by Jody Wallace
“That’s better,” Steven said when Lincoln didn’t respond. “Now take the stupid cat downstairs and try not to get scratched.”
“By the woman or the cats?” Lincoln asked in what he hoped was a jackass fashion.
“Don’t let her touch you, she’s probably more poisonous than what I’m about to feed her,” Steven said with a gritty laugh. He opened his office door, shooed Lincoln out, and activated the remote switch for the main door.
When Lincoln just stood there, Steven pointed impatiently at the open stairwell. Whatever he was going to do, he didn’t want Lincoln seeing it. “Get your ass down there. I don’t need your help.”
Lincoln trotted down the metal stairs at a fast clip. The steep stairs had no other doors. He’d have to ask Briar about other routes up and down so he could nip back to the directors’ private bathroom and hack the safe.
Would be best if he could fit that in before the poisoning. Steven was stupid enough, and mean enough, that the two cats in the lobby, one already exhausted, might not be able to influence him enough to save Briar.
Briar unclipped Mighty’s leash, and the big black cat promptly hopped from chair to chair until he was one chair away from Tim Danger Danger. Not close enough for the man to reach, but close enough that his yellow, unblinking eyes would be unnerving.
One thing was for certain. Steven was making her cool her heels longer than the real Jenna Banu would have tolerated. Jenna would have stormed out of here, to hells with the power converter, and arranged for her company to rain fire down on the building. Steven would have regretted fucking Jenna Banu over.
The fact that she and the others were fucking Jenna Banu over was a concern for later. Right now it was time to stir the pot. Pumpkin had told Mighty something he’d learned about Vex and Tim’s history, and she’d been mulling over how to use it.
Briar jumped out of her chair as if driven by impatience and boredom and inspected the low-quality drink dispenser. It spat brownish colored water into a meltaway cup, which she sniffed and dumped. “Is everything on this planet made of garbage?” she asked in feigned disgust.
“Much of our planetary needs are met with recycled or recaptured products,” Axel offered from the desk some twenty meters away. The robot’s voice echoed in the large space. Tim glared at her.
“I thought you weren’t allowed to speak without Director Wat’s permission?” she asked the robot. She didn’t bother to shout, though she would have had to raise her voice for a human to hear.
“In his presence, until he forgets again,” Axel responded, causing Tim to snicker. The robot continued. “It is possible that the drink dispenser is composed of reclaimed materials and garbage, but I am not composed of garbage, as one example.”
“Garbage for brains.” Tim checked his chrono and tapped it to see if it was working. The gesture was recognizable—a client who’d grown bored and antsy had to be handled differently than a fresh one. “Get your cat away from me.”
“He does what he wants.” Briar gave an elegant shrug like the one she’d seen Jenna use, though the drink dispenser half-hid her from Tim’s view. “My pretty Pretty Kitty. Don’t you, boy?”
Mighty uttered a deep, audible growl, but to her he said. He’s very nervous. This is a good time to try the thing. It was a thing she hadn’t shared with Mighty, but he’d obviously gleaned it from her thoughts. It was terribly efficient not to have to explain herself—to have a comrade in arms who simply understood her.
“The cat hates you, too,” Tim said. “Hates the sound of your squeaky, high-pitched voice. No, wait, that’s just me.”
“That is aggressively rude.” Briar rounded the tall dispenser and regarded Tim with a tilt to her head. “Do you really want to be rude to a person with my…connections? Considering your past?”
It didn’t take much to enrage old Tim. “You don’t know a fucking thing about my past!” he yelled, fingers clenching on the arms of the orange chair.
She held up both of her hands, palms out, as if placating him, but she actually wanted him angry. Angry people screwed up. Said things out loud that could be used against them, especially when there was a robot recording their every peep. “I may have a special scanner installed that can detect identity markers you didn’t even know you had.” She touched her face between the eyes.
“That is a sack of bristler shit.” His face went bright red. So that was what it looked like when she got embarrassed. Terrible. She would never get embarrassed again. “You’re a human.”
