by R. M. Olson
“Well then, I’ll let you keep him at the end of it,” the woman said. “If there’s any use left in him, it’s all yours.”
“We don’t—”
The woman waived her hand airily. “No disposable entertainment, I know. Don’t worry, I’ll keep the house rules.”
Masha sighed reluctantly. “Very well,” she said. “But full price, and there’s a fine if you break him beyond repair. Double if he dies within a week.”
The woman nodded.
Tae’s chest was so tightly constricted he wasn’t sure how he was still breathing. He needed to figure this out, needed to give Ivan a chance, at least—
“Here,” said Masha. “I’ll get him outfitted.”
“No,” said the woman, and he could hear the anticipation in her voice. “Leave him like this. It’s different, and I like it.”
“Suit yourself,” said Masha, with a slight shrug. “But he needs a wrist restraint. That I insist on. I won’t have it be said that we’re lax about precautions in this house. It’s as much as my reputation is worth.” She turned to Ivan. “Hold out your hand.”
She’d given him an emergency device, which was something, but it wasn’t, actually, unless Tae could crack this damn blocker.
He glared at the holoscreen in front of him, the readout from the program he’d grabbed from the boyeviki’s com and the 3D holo-image rotating gently next to it.
“Is that it?” said the woman, tightening her grip on Ivan’s arm. “Good. Book me into a room, please. I’ve decided how I’m going to spend the morning.”
Masha nodded pleasantly. “Give me a moment. I’ll get a room arranged.”
Damn it, he was pretty sure Ysbel hadn’t set the smoke bombs in the rooms yet, because this wasn’t supposed to happen until this afternoon.
The woman nodded. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her beckon with her head. “Follow,” she snapped, and Ivan, the worry evident in the stiffness of his posture, hesitated the briefest moment. The sound of her slap carried across the room, and Tae almost bit through his lip.
He squeezed his eyes closed.
They’d kill Caz and Peti. If he moved, they’d kill Caz and Peti.
He was swearing softly to himself, hardly noticing the words he was saying, hardly noticing the iron tang of blood in his mouth.
The scan hung suspended on his screen, and he rotated it with two fingers.
Damn. Damn everything.
He blew out a steadying breath, and then sucked the air back in sharply and began frantic typing.
He’d have to be careful, but he was pretty sure … he prodded gently at the edge of the system, where he thought he’d seen an opening.
Yes. There it was. He could get through without detection. Now he just had to write the splice and send it through to the rest of the devices.
He was typing feverishly, desperately.
I’m sorry. That’s the best I could do.
He didn’t bother to look up at Masha, but he heard out of the corner of his mind her words as she handed over a room key. “Remember, you pay for anything you damage. And I’m sorry, I have to insist that weapons stay here.”
He’d have another couple seconds while she did the weapons scan, and then—
And then he heard footsteps ascending the stairs.
He couldn’t stop himself glancing up. Ivan followed behind the three boyevik, head bowed, but Tae could see the tension in his posture, the way his hands clenched and unclenched.
He was afraid.
He’d faced death with Ivan more than once, but this was the first time he’d seen his friend truly afraid.
He turned back to the holoscreen in front of him. It would take them a few moments to get to the top of the stairs, and then a few more moments to find the correct room. And surely there would be a moment or two after that before things started to go bad. Surely—
Above him, he thought he heard the faint hiss of a door sliding open, and then a moment later, closing again.
It could have been just his imagination. He probably hadn’t actually heard the door, it was too far.
The seconds seemed to stretch to an absurd length.
Almost finished. Almost …
He glanced down at his com as he hit the last keystrokes.
How long had it been?
Six and a half standard minutes.
Ivan had been alone with the boyeviki for six and a half standard minutes.
He swallowed back a fresh wave of nausea and hit the button that would push the patch through to all the devices.
To Ivan’s device.
Instantly, a red light flashed on the side of his com. Galina stiffened, and Masha looked up, her movements casual, but her face betraying her worry.
The emergency alert from Ivan’s device. And Tae had no idea how long it had been going.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
JEZ STEPPED QUICKLY through the door into her gambling hall and surveyed the scene.
OK, none of their actors were professional gamblers, but they’d done a damn good job at faking it. You’d have no idea that half a standard hour ago, this place had been as dead as a long-haul with no oxygen reserves. They had a decent grasp on the most common games, and she’d taught them one or two of her more obvious cheats. Really, she’d stack the tables how she wanted them, but wouldn’t hurt if her people knew how to turn a game if they needed to. Honestly, she’d much rather be sitting at one of those tables herself, letting the smooth coolness of the tokens slide between her fingers, but there was work to do.
“Listen up, you plaguers,” she said in a low voice. “They’re here, and they’ll be coming in in about five minutes, I’m guessing. Get your games where you want them, and if you’re supposed to be drunk, at least smell like it.”
The ragged assortment of gamblers turned quickly back to their tables, a few of them gargling their drink and letting it spill down their shirts, splashing it across their faces like cologne.
She grinned to herself as she took up her place at the back of the hall.
