Red Gambit: Book One of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  Al sighed in his ear. “I’ll inform Pryce you’re on your way, sir.”

  Pistols within easy reach at mid-thigh and sword securely strapped at his back, Jarek descended from the ship and into the muggy night.

  Pryce’s shop—or his emporium, or whatever the hell the old madman happened to be calling it—was located in the old West Ward, part of the area most Newarkers simply called the ’Skirts these days. It wasn’t that far of a walk to the sparse little community. Given the muggy warmth of the night, Jarek was glad for its proximity.

  He only passed two people along the way. Both of them rushed indoors when they saw him, one into a crappy apartment building and the other into a crude shanty.

  The shanties that had sprung up in the aftermath of the Catastrophe fifteen years past had slowly grown into more permanent structures as their inhabitants came to the realization that things were not simply going to snap back to the way they’d been anytime soon. Granted, most of the buildings in Newark weren’t in much better shape. Some shining souls had banded together and done their best to repair what they could with what resources they could scrounge together, but between the lack of any real government and the persistent threat of roaming marauders, the drive to restore society to its pre-Catastrophe splendor had been a slow one at best.

  They probably had the vamps (or the raknoth, as Pryce insisted on calling them) to thank for that. He shook his head, wondering what sick twist of cosmic fate had brought those vicious things to Earth, as he turned a dark street corner and approached his destination.

  “Young master Slater,” Pryce said as Jarek stepped into the shop.

  The small front room was relatively empty aside from the counter that Pryce was fiddling behind and the bulletin board that hung on the wall. The board displayed a mixture of odd jobs, bounties, and resumes of all shapes and sizes. As much of a hodgepodge as the board was, Jarek knew it was nothing compared to the smorgasbord of supplies in the back room where Pryce kept his proper shop.

  “Got your message,” he said, pulling the metal door closed behind him. “What did you hear?”

  A knowing smile crinkled the older man’s forehead underneath the ludicrous set of round goggles strapped there. Above all else, Jay Pryce was a scholar and a tinkerer. He never liked to wander too far without his goggles, just in case he should need to make use of a power tool or a welding torch or any other ocularly unfriendly device. Coupled with the greasy, tool-stuffed shop apron he so often wore, the thin, bushy wisps of white hair exploding from under the bands of his goggles left Pryce looking every bit the mad scientist he actually was.

  “It seems,” Pryce said, “that the Resistance may be involved—to your delight, I’m sure.”

  “This is my ‘jumping for joy’ face,” Jarek said, carefully setting his dark eyes and strong jaw in a flat expression. “Can’t you tell?”

  Pryce grinned and stepped around the counter to offer him a battered canteen of water, then paused, sniffed at the air, and wrinkled his nose. “Or perhaps something a bit stronger?”

  “That’s a pretty astute schnoz you got there, old-timer.”

  “A congested anosmic could smell the booze on you from across the room.”

  Rather than ask what the hell an anosmic was, Jarek swiped the canteen from Pryce’s hand and took a long pull of cool, clean water. “I’m going to choose to take that as a compliment. So who do I need to talk to, then? Huxley? Johnson? Please say Huxley. He’s the only one of those Resistance a-holes I can almost stand.” He smacked the canteen onto the counter in a flurry of droplets. “And what do you mean, they may be involved? What did you hear exactly?”

  Pryce studied him with a mild frown. “How old are you now, son? Twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-six. So about a quarter your age, if my calculations are in line.”

  Pryce rolled his eyes at that. “I know you’ve been through the shit and there and back again more times than I can count, and with no one but Al beside you, but—”

  Here they went again. “Ah Christ, man. Look, forgive me if I decide to have a drink or two while I wait around for something to pop up. How else am I supposed to tolerate being stuck in the ship with Al?”

  Al directed his indignant sniff through the comm speaker so Pryce could hear as well. “It’s technically me who’s stuck there with you, sir.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Jarek said, flapping his fingers and shaking his head for Pryce to see. A smile warred with the frown on Pryce’s face. “Come on, Pryce. Give me a break and tell me what’s up. Just don’t tell me the freaking Resistance has her.”

