by Jake Bible
Kalaka ignored the abrupt dismissal and placed his palm on a sensor by the door. It flashed bright white then beeped shrilly, loud enough it could be heard over the thumping dance music. The door slid open and four of Gants’ genetic soup thugs waited on the other side, two of them giving the universal gesture for a frisk.
Kalaka walked through the door, arms raised, and waited out the overindulgent frisk.
“Satisfied?” he asked none of the thugs in particular. “May I take my seat now?”
The thugs moved one step to the side and allowed Kalaka to pass.
The room was square and about ten meters across. In the center was a plain table, no holo projector or tech of any kind showing. There were five chairs, all made of some natural substance, not metal alloy. Kalaka was surprised to see such a sparse setup.
“Couldn’t spring for the cushioned table, eh Gants?” Kalaka asked as he set his bottle and glass down and found a seat.
Gants was seated at the only other piece of furnishing in the room, a padded booth set off against the wall opposite the door. The Slinghasp placed a finger to his ear and glared at Kalaka.
“Do not speak to me the rest of the evening, Kalaka,” Gants ordered.
Kalaka held up his hands in mock defeat and sat down, scooting himself in close to the table.
Three other beings were already seated. Two were human and one was of a race that Kalaka couldn’t put his finger on. The two humans ignored Kalaka as they conversed. The unknown being glared at Kalaka with six eyes. The GVD rolled his own eyes then studied the being. Thick, gray skin; long, thin limbs; four ears that were set back on the being’s head and swiveled constantly; a mouth that was more of a line than an orifice.
“What planet are you from?” Kalaka asked. The being only glared. “No, seriously. What planet? I don’t recognize…” He waved his hand at the being. “This.”
“The guy doesn’t talk,” one of the humans said, barely giving Kalaka a glance. “Only thing he says is Bev.”
“Bev,” the being echoed.
“Good to meet you, Bev,” Kalaka said and reached out a hand to shake. The being recoiled.
“He doesn’t shake,” the human said, finally breaking away from the other one to take Kalaka’s hand. Early forties, trim, good shape, held himself like he knew his way around a firefight. Black hair with a matching black mustache. “Jameson. This is my friend, Keer.”
“Jameson and Keer,” Kalaka said, shaking Jameson’s hand. “Good to meet you.”
He offered his hand to Keer, but the man sneered and folded his arms across his chest. He was in his fifties, fat around the middle, but not totally gone to seed. Bald head with wisps of white hair staging a desperate campaign to stay connected to the shiny scalp.
“Keer? Any relation to Councilman Keer?” Kalaka asked.
“No personal questions,” Jameson said. “You don’t ask us any and we won’t ask you any.”
“Hey, I don’t give a good Eight Million Gods damn what you ask me,” Kalaka said. “I’m an open book.”
“No personal questions,” Jameson reiterated.
“What? You his spokesman?” Kalaka laughed. “I’m only messing around.” He patted the table with both hands. “Who are we waiting for? One empty seat. I hear there’s some new guy in town. Been tearing through the tile houses. Maybe Mr. Gants has brought him in to give me a challenge.”
“Kalaka! Shut up!” Gants shouted from his booth. “Or I will have you shut up!”
“He loves me,” Kalaka said. “Been trying to get me to work for him for years now.”
“That’s not shutting up!” Gants roared.
Kalaka smirked and made a zipping the lip gesture then gave Jameson and Keer each a wink.
The minutes ticked by as the four sat at the table, waiting. Kalaka tried to check the time, but his wrist implant, just like his comm, was jammed and inoperable. So he waited and smiled at the three beings that sat across from him.
Kalaka guessed it had been thirty minutes before the door behind him opened up and the noise of the Club came roaring into the backroom.
“What’s that scumbag doing here?” Dark asked as she came around the table to glare at Kalaka. “Is this a joke?”
“I’m afraid not, Dark,” Kalaka said. “I bought me a seat at the table.”
“Great,” Dark snarled. “You GVDs are like rabid gumps. Lose one and here is another showing up in his place. At least I know where we stand with a dirty terpig like you, Kalaka.”