Her time on Grigory’s ship had taught her some very useful things about some very expensive liquors, and if Grigory’s damn plaguers managed to leave this gambling hall without becoming very talkative indeed, she should probably just hang up her hat and go home.
The more they knew about what was happening, the better.
The boyeviki pushed their way into the gambling hall a few minutes later. She scanned them quickly as they came in, and swore softly.
Six of them, and none of them had taken off their weapons. Not that she’d particularly expected them to, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was, that left three in the lobby.
Well, not much she could do about that right now.
She grinned, and stood as they entered. “Hey there. Showed up at the pleasure house and found your way in here, did you?”
One of the men turned, and gave her a long, menacing look. “Watch your tone,” he said, in a low voice.
Jez shrugged, and perched back onto her stool. “My hall, my rules. The ones who want to gamble bad enough put up with it. Right you bastard?” she turned and addressed her remark to a woman who sat at the table closest to her, her mouth fixed in concentration as she studied her tokens. She looked up and gave Jez a brief smile, then turned back to her game.
Jez leaned back expansively. “There you go. So, what’ll it be? My hall my rules? Or you don’t gamble one damn token in this place?”
“Your hall, your rules,” said a woman, with a slight smile. “We can live with that. If you can throw in a drink to make your rules go down a little easier.”
“Figure I can at that, you plaguer.” Jez slid off her stool, still grinning. “And I figure you and me should get along just fine.” She jerked her head towards the inside of the hall. “Go on in, then. But this is a place for people who know what they’re doing. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you leave here with nothing but your damn socks.”
The man who�
�d first spoken shot her a glare, but they filed into the gambling hall and one by one, chose their game. Jez watched for a moment before she strolled over to the bar and emerged with a bottle and a handful of glasses. It wasn’t Golden Murder, mostly because there were about three people in the entire system that she knew of who would purposefully accept a drink of the stuff without being at least three-quarters drunk already, and anyways, she knew Grigory kept his boyeviki pets on a tight leash. Probably best to ease them into it.
She set the glasses on the table and poured a generous amount of alcohol into each, then slid them across to her new customers. “This one’s on the house. Next one you pay.” She reached under the table and picked up a bag of tokens, and passed them around, like you always did in kabaks. She wasn’t completely certain this was custom in fancy halls like this one, but, her hall, her rules.
Besides, they’d decorated it to look like a kabak, so couldn’t be that shocking.
They examined the tokens carefully and handed them back, and she tossed a handful face-down across the table in an easy gesture. No one asked to see the bag again, and she grinned to herself as she dropped it back in it’s place.
Any mud-eater who was too innocent to ask to see the bag after the dealer cast deserved every last one of the extra tokens she’d palmed from the inside pocket of her jacket and slipped into the deal.
It was almost insulting, honestly. At least on Grigory’s ship she’d had to try.
Not that she was planning on skinning them, even though she wanted to. But it was always nice to have control of the game, in case things started going sideways.
“Well,” she said, “Go ahead. I’ll be keeping an eye on the floor.”
She turned and sauntered off back to her stool. At a table at the far end of the room, one of the ex-cons looked up and caught her eye, and she cut a quick glance at the table with three of Grigory’s boyeviki.
She’d let them win a couple games first, just to get their confidence up. But if she was going to get them completely smashed and pump them for information, it was going to be more than a one-person job.
The man she’d signalled waited the full ninety standard seconds after she’d perched back on her stool, before he stood and stumbled towards the bar. He swayed as he passed the table she’d indicated, bumping it heavily. The boyeviki and Jez’s people all jumped back, swearing, as tokens scattered across the floor and drinks spilled across the table, and one of the actors grabbed the man by the collar.
“Hey,” Jez called across the room, not bothering to stand. “You throw one punch and your sorry butt isn’t coming back through those doors, got it?”
The gambler turned, scowling, not loosening his grip on the hapless drunk. “Did you see what this mud-sucker did?”
Jez grinned. “Guess he’s buying you all a round.” She stood, then stopped abruptly.
The small red light on her com, the one that signalled an emergency, was blinking.
She shot an easy grin across at one of the servers. “You. Get over there and serve them. Make sure that drunken idiot pays. Got to take care of something outside.”
He gave her a faint frown, but did as she asked, and she slipped out through the doors, her stomach suddenly tight.
“Tae,” she whispered into her com the moment she was out of sight. “What’s happening?”
“They took Ivan into a room,” he said, his voice tight.
She stared at her com, then swore. “We were supposed to have a few hours before anyone picked up entertainment.”
“I know!”
She stepped into the lobby and glanced around quickly. Tae stood beside Masha and Galya, every line in his posture betraying his horror.
She gave him a tight grin from across the floor. “Guess you’d better let someone who’s good at this take care of it, then.”
Ivan. This wasn’t good.
“Radic,” she hissed on the private line, starting towards the stairs. “Get in here. Your damn prison buddy’s about to be killed.”
“What?” He answered immediately. “Kid, what’s—”
“Lobby,” she whispered. “I’m heading up to the room.” She hit the general line. “Masha, what number?”
“Jez, what are you—”
“Give me the damn number, Masha.”
