10,000 Bones

by Joe Ollinger

  I go down the stairs and out through the lobby door.

  The air outside is cooler, and the red light of sunset cuts through gaps in the high buildings, striping long shadows over the streets which now teem with beat-up, rusted out bikes and small cars. People walk the sidewalks in a hurry, coming home from work. I pass by a gang of skinny, shirtless scumbags in an alley throwing dice, stacking cash chips on the cement. One of them whistles when he sees me, but I ignore them and keep walking, and they don’t follow. Some toothless junkies with sallow, purple-blotched skin shoot up on a stoop next to a collapsed, unconscious man wearing only soiled underwear. This is Brink. This is what I’m fighting for.

  My guess is that it’s about seventeen thirty. I’ve got time, but I’ve also got a long way to walk.

  Over the course of an hour or two, I’ve made it through downtown, skirting through the busy streets of Rumville, keeping my head low and my strides stiff and long in order to keep the authorities’ facial recognition and gaitmatching software from picking me up on one of the many security cameras and randomly patrolling cam drones. That software is easy to trick if you know it’s looking for you, but one slip up, one glimpse of my face straight on, could cost me my life.

  As I pass into uptown, the rich, quiet, restrictively zoned part of the city north of Rumville, the sky is going dark, illuminated windows spackling the skyscrapers. The NewLanding shines bright with lights of many colors, packed and noisy and bustling this time of night. I press between middle-aged snobs in business casual and giddy rich kids decked out in garish clothes, keeping my head low, aware that I don’t fit in here. I’m alone, and I look like a poor person. The sound of someone yelling incoherently grabs my attention, and I cautiously look across the street to see two policemen dragging a homeless man away. He struggles and kicks until finally one of the cops jabs him with a tranquilizer, knocking him out. They’ll book him and take one of his teeth for a fine, if he still has any.

  About halfway to the famous sand fountain at the far end, I arrive at my destination, a swank, exclusive old-school tavern called The Eridani, which has been here over a hundred years. Staying across the street, I lean against the outside wall of a Jinn Clothing boutique, enveloped in the sleek holographic projections of the view-glass, images of fashion set against Paris and Tokyo and Ryland City and some snowy, pristine glacial bluff I don’t recognize. Thick pedestrian traffic passes by me, but no one gives me a second look or eye contact as I wait, watching The Eridani and the patrons who periodically arrive. A wide variety of ages are represented, all wealthy, mostly couples in fine eveningwear and groups of businessmen in suits. I can’t help but resent them from afar, all of them wrapped up in the stupid little bubbles of their own lives.

  Eventually, a single man in a light blue suit with a lapel-less modern cut arrives, looking out of place as he glances around nervously. I only get a brief glimpse of his face before he goes inside, but it’s definitely Brady.

  So he showed.

  He assisted me in escaping the SCAPE Bank, gave me his jacket, and even tackled a security guard. I decked him pretty good, but the cops would still have had questions for him, and probably should have even arrested him. I was worried that the police would have detained him, but suddenly it occurs to me that I should probably be equally worried that he’s here, walking free.

  My mind goes down a morass of twisting paths of logic and possible narratives. If Brady was working against me the whole time, why did he help me escape the bank? Why did he save me from being shot by that security guard? On the other hand, what does he have to gain from helping me? He already got his promotion. The danger of associating with me far outweighs the potential benefits. But if he’s working against me, why not just let me die or get caught? I’m unarmed now; maybe the plan was to get me to abandon my weapons and lure me to a dense place with no vehicular traffic in order to minimize the risk to civilians and police when they take me out, but that seems awfully convoluted. Do I have something that someone needs? Some information that would necessitate being taken alive so that I could be questioned?

  The real question is where else I can turn, where else I can go. And the real answer is nowhere.

  Taking a deep breath, I cross The NewLanding, slipping past people who are too preoccupied with their families and dates and business deals and shopping to notice me. The ancient wood and wrought-iron front doors of The Eridani open for me automatically, and I go inside, each step apprehensive.

