Slow Burn Dark

by A. B. Keuser

  “She was here….seven weeks ago,” Putty paused, brow wrinkling. “But she wasn’t wearing an ACOOR uniform.”

  “And that didn’t seem weird to you?” Bosco asked. “Are you sure she was supposed to be here?”

  “The people I was dealing with knew her. Or at least they didn’t react to her being out of place.”

  “So talk to whoever she was working with.”

  “I have.” Putty’s fists clenched, and Flynn angled himself to step in if Putty decided he wanted to pick a fight. “They’re giving me a weird run around… like they’re hiding something.”

  “Maybe they think it’s strange that a guy they don’t know that well is suddenly poking around about a woman he doesn’t seem to actually know either.”

  Putty tensed, and Flynn held out a hand to hold his brother back. He didn’t need to look at Putty’s face to know his temper was simmering just below the surface.

  Bosco had taken a step back, eyes wide and hands half raised. “I’ll ask around.”

  He turned on his heel and jogged away.

  “Why is it, that you always befriend creeps and scumbags.” Putty glared after Bosco.

  “Should I let Chadrick know how you feel about him, or do you want to break the news yourself.”

  Cursing, Putty slid into the driver's seat, arms crossed, glaring at the steering wheel.

  Flynn made his way around the front of the car… hoping Putty wouldn’t run over him if he was mad enough to abandon him. But a flash of bright blue near the gates caught his eye, and he focused on a shadow where a familiar little girl stood.

  Maya, watched them, assessing with the scrutiny of a Colarium scout. But when he saluted her, she threw him a finger and ran the other direction.

  Chuckling, Flynn turned back to his brother… scowling at his steering wheel.

  “There’s only one explanation… they got rid of her.”

  Flynn stopped, half into his seat. “You think what… ACOOR murdered her and the whole crew is working together to cover it up?”

  “No, but maybe they did something else…. Something worse.”

  “Or, maybe she wasn’t on your wavelength.”

  Putty’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, but Flynn didn’t stop.

  “Did you talk about a future of any kind? Or did you just assume she’d want whatever you offered?”

  Shoving his thumb into the ignition sensor—hard enough Flynn thought one or the other might break—Putty’s first words were lost to the sharp grumble of the engine.

  “We had a… connection.” He dropped his head back to the buggie’s head rest and seemed to shrink in on himself. “It can’t have been like that.”

  Flynn didn’t argue. Didn’t say another word as they made the long trip back to town.

  As soon as they parked, Putty yanked his bag from the tiny space behind his seat and headed for his rented room without so much as a “see ya.”

  Flynn didn’t think he’d see him for a few days. When Putty got like this, he tended to spend his time with mechanical problems… and that left little time for the living.

  “What did you do to piss him off this time?” Chad leaned on one of the bank’s columns and glared after Putty.

  “I attempted to be the voice of reason.” His brow rose as his head dropped to the side almost meeting his raised shoulder.

  “Probably for the best…. He’d have gotten in the way.”

  “I’m suddenly scared of whatever pulled you out of your office before sun down.”

  The smile that sprouted on Chad’s face was wicked. “I need your help with something.”

  “I’m not holding a patient down. You’ve got sedatives and straps for that. And the last time… I’m not taking that abuse again.”

  “Nothing like that.” Chad waved him on. “I need your eyes.”

  Flynn didn’t move. “I hope you don’t mean that literally, I kind of like them.”

  “Come on.” Chad didn’t give him any more details, he simply walked away, expecting Flynn to follow.

  He did. As always.

  The sun had dipped to the horizon when they reached the entrance to the Anderson Lodge shaft, and Flynn knew exactly what his friend needed him to see.

  “Did you wait until Putty was in an anti-social mood to ambush me? Or was that just a happy accident?”

  “He’s got his own problems. Tonight, he should be content to drink himself into a stupor over Phee—or whoever she really is.” Chad winced as he levered closed the lift’s outer gate. “He didn’t find her today, did he?”

