Tyler snorted. “Says the woman who was acting all tough and then OCD’d over some mysteries. We all have our masks, and they slip sometimes. If I’m going into business with you, there’s only so much I can bullshit you.”
“True enough.” Kathy frowned. “Speaking of mysteries, I wonder if this means I can get out of it?”
Tyler turned away from the building toward her. “Get out of what?”
“Owing the Eyes an answer.” She shrugged. “Whatever the hell that means. One good thing about getting out of LA is that I’ll have to deal with him a lot less, if at all. Just the thought of him still makes my skin crawl.”
“Doubt it.” Tyler shook his head. “Whatever the hell he is, I don’t think he’s the kind of creature who’ll just forget that someone owes him something. Not that I blame you for wanting to stay away from him. I fucking hate talking to him.” He gave her a dark grin. “But if you’re going to make anything of the White Sun, you’ll have to connect with a whole new set of freaks here.” He pointed at the street as a red Lexus sped past. “Vegas might not be as big as LA, but it’s just as crazy, if not crazier, in its own way. I’ve heard they’ve got an actual mermaid who lives in the Golden Nugget’s shark tank.”
“Sounds kind of cool, but I get your point.” Kathy nodded. “I know. And I also get that there’s no real way to run from your past.”
“Fuck the past. Worry about the future. You secure your future, it doesn’t matter if your past catches up with you. And keep in mind, just like with LA, Brownstone’s always got people here. At this very moment, he’s got Trey and some men here.” Tyler turned back toward the building. “The Brownstone Agency will be the key to this. We’ll have to get them backing our place for it to work, and if the Eyes makes a stink, they’ll be the key to getting him to back off.”
“Are you sure that’ll even work? It’s not that I don’t like the idea of having the Brownstone Agency backing me, but it’s not as simple as throwing money at them. They may be bounty hunters, but they’re about more than just money.”
“Yeah, sure. That makes this even easier because we can get their help without having to throw a lot of money at them, if any.”
Kathy’s face scrunched in confusion. “How do you figure?”
“By understanding their psychology.” Tyler chuckled darkly. “Do you know what Trey’s doing right now?”
“Hunting bounties.” Kathy shrugged. “That’s what he does on most days he’s working.”
“No, he’s not hunting bounties.”
“What?” She frowned. “He’s on vacation, then, hitting shows and casinos?”
Tyler shook his head. “You see, bounty hunting is what he normally does, but he’s got a more important job right now.”
“A more important job than bounty hunting?”
“Brownstone’s got a favorite barbeque place here. From what I hear, it’s his favorite barbeque place in the whole damned country, a place called Jessie Rae’s. Supposed to be one of the best places in the country for that kind of thing.” Tyler shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m not a barbeque aficionado.”
Kathy nodded. “I’ve heard him mention it. What about it? Is Trey doing something with Jessie Rae’s for Brownstone’s barbeque team or something?” She chuckled. “Talk about me being OCD, but I’ve got nothing on that guy and his barbeque obsession.”
Tyler shrugged. “Place got robbed, so Trey’s ripping up Vegas looking for the guy who did it. Really hitting the town.” He turned back to the building and narrowed his eyes. “Think about that. Trey could be helping the other guys pick up bounties, making himself piles of money, but instead he’s been spending money and time looking for someone who robbed a barbeque joint with all the effort he might put into a level-four bounty.
“It’s not like Jessie Rae’s pays Brownstone anything. From what I’ve heard, they give his people a discount, not even free food, but now someone’s going to go down hard because they offended Brownstone and his people. If they had robbed any other barbeque joint in town, they would have had only to worry about the overworked police, but now Trey’s coming for them. And if Trey doesn’t find them, Brownstone will come like some sort of Angel of Vengeance, and not because of the money. Not because of justice, but because of something personal—barbeque.”
Kathy burst out laughing.
Tyler frowned. “What’s so funny?”
