by Adam Carter
“They’re the guys from the café,” I said to Iris as Gordon and Cassiel rejoined us. “The police let them go?”
“Maybe the countess let them go,” Gordon said. “It’s because of these guys that you were arrested, right? Maybe they don’t work for the drug peddlers after all.”
“The police thought they did.”
“The police thought Iris and I were officers just because we were wearing uniforms. Plus, you know, those guys are wearing red pins.”
I was an idiot and I didn’t mind admitting it. The whole thing had been a set-up. The countess had sent the goons in before setting all those squad cars on the gang’s heels. It was her way of making sure we fell into her hands and the police were none the wiser.
“Drugs?” Gloria said, having heard a little of our conversation. “Those guys are with the drug dealers?”
“That’s right,” I said before anyone else could say otherwise. “They’re here because your boss shut down their drug dealing in her club.”
“Time to shut them down, then,” she said, slapping a fist into her other palm. She stomped over to them with such vehemence that I almost felt sorry for them.
“Is there a back door to this place?” Cassiel asked.
“Even if there is,” I said, “we’re not exactly on the ground floor.”
“Quick,” Delilah said, appearing suddenly as the fight broke out, “this way.” She led us to the back of the club and shoved us towards a stairwell.
“You’re joking,” Gordon said. “We’re not walking all the way down that.”
“Now you listen to me,” Delilah said, her eyes narrowing as she poked him in the chest. “It’s difficult as it is running a club without all the attention you people are drawing. I’m giving you a chance because you shut down my drug problem, but that’s all you’re getting. One chance. Now get out before I change my mind about that. And,” she added as she headed back inside her club, “don’t come back.”
“Well,” I said as I set off down the stairs, “looks like we just lost our only ally on this world.”
The others followed hot on my heels, the sounds of fighting fading the farther we progressed. Our journey down was somewhat morose, for my words had been entirely true. We were running all over again, only this time we had no one else to whom we could turn.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It seemed the whole moon really was after us, but we were good at hiding so soon enough we were holed up in an old building under a bridge which spanned the river. The area was somewhat rundown and while I was not sure what purpose the building served, it was clear it had not done so for a long time. It was small, not much larger than a big garden shed, but it would hide us from prying eyes and was a decent enough place to spend the night. We had discovered it was night once we hit the ground and moved away from the high-rising buildings, which was when we had decided to head for the river to see what we could find there. Peering through the broken wooden slats of our makeshift hotel room, I could see no movement at all save for the rats scurrying about the waterside.
“It’s freezing in here,” Cassiel complained.
“At least you’re covered,” I said.
Gordon removed his jacket and draped it around her shoulders and I purposefully did not make eye contact with Iris although I could see she was seething.
“We should be all right here for the night,” I said, “but we should take turns keeping watch anyway.”
“Makes sense,” Gordon said. “What are we going to do in the morning, though? The police have the Bunnyhop, but we could try to spring it.”
“I have a feeling,” I said, “the countess will have transferred the shuttle to her own location. If you’re insisting on getting it back, we’re going to have to go through her.”
“Then we should abandon it,” Gordon said. “It’s not worth being caught.”
“You should leave,” Iris said. “All of you. You should get off Ganymede while you can.”
“What about you?” Gordon asked.
“I need to confront this countess.”
“Why?”
“Because she knows who I am and she knows I’m alive. Let’s assume for the moment that she is who she says she is; an enemy of Securitarn. That means she wants to use me against them; and that probably means this whole thing has been about that and nothing else. It won’t be in her best interests to reveal to them that I’m alive, but I can’t take that chance. If I leave Ganymede she’ll change her plans, and those new plans might well involve cutting her losses and selling me out.”
“How would that benefit her cause?” Gordon asked.
“Simple,” I said. “She’ll get one of her agents to tell them, elevating that agent in Securitarn’s eyes. The countess will have lost Iris as a tool to use against them, but she’ll have gained a good position for one of her moles.”
“Then what are you suggesting?” Gordon asked. “Pushing the countess out a window?”
“That’s a poor attempt at humour,” Iris said. “I’m going to talk to her, reason with her if I can.”
“And if you can’t?”
“Then I may have to push her out a window.”
Iris did not show any humour at all as she said this and I could tell by Gordon’s face that he was worried. I’ve been in one or two fights in my life, but I’ve never had anyone genuinely try to kill me. Iris was fighting for her very life and I could not blame her for wanting to do whatever it took to protect herself, but this was something more than I had expected from her. She was trembling as she contemplated what she had just suggested and she wanted Gordon to talk her out of it. I could see in his eyes he was still debating the merits of doing so.
“This is ridiculous,” I said. “We’re not murdering anyone.”
“So what are we doing, then?” Gordon snapped, fearful that I wouldn’t have a decent enough answer.
“We’re getting some rest,” I said slowly, calmly, “and we’re going to sleep on it. Things will look better in the morning. In the meantime, I’m taking first watch.”
