Titan's Rise: (Children of Titan Book 3)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  The dealer’s arms were festooned with tattoos, with a skull surrounded by Saturn’s rings the most prominent. I was too out of touch with the Martian underworld to know any of the newest cliques, but I’d seen that symbol all over Old Dome. It didn’t take me long to piece together that they were the new mob running things below where corporations cared to be seen.

  I strolled up to him with my head low like I was trying not to be seen. My fist slammed into the dealer’s stomach before he could ask me if I was interested in a hit. He gaped up at me from the ground, dumbfounded. Chapped nostrils, sunken eyes, and cheeks so shallow he looked like a skeleton—he was the kind of filth a collector rarely needed to deal with. They tended to take care of themselves.

  “Are you fuckin’ insane?” he snarled. “You know who you’re messin’ with? The Ringer Bones’ll have your head.”

  “That what you lot are calling yourselves?”

  “Wait. I remember you.” His chapped lips parted as he grinned, revealing a mouthful of rotten teeth and shiny chrome fillings. “Sold to you just the other night.”

  “That explains a lot.” Who could forget how awful my headache was when Wai found me all covered in piss.

  “That was some high-end shit. No refunds.”

  I heaved him up by the collar so hard it choked him, and slammed his back against a dumpster.

  “I’m not looking for a refund,” I said.

  His eyes were shifty, but they moved with intention. Every so often, he peeked over my shoulder, and I was glad to be sober enough to know what that meant. I whipped out my pistol and stuck it behind me, just in time for the barrel to impede some other Ringer Bones thug trying to peel me off his dealer.

  “I suggest you run back the other way,” I warned without looking. The footsteps of whoever it was fleeing promptly followed. That was the thing about having a Pervenio-issued pulse pistol like mine. I didn’t need to flash a badge to prove who I was. If the Ringer Bones ever found out the truth, I’d have made another group of enemies, but I didn’t care.

  “Loyal group of friends you’ve got,” I said as I tightened my grip on the dealer. “Maybe you should look for a new line of work.”

  “You ain’t got no badge,” he gurgled. “You’re no collector.”

  “Nope.” I turned my pistol on him and shoved it right up under his chin. “Free to kill whoever I want now.”

  “When the boss finds out about this, you’re dead!”

  “I have a feeling he won’t be around long. They never are.” I slammed him again. “The bombing, what do you know about it?”

  “Upstairs?” he chortled. “We don’t worry ourselves about them.”

  “Well, you better start. You’re out here every day and night. Tell me what you’ve heard about it, or I’ll make sure you’ve had your last hit.” I reached into the pocket on his coat and tossed a tiny plastic bag filled with white powder into the nearest sewer grate. That got his attention.

  “I don’t know nothin’!” he cried, literal tears welling in his eyes as he stared at his drugs.

  “You better give me something then.”

  “I swear! The boss questioned all of us already to see if any gang was behind it. Ain’t nobody got a line on who done it.”

  I pushed the gun into him harder. The tears started running down his cheeks. “You’re not helping yourself.”

  “I… uh… I heard some people laughin’ about it. Yeah. That everyone up there got what was comin’.”

  “Who were they?”

  “Nobodies! Some sewer trash on their way to pray at the Three Messiahs convent. People’ve been rumblin’ all day about how those Ringers deserve worse. Whaddya you expect after what they done?”

  I held my gun there for a few seconds longer, then grunted and dropped him. He pawed at his throat, bawling like he’d expected to die. If our little conversation accomplished one thing, at least it might illuminate the value of life. But as he rolled over and a few more baggies of foundry salts rolled out of his pocket, I realized how naïve a thought that was.

  He scrambled to pick them up like a starving child for crumbs, then leaped at the sewer grate, ready to shove his whole arm through for more. A better man would’ve shot him just to put him out of his misery. I turned away to continue my quest for information without another word.

  “You’re a dead man!” he cried out as I fell into the crowd. “You hear that? Dead!”

