trash Planet, or perhaps in the galaxy itself.
Tonight his yellow pants were accented with black piping, his work boots painted with stars, and a hot pink puffy hail parka, cropped and shiny, covered him from shoulders to midriff. In addition to the topknot, the sides of his dark hair were just long enough to protect his scalp from the cold. His midriff, however, was bare, with a jewel glinting in his belly button.
To Briar’s relief, Lincoln’s expression, upon beholding the glory that was Han-Ja, didn’t change. Han-Ja’s eyes narrowed, as if a lack of reaction to him was as suspicious as a lack of reaction to the terrible local alky, but he did lead them to the quieter back room.
Floor tables surrounded by pillows dotted the chamber, which was thick with smoke. The constant burble of the water in the hookah pipes and the hiss of noisy heating vents helped cover the whispers of private conversations. The hookahs provided flavored steam to users for free and intoxicants if users paid extra.
Han-Ja dropped to one of the cushions at an empty table and waved them to the floor to join him. “Sit, sit. What is it you’re wanting to know? If Tank Union is just completely falling apart in your absence? Not yet, but I hear they’re making Axel a sales associate.”
“Axel?” Briar thunked onto the pillow harder than she’d planned at the ridiculousness of that statement. “You’re lying.”
That was one of the hazards of doing business with Han-Ja. He knew nearly everything, but he also lied.
Did cats lie? On the way here, Lincoln had mentioned they were not always honest, to Mighty’s huffy denial, so perhaps this was yet another way Han-Ja was like a cat.
“Cross my face, I’m not fibbing.” He watched Lincoln lower himself to the ground, which took a bit longer than when Briar and Han-Ja had done it. Once settled, Lincoln crossed his legs and placed his hands on his knees as if he lounged on the floor all the time. “So who’s the slow talker, really? And where are you staying? I heard you lost your apartment, too, and nobody knows where to send your things.”
Lincoln, unruffled, spoke several sentences in a language Briar recognized as Oka, even if she couldn’t recognize it when it was written down. As he’d never said that many sentences in a row in the common tongue, she was impressed.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
Han-Ja slapped the table and shouted with laughter. “He’s really from Oka.”
“You know Oka?” Briar stared at Han-Ja, who had never left Trash Planet, to her knowledge. He wasn’t her only source, just her best. “How?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Han-Ja plumped a second cushion to support his back. “Lucky for you I’ve a fondness for people from Oka, so you may proceed.”
Lincoln glanced upward for a moment, and Briar couldn’t tell if he was searching for patience or checking to see how thick the smoke was above their table. The hookah bubbled and steamed with scented vapor whether they used it or not.
But Lincoln returned his gaze to Han-Ja without comment, so she’d probably never find out.
“Aside from Axel being a sales associate, which I don’t believe,” she started, “I do have a few questions about Tank Union.”
Han-Ja reached for one of the hookah hoses and took a long puff. After he blew out the smoke, he continued. “There’s the matter of my fee and you not having a nice, cushy income anymore to pay me. I have so enjoyed our business dealings, Briar, but a man has to make a living.”
Negotiations would go more easily if she wasn’t melting. Lincoln didn’t even look like he was breaking a sweat, overcoat and hat and all, but Briar was about to liquefy in the heat and humidity. As she unbuttoned her knee-length coat, aware that her pale blue coveralls were going to be out of place, Lincoln said, “I’ll pay. How much?”
So much for negotiations. Which part of Let me do the talking had Lincoln forgotten? One did not simply offer to pay Han-Ja Gee without question. Not if one wanted to have any money afterward.
“How direct.” Han-Ja sipped from the tumbler of alky, rolling it on his tongue as he watched the two of them. Her shoulder bumped Lincoln as she wrestled out of the coat. With the tail of it under her butt and her butt on a pillow, it was not a graceful operation. “The payment depends on what is wanted.”
Briar folded the borrowed overcoat beside her and leaned on the table. Han-Ja’s eyebrow quirked as he took in her stylish pastel outfit. “Lincoln is here to scout pieces for a gen ship back in Oka Conglomerate,” Briar said. “I need to know what pieces of the S
ikong are going onto the scraproll…and what pieces are not. And how long pieces have been left off of Tank Union manifests.”
She held her breath. Under-the-table dealing wasn’t something she’d particularly suspected with Steven because he was so abysmal at parts sales that he’d been shifted to contracts and garages. But Unker had acquiesced to what Steven offered far too easily. Especially considering how many witnesses they’d had to the bribe.
“A girl grows wise,” Han-Ja said in a soft voice. She didn’t know how old he was, but he’d always treated her as if she was much younger—some kind of bright-faced curiosity in the gloom and greyness of Trash Planet. “Maybe this one will be a freebie, and you can owe me, wherever you land.”
“Done,” Briar said before Han-Ja could change his mind. She didn’t want Lincoln to have to pay, or the cats, or Su, and especially not Hoff, further obligating her to take a job in Hazer. A favor owed to Han-Ja wasn’t likely to be good for her in the long run, but it was good for her right now.
The cats wouldn’t have a long run if right now didn’t work out.
“I may know something about parts being offered somewhere other than the scraproll.”
“How can I find out about these parts and how can we make an offer?” Briar asked. What they really needed to know was where the Mozim power converter was, but she wasn’t about to tell Han-Ja the exact part desired. He was far too clever and far too likely to sell that information to any who could afford it. Could Mighty read his mind for them or push him to be honest? Was he close by? Why hadn’t he checked in?
Again, the cat’s lack of communication was causing problems. She’d need to strategize better with Mighty in the future.
Han-Ja settled back onto his mound of pillows. “You can’t make an offer. You’re too late.”
“Explain,” Lincoln said.
For once Han-Ja didn’t play completely coy. “Someone already bought the pieces that won’t be in the scraproll—or in Tank Union’s manifest.”