Cold Welcome

by Elizabeth Moon

  He did remember how to bring his implant out of safety mode. That would unlock the data banks. But it might be dangerous. He lifted his eyelids just a little. He didn’t know what he was looking for. He should know. He should know if the scary people were there, or had left something to watch him, but—it was too tempting. He performed the mental trick that took his implant out of safety and back into performance.

  access main data? y/n

  Yes. He could spell yes. Data poured back into his awareness. Now the blur of a distant wall made sense: gray, lined with acoustic baffling material. If he screamed in here, no one would hear it. The door had the same coating. Surveillance? Most surveillance cameras had a blinking light; he saw none through his lashes. He opened his eyes a little more. No cameras. How odd. His implant informed him he had been completely unconscious for two hours, unresponsive for another forty-three minutes, and the visit by his captors had been seven minutes twenty-eight seconds before. Grace’s meeting would be ending soon, he expected.

  Sound baffling had the added effect that he could not hear his captors returning. Not good. He expected they would be back after calling her, to show he was alive, to threaten…and he needed at least a few seconds to put his implant back in safe mode and make it seem the replacement implant of an old man sliding into senility. He didn’t want to do that. Even the short time he’d endured that loss bothered him much more than he’d expected.

  His implant informed him that five minutes had passed. Then six. By then he had wiggled his feet, his hands, realizing that he was restrained, though not painfully, where he lay. If he couldn’t even get up, he couldn’t do much about escape—yet. He took several minutes subvocalizing more instructions to his implant. He did not have a drug analysis application, and attempting a skullphone call could probably be detected. He wished he knew what drug he’d been given, and how long it was supposed to act, because surely they’d dose him again if Grace didn’t return their call. Unless they wanted him awake, to see if he really was confused.

  And it was troubling that even now, with his implant’s full function connected again, he could not quite remember what he’d been doing when he was taken, how that had happened. He added a few more things to his fixit list, then put his implant back into safety mode and restored covert status.

  It felt like being stuck in the aftermath of concussion. Everything he had just been thinking about, had done, disappeared into a fog. Where was he? What had happened? He wasn’t comfortable; he didn’t recognize anything; he did not know the two men who came in to him some interminable time later.

  —

  “She’s not going to call.” Teague, ambling along the street with his briefcase and his list of criteria for instructional space, heard that from the hidden spike-mic. Aha. The range of a spike-mic varied with the material of the walls it read through. All the walls around him were brick. He knew the speakers were just inside the brick wall on the same side of the street. A warehouse-looking building, Malines & Company. Ahead of him, a couple of burly men lounged at the entrance. Without breaking stride, he used his skullphone to ping Rafe and walked up to them.

  “If it is possible to speak to the building manager?” he said. His accent wasn’t quite Cascadian, but it certainly was not local.

  “What are you doin’ around here? Where you from? What’s those papers?”

  Teague blinked, squinting a little at them. “It is my job. It is my assignment. To find space to start instructional program for technicians to do advanced maintenance on system ansibles and their boosters.”

  One of the men snatched the papers from his hand.

  “Excuse me, that is not correct,” Teague said. “Those are my papers.”

  “They were. Let’s see—” The man looked at them. “Wait—ISC? You work for ISC?”

  “Yes, yes.” Teague nodded several times. “It is my assignment to find space to start instructional program—”

  “We heard that already.” The man who held his papers looked at the other one, the one who had moved slightly to block Teague if he tried to grab the papers back. “Cole, this might interest Dugmund. Give him a call.” To Teague he said, “Why are you in this part of town? Didn’t anyone tell you the dock district is dangerous for strangers?”