  I must have gone on to talk to hundreds of the worst degenerates New Beijing had to offer, in every shady corner of the Tongueway. Carrying myself like I was still a collector only got me so far, so I had to use what little was left in my credit account to get people talking. Guy, girl, it didn’t matter. Most were too high to think of anything but grabbing me by the crotch, and none of them knew a thing. Even those who claimed they did just wound up spinning tales so ludicrous that they probably actually believed them. More than a few blamed it on a meteor, which somehow struck the spaceport without putting a hole into the New Beijing dome or anything.

  None of it made much sense. By the time I neared the last few shitholes on my list, it was night, and my account was as drained as my withered old body. Pounding the streets was old-fashioned, but it usually yielded results after half a day. Whispers were the Tongueway’s most lucrative trade. People talked, and those people talked. Rumors spread like venereal diseases through Old Dome, and those usually had a kernel of truth in them. Enough to get a lead. But there was nothing.

  All I’d deduced was that the person responsible wasn’t aiming for anyone specific unless they wanted to take out some second-rate Venta director. They hadn’t bragged about it either. This was beginning to feel a lot less like the bombing in New London. I understood sleight of hand, but the Ringers putting their leader that close to danger was senseless. Bombs could be unpredictable, even in the best-laid plans. A piece of debris could’ve done the same to him as it did to Wai.

  I shuffled around a food cart selling some manner of minced meat raunchy enough to make me gag. I’d reached the steps of the Mangled Mare, and the noseless dancer I’d convened with the night before was outside trying to entice men. A mask covered her face, enough to hide her blemish at a distance, but up close, the cloth was transparent enough to see shadows of the ghastly surprise beneath.

  She was one of the few things I remembered from my bender. Not much detail, but I hoped she might’ve enjoyed my company enough to spill something, anything, for free.

  “Hey there, sweetheart,” I said to her.

  “Not you again,” she groaned. Not the response I was hoping for.

  She brushed by me and stroked the back of a well-off looking Martian woman strolling by. The woman took one peek at her and scurried away like it was her first time in Old Dome.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’m just looking for some information.”

  “No. You’re trouble.” She went to seduce another potential patron, but I wrenched my way in between them.

  “You know that wasn’t my fault.”

  She finally stopped to address me. “Oh, it wasn’t? I’ve seen you stumbling around the Tongueway like a drunken fool every night for a month now. Always got a new cut on your knuckles.”

  “That was different.”

  “‘Ey, Earther. I was talking to her.” A scrawny offworlder grabbed my arm. Hoops in his ears hung so low, they stretched the lobe.

  “Get in line.” I shoved him, and since I was indeed an Earther, he went flying onto his ass. He didn’t dare interrupt again.

  “The other girls warned me all you wanted to do was chew off our ears about your bullshit glory days,” the dancer said. “I was fine giving you a chance then, but I bet this is the one club you haven’t been kicked out of yet, isn’t it, Haglin? I don’t know what your deal is, but as soon as collectors get involved, I’m out.”

  I gawked at her. I hadn’t been so clear-headed since I landed on Mars, so I had no idea if she was right. Haglin Amissum could have been kicked out of any
number of places. I thought I’d made myself invisible on Mars, and now more people knew about me than even when I was a collector. I’d made enemies and embarrassed myself enough that a streetwalker from a curiosities club wouldn’t even share another drink with me.

  “Look,” I said. “It hasn’t been my finest month, but I’m getting desperate. A friend of mine lost her life, and all I want is to find out why.”

  Her demeanor softened. “A friend?”

  “Yeah. Just a chat, that’s all I need. Since collectors come through here, I’m hoping maybe you might’ve overheard something that could help.”

  “All right, a chat,” she conceded. “But it isn’t gonna be free.”

  I scratched my head. “That’s the thing. My account’s sort of… dried up right now.”

  “I knew you were trouble.” She turned away, but this time, I took her shoulder and spun her around.

  “I’ll pay you whatever you want tomorrow. I’m good for it.” I wasn’t, but I didn’t care about tomorrow. Today, I was desperate.

