by Matt Wallace
“What about his brother?” Fred asked. “Quincy Barnes?”
“Yup,” Mister Sam said. “We looked, found nothing. That’s not surprising, though. For the poor, non-Church families in this place, most times there are no records at all.”
That was bad news. But if Mister Sam had a contact at central records, that could speed things up if Fred turned up any other clues.
“You still in touch with Maxwell?”
“Afraid not,” Mister Sam said. “Purity investigation. He vanished about five years ago. Never found out what happened to him. I did what I could for the boy, but I have a business to run. Did you try the mines where he worked?”
“That’s where I’ve been for the last couple of weeks,” Fred said. “Enough people remember him, but mostly only as a football standout. He had a reputation as a brawler in the mines, though. Got into a lot of fights.”
Mister Sam smiled. “Oh, that. Everyone wanted a piece of the boy because he was so big. He only fought to protect himself. Used to put on a mean face at the mines, but he’d come here after. When no one was looking, he’d cry — he was only twelve, thirteen, and grown men wanted to fight him. He did okay for himself, but he hated it and was always afraid of what might happen.”
“Can you think of anyone else who knew him as a little kid? Maybe someone who knew his brother? Any of his family?”
“Turnover’s high on Micovi, my friend,” Sam said. “And I’m not talking about losing employees. I’m talking about life spans. Being close to the wrong person can get you killed if that person gets in trouble. Pay too much attention to someone else’s business? That can also get you killed. Most people find it best to stay unattached when it comes to anything outside their doors.”
Fred nodded. He understood. It was little different on any Purist Nation planet, but Micovi didn’t even qualify as a “planet.” It was just a colony. As long as the mines and the cornfields kept producing, the rest of the Nation could give a crap what went down here.
“Who should I talk to, then? It’s important, and I’m running out of time on this rock.”
Sam’s right hand cupped his face. He pulled at his cheeks as he stared off, thinking.
“I can think of one place that might have detailed records on Quentin,” he said.
“What place would that be?”
Mister Sam jerked his bulbous chin toward the window. Fred looked outside — one structure dominated the view. It was the stadium, the home of the Micovi Raiders where Quentin Barnes began his professional football career.
“Raiderville,” Sam said, using the local nickname for the place. “That’s the biggest business going here. Bigger than the mines even. Biggest legal business, that is. Now it ain’t Tier One, mind you, but there’s still a lot of money tied up in the PNFL. Stedmar Osborne owns the team. You heard of him?”
Fred nodded. “Sure. He runs the rackets here on Micovi, right?”
“That and more,” Mister Sam said. “He’s a rich, powerful man, but he ain’t so rich he can afford to pay someone millions and not know what he’s getting for that money, so the team keeps the best records it can on prospects and active players. You can sign a kid who is a great talent, pay him an advance, but if he’s related to a man who becomes an enemy of the Church, that kid can just disappear. The Raiders organization probably learns everything they can about their players. Considering Quentin was the greatest quarterback that place has ever seen, if there are details on his past, that’s where they’ll be.”
“Then that’s where I’ll go.”
Mister Sam held up a finger. “If you’re going to get mixed up in Stedmar’s business, you need to watch out for his three goons. Frankie, Sammy and Dean are mean as a cornered stonecat. They will hurt you.”
They will hurt you. Not said as hyperbole, or as a warning, but as a straight-up fact.
“What do they look like?”
“They always wear suits,” Mister Sam said. “They’re big as bulldozers, all three of them. Frankie, they also call him no-neck. He and Dean are white.”
“Tower-white?”
“No, the pinkish kind,” Mister Sam said. “Like from Earth stock. And Sammy, he’s black as black gets. His right eye is steel. Hard to miss. You see those three, just get the hell away, you hear me?”
Fred nodded. That kind of information was not to be taken lightly. “I appreciate it. And I knew it took a very wise man to make a sauce this good.”
Sam tapped a finger on the table. “Flattery ain’t gettin’ you out of the check, son.”
