Publicity-hating Cairo Azarcon, taking a break from the war out there in the Dragons. The meedees practically salivated over the opportunity to get his face from the Dragons to Hubcentral.
Mommy, why are all these people here?
Daddy’s coming down the ramp right now, Ryan. Wave hi.
Meedees hovered their cam-orbs at him, with lights.
A tall figure came toward him, dressed in a black uniform, with two serious soljets just behind holding big guns. The tall figure came right up and said over Ryan’s head to Mommy: Are you mad? He said, How could you bring him here in public?
Oh, and the anger. Ryan looked up at the pale face and the dark eyes and all the anger in the universe seemed to funnel into this man, who was his father. His father’s voice was soft, but his anger was a hard diamond point.
His mother said, He’s perfectly safe. This station is safe. Now smile and don’t make a scene.
(This was before the dock bombing.)
His father said, I’m not going to damn well smile for this bloody charade.
This is your first time visiting the family since he was born, his mother said. People want to see your face.
People can go to hell, his father said.
They were talking with anger but their faces hardly moved.
One of the serious men behind his father looked ready to shoot somebody.
Ryan started to cry.
His father looked down at him, finally. And his father picked him up, one fast move that gave his world a sudden new perspective.
His mother never lifted him once he could run, and she never let anyone else. But he felt safe. This tall man had a solid grip, a sturdy shoulder, and a warm chest. Ryan’s arms went around his father’s neck and his cheek against the soft dark hair. The captain smelled like Mommy’s green tea before she put it in her cup, but sharper like it was frozen cold in space, and his black shirt was smooth in Ryan’s fist like fabric got when it was well used. He rubbed Ryan’s back. Behind him, one of the men made funny faces. Ryan stopped crying, laughed, and a smart meedee captured the moment.
It became one of the most transcasted images on the Send that year—the ruthless captain with his son in his arms, while a soljet holding a battered rifle stuck out his tongue behind his commanding officer’s back.
Songlian Lau got her moment.
But Ryan remembered the arguments at home, every shift his father was there.
They recognized him. He heard the buildup of whispers on the other side of the steel mesh that separated him from every drunk or disturbed person the pollies had reeled in for questioning. Azarcon, they whispered. Ryan Azarcon. Whisper whisper.
Violence invaded their good living, and they wanted somebody to blame.
“Hey,” one of them said, pressing against the mesh. Ryan looked up. It was Tyler Coe. His Silver sib. His sometime friend. And even that was overstating the matter. “Hey, yo. Azarcon, why’re you in luxury all by yourself?”
Snorts of laughter. This happened when you put a load of Silver-soaked drunks in the same space and didn’t update or entertain them.
“Yo, Azarcon! You too good to talk to us?”
Tyler wouldn’t like being in common lockup with the other dross. Why hadn’t he been identified and either been segregated or let go?
Maybe because his manager wasn’t fast enough. Maybe because he was sailing quicker than a solar ship across the sun.
Tyler said, “Ryan, c’mon,” in his nice voice. In his let’s-make-a-switch voice.
Ryan stayed on the floor with his back to the wall, knees pulled up and arms against his chest, wishing he had a cigret so he had something to do with his hands. He kept them in so nobody saw them shaking.
“Azarcon! Help me out here!”
The younger of the two Marines said, “Shut your hole, drunk.”
Tyler told the Marine where to go, in precise detail.
“Hey, boy in blue,” another voice said to the young Marine, a girl this time. “Don’t stand there lookin’ all soldier. Come in here and keep me warm.”
“I ain’t vaccinated for it,” the Marine said. This one had been around station dross before.
The other, older Marine looked in at Ryan. “You okay?”
He nodded, wished he could wash his hands. Take a shower. Go to the bathroom without twenty eyes looking. His leg twitched, nervous habit. “What’s going on with Sid?”
“Want me to check?”
“Yeah. Please.” That would leave only one of them to defend his honor, but whatever.
