Clutch

by JA Huss

  I wince and scratch my neck absently as I think, but he's already moved on.

  "... caused me a lot of headaches, Coot."

  He stops and my eyebrows go up as I stare at him.

  He stares back. "What are you supposed to say for yourself when shit like this happens, Coot?"

  I can't think of anything, so I just shrug.

  He walks back to his chair and sits down. "You're officially retired, Coot." Then he tosses me a pen and I catch it in the palm of my three-fingered hand. Two, if you don't count the thumb. He scowls at my recent disability.

  "Sign the papers, your discharge is on there."

  I quickly begin signing, page after page. And then I get to the discharge papers and there's a small silver cube taped to the upper left corner. I look up at him, expectantly, and track his eyes to the cube, then back to my face.

  "Sign the paper, Coot. Or your final days in the military will be spent scrubbing your own latrines." And then he shuts up and stares at me, to see if I have anything to add.

  I shift my weight and sign, then hand them back and he does the same.

  While he signs I look around the room and see photos of this guy, Slag, and my father in many of them. There are a few of me as well. In all of them I'm in a junior cadet uniform, none of me over the age of fourteen or fifteen. I spy several cameras and realize we're being recorded.

  Then it all slips into place.

  He finishes up and then opens a drawer, grabs a tech device, slams a drawer closed and throws me the reader. "There's a digitized copy of everything on the discharge paper. Make sure you read the terms. Oh, and one more thing, here–" He digs in his pockets and fishes something out, then throws me a slender blue rod that turns end over end as it flies through the air towards me. "It's been disabled, Coot. So your mission days are over. Consider yourself lucky I don't have you strung up on treason charges."

  I catch the rod and my hand knows just what to do with it. I slip it under my shirt and press it to the scar just under my belly button. I feel the magnetic strip under my skin activate and yank it off in horror, shoving it in my pocket.

  I look at Slag again, and he sends me a severe scowl. And then something else. It's slight, barely noticeable, but my eyes catch it just before I'm about to turn. A nod towards the back of the room.

  I walk past him and see a dark hallway. I follow it to the end and push through a door which leads me into a storage room. I climb the stairs and come out in the kitchen, then walk back to my room and close the trap door behind me as I descend.

  I have no idea what just happened, but I do know one thing.

  Slag is a friendly.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The reader is one I used as a kid, but since data cubes have been standardized for the better part of three decades, my cube slides in easily after removing the one that is already in there. I pocket the old cube and turn the device over to flip it on. I expect it to need a charge, but it doesn't.

  It pops to life, registers the cube, and a screen flashes.

  It's a video. The face staring back at me from the still shot is someone I barely remember, but my heart aches at the sight of her anyway. She's holding a newscreen, and the video camera zooms in on the date.

  The events she describes on the feed are almost too horrible to imagine. But I find a memory for all of them. Starting with my first assassination assignment at age six. Six. Who does that to their kid? She moves on to political matters but I can't pick up all the nuances of what she's saying. I get the gist of it, though.

  War.

  Revenge.

  Death.

  Atrocities.

  Twenty minutes later I switch the reader off, pop out the cube, and almost stuff it into my pocket along with the ones Tier gave me, but I pull back at the last minute. Her final words stick with me and roll around in my brain. There is a big difference between patience and inertia.

  Maybe. But also a very fine line. I throw the cube across the room. Fuck her, she's on her own.

  I lie on the bed for what seems like hours, but when I glance over at the clock it's not even 2:00 yet. I remember the blue rod Slag threw at me and fish it out of my pocket. The energy it contains electrifies me as I hold it in my palm for several seconds, then slip it under my shirt where the long white scar runs lengthwise under my bellybutton. How many times did Tier place his hands there over the past week? I can't even count them. He knew it was missing. What else does he know?