  “It is the daytime,” Teague said, as if nothing could be dangerous by day. “And docks have warehouses and warehouses have empty spaces sometimes. On my world temporary rental of warehouse space costs less than the same in office buildings. It is not…not intending any insult, but it is not as comfortable or fancy as the office space, but for instructional space it can be made useful cheaply as it is not for long-term use. Eventually local educational institutions take over the job of training new technicians, but initially, and to ensure compatibility with all aspects of ISC equipment, only ISC can train.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” Cole said. “Our boss would like to speak with you. Our warehouse is usually full, but merchandise does move in and out. An opening might arise at some time; he wouldn’t want to miss out on a deal.” He nodded to the other man without saying his name. “Give him back his papers; he can show the boss.”

  Teague considered the advantages of dispatching both of them, but other pedestrians were in view. Instead he went inside when Cole beckoned, into a wide passage with doors open to offices on either side. “All the way back,” Cole said from behind him. Teague’s instruments reported that the offices were fake-fronts, empty, open at the back to the larger space, and that Cole was coming closer behind him. Handy.

  Still holding the papers, he let the pick slide into his hand from his sleeve and slowed, closing the distance, turning to his left. “Say—maybe you should give these to your boss yourself—” He held out his hand, offering them.

  Cole, startled, stopped off balance, grabbed for the papers, and Teague thrust the pick through Cole’s hand. Its thin sheath shattered; the powerful paralytic drug took hold even as Teague moved in, his right arm around Cole’s shoulder, pushing the pick, now protruding from Cole’s hand, into his chest. He squeezed the handle, injecting more of the drug. Cole shuddered; eyes wide. He could not breathe; he could not speak; he could not do anything but die as the drug reached his heart and then his brain.

  Teague swung the now-sagging, inert body over to the nearest fake office door, opened it, and let Cole fall inside. One down. He glanced back. The other man was still outside, had not come to the door to watch. He activated another of the instruments, giving him a view in his implant of the building’s plan. On the ground floor, behind the fake offices, there were ten enclosures, seven of them full of dense material. Merchandise, most likely. Two of the other enclosures were small, only a few meters wide and long. One was larger.

  MacRobert, he was sure, would be in one of the smaller ones. But which? He changed the adjustment, added in the spike-mic tuned to human voices.

  “We should probably give him another dose. If she doesn’t call soon, he’ll be wide awake.” Voice one, no ID.

  “We could just let him stew. It might loosen him up. Nobody can hear him, anyway.” Voice two, no ID.

  “You saw the implant scan. Heart condition, brain deteriorating. Probably anything he tells us will be useless.”

  “It might influence her when she does call.”

  “What if she’s got people looking for him? What if she’s contacted—what was that base you said?—and knows he was never there.”

  “She’ll think he was taken there, or en route. Or, if in the city, by someone Spaceforce-related.”

  Teague knew where the speakers were now, just outside one of the small rooms. A sound-baffled room. Two voices outside. He changed settings again and wriggled the stunner in his sleeve down to his hand, concealed by the papers. On this level, only two more figures moved around, at the back of the building, isolated by a solid wall up to the next level. Above were a dozen at least, arrayed in rows—the real offices, he suspected.

  The passage he was in ended at a doo
r with a window. He went to it, tapped very lightly, then opened it and went in. Nothing, as he suspected; instead of a back wall, a gap to either side and a shoulder-high blank wall beyond it. He hesitated, aware of the camera above this space, and looked back and forth as if confused.

  “Hello?”

  No answer. He moved to the right, beyond the line of fake offices on the side of the passage he’d come from, into another, its right wall outlining the larger empty room. Ahead of him, two men standing in the passage turned to look at him then moved toward him quickly.

  “Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?”

  Teague flapped the papers he held. “Ser…Cole? One of the men by the door…he called somebody…you? He said I should meet the boss? He said this way and he was behind me, but then he wasn’t?”

  “He must’ve called Dugmund,” the taller man said. “He should have taken him upstairs all the way.” The men exchanged looks. “I’ll go. Won’t be long. You—what’s your name?”

