Loose Ends

by J M Thomas

  “Yes, but you would mess it up for the right sob story. And I saw you talking…”

  “I talked, yeah.” His face reddened. “You know the synths bribed the Ehksmian politicians to even set up their factory here? It was never supposed to…”

  She shushed him loudly. “You can’t say things like that, Heydin, they’ll hear you!”

  “You’re too paranoid. Nothing will happen.”

  “Hey…” Lila’s hand came into view as she rested it on Heydin’s shoulder, then squeezed. “Why do you say that, Hey?” Her voice cracked. “Please… please don’t…”

  His hand disappeared into a messenger bag, then reappeared, a vial of glowing blue stuff between his fingers. “Shh. Like you said, they’ll hear.”

  “Where did you…”

  Her words were cut off by the entrance of a half dozen synth, all armed to the teeth. Lila cried out as two of them pulled her away, the others converging on the young man. His screams of “she didn’t know, I swear!” was met with an “and she won’t remember, either,” but I couldn’t tell which black-clad synth said the words.

  Though one blocked most of her view, the edges of her vision still caught the handgun pulled, the other two forcing the man to his knees, and the muzzle flash. Exactly like Blade and I had thought—execution-style. For stealing a single vial of blue shit? There had to be something else going on.

  A bright flash of light preceded total darkness and Lila awoke in her bed, the ceiling rotating into a view of the kitchen and living room. She stretched and began her day, ferociously scrubbing every inch of her apartment. It was like she was looking for something she’d lost, as if it was just beneath the dust—close enough she could break through if she pushed in deep enough.

  But Lila never did.

  Marsha gently switched the monitor off, pulling the hard copy of the recording from its slot before accepting the handheld viewscreen from me.

  Lila buried her face in her hands as soon as Marsha pulled off the helmet. Sobs wracked her shoulders. I couldn’t tell if they were mourning or regret.

  “Lemme walk you home,” I said, sliding my hand around her elbow and unfastening the cuff. To Marsha, I added, “I’ll be right back.”

  Marsha shook her head. “I won’t be here when you return. I need to get this back to Marsh…”

  A heavy fist pounded at the door. “Hey, Jet? Company’s pulling up in an unmarked levbus. Time to get out of dodge.” Blade’s voice was urgent, but not panicked.

  “Synthcorp enforcement,” Lila said with a sad smile, sliding out of my grasp as I stiffened. “I called in the rest of the team, same way I called them in on Heydin. Now I remember.” At my horrified look, she shook her head. “I thought it might teach him his lesson to get busted once, and I needed the ten thousand credit reward per vial returned.” She wiped the tears from her eyes, hand disappearing forearm-deep into her pocket where the outline of a weapon bulged as she straightened. “I didn’t know they’d kill him on the spot.”

  I now had two reasons to regret not feeling her up a little before getting on with things: fun times and checking for concealed carry. Lesson learned; don’t wait to feel up the spy-flavored dates.

  Wait… ten thousand per vial? We only got six fifty per phial we busted. Someone in evidence must’ve made bank on us back in the day, when we brought in two megacases in a single week.

  Her voice sounded almost wistful as heavy bootsteps coming down the hall echoed closer. “I didn’t realize they’d kill him, didn’t even remember that he’d come with me here after they wiped the memory, probably so I’d keep working for them. I kept calling home, asking for him, assuming he’d gone off on some crusade somewhere. I had no idea how right I was. Thank you for showing me.” Her hand reappeared with a cold steel pistol in her grip.

  Marsha gasped. “What are we…?”

  “Relax,” I said, holding both hands out in a moment of indecision. Marsha did not relax.

  Without thinking, I smashed my forearm into Lila’s. The blow stung me and cracked her radial bone with an unmistakable snap. The handgun she’d been pulling to bear went flying.

  “Marsha, window!” I commanded.

  The Ehksmian was halfway out before she paused to wonder aloud how she was supposed to escape from the twentieth floor. I was thankful for that, at least. The rest of her words were drowned out by the knocking and shoving at the door growing louder with each passing second.