  I can feel it charging on the plate under the thin membrane of skin and maybe ninety seconds or so later it's complete. I reach under my shirt and pull it back out to take a closer look. It is definitely some kind of stone, magnetic since it sticks to the charge plate, and so shiny I can see my own distorted face peering back at me. One end is thicker than the other and I instinctively know that the tapered end holds a biometric for my thumbprints, while the rest of the rod is tracked to my palm. I roll it from hand to hand to see if it registers both. It does.

  And then I flick my thumb over a small raised imperfection in the stone and the loop of the enhanced plasma SEAR knife materializes.

  Disabled?

  OK.

  The SEAR, an acronym for SEcondary Alloantigen Repressor, was outlawed last century. Besides making a wickedly fucked-up slice in anything from steel to human flesh, it also completely scrambles your DNA.

  In scientific terms a slice from a SEAR triggers an autoimmune response once the plasma loop touches the skin, which subsequently shuts down protein synthesis for collagen production. The unfortunate victim dies a slow and horrific death, even if they manage to survive the initial wound.

  In simple terms, if it cuts you, it kills you. No matter what.

  The safest way to use a SEAR knife is to have it biologically coded to your genetic profile so that the immune response cannot be triggered in the first place. There is no way for me to be sure that this is the actual case for my SEAR knife, so using it is almost as big a risk to me as my enemy. The effects are irreversible, hence the ban. Someone decided that the SEAR was not a weapon that could be legally owned by civilians safely.

  Good thing I'm not a civilian, then.

  Well, technically I am.

  But surely, it won't really count until the paperwork is processed. Who knows how long that could take.

  A few hours ago I'd be left wondering how my stomach managed to hold a docking pad for an illegal weapon, but after watching my mother spill out the details of my fucked-up childhood on screen, life makes a hell of a lot more sense than it used to.

  I have the urge to test my weapon out on some pink ruffles upstairs in my other closet, but SEAR knives leave a tell-tale smell behind. It's not something you can filter easily and I'd like to keep the element of surprise. All warfare is based on deception, right?

  I have a thousand questions for Slag, but if he was worried enough about surveillance in the secret room to go through that ruse, then it's better to stay away.

  For moment I think of Tier's hands again, going to my belly. And I thought he was trying to be sexy. Nope. He's just checking to see if I'm armed with contraband.

  I flip the knife off and stuff it back under my shirt and think of Charlie. I don't recall if I ever got to go to the funeral and this thought makes me wonder about his family. What do they know? Do they know how he died? That he was killed for loving the wrong girl?

  I get up and tear my room apart looking for some kind of com device. Anything that has the sphere on it or can send a message. But after several minutes of searching there is nothing but a pile of crap on the floor to show for it. I was never one of those kids who rebelled against the tech rules of the RR. I never secretly wished for mind access to the sphere or coms, none of that shit impressed me.

  But today, I'd give two more fingers to have a sphere access implant for five minutes because the need to see Charlie's parents, talk to them, fills my heart and I feel my face go hot as I struggle with the tears.

  I get up and c
limb back up to the princess room and leave, pulling the door closed behind me. Out on the front porch I crane my neck to see past a cluster of pines. The western sky announces its intentions with a dense fog that seeps in and wraps its arms around the reporters on the other side of the gate. They crowd against the iron fence waiting patiently for the council members they know are coming.

  Back in my room I search the various debris piles for the discarded cube, grab a thick packet from a boot in my closet, and take the stack of papers addressed to Dale from the Goat, then pause at the line of weapons before me. Something small but intimidating. I grab a TZi .357, load it, then slide the holster on my belt and let the gun slip in. Back upstairs at my childhood desk I put together the three packages, then grab my barn coat and walk back outside.

  The fog has invaded the front yard and the snow is falling in light flakes that begin to stick to the ground. No one gives me a second look as I bounce down the porch steps and ease into the dreary afternoon. I make my way down the driveway and then halfway to the gatehouse I leave the road and finish the rest of the walk under the scant cover of the pine trees. I watch from behind a tree trunk as the two guards crammed into the small building point and comment at something below my line of sight.

