by P. R. Adams
Riyun’s father sighed. “The boy has a future here.”
“He’s no boy but a man, and a man must protect himself.”
“You would have him travel the world, fight with his fists, sleep with whatever woman throws herself at him?”
“He has his eyes on his own woman. You’ve seen that. He’ll settle down, just like you.”
“You ask that I don’t judge you for being different. I ask the same.”
Monisa stood and brushed her long, simple skirt, then crossed to Riyun—slippers whispering across age-worn wood, delicate hand held out for his. “Would you dance, Riyun Molliro?”
He took that hand and stood. How long before the softness was replaced by calluses and scars? How long before her beauty was taken by the sun and wind? His mother had died when he was seven, every bit as delicate as Monisa in youth but old before her time. She had come to Hurdist from the grand world of Novasic, knowing the toll being a simple farmer’s wife would have on her and accepting it.
“Your mind is so far away.” Monisa squeezed his hand, already toughened by labor in the fields. “You dream of playing Ruodir music still?”
“I dream of you. Always.”
“Never abandon your dreams, Riyun. The music gives you peace. Your mother saw that.”
“Did Faxal tell you that?”
“Everyone knows. But your father saves against the day he can buy you a binjir.” The beautiful smile that spread across her full lips was like the first spring sun.
Riyun bowed his back. “There will come a time where I can buy one myself.”
She kissed him—soft, on the cheek. “I look forward to hearing the first notes you play. And the last. My love.”
Her voice faded into the abyss of time, replaced by the bubbling brook. The hearty spices were replaced by the pleasant meadow scents.
Quil twisted in the co-pilot seat, ghostly eyes tracking across the passengers before locking on Riyun. “Starting descent, Lieutenant.”
Riyun’s guts twisted. “Thanks.”
He checked to be sure the rucksack and duffle bag secured beneath his seat were still there. Weapons, armor, ammunition…all the gear he needed for his job. All the gear that made him who he was. All he owned in life.
Not counting the formal, pressed uniforms he and his team wore now—olive green shirt, brown jacket, and pants. They projected safety and calm.
It was what the civilians needed to see, to reassure them.
But a mercenary had to be ready—able—to kill, or no jobs would come.
Symbra reclined in a couch at the rear of the craft, smoothing the front of her jacket. Free of her armor, she looked more like a polished executive than a warrior.
That wasn’t fair, of course. She’d proven herself.
Riyun unbuckled and made his way back to her, nodding at each team member as he passed. Javika’s neck craned around to track him.
He pointed to the empty space beside the young Onath. “Mind if I sit here?”
Symbra’s eyes flashed wide, as if she thought she were in trouble. She brought her seat into the upright position. “Um, go ahead.”
“I have a couple questions before the meeting, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Sure.”
“This Tromon woman—your doing?”
“I knew you were going to ask me that. I could see it in your face: You were thinking that on the way to the starport. Is that why you chose me to accompany you to the meeting?”
“No. You’re an Onath. I want to set her mind at ease.”
“I’m not the only—” She glanced at Hirvok. “Whatever.”
“Did you tell her we were looking for work?”
“No. I know you wanted to see if you could find something more…”
“This doesn’t sound like that. If she’s being honest, and this really is about her daughter, then it’s the kind of work I’m more than willing to take. But I need you to be honest with me.”
“I am being honest. I didn’t put the word out yet. I was going to give you a couple of days, like I said.” Her hands were clasped in her lap now, and her thumbs were jabbing at each other like swordsmen. “I—I need you to trust me. It means a lot.”
“I believe you.” He sighed. “You know anything about this woman?”
“Just the name: Tromon. She’s from one of the old families. Big money. A real Silver, an elite Onath. Not like me.”
“To most of us, you are big money.”
Naru’s neon blue crown of hair and pale green eyes poked over the top of the seat in front of Riyun. “No—she’s right. This Tromon, her family—they’re serious stuff.”
A nervous tic drew up Riyun’s right cheek. “I suppose you’ve been doing some research on your own?”
“You didn’t bring me along for the sex, right?”
He blushed. “I told you—that’s not how it works.”
“Whatever. In answer to your question, though, yeah, I did some poking around. This Yola…” The hacker shook her head. “She’s a real oddball. Struck out on her own, really rocked the family, but she’s still a big success.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“N-nothing. Don’t get so defensive.”
“Sorry.” Riyun stared out one of the viewports. The shuttle was passing through gray clouds, which partially obscured the sprawl of brilliant lights in a sea of darkness below. Their destination was to the west, not yet wrapped in that nighttime black. “What else do you know?”
“Well, her daughter’s the same.”
“You have information on her?”
“Sure. Zabila Tromon. Struck out on her own, maverick, working on a better education—technical instead of managerial—but a real rebel. She torpedoed any chance at a career with a major family corporation and screwed herself bad enough that she’ll never work for anything but second-tier companies.” The hacker held up a hand before he could say anything. “And before you ask what’s wrong with that, it’s that it’s not the path to power.”
“So?”
