The Liquidation Order

by Jett Lang

  “I’m fine. The test. Tell me why I was your test.”

  “Profile match. You know how we’re given profiles for our targets? Profiles for us, too. They compile one over your career, keep it tucked away. Unless you try to break from the company. Then they bring it out, hand it off to someone. Sometimes that someone is bein’ scouted for Seniority, and if the profile is a high percentage match, then the person in the profile is their springboard. That’s the test.”

  “High percentage match?”

  “I don’t know how they work it all out. What I do know is that after spending about a month with you, you were the only thing that mattered.”

  “Killing me, you mean.”

  “I was never gonna kill you. I wanted to let you go. Who knew we’d find each other again? Guess you call that destiny or fate, and I’ve been with enough women to know how unlikely that is, no offense.”

  “None taken.”

  The unintelligible sounds of the Ringmaster and Ringmistress penetrated to the trunk. Loud. Maybe they were arguing. “You’re still the only thing I care about,” Jack said.

  “How do I know you’re not going to try to get your career back the second you get a chance?”

  “You don’t.”

  “I think that’s the first honest thing you’ve said to me in a while.”

  “I’m pourin’ my fuckin’ heart out here, woman. Gimme a break.”

  She smiled faintly. “No breaks. Have you had to liquidate a co-worker before?”

  “No,” Jack said. “You can’t hunt coworkers – that’d be anarchy. When the boss let you go, he saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone. At least, that’s what I think.”

  “Were you a paramedic, or was that a lie, too?” She wanted to milk as much truth out of him as she could while she had the opportunity.

  “No, it’s true. The boss scraped me out of the blacklist gutter.”

  She shifted. Her bonds scraped the zipper of her jacket. “So if I’d have done my job properly, I wouldn’t have been one of your profile options?”

  “That’s right, sister.”

  “You’re cheering me up so well.”

  “Hey, I didn’t kill you. Doesn’t that count for anythin’ these days?”

  “Jack the Pragmatist.”

  “I’m as Mother Nature made me,” he allowed.

  No sense of time in the darkness. Jack and Queen lapsed into uneven discussion as the hovercraft sped onward. She’d almost forgotten how close the trunk was, how crushingly warm. He spoke softly, drawled casual assurances. A slight turbulence underpinned their conversation; she wondered whether a snowstorm lambasted their transport, or if the pilot was inexperienced. There was no way to tell: The trunk was sealed and temperature-regulated. Anything could be happening in the outside world.

  She leaned into Jack as he talked. He had a lot of stories, even if she was sure he was exaggerating them for her entertainment. Sometimes she didn’t really listen, and he became background noise as she thought on what he had said before. The choice he had made, for her. He gave up Seniority in their former organization, whatever that meant, for a woman he’d known a month. She was dubious about his story, and flattered. The evidence pointed to his story being true, but there was doubt. He’d lied to her from the start. He’d lied to the Ringmaster and Ringmistress. She couldn’t let herself be fooled again.

  How could she know for positive? She couldn’t. She never would. She’d have to work with him to get out of this predicament, and maybe that way learn what she needed to about Jack Murdoc, or whatever his real name was. Be on her guard, watch him closely. The same way she’d been trained to approach anything. She could make it, with Jack or without him.

  Her body began to rise in freefall, her bindings catching and holding her in place an inch from the felt lining.

  “We’re descending. Rapidly,” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” Jack said.

  “You’re taking it well.”

  “Oh, no, I’m about to shit myself over here.”

  “Aren’t you a pilot?” The trunk shook violently. Felt like they were nosediving.

  Jack made a noise that would have been endearing if it wasn’t so pathetic. “I’m not at the helm.”

  “I hope the clone you whipped in the face isn’t piloting this thing.” Warning bleats pulsed through the framework of the craft.

  “And you complained about my ability to comfort people!”

  She laughed, the sound nearly drowned out by the rumble.

  “Does this thing even have fuckin’ airbags?”

  “Not in the trunk, genius.”

  She thought Jack made a reply, but the crash deafened any comment. It turned out there were airbags. She was knocked unconscious finding that out.

