by David Ryker
I pulled my communicator out, scanning the passing faces, my hand still tingling from the kick of the Arcram. I’d gotten back as quickly as I could, anxious to put distance between me and Everett’s storehouse. The shots had likely attracted some unwanted attention, and though I hadn’t passed any Trading Collective guards on the way, I was sure they’d be making their way there soon, and it wouldn’t be too long before they came sniffing around us. We’d just rocked up packing serious heat, and if they matched the gunshot wounds of the three dead guys at Everett’s to Arcrams, it’d take a cursory search to figure out who had permits to carry them. Sure, they weren’t that rare, but if twenty people, or fifty even, were carrying them on Notia, then hell, that was still too close for comfort. No, our timetable had just moved up in a serious way. But first, I needed to find Alice and Everett — our Everett.
I opened my contacts and went to Alice’s name, pausing for a second, staring at it. I took a breath and thumbed down to Everett instead, tapping it.
I pulled my eyes back up to the passing crowd, patting my ribs and my Arcram there. It rang twice and then she answered. “Yeah?”
“Where are you guys?”
“We booked it out of there — thought it would be better to put some space between us.” She sighed and I heard her grunt and suck air between her teeth, no doubt wincing. “We’re laying low — getting our bearings. I want to keep this between us, but I need you to cover.”
I swallowed, fighting the urge to ask where they were and tell them I was coming over. I promised myself I was going to be a team player, and I was sticking to it. “What do you need?”
“Stay with the booth, keep things running until everyone starts packing up. Then take everything back to the ship, get it squared away. We’ll touch base before then. If Volchec asks, we’re still following up leads.” She was in pain, that much was clear in her voice, but she was still on mission. “We have to be more careful now — more cautious asking around. Seems like the people I used to know…” She exhaled slowly. “Well, let’s just say I don’t know them anymore. We’ll keep our ear to the ground and let you know if anything turns up.”
“You and Alice?” I said before I could stop myself. I was squeezing my communicator harder than I meant to. I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be there, with her, not manning the goddamn booth.
“Yeah, Red, me and Alice,” she said flatly. “Can I count on you?”
The question hung there for a second as I stared at the bags full of parts and thought of putting them back out, and then resigning myself to peddling them for the next four hours. I bit into my tongue and pulled my eyes away. “Yeah, you can count on me.”
“Good.” She hung up without another word and I was left at the booth, alone. We didn’t have any comm-dots, or anything in the way of ops gear. We were running like a civilian crew, because if we came under any scrutiny and the Trading Collective demanded to do a ship search, and then turned up Federation military-grade equipment — well, that’d be our cover blown.
I stared up at Greg for a second and then stuffed the communicator back into my pocket. “Greg, can you do me a favor?”
“Of course, James. You are my pilot, and it is my primary function to assist you however I can.”
I didn’t think it was necessary to qualify it — it sort of felt like a backhanded ‘I’m not doing it because I want to, but because I have to,’ but I didn’t mention it. “Can you do a network search for similar parts to these?” I pulled open the top bag and dug out the first chunk of metal.
“What for, James?”
I dumped some sort of engine component onto the counter with a clang. “So that I don’t sell any of these for less than they’re worth.”
“Okay, James, I will tell you if you’re being foolish.”
I let out a sigh and kept putting things on the table. It was going to be a long day.
It was just after four when Mac pushed out of the crowd and stood at the table like he was looking over the stock.
I’d pulled a crate from the back of the booth and put it behind the counter to sit on. I stood up and cracked my back. “Mac,” I said, a little surprised to see him.
He stuck his bottom lip out and inspected a few of the pieces on the top. “Where’s Everett?” he asked quietly, not looking up.
“Out doing recon — following up on some leads.” I shrugged and folded my arms.
“And Alice?” He stopped and looked up now.
“With her.”
“Where are they?” He pulled his hands behind his back and clasped them, bent a little over the table.
“I don’t know.”
His eyebrows raised. “And they just left you here, alone?”
“Looks like.” There was a sudden coldness between us — a sense of clinical professionality. He’d been sent to check up on us. That much was clear.
“And they didn’t say when they were coming back?”
I shook my head this time. There was no real need to pad my answers out.
“And you haven’t heard from them?”
I shook it again.
“Everett’s not answering her communicator.” He looked up at Greg, and then at Alice’s rig. “And Alice didn’t take her rig?”
“Nope.”
He pursed his lips. “And I suppose the reports of three dead bodies — one of which was a Trading Collective Municipal Detective, and the other was a long-standing and respected Notia merchant called Everett — is all just a big coincidence?”
I looked at him, but gave nothing away — at least I tried not to. “It’s the first I’m hearing of it.”
He kept his eyes on mine for a few seconds, and then nodded. “Alright.” He came around the counter now and put his hands on his hips. “Now that I asked what Volchec wanted me to, and I can relay your answers, tell me what the fuck’s really going on.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He sighed. “Look, Red, the three of you go out — two hours later a merchant with the same name as Everett, along with a Trading Collective Detective, turn up dead — executed in cold blood. Come on — tell me what we’re looking at here. Do we need to be ready for some action? Are we going to need to cut and run? I’m not asking for the whole story, but I need to know where we are, so that if shit hits the fan, I know which way to jump.” His eyes twitched and roved my face for any hint of what was going on.
