Jayne groaned.
Jayne shuffled back into her seat, making sure to point the center stone in her necklace at the table. “Sorry. I’m back.”
Frat Bro #1 smirked at her. “Everything come out okay?”
Jayne furtively scanned the table. The middle-aged man continued to scratch at his left ear. Purple pantsuit lady blinked quickly and rubbed her eyes. The older gentleman adjusted his bowtie. She picked up her own cards and smiled. “Much better, thanks.”
+++
Back at the Interstellar Spy Agency office, Merry stared at her comm. She felt a drawbridge of disgust and dread between her and the comm. There’s just been too damn much today. Too. Damn. Much.
Merry gritted her teeth and called Vlad. “Hey. Can you swing back by the office?”
“Miss me that much?”
Merry stifled a reflexive gag. “Don’t flatter yourself. Jayne’s with the poker guy and getting killed at the table.”
“On my way.”
He disconnected the call.
Merry studied the video feed nervously.
+++
Stim Café, Downtown, Avalon Space Station
Alfonso swirled the dregs of his third cup of kava. Jayne hadn’t answered the last two times he attempted to call. It was time to try again.
“Come on, Jayne. Pick up…” He felt his anxiety mounting in his chest.
No answer.
He went back to reading the behavioral markers, comparing them to the timeline of Chamberlain’s absences.
During his first 18-month absence, Armaros military presence increased on Tarem by five percent. Chamberlain’s psych evaluation from that time indicated the first signs of paranoid delusions, but they kept him in service with limited debrief.
During the next gap in Chamberlain’s file, three major Tarem farms closed. Legislation was rushed into effect that increased genetic restrictions of seeds allowed for farming on Tarem. A pro-agricultural official on the ring dies in a mysterious accident. Chamberlain’s psychological evaluator, meanwhile, notices Chamberlain seems less trusting of authority.
The next gap in Chamberlain’s file was two years. During that time, a law banning the manufacture of nitrates on the ring was passed. Chamberlain was observed to be “quiet” and “polite in a glib way.” It was somewhere between the second and third gaps that the behavioral markers appeared to increase.
Each gap in Chamberlain’s file corresponded with a subtle and increasingly restrictive law imposed on Tarem. Very few citizens of Tarem seemed to notice, the restrictions were placed in such small increments. The official justification given in the docs was to preserve Tarem’s environment and Armaros’ resources. Alfonso wondered where he would start when he finally got Jayne.
Reading the docs started to make Alfonso nauseous and restless. He got up and walked around his table to compose himself. Jayne was in over her head.
Alfonso wondered if she’d realized it yet.
+++
Poker back room, Stoke-Dorchester Hotel, L75,Theron Techcropolis, Armaros
Flop after flop, round after round, the game continued. Jayne noticed on her handheld that nearly two hours had passed since she had first sat down. The poker room was in full swing, with dozens of new patrons having joined the tables spaced out around them.
And yet, there was more an air of quiet concentration than one would expect with so many people engaged in a game of entertainment. Jayne fancied it sounded more like a study hall than a games room.
The shorter frat bro frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. “I raise. 250 credits.”
Jayne proudly withheld a smile as she felt a swell of confidence in her chest. She’d won her last two hands, but barely. “Five hundred.” She pushed her chips forward. Lots had happened in the two hours they’d been playing. Slowly the amount people had been willing to bet had increased, round after round. Jayne was just about holding her own and calculated that she probably had the average chip stake.
The father and son weren’t doing so well. Both were short stacked. Jayne forced herself to concentrate on all the variables, which seemed to have an effect on her not losing her chips. It had certainly been a steep learning curve, but it was all starting to click.
The purple pantsuit lady eyed Jayne and the short Frat Bro narrowly. “Call.”
The other players looked nervous. Jayne noticed Bartholomew glance around the table, no doubt sizing up the players and their hands based on how they were betting and behaving.
