Jameson tried to stare him down, but there was an angry gleam in the man’s eyes that he decided he didn’t want to challenge. He lowered his eyes and picked up the new clothing. “Is there a place for me to change, at least?” He was not getting naked in front of this barbarian.
“Over there.” He pointed to a small door near the back. “If you need anything else from your suitcase, throw it in the bags.”
Jameson opened the door and found a small sanitation room, not so different from those on Tander’s World—a metal toilet and a small sink. He changed into the new clothes, pulling on the thick gray work pants and a nondescript white, long-sleeved shirt. There was a heavy black jacket with a hood and a pair of black work boots. They all fit him well enough, though the boots pinched his toes.
He was six inches shorter than Xander. He wondered who these clothes had belonged to before.
Jameson didn’t want to go back out there to face Xander. He tried not to think about those wings. Jessa was waiting for him, back on Beta Tau.
He tapped his cirq. “Angie,” he whispered, “connect me to OberCorp Headquarters.”
There was a pause. “I’m unable to establish a connection to the local grid at this time,” Angie said in his ear.
Fuck it all. “Keep trying.” He washed his face to kill a little more time, staring at himself in the mirror. He looked strange in this work garb. More like one of the miners he used to treat than a well-respected psych.
At last he stepped out of the little room with a sigh, and looked out again at the city. This place was nothing like Beta Tau, a fully terraformed and pastoral world where no day was anything less than pleasant. His time on Tander’s World, while not without its own dangers, had been in the wilds, working with men in a mining camp on a world with an unbreathable atmosphere.
Jameson had never spent any appreciable time in a large city, and this one and the wing man currently holding him all but hostage were starting to scare him.
“Let’s see,” Xander said to himself, “we’ll need enough food for two weeks in the Outland, a few weapons, some more clothing….”
Jameson stared at him. He was fascinated by Xander’s wings. Where Jameson came from, only angels had them, and though he’d been taught to believe in them by his Christianist parents, he’d never actually seen one.
Xander looked the part of an angel. Or at least a fallen one. His body flowed as he worked, his face intent. He wasn’t handsome, exactly, though he certainly wasn’t ugly. He was filled with confidence, moving with a sure sexual grace that was more akin to a jaguar than an eagle. He pulled at Jameson simply by being in the same room—and because of that, he was beautiful.
Jameson shook his head to clear away the image. He thought instead about his fiancée, Jessa, awaiting him back home. They were set to marry next year when his internship ended, an arranged betrothal between two of the founding families on Beta Tau. He liked her well enough—they’d been friends since childhood, and she was whip-smart, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. He supposed she was pretty.
Jameson decided to try one more time. “This really seems irregular to me. I was told that I would be meeting with the people from OberCorp.” He was starting to sound whiny, even to himself. “Wait, did you say ‘the Outland’?”
Xander grunted. “Yes. The company farmed this out to me, and I’m going to take you out to where pith comes from. At least, where they think it does.”
“But I haven’t even had time for an ionic shower,” Jameson complained.
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that. There are no showers where we’re going.”
Jameson was starting to panic. Bit by bit, he was losing control. He was a control freak—he knew that—but knowing it and doing something about it were two different things. “Wait, what do you mean ‘where they think it does’?”
“That’s what my contract says,” Xander replied curtly. “I don’t make the rules.”
Though I’ll bet you know how to break them. Jameson tore his gaze away from Xander and pulled a few things from his suitcase. He put them in the bag, including a holo of Jessa’s smiling face. She’d given it to him when he left. It wouldn’t be right to leave it behind—they were bound to be married, after all.
He wondered if he would ever see her again.
XANDER WAS getting tired of the constant interruptions by his new client. Jameson was clearly a prude, and maybe a rich, overly pampered idiot besides. Although he looked a lot like Alix—and that did things to him—his attractiveness was quickly waning in Xander’s eyes.
Xander had learned long before to always have a ready stash of supplies and an exit strategy. Even his time with Alix had done nothing to change that. You never knew when things were going to change, and in Xander’s experience, change was almost never good.
He kept this storage unit filled with everything he might need should he have to get out of town quickly.
He packed enough camping meals for the trip, along with the camping supplies they’d need to get by in the Outland, including a sleep sack each and a few collapsible pots and pans and fire-starters.
Now for the weaponry. Xander opened the crate that contained his small selection of arms. He pulled out his two pulse pistols, then cursed. The power level on one of them had dropped to almost nothing. He threw in a solar cell as well—he could always charge it on the road, but it would do him no good in the meantime. The depleted one might be good for a shot or two before it was wiped out.
He ignored the shocked look on Jameson’s face as he packed the weapons. “Welcome to Oberon,” he said with a grin. “We’re more rough-and-tumble here than on… where did you say you were from, again?”
“Beta Tau.”
“Than on Beta Tau.” The man had to learn that things could get messy out here on the frontier of the Common Worlds.
Satisfied that they had everything they needed, he was closing up the saddlebags when the light in the storage unit darkened. He turned to see a shadow descend outside the roll-up door.
Xander stepped up to the entrance, pushing Jameson forcibly behind him.