Kalaka laughed off the insult, but his insides had gone freezing cold at the off-hand comment about losing a GVD.
“Where’s your new boy?” Kalaka asked Dark. “What’s his name? Knowles?”
“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” Dark said. “Never heard of the guy.”
“Sure you have,” Kalaka said. “You’ve been sending him around to all the tile houses. He took me for a good amount of chits one night. I was hoping to get some of those chits back tonight.”
“Fat chance,” Keer said. “I’ll be taking home the chits when this game is done.”
“That so?” Kalaka asked then nodded. “Maybe. Dark? Your Knowles boy coming or what?”
“Dark!” Gants shouted and waved the Leforian over to the booth.
Kalaka watched them carefully, but was quickly distracted by the last player to take a seat. A woman in her mid-thirties and beautiful even with the deep, jagged scar that ran from her left temple, across her cheekbone, and down to her left nostril. Dark skin with short-cropped platinum hair and bright green eyes. Those eyes targeted Kalaka instantly.
“You look familiar,” Kalaka said. And he meant it. It wasn’t a line; the woman did look familiar. “Have we met?”
“No,” the woman said.
“Jameson,” Jameson said and offered his hand.
Jameson looked her up and down and smiled as he kept his hand extended. The woman was dressed in a freshly pressed button-up shirt, but not a blouse. She wore pants of a thick material and had on no jewelry.
“Cassa Wickens,” the woman said and moved to take the hand.
“Hold on,” Kalaka said as the memory of where he knew the woman clicked. “I wouldn’t take that hand. She’s known to use a micro-toxin to kill her targets. I’d hate for you to end up that way.”
“That so?” Jameson said and nodded to Kalaka, withdrawing his offered hand. “Thanks for the heads up. Not that I think Mr. Gants would try to kill me or my friend after inviting us here to play. Maybe when we’re walking away with all the chits, but the game hasn’t even started.”
He laughed a hollow laugh filled with menace and swagger.
Kalaka ignored Jameson and focused on Cassa.
“I’m right, yeah? You’re the same Cassa Wickens that has been suspected of over three hundred and fifteen murders across the galaxy.”
“Wrong woman,” Cassa said. “I’m the Cassa Wickens that plays tiles for a living, not kill beings.”
“My mistake,” Kalaka said and looked past everyone to focus on Gants and Dark’s huddled conversation. “Who’s bringing the tiles? We need to go find them ourselves or what? Hey, Dark!”
Dark stiffened and slowly turned to regard Kalaka. “What?”
“When does this game get underway? Huh? We still waiting on your Knowles guy? Doesn’t seem to be a seat left for him.”
“I told you—” Dark started.
Gants held up a hand and interrupted, “Turns out Knowles is no longer under Dark’s supervision. In fact, Kalaka, he’s no longer under anyone’s supervision.”
Gants stood up and walked over to the table.
“Do you know what?” Gants asked as he crossed to Kalaka. “I’m in the mood to play myself tonight.”
“Great,” Kalaka said. “You can be the mark.”
Kalaka laughed. Gants did not.
“That means you’re in my seat, Kalaka,” Gants said. “Move.”
“Sure,” Kalaka said and stood up, offering the chair to Ga
nts. “Dark can get me a new chair. Hear that, Dark? Fetch.”
Thugs closed on Kalaka as Gants sat down, his back to the GVD.
“You misunderstand,” Gants said. “You no longer have a seat at this table, Kalaka. Ever. You will be shown the door. I’m leaving you alive since I hear you owe Schigg two favors and those are resources best not wasted. I know Schigg will put those favors to good use.”
Gants’ head swiveled on his neck and his tongue flicked out and in, out and in.
“Are you afraid, Kalaka? I smell fear. That’s not like you,” Gants said. “Now. Get out.”
“Hey, I have no idea what I did, but if I can clear it all—” Kalaka started, but was stopped by a hard smack to the back of his head. He hissed and spun to face the thugs. “You ever tangle with a pissed-off Cervile?”
“Get out, Kalaka,” Gants said and sighed. “Or I will ignore Schigg’s owed favors and kill you myself.”
