by J. S. Morin
“He’s gone!” she said. She hurried over to intercept Carl. “I don’t know what to do.”
Carl shrugged. “He’s got to be around somewhere. He’ll turn up. Have you considered asking the local cops? They’re not the most pleasant bunch, but they oughta have a soft spot for a lost kid.”
Esper pursed her lips and frowned. “I’m not his legal guardian. I can’t get help from anyone official …”
“She’s right on that one,” Roddy said. “They’ll probably think she’s after a bounty.”
Carl snickered and glanced up and down the wispy priestess. “Her?”
“Some of ‘em are pretty good actors,” said Roddy, wagging a finger.
“Well, what do you expect us to do?” Carl asked. “We’re not cops. Hire someone local to help you.”
“I don’t know anyone local,” Esper protested. “Everyone seems so … sinful. I don’t know who to trust. You treated me and Adam like guests.”
“I guess by local standards, we are pretty respectable,” said Roddy.
Carl cast him a sidelong we-just-sold-a-rented-grav-sled look, and Roddy gave a subtle shrug in reply.
“I imagine his parents can reward you if you help me get him home,” Esper said. She looked at Carl with such pleading hope in her eyes.
Carl sighed, his resolve no match for a girl in trouble. “Fine. Lemme get Tanny and Mriy on the comm.” He pulled out his pocket comm link. “Hey, why didn’t you ask Mort to help? You wouldn’t have had to wait outside for us.”
“I’m a little afraid of Mort.”
Roddy’s shoulders shook in a silent chuckle.
Carl spoke into his comm. “Tanny, are you with Mriy? … good, get back to the Mobius … yeah, it’s urgent … Adam’s missing … yes, I agreed already.” He flicked the comm off. “They’re on their way.”
# # #
Carl and Tanny jostled their way through the crowds of Willamette Station, past noodle shops and tattoo parlors, palm readers and black market drug smugglers with their own store fronts, courier services and holo-vid parlors. It wasn’t the sort of place most people brought children, especially not their own. The ones who did were mostly hardened sorts, the ones that didn’t expect anything more from their offspring than to take over the reins of their own ill-won criminal enterprises. Adam ought to have stood out like a puppy in a pigsty.
“Have you seen my nephew?” Carl asked a clean-cut man in a navy surplus coat. “Ten years old, light brown hair, about yeah high.”
The man in the navy coat jerked back like Carl had a skin condition that looked contagious. “Human?” he asked.
“Of course he’s human, gene-spliced mule, what do I look—never mind.”
Carl took Tanny by the hand and led her away. They were posing as husband and wife, a micron-thin cover identity that she hated, but agreed to in order not to raise suspicion when looking for a child. Her grip just about cut off circulation to Carl’s fingers, warning him that he was getting too close to his cover story.
Tanny flagged down a young couple who seemed like they might prove sympathetic. “We’re looking for a lost boy: human, ten, skinny with brown hair. Have you seen him?”
They looked at one another. “I think so,” the woman said. “Blue eyes?”
Tanny froze. Carl bit the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out at the pain in his hand as she tightened her grip reflexively. “Uh, yeah.”
“I saw him with a couple mercs in body armor,” the woman said. “I think maybe they’re station security. I couldn’t say for sure; this is our first time outside ARGO space. Isn’t it exciting?” She smiled, revealing all gold teeth—body-mod fanatic. When Carl looked closer, he noticed that her ears were slit to look like flower petals, and there were diamonds set into the whites of her eyes.
“Thanks,” Tanny said. She let go of Carl’s hand and headed off. Carl rushed to keep up with her before she disappeared into the crowd. His hand tingled as blood returned to its normal flow.
“Where you going?”
“Hangars,” Tanny replied. “Willamette doesn’t hire mercs; everyone’s uniformed who works for the station.”
# # #
Esper followed close behind Mriy, thankful that someone else was clearing a path for her. She had grown unaccustomed to crowds. The Harmony Bay settlement on Bentus VIII had been wide open. There was none of the forced closeness resulting from having a fully artificial atmosphere; the planet was designated Earth-like, and she could go outside and see clouds and birds in the sky. Aboard Willamette Station, everyone fought for enough room to breathe. But nobody got in Mriy’s way. Strange xenos were usually given a wide berth, just as a general precaution. Anyone familiar with the azrin race would have kept even farther from her path.
