Dawn of Dae

by R. J. Blain

  They were gone in less than a minute without a single trace. Colby ate the bag, too, which concerned me. “You’re going to get indigestion.”

  Could macaroni and cheese suffer from stomach aches? I frowned, once again puzzled by how my roommate ate.

  “Mommy.”

  “You need more than an apple,” Rob said, dismantling the rifle and returning it to its case. “It’s going to be a rather long evening.”

  “Fine. You cook, I’ll make plans.”

  “I already made plans.”

  “I’m changing your plans,” I informed him, digging through the case until I found the compartment holding the weapon’s shoulder holster. I slipped into it, stowed the gun, and stretched to test my range of movement. “I’m going to need a coat.”

  “Already got you one, and I picked it to help conceal your gun and holster,” Rob replied.

  “You’re not half as clever as you think you are,” I grumbled, grabbing hold of the duffel and pulling it towards me. I grabbed several extra magazines and stowed them in the holster’s pockets. “Give me Moore’s data so I can plan.”

  The way Rob smiled at me sent a shiver running through me, and for one heart-stopping moment, I wanted to drag him back to the bedroom. I blushed, which made his smile widen into a grin. “How badly do you want it?”

  I unholstered my Beretta, and in a smooth motion, disengaged the safety and aimed the weapon at his head. “I could use some target practice.”

  Rob lifted his hands in surrender. “Back pocket.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, sighed, reengaged the safety, and stowed the gun. I stepped to him, slid my hands under his jacket and went on a hunt for his back pockets. I found several folded sheets of paper, which I liberated from the dae. “If you value your life, you’ll just hand me the papers you owe me without being a pain in my ass next time.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Good.” I returned to the counter, smoothing the sheets out over the marble. Several addresses in neat handwriting awaited me, along with several names and dates. I flipped to the other sheets, which proved to be map printouts of the locations.

  One of them was on Gibson Island, and I nodded my satisfaction. “We’ll do this one first. I doubt we’ll find anything, but it won’t take long to check.”

  Rob leaned over my shoulder. “Waste of time.”

  “No, the real waste of time is leaving stones unturned. If he was smart, he wouldn’t have left his drugs or his money out in plain sight; elite hide things in hidden stashes all the time. They can get away with a lot, but a drug conviction would ruin him. Last thing someone like Terry Moore would want is eviction to the fringe. Elite are always like that,” I grumbled, and my resentment over the system flared. The elite benefited the most, but unless they were of the highest tier, even they were prey to those above them.

  “That’s fair. Okay, we’ll check the estate first. What then?”

  I relaxed at Rob’s question, turned over one of the maps, and hummed. “I need a pen.”

  Rob opened a drawer, shuffled through, and tossed me a pencil. Catching it, I held it between my teeth while I flipped through the maps to look over the other addresses. Unlike Kenneth, who preferred townhouses or estate properties, Terry Moore seemed to enjoy apartment and condo life. Three of his in-city residences were in skyscrapers in the heart of downtown, with one of them close to the college. According to the dates, Terry had owned the unit for at least four years.

  The most expensive of them, located in the wealthiest part of Baltimore, had been acquired for his use six months ago, which lined up with when he had bought the drugs from Kenneth. “This one is promising.”

  “That one?” Rob frowned, tapping his finger against the listing for the property closest to the college. “That’s his residence.”

  I took the pencil out of my mouth and jabbed it at the paper. “And the first place someone like Kenneth would look for him and his stash. It would also be the first place the college administration would conduct a random search of students. If he kept his drug stash there, he’s either really brave or exceptionally stupid. Now, while exceptional stupidity wouldn’t surprise me, if he’s evaded Kenneth, he can’t be that stupid.”

  “So why this one? That’s not going to be easy to get into.” Rob frowned, grabbing the map to stare at it. He pulled a cell out of his pocket, turned the scanner at the image, and stared at the display. “It’s fully private, heavily guarded, and I don’t think I have any contacts living there.”