I bit my lip. Everett told me to hold my tongue, but I didn’t think Mac was prying on Volchec’s behalf. She was in the dark, and he’d satiate her, but for his own peace of mind, and for all of our sakes, he was just asking for a little something. I exhaled slowly. “Everett made a call, reached out to an old friend — turns out they weren’t so friendly. She was in trouble, and we dealt with it.”
“Three dead bodies is dealing with it?” Mac folded his arms again, pulling his shoulders up to his jaw as he looked me in the eye.
I nodded firmly. “Yeah, it is. And now they’re out there chasing down Smith — because it’s only a matter of time before the Trading Collective come sniffing around.”
“And when that happens, you know we need to be long gone from here, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“You really don’t know where they are, do you?”
“No, I don’t. They said they’d check in when they had something. I can’t tell you anything more.”
He nodded, picked his head up, and looked around. “Okay.”
“Okay? Okay, like you’re going to tell Volchec everything’s in hand, or—”
“Okay, like we’ve got to do something about this before it blows up in our faces. If the TC come knocking at the ship — or worse, ground us pending investigation, and they dig into who we are, then… I don’t have to tell you how bad that’s going to be. And if it blindsides Volchec, it’s going to be ten times worse.” He shook his head, thinking about it. It was a scary thought. “So, let’s get going.”
“Sorry, what?” I a
sked as he walked past me and around the other side of the counter. He took one step and then skipped upwards, planting his foot on the shin plate of Alice’s Alpha and kicking off towards the midriff. He scaled it with ease and reached for the lock on the hatch. Alice’s Alpha didn’t have a biometric scanner like the rest of our built-for-purpose rigs. I didn’t know how it would like having another pilot inside it, but then again, if they were all as amicable as Greg was being right now then I didn’t think it would mind too much.
Mac popped it and climbed in, twisting down into the cockpit. He was already strapping himself in by the time I even got Greg’s hatch open. “Mac,” I called, slotting down into Greg. “What are we doing about all this stuff?”
Mac stared down at all the parts on the table for a few seconds before pushing his hand into his gloves. He settled back, bent the Alpha down and deftly swept the table clean with his forearm. All the parts clattered to the ground and a second later he was reaching for a piece of cloth with the Trading Collective logo on it, hanging on a frame to the side of our booth. He tore it down and tossed it over the pile of parts. “It’s not ideal, but it’ll have to do. Come on.”
He pulled the hatch closed and turned away, the crowd parting around him to let him through. I sucked in a hard breath and closed my own hatch. I wondered if there would ever be a mission where things went smoothly.
I figured there would, but it didn’t look this was going to be it.
“Red, you read me?” It was Mac.
“Yeah, I hear you,” I said, his voice echoing through the cockpit on comms.
“Sounds like you’ll be more likely to get an answer — you want to raise Everett or Kepler?” It was phrased like a question, but I didn’t think it was one.
I didn’t like the idea of tricking them into answering, but Mac had a point, and if they didn’t have their fingers on the pulse wherever they were, and the Trading Collective put out a detainment order on them, then they’d be blindsided, and I didn’t like the idea of that.
“Greg, call Everett.”
He called her and the line rang three times and then cut off.
“Try again.”
It rang twice and then the same thing happened.
“Shit. Try Alice.”
It rang for a while and then cut off.
“Again.”
“It appears that they do not wish to answer,” Greg said dryly.
“If I wanted an opinion I would have asked for one. Now call her back,” I growled.
“As you wish.”
I went to apologize, but held back, resigning myself to silence instead.
It rang for a long time, and then she picked up, whispering angrily into the phone. “Jesus, Red — take a hint.”
“Alice, don’t hang up.”
“What is it?” I could hear her cupping her hand over her mouth. There was a quiet din of music playing in the background.
“We’re coming to you. What’s your location?”
“Wait — we? Who’s we?”
I muted myself. “Greg, patch Mac into the call.”
“Affirmative.”
I took my finger off the button. “Me and Mac, he’s on the line—”
“For fuck sake, Red. Everett explicitly said to keep quiet and you go and—”
“Kepler, it’s me,” Mac said. “Things have changed. The Trading Collective are crawling all over Notia. The merchant was one thing — but a Trading Collective Municipal Detective has them up in arms.”
Alice put her hand over the microphone, her voice garbled in the background, “—he was a detective? Did you know— okay — right — sure.” She uncupped the communicator and swore under her breath. “We need to get this done, now. We’ve got a bead on Smith, but he’s at a bar — and it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere any time soon. We can’t do this now.”
“Send us the name. We’ll be there in a few minutes. I’ve got your rig.” Mac’s voice was as cold and precise as always.
“Got it,” Alice said, and then hung up.
Mac clicked off on the other end and I was left alone with the quiet din of static. My heart was pumping slowly in my chest, squeezing hard. It was always the same before some shit went down — and I knew that this was going to be no different.