  “Don’t go, Jet!” Lila’s voice was panicked. “Please! They picked me for you, you know?”

  She was trying to make me curious, to make me stay.

  “Damn, I wish I could trust you for a second.” I dragged the screaming, crying Lila over to my bed, cuffing her broken arm as gently as possible and threading the chain through the slats.

  “It’s true,” she sobbed. “In the warehouse…”

  My fist cocked back, almost of its own accord. I tipped her chin toward me, my jaw set. “Pick your next words with care.”

  Lila shook her head to free it from my index finger. “You had a thought—you’d use your pistol to end yourself, because at least it was nice and clean.” She met my gaze, tears shining in her eyes as the door bulged in with each pound. “The way it should be. So they picked me to watch you.”

  I felt as if I’d been punched, but I had no time to waste being overcome. “Time’s up.” I grabbed the pistol, then followed Marsha the way she’d gone, sliding the window shut behind me. Shit, shit, fuck. They could get a read on my thoughts. I was right. Dammit, I was right, and I wish I was wrong.

  The door banged against the wall when they finally got it open. Muffled shouts and screeches from Lila preceded the noise of my window sliding up again. I imagined them looking down and across, seeing nothing but the gorgeous skyline. I’d never get a load of that view again, at least not from that window.

  I was seeing it just fine out of Blade’s window, though. He had an arm wrapped around Marsha’s shoulder as she panted heavily from the terror of being pulled from one open window into the neighboring one. I’d practiced a couple times, so the shock of that wind pulling against me as I clambered through wasn’t nearly as bad this time.

  Remembering what Lila said—how she’d been selected due to the final thought in my human memory, reminded me I had a nasty bone to pick with Blade. I shot him the kind of look that could fire up a glass blowing exhibition.

  I wasn’t exactly shocked to discover the proof I needed that Lila was a snitch for SynthCorp, though the fact that she was so sold out she’d give up her own brother… well, it was hitting me harder than it should have, in hindsight. In my now-growing list, entitled: “Things I Hated that I’ve Now Become,” a fugitive of the local governing body was my new least favorite.

  Revealing Marsha’s position to Lila really put us in a tight bind. I wasn’t sure what our little stunt with the recall helmet would do—to Lila, to Lila’s standing with SynthCorp, to the resistance as a whole. They knew we were involved, we were in league with tech-supplied Ehksmians, and could recognize me, Blade, and Marsha by sight.

  “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “Did I fuck up just then?”

  “Let’s hope not.” Marsha shook off her stress and righted herself. “Time to go,” she whispered.

  I listened through the wall at the noisy, confused conversation taking place in the next room, then agreed. With two steps, I took point at the door, weapon at the ready. One nod from Blade, and we threw the door open, clearing the hallway with a double tap to the synth standing guard.

  He crumpled to the ground before he’d even managed to turn all the way around toward us.

  Marsha pulled a weapon of the assault flavor from the guard’s body, another old Earth convention that had me convinced SynthCorp’s Earth division had something to do with this mess.

  With a loping leap, Marsha took up position behind me, covering my six as we advanced. Blade shouldered the waterproof equipment sack, palming one of my knives in his free hand. We
hoofed it down the stairs, dodging out the back door and into the alley.

  I doubt the synth guarding that exit was prepared for a three-on-one fight with armed fugitives, but buddy he got one. His hand went to his radio earpiece first, a habit no one had seen fit to train him out of. I shot him through the head, teaching him better real quick.

  Flashing blue and purple lights from the SynthCorp’s version of a SWAT-mobile lit up the alleys as we kept to the shadows. Finally, a levcar station with a waiting vehicle came into view. Blade traded off with Marsha, and she took the equipment with her. We waited until the vehicle blended into the city traffic before breathing a sigh of relief.

  I holstered Blade’s weapon on one shoulder and lowered mine. “You’re loitering, you homeless bastard.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Blade waved me off. “We’ll think of something.” He threw a sidelong glance at me. “Go ahead. Out with it. You’ve been holding back this whole time—get it over with. Clear the air. We ain’t got nothin’ better to do.”

