by David Ryker
“Enjoy the party,” Oleg said dismissively as he wrapped his arms around his female companions again and turned to leave. “Maybe we’ll hook up again.”
We finally score a break, Quinn thought, feeling the adrenaline ebb out of his system.
Then he heard the thump, and looked up just in time to see something that sent a fresh stab of electricity through his belly: Oleg had just walked into Ulysses as the latter was making his way back to them.
“Yo, son, watch where yer puttin’ them thar boots, will ya?” Ulysses groused, obviously not seeing whom he’d just run into.
Quinn thought feverishly, trying to come up with a way to deal with what was about to happen. If Oleg could spot a Bronx accent, Ulysses’ Texas drawl would be like a neon sign that read “Southern Saint.” And while Saints might look up to Oleg, he highly doubted Oleg held them in the same regard. At the very least, he would be highly suspicious of how one of them ended up at his party.
“What did you just say?” Oleg asked, his voice cold.
Quinn could see by the look in Ulysses’ eyes that he’d recognized their host, and the mistake he’d just made. He desperately hoped that his friend would simply keep his mouth shut.
Of course, he should have known better.
“Beggin’ yoo-or pardon,” Ulysses mumbled in an abysmal attempt to mimic Maggott. “I did nah mean ta insult yee. Got me wires crossed, I guess. No worries, mate.”
Quinn sighed and ran a hand down his face. Han quickly sidled up to him and put her lips to his ear.
“Oleg didn’t see him with us,” she hissed. “We have to cut our losses and just blend into the crowd.”
“You mean leave Ulysses to Oleg?” Quinn shook his head. “No way.”
“It’s the only choice!” He could see rising panic in her eyes even as an idea formed in his mind.
“You just said he didn’t see us with Ulysses. I’m going to use that.”
“What?”
“Just play along.”
Quinn strode toward where Oleg stood, staring at Ulysses, who, for his part, looked like someone who had just realized they weren’t dreaming and were, in fact, naked in a crowd.
“This guy bothering you?” Quinn growled, stepping into the space between the two men.
Oleg’s eyes didn’t leave Ulysses’ face. His companions, meanwhile, appeared to finally be paying attention to what was going on around them.
“I’m just wondering what a common American thug is doing in my home,” he said evenly. “You can only get in here if you’re a friend of a friend. Looks like I need to start paying more attention to who my friends are associating with.”
Oleg raised his right hand and twirled two fingers in the air. Within two seconds, a pair of burly men in black suits similar to his own appeared out of the crowd and stalked menacingly towards Ulysses.
“Kill him,” Oleg said simply.
Ulysses flashed Quinn a pleading look, and Quinn responded by driving his elbow squarely into his friend’s nose, snapping his head backward and knocking him off balance. Ulysses landed on all fours, blood pouring from his right nostril.
“I got this,” Quinn said evenly.
Oleg glared at him. “Oh, you got this, do you? You looking to be next, asshole?”
Han appeared at Quinn’s right. She was wearing a smile, and he noticed she’d pulled down the neckline on her dress.
“You don’t want the guests to see your men hauling him out of here,” she cooed. “They’ll get the wrong impression. We’ll make it look like he was fighting with us instead, take him out quietly. That way you can still be the genial host.”
Oleg sized her up. “And what do you get out of that?”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “Future consideration.”
Quinn pulled Ulysses off the floor by his collar and stood him on his feet. Ulysses swayed, apparently dazed by the blow, or at least smart enough to pretend like he was. Oleg glared at the three of them for several moments before his expression softened. He motioned for the two security men to leave, then turned back to Han.
“How about present consideration?” he asked. He’d already let go of the two women who were with him, and he snaked an arm around Han’s waist instead. “I could show you around the party, introduce you to some people. Bronx here can take care of this punk on his own, am I right?”
“Absolutely,” said Quinn. “I’ll take him around the kitchen, maybe put the butcher to work.”