She calmed the laughing down to quiet chuckles. “So the only thing we need to do to get Brownstone’s help is produce the best barbeque in the country?”
Tyler shrugged. “I’m sure we don’t have to go that far. The point is, we can get the agency’s help if we give them a personal reason to give a shit. I’m sure that between the two of us, we can come up with something.”
“I’m not going to bang somebody in the agency just for protection,” Kathy replied.
Tyler frowned. “That’s not why the AET started protecting my place.”
Kathy smirked. “Just a fringe benefit?” She nodded toward his car. “Let’s go check out the next place and worry about the Brownstone Agency later.”
James held the door as Heather rolled her wheelchair into the conference room at Camp Brownstone. Shay and Peyton already sat at the long conference table, pensive looks on their faces.
Heather continued toward the table and nodded to the others.
Wonder why James was so mysterious on the phone? I get that he didn’t want to talk about it in the middle of Alberta, but even once he got back to Calgary, he didn’t want to explain anything. What the hell happened up there?
Shay looked at James. “Sure you want to do this here? We could do it at a warehouse.”
He shrugged and walked over to the table to take a seat. “Here’s fine. Just didn’t want to do this online, especially since we’re not sure if our mystery hacker can easily spy on us. Considering all the shit that went down, I’m guessing the more we stick to our places in LA, the less chance she has of poking at me.”
Peyton frowned. “Heather and I are working on countermeasures for the online stuff. Yeah, it annoys me to admit it, but maybe it doesn’t hurt to go old-school at times.” He shot Shay a glance. “And it’s nice to get out of the warehouse now and then.”
Shay smirked.
James grunted. “I’m sure you guys will come up with something.”
Heather shrugged. “It might help if we knew who is behind everything. The phone you picked up was connected to a regular old-fashioned dirtbag mercenary outfit. I managed to dig into their finances, and they did get a huge payment recently, but whoever paid them did a good job of burying their trail a number of ways, including using several different crypto-wallets. From what you said on the phone, it seems like you have some idea who is behind all this.”
An uncomfortable expression appeared on Peyton’s face. He looked at Shay and James.
Heather frowned. “Why do I get the feeling you three already know the answer, and I’m the only clueless one here?”
“First, there’s something important you need to know about me,” James rumbled. “Everything kind of relates to that.”
“Okay. What?”
“I’m an alien,” James rumbled.
Heather blinked. “Excuse me?”
“An alien,” he repeated with a shrug. “You know, like an extraterrestrial. I wasn’t born on Earth. I was born on another planet.”
“You’re Oriceran?” Heather nodded slowly. “I guess certain things make more sense now. You’re too tough to be a normal human, even without your amulet artifact. I always kind of figured, but I hacked your DNA records, and they looked human enough. You use magic to fake test results or something? Or wait, are you saying you’re a human born on Oriceran?”
James grunted. “Surprised with all the digging around you’ve done on me you didn’t already figure some of this out, but you’re still not getting it.”
Heather shrugged. “Then enlighten me, James.”
Shay and Peyton sighed.
James
shook his head. “I’m not Oriceran. I mean, I’m not human, but I’m also not from Oriceran. I was born on a different planet. Turns out there are other planets with intelligent beings, not just Oriceran and Earth. I didn’t know this for most of my life, but now I do. Other people do too, including people in the government, but they’re keeping it secret.”
Heather laughed. “Okay, good one, James. You being Mr. Stoic makes it easy for you to deliver lines like that straight-faced. For a second, just a second, I started to believe you before realizing how ridiculous this all sounds.”
She looked at Shay and Peyton. Neither was laughing.
Oh, shit. No way.
“It’s not a joke,” James rumbled. “I’m telling you all this because Shay had contact during the Alberta job with some sort of hologram of a woman who we think is also an alien, and who has it in for me for some reason. Maybe something from my home planet.” He shrugged. “I don’t know shit about my home planet, so that complicates things. For all I know, this is some sort of blood feud over shit my ancestors did five hundred years ago or something. Who the fuck knows?”