  “You don’t really want me letting loose on you right now.” I scowled, arms shaking as I came off whatever chemical secretion synthetic bodies used as an adrenaline substitute. “I might do to you what I did to the Ehksmian pretending to be you.”

  “Ya don’t scare me.” Blade waved me off again. “I’m bigger and smarter than you. Tell me all about how pissed off you are that I was on the take this whole time and didn’t tell you about it. Cuss me out real good for keeping you in the dark.”

  I shook my head, my fists clenching at my side. “You ain’t gettin’ off that easy.”

  “You know, bridled rage is bad for synthetic bodies, too, not just human ones.” Blade’s voice and smile was gentle. Gentler than I deserved, but I pretended not to care.

  “She quoted my thoughts back to me, Blade. The synth can collect our thoughts. I don’t know how, but I swear to all the Earth gods and a few on the Galbrek moons she quoted them word for word to me.” My fist rose and I slammed it back down to my side. “You knew, and you still let us barge in there…”

  Blade froze. “Oh, shit, Jet. I didn’t know. You gotta believe me, I had no idea…”

  “Go fuck yourself,” I said, heading off on foot into the heart of the city. I couldn’t do much else about the short straw I’d chosen, but I didn’t have time for personal shit right now. There was a mission, and only I could do it. I didn’t always understand why it had to be me, but this time I did. It’s because the Ehksmian cause needed someone they could unequivocally trust. Blade had broken that with me, so now the crown fell to my head.

  I had to break into the SynthCorp headquarters, and I had to do it alone.

  Chapter 24 – Robbers

  It’s disorienting enough being re-added to a new body. The problem only compounds itself when you have no home to go back to. I felt a bit like that dead Ehksmian boy, floating in a stream, powerless to resist even the gentlest of currents. I didn’t belong below the water with the frog people. I didn’t have a place to belong on the surface, either.

  It made stealing a boatload of shit a whole lot easier.

  In fact, the hardest part of the entire operation was sitting through Marsh’s extensive technical briefing. He taught me how to use the locket—a complicated process involving twisting the spot where the chain hits the locket until you hear a click. That was useful.

  Then he had to tell me what he planned to do to set up all the little mainframe things I was supposed to break, and that made my head spin for hours. I wound up just making a list and committing the steps to memory afterward. He’d do the programming part and disable the synth guard in charge of the getaway vehicle—I just had to get the loot ready to load.

  Still, this was by far the most complex operation I’d done so far, probably because things are a lot more simple when your plan is “kick down the door and arrest the guilty-looking ones.” I had a newfound respect for the low-lifes I’d worked my whole life to stop.

  I wished I hadn’t left my card in a ditch somewhere, because my unsatisfied stomach growled so loudly it nearly gave away my presence as I slinked down restaurant row. How was I supposed to raid the SynthCorp storage sub-basement if I couldn’t successfully raid Marsh’s snack drawer?

  As I approached the government building I’d only managed to patrol a dozen times before getting locked out, hackles rose on my neck. A shadow moved when it shouldn’t have, so I picked that moment to backtrack through a few back alleys. Skulking and skullduggery—two things completely antithetical to my nature.

  I clambered atop a trash bin, then a ladder. The clatter hastened my pursuer’s footsteps, the hooded figure soon appearing below me.

  “Timber!” I shouted as I dropped toward the only slightly suspecting amphibian’s head. Two tenths of a second too late, I realized who it was I was about to fall onto. Marsha dodgerolled mostly out of the way, barely enough to keep me from crushing her.

  “Ehksmian do not make soft landing, Jet!” she huffed, rising and cracking her neck. I did a double-take, unused to hearing her attempt at untranslated Standard.

  She reached for my forearm, but I pulled away. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Marsh not feed. Jet not carry card. Best plans fail if team too hungry to work.”

  I gave a vigorous nod. “I couldn’t agree more.” I agreed less when I saw what she had in mind for food. A lovely bouquet of something deep fried turned out to be not dissimilar enough to Earth frogs for my palate. As Marsha paid the street vendor, then thrust half the sticks in my direction, my eyes widened in horror.