  “No.” Flynn pulled the disconnect switch, and leaned back against the lift rails as they headed into the ground. “Why does it sound like you know something more than you’ve told me?”

  “Because I can’t find her, and I’ve been looking ever since he told us about her.”

  “I thought you said you were going to drop it.”

  “My best friend goes gaga over a woman no one seems to know… of course I looked into it.”

  “And she doesn’t exist?”

  “There’s no record of a Phee or a Phoebe on the ACOOR payroll for the last six years—I didn’t bother to go further back. And I can’t find anyone with that name on a ship passenger list… ever. I’m not saying Putty made her up—no matter how much I would love to joke about it—but whoever she was, she sold Putty a lie. And I would love to find out why.”

  The lift bounced a moment before the lights turned green and the auto lock disengaged, letting them out into the cool darkness of the shaft.

  “Whatever’s going on with Putty and his missing girlfriend, it can wait.”

  Taking a slowly brightening phosphor lamp, Flynn squinted into the darkness. “What do you need me for? I know you didn’t lure me down here for an illicit liaison.”

  Chad ducked down to look at a gash in the wall. “It’s lucky you’re smarter than you look, because you’re definitely not the pretty one in the family.”

  “Bottom of the bucket on all accounts.”

  The floor was a mess of boot prints. Henri’s peace officers had made a hash of the scene before they’d cleared it. Except…

  “Something’s wrong with the dead guy,” Chad’s voice was thin, distracted by what looked like it could have been a gash from an electric saw in the wall.

  “You mean besides the fact no one knows who he is, where he came from, or any reason he might have been down here in the middle of the night?”

  “And then, there’s the brand.”

  “What?” Flynn stopped dead in his tracks, boots scuffing against the dust strewn floor. “Why is this the first I’m hearing about it? More importantly, why didn’t I see it?”

  “Because I’m not the only one here who knows the Lazarai burn their traitors. And once Henri knows our dead guy’s got one, she’s going to think it’s them and you’re going to face more questions than any of us are comfortable with.”

  “If the Lazarai are here, she needs to know about it.”

  “But they aren’t.” Chad jerked his head and started walking again. “Thanks to you, I actually know what the Lazarai brand looks like… you promise you don’t have one?”

  Flynn was tired of reassuring the doc. “How was this one made, and where? I told you the pattern… not the location.”

  “It’s mangled, almost as though it was done with a hot knife… drawn on. It was on the back of his head. I didn’t see it until I shaved the part of his skull that was left.”

  “The Lazarai use a skin welder, ten percent over max… and the brand goes on your forehead.”

  Chad turned a strange shade of green. “That’s barbaric.”

  “I know. It’s not sanctioned, even by Archie… one of those things that happened in the field, the story got out and it just… kept happening. Archie is many things, but he’s not a sadist.” He spit out the distaste that had formed in his mouth and focused on the here and now. “What was the brand…shape?”

  Chad hesitated, just
long enough Flynn knew he didn’t want to say… as if the Lazarai might be a better option. “It’s two Rs, back to back. They share the main leg of the letter. I’ll show you when we get back.”

  Flynn let the silence prevail as he went through the options, but the only one he could think of… “You think it has something to do with the Refuti?”

  “The RTF is a legitimate company with legitimate business holdings throughout the entire Colarium. If they’re branding their employees….” He shook his head. “From everything Henri’s told me, I won’t believe that until I see someone burning the mark into another man.”

  “Things like that don’t always go through the official channels, as I just said…” Flynn didn’t want to make wild accusations, but he also wasn’t ready to dismiss anything out of hand. “You still haven’t told me why you need my eyes specifically.”

  “I thought that was obvious. I’ll need a criminal to catch one.”

  “And it’s your job to catch them?”

  “As a matter of fact,” Chad stopped at the spot they’d found the body. “It’s yours. Henri wants you to clear this up… quietly.”

