Pico's Crush

by Carol Van Natta

  Luka gave him a startled look. “That’s some talent.”

  Lièrén shrugged. “We use the tools we have.”

  Luka opened the door and was already keying the lock sequence by the time Lièrén cleared the iris doorway.

  A high-energy weapon blast and high-pitched cry of pain sent Luka off like a shot down the hallway. Lièrén trotted behind, seeing that he could never match the pace. He focused on the ramper, who was both fully activated and giving off a haze of violence. The shielder was giving off nothing. Except it wasn’t the void he felt from other shielders; it was more like the sound of static. Lièrén sensed Luka’s anxiety spike, and sped up to see what the trouble was.

  Twelve meters away, in the widest, circular area of the balcony, two women fought each other at astonishing speed. The smaller, very slender blonde in long-sleeved patterned dark green was bleeding from a scorched plasma wound on her right calf. Lièrén couldn’t imagine how she was even managing to limp. The taller, broad-shouldered, black-skinned woman, the ramper, was in a tourist shirt, shorts, and running shoes. She was full of angry tension and blurry-fast, vocalizing with each strike she gave and hit she took. The blonde, who he recognized as Mairwen Morganthur, Luka’s partner, was equally blurry-fast, silent, and almost relaxed by comparison. Her speed had to be the result of chems, but chemical rampers usually had exaggerated musculature.

  The ramper tried to kick Morganthur’s wounded calf, but Mairwen narrowly avoided it by lifting and bending her knee, then lunging forward, under the ramper’s guard, and landing a punishing blow to the woman’s diaphragm and an uppercut to the woman’s jaw. Morganthur danced out of the way of a powerful roundhouse fist the ramper threw to cover her retreat.

  Lièrén knew from experience that his sifter skills wouldn’t work on an activated ramper, and his telepathy was too low-level to work from that distance. He could reach Luka, though.

  Luka, do you want me to stay? He sent an image packet of what he could do.

  Luka jerked a little in surprise, either from the telepathy or the offer. Yes.

  Suddenly, in a blur of motion too fast for Lièrén to follow, the black woman was down, stunned, as if she didn’t know how it happened. Mairwen was kneeling on the woman’s heaving chest, two slender knives in her hands, just piercing the skin of the woman’s throat. “Stay still, or die,” Mairwen said, low and clear. She repeated it in Russian. She was breathing deeply, but not gasping for air like her opponent was, her lungs compressed by Mairwen’s weight.

  Luka had already closed half the distance, and Lièrén ran to catch up. He felt the ramper try to activate again, but she was nearly flatlined. Lièrén reached out with his sifter talent and slowed the mu receptors in her brain, which were essential to the ramper process for minders. He gave her a gentle boost of serotonin and gently nudged her delta receptors, enough to make her slightly euphoric and detached.

  He knelt and closed his hand around her outstretched bare ankle, then used his telepathy to take control over her body. It was a skill he’d practiced, after nearly being killed by a rogue agent on Spires. Because she was already under his influence, she didn’t fight him, although part of her mind knew she should.

  Lièrén looked up at Luka and nodded.

  Luka put his hand gently on Mairwen’s shoulder. “Ástin mín. Þetta er búið.” His expression was full of concern and love.

  Lièrén directed the ramper’s eyes to close. Mairwen got to her feet, then leaned into Luka to let him help her limp a few steps away. She turned around to look at Lièrén, glancing at his hand on the ramper’s ankle.

  Her expression was unreadable to him, but apparently not to Luka. “I’ll explain in a minute,” Luka said. “I trust him.”

  Mairwen looked to her partner, then nodded. “Her plasma beamer went flying.” She tilted her head toward the south hallway.

  “We’ll look together,” Luka said firmly, as if he was worried she’d take off without him.

