by Paul Collins
Anneke glanced out at the street beyond the café window. She couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but then she didn’t expect there to be. She flashed her cash card over the table reader. She was about to say goodbye to Esprin when she stopped and stared down at him.
Why was he here? Why now? And why did he follow her?
Was she being paranoid? Could he be the mole? A sudden chill sleeted through her. For the first time she realised she could no longer trust anyone. Only Uncle Viktus, whom she had known since she was a child.
Was this the first fallout of betrayal? Paranoia, then isolation?
In that moment she decided to go to Lykis Integer and see Uncle Viktus herself. In person. She almost slapped herself. How could she have been so stupid as to send that priority message? Now the mole would know somebody was on to him; knew, in fact, that she was on to him. Of course, she had been about to tackle the Quesadans, and there was never a guarantee that she was going to survive the encounter. Still … it had been a rash and desperate gambit.
‘Anneke?’ Esprin’s voice jerked her back to the here and now. She eyed him again. Some of the worst monsters in history were charming on the outside, seemingly harmless, even goofy. It didn’t pay to judge a book by its cover, even though books didn’t have covers any more.
‘What is it?’ Anneke’s mouth hardly moved.
‘You know they’re all talking about you back at HQ?’
She frowned. Well, of course they were.She had stirred up a hornet’s nest. ‘What are they saying?’
He shrugged. ‘Nobody knows what it’s all about. It’s all high level need-to-know stuff. I was hoping you could tell me.’
Was he pumping her for information? Anneke suddenly had to be free of the place; she had to get some fresh air.
‘I’ll see you around, Esprin.’
She headed for the door, not looking where she was going. She bumped into a waiter, staggered back. A bottle on the waiter’s tray exploded in a glittering cloud of shrapnel. She ducked, pulling the waiter down with her. Another projectile whined into the room, turning a corner, tracking, and then thudded into the back wall as she let off an electro-magnetic pulse grenade.
‘Everybody get down!’ she shouted.
But the danger was already past, for now. Obin appeared. The café owner was big, at least 200 centimetres tall and about fifty wide. He was of mutated Terra stock, but had the pointy tufted ears common to all Kaspiris.
‘What’s goin’ on?’ he thundered. His holoscreens were sputtering from the disruption of the grenade. Then he saw Anneke and his expression softened a little. ‘You tell me what’s goin’ on, girl.’
‘Call the hunkies,’ she said. ‘Somebody just shot up your café.’
Obin looked at her in shock, then scowled in disgust. ‘It be that Tadis Clan. Bastards, ev’ry one of ‘em! I get me an assassin. I get me a gang of mercs. I fix ‘em. You see …’
Anneke had no doubt he could fix anything he wanted, but she wasn’t hanging around to watch. She nodded briskly at Esprin who was crouched on the floor, and hurried out the back entrance. When she had put a couple of blocks between her and the café, she circled around, climbing Hector’s Hill, which stood at one end of the harbour. From there she could see the entire dockland and esplanade.
She systematically scanned the streets below her for two hours with quantum-enhanced binocs. And found what she expected to find. Nothing.
Even gone wrong, it was a professional hit. ‘Exporters’ as they were known in the trade, did not hang around. Someone had hired a member of the extremely expensive Assassins’ Clan to retire her.
And she thought she knew exactly who that someone was.
The mole.
She hurried back to her high security apartment, not bothering with the back ways and concealed entrances. A true professional would have them covered. She locked herself in, hoping for time to think what her next move should be. She did not get it.
That night the assassin struck again.
Through the haze of a dream she became aware that someone was in her apartment. Not possible. Not in theory, anyway. She had put the security and defence systems in place herself. Still, there was someone inside her apartment, and none of the alarms had gone off. She blinked herself fully awake.
Somebody that good was definitely to be feared.
On the other hand, she owed the fact that she was still alive to the complexity and sensitivity of her defences. Each of these would have taken time to overcome or neutralise and even now the killer would be moving with slow precision, measuring each move, scanning for interceptor beams, pressure pads under the carpet, mass detectors, and a million other anti-intruder systems.
