by Dan Abnett
Rash scowled.
"Yeah. And it sounds exactly what some Bloc spy would say too," Rash replied. "We know they were deep inside us before this shit went down. We know they were in place and ready to move. Stands to reason they would've been in amongst us too."
"Oh, come on, Rash," said Falk. "Think about it."
"You're looking me in the eye and telling me you're not a Bloc insert?"
"Yes, Rash. That's what I'm doing."
"You're not a spy?"
Harder to answer. Much harder. No way to control affect.
"I'm not a spy," said Falk.
"You can't even lie to me properly," said Rash. "You bastard, I can see it in you. You can't even lie."
"Rash, don't be a dumb fuck about this," said Falk. "If I'm what you say, why would I have done any of the shit I've done this last day or so?"
Rash didn't answer.
"Would I have brought Kilo in shooting at the hortiplex? Would I have gone for Masry's whole insane hopter plan to get us out? If I was a Bloc insert, I'd have walked you into a hot pocket trap, or just sat on you and brought trouble your way."
Rash stared at him, then walked out of the room. Falk looked at Preben.
"What do you think?" Falk asked. "Is he just stepping out to get a long run up?"
Preben grinned. He dropped the Koba onto the end of the bed. The weight of it wobbled the mattress. Then he handed Falk his PDW and utility knife.
"You scared genuine crap out of me talking Bloc like that," he said quietly.
"Scared the crap out of me," Falk smiled. "What did you do with those girls?"
They were in the walk-in closet, hunched in the far corner.
"Come on," Falk said. "Come on out. We'll talk."
They looked at him, sullen and unwilling.
"It's okay," he nodded.
They got up.
"It's okay," he said again.
"That's fucking freaky," Preben whispered to him. "The way you're saying that stuff."
"I know," Falk whispered back.
"Where do you want to take them?" asked Rash.
"Where are Valdes and Mouse?"
"In the main room. The lounge."
"Let's take them back down to the annexe," said Falk. "That's where they were living. Let's offer them some food, something to drink, and make some for ourselves too. Maybe they'll talk more if they're more comfortable."
Rash nodded. They led the three women down the hall and descended by the back staircase. The blonde was clearly the boss. She was keeping the others together, one strong lean arm locked around the shoulders of the smallest, a redhead, like she was a baby sister. The other girl, a tall, too-thin brunette, was about the same age as the blonde, and kept in her shadow, head down. The redhead still carried a little adolescent weight in her face and body. The brunette would have been a catwalk waif if she only stepped out and put her head back. The blonde just had a dense power, like a fighter.
"What are your names?" Falk asked. There was a little fusion ring in the kitchen space of the annexe, and Preben boiled some water in a glass jug. On the counter, there was an open catering drum of coffee-effect. The girls sat on a little bench seat under the window and stared at him.
"Names?" he repeated.
"Ask them if they have any papers," said Rash. "IDs, brooches, documents, anything like that."
Falk repeated the question in Russian.
"They took them," the blonde answered, tilting her chin up to release the words, like her mouth had recoil.
"Who did? Who took them?"
"Popa," she said, more quietly. "Popa and the men."
"So you had papers, but they were taken from you? And these papers showed you all to be citizens of the Central Bloc?"
A nod.
"With travel permits to Eighty-Six via where? One of the polar fiefs?"
Another nod.
"But no visa, I'm guessing, or entry waiver for the US Northern Territories? The places where the good work and the real money is?"
She shook her head.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Tal," she said.
"Hello, Tal. Someone, this Popa maybe? They promised they could get you into US territory, didn't they? They said they could get you and your friends over the border, line you up with some work, cash in hand. In return, you had to give them your IDs."
"Yes."
"How much?"
"Six hundred each. Well, four and half for Lenka, because she's younger." She indicated the redhead.
"They said we'd make twenty times that back in a couple of months."
"What kind of work did they describe?" asked Falk.
"Bar work. Waitressing in a small town. ProFood, you know. Maybe farm working."
"And what did it actually turn out to be?"
"You know what it turned out to be," she said.
Preben was pouring the hot water into mugs, stirring in the powder. The clink-clink of the spoon was somehow prosaic and irritating. Falk looked at Rash.
"They were trafficked," he said. "Brought in over the border in the north, maybe down through Antrim on the highway run. A promise of summer work. But it was forced sex labour."
Rash thought about it.
"Here?" he asked.
"This happen here?" Falk asked the blonde.
"We were at another place first for a few weeks, down in the valley by the highway, a farm. Then they brought us here."
"How long ago?"
"Four months."