  “Get your hands off me!” she shrieked.

  The bouncers at the door heard her and pushed through the crowd to reach us. My pulse started racing, but it wasn’t because of them. Her outburst had caught the attention of another interested party.

  “By the damn Meteorite, that’s him!” a man shouted from down the Tongueway. Brash look, clean duster, I was smart enough to remember that he was one of the collectors I’d affronted the night before. They were probably prowling the Tongueway looking for the same answers about the bombing I was. He grabbed his partner and pointed through the mob of heads at me, and then they bolted in my direction.

  I booked it down the nearest alley, but they were right on my tail.

  Stupid, I told myself. I should’ve stayed in the crowd, where they wouldn’t risk firing off their pistols. Now the only other people in jeopardy were scattered homeless living in shipping cartons. Easy to cover up, especially for two Venta collectors.

  “You’re a dead man!” one hollered.

  There was nobody to tell I-told-you-so when a gun went off, and the bullet blew through the wall to my right. Chunks of plasticrete bounced off my arm. I dug into the street with my artificial leg and made an otherwise impossibly short left-hand turn down another backstreet.

  “Get the hell back here!” came another shout.

  It bought me some time, but a peek over my shoulder, and I saw that they were hot on my heels again. The lead collector’s muzzle flashed, and I ducked as a bullet zipped by and knocked the hinges off a dumpster. The haggard man sleeping inside it was lucky his head hadn’t come off too.

  I had to think fast. I could return fire, but with two of them already on me and my skills eroded, the most likely scenario was them turning me into a pincushion. And I couldn’t slow down. Another shot rang out. This one glanced harmlessly off my artificial leg.

  My leg! I spotted a service door coming up at the next bend. It was locked but not for me. A bullet drilled into the adjoining wall as I lifted the hunk of synthetics hanging from my hips and kicked it open. I slammed it shut behind me, stomping on the handle to bend it far enough to jam the thing.

  The tables inside were filled with gamblers and piles of foundry salts. The bartender shouted at me in the same old-tongue oriental slang Wai used sparsely. A busboy poked me with a broom while I tried to catch my breath. I hurried upstairs and then out the front, where I could get lost in the crowd. The collectors emerged from the backstreet a few seconds later. The partner limped while the leader spurred him along.

  I ducked and flowed along the current of Martians until I was too far for them to spot me. Then I found a stool at the back side of the nearest bar, took a seat, and punched the metal edge of the counter so hard in frustration that the scrapes on my knuckles reopened. I’d failed Wai. Sunset was falling upon New Beijing’s dome, and I had nothing. I knew from experience that, after a full day, crooks had an exponentially higher chance of disappearing. Or worse, those bastards at Venta or Red Wing or some other corps would find them first.

  “Hey!” I hollered at the bartender who was too busy serving the younger crowd to come over on her own. I was prepared to order the strongest drink on the menu. I had at least enough credits left for that.

  She waved back, and that was when I heard it. I’d managed to tune out news feeds all day, but this one caught my attention. A title of the speaker hit me so hard in the gut I knew it wasn’t a coincidence.

  “Herald Jeremiah,” the reporter said, “you’ve been awfully critical of the USF and its affiliated corporations for inviting Kale Trass to New Beijing. As their private summit arrives, what is your opinion on the malicious attack that rocked the city earlier today?”

  I shushed the stringy young offworlder next to me who was beaming like he didn’t realize he was flirting with a working girl.

  “First, thank you for having me on,” the Herald replied. It was an audio-only connection, so all I had were his words to go by. I didn’t know the man, but according to the ticker, he was the head of the Church of the Three Messiahs’ convent in Old Dome.

  “Of course,” the reporter replied. “You’ve built quite a following down in Old Dome. With all the speculation coming through, I’m eager to hear the opinion of someone with an ear to the people of New Beijing.”

  “There is no justification for the taking of fellow human life; however, I cannot bring myself to either condemn or commend the actions of whoever was behind this.”

  The reporter’s features tightened. “You’re saying you have no opinion?”

