by Matt Wallace
“You’re right, I’m stalling,” he said. “The Purist Nation records are scattershot at best. Their technology is about four hundred years behind everyone else’s, but I found the death record for your older brother.”
Quentin nodded. The news didn’t surprise him because he’d known his brother was dead. The status of all other family members was a mystery to Quentin, but at just five years old, he’d watched his brother hang for the crime of stealing bread.
“Turns out your name isn’t Barnes,” Fred said. “At least, not originally. Looks like your family changed names. I’m not sure why.”
“What was it?”
“Carbonaro,” Fred said. “I found it on your brother’s death record. Your brother’s death record led me to your mother and father. I could find no official death record of your father.”
“What’s my father’s name?”
“Cillian Carbonaro.”
That damn expression of hope flared on Quentin’s face yet again. Now Quentin had a name. A name made things real. Even without a face to go along with it, a name probably made the poor kid think his father might be out there, somewhere, and not be just another rotted body in a sky-high stack of unknown corpses in Grim Tyrant Valley
“That’s a start,” Quentin said. “And my mother?”
Fred had actually hoped the kid wouldn’t ask. But that had been wishful thinking.
“Her name was Constance Carbonaro.”
Quentin swallowed. He licked his lips. Fred knew what question was coming.
“And she’s...
The kid couldn’t even say it. Maybe he knew, or at least he suspected it. Time to put those hopes in the ground.
“She’s dead, Quentin. I found her record. It’s accurate, no question. I’m sorry.”
The big man’s shoulders sagged. He looked down. In the bathroom of a second-rate Smithwicks Arena in the wastes of Wilson 6, Quentin Barnes had finally learned that his mother was gone.
“There’s more,” Frederico said. “You told me about your brother, but you said you didn’t have any other siblings.”
Quentin nodded. He kept a straight face, trying to hide his emotions, but Fred didn’t need to be a Quyth Leader to see that the kid was devastated.
“Why did you tell me that?” Fred asked. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a sister?”
Quentin’s eyes snapped up. “I... I don’t have a sister.”
Fred felt a wash of excitement, a touch of happiness at bringing some hope back to Quentin’s handsome face. There was something about that kid, something that made you want to help him.
“Well, if the records are accurate, you do,” Fred said. “Jeanine Carbonaro. She’s about ten years older than you. She would have been fifteen about the time your brother died.”
“And my... my sister’s record?” Quentin said. “Did you find a death record on her?”
No, but I found one on your other brother that you probably never knew about. Should Fred tell him that? No, Quentin could hide his emotions, but the kid didn’t need to know about Quaid Carbonaro just yet.
Fred shook his head. “Don’t get too excited, okay? Just because I didn’t find a death record doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t mean that she’s alive, I know,” Quentin said. “I get it, Frederico, you can stop repeating that, okay?”
Fred nodded. “Right, sorry. It’s just... well, you wouldn’t be much of a poker player, Quentin. I can see the hope in your face.”
Quentin’s face went instantly blank, like someone had flipped a switch and shut off his emotions. Spooky. With a bit more practice, Quentin would be able to hide any emotion. Damn spooky.
“We’re not playing poker,” he said.
“It’s the eyes,” Frederico said. “A dead giveaway every time.”
“You’re not going to start talking about how pretty my eyes are again, are you?”
Fred smiled and shook his head. “No, not at all.”
He thought back to the first time he’d met Quentin. Fred had donned a pink suit and played the role of an over-the-top, effeminate gay man, hoping to expose Quentin as a homophobe just like the rest of his Purist Nation countrymen. Fred had done that because he wanted a reason to turn down Quentin’s business, a reason to ignore the kind of money that a Tier One quarterback could pay. The act had disturbed Quentin, sure, but the kid had owned up to the fact that a gay man made him uncomfortable — owned up to it and immediately tried to deal with it. What’s more, he’d been transparent about that, honest about it. Fred had never expected such behavior from a nineteen-year-old Nationalite.
