Arach

by C. M. Simpson

  I found a door.

  I stopped running through the possibilities, vaguely aware T’Kit had been privy to everything in my head, and was slightly bemused by it. She could be as bemused as she wanted, but I knew humans. They were assholes. They’d sneak their way in anywhere they thought they could make a profit, and go corrupting whatever native species they thought was useful, in order to get it.

  The door wasn’t locked.

  I checked it for booby traps, alarms, and a computerized system—and found none. So, no remote unlocking for me. Maybe it was never locked. I crept up to it, and listened carefully. When I was pretty sure there was no one moving around inside, I moved up the single concrete step, and turned the handle.

  The door opened inwards, and I pushed it carefully wider. I entered slowly, listening as I went, looking for strands of web that would warn me the arach had been here, or were coming back, straining my ears for a tell-tale hiss. I even sniffed the air, wishing T’Kit was here to lend me her vespis senses. That way we’d know, for sure, whether the arach had ever been here.

  The door opened onto a narrow corridor. The first door to the left led to a room that had a bench and sinks on one side, and four cubicles on the other. A toilet block that looked all-too-human to me. The wall at the far end of the room held a dispenser for various hygienic necessities. I stopped.

  Nothing moved in here, but I wished the place was sophisticated enough for a security system. That way I could have at least gotten a layout, and scanned it.

  Man up, I told myself. It’s not like you haven’t gone low-tech, before.

  The door to the right opened into a small dining and kitchen area. It, too, was empty—and windowless… That was strange. I pulled that door closed, as well, and moved down to an intersection in the corridor. There was space on either side of me for rooms, but no entry. I placed my hand on the wall to my left, and felt a faint vibration running through it.

  On a ship, I would have said it was an engine room, or something. Down here? No idea.

  I stepped carefully to where the corridor intersected another, and stopped, again. There was a single door on the nearest wall in the corridor to the right, but two doors in the one to the left… and another door leading outside at the end. And there were doors on the other side of the corridor, too. I was beginning to get a bad feeling about this place.

  “Me, too,” T’Kit said. “Is there anyone in there?”

  “No movement. No sound,” I said, and slipped quietly around the corner to the left.

  The wall continued to vibrate, and I realized this was probably the cold room. Still, it didn’t hurt to be sure. I moved quickly down to the door. It wasn’t locked. Closed, yes, but not locked. Whoever was operating here, they felt very, very safe.

  A light came on inside the room, the minute I opened the door, which was handy. The walls were lined with shelves, and boxes bearing the picture of something fishy. The boxes filled two central racks that formed three corridors coming off a single walk way at the top. I could see that the rack nearest me touched the rear wall, and figured that each passage was a dead end.

  Made sense.

  Cold air swirled around me, and I guessed the vibration I’d felt came from the refrigeration plant. There were a series of vents in the center of the ceiling, indicating the cooling unit was in the roof, which was why I hadn’t seen it outside. The only problem was that I couldn’t see what was down the furthermost aisles, so I couldn’t be sure no-one was hiding in here—and I was afraid of being locked in, if someone came in from outside.

  I didn’t want to go in, but I had to.

  I had to be sure.

  I took a quick look in both directions, and then stepped in far enough that I could stop the door from closing properly while I grabbed a box off the nearest shelf. When I’d wedged it in the doorway, I hustled the short length of corridor between the shelves, peering down each aisle of shelves.

  Of course, the room was empty.

  I made it back to the door without any trouble, and put the box back on the shelf, before heading back out into the corridor. The next door looked like more of the same—but, when I opened it, I got my first inkling of the kind of predators that had set up here.

  It was another cold room, but it didn’t contain boxes marked with pictures of fish, and nor was it lined with racks of shelving. I peered through the barely opened door, and felt my insides turn to ice.

  “Well, fuck me,” I whispered, and closed the door, very gently, once more.

  I looked around for something to bar it with, but there was nothing.

  Like I said, whoever was operating here, felt very, very safe.

  Moving quickly to the door at the end of the corridor, I cracked it just a little, and then hastily closed it. There was movement at the building adjacent, and I couldn’t be sure if the movement had been human, arach, vespis, or weaver. I decided not to take any chances, and was glad to find a sliding bolt on my side of the door. I slid it across, making sure nothing could come in behind me.

  Turning back to go the other way, I discovered I was not alone.

  A tall, well-built figure in arach grey stood at the intersection of the corridors, his head cocked to one side as he studied me.

  “You’re new,” he said. “Any connection to our visitors?”

  I swallowed.

  “Visitors?” I asked, and prayed that neither of the two doors on the other side of the corridor opened, because they didn’t look like they belonged to cool rooms.

  He must have caught my nervous glance at the door, because he gave me a many-fanged smile.

  “There’s nothing in there for you to worry about,” he said, “… at least, not yet.”

  I didn’t wait to hear more.

  “Going loud,” I said, using my mind rather than my voice.

  T’Kit didn’t respond, and I hoped the vespis outside were okay, given that the arach inside didn’t seem too worried by their presence. I didn’t give him time to become worried, either. I aimed the Blazer at his center of mass—what my instructors liked to call the target’s chest—and I pulled the trigger. As I did, he leapt.

