by Tammy Salyer
The shifting dark of our second night here wraps around me as I step onto the roof. David leans against the south lip of a half wall, gazing into a puzzle of thick, curdling fumes and fog. He looks deep in thought, his forehead wrinkled in frustration and that omnipresent feeling of impotence that we all loathe. His thoughts probably aren’t far from mine: with so many lives depending on us, it’s excruciating to have to find and rely on a group of unknown wire-rats to make our plan operational.
“My turn to watch the toxic waste bubble.”
I move up beside him and he half turns his head, nodding an acknowledgement, but makes no move to go back inside. Leaning up against the wall next to him, I raise my AK-80 to the rim and settle it on its self-mounted tripod. The scope’s dark eyepiece stares back at me, seeming to ask where its next target is. The rifle is short and compact with a built in scope and tracking light, yet still weighs less than its cousin, the Corps-issue CCIX-2655. The effective range is slightly less, approximately 550 meters with night-vision scope or 720 meters on a clear day, but when the bulky CCIX and its ammo weigh a soldier down too much, I’ll still be firing up the night with my lighter extra magazines.
He rubs a hand along his jaw, the scruff of a new auburn beard scratching a whisper as he does. “Yeah, but there’s nothing going on in there. La Mer’s got it under control, and I hate just sitting there watching. I feel less than useless. V can keep an eye on Thompson. Mind if I just hang with you up here?”
I shrug, happy to have the company.
After a while he says, “What do you think of our chances, little sis?”
“Honestly, I think the best thing we can realistically hope for is to keep ourselves alive for a few months until T’Kai sicks every last soldier in the system on us.”
“Not very optimistic.”
“Do you think otherwise?”
“I don’t know. But if I didn’t think we had any chance, I wouldn’t be here.”
We fall silent, listening to the sounds of decaying buildings settling around their bones. Eventually, I say it, letting the fog soak up my words. “David, I’m getting out.”
He turns toward me, eyebrows raised.
“Rob knows people that can forge citizenship registration papers, create a fake history. He can get me back in the system as a new person.”
“You really think you could go back to that life?”
“There’s nothing else left. They’ll catch up to us eventually, even if we succeed in bringing down T’Kai. But if we’re not criminals, just regular people doing what regular people do, with real lives…” I pause, not ready to look into his face and read his reaction, then continue, “We can just buy them—new lives, new identities. Start off working for Rob, then set ourselves up with our own ship, or even live on one of the Obals, maybe here in Tunis City. You’d be crazy not to come with me.”
Finally I face him, and I don’t like the way his blue-green eyes peer into mine, as if trying to brand his disapproval on my brain.
“Aly, what about our friends? What about Karl?”
“He left me, David. He doesn’t care about me. Our friends are probably dead already. What do we have to go back to if we live through this? Any of us?”
Holding back a response, he looks out into the night. I want to keep trying to convince him, argue the point until he agrees with me, but don’t. Eventually he’ll either come to the same conclusion, or he won’t. He’s always been the more thoughtful of the two of us, even-keeled and deliberate. He knows as well as I do that things will probably never be easy again. Neither one of us are martyrs, all we can do now is pick the path with the least exposure. Or Corps.
TWENTY-THREE
“Which one of you wants to go to the docks and get a read on Cross’s ship?”
Before the sentence is out of Vitruzzi’s mouth, David and I are both on our feet, the game of Pussers Bones we’ve been playing for the last four hours instantly forgotten. A hint of a grin lifts one side of her lips, but she says, “Just one.”
This time, a game of Bear, Ninja, Cowboy resolves the issue, and David exits back up to the roof in disgust to keep watch both with and on Thompson.
“Rob sent me the location of the warehouse where he’s storing his planet-hop, and I want someone to take a look around to get the lay of the land. Keep your eyes open for regular security patrols in the area, who’s coming and going, and how likely it is we’ll be noticed if we have to get out of here fast. Keep your face covered and don’t, whatever you do, get out of the land trans.” I’m nodding as she speaks, impatient at being told what I already know, but Vitruzzi is going to say it anyway. “Just look around and then turn around. Read me?”
