Head Space

by Andrew Vaillencourt

  But what then? If this Manny character was telling the truth, then he had no money. The first scanner he walked through would mark him as some terrorist and he would rot in a cell until it got sorted out.

  He moved slower now. The heady joy of escape now replaced with a heavy all-consuming dread. There was only one place for him to go at this point. Only one place where a guy with no money, on the wrong side of the law, and running from a powerful enemy could go.

  The voice teased him. “What’s it going to be, Jean? You can take your chances with the boss if you want. You just killed an unarmed man in broad daylight, but prison here on Earth might work out a lot better for you than what comes next. Or you can board that shuttle and run. Who knows? You might make it. It’s a real big galaxy out there.”

  Jean’s ability to evaluate his flaws objectively was both a boon and a curse. He had no idea what path made the best sense, but he had already decided which one he was going to take. With no confidence whatsoever, Little Jean Marceau stepped up to the boarding zone and through the doors of his shuttle.

  “Good boy,” the disembodied voice crooned. “I like it when they run.”

  “You’ll never catch me.” Jean tried to sound brave. He failed.

  “Sure I will,” said the voice.

  Jean wanted to reply, but saw his screen had gone completely blank. He frowned and sat down on the thinly cushioned bench next to an old woman. He mashed at the screen of his handheld in futile desperation, but the device lay in his hand a dead thing, stubbornly inert and useless. He was just about to give up on it when the face blinked back to life. However, the familiar startup message was missing this time. Instead, his comm flashed three times and red block letters scrolled across the screen. He could hear that voice mocking him in the moving text.

  “I’ll see you in Galapagos, buddy. Have a nice trip.”

  Jean’s heart flopped in his chest. He opened his mouth to deny it, he stabbed the recall buttons, he shook the lifeless device in despair and frustration, but it was all useless. His comm had gone completely dead.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Pack it in, Boss. He made his flight.”

  “Damn it.” The voice of Lucia Ribiero was curt and expressive as the two angry syllables crackled over the open comm channel. The brief expletive conveyed with eloquence exactly how she felt about that declaration.

  From his terminal at the office, Manny tried to soften the disappointment. “You never had a chance. By the time I locked onto him he was already at the Dock. Not even you are that fast.”

  “We know where he’s going, at least.” The guttural rumble of Roland Tankowicz sounded as disappointed as his partner’s. “And where he is going is a thousand light years from here.”

  It was a resigned Lucia who called off the chase. “Let’s regroup and debrief at the office. Sam is blowing my comm up trying to get Manny’s statement recorded and I don’t think I can put him off much longer, anyway.”

  “Be there in five, Boss,” Roland grumbled.

  “Already there, Boss,” said Manny.

  “Okay. I’m sending Sam over there, Manny. Stall him until Roland and I arrive.”

  “I know how to talk to cops without incriminating myself, Boss.”

  “That’s comforting. Put on the coffee, then. I think it’s going to be a long night. Roland, send Mindy on an errand or something. She and Parker mix like cats and dogs.”

  Roland grunted. “Good call. Let me conjure up a suitably lame job for her.”

  New Boston’s most infamous fixer paused in his stroll back to base, buying himself a moment to fabricate a banal task for their volatile teammate. Arriving at an equitable solution, he then pinged her comm. A saucy country drawl filled his ears when Mindy answered the chime.

  “What’s up, Ironsides?”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I am working a lead on that last batch of bad blaze that messed up Z-block. Henry says it’s not his, but I’m bothering him, anyway. Mostly because I don’t trust him.”

  Roland had to concede that Mindy’s instincts on that front were probably good. “You shouldn’t. He’s not very trustworthy. But he’s also an egomaniac and a perfectionist. I’d be surprised if he let a bad batch out.”

  “I figured. Just bein’ thorough. It doesn’t hurt to have the guild leaders on their toes.”

  “Can’t argue that,” he agreed. “Anyway, we just had a bit of action here, and I need you to shadow some cops for me. They’re cleaning up a crime scene down by Demeter and it’s important that the wrong people don’t get any ideas about this.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I want this case to stay tighter than usual. Nobody talks about it. None of the usual snitches trading info for drugs or whatever. This one stays completely dark.”

  “Ah.” There was a chuckle in this reply. A smug and satisfied understanding. “You want me to help some of the patrolmen to understand the need for discretion, then.”

  “I know how good you are at conveying the appropriate sense of gravity to these matters.”

  “It’s like a gift or something. How hard can I lean?”

  When the tiny blond assassin was involved, this was a very important question. “Let’s draw the line at broken bones, Mindy. Anyone you think isn’t catching on we can talk to together.”

  “Okay, Ironsides. A couple of category two ass-whuppings coming right up.”

  Roland thought he detected a hint of disappointment in her voice. “I appreciate your dedication to providing quality service, Mindy.”

  “Terrifying some dirty cops? Hah! With jobs like this, service is its own reward!”

  “So you’re giving a discount, then?”

  No one could ever tell when Roland was attempting to be funny. Thus, Mindy erred on the side of clarity if only to protect her income. “I didn’t say that, metal-britches. I’ll check in first thing in the morning. This is going to take all night. I can just feel it!”