Fred paid his bill, leaving a large tip.
Chapter 6: Goolie
It was more than just a football stadium.
Next to the Church, Raiderville was the center of Micovi’s community. Sometimes those two things combined, usually for major holiday ceremonies when the local Mullah would perform a sermon and the stadium would fill with those who either believed or just wanted to be seen believing. The stadium also supported concerts, religious theater, even community gatherings when stalls and tents were erected right on the field proper.
The stadium also served as the center of public executions. They had burn pits behind either end zone, because who would want to clean ash off the 50-yard line? The pits were usually covered with a metal disc, painted in whatever bright logo the current advertiser wanted.
Yes, from work to play to worship, the stadium reflected the community it served. It did all of these things, sure, but on most off-season days, the place was empty.
Frederico timed his visit for a day of High Worship, when the believers packed into Micovi’s countless houses of worship. That not only ensured the stadium would be closed, but also that most of the staff would be attending services. That left only a skeleton crew manning the floors to which he needed access — he didn’t anticipate much trouble.
It wasn’t much of a disguise, but he didn’t need much. He came ready to hack the service entrance lock, only to find it was broken and only looked locked. Come the preseason for Tier Three, someone would discover that and fix it. For now, it seemed, it made it easier for the service staff to enter, and they hadn’t bothered to tell anyone.
Fred had slipped in and found the janitor’s office. Some gray coveralls, a black STAFF hat and a mop and bucket later, he was almost ready to go. He adopted a slouched posture, convinced himself to walk with a slight limp in the right leg and added a scraggly beard from the kit he carried with him everywhere. Five minutes after entering the stadium, Frederico looked like a different man. A different, shorter, defeated-by-life man.
Raiderville was small as far as stadiums went. It seated 14,250 officially, although when Quentin had been quarterback, they found ways to squeeze in almost a thousand people more. Everyone in a sold-out Raiderville crowd would barely fill up a single end zone of Ionath Stadium. So it was easy to think of the place as “small,” but with no one there, the seemingly endless walkways and tunnels made it feel a bit cavernous.
Fred made his way toward the stairs that led to the lower levels. Just before he turned a corner, he heard a familiar voice — a voice he had never heard in person but had heard on dozens of sports broadcasts.
He turned that corner, kept his eyes fixed on the floor and watched out of the corner of his eye: Yolanda Davenport, walking side by side with Ezekiel Graber, head coach of the Micovi Raiders. Her white hair blazed in the hallway’s fluorescent lights. She had that solemn you can talk to me look on her blue face.
“I’ve heard Barnes was a big Krakens fan,” she said. “Is that true?”
“Oh, no, he wasn’t,” Graber said. “The Krakens? Barnes loves the Pirates. It’s all he ever talked about.”
“The To Pirates?” Yolanda said, as if it was the first time she’d ever said those words. “Would he have wanted to be part of that organization?”
Graber laughed. “Yeah, no question. If he had a chance to play for them, he’d take it.”
They passed by Fred, still talking about Barn
es. Fred found his stairwell and headed down — Yolanda Davenport wasn’t his business. He was here to find out about Quentin’s family, and as long as she wasn’t asking about that, he didn’t care what she wanted.
He reached the bottom floor. In a dry place like Micovi, the local backups would be kept in some basement room. Sure, the stadium was mostly empty, but if he could avoid the personnel offices — which would have more cameras and more guards — all the better.
It was laughably easy to find the backups room. There was an actual lock here, but the highest tech on Micovi was at least twenty years out of date in the Quyth Concordia, where Fred did most of his business. Still, he timed himself — thirty-three seconds to get past the lock. Not his best time. Maybe he was getting older and slower.
He slid inside and shut the door behind him. Like any Purist Nation business, they kept a local backups area in addition to off-site storage. He smiled when he saw the storage devices; in Ionath City, they would have been the cheapest thing available — thirty years ago, that was. Now, even the cheapest resale shops in Ionath City wouldn’t have devices like this.