“To tell you the truth,” Fred said, “when we first met I did that just to get a rise out of you. You’re okay-looking by the numbers, but you’re really not my type.”
“I wish I could say I was offended by that.”
The roar of the crowd made them both look at the door.
Fred nodded. “You need to get back to your date. If you want, I’ll keep looking for more info.”
“I do,” Quentin said. “Just find whatever you can. Even... even death records give me some idea, you know?”
Fred nodded, then turned his attention back to the broken nannite machine. It would only take another thirty minutes or so to fix it. Then he’d catch his flight to Jupiter.
Red Storm City awaited, and, hopefully, so did Jeanine.
IV: JUPITER
Chapter 18: Rico
Sometimes Fred wore the disguises. Sometimes the disguises seemed to wear him, to consume him, to push his real self down so far it was a little hard to remember what was real. That had happened with the Caleb persona. It happened with a few other disguises as well, but there was one disguise that took him over so completely he didn’t want to come out of it. He didn’t want to come out of it because it wasn’t really a “disguise” at all — it was a younger version of himself.
Rico walked down the streets of Red Storm City. He’d docked several hours ago, when he’d been Fred, not Rico, but something was nagging at the back of Fred’s thoughts.
That note. Actual paper. Aged paper. It had seemed so... convincing. A little detail, something that made things seem real. No, not convincing...
It seemed romantic.
Not in the kissing sense, the relationship sense, but the bigger sense of the word. Romanticism: a grand, sweeping story that seemed larger than life.
At first the paper had sold him, but the trip from Micovi to Jupiter gave Fred time to think. The paper... it was too romantic.
It made Fred wonder if Carney was the aw-shucks miner he seemed to me. Maybe someone had got to him. Maybe this trip to Jupiter was a setup. Maybe someone wanted to kill Fred, and this trip would be his last.
That’s why Fred stepped onto the transport at Micovi, but Rico stepped off at Red Storm City.
His first stop had been to a Human clothing store. What he found wasn’t an actual flight jacket, but it was close enough. The smell of leather, that helped him slide further into his past, as did the goatee and the sunglasses. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he realized that Fred was the disguise — this was the real person.
The things Rico had lived through... well, that was because Rico couldn’t be killed.
Rico’s second stop took more time. He let his instincts take him to the right area, almost like he could smell the thing he needed. It took him four stops — he tried a convenience store, then a gambling parlor, then a brothel before he found what he needed in the offices of an unlicensed doctor. He paid four times what it was worth, not that it mattered — it wasn’t his money, after all.
When he put the spun-steel composite revolver in his pocket, Rico felt better. Five shots, no bigger than his hand, but it would blow the back of a man’s head wide open. Newly armed, he moved on to his third stop.
Rico rarely drank on the job, and it was his policy never to get drunk while on a mission. Yet he couldn’t deny he was starting to tip slightly the wrong way as he downed his fifth shot of th
e night.
It was frustration more than anything else. He’d walked into Halftimers at an hour that apparently marked a shift change in Red Storm City’s manufacturing district. The place was packed with loud, working-class sentients, mostly Human, mostly wearing one kind of Jupiter Jacks paraphernalia or another. Some of the gold, silver and copper shirts, hats and coats were beat up, marked with dirt and grease, and looked like they’d spent decades conforming to the bodies of their owners. There were other teams represented as well: the Red Lightning of the Harrah Airspace league, Stormcloud FC and an occasional shirt that supported one of the Dinolition teams.
Rico didn’t mind the crowd. In fact, that’s what he’d wanted. He needed as many employees on duty as possible so he could search for Jeanine, and he wanted to be able to hide in the crowd while he did it.
Rico found a corner that gave him a view of most of the bar. He started drinking because he had to drink something — few bars have patience for non-drinking customers — and if he sat there for hours sipping a soft drink, that would arouse suspicion. A quiet man drinking alone in a bar didn’t attract attention, nor had it for several centuries.