  I’ve never been in here before, it’s out of my price range. I stand just inside the doorway for a second as my eyes adjust to the low light emitted by weak, wall-mounted lamps made to look like old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs. The space is bigger than it looks from the outside. Dining tables are packed close along the two-tiered floor with booths lining the walls and a bar in the very center. A man in a cream-colored tuxedo plays old jazz music on a grand piano in one corner. Beef is incredibly rare and expensive on Brink, but supposedly The Eridani is modeled after twentieth century steakhouses on Earth. Everything is rich, polished wood, which must have cost a fortune. The place is full, with every seat occupied and a dozen or so people waiting in the atrium, the noise of a couple hundred conversations washing together with the melody of the piano. Where is Brady?

  A bald, mustachioed maitre d’ in a black old-style tuxedo with thick, serrated lapels notices me looking around, and asks politely, with just a hint of condescension, “Can I help you, miss?”

  “I’m looking for someone,” I tell him.

  He eyes my shabby borrowed clothing with obvious disdain. “Perhaps I might page him or her for you?”

  “No,” I tell him, annoyed, “I think I’ll just have a look, if that’s all right.”

  He steps out in front of me, blocking my path. “I’m afraid the dining area is restricted to customers of The Eridani, in order to provide an exclusive fine dining experience.” Seemingly assured that I don’t know anyone in the restaurant, he adds, “I’d be happy to deliver a message?”

  Brady Kearns steps up beside him. “Excuse me,” he says, startling the maitre d’, “my friend will be joining me.”

  The maitre d’s lip curls in annoyance for a split second, but then he takes a curt little bow. “Very well, sir. Enjoy.”

  We move past him, and I follow Brady between rows of tables, alert that each and every person we pass could be an assassin sent for me. But we reach the back of the restaurant without incident, and Brady motions to an open booth situated in a dim spot between two of the little light bulb lamps. The table is set with two places and a bottle of red wine. I sit, angling my back toward the red brick wall in order to keep all lines of approach within my field of vision, and he sits down across from me.

  “I asked for this table specifically,” he says, surprisingly calm.

  “Limited angles of attack. How romantic.”

  “I bet you’re hungry,” he says, pouring some wine into the empty glass in front of me.

  “I am,” I answer, eyeing the wine with suspicion, “but there’s no way I’m eating anything here. Could be poisoned.”

  He just shrugs, acknowledging the logic in that. His casual, relaxed demeanor is starting to worry me. He has no right to be so nonchalant, and under the circumstances it’s irritatingly out of character for him.

  “The cops bring you in?” I ask.

  He nods. “Just for questioning. They threatened to charge me as an accomplice, badgered me for a while, but in the end they said there wasn’t enough evidence for charges.”

  I wonder how much his connections played into it. Assuming he’s even telling the truth. “They might have put a tail on you. Were you followed here?”

  “I was careful not to be,” he answers, sounding less than certain.

  He was less than careful about shielding his face from security cameras on the way in, and it didn’t look like he was trying to mask his gait, either, but there’s little point in chastising him over t
hat. I freeze up as a waiter in black slacks and an old-style white button-down approaches, serves Brady a plate of what looks like a grilled Ryland mushroom over red rice, and walks away without a word. Another minute or two goes by as I look out over the floor, eyeing each person with paranoia and suspicion, trying to identify potential attackers while Brady starts on his food.

  “So,” he says finally, “what are you going to do?”

  “I’ve got no choice,” I tell him, “I’ll either crack this whole thing open, or I’ll die trying.”

  He frowns at the morbidity of that. I think on some level he actually does like me, and the thought of my death is not pleasant to him. “How?”

  “With proof?” The tremble in my voice reveals that I’m not certain I can get it.

  “From where?”

  “Those phantom cash withdrawals were made to cover up for calcium that’s going somewhere else,” I answer, voicing aloud the suspicions I explored over and over again in my mind on the walk over here, suspicions that lack answers. “Somewhere it shouldn’t be going.”

  He sips his wine between bites of rice. “Where?”

  “I think the question to answer first is why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why is that money being laundered through a bank?”

