by Piers Platt
The download finished, and Rath accessed the datascroll’s settings menu. He typed for nearly a minute, entering a series of instructions. Finally, he set it in front of Dasi on the floor, out of her reach. The screen showed the audio and video feed from Rath’s implants, and Dasi saw that it was recording.
“I need you to listen closely,” Rath told her. “This is a live feed – you’ll see everything I see, hear everything I hear. If I don’t make it, you’ll have a record of it, something more concrete you can take to Interstellar Police. When he wakes up, have Martin send for someone to saw through this desk and get you free.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going after Paisen.”
“To stop her, or to help her?” Dasi asked.
Rath ignored the question. “Stay safe, Dasi. Tell Martin I’m sorry I knocked him out again. And tell him … tell him I’m going to have to break my promise to him, too.”
“What promise?”
But Rath was already heading for the door.
23
The air car swooped in high over the tower’s roof, circling once, then settling heavily down onto a landing pad.
That’s not a standard, production line model. That car’s been up-armored.
From a window three buildings away, Paisen zoomed in her optical sensors, and watched as two guards emerged from a structure on the roof. Both wore tactical vests and carried auto-rifles. The car’s door swung open, and Paisen saw a woman with long, black hair emerge.
Good morning, Director.
Nkosi followed the two guards into the structure, disappearing from view. Paisen scanned the roof one last time, and then turned away from the window. She grunted as she lifted her Forge from the floor, laden as it was with extra weight, but shouldered it and headed for the building’s elevators.
Back out on the street, Paisen walked toward the Surat Khan Tower, joining the flow of pedestrian traffic headed in to work for the day. The streets were slick from an overnight rain shower, and dark, threatening clouds lingered in the sky above. A cool, wet wind buffeted Paisen as she walked. She glanced up as she approached the tower, taking in the sleek sides of the skyscraper stretching high above her. Then she was inside.
While the other workers continued to the security gates, Paisen made a sharp left across the marble floor, and pushed through an emergency exit door. She hurried down four levels, emerging into a basement utility corridor. She checked the blueprints in her heads-up display, oriented herself, and then set off for the nearest foundation support column.
* * *
Rath leaned on the reception desk in the Surat Khan Tower’s lobby, watching the office workers pass through the security gates toward the elevators. After a short wait, the receptionist handed him a visitor badge for a tech company located on the eighth floor of the tower. He smiled and thanked the woman, then joined the line of people scanning their badges to go through the security gates. When it was his turn, he swiped the visitor badge, and the gate notified him to take elevator C4. Rath, feigning ignorance, walked to the D block of elevators, and waited until he saw an elevator going to the nineteenth floor. He got on.
He was joined by a young man who eyed him with a frown, but Rath just smiled back. When the doors opened, Rath saw they were in a small lobby with a single reception desk, and no chairs. The man hurried quickly through a set of thick doors, which closed before Rath could follow him. He approached the reception desk instead, which sat empty under a generic corporate logo. A holographic avatar of a middle-aged woman in a suit appeared behind the desk.
“May I help you?”
“Yes—”
“Ah, I see you’re visiting another company,” the avatar interrupted, pointing at his badge. “You’ll find vModix on the eighth floor. I’m afraid you’ll have to take the elevator back down to the lobby, then use the ‘C’ block of elevators to get back up to eight.” Behind him, Rath heard the elevator doors open again.
“Actually, I’m in the right place. I’m here to see Director Nkosi.”
The avatar frowned apologetically. “We don’t have any employees by that name,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell her that 621 would like to see her. Tell her I’m here to collect the bounty on 339.”
The avatar smiled at him, and then flickered off. Rath waited. He tapped his fingers on the desk. Moments later, the heavy doors swung open, and Rath saw two armed guards waiting inside. He walked in, and the doors shut behind him.
“Gentlemen,” Rath said, by way of greeting.
One of the men shoved him against the wall face first, and Rath groaned at the fresh wave of pain from his broken ribs. The guard ignored his discomfort, and held him there while his partner frisked Rath thoroughly, patting him down by hand and then scanning his body with a handheld device. Rath’s pockets were empty except for a data drive, which they took, along with his visitor badge. Rath felt them cuff his hands behind his back, and then they pulled him off the wall, holding him between them.
A set of inner doors opened, and an older man appeared. He stood next to Rath, rolled back Rath’s sleeve, and took a DNA sample using a small device. The man waited for several seconds, and when the device beeped, he pocketed it. Only then did he make eye contact with Rath.
“Where is she, 621?” he asked.
“Who are you?” Rath asked.
“Where’s 339?” the man repeated.
“Take me to see Nkosi,” Rath told him. “And I’ll tell you.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “In that case, we’ll do it the hard way.”
“I wouldn’t,” Rath advised him. “She’s setting up a weapon that can take out this entire building. By the time you get me strapped to the table, we’ll all be dead.”
The man studied Rath, searching for any hint of a lie.
“Clock’s ticking,” Rath told him.
The watch on the man’s wrist buzzed, and he checked it, reading a message off of the screen.
“Bring him,” he told the guards.
