The Erkennen Job

by Chris Pourteau

  Idiot.

  I could flank them. They’d never see me coming, like I hadn’t seen Darrow. Or, I reminded myself, I could just melt into the wall and go my own way.

  “Firing on members of the Marshals Service is a capital crime! Cease and desist and throw down your weapons!”

  It was Darrow reading from the marshal’s manual again. I wonder if she really thought they’d obey her order or if she was just quoting herself some bravery.

  Punk! punk! punk!

  Their answer kept Darrow’s head down. To drive the point home, a fourth shooter engaged from the marshal’s booth. So, these guys weren’t dicking around. Mustafar must be dead. In a few seconds, one of the three gunslingers would draw a bead on Darrow. The closer they got to finishing that job, the clearer they made my escape route.

  Sorry, Darrow. You were a good kid. At least she’d die true to the principles she’d lived by.

  I edged out of the doorway, my knees joining my ankles’ chorus of complaints. I crept along the wall, Darrow’s defiance hurling the scripture of the law like bullets at the bad guys behind me. But as I passed the fourth shooter, the one in the booth, I finally registered something. Like the three moving in on Darrow, he was wearing corporate blue coveralls, the kind the factory workers on Mars wear. But we weren’t on Mars.

  Punk! punk!

  Those coveralls also happened to be the de facto uniform of the Resistance, since most of the movement’s Ghosts came from the worker class. Why were they in Darkside shooting at—make that, killing—marshals at the same time the shit with Erkennen was going down?

  I needed to know the answer to that question. Coincidence is too coincidental for my tastes.

  I turned first on the one in the booth. He still hadn’t seen me and was being cavalier about his cover. My stunner showed him the virtue of awareness. The others were too distracted by their target to notice me killing their buddy.

  Punk! punk!

  Punk! punk! punk!

  Only, their buddy in the booth wasn’t dead. I’d shot him point-blank and all it did was make him mad. My stunner had fired but to no effect.

  Fuck! Never trust new tech!

  He turned on me, drawing a bead.

  Good thing I had my .38 in my other hand. The slug took him high in the chest, knocking him off his feet. If I hadn’t been in a hurry, I’d have kissed my old reliable.

  The report from my pistol got the attention of the other three. Before the first mook turned, I shot him in the back. The second had spun and crouched, and I flattened on my stomach in the muck. Her stunner fired fine but missed its mark. My .38 didn’t. I watched Darrow take aim at the third guy and shoot him point-blank. Like the one in the booth, he seemed to shrug it off and turned on her. I did for him like the others, splitting his spine with a little old-fashioned lead.

  As the three dead bodies settled into the sludge, silence was a strange sound after all that killing. Darrow darted forward from her hiding place, running past me.

  “You’re welcome,” I said to her wind.

  The Alliance

  “Amin!”

  I could hear the anguish in her voice. I left her to it. I was more interested in the corpses at my feet anyway and why my stunner had misfired.

  Blood from the three assassins leaked bright red into the gray muck. I kicked each in a kidney to make sure they were all good and dead. Not a grunt among them.

  I noticed some of the resident Sewer rats poking their heads out of their holes. A few of them were pointing feeders our way. The Real Story gives those high-definition cameras away to anyone who wants one. They keep the show’s insatiable video feed streaming 24/7. It wouldn’t do to have my face all over the Basement, so I turned my back on the locals and knelt to get a closer look at the deaders.

  They wore blue coveralls, all right. Two men, one woman. Nothing particularly remarkable about them, except … I picked up a weapon caked in gray shit and turned it over. A stunner, a Mark II by the looks of it. The Mark IIs were still pre-market. No one was supposed to have them. I was still carrying the Mark I, and reluctantly at that. But this new model—no one was supposed to have these yet. Hell I didn’t even have one.

  That made me curiouser. I unzipped one of the fellow’s coveralls. Underneath, he was wearing finer sweat catchers than a Martian factory worker could afford. I looked at his shoes. Same story. These guys weren’t displaced Resistance types a long way from home. These guys—and one gal—were professionals.