  “Not as far as I know. To answer your previous question, though, I hear Johnson hung up his hat, and Huxley …” A shadow crossed over his face. “Huxley is dead, allegedly by the Reds’ doing.”

  “Shit. Sorry to hear that.”

  “At any rate, it’s probably Huxley’s understudy you need to talk to. Michael Carver, I believe it is.”

  “Double shit,” Jarek said, wrinkling his nose. “That boy scout? You think he knows where Fela’s at?”

  “Maybe,” Pryce said. “Maybe not. Someone was in here a few days ago saying that Carver and Huxley intercepted something of prodigious value bound for the Overlord himself. No one seems to know much beyond that.”

  Jarek absentmindedly picked up the device Pryce had been working on. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but that wasn’t uncommon in Pryce’s shop. “You think it was Fela?”

  “Could be. I’m guessing the guys who nabbed Fela when you were—what was it again?”

  Jarek narrowed his eyes at the device. “Decompressing.”

  “Ah yes, decompressing. Well, it stands to reason that they were either Reds themselves or in league with them, and we know who’s at the top of that booty chain. If Fela was headed anywhere, it feasibly could’ve been on that shipment.”

  And yet Pryce was only thinking to tell him this now, days after he’d heard the news?

  “Something else happen tonight?”

  “You bet your pasty ass it did!” Pryce said, putting on his unreasonably excited scholar face. “This is where it gets good. According to the gents I just talked to, a little blond woman blew through The Rath earlier tonight looking for Carver. Cute too, they said.”

  That was interesting. The Rath was a real shithole, typically full of uninspired but dangerous thugs. As delightful as it would’ve been to watch a cute blonde kick The Rath’s ass, though, he didn’t really see why this mattered.

  “I think we have an arcanist on our hands!” Pryce said.

  Jarek looked up from the device in his hands. “An arcanist? Seriously?”

  Pryce nodded, looking like he might simply burst with excitement. “No one at The Rath had the fuzziest about what the hell they’d really seen, of course, but judging from the descriptions …” He shrugged.

  “And so the plot thickens,” Jarek said. “Wait, why would this chick be looking for Carver there?”

  “Oh, right. I may have forgot to mention that Carver was allegedly captured by the Reds earlier this week.”

  “Well, triple shit, old man!” Jarek cried, throwing his hands up. “You couldn’t have started with the bit where the guy with the info is locked up in the damn Red Fortress?”

  “In hindsight, I do see where that seems problematic. And it sounds like the clock’s ticking on this one.”

  He tossed the electrical whatever back to the countertop, much to Pryce’s irritation. “Jesus. Even if I could figure out a way to get to him before they kill him, assuming they haven’t already, it’s not much to go on.”

  “You’re right. Better go follow all those other leads of yours. Maybe you can stroll right into the big city and ask nicely.”

  “Please don’t encourage him,” Al said.

  Jarek smiled as a strategy crystallized, and he began to unfasten his gun belt. “Yeah, about that—you mind holding my hardware for a day or two, old-timer?”

  Pryce frowned. “Why do I suddenly feel an
ominous sense of déjà vu?”

  “Sir,” Al added, “if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, I really must protest.”

  “Imagine my shock,” Jarek said.

  “You should try listening to Alfred for a change,” Pryce said. “You’d live a lot longer—probably still have Fela too.”

  “Guys,” Jarek said. He turned his hands palm up with the gun belt still hanging from the one. “It’s totally different this time. I’m older, wiser. All that bullshit.”

  “We could find another way, sir,” Al said. “Perhaps the Resistance would be willing to—”

  “I’d rather have a round of fisticuffs with the Red King in my birthday suit than work with those idealistic idiots.” He removed his sword and offered it to Pryce with the guns.

  Pryce scowled but took the weapons. “Guess I won’t waste my breath trying.” His expression darkened as Jarek removed his earpiece and comm and handed those over as well. “You’re sure about this?”

