They could subdue rioters with that substance.
All the way on the right, two men who appeared to be ex-soldiers sat on benches on the rearward side of the stage receiving lap dances from girls who looked too thin to be alive.
Mamoru’s arrival stopped the room for several seconds. Not only did his long, dark coat and sunglasses stand out with an appearance more upper class than this place catered to, his skin tone marked him as from Earth―a tourist. According to the “helpful information” provided by RedLink, many natives of Mars opted for cosmetic genetic modification a few generations back. What had started as a designer gimmick had become a sort of planetary identity driven by university students hopped up on coffee and idealism.
A dark haired woman in a short skirt and clingy top that bared her midsection carried another basket of the strange nuggets to an occupied table, leaned on the man sitting there for a moment of conversation before collecting an empty synthbeer canister.
On her return trip, she gestured at the room. “Sit wherever.”
He approached the bar where a greying man in his later fifties gave him a perplexed stare. Spilled booze might have stained his fading Martian-camouflage pants, though one would never notice.
“You get lost, son? You don’t seem like the type of guy to walk in here by chance.”
“I have not come by chance. Are you Sergeant Dean?”
He muted a laugh. “No, son. I’m Sergeant Konrad, formerly with the Colonial Expeditionary Forces. Dean was our point man when I was still a corporal. Named the place in his honor. You looking for a drink?”
“Water.”
He put a metal can painted with snow-capped mountains in front of him. “Water’s not the cheap option. You lookin’ for cheap or you actually want water?”
“The water is fine.” He swiped his NetMini―forty nine credits. “Imported from Earth?”
“Nope. Them eco-heads raised holy hell about that a few years back. They came up with some cockamamie diatribe about destroyin’ the Earth by stealing its water. This was manufactured in Primus by the same outfit that runs the terraformers. No contamination.”
Mamoru held the can up, inhaling the scent from it. “Do you think the Spirit of Water is present within such falsehood?”
Konrad leaned both hands on the bar. “Water is hydrogen and oxygen. Whether it happens naturally or we make it, doesn’t change what it is.”
“Hmm.” Mamoru took a sip. “It is acceptable.”
The bartender smirked at him and started to wander off, shaking his head.
“Sergeant Konrad, I believe you may assist me in finding something of great importance.”
“I hear a lot of things.” Konrad stopped and folded his arms. “What makes you think the info’s for sale?”
Mamoru took a long sip and set the can on the bar. “A pattern analysis on several hundred thousand entries in the NewsNet archives creates an undeniable relationship between your establishment and the MLF.”
“Don’t know a damn thing about them other than they blow shit up sometimes tryin’ to make political statements.” Konrad leaned closer, a grid of shadow from an overhead light spread over his face. “You think I’d still be in business if the MLF made a habit of bein’ here?”
“There are some who claim they are in fact an extension of your UCF’s intelligence operations. Eighty-six percent of MLF hostilities over the past two years have been directed at ACC assets. When UCF holdings are targeted, they are often deserted or abandoned already and the casualties are limited.”
“For an Earther, you’ve got your head up Mars’s ass to your shoulder. What’s it to you?”
“The state of Martian government is not my concern. I seek a single man. Do you know where I can find the one who calls himself Raziel?”
Konrad stood still, though a vein pulsed thick through his forehead. “No such man, son.”
Mamoru finished his water. “References are limited in the news. I found evidence indicating files had been tampered with. I imagine that was to remove connection to him. If this Raziel is a cyberspace operator, he is quite skilled.”
The bar creaked as Konrad let his weight settle on his elbows and lowered his voice to a murmur. “Look, son. What I hear ‘bout Raziel is that there ain’t no Raziel. He’s no man. He’s a figment of some crazy Tí-zhèn’s imagination.” Muscles on either side of his neck swelled as he leaned his head up to check the room for eavesdroppers. “Just sayin’ if the MLF wanted a flag-bearer, they might talk up the existence of some supernatural shit what could be a motivational tool.”