The older Marine went to the end of the hall, to the main room, and barked at a polly. Ryan thought that Marine’s name was McGregor. He’d seen him before, when Sid had visited the barracks on their way to Austro Academy one time. Ages ago, when he was a kid. McGregor might’ve thought he was a brat. Most of Sid’s friends did. Ryan heard them call him PJ once, the Porcelain John. Pretty to sit on but a waste to guard.
He didn’t recognize the younger one standing outside the cell, the one who had mouthed off to the girl. But he looked barely legal.
“How come he gets a cell all by himself, and the rest of us are crammed in here?” Tyler said.
“Because you’re ugly,” the young Marine said, since McGregor was still down the hall with the polly on guard. “And you can’t act.”
“Were they shooting at you, Ryan? Is that blood on your shirt? Ah, shit. Ah, man. Look, you have to get me out. Talk to your Maureen.”
He didn’t answer. He wished Tyler would shut up.
Tyler kept talking nice, but it wore thin fast. Then he said, “They were shooting at you, weren’t they, Azarcon? You or your daddy?”
Somebody who dressed like drug addict dross even though he made millions should’ve kept his mouth shut.
“Daddy’s out in deep space. Sniper’s got rotten aim,” a new voice said from behind Tyler.
“How’d they get a sniper in the flash, anyway?”
Here came the theories, surrounded by blame.
“My boyfriend was shot!” burst another voice, genuinely upset. “Because of this wad!”
“Shut it down,” the Marine said, this time with a tilt of his rifle.
But it was too late. That one accusation unplugged the toilet
“Tell your mama to lock you up,” they said. “We don’t need more targets on this station. War’s bad enough.”
“Where was your pretty bodyguard, anyway?”
“Guardin’ his body. While everybody else got shoved in the cross fire.”
Oh, had he ruined the party? Had he messed up Tyler’s chances of getting laid? So sorry. A girl died in his arms, he had her blood all over himself, but poor Tyler wasn’t getting screwed right now. Tyler Coe. Second-rate script reader with the charisma of an eggplant.
“Who’s your daddy pissin’ off now, Azarcon?”
“I hear it’s pirates.”
“Nah, man. Strits. He’s always pissin’ off strits.”
“We don’t wanna die for you or your daddy’s politics!”
That made him look up. They shifted and coiled against the mesh like a large, restless snake. So right in their accusations and their judgments. As if any of them linked on the Send for something more than fashion.
He thought about shutting them up.
With a gun.
But he had no weapons. Just blood on his clothes.
He bit down on the inside of his cheek. Hard.
Then Tyler said, “It’s govies, I bet. His daddy’s rogue, crazy sumbast tailin’ after pirates like he don’t care about his own crew or all the cits he oughtta be defending, and not even Grandpa can fix him. I bet Ops is behind this. Gotta put the dog outta his misery.”
Ryan got up and rushed to the mesh wall, banging it with his fist. The move drove them back in shock and shook the wire.
He pointed at Tyler’s nose. “Come in here and say that, you dumb little shit!”
“Sir,” the Marine said. “Stand back. Ignore them.”
“This,” Tyler Coe said, finding his target, leaning to the mesh because he knew he was safe. “This is what we call ‘righteous indignation’! All hail Caesar Azarcon!” His bloodshot eyes found Ryan’s through the pockets of white light and dusty shadow. “So tell us, Azarcon. That bomb down at the docks a few years ago. That wasn’t a symp protest against military treatment of POWs?”
As if the symps and strits didn’t torture human prisoners. “I don’t know, Tyler. You tell me, you being such an advocate of symps and all.”
“We all know your father’s reputation. If anybody makes this war worse, it’s him. And guess who gets it? Not el capitan out there lording it over deep space with his guns.”
Tyler wanted a fight. He was pissed Ryan didn’t ask the Marine to get him out. As if the Marine could do anything when Ryan himself was in jail. Stupid weed.
Deep breath.
