Distant Worlds Volume 2

by Benjamin Sperduto

  ‘Parted ways’ was an interesting way of putting it. No story, at least not in Rytha’s lifetime, had received more extensive and salacious coverage in the newspapers than the Vellorax divorce. Things got so nasty at one point that the government stepped in to ensure that her company, Vellorax Conveyances, didn’t fracture in the settlement.

  The rest of the story followed the script Rytha expected. Fiscal irresponsibility, gambling debts, drug addiction, petty theft, a taste for prostitutes, all the usual vices of a bored, entitled heir to immense wealth. She’d heard the story numerous times. Most of them grew out of it, bought their way out of trouble, and went on to present themselves as unimpeachable paragons of civic virtue.

  Every so often, though, one didn’t make it.

  Somehow, those stories rarely wound up in the papers.

  She didn’t need to hear any more to see where Vellorax’s story was heading. “How long has your son been missing?”

  The question seemed to catch the woman off guard, something that she wasn’t used to, judging by her lengthy stare. “Six months now.”

  Wait, what?

  Rytha sat up a bit straighter. “You mean to tell me that your son has been missing for six months and you never contacted anyone?”

  “It seemed… unwise to involve the authorities. I assumed he just needed some time to sort himself out on his own. He’s his own man now, after all.”

  How’s that for some motherly concern?

  “When was your last communication with him?”

  Vellorax reached in to her coat pocket and produced a folded piece of paper. “That’s why I’m here. I received this letter three days ago. The signature was confirmed as Weldon’s.”

  Rytha took the paper and unfolded it. A short, typed message floated in the center of the white page.

  Sell the factories. Fire the workers.

  Burn the gardens. Smash the houses.

  Repent and be saved. Refuse and be damned.

  I am waiting. I am ready.

  Time is moving. He is coming.

  She read the passage several times before looking back to Vellorax. “Who else has seen this?”

  “Apart from us, only my legal counsel. A handwriting expert reviewed the signature to confirm its authenticity, but he didn’t see the message itself.”

  “Do you have any idea what it means?”

  Vellorax shook her head. “That’s why I came to you. An associate of mine told me about that business with the orphanage last year. He said your contributions to the investigation were quite vital, if underreported. Weldon is, well, impressionable. I’m worried that he might be mixed up in something dangerous, both to himself and the rest of the family.”

  Not to mention the family business.

  Rytha read the letter again. Not a word of it made sense, and she hadn’t the faintest idea of where to start. “I’ll take the case.”

  On a good day, travelers could walk through Linton’s industrial sector without a breather mask. On an exceedingly good day, they could even eschew protective goggles.

  Today was neither.

  The smog belching out from the voidrock furnaces fell to the ground on windless days, filling the streets and alleyways like moldy cotton. Pedestrians could scarcely see more than a few feet in front of them, and everyone stayed clustered on the sidewalk lest they be run down by a wheelbox-drawn carriage. A layer of ash collected on every surface, waiting for the afternoon rains to transform it into a muddy mess. Somewhere high above the choking cloud, the skyrail cars slid from station to station, each one shrieking at a slightly different frequency to fill the air with a lilting chorus that complemented the rumbling factories below.

  Rytha pried off her mask once the skyrail elevator cleared the smog. The Raimark Square station stood lower than its neighbors, but it connected to more sections of the city than any other skyrail hub. When the elevator reached the loading platform, she slotted her travel pass in the ticketing machine and boarded a skycar for Driscoll Park. Like just about every skycar in Linton, it bore the crimson and silver logo of Vellorax Conveyances.

  A dense pack of commuters stood inside, most still wearing their masks. Grumbling, she pushed through the crowd, grabbed one of the handrails, and peered out the window. The smog cover, especially thick today, sprawled out only about a hundred feet below the station. A few rooftops peeked through the ashen blanket, but aside from those few landmarks, the surrounding neighborhood remained obscured.

  Someone gripped the rail alongside Rytha as the skycar got underway.

  “You know, days like this you ought to keep your mask on wherever you go.”

  She glanced at the man next to her. His mask covered his face, but she recognized the muffled voice.

  Always crawling out from under the rocks. “Are you my doctor now, too?”

  Snake shrugged.

  “Hey, why not? I had the grades for medical school, you know.”

  “Maybe so, but most people wait until they’re in medical school before they develop a morphine habit.”

  “Well, I’ve never been one to stand on ceremony.”

  Or stay out of trouble.

  Rytha had stopped counting how many times she had bailed Snake out of trouble with the local constabulary. By this point, they practically considered him her adopted brother. He was a pain in the ass, but had a remarkable knack for knowing things people wanted kept secret.

  “What have you got for me?”

  “Not a lot. The Weldon kid didn’t much care for getting his shoes dirty. Sent his errand boys down to fetch his shit most of the time. Found one guy who claims to have met him. Works the corners down by Yakum Street Bridge, you know, the one with all the—”

  “I know the place, Snake. Get to the point.”