There were no arguments and the others settled down to sleep. I tried not to think about the mess we were in and eventually I woke Iris to take over for me, but I did not sleep, for I fully expected her to leave during the night in an attempt to sort the problem herself. I was somewhat surprised and more than a little glad when she eventually finished her watch and woke Cassiel to take her shift. At that point I finally went to sleep.
I awoke quickly as someone violently shook me. As I opened my eyes I could see the morning’s light shining through the broken slats of the wall.
“What’s up?” I asked, seeing Iris’s distraught face. “What’s happened?”
“It’s Gordon. He was on watch and now he’s gone.”
Damn. I’d stayed awake to watch the wrong person. Iris had her head screwed on and it was Gordon who had decided to play hero.
“Where’s Cass?” I asked, looking around.
“I’m here,” she said, coming back into the shack. For a minute I’d feared Gordon had taken her with him, which would have made staying with Iris rather unpleasant for me. “There’s no sign of him anywhere.”
“He’ll have gone to the countess,” Iris said.
“He doesn’t even know where to find her,” I said.
Cassiel looked to the ground and ran her foot in circles.
“Cass?” I asked.
“He was talking to me, when we changed shifts and it was my turn to sleep. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but he was asking me about stuff.”
“What sort of stuff?”
“He wanted to know about the countess. Where she was, what she looked like, things like that.”
“He’s gone to the police station,” I said.
Iris shook her head. “He’s too clever to just march in there. If he knows what she looks like he’ll be keeping a watch on the door, waiting for her to come out.”
“So he’ll … what?” I asked. “Foll
ow her, kidnap her and find out who she’s told about you being alive?”
“I don’t know what he’ll do,” Iris said, turning from me and running a hand through her hair. Her face was burning and her eyes were quivering. I had never seen her like this.
“How well do you know him?” I asked.
“I thought I knew him well, I … Maybe I don’t know him at all.”
“He wants to protect you,” I said. “That has to be a good thing. All we have to do is get to him before he does something stupid.”
We walked into the daylight and worked our way back to the police station. It took a while to get there and through all that time none of us spoke a word. If Gordon had been captured, I had no idea what we were going to do, but even if we managed to intercept him there was still the problem of the countess to deal with. As long as she was alive, Iris would not be safe, and I could not help but fear that someone in our little group was going to murder the woman.
There was no sign of Gordon at the tower which housed the police station, but then that was to be expected. Nor could the three of us parade ourselves around the building without being seen by the wrong people. The tall buildings created so many dark alleyways, however, that we found it easy to hide in one.
“What about the police?” Cassiel asked. “Couldn’t we ask them for help?”
“And what would we say to them?” I asked. “Excuse me, officer, but the firm which brings most money into your moon is conducting illegal experiments and there’s a woman in your building who’s trying to expose them.”
“You could have just said no.”
“I should go in,” Iris said. “The countess knows you two, but I could scope out the place, see if Gordon’s inside.”
“It’s you she wants,” I said. “Stands to reason she already knows your face.”
“My face,” Iris said, looking to Cassiel. “She doesn’t know yours.”
“What?”
“Your face. She’s met you, but she doesn’t know what you look like. You could take off your mask, go in there and …”
“No.”
“Cassiel, this could save Gordon’s life.”
“Iris, no. I … I can’t do that.”
Iris’s face clouded. “So your morality is more important than Gordon’s life? Does he mean that little to you?”
“Gordon wouldn’t want me to sacrifice my religious beliefs for him.”
“Gordon could be killed.”
“Hold on,” I said, interjecting. “I know you’re not religious, Iris, but lay off the girl. Just because you don’t believe in anything, it doesn’t mean you can tell Cass how to honour her religion.”
“I believe in myself,” Iris said petulantly.
“Not from what I’ve seen.”
That comment did not deflate her anger any, but it did transfer it from Cassiel to me. Which was fine, since I was a big girl and I could take whatever abuse Iris Arowana had to dish out.
I was saved from all that, however, for a car pulled up outside the police station and Cassiel gave a cry. We watched the countess leave the building and climb into the back seat of the vehicle. Wherever she was going, she was in a hurry. She was alone, though, so if she was running away from Gordon there was no sign of him.
As the car drove off, I concentrated on the building and waited for Gordon to emerge, for the alternative was that the countess was fleeing his murder.
“Did you see her driver?” Iris asked.
“What? No, why would I be looking at her driver?”
“It was Gordon.”
Or, I reflected, Gordon could have been her driver, which meant he had indeed kidnapped her. “I think we should hail a taxi,” I said and walked into the middle of the road.
The interesting thing about Ganymedian cities is that they still use pretty much the same method of transport that had been used back on Earth ever since the nineteenth century. The cars may have changed in appearance, they no longer ran on fossil fuels, but they were essentially the same. They had doors, windscreens and wheels; and they transported people from one place to another.
