Why was it so hard to make a living without killing strangers or screwing people over? Seven years of cargo delivery and passenger transport, of building up a reputation from nothing, and what did she have to show for it? A few regular clients, a handful of shell companies under various aliases, and a message box full of unpaid bills.
Eva forced herself to unclench her hands, placing her palms on the table. ((Mess room,)) she pinged to the whole crew. Time to deliver the bad news. Not to mention—
“The fuck am I going to do with twenty cats?” she muttered.
Everyone sat around the big table in the mess—even Min, who was flying the ship remotely while curled up in a chair, drinking a misugaru shake. Pink munched on a protein bar, her dreadlocks tied back from her face. Leroy leaned forward, hands clasped together under the table in his lap, his hair still a frizz of red and his tattoos programmed to look like barbed wire. Vakar sat on a stool, his double-jointed legs straddling the metal seat, smelling like incense but with a faint undercurrent of something else. Vanilla? Eva couldn’t place it, but her translator told her it was anticipation.
Eva stood, bent forward so her palms rested on the table. “Do you want the good news or the bad news?”
A chorus of “Bad news” answered her.
“The bad news is, Tito shafted us, so we’re not getting paid.”
Pink chewed slowly, pinning Eva with a glare from her visible eye. Leroy groaned and dropped his forehead to the table. Vakar’s smell transitioned to cigarette smoke with a hint of fart.
“What’s the good news?” Min asked.
“We can do whatever we want with the cargo, and Tito owes us a huge favor.”
“Favors are delicious,” Pink said. “I ask myself, ‘Dr. Jones, what do you want to eat for lunch?’ and favors are the first thing—”
“I told him that, but there’s nothing we can do to him, and he knows it.” She squinted at Pink. “Unless your fancy lawyer brother might be able to help?”
Pink scowled. “He’s still up to his nose hairs in our habitat’s lawsuit.”
“Assholes.” The only thing worse than scummy freelancers like Tito was corporations. In Pink’s case, a Martian megacorp had encouraged a bunch of idealistic people to take out big loans to set up a habitat on an unclaimed world and do all the hard work of making it self-sustaining, then started shipping tainted seed and faulty tech to sabotage them. Inevitably, the settlers sold off their assets dirt cheap or had them seized to cover their debts, then the corporations rolled in, slapped on a coat of fancy, and resold everything at a huge profit.
Where most people gave up on fighting an impossible enemy, the Jones family got mad. And when they got mad, they got busy.
“What will we do now, Captain?” Vakar asked, interrupting her dour thoughts.
Eva straightened, her hand creeping to the back of her neck to pick at a scab. “Since we’re already about to Gate to Letis, I say we dock and see if we can find a cat buyer or pick up a new client. Or both.”
“I’ll post an ad on the q-net,” Min chimed in. That meant she would also steal some time to play a VR game with her friends, but Eva didn’t mind. Pretending to shoot and stab imaginary bad guys was much safer than dealing with real ones.
“Use the Gato Tuerto Enterprises q-mail address,” Eva said. “And keep an eye on the box in case someone responds while we’re there.”
“Any chance of shore leave?” Leroy asked, perking up.
“Sure, but take Vakar.” She pointed at the quennian with her free hand, still scratching her neck with the other. “Vakar, start making a list of the damage the cats caused so I can send Tito a bill he can wipe his ass with, and pick up anything you need while we’re there.” She winced as her neck scab gave way to blood. “Anything we can afford, that is. Pink, same for you.”
“Aw, that’s work, not shore leave,” Leroy whined.
“Make it a game. Whoever finds the cheapest rations that don’t taste like shit gets to eat them.” Her crew wore expressions ranging from dismay to anger. “Any questions?”
“Yeah,” Pink said. “Next time I see Tito, how many times can I punch his sweet little face?”
“Once for every cat we still have in our hold.” She pursed her lips and squinted. “In fact, if you need me in the next twenty, I’ll be beating the shit out of a heavy bag with his picture on it. Dismissed.”