“Tí-zhèn,” said Mamoru, pondering. “Your society borrows a Chinese word. I am unfamiliar with its usage here.”
He glanced to his right when an empty plastic basket stained with the foul-smelling orange sauce landed nearby.
Tapping her foot, the waitress smirked at Konrad. “Sarge, can you amp up the buffalo sauce? Jimmy said it’s piss weak, like the beer.”
“Weak, eh?” Konrad cracked his knuckles. “I’ll show him weak.”
She shifted her weight.
“What rock have you been living under, son?” Konrad laughed and ‘semmed another batch of what the machine called ‘chicken nuggets.’ A smell, more plastic than food, caused Mamoru to cover his nose. “A Tí-zhèn’s someone with a bunch of cyberware jackin’ them up so they’re fast and deadly.” He dropped the food in a basket on the bar with a rustle of wax paper, then jabbed his finger at the holo-terminal on the machine. A batch of sauce formed inside an empty bowl, the intensity of it watered Mamoru’s eyes through the closed door. “More often than not, it’s used to refer to a hot piece of ass boosted to hell and back.”
Mamoru blinked away from the acrid steam, wondering if Sadako would qualify as a Tí-zhèn.
“On d’other hand, you got Zēngqiáng, though no one bothers saying that whole mess. If you hear someone talkin’ about a Zēng on a rage, run. Usually means some guy with more metal than brains looking to make large objects into small objects with his bare hands.”
“Sergeant Konrad”―Mamoru held up one hand―“While I do appreciate the advice regarding your local terminology, I fail to see the connection between this Tí-zhèn and Raziel.”
“I don’t know much. I only hear some rumors. There’s a Ti-zhen out there who claims to talk to Raziel, says he’s a proper angel. She’s a real head case. Thinks she’s been ‘chosen by Heaven’ for something big.”
“You are not well practiced in the art of deception, Sergeant Konrad. However, I will respect your desire not to get involved if you can provide me a direction.”
“What are you really doing here? I thought Japan was on our side?”
Mamoru raised an eyebrow. “Are you referring to the UCF or the MLF?”
“I’m too old to give a flying fuck about who pulls the strings up here. Don’t matter who does it, someone’s going to wind up on top. There’s a man by the name of Foster who trades in merchandise of questionable legality. He’s got a place inside Aperture 2, right on the courtyard. Bunch of scrap and shit outside, plenty of muscle too.”
“This Foster will lead me to Raziel?”
“Can’t say for sure.” Konrad leaned one elbow on the bar. “You’ll have to ask him that, and as far as I’m concerned, I don’t know you.”
At the northeastern curve of Arcadia City, the gate designated Aperture 2 afforded access to the Martian exterior. A modern-day bazaar spread through the adjacent square, two hundred meters per side. On a dais at the center, six carved stone figures raised proud faces to the stars. Three of the courtyard’s edges were crammed with a mixture of warehouses, mechanic stations, restaurants and other things. To the right of the gate, a prowler dealership glowed red and blue in the castoff light from a holographic sign playing an animation of a cartoony six-wheeled vehicle bounding over a spinning planet. Beyond it, a small herd of the boxy vehicles congregated in a lot. Two were plain plastisteel-silver, one black, and three others shared the same dull crimso
n hue that saturated this place.
Mamoru walked among the people, heading for the northwest boundary. Dozens of vendor carts around the Founders Memorial reduced his travel to a frustrated serpentine for most of the way. Being the only person in sight with a skin tone other than chalk white drew stares of curiosity. With most of the population carrying firearms in the open, he had ceased bothering to conceal his blade. Several young pickpockets gasped as he stared them down, too stunned at his catching them to them to do anything but gawk.
Foster’s scrapyard, the last building on the west wall, sat at the corner of where open space ended at city. A few square metal panels sealed off the windows, while scraps of plastic stuck on hydraulic actuators fluttered in the breeze. No lights were on inside. Out front, a yard full of stacked boxes and unidentifiable machine parts stood devoid of activity beneath a white cloth tarp bound with twine to metal posts. Light through the shifting material stretched wavering shadows from the junk―the perfect place for an ambush.