She just smiled at him. “Perhaps a little star whispered your secrets to me…a star who’s selling me more than…well, you know.” She waved her hand airily. “This is such a public place. So safe if someone wants to hurt you, but so restrictive if someone needs to give you information about people betraying you."
"I don’t know what you’re saying, but it’s a sack of bristler shit,” he repeated. Axel remained behind the reception desk but was definitely attending the conversation.
Briar sauntered to the chair Mighty was using, joining him to stare at Tim with unblinking eyes. She put her fingers to her lips.
“Bounties are offered for particularly valuable escapees,” she murmured, as if she actually thought Axel couldn’t hear. “I sometimes split bounties with people who…aid me in my search.”
Whether a bounty system existed, she had no idea, but it sounded like a horrible thing slavers would do.
She guessed correctly, because Tim’s bright red face went as white as a hailstone. “Who told you?”
“Who do you think?” She reclined in the chair and crossed her fingers over the gentle roundness of Jenna Banu’s stomach. The woman had not starved like the slaves she sold, and the evidence of it made Briar even more determined to succeed. “There’s no sense in confronting them. They’ll just deny it. Tell you I’m the liar. But how else would I know? How would anyone know?”
He thinks it’s both of them, Mighty said.
Briar twisted the knife. “You’re actually right, Tim.” Buyers, clients, everyone loved to be right and have it acknowledged. “I don’t have a scanner in my head. That’s what our friends the robots are for.”
“Axel told you?” Tim hissed, leaning forward. Unlike Vex, he didn’t smell bad, so she bent her head toward his and placed a hand on his arm.
“Sweetie, he does what he’s programmed to do,” Briar reminded him. “Robots have no volition. They obey orders given by others who want the information from their sensors. Oh, hello, Individual Vex.”
Lincoln, toting the box they’d crafted for Pumpkin, strode across the floor with more haste than she liked. Was something wrong?
“He’ll be along,” Lincoln said, shifting the crate. “Told me to bring the other cat down. But he, uh, don’t wanna come out.”
“It’s a fucking cat.” Tim jerked away from Briar as if they hadn’t been exchanging secrets. “Dump him in the floor.”
Lincoln set the crate down and wiped a hand over the coarse, grey hair on his head, twitched, and yanked his hand away. “Might hurt him.”
Tim stared at Lincoln as if he could see past the DNA alteration and detect the man behind the mask. “Like you’d care.”
“I care about the money.”
“No fucking kidding,” Tim snarled. Lincoln raised his eyebrows.
“You’re getting paid?” Briar flipped on the mirror setting of her chrono and proceeded to smooth on red lipstick using the tiny reflection. There was nothing like applying cosmetics to make other people feel disregarded. “Are you cat-sitting for Wil Tango? That’s so sweet. But it doesn’t seem like something Steven would do.”
“Wat don’t always do things we like,” Lincoln said gruffly. “I mean, he don’t ask our opinion, when we know something’s a bad idea. Ain’t that right, Tim?”
Was Lincoln trying to tell her something? Mighty, see what he found out, she urged the cat.
But Tim, deep in suspicion that his friend and his boss might be trying to collect a bo
unty for his head, glared at the man he thought was Vex. “Ah, fuck off, ya fucker.”
“What’d I do?” Lincoln protested, before falling silent, a faraway expression on his bearded face. After a moment, Mighty leapt off the arm of the chair and into Briar’s lap.
Steven doesn’t intend to sell you the part and wants to poison you! Mighty exclaimed, pairing it with a yowl in her face. She ran her hands down his sides, trying to calm him while her own brain whizzed with shock.
All this work, all these threats, all this leverage, and Steven was still going to try to trick Jenna Banu? Kill her?
What an asshole! Could a swarm of cats, whatever it was, force him to obey? To not try to poison her? Hells. How could he be too dumb to be afraid of Selectstar’s revenge?
“What’s the cat’s problem?” Tim asked. “He smell something bad? Probably Vex. He don’t wash.”
