Exposed (Interplanetary Spy for Hire Book 2)

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Merry pointed at Fred. “That’s the same day this client reached out to us. Also,” she pointed to Vlad, “what’s that digital tracer?”

  Vlad eagerly swiped his finger across his tablet with flair. “Just zapped it to you.”

  Merry’s tablet pinged. “Okay, let me check this. Fred, can you do the same?”

  Fred’s fingers flew across the tablet. “Boom.”

  Merry’s tablet pinged again. “Okay, okay, I’m going to triangulate these.”

  Dizzy and 8-Ball must’ve been resting their lips because the only sound in the office the sound that had hopefully drowned out the entire conversation, was now Wayne Kaintuck attacking the drums like a madman.

  And then, the track ended. Applause erupted on the live track.

  Merry ran her fingers through her hair, an anxious habit. “Holy shit. This digital trace is active right now.”

  Fred and Vlad already knew the worst. “Where?”

  Merry flipped her tablet around. The map was zeroed in on the Cryo-Institute.

  +++

  Fred ran through the door and collapsed on the ground, gasping for breath. “I… haven’t… run that fast… ever… I… Help…”

  Vlad and Merry ignored him and took the shopping bag he dropped on the floor next to his sweating body. “Water… Can I… Have…?”

  Vlad nervously wrung his hands together as Merry took out a consumer-grade VR rig. “Are you sure you can make this work?”

  Merry ripped the box open. “Vlad, you can’t be throwing those negative vibrations my way so early in the morning.” She took out the VR rig and popped the casing off. “Vlad, go check that digital tracer, please tell me it’s still active at the cryo-institute.”

  Vlad ran over to his tablet. “We’re good.”

  Fred managed to roll over on his side. “My body… is… on fire…”

  Merry glanced to Fred. “Thanks for running and buying this, by the way, buddy.”

  Fred gave a thumbs up, then officially passed out.

  Vlad looked down at Fred. “Is he alright?”

  Merry popped out a game chip from the headset. “Yeah, he’s fine.” She threw the game chip in the trashcan and held her hand out toward Vlad. “Give me that cloak.”

  Vlad picked up a chip that Merry had pried out of her tablet while they waited on Fred to run back with the VR rig.

  Merry had installed the cloak in her tablet for the very purpose of tracking, hacking, and doing everything she did, both for her job and for fun. Removing it ruined her tablet permanently, but it was worth it. Popping the cloak into the VR headset would guarantee an easy, undetectable infiltration.

  With the cloaking chip connected, Merry popped the casing back on and handed the VR rig to Vlad.

  Vlad took it, uneasily. “Why do I have to be the one to do this again?”

  Merry synced up the VR rig to Vlad’s tablet. “Because I’m smarter than you, so I have to be at the controls. Now put that on.”

  Vlad pulled back the strap but stopped. “But what do I—”

  “Vlad! We do not have time! Put on the rig!”

  “Fine!” Vlad stretched the strap out. “See you on the other side!”

  He placed the rig over his face, and the black screen pixelated into a broken loading screen. It was the result of Merry Frankensteining the rig. Naturally, some of its original design would function awkwardly. But then, a beautiful vista of rolling hills rolled out before him.

  Vlad heard birds chirping, the soft sound of wind and rustling grass. The sounds drowned out the jazz blasting in the office. He forgot he was standing in the office, actually. He reminded himself that everything he saw was unreal.

  Then, he heard the voices. He walked, in place. Yet, he moved. It was awkward at first, but he got the hang of it. Rather than walking forward, the world around him had the appearance of moving in his direction.

  He crested a hill and saw, down below him, two men talking. Vlad panicked. Terrified of being spotted, he fell down on his stomach and flattened himself as much as possible to not be seen.

  In the reality of the office, Merry startled when Vlad suddenly hit the floor, limbs splayed out. “Oh great,” she said to herself. “He forgot he’s invisible.”

  +++

  Vlad looked up. Where his hands should have been stretched out before him, there was nothing. He rolled over onto his back and looked down at his torso. Nothing. He was invisible, nothing but an omniscience. He stood up, and, with newfound confidence, walked down the hill.

