by J. N. Chaney
Now that Leon was unconscious, I stood up and shook my head. “No, I refuse.”
The crowd was mixed. Some booed, some cheered. Pyke caught this mixed reaction from the crowd and glared at me. “He’ll die either way. And so will you. Guards, lock them both up. I think we’re going to have an execution at sundown.” He was hyper focused on the scene before him and didn’t notice when Marcella took the opportunity to flee.
There was a unanimous outcry from the crowd at his announcement. At first I was confused at the anger I saw on the many faces, but understanding soon dawned. If Pyke had promised freedom to the winner of this fight, then he’d just broken his word and lost any trust he’d gained with these people.
The gates opened and a group of guards entered, rifles at the ready. Leon woke up at the sound of it all, and two of them forced us both out of the pit and into the room I’d occupied before the fight.
I could hear Pyke still speaking to the crowd and their indiscernible, screamed responses. “We have to get out of here,” I said to Leon. “Can you help me with the door?”
The effects of the sedative had finally begun to wear off, and he nodded.
Before either of us could move, I heard the lock click open. Leon locked eyes with me and nodded again. I hoped that meant we were in agreement on attacking whoever came through the door, but I had no time to explain.
The door swung open and I rushed forward, stopping just short of punching Marcella in the face. To her credit, only a squeak escaped. She held up the keys and jerked a thumb at the door.
All three of us left the room and ran through the areas beneath the camp. I had seen the route from my cell in the barracks down in the pit, so all I had to do was retrace those steps and emerge topside. Leon and Marcella followed behind me as I led them through the mine from memory.
By the time we emerged from the barracks, things had gone downhill for Pyke. He stood near the entrance, yelling at guards and workers, but no one listened. I caught his eyes and saw them go wide with shock, then hard with anger. He brought the microphone up. “Get… get…” The foreman puffed and dropped the mic, grabbing at his chest, then fell forward into the pit.
As soon as Pyke hit the ground, Mayhem ensued as the workers turned on the guards with an array of crude weapons. Someone managed to open the door and workers began to stream through it. I pointed at the opening and surged forward. Now that the crowd had thinned out, the guards noticed us. Shots rang out from behind us and more guards ran to cover the door.
“We’re not going to make it!” I yelled over my shoulder. “Go up to higher ground!” Peeling away from my previous route, we ran up the stairs leading to one of the towers. I had no idea what we were going to do when we got there, but for now it was our only choice.
The problem solved itself when a loud rush of air slammed into us from above. It was the MikroTrek. The ship came down like a stone, hurtling with enough speed to leave a contrail. It stopped short behind us, hovering only a few feet from the ground and cutting off the guards.
I grinned and yelled out over the rush of the engines. “Marcella, our ride’s here!”
The ship dropped the rear hatch and we charged at it. Leon stopped running and looked at me. He panted heavily and swayed on his feet. I ran past him. “C’mon, get in.”
He limped behind me and I helped heave him onto the ramp. I hit the call button inside the airlock. “We’re all in, Dorian. Get us out of here.”
14
I got out of the shower at The Prime Lady and dressed in one of my spare jumpsuits. Dorian had given me a fresh comms. The new device was stiff and felt awkward, but I ignored it. “Alright, Dorian. I’m good to go. Let’s debrief.”
“We’re over in Leon’s room, kid. Meet us here.”
I left the room and crossed the hall to where we had arranged for Leon to stay. Dorian opened the door and waved me inside. To my great relief, there were several room service trays already inside.
Dorian looked up from a sandwich and gave me a grin. “See, a little shower and a few days in the desert fades away.”
I sat down on a couch and opened one of the trays. It didn’t matter what was on it, I just wanted to eat something that wasn’t slop and drink water that wasn’t laced with uranium. “Painkillers helped too,” I said after swallowing my first large bite.
Dorian laughed. “Yeah, that’s true.”
“Where’s Marcella?”