  “Mustafar’s dead,” Darrow said behind me. I could tell by her voice that her eyes were getting wet. “And for what? Why?”

  That same desperate need-to-know from earlier. I glanced sideways over my shoulder. “These guys weren’t Ghosts.” I wrinkled a lip at the irony.

  There was a pause. “Why do you say that?”

  “Too well dressed. Too well armed. See those pieces?” I gestured at the stunners laying in the sludge. “Pre-market. Ghosts use the cast-off weapons they can scrounge from reclamation. No way they could get their hands on pre-market tech like this. I doubt these are even on the black market yet.”

  “Maybe a patron—”

  “He buy them silk undies too? And these coveralls—they’re thicker than you’d expect for factory grunts moonlighting as terrorists. A heavier weave. Dyed to look like Martian worker duds, but more than that.” Something tickled the back of my brain. Multiple things, actually, like puzzle pieces trying to fit together.

  Darrow peered over my shoulder. “I see what you mean.” The no-nonsense marshal had displaced the grieving woman in her voice. “What’s that?”

  “What?”

  She pointed at the neck of the woman lying next to the man I’d unzipped. I reached over and pulled the gal’s collar down to get a better look. “Huh.” Those puzzle pieces seemed magnetized. They wanted to come together, but they weren’t quite ready to yet.

  “Huh what…”

  “That’s the Greek letter Epsilon.”

  Darrow stared at me.

  “You should read more, Marshal,” I smirked. “Epsilon is the Erkennen brand. All their operatives wear it tattooed to a body part. It’s like their secret handshake.” These assassins were on Ra’uf Erkennen’s payroll. That explained how they had access to the Mark IIs, since the Erkennens supplied the Company’s tech.

  Darrow’s eyes dawned. “You mean the Erkennen Faction sent a hit squad—”

  “—to kill you. Yeah.” I stopped there. She could do the rest herself.

  “To keep me from tracking down Blalock. Because I wouldn’t give up.”

  “Dressed like Ghosts. So any video that made it to the Basement,” I said, nodding to the evermore curious rats in their doorways, “would make it look like the Resistance had hit the marshal’s station. Two birds, one stone. The Erkennens stop you from messing in their business and the Resistance gets blamed, which makes SynCorp the victim. It’s a headliner of a news story, tailor-made for CorpNet.”

  I stood and cursed my cracking knees. The Erkennens had gone to a lot of trouble to shut down Darrow and her puppy-dog lover. It didn’t quite square with the risk they’d taken to do it.

  Sticking the Mark II in a coat pocket, I gave her a minute to think it all over while I made the rounds to pick up the others’ weapons. They wouldn’t be needing them anymore, and I could resell them for a decent price after all this was over. Hell, maybe I’d start the black market for the Mark IIs.

  “Amin’s dead.”

  “Yeah,” I said, not unkindly. I hate conversation as a rule. Sometimes I hate the silence more.

  “Because of me.”

  And sometimes, silence is exactly what’s called for.

  “They failed,” Darrow said.

  “Failed? Well, yeah. You’re still alive.” Which reminded me … I looked around and, other than the eyes peering around corners, the corridor was empty. “The Service will send officers soon from the up-top. The first videos have probably already hit the Basement. Wheels are in mo
tion here, Darrow. We need to beat feet. The marshals that come now won’t be your friends.”

  “They failed,” she said as if she hadn’t heard a word I’d said, “because I’m going after Blalock anyway.” Darrow glanced back at the booth. I could see Mustafar’s marshal-booted feet around the lip of the doorway, heels up. “Amin’s death has to mean something.”

  “Actually, it doesn’t,” I said. When she turned her flamers on me again, I tried not to feel bad. “Hell, we don’t even know where Blalock is.”

  “I do.” Darrow tossed it out like it wasn’t the million-dollar answer to my prayers that it was.

  I pulled her off to the side of the corridor, hopefully out of earshot of any expensive sound-catching equipment being aimed our way by the Basement trolls. “You know where Blalock is?” I whispered. That would certainly explain why the Erkennens had sent the hit squad dressed like Ghosts. They’d do anything to keep their little secret till they were ready to spring their trap on Tony.