The black-haired dominatrix type twirled the end of her ponytail, then sighed, “I… fold.”
Jayne looked at the short bro again. He had not stopped rubbing his neck. The bigger bro, however, was a little more difficult to read.
Merry whispered to her though her earwig. “You’d better re-raise,” she insisted.
Jayne tried not to laugh or ask Merry why she was whispering. “I re-raise. Fifteen-hundred.”
“Fifteen-hundred?” Merry protested. “That’s just nuts.”
Jayne ignored Merry in her ear and smiled at purple pantsuit lady. She blinked quickly and bit her bottom lip. “Fold.”
Bartholomew’s face took on a look of subtle bemusement as he watched Jayne. She was sitting straighter since the last hand she lost. He indicated towards the older gentleman, who was pulling his bowtie. “Call.” He pushed a small stack of chips forward.
The father and son appeared to consult each other nonverbally. The son folded, but his father decided to stay in. He pushed his chips in. The middle-aged man with the expensive watch appeared to break out in a small sweat, but he stayed with the bet too.
Bartholomew smiled, exposing his perfectly straight teeth. “Showtime, ladies and gentlemen.”
The dealer indicated at Jayne, so everyone around the table looked at her. Jayne smiled coolly. She understood from the context that because it was her re-raise she must show her hand first.
There was no going back now. She was terrified the cards she knew she held would have magically changed to a cursed hand. She took a deep breath and flipped her two cards over.
The rest of the table groaned. The middle-aged guy had come closest to her hand, but it wasn’t enough. Bartholomew let loose his inimitable laugh. “That was one hell of a comeback, young lady! Alright ladies and gentlemen, that was the last hand. Time to cash out.”
Jayne sat in shock for a moment.
“Jayne? Jayne, what just happened?” Merry asked.
“I… I won.”
Bartholomew assumed she was talking to him. “I don’t know how you did it either, young lady, but I’m glad you had it in you.”
Jayne exhaled, shaking the numbness. “Thanks.” The dealer continued to count the others’ chips and showed them the code on the cashier’s machine to retrieve their remaining credits.
Jayne was back on task though. “Now to what brought me here…”
Bartholomew frowned. “I was hoping, amid all the excitement, you’d forgotten.”
“The Armaros Hold’em gambit was a good one, however you told me you’d tell me about him…”
Bartholomew appeared to be searching for the right words. “Would you believe we were partners at one point?”
“That would explain why you have the intel. What else can you tell me?”
“I can tell you that you’re in over your head.” He smiled a slow, paternal smile. “I have to settle all this. Cash out and wait here.”
Jayne smiled to herself and stood up, waiting for the croupier to cash her out.
Merry let out a breathless, nervous laugh. “You certainly know how to bring the suspense.”
Jayne turned away from the table to whisper back to Merry. “I told you we’d get our intel.”
“And you did it without Vlad!”
She turned back around. The croupier had just finished counting her chips and was punching numbers on the cashier’s device. “Did you have a good night, Miss?”
Jayne giggled. “Oh yeah.”
&nbs
p; “I’ll say you did,’ he agreed. The amount she had won and the code for transfer appeared on the screen on the small tableside console. “Alright, I’m adding those credits now. Here’s your transfer code.”
Jayne eagerly punched the code into her handheld tablet. She grabbed her fingers twice just to keep them from trembling. Jayne swiped into her account. 8,500 credits. She closed out of her account and signed back in. “There… there seems to be a mistake. There’s 8,500 credits here.”
“Oh, there’s no mistake, Miss. Just your lucky day.”
Jayne jumped happily and thanked the croupier. She looked around for eavesdroppers before asking Merry, “Did you see that?”
“Wow, Merry, thanks so much for walking me through that round of poker.”
