Exposed (Interplanetary Spy for Hire Book 2)
Page 1
Contents
Exposed
Dedication
Legal
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Merry Comms
Author Notes
Social Links
Series List - Ell
Series List - MA
Interplanetary Spy for Hire
Two
Exposed
Ell Leigh Clarke
DEDICATION
To everyone who ever dreamed of making a dent in the universe.
— Ellie
EXPOSED
Interplanetary Spy for Hire 2
JIT Beta Readers
Diane Smith
Allan MacBain
Kimberley Beaulieu
Jackey Hankard-Brodie
Brian Roberts
If I missed anyone, please let me know!
Editor
Carina Carbone
Exposed (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
This book Copyright © 2019 Ell Leigh Clarke and Michael Anderle
Cover copyright © ProsperityQM LLC
ProsperityQM LLC supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact vip@prosperityqm.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
ProsperityQM LLC
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Austin, TX 78704
First US edition, 2019
Version 1.01.01
Interplanetary Spy for Hire (and what happens within / characters / situations / worlds) are copyright © 2019 by Ell Leigh Clarke and Michael Anderle
CHAPTER ONE
Shit Street, L30, Theron Techcropolis, Amaros
Jayne officially felt old. At the age of most university students who still had much to learn about the world, Jayne had already traveled, fought, and cheated death more than most people would ever have to in a lifetime. Jayne didn’t show age – but she felt it. She felt it every meal, when she allowed herself to stop long enough to eat. She felt it when she went to bed and she felt it when she woke up. She felt it when she showered, the hot water doing its best to wash away the aches, the bruises and the cuts of combat. She felt it in her memories and in her inability to relate to "normal" people. She felt her beyond-her-years wisdom when she watched the news and saw the truth behind every single lie.
But most of all, she felt it as she stared at the thousands of wasted young people clogging the alley-like thoroughfare between 18th and 19th streets on Level 30 – better known as Shit Street because it’s where everyone went to get shit-faced. Jayne knew she’d never be able to carouse and mingle with these people again. These people. What did that mean, Jayne wondered. Who did “these people” refer to?
It meant anyone who didn’t have the same glimpse into the deep-seated secrets of the world. These people didn’t feel constantly under attack. Right? But it was Jayne’s job now, which she chose, to keep these people safe. But at what cost?
Could she ever be normal again?
Right now, that would have been preferable to Jayne. An over-priced four-shot margarita sounded like bliss compared to the arduous task of tailing “a man in black.” When the job came through, Jayne laughed. A task so vague, so cliché, Merry and Jayne joked they were secretly being filmed for a movie. But the job came up last minute, and the client didn’t give them much time to make a decision. As silly as it sounded, Merry complained that they were in the “off season” for espionage activity. The pay was simply too good to pass up.
As a result, they were rushing into this job a little blind.
Jayne had picked up the man in black’s trail three hours earlier, right where she was told he would be, outside La Magia Fišo. According to their client, who had insisted on remaining anonymous much to Jayne’s discomfort, the man in black ate at the Esperantan restaurant every Friday at 5 o’clock, before the rush.
At less than 300 years old, Esperanta was a brand new culture (though this signifier continued to be hotly debated). A veritable army of academics and linguists who arrived at the theory that all inter-human conflict was rooted in language. They championed the eradication of all post-ancient dialects and replacing them with one, uniting language: Esperanto. The experiment never took off and the more radical founders had begun new lives on the ocean planet of Bing. Esperanto is still spoken there, but they have principally become known for the high-end seafood cuisine and novelty macramé.
La Magia Fišo was the first Esperantan restaurant to arrive in Theron Techcropolis. The appetizers alone required opening a small mortgage. Hard evidence that the man in black ate at such a swanky joint once a week raised his profile, in Jayne’s mind, to a person of genuine interest. She zipped up her hoodie and followed him on foot. “Let the chase begin.”
Jayne followed the man in black for a little over a mile. She almost lost him three separate times as his dark silhouette dissolved into and out of the smog that lurked through Theron Techcropolis like a living thing, feeding on the lungs of citizens. The smog had been worse, and the smog had been better. It wasn’t enough to convince Jayne to wear her mask. Like smoking cigarettes long enough, the fuzzy feeling in your mouth and the burning in your chest goes away and becomes an afterthought until your doctor tells you to quit.
But there was no doctor to diagnose Theron Techcropolis with its cancer, leaving Jayne to huff and puff with shallow breaths as she followed the man in black until he stepped onto an ele-grav outside of a Galactic Trust Management Firm. Jayne casually crossed the street. From the corner of her eye, she saw the ele-grav stop at the bank’s 12th floor.
“Merry, can you run a quick diagnostic for me?” She spoke into her new transmitter, disguised as two diamond stud earrings – receiver on the left, transmitter on the right. Merry gave them to Jayne on her last birthday. Best damn gift she ever got.
