He peered into the nearby tunnel. The work lights on the lift illuminated some of it. He could see racks of tools and spools of copper wire hanging on the walls. ‘What is that; some sort of maintenance tunnel?’
Valtin turned his head to look. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But Armand spent a lot of time in there. You should take a look to see if there are any more bodies back there.’
‘Yeah,’ said Scabbs as he picked at an old sore on his arm. ‘I’ll get right on that.’ He stared at the copper and tools. ‘Still, that stuff sure would bring a lot of credits.’
‘I’m sure those items are for official use only.’
‘Right, well I’ll only sell them to official people, then.’ Scabbs was about to get up and go take a look when the medi-pack beeped. He read the display. ‘Anaemic,’ he said. ‘Well, I could have told you that.’ There were other instructions on the screen. He pulled out a syringe with a tube that extended from the side of the pack and jabbed it into Valtin’s arm. A clear solution snaked its way through the tube.
‘Looks like that’s going to take a while,’ he said, and then stood to go into the tunnel. A hand on his shoulder made Scabbs jump. He swivelled, half-expecting to see the vampire, risen from grave. But it was just Jonas, free from his rig at last.
‘How’s my cousin doing?’ asked Jonas. He draped his good arm around Scabbs’s shoulder as if they were old friends. It was just a little creepy.
Scabbs looked at Jonas and then down at Valtin. ‘It’s too early to tell, but this medi-pack of yours is pretty good, so I think he’ll be fine.’
Jonas just nodded. He tightened his grip, giving Scabbs a slight twinge in his shoulder, and then pulled Scabbs hard against him. ‘So, Scabbs,’ he said. ‘Can I call you Scabbs?’
Scabbs nodded. He was starting to get worried now.
‘What was that device you used to ruin my rig?’
‘I, uh, I mean I was aiming for Armand. I’m sorr–’
‘It was a power cell disruptor,’ said Valtin. His voice was sounding stronger already. ‘Father gave it to me. He thought it might come in handy against Armand.’
Jonas smiled and eased his grip on Scabbs’s shoulder a little. ‘Pretty nifty device,’ he said. I’ve never heard of anything like that.’
‘It’s actually a prototype,’ said Valtin. ‘Father “acquired” it from a Van Saar tech with dubious morals.’
‘Interesting. Can I see it?’
‘Well I don’t… ’
Scabbs pulled the device out of his pocket, desperate to do anything to get out of Jonas’s grasp. ‘Here it is,’ he said.
Jonas released his hold on Scabbs and plucked the device from his hand. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘Honestly, I don’t know how Jerico stays alive with you by his side.’ He punched Scabbs in the nose, knocking him to the floor with the blow. He then pointed the device at Yolanda and pushed the button.
‘Now to complete my orders,’ said the Spyrer leader. He dropped the device and pulled out his plasma pistol, aiming it at Scabbs first. ‘Rule one: leave no witnesses.’
Scabbs closed his eyes. He heard the plasma pistol fire, and then heard something hit the floor. What happened? Did he kill Valtin first? He snuck one eye open and screamed. Jonas’s body lay on the floor, blood and guts oozing out of a hole in his chest and running through the metal mesh.
Scabbs sat up and looked around. Lysanne smiled at him as she slipped her own plasma pistol back into the folds of her black robe. ‘I never liked him,’ she said.
Scabbs smiled back at her. Maybe they weren’t that different after all, he thought.
‘These are Nemo’s men, Jerico,’ said Derindi, ‘and they’re on my side. You can’t intimidate me this time. I’m more than just a snitch.’ He quivered as he spoke, and Kal couldn’t help but notice that he was being held by a bounty hunter already.
Kal rested his hands on his holsters. ‘Yeah, you’re a thief, now,’ he said. ‘And I want my property back.’
‘You’re playing some mighty long odds, Jerico,’ said Derindi. ‘Those two are called Seek and Destroy. They’re Nemo’s personal guards.’
‘And we got our own bounty hunters,’ said Seek. ‘The best Nemo’s money could buy.’
‘Hey, Hern,’ said Jerico. ‘How’s it going? Gorgh, Lebow?’
‘Hey,’ said Hern.
‘Good.’
‘Fine.’
‘That’s my property you got there, Hern,’ said Kal. ‘Not the snitch, just an item he’s carrying. Call it a family heirloom.’