Sometimes Fred forgot just how backward the Purist Nation was.
He lifted the left coveralls pants leg. He’d wrapped his sniffer routine hardware sleeve around his left calf. He removed it and started connecting it to the interface.
If there were records on Quentin, they would be here. Fred finished connecting the interface. The program would route through the Raiders’ system, collecting any and all references to one Quentin Barnes. Judging by the archaic computer system, this wouldn’t take long.
He’d just started the automated program when he heard something, something he knew he should not be hearing. A thumping, coming from inside the walls... no, from the ceiling. A light, irregular thumping — something was moving in the air vents.
Air vents that were way too small for a Human.
He might have written it off as a rat, even a roundbug, but he actually recognized the staccato beating sound.
“Goolie,” he said quietly. “What are you doing on Micovi?”
The sound... it was coming closer. It was coming from the air vent up near the ceiling.
Fred looked around the room. He found a chair. He lifted it, then set it ever-so-quietly on the floor below the vent. One foot at a time, he stepped onto the chair, put his hands up below the vent and waited.
Moments later, the fluttering came closer, then stopped. Still, Fred waited, hands raised above him like a spider waiting for the right moment to pounce. He heard the sound of a power screwdriver. The vent grate came away from the wall, then slid inside without a sound.
Right about... now!
Fred timed it perfectly, grabbing hard as soon as he saw motion above him. His hands locked onto the firm body of a small Harrah. The alien immediately tried to fight, but Fred quickly adjusted his grip so that his fingertips pressed into the soft spot on its left flank, behind which lay the creature’s stomach.
As a kid in school, they had taught Fred how to kill every species in the galaxy. They’d also taught him how to torture them: puncture the stomach of a Harrah — for which a straight finger punched in hard would do just fine — and the amount of pain would leave the Harrah screaming, ready to answer any question you might have.
As soon as Fred’s finger pressed down on that spot, the Harrah’s struggles instantly ceased.
“Rico, you wouldn’t,” said Goolie, the backpack strapped to his top emitting the words. “You’re not a killer.”
“You’re right,” Fred said. “Good thing for me puncturing your stomach will only put you in the hospital for a couple of weeks.”
Goolie said words that came not from his backpack, but from his wide mouth. These words were more of a hiss than a tone. Fred didn’t have to speak Harrah to recognize cursing.
“Knock it off,” Fred said. “What are you doing battin’ your way through ducts in a football stadium on this backwater rock?”
Fred kept his grip tight. Goolie might be small, but he was no defenseless creature. The Harrah was a well-known grease-man who worked the Concordia, the Planetary Union, and now — apparently — the Purist Nation. Goolie was a grease-man most of the time: occasionally, though, he would take the big money and perform a hit. Fred held a tiny killer, and he knew better than to give the winged creature so much as an inch of wiggle room.
“Well?” Fred demanded.
“Just seeing the sights,” Goolie said. “What’s it to you?”
Fred pressed the tip of his finger in a little deeper.
“I’m on the job!” Goolie whined. “Same as you!”
“Same as me? Same trade or same job?”
“How do I know? You know how it is, Rico, I just find pieces for whoever has the scratch. I don’t put puzzles together. That’s you.”
“Don’t call me Rico,” Fred said.
“But that’s what people call you. When they want a real hitter, they call for Rico, right?”
“I don’t do that work anymore,” Fred said, “So call me Rico one more time, and you’ll have a brand-new hole in your body. Got it?”
“Yeah. I understand.”
“So last time I ask — what are you doing here?”
Goolie didn’t answer. Instead he tried to wriggle away again. Fred tightened his grip and began patting him down, feeling Goolie’s custom bodysuit, looking for anything that might reveal the Harrah’s goal.
But then again, did Fred really need to find anything? Fred was here looking for information on a certain quarterback — what were the odds that a Harrah grease-man was here looking for anything but information on that same quarterback?
