by Jody Wallace
A third team, with a single cat, was responsible for tracking or distracting the buyer as needed. The actual employees of slavers tended to maintain as low a profile as possible, to facilitate their ability to move among various Obsidian Rim societies. They wouldn’t assign a whole squad of mercenaries to a train station in the swamp to retrieve a zheng ship component that could be carried easily by a single person.
“Any word from the surveillance team? I hope they send someone who ekes revenge on Steven for losing track of the power converter.” Setting down the case with the heavy cat in it, Briar rubbed her hands together with an optimistic grin as she no doubt imagined Steven’s troubles. “Then I won’t have to do it.”
He kind of liked that about Briar. Well, he liked a number of things about her, but she had impressive follow-through. Quit wasn’t in her dictionary, anymore than fear.
“Nothing yet,” Su said. “It’s not like stellarships that use wormholes can abide by schedules.” Wormhole technology, which allowed transportation from any part of the galaxy to another provided the ship had a Q-drive and a competent navigator, added an element of the unexpected to a ship’s timing. “Selectstar could already be in orbit or it could be here tomorrow.”
Briar glanced at the case at her feet. “Boson Higgs says they are not in orbit.”
If Lincoln asked how the cat knew, the answer could be a two-hour science lecture. While Lincoln had been improving various stations on the bridge, Boson Higgs had treated him to many a soliloquy, most of which he didn’t understand. But the cat meant well. Lincoln was sure of it, despite the fact Boson Higgs and the others had nearly crossed into dictator territory yesterday. Sensing the distress of the humans at being manipulated, the outrage of one sentient being to another, had helped bring the confab to a more successful conclusion.
And Lincoln could admit it had felt good, felt right, to lead the session that had followed—to be the architect of the plan instead of the dupe.
Su’s wrist comm pinged and she tapped it. “Heading to the next business on my list,” issued Wil’s voice through the tiny speaker.
“Did you get the theater sponsorship?” Su asked.
Wil didn’t respond. Lincoln slipped his hand into the pocket where he’d stashed Vex’s gun. Mighty squirmed around inside his coveralls, supported by the cloth wrap that Frank had used to strap Kiki to his chest when she was smaller. Mighty could skip out when he was this close to Lincoln, but it hurt, like electrical stings all over his chest. He hoped the cat didn’t have to do it.
On the opposite side of the street, Wil ambled around the street corner, a light breeze tousling his shiny black hair. Instead of coveralls, he wore a stylish jacket, padded shirt, black trousers, and a red scarf fluttering at his neck. In no hurry, he nodded at a passerby. Pumpkin trotted beside him, tail erect, attracting attention as always.
“Being followed,” Pumpkin said in everyone’s head. “Meet at checkpoint.”
Briar snatched up the cat case. Their group set off toward the other side of town at a reasonable clip instead of hailing a taxi, which would take too long to arrive. Lincoln eased his finger off the trigger of the EE-pistol but kept his hand in the coat pocket. In Oka, civilians hadn’t needed guns. Having a gun wouldn’t have prevented him from being a soft touch for moochers and scammers, so there hadn’t been much of a point.
But this was Trash Planet. He’d learned to operate one.
“If it’s someone from Tank, they’ll recognize us,” Briar said in a nearly inaudible voice. “We should duck into a building.”
“He may need us in place,” Su said. “He’ll go slow, we’ll run ahead.”
“Unless they know he’s with us,” Lincoln said. But that would have required some mindreading on the part of whoever was following Wil. Aside from Wil being Su’s lover and Briar renting space in Su’s barracks, there was no reason to connect Wil to Briar, or to a swindle, or to anything dodgy. Everyone on Trash Planet knew about Wil Tango and his cat at this point, even if they’d never officially met or seen him.
In fact, before they themselves turned a corner, Wil headed into the medical clinic to continue his search for corporate sponsors for the new theater in Yassa Port. His pursuers would have to pause to spy on him.
“Going to assume he didn’t get the converter,” Lincoln said as they neared the alley behind the protein flavoring plant that they’d chosen for their checkpoint. Since spices were considered nonessential, the factory operated mostly at night, a supplemental job for its employees. Briar had suggested it; it was one of many locations she’d mapped in Yassa Port as being appropriate for clandestine meetings.
