Leah asked, “What are you looking at?”
The Genrenaut rotated his arm to show her. “News reports. Trying to sort out which of the local gangs kidnapped the ambassador. So far it looks like the Dark Sons are probably small potatoes for the job, but I can’t count them out yet. How’s forensics coming, King?”
“Just a second.” King tapped his wrist-screen, and the versatile particles disappeared from sight. “We’re coming up now. Leah, watch this.”
* * *
Leah squinted as King tapped his wrist-screen trying to tell where the versatile particles had gone. King slipped the aerosol can into his belt, then pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “Up in three.
Cover your eyes.”
Leah slipped the glasses on in a hurry, poking herself in the eye with the plastic earpiece before getting the shades into place just as King shut off the light, revealing …
Green. Tons of green, all in a cloud, catching the light that King’s screen was putting out. But it was all undifferentiated, some kind of neutral.
King tapped his screen. “Infrared is first.” The screen changed colors, and the particles in the air moved to the ground, showing footprints in cool blues and greens, as well as a residual shape on the bed.
“Signs of struggle here.” He walked to a cluster of overlapping footprints. “I’d say … three attackers, and one more in the room.”
“They threw her to the ground here, then she was pinned, probably hooded or gagged,” Shirin added.
King and Shirin circled the heat signatures in opposite directions, leaving their own tracks on the floor.
The pair stopped, their eyes meeting for a moment. An understanding passed between them, and King tapped his screen. The color changed to blue, and some of particles pulled up off of the ground.
A group rushed to the doorframe and the door, spilling out into the hall behind her.
The lit particles settled on scratches and scuffs and shapes on the floor, as well as on the door, swung open into the room, and the door hinges.
“Door was kicked in, superficial scratches to the floor corroborates the struggle,” King said.
“Now for the real lottery. Do we get any particulates, hair, saliva, or fibers?” Shirin asked, glancing up to Leah by way of indicating context.
The light changed to yellow, and the particles shifted again, some staying on the door, others moving to scatter along the floor like a dusting of snow.
Ew, yellow snow. Bad comparison, she thought. Like dust, she thought, reframing the sight.
Shirin looked to the door. “Residue on the door, that’ll give us the boots.”
“It’s in the report,” Roman said from the hallway. “Work boots, size twelve. Available a hundred different places on the station.”
“We’ve got biological material all over the floor, but distribution looks like hair, dead skin. Did station security already take samples?”
“They’re running them now. They usually take six hours on analysis, should be done before you bunk down,” Roman said. “You?”
“King and I are going to head back to chase down more leads on the working class side.”
Shirin turned to Leah. “And by chase down leads, they mean drink and fight until answers spill out of people’s mouths along with teeth and blood.”
Roman shrugged. “It works.”
King said, “We tried a mission all-diplomacy style a few years back. Shirin called the shots.
And we almost let the killer get away.”
Shirin raised a finger. “Objection. Extenuating circumstances. It was a brand new alien species. How was I supposed to know it was preying on the fears and hunger of the poor people living in air ducts?”
“And that,” Roman said, “is why we cover all of our bases.”
“It just happens that covering bases in the rougher parts of the station tends to be fairly hands-on and high risk.”
Leah asked, “So a little brutalization and casual violence to see you through?”
Roman bristled. “Nothing casual about it. But we do what we must to the story back on-track,
Probie.”
“I’m good, I’m good. Just, be careful, and don’t whack anyone you don’t have to.”
Shirin shook her head. “The local security does enough of that as is.”
King took charge. “We’re done here. Shirin, you and Leah start first thing tomorrow. You’ll have the materials analysis, and we’ll send updates from the fringe if we get any leads.”
“Okay, newbie, you’re with me.” Shirin walked toward the door, smiling with her whole body. “Let’s go find ourselves an overpriced diplomatic district hotel and charge it to HQ.”
* * *
Their quarters were literally a quarter of the size of the ambassador’s suite, but Leah’s own room was still as large as her entire apartment.
The door opened into a common room, couches and comfy seats, a wall-sized screen, and spacefaux-homey details like digital paintings of nebulae and a selection of plant life. Each painting was more science fictional than the last—from something that looked like carnivorous orchids to fiberoptic grass and a bush that had leaves made out of flattened rocks.
That was, of course, until Shirin started rearranging everything, enlisting Leah for extra muscle.
“We’re going to be taking meetings here, which means doing a bit of no-cost redecorating.”
Shirin repositioned the furniture to create a two-on-one chair-to-couch space, and moved another couch across the room to just inside the door. She pointed at the chair by the door, designating it as the “waiting area,” and the couch-and-chairs section as the “meeting room.” “Why not make them wait outside?” Leah asked.
“Some we will, others we’ll want to see who we’re talking to and for those people to see who we’re about to talk to.” Shirin tossed a pillow across the room, turning toward her bedroom. “A lot of diplomacy is managing public image, the interplay of information, who knows what, and who knows who else knows what they know.” She paused as she went into the bedroom, then returned with a trio of throw pillows.