  Ice Queen

  The whistle of wind, cold against her clothing. She opened her eyes to the black nothing of her small, small world. Jack stirred next to her. At the edge of her vision was a sliver of white. The trunk-seal must have been damaged. Some voices were upset over the impromptu landing, and another voice grunted an apology, then a recommendation. After a flurry of agreement, she heard the crunch of boots on snow coming around to her side of the hovercraft. One guy, large and unhurried. A bodyguard. The crunching ceased, the trunk propped up, and Queen’s view turned whiter. A change in wind direction brought the snowfall into where she lay.

  “Hey, close that. You’re lettin’ all the heat out,” Jack said.

  “Are you hurt?” a voice grumbled, unconcerned. Either Jeffry or Henry. She couldn’t see which.

  “Yeah. I need a check-up, so untie us.”

  “They are unharmed,” the brute called to the front. A feminine reply came, then he said, “We are continuing on foot. Try anything and I discipline you.”

  “What happened?” Queen said.

  He didn’t humor her with an answer. Instead, he held her by the throat and unbound her ankles, her waist, and her chest. He unwound the tape around her neck. The cloth bag slipped across her face. Whiteness everywhere, more intense than before. He easily hoisted her onto his shoulder. Despite her thermal jacket, the chill was cutting. She pulled her hood up and held it in place. Looking down, she noticed the clone was packing heat. .50 caliber handcannon.

  “You gonna take my bag off?” Jack mumbled when he was draped across the giant’s other shoulder.

  “No.”

  “I’ve done some thinkin’ in the hover, and I’ve learnt my lesson.”

  Gravelly laughter. “No, you have not. But you will.”

  “Keepin’ it ominous, huh?”

  The clone slammed the trunk.

  ※

  Queen was bundled in a nanothread blanket, the material speaking to luxury. The temperature it exhaled was a balmy eighty degrees or thereabouts. Head poking out, she could see Jack had not received the same treatment, given his recent behavior. He became less and less talkative as the journey progressed, and anytime he asked how close they were to the city, he was met with only the sound of boots and wind – the ageless silent treatment, greatest of all psychological warfare.

  They continued in this vein for a while. Queen detected tension in the giant’s shoulders whenever he checked behind him or off to his sides. Expectancy – that was it. She caught fragments of the Ringmaster and Ringmistress’ conversation: electrical disturbance, power fluctuation, batteries overloaded. A jumble of layman tech-speak, but the conclusion was evident: They had been unable to start the hovercraft up again.

  “A shame,” the Ringmaster said, genuine disappoint in his tone.

  “We can come back for it, daddy.”

  “Yes. At great expense.”

  “Sir,” the brute carrying Queen said.

  “What is it?”

  “Someone is following.”

  “Security detail?”

  “No, sir. One person.”

  Crunch-turn of footsteps. “I see no one.”

  “He hides in the snowbanks. He closes when I am not looking.
”

  “Jeffry, take charge of these two. Henry, guard our backs. You are the better shot.”

  “Sir,” the clones said simultaneously. Queen was transferred from one identically massive shoulder to another.

  “Get this bag off me and I can help you watch,” Jack said as Jeffry shifted to take his weight. “I might know who it is.”

  “You either know or you do not,” the Ringmaster said. “So, who is it?”

  “The bag,” Jack said.

  “The bag, Jeffry,” he said. A quick sliding of wool-on-skin and Jack exhaled.

  “About time.”

  “Tell us what you know.”

  “I suggest we keep walkin’ and I inform you on the way.”

  The Ringmaster’s sigh was lost in the wind.

  ※

  She knew what Jack knew: It was Five-Nine in pursuit. The brim of a black fedora in one place, the flash of a dark trench coat ducking under mounds of snowfall in another. Somehow, it had found them; maybe there were bugs on their clothing. The machine certainly had the chances and resources to plant the undetectable variety. The thing that was nagging her as she gazed out at the swirling white landscape was why it continued the slow approach if it wanted them dead. These aristocrats were valuable, sure, but they were not that high up the food chain to escape ‘collateral’ categorization. Queen had never heard of them before – probably a lower-tier family with a small but profitable operation in Prosperity’s popular arena sector. Nowhere near as important as Mr. Chamber’s east coast Empire. Not even close.