“Loud and clear.”
As I sling my carbine strap over my shoulder, she says, “You’re not taking those.” Her eyes drift between the AK-80 and my Sinbad pistol, then stare straight into mine. “And the Derg stays, too.”
“What if there’s trouble?” Surprise and irritation fight for control over my tone.
“Then handle it, but no shooting. You’ll be dead before your rounds hit the target if you fire a weapon. This isn’t a Spectra. Security teams are all over the place.” She throws me my watch cap. “Be careful.”
I hate that she’s right, but I deposit the guns on the table next to La Mer’s consoles. She and I walk into the warehouse’s garage, and I jump in behind the beaten-up transport’s driver console. The electric engine chugs unevenly as she raises the garage door for me to drive out. In a few minutes, the industrial complex fades from the cracked rearview display, and it takes another thirty before I get to the shipping docks where we’d parted ways with the Horizon.
The Uhr River, meandering thousands of kilometers down from the northern border of Obal 10’s largest continent, spreads wide and deep on the western edge of Tunis City. It serves as an economic divider separating the city, with all its controlled cleanliness and orderly development, from the shipping and manufacturing operations. The river grows wider and fatter over the distance of several kilometers, leveling into a bloated estuary before rolling into Voltendar Bay. The bay is easily a half-day trip by boat from north to south and varies in width from east to west before it feeds into the Gemenez Ocean through the Strait of Ruiz.
Docking platforms and piers for water-capable craft line every grid of earth along the bay’s western and southern banks. Where each ship is docked depends on what they’re delivering and to whom, and less important clients or ships peddling unsought goods are more likely to be directed to the docks along the bank’s southern stretch. Dock access is a mark of status, and those that can’t pay or don’t have something the Admin wants don’t get any favors. The south bay docks are the cheapest and least regulated, and the security teams roving along them are often more corrupt than some of the privateers that frequent them. This opens the area up for more people like us: questionable, crooked, and, more often than the Admin finds it convenient to notice, criminal.
But the area is still monitored, and security forces still have all the authority they need to hold and question anyone that could be on their wanted lists, or who just pisses them off. If you’re not paying a bribe, and sometimes even if you are, the rule is to keep your head down. A skill I’ve practiced to an art.
Once at the bay, I drive cautiously through the sprawl that’s grown up to accommodate incoming and outgoing ships, the road made even more congested by off-loaded shipments from other planets that are waiting to be either hauled off or paid for. More than once, irate drivers in transports bigger than mine pass me, their scowling faces looming down as they go by. The need to avoid any ill-timed confrontation, or worse, a wreck, compels me to keep my speed steady, hoping not to draw too much attention.
I drive along the main road feeding into the line of docks until I reach a T-intersection snarled with traffic branching east and west along the bank. The location Rob had given us is west, so I wait for a gap and hang a left. As I pull into the milieu, gridlock quickly forc
es a standstill, wedging me between two larger transports with no room for escape. The stoppage is caused by a parade of haulers waiting for loads a few docking platforms down.
Time on these docks truly is money, and the traders exhibit very little patience at the inconvenient slowdown. Rude shouts and pounded-on horns signal their disgust. The ship most responsible for the delay is some kind of contractor-owned piecemeal conglomeration of a decommissioned Admin cargo carrier and private sector model. It’s being guarded by tough-looking pirates planted strategically around the hold while others unload it. Their matching grimaces and bulldog statures indicate they can handle any trouble people decide to shove their way and do it without breaking a sweat.
The longer we sit, the more tangled the congestion becomes, and each additional vehicle piling up behind is like another brick piling on top of me until I’m nearly squirming from claustrophobia. There’s no way to drive free of this mess, and if any security comes by and decides to kill time by checking IDs, I may as well have a target drawn on my forehead.
