Stealing Life

by Antony Johnston

  “Cash?” Bazhanka’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “You bring me cash, here? You are insane, dear boy, so very insane!”

  Nicco let the briefcase drop back to his side. “You want the money or not?”

  IT HAD BEEN raining when Nicco left Allad’s place, a cold, sleety downpour that only blackened his mood. He threw the fake gold soap dish and bath plug in a recycling can and walked a block down to the nearest street phone. Xandus’ number stared at him from the scrap of paper. Nicco stared back.

  He picked up the headset, slotted his card in the paypod and thumbed the number into the keypad.

  “Mister Salarum,” said a voice at the other end of the line. “I know your mind would change.”

  “Hello, Xandus,” Nicco said.

  Silence filled the line.

  “You are still here, Mister Salarum?”

  Yeah. I’m still here. The words caught in his throat. “I’ll do it. Meet me tonight.”

  “I will arrange for you to pick up and come to me.”

  “No.” Nicco knew what he was about to do was a gamble. Xandus could withdraw the offer, or send his thinmen over anyway, or just drop a rain of frogs on Nicco’s head until he agreed to be blindfolded, tied up and probably knocked out again just to satisfy the wizard’s paranoia. “You meet me tonight at eight, in the Silver Sky Whale on the corner of 84th and Kanan. You pay me there. If I so much as smell your thinmen, it’s all off. Am I clear?”

  Xandus paused. Then he said, “Very well, exactly.”

  Nicco hung up.

  He dropped his pack and equipment off at his lockup across the river, then staggered home for a jet shower. He couldn’t strictly claim he hadn’t slept at all in the last twenty-four hours, but neither of his ‘naps’ had exactly been restful. His clothes reeked of stale sweat, his head still ached and his mouth felt like the underside of a Praali rug. He reached his building, took the service elevator to the top floor and fell into his apartment.

  Nicco’s place couldn’t have been less like the businessman’s. The realtor Nicco bought it from had called it a ‘bargain penthouse suite.’ Yes, it was true the apartment was at the top of the building, with only the roof above. And, yes, it was cheap. What you wouldn’t find in any brochure, though, was why it was such a bargain. The building was a converted aquatic slaughterhouse from Azbatha’s golden period of trade and commerce—all cold steel and bare, damp stone, where millions of fish and sea cattle had breathed their last. It was also located right in the heart of the red-light district. Nicco’s apartment was reached through a steel-grilled utility elevator from the ground floor. The steel roof sneered at fancy modern concepts like ‘insulation’ or ‘water resistance,’ because why on earth would a dead fish care if a little water found its way in? Or that Turith’s extreme weather patterns baked the whole place like a cake in the summer, then froze it like a popsicle in the winter?

  It was a sucker bargain. Even in the seller’s market of Azbathan real estate, better apartments could be had for the same price. The list of people who might actually be willing to make a home out of this apartment held just one name: Nicco Salarum.

  He liked the location. Some of his best friends—in fact, all of his best friends—were working girls.

  He liked the exclusive entry and exit access as there was no need to fob off nosy neighbours with stories of working strange hours in the city (haha, yes, he supposed he did look like a burglar in this all black get-up—how funny, must dash, bye-bye).

  And best of all, it was big. By the watery saints, was it big.

  Nicco had left the apartment open-plan, with only a small area in one corner divided off for the bathroom. But somehow he still managed to make it feel cluttered. Shelves lined the walls of half the room, bursting with books, holovids and even old flatvids that he just couldn’t bear to throw out. Occasional tables were piled high with printzines, reference books and more holovids. He had enough cutlery, crockery and cookware to feed a dozen people, even though Nicco only cooked once or twice a week, and only ever for himself. A holovid box and its audio system took up one side of the space, surrounded by more books and holovids. He didn’t have a system to play his old flatvids; he kept promising himself that one day he’d buy one and convert them all to holovids, but ‘one day’ never came.

  The far corner of the apartment was filled by what he jokingly called a shrine to his mother—a pile of boxes and bags filled with clothes, jewellery, newspapers, ancient audio discs. Antiques and memories. Nicco swore he’d sort through it all some day, to see if there was anything even remotely useful in there. But ‘some day’ seemed as elusive as ‘one day.’