A small, unmarked matte black hoversport was descending from above, its rounded shape bristling with pulse rifle barrels. “That’s not good,” he muttered under his breath. Someone at OberCorp had sent a team of enforcers—the company’s black ops division—to find them. Which was curious, since he was supposed to be working on contract with the company. Or were they Syndicate men?
“What is it?” Jameson asked.
“I’m not sure,” he lied. “Just stay behind me and keep quiet.”
The hoversport alighted just outside the unit. The lift door groaned open and three enforcers stepped out, all wearing matte black body armor. Two of the men were holding heavy pulse rifles.
Xander stepped out into the sunshine, all smiles. “Greetings, gentlemen. What can I do for you today?”
“Xander Kinnson?” the lead man asked, flipping up his visor.
“I might be. Who’s asking?”
“Please come with us.” Xander glanced at the other two men and their weapons. This was clearly not an invitation.
“Understood.” Inside, he was thinking furiously. These men reeked of OberCorp, from their smartly tailored black uniforms to the company-issue guns they carried. The Syndicate had firepower, sure, but the criminal organization was a maze of different bosses and rival groups, nothing so militarily precise as this. Something smelled fishy. “Let me just grab something from my bike.”
The leader frowned, but nodded. “Make it quick.”
Xander stepped back carefully, reaching into his saddlebag. “Get down,” he whispered to Jameson. In one smooth movement, he grabbed the blast pistol that was low on charge and fired at the three men who’d come for him. The blast wave knocked them off their feet and pushed them back into the street, slamming them against the hard, unyielding shell of the hoversport. That gave him a precious few seconds to slam the emergency control on the storage unit door.
As the armored metal door came rolling down the men started to get up.
They had little time to escape.
Always have an exit plan. Xander grabbed the other blast pistol, sealed up the bags, and hopped onto the bike. “Get on.”
For once, Jameson didn’t object. He climbed on the bike behind Xander, wrapping his arms around his waist.
Xander could hear the men pounding on the outside of the storage unit door.
If they were Syndicate men, they had probably been sent by Rogan. Xander suspected that Rogan had sent his men after him because the Syndicate boss was afraid he was going to cut and run. Which he was. He had no intention of being taken back there.
The last time had almost destroyed him, body and soul.
Xander had chosen this particular storage unit for a reason. He pointed the blast pistol at the back of the room and fired, and the wall burst outward where he had weakened it years before, sending his storage bins flying everywhere. He threw his arm over his head, blocking the debris. When he looked again, there was a gaping hole, giving them access to the unit behind his, which opened out onto the next street.
“Ravi, I need you to open the door on the unit in front of us.”
“Affirmative. Give me one moment.”
Xander had upgraded his PA with a shitload of blackware, including some handy hacking tools. He eased the bike through the new hole in the wall. “I don’t think we have a moment, Ravi.” Behind him he could hear his assailants taking a laser cutter to the door.
“Deciphering the passcode now,” Ravi said.
Xander glanced over his shoulder. A line of bright white light was coming through a new seam in the roll-down door. In another moment or two they’d be through. “Come on, Ravi.”
Jameson squeezed his arm.
“Access granted.”
The door of the new storage unit slid open just as the remnants of the door behind them crashed to the ground. Xander gunned the engine again and they were out of the storage unit and back into the air, a pulse beam singeing the right sleeve of his jacket as he pulled away. They weren’t out of danger yet, though. “Ravi, chart me a course out of the city. Going east.”
“Do you want me to assume guidance?”
“Yes.” He glanced over his shoulder again, seeing the black hoversport rising up over the top of the storage building behind him. He hoped the second pulse pistol had a decent charge in it.
The hoversport slowly closed the distance between them as the city flew by on either side. Ravi ran them on a crazy course between the buildings, up and down and around until even Xander’s stomach felt a bit squeamish. “You okay back there?” he asked Jameson.
“Not really.” The man’s hands squeezed Xander’s waist tightly.
“Well, hang in there. We’ll either be out of this or dead soon.” He glanced back. The hoversport was almost upon them.
The bike swung hard left into a narrow canyon between two buildings and he turned and aimed to take the shot. He pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. The charge gauge must have been faulty.
“Oh crap. We’re going to have to outrun them.”
“On a hoverbike?” Jameson’s disbelief was evident.
Xander nodded, his mouth set in a hard line. “Ravi, pass me control.”
“Done, Xander.”
Xander poured on the speed, leaving the hoversport behind. Buildings whipped past him on the left and right in a blur.
Xander grinned. “See?” He glanced over his shoulder. “That wasn’t so hard.”
Jameson pointed ahead wordlessly, his mouth working to speak.
There was a crowd of traffic in front of them. “Dammit,” Xander said, glancing back over his shoulder again. The hoversport was catching up again. “Hold on.”
Jameson’s arms contracted even tighter around his waist. He pulled the bike up hard and flipped it over the top of a building, violating about a dozen city airspace traffic rules in the process.
“Oh shiiiii—”
Jameson’s exclamation was cut off as Xander swung them hard to the right, taking them in a ninety-degree angle over the building.