  “Yeah,” she said, regaining some of her marshal moxie. “I know exactly where he is. And I’m not telling you shit, Fischer. You go your way. I’ll go mine.” She started to pull away and I stopped her. I got her stunner stuck in my gut for my trouble. Somehow, despite what I’d just seen in the shootout, I knew hers would work on me. That’s just my goddamned luck.

  “Hold up there, Marshal. Hear me out.”

  “Make it fast. You said yourself, we’re about to have more company. And I have business to attend to.”

  “You need my help. Not only do you have the Erkennens gunning for you, but your own Service is out to rein you in.”

  “And it smells like shit down here. Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Point is—gunning for Blalock on your own ends just one way: you join Mustafar, forever embracing in the cold arms of Mother Universe.”

  When she glanced back at the marshal’s booth, I knew I had her. What she said next didn’t make a damned bit of difference, even when she burned me with those flamers again when she said it.

  “I’ll never work with you. Let them come and take me. Let the Erkennens kill me. At least I’ll die—”

  “Yeah, yeah, true to your goddamned ideals,” I said. Darrow tried to jerk her arm free and I yanked her back against the Sewer’s wall.

  “Do that again, Fischer, and to hell with due process. I’ll kill you right here and now.”

  She would, too. I could see clear intent behind the flames. She’d already tossed out the marshal’s manual to focus on what justice demanded: wergild in blood for Mustafar. At this point, I was in her way. I gambled and let her go. A little trust might go a long way. She didn’t bolt.

  “Listen to me, Darrow. You might get to Blalock. And then what? He’ll never stand trial because no one—no one—wants him to stand trial. Not the Taulkes. Not the Erkennens.”

  “Why wouldn’t the Erkennens want him to be arrested? He stole their tech!”

  “No one stole anything!” I hissed. Mindful of the watchers, I pointed my .38 at the ceiling down the alley and fired off a round. More like turtles than rats, the locals pulled back inside their holes.

  “This was all some kind of set-up by Ra’uf Erkennen. Whatever Blalock did, they let him do it—for their own reasons.” I shook my head. “This is the bigger picture you never get to see, Darrow. And someone like you? Be glad of it.”

  The look on her face told me that wasn’t enough. She was just confused. Overwhelmed. Not thinking or not able to think. I grabbed her arm again and dragged her closer to the booth, away from the rats. They were getting brave again.

  I said, “Maybe the Erkennens sold Blalock a bill of goods. Maybe they promised to set him up on Titan for life. Who the hell knows? Point is, they’re behind the whole thing.”

  “You’re lying. Why would they do that?”

  “Leverage! Against the Taulkes. To strengthen their own position, take over the Company. Hell, even I don’t understand it all. One thing I do understand—your little crusade for justice doesn’t mean shit to anyone but you.”

  She took it in. I could practically see the wheels turning inside her head. Her ideals as a marshal—extoled by the five-pointed star on her chest pledged to protect and enforce—battled a lifetime of living in a system ruled by the bottom line.

  “Why do you think Ra’uf Erkennen sent these killers after you?” I pressed. “You need my gun if you want a chance in hell of setting things right for Mustafar.”

  The radio inside the booth crackled, demanding someone answer. More marshals were definitely inbound, probably to arrest Darrow. Once they had her, they were just as likely to kill her as incarcerate her—outside the public spotlight of The Real Story, of course.

  She pulled away, and this time I didn’t fight her. Darrow headed for the booth. She was going to tend to Mustafar, I figured. Maybe put something over his face or conduct some lawman’s ritual; do one of those things we humans feel compelled to do when death takes someone we care about. As if the ritual is about their dignity and not our own need to cover up the fact that death’s coming for us, too.

  But Darrow surprised me and stepped right over him. I heard her opening cabinets in the booth. She came out with extra chargers for her stunner and a flash grenade, which she hung on a back belt-loop.

  “Come on,” she said. “Blalock’s not that far.”