“Shut up,” Lincoln grumbled. He leaned over, finally, and unlatched Pumpkin’s crate. The orange feline strolled out calmly as you please, as if accepting an invitation to dinner. But he offered no greeting or update on what else had passed between Lincoln and Steven. He also didn’t acknowledge Mighty, nor Mighty him.
“Axel,” Briar said. Action was better than inaction. “Where are the other directors? Don’t you think they would like to see the cats?”
“They might,” Lincoln agreed. So he approved, which meant he, too, thought the presence of the other directors could stop Steven’s ploy. Lincoln understood her almost as well as a cat, and it delighted her. “I can go get ‘em.”
“When they are in a planning session, I am not to disturb them except for emergencies,” Axel said.
“Steven didn’t want to be disturbed, but it was the right choice,” Briar reminded him. Mighty’s claws dug into her thighs, but the fancy red and yellow coveralls protected her. “Look at Pretty Kitty. He wants to meet the directors.”
She held Mighty up before cuddling him to her chest. His whiskers tickled her neck. What kind of poison did Steven intend to use? Nanobots protected against most poisons, and he’d be a fool to think someone as wealthy and powerful as Jenna Banu didn’t have the best nanobots.
Briar—did not have the best nanobots. Hers were standard, like anyone on Trash Planet lucky to afford the basics. A poison could probably incapacitate her long enough for Steven to dump her in the Mire like poor Director Ficus.
“I am not sure an animal with the primitive brain structure of felis domesticus actually desires to meet the Tank Union Board of Directors,” Axel corrected her. “I do not think the animal is interested in the other animal, either.” Pumpkin had climbed onto the back of a sofa and was busily licking his butt, one catty way of informing everyone how he felt about the proceedings.
Mighty Mighty, for his part, whipped his tail back and forth and fuzzed up his fur.
“You’ve made Pretty Kitty mad,” Briar crooned. “Robots can be mean. Right, baby?”
“I am not sure an animal with the primitive brain structure of felis domesticus would actually be angered by a factual assessment of its biology,” Axel said. “Though some scientists and zoologists have theorized that a few life forms from before the Obsidian War were capable of evolving into sentient beings, given time.”
Something flickered in the corner of Briar’s vision, something near the door to the director’s offices. Was that a…grey cat? But then it was gone.
Reinforcements have been summoned. The poisoner is being tracked. Lincoln shall return upstairs and open the safe the moment the coast is clear, Mighty whispered to her, nuzzling her cheek.
“Maybe they already are,” Briar told Axel. “I swear Pretty Kitty understands everything I say.”
The cats need to stay out of Axel’s sensor range, she told Mighty. Warn them.
“An animal with the primitive brain structure of felis domesticus would rely on changes in body language and tone of—”
“Enough already!” Tim exclaimed. “Steven told you not to talk, and now I remember why. So don’t talk.”
“You are not authorized to change my directives,” Axel said.
The door to the offices slammed open, and Steven strutted out, holding a brown container that was the right size for the Mozim power converter. She recognized the construction as that of Su’s box factory, which created a substance called cardboard out of recycled organics. So thoughtful of Steven to be conscious of renewables when attempting to con a con woman.
“I have a gift for you, Jenna.” His smirk indicated there was nothing good inside that box. “Nobody should come all the way to this…what did you call it…backwater planet without being rewarded. And Axel, I have not forgotten my orders.”
Axel didn’t respond, but the soft glow of his eye sockets indicated that his comms were active.
If that box held the right part, Briar would give Steven the credit chip and walk. She doubted it did, and the poison concerned her. Some poisons were contact activated, and he could have applied it to the box in the areas he wasn’t touching.
“Oh, I do love gifts! Put it on the chair and open it for me, would you, dear?” She snuggled with Mighty and smiled at Steven. “I’m communing with my friend.”
Lincoln frowned, which was a lot uglier on Vex’s face than his normal, handsome one. “I gotta go.”
“No, you don’t.” Steven set the box on the chair, which presumably meant he wasn’t worried about smearing poisons where other people could be sickened by them. Then he adjusted the large ring on his finger, as if it had nearly slipped off. “We’re conducting business. Jenna, check out your gift.”
