by C. G. Hatton
She shook off his grasp and pushed him against the wall. It was shocking how easily she overpowered him.
She leaned close. “You’ve been here for three weeks. I’ve treated the electrobe poisoning. It was a new strain, that’s why your antidote wasn’t working. I neutralised the drugs you had in your system and I set your arm. I’ve stabilised the head injury but it hasn’t totally healed yet.”
She reached up and gently caressed his forehead and sent shivers of pain sparking behind his eyes.
“I still need to repair the damage to your neural interface but we can’t stay here. You have to trust me. You need me. Don’t fight against me.”
“Where’s Pen?” he asked again, softly this time, feeling helpless and like he was going to throw up. A lot could happen in three weeks.
“He’s with LC,” she said and let him go.
Chapter 19
It was surprising to see the bottom of the goblet again so soon. NG eyed the jug. Placing his empty cup on the desk would invite another top up, so he kept hold of it, balancing it on his knee and feeling the warmth seep through.
“Tell me, NG,” the Man said softly, “why did you not mobilise the instant you discovered Anderton was right there on Aston?”
Lying to the Man was suicidal, professionally and very probably literally. NG didn’t even blink before replying.
“We did,” he said. “But Pen Halligan has an extraordinary network on that planet. LC vanished before we could pinpoint his exact location. Pen outsmarted us, I’ll admit that. We think Mendhel was good, but remember he always had the full support of the guild. Pen might be even smarter than his brother and he set up that network alone, based on integrity not fear. His people are tremendously loyal. We couldn’t get through that in the circumstances.”
It wasn’t easy to admit that the guild had been outwitted.
The Man didn’t react instantly – that was a good sign and NG didn’t have to read his mind to know what he was thinking. An asset like Pen would be of infinite benefit to the guild. He’d tried before to persuade Mendhel to bring his brother in but he’d always laughed off the idea. The fact that LC and Hil had both run to Pen, rather than the guild, once Mendhel was gone spoke volumes. And that wasn’t something he would openly admit to anyone.
•
The woman turned and walked away, heading for the back door.
Hil stumbled after her. “What? LC’s here?”
She didn’t break stride, her tall figure disappearing into the darkness ahead. He cursed under his breath and paused.
He couldn’t believe that LC was here. But as he tried to think, a vague recollection surfaced. He had a faint memory of half waking in the iso-pod and hearing LC speaking with someone, but he’d brushed it off as a dream or muddled recall, confusing memories from different times. LC had asked if he was okay. He’d heard him, right there by his side, heard him say that they shouldn’t have split up. Oh crap. His stomach back-flipped as he remembered. He reached up to his neck where a dressing hid the sore spot of the implant. He’d called out to Skye, telling her that LC was there but she hadn’t replied because it was Genoa, not Skye, that was waiting for him at the orbital. And he’d not been able to stay awake.
He turned to look back into the house, unease at faint sounds that didn’t belong. There was a tap then the crash of breaking glass was followed by a hiss and a loud bang.
He turned and ran.
Half way to the back door, there was another loud crash ahead of them. The woman swore softly in a language he didn’t understand and grabbed his arm, pulling him sideways into the kitchen. They ran silently through the narrow room, hearing chaos erupt behind them. Pen’s place was a warren of twisting corridors and steep staircases. In the dark that meant both hazard and safety, depending on whether the jerks breaking in had low light equipment. Hil’s eyes didn’t take long to adjust, he hadn’t been awake long and he’d woken to the darkness. But the odds were that the intruders would be kitted out to the hilt. No one just broke into Pen’s place. So they were up against it.
They dropped down two levels and ran through the cellar, hearing the distant sounds of voices coordinating the search. This was the one place that should have been safe.
The woman paused at a door and listened. Hil backed up close to her and watched both directions of the tight corridor. He had the gun out, held loosely in his left hand but the headache was back so he didn’t reckon much to his chances of hitting anything.
“This is it – it leads down to the tunnels,” she whispered. “Can you open it?”
He glanced back over his shoulder. The door had a keypad that was probably one of Pen’s originals and probably rigged with a trap. “What? You know the way out but you don’t know the code?”
She shook her head. “It’s not working. Whoever they are, they’ve tripped out the whole system.”
Hil pushed her out of the way, thrusting the gun into her hand. She took up his position keeping watch and he was sure she whispered ‘be careful’ at him.
It was awkward working the lock with a cast on one hand and nerves that were twice as jittery as they had been because they felt they’d been conned into a false sense of security. He leaned against the door and tried to remember everything Pen had ever bragged about. He was depending on the fact that they were breaking out, not breaking in so any defences that he did trigger should be aimed away from them. If anything, there should be an easy trip to it to get out if Pen had ever considered the possibility of circumstances like these.
The lock was stubborn, but then he wouldn’t have expected anything else. Footsteps echoed down towards them. His heart rate upped a notch and he had to pause and concentrate to chase away the panic, thinking that no one should have been able to follow him here. He clicked into a connection and tweaked as delicately as he’d ever managed, and was rewarded with a soft hiss as the door catch released.
