allies and enemies 02 - rogues

by Amy J. Murphy

  Koenii dropped his feet to the floor. He leaned forward in his chair. His jaw worked back and forth, as he no doubt calculated a means to screw them over.

  “Well met then,” he replied finally, using Regimental as well. The accent corrupted his pronunciation. His eyes still on Sela, he held a hand out over his shoulder, expectant. A frail, hunched-over man wearing a stained smock handed him a slim black case.

  “The other half on completion.” Koenii pondered the device, then jabbed a thumb on its surface. There was a responsive bleat. He tossed the device at her. She caught it left-handed, careful to keep her gun hand free.

  Sela glanced at the glowing font on the tiny screen of the e-cred. It seemed an unreal amount. It has to be enough. Please let it be enough.

  “Dex, get the door for our guests.”

  The door, a giant metal slab on rollers that was once a blast plate, dominated one wall. Dex scrambled to open the heavy piece of metal.

  Sela gave a curt nod to Jon. He fell in place behind her with a recalcitrant grind of boots against gravel.

  Before they hit the hallway, Koenii’s voice echoed out to them: “Next time, leave your crester bitch behind, Tyron. Can’t stand his stench.”

  Behind her, she heard a break in Jon’s stride.

  Sela clenched her jaw. Her hand went to the stock of the A6 in her holster.

  His footsteps continued. Blessedly, Jon remained silent until they hit the jarring grime of the street.

  78

  “You know we can’t take that deal. What are you thinking?”

  At least Jon had waited until they were at the top of the rickety stairs that led to the market street. “Market” was a loose term. Carts laden with barely presentable pieces of scavenged junk and decommissioned tech wove through foot traffic. Vendors grilled something with the dubious title of “meat” over fires in alcoves. All of it vat grown. There was very little in the way of produce. The weakling sun of this climate saw to that. Those that did have such things had tents under the observant eye of a guard (likely provided by Koenii for a “fee”).

  An ancient atmo ship blatted overhead on a wobbly tangent. Sela cringed. No one else seemed to notice the flying death traps. For her, it had taken some getting used to. From her experience, movement in the air meant you were about to be fired upon. That familiar itch wormed into the spot between her shoulder blades. She tried to ignore it.

  She paused long enough to pull the resp-shield up over her nose and mouth, making sure the seal was good.

  Jon thundered up behind her. “Ty, are you even listening?”

  Any number of Koenii’s spies could still be nearby. She eyed the derelicts lounging in doorways and the pickpocket children darting through the crowds. There was a flash of flame-red hair between the stalls: Bix. The girl caught her attention, gave a shallow nod, then slinked into the shadows of an alley.

  Trusting Jon to follow, Sela wove through the crowd. Their progress halted as the crowd congealed.

  “Out of the way, skews! Back!” A coarse shout dragged over the sea of heads and shoulders.

  An armed cadre shoved aside patrons, cutting a path for a flock of Poisoncry acolytes. Unmistakable in their purple garb, the women wore the Eye of Nyxa as a waxy pink scar on their foreheads. At the end of the group, four scrawny-looking men bore a litter over their shoulders. A withered hand parted the curtains of the canopy. Sela glimpsed a cragged face. Only Imperators traveled in such a way. Other than Fisk, Sela had never seen a male among the Poisoncry that appeared to hold any station.

  If you’re not Guild, you’re nobody. That’s what Fisk had told her. How true.

  Strange how her thoughts lingered on the disquieting man. It was as if she sensed him hiding, just out of view, lurking in the periphery of her vision. She would turn another corner and see him, fixing her with that hungry expression. Her own safety did not matter, but he had alluded to a threat to Jon. That would not serve.

  First Fisk. Now Koenii. The faster they could get off this decayed world, the better.

  Finally, they had the means. She secured Koenii’s cred-dat inside the lining of her shipsuit. It was enough to bribe a way through the Poisoncry picket of Hadelia’s flexer. Technically, this was theft. However, she was certain the Guild credit now residing in her account was ill-gotten in the first place. Swindling a swindler was less damaging to her conscience.