  The robot’s plan must have changed the second it took the long fall. Changed to what, she could not say. A rescue mission didn’t seem likely, though by using an electrical interference weapon on the Ringmaster’s transport, something was suggested along those lines. The robot was not there to barter, or else it would have revealed itself and its intent by now. No, it had an ambush in waiting. A surprise neither she nor her captors could anticipate. It didn’t have the impatience of a human being. If they were ahead of it, it wanted them ahead. It was calculating its approach. Tracking, tracking, and tracking.

  The whitewashed horizon, with its far-off pines and time-worn foundations, came into sharp resolution. Her implants and her adrenaline-fueled awareness worked in tandem to predict the moment when the titanium would strike.

  “It’s gainin’,” Jack said.

  “Yup,” Queen said.

  “Would be nice if we had weapons, too.” He smiled his most winning smile at the Ringmistress.

  “Father says ‘no,’ and I agree.”

  “Father now, huh? You use that term when things are serious, don’t you?”

  “I use whatever word I want, when I want,” she snapped.

  “You and the pops won’t be around to call each other much of anythin’ soon,” Jack said. “Not when that machine gets ahold of us.”

  “Henry is perfectly capable of handling any single threat.” She matched Jack’s winning smile with a dimpled grin. Jeffry cleared his throat, or grunted. It was hard to tell.

  “I’m happy you’re confident, I really am. Here’s the thing: We’re frozen corpses after that thing attacks. It will be swift and painful – not a noble death for a lady like you. Your father knows that, which is why he looks so worried.” Jack thrust his chin at the Ringmaster. It was true. The old master did have an uncharacteristically fretful appearance, peering over his shoulder at the forest and snowbanks.

  “We are almost within city-state limits. Security will detect us,” The Ringmaster said.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Too late.”

  “I have a beacon.”

  “Which only works once you cross the city line, not before. You’re scared and not thinkin’ clearly. Arm us and we can help. We’ve fought this thing.”

  “Not successfully, it would seem.”

  “You’re diggin’ a grave.” Jack breathed out a white plume.

  The rectangular shadow of a hovercraft passed soundlessly over the marching party.

  “One of our people?” the daughter said.

  The Ringmaster shook his head slowly and stared at where the sleek vehicle was touching down. Propwash powdered Queen and the rest of the group in snowfall.

  “And now it’s too late. Dynamite job,” Jack said.

  “Unmarked craft,” the Ringmaster mused. He ordered everyone to stop with a wave of his black-gloved hand.

  Queen had some idea of who was in that hovercraft. “Let us down and let us help. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourselves into.” When she tried to lift herself from Jeffry’s grasp, the pressure on her back became all the greater.

  “Henry, where is our follower?”

  Henry had his .50 caliber magnum upheld as he scanned the white distance for an answer. Queen last saw Five-Nine bowed under a fallen tree. The machine must have been instructed to wait there.

  Henry said, “Over there, sir. About a mile back.”

  “Come here. Meredith, stand beside me,” the old master said tightly, and his daughter complied.

  The dark hovercraft’s hatch-doors opened upward. Men in black, powered armor stomped onto the snow, their faces encased in helmets that were no doubt compiling a hundred useless facts on the group’s history. The pilot’s door remained closed, but his window was rolled down and he looked out at the old master. He had a shadow of scruff and a meaningless smile, his aviator shades portraying nothing. The wind had shifted, and no snow troubled him as he observed.

  After the last mercenary positioned himself, rifle-across-chest, a woman emerged from the leather interior of the craft. Syntheia. Queen recognized her slender, knife-like form from her profile even though was wrapped in a suit of light combat armor. Something between a flight suit and what her hired muscle wore. Flaxen hair in a school teacher’s bun. On her hip, a holstered .44 with a silver grip caught the winter light. She strode forward, her juggernauts parting automatically.