“So? That’s all that matters to an Onath. Um, a Silver, anyway.”
The distinction mattered—the elite of the elite. But no one was actually that simple. Riyun had known enough people from the Inner Sphere to understand that most did value money and power over everything else—especially human life. He’d seen enough of his comrades turned into paste or less, all in the name of securing a patch of land or a piece of technology that could solidify the bottom line for some faceless, soulless company.
He was still trying to figure the Tromon woman out when they settled at the starport.
A smaller shuttle was waiting for them when they disembarked.
Symbra accompanied him, head down, lips pressed tight. She didn’t relax until they were approaching their destination—a towering, copper-colored metal-and-glass skyscraper in a field of similar buildings that seemed to stretch on for miles in all directions. Sunlight sparkled on the chromed shells of vehicles crawling and whizzing through the man-made canyons far below, but Riyun’s attention was drawn to the buildings at the edge of the towers. Those structures were concrete and glass, but they had the look of ancient stone weathered by millennia.
They were sad—almost grotesque—when compared to the newer buildings but were better than anything his home world had ever known.
As they set down on the rooftop shuttlepad, Symbra looked up. “You really don’t think we’re all greedy monsters?”
“No.” He exited the shuttle and hurried down the steps, then came to a stop at the nearby elevator doors. He pressed the call button. “But most of the Onaths—the Silvers—who hire out mercenary operations aren’t in it for humanitarian efforts.”
Her shoulders slumped. “I know.”
The elevator took them down a couple stories—not far. They stepped into a hallway with a polished marble floor and matching walls. There were columns traced with gold. Their steps seemed unnaturally loud, as out of place as they were. Beautiful p
eople with perfect haircuts and tailored suits acted as if rats had bubbled up from the sewer.
A security guard decked out in the bright blue and copper company colors hurried toward them—eyes lowered, embarrassed. “Excuse me—?”
Riyun nodded toward Tromon’s office, which was highlighted by a green arrow on the HUD of his shades. “Appointment with Yola Tromon.”
The security guard drew up, torso twisted as he looked toward her office. “Oh. Yeah.” He seemed to stare off into space for a moment.
Wired, like Naru. “I’m Riyun Molliro. Hardist Squad.”
“Okay. I was expecting an…”
“Investigator?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Let me escort you. So you don’t…” The guard’s eyes shot to a group of gawking onlookers.
“Thanks.”
They could have worn something more acceptable, something less militant looking, but Riyun had never been one to worry himself over the sensitivities of others beyond what guild regulations required. It wasn’t as if they were carrying weapons around. Not out in the open at least. They could. It was how the guild worked. But the Onaths liked to operate under the foolish belief that they were immune to violence.
It was always that way, the look of disbelief in the seconds before—
The guard knocked on a black wooden door that had a glowing holographic nameplate. Apparently, the Tromon woman was a senior manager, whatever that meant. When a feminine voice transmitted through a hidden speaker, the guard opened the door and poked his head in. “Your visitors, ma’am.”
“Send them in, please.”
This time, Riyun recognized the woman’s voice. He pushed the door wider, nodded at the guard, and waved Symbra in. He followed her and tried not to stare at the office. It was as big as Kloss’s loft. The wall behind Yola Tromon was glass, apparently smart glass based on the way it was darkening as they entered. The senior manager’s desk was black as the door and as big as the bed Riyun had been sleeping in while staying at the apartment.
“Please take a seat.” Yola pointed to the chairs before her desk. They were upholstered in a matching black material that glistened as if wet.
Symbra ran fingers over the seat of the left chair, then sat.
Riyun settled without hesitation. “We came as quickly as we could.”
“Thank you.” Yola sat on the corner of her desk. She wore a magenta jacket and skirt that emphasized a well-preserved body. But seeing it in person reaffirmed his earlier assessment: It wasn’t something she’d purchased, not like a lot of people they’d seen in the hall. “I’d like to keep this short, so you can get to work immediately.”
He tensed, ready for the revelation of the truth: some dirty assassination, maybe a heist that would set back a competitor, or maybe just what she’d said—rescuing her daughter. What if she’d been taken by some other company? “I appreciate it.”
Yola stretched over her desk and pulled up a red folder. “This has everything you’ll need: imagery, transaction records, transcripts.”
Physical copies, substantial in his hands. “Why not electronic?”
“I don’t trust some things right now, Mr. Molliro.”
“Secure file transfers? Those are very hard to—”
“A lot of things.”
“Like investigators, for instance.”
“They haven’t been good enough. If you’re looking for their reports, I’ve included those, too.”
“Someone like you, I imagine you hired capable people.”
“I did. They weren’t up to the task. That’s why I’m hiring you.”
He flipped through the file: pictures of Zabila, who was a younger version of Yola; detailed financial records; detailed communications records; pictures of an apartment—simple and small; maps; calendars; smart sheets embedded with audio and video icons.
He tapped a video icon, and a movie played on the sheet: the girl wearing what passed for a nightclubbing outfit—a black crop top and short skirt. She moved through the crowd, drawing attention, smiling in a way that didn’t reach her own eyes. There was a sadness to her, sadness he recognized from Monisa.
