by Anthology
* * *
Two hours later, Delta slept, exhausted, while Roan paced the living room of their safehouse. His shoulder ached like hell, but he couldn't ask Delta for help. Patching up Cami had taken everything out of the ork. The skeleton sat in its crate in the spare room.
"You think the Johnson turned?" Cami asked as she scrubbed at the blood drying on her jacket.
"No," Roan replied. "They shot him, too."
"Why the hell would someone want a bunch of old bones?" she asked. Roan looked at her, at the blood streaking her blonde hair, soaking through her shirt. He'd screwed up. Someone had messed with his team. Now he wanted to know why.
"I gotta make a call," he said.
* * *
Roan had met Elijah a few years back. They'd shared a bottle of ouzo one night in a seedy hell-hole of a bar. For a brainy dirt-digger, the man could drink.
He made the call, connected. A middle-aged human looked out at him, brown hair tied back into a stubby ponytail. From the distorted view, Roan guessed Elijah was looking down into a handheld 'link.
"Roan," Elijah said, after staring for a moment. "Hell. As pretty as ever, I see. The blood's a nice touch."
Roan raised his hand to his cheek. Grimaced. "Yeah, well." He shrugged it off. "I've got something here, right up your alley."
"Yeah?" Elijah asked. In the background, Roan could hear the screams of tropical birds. Roan transmitted a burst of data, including a picture of the skeleton Cami had uploaded for him.
"You heard of the Kennewick Man?" Roan asked.
Elijah whistled. "My God. I'd heard it was lost. And no photos of the thing lying around, of course, otherwise… Hell, it's what, 8,500 years old, right?" he said, excited.
"So says the intel," Roan replied, shrugging.
"How much did you get paid for this?" Elijah asked, still staring at the picture.
"Not enough." Roan sighed. "Not nearly enough."
* * *
Elijah promised to call back in a few hours. Roan told Cami to get some sleep. He double-checked all the alarms, then popped a couple of painkillers and bunked down himself. Cami woke him up in the morning. She and Delta had the morning news on the trid.
"What?" Roan asked, walking into the living room. He rolled his shoulder, once, wincing at the pain. Delta still looked tired, though-maybe later he'd ask… He stopped in front of the trid. A live news feed was on, showing a building in flames. His building. People stood gawking on the sidewalk. No fire crews yet-the news moved faster than public services.
"Pack," he spit out.
"But, Roan, how'd they know-?" Cami asked. Roan cut his eyes to her.
"Now, Cami," he said.
Delta was carrying the crate into the garage when someone triggered one of the proximity alarms. Roan ducked against a wall, drew his gun. Cami leaned out of the kitchen and silently mouthed, 'elf'. Then she turned and ran after Delta. Roan heard a window break. He sprinted after his team. Delta and Cami were in the truck. She pointed to the garage door as Roan jumped behind the wheel. He shook his head, grinning violently. He gunned the truck forward, bursting through the plastic garage door. Roan caught a glimpse of a startled elf, then felt a satisfying thump as the elf disappeared from sight. A few bullets pinged off the side of the truck as he skidded down the street. Air whistled in the glassless window behind them.
"Delta, check for tails," he said, making another wide turn. In the back, the crate slid, crashing against one side of the pickup bed. Cami was holding on desperately to her door.
"Roan, you're gonna have drones on you in a second," she said, closing her eyes as he took a quick left and swerved through the cross traffic.
"Clear on astral," Delta reported.
Cami opened her eyes, saw another intersection, and closed them again. "Gray van, behind us," she said through clenched teeth. "It's running lights, too."
Delta looked back, grinned. A gust of wind, swirling leaves and trash, streaked by. The gray van swerved a little, fighting the wind, then T-boned a red sedan.
"Not anymore," he said, satisfied.
Roan slowed down and took the next turn at a legal speed. He wound his way through the side streets. The houses gave way to shops and apartments. Many of the shops were boarded up or burnt out. Apartments they passed were decorated with graffiti and had broken, empty windows. The road grew rough, pitted with potholes and chunks of concrete. Roan shifted the truck into four-wheel drive.