  “I didn’t sign on to be her lapdog.”

  They stood in the cross tunnel and Flynn saw only what he’d seen before, but Chad had gone preternaturally still.

  “Do you smell that?”

  He did, but before he could react to the heavy dioxide, a bright light burst in the distance.

  “Shit.”

  The shockwave from the explosion knocked him off his feet and he scrambled to cover his head as the ceiling came down around him in a rocky tumble.

  Hard pressure, then sharp pelts as debris rolled and bounced, and ricocheted.

  Then stillness.

  Silence.

  Opening his eyes, Flynn pressed his palms to the mine floor beneath him.

  The ground was sold. That, at least, was a blessing.

  The air was thick with dust, leaving him in temporary darkness.

  Rocks too close.

  Chest, too tight.

  He pulled the cloth from his neck and pressed it over his mouth, just so he could breathe.

  Legs pinned in the dirt, he checked his mobility… nothing broken.

  Thank the Great Mother.

  Movement to his left drew his attention. Light overhead momentarily blinded him and he blinked away the phantoms it left behind.

  “That was not an accident.” Chad coughed heavily as he shook another phosphor stick to life.

  Flynn shoved off the pile of rocks pinning his knees and, letting them clatter to the ground and roll noisily away.

  “Anything I need to look at?”

  “I missed the worst of it.” Flynn rose and swatted away the cloud of dust that came from his hair.

  “Good, because I don’t want to think about carrying you out of here.”

  Flynn inspected the rubble and let out a frustrated sigh, looking behind them. “We’re never going to get out this way. Our best chance is to cut across to another shaft and try a different access. If they blew the main drop, we might have to climb out a ventilation tunnel.”

  Putty would have seen it as an adventure. He’d have tried to get Flynn to go up the first one they saw. It would have reminded him of the tunnels they built between their forts in the backyard.

  Chad on the other hand....

  “Stop looking at me like I’m the last person you would have picked for your farball team.”

  “Oh, no. I’d never pick you last. Justin Delictorio was always my last choice.” And not just because of their failed fling.

  Chadrick stopped, eyes narrowed in curiosity. “I never got that. He could throw better than anyone. If not for the mad milk, he’d probably be retired from the pros by now.”

  “Yeah, but he always tried to take over the team… and if you went to stop him, well… he was a biter.” Flynn chuckled.

  He’d wound up with a few marks he’d been worried would end up scars.

  “I seem to recall you mentioning that before. Then again, you weren’t playing farball.” Chadrick kicked a loose stone ahead of them.

  “It was a weird week.”

  “I bet that was the last time you tried to date a guy and a girl at the same time.”

  “No, but it was the last time I snuck around with both sides of a dating couple….”

  Voices echoed through the tunnels and Flynn raised his hand, cutting off Chad’s next words. Flynn shuttered the phosphor lamp and pushed him back against the wall.

  Two men walked along the perpendicular shaft. The blue halo of bioessence lights created a pair of swinging halos ahead of their feet, tall shadows at their back.

  One held a bag over his shoulder, a length of det-cord snaked out of it, dangling at his hip.

  “I don’t like it,” the bag man said, shifting his load and letting his lamp swing in a wider arc. “What are we even doing out here?”

  “Bossman says he wants a cave in, we provide him with a cave in. He tells me to shoot you. I don’t blink.”

  “You’re a bastard like that.” The bagman snorted and shoved his partner sideways.

  “You wouldn’t either.”

  “Not even a flutter of the eyelids. Let’s set these damn charges and get the hell back out of this maze.”

  A slow rumble brought another rock slide down the far wall.

  The men shared a glance. “We’ve got to hurry. We get sealed in, no one’s coming for us.”

  Flynn could wait. Follow them out. See who’d sent them down. Or, he could take them out here and now… and hope they spilled their guts to Henri and her peace officers.