Lincoln hadn’t spotted any shadows, but in the past, he’d never known when he had a shadow, either. If there were an emergency, Pumpkin would find a way to let them know.
“Ya think?” Su groused. “This was idiotic. Steven Wat was never going to hand over that part. Cats can’t push you to go completely against your nature.”
“It was a decent plan,” Lincoln corrected. “The arrangements we had without cats…will be different, and we need to adjust.”
Indeed your plans will be different, Boson Higgs commented in his loud mindvoice. They will be improved significantly.
Briar’s proposal to search the zheng framework and test or steal the converter hadn’t included Mighty’s services. Mighty had just wanted to participate. As it happened, the cryopod bay hadn’t been as empty as Mighty had claimed. But Mighty’s creativeness with the ship rats had saved their behinds, so Lincoln would be the first to admit that cats were well-suited to eavesdropping, theft, and other criminal behaviors.
If cats went evil—if they ever did go full fascist—the whole galaxy was in some big damn trouble. What could anyone possibly do to stop thousands of mindreading, transporting, self-serving, five kilogram troublemakers whose nature was such that you loved them anyway?
Or he did anyway. Especially Mighty Mighty.
“The real question is why Steven had someone follow Wil after their meeting.” Briar stationed herself behind a large refuse container, and she was busily tracking something on her chrono. The smell…was not as bad as it could have been, since the factory’s main products were spices and flavorings. “Pumpkin should have been able to prevent suspicions.”
“Mighty, do you want out?” Lincoln asked. Lincoln and Su stood in plain sight. He wanted to see both ends of the alley, the fire escape, and the two back doors of the plant. Containers for various types of garbage lined one side of the alley, the better to recycle it or trade it to other factories. The building opposite the stained walls of the plant had no doors, just the ladder leading up.
“I’m fine,” Mighty answered, his voice muffled. “Comfy, in fact.”
“I’m not,” Boson Higgs demanded. Briar leaned over and opened the cat carrier. The big guy strolled out, sat down, and quickly groomed his chest.
Blue sparked in Lincoln’s peripheral vision, and suddenly Ashley was lounging in the alley, her dark fur blending into the pavement and litter. The sun didn’t filter into the alley, owing to the height of the buildings in the industrial neighborhood, but it was hardly pitch black. At night, it would be.
“Maybe Wat got freaked out by the little voice in his head telling him to hand over a random piece of a zheng ship,” Su offered with a dose of sarcasm. “First time Pumpkin talked to me, I thought somebody had put a comm bug on me.”
“Pumpkin doesn’t have my aptitude,” Boson Higgs said. Ashley stretched her front and back legs before rolling onto her side. “If he left traces behind in this Steven Wat, I will deal with them.”
“If we’re going to have cats out in the open and talking, I’m going to check the factory, make sure we have privacy.” Su headed toward one of the doors. To Lincoln’s surprise, it opened, and she smirked. “Be right back.”
“You can make people forget things?” Lincoln asked Boson Higgs after the door shut. The cats weren’t always up front about what they’d learned durin
g their experiments. And they weren’t supposed to practice on unwilling subjects. If they could tweak memories…
Boson Higgs stared at something to the left of Lincoln for a long moment before answering. “It’s not a problem, with the correct assistance.”
The thought of the cats with a memory-erasing ability was unsettling. Where did their powers end? Though they’d come to an agreement with the Catamaran crew last night, Lincoln would be a fool to discount the possibility the cats could, at any time, change their minds. Change the people’s minds. Change whatever they didn’t like.
“Do you have to be close to Steven to do it?” All of the cats’ known skills except skipping required proximity, and skipping itself wasn’t always precise.
“We will make the purchase soon, and I’ll accomplish both tasks.”
Boson Higgs assumed that the next phase of Plan A was still happening—the cats entering Tank Union HQ to ensure the sale went smoothly. Did the cat know something they didn’t? The purchase team at the freelancer bar hadn’t been summoned. That was up to Wil and Pumpkin, or was supposed to be, based on their experience with Steven. And the only thing they’d heard from them was that they were being followed.
The silence wasn’t reassuring.
