by Gwynn White
Ajian snatched Keva’s hand with a lightning speed beyond the ability of someone without physical coding enhancements.
Keva tried to pull her hand back.
Ajian’s grip tightened, and determination flattened her lips. She pressed the item in her other hand against Keva’s palm.
A pinprick pierced her skin.
A DNA reader.
Keva’s heart raced, but she kept her eyes dead and her face calm. The bio-ident the Syndicate provided should override whatever information the device pulled from her biology.
Ajian released Keva and turned away. She waved her hand, and a vidscreen lowered from the ceiling. The vidscreen widened and curved before showing Keva's DNA profile.
The Kadira Saqqaf identity appeared on the left side of the screen. It included all the details of the original Kadira along with information the Syndicate manually built into the data to make her story believable. It was a perfect profile which should be above even the most technologically advanced forensics.
But staring at her on the right was Keva’s DNA helix—her real DNA helix spinning the wrong direction. The computer processed her data, cycling through algorithms and military databases beyond what Ajian should be cleared to access, to uncover her identity.
Most people wouldn’t know the significance of that. But someone in the know, which Ajian appeared to be, would know this meant she was military engineered, not Elite, and that her very existence was a threat to the military’s vice-like control over its troops.
Keva eyed the exits.
One wall height window opened to a balcony, the white curtains blowing in the wind.
The door behind her.
She fingered the hilt of a knife with her left hand, prepared to use it if necessary. Killing a woman of Ajian’s status would attract all kinds of attention she didn’t need.
The apartment was too high up for the window to be of much use. Climbing down in her Elite garb would be impossible. She had no way of calling ILO to save her. The door was most likely biometrically locked, which explained the lack of security or servants in the extravagant living space.
“Relax,” Ajian said, turning around. All pretenses slid away. Her shoulders lowered as she glanced at the door. “We are not being recorded in any way. I employ countermeasures in my quarters to prevent any surveillance technology from being effective. The vetting of the general public, even around here, is so substandard, anyone could just walk in and pretend to be one of us.” She gave Keva a pointed look.
The counter surveillance was a relief. It meant that when Keva knocked this woman out and used her limp hand to leave the room, no one would see it.
“I simply needed to find out who you are. I had hoped you were Family.” Ajian held up her hands. “There are alliances in that arena I would like to acquire, especially since they are pushing into the black.”
No one had made any moves to grow their sphere of influence since Keva was a small child. An edict against further explorations had passed after the military terraformed the Reyher System. From then on, the law stated that no more outgoing missions to find new systems would be sanctioned. “I cannot help you there.”
“No,” Ajian stepped directly in front of Keva and murmured, “because you are military. And not just military.”
Keva fought to keep her breaths even.
“I suspect you are a Jay.” Ajian smiled triumphantly.
Keva met the other woman’s violet eyes but didn’t say anything. What was she going to do with that information? And how did she even know about it? The existence of the Jays was a closely guarded secret. Did the woman understand the meaning of the J-Gene or was she using the information for leverage? “A what?”
Ajian smirked and turned away. “You wouldn’t believe how many of us aren’t Elite.” Ajian sank into one of the cushioned chairs and gestured with her hand. The vidscreen reduced in size and disappeared back into the ceiling. “I am not, either.”
What… in the blazes was going on?
Ajian smiled knowingly. “Yes. I do pull it off rather elegantly, don’t I? But the truth of the matter is I had my DNA altered after I was born—after I completed my schooling. I was the courtesan of a high-ranking military officer and met a biologist who was looking for eager subjects to experiment on.”
“Why are you telling me this?” And how could Keva use it to her advantage?
“Because, dear, dear Kadira.” Ajian stood. “You and I should be allies.”
Allies. Keva walked in a slow circle around the other woman. “Two years ago, you were willing to sell me to a man who would certainly murder me.”
“Well,” Ajian said, raising a ruby red eyebrow, “I didn’t realize your full potential.”
“And now you do?”
“You are a Jay, darling. Yes. Working together has potential to be highly profitable to both of us. There are things you can do which few others can. That makes you valuable to someone like me.”
Keva stopped near the door.
Ajian stood and walked toward Keva, veering away, but also toward the door. “You are a capable assassin, I assume.”
Keva narrowed her eyes.
“There is someone I want you to kill.”
Keva moved to the left as Ajian sashayed to the right. “And who would that be?”
Ajian assessed Keva for a long moment. “Wilmur Zervek.”
The one man she needed alive. “Why?”
“Because he holds a controlling interest in the most powerful corporation within my grasp. I obtained the rights to his company should he perish before he begets children. His promised wife is said to be quite fertile. Her parents paid handsomely for her to be engineered that way, making her a valuable asset. Smart of them too, despite the stigma, since they enjoyed little success elsewhere, and I own their debt too.”
Killing the man didn’t give Keva any real qualms if she obtained the information on Batch D-65 first.
