by Posey, Jay
The walls of the cage had shelves or hooks for storage, and additional shelves had been hung from the ceiling to create a few aisles. Equipment was grouped by function for easy access and inventory. Though Cass had been aware that Gamble’s team was well-supplied, this was her first look at what that actually meant. And now she understood why Gamble had been willing to take such a risk to reach it. Rope, lights, thermal blankets, batteries, ammo, emergency shelters, tools; everything they could possibly need was here. If they were smart, they could run for weeks on their supplies.
Cass tried not to get distracted but she couldn’t help but think of what Wren would have said if he could have have seen it all. She could picture him standing there at the entrance, eyes wide, mouth open, and she smiled even as the thought cut her heart.
Stacks of rugged boxes sat in the right front corner, RATIONS hand-stenciled on the exterior. Cass opened one of the empty rucks, broke the seal on the first box, and started transferring the rubberized packages. If she’d had more time, she would have figured out the best way to maximize the space. As it was, she tried to find a balance between organizing well and just dumping everything in. She came down a lot closer to the dumping-everything-in side.
After her first attempt at closing the ruck, she had to pull five packets out in order to get the top flap to tie down. When it was secured, she hoisted both straps over one shoulder and walked it just outside the cage entrance. It was so heavy she almost lost her balance when she went to set it down. She tried not to think about what the walk back out was going to be like. And she still had another entire ruck to fill up.
When she returned to the cage for “whatever else might be useful” Cass felt completely lost. For a moment she stood paralyzed by indecision. Gamble passed by her on the way to the door and stopped.
“Anything’s going to be better than what we have right now. Just grab what you can,” she whispered. She didn’t wait around for a response.
It wasn’t much help, but it was permission enough; Cass went to work collecting a few items from each stack, pile, or drawer. Batteries and blankets were obvious choices. Beyond that, she gathered whatever else caught her eye. By the end of it, she had the ruck about three-quarters full of gear. She added a few more packets of food on top and two portable purification devices for water. Once it was all secure, Cass was happy to note the ruck wasn’t quite as heavy as the first.
Gamble had already loaded up two rucksacks of her own, and both looked even bulkier than the ones Cass had packed. For a moment the two women stood by the entrance of the cage.
“She’s been real good to us,” Gamble whispered. She gave the cage a gentle pat, which would have seemed odd if Cass hadn’t known it was Gamble’s way of saying goodbye not just to the cage but to her entire former way of life. Cass put her hand on Gamble’s shoulder. Gamble sniffed once and wiped an eye with the heel of her hand, then looked at Cass. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it,” Cass said. She didn’t know how they were going to pull this off, but she was well past doubting Gamble’s ability to find a way.
“We’re not going to risk lugging all this through that hall again,” Gamble said. She pointed to one of the rucks, which had a couple of coils of rope and some carabiners attached to it. “I’m thinking we go forward to the balcony, lower the rucks, try to pick ’em up through the front door.”
“We climbing down too?”
“If we can do it safely. If not, we’ll circle back through the hall, and have Mouse get the rucks.” Gamble said it with confidence, but she hesitated afterwards. “What do you think?”
“I think if anyone can pull this off, it’s us.”
“Roger that,” Gamble said with a smile. She bent down and grabbed a ruck in each hand. “Move ’em to the door. I want to take another peek before we commit.”
Cass nodded and picked her two bags up. Heavy as they were, at least carrying one in each hand balanced her out. They set the four bags side by side in a row by the door, and then each got into position, Cass with her hand on the handle, Gamble with hers on Cass’s shoulder. Cass waited for the signal. Three seconds. Five seconds. Ten seconds. She was just about to turn her head to look at Gamble when the squeeze came. Gently she applied pressure until she felt the door unlatch and then slowly she pulled the door open. A half-second later, Gamble’s hand shot up off her shoulder to the door and halted its motion. A moment later, Cass heard it too. A pattering sound, cut off abruptly, followed by a faint hiss, like a dry exhale through a hollow pipe.
There was something walking in the hall.
Cass and Gamble stood frozen in place, listening. The door stood open no more than two inches in maybe the worst possible position from Cass’s standpoint. They’d given up the security of the sealed door but hadn’t gained any visibility. For all they knew, the Weir – and Cass couldn’t believe it was anything other than a Weir – could be standing right outside the room. Cass held still, waiting for some cue or direction from Gamble. Undoubtedly they were both feeling the same tension. The motion from closing the door might attract attention that the small gap hadn’t. But if the gap had been noticed, then surely re-securing the room was their only hope.
Long minutes pounded out, the bloodflow throbbing in her head. Then, finally, the patter started again. Moving away from the door, headed the opposite direction from their planned path. When it was quiet again, Gamble gave it another minute or so before she made any movement at all. She gently pushed on the door. Cass closed it again but didn’t let it latch. Gamble leaned close.
“Think it’s gone for good?” she whispered.
Cass wanted to say yes. But she didn’t believe it. “No,” she answered.
“Yeah,” Gamble said. They returned to silence, Cass waiting for Gamble to puzzle their way out. Gamble quietly cursed instead. And the idea that even Gamble might not be able to solve this one scared Cass more than the noise in the hall.
