“Can you track him, Jumper?”
“Are you kidding? With that perfume she, uh…he had on, I’d think even you could follow him with your pitiful human nose. The jerk must not have access to all of Wolf’s memories, or he’d know not wear so much stinky stuff with an expert tracker like me on the job.”
Even with her olfactory augmentations, her senses couldn’t match the cat’s. He slipped into the undergrowth and she followed, trying to keep his fuzzy backside in sight. Occasionally she came across broken branches and trampled plants that told her a person moving quickly had come through here, and not long ago. Either she was able to discern a trace of his perfume on the night air, or something nearby bloomed with a sickly sweet odor.
The dripping canopy closed over her head, dangling leaves and aerial roots brushing against her face, leaving trails of dampness that made her skin crawl. The odor of corruption intensified. Ahead of her, Jumper sneezed.
Fitz stilled and listened. Only the clicking of a large white-winged creature echolocating through the heavy undergrowth broke the buzzing of insects. She started moving again. To her enhanced hearing she sounded as loud and out of place as an arkobeast in an art gallery.
Still nothing on thermal.
Ahead, the trees began to thin. A wave of scent flooded her olfactory systems, an odor of death so thick it clung to the inside of her nostrils and choked her. She fought to keep from gagging.
“Look out, Boss Lady. Up ahead.”
She heard the cat’s warning at the same time she spied the tall flash of silver through the branches. More reflex than thought, she fired three times. As she leaped forward into a clearing, a spray of warm foulness splashed across her face. Not blood, but whatever it was she had no doubt it was the source of the rotting corpse smell. It clung to her skin and clumped in her hair. Her eyes burned. She pawed at her face, falling to her knees and retching until she thought her stomach would turn inside out. Jumper broke into a long spasm of sneezing.
Remembering her exposed position, she shut down her olfactory systems and scuttled back to the cover of the undergrowth. A quick scan of the open area and the forest around it revealed no heat sources large enough to be her target. That should have warned her. She had checked her thermal only seconds before she spotted the jump suit and should have known there wasn’t a body inside it, but she’d fallen for his trick.
A single, ugly plant dominated the clearing. Fleshy, spotted leaves, each as long as a human, formed a flat rosette at its base. Two meters of thick bloom spike protruded from its center. The shooter had tied the arms of the silver outfit around the stalk, creating the illusion of a person standing, good enough to fool someone into shooting first without waiting for identification. And, like a first year cadet, she’d jumped into his trap with both feet. Now, smelling like a week old corpse, sneaking up on him would be impossible.
She noticed the spike-heeled boots abandoned nearby, and a trail of barefoot prints cooling in thermal lead along a narrow path that curved back toward the main walkway. She’d lost too much time here. If stealth was out of the question now, speed would have to do.
“Let’s go, Jumper.”
“Gak, that’ll sure get rid of your hairballs.” He scrubbed a paw against his muzzle, then raced ahead of her.
At the walkway, her quarry had turned left toward the fountain and the back of the garden, confirming her suspicion that he would try to escape through the service entrance. Before they reached the fountain, though, the trail simply ended—no thermal trace, no disturbance in the dirt. The hairs on her arms prickled as she scanned around. “Where?”
The cat studied the branches overhead. “Up. He’s gone into the trees.”
To her right, the raucous cries of birds erupted, signaling something had disturbed them. On thermal, ghostly blobs of color wove through the forest as the creatures scattered. Her quarry was trying to work his way behind her. He must have doubled back in hopes of ambushing her and stumbled across a flock of sleeping birds. Fitz sprinted for the fountain. There was cover there, and she’d be between him and his way out. He’d have to come to her.
First she had to cross the open grassy area around the fountain, but that would only be a matter of a few blurred seconds at hyperkinetic speed. The crystal and plexisteel statue of a quolla rose from the fountain’s pool. In daylight, on yesterday’s inspection of the garden’s security, the abstract sculpture had looked more like a waddling turkzard, but in the shadows the thing seemed all teeth and claws.