Lincoln placed a hand over the bulge that was Mighty Mighty and patted him. “I don’t think Plan A worked. Plan B’s time sensitive so we need to decide soon.” It was the simplest plan, an ambush, conducted before the trade-off tonight in the Mire. Steven Wat would probably be on alert, and probably not alone—but they had cats to help and a whole lot of passion.
“Someone’s coming,” Ashley said, and blinked out of sight.
Boson Higgs turned his head toward the spot Ashley had been a moment ago. “Females are so skittish.”
“Someone’s coming!” Mighty yelled from inside Lincoln’s coat. Pain prickled all over Lincoln’s chest as Mighty blipped out of the cloth carrier to locations unknown. Lincoln winced and smacked his breastbone hard enough to offset it.
Boson Higgs heaved a resigned sigh. “I will be over here.” He padded behind a refuse container with a tail flip that screamed annoyance.
Briar drew her gun and faded admirably into the shadows of the refuse container. Lincoln stayed where he was and slipped a mota vape from the folded brim of his knit cap, like a worker on a break. The single serve form of mota was mild enough that not all employers expected abstinence during business hours, unlike the mota in the hookahs.
Lincoln pressed the power button so the pipe would smoke.
“Hey, it’s mota,” Mighty chirped from somewhere. “I can smell it.”
“Don’t inhale,” Lincoln recommended before leaning against the wall and blowing a cloud into the chilly air. He didn’t inhale, either. Not that he was anti-intoxication, but this was neither the time or the place.
The gun swung heavily in his pocket as they waited for whoever was coming to emerge. He could shoot through the coat if needed. Briar had helped him practice the move last night as they’d firmed up the plans. The things she knew about guns and stealth shouldn’t have surprised him, but it was another interesting facet to the woman Mighty claimed had a thing for him.
Footsteps echoed through the alley before Wil Tango appeared, as nonchalant as ever. Pumpkin was nowhere to be seen.
“Did you convince the clinic to sponsor the theater?” Lincoln asked, trying to figure out if Wil had the part. If Wil still had a tail.
“A decent contribution,” Wil said, “but not from Tank Union. The new director is not a fan of the arts.”
“You should have talked to one of the other directors.” Briar emerged from the shadows. “They’re less slimy.”
“Slime isn’t the half of it,” Wil muttered, glancing behind him. “The things Pumpkin found out…”
“Where is he?” Lincoln asked with concern. Since Wil was known to have a cat, Pumpkin stuck close to his side. It would be suspicious for Wil to let a possession as valuable as a cat wander around freely.
“Said he had to see a man about a—”
“Are you looking for this flea bag?” interrupted a harsh voice. A man Lincoln recognized, Tim, stepped through the factory door Su hadn’t taken into the alley, holding Pumpkin by the scruff of the neck. The cat drooped with misery, not even fighting the man’s rough grip.
Before Lincoln could shoot, coarse men swarmed into both ends of the alley, EE-rifles that put his and Briar’s weapons to shame pointed straight at them.
They weren’t getting the drop on Steven Wat’s hired slimeball this time. Somehow, even with the cats helping, the slimeballs had gotten the drop on them.
“Meow,” Pumpkin cried piteously, his tail and back legs dangling as if they had no muscles left.
“Drop your weapon,” Tim ordered Lincoln. Bloody claw marks streaked Tim’s cheek and hand, proving it hadn’t been painless for him to capture the cat. Proving, too, that he didn’t have fresh nanobots.
Lincoln lifted the mota pipe, which sent a curl of smoke into the sky. He’d not been in a ton of life or death situations, but they were getting to be a habit. In any situation, though, a relaxed response was a good strategy. “This isn’t a weapon, Tim.”
Tim kicked the factory door shut behind him, and the metal boom echoed through the alley. “The one in your pocket. Your coat hangs wrong, Oka runt.”
Briar, her tiny pistol absent, stomped toward the door to confront Tim. “We wouldn’t have to carry a gun if people would quit trying to kill us. The savages on this planet make it so much less pleasant for the rest of us.”
“People wouldn’t try to kill you if you weren’t so aggravating,” Tim retorted. “Hand over the gun, or I’m going to shoot her.”
