by R. M. Olson
“You’re a street kid,” said Zhenya, still watching him with that faint smile.
His blood turned cold.
Whenever someone brought that up, it meant they were going to try to hurt him. Or kill him. Because everyone in the damn system knew that former street kids were disposable.
“I—” His hands were sweating slightly.
The rest of the crew would probably never find him, although honestly, at the rate at which they’d been getting themselves into dangerous situations lately, the only surprising thing was that he’d lasted this long.
At least they’d know he’d been here, and Lev would be able to make the connection, and maybe Ivan would find the others, tell them what had happened. The information they’d needed was on Ivan’s com, he was pretty sure—
“I’m honestly impressed,” said Zhenya, one eyebrow raised slightly. They were watching Tae, as if gaging his reaction.
Tae stared at them for a moment. “I—You—”
“I’m impressed.” Zhenya shrugged. “It’s not easy to stay alive on the streets.” They paused a moment. “Is there still that fallen down building to shelter under behind the apartments on Reka Street?”
Tae stared at them, frowning. Zhenya’s smile broadened. “Did you think you were the only street kid to survive to grow up?”
Tae just stared, unable to speak for a moment.
“I go by Zhenya Novikov these days. We chose our new names on the day we become full boyeviki. But before I joined up with the mafia, I was Zhenya Bezdomikov.”
For a moment, Tae thought he’d somehow forgotten how to breathe. “You—you were a street kid?” he asked at last, his voice slightly choked. Zhenya grinned and leaned forward.
“Yes. I was a street kid.” They glanced around their office. “And now look at me. You know how long it’s been since I’ve been cold, Tae? How long it’s been since I’ve been hungry, and not known where I was going to get my next meal? It’s been a very, very long time.”
They smiled at the look on Tae’s face. “I know. You’d never have dreamed a street kid could grow up to become Grigory’s second in command. The thing is, though, the mafia’s not like the rest of the Svodrani system. Here, you’re judged on what you can do, not where you came from. And here, anyone, even a street kid, can rise in the ranks. Can rise to where I am.” They relaxed slightly, leaning back in their chair, and Tae studied them in disbelief.
Now that Zhenya had told him, he could see it in their posture, that eternal air of caution, of readiness, that slight tightness in their muscles that meant that no matter what the next threat was, they’d be able to fight or run on a moment’s notice. He had it, and Caz and Peti had it, because any street kid who didn’t was probably already dead.
“So,” said Zhenya, still smiling slightly. “Now you know. And what do you think of it?”
“I—” he trailed off, shaking his head slightly.
“I know. A bit of a shock, yes? But then, as soon as I found out you were a street kid, I knew I had to talk to you. Because I knew you’d help us. You’d have to, really. You have friends, don’t you? Other street kids? I’ve heard things are bad back in the city these days. But when you have the kind of pull I have?” they shrugged. “It’s not hard to pull some strings, get police to turn a blind eye, get a housing voucher for someone who might not have got it otherwise.”
Tae swallowed, still staring.
A year ago, he might have jumped at this offer. A year ago and desperate, watching Mila shivering under her blankets, watching the agonized look on her brother’s face, the blind, hopeless trust in his eyes when he glanced at Tae, that desperate faith that Tae would fix it, Tae would have a way to make it better and keep his little sister alive …
But—
He shook his head.
He would have wanted to jump at the offer. Just like something in him, the part of him that remembered that Caz and the others would be dead the moment the government figured out how to solve the bug Lev and Ysbel had planted in the Protocol system, wanted to jump at the offer now.
But he wouldn’t. Wouldn’t have, even then. Because he knew the price he’d have to pay, and he wasn’t willing to pay it.
Of course, saying that out loud right now would be problematic. As in, would lead to his body being dumped from an airlock.
“So, Tae. What do you think?” said Zhenya.