"Where the hell we goin', Roan?" Cami asked, finally. She eyed the red-jacketed orks who stood on the street corners, smoking, watching.
"I want to ask that slitch how much she sold us out for," he said. He pulled up to a row of shops, all but one abandoned.
"You two go 'round back. I'll go in front," he said, pulse hammering. He pulled out his gun, holding it loose at his side as he walked up to the door. Her sentinels were missing. When he pushed open the door, Roan realized why.
Inside, the scent of blood, and thicker things, was heavy enough to make him gag. Two orks in Crush colors lay on the floor. Blood pooled black over the dirty linoleum. A human woman and an old ork man slumped in chairs. Blood had sprayed the walls behind them.
Roan jerked his gun up, then lowered it, hand shaking, as Delta came through the exam room door. Cami followed, her shotgun over her shoulder. She shook her head.
Roan turned and slammed a fist through the wall. White plaster sprayed out, like bone through flesh. Silent, he went back outside and got into the truck.
He drove, still silent, until they came to a seedy looking motel. The kind with automated check-in and rooms by the hour.
"Cami," he said, curt.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. A few minutes later, she pointed. "Room 17," she said. Roan drove the truck up to the parking spot numbered 17 and got out. Delta touched Cami on the shoulder, then got out to grab the crate.
* * *
Elijah called first.
"Find of the century, Roan. I can't wait to see it myself," he said.
"Things are a little hot here, Elijah. I'm not keeping the damn thing for you," Roan snapped back.
"Yeah, yeah. You used to like a little action," he said, grinning. "No doubt, once word gets out about this, in-shall we say-certain circles, I think you'll be fine. No point going after you, when the secret's out, right?" Elijah chuckled. Roan glared. "Ahem. I've been in touch with some associates who'll be happy to take it off your hands. They're broke, like always, so they can't offer any compensation. But they'll broadcast photos, get documentation out in the right places. You keep your head down for a few days and things should cool off just fine."
"Perfect," Roan said. "Give me a time and a place."
"Midnight, tonight," Elijah said. He sent an address. "Take it in the back. Two guys'll be waiting. Probably weeping tears of joy. I wish I could be there."
"You want to tell me why anyone cares a flying fuck about these bones?" Roan asked.
"Hell, Roan, isn't it obvious? Just look at-" Roan's commlink flashed an incoming call. Holly's number.
"Great," Roan said and disconnected Elijah. "CAMI!" he shouted. "Trace this call!" And he answered.
Holly looked out at him. Her pretty blue eyes were overly bright, a dark bruise showing clearly against her pale cheek. Her lips, those sexy lips, were bleeding. Her shirt was torn, and she was holding it together with shaking hands. Roan clenched his fists.
"I'm sorry, Roan," she said. Her voice trembled. She glanced up, away from the vid-camera, and shuddered. "I thought… " Her eyes flicked away again, then back. Roan knew that look. Someone-maybe Holly herself-had pumped drugs into her pretty veins.
"I thought they were bringing… bringing what you promised."
"S'okay, Holly," he said, softly. The rage was burning through him, hot and bright. She covered her face, covered it with those elegant, shivering hands. The picture went dark.
"Bring us the Kennewick Man," said a mechanical voice. "Midnight, tonight. We'll give you back your pretty doctor. We might
even leave her alone, until then." The voice laughed. Roan bit back an oath. "We'll call you at ten 'til midnight. Be waiting near the beach-just like last night. We'll tell you where to meet us then, somewhere nearby. You'll want to drive fast. If you're late, we may just have to entertain ourselves with your lady." The connection terminated.
Roan swung around, pinning Cami with wild eyes.
"Tell me you traced it," he said. She took a step back, holding her hands up. Roan realized he had his Predator in his hand. He stared down at it, then collapsed on the edge of the bed.
Delta bundled them up, got everyone in the truck and back on the road. It was late when he finally pulled to a stop in an empty parking lot.
Sitting in the truck, hunched against the cold and the dark, Cami and Delta watched Roan.
"You know, Elijah's right," Cami finally spoke. "Once this gets out-whatever the hell 'this' is-they won't be hunting us down."
