Breakeven

by Michelle Diener

  Darren was silent, and Sebastian saw his jaw was clenched and a tick moved just under his eye. “What proof do you have of this?”

  “The fact that the Cores got word that we were going to kidnap Rina Fattal, which would have led to Karr, Vavi, Lucia and myself all being killed if things hadn't gone to hell on Garmen.”

  Darren stiffened at that.

  “And the fact that the Caruso have set up a little base at the Cores hoverport, and I, as resistance leader, didn't know anything about it.” He didn't look in Karr's direction.

  “And the fact that the one person I really trust--the one person--Lucia, was the one who was taken today. Only someone in the inner circle of the resistance could have chosen such a perfect hostage.”

  Darren blew out a breath. “Look, Seb--”

  He had had enough of this shit. “No, you look. I'm going to need you to fall back and let me get on with my plan.”

  “Where is Dee?” Karr had drifted closer.

  “I didn't even tell her about Lucia.” He lied with no qualms. Someone on his team was a traitor, and until he knew who it was, he'd protect Dee any way he could. “I gave her coordinates and told her to head out.”

  “Why would you do that?” Darren's eyes were narrowed.

  “Because she's only here because we fucked up. She has nothing to do with this. It isn't her fight, and I refuse to put her in harm's way any more.”

  “And Lucia?” Karr asked softly.

  “Lucia is our problem. And I was on my way to solve it until you got in my way.”

  “This isn't a dictatorship,” Laschka said, and for the first time, he could hear anger in her voice. “We all care for Lucia, and we all want to rescue her. You said it yourself, it's our problem. Ours, not yours. You need to let us help.”

  He was quiet, thinking it through. “First, we need to get away from here.”

  “Where are we going to go?”

  “Nowhere we usually go, that's for sure.” Sebastian glanced down the street, but if Dee was watching them, he had no idea where she was.

  “And then?”

  “Then I come up with a plan. And no one--and I mean no one--goes anywhere on their own while they're with me. I want eyes on all of you all the time.”

  “Well, I guess that tells us where we stand.” Darren glared at him.

  “Good. I want no misunderstandings. There's something toxic in the resistance, and I plan to drain it. And I refuse to worry about turning my back on any of you while I work on trying to rescue Lucia.”

  “If you'd just come into headquarters instead of treating us like the enemy, you'd have heard my report.” Karr looked sick. “I went to the Tree earlier, to find out where they're holding her.”

  “And?”

  “And I couldn't even get inside. The keycard I was lent didn't work, and I just managed to get out of there. Three guards came out after I ran it through the reader on the door. They're watching every entrance.” He hunched his shoulders. “Rescuing her is impossible. We need to give them what they want.”

  “We don't have what they want.” Lashcka's voice trembled.

  “No.” And he'd make sure it stayed that way. “Even if Dee was here, we wouldn't be giving her up.”

  “Yes, we would, Sebastian.” Karr shot him an angry look. “If I had to use my laz on you myself, we'd be giving her up.”

  Sebastian turned away from him in disgust. Dee needed to stay far away from him. From them all.

  And once again, it looked like they'd run completely out of options.

  He was getting very tired of losing.

  Chapter 27

  Ouch.

  Dee leaned back against the wall, far closer to Sebastian and his friends than Sebastian would most likely be happy with.

  She hadn't had the best relationship with Karr, but to hear him say he'd hand her over to her death without so much as a wobble in his voice was cold.

  Stone cold.

  Sebastian had been right to warn her away.

  She tuned back into their conversation, and heard them moving away, talking softly about finding cover in the big bushes that grew up against one of the smaller buildings where they'd have a view of the Tree's front entrance.

  She waited for them to go, leaning against the the wall, and thinking through her options.

  Waiting for Sebastian was going to be an exercise in futility.

  He wasn't shaking his crew, and he must know it.

  Not without making them suspicious.

  And given Karr's pronouncement, she didn't want that. At all.

  If she was going to be sacrificed, it would be her choice, not Karr's.

  She started moving, more because she didn't think it was a good idea to stay in one place too long than anything else.

  She moved slowly and carefully, making sure she wasn't catching up to Sebastian.

  She made her way through streets that were starting to become familiar to her after all the running around she'd done in them the last few days.

  But when she at last got as far as the Tree, she saw Karr was right. There were guards outside each entrance, something that hadn't been in place before.

  And when she hunkered down to watch one at the rear of the building, she saw each person who approached was carefully searched.

  That wasn't going to work.

  She made her way deeper into streets that ran past the lower, square buildings dotted amongst the more exotic tree like structures, and eventually doubled back to Peyt's building.

  She crouched in the ornate bushes outside to think for a bit.

  She put her hand down the top of her shirt and drew out the two vials she had nestled under each breast.

  Sebastian thought there was only one, but she'd measured out a quarter of the amount in the vial and put it in a second one while she was changing in Jamari's bathroom. She was no martyr, but the state of the bodies of her two colleagues, Sunar and Petro, dumped outside Leo's Tether Town warehouse, was etched in her memory.