Gorgh and Lebow lowered their weapons. ‘Wait a scavving minute,’ said Destroy. ‘You work for us. Kill him and let’s go.’
‘Sorry kid,’ said Lebow. ‘A bounty is one thing, but property is property. We can’t take what belongs to another bounty hunter.’
‘It’s not right,’ said Hern. He released Derindi and stepped back.
‘Against the code,’ said Gorgh, holstering his weapon. ‘You’re on your own.’
The three bounty hunters melted into the darkness down the tunnel.
‘Come back here!’ yelled Seek at the retreating mercenaries. ‘You three are dead, do you hear me? Dead!’
He turned to face Kal, who now had his weapons drawn.
‘Now give me back my snitch,’ he said, pointing one lasgun at Seek and the other at Destroy. ‘And you two boys won’t get hurt.’
‘Wrong word,’ said Bobo, who was standing beside Kal.
‘We’re not boys!’ roared Seek. He threw open his leather vest, pulled out twin blue-plated autopistols from his shoulder holsters, and began firing as he ran toward Derindi. Bullets ricocheted off the pipes and floor.
Destroy lifted a flamer hanging at his side and pulled the trigger, sending a sheet of fire toward Kal and Bobo. Kal fired his lasguns as he leapt to the ground and rolled out from under the line of fire. When he came back up, he couldn’t see Bobo any longer, or much of anything except the gout of flame coming from Destroy’s weapon, which he sprayed back and forth across the tunnel.
As the flame came at him again, Kal retreated down the tunnel toward the shaft. He thought, briefly, about taking his chances on the ladder, but didn’t relish the thought of fighting while suspended above a three-kilometre drop. Several more bullets zipped over his head and Kal fired several laser blasts back.
Where had Bobo gone? He could use some help about now. He fired a few more shots, trying to blast the flamer, but hitting nothing as far as he could tell. Then, from behind him, Kal heard a sharp, metallic bark. His prayers had been answered, assuming he had been praying to a robotic canine god. Kal looked over his shoulder as he continued to shoot and back away from the flame. He finally saw Wotan bounding toward him.
The dog looked ready to leap on his master again, which would have been deadly considering the current circumstances, so Kal called out to his metallic friend. ‘Wotan,’ he yelled. ‘Fetch the gun!’
Wotan ran past Kal, right into the gout of flame. Kal hoped his dog was fireproof. He delayed his shot, waiting to see if Wotan would come through for him. He heard a growl and a bark, and then more growling. Then he heard Destroy. ‘Let go, you rusty mutt!’ he yelled.
The flames died away as Wotan wrenched the flamer from the ganger’s hands. The dog shook his head back and forth as if he were trying to rip meat from a carcass, and then let go of the flamer. It flew straight through the doorway and down the shaft.
‘My flamer!’ called Destroy. ‘I’ll kill that dog.’ He lunged for Wotan and grabbed the metallic hound around the collar, trying to wrestle him to the ground. Kal couldn’t believe his eyes. He looked up at Seek, who was also staring in disbelief at his brother. Seek looked up and he and Kal locked eyes.
They both raised their weapons at the same time, but Kal was just a bit faster and a much better shot than Seek had proven to be. He fired a lasblast from each of his weapons, hitting Seek in both hands simultaneously. The Orlock ganger dropped his pistols and stuck his laser-burned
fingers in his mouth.
Kal kept his weapons trained on Seek, but glanced back at Destroy. He had somehow managed to get himself underneath Wotan. The dog was just standing there, seemingly paying no attention to the enraged ganger, even as Destroy pulled on his neck and kicked at his back legs. ‘Wotan,’ said Kal. ‘Sit!’ The dog sat down on top of Destroy, pinning him to the floor and winning the wrestling match in a single move.
‘I’ve got him, Kal,’ said Bobo. He walked back down the tunnel, dragging Derindi behind him by his one good ear. Bobo held up the snitch’s satchel. ‘And I’ve got what you came for right in here.’
‘I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.’ The voice had come from behind Kal.
Kal knew that voice. Kal hated that voice. Every time he heard it, bad things happened to him. Bad things that usually included getting hit. A lot. Or getting shot at. A lot. ‘Hello, Nemo,’ he said, without turning around.
‘If you would be so kind as to drop your weapons, Jerico,’ said Nemo. Kal felt the barrel of a large calibre gun press into his back. ‘Then I won’t be forced to shoot you.’