  “What?” she asked around mouthfuls of crispy froggy flesh.

  “I… uh…”

  “Is synth brain having lag?” Her own eyes widened and her jaws hung open for a second.

  I threw up in my mouth a little at the sight. “No, just…” At her raised-brow stare, I finally blurted out, “Isn’t that cannibalism?”

  Marsha laughed so hard I thought she might choke. With a demonstrative wave of her fried frog bouquet, she gestured to me. “Ehksmians not look like frogs.” As if that was all the explanation required, she turned to go. The similarity seemed to strike her right at that moment, and she spun on her heel to face me once more.

  “Jet think Ehksmians look like frogs? Hoppy little ribbit frogs?”

  I nodded once, nice and slow.

  “Harumm.” She munched thoughtfully as she led the way, thankfully not offering me any more. At the next vendor, she purchased me a couple tender, juicy kebabs which I was ever so thankful to munch. The place we were robbing was a several-mile walk from the seedy hotel where I spent the night, so we had plenty of time to finish and prepare for our assault of sneakiness.

  “Thanks for the kebabs,” I said, handing Marsha the now-empty sticks.

  “No problem. Jet eat frogs, too, just not with legs.”

  If my skin could’ve crawled off my body, it would have the instant Marsha’s words sank in. “Y-you mean…”

  Her peals of laughter once again rolled like low croaks. “Tastes like Ehksmian, yes?” She laughed so hard she had to clutch her sides to keep from falling over. “Next Marsha and Jet go to Earth and share monkey kebabs. Then all things will be fair.”

  I remained silent, not like she’d have heard me over her lingering chuckles. I could debunk anyone saying Ehksmians had no sense of humor at this point. Maybe a shitty one, but I had to admit, getting me to eat and enjoy frog meat was clever of her. I’d have to pull an equally witty prank on her at some point and enjoy sweet revenge.

  My plotting was interrupted by my hackles raising again. Followed—was it Marsh remembering I hadn’t had dessert? From the look of Marsha’s narrowed eyes, I’d guess not.

  “Jet remember order of operations?” Marsha pointed ahead of us at the building looming in the distance.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.” She took the next alley and doubled back. I took the opportunity to make a little zig zag around the ever-taller buildings. Up ahe
ad was my destination, and I had to be sure I wasn’t followed. For being a clever devil, she was a saint for taking the tail for me. By the time she led whoever it was on a long, winding tour of Capital, I’d be in, finished, and out again.

  The first hurdle was the security at the front door. I was armed to the teeth, almost literally, though I’m sure I could’ve used my synthetic teeth if necessary and just look like a hillbilly until I got my mouth repaired again. There was a scanning detector, and I had to be sure to get the device to go through first, before my knives and pistols.

  Stepping as normally as possible while still thinking about acting natural, I twisted the little key in the locket one click. I picked a random passerby and waved. They didn’t see me or look up, but that was fine. The wave just happened to fritz the scanner for the moment I walked through.

  I had to turn the thing off again for the elevator, because that deciding to not work with a pile of people in it would’ve been detrimental to my health, wellbeing, and the mission at hand. The next challenge was finding a second when I was the only person in the elevator, which took over ten minutes of me silently cursing every time I let off a load of people only to let another load on again before I could slam the doors of the lift.

  Finally, I got the doors closed before some businessman in a suit could sprint toward the closing gate. I held the down button, in case the lift should be tempted to open for additional passengers. I kept my finger on that button all the way down ten underground warehouse levels, to the place where, Marsh assured me, they kept the good stuff.

  With an almost Ehksmian creak and groan, the elevator descended, the numbers ticking away the seconds before I’d either be wealthy beyond belief or utterly doomed. I wished it’d get there already and stop taking so damned long.

  As little inclined as I was to becoming a freedom fighter for frogmen, or an FFFF as I’d put on my cape if I was ever insane enough to do such a thing, I relished the idea of bringing SynthCorp’s systematic enslavement to a grinding halt. Then, I’d drag their name through the mud of court cases and media notoriety.