“Well, if you don’t want my chits, then I guess I’ll go,” Kalaka said.
Gants held back a hand.
“No, I will take the chits as well,” Gants said. “Leave your compression pouch.”
“Mr. Gants, there is no way in all the Hells that I’m giving you two hundred thousand chits for no good reason,” Kalaka argued. The thugs pressed in closer and Kalaka’s claws slowly extended from his fingertips. “This isn’t up for discussion, Gants.”
“Leave the fifty thousand house fee, Kalaka,” Gants said, lowering his hand. “I’m feeling extra generous. But I stop being generous in five, four, three…”
Kalaka fished out fifty thousand chits from his compression pouch and tossed them against the chest of the closest thug. The chits dropped to the floor and rattled and rolled across the plasticrete. Kalaka didn’t wait to see who picked them up.
He made it to the door, out the door, and around the bar before Schigg called out, “Kalaka! Do not forget those favors! You’ll want to when you get outside, but I advise you remember who you are dealing with and how you are regarded in this base. That badge will not protect you. Not after tonight.”
Kalaka flipped Schigg off without turning around. He shoved his way through the crowd and made it outside.
“That was fast,” K said. “Just because you lost all your chits at the tables doesn’t mean you don’t still owe me that favor, Kalaka.”
Kalaka ignored the Urvein and tried as hard as he could not to sprint down the block. K shouted after him, but Kalaka didn’t hear the words. All he was paying attention to was the swirling security holo that had popped up from his wrist. He watched and waited for it to turn green, telling him that Gants’ snooping tech was out of range.
“McDade!” Kalaka almost shouted into the comm. “McDade! Pick up, dammit!”
“You’re alive,” Angie replied over the comm. She sounded exhausted. “Where are you?”
“Walking away from Gants’ Club as fast as my hairy legs will take me,” Gants said. “Listen, I think something happened to Knowles. Dark showed up tonight with one badass assassin in tow. You ever heard of Cassa Wickens?”
“Yes,” Angie said. “I have. And you’re right. But she didn’t do this.”
Kalaka stopped walking as he heard the tone in Angie’s voice. Exhaustion and…grief?
“What happened?” Kalaka asked.
“I’m sending you Knowles’ address,” Angie said. “Get here fast. And tell no one where you’re going.”
“On my way.”
26.
The body had been gutted, flayed of all skin, and crucified up against the wall of Guska’s apartment. Strips of skin and hunks of offal were strewn everywhere. The entire room was coated in blood. The body was wiped clean, though, except for the words, “Game over, GV.”
Angie leaned against the opposite wall as the techs hurried around, scanning every last millimeter of the apartment, logging all of the information in secured files that Angie had ordered to be accessed by only her.
She’d received an angry comm from Squad Captain Jorg seconds after giving the order. Even though Jorg technically outranked her as captain, Angie was Division which always trumped Squad. She let him spit and spew epithets and threats at her, but she held her ground, and in the end, the files were coded to her signature only.
A shape appeared at the open door to the apartment, but she didn’t look that way. Her eyes refused to look away from the strung-up corpse.
“You locked down the entire building,” Kalaka said as he came inside. “Quite a crowd of pissed-off tenants outside.”
“Any of them the Lipian whose place this is?” Angie asked, still refusing to look away from the corpse. “I’d like to talk to that whore right about now.”
“I bet you would,” Kalaka said and crossed the apartment to her, barely able to squeeze around the techs. He studied her, took a breath, then turned to stare at the corpse too. “Fuck me…”
“Landlord heard screaming,” Angie said. “Said it had been going on for over thirty minutes by the time he decided he’d had enough and called the Jafla PD. Took another thirty minutes for a patrol to arrive and realize they needed to call us. Apparently, the initials GV was too hard to figure out right away.”
“Is that Knowles?” Kalaka asked. “It’s hard to tell.”
“That’s Etch, yeah,” Angie said. “Scans already confirmed his DNA. Waiting on spatial mapping to see if we can reconstruct what went down.”
“Nothing good,” Kalaka said. “Who burned him?”
Those words forced Angie to finally look away from Knowles’ corpse and stare hard at Kalaka.