  If he’d leapt forward, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but he leapt up—and he was fast. His body blurred even as he hit the ceiling, becoming a multi-legged nightmare that scampered towards me. I backed up along the corridor, adjusting my aim for the ceiling, and firing as he came.

  “Dumb ass,” I muttered as his body dropped to the floor, with a sickening series of cracks.

  I took a breath, watching it, but nothing came out of it, and it didn’t move.

  Behind me, the door rattled.

  I didn’t think, I just moved. I reached over and opened the closest door, sliding through and into the darkened confines of the room beyond. Again, the room lit as I entered, but not with the white light I was expecting. This time, the lighting was a soft, yellow-edged glow. I flattened myself against a wall, and looked around.

  Oh, this was so not good.

  Nothing lived in here… At least, nothing that could harm me. The walls were lined with cocoons, and I couldn’t make out what lay wrapped within. I wanted to check for a window, anything that would allow me to slip out of the building without having to return to the corridor, but I couldn’t make myself go a step further inside.

  I leant on the wall, and listened for the sound of the rear door being opened, and then I decided that wasn’t my biggest problem.

  I hadn’t bolted the door I’d come in by. Anything could come through it, and I wouldn’t have a clue.

  I was also sure the cross-corridor, had a door at both ends—the one I’d used, and one at the opposite end. If I didn’t move, and very quickly, I’d be facing opponents from three directions.

  “Your doorways are clear, Cutter, but stay inside. The humans are hostile, and I do not want you mistaken.” T’Kit’s words were clipped, and precise.

  Okay, then. If I didn’t have t
o worry about anything coming in through the doors, then I could search the rest of this place. I was going to let T’Kit know what I’d found, but I figured she could pull it from my head, if she needed it.

  “Relay it to Odyssey,” T’Kit said, and was gone, again.

  Man, if she was monitoring me and directing the fight, she was one hell of a lead.

  “Focus.”

  Damn.

  I got out of the room, with its silent batteries of cocoons, and wondered if those trapped inside had even half a chance of surviving. When T’Kit didn’t answer, I knew things outside had gotten busy, and headed for the next door down, sending a call to Delight as I did so.

  She’d be able to link direct to the implant, so I didn’t need to stay on the line. I flagged the memory files of the building I was in for when she did, and stopped beside the next room I had to investigate. It wasn’t locked, either—at least, not where I could see.

  This door was also the right size for humans, but I didn’t let that fool me. Arach could take human form, and there was nothing that said they had to stay in it. I figured the doors must be for show, and wondered exactly what kind of operation they were running. The face I found, in the luxuriously appointed room beyond, was not one I was expecting.

  “You,” he said, looking up from the polished timber desk he was sitting at. “And I thought the guards could take care of anything.”

  “Lord Corovan,” I replied, not bothering to hide my distaste. “I wondered where you’d run off to.”

  He stood, and I noticed he still wore his sword and dagger, but also carried a sidearm at each hip. The Glazer didn’t bother me too much, but the other? I shuddered. If he pulled that, I was going to have a hard time not killing him. I didn’t like tanglers.

  Every instinct was screaming at me to put him down, to shoot him with the Blazer and keep shooting until nothing was left. Every instinct—but I couldn’t. We needed to know what was going on in this world, and I wasn’t some reactive trigger-puller like Delight, who just shot everything in her path.

  “So, not true, Cutter,” Delight said, and I remembered I’d pinged her implant.

  “And you took your fucking time.”

  “Shut up and deal,” and I couldn’t be sure if she was referring to her delay, or to the way Andreus Corovan was coming out from behind his desk.

  At least he hadn’t gone for his weapons, yet.

  “Why don’t you just surrender?” he asked. “I’m sure I could get them to let me keep you.”

  And I grabbed my emotions and hid them deep, giving him the blankest face I could manage. While I was sure he knew he disgusted me, he didn’t need to know how much. Judging from the smirk on his face, I hadn’t quite managed to hide things fast enough—and realized I was going to need something less lethal than the Blazer.

  He’d pulled both blades.

  “I’ve got access to another regen tank,” he said, making it sound like an enticement.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Not yet,” he said, and the smile was gone as he closed the distance between us.

  I let him… kind of.

  Bare hands against blades were never a good idea, but I wanted him alive. I pulled the blades I’d taken back at the vespis armory, and let him come. He laughed, and I wanted to tell him this wasn’t going to be fun. It didn’t help that I was sure Delight was sitting quietly in my head, watching my every move.

  Nothing like getting your ass handed to you when you had an audience.

  “You’ll be fine, Cutter.”

  I really hadn’t needed her to confirm it, but Andreus made his opening move, and I was too busy countering to respond. Man was fast—but he was nowhere near as powerful as Mack. He’d have to rely on speed to get through, and I was plenty fast, too. I’d trained with the best I could find, both on and off, the Odyssey base. I had this shit covered… maybe…

  I let Andreus make his attacks, and I parried. He danced back, expecting a counter-strike, but I held it, making him come at me, again. He seemed impatient. Maybe he’d give me an opening. He danced in, again, slashing in an obvious feint. I turned the blade, and then parried the real attack that came from the other side.