Merry buzzed back. “Your wish is my command.”
“That’s what you said last night,” Vlad cut in, followed by a grunt. Jayne could only assume Merry had elbowed him in the stomach.
Jayne stepped into a kava shop. “I knew putting you in a van together was a bad idea.”
“I disagree, I think it was a great—” but Vlad grunted, cut off by another strike from Merry.
Jayne positioned herself in line at the counter, facing the window with a view across the street. “Merry, what’s on the twelfth floor of the Galactic Trust Management Firm on Gorman Avenue?”
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In the van, Merry shoved Vlad out of the way to pull out a holo-projector. “This guy gets richer and richer, huh? Checking for you now.” Merry coughed. “Vlad, would it kill you to go an hour without being stoned?”
Vlad fanned the smoke away and removed the fresh blunt from his mouth. “It’s been an hour and a half.”
Merry refocused her attention as Jayne buzzed in over her headset. “Yeah, can I get a double-brewed kava with whatever synthetic milk you have?”
Merry furrowed her brow. “First she wants a diagnostic, now a beverage! Between you and Vlad I don’t get no respect.”
The hot cup of kava landed in front of Jayne. “Very funny. I’m just laying low in here until our mystery man reappears.” Jayne took a sip of her kava as the man in black stepped off the ele-grav. He held a silver briefcase in his right hand. “Merry, I got visuals on our guy again. Holding a silver briefcase. Where’s that info on floor twelve?” Jayne left the kava shop and kept pace with her target from across the street.
Merry buzzed in. Jayne could detect the excitement in her voice. “This diagnostic hologram isn’t up-to-date, but based on the security clearance for this level, this is where the big leagues keep valuables safe. Whatever is in that suitcase is a big deal.”
“Merry?”
“Yes, Jayne?”
“Can you swim?”
“I can not drown, if that’s what you mean. Why?”
Jayne pulled her hood up. “Because it looks like we’re going in the deep end of an Olympic swimming pool full of some serious shit.”
The man in black took a sharp turn down at the next block. Jayne hauled ass across the street. She wasn’t losing track of this guy now.
Vlad now buzzed in to Jayne’s ear. “Maybe it’s the pot, but I’m still a little paranoid. Merry and I have been looking and haven’t been able to find anything about our client. It’s almost like—”
Merry cut him off. “It’s almost like Vlad doesn’t know what he’s doing without my precious time and energy helping him along. We’re working on it, Jayne. You just keep an eye on this creep.”
+++
That had been almost three hours earlier. Now, Jayne had followed her white rabbit to wonderland – a neon hellscape of decadence and overpriced cocktails. She worried that the man in black had gotten wise and was using the crowds to lose her. Jayne shook the idea off, knowing herself better than that. She wasn’t going to mess up something as easy as tailing someone – instead, she reckoned, the man in black was meeting a contact here.
Jayne caught the top of the man’s black hat bobbing in and out of view among the crowd. A flashing neon sign transformed the figure into a blur of purple and blue as he disappeared into a club. The sign over the solid metal door read THE BLACK HOLE.
Jayne picked the wrong outfit for this job. “Merry, following our target into… The Black Hole.”
Merry huffed into the earpiece. “I am so jealous. I haven’t been out in forever and The Black Hole has the hottest bartenders in the city. Like, hot-hot. Like hotter than the wax I want them to pour onto my body during-”
Vlad mercifully coughed, cutting off Merry.
“Anyway,” Merry begged, “can we please go out soon, Jayne? It’d be nice to have a warm body in my bed instead of just my cold heart.”
But Jayne ignored her. She had lost the man in black and was scanning the crowd for any sign of him.
“JAYNE!?”
A chipper young blonde popped up out of nowhere. Her cheeriness knocked the wind out of Jayne, whose mind was racing to find any indication of who the hell this bimbo was and why she was so happy to see her.
The drunk girl sloshed a drink in her hand as she waited for Jayne to respond. “Jess! Jess Kringer? We were roommates for less than a semester? You never did your fair share of the cleaning?”
Time to blend in, Jayne thought. “Jess! Of course, I remember you!” Jayne remembered that Jess was a person she briefly once knew, but beyond that details were fuzzy. She wouldn’t have recognized Jess in a line-up. “Not used to seeing you out of sweats. Crazy! What are you doing here?”
“Just having fun! Do I need a reason? Come on, let me get you a drink.”
Jayne put off the concern of how she would get rid of Jess. Right now, Jess was a perfect cover. Nothing weird here, mister man in black. Just a couple of girls out on the town.
Jess dragged Jayne up to the bar. The bartender flashed a perfect smile at the young women, and Jayne couldn’t help swooning. Merry was right, she mused. This guy can tend my bar any day. “What would you ladies like?”