"Why didn't they leave?" asked Rash. "Ask them that."
"Why didn't you leave?"
"We had no papers," said the blonde. "They didn't give us no money. We had no clothes for outdoors. We didn't know where we were. They also threaten us and beat us. Popa or one of his men were here all the time."
"Is Popa Russian?"
She shook her head.
"No, he is US, like you."
"Where is the guard now? Why are you here alone?"
"Four days ago, the man who was here got a celf message. He left in a hurry. He said he would be back in three hours, he said we had to stay here and there would be big trouble if we didn't stay here. He said Popa would find us, and cut our faces. But he never came back, and no one ever came back. And we didn't know what to do."
"So you hid?"
She nodded.
Falk told Preben and Rash what she'd said.
"I've seen this kind of thing before," said Rash. "On Eighty. Migrants looking for work, trying to stay off the grid. No one misses them. I haven't seen it with Bloc nationals before, but it doesn't surprise me. They answer an ad, talk to some guy in a bar, next thing they know, they're a prisoner somewhere."
"Come on, they could just walk out. Run away," said Preben.
"Out here?" asked Rash. "This kind of edge is perfect. No one around for miles. Through traffic, mostly men. No questions. The drivers who come to the depot, the seasonal field workers? They want a beer-effect, a bed and a fuck. It's economics. Supply and demand."
"That old frontier spirit," said Falk. "Sweat and toil and rough justice. Good old-fashioned values."
"You don't think this is about girls, do you?" asked Preben.
"Think what is about girls?" asked Falk.
"This war," he replied. "You don't think the Bloc has come in mob-handed because a bunch of settlementeer farmers have got hold of some girls?"
"You're a fucktard sometimes, Preben," said Falk. "This is just normal shit that happens. The Bloc doesn't care about these women any more than the US does. They're victim statistics."
"There is a connection, though," said Rash. "The frontier between us and the fief is clearly pretty porous, at least in terms of the black market. It suggests pipeline routes that could be used to get other people over the line. The inserts. The Bloc forces were embedded in the region, waiting to go live. It's probably how they got in."
Falk nodded.
They established that the girls were called Milla, Lenka and Tal.
Milla was the tall brunette. Lenka, the baby sister, didn't seem to want to do anything except cry without making a sound.
Falk took a coffee-effect and sat talking to Tal in the kitchenette for a while.
"Do you know what this place is?"
"Popa said it was going to be a house for an important man. This man, he had put a claim in for the whole area, for the land, and had gone ahead and started building. But the claim had been turned down, or something. So the building was left. The man was very cross."
"Do you know the man's name?"
She shook her head.
"I was never told, but we saw some documents when we first came here, and they had a name on that was Seberg."
"They used the house because it was empty?"
"Because it was empty, and it had some class. Popa said he could get more money bringing men to a better venue. I think the man who owned this house, he had been in business with Popa, and with the men on our side who had sold us over. They all worked in mining, and in shipping."
"So the men who came here, they were drivers? From the highway? Farmers?"
"Some, but most were miners. Mining engineers. You know? Prospectors. They were working in the area. They came in for a month or two at a time."
"Bloc citizens?"
"Yes, and also US. From both sides."
Falk listened to the rain on the skylights.
"They bring in other girls with you?"
"I've seen some," she said. "Some brought in at other times. They didn't keep us all together."
Falk took out his glares, zipped through the playback, froze on a decent frame and handed them to her to put on.
"Do you recognise her?" he asked.
She looked strange with her head up and the glares on, as if staring at something invisible in front of her face.
"I don't know her," she said.
"Okay."
"But I recognise the man with her."
"You do?" he asked.
Tal nodded and handed the glares back.
"He came here sometimes. He was a customer."
Falk put the glares on and looked at the frozen image he'd shown her. A moment from Smitts's clip. The girl who had shot him and a big dark-haired man, crouching together in the open hatch of Pika-don, backlit by fierce white light. A second later, they would get up and come towards the camera.
"Definitely him?"
"Yes."
"Know his name?"
"No."
"Was he Bloc or US?"
"He was Bloc," said Tal, "but he pretend to be US. His accent was good, but I did not think it was that good. It was like yours. I could tell it was fake."
"He was ling patched."
"What is that?" she asked.
He shook his head as though it didn't matter. "So he was made to sound US."
"I heard Popa call him a business associate. I heard someone else say he worked on local farm. His hands smelled of plant food. Not nice."
"What was it Popa did? Do you know? Apart from running girls, I mean?"
"Popa said he worked at fuel depot. He work for RP."
She looked at him.
