‘Why me?’ I said. ‘Our botched mission was just that, botched. It was no act of bravery.’
He turned around and said, ‘I’ve heard it’s about the stuff you brought back. The computer hardware you extracted from the Runners’ site included storage devices that contained something valuable to us.’
I raised my brows for him to continue.
‘I don’t know the details, but apparently you confiscated some equipment that held a lot of data. While you’ve been slouching here,’ he snickered, ‘the data scientists have been slaving over the stuff, poring over the broken tech, working their magic to mend the fragmented bit streams, and found something that could provide us with an edge over the Runners.’
I remembered the operations room and stuffing some materials into my bag. It was all such a blur. I thought they might be valuable, but a promotion was beyond my expectations.
‘What was the data?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ he said, and regarded Naido beside me. ‘But there was something else Mr Pereen told me, a side thing that might interest you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The data scientists also recovered a piece of information potentially relating to our father’s death.’
I perked up on the bed. ‘What is it about?’
‘It’s the bad news. Are you ready?’
I swallowed and nodded.
‘Looks like there is a connection between the former mayor of Luzasand and
the Runners.’
‘Mr Puissance’s behind all of this?’
He gave a curt nod. ‘The evidence looks sound.’
My mind raced: I had to get back to Luzasand. I remembered the one and only time I had met him face-to-face when Usher had introduced us. Even then, I had thought the man was trouble. Why didn’t I say anything? He was the mayor of my city—a respected man, chosen by the people of Luzasand. Who was he for real?
‘That’s not bad news, but wait… You said the former mayor. Why?’
‘He’s not the mayor anymore; he’s now the president of Runcor. He runs the entire planet now. And how convenient: he owns the second-biggest mining firm, Puissance, which was maybe one-third of Runore, but now they’re a close competitor, and if things continue like this, they will overtake them soon.’
That was indeed too convenient. I would never have expected Mr Puissance to arrange a criminal organisation to hit inside his city, the city he had sworn to protect. That was some serious blast scatter. I had to rub my eyes to concentrate.
I raised my head. ‘Does Usher know?’
Sander shook his head.
‘We have to get going.’
I went on a trip to Runcor with some of my new Sweeps colleagues. Pereen had insisted I use the Sweeps’ resources. He also advised me to leave some money in Spit City, just in case, so with the cash I got from the Sweeps I bought five million teradollars’ worth of gems—physical artefacts with digital money inside—and stored them in a public vault.
I had a plan. I would talk to Usher, and I would get Puissance. Now that I knew who had been behind my father’s murder, and that I was a member of a group who could strike down its target, I was close to getting my revenge.
Meeting in a windowless room with Pereen, he made his expectations clear to me.
‘Do you know why I promoted you?’ he asked from behind the table in front of me.
I looked up at him, and his mechanical eye drew my attention. ‘No, sir, I don’t.’
‘The material you recovered from the Runners was crucial for our game. Also, you saved a fellow Sweep, even though you had suffered an injury yourself. But what you did on that trip is only a part of the reason I took you into the council. I see a lot of potential in you. You’re confident on a mission, but you’re also a thinker. It’s a rare combination, and I need people like you.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, awkwardly, and pulled my hands down from the table.
‘This is not empty talk. The equity should clarify that we’re in this for the long term, and if you are, too, it could be highly profitable.’
I nodded. The offer of equity with the Sweeps was generous, but the shares came with the condition that unless I stayed with the organisation, they would become worthless. I found myself staring at his eye and looked away quickly.
He grinned. ‘You haven’t seen one like it before?’
I shook my head. I had seen plenty of mechanical eyes, but this had a different composition, and instead of a typical transparent lens, this one had a light.
‘It’s a special thing from Skeletech—the best eye that money can buy. The light is there mostly for the aesthetics, but it also improves the optical quality. But that’s not the point; you wonder how I got it.’
‘I do.’
‘Everyone does. When they see my scar and my eye, they guess it was a battle with sharp metallic objects… and that’s not too far from the truth. And they all want to hear the story.’
I waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, I asked, ‘What’s the story?’
‘I’ll spare you the details, but I got into a fight with the founder of the Sweeps,’ he said. ‘A long time ago, when I was a young lad like you are now. He—Buck Sweep—saw me as a threat and tried to murder me in my sleep, but I reacted fast. In the fight I lost my eye, but he lost his life. I was lucky; but the incident taught me that to win, one should take action before the other guy.’
I had thought Pereen had founded the Sweeps. But his story made sense; it was a hard-boiled world. ‘That’s when you took over the Sweeps?’
‘That’s right, and I’ve been leading it ever since. Anyway, that’s history.’ He moved across the room to the big screen and activated it. ‘Let’s look at Runcor now.’
The screen showed my home planet—a gleaming ball with blue tops, a brown middle, and thin stripes of green in between.
‘It looks almost too symmetrical to be real,’ he said. ‘Let’s look at Spit City beside it.’