There was a moment’s pause. “203,” said Masha at last. “Jez—”
“Leave her alone. She knows what she’s doing.”
She stared at her com. It had sounded like Lev’s voice, except she was pretty sure she’d never heard Lev—
“What do you need, Jez?” he asked.
“Tell Tanya if Radic and I don’t come out in five standard minutes, burn the room down,” she said grimly.
Radic slipped out the gambling hall door and sprinted across the lobby, catching up with her as she reached the stairs.
“What are we—” he began, falling into step beside her.
She jerked a heat-gun out of her pocket. “You’re trying to kill me, because you lost all your credits at tokens and you think it’s my fault,” she said, shoving at him.
He raised an eyebrow. “You want them to think I’m stupid, kid? I know better than to pick a fight with someone who fights dirty.”
She grinned at him, dread and anticipation pounding through her blood in equal measure. “Well, maybe I fight dirty, but here’s the thing—I usually win.”
He gave her an amused glance that did nothing to hide the worry in his face. “I have a distinct memory of one time in prison when you were only on your feet because Lev and Tae—”
She rolled her eyes. “That was on purpose.” They’d reached the landing, and she looked around quickly, trying to get her bearings.
“First hallway to your left, second door on the right,” said Lev into her earpiece, his voice tight.
“On it,” she said. She turned to Radic. “Go on, hit me. Need a black eye at least.”
He hesitated, then drew back his fist, took a deep breath, and punched from the shoulder, turning his face away at the last moment. She staggered slightly at the blow, cursing loudly.
“Need to work on your punches,” she whispered, leaning up against the wall.
He gave her a relieved look, then shouted, words slurring slightly, “You dirty scum-sucker! You expect me to believe you took that many credits off me without cheating?” He pulled out the pistol she’d handed him, raised it, and deliberately put a blast into the wall behind her. She cut her eyes quickly to one side.
203. Right door. At least, it damn well better be, because she wasn’t sure how many doors she could go crashing through in a row and make it sound natural.
She swore again and lunged at him, and he caught her.
“Through the door,” she whispered, and he nodded, and shoved her. She stumbled back against the door, putting her weight into it, and at the same time the heat blast from the modded gun she’d handed him melted through the lock.
The door swung open, and she fell inside, and Radic crashed in after her, gun still raised.
She took in the composition of the room in one glance. Ivan stood against one wall, tension in every line of his body, but he was alive. That was all she needed to know at the moment.
But she couldn’t help but see the torn line of his thin server’s shirt, the thin line of blood that circled his throat and ran half-way down his bare chest.
She exchanged grim glances with Radic. Then she exploded to her feet, managing to jam her elbow into the sternum of the woman holding the knife. The woman staggered backward, swearing, and Jez stomped on the toe of her boot, knocking her off balance. She went down hard.
“What—“ one of the men began.
“I’ll teach you to cheat at tokens,” Radic growled, lunging at Jez. She ducked, and he slammed full-on into the man who’d started to speak. She noticed with a grim satisfaction that he managed to catch the man in the throat with his shoulder, and the man went down, gasping. Jez turned, stepping backwards quickly and gri
nding the heel of her boot into the downed woman’s wrist. The woman gasped in pain, and Jez yanked a heat-gun out of her holster and snapped off a shot that was nominally in Radic’s direction, but somehow managed to hit the wall so close to the third man’s head that she could smell scorched hair.
“My hall, my rules,” she ground out through her teeth. Somehow she was grinning, and she couldn’t stop it. “Might want to think before you call me a cheat.”
Radic rolled to his feet, planting his knee in the solar plexus of the man he’d bowled over. The man, who’d been struggling to rise, fell back with an agonized wheeze. Jez stepped back again deliberately. The woman on the floor must have been a quick learner, because she tried to roll out of the way, but Jez had anticipated that. She stumbled, falling backwards and landing hard, elbow first, into the centre of the woman’s stomach. Radic had grabbed the one man who was still upright, using him to haul himself to his feet. Radic’s foot caught behind the man’s knee when he was almost up, and the man went down with Radic on top of him.
“You damn drunk! Learn to plaguing hold your alcohol before you try going after someone,” she called.
The woman shifted underneath her, and then there was the shriek of an alarm, pounding against her ears.
She caught Radic’s eye, and they exchanged a grimly satisfied look.
Then she hauled herself to her feet, careful to inflict the maximum amount of pain on the woman below her, and was standing sullenly when the door burst open. Three bouncers stepped into the chaos, clipping everyone’s hands behind their back with mag cuffs.
Masha was waiting for them when they were frog-marched down to the lobby.
“Jez Solokov,” said Masha, eyes icy. “I suggest you learn to control yourself. What happened here?”
Her voice was so convincing that Jez’s muscles tensed involuntarily, like they would have months ago at the sound of Masha’s voice.
“This idiot was trying to shoot me,” she muttered. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“She cheated me!” Radic slurred loudly. “She took me for everything I have. Her tables are rigged.”
Masha turned her cold glance on him. “I suggest,” she said, her voice sharp enough to cut steel, “that you sober up. You will not be welcome here a second time.”