by Alex Kings
“A delicious idea!”
“And then …” Ikki paused, her brow creased in concentration, her tail twitching with excitement, and looked across the party. “And then let's rob them all blind!”
“A wonderful idea!” said Rayne.
They grabbed each other's hands and twirled once.
“Fire twirlers first!” said Ikki, bounding off.
*
For the next ten minutes, Olivia and Mero floated about along with the other staff while guests took drinks and food from their trays. Eloise moved about with an easy grace, chatting and laughing with the other guests.
“What's up with those two?” Mero asked as he walked past Olivia. He nodded to a couple of Petaurs who were bounding up and down the tables, stopping intermittently to sample the food and have lightning-fast exchanges with each other. They seemed to be entirely in their own world, occupied solely with each other, and not interacting with any of the other guests.
“At least they're providing a distraction,” said Mero.
Eventually, Olivia saw Eloise excuse herself from a conversation and head for Egliante. Olivia and Mero followed slowly, to make it look as if they were just circulating.
Egliante was still surrounded by a small circle of hangers-on, telling a story to sycophantic laughter:
“ … a naïve little entrepreneur type, all starry eyed about the fortune he was going to make. He's actually done quite well too! Told me right to my face about how he was going to change things on Volpone, get rid of the 'sclerotic aristocracy'. Right to my face!”
The crowd laughed.
Egliante threw his empty champagne flute behind him and swiped another from Olivia's tray without looking at her, then continued, “Perfectly innocent. But you can't let disrespect like that stand. So I had to destroy him. I undercut each of his ventures, one by one, then bought them out and gutted them. Poor little thing didn't know what had hit him!”
The crowd laughed and clapped. All, that was, except Eloise. Olivia could tell this caught Egliante's attention.
Instead, Eloise stepped forward towards him, as if the circle weren't there, and said, “Can I just say how much it pleases me to see a man stand up for his integrity like that. You're quite right. Disrespect can't be allowed to stand, even on small scales like that. Otherwise it begins to fester – and then where are we?”
A broad smiled crept across Egliante's face. “Indeed, miss. I don't believe I've had the pleasure.”
“Eloise LaBelle. How nice it is to meet you at last, Mr. Egliante.”
Eloise held up her hand. Egliante took it and kissed it.
“Oh, by the Ancestral Abyss,” muttered Mero, quiet enough that only Olivia could hear it.
As they moved apart, Eloise reached out and briefly grasped Egliante's other hand. “I'm sure we shall see each other again.”
“I've no doubt,” said Egliante, with a confident smile.
Eloise sauntered away as if to mingle. Olivia and Mero followed her unobtrusively. When they were on the far side of the garden, they met.
“What a charming man,” Eloise said, plucking at her left wrist. An almost invisibly thin film of material came away from the back of her hand. “And what a joy it will be bankrupt him.”
She took a similar film off her palm, then another two off her other hand. She plucked a specialised stick of smart matter from under her gown, and put the films inside it.
“There we go,” she said, peering at the stick's display. “DNA. All ten fingerprints.” She pulled a final pair of films from her lips. “Glad I didn't have to use these.”
Olivia smirked.
“It's nearly time,” said Mero. “Can we get moving now?”
Chapter 19: Into the Mansion
They hurried to the Mansion's south wing. The third door was evidently a staff entrance. It was hidden in a small alcove at the back of the mansion.
Olivia looked around. There were still a few people round here, but they weren't likely to notice. The staff were all but invisible to them. Eloise was slightly more conspicuous, so she had Mero lead her inside. Anyone who saw a guest sneaking into the back of Egliante's mansion with the help of two serving staff would assume they knew what was going on and avert their gaze.
Mero had chosen well. The staff pass worked – the door slid aside, and the three of them filed in. The corridor was largely undecorated with a pale blue carpet and whitewashed walls.
Nose twitching, Mero looked up and down the corridor. “There,” he said, nodding at a security camera in one corner. They were out of sight, barely.
He reached into the bag and took out a small, transparent circle of smart matter. He gestured at it to activate, then flung it at the camera.
The circle hit the camera, covering it, and stuck. They waited. After a couple of seconds, the circle went dark. It had recorded a five second clip of the empty corridor from the camera's point of view – and now it was playing that clip back on a continuous loop. Unless they were very observant, whoever was watching would notice nothing amiss.
They turned left and strode down the corridor. They'd studied the map well enough to know exactly where to go.
After a couple more turns, they reached a flight of stairs.
“Excuse me. Excuse me!” A human member of staff stood, watching them. “Are you supposed to be here?”
Mero frowned. “Yes, I think so.”
“This is Tommy Egliante's house, isn't it?” Eloise said in a slightly ditzy voice.
“Of course it is,” Olivia said, playing along. She turned to the man confronting them. “Where does Mr. Egliante usually, um, 'entertain'? I was told the third floor –”
The man frowned. His hand went to a tool on his belt. “Who's your supervisor?”
“ … Arruk,” said Olivia, hoping she'd remembered the name right. “Sorry, we're kinda new here. This is the first time we've been asked to do this. And, um, look, if you want to check, could you do it quickly? I hear Mr. Egliante is in a hurry.”