If the thing was watching the hall, it was over. And even if it wasn’t watching, if they bumped into it on the way out, the chances that they’d be able to react fast enough while lugging all that gear were slim to the point of nonexistence. But Cass couldn’t let herself believe they’d come this far just to fail now. Gamble would figure it out. She always did.
“What you said before,” Gamble whispered. “About them not reacting to you. Tell me how you know that. Not why you believe it, Cass. How you know it.”
“I can’t,” Cass admitted. “I don’t.” She didn’t know. But every other time she’d faced off against the Weir, she’d been on a war footing. Armed, attacking. She’d never tried walking passively amongst them. And Painter... Painter had mentioned something about it, long ago. Not so long ago, and yet a lifetime in the past. Hadn’t he told them he’d gone out in the night? “But I’m up for trying anyway.”
She could see the consternation on Gamble’s face; she didn’t want to put Cass at risk, but there clearly wasn’t any other choice.
“All right,” Gamble said. “Scout it out. But don’t go far. We’ll do it in stages. From here to the stairwell first, no farther.”
“Check,” Cass said.
Gamble nudged one of the rucksacks with the toe of her boot.
“Still. Maybe a little overzealous. I’m gonna strip it down to one each.” Cass started to argue but Gamble cut her off with a look. “Don’t push it, Cass. We’re not moving this all at once, and we’re not making two trips. Be back in five minutes. You get into any trouble, give me three clicks.”
Cass nodded.
“When you get back, click twice, take two breaths, click twice again. I’ll open from the inside.”
“All right.”
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this.”
“Maybe you’ll think of something better by the time I get back.”
“Get out of here.”
“See you in a few.”
They reversed position at the door. Cass felt strange being the one to give the signal to op
en; she was so used to following Gamble’s lead, it almost seemed silly. Gamble looked at her.
“Be careful,” she said.
“Yep,” Cass answered. She took three breaths to settle herself, and then squeezed Gamble’s shoulder. Gamble opened the door smoothly, slowly, giving Cass time to edge around and take in as much as she could before she committed. It was maybe thirty seconds before she convinced herself she’d seen all that she could. A final breath, and she slipped through the partially opened door, back out into the hallway.
Cass dropped into a crouch near the wall and scanned both directions. Thankfully, the corridor was clear from end to end. Even as she looked, though, she was doing most of her work with her ears. First and foremost, she needed to find out where the Weir had gone and do her best to get a sense of whether or not it was likely to return.
She crept back down the hallway, passing the team room. Both doors were shut, of course, even though she hadn’t heard Gamble close the one she’d come out of. That, at least, was a good sign. If she hadn’t heard it from that distance, then certainly they hadn’t alerted the lone Weir. There were doors on either side of the corridor and she gave each a cursory check as she passed by, but none of them appeared to have been disturbed since her initial entrance. She paused every few feet to listen, straining to pick out any warning in the heavy silence. But there was nothing.
At the farthest end of the hall, a set of double doors led to a common area that Gamble and her team had converted into a combination of recreation room and gym, where they’d spent many an odd hour blowing off steam in their particular brand of rough play. One of the doors was ajar. Had it been that way the whole time? Cass tried to picture it from when they’d first come into the corridor, but she couldn’t bring it to mind. She just hadn’t noticed. She wanted to dismiss it as nothing. But for no obvious reason, her heart quailed at the thought of approaching that room. And thus Cass knew it was where she had to go.
Carefully, quietly, she made her way there. When she reached it, she pressed close to the wall on the left side and held still for a count to ten, listening. All quiet.
She transferred her weight and slowly leaned around the partially opened door. The room revealed itself to her in a shifting slice, like the world glimpsed through a window of a slowly rolling train. And though nothing seemed amiss, her apprehension built with each heartbeat, a rising tide of dread that threatened to swallow her in its inevitability.
The shock was nearly physical when it came into view, as her mind struggled to process its imagined fear made real.
There was a figure standing in the room, with its back to the door. The hollow blue radiance of its eyes cast a muted glow on the wall, like the moon was trapped within. Cass had expected a Weir; she had known it would be a Weir. But she couldn’t have possibly imagined that she would recognize that silhouette.
It was Swoop.
She remained at the door, paralyzed by the revelation, unable to move, to think, to breathe.
And that was when he turned around.
FOURTEEN
The bartender noticed her first, as usual. He wasn’t officially on watch. Never officially. But he usually saw everything before the official watchers did anyway. Still, he hadn’t actually seen her come in, which was rare. She was just standing there as if it was where she’d always been, or like she’d just formed out of the haze that clung to the low ceiling in the establishment. The light wasn’t great to begin with, but the woman had picked a spot near the entrance where the one good bulb was just behind her, casting her in silhouette. Almost dramatic. Even though clusters of people were on either side of her, no one seemed to be paying her any mind. She stood there like a hole in the crowd, and the usual noise and chaos of the bar seemed to die at her feet; like rain parting for the one person in the crowd who’d thought to bring an umbrella. The bartender looked down and checked the glass in his hands, the one he was about to wash; it wasn’t that dirty. He set it aside.
