by Ren Warom
“It means that question time is over,” Spaz says, standing. “A pleasure talking to you both.”
“But …” Stark begins and snaps his mouth shut as Spaz holds up a large, tattooed hand.
“I’ll have one of my people see you out,” he says, and leaves the room.
Stark collapses against the back of his chair, wiping his brow. “Fucking hell.”
“Well, you’re still alive,” Bone says, as caustic as he feels.
Stark blows out. “Yeah. No better off, though.” He slams a fist into his thigh. “Dammit, why is he refusing to help? He knows.”
Before Bone can answer, the door whispers open and a large, burly Establishment guard crooks a finger at them. He leads them through numerous winding corridors to a back exit.
As he opens the door for them, the walking slab of muscle says to Bone in an unexpectedly refined voice, “Spaz says to tell you that you missed a call this afternoon. He says it was important.”
He throws a small salute to Bone and slams the door shut in their faces. Bone drags out his cell and works it with an impatient thumb, waiting to see what call he’s missed and hoping it’s not the one he’s most needed to catch.
“Who was it?” Stark cranes to look.
Bone tuts. “Don’t know yet. Gimmie a sec. It takes time to activate.”
“You had it deactivated?” Stark asks, appalled.
Bone grimaces and snaps in defence, “It’s no fucking use in the sewers, is it?” The screen on his thin, translucent cell lights up, and he scrunches his brow as he reads the number on the screen. Then he yells, “Fucking mother cunt!”
“Who in hell is it?” Stark demands.
“Satyr,” Bone says.
Stark slaps a hand to his forehead. “How long ago?”
“Coupla hours.”
“Ah shit. At least we’re in the Zone already. Let’s hightail it.”
Chapter 33
Deep in the sweating entrails of the Boreholes, Stark and Bone enter the Apex. This time, they’ve no Skat escort, but they’ve been watched closely every step of the way nonetheless. Stark lifts his shirt away with a grimace and tries to tuck it down behind the top of his jacket. Perspiration has seeped in a slow, unstoppable waves from the bottom of his shirt, darkening the fabric of his jacket from collar to shoulder seam. He swears at the sopping stains.
“Thank fuck we don’t do this much; that’s two jackets destroyed.”
“Mine was fine.” Bone checks the leather wrangled about his hips. “Fine now, too. Didn’t you get that other jacket cleaned?”
“Yeah, I got it cleaned.”
“And?”
Stark sniffs. “Seems Boreholes air is full of corrosives that don’t mix well with the kind of fabrics I have my suits run up in, especially when combined with sweat and humidity.”
Bone apes surprise. “You mean your fake, cheapo polyfibre didn’t survive a little Boreholes action?”
Stark grits out, “Who’d have thought?”
“You might want to shell out for something a little more robust in the future,” Bone suggests.
“Fuck off! I’m a cheap bastard.”
“It’s good to know yourself.”
They find Satyr waiting by his operating table, tense as a caged lion. Strapped to the table, motionless and breathing in long, shallow draws, is a male no older than eighteen. Slim and pale, he’s wearing clothes that place him in a sphere of the population for whom a trip down the Boreholes would be an anomaly, to say the least. He has a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, and Bone, ignoring Satyr at first, holds the back of his hand to the glistening expanse.
Bone sighs. “How much have you given him?”
Satyr shrugs, unrepentant. “You missed my call. Couldn’t let him wake too soon.” He holds up a small syringe. “Got something here to pull him out.”
“You sure that much won’t harm him?”
“Won’t be fun,” Satyr admits with a smirk. “But he’s young, fit, in good health. He’ll be all right.”
Stark, who’s pacing fit to dig a grave, stops and snaps, “Let’s just tank him up and get him awake, shall we!”
Satyr cocks a brow at Bone, who moves aside. “Be my guest.”
For two minutes after Satyr shoves that needle into his vein, the boy’s body thrashes and Bone and Satyr press down hard on his limbs and chest to make sure he doesn’t damage himself on the leather straps. When the thrashing ceases, his eyes whip open, dazed but far too aware. Bone leans over and flashes his penlight in and out of each eye.
“Wakey, wakey,” he says.