  “Maybe you need to use contacts to get in places, but I don’t,” I murmured, flipping over a sheet and making a list of equipment I’d need to bust out of a secure, glass-fronted property. I eyed Rob, frowning as I tried to guess his weight and height. Did muscular dae weigh more than humans? “What’re your numbers?”

  “My numbers?” Rob blinked, and his eyebrows rose. “Are you propositioning me, Miss Daegberht?”

  “No, I’m trying to figure out how much you weigh so you don’t end up a flattened smear on the sidewalk when you fall from the fortieth story of a skyscraper. Your height and weight will do.”

  “One-ninety and five-eleven,” he muttered. “I’d rather be propositioned.”

  “Bad luck for you,” I replied, and with a happy whistle, I added enough scaling gear for both of us. “I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”

  “Not at all. With contacts, you realize we could walk in through the front door, correct?”

  “Oh, we’ll be walking in through the front door,” I reassured him. “If all goes well, we’ll be leaving through it, too. But a girl always goes prepared. The nice thing about these skyscrapers? The window cleaning systems are all electromagnetic, and you don’t need to use the building’s power to activate them.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be worried or not.”

  “I’ll be the one with the primary controller,” I murmured, smirking at him. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall. You might be obnoxious, but you have your uses. You can prove your worth by getting me everything on this list—on your dime. Get it right, and you can carve your share out of Mr. Hasling’s hide.”

  “You have a very nasty mouth, Miss Daegberht, and I think I like it.” Rob snatched the list out of my hand and folded it up. “I trust you’ll tell me where to buy these things.”

  “Maybe, if I’m feeling nice,” I replied, my attention shifting to which contact I’d send Rob to—and whether or not they had survived the Dawn of Dae.

  Twenty-Two

  Couldn’t you at least say I was handsome?

  It annoyed the hell out of me that Terry Moore’s Gibson Island summer home was two driveways away from the one Rob had procured for my recovery. It wasn’t worth driving to, although Rob took fiendish delight in showing off his sporty car. Colby dove out of the vehicle as soon as Rob opened the door, leaving us alone.

  The dae leaned towards me, sliding his hand along my neck to pull me towards him. My eyes widened, and he brushed his lips to mine in a teasing caress. “If you promise you won’t push me off a skyscraper tonight, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” I muttered, opening the door and getting out. “A lot better than that.”

  Rob pouted. “You’ll like it, I promise.”

  I leaned over so I could glare at him. “Unless you want me to push you off a skyscraper tonight, be quiet and do your job.”

  “I’m still not entirely sure what my job here is,” the dae admitted.

  It was going to be a long night. I sighed, waited until I could speak without snarling at him, and said, “Look pretty, follow me, and don’t touch anything.”

  “Couldn’t you at least say I was handsome? Pretty is so…”

  “Effeminate?”

  Rob scowled at me, but he said nothing.

  I headed towards the estate’s front door, shaking my head. Ringing the doorbell, I waited, listening for any noise within. It was silent. I w
histled a merry tune, and with Rob shadowing me, I circled the property searching for evidence of an alarm system.

  Terry Moore, as I suspected, was an idiot. He wasn’t just an idiot, but he was a cheap one. While someone, once upon a time, had installed a system, the cables had been cut or frayed over the years, and when I found a motion detector, its solar panels were so encrusted with dirt it had no hope of functioning. Shaking my head, I went to the most secluded window I could find, grabbed a rock, and cracked through the glass with two firm blows.

  “That’s noisy,” Rob commented, glancing over his shoulder at the neighboring property.

  “Mommy,” Colby added, and without waiting for me to open the window properly, it squished through the hole, shedding noodles as it went. The leftovers wiggled and followed after my roommate, oozing through the jagged hole.

  “That’s pretty creepy, Colby,” I muttered.

  “Mommy.” It sounded pleased with itself, and I couldn’t really blame it. I’d be pretty pleased, too, if I could hop through a broken window and reform on the other side with no sign of injury.