"They'll kill her," Roan said, quietly. He looked at his team. Pleading. "They'll kill her, after they-" he stopped. Cami put her hand on his shoulder.
"Roan, we go to the meet, they'll kill us too," she pointed out. "They'll be waiting, ready. We're walking into a trap and we know it. They know it. You think we can take them down? Three of us, against… how many?" Roan looked over at Delta. The ork shifted, uncomfortable.
"I agree with Cami," he said. "Look, Roan, she's your lady. Or was. But-hell. We go there, they'll have the drop on us. We take it to this Elijah guy's friends, they put out the word, and the heat's off us."
Roan looked at them. Cami, fresh pink scars decorating her face. Delta, his glossy black skin sweating, even in the cold. He'd been working with Delta for over two years, Cami for just under. They were his team. His job was to keep them safe, keep them alive. In the shadows, you stuck by your team. Friends and family just slowed you down. Made you weak.
And Holly sure as hell made him weak.
"Roan, you say the word," Delta said. "I'm with you, either way." The ork glared at Cami. She sighed.
"Yeah, yeah. Me too. Hell, we'll hurt 'em some, make them scream like little girls," she said, punching him on the shoulder. "But we better go. 'Bout an hour, either way. And it's almost eleven o'clock."
Roan looked at both of them again. There wasn't any place in a runner's life for friends, family. For love. Wasn't that why he'd slammed the door on Holly in the first place? Because watching her pump her veins full of drugs was killing him, just as it would eventually kill her? Because worrying about her took his mind off the job?
And if he wanted to kill himself over her, how could he drag his team into it? Cami, Delta. They had his back, they'd go down with him. They trusted him to make the right decision, just like he always had. But what was right? Sacrifice Holly, let her be tortured, or take his team into a certain trap? A choice-wasn't it always about a choice? Only this time, only one choice would leave him alive. Did he want to live with guilt, or die with it? Roan pushed Delta over, slid behind the wheel of the truck. Shifted the truck into gear. Pulled back out onto the road.
"Where we goin'?" Cami asked.
"To do the right thing," he replied, and drove into the night.
TURNABOUT
R. King-Nitschke
"Sparq, you in position?"
"Ready to rumble, Boss." Sparq's voice came back quick and strong over the commlink from the unguarded jackpoint downstairs where he'd plugged in. Zack grinned a little to himself-anything less would have surprised him, of course. They'd worked together so long they almost knew each other's thoughts. "Give the word, and the power's history. I've got control of the backup systems, too, though I don't know for how long."
"Okay, good," Zack said. He looked around at the remaining members of the team-like himself, they were all dressed in identical drab gray Clarion Electric jumpsuits. Torque's bulged a little in all the wrong places (guns and vat-grown muscle would do that to a guy) and Elena's bulged (at least in Zack's opinion) in all the right places, though he'd never have told her that. He liked life as a human and wasn't quite sure she couldn't turn him into a frog.
He hefted his metal toolbox and nodded to the others. "You chummers ready to do this?"
Torque shrugged. "Milk run. We'll be in and out in fifteen, and down at MacArthur's by nine. That's if we take our time."
Zack didn't bother to tell Torque that things rarely worked like that, but privately he thought this time it might just turn out to be true. The job seemed ridiculously easy-their Johnson, a flashy media type, had offered them five big ones to break into some upstart kid's apartment and just mess the place up. Not even to steal anything, just to trash the place. "I just want to give him a message," the Johnson had said with that oily smile that made Zack want to punch him a good one in his perfectly capped teeth. Media types made him itch. But cred was cred, and Johnson had paid half up front.
The toughest part had been figuring out the building's security, which wasn't any cakewalk. Even then, though, a little research in the right places had taken care of that. They'd hunted up the plans for the building (it was a new one, built only a couple of years ago) and Sparq had taken only an hour or so of searching to find the rarely used jackpoint hidden in a maintenance closet in the basement. That had given rise to their plan to take down the power and get in disguised as electrical contractors. Right now they were in the parking garage in their van, and Zack was about to give the word.
"You sure he's not home?" Torque asked suddenly.