  “Quite the contrary. I’m saying that when it comes to infidels traveling too near our homeworld, the fate that befalls them is simply out of our hands.”

  “That is quite a statement, considering that an apostle from your church is reported to be one of the victims.”

  “And I have been praying for the soul of Apostle Grant since the moment I heard. However, we cannot fight the will of God. We invite this manner of tragedy upon ourselves when we reach beyond the realm of our Lord. He understood that, same as me.”

  Damned Three Messiahs preachers. Always speaking in riddles. Yet there was something about his tone regarding his fallen comrade, something that had me headed out of that bar before I could put in my order and toward their main convent at the southern end of the Tongueway. That foundry salt dealer had mentioned overhearing two people on their way to the convent discussing the attack. It didn’t strike me as odd at the time, but I knew when to trust my gut feelings.

  I had one about that Herald. I could feel it in my bones. Or maybe it was one last-ditch effort to make sense of things by a washed-up old collector trying to stay in the game past his expiration date.

  Eleven

  Kale

  “I want someone watching every access onto this level at all times,” Rin ordered my guards once an elevator dropped us off on our assigned floor. “Every door, every window, every vent cover. If you need to sleep, too bad. Catch up on rest after we’re back aboard the Cora.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they answered. They were exhausted. A cool shower would’ve been good for them, especially since the Assembly Building was kept balmy to accommodate its mostly Earther occupants. Someone had lowered the air-conditioning on our floor in a gesture of amity, but it still wasn’t enough to keep my back from dripping sweat.

  My people did as they were asked anyway. They knew what was at stake. I offered each one a nod of encouragement as they went by. The bloodier they were, the deeper I bent my neck. It was all I could do, considering I too was exhausted. Dealing with the Cogent, whose body was carried into one of the rooms, the explosion, more potent gravity than I was used to—it was a miracle I could keep my eyelids open. Skipping taking my g-stim may have been a mistake.

  “Your room is in the center, Kale,” Rin said. “Only one wall of windows. Keep the shades down.” She pointed to a door halfway down the gracious, freshly polished hall. Potted plants lined it at pre
cise intervals.

  “Good,” I replied.

  “Yours is across the hall, outsider,” she said to Aria. “I’ll make sure someone is posted outside… listening.”

  “Thank you,” Aria said.

  “It isn’t for you.”

  I placed my hand on the small of Aria’s back to keep her from arguing, then led her to her door. “Are you okay, Aria?” I asked softly.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “What do you mean?”

  “When you saw Madame Venta. I’ve never seen you like that.”

  “It’s just been a long time. Organizing this over coms was one thing. Standing in front of her… Let’s just say it wasn’t easy rising through the ranks of Venta without getting my hands dirty.”

  “You don’t need to explain that to me. You should get cleaned up though. You’ll need to look like one of them.”

  “Is that the only reason?” she asked. The bags under her eyes belied the playfulness in her tone. “Come in with me, Kale. I’ll help you relax. Trass knows we both need it.”

  “I wish I could.”

  She took my hand, either completely forgetting that Rin was stooped in our shadow or deciding not to care. “You can. You have to.”

  “If I stop focusing for one second—”

  “You might actually enjoy life a little.”

  I exhaled. Constantly, I teetered on the precipice of snapping at her and knowing she was right. Her fingers cupped my gaunt cheek, cold despite the temperature, and she turned my head to face her. Her nails ran down my jaw and along my neck, sending a chill up my spine. My mind was instantly drawn back to the first time I shared her bed—a few nights after I’d executed Director Sodervall and declared Titan’s independence.

  She’d come to check on my health, and as soon as I gazed into her eyes, I could see, in that moment, she was as broken as I was. I didn’t care why. I turned my mind off, let go, and felt her flesh against my flesh. Her lips against my lips. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t Titanborn or might’ve been carrying bacteria from her run-ins with Earthers. We got lost in each other, and those were the only few minutes of freedom from the prison of my thoughts that I’d enjoyed since stepping into Cora’s evacuated prison cell on Pervenio Station.