by R. M. Olson
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to convince his heart to stop trying to pound its way out of his chest, and his breathing to slow down enough that he could actually think.
“What exactly do you think you were doing, you lunatic?” Ysbel ground out once she’d closed the door behind them. “I thought you were planning on actually being useful. I’m sure Lev told you before you left that we only have a few days, and we don’t have time for people to get drunk.”
Jez blinked up at Ysbel dreamily for a moment, eyes unfocused. “Tell you what, though, if you’re going to get smashed, he had some pretty damn good stuff to get smashed on. Tell you that.”
Ysbel narrowed her eyes and propped Jez up against the wall.
Jez promptly collapsed.
Tae had come over and was standing beside them, a look of utter exasperation on his face. “I thought, Jez,” he said, speaking as slowly and clearly as he could, “that you were planning on going to get some information for us.”
She gave him a very self-satisfied look from where she’s somehow managed to prop herself up against the wall. “Well, figure I did.”
Lev let out a long breath and crouched beside her. His heart was still hammering wildly, which did nothing to assuage his irritation. “Information on something other than what you’d prefer to get drunk on, Jez.”
She grinned up at him. “What? Think I’m … I’m stupid or something? Because …” she trailed off, staring into the distance with a vacant grin on her face.
“Honestly, Jez, I’m currently wondering,” said Lev grimly.
She glanced up at him. “I ever tell you you’re damn hot for a—for a scholar boy? ‘Cause I’ll tell you, scholar boys aren’t usually my thing. But you’re—you’re—pretty damn hot, actually. Anyways, here’s the thing. Told you I’d get information. Told Masha I would. Her fault, honestly, because I just did exactly what--what—” she waived her hand. “Whatever the hell her name is told me to do.”
“Masha?” said Lev through his teeth, trying very hard to ignore her words.
She was, as she’d put it, really damn drunk.
“’T’s the one.” She grinned at him vacantly.
“So,” said Tae, clearly trying to control his complete exasperation, “You’re telling me that Masha told you she wanted you to go get so smashed that honestly I’m actually wondering how you’re conscious right now?”
She shook her head, and almost fell over. “Nope. Told me to get information. And thing is, Nikoli doesn’t like giving out—giving—telling people crap when he’s sober, you know? So figured—figured the best plan—” She trailed off again, blinking.
Lev closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. “Come on, Ysbel,” he said. “Let’s get her to bed.”
“Nope,” Jez muttered, jerking her head upright. “Gotta—gotta listen to me first. Because hell, you think I’m drunk, you should see the bastard I was talking to. Nik—Niki—whatever the hell his name is. Mafia avtoritet. That one.”
Now they were all staring at her. “You—got Nikoli drunk?” Lev asked at last.
Nikoli had a reputation for being able to hold his alcohol.
“Yep,” said Jez with relish. “He’s sleeping it off right now on the damn gambling—thing. Table.”
“You drank Nikoli under the table,” said Ysbel flatly.
Jez gave her a drunken grin. “Over the table, actually,” she slurred. “Anyways, he got pretty talky last few drinks. Told me some things. Figured you’d want to—want to—” she waved a hand vaguely, and barely caught herself again before she fell over.
Tae, Lev, Ivan, and Ysbel exchanged glances. Then Lev turned back to where Jez was slumped against the wall.
She was going to actually kill herself one of these days. She was going to get herself killed, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, because of course she wouldn’t listen to a damn thing he said about it.
He took another deep breath.
“Jez,” he said carefully. “You’re saying you got important information from Nikoli.”
“Yep.”
He shook his head. “Alright. Let’s get you to bed, you can tell us in the morning.”
She laughed drunkenly. “Thought you were—a genius or something. Guess you don’t—don’t go out much, you bastard. Not going to remember a damn thing in the morning, probably. Better tell you now.” She tried to get up, and completely overbalanced. He caught her before she toppled over, and looked helplessly up at the rest of them. Ysbel shook her head grimly.