“Am I going to miss my date?” Eloise said, pouting.
The man glared at Olivia and Mero. “You two are in for a reprimand. You always follow strict protocol, even for something like this.” Turning to Eloise and adopting a patronising voice, he went on, “Sorry, miss. I'm sure you're very excited to be here, but Mr. Egliante has very exacting standards.” He patted her hand, then went to activate his comm.
He didn't get the chance. Eloise's fist lanced out, connecting with his chin. The man stumbled back. Mero caught him before he fell against the wall, and Olivia helped him hold the unconscious figure.
“May as well stick him in the vault,” Eloise said. “Come on.”
*
“Hey, Rayne?”
“Yes, Ikki?”
“Did you see that lady with the flower go into the house?”
“I did indeed.”
They two Petaurs had moved onto the third stage of their plan. The inner pockets of their coats were bulging with expensive trinkets lifted from guests.
“I have an idea!” said Ikki.
“Watch the opera?” suggested Rayne.
“Yes! Wait No! Let's go inside the house and steal there!”
“They needed a keycard to get in,” said Rayne.
Ikki reached into her coat, pulled out half a dozen keycards, and threw them in the air. Rayne scrambled to catch a few.
“Let's go!” he said, heading for the little alcove of the mansion's south wing.
Chapter 20: Quality Control
Giant mirrors loomed above the open-air farmland, reflecting the sunlight down and concentrating it, creating a reasonable facsimile of midday. Looking up, Rurthk could see the reflection of the sun, as if it were directly above him.
Real food, real sunlight. That was the selling point of Egliante's banquets. None of that hydroponically grown stuff, or, God forbid, artificially synthesised food. Everything here was naturally grown.
For a certain understanding of natural, anyway. Robo
ts with bundles of extensible arms grasped the trunk of every tree, their limbs snaking up to scan the fruit for ripeness, pick it, and place it on a conveyer. Automated harvesters and processor units ran on tracks above the crops. They took their produce to automated kitchens, where it joined the products of an adjacent slaughterhouse.
All of these outputs came together at the drone stations.
A little over an hour ago, Rurthk had arrived, pretending to be a temp worker. He'd slipped away when no one else was looking and hidden the fake hard drives in one of the drones. Now, while he was waiting for the loot, he kept the aim going. He was part of a small group of workers who served as the first line of quality control. They checked to ensure that the farming system hadn't tried to make soup from bananas and raw sheep brains or the like – which, according to the tale Rurthk was listening to right now, had happened more than once.
He stood near the drone farm beside a Tethyan, who was floating in a globe of water and recounting some of the more interesting technical failures that had beset the farm.
“On the same day,” it said, “we were given several plates of boiled cabbage and jam sandwiches. Apparently that is an unacceptable combination for most humans and Petaurs.”
Rurthk grunted with amusement. “The tree-dwellers always have such weak stomachs.”
“Would you eat it?”
“If there was nothing else going,” said Rurthk. “But I'd prefer the sheep brain thing.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Tethyan. “I have heard the rumour of Glaber having the strongest stomachs.”
“Rumour?” said Rurthk.
“I was once part of the Tethyan Academic Council of Xenobiochemistry. We did a study of cross-species food and environmental compatibility.”
“And where did the Glaber place?” said Rurthk, inspecting another dish the conveyer presented to him.
“The topic is far more complex than can be captured by simple rankings,” the Tethyan said with a touch of pique. “But … second.”
Rurthk took two plates from the conveyors and put them in the cabin of a drone. “I'm not too surprised.”
“Varanid food often includes substances such as copper sulphate and cadmium, which are toxic even to Glaber.”
Rurthk snorted. “Shame. But tell me this. If you were on the Tethyan Academic council for whatever, why are you working as quality control in a farm on Volpone?”
“I was bored,” said the Tethyan. “Besides, while the quality of life on Tethya is the highest in the galaxy, we are sometimes subject to too many rules. After the War of the Ancients, we chose to have a more involved role in the galactic community. But even so, we tend to do so as institutions rather than individuals. I wished to be independent, and see the galaxy on my own terms. And what about you? What brings you here?”
Crime. Rurthk knew very well he couldn't answer literally. But he could still, in a sense, answer honestly: “I'd like to say the same, but really? I'm a lone Glaber. An Isolate. There's nowhere I'm supposed to be, so I just make do as best I can.” He paused. Sometimes it was easier to be honest with strangers than with the people who you were close to. That was one of the universe's great paradoxes.
“I see,” said the Tethyan. It inspected six trays, and then lifted them all together in a bundle of effector fields, manoeuvring them fluidly into three drones. “I wish you the best of luck in finding somewhere you can belong.”
“Cheers, but I don't see that happening,” said Rurthk. “I think I'll just settle for trying to be rich.”
Chapter 21: Oranges
Together they carried the man down two flights of narrow stairs and passed through another locked door with their keycards, finally emerging into a much more ornate corridor. Monochrome photographs lined the walls between gold fittings. This, according to the map, was somewhere Tommy Egliante regularly walked.
The entrance to the vault was unmarked, just one of a dozen oak doors.