  About halfway down, he felt his knees tremble. His palms got sweaty. The voices rang out in the field. The artificial acoustics of the world projected the conversation like a conference call. The voices didn’t compete with the chirping birds or gentle wind. The voices existed like their own element of nature.

  Vlad heard one voice, unrecognizable, foreign, perhaps distorted intentionally, speak to the other man who faced away from Vlad’s line of sight. “She’s good. She’s very good. To be honest, I don’t have total confidence in stopping her. Or even finding her.”

  The other man chuckled. “That’s what makes it worth it. Trust me. The victory will be that much sweeter.”

  Vlad was now close enough to see that the first man had a generic, stock face. The kind of visage that was often used to protect an identity inside virtual reality. “Theron Techcropolis has been suspiciously quiet for the past several days. Yesterday, however, there was a botched job on a sand-track in the outlands. The next day, there was a pretty bad scuffle at a casino in Deep Wen. Don’t know which one, don’t know what happened. But—”

  “But it sounds like Jayne.”

  Vlad reached the bottom of the hill. He knew he was invisible to these men, but his heart rate, his fight or flight instincts, told him differently. He was afraid to get too close. He circled them at a distance like a nature documentarian.

  The first man spoke again. “No one stays in Deep Wen for long. Besides, she’s there for a reason.”

  “Nova?”

  The first man nodded.

  Vlad walked around, and saw the profile of the second man, who nodded thoughtfully. “Very good. When she returns, find her. And bring her to me. In here.”

  Vlad couldn’t believe it. It was no surprise, which made it all the worse. Vlad circled the two conspiring men in this conspiratorial world and looked, unknowingly, into the familiar face’s eyes.

  The first man laughed. “Very well. Expect her as soon as possible. We’ll be in touch, Burrett.” The first man disconnected and his avatar dissolved into the digital ether, leaving only Burrett behind.

  Burrett turned his gaze toward Vlad, his eyes piercing Vlad’s line of sight. Vlad panicked. He looked down to check. He was still invisible. Wasn’t he? Then why did Burrett look so… sure? Why did Burrett smile that way?

  +++

  Vlad tore off the VR headset on the edge of a panic attack. “Holy shit.”

  Merry couldn’t help but run to Vlad. As much as she hated him, he was her friend and ally. She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Vlad! Vlad, it’s okay. What happened? What did you see?”

  Vlad threw the VR headset into the couch. “Exactly who I thought we’d see.”

  Fred, barely awake on the floor, blinked. “Fuck.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Energy Core, Gilded Gardens Casino, Deep Wen, Amaros

  Jayne came out of the darkness as the salty sting of sweat cut into the corner of her eyes.

  For a split second, she tried to remember where she was before realizing she didn’t know where she was. Instead, she tried to remember where she had been before finding herself in a place she didn’t recognize at all.

  Deep Wen, that’s right. Gilded Gardens Casino. But this was no casino.

  Jayne took a deep breath, but gagged on the wet rag stuffed in her mouth bound tight around her head with tape. Her hands were bound at the wrist, hanging suspended from a hot water pipe somewhere above. Her legs dangled, her tiptoes just barely
able to touch the floor if she stretched all the way.

  Her eyes adjusted to the dim, orange glow of the steaming hot room she was in. She shimmied her toes enough to rotate her body so she could get as full a view of the room as possible. “What is this, Hell’s sauna?” That’s what Jayne would have said if she didn’t have a gag in her mouth.

  If she had been anywhere else, and if, say, Cameron had been the one responsible for the gag and the excellently tied knot around her wrists, she might be able to get into it. But in this moment, the entire situation just pissed her off. She was embarrassed, she was furious at herself, for not only losing track of the woman in black, but for getting caught. And now here she was, strung up like a pig to be barbecued, and about as hot as one, too.

  Jayne inhaled the harsh steam through her nose. In small movements at first, she thrust her hips back and forth, building up momentum until she was swinging from the hot water pipe.

  Once she was completing 70 degree arcs, she went all in knowing full well she might be on the verge of using all her remaining energy and passing out into unconsciousness again.