None of which had worked, except for the one in her head, the one that was jangling loudly and shredding her nerves.
She rolled out of bed and in one fluid motion moved to the far corner, where the shadow was deepest. Here she pressed a button to open a panel in the wall. But it didn’t budge. She felt under the bench for her reeker, the tiny hand weapon allowing her to stun without killing.
‘Lookin’ for this?’
The sheer deadness of the voice made her go cold and clammy all over. It sounded like the voice of someone who had climbed out of a freshly dug grave.
Which is just where I’d like to put you back into. The thought flashed through her mind as her brain went into overdrive.
‘You keep it,’ she said, springing straight up. The wall behind her vaporised soundlessly, but she was already out of the line of fire. Her extraordinary musculature always took people by surprise. Now she counted on it to keep her alive.
She twisted, bounced off the ceiling, and dived across the room. Another soundless blast blew away a large chunk of the roof. The flash dazzled her, leaving dark spots dancing in front of her eyes. She thudded into something soft, but he was prepared for her, even though her strength had come as a shock.
They tumbled onto the floor, broke apart, and were both back on their feet and striking in an eye blink. In an eerie silence in the dim light of the bedroom, they exchanged blindingly fast blows and counterblows. Anneke’s youth and strength gave her an edge, but her attacker had experience and confidence. After all, he had survived every fight he had ever been in.
MAXIMUS moved through the nighttime crowd on Lykis Integer like a wraith. He wore a cloak and hood and kept his face in shadow. He drew little attention, because many of those around him were similarly dressed. Privacy, on a world full of spies and secret agents, was jealously guarded. Even asking for a person’s given name was considered rude.
All of which suited Maximus’s purposes.
He threaded the maze of back alleys and dingy lanes, moving deeper and deeper into the Draco Quarter of the city, an area notorious for muggers, thieves and trigger-happy mercenaries. Life here was cheap, in some cases costing less than two bottles of Earth water. Many could not afford the ubiquitous neural neck jacks. There were no sanitation teams of droid sprayers, suckers, mulchers, spiders, centipedes and snakes, with automated dumpsters and central trucks. Rather than PhoneNet, they had ancient mobile phones with voice instruction. They even chalked street art on the sidewalks, rather than displaying data bubbles of their favourite art around their bodies.
Maximus trod carefully, not through fear, but to avoid losing the precious moments it would take to kill any idiot who challenged him.
He found the Cut Throat. On its swinging board there was a gruesome picture matching the inn’s name, but this was just to impress the adventure-tour people. The bar pretended to be a tourist trap to disguise what it really was: an extremely dangerous place where you could easily get killed.
Fake candles in bottles bolted to the tables dimly lighted the interior. The furniture and the floor were made of deep red mahogany analogue, which was expensive on some planets, but cheap here. Maximus wondered how old the place was as he took a seat near the back. A century, perhaps? Three stabbings or shootings per night for a hundred years was well
over a hundred thousand litres of blood spilled.
Kilroy stepped out of the shadows and joined him.
The stooge took a seat opposite then leaned forward into the light. Against his instincts, Maximus managed not to mock-wince. Kilroy’s nose was broken and there was a great purple gash on his left cheek.
‘Tell me everything went as planned,’ said Maximus, activating a hush field around their booth.
‘Everything went as planned,’ came Kilroy’s dead voice, sounding like a corpse being forced to talk by electrostimulus.
Maximus allowed himself to relax slightly. Obviously there had been problems, but the result was all that mattered.
‘Then she’s dead?’
Kilroy pointed to his nose. ‘You think I got this from a dead person?’
‘So not as planned then.’
‘I was joking.’
Those words in that muffled voice sent a shiver down Maximus’s spine. Kilroy made a joke. The anomaly irritated him. ‘I didn’t think you told jokes.’
‘Told one.’
‘What happened?’