They marched him back out to the lobby, and the man scanned his fingerprint on the elevator’s reader. It took them up two more floors.
“Where’s your Forge?” the man asked Rath.
“Back on Emerist somewhere. Why? You going to make me go back and get it?”
The doors slid open, and Rath saw two more guards waiting for them. They took up station behind Rath as he left the elevator, and when he glanced over his shoulder, he saw that both were pointing auto-rifles at him. They passed another reception desk, this one staffed by a real woman, and then emerged through a set of doors into a large executive office.
Nkosi stood looking out the window behind the desk. She turned when she heard them enter.
“Director Nkosi,” Rath said, giving her a tight smile. “As a former Guild employee, it’s a little intimidating to finally meet the woman behind it all.”
“Where is she?” the director asked, ignoring Rath’s jibe.
“I’ll tell you, but I want some guarantees first.”
“What guarantees?”
“I want safe passage out of here, and your word that you’ll never send another contractor after me again.” Rath cleared his throat. “And I want my fifty percent.”
“That’s it?” Nkosi asked, an eyebrow raised.
“That’s it,” Rath echoed. “Fifty for fifty. I just want what I’m owed, per my contract.”
Nkosi pursed her lips. “339 saved you. You’d betray her for the money?”
“I don’t owe her anything,” Rath said.
“If you say so,” Nkosi replied.
“Once I’m out of here,” he continued. “I’ll tell you where to find the other two. But only when I’m safely away.”
“The other two? The detective and the senator’s staffer?”
Rath nodded. “They have all the evidence we’ve collected on the Group.”
Nkosi crossed her arms. “If I let you go, how do I know you’ll keep your wor
d?”
“How do I know you’ll keep yours?” Rath countered.
“We have no way of knowing if he even knows where they are,” the middle-aged man pointed out.
“Who is this guy?” Rath asked Nkosi, nodding at the man. “He’s kind of a prick.”
“Mr. Feykin, my Chief of Operations,” Nkosi told him.
“I can prove I know where they are,” Rath said, turning to Feykin. “Turn on the viewscreen.”
Rath connected his neural interface wirelessly to the screen, and then queued up his video feed, starting with his debate with Beauceron back in the hotel room.
“It’s a bluff,” they heard Rath say.
“It’s not,” Dasi said from the floor, shaking her head. “Once she has the funds, she’s going to detonate all of the pieces, and bring the tower down. She said it was the only way to be sure the Group doesn’t come after us anymore.”
The angle changed, as Rath looked over at Beauceron. “She knew we’d never go along with this, that’s why she was in a hurry,” the detective said.
Rath stopped the footage. “Check the timestamp – that was less than fifteen minutes ago. They’re in a hotel room here, on Chennai. And the girl told me how to find 339, too. She’s here already, in the building … and that weapon doesn’t take long to put in place.”
Nkosi studied Rath carefully. He met her gaze without flinching. The director glanced over to Feykin, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“No deal, Feykin?”
“No, ma’am. Absolutely not. If he’s willing to betray his friends, what assurances do we have he’ll deal honestly with us?”
“They’re not my friends, they’re just people I used to find you,” Rath corrected him. “A contractor can’t afford friends – you taught me that, in Training.”
“I’m willing to part with the money in order to be rid of those … nuisances,” Nkosi observed. “But I will be rid of them eventually, with or without your help. So I’m merely buying a more timely resolution, it seems. Paying for convenience.”
Rath watched as she walked around the desk, coming closer to him.
“And accepting your offer puts me at a disadvantage,” she finished.
“Which is?” Rath asked.
“You’d still be alive,” she told him, standing in front of him. She tapped her forehead with a finger. “Along with everything you know about the Group. That’s a liability I can’t accept.”
Rath smiled. “It’s not a liability at all. Do you want to know what I’m going to do with the money? I’m going to have my memory erased. Wiped completely. Check your files – I can’t sleep for more than a few hours without getting a nightmare about the things you made me do, the people I killed. I want to forget it – all of it.”
Nkosi frowned. “So you say. But how do I know you’ll do it?”
“You don’t,” Rath admitted. “Not for sure. But go read my psych profile – it seems to be a source of amusement around here. You’ll see. I don’t want to remember anything about this fucking place.”
Rath checked the time in his heads-up display.
“339’s done by now, Director. Do we have a deal?”
* * *
Dasi saw Beauceron twitch.
“Martin? Can you hear me?”
He rolled over with a groan, and rubbed his forehead. Then he pushed himself up to a sitting position, leaning against the bed.
“Are you okay?”
Beauceron grunted. “My head hurts. Where’s Rath?”
“At Headquarters,” Dasi told him. “He left us a datascroll, he’s streaming his feed to it. I’ve been watching it.”
Beauceron opened his eyes and found the datascroll on the floor. He tilted it so he could see the screen. He saw an office, and a stern-looking woman with her arms crossed.
“That’s Nkosi,” Dasi told him. “Martin, Rath’s betrayed us all. He offered her us – all of us, Paisen too – in exchange for the money, and his freedom.”
Beauceron frowned. “Did he stop Paisen?”
