by K. Gorman
Oh, Suns, what had happened to all of the animals?
She took a sharp breath and looked away. That was not a thing she wanted to think of. Swallowing back a sudden churn in her stomach, she forced herself to re-focus on where Marc was pointing.
Red tape fluttered on a door halfway up the block, marking a thick ‘X’ across its surface. A notice had been stuck to the middle, just above where the tape intersected.
“Government?” she asked, glancing around. Now that she’d noticed one, she saw the others—lots of them, criss-crossed over the doors of well over half the block.
“Might make it easier to deal with your sister, if they’ve gotten to her already.” Marc surveyed the streets. “Which way?”
“Here.” She struck out across the lot, angling to the left. This hadn’t been her first time to Nomiki’s.
She hoped to hell it wouldn’t be her last, either.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nomiki lived down a small street several blocks into the neighborhood. It wasn’t quaint, not like the station-front houses had been, but it did have a kind of charm to it. On one side, the Skydorms towered up, huge, silent behemoths full of tiny, cramped micro-units; on the other, low apartments, town-homes, and single-family houses speckled the boulevard with varying roof lines. It gave the area an eclectic feel, with all the different façades coming together. Not quite so stripped and uniform as some of the city’s other neighborhoods.
Karin’s stomach did a small flip as she caught sight of Nomiki’s apartment.
It wasn’t large, nor was it modern. A vintage keypad rested next to a pair of glass doors that flashed in the late-afternoon sun. A board to the side listed all the names, along with buzzer numbers to call. She reached up, found the number, and pressed it hard.
Marc quirked a brow at the name. “J. Santos? She married?”
“No. Never had it changed.” She glanced at it. Nomiki had probably paid to not have it changed. Like Karin, she favored anonymity.
She re-checked the number and then pressed it again, harder this time. As if it would make a difference.
Again, no answer. Her body went cold with fear.
“Try the manager.” Marc pointed to a name on the signboard.
She did.
A gruff, hoarse voice answered on the second ring. “Beckindale Apartments.”
She leaned into the intercom. “Hi, I’m looking for my sister. Nomiki Makos, apartment 307?”
“Ain’t seen her.” The speaker crackled. “She expecting you?”
“No—I just. Well, I haven’t heard from her. Wanted to check, considering…”
“Ah. Yes.” The man—Edson Markle, going by the sign—cleared his throat, suddenly more attentive. “You said you were her sister?”
“Yes. Karin Makos.”
He paused. His breath sounded through the speaker, along with the occasional mutter, as if he were counting under his breath. “She doesn’t have you listed as a contact.”
“I don’t live in the city.” She paused, glanced at Marc. “My ship doesn’t come by much. Hard to contact.”
He paused again, as if considering. Then he sighed. “All right, I think I can make an exception in this case… Give me a minute. I’ll meet you in the lobby with the codes.”
Edson, as she’d suspected by his name and the roughness of his voice, was an aging gentleman—maybe even one of the Border veterans. He moved with a limp, appearing from a door in the far corner of the lobby with an older generation netlink open in his hand and a few small slips of paper. She almost expected him to have a set of keys dangling at his side, like out of an old movie.
She resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow as she spied a series of penciled-in numbers on one of the papers. If they’d truly been robbers, he wouldn’t have been able to do much of anything once he’d entered the lobby with Nomiki’s codes.
He paused as he spotted Marc’s blaster, then gave a grim nod. “I guess it is time for those again, isn’t it? What with everything going on.” He shook his head. “I’ve kept mine close, too, since…”
“I’m just glad the normal methods work on them.” Marc grunted. “Makes it a bit easier.”
“Yes. Unnatural, isn’t it?” He shook his head again, then made a step toward the stairs. “Come on. Up this way.”
They followed him up.
She could see why Nomiki had chosen the place. With its simple tiled floor and the open concrete halls, the place fit into her sister’s practical aesthetics like ice in snow—and it was open, too. Beyond the first level, the apartment buckled into an open corridor with windows cut straight through the concrete to overlook an inner courtyard. Blue sky peeked through between apartments. When Karin snuck a look over the edge, she saw the ground rife with plants.
“She’s not actually on the third floor,” Edson explained as they came to the first landing and he led them down the hall. “Our building’s multilevel, more like a jigsaw than the up and down normal types.”
Karin ducked under the fronds of a palm that leaned over the next walkway and jogged a few steps to catch up with Edson. “When did you last see her?”
“Not sure. It’s been a while, I think—but then, time kind of runs together sometimes, and she does tend to keep to herself. I’ve gone for months without seeing her before. Doesn’t mean that she’s not in there.” He turned. “She always been like that?”
She shrugged. “She’s a bit of an introvert.”
Actually, between the two of them, Karin was more the introvert. Nomiki had no need, other than privacy, to keep to herself. In fact, if she’d found the right crowd—military type, probably—Karin suspected she’d get along just fine.