  “Oh, right. So this guy says the kid used to buy from a friend of his. Not your everyday street slag, but high-end shit like burnt-out voidrock dust. Always paid up too, that’s why he remembers him. When the kid up and disappeared, they figured he just got fried.”

  “When was this?”

  “He didn’t say exactly. A few months back, I guess?”

  The timeline seemed right, but it didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know.

  “But that isn’t the crazy thing,” Snake said. “About a week ago, the guy says his dealer buddy gets this wacked out letter from the kid talking all about how he needs to get out of the business before somebody shows up for him.”

  He is coming.

  “I don’t suppose he’s got the letter?” she asked.

  Snake shook his head.

  “No. A few days later, the dealer turned up dead.”

  Figures.

  “So what?” she asked. “Guys like that get taken out every day.”

  “Not like this. Word is somebody chopped him up and stitched him back together with wire and metal. Even hooked him up to a bunch of machinery of some kind.”

  Rytha grunted. Nothing she heard about Weldon suggested he was a killer. The streets had a way of lending drama to any unsolved murder, casting long shadows that sheltered vile conspiracies and spook stories.

  Still, it wasn’t like Snake to be taken in by exaggerations.

  The skycar lurched to a halt as it pulled into the next station.

  “Driscoll Park Station,” the controller said, his words echoing down through the speaker tubes.

  Rytha pulled a few kopeks from her pocket and pressed them into Snake’s hand. “Good work. Keep an ear to the wind for me, will you?”

  Snake muttered something as he counted the coins, but she couldn’t make it out through the mask. About a third of the passengers filed out onto the platform. Rytha joined them, shuffling toward the elevator that carried commuters down to the city streets far below.

  The smog was a bit lighter in the Driscoll borough, but it still packed enough of a noxious punch to dry out eyes and throats. She donned her mask before stepping out of the elevator and onto the Central Avenue sidewalk. The haze obs
cured everything beyond a block in either direction.

  Judging from what Vellorax had told her about her son’s expenses and history, Weldon spent a fair amount of time in Driscoll shortly before he disappeared. Rytha had a hunch that he maintained a place there, probably where he got high and met his girls when he snuck away from his family’s mansion up in Cloudview.

  She just needed to find it.

  That meant paying a visit to an old friend.

  Rytha hoped he’d gotten over their last meeting.

  Tibble Tarnwick had done well for himself, all things considered. The orphaned son of destitute immigrants, he’d scratched and clawed his way to financial success, never giving in to any setback. Of course, very little of that success could be considered legal. And “setbacks” often meant fines and a year or two of incarceration. Still, he was a persistent bastard who always found a way to come out ahead while his enemies wound up dead or exiled from the city.

  Rytha admired his determination; it was why she still respected him even after all the shit he’d pulled over the years.

  As for why she used to sleep with him, that she had a harder time answering.

  Tibble ran a gambling house on Blackoak Street, conveniently tucked behind the borough’s old groundrail station. Every so often, somebody made noise about reopening the lines, which had fallen into disuse ever since the skyrails went up, but nothing ever came of it. The abandoned tunnels were far too valuable to smugglers and bootleggers to be allowed to run again. A steady stream of bribes kept the local politicians in line and the city officials were in too deep with the skyrail companies to even consider such a plan.

  If Weldon spent any amount of time indulging his vices in Driscoll, he would have passed through Tibble’s place sooner or later.

  She didn’t waste time knocking. The goon on the other side of the door nearly fell out of his chair when she strode into the place. He jumped up to block her, but she caught him by the wrist and yanked his arm behind his back. A kick to the back of the leg dropped him to his knees as she applied pressure to the wrenched arm. The thug squealed.

  “Don’t bother,” she said. “I know the way. Do me a favor and go tell Tibs his long lost love’s here to see him.”

  She turned the man loose and watched him scuttle up the stairs cradling his arm before she took the stairs behind him. The large common area on the second floor featured a variety of card tables and bizarre games of chance, each one waiting to swallow up the unwary visitor’s coin. Some of the stations were rigged, but enough ran clean to keep suspicions thwarted. The place was only about half full. She crossed the playing floor and went to one of the doors along the far wall. Tugging the first one open, she found a group of four men gathered around some kind of gear-driven contraption on the table. So much of their attention focused upon the device that none of them noticed her enter.

  “Get out,” she said. “I need this room.”

  Two of the men looked up, their eyes glazed over from a night of drug use.

  Rytha pulled her coat back and placed a hand on her gun. “Now.”

  After the gamblers scuttled out of the room with their winnings, she pulled one of the chairs around to face the door. She drew her revolver as she sat. One by one, she checked the cartridges. Satisfied, she placed it on the table and waited.

  The door flew open after about two minutes, revealing a slender man with a shaved head and a long, gaudy coat with golden tassels and polished buttons. Two muscular brutes filled up the doorframe behind him as he entered.

  Always dramatic.

  “What the hell are you doing here? You think you can just barge in whenever you like and toss my paying customers out?”

  “Sorry about that, Tibs,” she said. “Afraid I’m in a bit of a rush and I wanted to make sure you’d make the time for an old friend.”

  Tibble sneered as he approached the table, moving with a bit of a limp.

