Breakeven

by Michelle Diener

  After a moment's hesitation, Jamari gave the Bodivas greeting Dee had seen before, a clenched fist held out and then covered with the other hand.

  Sebastian watched her, and then returned the gesture.

  “Are you both originally from Bodivas?” she asked. No one, unless they were under the age of sixteen, had been born on either of the Breakaway planets.

  They both nodded.

  “And you?” Jamari asked.

  “Arkhor.” Dee shrugged as she said it, to deflect any comments. She'd been ten years old when her parents had brought her to Garmen, but she knew from every interaction she'd had since then that Arkhorans were considered the pushy, aggressive ones in the Verdant String.

  “Explains a few things,” Jamari said, and Dee gave her the same cold stare she'd perfected as a comeback for any Arkhoran remarks.

  She could barely remember Arkhor. Now, since the Arkhorans had taken control of Garmen, she supposed she could go back there. See what it was like.

  If she got off Lassa alive.

  Sebastian shifted beside her, and she had to push away the suspicion that she didn't want to get off Lassa. Or, not without Sebastian.

  Or Fluffy.

  “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Jamari asked.

  “You didn't hear about the Cores guards coming for her?” Sebastian asked, and suspicion laced his voice.

  “I haven't stepped outside since Dee's talu bit Paka. I haven't dared leave him.” She shot Dee a look. “The Cores came for you?”

  “More like for Fluffy, but yes.”

  At the mention of the talu, Jamari focused on her pack. “So why aren't you far, far away?”

  “They took one of my people hostage in exchange for Dee.” Sebastian leaned back against the wall, arms crossed.

  “You're going to hand yourself over?” Jamari's voice was hushed with shock.

  “Not if I can help it. We're going to see if we can find her, and whoever else they're holding, and get them out.” Dee put her pack on the table, and Fluffy popped her head out. She held out her hand and the talu scrambled up into her palm. She reached into the bag with her other hand for the small cup Sebastian had given her.

  Fluffy happily grabbed it with both front paws and bit down, and Sebastian stepped forward, ready with a treat for her.

  The talu sat on the table, eyes bright and inquisitive, nibbling the piece of energy bar.

  It soothed Dee's conscience a bit. Fluffy didn't seem to be nervous or hurt by the milking.

  She poured the venom into the small vial Sebastian had found in his med kit for her, and when she screwed the lid on, she saw Jamari watching her with interest.

  “Things have changed in the hours since I last saw you.”

  Dee nodded. “It turns out Fluffy's an old hand at being milked.”

  Jamari focused back on the talu. “They're rare. I don't even want to think about how much Rina Fattal must have paid for her. But it makes sense that she was well looked after.” She glanced at Paka, and then back. “So what's the plan?”

  “This isn't your fight, Jamari.” Dee lifted her hands. “We just wanted a quiet place to milk Fluffy one last time, and hopefully to borrow some clean clothes.”

  Jamari looked at Paka again. “This is more my fight than yours, Garmen Girl. I've been living in a self-imposed prison cell for the last six months. My lover nearly died today because I'm so desperate to get out, and none of us can live a normal life with what's going on. Don't tell me it's not my fight.”

  “What aid are you prepared to offer?” Sebastian asked.

  “I can get you some maintenance uniforms. My neighbors are a couple who are two of the lucky ones with Cores jobs. They're cleaners--not of the Tree itself, one of the smaller Trees, but I think the cleaning uniform is the same. I'm also prepared to keep your talu here, if you want me to, and I can start to spread the word about the Caruso.”

  Jamari's lips thinned. “Most of the settlement may be suspicious of the resistance now, but they know having the Caruso here is a bridge too far. It's either stand up now, or get crushed.”

  “You think they'll understand that?” Sebastian's voice sounded skeptical.

  Jamari lifted her hands, palms out. “If they don't, they're doomed.”