  He showered, ate a vacpac meal from the fridge and left. No time to rest as such, but he was refreshed and alert again and the evening’s cold rain kept him that way. He took a groundcab downtown, got out at 82nd and Kanan and walked the last two blocks. This section of Kanan Avenue was one of the few places in Azbatha where a man could walk without being in constant bodily contact with random strangers, or watching for muggers. It was clean, well-lit and respectable, because it belonged to Madame Zentra. And the Madame liked a clean establishment.

  Nicco waved quick hellos to a few people as he walked, girls and marks from Zentra’s place that he knew by sight—until he reached the establishment next door to the brothel. This was the Madame’s other, more legitimate, business interest: the Silver Sky Whale Bar, affectionately known as the ‘White Fatty’ by locals. Nicco pushed the door open and stepped through. Blasts of warm air hit him from both sides, and in a few seconds he was at room temperature.

  A pretty young blonde girl stepped up and greeted him by name. Gurinama worked next door four nights a week; all the girls did, moving back and forth between establishments from night to night. It made accusations of solicitation very hard to prove, and helped the girls find new clients. The only downside was the occasional furious spouse who spotted their partner in the bar and assumed they were also using the brothel. Which was true most of the time, but Zentra still ejected the offending parties on principle.

  Nicco ordered a drink and made his way through to the booths. It was a quarter to eight—Nicco always preferred arriving too early over too late, and in Azbatha you were always one or the other. He immediately headed for a table in the corner, with his back to the wall and a good view of the entrance. It was a regular booth for him, ideal for discretion.

  But as he passed the other tables, a soft voice said, “Mister Salarum. Please, sit you down.”

  Xandus sat in an empty window booth overlooking the street. He gestured for Nicco to join him. It wasn’t the booth Nicco would have picked, but then Xandus didn’t look how he expected either. The wizard’s clothes were discreet, dull and common, in stark contrast to the silken finery he’d worn the night they first met. Nicco noticed he was still wearing the make-up, though. Some things a wizard just couldn’t do without.

  “You understand what must you do? Time is small.”

  Nicco nodded. “How long’s he in Azbatha for?”

  “Not long, exactly. Four days more here, then he returns back to the Hurrunda.”

  It really wasn’t much time. A job like this should be planned for months, not thrown together overnight. But it was this or a year in traction.

  “Give me the advance.” Nicco reached for his paypod, but to his surprise Xandus reached under the table and pulled out a briefcase. Nicco stared at it. “You’ve got to be joking. Cash?”

  Xandus looked confused. “Is easier than your pods, exactly. Then no-one knows. This is how you are paid.”

  Nicco wondered at that. In the centre of the Turith archipelago squatted a barren, ugly little island called Shalumar. It had no great cities, no wide open shipping bays, no nearby reefs or feeding grounds. But Shalumar did have one big geographical advantage. Before airships, it had been on the route of every merchant boat sailing through Turith. It didn’t take long for some bright spark to set up a permanent station, servicing the ship
s that passed through. And another, and another, until the immigrant population of Shalumar was a very wealthy population indeed.

  And like many very wealthy people with nothing better to do, they decided to go into banking.

  For six hundred years, since the miniature state declared sovereignty, Shalumari banks had been the biggest financial institution in Turith. Through merchant ships to airships, from coins to notes to cards and smartphones, the Shalumari banks adapted and survived. They were discreet, stable and utterly confidential. And far too many Turithian politicians had their own war chest stashed away in a Shalumari account to even think of passing legislation that would force them to open up.

  Everyone with more than three lire to rub together had a Shalumari account. Tracking Shalumari-held funds was impossible. So why didn’t Xandus have one? Wasn’t it magic enough for him? Where did wizards bank, anyway—the Base Metals & Alchemical Trust?

  Whatever. Nicco didn’t have the time to wait for Xandus to fly to Shalumari and open an account, and he couldn’t risk the wizard refusing to pay if Nicco didn’t accept cash.

  He waved Xandus away. “Leave it under the table. Goodnight, Xandus.”