By the end of the third hour, Rico was convinced Carney had sent him on a wild goose chase. Rico had struck out with every single server, bartender and cook in the place. Not only was Jeanine not among them, no one had ever heard of her. No one could place the name, the description or the backstory Rico laid out. Even if she’d given false information, something should have stuck with someone, even a tiny detail.
Still, nothing.
Rico knew Fred had been a fool. Fred was hopeful. Fred was optimistic. Fred thought people were good. Rico knew better. He knew that people were garbage and that everyone was either out to get you or to take something from you.
A total waste of time and money. Rico knew that maybe he hadn’t been needed after all. Maybe it was time to put on the Fred disguise again, let Fred handle things from here on out.
And then Rico saw him.
At the end of the bar, out of the glaring lights, looking inconspicuous despite being so big, sat a Human.
Bobby Brobst. Gredok’s main hitter.
Bobby Brobst, who had a flexi-cast on his right pinkie.
And just like that, Rico knew. It had been Brobst in the records room on Micovi. Brobst had been the one who nearly choked Fred to death.
Fred took him in. Brobst’s build and heavy brow bordered just north of Heavy-G country. He looked like a perfect thug in that way, a classic leg breaker. But his eyes were sharp, calculating. That made sense. The Human who’d tried to put Fred away back in the records room had been more than strong and fast. He was cagey.
Rico didn’t flinch, he didn’t stare, he didn’t change his behavior in any way. Bobby was looking around. Bobby was supposed to make that as transparent as Rico made it, but Bobby wasn’t as good at the game as Rico was. Most everyone didn’t even realize Bobby was there, but to a pro the big man stood out like a face with two noses.
It was no coincidence that Brobst was here, in Red Storm City above Jupiter, sitting in the same bar where Carney had told Fred to come and fine Jeanine.
That changed everything. It brought the last few weeks of Fred’s life into sharp focus. Rico knew it meant that his Fred disguise was no longer flying under anyone’s radar. Fred had suspected Gredok might be responsible for the Quyth Warriors in the desert, and Fred had been right.
There was no Jeanine to be found here.
Only death.
Brobst looked Rico’s way. For a moment, their eyes met, then Brobst kept scanning, kept looking.
He didn’t recognize me.
Rico waited until Brobst turned to scan the other side of the room, then quietly stood and walked to the door, using his skill at moving without drawing attention, without bumping into anyone or making sudden moves that would catch a hunting eye. He didn’t bother trying to scope out individuals who might be ghosting his movements. Everyone in this place might as well have been an agent for the Splithead.
Once outside, Rico kept walking, kept looking. On the other side of the curved radius road, he saw a pair of Quyth Warriors sitting in a grav-cab. They were watching Halftimers. And above, a Creterakian civilian circling in a non-random pattern: extra muscle and eyes in the sky — Brobst hadn’t come alone.
Rico never slowed, never sped up, just kept moving at the same pace. He crossed the street. He looked for and found another bar, one with windows that looked out onto the street, that gave a view of Halftimers. He gave a drunken Quyth Worker a hundred-credit chip to leave a table next to the window.
Rico sat. Rico watched. Rico waited. Now, marginally safe from the trap, Rico relaxed — his work was done. As he relaxed, he faded away, allowing Fred to come to the surface again.
Fred watched... Fred waited.
It had been Gredok the whole time. It was Gredok’s Warriors in the Raiders Stadium and in the desert trying to blow him up. Goolie was working for Gredok. Gredok wanted the same information on Barnes that Fred had been hired to chase down.
Why? That was the question Fred asked himself over and over as he waited and watched from across the street.
One hour became two, and then Fred’s patience paid off. Bobby Brobst walked out of the club, alone. He nodded to the thugs in the grav-cab. They drove off.
Brobst didn’t climb into a private car. Instead he headed up the street away from the club. Brobst was dangerous, sure, but he was also making mistakes — a guy that big could delude himself into thinking he was a better player than he actually was. Brobst shouldn’t have been alone, and Fred wasn’t going to let that mistake go unpunished.