Jess clasped her hands around Jayne’s. “Hey, Tom! We’ll each get a Sunrise Surprise.”
With a charming, wordless nod, Tom worked his magic behind the bar.
Jayne casually scanned the club for her man in black. She was starting to worry she had lost him. “So, uh… Why are these called a Sunrise Surprise?”
Jess was drunkenly bobbing to the music. “Because you drink one, and the next morning you usually wake up to a surprise.”
“Ah, I see.”
Jess leaned closer to Jayne’s ear. “By that, I mean you sleep with a stranger!”
Jayne laughed. It was nice to be with someone normal for a change. As moments passed, Jayne remembered more and more about her old roommate. She had nothing in common with Jayne, and Jayne loved that about her. “Oohhhh, now I get it!” Jayne and Jess laughed together, but Jayne kept scanning the crowded dance floor and shadowy booths. Her man in black was nowhere to be seen.
Tom the Hottest Bartender in the World set down two highball glasses, the red concoction glowed like a siren as if to say, “you’ve been warned.”
Jayne decided to sip the drink slowly, while much to her chagrin, Jess worked her magic with the attention Tom was giving her. Jayne turned her attention upwards toward a holo-vision set projecting over the bar. The face looked familiar, but Jayne wouldn’t have been able to place it if the headline didn’t flash across the bottom of the screen Ronald Geiger, Dean of Espionage Academy, Announces Wing Dedicated to Data Security.
The roar of music drowned out the holo-vision, but Jayne’s imagination did the talking. “Blah blah blah security, blah blah blah criminal activity blah blah blah safety of our citizens…” The coverage of the Dean’s speech cut to the symbol of the Academy’s Data Security & Research Wing: A Guard Dog, poised for attack. She recognized the dog immediately, a ceramic figurine that once sat on Geiger’s desk. Jayne smirked. “Well, well. You’re still picking up the mess I made. I’ll drink to that.” She raised her glass toward Dean Geiger’s hologram face and took a sip.
Tom returned to his job and Jess returned her attention to Jayne. “What did you say?”
Jayne was embarrassed. Did she really say that out loud? That drink was working better than she thought. “Oh, just recognized an old friend.”
Jess pointed past Jayne, toward a booth on the far end of the club. “That guy?”
Jayne spun around. “What?”
“The guy in black. He’s been staring at you all night. You should wave him over!”
As soon as Jayne locked eyes with the eyes hidden behind a high jacket collar, the man in black ducked out of the booth and headed right for an exit. “Thanks for the drink, Jess. This was great. Let’s do this again sometime!”
“Yeah, just hit me up! You have my comm…” But Jayne was already gone, and Jess was shouting to no one. “… number.”
Jayne vaulted over the row of booths, over the second-tier balcony, and out the exit. “Merry, I need eyes in this club.”
+++
Vlad frowned at his take-out container. “Dammit, I said no carrots.” He held it out for Merry. “Do you want my carrots?”
“I’m a little busy hacking The Black Hole’s security systems.”
“You’re the one who wanted take out!”
“No, Vlad, I said ‘Are you ready to take out this man in black. You misunderstood me because you’re so high.”
> Vlad thought this over for a minute. “Oh.”
The tablets embedded into the side of the van flickered to life. Merry now had eyes on the feed of every security camera in and around The Black Hole. She spotted the dark figure hauling ass up a stairwell. She crossed the camera with the diagnostic and, bingo, found the location.
“Okay, Jayne, take a left. Second door on your right – up the stairwell. That’s where he went.”
“Ask her if she wants me to save this Pad Thai for her.”
Merry scowled over her shoulder at Vlad. “Are you doing anything productive right now?”
Vlad held up a tablet with a stuck loading screen. “I’m waiting for that archive breach on our client’s digital trace. You’re welcome.”
+++
Jayne’s boots thumped down the dark hallway that ran the length of the club. “Oh my god, I would say get a room but you two already have your own van.” She opened the second door. She looked up, and saw a virtually endless spiral of stairs rising higher and higher toward a dimming light. “I should not have had that drink.”
Merry reassured Jayne over the earpiece. “It’s only seventeen floors. Think about how good this exercise will make your ass look.”
Jayne began to climb. “Alright, I’ll try to keep my eye on the prize!”
“Mmph, and I can’t wait to do the same.”
Jayne was too busy climbing to laugh. “Merry, cut it out!”
+++
Merry kept track of Jayne’s progress up the stairs from her view of every security camera. Just watching Jayne climb flight after flight made her tired. “On second thought, Vlad, you should save that Pad Thai for Jayne. She’ll want it.”
Vlad turned around on his stool to face Merry. “Tell her to abort.”