  He watched the wizard slope out of the bar, looking nervous as all fifty-nine hells, then sighed. Bazhanka wasn’t going to like this.

  WALLUS BAZHANKA DIDN’T like it.

  The mobster leaned back in his chair and folded ten fat fingers over his belly, staring balefully at Nicco. “Clarrum, please accept Mr Salarum’s donation.”

  The bodyguard who had stopped Nicco’s approach stepped out from behind Bazhanka and walked to Nicco, holding out his hand for the briefcase. Nicco gave it to him, and Clarrum turned, walked back to Bazhanka’s table and put the briefcase down on it. But as he bent to open it, Bazhanka rapped the back of Clarrum’s knuckles with a fork.

  “Not right next to me, you idiot!” Bazhanka gestured at a side table, closer to Nicco than himself. “Go over there and open it.”

  Nicco tutted. “And I thought we were starting to bond. You don’t even trust me to hand money over?”

  Bazhanka stabbed his fork into a hunk of meat and stuffed it in his mouth. “Cash!” He snorted. “I’d have Clarrum whip you for impudence if I didn’t think you’d enjoy it.” He swallowed the mouthful with a loud gulp and looked up at the bodyguard. “Well?”

  Clarrum opened the briefcase wide and held it up to show Bazhanka the contents. Twenty-five thousand lire in crisp notes.

  “My, my. We have been a busy boy. Such a very busy boy. This money isn’t dirty, is it, Nicco? You wouldn’t just rip off a security skycar to pay your way?”

  “No,” said Nicco, cursing himself in silence for not thinking of that. He could have avoided working for Xandus at all. But it was too late now. “Money for a big commission,” he said. “That’s all.”

  “It’s an awful lot of cash to be lying around in the open. Why haven’t I heard about it?”

  “Search me. Maybe you should keep your ear closer to the ground. Of course, that would require a waist that can bend in the middle.” Nicco regretted the jibe even as the words left his lips, but he hadn’t been able to resist.

  Clarrum took a step toward him with a murderous glint in his eyes, but Bazhanka raised a hand to stop him. “No, Clarrum. Not in the club.” He turned to Nicco, his sunken eyes burning with contempt. “You should remember where you are and why you’re here. As you said yourself, this is only a fraction of the... donation you’ve pledged to my business.”

  “Oh, come on,” said Nicco. “There’s twenty-five grand in there! In one hit! You don’t need the rest. Let’s call it quits.”

  Bazhanka chuckled, a wet sound from the back of his throat. “So very funny... I was considering it, you see. I truly was, for my favourite young burglar. But not now, Nicco. No, not now.

  “You have one week to present me with the balance. If you do not, you shall soon find your own waist remarkably flexible. Along with your spine. Get out!”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  GOVERNOR JARRAND L. Werrdun walked onto the stage next to City Hall and stood behind a lectern. The mayor, his wife resplendent in a silly hat, the head of the Trade Council, Werrdun’s personal assistant and the assembled minor dignitaries all applauded him.

  None of them had any idea they were standing on a bomb.

  From behind a window on the 48th floor of a building overlooking the plaza, Nicco watched the ceremony through binoculars. The 48th floor was empty, awaiting refurbishment before yet another bunch of grey civil servants could move in and shuffle paper around, and Nicco sat on the floor next to a small transceiver, tuned to the PA down in the plaza, where Werrdun now stood facing a couple of thousand freezing cold well-wishers. Nicco wondered how many of them were employees of companies that stood to profit from this new trade agreement, ‘incentivised’ to attend by their bosses.

  Nicco heard the applause through the transceiver and wondered if it was just the usual polite applause for a public speaker, or if they were as amazed as Nicco that the ancient Hurrundan governor could move under his own power. As he strode to the podium with an easy elegance, Nicco was reminded of the elderly Praali Archmage, Kathel, whom he’d seen during the Year Zero peace treaty broadcast. Perhaps Werddun was a wizard of some kind, too.

  Thinking back to how the Year Zero fiasco had turned out, he hoped not.

