The figure gripping her arm spoke again, the voice distortion crackling.
“One of the children would help you to control her,” the anonymous voice advised.
There was a sigh from the phone. “Fine,” he said again, his tone aggrieved. “Throw in one of the children. I’ll pay twenty thousand senines.”
“We already have a bid for thirty thousand for all three children as a group,” the figure holding the flipcom spoke. Jenna listened to this in horror. What was this? An auction? With the five of them as the objects up for grabs?
“Twenty-five thousand for the woman and one child,” the man relented. Jenna’s empty stomach rebelled. She could feel the bile rising in her throat. She had to get free. She couldn’t stop this if she was stuck in a medical capsule. But could she leave her children? What would they do to them if she escaped?
“The bidding will stay open for eight more hours,” Jenna’s captor explained. “We’ll be in touch.” The one holding the flipcom snapped it shut. Jenna yanked her arm away and shoved her captor, panicked. She had to get free. She had to stop this. She had to find help. She whirled and tried to dash across the room, only to run smack into a third masked figure. She thrashed as rough hands pinned her arms, and then she felt another needle prick.
She screamed and then slumped, darkness claiming her once again.
13. Frustration
Zane had to read through the comm twice before it made sense to him. Then he brought down his fist on the desk angrily. What was wrong with Jimmy? He asked the Quintans for help, and then he bypassed them altogether? He could have completely undermined what Zane was working on. Or he could have gotten himself killed in the Red Zone, and then how would Zane have explained that to Jimmy’s father?
And Grier? Going along with this? Helping Jimmy prance into the Red Zone and meet with an incompetent snitch?
Zane’s father was not going to be happy. Moriel was going to be even unhappier.
Sighing with resignation, Zane left his office and checked in with Moriel’s assistant.
“She’s in a meeting with the managers,” Kevin told him. “They should be almost done, though. I can let her know you need to speak with her.”
Zane waved him off. “No, no, I’ll just head down there. I’ll catch her when she comes out.” Looking at the comm on his screen one last time, he pocketed the flipcom and headed for the lift that would take him down to the conference room. He’d forgotten about Moriel’s weekly management meeting. She would be discussing with all the different department heads any resort-wide problems or concerns that had come up during the last week and what they could expect for the coming week.
Once that had been his responsibility.
Inside the lift, he jabbed the button listlessly. Was it worth it, coming back to this life? On Kirtuth there came a point when he no longer hungered for nanospeed. Breaking the physical addiction had been pretty straightforward; deactivating all the nanobots had done that. But the emotional and mental draw of the nanospeed—well, that was a whole different matter. When he left Kirtuth, he was sure that he’d overcome that. However, here, where he had to daily live with the loss of power and prestige and responsibility and respect he’d once enjoyed, not to mention all the little reminders of the past, brought the nanospeed to mind all the time. He remembered how alive he’d felt, how confident, how strong, how certain about everything in his life.
The opposite of everything he felt now.
As he did so often, he reminded himself that it had been only an illusion. There had been nothing fake about the strength or the speed or the power, but the illusion had been that he was in control. That he was even himself anymore.
As the door to the lift slid open, Zane straightened his shoulders and strode out. This was really him. He might be weak, and he might no longer be the general manager, and he might still be struggling to find some meaning in his life, but it was his life. He was the one making the choices. Not a slew of nanobots.
The meeting was just ending as he headed down the hall. He nodded at the various managers who filed their way out of the conference room, even managing a sickly smile for Lilah as she glared at him on her way past. When everybody had filtered out, he rounded the doorway into the conference room and found Moriel staring at a holomap of the resort, her hands on her hips.
She glanced at him and then glanced back at the map. “Have you ever thought that maybe it’s time to repurpose the arboretum?” she asked thoughtfully. Zane’s brow furrowed. The arboretum was the large glass-ceiling room that had full-size trees and a pond in it. It included some of the outdoor kinds of activities like rock climbing, the rope adventure course, and fishing.