Another ball appeared beside Runcor. The black spiked ball was perhaps just one-fiftieth of the planet. Pereen zoomed in to show it in detail, and as he did, Runcor became a brown surface with a curved edge beside the chaotic image of Spit City.
‘Your rocky planet’s a lot bigger than this overcrowded hole,’ Pereen said as he zoomed out. ‘It could be a perfect hideout for a group like ours.’
I gasped internally but kept a straight face on the outside. Pereen was suggesting Runcor as a hideout for the Sweeps. It was perfect if I wanted to bring some power to face the president and perhaps help Runore. My heart beat faster. ‘You’re suggesting we put a base—like the one in Weren’s Belt—on Runcor?’
He shook his head.
I raised my eyebrows.
‘Not a base,’ he said. ‘I want to move our headquarters there.’ He set the map to zoom into Spit City and projected it so that the whole moon was one flat surface. Colours emerged on the map. ‘We’re blue, the Runners are red, and Kisha Clan is yellow. The light grey is FIST, and the rest is black.’
The screen showed a timeline on the bottom. Through the years, the area controlled by the Sweeps had become smaller, first when Kisha Clan arrived, and then because of the still-expanding control of FIST.
‘It’s been in the plans for quite some time. I’ve considered your home planet as an option for years already, and then you come up to me. You could be our man to make it happen.’
I swallowed, considering what that implied.
‘It could benefit your family business, too,’ he said. ‘In business and life alike, if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking. It’s a universal law; there’s no other way.’
He had a point; perhaps the Sweeps could help Runore. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said, and immediately a worry flooded my mind about whether it had been the right decision.
Pereen chuckled. ‘We should go within a week. I understand your family has connections.’
‘We do, but…’ I told him my view of what had happ
ened. I told him about the death of my father, about the Runners’ involvement, and the troubles Usher was having with the former mayor, now the president, who owned the competing firm. He listened with keen interest, and I could almost see him rub his hands together in excitement.
‘This is perfect,’ he said. ‘We will mobilise a team that will make the planet ours.’
I swallowed. It was an enormous task, and I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. But I needed his help, and without asking, I got more than I could ever have hoped for. I had just wanted to get my father’s killers—get Puissance—but Pereen’s plans made me think about the possibilities this could open for Runore. That ember was still alive.
Chapter Thirteen
The number of people on the Sweeps payroll ran to five digits. The organisation comprised the clean above-the-line business that ran the casinos, entertainment studios and restaurants, and the below-the-line operations that did everything else, mostly things that shouldn’t see the light of day. They had about eleven hundred operatives, a motley crew of ex-navy, ex-army, and ex-police personnel, and free agents, in several hidden locations around the galaxy. Pereen owned most of the Sweeps, and with my promotion, he positioned me to help the below-the-line operations to succeed.
In essence, the Sweeps was like a holding company with an army to make sure they held on to their holdings. And suddenly, I found myself at the helm of that army.
It took close to one hundred days to plan and mobilise our move to Runcor. To strike down the president and his security force, we had to have enough firepower. We never had more men than he did, but with everyone in the Sweeps immersed in guerrilla tactics, we could do a lot of damage before they even knew something was happening.
Before bringing in the troops, I went with Sander and Pereen to Luzasand to plan our initiative.
Setting up the Sweeps in Runcor excited me, as did the chance to meet with my brothers and my mother. But before anything else, I was knocking on Tiana’s door.
It had been almost a standard year since I had last saw her.
I had envisioned our meeting many times over. I wanted to surprise her, knock on her door, and see her beautiful face with tears of joy as we met again. I would embrace her and take her away with me, tell her all the ideas I had, and how we could live together just like we planned.
And now, I stood before her door for real. Pressing the doorbell, I had butterflies in my stomach—an extreme feeling, unlike anything else, and stronger than the terror of fighting in space or the alleys of Spit City. Facing death was less scary than meeting her.
She opened the door, gaped at me, and gasped.
‘It’s me,’ I said.
Her face turned into a frown, and she slammed the door.
My dreams had been different. I rapped on the door.
‘Go away!’ she shouted, her voice muffled through the door. ‘I don’t want to see you.’
I paused, baffled. I expected her to be waiting for me, and glad to see me. But as I sat down on the porch, I understood her reaction. I realised I had never connected with her, not once during the time I was with the Sweeps. I had just left one day, deliberately choosing a path that separated us. I had made a choice based on my needs, and never even gave her a chance to influence my decision.
And now I needed her.
‘I’m sorry,’ I shouted.
I waited for a reply, but none came.
I stood still, staring at the white door in silence. As the skies turned dark, I turned, too, and walked away.
Later that day, I sat on the lounge chair of a hotel room overlooking the Luzasand skyline. The Sweeps had no business in Runcor, but had an affiliation with the Masters chain of hotels, so they treated me well. While the view was grand, Tiana’s picture on the screen of my terminal had my full focus. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. While I had been away, she had become even more beautiful.