  “Allow me,” Rob said, taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeve before shoving his arm through the hole to unlock the window. Once he shoved it open, he brushed aside the broken glass. The shallow cuts on his arm faded while I watched. With wide eyes, I touched his skin. His blood stained my fingers, but none of the wounds remained.

  “That’s a handy trick,” I muttered, wiping his blood on my jeans.

  “What a waste of good blood,” the dae complained, scowling at me.

  Snorting, I slapped my hands to the windowsill, eased my way through, and rolled onto the hardwood floor. I came to a halt in a crouch, narrowing my eyes as I took in the residence.

  The place was empty; no furniture, rugs, wallhangings, nor keepsakes were present to show any sign of the estate’s owner. “That’s not normal.”

  “Explains why there isn’t an alarm system attached,” Rob commented as he eased his way into the house. “Why waste money protecting an empty building?”

  “Why pay for a summer house you’re not using?”

  “That, Miss Daegberht, is the real question.”

  Rising, I tapped at the floor, listening to the way my foot thumped against the hardwood. I prowled the entire room, aware of Rob’s gaze on me.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Compartments under the floor make a different sound. Sometimes the wood is thicker. Sometimes it’s thinner. Sometimes there’s metal. Depends on how it’s built, but listening is a good way to find things people don’t want you to find.”

  “Mommy!” Colby charged off down a hallway, disappearing before I had a chance to stop my overenthusiastic roommate.

  “I’ll go keep watch,” Rob offered, draping his jacket over his shoulder and shoving his hands into his pockets.

  Once both dae were out of sight, I sighed my relief. Working alone was so much easier. With them gone, I focused on my job, which was finding everything Terry Moore wanted to keep hidden. When I found nothing in the floors, I turned my attention to the walls. Brick offered clever homeowners a lot of opportunities to create hiding holes. I ran my hands over the rough surface, seeking loose bricks or gaps lacking mortar.

  I found two promising spots, and I huffed my triumph when one of the bricks popped out of the wall to reveal a small hole. It wasn’t large enough for Kenneth’s missing drugs, to my disappointment.

  It looked empty, but I ran my fingers over the inside, I sucked in a breath when I found something taped to the top of the cache. Peeling it off, I discovered a small velvet bag. I stuffed it into my bra for safekeeping and closed the hole. I did another check over the room before heading deeper into the house.

  Rob and Colby found me when I was searching my fourth room. Neither seemed pleased.

  “What’s the point in this?” Rob demanded, crossing his arms over his chest. “This place is empty.”

  “Mommy,” Colby agreed.

  Chuckling at the two amateurs, I pointed at the loose brick I had found on my first pass. Rob’s brow furrowed, and he leaned forward to check the spot. “This is a brick, Miss Daegberht.”

  There was something satisfying about yanking the brick out and whacking the infuriating man upside the head. I didn’t use much force, just enough to make him aware of the rough material touching him. “If I had wanted to kill you, I could have, and you wouldn’t have been able to stop me,” I informed him.

  Colby flattened itself to the floor. With a dumbstruck expression, Rob stared at me, his mouth hanging open. I returned the brick to its place and headed for the next room. I halted in the doorway, turning to face Rob. “You’re going to catch flies like that if you aren’t careful.”

  I left Terry Moore’s estate with a small fortune in ancient United States currency, all issued before the establishment of the caste system. While Rob and Colby seemed puzzled by my delight in the find, I knew what I had—and how much someone would pay for a piece of American history.

  It was tempting to keep the bills for myself. Some of them were over a hundred years old, and they showed little sign of damage from their stay in a dusty wooden box. I also found two other pouches similar to the first, which were all stashed in my bra for further examination.

  “For finding nothing of actual use, you seem quite happy with that box,” Rob stated, sliding into the car. “It’s old money.”

  “Worst case, I can use it to appease Kenneth,” I informed him, buckling in. “If he’s patient, he can probably recover most of his lost funds by selling it.”

  “It’s worth that much?”

