by Jake Elwood
A green hovertruck sat parked at the border between her property and the next door neighbor's, lights off, power off. She could make out some kind of company logo on the doors. A contractor's truck, sitting there while the crew did whatever it was they'd been hired to do.
A man in a dark uniform came strolling up the street toward Cassie's house. She watched, wondering if he was the contractor. It was the hovercar that came to life as he approached, though. The side hatch swung up, and he paused to enter something into a PAD before getting into the car and driving up the street.
She took a good look at the car as it passed her. The door had the logo of a restaurant service. Someone in the neighborhood was having food delivered. She exhaled, letting go of stored tension, and returned to her car. She would run inside, get her gun, some tools, and a change of clothes, and head for Holcroft's safehouse. She would feel much better once she was armed.
Her car glided up the street, and she glanced at the hovertruck as she passed it. Then she kept on driving, past her own house, not slowing down, not stopping. She turned the nearest corner, picked up speed, and checked behind her as she took a meandering path back into Zemlya City. She stopped outside a shopping center and waited for her hands to stop shaking in the aftermath of an unexpected adrenalin spike.
The image on the door of the hovertruck was seared into her brain. A burly, cheerful man with a shovel and a rake over his shoulder. And a company name.
Elysian Acres. George Hampstead's employer.
She took out her phone, started to call Holcroft, then stopped herself. She connected to her house AI instead, and brought up the outside security feeds. The hovertruck was just visible at the edge of the feed from the front door camera.
One at a time she flipped through the other outdoor cameras, thinking about the layout of the house and yard and neighborhood. The truck was big enough to hold as many as three people, but the location was poor. If she saw them coming, she might flee. They would do well to have another man out there somewhere, ready to head her off. She'd escaped from one team already, after all. They would err on the side of caution. There would be at least one more man.
But where?
A line of shrubs surrounded her yard on three sides. In the back, where a high ridge of stone separated her house from the rest of the town, there were several places where a person could crouch among the branches completely unseen. That was plausible, she decided. Not certain, though.
Well, what about a vehicle? A second vehicle meant more options for the kidnapping team, but it also meant more chances to be spotted or traced.
She brought up a map of the neighborhood, not trusting her memory. A narrow lane ran along the base of the ridge, a hundred or so meters behind Cassie's house, ending in a cul-de-sac. Seldom used, it was there to give city crews access to things like water and data lines. The lane meandered a bit from side to side, but there were no trees, no buildings. A vehicle would be visible from a long way off.
Cassie overlaid a topographical map and frowned as she examined it. There was a dip in the road, just before the cul-de-sac. A small vehicle parked in the dip would be very difficult to spot. The chance of a city vehicle coming by was quite small, and there weren't any teenagers in the neighborhood who would be looking for places make out.
The house had a flexible rooftop camera for checking the state of the tiles. Cassie brought up the feed from that camera and rotated it around until it pointed about where the dip in the road ought to be. Her row of trees stood in the way, but she zoomed in as close as she could get and peered through the gaps in the branches. Then, with meticulous care, she moved the camera up and down, left and right.
Between a couple of trees, just above a fat green leaf, she saw a glint of light. Sunlight was reflecting from something, glass or metal, beyond her house. There would be no water there, and nothing else she could think of that might cause that dazzling point of light.
Or it could be nothing. A lens flare, a bit of shiny trash, a pale rock that seemed brighter than it was because she could see almost nothing through the trees.
She called Holcroft.
"Cassie. Where are you? Are you at the rental house?"
Good. He wasn't tracking her location anymore. Or he was being clever. "No, not yet."
"You're not at your house, are you?" His voice was reproachful.
"No," she said truthfully, "I'm in a parking lot. But I brought up my house security cameras on my PAD, and there's a suspicious vehicle parked in the street. It's a landscaping company, but I haven't ordered any landscaping, and neither have my neighbors."