In the courtyard of Aperture 2, merchants, explorers, beggars, and orphans swarmed. Foster’s yard looked like a ghost town. He scowled, moving out of the crowd to the shade of the periphery buildings thirty meters away.
Apparently, I am to have a more vigorous discussion with Sergeant Konrad.
Mamoru turned to leave, trusting the odd wariness that came over him, but hesitated.
A yelp stood out from all the other noise, somehow rising above the din of the chaos behind him. The sound came from the rear of the quiet structure. The spirits wish me to look closer. He emerged from cover and strode with purpose through the light crowd at that corner of the bazaar.
Overhead sunlight yellowed through the tarps and industrial chemicals tainted the air in the front yard, leaving him tasting metal and imagining grit on his tongue. He gripped the exposed handle of his katana as he drifted among large, broken machines. Some had been half-covered with plastic, while others collected piles of red dust wherever their crevices trapped it. Mamoru recalled the words of his sensei and opened his perceptions. The old man had said he could feel the heartbeat of malice and always knew when someone meant to attack him. Alas, he had died before passing on that skill. Mamoru relied on hearing, smell, and sight.
“Who sent you?” growled a man.
The echo led Mamoru to the side of Foster’s building, down a narrow passage between it and a prowler mechanic shop. He walked sideways so his arms did not brush the walls.
“Who’s your contact?” yelled a different man.
“Tell me what the target is!” barked yet another, before a fleshy slap.
“Your sister,” said a young voice.
Mamoru halted at the end of the building, leaning far enough to look. Amid a yard full of more technological scrap piled in clumps, three men in dingy coats, dark pants, and sunglasses surrounded a thin boy in a baggy jacket and loose dull-green fatigues. One shook a dull green backpack at him, while brandishing a large pistol in the other hand. The other two men aimed identical weapons at the small figure. An inch of solid, clear material in place of a barrel gave them away as laser weapons.
The boy, who could not have been older than eleven, knelt between them. Unkempt black hair fluttered over a porcelain-white face streaked with crimson from his nose. Hate-filled brown eyes glared up at his tormentors as he struggled to free his hands from metal binders behind his back.
Snarling, the man with the pack punched the boy in the gut, leaving him slumped over a salvaged capacitor unit, cheek on metal with his head to the side as if on a chopping block. The boy whined and coughed, growling through the pain since he could not clutch his arms to his stomach. He looked right at Mamoru at that instant and went still. He did not seem at all close to crying or showing weakness. His stare took on a pleading quality for the second or two they left him alone. A man behind him lifted him to his knees by a fistful of hair.
“We have you on cam, you little shit. You planted the device.” He shoved the kid face-first against the capacitor with a muted thud, before he leaned his weight on the boy’s neck. “Who is your damn contact?”
Even if he wanted to speak, the act would have been impossible, as was breathing. The boy gasped and wheezed. The man crushing him slapped him across the back of the head. A weak growl emanated from the kid.
The man in front raised his pistol. “Fuck it, the little prong isn’t gonna crack.” The pistol chirped.
“I find it quite dishonorable that it takes three men to threaten a small boy.” Mamoru took three steps forward, entering the yard. He stopped about fifteen feet away from them.
The boy sucked in a great breath when the weight released, and succumbed to a fit of coughing. At the distraction of Mamoru’s appearance, he tried to leap up and run. The man behind him snagged his jacket and slammed him down on the capacitor again. He wheezed, paralyzed by the impact.
“This is none of your concern.” The man who had grabbed the boy by the hair reached his left hand around behind him. “This is offi―”
Mamoru’s gaze flicked to the one aiming at the boy. Psionic power flowed through body and dragged the world to relative slow motion. He surged forward, drawing the katana with a swing that took the man’s arm at the elbow. His attack happened with such speed the other two had not yet moved their attention from where Mamoru stood before he charged. The man with the backpack did not have time to look over before the blade freed his head from the rest of his body.