It was going to take a dozen of them.
Ryan folded his arms against his chest, felt the chill of his hands through his shirt. He rubbed his cheek where it itched and flakes of blood came off in his palm. His gut threatened to revolt in a most embarrassing way. He closed his fist and stared through the mesh. “Maybe they were shooting at you, Tyler. I hear your vid bombed the big one.”
That struck a chord. “You son of a PR whore!”
He wanted to order the Marine to shoot Tyler Coe and deprive the vid industry of future slush.
But he saw everyone behind and around Tyler, watching. His mother spoke in his ear from memory. Everything he did in public was a potential story on the Send. The meedees are your friends, but the kind you hide your silverware from. Never create scandal, even when faced with idiots.
So he turned his back, just breathing, because if he concentrated on more than that he was going to murder some-body. He walked to the far wall. He slid down and sat on the floor, knees up, elbows in.
“What d’you say now, Azarcon? You got what you deserve! Hear that? Just a matter of time! Your papa brings this on himself!”
On and on. The young Marine couldn’t do anything but shout, and Tyler was one in a row of dozens.
Rash crowd. If any of them paid attention to politics it would be a first. He knew them. If it weren’t for his family tree he’d be just as oblivious and proud of it.
He put his arms over his ears, tucked down. Somewhere, some kids were crying, wailing about their boyfriends, girlfriends, whoever didn’t leave the flash alive. Fear and anger, alcohol and drugs fueled the shouts. This wasn’t a few dock-workers on a slow shift getting their limbs blown apart. This was a sniper in one of Austro’s most ruby clubs, targeting multi-mill-cred bodies.
Targeting his body. Everybody else was collateral damage.
The mesh of the cages rattled, trying to get his attention.
Crazy, murderous monkeys.
Marine McGregor finally came back to the cell with a cautious look on his face. He reported: “The corporal’s working on it still.”
Sid must’ve been one step short of shooting somebody.
In a few minutes Sid came in the holding pen flanked by two pollies, the lieutenant with the flat expression among them. The lieutenant opened the cell, come-hithered Ryan sharply, so he stood and squeezed out. Sid immediately put a hand on his arm and gave him a look that said, No questions. They left Tyler Coe and the other noisemakers behind, thankfully, back out to the offices and the busy uniforms, comps, and bleeping comms.
But instead of heading to the exit, Sid directed him to an interrogation room that had a long sign on the door: no admittance. During torture, Ryan figured. They lost the Marines and the pollies, even the lieutenant, and Sid sat him down and pulled up a chair, close beside him in that small, high-ceiling room. It was depressingly bare and beige. The walls would be more institutional if they were padded, but that was about it. Metal chairs on a concrete floor, and a wide stained table with cuffs attached, were the only furniture. How many murderers had sat in this same seat and lied?
“Are they spying on us?” Ryan asked, glancing at the little black squares in the walls where the optics sat
“No. Just the Marines to make sure no pollies walk in. I got ten minutes with you before they bear down. Look at me, Ryan.”
He dragged his eyes from the dented table to Sid’s serious face.
Sid half blinked, then put a hand around his wrist “Three people are dead. Eleven others injured. I want to know if anybody other than my team and Miyasake and his security knew you were going to be at the Dojo.”
“Mom knew.”
“Someone other than our circle, Ryan.”
“No, then.”
“Ryan. This isn’t a time for lies. I’m not going to get mad but I need you to tell me the truth.”
He yanked his arm from Sid’s grip. “Stop talking to me like I’m a kid. I said I didn’t tell anybody!”
“Tyler didn’t know?”
“Why would I tell that weed?”
“Ryan, are you sailing?”
He squinted at Sid but Sid’s eyes were laser sights, spot on.
“I keep checking your room but I can’t find the paraphernalia. Your friends hide their evidence real well too. But I want you to tell me the truth, Ryan. All of it. Now.”
“Nobody was shooting at me for that.”