Not that introverts were socially inept. She forced that stereotype from her head. She didn’t think she was socially inept, anyway—and, if she was, that probably came more from her weird, isolated childhood and secretive lifestyle rather than any latent introversion.
“Here we are.” Edson halted beside a door and handed them the code. “I’ll be downstairs if you need.”
Marc watched him walk away with a raised eyebrow.
“A bit trusting, isn’t he?” he said once the old man was out of earshot. “He didn’t even ask for our IDs.”
She shrugged, then stepped in. “Nomiki and I are practically twins. In bone structure, anyway.”
Shade swallowed the room. It wasn’t dark. Like the halls outside, Nomiki’s room had a light, open concept. The short foyer they entered fed into a main living space, with the living, dining room, and kitchen all wrapped into one. Her bedroom was around the corner, doubled back through the living room. The outside wall was nearly all glass, but the sun had long departed that part of the sky. The light that fell through had a blue tinge to it.
And, even before she called out, she got the feeling they were the only ones here.
“Miki?” she said, peeking around the corner. “It’s Rin. You here? I’ve brought a friend.”
Marc followed her in, a quiet, unobtrusive presence.
“No tape on the door,” he noted after a few seconds. “That’s a good sign, at least.”
“Unless she’s been abducted for other reasons.” She bit her lip, then shook the thought away. “I doubt that, though.”
“Are people hunting you? You did say that you had escaped?”
“I don’t know. It depends on what they wanted with us. We never did find out.” She frowned. “Plus, she killed nearly everyone who had been in the compound during our escape. I’m not sure if they’d think us worth the trouble after that.”
“Unless they’re looking for revenge,” he said.
“That revenge would have to come through the gate,” she said.
Unless they’d gotten a message through. That had always been a worry for them. She and Nomiki hadn’t gone through the gate immediately. There would have been time for that.
And it only took one.
“Not impossible, even now—but yes, I see your point.”
He scanned the room. “Where do you think she is?”
“I have no idea. She takes odd jobs. Things more… suitable to her expertise.” She winced. She’d long ago learned to love her sister. That included accepting that Nomiki’s talents lay in places she found abhorrent, and in places that often surfaced in her nightmares. “I think I remember her talking about a potential longer-term client, last time…”
“Military, perhaps?”
As she stepped down into the room, directing her attention to the side-table where Nomiki liked to keep her computer, Marc took that as invitation to enter the main area. He wandered over to the dining area, casting his gaze across the small breakfast table and then the counter tops. “Everything looks clean. She normally a neat freak?”
“Yes.” Karin frowned, opening a drawer and skimming the contents, then returning to the desktop. Some folded papers sat on the edge, though they didn’t seem very important. She riffled through them. Advertisements, mostly, though two were notifications of registered mail.
She frowned. Who even used ground mail, anyway? Had she ordered something for pick-up? Something they couldn’t deliver or leave with the nice elderly man who’d let them in?
On second thought—yeah, maybe there was a good reason Nomiki might decide to arrange a pick-up, given what she was normally into. A veteran knew enough to recognize weapons and munitions.
“Fridge is cleaned out, on standby. Only non-perishables in the cupboards.” Marc poked his head out from around the refrigerator door. “I don’t think she’s here.”
Hmm. That was a sign. Maybe she had been gone for a while?
She abandoned the desk. “Hang on—I’ll check her bedroom.”
Soft carpet met her feet, and she balked at walking her shoes on it, but she shook the feeling off. The sense of wrong dropped away as she stiffened her back and headed for the bedside.
Like in the living area, the wall-to-ceiling glass continued. A set of translucent, gauze-pale curtains gave a sense of privacy while also letting in the outside view. The outlines of a few plumeria trees, their branches bare of leaves and flowers during the winter, stretched up to form shadows on the next building over. Yellow flashed into her eyes as the last rays of the setting sun reflected off a window and splashed across the corner of the room. A couple cars sat in spaces below. She wound around the end of the softly-quilted queen bed—gray with silver tinges, to match the unobtrusive carpet—and opened her wardrobe. Then she drew open the drawers of the nearby dresser and checked under the bed.
About half of Nomiki’s clothes were gone. Along with all her weapons cases.
Karin pulled herself back on her elbows with a frown.
Nomiki had gone on a job, then. The only question was—where?
She made to push herself back up, but paused. The outline of a book tucked up beneath the head of the bed caught her eye. If she squinted, she could make out the faint dips and flashes of loose leaf paper.
Her eyebrows rose. Paper? In this age? Apart from registered mail, cheap-print fliers, and the very rich, nobody used it anymore.
She flattened herself to the floor and reached inward, pushing herself half-under the bed. Her fingertips caught the edge of it, and she pulled it closer, hissing through her teeth at the awkward movement as the bedframe pressed into the top of her shoulder blade.
It was a notebook—a binder, more specifically—about the size of a netlink screen. She’d seen them at some of the shops. Meant to store photos.
It didn’t look like Nomiki had followed that purpose. Different papers poked out of the sides, as if someone had stuck a bunch of various-sized sheaves together. She frowned, undid the catch, and let it fall open in her lap.