  She swung up, tucking her legs up at her torso, catching herself on the hot water pipe by the back of her knees. She wouldn’t be able to stand that heat for long. She had to work fast.

  Her mouth was positioned right at her hands now. She pressed her bound mouth up against her exposed fingertips and tugged the tape free, just enough to rip it off, painfully, down below her chin.

  She pulled the rag out of her mouth and dropped it below.

  The boiling water raging through the pipe was starting to burn through the material of her stolen pants. She started gnawing at the cord binding her wrists with her teeth, working the knot free.

  From deep within the room, from somewhere she could not see but could certainly hear, despite the constant gurgling of boiling water and hissing steam, a door opened. Fuck, Jayne would have been able to say because she had removed the gag, but now couldn’t say because someone had entered the room. She had no doubt they entered the room for her.

  She finally caught the loose end of the cord around her wrist between her canines. The heat at the back of her knees was officially unbearable. Burns were forming.

  She tugged the cord loose. Her wrists slipped out, and she fell to the ground in a graceful and near-weightless backflip. She landed on her feet like a cat on its last life.

  “Two minutes, forty-seven seconds.”

  Jayne rolled forward, righting herself on the momentum into a fighting stance. A shockingly clean man with a pencil mustache as long and thin as his cane held out an old-fashioned wound pocket watch. He examined its intricate clockface through pince-nez glasses, which he took off and returned to his waistcoat pocket along with the pocket watch.

  "Sergei Üt, a businessman from the planet Yerdik-Sym, just won seventeen million credits.” The clean man pointed at a security camera hanging from the ceiling high above them. “He was the only one who bet you’d make it under three minutes, among thirty-nine other bettors.”

  Jayne almost struck back out of a reflexive-defense when the clean man offered a handshake. “Artimus.”

  Jayne looked at Artimus’ outstretched hand. “Keep your handshakes to yourself.”

  Artimus lowered his hand. “Well, now you just lost Sergei three million credits, who had bet you’d shake my hand. But the other bettors are, I’m sure, very happy.”

  Jayne waved him off. “Alright, I get it. Everything’s a game for you, I get it. Well, if any of your gamblers placed a bet on me getting out of here, I’d like to help some people win some money today.”

  Artimus rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Just come with me, Jayne Austin.” He turned toward the until-now hidden exit. “Please at least allow me the courtesy of leading you out of our energy core into more hospitable quarters.”

  Jayne knew she could make it out of any situation Artimus threw her way. Just like the one she just slipped her way out of. She followed Artimus.

  When they finally reached the exit, Artimus stopped and held out a hand to halt Jayne. “Please, never refer to my profession as a game ever again.”

  And with that, Jayne took yet another blind step into a hellish underground world. A world, she worried, she would never be able to rub off her skin. She couldn’t tell if she was becoming a part of it, or if it was becoming a part of her.

  Artimus’ Office, Gilded Gardens Casino, Deep Wen, Amaros

  Artimus casually gestured toward a couch as Jayne followed him into his office.

  The couch stretched the entire length along the wall of the huge room. Jayne guessed it must have been fifty feet long.

  Artimus gestured again to the couch. He continued the gesture, rotating his arm increasingly wildly until Jayne finally sat down.

  He activated a panel in his desk, in the center of the room, and the wall opposite Jayne lit up into at least one-hundred individual screens monitoring the entire Gilded Gardens Casino. “Intimidating, isn’t it?” Artimus left the anchor of his desk and joined Jayne on the couch. The two of them, side-by-side on the far end of a fifty-foot long couch, added even more imbalance to the dynamics of power in the room.

  This guy knows what he’s doing, Jayne thought.

  Artimus coughed performatively. “I said intimidating, isn’t it?”

  Jeeze, Jayne realized this guy really needs constant validating. Must be an only child. “Only if you’re on the other side of the screen.”

  “Well, you were earlier.”

  Jayne shrugged. “But I’m not anymore.”