  Fluffy had not gone happily into the box Jamari had found to keep her in. Dee ended up with another scratch, this one from her elbow to her inner wrist, as Fluffy tried to cling to her as she put her inside, but eventually, the lid was closed.

  Once it was, the talu kept trying to fit her nose through one of the holes Sebastian had cut out for her to breathe, and whimpered pitifully.

  Dee crouched beside the box and crooned to her a bit, and after a bit more chirping, she went quiet, settling into the blanket Jamari had put inside for her to cuddle in.

  “She's probably tired,” Jamari said. “My guess is you haven't had much down time.”

  Dee's mind jumped to the rock pool in the forest, and she glanced up at Sebastian just as he looked her way, and blushed.

  From the tiny smile on his lips, he realized where her thoughts had gone.

  Dee cleared her throat and tugged at the jacket of her cleaning uniform. It was short on her and too wide, but not so bad that it would draw attention.

  The worst part was the wig Jamari had lent her. Jamari'd been using it to go outside unseen, and the warm honey brown of it was certainly different to Dee's natural color, but the humid air and heat made her scalp prickle with sweat, and her fingers twitched with her need to scratch beneath it.

  Sebastian looked as ridiculous. The pants ended above his ankles, but his ankle-height boots helped. And in the end they settled on him tying the jacket around his waist, as if he was too hot to wear it, because the arms ended halfway to his elbows.

  “Good luck.” Jamari pulled Dee into a quick hug before they stepped out into the night. It was after midnight, and the three crescent moons lined up like the fingernails of a celestial hand.

  Sebastian led her through back ways and side routes, slipping between huts and shacks built among trees. Even though the branches overhead often blocked out the faint moonlight, a few people were still awake, and the light spilling from poorly sealed doors and windows helped light the way.

  The buzz from the pipelines and the hover track was like a tiny stone in her shoe, rubbing at her, just out of reach, and mostly drowned out by the soft sound of the birds and the whine of the insects.

  She'd been focused on the members of the resistance when she'd emerged from the tunnel with Karr and Sebastian the night before, so she didn't recognize the entrance to the rough enclosure until Sebastian leaned against a tree trunk, lifted a finger to his lips and then pointed.

  She focused, and was just able to make out the shape of the sentry standing guard beside it.

  It was hard to believe only a day had passed since she'd last been here.

  She tried to shake off the sudden exhaustion that gripped her. There was no time for it now.

  Now she was oriented, she realized the poles she was looking at were the legs of the massive screen that sat on the Dar Raca wall.

  “What do we do?” She breathed the words directly into Sebastian's ear, and he was so warm, and so solid, she wanted to rest her head on his shoulder and close her eyes.

  “We need a distraction.” Sebastian pulled his laz from his pocket. “Or I'll have to shoot him in the back.” He seemed at ease with the decision.

  The door to the enclosure faced away from the square, and it was dark enough that if they shot the guard, no one would notice unless they were looking for him.

  The few buildings nearby looked old, as if they'd been built when Lassa was first established as a Breakaway, before the Cores realized they could get away with doing nothing for the workers who came to find their fortunes--dupes who believed the stories that they could make a fortune if they were willing to take risks and work hard--when the Cores never had any intention of letting anyone have access t
o the wealth they saw as their personal spoils.

  Her parents had been two of those dupes, so she didn't judge. Although, by the looks of things, the Cores on Garmen had been forced to concede more than the Cores on Lassa. The nature of the mineral wealth must have had an effect on what was possible for them to get away with.

  But that was beside the point. While the entrance to the tunnel was closer to the trees, and not as much out in the open, it was still going to be hard to approach the guard without being seen long before they reached him.

  “I'll walk up to him, shoot when I'm close enough.” Sebastian had obviously come to the same conclusion.

  “I'll do it. You have to live with everyone here afterward.” Dee pulled her own laz from the back of her pants.