Oleg surprised him by grinning. “I like the way you think. Closest kitchen is on the other side of the dance floor. Catch up with us when you’re done, maybe we can continue that conversation from earlier.”
Quinn nodded. “I appreciate that,” he said, yanking a stumbling Ulysses along with him in the direction of the dance floor. A number of dancers politely opened a path to let them pass, though they didn’t stop gyrating and thrusting to the beat.
He deliberately avoided looking back at Han. They had to make it look like this was something they did all the time, and that it was all going in their favor. All he could do was hope she’d be able to hold her own with Oleg until they could somehow get themselves out of this situation.
“You better have a plan, motherfucker,” Ulysses muttered as Quinn pulled him along with an arm under his shoulder. “And you’d best believe someday, mah elbow is gonna meet yer nose outta the blue.”
“I hope like hell that day comes,” Quinn hissed. “Because it’ll mean we managed to get out of this situation with our heads still attached to our bodies. Right now, the odds of that don’t look all that good.”
15
Dev Schuster sipped tasteless bubbly liquid from a delicate champagne flute and scanned the vast room where he sat with dozens of other guests. The men were all dressed similar to him, in variations of the latest style of form-fitting tuxedo (which, truth be told, wasn’t exactly flattering on more than a few of them) while the women wore conservative cocktail dresses that showed off the best figures that money and corrective surgery could buy.
The room itself was typical of the Bloom home: some two thousand square feet, with low-backed sofas and chairs arranged in tasteful conversation areas, a holographic fireplace running the length of an entire wall and staff waiting in hidden alcoves to appear at just the right moment and attend to the needs of the guests.
If only the champagne wasn’t so bland, he thought as he took another sip.
“God, these things are boring.”
He turned to see his wife returning from the powder room, wearing a simple black shift dress—because of course, she had to be different from the rest—and her signature sardonic smile. Her spiked hair had been colored a burnished copper for the occasion, and her eyes, as always, were magnetic under matching eye shadow. He grinned and held out a hand, which she took.
“That’s blasphemy,” he said. “People in the lowtowns would love to be able to live like this.”
She flashed him a reproachful look. “Slums, darling. Don’t use euphemisms; it cheapens the circumstances they have to live in.”
“Of course.” He was humoring her, of course, and they both knew it. They also knew he could deny her nothing; he’d fly off in a spaceship and go live in Oscar Bloom’s space prison, if that’s what she asked of him.
Where did that image come from? he wondered absently.
“I’m glad this is finally over,” she said, plucking a flute from a tray offered by a passing servant. “Now that Chelsea is finally declaring, we can get to work on the campaign. I have a thousand ideas for using Oscar’s money.”
“Careful,” he said. “Don’t forget, Trilateral laws limit senate campaign spending to $20 billion.”
“I could probably shake that much out of one of the sofas in here,” she said with a wicked grin.
It was true—as the head of one of the ten so-called Global Families, Oscar had a personal fortune of at least $500 trillion. But Schuster estimated the old man was worth twice that, at least, given his shar
p business acumen and political connections. Chelsea’s senate win was a foregone conclusion, but they had to go through the motions. And Schuster was glad for that, as it gave his wife something to do while he was off earning his paltry billions.
That reminded him to scan the room for faces he knew. These types of events were perfect for finding new clients and creating new business relationships, and, false modesty aside, Dev Schuster had the brains to use their money to make more for himself. Life was good, but it had the potential to be much better. The SkyLode was the limit.
SkyLode? He shook his head to clear it.
The faces in the crowd were unfamiliar to him, which seemed vaguely strange. He should have recognized a few of them, at least, but none were ringing a bell in his memory. He caught sight of a cluster of white-haired men, probably in their eighties or nineties, who were having a particularly animated discussion, and he tagged them for future reference. These would be men who had lived through the Trade Wars era, and Schuster was a keen student of war.