Breathing in short, frantic puffs, the boy begins to struggle against the straps. “Wha … wha happn’d, why c’n I mov, lemme go.” Despite the lax quality of his face, he’s able to talk almost clearly. Bone takes that as a positive sign.
“Easy there, kid. Our subterranean friend here prevented you from doing something monumentally dumb,” he says.
“I jus’ want’d a tattoo, f’fugg’s sake.”
“Boy,” Stark says, his gruff voice holding all sorts of censure, “that was no simple tattoo.”
“Don’ unnerstand what th’fuck y’r on ’bout,” the boy says and then his face grows mulish. “My paren’s send you? I c’n pay double.” The blurring in his speech is clearing rapidly, a testament to his youth, rather than the quality of whatever was in Satyr’s needle.
Stark leans over the boy. “No, not your parents. This is far more serious than that, boy. He’s Mort, I’m City, and that tattoo was a toe-tag on your skin. We saved your life. Show some fucking gratitude.”
“Gratitude?” The boy’s face flushes red as he struggles against his bonds and indignation wipes the last of the slur from his voice. “If this is what you call saving someone, I’d like to see how you leave them to fucking die.”
Stark’s face shuts down and Bone quickly steps in front of him. “You’re probably best minding your manners with him, he’s had a tough week and it’s only getting tougher. Now, who are you? And I don’t want your tag, I want your name.”
The boy gets a smug little grin on his face, and sneers out, “Harris. Harris Kermody.”
Bone stares in horror and Stark boots the wall of the lab, almost breaking his foot. “A Kermody?” he yells, scowling at Harris, as if he’s being purposefully inconvenient.
“That’s right,” Harris says. “Now let me go.”
Stark closes his eyes for a moment. He looks in pain. “This was a lucky save,” he growls to Bone. “We better keep it that way. Burton couldn’t stop the Kermody’s from starting a very loud and public hunt for our killer if this little nugget of information became public.”
Harris’s grin wipes from his face. “Killer?”
Bone ignores him. “Your tattoo was going to be script. A tag, right?”
“Uh-huh. You said, killer?”
“He was Martyr,” offers Satyr, the amusement level in his voice too high to be accidental.
“Are you shitting me?” Stark spits out. “He was going to be a fucking publicity stunt?”
“Definitely a lucky save,” Bone says, fighting panic because this is not a good development. It feels like Rope breathing down the back of their necks. Up until now, the game’s been played to Burneo’s limitations, but Rope knows Burneo’s not on his team anymore and he’s stepping up the game, seeing how far he can push this before it explodes, taking the Spires with it.
“What about a fucking killer?” Harris shouts the question as a demand.
With no time for charm or diplomacy, Stark answers, “You were one dumb move away from dead. I’ve got a list of victims so long, it gives me vertigo to look at it, and you almost ended up another nameless wonder, rotting in some out of the way hidey-hole we couldn’t find in fucking time.”
The hectic colour in Harris’s cheeks disappears like it’s on a dial spun to zero. His bravado goes with it. He looks exactly what he is, a very scared little boy.
Bone leans in to catch his eye, “Stark here’s g
oing to ask you questions, and you need to answer them honestly. This killer doesn’t give a shit who you are, he just wants you to fucking die, so if you know anything about him, you need to tell us.”
Harris frowns bewilderment, and then laughs, some of his colour, his bravado, returning. “You’re wrong.”
Stark snorts. “We’re not wrong, boy. Our man intends to kill you, no doubt in my mind. If we hadn’t had Satyr hold you here, you’d be halfway dead already and not even realise it. You’re still not one hundred percent safe, not by a long shot.”
Harris looks impatient, surprising them both. “No, it wasn’t a guy who sent me to get this tattoo,” he says to them, scornful. “It was a woman called Lever.”
Bone opens his mouth, but there’s nothing there to speak with. He’s almost thankful when Stark makes a noise of excessive exasperation and demands, “So, give me a description then, boy!”
“Well,” Harris says, pursing his lips. “She was exotic looking, from an Asia-side CSU, but maybe part Euro. She had pale skin, like a Ghoul or a Goth, but natural. She was tall as that fucking pole.” He nods his head at Bone. “Had sexy blue hair and dressed all kinds of bright, like a neon bar sign. And she had these cool surgical fingertips. Gold. She told me they were real. Fucking insane to have real gold on your fingertips.”