Shirin placed one pillow on the couch, then eyed the other two, one white-and-blue, the other green-and-yellow-green. She tossed the white-and-blue into the same corner, and then set the other one in the lap of one of the chairs. “If we’re going to help Laran triage this Alliance until the ambassador’s back, there’s a lot of confidence-building to be done, and we can save ourselves trouble by using tricks like this to offload some of the gossip workload onto the diplomats themselves.”
“Through the power of interior design?”
“Design shapes the narrative. Setting is as important a part of a story as character and action. Constrain setting, and you constrain and shape character. Now let’s strip your bed and get this couch a cover.”
Chapter Five: Friends in Low (Gravity) Places
The fiber and DNA tests came back just before midnight. There were more common fibers from working clothes, two sets of DNA not in the system, one human, one Nai, and an industrial cleaner that was used mostly on long-haul rim ships, used to create a lasting seal and protection against asteroids.
And so Roman and King found themselves in a seedy bar in the roughest level of the station’s third ring.
Here, the station’s organized crime world flourished, operating discretely and effectively enough that they had an understanding with station security.
Walking among toughs and mercs, people living on the fringes, Roman felt dangerously at home.
Fitting in here would be all too easy. But he’d have King to pull him out if he got too deep.
Which meant that everyone in the bar—literally everyone—noticed when the two of them walked in not wearing colors of any of the station gangs.
The bar was an old industrial facility, assembly lines turned into long bar rows, with wandering servers and a central bar at the far wall. The bar was maybe two hundred feet wide, and Roman guessed that ther
e were around a hundred gangers and hangers-on present, just as the night was getting rowdy.
Roman claimed the first open space, which wasn’t actually open. It was a stool beside a cluster of four gangers, all wearing red bandannas, then nodded at a server to get her attention. The server denied eye contact and kept going.
“Seats’r taken, rando,” said a husky voice. An Ethkar woman with cut ears turned from the circle and loomed over him and King.
“Sorry, looked empty to me.” Roman stood, hands up and back. “Not looking for trouble.”
“Then why’d you come to a Dead Dwarf bar?” asked one of the Ethkar’s companions, a short man with a torso like a keg.
“We’re just looking for a quiet drink,” King said. “We can go somewhere else.” “Dawn smiles upon the prudent,” the Ethkar said.
Roman read the scene. Too many to seduce all at once, even for him, and if they threw down with a brawl, they’d subsequently be thrown out.
Strike at their pride, instead. Roman adjusted his hat, preparing to go. “Damn. Guess that
Widowmaker was right, this place is shit.”
The wide man bristled, blocking Roman’s exit from the bar. “Widowmaker said what?”
“Met a Widowmaker. Ex-Widowmaker, I guess. He said this place was shit, but he was an ass, so I thought maybe it was something to see, he was keeping it to himself.”
“Real contrary guy, you know,” King said. “Like those Junai—they’re always saying the opposite of what they mean.”
“Dwarves nest, fuck the rest,” the Ethkar said.
“If this is a colors bar, why’d the bouncer even let me in?” Roman asked.
“We’ll take your money, don’t mean we want you here,” the wide man said. “Someone’s gotta pay for these drinks.”
Roman puffed himself up, eyes locked on the wide man. King held him back. “Cool it, Ro. We’ll take our money and our action somewhere else.” “Action?” asked the Ethkar.
“Yeah, action,” said King. “Good action. Alliance is doomed, right? That makes a lot of opportunities for someone smart. I heard the Dwarves were smart. Fleecing people without offering service, that’s just debris. We’ll find someone else for the job.”
The wide man dialed the aggression down a tick, then waved the server over. “What kind of job?”
“Big job went down on-station. You know about it, right?” King asked.
“Course we do,” the wide man said. He didn’t. Roman knew that flavor of puffing up, the need to be in on the joke.
“That was a choice grab,” Roman said. “We find who did it, we’ve got some work for them.” “Dwarves have many hands and more eyes, willing for the right price,” the Etkhar said.
Basically, they could have done the job, or could do one like it.
A server stepped up, a small man with gray skin. The wide ganger took the beer off his platter.
“What’ll you have?” the ganger asked Roman and King.
“Royal Deep, Sol back,” Roman answered. “And a FUBAR for my friend.” The server slunk away.
“So what’s the word? You know about the job or not?”
“We know about the missing ambassador. Ain’t nothing happens on Ahura-3 that doesn’t make it to the Dwarves,” the wide man said.
“’Cause it seemed like an outside job. My snitch says Security pulled DNA off the job, but they didn’t get no matches,” King said.
The gangers nodded. Anyone who’d been in organized crime on the station for this long would have been printed, their DNA taken for record in case they did something truly heinous, something bad enough that station security couldn’t look the other way.
“We know some merc companies, maybe the type that could have done it. Some real deep voiders, you know.”
“So out with it, then.” King followed up his request with a chuckle, softening the demand.
“A stiff drink loosens lips,” the Ethkar said.
And so they drank. This time, it only took an hour and three rounds to get the Ethkar and her friends to finger the Dark Stars for the job.
* * *
With the culprits identified, it was time for a trip to wheel three to talk to Zoor, the retired mercturned-florist and his Ethkar paramour.