  Lièrén turned his attention to the ramper, making sure she didn’t drift off to sleep with the blowback from overusing her talent. He riffled through her memories and picked up the gist without having to force much of anything. “She’s an independent,” he told Luka. “Anonymous contract to disable or kill either principal of your firm, with a bonus for both. Her hired surveillance help said Foxe was unreachable at the police station, so she targeted Morganthur as the easier mark. She’s been following for two days, and sending progress updates every few hours. Earlier, when Morganthur suddenly left the roof of the other building and went downstairs at a speed only possible for another ramper, this woman decided to test her mettle first. She’s very competitive, especially against women. She shot Morganthur to slow her down, to get her to fight instead of run. Payment is to be made to an anonymous escrow account, once the police get an accident or death report with either of your names.”

  Luka’s lips pursed in thought. “Get the contact instructions and the account, if you can. Maybe they’re traceable.”

  “I can do that. What do you want her to remember?”

  Luka’s expression darkened angrily for a moment, as his eyes flicked to the woman at his side. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Make her think Mairwen was too fast for her, and vanished. Give her an explanation for her injuries, though.”

  Lièrén nodded and went to work. First he entered the contract and payment details in his percomp, so he wouldn’t forget them. While his memory was vastly improved over what it used to be, when he’d been on disabling enhancement drugs and assaulted by a cleaner on a regular basis, he was far from the filer that his beloved wife, Imara, was.

  For twisting, it was easier to find previous memories and adapt them to his purpose than invent new ones, so he traced hers until he found one of two mercs who had jumped her outside a bar because she’d killed one of their company. He wove her a blended memory of losing sight of Mairwen on the third floor, then being blindsided by two mercs. She got a shot off at one of them, but one was a fighting ramper, and they knocked her cold and left her where she lay. He also twisted an old memory that he hoped would give her a strong desire to rescind the current contract.

  He used his sifter talent to dope her thoroughly, then stood. Rampers, he’d learned the hard way when rescuing Imara’s son from one, recovered more quickly than anyone else. “She’ll be out for perhaps twenty minutes, maybe more.” He activated his percomp, then stopped. “I’ll have to send the contract details once we have comms again.”

  Luka shook his head and smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Sòng. I’d say your debt is paid.”

  Lièrén returned the smile. “I would be honored if you would call me Lièrén.” He bowed his head respectfully, then waved toward the downed ramper. “This one is for free. I dislike hired killers.” He looked at the time. It was nearly one-thirty. “I believe my bride will be wondering about me. May I offer you a lift, perhaps to a medical center?”

  Luka and Mairwen exchanged a look, and he briefly tightened his hold on her waist.

  “No,” said Luka at last, “we have our own flitter, and our only employee is still around here somewhere.” He heaved a long-suffering sigh, but his eyes twinkled. “Good help is so hard to find.”

  Chapter 20

  * Planet: Nila Marbela * GDAT 3241.149 *

  Most days, Sojaire Celeyron was half-convinced the universe hated him, but today, he had no doubt. His only objective when he’d gotten up that morning had been to get Pico to listen long enough for him to explain, well, everything.

  Since then, he’d become the cover story for a clandestine meeting, with instructions to keep an eye out for anything suspicious; introduced to the energetic lot that was the Domestic Launch team, plus a dozen other mischief-makers from her Practical Applications class; and watched an improvised rocket narrowly miss a startled airsled pilot and self-destruct. After that, he’d been introduced to more of the children Valenia cared for, and said hello to the budding empath Miguel and his shy sister
Celia, then met several more of Pico’s friends as they walked across the commons to the tall Chemistry building. She was popular, and didn’t seem to notice or care.

  When she’d finally led him by the hand to an out-of-the-way alcove near the curving walkway that she said went to the Materials Science building, he’d suddenly become tongue-tied, not knowing where to start. The beginning was as good as any, since that’s where his apologies had to start.

  “Remember at space camp, when you found me trapped in the airlock?” When she nodded, he continued. “Do you know why you found me?”

  “Sure. Insomnia,” she answered. “The induced gravity felt weird. I know you’re not supposed to be able to tell the difference, but I can.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Plus dumb luck.”