Bone’s still speechless. Sucker punched. Lever and Rope, working together? It couldn’t get any worse. Lever said she was freelance, though, and Nathaniel confirmed it. Could a paycheck have pulled her into Rope’s game? If so, then logic dictates he was part of that paycheck. He was aware her finding him in the Wail and the display of transmog were calculated acts, but he hadn’t seen them as entrapment. In fact, after seeing Share and Share Alike, he thought Lever might need his help, but he’s clearly wrong. She was a messenger, and the message was from Rope. Messages in ropes, messages in spirals, messages in shed skin. After the lab and the twins, Bone’s sure the message regards transmog. But sending Lever to him seems overmuch. Flagrant, in fact. What’s Rope trying to say?
He examines his memories of that night from a distance, but looking too close calls shadows of red circles behind his eyes. He can feel his sanity threatening to go reeling after them, and that’s when the pieces click together and make a whole. He came so close to losing his grip. Too close. He’s been walking around, wary of his own mind because he’s still in real danger of losing it. Could Lever have been sent solely to unhinge him? Terror flares through his veins, quicksilver and chill, because it almost worked. But for what reason? He’s no threat to anyone, and he has no idea who Rope might be, yet this whole thing seems to have been about him, designed for him. Why? What in the hell does Rope want with him? He realises he needs to do what he couldn’t after getting his tattoo. He needs to talk to Ebony about Lever. Needs to find a way to track her down. The answers, all of them, lie with Lever.
There’s a tap on his arm and Bone realises Stark’s been talking to him. “Huh?”
Stark narrows his eyes. “Where were you?”
“Wondering how this fits in,” he says quickly.
Stark nods. “Yup. Me, too. Got to be an accomplice. We did wonder how he was recruiting all these victims. Makes sense he’d have someone do it for him. Someone personable.” He turns to Harris. “When did you meet her?”
“A month ago,” he says, his bravado dulling back to fear as he realises it’s misplaced. “I was at a party in the Lakes. She wasn’t the usual sort you find there. It’s an exclusive crowd. She bought me a beer.”
“She hit on you?” Stark demands and there’s a look on his face suggesting he knows she did, and why.
“Hey,” Harris says, unsettled, “I’m a Kermody, man. It happens. But we ended up talking, instead.”
“And that’s when she told you about the tag?” Stark asks.
“Yeah, that’s right. She was a Zone activist. Gang. She was talking about the Notary introducing enforcement laws: genetic barcoding, military checkpoints and scans, that sort of shit. Like you get in other cities. The kind of shit we’ve always avoided here. The kind we don’t want. Her group are gathering people from across the Spires, people willing to remove all identifying mods as a form of mass protest.”
Stark snorts. “And you bought that?”
Harris frowns. “New legislation is supposed to be in response to gang troubles moving into more heavily populated areas, yeah? But if they only need to keep track of gang movements, why punish the rest of us? What we choose to do with our bodies is not the Notary’s business. This isn’t any old fucking city in the CSU, it’s the Spires.”
“So, you joined because you’re morally opposed to enforcement, right?” Stark sounds as if he thinks it’s more to do with rebellion against the his parents than any conviction. Bone’s inclined to agree.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Said with too much defensiveness, all but shouting an affirmative to the suspicion of rebellion.
“Why come to have your tag now, then?” Stark asks. “Why not go straight away?”
Harris is pale again, beginning to shake. “She said if the Notary found out, we’d be shut down. So, she took my stream info and said someone would contact me when it was my turn to go in.”
“So, when exactly did that happen?” Stark asks, and there’s poison in it, as he’s guessed none of this is going to help them. Rope’s outsmarted them yet again.
“I got my notification yesterday,” Harris answers. “I was given a time to come for my tag, what the tag would be, and told where to pick up my cash to pay for it.”
Stark looks at Satyr. “They were booked in?”
“Yeah.”
“And you chose to hold this back from us?” Stark takes a step towards him, bunching his fists.
“They were booked in on my online system,” Satyr says, as if he’s speaking to an idiot. “It doesn’t tell me names unless they type one in. It doesn’t usually matter. I fill out a form when they get here. But this time, with these tattoos, it was all cash and tags, and like I said before, I don’t question cold, hard cash in large amounts.”