She could take cover behind the low stone wall surrounding the pool and wait for him. A curving jumble of rocks ringed the back of the pool, hung with moss and plants. Water splashed over the leaves and boulders into the pool, creating a white noise that drowned out the sounds of movement around her.
She didn’t hear the running steps hard on her heels, didn’t realize how close he was until Jumper screamed in her mind.
“Behind you, Boss Lady.”
Shots kicked up grass and dirt around her and exploded off the wall, sending showers of rock fragments across the side of her face. Jumper yowled. She dodged to the left, but a bolt caught her high on the back, burning through muscle and exiting below her right collar bone. Pain flashed down her arm as she fell to her knees. Her fingers spasmed and she dropped the pistol. Fitz scurried across the grass to reach it with her other hand, but the assassin beat her to the weapon and kicked it away.
She turned to face him, scuttling backward until her injured shoulder scraped against the pool’s retaining wall, sending a jolt of pain through her. He stalked her, then stood over her, pistol aimed at her skull. The skin between her eyes crawled with expectation and then…nothing. He just stared at her, unmoving, though nothing of the man she loved showed in his face.
Inside her head the symbiont buzzed, sluggish in its reaction. The wound burned, but there was none of the twitching, squirming sensations she’d come to associate with the organism’s healing powers. She dumped all the elixir left in her pharmacopeia, but it was only a single hit. In the rush of preparing for the event, she’d relied on it too heavily and had neglected to refill it—again. That single hit was all she had, and it wasn’t enough.
“You shouldn’t have come after me, Gray Eyes.” The voice was Wolf, but the accent had a flat, South Branbrian twang. The black of the armorcloth undersuit blended his body into the shadows, except for the pale splash of his face, hands, and feet. Dark hair hung in tangles around his face.
The barrel of the pistol eased downward, away from her head, but his hand seemed to fight against every centimeter as it moved away from his intended target. The red dot of the sighting laser appeared on her chest, then her stomach, but it danced as if the hand holding it was palsied. His teeth sunk into his lower lip until blood appeared, but still he didn’t fire.
The high-pitched buzz of an Acton broke the stalemate, but the assassin’s accelerated awareness allowed him to dive out of the way as a bolt burned through the spot he’d occupied milliseconds before. More shots followed as Donkenny raced toward them, laying down a barrage of fire.
Setting her teeth against the pain, Fitz lunged for the assassin’s leg, but he eluded her, disappearing around the fountain toward the service entrance behind it. She screamed as much from frustration as the wound.
Donkenny knelt beside her. “How bad?”
“I’ll live. He’s getting away.” She fumbled with the front panel on her dress, trying to rip it away to use to stop the bleeding.
“I’ve seen enough wounds on Wolf to know that should be closing up by now. What’s wrong?” He pulled a knife, sliced through the silk, and pressed it against her shoulder.
“Nothing. You have to stop him. Getting through the exit will slow him down enough for you to catch up with him. Go.”
Doubt filled the merc’s dark eyes. “I don’t feel right leaving you…”
“Either you stop him, or I will.” Fitz tried to push to her feet. Had twenty-five years as Wolf’s protég
é instilled Fenton Donkenny with that same damnable antiquated sense of chivalry?
He started to rise. “No, you stay here…”
The night erupted into a flash of light and noise. An explosion sent chunks of rock, plants, and water sleeting across the fountain, pulverizing the quolla statue in a cloud of whirling crystal and plexisteel shards. The force of the blast had blown toward the front of the fountain, but needle-sharp debris rained down on them, slicing exposed skin and bruising flesh. The force dome groaned, flickered, and more alarms began to bleat.
Donkenny helped Fitz up. “He must have blown the entire damn entrance. Leave it to Wolf. Even if he’s not himself, he still doesn’t do things halfway.” He removed his cape, draped it around her, and bent to retrieve her weapon. He handed it back to her, then stopped and glanced around.
“Wasn’t Jumper with you?”
Fitz remember the cat’s wail as the assassin opened fire on them, and a cold sense of dread locked around her chest. No, not the little guy! She couldn’t take another loss, not now. What would she tell Faydra?