  I wait until both sets of eyes are diverted, then slip past the gatehouse and make my way to the iron barrier that separates me from the world. A couple of reporters see me and they bustle to life as my eyes search the crowd. I spot her just as my view is obstructed by the mass of bodies hurling questions at me. My left arm slips through the bars and I point with my remaining fingers in her direction. The bodies part and then I get a better look.

  The young blonde reporter is smoking a cigarette and chatting up one of the hovercopter pilots when my gaze catches her interest. I motion for her to come here. To her credit, she doesn't hesitate much. She takes another drag on her cigarette, then lets it fall to the ground just as her expensive boot crushes it walking toward me.

  The guards are out now, asking me questions, but I ignore them and punch in the code to open the gate. The reporter hesitates, but I wave her forward, still ignoring the guards. When she is through I close the gate back up and lead her over to the gatehouse.

  "What's going on, Junco?" she says.

  "I just need a private word, is that OK with you?"

  She nods.

  I smile and open the gatehouse door but the guards step in and one grabs my shoulder. "Junco, you need to go back to the house now." I elbow him in the face, take out the TZi and point it at his head.

  "One smart move by your buddy over there and I blow it straight off, got it?" He nods and I look at his partner. "You OK with this, then?" He nods too. Then over to the reporter. "How about you?"

  She raises an eyebrow, puffs up her lips a little, and simply shrugs. "Whatever you say."

  My smile creeps out. "Good, then open the gatehouse door and go in and leave the door open."

  She does and when she's out of sight I back up towards the door and push my hostage aside and slip in behind her. Her face is not showing as much fear as it should, but I let it slide for now. Plenty of time for that later.

  "What's going–"

  "Shut up and listen. I've got a proposition for you..."

  "Selia," she offers.

  "... Selia, but it's a one-time deal and" – I peek out the front window and watch the guards running back towards the house – "since I only have about thirty seconds to sell you on it, let's not waste any of them, 'K?"

  She nods. Good girl.

  I shake out the three envelopes on the small desk and then pick up the first one. "This is a bribe. Part of it is for you and the rest is for whichever pilot you can convince to fly you out of here in the next five minutes." I slap it down on the desk and let the weight of it impress her. Her eyes linger on the thickness longer than I dared hope, so I consider her sufficiently impressed and move on.

  "This," I hold up the second envelope, "is none of your fucking business. But I need a way to get it to some people and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I don't know where these people live, I just have the name of one dead MR soldier."

  She looks at the envelope and reads the name and her eyes light up. "Yeah, that guy who was killed during a training mission a few months back, right?"

  "If you say so, Selia. Like I said, this isn't for you. It's for his parents. This is the favor I need. Will you deliver it to them?"

  "When?"

  "Now."

  "You mean leave this story and run an errand for you? I don't think so, Junco. I mean–"

  I wave the third envelope in front of her face and cut her off. "This, Selia, is your story. Not the bullshit that's gonna happen here tonight." I shake my head. "Every asshole with a fingercam is gonna stream that shit live." I wave the envelope again. "But this is so fucking new I only found out about it thirty minutes ago. And I'm gonna give it to you."

  She looks at the envelope and hesitates.

  I look back out the window and I can see movement behind the curtain of fog. "Five seconds, Selia, take it or leave it. I have dozens of other people I can ask."

  She folds like the bipod on a sniper rifle after the kill shot. "OK, I'll do it."

  I stuff the three envelopes in her coat. "Listen carefully, OK? Your first objective is to get out to that cute pilot you were talking to and give him half of this cash to get you in the air, because the shit is gonna fly as soon as Aren gets out here."

  "Yeah, sure. Got it."

  "Your second objective is to get that information to Charlie's parents, next of kin, whatever they are. Someone who loved him, do I make myself clear?"

  "OK."