  The hard part was yet to come: convincing Jon to leave.

  “You know why he wants us for the job.” Jon stood abreast with her. “No one else is stupid enough. He’ll double-cross us.”

  “Enough!” Sela whirled on him. Her voice rose over the ambient babble of the dirt market. He drew back, surprised, as she clutched a handful of his jacket. “Perhaps Koenii was right. I should leave you behind.”

  It didn’t matter if she felt like she was overselling it. It mattered only that Koenii’s people saw this and were suitably convinced.

  Jon arched an eyebrow down at her fist. “You’re the boss…apparently.”

  As she released him, his lopsided smirk threatened to surface. She gestured to the resp-shield hanging forgotten around his neck. With an irritated eye-roll, he pulled it into place.

  Sela gave an exaggerated huff and resumed her course through the crowd, careful to make her moves sure and unhurried. She denied the urge to flee or give any other outward sign that this was a retreat. This was enemy territory. They were heavily outnumbered and this was their only play. Koenii’s people had not yet found out where they’d berthed the Cassandra, as of now, their only asset.

  The crowd thinned as they approached the remains of a smelting plant. Its once-great machines now decayed to rust under the flat gray sky. She was vaguely surprised no one had stripped these ancient metal beasts further.

  Give it time. Nothing went unscavenged for long—provided it wasn’t nailed down or on fire.

  She ducked into a narrow passage between outbuildings. The space was barely wide enough for two persons to stand shoulder to shoulder. It reeked of unbathed bodies; likely someone had been using it as a den. Broken glass crunched on the cracked pavement. She pulled him into the space with her.

  “I think it’s clear.” She leaned out and scanned the area. No sign of the Heavy Gravs. If Koenii had spies nearby, she could not tell.

  “If they want to find us, they will,” Jon replied.

  She watched a waster trundle past. The skeletal young woman was oblivious to the world and everything in it.

  “I had to improvise.”

  “I’d say you were enjoying that.” He touched the back of her neck. A hint of laughter in his voice.

  “What were you thinking? Speaking like that to—”

  Sela turned as he pulled her into an embrace. Her sarcastic response was forgotten as he pulled down her mask and kissed her, his hands moving up to cup her face as his body pressed her against the wall. She had to bite his lip, hard, to make him stop. He broke away, fingers going to his lip, an irritated amusement in his eyes.

  “For insubordination.” She smirked.

  “Whatever you say, boss.” He folded his arms, leaned against the opposite wall. “He wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”

  She fished the cred-dat out from its hiding spot and tossed it to Jon. He responded with an appreciative whistle once he read the balance. “Finally, you can care for me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  He sobered. “We can’t keep this. It’s blood money. Won’t end well.”

  “Yes, it will,” she countered. “With us leaving Hadelia tonight. It’s enough to get us through the flexer.”

  “This again?” Jon released a shaky breath. “We can find another city. It’s a big planet.”

  She shut her eyes, suppressed a sigh.

  He was stepping around things again. Hadelia was bad for him. It was not simply because of the treacherous nature of its inhabitants or the quality of the air. This world filled him with a
half-hope that ate at him from within.

  “Enough running from city to city. We leave Hadelia. We find a new system. There are at least two the Cassandra can reach. Quonid and Narasmina.”

  She had acquired intel on both: Quonid was an agri-colony, largely rural. Narasmina a fishery, covered in vast oceans. Both far from Poisoncry’s control…she hoped.

  The stubborn muscle in his jaw twitched as he chewed on his thoughts. His eyes narrowed. This was old territory, the well-churned soil of a battlefield.

  “You know it’s the only way out of this. This is our chance,” she prodded, this time using Eugenes. Sela had learned the agonizingly complex language, not because it was useful, but because it had pleased Jon to teach her. She found it had such useless romanticism to it: too many descriptors, ornate words that all meant the same thing. It made sense. Her former masters were people who enjoyed the sounds of their own voices.

  Jon flinched. “Sela, I can’t—”

  “Please. Enough of this.” She gently tilted his chin up. “She’s gone. But we’re alive. Let us live our lives. We had our differences, but I am certain Erelah would not want this for you.”