  “Edvard Teague,” Teague said. “You can see on my papers—” He offered them, taking a step closer. “It is about seeking rental space for a training facility for—”

  “Let’s see, then.” The man reached out. He was in balance, and clearly very fit. The second man, alert and equally dangerous looking, made his earlier kill move too risky. Teague shifted his grip on the briefcase, touching a button on the handle with the inside of his ring finger. As the taller man took the papers, Teague thumbed the stunner control; the second stunner, extruded from the side of the briefcase, caught the second man. Both went down, twitching. Teague stunned them again. The door to the sound-baffled room opened easily; the man on the narrow cot, bound to it, stared at him wide-eyed, frightened. It was MacRobert, but he did not seem to recognize Teague. That must be the drugs they’d used.

  He pulled the other two into the room, blocked the door open with a wastebasket so his spike-mic could pick up sounds outside, and sliced through MacRobert’s restraints. Under the blanket, MacRobert was naked, and Teague saw none of his clothes in the room. What he did see was a rolling cart with medications and injectors ready. He injected both men, a full vial each—it might kill them and would certainly keep them quiet. He stripped the one closer to MacRobert’s size, finding an interesting collection of objects he stuffed quickly into his pockets, and turned back to the cot.

  MacRobert was sitting up, clear-eyed now. “Teague,” he said. His voice was weak, a little hoarse.

  “Yes. Here. Get dressed.”

  MacRobert reached for the shirt and shoved an arm into it. “Where are we?” His voice sounded more like him.

  “Malines’ warehouse, one of them.”

  “Are they dead?” MacRobert had both arms in the shirt and a leg in the trousers.

  “Not yet,” Teague said. “Do we need what’s in their heads?”

  “Possibly, but we need out of here more, and we need them not to be able to say how.”

  “Fine.” Teague loaded the injector again and gave them each two more vials. “That should do it.”

  Mac, dressed but barefoot, pulled shoes off the smaller man. He shook his head at the man’s socks, one with a hole in the toe and the other in the heel. “Sweaty, too,” he said, pulling the socks on with a grimace. “And the shoes don’t really fit.” He pulled the closure over as far as it would go. “I may make more noise than usual.”

  “Can you run in them?”

  “I will run in them.” Grim confidence in that.

  “There’s a guard at the front door, that I know of, and the back two-thirds of the building is isolated from this area. Building’s at the corner of Horn and Bleeker Alley.” He was on the skullphone, pinging Rafe with the location as well as telling MacRobert. The phone came live.

  “Situation?”

  “Three down, subject alive, expect trouble on exit.”

  “Can hold ten?”

  “No more than six, I’d say. Outside, inside?”

  “Get close to the exit. Expect distractions.”

  He turned to MacRobert. “Ready?”

  “Very.” For a man supposedly suffering the conditions Teague knew had been loaded into his implant, and the aftermath of abduction and drugging, MacRobert looked remarkably alert.

  Teague led him back the way he himself had come. When they arrived at the back side of the fake office at the end of the outer passage, he could see through the door the tall door guard coming toward them, talking into a handcom.

  “Lovely,” Teague murmured. “Here—take this—” He handed MacRobert a blackjack. “I’ll open the door, and he’s yours. First, anyway.”

  The tall man didn’t give Teague a chance to open the door; he yanked it open himself, saying, “I said I’ll find him!” and MacRobert whapped him neatly with the blackjack. Teague caught the handcom before it hit the floor and thumbed it off.

  “Have anything less basic?” MacRobert asked, pocketing the blackjack.

  “Have a stunner,” Teague offered, handing over his.

  “And you?”

  “Another stunner in the briefcase, a couple of good knives.”

  They headed down the outer passage. Teague glanced at MacRobert just as the older man whipped around and fired the stunner back toward the interior. “Just one,” MacRobert said. “Keep going.”

  Noise outside then, and sirens approaching. Then a crash, the sound of bricks or stones clattering down, glass breaking. Teague could feel the impact through his feet. Dust shimmered down from the ceiling.

  “Good,” MacRobert said. He was grinning now, eyes bright and face no longer pale. “The party’s started.”