“Yes, Merry, thank you. We’re a good team.” Jayne laughed, finding a sofa in the foyer outside the games room. She wondered what exactly went into Bartholomew’s settlement routine. Jayne opened her comm log. Two calls from Alfonso, but no voicemails or texts. The excitement of the day was catching up with Jayne. She yawned and felt her eyelids get heavy. Inside, she felt exhausted, but she’d never show it. Jayne thought whatever Alfonso found would have to wait until she was mentally able to process it.
She took in the scene. The bar at the other end of the hotel had a handful of patrons, mostly late-night lonely hearts types. Jayne felt her mind drifting, noting how Techcropolis worked hard to combine an ancient Victorian or mid-earth 1920’s aesthetic with the cutting-edge tech of the day. Still, the one wall with the silver and dusty purple wallpaper brought out the silver frames of the velvet chairs. She laughed to herself about the appropriateness of her sitting in a room of things that work but shouldn’t.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Jayne jumped at the sound of Bartholomew’s voice. “Ah, finally. I was starting to think I couldn’t trust you.”
“I’ve compiled some information on your person of interest. His name is Burrett. He’s a real piece of work. Turns out the reason he dropped off the grid was because he was officially ‘unofficially’ disappeared. Rumor has it he’s still alive. Just holed up in one of those hole in the ground kind of places off-world.”
Jayne felt a nagging anxiety as she realized that this case was rapidly escalating into something she hadn’t seen coming. A part of her swelled with pride and excitement at the opportunity to do some real spy work. Another part of her wanted to throw up.
“Off-world?” she asked, trying to maintain her outward composure. Last thing she wanted was Fauchery thinking she wasn’t a pro. “Where off-world?”
His expression turned quite grave as he pulled her to one side and lowered his voice further. “Tarem. A secure facility, it seems.” He paused. “I mean, at this point this is so off-book we’d be lucky to get the truth… but…” He shrugged. “Seems legit to me.”
For a moment Jayne saw the façade he wore drop away, and for an instance he held the expression of someone who had been in the exact line of work she was in. It was the haunted look of someone who had fought for Federation and planet, against all threats internal and external: a mixture of pride, honor and despair.
And then it was gone.
“So I guess that’s another dead lead,” he continued, his galvanized look returning. “But good luck with this Chamberlain guy. If he’s anywhere as near as skilled as his old partner… or as zealous and brutal, I’d watch your six. Walk away from this case. That’s my advice.”
Jayne’s expression remained determined as she listened but filed his warning away to consider in depth later. “I just need anything you have,” she insisted.
He pursed his lips for a moment, and then reached into his pocket for his tablet. He held out his hand. “Give me your device,” he said quietly, glancing around.
Jayne took her tablet out of her purse and handed it over to him.
He nonchalantly pulled out his own handheld and put them close together for data transfer. He tapped a single keystroke on his own and watched the data upload. “I’m downloading what I’ve compiled for you. Perhaps you should read it right now.”
He handed the device back to her.
Jayne started skimming the master document Bartholomew had uploaded to her.
Jayne got a little over two pages into the document before the words started swimming. “I’ll have to read this in the morning.”
Bartholomew put a hand on Jayne’s shoulder. “Look, I like you, kid. You have spirit and you could season into a fantastic spy…”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “But…?”
“But you’re in too deep with this,” he told her. “The guy you’re looking for is seriously bad news. I can’t emphasize this enough. He’s psychopathic and manipulative, I doubt he’d know the truth if it kicked him in the balls. He lives within his own truth. The government doesn’t just go around disappearing ex-agents because they need a holiday in the Ring Riviera. He was disappeared for a reason. And that doesn’t even cover the political aspect. The Tarem State won’t like it. Our military won’t like it.”
Jayne let his statement marinate. “The more I hear about this treaty, the worse it gets.”
“There’s a reason for that, Jayne. It’s bad. Really bad. Whatever’s going on here, you want no part of it.”
“But you handed over the intel anyway?”
Bartholomew sighed, “I threw in a game you’ve never heard of as an obstacle, but you won. A deal’s a deal.”