Heather stared at him for a long while before allowing herself to speak, her mind straining to push past the Earth-Oriceran dichotomy. “Okay, if it was another alien, and I can’t believe I’m saying those words, that might explain why there was so much strangeness with the hacking attacks Peyton and I were dealing with. They felt different than when I’ve run into magic hacking.” She frowned. “Wait, so everyone already knew about this but me?”
Peyton gave her an apologetic look and shrugged.
Shay grinned. “I’m the one who figured it out. I knew before James did. I needed Peyton’s help at the time, so I dragged him into it.”
James grunted and patted his chest. “Don’t feel too bad. I didn’t even know for most of my life. The amulet I use isn’t magic, it’s alien technology. I’ve had it since I was a kid; I was found with it when I was little. It’s intelligent, and speaks to me in my mind. I used to not be able to understand, but I understand it more and more now. I think that’s connected with me being able to use more of its ability.”
Heather rubbed her temples. “Now things are just getting weird. So, you’re saying you’re an alien wearing an alien?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a lifeform. I think it’s technology; a device with a mind in it.”
“Biological artificial intelligence?” Heather pinched the bridge of her nose. “This gets more complicated with each thing you explain.”
James snorted. “Think about how I feel. I don’t understand everything about it, but, yeah, the way it talks in my mind, it’s almost like a computer. I think even though it’s alive, it’s something my people made. I don’t think it can live by itself.”
“A symbiont?”
He frowned. “I guess you could call it that. I’ve always just thought of it as ‘the amulet,’ but Shay gave it a nickname, and now I call it that.”
Heather glanced at Shay. “And what’s the nickname?”
“Whispy Doom,” Shay responded. “It’s a very bloodthirsty little amulet, so I was joking about how it’s always whispering doom ideas.”
James frowned.
“Of course.” Heather snickered. “Advanced biotechnology. Living computers.” Heather nodded. “Even though scientists are doing that kind of research here, the average elf might not live long enough to see humans produce something like that.”
James grunted. “Yeah, the damned thing won’t give me useful answers that don’t have to do with kicking ass, so we have to figure out how to deal with this shit ourselves.” He frowned down at the amulet covered by his shirt. “Even though I need the little bastard to protect myself, like from the Wendigo that turned out to be a bunch of nanites.”
“Nanites too?” Heather whistled. “Don’t know if I should be scared or impressed.”
Shay shrugged. “So now you’re in on the big secret, Heather. Based on what James fought in Alberta and what I was told, this alien bitch is trying to keep a low profile, which is something we can use to our advantage.”
Peyton nodded. “Makes sense to me. Even if she really has it in for James’ species, it’s not like humans will care about that, and the government’s not going to like any advanced technology they don’t control. Most of the alien-hunting projects we’ve come across don’t seem all that friendly.”
James leaned back and nodded.
“That’s one thing that does worry me,” Shay added. “The technology displayed in Canada was centuries ahead of what we have on Earth. If this bitch is sniffing around via the internet, I don’t know if we can beat her without special magic or something, and the more people we bring in, the greater the risk.”
Heather shook her head. “Not necessarily.”
The other three looked her way.
“You know someone?” Shay asked.
“No. That’s not what I was getting at. Being super-advanced in technology isn’t necessarily a huge advantage.” Heather pulled out her phone and brought up a picture of a rotary telephone. She set the phone on the table and spun it to face the others. “Hacking’s not just about having the best technology, it’s about understanding and taking advantage of the information technology infrastructure. There are inherent limits to that, because you’re somewhat limited by that same existing information technology infrastructure regardless of how smart you are.”
Peyton’s eyes widened. “Of course. I never thought of it that way.”
James frowned and looked at Shay.
She shrugged and glanced at Peyton and Heather. “Not following. Don’t think he is, either.”