  Nicco had been unable to find Werrdun’s exact age. In fact, two days of solid research had turned up very little about the governor’s personal history at all, although it did unearth a wealth of information about the man’s political life and Hurrunda’s fortunes under his rule.

  “Mister Mayor... your good lady wife... Councillor.” Werrdun acknowledged his hosts in perfect Turithian with a rich, sonorous voice, something else that had surprised Nicco when he first heard it. “On behalf of the people and tradesmen of Hurrunda, I thank you for the hospitality shown to us by yourselves and the people of Azbatha. Though an ocean separates us, our cities are closer in character than we might think, and strengthening our relationship can only make us both stronger and more prosperous.

  “Like you, we in Hurrunda labour under a mountain of bad press. Like the straits that separate you from the rest of Turith, the mountains that keep us apart us from our country are easily crossed in these times of magic and technology. But traditions live on, long after technology renders them obsolete, and so our cities share a tradition of isolationism. The Varnian people look on my city and they see a parochial place, with strange customs and an old man in charge. I know it’s the same for you, here in Azbatha.” Werrdun looked across at the mayor and smiled. The crowd picked up on his jibe and laughed along as the mayor’s cheeks reddened. “I believe we can use this common ground as a base, to grow our relationship and our commerce. Years of suspicion and fear have turned our great cities into strangers, and that saddens me—both as a governor and as an old man with distant family of my own right here in Azbatha. It feels good to be able to walk in their city at last...”

  Nicco had stopped listening. He was watching the security detail. Six of Werrdun’s own bodyguards were on the stage, and Nicco guessed there were another half-dozen out in the crowd, watching for assassins and other shifty characters. There were also four Azbathan cops, a detachment sent to work alongside Werrdun’s men, but Nicco wasn’t worried about them. Azbathan police were lazy and corrupt; the governor’s bodyguards would be better advised to keep an eye on them than the crowd.

  Still watching through the binoculars, Nicco felt for the transceiver with his right hand and found the button that would detonate the bomb.

  He pressed it.

  NICCO’S RESEARCH HAD told him to expect Werrdun’s guards to be top-notch. Serious professionals, not to be messed with. These men were used to dealing with threats.

  Not that Hurrunda was some kind of battleground. By all accounts it was a wealthy city, with a good social improvement program and a leader who not only exercised some actual power, but who
m most of the population genuinely liked. It was a far cry from Azbatha, where the mayor was a puppet for the city’s largest crime and business interests, elected on the basis of being marginally less offensive than the other candidates.

  Werrdun had served as governor of Hurrunda for sixty years, and in that time had turned the city around. Before he came to power, Hurrunda had been a wreck, a tiny sovereign state floundering on the vast shores of Varn, cut off from its own continent by the Hurrun Peaks—a wide swathe of hills and mountains that kept the city in isolation until magic and technology had made crossing the range safe and quick. Safe, because the mountains were thick with jungle, and the top indigenous predator was the groak—a lumbering carnivorous beast that happily ate anything in its path, be it human, animal or another groak. Quick, because the trails through the range were up to two hundred miles long, encircling Hurrunda in a fifty-mile diameter horseshoe of rainforest from coast to inland and back again.

  Naturally for a population living in that kind of situation, the Hurrundans were very religious. So religious, in fact, that the priesthood ran the city as a theocratic dictatorship for over a thousand years. They followed the sacred Law of Kurreth, their strict—and, it seemed to Nicco as he read further, overly harsh—god. But the Kurrethi’s grip on the city had slipped as access to the outside world became easier. Their attitudes to technology were backward, to say the least, and trade—even with relatively near cities like Azbatha—was a disaster. The Hurrundans were hungry, overworked, overtaxed and damn well sick of it all. A secular revolution was inevitable, and it finally came sixty years ago. Jarrand Werrdun didn’t lead it, but he took part and was voted in as interim governor by a committee of the revolutionaries soon afterward, deemed a suitable, strong leader for Hurrunda’s new age. Soon ‘interim governor’ turned into ‘permanent governor,’ and ‘permanent governor’ turned into ‘governor for life.’ Before they knew it the Hurrundans had replaced one dictatorship with another. Except they seemed perfectly happy with this one.