“She’s in her room. As soon as we’re done here, I’ll go get her.”
“Done with what?” I asked.
Dorian looked at Leon, who was finishing a second plate of fried foods and a beer. “First we’re going to talk to our new friend here, then we’ll figure out what’s what with her.”
I nodded and looked at the other man. “What’s your story? I assume you started out a fighter at one of the casinos. Professional? What went wrong that got you caught up in a labor camp?”
Leon shook his head. “You Renegades got all the insider info, don’t you?”
I’d filled him in through our cover story on the way back to the hotel and he’d accepted the lie without suspicion. “Yeah. I was a prize fighter working in Celtan. I didn’t have a problem with booze or drugs, no gambling debts that went bad. I just had the bad luck of knowing someone else that did.”
Dorian patted Leon on the arm. “I think we’ve all been there. So, you stepped in to cover the debt of a friend and ended up paying off more than a few grand?”
Leon sighed. “It was more about not leaving witnesses. I met with Pyke to argue a payment schedule for my friend. He saw I was strong and could make him some cash, so he nabbed us both. Been two years now, or longer. Hard to keep track of time in a place like that.”
I finished off my food and drained the mug of tea. “What happened to your friend?”
Leon grimaced at the thought. Seeing the pain cross his face reminded me of my own experience with Remi and I immediately regretted my words. The exhaustion of the last couple of days had set in and I’d forgotten to filter my observations.
“He only made it a few weeks. He tried to run one night. Figured he was better off dying in the cold than slowly being poisoned by the mining.”
Dorian poured him another beer. “What’s your plan from here?”
“I owe Alphonse for saving my life. Besides, I need off this planet. I hate it here and I never meant to stay this long. If you need an extra pair of hands, I’m your man.”
The Constable nodded thoughtfully. “If you’re willing, we’d appreciate the help. I understand, of course, if you have family to attend to.”
A look of sadness and loneliness crossed Leon’s features and I understood his situation before he said it.
“I don’t have anybody. All I had was Jon, but now he’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” I said gently. And I meant it. I knew exactly what it felt like to have no family and lose a close friend.
“That’s a bad deal, Leon. Sorry to hear that,” said Dorian. Then he turned to focus on me. “So, Alphonse. What took you out into the desert?”
I briefly relayed what I had learned about Velio’s hostage camp. “Evelyn clearly wants to leverage higher prices out of the buyers or she intends to keep all the money in trade for hostages. She must know that continuing to sell off the product piece by piece is leaving a trail. I think she’s doing a final big deal and is putting a lot of effort into covering all the angles.”
Dorian drank his own tea and considered. “That makes sense. As soon as we dealt with Olip, me and the rest of the buyers were locked into the warehouse. My comms went dead, along with everyone else’s. They didn’t let us go until the next night and that was when I got a message saying you were ‘in good keeping’ and that you would be returned after the sale next week.”
I stood up and stretched, feeling the pain in my legs and arms. “Any idea which of the other buyers Marcella is linked with?”
Dorian frowned. “No. And you aren’t going to like wha
t I found. Or what I didn’t find. She’s not linked to any of them. Nothing I could dig up pointed to her having any connections to the buyers. She could be part of a random kidnapping and ransom game that Velio plays, but my money is she’s a plant.”
I rejected the information. “I don’t know. She’s resourceful and seems adept at manipulating people, but she could have left me at any time, especially after I got locked up.”
Dorian nodded and looked to Leon. “What is your read on the girl?”
The fighter crossed his arms. “She fooled me. When she was with Pyke, she had him convinced her daddy would be coming to pick her up with a pile of money.”
I picked at a plate of food, distressed by dark thoughts. “We bring her in, we ask some questions. If she was out to get us, she had all the leverage after the crash. Not to mention she didn’t try to stop me from attacking the abductors. I admit she’s been holding back, but I don’t think it’s anything to do with Velio or Evie.”