Roman and King cleaned up for the visit, planning to lead with Good Tough instead of Bad Tough.
There were seventeen florist shops in wheel three. Only twelve were owned by humans or Ethkar, and of those, two had gone out of business but hadn’t lost their station registry.
Which meant that Roman and King spent four hours making the rounds, crossing florist shops off their list, smelling of gardenias, fanar, gerry rasps, and an abundance of roses when they walked into the Twin Bloom.
The storefront was small, just a ten-by-ten room of displays and sample product, a glasscovered wall of more flowers, and a reinforced glass cash register, blocked off from the rest of the store by a reinforced door.
A smaller Ethkar woman stood at the cash register as they walked in.
The Ethkar greeted them, voice coming through on a PA. “The road swells to meet you, friend.” “Greetings,” Roman said. “I’m looking to have a few arrangements made for our friends.
They’re receiving guests of all races, so it’s going to be a pretty big job. Can you accommodate?” “My husband has the fastest hands you’ve ever seen work a pair of shears.”
A man walked up from the back, entering the glass display area. He was around six feet, and despite his inoffensive white collared shirt and khaki pants, he still looked like a tough. His hair was short, only mostly covering the tattoos that extended up onto his scalp.
“That’s great. She prepared a list.” King held up his wrist-screen. “Can I beam it to you?” The woman wobbled her head in an Ethkar affirmative. “LAN handshake coming up now.” King tapped at his screen while Roman studied the ex-merc.
“Can you have these over to the diplomatic wing by 1800?”
The man squinted at something above his head, presumably a screen. “That’ll be tight,” the man said through the PA. “But yeah, we can do it. Except for the whistala—we’re fresh out.” “I’m getting more in two days, if that will suffice,” the Ethkar said.
“No problem. I can get whistala somewhere else. Delivery by 1800 for the rest?” The Ethkar assented again.
“Beautiful,” King said.
Roman made a small gesture toward the man’s tattoo. “Friend, I don’t mean to dredge up old business, but your skin tells me you used to run with the Dark Stars.” “Can’t prove it,” Zoor said, not facing the pair.
“It’s just, word on the spin says that the ambassador is missing, and that the Dark Stars did the deed. Damn shame. Way we figure, if the Alliance had gone through, maybe that’d make it easier for Terrans and Ethkar to live together,” Roman said, looking from the man to the Ethkar woman.
“That the case?” Zoor said, hands clipping and arranging flowers, assured but not quite unconscious in his confidence. He hadn’t been at it too long. There was a difference between dexterous competence and the ease of thousands of hours of practice.
“I know someone people who could get the ambassador back, maybe salvage the Alliance. You’ve got a nice shop here, a nice life. Just as long as nothing happens to the fragile peace between the Terrans and the Ethkar. If you know anything about where the Stars might have taken her, you could do a lot of good, Zoor.”
The man turned, brows narrowed, fear touching his eyes.
“You can leave now. We don’t need your business,” the Ethkar woman said.
“But you have our business, and we need your help,” King said. “The Terran council has established a generous finder’s fee for anyone with information about the ambassador’s whereabouts,” he lied.
“Shadows and vapor,” the Ethkar said, calling his bluff. The station staff were keeping as tight a lid on the news as they could. Good for morale, maybe not as good for their immediate plans.
“Because t
hey don’t want to be flooded with void facts brought to them by opportunists. Our friends, the ones hosting the diplomats, they heard about the finder’s fee. Five thousand credits.
That’d go pretty far out here on the wheel, I think.”
The Ethkar hardened, pointing to the door. “Out.”
Roman stepped forward. His kind recognized their own. So he’d tell Zoor what he’d want someone to tell him. “We need your help, Zoor. You got out of the Dark Stars for a reason. I bet you wanted peace. Stability. A life that didn’t involve looking over your shoulder, didn’t count on balancing favors and lackeys and alliances, always waiting for the other boot to drop.” “Get out,” Zoor said, shaken.
Out of the corner of his eye, Roman saw King give him the nod. So instead of leaving, he pushed it, riding that edge between conversation and combat.
“Sure, I’ll leave. If you can look me in the eye and tell me that you didn’t leave so you could find a way to make things grow, to create and preserve life instead of taking it by force. Getting out of that life isn’t hiding. It’s choosing to push against the death instead of riding the tide of blood. You want peace? You want a real chance at a life worth living? Kaylin Reed can bring both of those to the
station and beyond, but not with a bolt through her brain. Where would they take her?” The man’s knuckles were white, fists clenched.
“I’m calling security,” the woman said.
Roman and Zoor shared another moment that dilated into infinity. Zoor’s body language showed anger, resentment, shame, fear, and finally hope. The ex-merc slumped, setting his shears down beside an arrangement. “No, Fela. They’re right.”
Roman smiled. Not as eloquent as the speech King had given him back in the wasteland, when he was on the end of his rope, but it was close enough.
Zoor continued. “There’s a hideout in the rings of Aeros, just one jump from here. Anytime we bugged out of Ahura-3, we stopped there first. It’s big enough to fortify, but out of the way of commercial traffic.”
Genrenauts: Season One Page 14