Stark’s muscles bunch and flex under his damp shirt. “Fine,” he says through his teeth. Then to Harris, “Pick up cash, you said?”
“Yeah, from a PO Box in Lower Mace, by Cary and Fifth. I can show you, if you need it.”
Stark swears again. “No, I know it. And then?”
“I had to come get the tag done. Then there’s an appointment in two days with an Apex surgeon called Trax to have my surgical and gen mods removed.” Harris looks unsure even saying that bit. It’s clear his rebellion might not have been enough to cover that step, but it wouldn’t be enough to save him. The clue is in the tag. Rope means for Harris to be the victim to break the Notary’s impasse. “That bit’s kinda fucked up. My mods––they’re me, but if we left any mods in, then we’d still have ID, which kinda misses the point.” He tries to make it sound offhand, but the fear is too strong to be hidden. “After that, Lever’ll deal with the records wipe, and I’m gone.”
Stark lets out a furious shout. He leans in close to Harris and grates out. “Trax?”
“Leave the kid be, Stark,” Bone says. He raises his brows at Satyr. “Trax?”
Satyr shrugs. “Good surgeon. Too good for the Apex, but he came here nonetheless. Arrived under a cloud a few years back.”
“A cloud? We need a little more than that, Satyr.”
“Might have been struck off from the Piers for a bit of malpractice,” Satyr says smoothly. “You’ll want to investigate a little scandal involving anaesthetised rape.”
Stark growls. “I know the son of a bitch. But he wasn’t Trax, then; he went by the name of Carmichael. Got a friend from High Court worked that case for a while. The good doc took advantage of some Spires elite offspring, some of ’em only pre-teens. Families in question threw the book at the cunt, but he managed to slither away.” He grins, feral, adding with relish, “I’ll be having a word with this Trax.”
“No, you
won’t,” Satyr says without any doubt whatsoever. “He’s protected. Got himself a contract for doing Establishment surgicals. Private consultations. He was always connected. A little scandal can’t dent that sort of clout, and you know he won’t be doing that sort of shit again, not if he doesn’t want to die imaginatively. Pretty sure his contract demanded he submit to as many types of castration as Spaz saw fit, even before he began practising. Gang don’t mess about.”
Stark grinds his teeth. “What the fuck can we do, then?” he snarls, a wealth of pain behind the fury. “This cunt’s got one of my team and a whole ream of victims, some of whom may still be alive and in desperate need of being found. I need to catch him, but there’s fuck all I can do because everywhere we turn, we come up against brick walls. My nose is beginning to feel like a fucking pancake.”
Bone grips Stark’s arm. “You’ll find Tress; you’ll be in time.”
“I don’t know it, not any more. I’m lost, Bone. I’m losing. Bastard’s got me beat again.”
A savage mix of emotion curls from Stark. It’s alarming to watch, even more alarming to be in proximity. Too much relies on Stark remaining in control.
“Tress knows the score,” Bone tells him. “She’s City, just like you. You’ve got to stay focused. If you lose it, then she’s definitely lost, and you will never get a second chance to make that right.”
Stark holds Bone’s gaze for a long moment, secrets whispering at the back of those black eyes of his like flickering apparitions. But there’s also steel, and Bone sees that he’s touched some unknowable core in Stark, drawn something from that deep well to the surface.
“I appreciate that, brother,” Stark says, the intensity still present, but subdued, reined in. “It was required.”
Bone nods. “I’m betting Trax has no more record of these sorry bastards than Satyr has, so he’s a lost cause, anyway.”
Satyr nods at that. “You’re better off getting Martyr here––” he points a finger at Harris, his smile mocking “––to safety, if he’s got some fucker after killing him.”
“Yeah,” Stark admits, gravel voice filled with irritation, and says to Bone, “We can check Harris’s stream at my HQ and track the message from Lever to a source. It’ll probably be a dummy account, but it’s a start. I also need to catch up with Suge and touch base with Faran’s Buzz Boys, see what those spirals have given us in the way of body count.” He looks miserable again for a moment. “I told him to call if we found one still alive.”