“I did not think it would be so hard a choice for you to make.” Ajian slowed, a slight frown on her otherwise perfect face. “His brother killed your friend, a friend you claimed to love like a sister. How horrible it must have been when you heard of her nuptials and predictable death. The guilt you must be living with every day you continue to draw breath must be unbearable. Knowing you are the cause of her completely avoidable death, if only you’d stayed and been honest with me.”
“I can only know that now,” Keva raised her chin but didn’t say anything further.
“I am offering you the chance to avenge her death.”
“You are the one who gave her that death sentence.”
“I am, but she played her part well, do you not think?”
Keva tipped her head to the side in question. What was she talking about?
“The poison she slipped into his drink every night she remained alive was what finally killed him. The slow build-up calcified his organs, mimicking the symptoms of late onset Sibutian disease.” Ajian chuckled with satisfaction. “Brilliant, do you not think, and no one the wiser.”
Keva swallowed.
“Upon his death, your debt will be absolved.”
Keva cared less about clearing her stolen ident’s debt and more about completing her mission. If it got Ajian off her back, she’d tell the other woman she’d kill Wilmur. She’d just have to get off-planet before Ajian realized she hadn’t.
Ajian closed her eyes and smiled, scrunching up her shoulders. “Oh, goodie. We are agreed. The world is in order again, and we can forget all this unpleasantness. Come. We need to hurry if we wish to catch the parade.”
Keva followed the woman from the room, longing to get away from her and somewhere private to reassess the situation. Now, she had more information with the potential to help make her mission successful.
Ajian walked briskly yet gracefully down the corridor to the elevator. They took the elevator down, the doors opening to an open bridge strewn with lights. Voices shouted down below, and banners of assorted color
s fluttered on streamers along the shining glass fronts of the intricate buildings.
“Don’t they look lovely?” Ajian said as she came to a stop midway across the bridge.
Other patrons came to stand beside them, in varying degrees of dress as if each of them competed for most outlandish.
Keva looked down at the floating platforms below them. The groom and bride-to-be were hidden behind so many bodies clamoring to see them. Flower petals cascaded through the air along with streamers and other confetti.
Ajian pulled a vidscreen from the side of the bridge. She directed it and then spread her finger and thumb along the surface to enlarge the image. “She does so much remind me of her sister.”
Keva knew what Ajian was angling for. A reaction. She wanted to drop the bombshell that Dothylian was Odelle’s sister. A gentler person, Keva reminded herself, would react to that. She glanced up at Ajian with a slight frown of confusion.
“Odelle was her sister, unfortunate thing. How quaint, do you not think, that they both marry Zervek men only to kill them? Or be killed?”
The fact that Ajian was discussing this in public only meant she was either setting Keva up for the murder or she carried anti-surveillance devices on her. It was probably the latter. “There are eyes and ears, Ajian.”
“But no one will hear us. Trust me. We are safe here. Remember, countermeasures.” Ajian tapped at a gem tucked deep into the curls of her hair.
Keva looked at the vidscreen in Ajian’s hands. She didn’t look like Odelle in the slightest. Except, maybe, around the eyes. “Then, you do not need me. This woman can kill him.”
“Oh, but I do.” Ajian set the vidscreen back on the pedestal where she’d found it, and it blipped off, disappearing into the background of the bridge’s structure again. “You see, unlike Odelle, Dothylian lacks the fortitude required to do what must be done.”
Keva wasn’t going to argue that. If she’d been raised anything like Odelle, Dothylian would be practically useless in a fight for her life.
“She is a dreamer, a romantic if you will, but I fear she does not possess the constitution to effectively kill her husband.”
Keva almost smiled. She had her way to get close to Wilmur.
His bride.
That was one plan. She needed two more contingencies.
Of course, letting a civilian complete her mission only made it that much harder. She’d better hope her plans B and C held just case the first one failed.
Keva nodded. It wasn’t the best plan, but it did get Ajian off her back. And it would allow her to determine if Odelle’s sister was the asset she hoped. “I believe we could be partners.”
Ajian smiled and clapped her hands. “Oh, goodie.”
6
Ajian made arrangements for Keva to be in Dothylian’s wedding party as an old friend.
Keva descended to the lower levels of Q’ian’Set via the glass lifters with individualized engines, allowing them to move three-dimensionally to compensate for the ever-changing layout of the city. On space stations, the lower levels were typically reserved for the lowest class. In terran cities, however, the parks were located nearest to the surface which the Elite often reserved for special occasions. In Q’ian’Set, the lowest levels were even more remarkable as they got closer to the vibrant but un-swimmable seas.
Long strips of grass swept under Keva’s skirt as she walked through the park level, looking up to another section of the city filled with tall buildings of glass and metal. Around her, small flying bots with wide wings and sharp noses kept their distance. Her anti-surveillance device sent out a low-level electric pulse the bots automatically avoided without triggering an alarm indicating they had been hacked or tampered with. The flybots were harder to avoid than the gnats the stations employed as their zero-grav tech allowed them to be maneuver through the air silently. That made them difficult to sense, but their real danger was the tails equipped with the ability to implant a tracking device in any target.