  “Party?” Teague asked. “Oh—and I have a pistol in my right jacket pocket, if you want it. Belonged to one of those guys I dragged in.”

  “I do.” MacRobert took it, popped the clip. “Spudders. Perfect.” He snapped the clip back in and chambered a round. “You have one for yourself?” He put the pistol in his pocket.

  “Yes. I’d rather not display it. It makes me a target.”

  “And it’s noisy. Reliable, not stealthy. This stunner’s down to thirty percent.”

  They were almost to the outer door. Teague motioned MacRobert to stay back, pulled a ’scope from his right sleeve and bent the end of the fiber to make a corner, then slid it to the edge of the doorframe. The image appeared in his implant. A ramshackle truck had rammed into the corner of the building, doing major damage to the truck and significant damage to the building, scattering bricks and broken glass over the pavement. A man hung halfway out the driver’s side of the cab, bleeding down the truck door. City Patrol cars blocked the street beyond. Patrol officers in riot gear faced an unruly crowd, some of them now turning away as more sirens neared.

  The image blanked. Teague’s skullphone pinged. Rafe’s voice: “The moment of exodus is upon us. To the right, slow, stay with me; we want some of this crowd.”

  Teague waved his hand; MacRobert and he stepped out, heads down, and joined those already moving to the right. Rafe, in his fat suit but dressed in dirty laborer’s clothes, walked past, giving Teague and MacRobert a good look at his face.

  “Got him?” Teague asked MacRobert.

  “Friend of a friend,” MacRobert said.

  Teague nodded. They had just reached the next street when the crowd behind them roared, other pedestrians broke into a run, and Teague heard the characteristic sounds of riot gas canisters popping. MacRobert started running, a little awkwardly; Teague dropped back to shield him from contact. Rafe turned left at the corner, dropped to a walk, and strode briskly along the uneven sidewalk, staying close to the building. Teague and MacRobert followed, Teague on the outside. They passed an alley with men moving purposefully toward the street, on to the end of that block, and then another. Behind them, a siren burped, whined, burped again. Rafe glanced back but did not slow. The siren came no nearer.

  Three blocks, and they were approaching the first office buildings. Another left turn onto a wider street.
A vehicle parked on their side of the street blinked lights. “There,” Rafe said. He went to the front door, pointing to the back. Teague opened it for MacRobert, then slid in beside him. Rafe, up front, was talking to the driver as if he knew him.

  The car was already in motion, pulling smoothly away, into traffic that seemed completely normal for the time of day, just after midafternoon. Rafe turned. “Teague, MacRobert, this is Inyo Vatta. We are going to Vatta Transport’s hangars at the airport.”

  “I’ve met Inyo,” MacRobert said. “Thank you. Who’s that hanging out the truck door, Rafe?”

  “The right man,” Rafe said. “There’s another in the back. Both deaders. I was engaged with the second one when you pinged me, Teague.” He sounded relaxed and happy. Teague, remembering Gary’s briefing on Rafe’s past, which had been extensive, understood. Rafe felt the way he did. Action had that effect on some people. “Mac, you should call Grace. Use my handcom; that number will go through.”

  “Skullphone won’t?”

  “Not until she knows you’re safe, and then only from yours.” He passed it over the back of the front seat while Inyo drove on, neither hurrying nor lagging.

  Teague watched MacRobert, then turned away. In addition to the lift he always got in an operation, this was the first time he’d used his new body in a real situation. He was happy with how it functioned, the integration he’d achieved with it. He was, he thought, just as good an operative now as he had ever been, and he knew he’d been one of Gary’s best. MacRobert was talking very softly into the handcom, just a couple of phrases, then he handed the com back to Rafe.

  Within a few turns, they were out of the port area completely, passing tall office blocks and then a long gray wall that Teague had learned enclosed the Spaceforce Academy. That arched entrance they passed must have been where Ky Vatta walked out to meet a car very like this after resigning. He wondered why any sane person would lock themselves into the military with all its pomp and ceremony. And now she was an admiral—she must be crazy.