  He cuts a slice of the fat mushroom on his plate with his steak knife and forks it into his mouth. “You got me.”

  “Why that bank? Why the main branch and not ATMs? Why cash withdrawals?”

  “I’m still not following.”

  “The Commerce Board—your bosses—are making those deposits.” I’m thinking aloud now, stating facts that seem important but haven’t quite gotten me to a conclusion yet, or even a working theory. “The books show that the money is taken out in cash. And it isn’t.”

  “Right. That’s what I don’t get. It looks like the Commerce Board is laundering money to SCAPE, but why would they do that?”

  “Where could it be going?” I’m hoping he has more of an idea than I do.

  All he has is a guess. “Someone must be pocketing it.”

  “That’s a lot of cash to pocket.” Playing out that scenario, I wonder aloud, “If someone was stealing money . . . that much money . . . would they be able to keep it secret?”

  “Doubtful,” the Commerce Board’s newest Deputy Auditor admits. “I think I would have seen red flags about it myself on one of my auditing algorithms.”

  A short silence passes between us as we both try to think these things through. “There’s a yearly currency shortfall of what, four to eight percent?”

  “Yeah, it’s—” He stops himself, realizing what I’m suggesting. “Wait. Are you saying it’s being kept out of circulation entirely?”

  It occurs to me that that is what I’m suggesting, as insane as it sounds. “Brady,” I ask, knowing that I’m treading on sensitive territory for him, “what does the Commerce Board do?”

  “Governs extraplanetary trade, regulates the currency,” he replies, his expression blank. I say nothing, my mind working, looking for some reason to doubt my newest conspiracy theory. “No,” he says after a few seconds, between bites of food. “No. If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, it’s not possible. It’s just, just . . . It’s crackpot.”

  “Someone in the Commerce Board knows about those fake employees. Someone put them on payroll and had them issued direct deposit stubs.”

  “How do you know that?” he argues feebly.

  “How else would they get there? And stay there?”

  He frowns, unable to propose an alternate theory. Refilling his wine glass, he asks, poignantly, “So what are you looking for, Taryn?”

  “Money being taken completely out of circulation, I guess.”

  “Going where?” He swirls his glass and takes a thoughtful, pensive sip.

  I consider it for a moment, staring at the rich, dark woodgrain of the table. The idea strikes me just as I say it out loud. “Off-world.” With a bit more certainty, I repeat it. “Off-world.”

  He squints. “Calcium is practically worthless off-world.”

  “Plenty of miners out in the asteroid belt and oort cloud. Pirates, too. Maybe they’re siphoning it out, reselling at markup.” That explanation doesn’t make any sense, and I know it. The handful of spacers in the middle and outer system have much easier ways of getting black market calcium, as the clearinghouse system can’t, and doesn’t, police them very thoroughly. If calcium is leaving Brink, it’s not because people elsewhere, even in-system, need it.

  “Hmm.” Brady thinks on it for a second, running a hand through his neatly combed hair. “If it is going off-world, that could explain why SCAPE might be involved.” He leans closer, serious. “So how can I help, Taryn?”

  Feeling suddenly tired, I let out a sigh. “This is a long shot, Brady. Not much more than a hunch. It’s not worth the risk, not for you.”

  “I think I could get us into the spaceport,” he offers. “I can call in a favor.”

  “Brady . . . I would feel responsible. If . . . if . . . ”

  “So would I.” With precise, polite movements, he eats another slice of Ryland mushroom, sitting up straight, poised and collected. “So here we are.”

  If calcium is going off-world, it has to be moving on a shuttle out of Oasis City. The spaceport is quite probably my last chance to exonerate myself, and I’ve got no way to get in on my own. I need the auditor’s help, but I’m torn by a storm of conflicting feelings of guilt and suspicion. “You know the risks involved in this, Brady.”

  “I do.”

  “So why? Why would you do it?”