Tae took a deep breath. “I—appreciate your kindness. I—your offer is—but—what would you want me to do? I mean, I’m probably—probably the best hacker on the streets. I could—” He tried to make his voice sound desperate. “Maybe it’s not much compared to people who went to school. But I’m a fast learner. I bet I could pick it up quickly.”
He caught the slight flash of uncertainty in Zhenya’s eyes, and he bit back a quick breath of relief.
Zhenya frowned slightly. “Everything I heard said you were the best there was.”
“I—am the best, on the streets,” he said, pathetically eager. “Masha always said so. She said that’s why she wanted me, instead of those other idiots who went to school.”
Masha had better not have said anything about him, or there was a very good chance that both he and she would be killed for this.
Still, he didn’t have any other ideas at the moment that didn’t leave him either dead or working for the mafia.
“You—don’t think you could keep up here?” Zhenya asked at last.
He forced his hands to relax, forced himself to breathe in and out slowly, rather than suck in the panicked breaths he wanted to. “I—I’m sure I could. If you gave me a chance, gave me some time.”
Zhenya was still frowning, and their eyes had narrowed slightly. “Masha wanted you with her crew for a reason, yes?”
“Yes,” he said finally, bitterly, dropping his head. “She did. She told me—she told me she wanted someone who was disposable. They all know it.” He looked up. “But I swear, I’m good! If you just give me a chance to learn—”
Zhenya studied him for a few moments, thoughtfully.
“Alright, then, Tae,” they said at last. “I’ll give you a chance. I’d like your help with something.”
Tae sucked in a quick breath, and Zhenya smiled slightly. “I just want you to hack something for me. I want to see what you can do.”
“I—” He shook his head and let the breath out again. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Good,” said Zhenya, raising their eyebrows. “Very good. Then why don’t you show me what you can do?” They opened a drawer and pulled out a com that had been inside it.
“The other day, Grigory was attacked. We took this off of one of the dead attackers, but it has a code to it that I haven’t been able to figure out. Could you take a look at it?”
They handed it over the table, and slowly, Tae reached out and took it.
“Go ahead,” said Zhenya, nodding at him encouragingly.
He turned it over in his hands, then tapped it open and examined the chip. It looked like an internal chip, likely set to erase memory the moment you tried to draw it out.
Still—he turned it over in his hands again, frowning at it.
The solution was almost too simple.
Maybe this was the test, that if he couldn’t do this he was obviously faking, because the solution was so obvious, masquerading under something that looked difficult.
He took a deep breath.
Whatever way he played it, he’d only get one chance at it.
He studied it for a few minutes longer, as if trying to figure it out. Zhenya was watching him, their face impassive.
His palms were wet, and he wiped them surreptitiously on his trouser legs. How long could he examine this without looking suspicious?
At last, after he’d taken as long as he thought would be believable, and then a little while longer still, he glanced up at Zhenya. “I—think I might see a way to get this information,” he said slowly. “I’m not sure it will work, though.”
; Zhenya raised an eyebrow, and again, Tae had no idea what they were thinking. “Well,” they said at last, gesturing. “Go ahead. Do what you can.”
Tae looked back down at the com, his heart beating too quickly.
It was far too simple, and he was taking too much time, and Zhenya would almost certainly suspect him by now.
Gently, he jiggled the back of the com back and forth, loosening the connection. When it was almost apart, but not far enough apart to trigger the defence, he rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a scrap of wire. Gently he fed it in, and then took the other end and touched it to the connecter on his com. He didn’t look up as he did it.
Maybe that was the trap, maybe Zhenya wanted a chance to spy through to see what he had on his own com.
But they couldn’t have anticipated the mods he’d put on. If there was something set to grab his information the moment he connected, Zhenya would get a copy of the spoof he’d set up—a normal com schematic, with nothing even remotely unusual loaded onto it.
He pulled up his holoscreen and began typing, keeping his keystrokes slow and uncertain. Make it look like even now, he wasn’t completely confident in his solution.