The others stood and left, but Vakar lingered. “Would you like company?” he asked.
Eva opened her mouth to accept, then shook her head. “You need to get that parts list together. Next time, though.”
“Of course.” He stood, his disappointed smell making her feel inexplicably guilty.
“I’ll help you with the list,” she said. “It will get done faster, and then we can—”
“No, that is all right. I still have the scar from the last time we sparred when you were angry.”
She grimaced. “I’m still sorry.”
“That was not an admonishment. It was my fault for being careless.”
He smelled less distressed, but she flapped a hand at him anyway. “You take aft, I’ll take fore. If we finish early, we can hit each other until I feel better. Deal?”
“Terms accepted.” He left, humming softly. Another smell snuck in under the others, dark and vaguely fruity. It had started a few months back and it was driving her up the wall. She’d even had the scent translators installed to supplement the rest of her translation suite, but the damn things were still learning.
Well, she’d figure it out eventually. Eva grinned, feeling cheerful despite herself, and got to work.
The inspection took longer than expected, so they were almost to the Gate before Eva finally crawled out of the last access tunnel and went back to her cabin to change her clothes.
It had been a long time since her every waking moment was spent in a spacesuit. Its impermeable quick-rigid material doubled as armor in a pinch, and the isohelmet that popped into existence with a thought could deflect projectiles and scrub bad air. And, of course, there were the gravboots, perfect for kicking asses when she didn’t care what anyone’s name was.
She’d just finished pulling on her boots and activating the pressure seals when Min poked her voice in.
“Hey, Cap, you have a call on the emergency frequency.”
Eva froze. The only people who knew that frequency were her crew, who were all on the ship, and her family, who had barely spoken to her for years. A tickle of unease slid up her back like phantom fingers.
“Send it in here, and give me privacy,” she said, sitting on the lone chair near the closet.
The lights in the room dimmed to allow a better view of the holo image that projected from her closet door. At first, nothing happened, and Eva leaned forward as if she could reach into the transmitter and pull the person through.
Then, a crackle of static appeared, formless and vague. Eva’s eyes strained to turn the visual gibberish into a face or a body.
“Captain Eva-Benita Caridad Larsen Alvarez y Coipel de Innocente,” a voice said. It sounded gravelly, like it was being modulated.
“Who is this?” Eva demanded. Not many people knew her whole name, and she’d dropped Larsen permanently after her father—
“I am an agent of The Fridge,” the voice said. “We have apprehended your sister, Marisleysis Honoria Larsen Alvarez y Coipel de Innocente, and will hold her until her ransom is paid.”
The Fridge? The intergalactic crime syndicate? Yeah, right. And she was a secret Martian princess with millions in frozen assets.
“Fuck you,” she said. “Prove it.” This couldn’t be real. It had to be some twisted joke. But they knew her name, the emergency frequency—
The quality of the sound changed, and a blurry image of her sister took the place of the static. “Eva, it’s Mari. Please, you have to help me.”
She sounded scared, and Mari had never been scared of anything except her wild little sister getting lost or hurt. Eva’s stomach shriveled like a
freeze-dried fruit.
“They said to tell you something no one else knows but us. Remember when you were eight, and I was eleven, and you climbed into Abuelo’s closet and found his gun safe?”
The memory rose in Eva’s mind. She’d thought she would be able to crack the code, because she’d seen a holovid where someone did it and it looked so easy.
“You couldn’t get it open, and you accidentally pulled the shelf down and everything fell, and you didn’t want to get in trouble. I never told anyone, Eva. Never.”
Mari had told their mom that Eva was with her the whole time, reading about alien cultures. Abuelo had said something about shoddy construction, fixed the shelf, and forgotten all about it.
Mari always did have her back, even when Eva didn’t deserve it.