“Say I got transported back to the mid-1800s,” Heather explained. “My advanced knowledge would help me with stuff like the telegraph, but it’s not like my knowledge of programming or modern networking technology would mean I could suddenly do magic with telegraph wires. I can only exploit the network to the limits of capability. Phone phreaks could get free calls, but they couldn’t call the moon.” She shrugged. “The tech inherently limits some of the possibilities.”
Peyton nodded. “So even with her fancy alien gadgets, we might not be totally outclassed, just mostly outclassed.”
“All we need is a chance,” Shay replied. “We get James in the room with this bitch and he and Whispy can send her running all the way back to whatever fucking planet she comes from.”
Heather frowned. “Even though this all sounds insane on one level, for some reason I want to believe it. But that leads me to the next obvious question: if some weird alien is hunting James, why not just call the government and ask for their help? From what you said, they’re already out there looking for bad aliens.”
Shay frowned. “The short version is that even though there are government forces who are tracking aliens, they’re dangerous, so we’ve been careful to keep any information suggesting James is an alien away from the government. If we get lucky, maybe they’ll key into this alien bitch if she overreaches and take her out. But if we lead them to James, they’ll probably lock him up in some weird lab. We can’t take the risk. He can take on an alien hunting him, but he can’t win against the entire government.”
Heather sighed. “We’re supposed to fight this mysterious advanced alien by ourselves?”
Shay shrugged and grinned. “We’ve been dealing with government conspiracies by ourselves, so why not add a hostile alien or two? And to be clear, the only people who know about this are in this room. Trey, Maria, and Royce—none of them know.”
Heather took a deep breath. “I don’t know if I should be honored or scared.”
James nodded. “The bottom line is, I don’t care if alien fuckers want to come at me. Humans have. Oricerans have. Other shit has. The more the fucking merrier. Someday I’ll finally kick enough ass that these fuckers will understand they do not come at me.”
“Don’t ever change, James.” Shay laughed.
He looked around the table. “But on
e thing I’ve been forced to learn is that I can’t do this shit all by myself. I need people to have my back. Just because the alien fucked up this time doesn’t mean she’ll give up.” He locked eyes with Heather. “But you also have a kid, and I’m not gonna drag you into my bullshit. When you signed up with me, you didn’t know about any of this alien shit, so if you want to walk away, it’s fine by me. I’ll even help you relocate if you want since I’m the one who encouraged you to move here.”
Heather looked down and sighed. She shook her head. “No. You gave me my life back, and a future. Besides, I don’t like the idea of this alien thinking she can walk all over me on the internet. This is my planet, not hers.” She looked up with a smile. “And if I can keep counter-hacking some alien who thinks I’m just a dumb ape, I’ll have hacker cred to the day I die when I can finally talk about this. Don’t worry, James, I’ve got your back.”
Peyton grinned and rubbed his hands. “This is going to be fun.”
Shay eyed him. “Yeah, except for all the nanite-monster assassins.”
“Well, they aren’t coming after me.” He shrugged. “It won’t be fun for James, but it’ll be fun for me.”
Heather snorted.
Still can’t decide if signing up with James was the best thing I’ve ever done or the stupidest, but whatever it is, no one can call it boring.
James stood. “Thanks, Heather. I appreciate it. Didn’t want to just drop all this on you and run, but I’ve got to head to Vegas. Trey scored a location on where the Jessie Rae’s thief has been hiding.”
Heather nodded. “Surprised with everything you’ve gone through that’s still on your priority list.”
“Top of the fucking list.” He shrugged. “Probably lots of aliens who want to kill me, but there’s only one Jessie Rae’s.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Trey smiled as he leaned against the railing at the top of the stairwell. He cracked his knuckles and reached into his pockets to pull out Zoe’s gloves. After slipping them on, he nodded to his fellow bounty hunters down the stairs. They nodded back and strolled to the side of the building. He returned his attention to the apartment door.
Vax Humana: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (The Unbelievable Mr. Brownstone Book 13) Page 18