He was about to look away when one of the men suddenly turned in his direction and locked his eyes on Schuster’s own. The man’s intense look startled him badly, and he quickly looked away, his heart rate doubling in his chest.
“Something wrong?” His wife laced her fingers into his. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Schuster took a breath to calm himself, trying to understand his overreaction to something as simple as meeting someone’s gaze in a crowd.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She looked at him quizzically, and he felt another sudden rush of unreality. What kind of a stupid question was that? He knew his wife’s name, for God’s sake. It was…
It was what?
“I can’t remember your name,” he whispered, more to himself than her. “I don’t—”
“Shhh.” She squeezed his hand in hers and motioned for a server with the other. “It’s all right, honey, I’ll get you another drink.”
A young woman arrived with another tray of glasses and his wife plucked one off and handed it to him. He drank deeply, still tasting nothing.
Then he caught sight of the woman’s face. It was twisted with the effort of what looked to be screaming at the top of her lungs, but he couldn’t hear anything. His eyes glanced over to his wife, but all he saw in her face was mild concern.
“Don’t you see that?” he asked, feeling his heart start to gallop again. “She’s screaming—”
His wife—her name, damn it, what is her name?—turned and looked at the waitress, then back to him. “What are you talking about?”
Another glance at the young woman showed that she wasn’t screaming, she was simply looking at him as if she didn’t understand what he expected of her. He took a breath and nodded, waving for her to be on her way. She smiled automatically and strode off into the crowd with her tray.
“Maybe you should sit down,” his wife said. “I can call the medical suite, they could send someone.”
“No.” He ran his hands over his face to compose himself. “No, I’m fine. Just a headache.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said a voice from across the room. “So glad you could all make it.”
Schuster felt a sudden wave of relief now that there was something to distract him from his thoughts. He and his wife turned to see Oscar Bloom, looking perfectly put together as always, strolling through the room, smiling and shaking hands, kissing the odd cheek here and there. This was good. This was normal.
“Good old Oscar,” he said, his voice shaky in his own ears.
His wife smiled. “He really knows how to hold court, doesn’t he?”
“Probably because he’s such a sadistic son of a bitch.”
The words were out of Schuster’s mouth before he even realized what he was saying. His wife flashed him an angry look and pulled him close to her.
“What is the matter with you?” she hissed, glancing around furtively to see if anyone had overheard. “You know he’s nothing of the sort.”
But he was. Deep down, Schuster knew it. Oscar Bloom may have fooled others with his good looks and his charm, but not him.
I’m cracking up, he thought bleakly. Oscar’s never been anything but kind to us.
He worked with Drake to frame the Jarheads.
Schuster reeled and dropped into a nearby chair, almost missing the seat cushion with his rear end. Oscar was fielding Chelsea for senate to replace Drake; they’d never worked together. And what the hell was a Jarhead?
His wife sat next to him on the arm of the chair. “That’s it, I’m calling the medical suite.”
“Let’s just go.” He rubbed at his temples, as if that could somehow fix his scrambled thoughts.
Just then, a tall woman with long, flaming red hair appeared beside them. She held a drink in one hand and a shock pistol in the other, the snub-nosed type that he’d seen—where? What?
“What are you—“ he began, but the words caught in his throat as he watched the woman raise the pistol and place it against his wife’s temple. Suddenly the world seemed to consist of only the three of them.
“Stop,” he pleaded in a small voice. “Don’t do it. At that range, it will kill her.”
His wife—Gloom, her name is Gloom, she’s not my wife—appeared oblivious to the threat, while the redhead spoke soundlessly, her expression pleading.
“I can’t hear you!” he cried. “I don’t understand!”
The woman finally seemed to give up, as she let out a long breath and shook her head. Schuster’s heart continued to thunder in his chest, praying to whatever might be listening that the woman would come to her senses and drop the weapon.