  “Not luck. Well, it was that, too, but when—”

  A priority ping sounded from the pendant-style percomp he wore around his neck. It went better with the nice suit he’d worn for Pico’s launch. Since he was nominally on duty, he’d stopped to read the message from Mairwen that warned of “bad air traffic coming.” He showed it to Pico. “She’s with our flitter. Any idea what she might be seeing?”

  “Nope, but we could go see.” Before he could object, she’d turned and dragged him out another door and back out to the center of the commons. They’d looked up at clear blue skies with wisps of clouds and seen nothing for several minutes.

  “So, at camp, when I was in the airlock…” He trailed off as five red-and-gold flitters with lethal-looking energy weapons rose over the top of the Chemistry building. “Maybe they’re just late for class,” he’d said hopefully, but knew they weren’t. Once again, the “interesting times” curse had come to call.

  Pico had grabbed his hand and tugged. “Come on!” She pulled him under the nearest tree. They’d dashed for the round doorway in the shortest building on the floater, which she’d said housed shared labs. As he followed her winding path through more doors and into a curving hallway, he’d hastily pinged a message to tell Mairwen about the gunships, if she hadn’t already seen them, and where he and Pico had gone.

  Moments later, they’d heard a distant explosion, and hurried to a window. They were just in time to see a gunship pulling up, and smoke and flames coming from the third floor of the Chemistry building. Whether the gunship was investigating or had been the cause of the destruction was unknown.

  “This is the opposite of good,” muttered Pico. “We need to get out of here while we still can.”

  They’d almost made it, too, except they were caught at the east exit and detained by a lanky, dyspeptic professor and his twitchy assistant. “Didn’t you hear the announcement? Attendance is mandatory,” said the professor. “Everyone has to report to the large Chemistry lecture hall immediately.”

  Short of assaulting the pair, they’d had no choice but to join a group of resigned students, faculty, and staff as they walked through what Pico had referred to as the donut to the Chemistry building. He and Pico both turned around to look when the emergency doors closed behind them, sealing off the Chem building from the shared labs.

  The lecture hall was filling up, with at least a hundred people milling around. Being surrounded by crowds put pressure on Sojaire’s talents and made his head hurt, so he’d been glad when Pico had found a knot of her friends standing in a corner near some cleared windows. He recognized several from the rocket launch, and gathered they were all in something called the “Practical Applications” class. They’d all heard the explosion, but none of them knew what caused it until Pico had described what they’d seen.

  A loud announcement boomed through the lecture hall, ordering them to find a seat, and sit quietly until the speaker arrived. The crowd shifted so the automatic risers with chairs could arrange themselves in the standard lecture format. Pico and her friends ignored them, and stood casually in the back corner, hidden somewhat by the chair risers. The windows opaqued and darkened.

  Sojaire could see why Pico liked this group. Just like her, none of them accepted fate lying down. After speculation as to who the speaker might be, with the shortest odds on a politician looking for a full audience hall as a publicity backdrop, they began scheming a way to get out of the hall, since the consensus was that whatever caused the explosion would keep them in lockdown for hours. They were hungry, had better things to do, and the tiny fresher intended for VIP use already had a line at the door.

  Their planning turned earnest when they discovered all comms were down, and soon after, when a security detail of six mercenaries—their uniforms matched the gunship color scheme—entered the hall. The mercs made up for being a small contingent by carrying enough firepower to reenact the Last Fall of the Central League, if they were of a mind, and they looked ready to demonstrate. Pico impressed her friends by naming the make, model, and type of most of the weapons. All of the group thought the mercs meant trouble, the kind that sent newstrend ratings soaring.

  “You know what I want?” asked Grien, the body-modded woman with blue skin and gills. “Ten minutes in the main Mat Sci lab. I bet that’s where my brother is hiding out, the lucky stiff.” She hid her worry well.

  “Hell,” said a tall boy, with classic northern Euro looks and a slight German accent, “I’d settle for my rocket propellant supplies in De Luna’s office. There’s enough there for ten launches.”