  Roland chuckled as she cut the connection. A few people passing him on the sidewalk squeaked in startled terror as the rumble from his chest broke the bustle of street sounds like tank treads crushing concrete. Even Roland had to admit that the sound was not entirely mirthful, but he had no control over that. He began to walk back toward his office and pinged Lucia.

  “Mindy’s handled,” he said by way of greeting. “Sent her to lean on local PD. We don’t want this one springing leaks before we know what’s up.”

  “Good call,” she agreed. “Killing two birds with one stone.”

  “Some folks think I’m pretty good at this job.”

  “You’re all right. With time you’ll improve.”

  “You were sixteen when I started doing this for a living, lady.”

  “So I like older men. Don’t take it personally.”

  “I’m hanging up. See you in five.”

  Lucia’s laughter was the last thing he heard before the signal cut out. That she was laughing at him did not bother the big man. It was refreshing, really. Until meeting her, most people screamed at him, or cried, or simply stammered in mute horror. Laughter was new and he liked it.

  Lots of things were new these days. Dockside was changing before his eyes and he was certain this was a good thing. Dockworkers were prospering, shipping concerns were hiring, and the entertainment markets were booming. Of course in Dockside one could not disregard the underground marketplaces. Smugglers thrived, money launderers were busy, and thieves and assassins booked jobs out of the borough at a frightening pace.

  Roland and his team had been working hard to keep these interactions smooth and away from the general populace. And when things were going well, it worked. Still, Roland acknowledged that something was not quite right. What had once been the earmarked territories of rival gangs was now an underground market of guilds. Quality control and strict rules held the worst of the depravity at bay, buried in only the darkest alleys and well away from the sensit
ive economic machinery of the docks themselves. Nevertheless, the neon-lit streets were still dim and dangerous for the uninitiated. Roland had always taken great pride in knowing every corner hood, every footpad, every peddler and pusher in his dirty little corner of New Boston. The quantity of new faces currently popping up unnerved him in a manner that often ended in acts of targeted violence. Too many newcomers perceived Dockside’s experimental guilds as a weakness to be exploited. This had been expected, yet he was plagued by the nagging impression that the understandable period of instability should have passed by now. Roland admitted to himself that it had not. Proof of this surrounded him every night and bled into the gutters every morning. It was a problem that gnawed at him whenever other matters were not more pressing.

  For the moment, he had to table these musings. Exiting a side street put Roland on The Drag, Dockside’s largest and busiest thoroughfare. Even midday, the crowds were always thick here. Dockside’s legitimate marketplaces survived on shift work, and people commuted to and from the docking towers at all hours of the day. This meant that meals and errands were run at strange times for many of Dockside’s working households, and the regular ebb and flow of human traffic that other districts enjoyed devolved into a generic all-day bustle of people and commerce.

  At least this applied to the daylight hours. Once the sun set, The Drag would light up like a neon carnival. Every storefront, bar, and den of iniquity would wash the streets in multi-hued schizophrenia as their holographic signs and floating advertisements enticed longshoreman and spacers from three dozen separate star systems with pleasures and delights both legal and illegal. Men and women on shore leave after weeks or even months crammed into gate ships found themselves defenseless in one of the galaxy’s premier pleasure zones. With cred accounts swollen from a long voyage, desires repressed for too long, and inhibitions as thin as a whore’s smile, these same men and women would gorge themselves on the glut of delights arrayed for their enjoyment along The Drag. Roland would find them wherever the night left them once the sun rose again. Be they red-eyed husks snoring in alleyways or moaning zombies lurching toward the docks and dawn’s last shuttle back to their ships, the price paid for a night of debauchery came down to more than the loss of easy money. Dockside had a way of keeping a piece of everyone who succumbed to the siren song of even a single night on the town.

  Roland loved The Drag for its split personality and the juxtaposition of light and dark. It was a metaphor for Dockside itself, and while he had no head for poetry, even he could not deny there was an almost romantic quality to the two faces of his home. At Lucia’s insistence, they had rented office space right on The Drag. A converted convenience store with big clear panels that opened out onto the street had his name stenciled in gold block letters across the door. No other information was present. Everyone knew the name and what he did, so no other advertising was required. When something needed fixing, all you had to do was go find Tank on The Drag. It was common knowledge to anybody who was anyone in Dockside. Roland scowled when he saw the large front windows were dialed opaque at the moment. Lucia liked to keep them clear so she could see outside. Darkening the panels meant that this meeting was to be a serious one.

  The door slid open at his approach, and the big man clomped through to the sparsely furnished space inside. Before his eyes adjusted to the change in light, the door dragged itself closed behind him with a hiss and a pained squeal.

  “Damn it, Manny.”

  “I know, Mr. Tankowicz. I’ll fix it later. It’s been a rough day.”

  Roland instantly regretted his grouchy outburst. The poor kid had been shot at already today, so rebuking the youth about his failure to repair a squeaky door firmly rooted Roland into a personality category that rhymed with “bass pole.”