  That drew a look of surprise I didn’t take the time to enjoy it. I rolled the parry into a strike with one blade, and then brought the other in underneath it. He danced back, but both blades touched flesh, and fury distorted his features.

  “Bitch!”

  I used his surprise to press the attack, coming inside his defenses and landing a direct thrust to one shoulder, while slashing across the opposite wrist. Both blades hit the floor, and I kicked them away, pushing Andreus back, until he hit a wall. It was disappointing. I’d thought he’d be better than that, given he was a lord and all.

  “He had a second,” Delight said. “He’d challenge, but then he’d put his second in.”

  And I remembered the older man that had accompanied him when he’d had Mack and me in his complex on Costral.

  “Yes,” Delight said, just as Andreus managed to grab the butt of his tangler.

  Personally, I think he’d have been better off trying to stop the bleeding—or not moving at all. Still, we could agree to disagree. I shoved the blade deeper, feeling it grate against bone, and Andreus screamed, but his fingers let go of the tangler as I rammed the other blade through his side, and hoped I didn’t hit anything too vital on the way in. He screamed again, but I wasn’t listening. I reached in and took the tangler and the Glazer.

  I contemplated giving him a full dose of the first, but I really didn’t have the time, and I wasn’t Delight.

  “No, you’re not,” she agreed. “I’d have tangled him unconscious.”

  Knowing that brought me no comfort, as I switched the settings on the Glazer and put Andreus under.

  “We’ll pick him up, when you call the all clear,” Delight said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Just make sure you get to him while he’s still alive,” I told her, and she chuckled.

  “Now, who’s the bossy one?”

  Rather than answer that, I switched settings on the Glazer, once more, and checked the rest of Andreus’s office. The computer on his desk was still running, and I felt Delight’s interest sharpen.

  “Lock that down, will you?” she asked. “We need it.”

  Huh, so not so much of a request, then.

  “No.”

  I secured the computer, and checked through the curtains at the back. Andreus’s sleeping quarters were a scene of military precision, with not a single item out of place. Wherever he took his relaxation, it wasn’t here. I shrugged. Maybe he was just down here on business, then.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  “Not right now, I don’t.”

  Great. Looked like I’d have a passenger for the entire operation.

  “I’ve got popcorn…”

  Ignoring Delight, I took another quick look over the sleeping quarters and the office, as well as the small, but private san unit tucked in beside the wardrobe, but found nothing. The only thing that looked like it would give us more of a lead was the computer—and it was going to have to wait.

  25—Decoys and Traps

  I made it back to the door, and noticed Andreus was still out to it. Couldn’t be sure, though, so I tweaked the hilt of one of the swords, as I passed. He didn’t move. He didn’t even gasp.

  “Good,” I said, even if I regretted not having an excuse to dose him with the tangler.

  “Don’t sweat it,” Delight said. “He’ll get plenty during interrogation.”

  “And I thought Odyssey didn’t believe in torture.”

  “Who said Odyssey were going to be doing the questioning. He’s on K’Kavor, remember?”

  I remembered.

  Oh.

  I wasn’t sure even Andreus deserved what he had coming to him, but Delight disagreed.
/>   “Trust me, kiddo. I saw what he was doing down on Costral. He’s earned whatever’s coming, and earned it many times over.”

  I didn’t want to know. Not right now. I sidled over to the door, and cracked it, just a little. I was really missing not having a live security system to tap into. The corridor was clear, and nothing moved along its length. I wasn’t sure if that was because the vespis had attacked first, or because whoever was out there had found it locked and decided the building was secure.

  Well, sucks to be them, I thought, and moved up to the intersection. I thought about leaving my initial entry point unlocked, and then decided that even I wasn’t that stupid. Retracing my steps took almost no time at all, and the bolt was easy to slide into place.

  I re-checked the toilets and kitchenette, and breathed a soft sigh of relief when I found them as empty as before. Looked like I’d caught a break, there. Closing both rooms behind me, I headed back to the intersection. I’d been right. There was a door at the other end of the corridor I’d come in on.

  I hurried towards it, remembering to check the cross-corridor before moving into the section I planned on exploring next. Honestly, I was starting to regret not insisting on a partner, but the vespis were busy, and Mack had been assigned to the queen… and, so far, there hadn’t been anything I couldn’t handle. At least I wasn’t wasting resources.

  There was only one door in this section, and I knew that Andreus’s office and living quarters were situated behind the wall on the other side. I decided to bolt the door leading outside, before opening the door in the wall. That way, if there were any nasty surprises, I’d know my back was pretty secure.

  I pushed away the thought that there was still one door I hadn’t had time to lock, and I couldn’t be everywhere at once. It took me a moment to realize that I couldn’t hear anything from outside the building. I should have been able to hear the buzz of wasp wings, and the sound of Blazers and other weapons, maybe even shouts, if some of those shapes had been human.