  She was sure both of them would have sought to end their suffering earlier if they could have. There was no harm in making sure she had a way out on her own terms if she was captured. And it was always good practice to have a backup.

  Now she had to make a decision. Because Peyt wouldn't help her without some concrete payoff this time.

  Not after their last encounter.

  So she had to choose.

  Give up her Plan B, or not get in to the Tree at all.

  Put like that . . .

  She stuffed the fuller vial back down the front of her shirt, and put the other one in one of the many pockets on her maintenance uniform.

  She moved to the back of the smaller Tree and watched the rear entrance from the shadows in the rear garden. A man stepped out, but the door swung shut behind him before she was even halfway to it.

  She stood out in the open, and then shrugged and moved purposefully to the door. Tried it just in case.

  It was locked, and so she leaned against the wall beside it, arms folded, head down, and then slid down to a crouch.

  It was still absolutely dark, but she sensed that midnight had come and gone, and they were into the early hours of the morning.

  She might be wasting her time here, but then, if she couldn't get into the Tree because of the guards, she might as well waste it here as anywhere.

  “Coming in the back doesn't mean they won't hear us entering the apartment.” The man who spoke pitched his voice low, and the woman with him murmured an answer Dee couldn't hear, even though they were right beside her.

  They either didn't see her, or they noticed the uniform and ignored her.

  They pushed the door open, and she grabbed it before it closed, waited a beat for the sound of their footsteps to move away, and then she slipped inside.

  She took the backstairs up, and could hear the couple who'd helped her get in still whispering to each other at least a floor above her when she turned onto the third floor.

  She ma
de her way to Peyt's little corner, and tried the door.

  It seemed as if he'd reset the laslock.

  She shrugged, and knocked, making sure her laz was firmly in her grip at her side.

  There was a sound from the other side of the door, and it swung open.

  Peyt stared at her for a moment, confused, but the moment he realized who she was under the wig, he lunged out, trying to grab her. She danced back, the laz pointed at his chest.

  She lifted a finger to her lips, and waved him back inside his apartment.

  He shook his head. “Fuck off.”

  “Either I shoot you, and then explain, or you back up, and I come in and explain without the need for another laz hit.”

  He looked from the laz to her face, and then threw his hands in the air, turned his back on her and stalked inside his apartment.

  She moved carefully after him, letting the door close quietly behind her.

  “I am very comfortable with shooting you again,” she said to him, conversationally. He was fiddling with something in front of him, blocking it from her view with his body and so she was ready when he turned with a knife in his hand and threw it at her.

  His aim was terrible. The knife went high, flying over her shoulder, and she shot him in the arm on a light stun.

  His face crumpled as he clutched it to him, making a whining sound as he hunched over.

  She stood quietly until he pulled himself up straight. There was fear in his eyes when he looked at her. Fear and hatred.

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to get into the Tree.”

  “What's that got to do with me?” He rubbed the arm she'd shot with a trembling hand.

  “I want you to get me in.”

  His gaze jerked to meet hers. “Why would I do that?”

  She put her hand in her pocket, and pulled out the vial. “Because if you do, you get this.”

  He stared at the vial for a long time. “Why can't you get into the Tree by yourself. You're working for Hanran Fattal, aren't you?”

  She tilted her head in agreement. “Problem is, I've been a naughty girl. I'm supposed to be back in the apartment he set up for me, pretending to be Rina, and I've been engaged in a bit of private enterprise instead. And now, they seem to have guards parked at every entrance, and I can hardly go in as myself without Fattal working out I wasn't where I was supposed to be.”

  “How do you think I can help you?”

  “You tell me.” She waved the vial from left to right, then slid it into her pocket.

  He wet his lips, closed his eyes, and she hoped he was thinking about how to get her into the Tree, rather than fantasizing about getting his hands on talu venom.

  “My father has an office in the Tree. He sometimes gets his personal cleaners to clean his office, because he doesn't like how the general maintenance workers do it. You've obviously thought of getting in as a maintenance worker already.” His gaze flicked to her ill-fitting uniform.

  That sounded like it had potential.

  “Keep talking.”

  He shrugged. “I can take you in, I've done it before when my father's asked me to.”

  “We get in, and get to the stairwell, and I'll give you the venom.” She felt a wave of contempt for him, looking at his pouting, sly face. “If you have any thoughts on turning around and going straight to the guards, be warned they'll want to know why you lied to them to get me in, and when they ask me, I won't be shy in telling them. I don't think Hanran will take well to someone trying to steal his venom. And while that includes me, I'll make sure they know to look at you, too.”

  His lips twisted. “I won't say anything. I'll be happy to see the back of you.”

  “The feeling's mutual.” She shot him a smile.

  “Where is the talu?” Peyt tried to ask the question casually.

  “After my little incident with you, I decided it was safest back in my apartment in the Tree.” She gave him another sugary smile. “Are you ready to go?”