“The idiot is probably right. Let’s get everything we can before she passes out.”
Lev set his jaw grimly and put an arm around Jez, hoisting her laboriously to her feet. She was doing absolutely nothing to help, which was probably just as well at this point. Ysbel leaned down and took her other arm, and between them they got her into a chair. Her head was starting to nod.
“Jez,” Ysbel snapped, and Jez jerked her head up.
“Yeah?”
“You had something to tell us.”
Jez looked at her, trying very hard to focus her eyes. “Something—Dunno what you’re talking about. Anyways, genius boy is pretty damn hot. Did I say that? Because he is. And he’s a damn good—he’s a damn good kisser, too, by the way. But maybe—”
Lev gritted his teeth, his cheeks heating.
She was bloody off her head drunk.
“Something about Nikoli,” Ysbel said in a flat voice.
Jez blinked at her for a moment, furrowing her brow. Then she grinned. “Oh. Yeah. Nikoli. Crafty old bastard. But I’ll tell you what, he knows how to get good alcohol, tell you that.” She paused a moment. “Niki told me stuff, y’know. How they’re going to—going to get everyone split up. They’ve rigged the—the—thing, with the tokens. Gonna have a tournament, and make sure—make sure—” she trailed off, looking around blearily.
Lev frowned at her for a moment. “They’re … going to rig the gambling tournament,” he said slowly, looking up at the others. “That must be it. The one Grigory’s set up for the evening’s entertainment. He could do it so as the players move up or down the tables, whoever he wants to kill ends up in the right part of the ship.”
Tae gave a thoughtful nod. “That—makes sense, I suppose.”
“Yeah, that’s it. What he said,” Jez slurred. She was still grinning broadly, and looking extremely pleased with herself. “Gonna rig the—what he said. Said no one—no one supposed to know ‘bout it, but we were friends, see, so he said, said he’d tell me stuff, you know. Figured you’d want to hear about it.” She subsided, still grinning.
Ysbel stared at her for a moment, then up at the others. “This was her plan,” she said in a flat voice. “This was her plan—go on a drinking binge with Nikoli, and eventually they’d both be so drunk he’d tell her whatever she asked him, because neither of them would be in any state to remember it the next morning.”
Ivan was also staring at Jez. At last he raised his head, expression slightly awed. “Well,” he said, shaking his head, “I—suppose if you can pull it off—”
Lev took a deep breath, and let it out again through his teeth.
She could have been killed. There were about a hundred ways she could have been killed, and he needed to stop thinking about them right now or he was going to lose his mind.
“Alright,” he said. “Alright. Jez got Nikoli completely off his head passing-out drunk, and somehow convinced him to tell her what we needed to know. And somehow, for some insane reason, it worked. And somehow, I’m still not certain how, Jez isn’t dead from alcohol poisoning, although if I have to breath the fumes coming off her any longer, I’m afraid I might be.” He shook his head.
Jez’s head was starting to droop again. “Not even tired,” she muttered, blinking hard. “Don’t know why you plaguers—” She swayed, and Ysbel caught her before she could fall off her chair.
“Is that all, you idiot,” she said, giving Jez a shake.
Jez bli
nked, then looked up at her with a vacant grin. “’S what all?” she slurred. “Mean, guess I could tell you ‘bout—his family, didn’t like his mom, he said. Told me all about it. But figure that’s probably—don’t really care much ‘bout his mom, I guess.” She giggled. “He didn’t either. Care ‘bout—’bout—” she subsided again, head starting to nod.
“I’m not sure whether to be horrified or impressed,” said Ivan, still staring at her.
“Honestly, it won’t make the smallest bit of difference,” said Lev, still talking through his teeth. He met Ysbel’s eyes. “We’d better get her to bed, before she passes out at the table.”
“And you’d better get her something to puke into,” Ysbel called after him as he levered the boneless, swaying Jez to her feet. “I’m pretty sure she’s going to need it.”