After five minutes of waiting, the situation goes from annoying to incendiary. A twelve-ton transport with a double trailer is attempting a wide turn that cuts through the full width of the road when a sizzling arc of electricity suddenly blazes through the cab, instantly turning the driver into a smoking husk of meat and leaving the hauler equally dead. Realization that no one is going anywhere for a while sweeps through the crowd of stalled transports like the scent of fire on the wind. People start to exit their vehicles and enter the street, some carrying crowbars and other tools. The warm day and mounting hostility over the delay gives the crowd a sharp, sweaty odor, like a cornered beast. No one acts in the least concerned about the dead trucker, instead converging like a hellish ant hive on the line of transports still being loaded. Security teams start signaling each other, preparing to close in and circumvent the looming brawl.
Goddammit, this is not what I want to be happening. Time to fade out of the scene. If I stay with the transport, I’m sure to get pinched. Abandoning it is the only way I’m getting out of this clusterfuck. I’ll have to figure out another way to get back to basecamp later when things cool down.
A quick sweep of the cab unearths a bent metal rod about the length of my arm. It’s thin but has some heft. Might come in handy. As I pull on the door handle to get out, a column of the dock security crew leapfrogging their way up between the line of stopped vehicles shows up in the rearview display. Shit, shit, fuck. They’re working in pairs, one scanning each vehicle’s cargo, and the other shoving handheld ID scanners at the drivers. If I get out of my trans, they’ll see me, and if I run, they’ll chase me.
Pressing back into the seat, I force myself to calm down and plan an escape. Many of the stalled transports are bumper to bumper, so I can’t run through them without scrambling over hoods and tailgates. No good. That will just slow me down and make me an excellent target. I’ll have to run straight up the line and look for a break, try to get to the warehouses opposite the docks. The teams will see me if I try to run, but maybe I can lose them amid the buildings.
The nearest man is still about ten meters behind my truck. Using my shoulder to shove the door free of its warped frame, it swings open with a teeth-clenching squeal that makes me curse darkly. Sliding from the seat to the ground, metal rod hidden against my leg, I leave the door open to provide some cover to my rear and start walking casually up the line.
Two steps forward and I hear: “You in the black hat! Stop where you are!”
No, no, no, this can’t be happening. It suddenly hits me that I hadn’t called in the situation to Vitruzzi and David. Too late now.
Opening up my stride, I hurtle forward, increasing the gap quickly, praying no one opens their door to find out why dock security is going ballistic. A shot rings out, and heads inside the cabs drop behind their steering consoles, everyone having the same automatic reaction to the sound of a firing weapon. The bullet whips by me, embedding itself in the rear bumper of a hauler a few meters ahead. Thank dumb luck that they’re not using seekers. Too many potential targets in the crowded street.
In moments, I reach the crowd, five or six people deep, that forms a semicircle around the stalled hauler and smoking driver. Up ahead and to my left, there’s an alleyway passing between two warehouses. That’s my opening. A quick look over my shoulder shows the squad closing the distance between us, their faces hidden behind black helmets and lowered face shields. Renewing my effort, I shove through the crowd, putting the full force of my shoulders and elbows into people. Most are too surprised to stop me, but one or two shove back. Doesn’t matter, I’m getting closer to the edge near the warehouses. Another look back shows the security squad yelling at the crowd, forcing a hole by waving and pointing their weapons. People turn to find out what’s going on and start dropping to their knees around me. No, dammit! I need cover!
With a final shove, I try pushing by two of the thugs guarding the cargo ship, but their combined mass is solid and unmoving. One grabs the meaty part of my arm to stop me, jerking me backward, probably thinking he can turn me in to the security team for a reward. I snap like a rubber band at the end of his yank and bring my metal bar up, using momentum to double my own strength. The bar connects with a chunky slap against his cheekbone, opening it up and whacking his head to the side. He releases me immediately and I squeeze past, sprinting into the alleyway.