“That is the question. Care to wager an answer, Kalaka?” Angie asked. “Where were you tonight?”
“Trying to get in on Gants’ game, but I think this is what cut my night short,” Kalaka said, waving a hand at the corpse.
“And before you arrived at the Club?”
Kalaka sighed. “I didn’t do this. I didn’t burn your guy, McDade.”
“Humor me,” Angie said and snapped her fingers.
A tech looked around then rushed over as Kalaka offered his wrist with no further comment. The tech scanned Kalaka’s implant then swiped at the holo it produced and sent the information to Angie.
Angie brought up the information, studied the holo of Kalaka’s timeline, then grunted and banished the image.
“Get a hobby, Kalaka,” Angie said with heavy disdain.
“I have one,” Kalaka replied.
“Whores are not a hobby.”
“Says you.”
“You didn’t burn him,” Angie said. “So who did? Someone knew Knowles was undercover and sold him out to one of the syndicates.”
“This isn’t Collari’s style,” Kalaka said.
“How do you know?” Angie asked, narrowing her eyes at the Cervile.
“Collari would make it public,” Kalaka said. “And I was in the Collari den tonight. I was sitting only a few meters from Gants when Dark came rushing in to have a chat with the Slinghasp. Neither Dark nor Gants looked too happy. I don’t think Gants knew this was happening.”
“What else did you see?” Angie asked.
“We debriefing now?” Kalaka asked.
“Um, Lieutenant?” a tech asked. “Can we have the room? We need it clear to recreate the timeline to the best accuracy possible.”
“Yeah,” Angie said and grabbed Kalaka by the shoulder, steered him through the techs, and shoved him out the front door and into the hallway.
She walked him down to the end of the hall then pushed him against the wall.
“Yeah, this is a debriefing,” Angie said. “You tell me everything you can.”
Kalaka acted like he was going to protest the treatment, but Angie shoved her chest into his chest and pressed her chin to his chin. Her eyes were sparks of fury.
“I could make a joke about personal space, but I believe you’ll pull that pistol you have strapped to the small of your back and put more than a few holes in me,” Kalaka said.
&n
bsp; “I don’t need the pistol to put holes in you, Kalaka,” Angie said. “I think you know that.”
“You are correct,” Kalaka said. “Maybe take one step back?”
Angie didn’t budge for a few seconds then took one step back.
“Thanks,” Kalaka said then proceeded to outline his entire evening from when he was dropped off close to the Club to when he called her on the comm.
Angie watched him with microscopic focus. She tracked every twitch of his lips, his cheek muscles, the crinkles around his eyes. She watched his ears twitch back and forth. She noted the rise and fall of his Adam’s Apple as he spoke. She noted how Kalaka’s fur seemed to bristle and stand up as he relayed each detail.
“You didn’t burn him,” Angie said after a few minutes of silence following Kalaka’s report. “They knew I was pulling Knowles, though. I can feel it and from what you said, they weren’t saving a chair for him. Dark came here to find Knowles and found this instead. But I don’t think you burned him.”
“Well, thanks,” Kalaka said. He looked around. “Say, where’s your co-manager?”
“I don’t know,” Angie said. “I put in the call with dispatch when he didn’t answer his comm. They haven’t tracked him down yet.”
“Anyone think to go check his place?” Kalaka asked.
“No, Detective, I didn’t think of that,” Angie said. “I’ll have a patrol head over there right now.” She mocked putting a hand to her ear. “Oh? What’s this? His place is empty? Gee, what a surprise.”
“So Jafla PD already checked on him,” Kalaka said.
“Yes, genius, Jafla PD already checked on him,” Angie said. “His place was a mess, but it looked like he was packing in a hurry, not that someone ransacked it. No sign of a struggle.”
“You peg him for this?” Kalaka asked.
Angie shrugged. “Could be.”
“You get authorization to close the hangars just in case?” Kalaka asked.
Angie closed her eyes and thought back on the second conversation she’d had with Jorg. That battle she’d lost since it would take at the minimum four agencies to coordinate closing Jafla Base’s docking hangars. Jorg was far from being cooperative.