  But before they could decide which of them would go, the guard straightened up and stuck his head into the enclosure, laz out.

  Someone spoke to him in low tones from within, and then stepped out into the open.

  “Karr.” Sebastian's voice was soft and thoughtful.

  “Well, Vavi said he'd been to the Tree to try and work out where Lucia was being held.”

  Karr was wearing a similar uniform to their own, which confirmed what Vavi had told them, as well.

  The two men stood close together, speaking quietly, and then they both strode off in the direction of the resistance headquarters, a run-down building on the far corner of the square. With its washing lines strung between the windows, it looked like an apartment block, hiding in plain sight of the Cores.

  There was a light shining from the second floor, and another on the ground floor, and both men were dark shapes against the light as they moved away.

  Sebastian motioned to Dee to go first, and she ran as fast as she could. She darted through the enclosure opening, crouched down and pulled the lid off the tunnel entrance as silently as she could.

  She glanced up as Sebastian loomed in the doorway, saw he was covering her, his laz pointed toward headquarters.

  “Get in,” she whispered.

  He nodded as she started climbing down, but didn't turn.

  She shimmied down the ladder, and then stood to one side, laz raised at an angle as he climbed down after her, just in case someone noticed them or it was a trap.

  He stopped, leaned out, and started dragging the lid back in place, and she heard a shout, then his name.

  She thought he was going to call back, but instead he finished pulling the tunnel lid over the hole, and then dropped down beside her.

  “Run.”

  Chapter 26

  With luck, Lasanai, who'd been guarding the tunnel entrance, had only seen him and not Dee.

  And even that was not good.

  Lasanai would run back to headquarters to ask what to do, and whoever was betraying them to the Cores would most likely hear about it.

  Depending on how quickly the traitor was able to communicate to the Cores, that meant someone could be waiting for them at the other end.

  If the spy had told the Cores about the tunnel.

  He could see how a traitor might not want to give up too much. Especially if they used the tunnel themselves.

  Sebastian's attention shifted to what was happening behind him.

  For the last minute, he'd heard the faint splash of boots running through shallow water as someone chased them down.

  Lasanai must have called in some help.

  That it was Sebastian's own people was no longer relevant. Especially given Darren's comments about Dee.

  They'd have to go through Sebastian first before they got her.

  The ground started to slant upward a little, and he breathed out in relief as he saw the hidden entrance.

  He put on a burst of speed to grab Dee's shoulder as she ran past it.

  “We're there?” Her voice was a breathy whisper.

  He pointed and she sagged against him, sucking in a deep breath.

  “Yay.”

  He couldn't help giving her a quick hug, his lips touching the strange synthetic hair of her wig before he pressed his hand against the door.

  “You go high, I'll go low,” she said, and he nodded, shoved at the door with his shoulder, laz lifted, and Dee spun past him, crouched low.

  There was no one on the other side.

  Dee followed close behind him as he negotiated the stacks of boxes in the basement and then hit the stairs.

  It was almost completely dark, but he'd been through here enough times in the last few months that he knew the way.

  The apartment block was silent now, unlike when they'd come through the night before, but when he stepped into the empty, foul-smelling foyer he moved cautiously.

  In case there were Cores guards waiting for them to come through the door, he moved silently to the narrow window beside the front entrance. It had been smashed out long ago, and tiny, jagged pieces of flexiclear were still lodged in the frame.

  Dee crept up behind him, keeping low, her laz pointed toward the basement door in case whoever had been following them in the tunnel burst through.

  He could see nothing at first except a few lights shining in some of the buildings that lined the road.

  The lights illuminated parts of the street, but nothing moved.

  Then the whole landscape lightened as clouds parted to reveal the three moons.

  They were only in crescent, but the combined light of all three produced a faint illumination.

  A man stepped out of the shadows, heading directly for their building, and Sebastian went very still as he watched him.