Dorian didn’t look convinced but he stood up. “Alright. We’ll see where this goes.” He left the room and returned in under a minute with Marcella.
She lit up as she noticed me, and I read her as she crossed the room to sit next to me. Everything I saw looked and felt genuine. I didn’t detect any deception and almost told Dorian as much but decided against it.
“I’m glad to see you’re looking better,” she said with a grin.
I smiled back. “I’m a survivor. Nothing avoiding death can’t fix.”
She laughed. I chastised myself internally for the bad joke. What was that about?
“Marcella, we want to help you get back to your people. To do that, you have to level with us. Why were you kidnapped?”
She looked at me in confusion. “What are you talking about? It had to be the same reason as everyone else. For the money.”
I saw the lie instantly. Some people look away when they lie, but a more common response was for a deceiver to make more eye contact, which Marcella had just done.
“No, you’re not. I need the truth, Marcella. Now.”
“I’m on Din looking for my father. I don’t know why I was kidnapped by those men.”
The visible pulse at her carotid quickened and her eyes glimmered with unshed tears. She could be lying, or it could be associated with the intensity of her emotion.
“Do the men have something to do with your father?” questioned Dorian.
Leon stayed quiet for the time being.
Marcella wiped her eyes with her other hand. “Maybe. My father is an archeologist and relic hunter. At least, that’s what Mom said about him. He left us more than a decade ago. One day he was a professor studying artifacts and lecturing, and the next he had dropped out of our lives. She says he was obsessed with finding some vault somewhere. Something that tied his work together.
“We lost him when he left, but it would be truer to say we lost him before that, when his obsession pushed us away. I don’t really remember him as more than a distant figure.”
The tears spilled over and she started crying. I grabbed a napkin for her off the tray and offered it to her awkwardly. Emotions like this never ceased to make me uncomfortable.
“My mother died after a slaver group just like Pyke’s raided our town on the outskirts of the desert.”
“That’s how you knew so much about the muck in the ravine and surviving in the desert,” I said.
She bobbed her head up and down in agreement.
I needed to know more, but I also wanted her to know more about me. If I could empathize with her, then she would trust me. “I lost my own family. Not in the same way. They left me. Orphaned me years ago. I never knew why they left or what took them from me. I know that feeling, being alone.” It was a lie, at least in part, but it told enough truth to put me on her level.
She wiped another set of tears away. “So, you understand? I have to find my father. Maybe he’s working with someone dangerous. Someone that’s an enemy of Velio’s? Maybe they kidnapped me to use as leverage. To force him to tell them where the vault is?”
Her pulse, her body language, her tears, everything pointed to the same answer, that she was genuinely concerned about this distant father. I couldn’t help but hold a grudge against the man who had left her after seeing her pain. It did remind me of my own father, but I’d buried that hurt long ago.
Something about the description of her father was tugging at me, but I didn’t know what. Dorian had showed a similar concentrated expression when Marcella had called him a relic hunter.
An archeologist, just like someone I’d heard about recently.
Could her father be the Missing Constable Lacroan?
“How were you planning to find your father?” I asked.
She pulled her hand back and dabbed at her eyes with both hands. “There are relic hunters that frequent Celtan. I know of a few places they hang out. I already told you that I’ve been acting as a guide and taking jobs all over the city and beyond. My hope was that they had contact with him and could help me.”
I looked to Dorian again. “Maybe we can help.”
My partner cocked an eyebrow. “We have important business to attend to, don’t we? Funds to secure for our seat at the table, as it were.”
“True, but relics and artifacts are worth looking into,” I argued. “Remember, you told me it would be in our best interest to hunt some down while we were on Din?”
He seemed to consider that, then nodded. “Alright, Alphonse, you and Marcella track down the leads for her father. I’ll work on the rest, at least until you’re done. Try to avoid getting grabbed, will ya? You both need to lie low and it’s probably best if you change your appearance.”