There had been little to do aboard the Mobius, so among other things, Esper had looked up whatever she could find on Mriy’s people. Despite being bipedal, they were evolved from her world’s equivalent of tigers and lions and house cats. There was no direct correlation to Earth species. They weren’t a technological people, only discovering space flight by having human explorers land on their world and explain the concept at gunpoint. They were an ARGO protectorate, not actual members, and most of their population preferred to live on-world. Those that left usually worked grunt jobs in personal security or mercenary companies.
Knowing all this, Esper had mixed feelings about enlisting Mriy in the search for Adam. “You sure this is a good idea?” she asked Roddy quietly.
Roddy plodded along in Esper’s wake, just as Esper used Mriy to clear a path for her. “Sure, why not? She likes the kid. She catches a whiff of him, we’ll have him back in no time.”
Mriy garbled something, but Esper had no magic earring to tell her what the azrin was saying. She looked to Roddy, who gave a long-suffering sigh. “She says she’ll find the little warrior.” He beckoned for Esper to lean close, so he could whisper. “I think she figures the fighting games are a sign he’s got a vicious streak.”
Esper nodded, wondering if there was any truth to it. Adam had never struck her as violent, but he was an excitable boy and seemed competitive.
Suddenly, Mriy stopped in the middle of the pedestrian walkway. Esper bumped into her from behind, but the azrin didn’t seem to notice or care. She growled something, and her head snapped to the left.
“She’s found him,” Roddy said. “Or at least a scent.”
“What are we waiting for?” Esper asked. “Let’s go.”
Mriy said something else. “She wants you to stay behind. Meet us at the ship. She’ll handle it from here.”
Esper drew herself up tall. “I most certainly will not! He’s my responsibility, and I’m the one he’ll be hoping to see.”
Mriy nodded. That needed no translation.
They plowed through the crowd, Mriy’s snarling demeanor keeping station-goers from hindering them. The azrin danced the tight line between efficient bullying and getting station security summoned to arrest them. They left the commercial district where they began their search, and continued into the maintenance bays, station subsystem access points, and finally to the far end of the hangars from where the Mobius was berthed. Mriy pointed a palm at one of the personnel doors.
“This is the place,” said Roddy.
Esper’s heart raced. If they had gotten to him, he could already be aboard a ship back to Harmony Bay. “Open it!”
“You keep back,” Roddy said.
Mriy shoved the door open and stalked through. Inside, a sleek, modern interceptor ship sat with its cargo bay door open. Metallic crates lined the wall, some of them still on the grav-sled that had brought them. Two mercenaries in glistening black body armor stood over the merchandise, one reading from a datapad, the other poking through the crates’ contents. Their helmets were perched on the seats of the grav sled.
“Hey, what’re you doing in—?” one of them began to ask.
“They must be after the kid,” the other one cut in. The datapad cl
attered to the floor, and both mercenaries grabbed for their helmets. Mriy growled something that Roddy didn’t bother to translate, and both men drew clubs from hooks on their belts. Esper hadn’t actually gotten around to reading the station rules, so she wasn’t sure how lax they were on weapons inside a rented hangar bay. The clubs looked like metallized plastic, and there was a device built into the end of each.
“Just give us Adam and no one needs to get hurt,” Esper shouted, seeing the conflict about to play out in front of her.
“We got a job to do, ma’am. We ain’t handing that boy over to you or anyone else,” the mercenary who dropped the datapad replied. “Maybe you just want to call off your cat, and let us do our job.”
Mriy’s natural slouch made her appear short by human standards, but physiology is a strange thing. As she snarled in defiance, she drew herself up to her full, two-meter height, towering over both mercenaries. The mercenaries exchanged a look from behind the black, featureless helmets, then looked back to Mriy. They spread out and came at Mriy from the sides. Crackling blue arcs snapped at the clubs’ ends as they swung toward the azrin.