“I gotta go take a…bathroom break,” Lincoln followed up.
“That explains the extra bad smell,” Tim added nastily. “Get out of here.”
The fact was, Lincoln as Vex didn’t smell anywhere near as bad as the real Vex, so Tim was being hateful. Javier’s DNA mask could only change so much about a person. Nevertheless, Lincoln regaled them with a few choice terms and a rude hand gesture and stalked away, leaving her with the cats to navigate whatever Steven had up his sleeve.
While Briar would prefer Lincoln at her side, getting that converter was more important. She’d keep Steven busy down here, so Lincoln could get busy up there. Did Lincoln know how to hack a safe?
He doesn’t, so I shall assist him, Mighty whispered. I must make my escape. I look forward to the drama you are about to create, cat friend.
“What?” she said, startled, but Mighty gave a ferocious caterwaul and went absolutely insane in her arms.
She shrieked and dropped him. It wasn’t faked.
Like a shooting star, Mighty streaked across the lobby in the direction of the other rooms and offices.
“Pretty Kitty!” Briar yelled, gathering her wits. “Come back!”
She took off after the cat, but he quickly outpaced her. Pounding footsteps chased her. Steven, Tim, Axel? A flash of orange next to her indicated that Pumpkin had gotten in on the game, too, skittering and sliding on the slick floor as he hurtled around a corner and into the wide corridor that led to the cafeteria and breakroom. Staff members popped their heads out of offices to see what the commotion was all about.
“Don’t let that fucking cat get away!” Steven hollered behind Briar. From the sound of it, he was already winded. Tim caught up to Briar, though, and they bolted into the cafeteria at the same time.
There was no sign of either cat among the clear dining tables and chairs and orange plastene sofas. A few office staffers eating their protein bars raised their heads in shock.
Briar skidded to a stop against the back of a sofa, raising a hand to her hair and stealthily loosening her bun so she would look wilder and more harried.
“Pretty Kitty! This cannot be happening. Find him, find him,” she urged Tim, who rolled his eyes at her. “Did anyone see any cats come in here?”
“No,” said a woman named Crow. “Cats? Really? Like Pumpkin? I’ve met Pumpkin. But I didn’t see him today.”
Steven
trotted into the room, carrying the cardboard box, and Briar whirled on him. A piece of hair flew into her mouth, so she spit it out with great venom. The employees watched the byplay with more attentiveness than Steven usually received, considering everyone hated him. “This is your fault. Bringing that other cat down here. It scared my Pretty Kitty.”
“What? It was your idea.” Steven glanced at the staffers, obviously worried about what would come out of her mouth next. “I said we should lock them in my office, where they couldn’t escape, but no, you insisted on staying in the lobby. Like you were scared of being alone with me.”
“I’m not scared of you.” She stormed up to him, as dramatically as possible, and jabbed him in the chest with a sharp fingernail. Because he wasn’t wearing protective coveralls, he winced. “You’d best be scared of me. It baffles me that you thought, for one second, it was a good idea to anger me and my employer.”
“Everyone out!” Steven shouted. The employees scuttled out of the cafeteria, but the main hall was long, and the closest offices were within hearing distance. Nobody was going to miss what was going on in here.
Steven either didn’t know or didn’t care that they had no real privacy. He shoved her away with the box. “Take this gift and give me what we agreed on.”
The large signet ring on his hand, one she’d never seen him wear before, nearly slipped free again. He swore and fumbled for it, shoving it onto his middle finger instead.
“Put it on the floor and remove the device from the box,” she said in a cold voice. The cats weren’t here to push him, and Lincoln wasn’t here to punch him. She would intimidate them herself. “Do you think I’m a fool?”
“You think it’s a bomb?” Steven coughed out a laugh. He dropped the box onto the floor, and she jerked forward, as if frightened for its contents. There was no way he was giving her the real item after all this. “Boom.”
“You could have broken it!” She drew a thin multitool out of her pocket and used it to push aside the box flaps. Inside was an industrial air quality monitor, not a Mozim power converter. “What is this?”