“Jumper!” she screamed, but only the mindless howling of the alarms answered her.
CHAPTER NINE
The Nameless Man grabbed handfuls of his hair, pulled it away from his head and sawed through the offending locks with his knife, throwing the tangled strands as far away as his enhanced muscles could hurl them. That belonged to The Other, and he wanted it gone from his body.
It’s my body now. My body.
He hacked until nothing remained on the top and sides of his head but an uneven, dark stubble with pale roots already beginning to appear close to his scalp. A short tail at the back hid the thing in his skull. Through the remaining strands of hair, he brushed the smooth metal of the spike’s housing. He seemed to feel that shaft of plexisteel inside his head, penetrating his skull, invading his brain.
Just pull it out, the voice in his mind whispered. Then this will all be over. Do it.
He hesitated, fingers brushing the metal housing. It would be so easy. Just twist the knurled ring and that alien object inside his brain would eject and he’d be free.
I’ll be dead.
Gone like a bit of deleted computer memory. He dropped his hand. No, that was what The Other wanted, and he would not allow him to win. He pulled his remaining hair into a short tail at the back of his neck and tied it with a piece of string.
Winters in the Warren were mild, but the cold he felt came from somewhere deep within. He pulled his jacket tight around his chest and curled into a fetal ball. Even the body armor under his clothes did little to keep him warm. Cold sweat beaded on his face and trickled through the stubby growth left on his head. Hunger gnawed at his insides, hollowing him out like a gutted melon. It was always with him, this incessant need to eat, like something inside him was starving and would never be satisfied.
Last night he’d eaten his fill from the banquet tables—pastries, chocolates, and spiced meats. Until she showed up. Gray Eyes. Despite the dress revealing all that creamy skin he longed to caress, he knew what she was. He remembered. She was a Black Jacket. A wirehead. The hated Special Operations. They hunted people like him, and killed them. Like she had hunted him that night, the first night he could remember existing.
He stared at his hands, coiling the slender fingers into tight fists. Who was he? What was he? Something Special Operations had built in its cyber-laboratory? All he knew was that he shared this body with something else. The Other. He’d learned that last night, felt something twist inside him each time he fired his weapons. Had he killed anyone, or had that entity that shared his body fouled his aim? It hadn’t even let him kill those guards at the gate. What good was he as an assassin if he couldn’t even kill?
That unknown fount of knowledge had been there since he awoke in the medical bay five nights ago. He just knew things; whenever he needed the information, it was there. How to spoof the security systems, the access codes, how to pull off that bizarre twirling killing maneuver, and how to set up the ambush that brought down Gray Eyes.
Two days earlier he’d scouted the Imperial Botanical Gardens and planted the sparker in the tree where the little feathered reptiles roosted, just in case he needed a diversion. He’d also left a small explosive surprise buried in a pile of compost next to the service entrance.
He had set off the sparker, rousting the birds, knowing that it would cause her to think he was behind her. She would break cover, trying to beat him to the exit, and that would give him a clear shot. Only it hadn’t worked out quite like that.
Stubbly head clenched in his hands, he rocked back and forth. He’d stood over the wounded Black Jacket, ready to finish it. Ready to pull the trigger. She wouldn’t be coming after him anymore.
But then The Other came—screaming and boiling out of some dark recess in his brain, out of his very cells, trying to claim his body. He couldn’t force his hand to obey him, couldn’t force even a single finger to squeeze the trigger. Then he felt The Other take over, felt his arm lower the weapon, and all he could do was stare into those gray eyes. Her cohort arriving and taking a shot at him had broken the paralysis, freeing him to scurry for the entrance like some bumbling amateur on his first job. Fear had made him sloppy: he’d blown the explosive charge on the entrance too early and nearly taken himself out.