  He sighed and nodded. “Do you know why there are guards at the entrances to the Tree?”

  She shook her head. “I don't run in such elevated circles.”

  He snatched up his comm set at that, and she had the sense that he was angry that neither did he.

  Chapter 28

  Sebastian couldn't shake his worry for Dee.

  He hoped she was following behind them, but her being on her own and vulnerable made him twitchy and irritable.

  The only reason he didn't end the charade and admit that she was in Dar Raca with him was his fear that Karr and Darren would go through with their threats to grab her.

  No matter how that ended, whether he killed them first, or they killed him--because it would be over his dead body--there was no way it was better than letting Dee trail them, and stay safe and sound out of sight.

  Laschka led the way, moving through dark alleys so that they were approaching the Tree from the back.

  When they got a block away, she turned sharply into an even tighter alleyway, and then jumped up, catching the bottom of a ladder, and then disappeared upward into the shadows.

  Karr and Darren looked as surprised as he did.

  He followed her, climbing for two floors before reaching the flat roof of the building.

  Lashcka was waiting for him at the top, crouched behind a large cooling unit.

  The Tree rose up in front of her, and when he joined her, he saw they had a view of all the back entrances to the building.

  Karr was right. There were guards stationed in front of every single one.

  Karr and Darren hunkered down beside them.

  “I didn't know about this,” Karr said, and Lashcka glanced at him.

  “You were off trying to grab Rina Fattal when I found it.”

  He nodded, and for a moment they were silent, watching the guards joke with each other under the weak light above the entrances.

  “What's the plan?”

  “I was going to get inside the Tree. But I can see that is close to impossible.”

  From the front of the Tree, they all heard the hum and scrape of a small hover entering the the atrium.

  “Could we get into a hover?” Lashcka asked.

  Sebastian shook his head. “We'd have to exit it in the atrium itself, and that would leave us completely exposed. There are guards there, too.”

  “What's happening there?” Darren pointed, and Sebastian looked over to the entrance on the far left.

  He went absolutely still.

  “What is it?” Karr's tone was sharp.

  He said nothing. Couldn't, even if he wanted to.

  It was Peyt and a cleaner.

  The woman had her back to them, and her shoulders were a little hunched, her light hair gleaming as it caught the light.

  Peyt was speaking to the guards and they stepped aside, let the two in, and then went back to their conversation.

  She had done it.

  Shit!

  He almost rose to his feet, then remembered he needed to keep down.

  “Seb. What is it?”

  He wouldn't tell them a damn thing. He didn't trust them, and he wasn't going to endanger Dee in any way.

  But his reaction was too extreme. He had to give them something.

  He swallowed. “I know the man who went in there. He and I have had a run-in in the past.”

  “He's coming back out.” Lashcka's words snapped his attention back to the Tree.

  “Keep watch here. I'm going to intercept him. See if he can get us in.” He was running, bent over, for the ladder, before they could respond.

  He heard Darren curse, but he was already halfway down.

  He dropped into the alley before the ladder ended, and started to run.

  To his relief, he didn't hear footsteps behind him.

  Dee ran up the stairs the moment Peyt snatched the vial from her and pushed back out of the stairwell.

  She didn't think he'd risk confessing what he'd done, but if his sp
ite overcame his sense of self-preservation, she was determined to be gone by the time the guards came looking.

  She tried to remember which side of the building she and Sebastian had been on when they'd originally seen what they had both recognized as a holding area, and decided she was on the opposite side.

  She pushed through the door on the floor below where she suspected Lucia was being held, and stood for a moment in the dim light.

  There was no one around, no sounds at all.

  She walked to the first maintenance door she saw, slipped inside the tiny space, and sat down heavily on a stool that was tucked against the wall.

  She hadn't expected to get inside the Tree; she admitted it to herself. She'd expected the guards to turn them away, or worse.

  Now that she had managed it, she had to work out exactly what she was doing here. What she wanted to achieve.

  What had driven her so far was that she couldn't let them kill Lucia. And that still held true.

  She felt the tension and fear that seemed to be crushing her chest ease a little.

  The hard fact was Lucia would be killed if she didn't arrive at the designated time. All other possible scenarios came with a chance they'd make it out alive.

  And that was good enough for her.

  She'd killed. Over the last eighteen months she killed more than she was comfortable with. And yet, there had been no other way to safeguard the innocent victims in Tether Town.

  She could have refused the role Leo had offered her, but it had always come down to the question of why not her? Why should she get to keep her hands clean and pass it off on someone else?

  And now, she had the chance to save Lucia, and not only was there no reason why it shouldn't be her, it turned out she was the best placed person for the job. Almost no one else could have gotten in. And no one else would have had the venom as a bargaining chip.

  Funny, in all the years she'd worked with Leo and Finkle on Garmen, she'd risked her life more times than she could count, and yet never really worried about it.

  Now, she was sweating, her heart beating like a trapped bird in her chest.