"We'll look into it right away," he said crisply. "Maybe they've finally made a mistake." She heard a string of electronic chirps in the background. "I'll call you back shortly. We might know who's behind this soon."
I doubt it. She broke the connection and headed back to her own neighborhood. She drove the little car up the back lane and parked it so it blocked the road, then got out. Her gun would have been a great comfort. She picked up a couple of rocks instead, and crept up the lane toward the concealing hollow where a kidnapper just might be hiding.
A shadow raced across the ground, and she looked up to see a police flitter sweeping in low over her house. An amplified voice in the distance ordered someone to keep his hands in view, and she trotted up the lane until the hollow was in view.
A car sat there, a small ground vehicle with bright yellow paint, the driver's seat empty. Feet scuffed against sand to her right, and she broke into a run, heading for the car.
A man came into view at the edge of the hollow, a skinny guy in his thirties in scruffy coveralls, looking back over his shoulder at the house. He stumbled, looked around, saw Cassie coming at him, and froze.
She whipped her first rock at his head, and he flinched away, bringing up a hand to protect himself. By the time his arm came down she was on him. His eyes went wide, his mouth opened, and then her shoulder slammed into his chest. He crashed onto his back and she swung her second rock, slamming it into his solar plexus. He grunted, tried to curl up, and she thumped the rock into the side of his jaw.
The trunk of her car was just clicking shut when the first police car came floating up the lane. She stood with her hands up, covered by a police robot with stunners built into its arms, while a human cop talked to Holcroft by networked mic. Eventually the human cop told the robot to stand down. "You can lower your arms now, Ma'am."
She relaxed her arms and waited.
Holcroft was tight-lipped with annoyance when he arrived. "I thought you were in a parking lot!"
"I was. Then I came here to see what was happening."
"It isn't safe, Cassie!"
She gestured around. "There are cops all over the place. This is the safest spot on Severnaya right now."
He glared at her, clearly frustrated.
"It's my home, Morren," she said. "My life. I had to come."
He held her gaze for a moment, then nodded reluctantly. "I understand, I guess." He turned to the cop who'd found her. "What have you got?"
The cop gestured past Cassie at the robot, which was examining the yellow ground car. "Parked vehicle. No sign of the driver."
"We picked up two men in front," Holcroft told her. "Maybe it's all of them. Or maybe there was a third man, and he took off on foot. Did you see anything?"
She pointed at the young cop. "Once he rolled up I didn't see another human being until you got here." Which was technically true.
"You better wait here while we check the house. Constable Burns will keep an eye on you. Can you get your house AI to let us in?"
"Nothing doing," she said firmly. "I'll take you through the house myself. I'm not waiting here." Not when the idiot in the trunk might start kicking or yelling. The last thing I need is Constable Burns anywhere near my car.
Holcroft looked as if he wanted to argue. Cassie gave him her most stubborn look, and he relented. "All right. But stick close to me."
She followed hi
m toward the house. When she glanced back she was relieved to see that Burns had joined the robot at the yellow ground car. There was no one anywhere near Cassie's vehicle.
The house was entirely empty and unmolested. Holcroft waited while Cassie packed a bag, and pretended not to notice the bulk of a pistol under the jacket she put on.
"Will you go to the rental house now?"
She nodded. "I promise."
His eyes narrowed. "Will you go straight there?"
"Well, I want to pick up some groceries first."
"All right. Don’t come back to this house without me, all right?"
"Okay. I won't."
"Call me if you see anything suspicious. Anything at all."
"Sure. And thanks."
As she climbed back into her car she could see him watching her, his eyes worried and suspicious. He turned back to his crime scene, though, as she drove away.
The man in the trunk woke up as she was parking the car in the desert well beyond Zemlya City. She ignored his muffled cries, taking her time setting up the tools she was going to need. When she was done she examined what she'd put together, asking herself if any part of it could generate a spark. When hydrogen sulfide mixed with oxygen it became flammable. She could protect herself from suffocation, but a kilometers-wide explosion was another matter entirely.