He’d run without direction, without destination, but he wasn’t the only one. Terrified festival goers had streamed out of the Henge, anxious to be as far away as possible from the killing field. He found himself sprinting beside a tall man in an expensive suit. At the first alcove he’d body-checked the stranger into its darkness and beat him, letting the fear make him mean. He changed into the designer suit and slipped away into the night, fingering the pocketful of credit chips he found in the jacket.
When he’d put enough distance between himself and his victim, he ducked into an eatery for a bag of pastries and a large coffee, then was back on the street, gobbling the food down while he headed back to the Warren. He stopped at another coffee shop, thinking he’d like a bit more for breakfast, but found that the cred chips had already been canceled, and had barely made it out before the owner called the enforcers.
He’d returned to the plastic and cardboard hovel he euphemistically called his base of operations, and tried to get some sleep. That was when he learned his dreams belonged to The Other. Reptilian bugs stalked through his nightmares, swinging bladed arms. Gray Eyes was there, fighting the creatures beside him. He’d chosen instead to stay awake and stare into the darkness.
This far back into the narrow alley between two tall buildings, morning was slow to appear. In the half-light eyes glittered, scurrying through the garbage the wind had blown in. One set regarded him steadily from behind a broken, discarded chest. Close to the ground, the wide-spaced shining eyes belonged to something much larger than a gerbat. As it slipped from its cover and advanced on him, he grabbed an empty bottle and lobbed it toward the creature. It turned and fled.
He crawled out of his den and stood, surprised to not feel stiff and sore from his restless night curled on the pavement. A box of moldering clothing sat by the opening. He pushed it aside to reveal a square of plexisteel set into the ground. He disarmed the hidden flash-bang and pulled up the cover to his stash. He exchanged the fancy designer jacket for a threadbare vest. A paper cup contained a handful of colored plastic discs—what passed for currency in the creditless economy of the Warren.
This was all that remained of the advance the Smiling Man had given him. It had only been enough to buy him some food and the supplies he needed to set up the job. He’d been promised the sizable remainder, and safe passage out of the Empire, after Ransahov was dead. Judging by the security he’d faced last night, he doubted Smiley had expected him to live long enough the collect the rest of his pay.
He pocketed the money, stuffed the fancy jacket into his hidey hole, and replaced the camouflage. As he slipped down the narrow alley, he disturbed a scruffy cat wit
h a dead gerbat hanging from its mouth.
Despite the hour, the streets of the Warren still teemed with late night operators and party goers. Early risers with legitimate jobs hurried to work. He forced himself not to look up as an enforcer’s aircar buzzed overhead, sirens wailing. He’d heard them prowling the skies all night long. Looking for him.
He hunched his shoulders and let his body sink in on itself, seeming to lose several centimeters and altering his posture. A limp shortened his stride. He became just another unfortunate that life on the streets of the Warren had beaten down. He knew that facial recognition cameras measured their life span in hours this deep inside the slum, but he kept his spine bent and his face down as he sought out the diner he’d begun to frequent.
He didn’t want to go back to the Smiling Man tonight, no matter how much he promised to pay. That red-haired augie that Smiley kept on a short leash had watched him constantly, like he was waiting for him to make a mistake. Waiting for the chance to kill him. The Nameless Man thought he could take Red in a fight, but he didn’t want to try.
The offhand way Smiley had instructed him to kill Pettigrew after the fat admiral had slipped him into the celebration warned him of the future he could expect when his usefulness ended. They might have put some kind of program in his head that forced him to seek out Smiley that first night, but that didn’t seem to be functioning now.
Another enforcer aircar screamed by overhead.
No. As soon as the manhunt cooled off a bit, he’d slip out to that starport and take his chances getting off-world on his own. Until then, he’d have to appear to be just another useless drudge wasting his life in the Warren.
He limped into the auto-vend. This early, only a few patrons clustered at the mismatched tables, guzzling coffee and picking at suspicious piles of brown mush on their plates. The manager occupied a stool at the back, watching a newsie broadcast on an ancient flat screen, 2-D monitor. An armorglass box surrounded the unit, protecting it from theft—as if anyone would want the relic.
Cypher (The Dragon's Bidding Book 2) Page 11