  Artimus wiggled his mustache. “Yes. Well, you learn how to look at it. If I see a man order a drink there,” he pointed at one of the myriad screens, “I know he will next walk through those doors there.” He pointed to yet another screen at the other end of the surveillance wall. “And if you win at the craps table, then you will receive your winnings aaaaaaall the way up there.” He pointed to the top right screen. “You see, surveillance is a language. It is the language of knowledge and manipulation. It is the language of power. It is—”

  Jayne yawned. “You’ve seen too many movies, dude. I’ve dealt with a lot of shitty people, a lot of bad dudes, and no one has been as hysterically theatrical as you. I mean, I admire the commitment, but damn. Calm down.”

  Artimus’s mustache twitched again. A nervous habit. Jayne made a note to watch the mustache. Artimus did his best to recover. “The entire casino is under constant watch. Except this room. This room is a sanctuary. You can do anything you want to me in this room, and there would be no official record of it.”

  Jayne cocked her head. Is he provoking me? “It’d still be pretty suspicious, I’ll pass.”

  “I only invite into my office those I trust with my whole heart. I trust you Jayne.”

  Jayne maintained her mocking tone, though she knew the next line would cut herself deep. “Be careful. The last few people who trusted me are totally fucked right now.”

  Artimus sank deeper into the couch, getting comfortable and basking in the glow of his countless surveillance screens. “Have you figured out who I am yet, Jayne?”

  Jayne mirrored Artimus. She sank into the cushions, spread her arms across the armrest and the back of the couch. “I’m not here to know who you are. I couldn't care less.”

  Artimus nodded thoughtfully. “My name was, once, Yorgos Costas.”

  Jayne’s mind cleared of everything but a tiny spotlight of sense-memory. She felt the same sinking, punch in the gut feeling that she felt the moment she first opened the briefcase. She had to keep her cool. “Well, if that’s the case then my situation either just got a whole lot easier, or a whole lot more complicated.”

  Artimus pulled a gold cigarette case out, popped it open, and offered it to Jayne. Jayne shook her head. “Suit yourself,” Artimus judged as he placed a cigarette at the end of the long stem of a cigarette holder.

  Long, thin body. Long, thin cane. Pencil thin mustache, and now a long thin cigarette holde
r. Jayne silently joked to herself that he was able to successfully fake his death thanks to a natural ability to slip through the cracks.

  Artimus lit the cigarette. “It’s difficult to start a new career when your reputation has you so firmly attached to a different one. So I killed myself and took the credit.”

  Jayne pierced Artimus with a gaze she had never looked at anyone with before. It was the gaze of dark morbid curiosity. It was the gaze of “what if?” It was a gaze with intention not to look within Artimus’ eyes, but to reflect back so that she may look within her own. “Why?”

  Artimus stood up from the couch. “Let me show you something.” He walked to his desk with the intricate control panel built into the surface. The entire office, perhaps the entire casino, seemed to revolve around Artimus’ desk. It was the sun that gave the gift of life to all those fortunate enough for him to deign worthy of receiving his gifts.

  He ashed the cigarette, stubbing it out in a roulette wheel-shaped ashtray. He swiped at another panel in his desk, and a row of hanging lights illuminated a massive, globe-shaped aquarium in the corner of the room. “That means, get off the couch and come here.”

  Jayne groaned, directing the full force of her sarcastic, guttural complaining at Artimus. She walked across the office, which seemed to feel larger and larger with every step. The power of lighting, she guessed.

  Artimus unscrewed the lid of a crystal jar. “Have you ever been in love, Jayne? Truly in love?”

  Jayne nodded her head. “Sure, but don’t tell that to all my boyfriends.”

  Artimus laughed. “You’re funny, Jayne. You’re very funny, and because of that I’m excited to work with you.” Artimus stepped up onto the third rung of a step-ladder allowing him to reach the top of the round aquarium. He removed a small partition of glass near the top, and sprinkled pinches of fish food into the tank.

  The vibrant blue and yellow, orange and white, purple and red, green and orange fish all came out of hiding among the coral and rocks, swimming high to the water’s surface. They feasted merrily on the flakes of fish food Artimus gave to them. “If you love someone enough, Jayne, you will do anything for them. Even if it destroys you. And if, god forbid, I will quickly add, it destroys them, then you have no reason to turn back.”