Her breath caught at the first page.
There were photos. Very familiar photos. Of both Nomiki and herself—taken both candid and as scientific mug shots. Her jaw clenched as she found herself looking into a young version of her own eyes, a measuring grid on the otherwise blank wall behind her, the teal of her surgery gown dark and drab under the wan lighting. She remembered that room, and that surgery. They’d told her it had something to do with her appendix, but the incision had been in the wrong place for that when she’d awoken.
She traced the photo with her thumb, noticing the gauntness of her cheeks, the slight bags under her eyes. That’s one thing living free had fixed. Both she and Nomiki had filled out.
There were photos of others, too. Other kids, scientists and doctors, care specialists, the guardians of the compound. She flicked through the pages, careful to keep anything from falling out. It moved on to buildings—the compound, some of the outbuildings, other places she didn’t recognize.
Where the hell did she manage to find these?
Her hand stilled as she found a picture of the ruins.
The photograph was slightly blurred—probably from age—but the stones were distinct, as was the field they sat in. It must have been late winter or very early spring, because the field was only beginning to come back. If she squinted, she could see a faint hint of green among the brown. She flipped to the next page and found a half-torn piece of yellowed paper tucked into the plastic. Neat, cramped notes filled it, and several sticky notes hung off the side with Nomiki’s distinctive writing on them.
She froze as she skimmed through to the bottom.
It was dated last year.
Had she been keeping things from her? Had she been… investigating?
Footsteps sounded on the floor outside.
Karin closed the book and stuffed it into her purse as Marc’s shadow appeared in the doorway. She hid it just as he poked his head around the threshold. “Anything?”
“She’s gone. Bags packed.” She pushed herself up and turned, then paused as she eyed a piece of paper in his hand. “What’s that?”
“A clue, perhaps. Found it tagged to the fridge.” He frowned, then held it aloft. “You ever heard of the White Lion Clan?”
“No.”
“Local mob group,” he said. “Well—maybe not so local. Last I heard, they’d acquired a gunship and were checking out parts of Belenus. You said your sister specializes in killing people?”
“Yes.”
“Then these are the kind of people who’d be looking to hire her.”
“Ah.” That’s where she’d gone, then. Well, theoretically. The White Lion Clan had at least made contact, but Nomiki could have found a different employer. She glanced around the room, her gaze lingering on the bookshelves, then the bed. “Guess there’s no reason to stay here, then.”
“Sorry you didn’t find her.”
She moved her attention back to the paper. “That got contact info on it?”
“Only a name. Probably an agent. They put out feelers.” He frowned. “You planning on going after them?”
She shook her head as she took it from him.
“Not right now.” The name flashed into sight—Zenobia Philips—before she folded it into a pocket of her purse and made to leave. “Let’s go find Cookie.”
Wherever Nomiki was, it wasn’t here. And even if she didn’t have a prior moral obligation to find him, she now needed him. Cookie’s data-mining skills were her best bet of getting her a contact into the organization.
With one hand on her purse, feeling the curve of the book inside, she walked to the door and led the way out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Red tape fluttered on Cookie’s door, along with a government notice with his photocopied ID, a location, and a number that had been penned in underneath.
“Nuenbar, huh? He must have been one of the first to be found.” Karin squinted closer. “That’s not a phone number.”
“Probably an ID of some sort.” Marc’s lip curled. He stared at the notice for a few more seconds, then lifted his hand to enter the door code. A small clunk sounded as the lock disengaged.
They ducked under the tape and crept in.
Lights flickered on inside, and a kind of stuffy, stale air pricked her nos
e. Cookie lived in one of the newer micro-dorms, a low, long, well-insulated building that ran along the Sky Train’s tracks so close that one of its ends had been converted into a station entrance. It wasn’t pretty, but it was quiet. With a structure made of concrete, and hallways whose walls and design were the polar opposite of the openness at Nomiki’s, it felt like there could have been an orbital bombing across the city and she would neither hear it nor feel it.
Cords lay everywhere. Cookie had them hooked up to every outlet, some of them multiple times with plugs and splitter attachments stacked on top of each other. Standby lights blinked at her from around the room. On the opposite side, also hemmed in by black metal shelving—this one containing a small food cache and a refrigerator in addition to the room’s standard electronics—a double bed had been bookended against the walls. The covers were mussed up, half-dragged onto the floor.
Karin’s jaw tensed, remembering her own first tussle with the Shadow.
Had they all attacked at once? Or, somehow, waited until people had been asleep? Ships might have a set system time to follow, but those planetside tended to follow their local sun movement. On Enlil, that would have put the attack several hours after the one that had hit the Nemina. Plus there were the people on the other side of the planet to think about. Bau’s sister city, Hegir-Nuna, would have been either fifteen hours ahead or fifteen hours behind, given the planet’s rotation.
Maybe there’d been some warning.
But then, who would have believed it? Tales of Shadow people creeping out and attacking on the other side of the planet…