Kal dropped his lasguns at his feet.
‘Now kick them into the shaft.’
‘But…’ The barrel pushed a little harder into his back. He kicked both guns over the edge, and winced as he heard them bang their way down the shaft.
‘Now, Mr Bobo, I believe it is?’
‘Yeah?’ Bobo still held Derindi by the ear in one hand and the satchel in the other.
‘Whatever did you do with my spy?’
‘Kal’s guns should be hitting him in the head any minute now,’ said Bobo.
‘Pity,’ said Nemo. ‘Ah well, I knew this operation would be expensive. If you would be so kind as to give that satchel to Mr Derindi, then we’ll leave you to your fun.’
‘What about us, boss?’ asked Seek. His voice was somewhat muffled from the fingers stuck in his mouth.
There was a pause. ‘You get the most important job, boys – covering my escape.’
‘Thanks boss. You can count on us.’
‘I’m sure I can,’ said Nemo. ‘Now, Mr Bobo!’
Bobo pulled Derindi to his feet by the ear and hit him in the chest with the satchel. He stepped aside to let Derindi pass, and then looked right at Kal and winked. Jerico didn’t know what Bobo had planned, but was ready for anything. Plan W always worked, right?
As Derindi walked past Bobo, he dropped to the ground and spun around, sweeping Derindi’s legs out from under him with a swift kick to the shins. Kal stomped on Nemo’s foot and slammed his elbow into the master spy’s midsection. Derindi pitched forward and lost his grasp on the satchel, which went flying into the air toward Kal and Nemo.
Kal only had a second, not nearly enough time to catch the satchel and escape from Nemo’s blast, so he grabbed the spear off his back, chucked it at the incoming satchel, and dived to the ground. The spear ripped through the satchel and hit something metallic inside. The force of the gem-encrusted missile drove the satchel off course. It and the spear sailed through the opening and down the shaft.
Kal rolled forward and came up running, zigzagging down the tunnel. An explosive slug from Nemo’s bolt pistol whizzed past his ear. He kicked Destroy in the head as he went by and called Wotan. ‘Bobo, come on!’ he yelled as he and the dog ran past the spy.
Bobo pulled something out of his pocket, leaned down, and jammed it into Derindi’s ear. The next moment, Kal heard Nemo and Derindi screaming in pain. The bolts from Nemo’s gun stopped flying and the three of them ran off into the darkness.
‘What in the Hive did you do?’ asked Kal as they ran.
‘Feedback loop,’ said Bobo. ‘I jammed one of Nemo’s transmitters into Derindi’s ear, up against his receiver implant. The sound cycles through the system over and over until it creates an awful screeching noise.’
‘I’m glad you’re on my side.’
Bobo smiled.
Several hours later, Kal and Valtin sat on the couch in Madam Noritake’s sitting room. Kal had a cigar in one hand and a bottle of Squatz’s House Special he’d liberated from the Fresh Air in the other. Valtin looked much better, but had opted to pass on the libations due to his recent blood loss.
Scabbs and Lysanne sat in a loveseat across the room. Kal avoided looking at them and hoped they were simply swapping war stories, for the thought of anyone swapping anything else with Scabbs just turned his stomach. Bobo sat in a comfy chair next to a fake fireplace, with the pretty young girl Kal had met earlier sitting on his lap.
Yolanda had taken Themis to the medicae and hadn’t come back yet. Kal wasn’t worried. Yolanda was a big girl, in every sense of the word.
‘I want to give you something, nephew,’ Kal said in between puffs.
‘You gave me my life,’ said Valtin. ‘That’s more than enough.’
‘Call it an early birthday present, then’ said Kal. He handed Valtin a data cartridge. ‘Or an insurance policy.’
‘For who, you or me?’
‘Both of us, really,’ said Kal. ‘Something to make sure that keeping you alive doesn’t become a full time job.’
Valtin turned the cartridge over and over, but Kal knew there were no markings. ‘What’s on it?’
Kal took a long puff from his cigar, held the smoke inside for a moment, and then blew a large smoke ring that floated off toward Scabbs and Lysanne. ‘I’m not sure. Scabbs found it in that maintenance tunnel next to the lift. Said it came out of a terminal that had a web-like network of wire leads plugged into it. I think Armand had been duplicating the contents of the Chamberlain’s brain. If so, whatever he found is probably stored on that cartridge.’