This wasn’t even hacking, this was just using whatever crap tools you had to force the system.
This was going to look almost ridiculously suspicious. There was no way that Zhenya wouldn’t catch on.
But they were still watching him impassively.
Finally, when he thought he could put it off no longer, he typed in the final command.
A holoscreen popped up above the com he’d been working with, and he gave what he hoped was a convincing sigh of relief.
“There,” he said. “I did it. See?”
Zhenya looked at the com, then at him, then back at the com. When they turned back to Tae, they were wearing a broad smile.
“Well, Tae,” they said. “I see Masha’s been holding out on me. I’ve never seen someone use a solution like that to retrieve com memory. Maybe you’re not a hacker. But you’re smart. That’s a good thing. I can use that.”
For a second, he thought they were joking.
Then, to his horror, he realized they were … serious.
They were honestly impressed.
He bit back a curse.
Zhenya leaned back in their chair, an expression of satisfaction on their face. “Well, Tae,” they said. “I’m glad I spoke with you today. I hope that Masha isn’t underutilizing your talents.”
He had, for a moment, the brief flash of too many memories jumbled together, standing in front of some locked door or security system franticly trying to hack through before someone killed them all.
He’d felt a lot of damn things since he’d joined Masha’s crew, but under-utilized had never been one of them.
He managed to paste a smile on his face. “Thank you.”
“No,” said Zhenya, “thank you. It is always good to meet a fellow street kid.” They rose, and held out their hand. Reluctantly, Tae took it.
“You never know, Tae,” said Zhenya softly. “There’s a long ways to rise in the mafia. If you have the temperament for it, you could do very well here. And you’d always have a friend as long as I’m around.”
“I—appreciate it,” said Tae, swallowing down the panic in his throat.
Zhenya smiled, and walked around the side of their desk, pulling the door open for him. “I assume you can find your way back?”
He nodded, and stepped outside.
Once he was out of the office and down the hall, he leaned against the wall and shut his eyes and tried to stop his hands from trembling.
His com was buzzing, and he tapped it.
“Tae?” Lev’s voice was thick with concern. “Are you alright? Ivan came running in here, and I got your message—”
“I’m fine,” Tae said wearily.
There was a moment’s pause. “Where are you? What were you doing?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m outside of Zhenya’s office. And apparently, I’m making all sorts of damn friends in the mafia.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
YSBEL FROWNED DOWN at her work table.
At the very least, they had good equipment here. Possibly the best she’d ever worked with, in all honesty. If having this much funds allowed you to have this caliber of equipment, it was almost no wonder that working for the mafia was such a prized job.
And, unsurprisingly, since the incident in the weapons room a few days back, she’d been left entirely to her own devices.
Apparently there were rumours circulating about her.
Not a bad thing, to tell the truth.
“Ysi?”
She turned quickly.
Tanya stood in the doorway, that strange, hard expression on her face she’d been wearing so often these days.
“Come in,” said Ysbel, standing, and Tanya slipped inside. “Do you want to sit?”
Tanya hesitated a moment, then at last pulled up a chair and sat on the edge of it. There was a note of tension in her posture.
“Ysi?” she said again, and Ysbel turned to her, frowning.
“What is it, my love?”
It had been a long time since the two of them had talked. It seemed that every time she came in, Tanya was with the children.
Since the incident in the weapons room, the mafia had left Tanya and the children completely alone. At any rate, they had no reason to be interested in Tanya aside from as a pressure point to use against Ysbel. Tanya had sworn Masha to secrecy about her past, and Masha had agreed. It wasn’t as if the information was easy to find. Grigory seemed to believe that Tanya and the children were necessary inconveniences if they wanted Ysbel’s help.
But Ysbel hadn’t spoken alone to her wife since Tae had revealed, yesterday, that Ivan was on the ship, and why. And Tanya’s lips had pinched, but she hadn’t said a word, and she hadn’t spoken of it since.
