by Elin Wyn
A long moment, then the bot rolled back without acknowledging me, unblocking the entryway and glowing with a soft light. Kara trailed it, and I followed her, looking around. The dimly lit room was stacked high with junk, but on closer look the junk all seemed to be in remarkably good shape. The path twisted and turned, other openings leading off deeper into the darkness of the room.
"I'm sorry I didn't intervene when they took you," the bot said suddenly. "I'd told the systems to let me work on my project undisturbed. By the time I pulled out and saw the alarm, you'd already been saved."
Kara patted the bot's top. "It turned out fine. I don't expect you to watch over me all the time, you know?"
I followed the conversation with half an ear. Kara's friend was an AI? Made sense, would be useful. RATI - Remote Access Telemetry Initiative? Technological Infrastructure? Heck, could be left over from any number of Empire initiatives.
The bot stopped at another door. "I've been reviewing your friend's path since he arrived in the dome. There's some... oddities."
My gut tightened. It could be about going into the Waste without breathing gear. It could be about some of the jobs I'd done for Xavis, working my way up. I mentally reviewed what I could remember of them. Nothing out of the usual, no one permanently maimed. At least, I didn't think so.
Kara put her hands on her hips. "I'm sure there are. And I'm sure he's told me about them."
"You know I don't like new people," the bot sounded sulky. I'd never heard an AI sulk.
"We can go, if you want." Kara rolled her eyes.
"I can wait outside," I interjected. "If there's information, we need it." I turned, started to work my way back through the maze.
"Stop." The bot sounded resigned. "Kara says you're alright. And I saw you take care of her after those thugs took her. I may not be good with new people, but you’re alright. Probably.”
"Um... how much did you see?" I refused to be embarrassed about what an AI saw. But Kara seemed just as interested in the question.
"Come on down," the voice laughed, and the bot stood aside to reveal a lift tube.
Once we stopped, Kara led the way past more bots scurrying on unknown tasks, muttering about privacy. We stood under a light mist that smelled of antiseptics, and I tensed. An AI with components that could be infected? The only other technological/living hybrid I'd seen lately was the Helmet Heads.
Kara looked at me as we stepped out. "What's wrong? She doesn't mean to be rude, just doesn't get a lot of visitors."
Fighting our way past the bots, finding our way to street level, back through the maze. I could do it. We could do it. Plans, options, rolled through my mind. I slowed my breathing further, ready to drop into the dance of combat.
In the middle of a room lit by screens, I could see the back of a metal-encased hoverchair, slowly rotating towards us.
"What'cha working on now?" Kara bounced up to it, and my heart went into my throat. That wasn't in the plan.
"Same quasar computing project." Human hands pushed up, released the enclosure, and it slid away, revealing a very human woman of about Kara's age, long braid pulled over one shoulder, encased in a hover chair. Unlike Xavis, who, as far as I could tell, used his out of a combination of laziness and power trip, it looked like she actually needed the mechanical assistance.
The two chattered, not paying me any attention. Good. That was almost very, very embarrassing. Not an AI. Not a hybrid. What was she?
The dark-haired woman rolled forward. "Hello, I'm Rati Bergere. Kara says I'm happy to meet you."
Kara didn't say anything, but stuck her tongue out at her friend.
"I've got some programs running. Let's get some tea.” Rati eyed me cautiously. “I don't know if I have furniture that will hold you."
“Not a problem. I'm pretty used to it.”
She turned and led the way past the screens and into an open, airy room. After the clutter of the rest of the space, the pale walls and minimal furniture felt like taking a long, clearing breath.
Kara settled into a low-slung, overstuffed chair, and I sat on the floor near her, hands in plain sight. Rati clearly wasn't comfortable around me, no matter if Kara vouched for my presence. I could at least try to seem nonthreatening.
"Oh, hey, Bani and Hoyt are moving the littles over to the old refinery control center." Kara said, as she took a cup of steaming tea from Rati.