Kilroy shrugged. ‘She got lucky. I missed a clean shot at her when she bumped into somebody. Then I tried again in her apartment. She’s strong and fast.’
Maximus nodded, sympathetic only because Kilroy’s misfortune was his as well. ‘Normansk born, bred, and genetically enhanced.’
‘She’ll be hard to kill.’
Maximus blinked. He had never heard Kilroy say that about anybody. ‘How hard?’
‘Hard.’
‘Nobody’s that hard to export. Nobody.’
‘Please yourself.’
‘So you’re saying you can’t fulfil the contract? Scared?’
Kilroy made to get up.
Maximus waved him back down. As soon as the word was out of his mouth he knew he’d screwed up. If there was one thing Kilroy wasn’t, it was scared. Of anybody. Not even Maximus. He did not even seem to care. Perhaps the only thing that would make Kilroy happy was to be dead. Maximus had a feeling that he might help with that one day.
He sat back, his mind scanning, sifting, and organising the facts. One thing was clear: Anneke now knew that he knew. Knew who she was and about the message she had sent. She would be plotting, and he had to stay ahead of her.
This was the ultimate chess game. Longshadow vs Black … yet she had made the first move, the opening gambit of the priority message. That meant she was white.
Right about now, he fancied, Anneke was regretting sending that message. Right about now she was thinking, What an idiot, I went and alerted the mole to the fact that I am on to him.
He still wasn’t happy. She knew about him, so she would be coming after him, but Maximus had other weapons. Not just the discrediting evidence that Kilroy had hopefully planted, but also something that almost nobody but the highest of the high at RIM knew. Something that Maximus had discovered by accident, and intended to use with exquisite care.
He sat forward again. ‘You want to take another crack at her?’ he asked Kilroy.
The assassin stared straight back at him. It was his way of saying, What do you think?
‘Did you get the wafer?’
Kilroy held out a device the size of a small coin. ‘Nothin’ on it. Field on Arcadia fried it.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Said so, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, but you also said everything went according to plan.’
‘Joke.’
‘I didn’t laugh.’
Kilroy shrugged.
‘I need you to return to Se’atma.’
‘No.’
‘Say again?’
‘Not going to Se’atma.’
Maximus stared at him. Was the man scared after all?
‘Longshadow not there.’
Maximus breathed out slowly. ‘Okay. You want to tell me where she is?’
‘Here.’
For one wild moment Maximus thought Kilroy meant the Cut Throat. He restrained himself from scanning the place.
‘On Lykis,’ said Kilroy.
Maximus imagined the man was savouring his discomfort. Maybe he did have a sense of humour after all. Now that was scary.
‘How do you know?’ Maximus demanded. ‘She didn’t arrive by normal transit.’
‘Dyson jump-gate, main dock.’
Maximus laughed. ‘I’ll be. She has nerve. I’m starting to like her.’
‘Beautiful, too,’ Kilroy said in a way that would make any woman run shrieking. He licked his cut lips.
‘Pleasing to the eye, yes,’ agreed Maximus. He thought of the agent’s olive complexion, her emerald, almond-shaped eyes, and her slick black hair. Genuine or renovation, she was a striker.
Kilroy’s eyes flashed. Maximus saw his own death reflected there. Well now, there were some human vices that could tempt Kilroy after all. Maximus would remember. One day it might keep him alive.
‘Where is she?’
‘Hotel. Tagged her on Se’atma.’
‘You tagged her? Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place? What kind of tag?’
‘Worm.’
‘She’ll find it. She’ll know.’
‘Not this. Ekud worm.’
‘Ekud – where did you get an Ekud worm from?’ Black asked. ‘You have dealings with the Ekud clan I’m unaware of?’
‘Dealings my business.’
‘You’re just a bundle of surprises today, Kilroy.’ Maximus leant forward again. ‘Okay, here’s what we do …’
Kilroy exited the subway two stops from the hotel where Anneke’s tag told him she was staying. Unlike Black, he had complete confidence in the worm, a microscopic device that literally wormed its way through the skin or could be placed in a person’s drink or food. Once settled, it sent out a steady, discrete signal that could be picked up by a nearby e-tag receiver. The chances of Anneke becoming aware of it were exceedingly zero.