When he looked back up, the woman had advanced a few paces further in, into the next pool of light. Her skin was golden-brown, the kind that could have been from almost anywhere. Dark hair, dark eyes, wide cheekbones. And down her left cheek from just under her eyelid nearly to her jawline, a thick, dark line ran as if a tear had fallen and left a scorched trail in her skin. Some kind of intricate tattoo. She wore a faint smile as she surveyed the scenery and pulled off her coat.
Her shirt was missing its sleeves, and the definition of the musculature in her arms drew the bartender’s attention; lean, sculpted, hard. Not the contorted look that the grafters and juicers had. She was a natural, as near as he could figure. A specimen. There was something off about her, though, that the bartender couldn’t place. Something sharper. Something other. He’d gotten pretty good over the years about reading people’s intentions, but this one was a complete mystery to him. That rarely meant anything good.
She made her way over to the bar and picked an empty spot towards one end, nearest the door. The bartender figured that was no accident. The fellow next to her swung his head her direction with groggy imprecision and mumbled something the bartender couldn’t make out. The guy was a semi-regular, tolerated by the crew that ran the area, but the bartender couldn’t remember his name, so he always just called him “chief”. The lady didn’t say anything in reply; just turned and looked at him full on, her face less than a foot from his. Chief sat there for a second, and then all of a sudden he jerked back, got up from his stool, and weaved his way to the front door. He didn’t even finish his drink. The woman looked back over at the bartender and motioned for him.
He took a couple of steps closer. But not too close. “Drink?” he said.
“Something from the top shelf, if you don’t mind,” she said. Her voice was husky with a touch of a smirk.
“Sure. What’ll it be?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Surprise me.”
He nodded and scanned his wares. The weird vibe continued coming off the woman, and he got the distinct impression that his decision was going to be closely evaluated. Lots of clears up there to choose from, and he started to reach for one, but stopped himself. She seemed more like the amber kind to him. The bartender stretched up on his tiptoes to reach one of the dusty flexiglass bottles towards the back. Not the finest in the house, but close enough. Quality, without being conspicuously expensive. He glanced at the glass on the counter he’d been about to wash, but decided to give her one of the actually clean ones from the bottom shelf.
The bartender poured a couple of fingers worth into the glass and then splashed a little extra on top. When he walked back over and set it in front of her, the woman looked down at it and then up at him with a little smile. And the look made his heart stop cold with fear for a couple of beats.
Her eyes were startling; they were red. Not bloodshot. The whites of her eyes were as clear as they could be. But the irises were a bright, vibrant red, flecked with gold. As unusual as her eyes were though, it was the mark on her face that had caused his reaction. From this distance he could see now what he’d missed before: the line running from cheekbone to jaw wasn’t a single thick-lined design. It was a string of neo-kanji characters. And from top to bottom, it read “Property of Kyth”.
Kyth. It was the name that struck fear in the bartender’s heart.
“Fine choice,” she said.
“Yeah, uh, well...” he said, trying to recover himself, hoping she wouldn’t notice the hitch. “Been doing this a long while, ma’am.”
She tapped something lightly on the bar and slid it towards him. When she withdrew her hand, she left a nanocarb chip behind. Fifty Hard.
“No ma’am, drink’s on the house,” the bartender said.
“It’s not for the drink.”
The bartender glanced around, but no one else was really paying attention to this newcomer. Not yet, anyway.
“Doesn’t matter what it’s for, I won’t take it,” the bartender said. He risked leaning in closer
to her, but not so close there was any risk of accidentally touching her in any way. “I don’t mind you having a drink, ma’am, but this isn’t the kind of place you want to be hanging around for long. Best if you drink up and scoot on out.”
“You think so?” she replied, and she smiled. She did have a very nice smile.
“I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”
“Oh, now, what would life be if not for things happening to us,” she said, a sparkle in her eye. “It’d be awfully boring otherwise, wouldn’t you say?”
“Around these parts, boring ain’t so bad, ma’am.”
There was a loud bark of laughter from one of the corner tables, the particular table that concerned the bartender the most. Corrin was over there, holding court with a few of the local crew, and more than a few who wanted to be part of it. He was just a low-level lieutenant, but this was his little pond and he guarded it jealously. The bartender tolerated it because it was best for business. Safest, anyway.
The woman took a sip of her drink, savored it, nodded in appreciation.
“So that’s on the house,” the bartender said. “And I don’t want any trouble, OK?”
Her eyes smiled at him over the top of her glass as she drained it; or, if it was even possible, her eyes glinted more with a smirk, like he’d said something funny or had just embarrassed himself and didn’t realize it. When she finished, she slammed the glass down on the bar top with a sharp crack, loud enough to draw the attention of everyone seated at the bar. The bartender held still, his hands on the bar, hoping that maybe it’d all escape the notice of Corrin’s gang.
The laughter and chatter tapered off as she sat there on her barstool, all calm and innocence. Even when silence had fully descended, she didn’t stir. Finally a deep voice called to her from a corner.