“It’s still one of the most popular attractions,” Zane reminded Moriel.
“Yes, but it’s so expensive to maintain without bringing in nearly as much revenue as some of the other options. Perhaps it would be better to offer those activities only on the virtual reality deck.” Zane privately disagreed but didn’t speak aloud. What made the QE resort different was that they offered so many of their activities in the real. Any resort could offer virtual tree climbing, virtual rocket sledge racing, and virtual skiing. The QE offered all three in the real at the same place.
“Well, you’re the general manager,” was all he said aloud.
Moriel smiled and then asked briskly, “Did you need me for something?”
“We have a new lead in the Forrest case,” he answered, his tone even.
“Really?” she said without enthusiasm. Zane refrained from scowling at her. It was clear that despite their father’s orders, she was really hoping that Zane would be unsuccessful. He wasn’t sure if that was because she didn’t want him to heal the breach between Jimmy (and therefore Jax) and Quintan-Forrest Enterprises or if it was because she honestly wanted Jimmy and Jenna to suffer that much. Maybe a little of both.
“It seems that Jimmy didn’t trust us to actually come through,” he said, reminding Moriel of what the goal was here. She narrowed her eyes at him. “So he met with Rawle and bargained for information on Jenna.”
“I’m surprised he had the courage to venture that deep into the zone,” Moriel said dismissively. “Especially to visit such a worthless lout.”
Zane tried to choose his words carefully. “Well, it turns out Rawle did have some useful information. However, the price Jimmy agreed to needs to be paid for by us. By you, specifically.”
“What?” exclaimed Moriel. Now she was reacting. Color leaped into her cheeks, and her eyes glittered angrily. “How dare he?”
Zane couldn’t blame her. If Jimmy had paid using a promise that Zane would do something, he would have been furious. Moriel was standing stark stiff and fuming, so he figured he might as well take the plunge and lay it all out for her. “He promised Rawle a personal meeting with you.”
“Absolutely not! That thrice-blasted idiot! How dare he! And how dare that spineless worm even ask!” she barked, her voice rising with each word until she was nearly yelling.
Zane bore it patiently. It was about what he expected.
Eventually, she unclenched her fists and patted back her hair, breathing deeply. “I won’t do it,” she said. “I hope Jimmy doesn’t mind some vid of himself in bed with another woman showing up in Jenna’s hands, or whatever his breach will cost him. But I didn’t agree to it, and I absolutely reject the idea of meeting with Rawle for any reason.”
“Even if it turns Forrest Senior against us?”
She laughed derisively. “This is not going to turn Jay against us. Father is exaggerating the importance of all this. His partner is not an imbecile. He knows Jimmy brought this on himself and that there is little we can do about it.” She smoothed down the front of her gray blouse and then shut off the holomap of the resort.
“If you’ll excuse me, Zane, I have an appointment to keep,” she said, all hint of passion tucke
d away. She didn’t wait for a response but headed straight for the door. It wasn’t until she had already left that Zane realized she had never even asked what their lead was.
●●●
Back in his office, Zane pulled up the comm that he had received from Grier. So Jenna and the children and Mrs. Smitz had been kidnapped. Zane had predicted that; it was the only explanation that really made sense. However, he had not expected that they had been kidnapped for auction. It made a sick kind of sense, though. Armada connections mixed with serious money and Red Zone ties made for a powerful combination. It was the main reason Zane’s father had approved wholeheartedly of his relationship with Jenna all those years ago.
It was possible that Rawle could have created the vid, presenting fake information, but that was unlikely. The reason Rawle had such brisk business was because the information you received was always accurate, even if incomplete.