Somehow he managed to get the half-conscious Jez into her cot, gently deflected her drunken kiss, propped her up on pillows, and left a bucket for her to vomit into. He stood watching her for a few moments, worry and panic and irritation and something heavy and heart-stopping that he refused to think about struggling inside him. Finally he sighed, and, grim-faced, turned back to the main room.
“I can’t believe her,” he muttered as he sat down. “I can’t believe she thought—” He broke off, shaking his head.
“Well,” said Ivan, “In fairness, it worked.”
Lev glared at him. “Don’t ever tell her that. Because if she gets one word of encouragement—”
Ysbel raised an eyebrow. “You honestly think it would make any difference?”
He sighed. “Fine. Look, we have the information, but we need to figure out how—”
He broke off abruptly, staring at Tae. “Wait. Tae. We can’t get into the database with the invitations, correct?”
Tae nodded slowly. “I could, eventually. But they have a fence around the system that shows any sign of tampering, and to get through without triggering it would probably take me at least a few days, which we don’t have.”
Lev nodded slowly. “Alright. And there’s no way we could warn them.”
“Not that we’ve figured out yet,” said Ivan. “And if I recall, Masha said warning them would end with all of you being killed, which, I believe, isn’t the preferred outcome at this point.”
Lev nodded. He was biting the inside of his cheek, his fingers unconsciously smoothing the surface of the table. “What if,” he said slowly, “we weren’t trying to stop them from coming in the first place?”
Tae glanced up at him, frowning.
“What if, instead, we made it impossible for him to carry out the plan? We rig the rigged games, so he can’t separate off the people he wants to keep alive?” He turned to Ivan. “He wouldn’t blow it up if the people he bought would be killed as well, would he?”
Ivan shook his head slowly, eyes beginning to sparkle. “I—don’t think he would. He’s invested far too much in them at this point. He wouldn’t want to have to start from fresh. The way he’s organized the coup, he’d need people in key positions for the transfer of power, people with institutional knowledge. If he lost all of them, it would make the transition far too messy. Olyessa’s people, or any splinter group with enough weapons power, could come in and take it from him before he had time to get settled.” He was still shaking his head. “No, I don’t think he would.”
“And Jez,” said Tae, still frowning. “I can hack into the gambling algorithms if I need to, but I couldn’t possibly write something that would fool the dealers. If we’re going to fix it, we’d need someone who knows how to cheat so well it’s almost undetectable. And—” he glanced towards the door to Jez’s room. “And, assuming she survives her hangover, I think we actually have that.”
Ysbel took a deep breath, and chuckled softly. “Well,” she said. “I’m glad we figured this out. But I’m not certain that Masha knew exactly what she was getting into when she asked Jez to get information. In fact, I think Masha—”
The lock clicked, and the door swung open. “Masha what?” came Masha’s mild voice, a hint of sharpness underneath it. “And may I ask who has been drinking something in here that’s so strong I can smell it from the hallway? I thought Jez was out gathering information tonight.”
They exchanged glances.
“You—might want to sit down, Masha,” said Lev at last, pulling out a chair. “We—may have found a solution.”
Masha took a seat, eyebrows raised slightly. “I—see. And dare I ask where Jez—”
From Jez’s room came the unmistakable sound of someone being violently sick into a bucket.
“I—don’t think you’d better,” said Ivan carefully, shaking his head.
Ysbel looked up with amusement when Jez finally staggered out of her room, late in the afternoon. The pilot looked like she’d been dragged along the concrete behind a skybike for a few kilometres.
“Hello, you idiot,” Ysbel said. “I was wondering if you were still alive.”
Jez gave a faint groan and collapsed onto the couch, wincing at the movement. “Not sure I want to be,” she muttered.
Ysbel pushed herself to her feet. “Here,” she said, crossing over to the couch. She dropped two pain tablets into the pilot’s hand. “I thought you might want these.”
“Not sure they’ll be enough,” Jez muttered. She popped them into her mouth and swallowed them dry.
“You know,” Ysbel said, shaking her head in amusement. “It’s easier not to get hangovers if you don’t get drunk.”
