Jayne stood up from the chair. “Why’d you let Nova stick around?”
“Well, when I learned the information had nothing to do with me, I had no reason to let her go. What my employees do in their own time is none of my business.”
“And you don’t know where she’s gone?”
Artimus’ face fell. “Maybe.” He looked to Jayne with a surprisingly overwhelming sense of empathy. “There is one possible place she has gone, which we learned about when we trailed her ourselves when we thought she was… untrustworthy. We learned she is quite the lightball fan.”
Jayne didn’t know much about sports, nor did she care. But she did know the one place any serious lightball fan could be found.
Artimus knew Jayne understood his hint. “What else can I do to help you?”
Jayne pointed at the fountain pen on Artimus’ desk. “I’d like to borrow some pen and paper.”
Befuddled, but still with a feeling of indebtedness to Jayne, Artimus handed her a small pad and the pen.
Jayne scribbled a small note on the paper, reached into her pocket for Van’s card, and folded the note over the card. She left them on Artimus’ desk.
Cayetano looked at the folded note with suspicion. “What’s that?”
Jayne gave Cayetano a rivalling bratty look. “It’s a note.”
Cayetano’s eyebrows scrunched together. “For who?”
Jayne began her exit, strolling to the door. She turned back to Cayetano and Artimus. She was acting cool, like what she was about to do was easier than it actually was. “It’s for the police.” She pulled out a burner comm. She swiped across its face, which immediately sent a signal to the full force of Deep Wen’s finest that had surrounded Gilded Gardens.
Artimus reached under his desk and pulled out a “deal maker.” He fired three quick shots at Jayne, but she was too fast. She ducked, rolled forward out of the office, and leapt off the balcony onto a craps table below.
On cue, officers swarmed the casino and began their ascent to the second floor toward Artimus’ office.
Jayne was a criminal herself. This wasn’t lost on her. As much as she liked telling herself she was different, that her intentions justified her actions, she had fallen so deep into the underworld by necessity, that she had been given no choice but to behave like one.
She felt awful. She felt good. She was touched to have brought Artimus and Cayetano back together. Unfortunately, she couldn’t let a criminal enterprise that large come to power. Not if she could help it.
She didn’t think it would work, but Cameron came through for her like he always did. The night before, she made an anonymous long distance call on the burner phone. She tipped Cameron off about the meeting between Cayetano and Artimus. She told him to alert Deep Wen’s authorities.
DWPD was about as corrupt as a police force could get, but every now and then they needed to lead an actual bust or a truly effective raid to keep up appearances. The timing worked out well for them.
She had picked up the bug early that morning at a drop-off point communicated with her over the burner comm.
Jayne strolled out the front door of Gilded Gardens’ Casino, hiding herself in plain sight among the officers filling the casino.
The conflict, the tugging emotion of regret, disappeared. She had done the right thing.
A crowd of onlookers swarmed the outside of Gilded Gardens. She squeezed through, heading in the direction of the nearly-defunct, long forgotten pathway she had taken to arrive in Deep Wen.
Jayne smiled. She knew that, by now, two officers were throwing Artimus and Cayetano in handcuffs. Maybe they could make up for all those missed games of catch in the prison courtyard.
Jayne also knew that, by now, a police officer had picked up the note she left on the desk, which simply read: “The man responsible and who deserves the reward for capturing Artimus and Cayetano.”
She knew that the officer would open the note, and find the business card for the man she couldn’t have accomplished this without.
Now, she had to get back to Theron Techcropolis. Her work was only getting started.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Fluffy Pillow Hotel, Outside Mabel Grumby Memorial Shuttle Port
Merry answered the knock at the door, with cash in hand. She handed over fifteen credits and took the four large kavas from the delivery guy. “Are you sure you don’t want a punchcard?” he asked Merry. “This is the fourth time I’ve come by since yesterday.”
Merry started sipping on a cup of kava. “I really hope I won’t be here much longer. I don’t want to get too comfortable.”
The delivery guy shrugged, buckled his magne-cycle helmet back on. “Suit yourself. See you in a few hours, probably.”