But neither had ever fought an azrin; that much was plain to see. She caught first one, then the other by the wrist, her own arms moving faster than any human could react without cybernetic limbs. She twisted her right wrist, and the mercenary in her grasp dropped his stun club. She yanked on the mercenary to her right, lifting him as she drew him close, and tore his throat out with her teeth, forcing her way beneath the helmet. Dropping the body, she extended her claws and slashed out the throat of the other.
The whole encounter took perhaps five seconds.
Esper swallowed. She clasped her hands together to stop them shaking, and found herself in need of prayer. “I run to you, Lord …”
“Yeah, she has that effect on me sometimes, too,” said Roddy. “But let’s go check the ship for the kid.”
# # #
“This should be it: hangar eighty-four” Carl said, huffing for breath. They had crossed the full length of the station to reach their destination, the hangar that three witnesses had identified. If the two armored figures with him were the kidnappers, this is where their ship was berthed.
“We should have brought a weapon,” Tanny said, putting a hand to the door controls.
“Praesertim virtute, right?” Carl asked with a smile. The translator charm didn’t correct his Latin either.
Tanny frowned at him quoting the marines’ motto back at her. She hammered the door controls with a fist and burst inside. Even unarmed, Carl liked her odds against two flash-and-polish mercenaries. No one walked around a space station in armor unless they were assaulting it, or they needed people to think they were bigger badasses than they really were.
Carl poked his head in after giving himself a five-count. There had been no signs of trouble, just the sound of Tanny’s boots on the steel plates of the floor, but even those had stopped. What he saw was Tanny staring back at him with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face. He also saw Mriy and Roddy by the cargo ramp of the mercenaries’ interceptor, two dead bodies, and his erstwhile passengers. With a shrug of apology to his ex-wife, Carl strolled into the hangar, checking over his shoulder as he closed the door behind him.
“Well, it looks like you all made quite a mess in here,” Carl remarked, giving a slight frown. It was the same look his commanding officers used to use when inspecting something and needing to make up a flaw for the sake of feeling useful. “Lucky for you, I think I see how to fix this. By the by, you all right, kid?”
Adam nodded.
“I think we have to let the authorities know what happened here,” Esper said.
“Um—” “Yeah, maybe not—” “I see no reason—”
Carl just smiled and held up his hands. “No need to be hasty. This sort of misunderstanding happens in places like this. We just need to make sure no one gets sore at us until we’re a few systems away. Mriy, thanks for taking care of those two.” Mriy grinned, showing her fangs. “Now, drag that mess you made into their ship and dump them in the crew quarters.” Her grin turned into a hiss. “Oh, and clean up when you’re done. You’ve still got a bit of human … right …” Carl pointed a finger to a spot on his cheek, and mirrored Mriy until she found the spot on her own cheek that was still bloody.
“You want me to check if they had surveillance on the hangar?” Roddy asked.
“Station won’t—that sort of snooping’s bad for business—but you can check the ship,” said Carl. “Pocket anything you see that you like.”
“I’ll get Esper and Adam back to the ship,” Tanny volunteered.
Carl’s eyes drifted over to the anti-grav sled parked to the side of the hangar. A mischievous grin betrayed his idea even before he said a word. “Not yet. Help me load up that sled.”
“We can’t afford to waste time stealing a grav sled,” Tanny argued.
As he climbed the cargo ramp, Roddy stuck his head back down. “Well, he sold the one we rented, so maybe a replacement isn’t a bad idea.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“The cut’ll drop from thirty-three hundred to under three grand if we don’t get our deposit back,” said Roddy. “I’m not a charity.”
“You can’t just—” Esper began.
“Let’s get this thing loaded,” Tanny barked. Adam snapped to attention like a raw recruit and pitched in. Carl and Tanny started heaving crates back onto the grav sled without even looking. Noticing the datapad on the floor, Carl tucked it between two of the crates.
Esper looked on with a helpless, horrified expression.
“Mind giving us a hand?” Carl asked. “This’ll go quicker, and we’ll get out of here.”