Jayne extended her hand to Bartholomew. He took it and shook it firmly, his hand lingering in hers for a moment longer than it needed to. “I appreciate it,” she told him. “And you’re right. What kind of spy doesn’t know how to play cards?”
Bartholomew offered Jayne his arm. “Come on, it’s late. I know you’re more than capable of taking care of yourself but let me call you a cab.”
Jayne took his arm and the two walked towards the exit. “You’re one of the good ones, Fauchery. One of the good ones.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Stim Café, Downtown, Avalon Space Station
Alfonso sighed as he opened his comm and connected with Jayne’s office number. He could feel his stomach churning, though he wasn’t sure if it was the kava or the situation that was doing it.
Merry picked up. “Spy for Hire. No problem too big, no job too small.”
“Hi. This is Alfonso. You must be Merry?”
Merry paused, slightly taken off guard. “Um.. Yes?”
“I’m Alfonso,” he repeated. “Jayne’s friend. From er, the-“
“Academy!”
“I was going to say space station. But I guess you know.”
Merry audibly scoffed. “Yeah. Of course I know. Spies have to have training, you know.”
“Yeah, I suppose there is that,” he admitted, feeling foolish.
“So, Alfonso-from-the-Spy-School-on-the-space-station. How can I help you?”
“I’m trying to find Jayne. Do you know where she is?”
“She's at a poker game.” Merry let her attention drift away from her laptop and leaned forward. “Why? What did you find?”
“A lot, actually. I think I found exactly what Jayne needs to crack this thing.”
Alfonso could hear the clack of Merry’s keyboard stop suddenly, then restart again. “She should be back any time now. How about you tell me what you found?”
“But what was she doing at a poker game?”
“Long story. What did you find?”
Alfonso sat back down on the metal chair in the kava shop and took a deep breath. “Your guy Chamberlain was groomed to have a specific skill set. I mean, really specific. He was an idealistic prodigy who graduated the Academy early. Nothing eventful for the first five years, but his behavioral markers kept coming back with more and more paranoia and mistrust for authority.”
Merry slurped at the last of her kava. “Isn’t that all spies? I mean, it’s kind of a stressful job.”
“More so with Chamberlain. His
file has all these gaps, which correspond to laws and restrictions that got snuck in without Tarem realizing it.”
“What kind of restrictions?”
Alfonso scanned the documents for the key words. “The genetic restrictions on seeds got stricter and they eventually outlawed nitrate production on Tarem.”
“You know,” Merry interjected. “I don’t think most of the ring people know it’s illegal. They just seem to accept it as life. But there are only five or six farms on Tarem anyway…”
“That’s another thing,” Alfonso continued. “One of Chamberlain’s missions was around the time that several Tarem farms closed or merged.”
Merry’s head was spinning. “Hold on, Alfonso. I need to process this for a second... All of those restrictions are in those docs Jayne stole. And they all happened after each of Chamberlain’s mystery missions.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” he admitted, trying to hide his anxiety still. “Was Chamberlain the only operative for all of them?”
“I don’t know if he was the only one, but the gaps in his file occurred at the exact same times and his behavior worsened after each mission. You’re essentially saying they turned an eager prodigy into a jaded stereotype. Colonel Kurtz type shit.”
Alfonso nodded. “It makes me wonder what he saw during those missions. Or did. Hmmm… Do you suppose this is why he wants to stop the Treaty?”
“It would have to be,” Merry agreed. “All of these restrictions that started 24 years ago are specifically mentioned in the current treaty. An operative with as much tenure as Chamberlain could have opted for a cushy job. The government would have set him up with a nice desk job, private sector security stuff, or as a professor at the Academy. But instead he disappeared.”
Alfonso tried to keep his voice low and even. “Exactly,” he whispered. “Why would he choose to do that when he could have written his own ticket?”
The implications of Alfonso’s words were a ringing echo chamber in Merry’s head. Time felt like it was slowing to a stop as her mind raced, computing the implications of what Alfonso was telling her.
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