Merry laughed and shut the door.
She had to admit the guy was right. She’d holed herself up three days earlier and had barely slept. Instead, she had sat on the balcony of The Fluffy Pillow Hotel, watching the exit deck of the shuttle port through binoculars.
Theron Techcropolis was concerned with keeping Jayne from getting out. They had no reason to expect she’d try to be getting in. Merry was confident Jayne would eventually return the same way she left.
She took the cup of kava and returned to her outpost on her hotel room’s balcony. With the exception of the occasional nap here and there, kava had kept her awake for the past three days. She worried she’d go crazy from sleep deprivation before Jayne returned.
Then again, she told herself, she might go crazy scanning the crowds of travelers arriving to Theron Techcropolis walking out of the shuttle port.
Jayne still had short hair, and she still had that unmistakable profile. Merry doubted she had stuck to those tourist clothes, so she wasn’t betting on identifying her by the outfit.
There was the chance the next time she’d be identifying Jayne would be in a morgue. She pushed the notion out of her mind for the fourth or fifth time that day.
She cozied into the wire chair on the balcony and rested her feet up on the rail. She peered through her binoculars and zoomed in on the exiting crowd. “Oh where, oh where has my little Jayne gone? Oh where, oh where could she be…”
She saw a pack of college kids walk out and hail a hover-cab. They likely just returned from a semester abroad in one of the Federation’s sister systems. Merry felt a little bit of resentment toward them for not giving that life up the way she had.
A family with five kids, practically unheard of these days, stumbled out, awkwardly. Then Merry noticed their simple, loosely fitting blue clothes and narrowly brimmed hats and realized they were Heszterites. She had no idea what kind of business they had in Theron Techcropolis, a city that would be the nightmare of any self-respecting Heszterite. They eschewed all technology but the bare necessities. Apparently shuttle travel was okay.
Merry continued scanning, adjusting the calibration of the binoculars to get a better view. She saw a shuttle pilot excitedly light a cigarette, exhaling smoke luxuriously from her nostrils. She had probably been waiting six or seven hours for that sweet taste of tobacco.
The problem with everyone that she was seeing was that they weren’t Jayne. Merry had been dealing with that issue for the past three days. She had seen arriving politicians pick wedgies, she had seen one car-jacking, she had seen celebrities. She had seen every imaginable person come and go at the Mabel Grumby Memorial Shuttle Port except Jayne.
Merry pulled the binoculars down from her face and rubbed her eyes. Looking through them so long strained her eyes and gave her a headache. “I swear, Jayne, if you’re not down there right now I am going to throw myself off the fucking balcony!”
Merry stood up and looked across to the Shuttle Port. She put the binoculars up to her eyes.
Nothing.
“Damn.” Merry looked down over the balcony. “Eh, that wouldn’t kill me anyway. Best case scenario I’d get a sprained ankle.”
She looked through the binoculars again. There, dead center, bobbing throug
h the crowd, a short haired girl in unrecognizable clothes. But Merry would have noticed that profile and that signature gait anywhere.
Merry zoomed in and refocused the binoculars. She snapped several photos from its built in camera, just in case. “Holy shit. It’s about time.” She followed Jayne. Jayne walked down the entire length of the loading zone, arriving at the end of the waiting hover-cabs. Merry focused on the hover-cab’s call number. D-7-11-3. “Seven, one, one, three. D, seven, one, one, three. Got it, got it.”
She dropped the binoculars on the table by the railing and ran inside. Repeating the number in her head, “D, seven, one, one, three,” she pulled on her boots and, with her backpack containing her few vital possessions, and sprinted out the door to find Jayne.
Then she ran back in real quick. She nabbed the binoculars she had forgotten on the table, “D, seven, one, one, three,” and ran out the door, definitively shutting it behind her.
+++
Merry jumped over a row of shrubs and made a make-shift shortcut past the thoroughfare for approaching cruisers.