They slipped through and pulled the door closed behind them, abandoning Pen’s place and on the run again.
The sun was coming up by the time they emerged from the tunnels. Hil was exhausted and stubbornly hiding it from the woman whose name he still hadn’t remembered. She had led them on a winding trail through the city’s underground, mingling with the late night crowds at the pit’s nightclubs deep under the centre of Aston’s spice quarter and smoothly blending in with the shift changers coming and going from the subways.
The day was dawning hot and humid, only the slightest hint of sea air on a faint breeze giving any respite, even this early.
Hil waited in the cover of a doorway and watched her scout out the street ahead, resisting the urge to sink down and sit on the dusty floor. She crossed to a building on the other side and waved him over. He didn’t know exactly where they were but the buildings were even more decrepit than around Pen’s place.
She pushed open a heavy metal door that had seen better days and stood aside, waiting for him to go in. It was good to get away from the street but there was still a nagging doubt about this that wouldn’t let him settle. He hesitated.
She glared at him and muttered something that sounded like, ‘oh for god’s sake’, and strode into the building, leaving him at the door.
If she was going to hand him in, there’d have been no need for the night long dance through the city. He tried to get a grip on his paranoia, closed the door and followed her inside.
“This is another of Pen’s safe houses,” she called back to him. “Make yourself at home. Give me a minute, I just need to get some things together.”
Hil wandered through into a sitting room and ignored the lure of a sofa to follow her into what looked like a lab. He needed some answers before he was going to be able to settle anywhere.
“Where’s Pen?” he said. “And LC? You said LC was here?”
“Not here,” she said. “But yes, he’s on Aston. Pen’s with him and from what I can tell, he’s in a worse state than you are.”
“I’m fine,” Hil said defe
nsively, lying but not about to give in yet. “Where are they?”
She ignored him and rummaged in a cupboard.
Exasperated, Hil moved in close and said again, “Please, I don’t think you understand. I need to go find them. I’ve been out for three weeks? You’ve got to let me know what’s going on.”
She stopped and looked at him, cold eyes half closing in a calculated squint that made him want to cringe away. He held firm.
“I know what it’s like to be running for your life,” she said and pulled a bag from a shelf. “Believe me. Pen has asked me to take care of you. I intend to do that before I let you go running off again. I don’t think you understand the danger you’re in.”
She pushed him away gently and steered him towards a flat bunk pulled down from the wall.
“Sit,” she said and started pulling medical kit out of the bag.
Hil knew when he was defeated and wasn’t too stupid to admit he didn’t feel great. He sat.
“Have you seen them?” he said and paused. “Has LC got the package?”
She didn’t answer straight away and he thought she was going to be evasive, but just as he started to gear up for an argument, she said, “Yes. Yes, he has.”
“I need to talk to him,” he said and made a move to get up.
She stopped him with an outstretched palm. “No, you don’t. Keep the patch on, whatever you do. This building is shielded, well shielded, but we don’t know who we’re dealing with yet. Pen has people keeping watch. Whoever raided the town house, they shouldn’t have been able to find us and they shouldn’t have been able to get to us without more warning than we had. Take your coat off. This isn’t going to take long but you might as well get comfy. I’ll finish up with you as fast as I can.”
“Does Pen know we’re here?” he said, shrugging out of the coat.
She caught hold of his arm and pushed up his sleeve. Seeing that she was readying a shot sent the paranoia spiking again. He wasn’t ready to let go again yet. She must have felt him tense because her grip tightened.
“Trust me,” she said. “You need to get back up to speed and what I’m going to do will help you. Your guild is in trouble, LC is in trouble and now Pen is caught up in it. We’d never turn you away, Hil, you know that but I really wish you hadn’t come here.”
He hadn’t thought much past finding LC and getting Anya back. He realised with a pang of guilt that he hadn’t considered the consequences of getting Pen involved. Pen’s place on the edge of the market was probably trashed. First the guild, now Pen – the integrity of all his comfort zones was crumbling, any sense of security anywhere trampled from all directions. And he’d been out of action again for three weeks?
“I wish we’d never left Mendhel,” he said, feeling guilty but irritated that she was blaming him. “We should never have agreed to it. If we’d all pulled back to the guild, none of this would have happened. They would have helped us get Anya back and screw the people who did it. I don’t know what we were thinking. I don’t remember what we were thinking. That we could pull it off? I’m sorry I pulled Pen into this but where was I supposed to go? The guild tossed me out to the wolves and for all I know, half the guild were in on it in the first place. Whatever is in that package, LC had better be taking good care of it because half the galaxy has gone nuts over trying to get it off us.”
“You don’t know half of it,” she said.
“So tell me.”
“Pen said he’ll explain everything when he gets here.”
“Pen and LC are coming here?”
She gently pulled open his shirt and attached a monitor to his chest. The quiet beeping was too fast, his heart rate was never that fast.
“Lie down,” she said and nudged him, taking up his arm again. “I’m going to make this light. We don’t know when we might get company again.”
“Hey, bud.”