Sid’s mouth tightened. Disappointment at the confirmation, though he didn’t seem surprised. Ryan stared down at the table before he realized he was doing it, like a guilty person. Like he had to hide from his decisions.
“Listen to me, Ryan. I’m going to need the names of all your contacts.”
“If I do that, they will shoot at me.”
Sid slammed his fist on the table, a thunderous metallic bang. “Don’t fuck around with this!”
Ryan looked at him in alarm, his heart up his throat. It didn’t make a difference to his bodyguard.
“You’re going to give me those names, Ryan. You’re going to draw me a damn map if I ask for it, because this is your life, do you get that? I know I messed up letting you go on when I knew—after London—dammit—” He took a breath. Settled. His voice lowered. “This is partly my fault, I didn’t push you hard enough to come clean. You kept changing where you stashed the swack, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, because his walls were starting to come down no matter how fast he moved to restack them. He was crumbling.
“I have to look at all the sides, Ryan. So do the pollies. Maybe it had to do with your father or maybe it was some dealer who didn’t get paid on time. Maybe that girl had a jealous boyfriend. I need to know what I can from you so we can narrow it down.”
“Okay. Okay.”
Sid handed over a slate that he pulled from an inner pocket. He made Ryan write down all the people he knew. Fara. Shoe. Tyler. Anyone else he happened to sail with, even once. How much he paid, how the bullets were passed, how frequently he bought and from where.
Everything Ryan knew he should never say, or his life would be in danger.
But his life was in danger already. Maybe he was just compounding it. He compounded it the first time he went to deal without going through Tyler.
Sid looked at him in silence all through it. After, Sid grabbed him suddenly at the side of his neck and pulled him close. He thought it was a hug and reached up to touch Sid’s back, but Sid’s hands dipped into his pockets, then up and down his ribs and legs.
“Stop it!” He tried to shove away.
Sid came up empty, looked at him in half apology. “I’m sorry, but I had to check. They were going to.”
Ryan got up, blind, tipping the chair over. He went for the door. Sid grabbed his arm and then he found himself engulfed. A brief, hard embrace that seemed to shore up his outer defenses at the same time it chipped him away from the inside. Sid touched his hair, a simple stroke, before letting him go. When he looked up he saw his bodyguard, not a friend.
“Fix your face, Mr. Azarcon. The pollies want to talk to us together.”
They went to the lieutenant’s office cube on the upper level of the precinct, where she waited. Sid nodded to the two Marines to stand outside. The lieutenant ordered her plexpane walls to tint dusk and suddenly they were private. Maybe even gun-proof.
“Have a seat, Mr. Azarcon,” she said.
The office was lived in, as if most of her time was spent in this square space. Shelves stood along one wall, a comp console lay flat on her crowded desk, and a water dispenser hid in one corner, all bland earth-tone colors. The only brightness came from the lieutenant’s medals and citation plaques mounted strategically behind her head, so anybody on the opposite side of her desk couldn’t help but notice them. Gold and ribbons.
Ryan sat on one of the creaky metal-and-faux-leather seats, glanced at Sid and his blank Marine expression, then back at the polly as she eased her whipcord frame into her chair, tilting back a bit and drumming her fingers on the desktop. Next to her hand was, of all things, a kitschy snow globe of some Earth city holding down a long transparent chipsheet.
“I’m Lieutenant Plodovic. As I was telling your bodyguard here, we’re investigating the deaths at the Dojo club and we would appreciate your full cooperation. Which includes—listen to me, young man—”
He let his jaw snap shut. He hated it when they took that adult tone with him, as if he hadn’t had his majority for three years, getting it like every other sixteen-year-old across the Hub.
Bristle down, he thought. And give her attitude only if she keeps looking at you like that.
She said, “Which includes staying here under question with Corporal Sidney—”
“You’re arresting us?”
Plodovic didn’t blink. “You’re not under arrest. I’d just like your cooperation. We all want to find out what happened, so I’m going to need a statement from you.”
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