"Do they need help? I could send a bot or two, move some of the rubble, check the structure over." Rati chewed on a nail, eyes focused somewhere else. "Maybe I can custom fit something that would be easier for them to control, rather than relying on me remoting."
"That'd be great. They can use all the help they can get."
Rati paused before filling the second cup. "Would you like some?"
"Only if it’s convenient." A glance at the small table showed that she'd only expected one guest.
"Easy enough." Her fingers flew over the armrest of the chair, and another bot rolled into the room, a third, identical cup in its padded pincers.
"Thank you," she said absently as she took it. “Now,” she poured the third cup of steaming tea and sat back in her chair, eyes flicking over both of us. “What are you looking for?”
“We need to find Helmet Head,” Kara popped up.
For the first time since we entered her lab, Rati looked startled. “Who?”
“You know, that weirdo that took my dust.”
“Of course.” Rati tapped her fingers against the side of the cup. “Is he not at the coordinates?”
“Not when we were last there. He’s got to have someplace else he’s using for a base, some other hiding place.” Kara scowled. “Bastard took my haul, and I need it back.”
Rati sighed. “This… might be complicated.”
Kara sloshed her tea, but didn’t notice. “What?”
“The city’s camera system has been hijacked.” Rati cracked a grin. “By someone other than me, I mean. And I haven’t been able to get back in for hours. I’ve been in the ice, trying to crack it, but whoever took it over is good.”
Doubt wove through Kara’s voice. “Better than you?”
Rati thought, sipped her tea. “Maybe not better, but fast. Almost inhumanly so. I’d think it was an AI, if I didn’t know all the ones in this sector. And the ones I know would have said something if a new one came in.”
Kara looked at me, and I shrugged. “Maybe. I’m as lost about their tech as anyone.”
“Who else could it be,” she snapped back. “Maybe it had the sense to do what we planned - use the city cameras to find us before we found it?”
Rati’s eyes followed us. “It’ll be easier to help if I have all the info, you know.”
“The Helmet Head,” I ran my hand through my hair, stalling. “This is going to sound nuts if you didn’t see it, but it’s some weird hybrid human/android. Could it be the one blocking you? Directly interfacing with the systems?”
“Possibly.” Her gaze speared Kara. “So, it was a new kind of android, and you didn’t bring me one? After I asked, and everything?”
I thought about the mess of writhing flesh, wrapped around the dull gray metal, cracked dome spilling open. “I really, really don’t think it would be a good idea.” A spark of inspiration hit. “But if we find the second one, I’ll try to find a way to bring at least a sample of it back to you.”
Rati’s fingers tapped the side of her cup again, thinking. “We just need to find a way to locate him, then, and without the cameras. Maybe start running a trace on the servers he’s using to block me?”
Kara interrupted. “I’ve been thinking. Do we really need to find it?”
My neck almost sprained, turning to look at her so quickly. “What? That was the plan. Find him, find the dust, get off planet. That was the plan, right?”
“I know,” she murmured, eyes almost closed, thinking, “but I think we’ve got it the wrong way ’round.”
I waited, almost able to watch the wheels spin
in her head.
“We need the dust for two things, right? Get the credits for a ship, and to finish the deal with Xavis.”
I nodded.
“But dust has no history, no way to say who’s the owner of which particular pile,” she continued. “That’s why I went after it to begin with.”
“True…” I was trying to catch up, really I was. But I couldn’t see how that made a difference right now.
Her face lit up like a kid opening a present, with sheer glee. “We don’t need that dust, any will do.”
Aha. Like a kid opening up a present of chaos and housebreaking.
“We do another hit on Sary’s. There was plenty more in that safe, I just didn’t get a chance to remove it.”
I stared at her. “Are you forgetting that’s how you got into all of this? And it seems likely he’s moved the contents of the safe since you burned a hole in it?
“Nope, haven’t forgotten a thing. But unless you have a better idea, I think we should go with it.”