  "And third, this envelope contains my story." My life summed up in a twenty-minute screen-feed, I don't add. "Tell everyone you can because tonight I'll either be dead or out of the loop for a while."

  I look back out the window, missing Selia's last nod of acceptance, and even from twenty yards away I can see the rage swelling up on Aren's face.

  "I'll make a scene, you get away without drawing attention." My hand slams down on the gate release and it begins to open. "Stay behind me until they swarm, then get the fuck out of here. Oh, and Selia?"

  She stops and looks back at me.

  "If you cross me I'll hunt you down like a nightdog looking for a bitch on hump day and kill you in a way that will definitely make the news, understand?" She swallows hard and nods. "And don't count on me dying tonight, either. I'm no long-shot."

  "I'll do it just like you asked."

  The fear she should have had from the start is finally there and I feel satisfied as I push open the guardhouse door and move into the bulging crowd. "Who's next? Who wants an interview?"

  The mob goes crazy as Selia slips to the edge of the crowd and makes her way out to the road. I watch her pilot buddy lean in to hear what she's saying. Then the bodies are all around me and the red lights of fingercams blink in my face, obstructing my view.

  "Junco!" Aren grabs me and pulls me back so hard I fall to the ground. The reporters go wild and I look up at Aren's raging face and smile. Someone fires a shot in the air and the guards push the reporters back as the gate begins to close.

  Aren reaches down and jerks me to my feet, then bends over so his lips are practically in my ear. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

  I pull my arm hard and he loses his grip on me. "Who the fuck do you think you are, Aren? This is my house and I can open that fucking gate any time I feel like it."

  He looks up at the blinking red lights that are now outside the gate and less abruptly turns me around, pushing me towards the house and taking my arm once again. "Junco, this is a military operation now and you are under orders."

  "Wrong," I say, stopping in the driveway and violently shrugging off his death grip a second time. "I'm retired, Aren. Or haven't you heard? Slag had me sign the discharge papers this afternoon. I'm not under anyone's orders. Un-fucking-fit for duty."


  The anger in his eyes manifests in a disturbing twitch of his lip. "That's the first reasonable thing you've said in months, Junco."

  How would he know? I haven't seen him in years before that day out on the scrub. "Yeah? Well, maybe I'd be a little more reasonable if my father hadn't had my boyfriend killed and then dose me with an ionspray to off our unborn baby."

  He yanks my arm fiercely, pulling me towards the house again. "Keep your fucking voice down."

  "Why? So no one finds out that we're all a bunch of sociopathic killers in here?"

  "Speak for yourself, Junco. I left years ago."

  "Is that right? Well, maybe you can explain why I just got a video message from my mother that says you've been working with her?"

  His face hardens and he leans in again. "Junco, you have no idea how much I will hurt you if you cause trouble here today. You understand?"

  "No, Aren. I really don't understand. Yesterday you said you were being set up by Slag. Now I find out you're playing for yet another team? That's quite an accomplishment. Really. Not many people can manage to betray two different countries before they're twenty-two years–"

  "That's enough. I'm not even sure what you're talking about, but I do know one thing, we're not talking about it now. We're settling this shit with the Council tonight and that's all I'm interested in." He grabs my arm once again and I can feel the bruise forming in real time. "And you're going to that meeting and you will not act insane, you will be rational and agreeable. Do you understand me?"

  "Or what, Aren? Or what? Maybe you haven't noticed, but I don't respond well to threats. Now," I ease up on the hardass bit and throw a card down, "if you want to talk a little business, well, then maybe I can find it in me to bob my head up and down a few times when they look in my general direction. I'll have to think about it."

  He laughs. "This is about money with you? Seriously, Junco?"

  "What else is there, Aren?"

  "Power."

  "Yeah, that too. So, when you go into that meeting and broker your little deal, you better find a way to cut me in on both accounts." I wait and see if it works. I have no idea what kind of deal he has planned, but clearly there is a deal.