Valtin stared at the cartridge in silence and then handed it back to Kal. ‘I can’t take this,’ he said. ‘You take it. Give it to Grandfather, so you can get paid.’
‘I don’t want the money,’ Kal replied before whispering, ‘I can’t believe I just said that,’ under his breath. He pushed Valtin’s hand away. ‘And I don’t want my father or anyone else to have that cartridge either. It’s too dangerous. You have to take it.’
Valtin sighed and nodded his head. He tucked the cartridge away inside his coat. ‘Why me?’ he asked.
‘It’s family business,’ said Kal. ‘It should stay in the family, and you’re the only family member I trust – besides myself.’ He smiled and took another puff from his cigar.
‘But what about the money?’ asked Valtin. ‘I can probably get Grandfather to at least give you some of it.’
Kal exhaled, blowing an arrow of smoke through the expanding ring. ‘Nah,’ said Kal. ‘I’d just blow it on women and booze, and I’ve got more than enough credits for that already. You could get me another spear, though. I lost the last one.’
EPILOGUE: BUSINESS AS USUAL
Valtin sat at the desk in his new office. He wore a neatly-pressed white suit with a royal blue silk tie. The torn leather jacket he’d worn on his recent adventure hung on a brass coat rack by the door. Sunlight streamed in from a bank of windows behind his chair, shining right in the face of his visitor, Hermod Kauderer. Kauderer had to squint to keep the sun out of his eyes. Valtin knew of the man’s preference for standing at meetings, and had chosen the time carefully to make sure the sun was at the right height for maximum discomfort.
‘It’s been quite an eventful week,’ said Valtin. ‘Stiv’s death, Armand’s rampage through the Underhive, rogue Spyrers unit destroying several sections of Hive City, and you, Hermod, uncovering not one but two spies within the palace.’
‘Just doing my duty to our Lord Helmawr,’ said Kauderer. He tried to look down his hawkish nose at Valtin, but, with his eyes nearly shut, he looked more like a mole than a bird of prey.
‘And yet I can’t help but think that had you done your job a little more efficiently, we wouldn’t have had spies in the palace in the first place,’ said Valtin. ‘Senior advisors at that. Right under your nose, as it were.’
‘Excuse me?’ ask
ed Kauderer.
‘And a bad job, letting Colouri and Clein kill each other like that,’ he added. ‘Bit of a bungled operation there, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I don’t know that I would go that far…’
Valtin opened a folder on his desk and spread out several sheets of paper that were all densely covered with notes. ‘And now I have quite a lot of political fallout to deal with on account of the horrible way you handled this entire mess.’
‘Now see here,’ said Kauderer. ‘You may be the new senior political officer… ’
‘And Lord Chamberlain,’ added Valtin.
‘… but you simply cannot talk to me in this manner.’
‘Oh, but I can,’ said Valtin. He stood and stared the master of intrigue in the eye. ‘I know who it was that sent that Spyrer team down into the Hive. I also know they had special orders to be completed once their primary mission had been achieved.’
Kauderer was getting flustered. He sat in the chair and looked up at Valtin. ‘How could you know…?’
Valtin smiled. ‘I have friends in low places.’
‘That means nothing,’ said Kauderer. ‘You may be Helmawr’s grandson, but you’re not the heir apparent. As advisors, we are still equals.’
‘You never seem to tire of being wrong, do you, Hermod?’ Valtin’s smile grew as he looked down at Kauderer. ‘Lord Helmawr and I had a long talk after I got back. I am the heir apparent, and I will be taking an active role in the running of this family from now on. So, your future within House Helmawr depends completely on keeping me happy.’
‘How? What do you have on the old man?’
Valtin sat down and pressed his fingertips together in a steeple. ‘Let’s jut say I have access to the information needed for the job,’ he said. ‘And don’t get any funny ideas. I keep my data stored in a much safer location than poor Stiv ever did, and if anything should ever happen to me, that information will find its way into the hands of one of my relatives, an uncle with whom I recently spent some “quality” time.’
Kal sat at his usual table in the Sump Hole, with his big boots propped up on the table, a busty, if not terribly clean, barmaid on his lap, a bottle of Wildsnake in his hand and his two partners arguing across the table. After one of the craziest weeks since the last time he’d been hauled up into the Spire, it felt good to be home.
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