“Barnes,” Fred said. “You’re here for info on Barnes, aren’t you?”
Now Goolie struggled more fiercely than before, and that was all the answer Fred needed.
“Who sent you, Goolie? Anna Villani? Gloria Ogawa? Gredok the Splithead?”
Fred heard steps outside the door. Heavy steps. It sounded like giants stomping through a playpen.
Goolie had help. He’d triggered some kind of a call, probably embedded in his suit — that was why he’d struggled so much even though he clearly couldn’t get away.
Fred yanked his wings hard enough to separate tendons.
“How many?” Fred said, his voice low and mean. “And who are they?”
Even though the Harrah was clearly in pain, the voice from his backpack sounded cool and clear. “Answer to both questions is the same,” he said. “More than you can handle.”
Fred quickly looked around. He opened a desk drawer, stuffed Goolie inside, slammed it shut, then pinned a chair against it. There was a muffled shriek from inside and a furious flutter of wings beating against metal, but Goolie was trapped.
Goolie wasn’t the only one who didn’t have a way out. There was only one door to the room. Fred searched, wondering if he could take the first Human thug through the door — if there were only two, that might even the odds. But he had no idea who was coming. They could be good Church boys, or they could be Human hitters from off-system.
Then Fred saw his only way out.
First, he reached into a pocket for a minicam and set it on the desk. That would record the men who came through the door, sending the signal to the storage cube he had in his pocket. If he got out of this in one piece, he’d have a good look at the men who were working with Goolie. Then, he detached the sniffer device. Hopefully it had found some information.
That done, Fred ran at the chair he’d set against the wall, jumped, put a foot on the seat and launched himself up. He slid his arms into the air vent, then his head, worming his body into the too-tight space.
Behind him, he heard the door rattling as someone tried to get in.
Fred’s shoes kicked at the wall, trying to push himself deeper into the vent. He couldn’t make it far, but that didn’t matter — what mattered was not being in that room when the goons came in.
The door rattled harde
r, then came that pause he knew all too well: someone big rearing back a meaty shoulder.
Fred pushed himself all the way in. He could barely move, it was like a coffin. He moved forward a few feet, then pressed his back against the top of the vent and pushed down as hard as he could. The metal gave way almost immediately. He dropped through and landed hard on a desk. He was in another office, also vacant.
Fighting back a groan, Fred rolled to his feet and limped to the door.
From the other room, he heard the shuddering crack of a door giving way — and then he heard two voices. Two deep voices.
No... that couldn’t be, not on Micovi.
He didn’t have time to stick around and find out. He quickly slipped out the door into the hall and moved quickly back toward the service entrance. In seconds, he turned the first corner and was gone long before the men rescued Goolie and came to look for him.
•••
Coveralls gone, Fred walked down the street as a man of the cloth. Blue cloth, the mark of the Purist Church, his robes covering him from neck to feet. He even had an infinity tattoo on his head. This time he’d gone for blond hair. He looked good as a blonde.
As he walked, he looked at the few seconds of footage his remote camera had recorded before it was destroyed. He watched the footage and puzzled over the implications.
The men who had broken into the room? They weren’t men at all. At least not Human men. They wore enviro-suits complete with ventilation masks like the industrial cleaning men who decontaminated the stadium facilities on a regular basis. The suits, however, were huge and bulging in a way that no Human would require.
And if that weren’t enough of a tip-off, holes had been cut in the masks to allow muscled pedipalps to protrude through.
They were Quyth Warriors. Fred had seen bigger, but not by much.
This was heavy. Alien species weren’t allowed to set foot on Purist Nation soil, even on the fringes of its space. It happened, of course, especially in the fringes of PN space, but it took a lot of juice to grease the wheels. Goolie could get in and work because ninety-nine percent of the time, no one even saw that Goolie was there. That was why he was such a good grease-man. But two bruising Quyth Warriors? They couldn’t exactly hide in ventilation shafts.