  The woman was flawless.

  “Good day,” Syntheia said, voice gentle and airy.

  “And to you,” the Ringmaster replied. “To whom do I address my thanks?”

  “To no one, yet. I bring terms.”

  The old Ringmaster’s gaze did not waver, his wispy grey hair at the mercy of the wind. “Speak then. The cold seeps.”

  “The woman and man under your care: I need them.”

  His eyes went to Jack’s, Queen’s. Back to Syntheia’s. “How much are you prepared to offer?”

  “Daddy!”

  “Quiet!” Lowering his voice, he said, “I must recover what I paid for them.”

  Syntheia asked, “How much?”

  “One hundred thousand,” he lied. “Slaves grow expensive in this economy.”

  “I could kill you and take them myself, you are aware.”

  “I am, but I sense you are not lacking in decency or capital. Your entourage and our speaking now are proof of that.”

  “Observant,” she said. “Do you know who I am?”

  He narrowed his small, grey eyes. “No, I do not. Shall it stay that way?”

  “It will.” She snapped her slim fingers, and a nylon duffel bag was handed to her by one of the mercenaries. She seemed to weigh it with a quick curling of her arm, then let it fall onto a pile of snow at her boots. “This is a sufficient sum. Present your side of the trade.”

  At the Ringmaster’s order, Jeffry dropped Queen and Jack unceremoniously into a snowbank. Queen glared back at the brute. Face unreadable. The diagonal scar was deep, red. She bundled herself in the nanothread blanket and got up.

  “I think he’s still upset with me,” Jack said. She helped him stand, snow falling from his flight suit. He kept his weight off his wounded foot. Looked pained.

  “Is that so?” Queen said. Jack was shivering, his teeth chattering. He had the cuffs of his black flight suit undone and his hands bundled within the sleeves. She offered her blanket to him.

  Jack eyed her, then shook his head. “Keep it,” he said. After an
awkward back and forth with the blanket, they decided to share.

  Jeffry thrust his chin toward the black hovercraft. Her options were not looking stellar. If she tried to run, those mercenaries had the equipment to track her movement and drop her within a few steps. The city proper was some miles away, but she could make out the concrete peripheral shantytown, the bulbous domes and factory smoke stacks looming. Too far to reach the shantytown, too unemployed to access the inner city.

  She was in danger here, too. The calm indifference on Syntheia’s face, and the subdued tension on the Ringmaster’s provided the clues. She dug her fingernails into the palm of her hand as Syntheia gestured for her men to space farther apart. She raised her hand at the pilot’s window, both rear passenger-side hatches opened. Black steel, black leather. It was new or recently upholstered. Queen could smell it from where she stood.

  “Go on,” Jeffry said.

  Syntheia did not regard either her or Jack as they clambered aboard and made themselves comfortable. The pilot craned his head around to give them a once-over, and, finding them neither threatening or interesting, turned back to lay an elbow over the seam of his window and watch the unfolding discourse between Syntheia’s party and the Ringmaster’s. Queen stared out of the dark tinting. The door she had entered was not yet closed. Wind and voices intermingled.

  “We are at capacity,” Syntheia was saying. “I will arrange for transport shortly.”

  “Those were not the terms.”

  “Instantaneousness was never expressed. You will get what I give you because you have nothing left that I want. Do you not know how this works? I should think so, given your age.”

  “My what?”

  Syntheia favored him with a minute smile, then turned and strode back into her hovercraft. The trace of the smile was still upon her lips as she climbed in and slid onto the long cushion opposite the former assassins. One after the next, her armored guardsmen joined her, leaving the confounded Ringmaster to string complaints and indignation together in the cold. Syntheia was blissfully unconcerned as she stared between her two purchases. Queen followed her gaze to the distant fallen tree, where Five-Nine was hidden. It was moving at a leisurely pace to rendezvous with the arena party. When the final juggernaut was aboard, the pilot sealed his side-window and checked his instrument panel. The polychromatic lights painted him and his shades.