“I’m not buying this,” Eva said, but she was already half-convinced. Only a handful of people knew the frequency they were using. Spoofing someone’s identity wasn’t impossible, but only her family used their full name—it was shortened on legal documents, and Eva operated under enough aliases to form her own fútbol team. She also doubted Mari would have a reason to randomly drop that story on someone, then for them to concoct a wild plan to use it like this.
Mari’s face faded to static and the modulated voice returned. “You may ask one question for proof.”
One question. She had to make it good. What was something only Mari would know, something that couldn’t be found on the q-net quickly?
“How did you almost die while you were doing your dissertation?” Eva asked.
Mari’s face returned, her voice trembling. “The Proarkhe ruins on Jarr. I still have the scar. A cabrón giant spider took a bite out of my leg while I was trying to dig up an impossibly well-preserved metallic container. Mom was so mad, she almost didn’t come to my graduation ceremony.”
Mierda, mojón y porquería. That was Mari, no doubt.
“Are you all right?” Eva asked, feigning a bravado she hardly felt, but Mari disappeared and the sound changed again.
“Your pilot will be provided with coordinates at which you will meet your assigned handler,” the modulated voice said. “You will receive more information when you arrive. If you ever want to see your sister again, you will do exactly as you are instructed. Tell no one, or she will be terminated.”
The transmission flickered off. Eva stared at the space behind the projector in disbelief.
Equal parts rage, fear, and determination fought for supremacy inside her. How dare these assholes fuck with her family, her flesh and blood? Especially Mari, sweet Mari, who used to save snails from hot sidewalks because she couldn’t stand the thought of someone stepping on them. What if Eva couldn’t do what they asked, and they killed her sister? How would she ever face her mother again?
No, she wouldn’t let that happen. She’d play their game, bide her time, and figure out some way to free Mari in case honor among thieves turned out to be less applicable to kidnappers.
Min spoke through the speakers. “Cap, someone sent me coordinates for—”
“Set a course.”
“But Cap, what about Letis?”
“Forget Letis,” she snapped. Then, more calmly than she felt, she added, “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Send those coordinates to my commlink, please?”
Tell no one, the message had instructed. How would they even know? Was that a chance she was willing to take? Not especially. Acid climbed her throat at the thought of lying to her crew. Maybe this was all a setup, and she could blow in, bust heads, and get back to her real problems.
The Fridge was like the chupacabra: everyone knew of someone’s cousin’s friend’s acquaintance whose goat had been sucked dry, but no one really believed it. Secret organizations didn’t actually go around kidnapping people and throwing them into cryo, or running illegal labs and asteroid mining operations, or stealing artifacts from ancient civilizations for mysterious evil purposes. Only conspiracy theorists like Leroy believed in that nonsense.
And yet. Her father had warned her about The Fridge years ago, after one of his best clients suddenly sold every spaceship they owned and ran off to casa carajo. They wouldn’t tell him why—got extremely nervous when he asked—but he’d looked into it. He’d found people going on mystery vacations or suddenly quitting their jobs, their loved ones liquidating assets or, if they were big shots, throwing their weight behind causes or projects they hadn’t previously supported. Some of those people came back from wherever they had disappeared to, only to move away for good after a few cycles. Some stayed gone, and some, well . . . Not every culture published obituaries. Still, he told Eva, it was more void than substance. It might all be coincidence.
Also, he had told her not to fuck with The Fridge.
She stared at the fish tank on the panel above her bed, her only real luxury, and a reminder of the family she had left behind when she went into the black for good. One fish for every family member: a brilliant green one for her mother, dark red for her father, striped ones for her grandparents on each side, yellow and blue respectively.
And one for her sister, of course. Indigo and black, it tended to hide among the rocks and corals, avoiding the light. Mari, who finished schooling two years early. Mari, the brilliant historian and scientist with the cushy government job studying ancient ruins. Mari, the quiet one, whereas Eva was like their mother, loud and outspoken, quick to laugh but also quick to shout.