But she didn’t. An instant later, Gloom’s body was engulfed in electric blue flame, sending her convulsing to the floor, where she landed on her side. He watched in horror as a waterfall of blood flowed from her nose and pooled on the polished teak underneath her.
“NO!” he shrieked. The word seemed to fill the entire universe, and suddenly the room appeared to be filled with fog as everything faded into varying shades of gray. All except Gloom and the redhead, and the blood on the floor. His mind felt like it was splitting in two as people appeared in the mist around him, men he recognized but couldn’t name, the vast blackness of space, the tight confines of a cell.
Then the memories came, slowly at first, then in a torrent: Oberon One. The Jarheads. Oscar Fucking Bloom. Morley Drake. Zero.
Gloom. Oh, God, Gloom!
Schuster’s jaw dropped as the redhead’s scarlet hair retreated into her scalp and the curves of her body straightened into a more traditionally masculine form. Her sleek cocktail dress transformed into the bland, ill-fitting jumpsuit that served as a uniform for staff on Oberon One. A second later, Schuster was looking at a face he recognized instantly.
It was the entity who had been sharing his mind for the past few months.
It was Kevin Sloane.
16
“How long yuh gonna make me act like yer pansy elbow tap actually hurt?”
Quinn yanked the collar of Ulysses’ suit and hauled him toward the entrance to the kitchen that Han had found on the schematics. It hadn’t been easy to spot; the door was hidden behind a holographic projection that made it look like the rest of the wall around it, so that the serving staff seemed to appear from nowhere. The effect might have been interesting and clever under less pressing circumstance, but right now, Quinn just found it pretentious and annoying.
He felt along the wall with his free hand until he reached the opening and his hand disappeared through it. The tech was obviously more advanced than the camouflage generators the military used, which was typical—the rich civilians had the best toys, while the people fighting the wars made do with whatever tech was considered cutting edge two generations earlier.
They appeared inside a vast room that was bustling with people of every ethnicity, each wearing an identical white uniform. A few gave him and Ulysses a fleeting glance as th
ey passed, but none of them truly paid attention. Quinn supposed, if you work for someone like Oleg Johnson, you better get used to seeing rough people doing rough things, or risk being part of one of those rough things yourself.
“Dang.” Ulysses wiped blood from his nose with his sleeve. “Smell that food, man. Didn’t even realize ah was hungry, now ah’m starvin’.”
“You’re going to keep on starving, too,” Quinn hissed back, following it up by body-checking Ulysses into a stainless steel wall. The impact sent a group of hanging kitchen utensils clanging into each other, drawing a few more looks from the staff.
“The fuck’s the matter with y’all—”
“There are cameras in here, so keep stumbling.”
Ulysses muttered something about making Quinn stumble when this was over, but he did as he was told. Quinn scanned the area—the kitchen extended farther than he could see—and finally caught sight of a door that led out into a narrow hallway. He threw Ulysses along until they had made it to the first bend in the corridor and were hidden from view of the kitchen.
“You all right?” he asked.
Ulysses tugged at his collar to straighten it and gave him a sneer. “Take more’n you got to do any damage, peckerwood. What now?”
Quinn didn’t have time to consider the question, because less than a second later, Bishop rounded a corner and almost ran into him.
“Are you kidding me?” Bishop yelped, wide-eyed. “How the hell did you find me?”
“Dumb luck.”
“Mebbe the gods is finally givin’ us a break,” said Ulysses. “Makin’ up fer all the shit they been puttin’ us through up till now.”
“I don’t know if it’s the gods, but somebody is watching out for us,” said Bishop. “Hey, what happened to your nose?”
“Long story,” said Quinn. “We need to keep moving. We must have been tagged by a camera in here by now.”
“That’s what I meant when I said someone is watching out for us. I overheard a couple of security people saying that all the surveillance equipment in the service area of Oleg’s apartment is in a maintenance cycle right now. None of the cameras back here are working, and I’ve been all over the place.”