“I can’t …”
“Listen, Sister,” Carl said. “We just ended up with a double-homicide grabbing Adam back for you. Maybe if they investigate, we’ll get our names cleared. More than likely, they’ll dust us just to keep their law-and-order reputation appearances up. Now, grab a crate and pitch in.”
# # #
Two hours later, the Mobius was deep in the astral again, leaving Willamette Station behind—possibly for good. Mort had put them shallow this time, letting them have the time to think about their next move. Something wasn’t sitting well with Carl, a nagging thought buzzing in the back of his brain. He needed some time to think, to throw ideas in a heap, sort them into piles, then kick the piles over and start again. Esper and Adam were back in Chip’s old quarters as if the Mobius had never offloaded them. Tanny was at the controls, probably reading. Mriy and Roddy were in the hold, sorting through the mercenaries’ cargo. That left Mort.
Digging through his quarters, Carl found a battered cardboard box with lettering too faded to read anymore. He gave it a cursory dusting with a shirtsleeve, and headed up to the common room. The box was older than Carl or even Carl’s parents. It had belonged to his grandfather, and it had been passed down through the generations. One day, Carl was going to have to find a new box to replace it, but until it crumbled to confetti, he was going to keep using the original packaging. Carl removed a plastic housing, three hundred centimeters on a side, and placed it on the kitchen table. Tucked beneath it were two stacks of composite plastic datacards, each bundled together with an elastic band. Glancing at the two bundles, Carl set one down across the table from him, and removed the elastic from the other.
“Mort,” he called out, loudly enough for the wizard to hear from his quarters. “Up for a game of Battle Minions?” There was a chronometer on the common room wall, set to Greenwich Mean Time. Carl watched the seconds blip by.
Eight seconds later, Mort’s door opened. “You’re what now?”
“Come on, it’s been weeks,” Carl said. “I still owe you one from last time.” He flipped through his stack of minions, trying to decide how best to prepare for facing Mort’s.
Mort stopped by the refrigerator and pulled out a pair of beers. He tossed one to Carl and the other opened of its own
accord in his hand.
“Watch it,” Carl chided him, not for throwing the can, but for magicking his own open. “I actually want to play a game, not spend hours trying to log into the omni from a random depth to restore our minion data.”
Mort waved away Carl’s concerns as he took a sip of his beer. “I’m careful. So, what’re you in the mood for? Standard game, gladiator, or one of those flaky custom setups you keep pestering me about?”
“Just standard,” Carl said as Mort unbound his minion datacards. “I need to talk something over with you.”
Mort squinted one eye at Carl, a look that sent some men clutching for charms of protection. Carl had seen it too many times, and just smirked back. “Tanny trouble again, or something with those two?” Mort asked, pointing with his nose in the direction of Esper and Adam’s temporary quarters.
“The kid,” Carl confirmed. He finished his selection of minions and fed the eight chosen datacards into his side of the game board. “Something just seems off with him. You talk with him much? I see you two gaming enough.”
“Enough, I suppose,” Mort replied. “Nice kid. Got his head on straight. Miracle after what they probably did to him.”
“He doesn’t seem … I don’t know … a little phony?”
“I’m no expert on kids, but I’m a fair judge of minds. Don’t know what the scientists did to the kids at that school the plastic girl taught at, but the teachers have done well by him. Politics, religion, music, he’s got a pretty broad set of interests.”
“And you two just sit around playing Omnithrust Racer, talking politics?” Carl asked.
“Adam and I see eye-to-eye on the Mitchell Administration, AGRO membership expansion, and Earth preservation. He’s a bit too pro-science for my liking, but I blame the schools for that.”
“I’ll let Esper know you disapprove of her curriculum,” Carl joked.
“Bah, she taught math,” Mort replied. “Best thing I can say about her, really. The One Church’s ‘magic for Him, not for you’ stance sours the lot of them.” Mort slid his own minions into the machine and the game began. Little holographic monsters rose from the game board and sized each other up. Carl and Mort keyed in last-second modifications to their minions’ orders as a holographic clock counted down seconds until the battle started.