Hil felt a hand hold and shake at his ankle. He felt better, startlingly better, and hoped it hadn’t been another three weeks. He was still fully dressed so that was unlikely. He took a mental inventory of himself. He felt rested and his head felt clear, more than clear. She must have repaired the damage to the implant. The connection felt muted so he was still shielded but it was a cleaner contact than he’d ever had before.
He opened one eye and wiggled his hand. The cast was gone thankfully and it felt tender but he could move his wrist without a twinge for the first time in a long while.
Pen was wearing travelling gear, still dusty, and he looked more tired and strained than Hil had ever seen before.
“Elenor said you should be okay to move. You fit to go?”
Hil lifted himself up onto one arm. He did feel okay. He swung his legs round and perched there on the edge of the bunk, testing his balance.
“Pen,” he said. “Where’s LC? Is he okay?”
“No, he’s in the shit. We all are. C’mon, we have to go.”
Pen walked out of the lab, his shoulders hunched, fists clenching and unclenching. Hil caught up his coat, eased himself off the bed and followed Pen through to the main room. Elenor was there waiting, arms folded and looking as tense as Pen.
“Where’s LC?” he said again.
Pen waved to the sofa. “Sit.”
Hil sat down, looking from Elenor to Pen. It wasn’t surprising they were pissed at him.
Pen sat down in a chair opposite and Elenor came and perched next to him. She set a bag down between them.
“I’ve sent LC somewhere safe,” Pen said. “For the minute anyway.”
“I need to see him,” Hil protested.
Pen shook his head. “No way. There’s no way I’m putting the two of you together. You don’t know what’s happening out there, Hil. I’ve never seen it like this before. LC has fucked up big time.”
The big man rubbed his eyes and squinted hard at Hil.
“The bounty on you both has doubled. And your guild has sent out an all-points alert. Every team is out there looking for you. But at least they want you back alive. One rumour is saying there’s a hit out there, dead or alive, they don’t care, someone just wants you both that badly.”
“It’s not a rumour,” Hil said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.” Now he could think straight, it was the worst place he could have come.
“Be serious. Where else could you have gone?” Pen said. “The problem is that LC is making mistakes. He’s not concentrating, and physically, he’s a mess.”
Elenor shifted uneasily. “You should have let me look at him,” she said.
Pen shrugged. “He wouldn’t let me. He wouldn’t let me anywhere near and he freaked when I said I could get you. What was I supposed to do?”
Hil felt cold. LC never freaked out about anything.
“You should have kept him here,” Elenor said.
“How could I?” Pen said. “Half the galaxy’s bounty hunters are right on his tail. I don’t know how he managed to stay clear of them long enough to make it here at all. Aston is teeming with them. It’s costing me a fortune to keep their attention diverted away from us. Our other problem…”
He took the massive pistol from his pocket and placed it on the armrest of the chair. “…is this.”
Chapter 20
“Profit and gain,” the Man said. “We ply our trade across the galaxy and hold seats on every council. We send our operatives far and wide to bring information and technology and history back to our fold. And all for what?”
NG tried to keep his mind in neutral. The Man had never spoken so openly about the guild and its purpose. He felt strangely unnerved to be hearing this now, in these circumstances.
The Man beckoned for NG’s goblet. “To save a civilisation that has not the wits to realise it is under threat. Countless species have come and gone, flourished and died throughout the universe. What makes this one worthy of redemption when others have floundered? Their greed astounds me.”
NG leaned forward and placed his goblet on the desk. He’d never
drunk so much of the guild’s famed wine before, and never heated like this. He was sure the curious reaction in the jug was increasing its potency.
He didn’t want to advocate on behalf of the human race, not any more, but that was his place here so he felt the obligation to speak up.
“Aston is especially decadent, anyway,” he said. “And the amount of money on offer for our two operatives was obscene. People change when fortunes are to be made. Money and power. Ultimately, that’s all we care about. What else is there?”
•
The light that had been flashing was dark, the pistol lying inert. The memory of a roof in the rain was somewhere Hil didn’t want to go.
Pen picked it up and waved it at him. “This is from Earth. Special Forces, advanced tech that is beyond anything we’ve seen out here. Bio-feedback, dna-tagged, nano-actuators. Ye gods, Hil, do you want to know what even having this here has triggered?”
No, obviously. Hil felt cold deep inside, thinking that those guys had been from Earth – the Earth military had sent in a Special Forces team after him. That elevated the whole situation beyond crap.
“Half my contacts want to get their hands on it to pull it apart,” Pen said, “because they’ve never seen anything this advanced and the other half are backing away from me like I’ve got the plague, like I’m in league with Earth all of a sudden. Winter does not want a direct conflict on its doorstep right now. We’ve just disassociated ourselves from a hundred rebellions in the Between – we don’t want to bring Earth forces trekking all the way out here because the Thieves’ Guild screwed up. The odd piece of scrounged technology is fine, even the odd defection across the line,” Pen looked at Elenor, “but waving a red rag at an Earth force kitted out with equipment like this, it’s making a lot of people uncomfortable.”