Jez groaned something weakly that might have been a swear word.
“Jez.” Lev came over and knelt beside the couch, a mixture of concern and irritation on his face. “Drink some water. It’ll help.”
Jez opened her eyes a crack and glared at him.
He sighed. “Come on. Here.” He handed her a glass of water. She managed a long drink, then dropped back onto the couch, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You could talk a little softer, you plaguer,” she muttered.
“We could,” said Ysbel, not bothering to lower her voice, “but then, the rest of us don’t seem to mind.”
Jez winced, and glared at her.
Ysbel grinned.
By the time Tae and Ivan had gathered, Jez was sitting up, still scowling and blinking.
Masha hadn’t come. She didn’t seem to be available to come these days, and Ysbel had seen the concern on Lev’s face when she’d politely refused.
Still, there wasn’t much they could do about Masha at this point.
Tanya slipped out of their room and glanced around the table. For a moment she looked unsure of where to sit, and Ysbel’s heart squeezed in her chest.
And then she gave Ysbel a small smile, and slid into the seat next to her, and Ysbel tried not to let her sudden sick panic show on her face.
Were they really as far apart as all that?
Just long enough to get this done, and then things could go back to how they had been.
But something inside her whispered that how things had been might have been an illusion all this time. Something was broken, and it went much deeper than just a disagreement.
And she didn’t know, anymore, how to fix it, and keep her family safe at the same time.
She took a deep breath. “Alright,” she said gruffly as the others took their seats. “Lev, I assume you have a plan?”
Lev glanced around the table. “Yes. I may have something that will work, based off what we talked about last night.”
Jez blinked up at him painfully. “Hey. Genius. You want to tell the rest of us what we talked about last night?”
He sighed. “Jez. You were the one who was doing the talking.”
She managed a self-satisfied look. “Yeah? Well, figure it wouldn’t have been a very good night if I could remember any of it.”
He sighed again. “Alright. Fine. I’ll go through it again for those of us—” he shot her a flat look, “who were so smashed that they have zero recollection of anything tha
t happened in the past twenty-four hours.”
Jez managed a smirk. “I remember some things. Like, I’m pretty damn sure I cheated Nikoli out of a hell of a lot of credits.” She got a slightly dreamy look on her face. “Not sure I remember a whole lot after that, to be honest, but that was some good stuff he bought us. Should ask him the name of it sometime.”
Tae rolled his eyes, and Ysbel let out a long breath.
To be perfectly honest, she wasn’t sure how the pilot was upright, after how she’d looked last night.
But—she shook her head grudgingly. In fairness, Ivan was right. She’d actually managed to pull it off, despite the fact that “it” was something so absolutely ridiculous that no one other than Jez would have considered it.
“Jez. You told us that Grigory planned to rig the gambling, so that as the rounds progressed, the people he wanted to get rid of would end up in the side of the casino ship that he plans to blow up.”
Jez looked mildly impressed. “I said all that? While I was that drunk?”
“No,” said Lev resignedly. “You didn’t. We had to put a lot of slurred rambling together to get there.”
Jez gave another self-satisfied smirk. “Alright, so now we know that, what’s the plan?”
“That’s what Ysbel just asked,” said Lev patiently. He looked up at the rest of them. “Alright. So, we need to somehow mess with how they’re going to rig the game.” He paused, as if bracing himself. “Jez,” he said flatly. “I don’t suppose you have any idea about how they’re going to do it?”
She frowned, then winced. “Maybe when my damn head stops feeling like someone’s pounding on it with a damn mallet,” she muttered. “But it’s probably going to be something they do from inside the gambling hall. I’d guess rigged tokens, but—” She shrugged, and winced again. “And you could talk a little softer, you damn plaguer.”
Lev rolled his eyes, but lowered his voice. “Alright. So we’ll have to figure that out. The point is, between what Tae and Ivan have found, I should be able to figure out where we need to change things to wreck their system. And then all we’ll have to do is send someone in who can beat their game.”