“Could you please quit throttling my cat?” Wil asked. Pumpkin emitted a sad gurgle along with another piteous mew. The cat couldn’t risk skipping away when the villains could see. “Tuck him under your arm before you hurt him. I presume you think to sell him, and if he’s dead you get nothing but my eternal wrath.”
Tim grunted and did as Wil suggested, but switched his attention back to Lincoln. “The gun. Now.”
Lincoln reached into his pocket with two fingers and withdrew Gullim Vex’s heavy pistol. The men at the ends of the alley—he counted eight—advanced. He tossed the weapon to the ground and flashed his palms to prove the only thing he now had was the pipe.
Briar put her hands on her hips, a posture that meant she was about go to into super-debate mode. As long as it wasn’t directed at him, Lincoln liked it...but was this the time? “Why are you harassing private citizens? I’m between union jobs, as you know, and if my client and I want to help a famous professional dancer find sponsors for a theater project, we can.”
“Oka Conglomerate has long been a benefactor of the arts,” Wil put in. Now that Pumpkin wasn’t being strangled, he didn’t seem as anxious about the men with guns as Lincoln felt. Either he knew something Lincoln didn’t or he was more accustomed to people who’d kill him without breaking a sweat.
Tim’s gaze shifted toward the ground and paused, and Lincoln was afraid he’d seen one of the cats. “Give me that suitcase.”
“Why?” Briar asked. “It’s empty.”
Tim squeezed Pumpkin like a pair of bellows, and the cat responded with an ear-splitting yowl. Lincoln gritted his teeth. Was Pumpkin in actual pain? And where was Su? Had Tim killed her? “I’m going to fill it.”
Briar kicked it toward him, and it skidded loudly on the rough pavement.
“Randall, come pack up the cat,” Tim called. One of the rifle bearers trotted up and unlatched the carrier. He stuffed Pumpkin into it while Tim’s gun remained trained on Lincoln—as if he didn’t see Wil or Briar as threats.
That was stupid. Lincoln was big, sure. Trained to fight, not really. Considering Briar’s itchy trigger finger…and boot…and cunning…she was probably the most dangerous person in this alley. That didn’t even include whatever the cats might attempt. Or were nine murderous bad
guys more than the cats could handle?
If Tim’s attention remained on Lincoln, so much the better. Lincoln arranged his face into a scowl he hoped was intimidating.
Once Pumpkin was locked up, Tim motioned with the pistol for Lincoln, Briar, and Wil to back into one of the refuse dumpsters with their hands in the air. “Now I want to know why Wil Tango was so all-fired interested in cryopod parts.”
Wil raised a single, well-groomed eyebrow. “I’m seeking corporate donations for—”
Tim spat on the ground. “Come on, Twinkletoes. That wasn’t the only thing you wanted.”
“I may have commissioned Wil Tango to attempt to purchase the items my client wanted for his employer in Oka Conglomerate,” Briar said in a rush. Her hands were half-raised, and she gestured with them as she talked. “We ran across each other and agreed this would be mutually beneficial. It’s not a crime. Buyers hire intermediaries all the time.”
“How did you know about that?” Wil asked Tim. “I only spoke to Director Wat in his private office.”
“His office is bugged from when we got rid of the old lady who had it before him, and it was handy to keep it that way,” Tim said, and then chagrin crossed his features. “Why did I tell you that? Well, no matter. It won’t go anywhere.”
“You killed Director Ficus?” Briar said, not hiding her gasp. “Are you the reason she disappeared? That’s horrible.”
“Shut up,” Tim said. But it made sense—if people had been listening to Wil’s conversation with Steven on hidden receivers, Pumpkin wouldn’t have known he had to push those people, too.
The cats were not infallible. But hopefully they’d be timely, considering how many men were pointing guns at Lincoln, Briar, and Wil right now.
“Is this the bitchy lady we get twenty thou if we kill?” Randall, now guarding the cat carrier, asked Tim. “She don’t seem that awful.”
“Thirty thou.” Tim shifted the gun to Briar, who let out an exasperated huff. “If we do them both. But first I want answers.”
“If you’re going to kill us, why in the Oberon would we cooperate with you at all?” Briar said.