  Jarek shrugged. “It’ll all just end up in some asshole’s hands when they take me in.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the damn comm. This is ballsy, son. Even for you.”

  He raised a hand as if to say What’s one to do?

  “It’s only an exosuit, sir,” Al said quietly. “It’s not worth dying for.”

  “That’s our home, Al. Of course it’s worth it. Christ, you’re still in there, man—the real you. Did you forget?”

  The heat in his own voice almost surprised him. Almost.

  “Of course not,” Al said. “Just … Don’t leave me alone here, sir. I don’t want to be a ship forever.”

  “Just keep her warm for me, buddy. I’ll be back.”

  “Be careful,” Pryce said as Jarek grabbed the door handle.

  “Don’t ask me to start now, man,” he said, pausing to look back. “You’ll just get me all confused.”

  THE WALK THIS TIME WAS considerably further, which was unfortunate. Deciding to pull a risky move was one thing. Deciding and then having to walk a few miles toward the impending unpleasantness—that was something more. As much as he liked to play it cool, Jarek couldn’t deny the anxious fear dancing in the pit of his stomach. He was walking into the belly of the beast, essentially naked. Ballsy he might be, but he wasn’t crazy enough to do it without breaking a bit of a sweat.

  But what choice did he have?

  He needed to get Fela back. If there was a chance Michael Carver could help him do that, then he needed to get to Carver. Al could insist all he wanted that Fela was only an exosuit and they could survive without her, but Jarek wasn’t buying it. Fela had been their shelter for fifteen years now. She’d seen them through thick and thin. Fela was more than an exosuit. She was a part of him, and more than a part of Al. More than anything, she was theirs, dammit, and he was going to take her back.

  After half an hour’s trek through the summer night, he arrived at The Rath. Perspiration ran down his forehead and soaked through his shirt. A light breeze breathed over him, and he delighted in the cool relief as he stopped at the mouth of the alley to focus up. The smell in the alleyway implored his nose to wrinkle, but he forced himself into practiced composure as he approached the pub’s entrance.

  He wasn’t the same frightened kid he’d been the last time he’d walked into this shithole. And he was going to get Fela back.

  Grumbling voices carried through the door, along with the subtler sound of broken glass being swept across a wooden floor.

  He pushed open the door, and an amused smile spread over his face at the overturned furniture and the clearly disgruntled denizens. “I’ll be damned,” he mumbled.

  He’d heard stories about arcanists—their alleged existence happened to be one of Pryce’s favorite topics—but he’d never taken them for more than that. They were stories, legends. The scene before him didn’t prove anything mystical was at work, but it was certainly interesting.

  Every eye in the room turned his way as he stepped through the doorway. He wasn’t surprised to see half the men’s weapons follow a second later.

  “Gentlemen.” He nodded amicably to the room at large, doing his best to ignore the guns and keep the grin on his face wide and easy. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. I hear he’s a hot topic here tonight.” His gaze fell on the big guy sitting at the bar in a cheap, worn-out suit. Distant, unpleasant memories scratched at the edges of his mind. “It’s Tom, right? Care to help a brother out?”

  Big Tom had been the only one in the pub who hadn’t turned to look when he walked in, but the glare he shot Jarek now more than made up for the initial neglect.

  “You,” he said, clearly taking his own walk down memory lane. “Jarek Fucking Slater.”

  At the sound of his name, several men tensed and eyed him with renewed wariness, their weapons shifting from his general direction to his chest and head.

  He couldn’t help but smile at the reaction. “Long time, big guy. Care to help an old pal find Michael Carver?”

  “Right, then.” Tom looked around the room. “Tie the fucker up, lads.”

  Three

  Jarek was no stranger to tight spaces. Having spent most of his teenage and adult life in a full-body exosuit, he might even be considered the world’s leading expert. Somehow, that expertise didn’t make riding between the two beefy thugs in the back seat of a cramped SUV any more comfortable. It didn’t help that his hands were tied behind his back—or that both men stank, but he probably wasn’t in a place to point fingers at the moment.