  Leaning against the doctor, he asked, “You wouldn’t know how to cancel a timed detonation sequence on that type of cording, would you?”

  Chad looked at him like he’d just asked the doctor to perform brain surgery on a turnip.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  And that was his decision made

  He handed Chad his phosphor stick and motioned toward a cutout in the tunnel wall. “Keep out of sight. I don’t want them to think you’re a threat.”

  Nodding, Chad leaned against the rough wall, and Flynn looked between the two, wishing he had his gun.

  But wishing wouldn’t get them out of this. And fast was better than quiet. He didn’t have much space for a running start, but….

  He hit the bag man hard. His shoulder connected with rib cage. The crunch and crumple of bones breaking was audible as the man fell to the ground with a rasping cry that turned to a wheeze as the air was driven from him. Flynn knocked him out with one punch.

  His partner wasn’t so easily dealt with.

  A fist in Flynn’s side sent his hips in the opposite direction of his head, but the man was clearly expected to take on a miner—not a soldier. Correcting his posture, Flynn flung himself at the man and landed a jab, straight to the man’s nose.

  Blood flew as the man jerked away, but the broken septum didn’t deter him.

  Fingernails tore at the sensitive tissue at Flynn’s neck and he lashed out with an elbow, cracking it sharply against the man’s hard skull. The second thug slumped to the ground, glassy eyes rolling to the back of his head before they shuttered closed.

  “What now?” Chad asked from where he stood in the middle of the tunnel a half dozen meters back.

  Now… they were stuck with over four hundred pounds of dead weight.

  “Don’t suppose you feel like carrying one of them?”

  “No.” Chad crossed the distance to them and checked each man’s pulse. “They’re alive.”

  “I know.” Flynn bit his tongue before he admitted that he’d dealt with enough dead bodies he knew when he had one at his feet.

  “I guess we leave them here until we can get back with someone who can carry them out?”

  “I could tie them together and try dragging them out?”

  “And tear your neck open again? Or throw your back out and get stuck down here too? No.” Chad
tossed him rope from their bag. “They can wait here a while.”

  He dragged them across the rocky ground without a care for the sand rash they’d wake up with.

  Flynn tied up the unconscious men and dropped them unceremoniously into a nearby ore cart. If there had been a rail, he’d have fixed it to carry them out for him.

  “Just in case they manage to get out of those knots.” Chad pressed a tracking pin to the back of one of their shirts. “We’ll send a peace officer back for them when we get to town.”

  “Assuming they’ll actually do their job this time around.” Flynn hadn’t seen an officer in days.

  He studied the men’s faces. They looked familiar, but then, a single common facial trait could trick his mind when he was looking for something. He snapped a photo and put the camera chip back into the band of his watch.

  Leaving them in the dark, Flynn let Chad lead the way out.

  The tunnel widened, and soon they were standing at the bottom of a shaft and Flynn was sucking in breaths of fresh air.

  An old maintenance rig trundled them to the surface a quarter mile from where they’d entered the shaft.

  “Hope you’re up for a hot walk.”

  Twelve - Sophia

  “Where the hell is my brother?” Sophia didn’t expect Banks to have the answer.

  He scowled at the dark cityscape out the window and adjusted his tie for the fifth time in the last half hour. He’d never been comfortable in what he referred to as a rooster suit. Then again, she wasn’t particularly comfortable in the dress she wore, either.

  But she was used to the cling of the cold, metallic fabric. And she wasn’t being choked by the high collar currently in fashion.

  Geo would have loved the opportunity to strut—not that she ever took him to these parties.

  If he hadn’t disappeared several times before, she’d have worried that he might have been kidnapped. Then again, abductions were usually swiftly followed by ransom demands.

  The comm channels had remained silent.

  She could only hope he would crash the night’s party—loathe as she was to see him there.

  “You’re going to be late.”

  She cast Banks a sidelong glance and his reflection smirked at her.

  “Later than your usual grand entrances, I mean.”