  I wondered how long it would be until no one knew about the old United States and its history. Rob had an excuse; while he knew a substantial amount about life on Earth, he wasn’t from Earth. “After the reformation, these bills were taken from circulation. Banks were required to hand out new notes and the old ones were destroyed. Only collectors have them, and when the government locates such bills, they’re confiscated to be destroyed. History just isn’t valued,” I grumbled.

  “So it seems—except by the extremely wealthy, if your estimates on the bills’ worth is accurate. I’ll have to rectify my ignorance. While I’ve had a chance to do some studying of the locale, it seems I have some unfortunate gaps in my knowledge.”

  “There’s a shop downtown where the old highway access was torn down. Kenneth has a cache there where we can stock up for the heist.”

  “I know where that is,” Rob said, revving the engine. “It’s a bit of a drive.”

  “An hour or so,” I agreed, shifting to enjoy the way the leather moved beneath me. “Just don’t get caught speeding near the military outpost. As an elite, they won’t hassle you too much, but I’d rather avoid a strip search tonight.”

  “Strip search,” Rob echoed, and I chuckled at the annoyance in his voice.

  I wondered how long it would take for Rob to realize his possessiveness wasn’t just annoying, but impractical at best within the United States. “It’s rather inconvenient, especially if they decide they want to do a full pat down. At least they wear gloves when dealing with a dock rat. They don’t want to catch anything from folks like me.”

  “You’re not diseased,” he snapped.

  “I’d hope not after all of those damned injections you forced on me,” I muttered. “That’s how society works. You’re an elite. I’m not. Sure, being a Bach student puts me a little higher up on the ladder than a regular fringe worker, but nothing’s secure until I get my degree and the elevation in rank to go with it. I have to play by their rules. You can skirt them, as long as you keep your nose mostly clean. If you annoy them, they’ll just target me because they can’t touch you.”

  Rob clacked his teeth together. “Noted.”

  He slowed down to the legal limit, and I relaxed in the seat to stare out the window at the night sky. Without any reason to pull him over, we made it to the outskirts of Baltimore before Rob had to detour to avo
id the areas still under curfew, which included all of the fringe.

  “Only the fringe is still under curfew?” I asked.

  “Correct.”

  “Same old shit, different day,” I informed him with false cheer. “Welcome to Earth.”

  I stayed in the car while Rob and Colby haggled for the gear with one of Kenneth’s hounds. While I should have forced him to learn the ropes the hard way, I gave him one of the temporary pass phrases to cut through the bullshit, fearing I’d be waiting all night for him to figure out how to get the supplies we needed to scale down a skyscraper if we ran into trouble during the heist.

  Getting into the building would be the easy part. Once we were in, we’d have a thirty minute window, the maximum allowed time before the security guards would check on delivery people who had entered the building.

  Thirty minutes wasn’t a whole lot of time to tear apart an apartment, especially if it was still furnished. If the place had been claimed after Terry Moore’s death, I was screwed. I wondered how many empty apartments and homes there were, ripe for the picking, all because of the Dawn of Dae.

  The real trick would be convincing the security guard we were legitimate. As long as Rob kept his mouth shut—and I hid Colby in one of the bags—we’d probably be okay. I could always have Rob pose as a lawyer.

  He had the sleazy quality of one, and most of the security guards of the elite residences were middle caste; only a fool would challenge an elite lawyer. Satisfied with how to use Rob, I considered the next problem: finding the drugs without alerting the neighbors to our theft.

  As long as the door didn’t use a retinal or print access system, I’d be able to short circuit the door easily enough; the all-access card Rob was acquiring for me would cost him a fortune, but I’d put it to good use before the security teams figured out Kenneth’s latest hacks to their systems.

  The problem with the heist I was planning was the simple fact I couldn’t plan very much. With only one realistic way in and out, I had to hope the guise of a late-night delivery, complete with an obnoxious elite lawyer type, would buy me the full thirty minutes before security checked in and learned I wasn’t what I appeared to be.