“What are you working on?” asked Tanya abruptly. “The explosive still?”
Ysbel hesitated a moment, then nodded.
“Of course.” Her voice was bitter.
Ysbel frowned. “Tanya. Please. What’s the matter?”
Tanya turned to her, her face cut with worry. “I don’t like this, Ysbel. I know how the mafia works. I saw it when I was in university in Prasvishoni, because the government and the internal security department and the mafia work so closely that it’s hard sometimes to distinguish one from the other. And then, when I was in jail. There were mafia there. You know that. But do you know what kinds of things had sent them there? And they were the ones who’d been sacrificed. The ones who planned those massacres, they were always the ones like Grigory, who walked free. I’ve known Ivan for years, while we were in prison. He’s a smart man, and if he thinks there’s something going on here that we don’t know about, I trust his instincts.” She met Ysbel’s eyes, finally, and there was that hardness in her expression.
“And you heard, and you hardly seem to care. What has happened to you, Ysbel? I’ve known you since I was a child, and I suddenly don’t know you anymore. Because the woman I married, twelve years ago—she wouldn’t have worked for the mafia. She wouldn’t have designed weapons that she knew would be used to kill, perhaps, other families like hers, who had the temerity to stand up against criminals. And she certainly wouldn’t have done this without even talking to me first.”
Ysbel watched her, frowning, and something twisted in her stomach. She reached out gently, and took Tanya’s hand. Tanya stiffened, but didn’t pull away.
“The woman you married,” Ysbel said quietly, “would always have done whatever it took to protect you, and to protect our children. And if this was the only way—”
This time Tanya did pull away. “Then maybe I didn’t know the woman I married as well as I thought I did,” she said quietly. She stood, glancing over at the holoscreen. “Your work is brilliant, Ysi. As always. This is something Vitali Dobrev would have been proud of.”
She turned abruptly and
left, and Ysbel looked after her, something aching in her chest.
Tanya was wrong. This time, Tanya was wrong.
Or perhaps she was right, but in the end it couldn’t matter.
She’d watched Tanya die twice, once when their cottage burned, and once in prison, when Tanya and the children were dragged bodily from the room by guards to be taken to the sedation chamber.
Both those times, Ysbel had been bound and gagged, unable to do anything but watch.
It had almost killed her. Even the memory was enough to set her pulse racing, panic rising in her throat. She couldn’t do it again. She couldn’t bear to do it again.
And this time, she wasn’t bound and gagged. She wasn’t powerless. This time she’d do something if it killed her—because not doing something, sitting back and watching Tanya and her babies die, would kill her anyways.
Perhaps Tanya didn’t understand. Perhaps she couldn’t.
Perhaps Tanya would never understand, and this wall between them would grow too high and too thick to climb, and perhaps that would kill her too. But she’d have kept them safe.
And that had to be worth it. Didn’t it?
But the thought did nothing to dispel the memory of how Tanya had looked at her, before she turned away, or the hollow sickness it left inside her.
If she lost Tanya—however she lost Tanya—she wasn’t certain she’d survive it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“LEV. IT’S SO good to see you again.” Grigory smiled at him expansively. “Sit. I have something special for you today.”
Warily, Lev took a seat across from the krestnaya. As usual, Yana and Zhenya were sitting to either side of him, but they made room for Lev.
“And how is the planning for the event?” Lev asked. “Did you get responses from the invitees?”
Grigory smiled. “Yes. Everyone who I invited was more than happy to attend. As you suggested, I spoke personally to the aid who I’ve purchased who works for Yegor, and he dropped the idea to Nika. Then my people made it very clear that the best place to have this financial conference was on Vladlena’s gambling ship, because it was the only one available—again, as you suggested, we booked the others so it was in fact the only one available. And then we had our man provide her with a list of invitees, and all the invitations came through her. All above-board, nothing suspicious at all. You, Lev, are a treasure.”