Hailing a taxi did not prove difficult. The traffic in Rinden was never heavy and our driver did not have any trouble keeping up with Gordon and the countess. We drove clear across town and watched as the car ahead pulled into the driveway of a house so expensive it disappeared into the clouds. The mansion was surrounded by great lawns of freshly cut grass, with hedges shaped like pouncing tigers and enough cars to open its own cab firm. Everything about the place screamed extravagance and I did not doubt the entire tower was owned by a single person, for it was the very height of power (excuse the pun) to own every floor in such a cloud-smasher.
“If Gordon’s kidnapping her,” I said, “he’s taken her to a very odd place.”
“Kidnap?” our taxi driver asked.
“Ignore her,” Iris said, handing over some money. “Here’s where we get out.” As our taxi pulled away, Iris said, “You need to watch what you say, Roz.”
“We can’t afford to argue,” Cassiel said. “Gordon’s in trouble.”
“I think I know that,” Iris scowled. Iris is a strange woman. Prior to coming to Ganymede, we’d been through near-death together and never once had she come across as a sappy, jealous lovebird. I don’t like to say I lost some respect for her during our sojourn, but I certainly was seeing another side to her. I wondered how Gordon put up with it, and why.
“We have to think about this,” I said, “before rushing in and getting everyone killed.” Thinking was not something Iris was doing a lot of, so I thought it best to be blunt about it. “Gordon has an idea. What that idea is none of us have a clue, but it must be something more than just becoming the countess’s chauffeur. We shouldn’t interfere in whatever he’s doing, but we do need to keep an eye on him because I think we all know his plan’s absurd. Iris, you going anywhere near the countess would only make Gordon redundant to the countess, so you walking in there would likely get him killed.”
“I’m not standing around out here.”
“Wasn’t suggesting you should. The countess has your shuttle, yeah? Stands to reason she’d want to keep it somewhere secure, and what better place than her mansion?”
“I’ll find the shuttle,” Iris said.
“Which leaves me and Cassiel to find Gordon.” I would have preferred to have gone alone, but putting Iris and Cassiel on the same assignment would have only caused an argument they’d be able to hear all the way back at the police station.
“Don’t screw this up,” Iris said and walked off.
“Good luck to you, too,” I muttered.
“She has a lot on her mind,” Cassiel said. “Don’t be too hard on her.”
“You’re defending her?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“She doesn’t like you much.”
“She doesn’t know me.”
“And you think if she knew you she’d like you more?”
“I think Iris has issues she needs to deal with and that she doesn’t deal with them and instead takes them out on me. I think sometimes she needs to vent and if she wants to vent on me, I’m OK with that.”
“You are certainly not like I was when I was your age.”
“I’m only looking out for my friends.”
If Cassiel thought she and Iris were friends, that was not a bubble for me to burst. I was just glad Iris was out of our way. Saving Gordon from himself was going to be difficult enough as it was. The only easy part was going to be in hotwiring the security systems. Beyond that, I had a feeling this was going to be a nightmare.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“You nearly done yet?” Cassiel asked. She was beginning to annoy me with that question. I was lying on my back with the control box open and several live wires held between my lips so I wouldn’t lose track of where they should go. Getting into the mansion would be pointless if we set off all the alarms, but the countess had a far more sophisticated security system than I�
��d anticipated. What we needed was Gordon’s expertise, which was ironic since he was the one we were trying to rescue.
“How’s it looking your end?” I asked from where I was working on my back.
“No one’s around.”
“Keep watching.” We weren’t in full view of any of the mansion’s windows, but it would only be a matter of time before someone wandered by. The mansion grounds were beautiful and I could imagine folk would walk through the gardens just for the sheer joy of it. That was assuming anyone aside from the countess lived in the place. With eccentrics like her it would not have surprised me if she owned the whole building and lived there alone.
“Got it,” I said, fusing two of the wires and creating a spark. A light went off on the control board and beside my head a fuzzy three-dimensional image of a woman appeared. She was the same size as my hand and was dressed in a business suit.
“Good morning,” she said. “How can I help you?”
I had not been expecting her appearance and banged my head as I jumped up. Rubbing my aching noggin, I rolled over onto an elbow and asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m a part of the security programme. You may call me Mary-Louise.”
“If I have to. What part of the security programme are you? I thought I’d just disabled it.”
“You have. I’m instructed to activate in the eventuality of the security system failing. I hope you don’t mind having to interface with a woman instead.”
“You’re not a woman. You’re part of the programme.”
“But I look like a woman and it’s been proved that people relate better to familiar images. I could be a dog if you wish. Do you like dogs?”
“No.”
“Cats?”
“You turn into a cat and it’s just going to freak me out, Mary-Lou.”
“Then I’ll stay as a woman. How can I help?”
That was the second time she had asked that and I could not understand a security system that would activate a help function for the burglar who just disabled it.
“Why are you offering to help me?” I asked. “Not that I’m ungrateful, but I smell a trap here.”