There was still the question of why the kidnappers had Jenna’s taxi deliver her to the front of the Lore base, right across from the Quintan Edge. In a kidnap for auction, it was especially necessary that the victim disappear completely. The kidnappers would need time to gather bids without law enforcement breathing down their necks. Plus, the whole point of a kidnap for auction was to sidestep the risk involved with the actual ransom. They accepted a lower reward than they could get ransoming the victim directly in exchange for a greater likelihood of getting away with it. But flaunting Jenna in front of a bunch of teenagers and doing it practically on the doorstep of the Quintan Edge was foolhardy. Why? Why didn’t they just have the taxi deliver her right into the bowels of whatever hideout they were using in the Red Zone?
He pondered that but eventually gave up in frustration. He needed more information.
The note attached to the vid from Grier had also let him know that Jimmy had refused to share this information with Zane directly. Fantastic news. His quest to get Jimmy to trust him again was going absolutely nowhere. At least Grier had trusted him with it. Maybe Grier recognized that they had the best chance of retrieving everyone alive if they worked together.
Sighing, Zane stilled the vid and scanned the shots frame by frame, looking for some kind of detail that would give him an idea who the kidnappers were. He knew all of the major crews in the Red Zone by reputation at least, and part of staying on top of the Quintans’ competition was keeping abreast of what kind of equipment or security they were using. He didn’t see anything helpful, but when he reached the frame that showed Jenna, he stopped, unable to help himself as he stared at her frozen form. She was still so beautiful. Even seven years later. Even with a bruise on her cheek. Blasted nanospeed. If it hadn’t been for the drugs, he was sure Jimmy would have never won her over. She would have been married to him now. Those could have been his children. She wouldn’t have been lying comatose, held captive at the whim of ruthless strangers. He would have kept her safe.
He jerked back to reality, shaking his regrets from his head. What was past was done and couldn’t be undone. He needed to focus on saving Jimmy’s family, not indulging in ruinous brooding about what might have been. Forwarding the vid on to the security team for analysis, he started working on a list of those who might have been invited to bid on the Forrests. He didn’t know what enemies the admiral had, but his father had given him a list of likely names for Forrest Senior, and of course, he knew which of the Quintans’ enemies likely had deep enough pockets to be considered. With a starting bid of ten thousand senines, a lot of small players would be off the table to begin with. Money flowing into the Red Zone from off-planet wasn’t easy to track, but Zane had not been the general manager of one of the biggest tax shelters in the whole Union without ending up with money laundering contacts. If any of the people on the list transferred a significant amount of senines to the Red Zone, he might be able to find out about it.Zane had just finished haggling out a deal for a couple of traces with his contacts when his father’s assistant poked his head into Zane’s office.
“Mr. Zane, your father needs you to handle a VIP pickup today,” Ivan instructed.
Zane groaned, setting his flipcom down on the desk and massaging his neck. “I thought he wanted me to focus on the Forrest case. Have the guest relations manager do it.”
“Your father specifically requested that you handle it,” Ivan clarified.
Zane heaved a sigh. “Right.” He straightened. “Do you have any details? Who is it? Where is he coming from?”
“Jay Forrest is arriving this afternoon,” Ivan stated simply.
Zane’s mouth opened in shock. Jay Forrest had never set foot on Zenith. Not once.
He shut his mouth, at a loss for words.
“Quite the surprise, yes?” Ivan said, unruffled. “Your father asked that you make sure that we have appropriate accommodations ready for him. Also, he will undoubtedly want to meet with everyone this afternoon, so keep your schedule clear.”
“Right,” Zane said again.
Things had just gotten a lot more complicated.
14. A Quintan-Forrest Council
“We’ve got a problem,” Grier announced.
“What?” asked Jimmy nervously. They were several blocks deep in the Red Zone again, this time trying to meet with a man that Grier thought probably had gotten one of the “select” invitations to bid on Jimmy’s family.
“Moriel refuses to meet with Rawle,” Grier answered. He was already handing his flipcom to Jimmy, his eyes scanning their surroundings. Grier never let down his guard, especially not to read a comm. Jimmy glanced at the terse response from Moriel to Grier’s request. It was not even a polite refusal.