My excitement evaporates instantly as I realize the end of the alley is completely blockaded by a wall, easily ten meters tall, all smooth concrete. No way to scale it. Panic starts to bubble like acid in my throat. Looking side to side for a way out—a door, a fire escape, fuck, I’d take a trampoline—reveals nothing but five or six stories of featureless walls. I start to turn around and go back the way I came with a hopeless goal of somehow getting lost in the throng, but a darker depression to one side of the barrier catches my eye. It looked like a shadow at first, but maybe it’s something else. Maybe a doorway. I reach it in a few quick strides and yes! It is a doorway, with a heavy steel door. Locked, of course.
As I strike the handle hard with the bar, wicked pain reverberates through the bones of my hands and up my arms to my shoulders at the force of the blow. They go numb, almost making me lose my grip on the bar. Regardless, I raise it again and swing it hard—but the door opens on its own and I tumble into pitch-blackness. Spreading out my arms to catch myself, I end up face down on the ground, my knees and palms stinging, and the bar tumbles off somewhere ahead, clanking against the concrete floor. Before I can get up, someone has a grip on my arms and pulls them cruelly behind my back. Panicked now, I begin bucking, trying to flip myself over and get some leverage with my feet, but the assailant straddles me, his weight like a tank on my back. He binds my wrists quickly, expertly, and I hear the door pushed closed and locked. A rag is stuffed into my mouth as I try to yell, and then a bag is pulled over my head. Thrashing and kicking nets me nothing but bruises and at least two different voices cursing at me, but they have my legs also bound in seconds, trussing me like a turkey.
Helpless.
Someone starts banging on the door from the other side and muffled, indistinct voices demand it be opened. The words “security” and “violation” come through loud and clear, making me realize that whoever has me is not the security team that had been pursuing me. I am in deeper shit than I thought.
The voices on the other side of the door continue to yell as I’m lifted off the floor, none too gently, and carried away.
To where?
TWENTY-FOUR
The bag is yanked off my head, pulling my watch cap and a few errant hairs with it.
“You a merc? Or just popular.”
A man stands in front of me, arm’s length away, looking at me flatly as if examining something he finds slightly objectionable. He has dark hair and dark eyes set into a flushed face that’s oblong and squat, like a melon thrown against a wall. He’s not very tall, about Doug Mason’s height, stringi
er, with arms crossed, and wide, slightly hunched shoulders.
So this is my abductor. The latest in a string of them.
“Who. Are. You?” Things have to unfold a little more before I’ll know how much danger I’m in, but the sound of a gun being cocked behind me is proof that it’s enough.
“You can call me Quantum. And you are Aly.” His arms open and he holds my VDU up in one hand. “Associate of David, Vitruzzi, and,” he pauses for a long second, “La Mer.” Returning the device into the pocket of his cargo jacket, and re-crossing his arms, he finishes, “And who else?”
My team must have been calling me, trying to find out what’s been going on. I take a minute to look around, letting him wait. The room is deep and long, several computer and equipment consoles lined up in neat rows filling the space. I’ve been their captive for over two hours at this point, but we only arrived in this location a few minutes ago. After I’d been gagged and hooded, they’d made me sweat it out in some sort of tiny burrow in the warehouse that had been barely big enough to lie lengthwise in. Something thick had been lowered over the space, and I’d been left trapped underneath for a long, cramped hour. Panicked claustrophobia had me nearly screaming to be let out, but somehow my rational mind had held it in check, knowing that I’d be beyond help if the Admin security team found me. They’d finally pulled me out, and with no explanation, driven me to this place. Saying that I’m angry and frightened enough to kill someone right now is like calling a bullet hole in the stomach a minor annoyance.
Keeping my fury in check until I can suss out the situation, I ask, “Why should I tell you?”
He takes a sliding step forward and backhands me across the cheekbone. It stings, but it isn’t hard enough to bruise. He’s trying to scare me.
My cold stare is enough to make it clear that I’m not easily intimidated. He gives me another few seconds, then tries a new question.