  The Job

  The heads of the turtle-rats pulled back in their holes only to edge out again after we’d passed. They pointed their feeders for The Real Story at our backs. Their pale skin, damned near translucent in the dim light, was the brightest thing about them. Shaggy haired and clothed in rags, they kept to the darkness. They reminded me of the Morlocks from that old H.G. Wells novel, or maybe vampires with bad skin. Leaving them behind us made me edgy.

  “These people trouble?”

  Darrow gave a muffled laugh. “The Moonies? They’re harmless. The last thing they want is trouble.”

  “Moonies?” I chuckled. “That’s what they call themselves?”

  “It’s what they’re called. Does it matter?”

  “Guess not.”

  One of the palefaces got daring and tried to get a close-up. I stopped, turned on my heel and snatched the feeder from his hand. Without so much as a “Hey, that’s mine!” he scurried back into his hole. I dropped it in my pocket. That should keep the rest of them from being so friendly.

  “That’s the most expensive thing that man owns,” Darrow said.

  “Not anymore.”

  She slowed her pace as we neared the end of the Sewer’s main street.

  “Which way?” I asked.

  “Blalock is left,” Darrow whispered. I started to move, but she reached a hand out. Big grip for such a little marshal. “We go right.” She nodded back behind us. I turned my face in profile, just enough so my peripheral saw another Moonie pointing a feeder our way—but definitely from a distance.

  “Scenic route?”

  Darrow nodded and headed right. The narrow hallway immediately curved, and I could see her strategy. If the Erkennens or marshals were monitoring our progress via The Real Story, they’d think we were headed in the wrong direction. At least for a little while.

  Without warning, Darrow darted left up a half-flight of muddy stairs. They led to a mid-level floor between Lower London and Darkside proper. The stairs dumped us into a cramped, deserted hallway of corrugated metal that felt more like a military ship than a livable community.

  “You really know your way around here.”

  “Unfortunately.” She angled her head up the hallway. “He isn’t far.”

  We stepped off, quiet as mice. Thumbing slugs into my .38 I asked, “How’d you find him?”

  “He’s a science genius, right? Those types don’t have jobs, they have obsessions. I scanned for nodes in Darkside placing excessive demands on the local ’net. Only the brothels in the up-top pull that kind of bandwidth. Until now.”

  I thought of the porn close
ts in Minnie’s place and nodded. Their floors are sticky, but the booths are private. And cheap, considering the quality of the 3D video feed. Or so I’ve been told.

  “Smart. But how do you know it’s him?”

  Darrow shrugged. “In the last two days, there’s been a terabyte of data exchanged with a server off-moon,” she said. “Either someone’s opened a new porn franchise down here for an under-class that can’t afford electricity on a regular basis, or it’s Blalock.”

  “Good detecting, Detective, but that’s a pretty big footprint to leave behind. Awful easy to trace.”

  “They think no one’s looking anymore, remember?” She put her ear to the door.

  “Maybe. This the only way in?”

  Instead of answering, Darrow placed her fingertips against the rusty latch and slowly pushed down.

  “This can’t be that easy,” I said.

  She drew her weapon as the door inched open.

  “Hey, something’s wrong,” I warned. “This is too—”

  The door creaked open on metal hinges. A lone, fritzing lightbulb hummed in the ceiling, casting shadows into the corners of the room. Darrow eased her way in. I followed despite my better instincts, drawing one of the Mark II’s I’d taken off the dead Ghost. Maybe the latest stunner model would work and maybe it wouldn’t. I had my .38 in my other hand, just in case.

  The room was empty. It smelled like fish wrapped in a sweaty sock and left in the sun for a week. But for being only half a floor up from the Sewer, it wasn’t too bad. Bare walls, rusty like the door latch. A floor mosaicked with decades-old dark stains. The room might’ve once housed school children specializing in ground-level finger-painting. Or it could’ve been a room were murder was done on a regular basis. Hard to tell under that sputtering yellow light.

  I gave Darrow an inquisitive look as we moved deeper in. She shone a light on the far wall. Another door. She put her ear to that one too and stepped back quickly.

  “Bingo.”

  My ear did its own recon. The rust flaked when I pressed against the metal. Low voices: bored and tired of smelling fishy socks.