  Luckily, they didn’t have far to go, and after a brief holdup at the gate, they were permitted into the Red Fortress.

  Beefy Thug Number One slid out of the SUV to the left. Jarek waited for Tom to turn his beady-eyed gaze into the back seat and tell him to move. No reason to waste energy riling up this crew when it would probably buy him nothing but a sucker punch or a nice little backhand. Tom and his gang would likely turn him over to the Reds inside, and then it would be time to start the head games.

  He slid out of the SUV and stood waiting as Tom and the rest of his goons piled out and moved into formation around him.

  “Right,” Tom said. “Stick with us, then, and keep those hands where we can see ’em.”

  Jarek clenched his jaw and bit down on his wiseass reply. Apparently, his amusement still bled through to his expression.

  Tom frowned. His eyes flicked down to Jarek’s bound hands, then back up to his face.

  “Smart-ass prick.” He let loose with a backhand.

  Jarek leaned back just enough that the blow whooshed past. Beefy Thugs One and Two grabbed him by the arms and shoulders and held him still as a frustrated Tom gathered himself and clocked him right between the eyes.

  His vision exploded in a kaleidoscope of whites and reds, coalescing and fading into black spots as concussive disorientation began to resolve into deep, throbbing pain along his nose. He shook his head, knowing it would do little to clear his vision, and allowed a small grin to spread over his mouth. So much for avoiding the backhand and the sucker punch.

  “Called it,” he said quietly.

  “What?” Tom said, half-raising his fist again.

  “I said good hit.” He stared pointedly past his throbbing nose to the enormous building beyond, hoping the gorilla would remember why they were here and drop it.

  Tom gave a satisfied nod and waved his thugs on. In the pre-Catastrophe era, the Red Fortress must have been a massive factory of some sort, but it had since been heavily added to and fortified until it loomed over Newark, threatening and formidable from across the Passaic River.

  They were admitted through the heavy front doors without too much of a fuss, then shuttled promptly down a sprawling network of drab, harshly lit concrete hallways.

  No wonder the Reds were such a gloomy bunch. And a well-armed gloomy bunch at that. It had been years since he’d seen so much modern firepower in one place. When the smokeless powder had started getting scarce, most of the thugs lik
e the ones at The Rath had fallen back to black powder and manual action firearms. Of course, the scarcity of the good stuff was largely thanks to the hoarding efforts of groups like the Reds, so where Tom’s thugs carried shotguns and old revolvers, most of the Reds they passed were armed to the teeth with automatic weapons.

  The mundane halls didn’t offer much in the way of landmarks, but that was okay. Keeping track of turns and distances was easy enough, and it wasn’t like he was planning on trying to make any hasty getaways through the front entrance anyway.

  Five or six minutes into their doomy-gloomy march, they came to the brig. It wasn’t enormous: twenty steel-barred cells in total, arranged in four clusters of four at the front and middle of the room and a pair of doubles toward the back. A central path divided the room into left and right clusters, which were further divided by two paths that ran perpendicular to the central one.

  The cells all seemed to be empty, aside from one in the middle-left cluster. A short, bald guy stood in front of the cell, talking to a prisoner Jarek couldn’t see.

  A pang of excitement coursed through his chest. This could be it. He’d gotten himself into a pretty significant pickle just for the chance to see what Michael Carver knew about his suit. If that was Carver up ahead, he’d better be freaking ready to capitalize on the opportunity.

  “See ya soon, sweetheart,” the bald guy was saying as they drew up to him. “Be thinking about ya.”

  Baldy turned to face them with light brown eyes that weren’t quite right. It was a look Jarek had seen too many times before, the look of the kind of person who’d swung cats by their tails and picked the wings off of flies as a kid. The cold smile Baldy turned on him was the final push that set off the internal alarm.

  This guy liked hurting people.

  The Reds escorted the group to the next cell down. Baldy watched Jarek like a hungry hyena.