A spinning thrust plunged the katana to the hilt in the chest of the last man. Mamoru paused for a few seconds in his accelerated time before stepping left and wrenching it out in a stroke that sheared up through the torso of the now one-armed man, beheading him. Smoke hung in the air, carrying the scent of charred meat. He flipped the blade over in his grip to let the blood steam off, and slid it with a soft click back into the scabbard.
The boy curled against the metal block, no longer able to hide his terror. Wild eyed, he gaped at the three dead men and shivered.
“Holy shit… You just like, disappeared and they all exploded.” He swallowed, looked around again, and worked his way to his feet with a clumsy behind-the-back grip on the capacitor. After failing to slip his hands past his butt, the boy attempted to offer a handshake as best he could with his arms trapped in binders, while someone else’s blood dripped off his face.
“Hey, thanks for saving my ass. I’m Caiden.”
Implausible Denial
amoru disregarded the boy’s ungainly outstretched hand and moved to the man who had reached behind his back. He kicked the body over to see what weapon was about to be hurled at him, but found the man holding a faux-leather ID wallet instead. He squatted, picked the item up, and opened it. The face of the dead man, minus a few years, smiled at him from inside. Caiden trembled, cringing from the sight of headless corpses.
“Boy, what is MDF?”
For a moment, silence settled over the yard, save for the fluttering of the plastic awning out front and the rattle of binders. Caiden slouched with a resigned sigh and tried to blow his hair out of his face, having no greater success at that.
“Um, they’re the police.”
Mamoru stood, and tucked the ID into his coat. “What manner of atrocity did a small boy commit that they were going to kill you?” He scowled at the corpses. “They appeared to be thugs.”
“Yeah, pretty much. Thugs, police, ain’t much of a difference.” He kicked one in the leg before eyeing the blade on Mamoru’s hip. “That’s a vibro, right? Can you cut me loose?”
“You have not answered my question.”
“I was trying to break in to this shop. Guess they didn’t like what I said about asshole’s sister.”
“I see.” Mamoru pivoted on his heel and walked toward the passage he had entered from.
“Hey, wait.” Caiden trotted after him. “Let me outta these.”
Mamoru stopped, leaving his back to the boy. “Those men were going to kill you. Police do not usually kill thieves, even di
sagreeable children.”
Caiden stared at his battered, laceless sneakers. Snow-white skin peeked through numerous holes and rips in olive drab pants. “I’m only a street kid. They think it’s bad for tourism. I’m gonna be eleven in a couple months, getting too old to be a cute beggar, so they want to scare me off before I ‘become a real criminal.’”
“Everyone in this place is a poor liar.” Mamoru started walking away again.
“Come on!” yelled Caiden, jogging after him. “You can’t leave me cuffed. These fuckers have a tracker in them. They’ll find me again. That’s a vibro sword you got. It’ll take you a second to cut the chain.”
Mamoru, now halfway down the passage, stopped. This time, he spun and frowned at the emaciated wretch. “A wise man once told me to seek freedom in knowledge.”
Caiden shivered and took a step back.
“You are afraid of what you know. Why would I have saved your life only to kill you later? I do not expect Mars to be so different from Earth that the death of three policemen will be taken lightly.”
Caiden bit his lip. “I swore not to tell anyone. It’s like an oath or something.”
“That is honorable.”
“You’re really gonna walk away and leave me cuffed if I don’t tell you?”
“Yes.” Mamoru moved as if to leave.
“Wait, please.” Caiden’s eyes glimmered with guilt and fear. “I… I’m involved with some people, but I can’t say more than that. If you cut me loose, I’ll take you to my contact. If he trusts you, he can tell you stuff. I really don’t know much. They only let me run packages and messages. They don’t tell me anything ‘cause of my age.”
“The reaction of those men did not seem appropriate for an errand boy.”
Caiden offered a weak smile and a shrug. “Sometimes, the packages go boom.”
Grey Ronin (The Awakened Book 3) Page 15