  “How’s the leg, by the way?” Rytha asked.

  “How do you think? You shot me.”

  She gripped the revolver, but didn’t lift it from the table. “Don’t act like you didn’t have it coming. And that’s close enough, unless you want a matching limp in the other leg.”

  Tibble stopped and crossed his arms. “What do you want?”

  Rytha smiled. “Send your handmaidens outside and shut the door. We need to talk.”

  Tibble did as she asked. Once he closed the door, he turned around and glared at her. “Listen, darling, you didn’t have to go to all this trouble just so we can take a tumble here on the table.”

  Charming as ever, pig.

  She strangled the smile before it reached her lips. “Shut up and sit down.”

  Tibble shrugged, but limped over to the table and sat. Rytha kept the revolver trained on him as she reached into her pocket and produced a photograph featuring Weldon.

  “Weldon Vellorax. Spent a lot of time here in Driscoll a few months back. You know him?”

  “It’s a big neighborhood. He don’t stand out much with a face like that.”

  “Don’t give me that shit, Tibs. You’ve spent too many years telling everybody how you never forget a face.”

  “Hey, even I’m not perfect.”

  “Oh, I already know that.”

  Tibble sighed. “Okay, okay. You win. I know the guy. Never used that name, though. We all knew who he was, but we played along like he was as smart as he thought he was. Came by here a few times. Shitty card player. Never seemed to care how much he lost, though. You’d think pride would get a guy riled up even if he had the money to spare, but it never much mattered to him. Had eyes on a girl that used to work here. He’d pay a little extra to get one of these rooms, for the two of them. I didn’t hire her for that, but she didn’t seem to mind so long as she got a cut.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  Tibble looked up at the ceiling and scratched his neck. “Figure last winter sometime?”

  Winter would put Weldon’s last visit around six months ago. It fit the timeline.

  “You heard anything from him since then? Maybe a letter or something like that?”

  Tibble raised an eyebrow. “A letter? I said I knew the guy, all right? Not that we wrote love letters and took strolls through the park.”

  Touchy.

  She made a mental note that he hadn’t actually answered the question. For all his bluster and pretense, Tibble wasn’t a very good liar. He compensated for it with sheer guile, diverting questions and changing conversation topics so effortlessly that most people didn’t seem to notice he danced around the issue at hand.

  While that didn’t mean he had received a letter, his “answer” certainly left the question in play.

  “He have any friends?” Rytha asked. “Anybody around here that might know him?”

  Tibble shook his head. “He was a bit of a cunt, really. If we weren’t worried about the coppers coming down on us, most of the lads here would have beat him bloody on general principle.”

  “What about this girl of his? She still work for you?”

  “Nah, I cut her loose about a month back. Kept asking for more money. You know how it is. Business is tough like that.”

  Right.

  “She got a name?” she asked.

  “Senantha. Pretty girl, nice. A bit dumb, but nice. Not as much fun as you, I’ll wager.”

  Don’t push it, asshole.

  Rytha cocked the revolver’s hammer back. “Not as good of a shot either. Care to wager on that?”

  Tibble raised his hands. “All right, all right. No need to get pissy. Would have thought you got that out of your system after you tried to make a cripple out of me.”

  “Hardly,” Rytha said, smiling. “I was trying to make you a eunuch, but I was too drunk to aim. You know where this girl was staying back when she worked here?”

  “No idea.”

  Rytha stood, keeping the revolver trained on Tibble’s chest.

  “Well, as much as I’d love to s
pend the afternoon talking about the old days, I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

  Tibble grunted. “Yeah, sure. Just barge into my place and piss all over me whenever you like.”

  “Don’t count on it, Tibs. You’d enjoy it too much.”

  That drew a laugh from him.

  “Maybe a little.”

  Rytha knocked on the door and stepped aside before Tibble’s thugs entered. “Over there with your boss.” She gestured to the table with the revolver. “Have a seat.”

  The men did as she asked, scowling like they’d been scolded by their mothers. Once they sat, she eased her way towards the door. “Now sit on your hands and put your faces on the table.”

  The men glanced at Tibble, but he had already done as she asked. They followed their boss’s lead.

  “Start counting,” she said, “and don’t get up until you get to one hundred. You can all count that high, right?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Good. Any of you follow me, and I’ll put a bullet through your chest.”

  Tibble started counting loudly. The others joined him.

  1… 2… 3…

  Rytha kept count in her head as she stepped out of the room and shut the door. She grabbed a chair from one of the nearby gambling tables and wedged it under the handle. A few of the patrons stared at her, but most of them ignored all activity away from their tables.

  She slid the revolver back into its holster as she hurried toward the exit. Halfway there, she changed her mind and turned down a short hallway that led to a staircase. The stairs took her up to the second floor, where Tibble kept his office.

  15… 16… 17…

  A thick-necked goon stood watch at the top of the stairs. She didn’t see the telltale bulge of a gun under his jacket, but imagined that the muscular arms draped across his broad chest made him threatening enough to most unruly patrons.

  “You lost, ma’am?”

  And well-mannered, too.