  The long-haired young scout seemed content to let it slide. Lucia, on the other hand, did not.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Roland. Weren’t you supposed to be some kind of engineer? Maybe you should fix it yourself.”

  Manny looked up from his DataPad and answered before Roland could salvage his dignity with an apology. “Combat engineers blow stuff up, Boss. They don’t fix things. I don’t think asking Mr. Tankowicz to work on the door is a good idea.”

  “Why were they called ‘engineers’ then?” Lucia’s confusion sounded sincere.

  Eager to talk about something other than his own rudeness, Roland answered. “Because in the really old days, machines that broke down defenses and smashed walls were called siege engines. The guys who built and operated them were called siege engineers.”

  “So you can’t fix stuff?” Lucia seemed almost disappointed.

  “I bet he can’t drive a train, either,“ Manny added.

  Having exhausted his ability to banter, Roland clomped over to the only desk present that matched his size and sat down heavily into a wide chair. The custom-made piece of furniture groaned under a half ton’s worth of synthetic muscle, armored skin, and other cybernetic hardware. “What do we have on our shooter, guys?”

  Manny cleared his throat. “Jean Marceau, mid-level pusher from the Niagara rackets. He moves around a lot. He looks like the type of guy with a tendency to dream big but fail small if you know what I mean.”

  “Keeps biting off more than he can chew?” Roland asked with a grunt.

  “Exactly. He’s always one step ahead of the last guy he owes money to or running away from his latest big caper gone wrong.”

  Lucia opined, “He must be a little bit smart, then. Most guys like that end up dead pretty quick.”

  Manny nodded. “I get the impression he is not so much stupid as he is ambitious and unlucky. He’s way behind on his payments to a couple of big hitters from parts unknown, and the chatter I pulled from his comm memory seems to indicate that taking a swing at me was part of making that square.”

  Roland asked the obvious question. “This a Red Hat thing?”

  “Doesn’t have the feel,” Lucia answered. It spared Manny from having to talk about his former associates. “The Red Hats know us well enough to send their elite assassins, not third-string screw-ups.”

  “Besides,” Manny chimed in, “the Red Hats are really just a few loose bands of fanatics now.” Roland and Lucia replied with questioning stares, and Manny explained. “Ellie sends me regular updates. The Hats become less of a factor every day over there.”

  Roland could not hide the derision in his tone, nor did he try. “My heart bleeds for the demise of the Red Hats.”

  “Couldn’t happen to a nicer group of deranged terrorists,” Manny agreed, and the strength in his voice surprised Roland. Discussing the young scout’s former association with the violent faction of Venusian separatists never got any easier. Though these days, Roland thought he could detect a growing sense of accomplishment in Manny. His was a key role in crippling the Red Hats. The old soldier understood better than anyone how nice it felt to make good on past sins. As far as Roland was concerned, Manny had earned his spurs and more when he went back to Venus and faced his former family and their crimes head-on. It certainly sounded like the young man was growing out of his past.

  “So not the Hats, then,” Lucia pushed onward. “Piss anyone else off lately, Manny?”

  “I work for you guys, Boss.”

  “Yeah,” Lucia concurred, “that will definitely get you on a few lists, all right.” Her brow furrowed, and absently she blew the magenta stripe of hair away from her forehead. Roland and Manny said nothing and merely watched. At the moment, a few million tiny machines in her brain were organizing a torrent of electrical activity into discrete strings of deductive and reductive reasoning. A combination of natural mutation and state-of-the-art nanotech labored in conjunction to give Lucia Ribiero the fastest brain in the galaxy, and all her formidable cerebral horsepower was now applied to exploring the possible reasons a person might try to shoot Manuel Richardson.

  A normal human brain would not be able to figure anything out with so little information. Ther
e would be too many possibilities. With no clues to eliminate specific lines of reasoning, it was impossible to separate wild speculation from plausible theory. This was no obstacle to Lucia. She simply evaluated the possibilities individually and cross-checked them with all the others. After fifteen seconds of awkward silence, her eyes fluttered and she shook her head slightly.

  “Somebody does not want us to have a good scout.”

  “Really?” Manny sounded incredulous. “Is that all?”

  “It’s the least-unlikely scenario for now. I’ll adjust if we get better data.”

  “Huh,” Roland’s grunt was eloquent. “That means somebody expects us to come after them.”

  Manny and Lucia both looked at him. Roland explained, “We don’t need all that much scouting here in New Boston. We know the lay of the land and all the players.”

  Lucia snapped her fingers. “So we have someone setting up shop to come after us, and they know us well enough to assume that Manny will find them.”

  The big bald head ducked in affirmation. “Think about it. When The Brokerage went after The Combine, Manny found Fox and his mercenaries easily. He tracked them down and infiltrated their base without them ever knowing.”

  “Twice,” Manny pointed out with transparent pride.

  Lucia gave her own emphatic nod. “He spearheaded the Venusian operation and cracked Lincoln Hardesty’s top-secret data cache.”

  “And he found that little Corpus Mundi lab over in the Ag zones. The one that turned Chico Garibaldi into a cyborg.” Roland was warming up to this theory. “I think that somebody out there is learning from their mistakes.”