“Huh,” Jimmy mused. “Well, I hope that bloke that wants Jax’s address hires a decent hacker. I think with Marian living at my house and trying to feed him, Jax has redesigned the security system to keep out even his own family.”
Grier didn’t even deign to reply to this. “Comm Rawle and tell him we need another day,” he directed. “He’ll give it to us.”
“Really?” Jimmy said doubtfully. “Because he seems like the kind of guy who plays hardball, if you know what I mean. The kind of bastard who doesn’t care who gets hurt.”
“Yes, but he wants that meeting with Moriel. He’ll give us another chance.”
Jimmy shrugged and sent the comm to Rawle and then handed the flipcom back to Grier. “So what makes you think this guy will have an invitation to bid?”
“Monserrat gets invitations to every Red Zone auction. He’s a collector.”
“A collector of people?” Jimmy was horrified.
“No, not that I know of. Mostly he collects priceless stolen artifacts from Terra. But he might have been invited, and he’s the only person I could think of in that category that would possibly meet with us.”
Jimmy stared skeptically up at the building that loomed over them. It was foreboding and dark, though there were mirrored windows on the fourth story.
Finally, the nuclear shield protecting the building deactivated, and the front door slid open. A contingent of beefy bodyguards swarmed into the courtyard, weapons drawn. Jimmy edged closer to Grier.
“I thought you said this guy wasn’t an enemy!” he whispered.
Grier merely stood there impassively as a bodyguard stepped forward and scanned them for weapons.
“You have to leave your weapons in the receiving room,” he instructed. “Mr. Monserrat will see you shortly.” They followed him into the building, Jimmy throwing nervous glances at the men who filed in behind them. He trusted Grier, but this was a bit much for even Grier to handle if it all went south.
The lead bodyguard showed them into a small room with racks for their weapons. Grier nodded at him, and Jimmy sighed as he pulled out his gun. Once he’d disdained even the thought of carrying around a weapon, and now it made him seriously uneasy to leave it here. He set it on a shelf and watched as Grier added not one but four
guns, including an atlatl and a diffusing laser. Those were followed by two knives, a small undefinable black cube, a finger-sized cylinder, and a medical injector. Jimmy stared at the growing pile in awe. Grier was a walking armory. Even the bodyguards surrounding them seemed impressed.
They were scanned for weapons again and cleared, and a bodyguard led them into an adjoining room. It was plain and barely furnished. Wherever Monserrat kept his priceless artifacts, it wasn’t here. Grier sat on a plain polished bench that sat facing the room’s lone table. It was a simple prefab worktable, as featureless and drab as the rest of the room.
“I thought you said this guy was rich enough to bid,” Jimmy murmured to Grier when he slid beside him. The bodyguards fanned out in a circle around them, and Jimmy reconsidered. Clearly this Monserrat had the means to hire some serious security.
“He reserves his show of wealth for the upper floors, I understand. This entrance is used for receiving Red Zone guests he doesn’t trust,” Grier explained in a low tone.
“If he doesn’t trust us, why do we trust him?” Jimmy wanted his gun back already, though what good it would do him against all those bodyguards, he couldn’t imagine.
Before Grier could answer him, a door slid open on the far wall, and a medchair hover drifted into the room. It held one of the oldest men Jimmy had ever seen. His skin was mottled with age spots, and his chin sagged with wrinkles. He had wispy white hair that stuck straight up and wore the most garish powder-blue suit Jimmy had ever seen. There was even a necktie, wide and striped with peppermint pink. He would have fit right in on the Gloriana. (He looked almost old enough to be one of the actual survivors.) But though his eyes were deeply sunken into his face, they were sharp and beady. This was a man who probably noticed details.
“Mr. Nuris. I was surprised to get your comm. What brings you to my humble home?” Monserrat’s eyes flicked to Jimmy, and his brow creased. His voice was deep but slightly slurred. Jimmy wondered if he was partially paralyzed. Couldn’t he afford the nanobot treatments to fix it? Or a spinal implant, maybe?
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