16
We pushed through the crowds and out of the bazaar toward the quieter sections of Notia — or at least that’s what we thought. They were anything but.
As we passed out of the huge central column the bustling streets of the marketplace gave way to bustling streets between towering hab stacks. When I’d looked up and seen the dirty laundry hung on rails, the rust creeping over every surface, the dripping pipes leaking who knows what onto the marketplace below, I’d thought that it was going to be the worst place to live in Notia. I was wrong.
We headed for a freight elevator that took us down into the bowels of the station. We leveled out in what would have once been two side-by-side hangars, but had since been put into one. Jagged scraps of metal still hung around the divide, and workers on harnesses and lines swung beneath then, cutting and carving off slabs of whatever was left, no doubt to sell for scrap, or to use for their own homes.
Below was a mess of old ships, machinery, broken-down habs, and everything else that could have been used as a house, all nailed, bolted, and welded together like a giant trash heap of a shanty town.
Mac grunted in Alice’s Mech, “Jesus, what a dump.”
It was, there was no denying that, but I couldn’t help but think of Genesis, where I’d grown up, and draw similarities. Everett, on the other hand, had grown up here. Maybe not among this particular cluster of filthy inhabitants, but probably in one just like it. I felt a pang of conscience for humble beginnings. “Mm,” was all I responded with.
“Come on then,” he sighed. “Let’s get this done and get out of here.”
We made our way down the loading ramp from the freight elevator and onto a wide drag that stretched through the scrap town. It was impossible to tell where the garbage ended and the houses began. Urchins darted around, barefoot and filthy, by the hundred, and beggars lined the sides, bent double with their hands out. Those on their feet milled back and forth, stopping at little stalls in front of people’s homes, looking over what was on offer. It was mostly scraps of food, trinkets, and anything else that could be scavenged. They all looked thin and gaunt, ambling slowly and without a good meal in them.
Between those, droids zipped back and forth. They were in about the same states as everything else, and were ferrying bits of metal and other odd parts from somewhere to somewhere else. It was hard to keep track of them all as they weaved between the filthy inhabitants, blending seamlessly with the grimy floors, steel now thickly covered with rotten food and trash.
Above the sea of heads, though, there were plenty of big species and Mech. I could see two Wints ambling around — a lot more scraggly and sorry-looking than the ones on Telmareen or the Athena. Between them, there was another big creature. It was curved up at the spine, with its body dragging behind it. It walked on four legs at the back, and had two more at the front armed with hooked claws. Its huge black eyes bulged from its head and its hooked mandibles looked big enough to take my body between them. Its antennae twitched with the sounds of the people, but it kept its attention on the Trading Collective guard it was talking to. It was some sort of insect creature, its carapace shining in the dim lighting hanging high overhead. The guard was in a Mech suit. It looked like an old A-Series, but it was hard to tell. All of the flight capabilities had been removed — the wings, the thrusters — and had been replaced by what looked like two halves of a cowcatcher. I stared at it as we drew closer. On each one was written ‘Danger — Step Back.’
Mac was looking too. “Humph,” he said. “Riot control. Guess things in Notia are hairy these days.”
I looked around at the masses of people, all miserable and with nothing to lose, and wondered how often riots started, and what happened w
hen they did.
As we drew nearer, I could overhear the insect talking to the guard. English clearly wasn’t its first language, and its mandible-clad mouth was struggling to form some of the consonantal sounds without lips.
“— how you expect us to survive on one food ration a day? My children starving!” the insect was yelling.
The guard, in his red and black A-Series, stepped forward and jabbed the insect in what would have been the chest of any other species. “Well, maybe that’ll teach you fecking bugs not to ‘ave an ‘undred kids then! Too many of you fuckers around as there is!”
“Watch your tongue, meat-bag,” the insect growled, rearing higher on its back legs until it was towering over the A-Series. The thing had to be at least eight, maybe nine meters long.
“It were a fucking mistake, the day we took the lot of you in, and you been spreading our resources thinner, ever since. Now step the fuck back before I put a hole in ya!” The A-Series reached over its shoulder and in a second it had a shotgun in its hands, pressed against the gut of the insect. Its jaws clacked and its antennae pressed flat to its round head. It hissed and then muttered something in a tongue not even my chip could translate, and then backed down and scuttled away through the crowd.
I sighed and kept moving, not even looking at the A-Series, who stayed where he was on the corner of two meeting streets. It was obviously his post.
“Looks like the status quo is pretty fragile here,” I mumbled to Mac.
“On a knife edge — though it is in most places. The nice parts are always nice, and the shitty parts are just one bad day away from a revolt. It’s how it is, especially during wartime.”
“Are we at war? Is Notia?”
Mac laughed. “We’re always at war. If there are people that need killing, uprisings that need squashing, and territory that needs seizing, we’re at war, whether they brand it like that or not. People fight, it’s just what they do.”
I didn’t share the same upbeat sentiment, and watched the insect in the distance as it scarpered away, snaking through the streets. “Suppose that’s good,” I said sullenly. “If we need some cover to make an escape we can always start a riot.”