“No,” Dasi said. “Not yet, at least. We have to get out of here before he tells them where we are.”
Beauceron stood up, bracing himself on the bed. “Okay. And we’ve got to get a warning to Interstellar Police. There may still be time.”
He picked up the room’s phone and dialed the operator.
“Could you send maintenance up to our room, please? They’ll need some tools, we have a little issue with the desk.”
He listened for a moment.
“Just send them up, they’ll understand when they get here.”
He set the phone back on its cradle.
“Dasi, I’m going to leave you for a moment – I need to find the nearest police station. This is too important for a phone call.”
“I’ll be okay,” she told him. “Just so long as they get me out of here quickly.”
Beauceron stood and made his way to the door.
“Martin,” Dasi called. “Rath downloaded the evidence to this datascroll.”
“Send it to my phone,” Beauceron told her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Be careful,” she told him.
When he was gone, she tapped on the screen. But before she could send Beauceron the files, a message from Rath appeared. Dasi frowned with distaste.
What do you want, traitor?
Then she frowned, and leaned closer to read it.
24
Paisen pushed open the fire exit door and walked across the lobby, stopping next to a large waterfall cascading artfully down the building’s interior wall. She glanced around casually, then slid a small piece of metal out of her pocket, dropping it surreptitiously into the water at the base of the waterfall. She turned and headed for the exit.
The stun dart hit her between her shoulder blades, and she fell forward onto the marble tiles, muscles clenching uncontrollably. As the pain gripped her, she felt someone wrench the detonator bracelet from her wrist, and then they frisked her, stripping her of her Forge and the auto-pistol she had hidden inside it. They tightened handcuffs around her wrists, and then stood her up, dragging her across the lobby to the nearest freight elevator.
The pain had subsided by the time the doors opened on the twenty-first floor. Paisen’s guards marched her, silently, down two corridors, and then through a plush reception area. Two heavy doors swung open, and she found herself in a large office with a set of picture windows at the back. Nkosi and another Group employee stood near the desk, watching her enter. Then she saw Rath. He was flanked by four guards, but one of them was removing the handcuffs from his wrists.
“Rath! You bastard!”
She broke free from her escort, lunging for him with a snarl of fury on her lips. A guard stepped into her path to block her, but she shouldered him roughly in the ribs, then kicked a second guard in the knee-cap. It took three guards to finally subdue her, forcing her to kneel in front of Nkosi. Paisen ignored the director, instead leaning over to spit on the floor near Rath.
“Good luck sleeping with this on your conscience,” she told him.
Rath shrugged. “In a few days, I won’t remember any of this.”
Paisen stuck her chin out, gesturing at Nkosi. “She’s just going to hunt you down and kill you. You know that, right?”
“No,” Nkosi said. “621 has made us a compelling offer. You, your friends, and all the evidence they have, in exchange for his freedom. And his money.” She stood over Paisen, eyeing the contractor haughtily. “I’m looking forward to seeing you die. Slowly.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Paisen told her.
Rath walked over to the desk, where Feykin handed him several sheets of paper. Rath skimmed them quickly, then laid them on the desk.
“You first,” he told Feykin.
The older man produced a pen from his pocket, and signed the paper. Then he handed the pen to Rath.
“You’re signing another contract with these assholes?!” Paisen asked, incr
edulous.
Rath ignored her, signing the document and then pocketing the pen.
Paisen glared at Rath. “I don’t care what she’s promised you. She’s lying. She’s going to hunt you down, erased memory or not. And I’ll die happy knowing that.”
Rath turned to Nkosi. “Your guards took a data drive from me. My bank account is on it.”
“Feykin?” Nkosi asked.
The Chief of Operations took the data drive from the guard, and crossed to Nkosi’s computer. Rath watched as he plugged it in.
“I see the account link,” Feykin reported.
“My total earnings were one hundred and three million dollars,” Rath said.
Feykin accessed the Group’s financial accounting software, then spent several seconds typing.
“That’s correct.” He clicked several times. “Funds have been transferred,” he said.
“I’d like to verify it, if you don’t mind,” Rath said. “You’ll see a phone number in there as well. Please put it on speakerphone.”
Feykin looked to Nkosi, who nodded. Over the room’s speakers, they heard a dial tone, then a ring.
“Yes?” a voice answered.
“C4ble, it’s Rath. Do you see the funds?”
“Yeah, I see them.”
“Great.” Rath looked over at Feykin. “You can hang up.”
Feykin unplugged the data drive and set it on the desk. Rath looked at Nkosi. “Director, the message?”
She turned to Feykin. “Notify all contractors: 339 has been captured, and 621 is no longer a target.”
Paisen snorted, watching while Feykin accessed the Group’s communications suite. “She’s just going to send another message as soon as you leave, sending them all after you again.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Rath said. “Project it on the viewscreen, please, Mr. Feykin. I’d like to see the message myself.”
The text appeared a moment later. Rath read it closely.
“It’s good.”
On the screen, he watched as Feykin hit Transmit.
“Satisfied?” Nkosi asked.
“Almost,” Rath said. “The detective who recruited me. I want his name.”