Leon stood up and punched a fist into his opposite hand. “Don’t worry, Mr. Dorian. I’ll watch out for them. Nobody is going to grab them while I still breathe.”
Dorian crossed to the door. “Well then, let’s all get some rest and start fresh tomorrow.”
15
Getting started the next morning proved to be a challenge. The physical exertion I had forced my body to endure had left me sore, but I was otherwise functional after a few stretches. I found myself lost in thought while I worked through the extension and struggled to focus.
Understanding that my mind needed to puzzle out all the information I’d put into it, I gave in. Sitting on the ground cross-legged, I let my hands rest gently on my knees.
I didn’t fully trust Marcella, but her story had a ring of truth and elements that needed exploring. The most important of which was that it sounded like her father, or the man she described as such, might be our missing Constable. If so, he could corroborate her story and her leads would help us find him. Ultimately, either way, it would bring me closer to Evelyn and the justice I sought.
Could she be a plant? I wanted to say no, but Dorian had asked questions that I couldn’t answer. Thinking back to her reactions, I realized she hadn’t really answered them all either. Leon had said that she’d been acting at the mine and I’d seen evidence of that myself. Just as I’d told half-truths in order to avoid an outright lie, she could have done the same.
Unsure if my ruminations had helped, I pushed up from the floor and geared up for the day. Dorian had been right. I needed a change of costume and persona and wanted to avoid feeling under-protected if it came to more physical confrontation. That gave me the perfect opportunity to pull out my Remi coat. It was the only possession I requested Shaw pick up from my former life. Not only was the long black coat different in aesthetic from the uninteresting brown jumpsuits of my smuggler-in-training persona, but it came with a history, one from the past, but also reminiscent of the bond I had formed with Remi.
Besides, I looked good in the coat. More mature and somewhat taller. That in itself was important when striking out into the field.
Now I just had to overcome the mental barrier before me. I wanted to believe Marcella and to have her story dovetail with my own. To find her father, to reveal that
he was Lacroan, would give us a fine set of allies to back Evelyn into a corner.
I took a moment as I finished dressing and adjusted my collar in the mirror. Was I hoping her story was true because it would assist me with my mission or because I felt something for the mysterious, resourceful, talented girl? I shook that thought from my mind and refocused on the task at hand. The opposite sex had never distracted me before and I didn’t intend to let it start now.
A knock sounded at the door, startling me out of my reverie. I checked the door camera on my pad and saw the top of Leon’s head. I opened the door to admit him, and he closed it quickly behind him. He’d cleaned up well and wore dark pants with heavy work boots and a loose shirt concealing the weapon Dorian had given him.
I handed him an earpiece.
“I already got one of these from Dorian when he set me up with the gun and the clothes,” he told me. “But thanks.”
I put the earpiece in my right ear and pointed to my left. “We’re on a double comm today. Left is you, me, and Dorian. Right is you, me, and Marcella. Be careful which you use. If things go south out there, we need to have segregated communication.”
Leon nodded, swapped his current piece, and inserted the second. “You take this stuff pretty seriously, huh?”
He was expecting a lengthy answer.
“We have our reasons.” I left the statement to hang in the air with a sense of finality. For my sake. Explaining too much right now would compromise the mission and pull me off track. He didn’t push the issue.
I grabbed a third earpiece from my kit bag. “Alright, let’s meet Marcella and get on with the hunt. You have your plan?”
Leon nodded. “I’ll be tailing you from a distance and jump in if you give the signal. Otherwise, I’ll observe and report anyone I see more than once or that looks suspicious.”
I nodded as I opened the door. “Trust your gut. If someone gives you a bad feeling, let me know. Let’s hope today is nowhere near as difficult as the last few.”
Leon walked next to me as we headed down to the lobby of The Prime Lady to meet with Marcella. The bright white tiling of the lobby was even more striking, and less blinding, after a couple of days out in the desert. We stood near the columns in the middle of the room. I didn’t want to get into a chat with the reception workers.