But Eva remembered their last big fight: her at twenty-three, thinking she knew everything there was to know about everything since she’d already been in space for five years. Mari telling her to stop being so selfish, to stop letting their father drag her into his line of work, the work that had pushed their mother into leaving the man after a decade of marriage even though it meant raising two young kids on her own. “Think of Mom,” Mari had said. “You’re breaking her heart.” Eva had stood there and let her scream, let her vent, like she was a barnacle and her sister was a wave. She’d even let Mari hit her, once, and then she’d left.
Mari had been right, of course. And here Eva was, trying to do what she’d been told so many years ago, only to have this happen. Mari would see the irony, perhaps, but she wouldn’t like it. She’d always thought Eva had it in her to do better, to be better, and Eva had resented the endless pushing.
Still, maybe she could unload the cats, get paid, keep to the straight and narrow path.
And maybe she’d find a café that sold some actual pastelitos de queso. Or a chupacabra.
The Fridge was bad news. She couldn’t drag her crew into this, but until her handler gave her instructions, she could only guess at what to expect. What a genteel word for it: “handler.” As if she were some famous person who needed a combination supervisor and assistant. Nicer than “master,” or “controller,” or “overseer.” And yet it made her feel like an animal instead of a celebrity.
Maybe those cats had the right idea after all, wanting to escape their cage.
There was a polite knock at the door, and Eva realized she had stood up at some point and taken a fighting stance, hands curled into fists. She forced herself to relax and sent a mental command at the door to open it.
Vakar stood outside, his gloves back on. “I was thinking, are you sure you want me to go with Leroy? I can find anything we need myself, and he can—”
“Never mind,” Eva said. “Something came up. We’re diverting to . . .” She checked her commlink. “Station U039F.” Even as she finished saying it, she stifled a groan of realization.
“Omicron?” Vakar asked incredulously.
“You’ve been to worse places. Can you stock up there?”
“Probably. Are you well?” He smelled of incense. Concern.
She met his gray-blue eyes long enough to feel like she’d licked a battery, then looked away.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“As the night is long.” She didn’t feel like sparring anymore, but she plastered o
n a smile. “Come on, your ass needs kicking and I’ve got my boots on.”
The incense smell strengthened even as he stepped aside to let her take the lead. She thought of her one time in a church, with her abuela, that heady, dizzy sense of something watching her, invisible and dangerous.
Just as she had then, she stared at her feet and prayed.
Chapter 2
Woman in The Fridge
Eva scowled at the collection of cats that had taken over the cargo bay. It wasn’t as if they needed to be confined anymore, since they weren’t going anywhere soon, and Min said they weren’t getting into trouble like they had before. But more importantly, right now, it gave her something to look at besides her crew standing in front of her.
“I need to run an errand,” she told them. “I’m not sure how long it will take, but you’re all free to have a few hours of shore leave after any resupplying. Make sure your comms are open. Any questions?”
There was a moment of silence as they traded glances, and Vakar’s incense smell took on an acrid cigarette note.
“I am fit to burst with questions,” Pink said, “because this all stinks to high heaven.”
Eva wished she’d spent more time coming up with a good cover story instead of sparring with Vakar, as enjoyable as that had been. Of course Pink, of all people, would be suspicious; they’d served together under Tito, left together, freelanced together . . . Pink could see right through Eva, even without her cybernetic eye picking up on any subtle physical signs of bullshitting. And after Tito, they had promised each other: no lies.
Her conviction wavered. Choosing the sister she had barely spoken to for years over the crew who’d lived with her the whole time felt slimy, but she didn’t even know what The Fridge wanted yet. For now, this was a small lie that could save a life. Pink was a doctor, so saving lives was high on her priority list. She would understand.
Probably. Hopefully.
“It could be something, or nothing,” Eva said. “I don’t want to say too much yet.”
“You dragged us all the way to Omicron for a big ol’ question mark?” Pink crossed her arms and jutted out a hip.
Chilling Effect_A Novel Page 2