I tried to call her, but she declined the connection. After a few tries, she blocked me.
There was nothing I could do. I wondered what had come over me, what kind of devil had possessed me and made me obsess over her. Perhaps it was the time I had spent away, the quality time we had enjoyed together or the feeling of being back under the warm rays of Reuna. But most likely it was the hormones of a young man who had never met anyone else as beautiful and smart.
She was a distraction to what I had to accomplish, but she was a distraction I chose willingly. Without her, I reasoned, I would never be whole, and a sense of something missing would always haunt me.
I leaned my forehead against my palms and took a deep breath. If I could get Puissance and avenge my father, I would become a man worthy of Tiana’s love.
I would make a video.
I set the terminal to record my face, and smiled.
I stopped the recording.
Too happy. With what was my best neutral expression, I resumed.
‘Tiana, you’re the most beautiful—and smartest—person I know,’ I said. I paused for too long, and besides, I was at a loss to know what to say.
I stopped the recording for a while and jotted down a few words I wanted to say. I practised an expression that was serious, but also loving. The result: slightly creepy, but it would have to do. I resumed recording again.
‘Tiana. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. Let me take you up to the Spearhead, and explain.’
It was short and sweet, the best I could do. I sent it and took to waiting and hoping for a reply.
I thought about what I would say should she take up my offer. How do you explain leaving your love on a moment’s notice to spend the next three hundred days fighting in darkness and dirt, wishing for blood and vengeance? I couldn’t even explain it to myself.
The next day Sander and I went to see Usher up in Runore’s temporary headquarters. The new building to replace the destroyed one was still under construction, and the firm was renting an office on the side of the town where the shadows fell.
We stepped from the elevator into an office, where many people scurried around. The carpet’s corner wasn’t fitted right, and the glass dividers hadn’t seen a wipe for ages. The receptionist was an exception to the people rushing around: she leaned back in her chair, chewing something and swiping videos across her terminal screen. Jo was gone; I had never seen this woman before.
‘Hello. We’re here to see Usher Tait,’ I said.
‘He’s busy,’ she said, without lifting her gaze from the screen. ‘Please schedule a time and come again.’
‘You are free to go now,’ I said.
Still chewing, she lifted her gaze at me. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You’re fired.’
She stopped chewing and just stared at Sander and me with her mouth open.
‘Excuse me?’ she said again.
‘I’m Daler Tait, and together with my brothers, I own this firm. Even a hundred-year-old robot would outperform you as an assistant.’
She stared at me with a face of slow recognition. She stood up with a straight back and set her terminal aside.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘I’ll have someone better here before you’re out of the building.’
Her wide eyes fluttered before she buried her face in her hands, sobbing.
Sander squinted at me.
‘You going or not?’ I said.
She sniffed and shoved her handheld terminal in her bag. Quietly weeping, she stepped out from behind the reception desk. A few office workers walked by, but said nothing, as she disappeared into an elevator.
‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘That’s his office.’
As we stepped past the reception, Sander said, ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Humiliate that woman. Even if she wasn’t the best receptionist, you shouldn’t have done that. You,’ he said, pointing at me, ‘acted like a little prick.’
I grunted to Sander. Inside, I realised he was right. I had been acting like a tyrant. What sandstorm had brought it upon
me? Perhaps I had been too long with the Sweeps, driven by revenge, driven by anger, things which, in that environment, had helped me survive. I realised in this world, filled with the light of Reuna, it hadn’t been the right thing to do. But then again, as an instrument of revenge, I would bring justice down on the president.
In the corner office, Usher had a view from smallish windows in two directions. One showed the wall of the opposite building, and the other extended over the suburbs to the desert plains of Fearanor and the mountain range of Wellanor. The room was spacious and held a desk and a lounge set comprising a couch and a few comfy chairs.
Usher sat behind the desk, looking down at a screen. His face had gained some lines, more than just two hundred days warranted, but when his eyes met ours, his face filled with what looked like a combination of surprise and joy.
‘Sander, Daler, so good to see you. I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Little bro just fired your receptionist.’
Usher furrowed his brows at me. ‘No, you didn’t…’
‘I’m sorry, bro,’ I said, and caught myself sounding just like Sander. ‘She can’t help you out of the hole you’ve dug for Runore.’
‘What?’ he said, as he stood up.
‘Look at this,’ I said, and motioned around. ‘This is a dump compared to what we had. The stock’s in the gutter, and the competition’s been growing at our expense. Can you say that’s not the case?’
He frowned. ‘Sit down.’ As we did, Usher said, ‘We’re building the headquarters anew.’
‘To me, it looks like it’s on hold,’ Sander said.
Usher gritted his teeth and sighed. ‘You’re right, it’s all going to hell,’ he said, and shook his head. ‘Because we’re not able to pay our bills, Puissance is buying off our people and property.’
Crooked Stars Page 8