I thought. It was true, we didn’t technically need to find the Helmet Head. I wanted to know what was on its commtower, but the intercept should have sent that to my data pad back in my quarters by now.
I wanted to know where their base was, who was behind the Hunters… but I had a feeling even if we found it, there wasn’t a way to get that information from it. Although, I’d have liked a chance to take that Hunter on again. But that wasn’t particularly helpful.
"You're saying it's time to change the plan."
"Nope," she shook her head vigorously. "New plan is the same as the old plan - at least the important parts. Get off New Rhea and move from there, right?" She leaned back in the chair, eyes half-closed, tea long forgotten. "We just need to rethink our strategy. Which is easier, faster? Stealing the dust I already stole, or go back and get more?"
“You're forgetting the flaw with both of those options,” Rati said.
"Hmm?"
Rati's voice was clipped, impatient. "You don't know where to locate either source. You could waste all the time just finding either our strange visitor, or Sary's new depot."
"Couldn't you build a device, a sensor of some sort to locate antonium?" Kara asked. "Remember, you thought the Helmet Head we saw on the tape had something like that. How else could he have found my hiding spot?"
"Of course I could. If I had a few days. Which we don't."
"But what if we knew where a third stash was," I wondered, mostly thinking aloud.
Both women pivoted to me, eyes bright as lasers.
"I have an idea, maybe. But it’s walking the fine line between stupid and brilliant." Stupid. Definitely leaning towards stupid.
"Let us decide that," Rati said.
"Why can't it be both?" Kara answered at the same time.
I sipped my tea, sorting my rough thoughts into some kind of order.
"The Tithe..." I started, and Kara choked on her tea, spluttering.
"That's brilliant." She leaned over the edge of the chair to kiss me. "See," she turned, beaming to Rati. "I told you he was wonderful."
"Apparently," Rati said drily, "since the two of you appear to be able to read each other's thoughts. But I'm not entirely sure what you've just decided on. Besides," she grinned at Kara, "if you're that excited about it, I’m still going to weigh in on the side of stupid idea."
"Humph," was Kara's only reply.
"Like I said, it could be either." But Kara's faith in the idea added to my confidence. "Every Tithing Day, people from all over the city bring goods to Xavis. And Kara wasn't the only one planning to pay in dust. It's been too soon for him to have shipped it off planet, so it’s got to be somewhere stored in his complex. And dust knows no provenance."
"We're going to steal his own dust for the tithe," Kara bounced in her chair, a wicked grin on her face. "Best idea ever."
"You know I can't help you once you're in the complex." Rati chewed on her bottom lip, looking worried. "The complex is on a different system than the rest of the city, never found a way in."
"What if we brought you in with us?" I offered.
Now they both looked horrified. "She can't leave," Kara started. "I don't go out," Rati said with an air of finality.
"Who said you had to go in person? From what I can tell, you spend a lot of time remoting, right?"
Rati nodded slowly.
“What if we brought in a program, enough to make a hole from the inside, get you inside Xavis' systems?”
Her eyes lit up. "The security in founder's complex is intricate, but working on it from two directions.... Yes, it should be doable."
"And once you're in, you could find where Xavis stores all the good stuff," Kara was nearly rubbing her hands together in anticipation. Once we were off planet, out of this place, I could tell we'd have to find another outlet for her more unconventional hobbies.
"And once I'm in, he'll never be able to get me out." Rati's eyes were already distant, focused on lines of code no one but her could see. “Once this is inside, it will start worming its way through, like a regular comm. But the signal will have a map encoded, a hole in the security I can get back through.”
She took a deep sigh, focus snapping back to the real world. “This is going to take a while, guys.”
“How long,” Kara said. Our deadline with Xavis approached, and while I could fight off the rest of the enforcers, I'd rather not. At least not without a few more days of healing.
“A couple of hours, at least. I’m sorry.”
Kara laughed at Rati's glum expression. "That's no time to wait at all.”