She scanned the exiting lane. She would only have a matter of minutes before the hover-cab gained enough space from the shuttle port before it could elevate and begin its trip back to Theron Techcropolis – to wherever the hell Jayne was going – in earnest.
She kept repeating the number in her head. D-7-11-3. D-7-11-3. Then she saw the cab, the glowing call number above its windshield. The hover-cab turned out, clearing itself from the two-deck loading zone of the shuttle port. Just before it had enough clearance to ascend into the air, Merry leapt off the curb and would have landed right on the hood of the cab if the driver hadn’t gotten his brakes replaced the week before.
Merry ran around to the side of the cab and opened the door. “Hey! Sorry. Take me where ever she’s going.” She stepped up, slightly tipping the cab to one side in the air, and shut the door behind her.
The driver just shrugged. “Sure thing, lady. I don’t ask questions.” He zoomed off, upwards.
Jayne grabbed Merry and dragged her into an embrace. She did not know when, or if, she was ever going to see her friends again. At first, the blur of someone throwing themselves in front of the cruiser terrified her. She had enough time to register the disaster she would have to deal with if she witnessed an auto-accident and the police needed to question her.
The two best friends held each other in the backseat. Jayne squeezed Merry hard. “Oh, Merry, you have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
“Same here, sister.”
Jayne sighed. “Have you ever been to Deep Wen? Under Headless Hope?”
Merry finally released Jayne. “No, but I hear it’s awesome. Really wild, right?”
Jayne shook her head. “That’s a word for it I guess. But the rickshaw drivers there?”
“Yeah?” Merry smiled. “Hot?”
Jayne let out a whistle. “So hot. Like any buff guy can just carry you around to wherever you want to go all day. Like talk about fantasy.”
Merry laid her head back in the taxi’s seat. “Well, I could really go for a vacation after this. Maybe?”
Jayne laughed. “If you go, enjoy. I’ll be catching up on sleep.”
The moment of joyful reunion passed. Merry remembered the reason for their encounter, the entire reason tracking Jayne down was so important in the first place. She leaned forward. “Excuse me, could you raise the partition?”
The driver shrugged. “Sure thing, lady. I don’t ask questions.” He flipped a switch, and the union-mandated one-way, sonic-proof partition rose between the driver and Merry and Jayne in the back seat.
Jayne started to talk, but Merry held up a finger. She wanted to test it first. “WOW! OUR CAB DRIVER IS SO HOT!”
No response.
“I’D LIKE TO RIDE HIM UNTIL I CAN’T AFFORD THE FARE, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”
No response. The driver just navigated the crowded skies of Theron Techcropolis.
Merry started wildly humping in the back seat. “YEAH! THAT DRIVER! OOOH, I JUST WANT HIM TO SPANK ME LIKE I’M A LITTLE GIRL WHO GOT CAUGHT WITH HER HAND IN THE COOKIE JAR BUT INSTEAD OF A COOKIE JAR, MY HAND IS IN MY PANTIES AND THEN—”
Jayne was in tears from laughing. “Merry! Stop. He can’t hear you.”
The driver showed no reaction. Merry felt safe. “Okay. Jayne, we figured out who’s behind all of this.”
Jayne saw a confidence in Merry’s eyes that she did not want to be let down by. “Merry, I hope you’re right. Because I was close. I was so close. The man in black? Woman. It was a woman in black. And I was so close to finding her, to stopping her, to finding out what she knows but she got away! Merry, she got away. It was a bust. I was so close, and—”
“It’s Burrett.”
Jayne stopped mid-sentence. The confidence in Merry’s eyes hadn’t left.
Merry waited for Jayne to say something, but she seemed too stunned. “We located a VR meeting. Vlad went in with a cloak, and… we saw a meeting taking place. Burrett. Burrett is back. He’s behind everything.”
The driver didn’t turn to look back. He didn’t react at all. That was the real test. Everyone knew who Burrett was. The mastermind terrorist had become a household name. If mention of him hadn’t caused a head to turn, then nothing would.
For Jayne, the name sent a jolt through her body. All of the pain, emotional and physical, revisited her at once. She had never felt as threatened or as unsafe in her entire life.