Zack nodded. He pulled a newsfax from the van's dashboard and tossed it in Torque's lap. Face up was an article with the headline Charity show to benefit apartment fire victims. Torque examined it. "Says he's gonna be there," he said, nodding. "Hope he didn't get a headache at the last minute or something."
"Quit worrying, Torque," Elena said, grabbing the newsfax and tossing it back on the dash. "In and out in fifteen, remember?"
"Milk run," Torque agreed again.
"Okay, Sparq, let's go," Zack said into the comm. A few seconds later the lights went out, plunging the garage into blackness. He opened the van's door. "Showtime."
They took the service elevator up, so nobody noticed either them or the fact that they had the only power in the building. When it stopped and the doors opened, Sparq's voice spoke over their comms: "Nobody in the hallway. Not surprising, since he's got the top floor. Can't see into the apartment, though. I'll hold the elevator for you. Make it snappy, okay?"
"That's the plan," Zack agreed.
The three of them piled out of the elevator and headed down the hallway to the set of double doors at the end. Zack was already pulling out his electronics kit-any security door worth its salt had to have its own backup power independent of the building's. Behind him he could hear Torque unlimbering his Predator. "Elena, can you see if anybody's inside?"
"On it," she said, already settling down against the wall. In a moment she was back. "Nobody here but us chickens," she reported.
"Wiz." A little electronic beep indicated that he had cracked the door's maglock. He turned the knob with a gloved hand and pushed it inward.
Sparq had restored power to the apartment's front room so they got a good view in the dim security lights when they stepped inside. Torque let out a long low whistle. "Must be nice."
Zack took in the room with its exotic wood floors, soaring windows, and plush furnishings and nodded. He didn't know much about such things, but he suspected the paintings and other objets d'art that dotted the room were probably real and probably cost more than the team made in years. Still, they were here to do a job. "Let's get on with it," he said with a briskness he didn't feel. "We're here for a reason-let's get it done and get out before somebody spots the lights on and asks questions."
Torque grinned and wrapped his big hand around a tall, thin sculpture of veined stone. He picked it up and raised it like a baseball bat, taking aim at its mate at the other end of a table. "Here goes."
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," an amused voice d
rawled from somewhere in the shadows.
Torque stopped in mid-swing, and Zack and Elena whipped their heads around in stunned surprise. "Wha-?"
A slim figure stepped out from the darkened hallway. "Not a good idea," he said. He was smiling like he didn't have a care in the world.
"Oh, drek-" Elena started.
Torque's hand dropped to his holstered Predator.
"I wouldn't do that either," the newcomer said, his gaze flicking casually down at the gun. He was young, barely into his twenties, his stunning good looks so perfect they had to be fake. He lounged against the wall in his tres-chic clubwear, his arms crossed over his chest. "Suppose you tell me what you're doing here."
"What's going on?" Sparq's voice crackled over the commlink.
"Hang on," Zack subvocalized. To the kid he said, "I guess you must be Damon."We've still got the upper hand, he reminded himself. No need to hurt him. That's not what we're getting paid for. This just makes things a little messier.
The young man shrugged. "Good guess. This is my place, after all."
"You're supposed to be at a party," Torque blurted. His hand was still on the Predator, but he hadn't drawn it.
Damon chuckled. "So I am. Fortunate for me that I decided to come home early, isn't it?" His violet eyes moved over the three 'runners, settling on each in turn. "So let's talk. What are you doing here? I can guess, but I'd like to hear it from you."
Torque and Elena exchanged glances, and then both looked at Zack. None of them spoke.
Damon's eyes twinkled with amusement. "I see. You're better at making messes than you are at speaking. That's all right. Just tell me this-which one of them was it? Manetti? Yukizaka? Washington?"
The names meant nothing to Zack, but Elena seemed to recognize them. She was about to say something when Torque spoke up, apparently having had about enough of this grinning kid thinking he ran the show here. "Listen, chummer," he growled, finally drawing the Predator, "Why don't you just sit down like a good boy and let us finish what we came here to do. If you shut up and make nice all you'll have is a few rope burns for your trouble."