"You asked me about the girl first," she said. "Why?"
"She shot me."
"She shot you?" Her voice was tinged with disbelief.
"This is a bullet hole," he said, pointing at his face.
She leaned towards him, squinting, staring at the wound.
"A bullet went in there?"
"Yeah."
"How are you living still?"
"Beats the hell out of me."
She peered even closer, fascinated. "It hurts you?"
"Yes," he said. "Don't touch it."
She pulled back sharply.
"I wasn't going to," she said. "I don't touch a man again."
She got up and walked towards the counter.
"Do you want another drink?" she asked. "I want another drink."
"I'm fine," said Falk.
"What is happening here?" she asked. "We heard bombs earlier. And then this hopter came in very close."
"There's a war," said Falk. "And it's started for real."
Falk went out into the spacious living room. Valdes was napping on one of the plastic-wrapped couches. Bigmouse was sitting back on another. He looked asleep too, but he was stiff and awkward, and his skin was waxy. Falk knelt beside him, trying not to disturb him. His breathing was shallow and laboured, and when Falk listened close, he could hear an unpleasant crackling sound deep in his chest.
It was beginning to get dark outside, and the rain cover was steeping the advancing gloom. Outside, in the twilight, he could see Rash and Preben walking the edge of the house perimeter, looking down the valley at the highway area.
In the kitchenette of the annexe, Milla had lit a candle in a cup.
"Keep it away from the windows," he told her. Tal was asleep on the bench, with Lenka curled up on the seat beside her, her head in Tal's lap. Falk walked through into the small, scruffy bedroom they shared, and pulled the door closed behind him.
"Cleesh?" he said, quietly.
There was no reply.
"Cleesh?"
This time, there were a few sideways sounds, beetle clicks, amphibious burblings.
"Cleesh?"
He sat down on the unmade bed. The girls had presumably shared the bed for warmth. Things had accumulated around and under it: candle stubs, food wrappers, a few dirty clothes. There were books too, colourful picture books taken, he presumed, from the child's bedroom upstairs. He picked one of them up. He hadn't seen any other books in the house, but he presumed the girls had chosen it because it didn't have the impenetrable slabs of English-language text a novel might contain. Simple bold captions in block type ran across attractive and arresting photographs.
Our Great Adventure it said on the cover. The words were superimposed on an image of a man in a First Era space suit, performing an EVA, free-floating beside a capsule in near-Earth orbit. The Earth was partly reflected in the oversized, gold-tinted dome of his helmet. He looked helpless, adrift, like a bloated dead man floating in a rip tide. The red acronym of his launch agency was embossed across the chest plate of his obese, snow-white suit. The shadows were hard, the light was hard, there was a lack of diffusion, a kind of purity.
Inside, the words and pictures told a simple version of the first milestones of post-terrestrial expansion. The Space Race. Falk had forgotten it had ever been called that. Such a glib thing to call it, so cheerful and optimistic. As he understood it, there had been no gentlemanly fair play. Just three global superpowers locked in a ruthless, often reckless, competition to establish domains beyond the terrestrial limits. Two of them, the US and the Bloc, had essentially used the First Era to pursue and expand their Cold War rivalry through technological superiority and brash endeavour.
There were the great moments he remembered from his own childhood picture books, the building blocks that had led to the real acceleration into the First Expansion. Vostok and Gemini. Glenn and Leonov. Shepherd and Gagarin. The Soyuz, Apollo and Long March programmes. The launches. The orbits. The spacewalks and the launch pad fires. The most memorable shot of all, the indelible image of the first man on the moon. Virgil Grissom, June 1967.
"Falk?"
He started, dropped the book.
"Cleesh? Where did you go?"
"Same problem as before, sorry," she said.
He closed his eyes, slipped into the darkness to make listening easier.
"I've got a little info for you," she said. "I've been listening. Sorry. Hard not to. I've located you on the SO land registry. Pretty sure I have, anyway. There was a Grayson Seberg working for Resource Provision here on Eighty-Six. He was an operations director. When the coast sections and Gunbelt Highway range opened up for development, he lodged about four hundred private purchase bids for land parcels in the area."
"That's a lot."
"It is, though it's not unusual for a senior exec who's close to retirement
and wants to invest heavily in a developing settlement. Seberg was part of a little cartel, in fact. Private speculators, several of them with backgrounds in mineralogy and earth science. I think those thirty years spent working for RP in a developing market like this showed him the smart investments were mineral rights and mining infrastructure. He took his retirement fund from RP, and chose the Gunbelt Range. Set up a little company called Ocean Exploratory."