Keva missed the trees. They were tall with pale-blue bark and thin, spindly branches. The leaves were pink and danced in the winds that rolled in off the sea. She walked toward the edge of the city to get a better view of the endless water. The grass ended at a black edge which sloped down at a steep angle, keeping any citizen at a distance from the actual end of the level.
The water below was so different here than on any other planet she’d come across. They floated above it, but not far. Keva looked down through the purples and pinks dancing on the surface in the warm orange light of the sun. If the water had been deeper, she’d want to dive in, but the alien bottom bubbled up as if the ground pushed to the surface like a big, oily ooze, reminding everyone that the water killed.
The immediate area was deserted, another thing she missed about Q’ian’Set. While filled with people, there were still places to sit undisturbed.
A woman departed a lifter with two guards. She said something to them, and they remained at the park entrance. Scanning the park, she caught sight of Keva and walked forward with slow, deliberate steps.
Dothylian Solvei. She used a different surname than Odelle. Surnames reflected a person’s slated inheritance, and Dothylian was set to receive a small part of the Solvei salvaging corporation. Keva didn’t know much more about the company than that. It belonged to Dothylian’s mother who was a small-time owner of the enterprise. Politically, Dothylian wasn’t a power player.
But she was fertile, as Ajian mentioned, and Wilmur was after an heir. Several, in fact.
After killing Sexton, Ajian had taken her time slowly killing off the other Zervek heirs until Wilmur was the only remaining one. She was aggressive. Keva would give her that.
Dothylian was tall, slender, though still curvy. Her pale blonde hair shimmered in the light from the pale orange sky and was piled high on her head with styled curls that framed her heart shaped face. Her violet and rose dress was fashionably draped around her body but didn’t allow for freedom of movement. Her green eyes narrowed as she stopped a few feet away.
Keva turned to face her. No visible muscle structure in her bare arms. Her walk was graceful, though it lacked the predatory edge that Keva’s did. If Keva put this woman in harm’s way to complete the mission, she had no way of protecting herself.
There was, however, something in her eye that reminded her of Odelle. Keva didn’t want to see her only friend’s sister snuffed, but was that enough to spare her? To complete the mission, she’d need to leave the woman behind, but should she? Odelle’s memory sat between them.
Dothylian clasped her well-manicured hands in front of her and raised her chin. “The communiqué I received indicated I was meeting an old friend, but I see before me a stranger’s face.”
“My deepest apologies, Lady Dothylian,” Keva said, bowing her head respectfully before raising it again. “I was friends with your sister, Odelle Pappas.”
Dothylian stiffened. “You are Kadira Saqqaf?”
“I am.”
“You are the reason my sister is dead.”
There was no use hiding from it. “Unfortunately, history shows I am.”
“And why should I grace you with this meeting?”
“Because,” Keva whispered, initiating the anti-listening device Ajian gave her. It was woven in her hair and looked like nothing more than another gem. “I believe you and I have a mutual enemy.”
Dothylian’s green eyes dropped and her lips curved into a faint frown.
To read the expressions of the Elite required superior observation skills. They expressed their emotions in micro-expressions, nothing major like a real sneer. That would be too forward.
“And who would that be?”
Keva needed to know if this plan was going to work. Dancing around the topic wasn’t an option. They didn’t have the time. “Your fiancé.”
The whisper of a sneer relaxed around Dothylian’s pale lips. Her eyes darted to where her guard stood.
“Do not worry.” Keva tapped the ge
m in her hair the same way Ajian had done.
Dothylian’s stiff posture relaxed a micro-fraction. “What reason do you have for killing him?”
“His brother killed my only friend on this planet,” Keva said softly.
“As if I would believe you.” Dothylian tipped her head to the side and jewels dangled from her hair, glinting in the morning light of the dual suns. “You left, abandoning her to that fate.”
“I did not know that Madame Memta would sell her to Sexton in my absence.”
“Really.” Dothylian’s lips tightened as if she was fighting herself from saying something she shouldn’t. “What did you expect would happen?”
Time to be blunt. “Your families, neither of them, have the political backing for this level of marriage. Odelle’s name should never have been introduced into the arrangements.”
“How quickly you forget Madame Memta’s influence.”
“I did not realize she owned your family as well.” And Keva had no way of knowing that. The Elite didn’t broadcast political information, especially that which might be considered a weakness.
Dothylian raised her pale eyebrows and made a soft sound. “Yes, well, we are.” She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them. She moved to one of the square seats and sank gracefully on it. Pausing only a moment, she patted the space next to her.
“It is quite likely that should you marry him, you will die.” Keva sat next to her, bringing her knees close to the other woman’s. The listening equipment didn’t pick them up if they both sat close to the jamming technology, but that didn’t mean that the vidcams didn’t capture their words. She needed to play the part of a friend if they were going to sell this.
“The Zervek legacy of murdering their wives is well known.” Dothylian met Keva’s eyes for a long, solemn moment. “My life is not worth a great deal as it is. My family has no clout or monetary influence, so, therefore, no political value. The only thing I possess is my womb, and I have no wish to further my family line. He will not kill me until he has secured at least one heir.”