  She held his warm dark-brown gaze, hating the plea she saw there. Finally, he nodded, defeated. “You’re right.”

  A cautious hope crept through her. “We’ll go. Tonight?”

  He nodded, mouth compressed into a wan smile. “Agreed, boss.”

  She released a pent-up breath. Her hand slid behind his neck, pulling him closer. She rested against him, tucking her head against his shoulder. His arms fell across her back in an embrace. The moment seemed suspended in a place beyond the reek of the alley. For now, bloodthirsty gangsters and Guild bribes seemed a distant concern.

  Recall tickled the back of her mind. Bix would not have found her outside of Koenii’s den unless she had something vital to report. She had to double back, find the girl.

  “Can you start the prep on the Cassandra? There’s something I have to do.” Sela pulled away to look up at him. She bit her lip. “Alone.”

  A quizzical frown from him. “Something like what?”

  “Later. I’ll meet you back at the Cass.”

  “Ty.” He grabbed her hand. “What is it?”

  “Later.” Sela kissed him quickly and pulled her mask into place.

  She slipped out of the alley before he could ask anything else.

  79

  The door was unremarkable. Metal, perhaps once a hatch from an atmo skiff. Now it marked the barrier to answers Sela needed. The place was in the Skids, a commune that had grown like heavy fungus along the fringe of the main port. Comprised of former metal shipping containers and scavenged materials, it was a haphazard maze of stacks. Finding this particular door must have taken Bix considerable effort and patience. Sela was impressed with the girl.

  Somewhere nearby she heard coarse coughing she’d come to associate with the chronic variety, and the distant sounds of arguing voices. Otherwise, the area seemed quiet.

  With a gloved fist, she pounded on the scarred metal. An icy wind whipped at the untidy wisps of hair that had that had evaded her braids. Flooring creaked beyond the door. Sela’s right hand fell to the grip of the A6 in the holster on her thigh. She was relatively sure that the person here offered little threat to her, but Hadelia, from the beginning, was not the place it appeared.

  “Closed. Come back tomorrow.” Shadows disturbed the light that shone from near the floor.

  A crawler eye watched from atop the door.

  She pulled down her respirator. “Mauldro Techyan.”

  The voice sounded closer to the opposite side of the door. “Never heard of her.”

  “I can pay.” Sela held up a fist of folded scrip in front of the crawler eye.

  There was a contemplative silence. “I don’t do augments.”

  Sela glared up at the crawler eye, stepping back, arms out to her sides. “Do I look like I need augments?”

  A bolt rattled, followed by the snap of heavy locks. The hatch opened the width of a fist, revealing a strip of time-ravaged face. A wizened eye gave Sela a measuring look. “Don’t work on breeders neither.”

  “You used to.” Sela leaned closer, keeping her voice low, wedging the toe of her boot inside the doorway. She caught of whiff cooking meat and a baser, sour odor.

  “Days long gone by. Now leave.”

  “You know what I am. What I can do. I’ll stay here as long as it takes. Days, even. I’ll turn away anyone else that comes to your door.”

  A lie…no, a bluff, as Jon would say. She couldn’t afford the luxury of a siege, not with Koenii’s boys seeking her out.

  Mauldro peered up and down both sides of the corridor, no doubt wondering where the waster had gone that tended her door. Sela had already seen to it that the man found more interesting things to do elsewhere.

  “I don’t want trouble.”

  “Neither do I. Just answers.” Sela held up the money again.

  The old splicer regarded her, then the script, in silence before allowing the door to open further. “Five minutes.”

  Sela shouldered past before the woman changed her mind. The interior was chaos barely in check. Boxes crammed full of bottles and vials. No gleaming metal here. Things that may have once gleamed all seemed coated by rust and age. Everything in the room leaned at precarious angles, even the ancient splicer.

  Mauldro circled well out of arm’s reach, appraising. “Infantry, by the look of you. A kennel near Origin, likely Percin or Klavor Minor. Gerbrand’s work, I imagine. He always knew how to make your sort nice to look at. Like an artist’s signature, if you will. That and other enhancements like eidetic memories. Useless on a breeder. But he did like to show off.” The crone seemed to prattle more to herself than to her visitor.