  Then he moved back, taking care to keep hidden, and pulled Dee with him as he ran down the narrow passage to the left of where they'd come up from the basement, and then came to a stop halfway along.

  “What's going on?” Dee set her lips against his ear to whisper her question.

  “Darren, one of my lieutenants, one of the people who was in the forest earlier this evening, talking about us to Laschka, is out there. He's waiting for us. Or me, at least.” He crouched down, and she joined him.

  He pointed to the gaping hole in the wall. “I noticed this some time ago. Someone kicked out the wall at floor level.” He lay flat, measuring the chances of him fitting through, but he could see there was no way. “I think you'll just make it.”

  She lay down beside him, swung her legs, and slid out, hanging for a moment with torso on the floor, legs dangling out, and then she dropped the short distance into the back alley.

  The jagged wood caught on her wig, and he carefully untangled it.

  “So you go out the front, I surprise them from the side?”

  He was face to face with her, him lying with his head poking out, she standing outside the building, looking up. “Maybe. But I'd rather they don't know you're here at all. That's our one advantage. Whatever you do, don't attack or engage them. Work through the back alleys, get in position so you can be hidden but still see what's happening. If Darren lets me go on my way, wait for me to come to you. If things get ugly, or if he's not alone and I'm not able to safely leave, hide out until I can find you.”

  “And Lucia?” she asked the one question he didn't know how to answer.

  “The last thing Darren should want is to put Lucia in more danger. If I explain to him--”

  “And if he's your leak?”

  Again, he had no answer. “I don't want you to go into the Tree by yourself.”

  She said nothing, but she reached out and squeezed his hand. He reached down to cup her face with his hands, boosted himself forward, and gave her a fierce, hard kiss.

  They both heard the sound of a door closing in the foyer. Someone was coming up from the basement.

  Sebastian slid back and rose up into a crouch. “Go. Hopefully the coast is clear for me.”

  She nodded and melted into the darkness, and Sebastian stood and walked softly back the way he'd come.

  The foyer seemed empty, but he waited a long beat before he made his way back to the narrow window.

&nb
sp; Darren was still out there.

  Which meant--

  “I have a laz trained on you, Sebastian.”

  When he turned, he saw Karr standing in the basement doorway.

  He sighed, straightened up, and made his way through the front entrance and out into the night.

  “Just got back to Dar Raca, Darren?” Sebastian kept his voice low, running lightly down the steps toward the man he hadn't seen for over a month. The man who'd taken over Sebastian's own territory out among the pipelines when he'd been made the new leader of the resistance.

  “I got back shortly after the Cores guards raided your house.”

  Sebastian looked behind him, saw Karr and Laschka coming up behind him.

  “What the hell is going on, Seb?” Darren moved deeper into the shadows, and Sebastian followed.

  It wasn't ideal for Dee. She'd find it harder to keep an eye on what was going on, but it was equally dangerous to be out in the open.

  “What do you think?”

  “You tell me.” Darren's voice was low and harsh. “Sneaking out of the settlement into Dar Raca past your own people? What the hell?”

  “I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of sneaking, because right now, whoever in the resistance is passing information to the Cores knows I'm on my way in. If I could have done it without being seen, they'd still think I was out in the forest. Now they know I'm here, and so are you.”

  Darren lifted his chin. “You think there's someone right in the heart of the organization who's betraying us?”

  “Yes.”

  There was utter silence as Darren seemed to absorb that.

  “He's right.” Laschka had joined them, although Karr stood a little apart, laz in hand, watching the road and the buildings as a lookout.

  “Shit. Why didn't you say something?” Darren asked.

  Laschka simply stared at him, and eventually he got it.

  “You thought it might be me?”

  “I don't know who it is.” Laschka turned to Sebastian. “I'm assuming you don't, either.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “I do know that my being here, and maybe your being here, too, is most likely known to the Cores by now. And that any hope I had of slipping into the Tree to look for Lucia has gone up in flames.”