Kilroy knew the hotel where she was staying, and why she had chosen it. A lot of off-worlders stayed there. They were mostly government types, all with their paranoia and suspicions and security screens. The rooms were swept several times a day for remote viewing devices. The walls were solid metal, the ultimate Faraday cages, and discharge nodes sent out pulsed radio babble that would send electronic devices haywire. The windows were made of a special sound-absorbing material and would not pass sound waves even if laser beams were bounced off them to read the vibrations inside the room. The quantum matting roof sent off disguised heat, biochem and radar signals.
In short, the hotel was impenetrable to spying. It also came with its own cadre of security goons, mostly ex-mercs and off-world hunkies down on their luck or stranded without money.
But Kilroy didn’t want to go inside.
He just wanted Anneke Longshadow to come out, and Maximus had come up with an answer to that. Kilroy moved into a shadowed doorway half a block from the main entrance of the hotel. There was a rear entrance, but Anneke was sure to assume it was being watched and would prefer to exit onto a large, well-lit street filled with people.
Kilroy checked his watch, wondered what the delay might be, and then spotted her. Her raven black hair made her distinctive, and very shortly would make her dead. He checked his worm, which was functioning normally. According to the satpic, she was heading down Arturo Street, towards the centre of town.
Kilroy followed her, keeping his distance. She was too good to be tracked by sight, but he knew he could rely on the worm. He maintained a steady 300-metre spacing from her, and with the crowds and the night that seemed safe. She would need the eyes of a hawk with an X-ray telescope to see him at this distance.
He broke left, moved into a side street, paralleling Anneke’s path for a while, then caught her up and passed her. He loitered in shadows, looking like someone who merely had something illegal to sell. A few moments later she passed him on the other side of the street.
Kilroy stayed parallel to Anneke for the rest of her journey, b
ut near the end he moved back into the side streets, knowing she would at some point be turning off the main road and heading towards him.
He backed up against a building to fade into some shadows, stumbled on something and suddenly heard a whish and felt something wrap around him. He did not cry out, instead he reacted, expanding his chest and thrusting out his arms so that whatever it was couldn’t tighten around him.
It did no good. Within seconds he was enmeshed in an ixsin web, as strong as woven steel and designed to tighten if he struggled. He relaxed.
‘That’s better,’ came a contralto voice from the darkness.
Kilroy’s eyes narrowed. Anneke Longshadow stepped out from an alleyway, smiling pleasantly at him.
‘I am ahead, two – one,’ she said pleasantly. ‘Surely you didn’t think I’d fall for a voice-dupe call?’ She paused, reflecting. ‘It was good – sounded like Viktus. But not good enough.’
Kilroy’s face showed no outward sign of surprise.
‘How?’
‘How did I detect and remove your worm?’ She held up a small vial. Inside something metallic caught the light and winked. ‘Trade secret, Kilroy.’
‘You know my name.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘A worm like this is pretty hard to come by. Its signal is more like a medical tester rather than a tracker. People remember selling such exotic things. Then again, if you have the right tools, worms have molecularly encoded serial numbers on them. It didn’t take long to track down the alias you used. From there …’ She waited. Kilroy said nothing. ‘Well, here we are again.’
‘What now?’
She assessed him, noting the scars, the dead eyes, remembering the fanatical way he fought, as if he belonged to a long lost faith that guaranteed absolution in death. Sirens blared in the distance, and grew louder. Anneke tossed the vial at Kilroy’s feet.
‘Worms can turn around and bite, Kilroy. Tell your boss, the mole, that I’m coming for him. Can you do that?’
‘Yes.’
She turned to go.
‘Why don’t you kill me?’ he asked. ‘I would have killed you.’
She turned and smiled. ‘Apart from the fact that I’m nothing like you?’ she said. ‘Because I’m using you.’