She shot me a look full of promise. "I'm sure we can think of plenty of things to do."
Kara
"You want to do what?"
Davien didn't seem as excited as I'd expected.
"Weapons shopping.” I repeated. “Supplies. Stuff we'll need for the job, right?" If he didn't have such a strong jaw line, I'd have said he was pouting. "What did you think I had in mind?"
He glanced over at the back of Rati's chair. She'd already jacked back in, blind to the world around her.
"I'd been considering some indoor activities."
"Really."
He knelt between my legs, still as tall as I was seated, and pulled me to him, fingers twined in my hair, cradling the back of my head with insistent pressure. "Really."
The demanding kiss left no question of what he wanted, and I immediately opened to the flick of his tongue. My arms twined around his neck and my legs wrapped his waist as if driven by their own desires.
He stood with me still clinging to him, lifting me out of the chair as if I weighed nothing, his arm pulling my hips tighter into him.
"Excuse me."
Gasping, we broke away from each other to stare open mouthed at Rati..
She rolled her eyes at us, grinning. "I need to move to the lab. You're in the way."
Face burning, I wiggled out of Davien's arms, only a little wobbly on my feet. "Sorry about that, didn't think you'd be noticing things for a while."
Rati rolled on past, shaking her head. "I'm not easily shocked. But you'll be more comfortable in one of the rooms in the back, I'd think." She shot me a look over her shoulder. "I promise to turn the security cams off."
Davien looked as uncomfortable as I felt.
"Actually," I said, slipping my hand into his. "We’re going shopping. Anything you need while we're out?
Rati pulled the immersive virtual screen over her head and shoulders. "No thanks," came her voice from the speakers around us. "I'll tell the bots to let you in if I'm not done by the time you get back."
On the street, Davien looked a little more comfortable. "What do you think we need? We're not going in for a full-on attack, you know."
"I need to replace my knife, at least." I'd been itchy for it for the last three days. Surely we had time to find a replacement. I looked up at him. "Don't you want anything?"
"Blades are fine, but I'm usually ok without. But I�
��ll get you whatever you want." His stomach rumbled, as if arguing with him.
"I see. Maybe we should go by Artin’s?"
He actually blushed. "Apparently healing up without the medtanks or nutribars takes a lot more food."
"And Artin's curry is amazing," I added.
He didn't argue.
This time I only had the one bowl, while Davien polished off three.
"You can have both of the sweets," he promised.
"I don't understand you. They're so good!"
"Then I wouldn't want to deprive you," he replied, stretching back in his chair, no longer devouring everything Artin set in front of him like, well, like a wolf.
By the time Artin brought over the orange confections, business had died down enough for us to talk with him.
"Artin, have you seen Bani?"
Davien scowled at the name, but I ignored him.
"He came by yesterday to help me, but said he had another job today. Why?" Artin's brow furrowed. "Is there anything wrong?"
The last thing I wanted to do was add to the old man's worries. "Nope!" I answered as cheerily as I could. "Just keep missing him around town."
I thought for a long moment. If things didn't go well tonight, I wouldn't be back. If things did go well... how much time would I have before Davien wanted to leave?
I hugged Artin, probably startling the hell out of him. I guess I wasn't known to be particularly affectionate, even with the few people I liked.
"Thanks," I muttered.
"I'm more worried now," he replied, then turned a piercing stare on Davien. "I don't know what's going on. I probably don't want to know." He waved one finger close to Davien. "But I know I want her back and safe. Do you understand, young man? Just because I'm old, doesn't mean I'm helpless."
I held my breath, pretty sure Davien wasn't exactly used to being threatened by elderly cooks.
"I promise," was all Davien said, then held his own hand out, but for a handshake. "She'll be safer with me than she's ever been."
Artin snorted, but took the offered hand. "That's not saying much, you know."
"Guys, I'm right here?" I said, torn between being annoyed and touched. "I don't usually opt for safe?"