  “I could give you some glib answer or tell you it’s because I like you,” he says, taking a forkful of red rice. He washes it down with some wine, then sets both the glass and the fork neatly down on the table. “But the answer is because the numbers are wrong, and I’m the one that makes those numbers right. That’s what I do.” He shows me his hands, as though to prove he’s got nothing to hide. “And that’s it.”

  I stare at him for a long moment, trying to read him. He does not have the look of an honest man, with his finely tailored, in-fashion suit and neatly combed hair and self-assured half smile. But I’ve come this far with him, and for whatever reason, he still claims to be on my side, even after my fight is objectively over, already lost.

  More importantly, what choice do I have?

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “I’m an auditor. I’m never sure about anything.”

  I take another glance around, suddenly feeling anxious again for some reason I can’t quite identify. “I don’t think we should stay here for too long.”

  “Then let’s go.” He takes the cloth napkin off his lap, tosses it onto the table, and stands up, out of the booth.

  He stares at me, waiting for me to go with him. Still unsure and on edge, I hesitate but rise to my feet. Following Brady toward the door, I try to keep as much distance as I can between myself and the strangers in their seats.

  Something catches the corner of my eye, and glancing back, I see a man in a black sport coat slipping between tables, cutting across the restaurant and falling in just behind us. Brady doesn’t seem to notice. Did he sell me out? Tense with worry, I don’t dare run or even speed up, even as the man catches up to us with broad, calm steps. As we pass by the bar, he closes in, just arm’s length behind me.

  At the edge of my peripheral vision I see him reach a hand out, as though to tap me on the shoulder.

  In one quick motion, I turn, grab his right wrist, and twist as hard as I can. He does not cry out but instantly fights back. He swings his left forearm into mine, trying to knock my grip loose and pull free. On a flesh-toned band around his right index finger, the tiny, piercingly sharp spike of a poison promise glints just slightly in the dim orange light.

  I can’t break free. My attacker’s got too tight a grip. He pulls me in, throwing a hard left e
lbow to my stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I try not to double over, struggling to keep my hold on his right wrist. He follows up with a quick left jab at my face, which I barely manage to dodge.

  Scared diners stand up and back away. I plant my feet and bullrush the guy into the bar, cracking his back into the edge of the counter, lifting him slightly off his feet. I slam him into some empty glasses, and they shatter underneath him. He grimaces, seemingly impervious to pain, giving only a frustrated grunt.

  The dull shine of a short steel paring knife catches the corner of my vision, lying stuck in an orange behind the bar. I lean for it, reaching out with my free hand, but the man in the black sport coat hits me hard with a kick to my stomach, throwing me off. His wrist slips free of my fingers.

  In an instant he’s springing up and he’s on his feet and he’s slashing at me open-handed, and I barely manage to dodge. I bump into a table, rattling plates and silverware as I duck under another swipe. He swings again, and I get a forearm up and manage to deflect. He takes another hard swing, and again I clumsily block, the impact stinging. He leans in to grab me, but I slip away. I’m out of breath now, my arms drained of strength. His movements precise, he comes at me again, but I upend a table in front of him, sending an expensive abandoned meal crashing to the floor at his feet, plates and glasses shattering to hundreds of white, jagged pieces. People are rushing out of the restaurant all around us now, voices shouting.

  I feint aside as though to run, and he comes at me. As he reaches in with his spiked finger I hit his forearm again and force it aside. I snap off a couple of quick left jabs into his jaw. Barely phased, he hooks me by the collar and swings me around. I manage to keep his weapon hand away and above our heads, but as I throw a harder punch at him he ducks and leans in, ramming a shoulder into my chest and hammering me back into the bar.

  All his weight presses me down, bending me backward. I take a desperate swing at him, thumping him in the ribs. He lets out a groan but doesn’t even try to stop me from hitting him again, and instead grabs my right arm with his left and tries to pull it free. Pinned, I can’t move, can’t roll aside. The poison promise lurches closer. Closer. I take a few more panicked strikes at his stomach, and he strains but doesn’t let up, so I reach for his face, trying vainly to grab at his eyes even as the tiny, deadly spike closes in on my neck, bit by bit. I can’t reach. These will be the final seconds of my life.