He paused the video. “Was your daughter in trouble?”
Yola stared at the smart page, where her daughter’s face was frozen. “That’s what I’m hiring you to figure out, Mr. Molliro. Find her. Bring her back to me.” The executive swallowed hard. “I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care if you have to kill a thousand people. All I want is my daughter back, safe and alive.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
The woman nodded, then turned away, but not fast enough to hide a tear in her eye. “I expect a report twice daily.”
“Even if we don’t have anything to report?”
“Twice daily, Mr. Molliro.”
He closed the file. “We’ll be in touch.”
Symbra followed him out, wisely holding her tongue until they were on the roof again. “You don’t believe her.”
“Because she’s lying.”
“About what?”
His polished boots banged against the stairs leading up to the landing pad, where lights were slowly brightening as twilight approached. He hadn’t noticed just how nasty the air smelled, the way it seemed to have an unnatural mass to it and a stinging, metallic taste. It was as if it were being spewed from a giant refinery somewhere. Maybe it was something that happened as the sun set. Maybe as the air cooled, the toxic stench dropped from somewhere high above.
Or maybe he was just more sensitive to it now.
What is she lying about? He tapped the corner of the folder against his thigh. “I don’t know yet. Maybe everything.”
“You don’t think that’s her daughter?”
“I’m sure it is. The resemblance is pretty obvious. And she sure looks pampered.”
Symbra glanced at the shuttle but seemed to catch on that he wasn’t going to enter it while they were talking about the job. “You don’t think she’s missing?”
“She’s paying way too much for us to look for nothing. The kid’s missing.”
“Then what?”
Wind tugged at the folder; Riyun held it tight. “The investigation. The people she hired before. Maybe the specifics of her daughter’s situation.”
“How can you can tell she’s lying?”
“The way she didn’t give complete answers. The way she avoided discussing the investigators as much as possible.”
“She didn’t hire real investigators?”
His fingers itched. What was in the folder? What was the truth she was hiding? “We’ll have to see. When we get to the hotel, we’ll need to start digging into the data—really digging in—then we’ll have to figure out our own approach. What data’s missing? What are the important parts of what we know? That sort of thing.”
“But you have an idea of where to start?”
Did he? He wasn’t an investigator. He was a killer, a soldier. There was no reason to hire someone like him—a team of people like him. But that’s exactly what Yola Tromon had done.
He headed toward the shuttle. “I don’t have a clue, but it’ll come to me.”
7
Yola had put them up in a luxury hotel the likes of which Riyun had never seen. His room—a suite—was as big as the apartment he’d maintained when he was successful, when he’d run a platoon instead of a squad. He stood on the balcony now, looking down on the city. Lights flowed in the ebon depths of the steel canyon, like glowfish swimming through the sunless depths of the deep abyss. Was it as cold far below as it was on the balcony? Was the darkness truly so black as it seemed, or was it the bright, colorful lights glittering all around him that were the illusion?
Curtains whipped in the winds that buffeted him, pushing him closer to the rail meant to hold him back for his own safety. That wind had an acidic tang and hummed mournfully, but it promised release from the pain and the stress, from the obligations of life.
Riyun knew better than that. He wouldn’t find M
onisa’s embrace waiting for him at the bottom. It would just be an instant of horrific pain, then oblivion.
Would that be so bad?
Would respite from all the panicked worrying be such a tragedy?
He stared into the abyss and swallowed.
The faintest scuff of boots preceded Javika’s voice. “It is cold out here.”
He smiled at the Biwali warrior and wondered what she might have made of him looking over the rail. “You get used to the cold after a while.”
“That is called numbness.” She crossed to his side and leaned against the metal rail. Her violet-and-black windbreaker puffed and rippled, revealing her usual skintight black T-shirt beneath.
“I guess so.”
“The Portal affected you.” She closed her eyes. “The memories…”
“Yeah. They like to stick around.”
“Some would wish they had memories still.”
“Careful what you wish for. Time’s supposed to heal those wounds—memories. If it did for you, you should be happy.”
The graceful assassin squeezed the rail, as if she feared being hurled into the bottomless black. “It is like going home for you, traveling through these portals.”
Was it? Or was it just reliving painful memories? “If I were able to go home, I would have other memories to choose from.”
“Then there were times in your life…good times.”
“Some. Just like everyone.” He glanced at her tensed profile—the flat nose, the full lips, the arch of her heavy eyebrows. She was so hard to read. “Right? You had some good times?”
She bowed her head. “Some. My father’s love for his art was the most comforting. He was quite skilled with his brush and with his chisel, yet he was never known outside his region.”
“Is that the only measure of success for an artist?”
“No. An artist’s work endures. The true measure is in the satisfaction of those who have made the discovery others have failed to make.”
“So, you’ll be discovered one day? That’s the measure of success?”
Muscles bunched along her jaw line. “Oncha knew his worth. It is unfortunate others did not.”