“21.32,” Mero said, covering the security cameras with circles of smart matter. “It's just finished a diagnostic. Clock's ticking.”
Eloise tapped at the panel beside the door. “It's asking for identification. Let's hope we've got the right one.” She took out the stick and held it against the sapphiroid scanner below the panel.
The stick was covered with a surface of smart matter. When Eloise activated it, its surface became a fine pattern of ridges – an exact copy of Egliante's fingerprints.
A single green light appeared on the panel
Eloise gestured at the stick's control again.
This time, the stick opened a microscopic cavity in its interior and brought forth a tiny sample of Egliante's DNA, which it brought to the surface and presented to the scanner.
A second green light appeared below the first, and the panel chimed. The door swung open.
Mero covered a camera inside. They dragged the man inside the vault and pushed the door shut without closing it fully.
The computer holding Tommy Egliante's fortune sat in the middle of the room. For all the security it was hiding behind, it looked rather unimpressive. It was a largely featureless box, maybe three feet across, with a dark screen on top.
Mero went round the back of the computer and set his bag down. A barely visible seam outlined an access panel. His nimble fingers danced across the seam, and a moment later the panel popped off.
The shadowy interior of the computer was filled with cloudy crystalline bars and cables. Mero peered inside – he had the most sensitive eyesight out of all of them.
“I think I see it, he said.
“Lower left,” Eloise reminded him.
“Yes, I remember the briefing,” Mero growled slightly. He reached into the computer and seemed to feel about for a few seconds. Then there were a few gentle clicks, and he withdrew a matte black cube, just like the ones they had in the bag. “Don't mix them up,” he growled.
Eloise took Egliante's hard drives from him as he worked, and Olivia handed him the fakes. They both watched the door while he was working.
It took close to a minute of delicate work, but eventually Mero was finished. Eloise loaded the hard drives in the bag and checked her watch. “21.34. We've got eight minutes,” she said.
“Then let's get the fuck out of here,” Mero said, popping the cover back on. “Come on.”
They pulled the unconscious staff member behind the computer, then hurried out of the vault, closing the door behind them.
They made it up the stairs without seeing anyone else, but upstairs the two Petaurs in snakeskin coats came bounding down the corridor. They barrelled into the group, knocking everyone to the ground.
“By the ancestral abyss,” snarled Mero.
Olivia scrambled to her feet.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” cried the female.
“My gravest apologies,” said the male, helping Olivia up. “We didn't see you there.”
“It's fine,” said Eloise. She looked tense, like she had been ready to fight back after an attack.
“Well, we have matters to attend to, and I'm sure you do too,” said the male. “Again, my apologies.”
“It was nice meeting you!” called the female, as they scampered down the corridor.
“What the hells was that about?” said Mero.
“Come on,” said Eloise. “We have to leave.”
They started forward, then Mero hefted the bag and came to a halt. He reached inside, then reverted to the Albascene language to let out a long chain of expletives.
Olivia pulled open the bag and looked inside.
It was full of oranges.
*
Mero flipped about suddenly, grabbing his bolt pistol, and bounded down the corridor on all fours. Olivia and Eloise sprinted after him.
Mero's nose twitched as he trailed the other Petaurs. Going full out, kicking off walls as he turned corners and gliding down corridors, he easily outpaced his human comrades.
In moments, he'd caught up to the other Petaurs. He launched
himself at them, headbutting one and slamming her into the other. They yelped in surprise and fear. Olivia turned a corner just in time to see them fall.
Mero clubbed one with his bolt pistol as he stood, then levelled it at them. They lay in a tangle on the floor, and their eyes widened as they saw him.
“Wait,” cried Olivia.
In that moment, Eloise swept past her, still running. She reached Mero and smacked his pistol to the side as he fired.
The bolt buried itself in the wall.
Eloise had her own bolt pistol out a moment later, trained on the two Petaurs. “Don't move,” she snapped, then turned to Mero. “What's wrong with you?”
“Me?” snarled Mero. “What is wrong with you? They tried to steal from us!”
“That doesn't warrant killing them,” Eloise said. Mero tried to reply, but she spoke over him. “Now you listen here. You live on the Outsider at my sufferance, do you understand? Rurthk and I are willing to overlook your past, but while you're working for us, you play by our rules.”
Mero snarled. “With a payout like this, I won't be living on the Outsider when we're done here, I promise you. And you know, if we lost someone on the mission, I guess that's just less ways to cut the loot.”
Eloise's voice was so soft it was nearly a whisper. “Do you really want to test me, Mero?”
Mero stared at her, teeth bared.
Olivia felt a sudden surge of anger. “We're on the clock here!” she snapped. “As you've both said. Let's go! You can kill each other later.”
Mero looked at her, then snorted. The tension seemed to leave his body. “Agreed,” he said.
Eloise nodded, then turned to the two Petaurs, who were still in a tangle on the floor, cowering. “Give them back,” she said.
The female scrambled under her coat to find the hard drives, giving them back to Mero as he did so. Mero sniffed them, apparently to check if they were the same ones.
“What are you doing here? Are you here to steal from us?” said Eloise.