  Sela frowned. If anyone else regarded her like an object, they soon regretted it. It was usually men, creatures ruled by baser appetites. They saw a pleasing face, a tall muscular body and nothing further than that.

  This was different. The crone had been right about Percin, the base that had housed her kennel. The name Gerbrand was unfamiliar. Was that another kennel master that selected pairings to breed new Volunteers? Other than the drillers, she’d never known the actual names of her superiors at the kennel. They may as well have been mythical deities.

  “Well…what is it? Embed the tech chip for that shiny gun of yours?” Mauldro picked through the jumble on a nearby workbench. It bowed under a collection of cobbled-together devices. With a satisfied grunt, the woman seized a clunky-looking handheld. Her actions were well-practiced, cursory. A rectangle of light burst from the device. Sela startled, hand going to her A6. She’d felt nothing. There was an off-key beep. The woman slapped its side. The tone of the beeps seemed to even out.

  “Tracker removal? You can do that yourself—”

  “Gestation,” Sela blurted.

  The old woman scoffed, looking up at her from a small screen. Its eerie blue glow shone up into her dark stare. “Easy. Don’t even need to get undressed for that.”

  Not waiting for a reply, she limped over to a nearby table and cast the device aside with a clatter. Mauldro flipped open lids to dust-coated jars in another search. “I can give you a blood tox. Works better on accelerated carriers like you. It’ll take care of the little narg. How many days are you—”

  “No. I’m not pregnant. That’s the problem.”

  Mauldro huffed. “Never would’ve guessed that to be a problem. I conjure you know how that’s meant to work twixt a man and woman.”

  Sela gave her a dead stare.

  “Oh. Well, then. There’s a chip, an implant.” She trundled closer, and before Sela could react, poked her in the stomach with a gnarled finger. “Right here. Controls gestation.”

  “Yes. I know. I removed it. Months ago.”

  The crone grumbled beneath her breath and snatched back the device from the table. Another flash of light.

  “How old are you?”

&nbs
p; Sela drew her chin up, shoulders back. “Sixteen campaigns.”

  Mauldro grunted. “No, I mean in years, girl. Origin standard. How many?”

  “Thirty-eight.”

  “Ah. Your heart stopped once. Bad hit. Can still see the scarring. Used a vivject on you. Lucky girl.” Mauldro nodded in satisfaction at what she saw on the tiny screen. “You’re clean. No pathogens. No toxins. No pharms.”

  “I would never do that,” Sela spat, indignant.

  This earned a scoff. “You’re new to this life, aren’t you?”

  Sela stared.

  “You’ve birthed before, long ago. Just once. Most likely non-reg.” Mauldro tapped a key. Another off-tune warble was silenced with an impatient slap.

  “Just once.” Sela ground her molars. A son I watched die.

  “Problem can be your man, then. Ever think on that?”

  It was because of what Jon is. Could that be it?

  “What is he, some tox-head? A miner from one of the tin towns? They’re sterile. Those poor lads are done before they know the rads are killin’ them,” Mauldro chided, sarcastic. “You should have better thinks than that, girl.”

  Sela shook her head. “He’s Human.”

  The woman froze. The permanently etched scowl on the face deepened, eyes narrowed. With surprising strength, she pushed the wad of money back at Sela. “Leave now. There’s nothing to be done.”

  Sela stood firm, forcing Mauldro’s withered arm away. “Not until I get answers.” Her hand fell onto the butt of the A6 in unvoiced threat. If it frightened the ancient-looking splicer, it did not show.

  “You came here because you know what I once was. A splicer. We bred you. Made you this way on purpose.”

  “I am no longer Regime. Neither are you.”

  “Regime. Fleet.” She spat. “Run by spoiled children that play war. The Kindred liked to pretend they were the superiors with their augmentations, pretty cosmetic splicin’. You…those like you...were the true future of the Eugenes. Not them. Generations of selective breeding, carefully cultivated. Look at you—a god among mortals. ”