When everything was ready she set her pistol on stun, turned the power down as far as it would go, walked around to the back of the car, and popped the trunk.
The man came squirming out, trying to leap out at her and failing miserably. His muscles had stiffened, and when he cleared the edge of the trunk he fell sprawling in the sand. She didn't even have to stun him.
Cassie slid a plastic tie over his wrists and drew it tight. She found a can of emergency sealant in the trunk, held it in front of his face, and said, "Close your eyes." He gaped at her until she squeezed the button on top of the can, then scrunched his eyes shut as she coated the top of his face in foam. It dried in seconds, forming a sticky mass that blinded him.
The shocker had a dead man's switch. She activated the switch, held it in her left hand, holstered her pistol, and taped the shocker to his exposed belly. Then, one-handed, she dragged him to his feet.
He squawked and cursed and demanded explanations. She ignored it all, pointed him into the desert, planted a foot against his backside, and shoved. He stumbled forward, and she followed him, propelling him with further kicks until he got the idea and started to walk. He was blind and disoriented, stumbling over rocks, falling sometimes to one knee. He kept demanding to know where she was taking him, but she only responded with kicks.
The ground fell as they walked, the slope getting steeper and steeper. Cassie took out an oxygen mask and fitted it over her mouth. The bottle had a sensor that would open the valve as soon as it detected dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide.
"What do you want? You can't do this, I have rights! This is murder. You have to let me go. I didn't mean to trespass, I was just going for a walk outside your house."
For an awful moment she wondered if he was telling the truth. She shoved him again with her foot, knocking him sprawling, aware that she was making things worse if he turned out to be innocent.
"They'll kill you if I just disappear. They know where you live, you know. But you let me go and I'll put in a good word."
So. Not innocent, then. She circled around behind him and drove the toe of her boot into his back, right where his lowest rib curved around to meet his spine. He swore, then pressed his forehead into the sand, using it for leverage as he got his knees under him. He made it to his feet and staggered off in the wrong direction. She corrected his course with another kick.
Some of the sealant had flaked off, just above one eye. He would be able to see a little bit. Well, it wouldn't help him. She walked along behind him, the dead man's switch warm and hard against her fingers.
"Great Dark Space," he swore. "I smell sulfur." He stopped, and she kicked him forward. "We have to turn back. Lady! We're getting into bad air. We have to go back!"
He tried to turn and she planted a boot against his hip, then shoved hard. He fell, and the slope was steep enough that he rolled twice before his splayed legs stopped him. He came to a stop on his side. There were wide gaps in the sealant, and red smears as his face bled into the foam.
Cassie could smell rotten eggs now too. The smell seemed to worsen as she followed the man down the slope, but that was surely her imagination. A meter of elevation shouldn't make much difference.
"You can't do this." His voice was hoarse, desperate. "What do you want? Why are you—"
A foot against his shoulder sent him tumbling down the slope. He rolled and rolled, and Cassie felt a sudden stab of fear. If he tumbled too far he'd suffocate before he could tell her anything. She hurried after him.
He was flat on his back when she reached him, panting and coughing, every muscle in his body rigid. The ground was quite steep, and his heels were dug deeply into the sand. A single fat strand of sealant pulled at the skin just under his nose. The rest of the improvised blindfold had ripped away. He stared at her oxygen mask, his eyes wide with horror.
"You want to go back up the hill?"
He was coughing too hard to speak. He nodded instead, his head bobbing madly as if he thought she'd miss the point.
"Then talk to me, you bastard. Tell me who hired you. Tell me why you're after me."
"You gotta—" A fresh fit of coughing reduced him to quivering helplessness. He took a moment to gather himself, then tried again. "You gotta help me."