Fred shadowed Brobst from a comfortable distance for a few blocks before snaking across the street. City night had fallen, the dome protecting Red Storm City darkening, casting the streets in shadow.
Brobst walked to a dingy hotel. Fred waited a few minutes, then followed him in.
From there, it was a scene Fred had played out a dozen times before. Quietly give the hotel clerk a chunk of change — in this case, five hundred credits — to get Brobst’s room number. Brobst had been at that bar for hours. He hadn’t eaten. He hadn’t stopped for food on the way from the bar to the hotel. Fred used the stairwell to go to Brobst’s floor, then wait for room service to show.
When the waiter came, another five hundred credits meant Fred got to deliver it.
Fred waited until the waiter left the hallway, then he knocked.
Bobby Brobst opened the door expecting to see his food. Instead, he was looking down the barrel of a small revolver.
“Hi, Bobby,” Fred said. “We need to talk.”
•••
Fred poured two glasses of vodka. The first one he rose in a silent toast to his guest and knocked back. The second glass he held to the lips of Bobby Brobst. Bob couldn’t drink it by himself because his hands were tied to the arms of a metal desk chair. So were his ankles. So was his waist — hey, he was a big guy, and Fred didn’t want to give him any room to maneuver.
Bobby was no dummy. He knew this might be his last taste ever, so he drank.
“Thanks,” he said.
“My pleasure,” Fred said.
“My ass is getting tired from sitting here,” Bobby said. “You’ve got me all tied up, so it’s your show, but can we get this over with?”
“What if I’m going to kill you? Do you still want to get it over with?”
Bobby swallowed. He licked his lips. “Like I said, my ass is getting tired. So whatever you’re going to do, do it.”
Fred sat on the bed. He casually pointed his gun at Bobby’s chest.
“Sure,” Fred said. “Let’s do it. What does Gredok want with Quentin Barnes’ family history?”
Bobby just shook his head.
Fred stood. He pressed the muzzle of the pistol against Brobst’s temple. Bobby still didn’t look scared, but it was clear he didn’t like having that kind of tech so close to his face.
&n
bsp; “I don’t think you’ll do it,” Bobby said. “Killing me doesn’t gain you anything. I’ve been studying you, Gonzaga — you’re in it for the money. You’re smart enough to know that if you kill me, more people are coming after you, people even besides Gredok. Maybe my brother.”
“Do you have a brother?”
“Do you really want to find out?”
Fred smiled. “That’s good. You’re smarter than you look, Bobby. But what if I don’t kill you? What if I just beat the hell out of you until I get what I want?”
Bobby licked his lips again. He sighed. “I’m no fan of pain, but I’m trained to manage it. I don’t think you’ve got what it takes to go far enough to get anything out of me.”
Fred’s eyes became as hard as the metal chair. “Are you sure about all of that?”
There might have been a sliver of doubt in Bobby’s eyes, but he didn’t break. He just sat there in silence, staring back.
Fred took one more shot.
“How’d he rig the phony letter from Quentin’s sister?”
Brobst still didn’t answer, but for just a split-second there was a twitch in his brow, as if his eyes were about to narrow. It was gone just as quickly, but Fred recognized the micro-expression.
He realized it was confusion. Brobst didn’t know about the letter. He hadn’t been involved in that part of it.
“You were here to kill me,” Fred said. “Gredok told you where I’d be, and you were to take me out, right?”
Bobby looked at the floor. He knew his next words might spell his end, but he nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”
Fred took the muzzle away from his skull. It was a hard reminder that, had things gone slightly different, had Fred come as himself instead of letting Rico take over, Fred could be the one in that chair, or already be dead.
“How long you been waiting for me?”
“Six days,” Bobby said. “I was cleared to wait another four.”
Carney. They had used Carney to get Fred to Jupiter, they just hadn’t known exactly when Fred would arrive.
“You’re right, Bobby. I’m not a murderer, strictly speaking. And torture isn’t my bag. But none of that is going to be necessary. You’ve been a big help.”