The hoversport flew past but swung back around and was on their tail again. Why haven’t they fired? As if in answer, there was a loud boom, and Xander waited to die. It was a good run.
Suddenly the hoversport behind them was careening out of control, slamming into one building and then off into one on the other side. It spun past them end over end in a tumbling ball of fire, taking out the corner of the building ahead of them. Debris pelted them, creating a nasty racket as it strafed the bike, and then they were past it.
“Hold on again.” Xander pulled back hard on handlebars, lifting the bike up at a vertical angle into the air. They soared out of the way as the hoversport hit the ground below, sending up a cloud of smoke and flame.
Xander had no time to concentrate on what had just happened.
He brought the bike level and then dived back into the canyons of the city, using his wings to slow them down. The auto avoidance routines shuttled an approaching cyclist into a new direction just in time to miss a collision.
“Someone is requesting contact,” Ravi said in his ear. “Communication flagged urgent.”
“Split it,” he cursed. “Okay, put it through.”
“Nice maneuvering there, hotshot.” It was a woman’s voice.
Xander blinked. “Holy crap, Quince, is that you?”
“The one and only. Down your left.”
He glanced down. Another cyclist was paralleling them below, silver hair flying in the wind. “Was that your shot back there?”
In response she held up a pulse pistol and blew imaginary smoke off the end. “Follow me. I scrambled local grid for a bit, but we have to get you two out of town.”
Chapter Four: Quince
QUINCE LED Xander and his passenger on a torturous course through the Oberon cityscape, trying to avoid spy drones and other hostiles. Ari guided her, utilizing the ferret program she’d carefully infiltrated throughout the city’s network over the last twenty-five years. She’d worked toward this moment for more than two decades, and she didn’t intend to blow it now. There was too much at stake, and Robyn was counting on her.
At last, they reached the edge of Oberon City proper. She had taken them on a roundabout course, skirting the Slander. Now they slipped down onto the streets of the makeshift criminal district at ground level, and she led them down a long, dark alleyway.
The city sang to her. Her augmented senses picked up all kinds of things she was sure her companions missed—the sounds of people behind the thick walls, talking, laughing, fucking, maybe sometimes even dying, all mingled together in a sensory soup that her ears processed and disregarded unless something seemed to represent a direct threat.
Data streams flowed through the air like multicolored ribbons, slitting information from one part of OberCorp to another, or from one Syndicate boss to another.
Even the smells of the city streets told a tale: someone stir-frying arracha, a water main break in the Central City, dead vermin in one of the city’s sewer drains.
That vermin was human, as often as not.
They needed an undercover way out of the city that no one would suspect, so she’d turned to the last person anyone would expect to help them. She was sure she could convince him.
At least, she hoped so.
AROUND JAMESON, the character of Oberon City shifted. The prefab structures had ended as suddenly as a crash, and instead the street they followed, if one could even call it that, was surrounded and covered over with all manner of building materials, from corrugated metal panels to old rusted cargo containers. They passed under the conglomeration, and Jameson looked up in wonder.
A faded advertisement for something called Mugjuice graced the side of one of the more permanent structures. Some of them looked like old warehouses, while others were too ramshackle to even be called buildings—and pipes and wires stuck out her
e and there at odd angles.
The stench grew worse, if that were possible—thousands of people lived down here with no real plumbing or sanitation. As he looked around, he realized he was being watched. Eyes peered out and down at him from up among the conglomeration of debris above.
He shivered.
Trash heaps were piled up on either side of the street like fetid banks of snow, in some places nearly twice Jameson’s height. Something rustled under one of them, and he looked quickly away.
The odors, which had been intermittent in the normal city streets, were pervasive in the Slander, and he put his forearm up against his face to ward off the worst of the smell.
He cast a nervous glance backward at the disappearing light behind them. It felt like the descent into hell his mother had been so fond of warning him about. Indeed, the heat was becoming oppressive; sweat dripped off his brow, and he tried to wipe it off, mostly unsuccessfully, with his sleeve.
He decided that he hated cities.
The street was empty of traffic except for the three of them. “Do you know where we’re going? This whole thing seems a bit irregular.”
Xander laughed harshly. “Not exactly. Ask her.”
“Who is she?” He glanced at Quince, riding ahead of them, her white wings tucked in behind her. Like a rock and roll angel.
“An old friend.”
Jameson was getting tired of being spoken to in such vague terms. He wasn’t used to being treated this way. Did this guy even work for OberCorp? He felt odd in these absurdly casual clothes. “Oh, come on. I’m an official representative of the Psych Guild. You shouldn’t be keeping me in the dark like this….”
Xander turned to glare at him over his shoulder, and Jameson shut up. None of this was going as he’d planned. Trapped as he was on the back of Xander’s cycle, though, he wasn’t in much of a position to do anything about it just yet.
Quince turned down yet another side alley, and Xander followed. Though Jameson was not a good judge of such things, this area looked even seedier than the part they’d just passed through. The buildings were mostly rusting, corrugated metal, and the walls sagged on both sides. In fact, few stood at anything like a right angle to the ground.
Skythane Page 4