"You're no use to me. I'm getting some fresh air." She turned, and he tried to rise, then fell back, one arm pressed across his mouth as if his sleeve could filter out hydrogen sulfide.
"Goodbye," she told him, and started up the slope.
"It's not you!"
She paused, turning to watch him as he coughed some more. His eyes were wide and desperate, his face bright red as he lowered his arm. "It's some guy in Kingstown. O'Leary. O'Reilly. Something like that."
"Jerry O'Malley?"
He was coughing too hard to answer. He just nodded his head. She put her hands on her hips and waited.
"He got nosy. I don't know the details. They don't tell me squat. I'm supposed to bring you in. You're bait for this O'Malley lump. That's all I know."
"Who do you work for?"
He coughed for a time, which gave him plenty of time to think up a good lie. She decided to ignore whatever he said first.
"Brooks Cartwright. He runs a counterfeiting ring in Kingstown."
"Don't waste my time." She turned and took a couple of steps up the slope.
"Wait, wait!" He started to rise, then sank back down, coughing. He wheezed something too faint to hear, and she trudged back down the slope, dropping into a squat just beyond his reach.
"There's this bar in Kingstown." His voice was a tortured rasp, barely audible. "The King's Head. It's a god-awful dive. No one goes there. Guys like me, we drop by sometimes to see if there's work. Smiling Charlie hired me for this gig. Five thousand if we bagged you alive. One thou if you died but nobody knew. Two hundred if you died and word got out."
Cassie thought of the bounties she'd commanded the year before and sneered. Five thousand? Chump change. "What were you supposed to do when you caught me?"
"Rigger knew how to call Smiling Charley. Rigger was in the truck."
The cops had him, then. If the worm at her feet had told her a single word of truth.
He started to whisper, and she leaned closer. His voice grew fainter, and finally she put a foot beside his shoulder and leaned down until her hair was almost brushing his face.
She didn't see the blow that hit her. The impact knocked her onto her backside, and the man started to rise, his face twisted with malice. Cassie didn't decide to let go of the switch in her hand. It just tumbled from her fingers, and he spasmed, freezing half way to his feet. He screamed, a ragged, ugly sound that echoed i
n Cassie's brain for hours after. Then he toppled backward and tumbled down the slope, rolling head over heels, picking up speed, plunging deeper and deeper into the poisonous lower atmosphere.
Cassie sat and watched him tumble out of sight. There was a sore spot on her jaw, and she rubbed it reflectively as she waited for him to reappear. After a couple of minutes she rose to her feet and walked back up the slope to her car.
Chapter 8
If there was one thing Cassie had learned in her career as a thief, it was that a good thief – and Cassie had been very, very good – knew the value of intelligence gathering. She briefly considered barging into The King's Head and harassing people until someone pointed out Smiling Charlie. That would earn her another visit from Holcroft, though. She wouldn’t be too surprised if he arrested her, this time.
No, she had enough information now to switch to a more subtle approach. A good thief knew the value of subtlety, too. She found it a little disturbing how quickly her old skills came flooding back. It took her less than a minute to map out the closest data hub to the King's Head.
She didn't own a data splicer anymore. The sophisticated, expensive little tools were of use only to data techs, slicers, cops, and the better sort of thieves. She found an electronics manufacturer with kiosks in front, chose what she wanted from the catalog screen, and waited impatiently while the factory built her purchase.
Finding the software she needed and loading it onto her PAD took five or six minutes. Already she'd done enough to trigger a visit from the cops on many worlds. Zemoth's liberal privacy laws would protect her, though.
She hoped.
The factory took ten endless minutes to make the splicer. It felt like forever, but at last she had the little device in her hand. In many neighborhoods actually attaching the thing to a hub on a street corner would have been the toughest part of the whole operation. The King's Head, though, was in the seediest part of Zemlya City. It was downright tame compared to some of the dark streets Cassie had walked, but there were few pedestrians and none who were going to call the police for anything less than a murder.