  “Sure,” said short, sharp-eyed Truòng, his South Asian heritage plain, “but no more rockets, unless Adams’s roommate has killed another kaffa machine.” He flashed a grin at Pico, who returned his smile. Sojaire knew it was ridiculous, but he felt a flare of jealousy.

  Grien grabbed the elbow of a short, muscular woman and drew her closer. “Hey, Dortief, I don’t suppose you’ve fixed Doomreaper, yet?”

  “I did, actually, and upgraded her with optics, but she’s locked in project storage.” Her eyes widened. “But I based her design on the cleaning bots, and there are fleets of them in each building. I, uh, kind of borrowed one when I was building Doomreaper.” When the tall boy snorted, she jutted her chin out in challenge. “What? I needed the human-avoidance logic cube. That’s what failed, you know, when we all got foamed.”

  “Foamed?” asked Sojaire quietly of Pico.

  “Interesting times,” she said. He used to think it was only his life that was eventful, until he’d met Pico. He’d never told her how much he admired her for rolling with the punches, instead of letting them stop her, which was another thing he needed to apologize for. It was a depressingly long list.

  Dortief crouched down and looked under the risers, then pointed. “See? There are two under here. They get trapped.”

  Grien crouched down next to her. “How do you catch them if they avoid humans?”

  “Cover them with a cold blanket,” said Dortief. “They respond to infrared movement.”

  Truòng leaned against the window nonchalantly, which hid his tapping on the glass with his knuckles. “Typhoon-rated. Need more than a pocketknife to get through. Too bad there’s not a door back here.”

  “There’s always the north door,” said a pretty, dark-haired boy of maybe nineteen. He was pale, as if he’d been away from the sun too long. Sojaire tamped down his healer talent. It wasn’t his business if the boy was anemic from a vitamin deficiency.

  “Yeah, and only two mercs with a lot of guns between us and freedom,” said a curvy Chinese girl who’d also been leaning against the windows. “Call me warped, but I’d rather not be shot.”

  The pretty boy put his arm around her shoulders. “Ah, Zee, how would you know if you’ve never tried?” He lathered on the sexual innuendo with his tone.

  Zee rolled her eyes. “Lodkar, you need to see a medic about that hormone imbalance.” She poked his ribs, then ducked out from under his arm and moved closer to Pico. Lodkar laughed, but there was a flash of hurt underneath. For all that his good looks probably got him attention, he apparently didn’t know how to talk to girls. Sojaire sympathized.

  When he was being a pro
fessional medic, he could talk to anyone, but when it was just him in a social setting, he stumbled. He didn’t have many friends because he didn’t know how to make them—his father had viewed them either as competition or a corrupting influence. The fleeting girlfriends he’d had after leaving his father’s house had wanted him to loosen up and share, but it wasn’t safe, not with his father still trying to control him any way he could. Pico had been one of the few constants, because the universe kept throwing them together in the middle of “interesting times.”

  When Arsène Celeyron had cohabbed with a beautiful female gymnast for the purpose of having children, he’d wanted a copy of himself, a big, phenomenally gifted athlete with a stubborn will to succeed and a rabidly territorial possessiveness of the winner’s circle. When the cohab dissolved, he’d kept the five-year-old son and allowed his cohab to keep the ten-year-old daughter, with the condition that they cut all ties, and never claim the Celeyron name.

  It was one of his few losses, because instead of another Arsène, he’d gotten a small boy more interested in musical scores than sports scores, and more interested in knowing how muscles worked instead of building them. Meanwhile, Sojaire’s estranged older sister became the youngest athlete to medal in the ’36 Galactic Games. At age twenty-eight, one-third of her father’s age, she’d already surpassed her father’s lifetime net fame quotient, and in grav ball, a sport he hated because it rewarded nimble speed, adaptable thinking, and spatial awareness.

  It didn’t stop Arsène from doing his damnedest to turn his loss into a win by whatever means necessary, including dragging eleven-year-old Sojaire to an exclusive body shop on Mabingion and demanding they make him taller, muscled, and a brown-eyed brunette, to match his father. Fortunately, the body shop had refused because he was too young.