She had never felt a greater threat against her friends. She had, once again, put those closest to her in danger.
“What do you know, Merry?”
Merry shook her head, made a "nothing, nada, zilch” motion with her hands, signifying a hopeless nothing. “That’s all. We’re going to continue spying, tracing him in the VR world. Obviously, he raises more questions than answers.”
“Yeah,” Jayne nodded. “That seems to be the recurring theme of this case.”
Merry looked at Jayne, concerned. “But we’ll catch him, Jayne. We will.”
Jayne looked out the hover-cab’s window. They were descending into a lower level. Probably the mid-50s somewhere. Jayne was deep enough. Now, was it time to officially go solo?
To stop hurting the ones she loved?
Jayne decided to improvise. To save Merry’s life. Fuck, she thought to herself as she mustered up the courage. She had gotten better at lying, but this was going to hurt. “I released Burrett.”
Merry didn’t respond, leaving Jayne with no choice but to fill the brutal silence. “I had to. I, uh…” Jayne scanned her mind looking for any possible connections. A tear rolled down her cheek. “I found out about the information about me. Getting out. I had to stop it. In exchange, I was commanded to release Burrett’s consciousness from his virtual cell. In exchange I was told where to find the man in black, or the woman in black. Of course, this all blew up in my face. I’m sorry.”
Now Merry fought tears. “Jayne is this true?”
For Jayne, this was the hardest part of all. But it would keep Merry safe. “Yes.”
Merry shook her head. “Why would you do this?”
Jayne had no idea why she would have done this. She would never do this. “I’m asking myself the same questions now, Merry. What matters for you is to get out. Save yourself. If Burrett is involved, you’re not safe. Neither is Fred. Or Cameron. I’ll fix this, I’ll—”
“You fix everything Jayne, but you’re the one who creates the problems!”
Jayne leaned up and banged on the partition. The driver lowered it. “Yeah?”
Jayne unbuckled herself. “Let me out up here.”
Merry grabbed Jayne’s arm. “No, please, I don’t understand. Why—”
Jayne was about to burst into sobs. “Just let me out here, please. Please.”
The driver shrugged. “Whatever you say, lady. I don’t ask questions.” He lowered the cruiser and pulled over to a curb.
Jayne opened the door, but Merry wouldn�
�t let go of her other arm. “Why? Why would you do this Jayne?”
Jayne yanked her arm free. She got out of the taxi, but before closing the door she leaned down to Merry. “Protect yourself. Burrett is the biggest threat we face.”
She slammed the door, and disappeared into the nearest alley.
Rage filled Merry and she punched the roof of the cab, hard. The driver jumped, startled, and looked back at Merry in the rearview mirror.
Merry rubbed her sore hand. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t…”
The driver shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
He took off, working his way to the lower levels. “Look, uh… I don’t ask questions. But whatever it was you and your friend just went through… it’ll pass.”
Merry laughed cruelly. “You don’t understand, dude.”
The driver found Merry’s eyes in the rearview mirror again. “I’ve been driving cabs for thirty-seven years. I’ve seen everything. I’ve seen love, I’ve seen hate. I’ve seen sex, murder. I had a woman give birth in my cab once. Not this cab specifically, but I was drivin’ it. And trust me, I know people. And I know that what I just saw… isn’t over. Sometimes people, when you see them at their worst… what they’re doing is hiding their best.”
Merry wasn’t in the mood to hear whatever this schmo was saying. “I’m sorry, I’m just not in the mood.”
The cab driver looked away from the rearview mirror, back on the traffic in front of him. “Sure, I understand. I apologize for butting in.”
Merry wiped the tears away from her eyes. The driver strummed his fingers across the steering wheel. “Uh, look… I don’t know where to take you anymore, and, uh… now that your friend left, I hope you’re still planning on paying the fare.”
Merry groaned. She couldn’t stop herself. She punched the ceiling of the cab once more. “Dammit, Jayne!”
Exposed (Interplanetary Spy for Hire Book 2) Page 20