Nightwatch on the Hinterlands

by K. Eason

  She did. Just not the sort she’d have to chop up with whitefire. “Gaer. Where we’re going—don’t take offense.”

  “Ominous. All right. Though why I’d be—oh,” as they rounded the corner.

  The Vulgar Vakar sat in the belly of the cul-de-sac. It was a collection of code violations—non-standard additions on the third floor that made it lean over and touch its neighbors, a saggy roof patched with sheet metal—protected from a PK crackdown by virtue of both location and patronage.

  “Ah. Iari.” Gaer cleared his throat, which in vakari sounded like a prelude to spitting. “We’re not going inside that place. Right?”

  Void and dust. Now he got squeamish. The alwar ganglords liked to play at respectability, suits and nice things and everything little inside the law. It was the big things where they stepped out of line: smuggling, drugs, all the voidspit that templars weren’t supposed to involve themselves in. Tenju anarchist-collectives maintained a more general disregard of PK order. Their dishonesties ran smaller: illegal gaming, illegal fighting rings, illegal—

  “It’s a needle-den, Gaer. Specialty’s cross-species porn. Told you, don’t be offended.”

  “I’m not offended. I’m afraid of being crushed under the ceiling’s inevitable collapse.”

  She laughed. It hurt. “Don’t be. We’re not going inside. We’re going this way.” She pointed at the side of the building. Corso’s office was a walk-up on the second floor, one set of crumbling brick steps and an indifferent railing from street-level. The flood hadn’t got this far up; the ground floors were original masonry, pockmarked by years of uneven erosion, scarred by acid rains during the last surge. A door to the building’s interior sulked at the top of the landing, peeling blue paint and a missing handle.

  Gaer sighed. “Oh. Steps. Excellent. I can fall to my death instead. Or perhaps fall through the floor. The ceiling collapse scenario from the other angle.”

  Iari eyed the masonry. Patches of concrete like scabs. The railing was a tangle of bolts and braces and wire. She imagined the floors inside, and looked at Char, and winced. “Char. You should wait down here.”

  The riev cocked their head side to side, like each tesla saw something different. Maybe they did. “Acknowledged, Lieutenant.”

  “Is that wise?” Gaer bared a sliver of blue-etched fang. “We might need Char with us.”

  “Thought you didn’t want to fall through the floor.”

  “Rather that than being shot.”

  Iari started up the steps. “You can wait down here if you want.”

  “Sss.” But he followed her, gingerly, as if soft steps would lessen the weight of his battle-rig.

  The door at the top of the steps wasn’t locked. It swung open on surprisingly quiet hinges, into a claustrophobic hallway of scuffed wooden floors and peeling plaster walls and yellowy teslas doing their best against pervasive gloom.

  “The floor will hold Char,” Gaer said from behind her shoulder. “It’s all over hexwork. So are the walls.”

  “Huh. What kind of hexes?”

  “Second-rate. Meant to keep existing structures intact.” He grunted. “I’d guess no one wants jacta bolts going through the walls or the floor. And some of these hexes are also resistant to surveillance.”

  No surprise there. The floor made a sound like snapping bone from the landing’s direction. Iari paused, mid-step. “Sure about the hexes?”

  “Yes.” Gaer bit the word off.

  “All right. Char. Come up. Be careful.”

  There were doors on either side of the hallway, about halfway up and facing each other, and a third door where the hallway dead-ended facing the outer door. It looked sturdier than its fellows, some kind of amalgam instead of plain wood. A small metal plate hung in the middle like a single, polished eye with letters etched on the metal plate, stencil-stiff Comspek.

  Corso Risar, P.R.I.S.

  Iari walked the length of the hallway, past the other two doors, made herself ignore the prickling urge to bash them down and clear the rooms. This wasn’t a raid. There weren’t Brood back there, laying ambush. There was just Corso behind that fancy door with the nameplate, maybe, assuming he wasn’t out on some errand and this hadn’t been a wasted trip.

  Her rig beeped a warning as Gaer leaned over her shoulder, brought with him a gust of burnt-sugar smell and the natural heat of vakari. “The setat does that stand for?”

  “No idea. Used to be P.I.S. Private Investigation and Security.”

  “Piss?”

  “Guess we know why he added the R.” Iari eyed the door handle. It looked somewhat newer than the rest of the door. The surrounding material—wood-looking, but clearly not just wood—had visible patches, daubed with fresh paint.

  She traded a look with Gaer. Then she brought the shield up and reached right-handed around the rim and tried the handle.

  Nothing blew up. The handle moved, the door clicked open. A wedge of light escaped into the hallway, its diffusion and white-fading-grey suggesting a single source from somewhere chest-height, rather than an overhead tesla.

  Iari nudged the door open with a boot and stepped in behind it.

  A chair skidded back. Then came a second, more hollow bang, that might’ve been someone’s knee hitting something more solid than itself, and a rattle of metal. The light wobbled.

  “Veek-licking fucker—!” Iari heard the whine of a whitefire weapon’s power core. A voice, Corso’s voice (her skin prickled with recognition), followed. “It’s customary to knock, but all right. Come in.”

  She cast a quick eye around the apartment, in case he wasn’t alone. There was the desk (askew, now, to the square of the room); shelves on one side, books competing with clothing and oddments for space; a pallet in the back corner partly cordoned off by a battered screen. A rudimentary kitchen, cookbox and coldbox and sink, all crammed into the opposite side. A small collection of crockery on the counter, stacked and filthy. The smell of pickled greenstalks and pepper sauce lurking under the stale oppression of old laundry and dust. A single window, smeared grey with dust and Elements knew what else, let a smudge of watery light in from the alley.

  No one else. Good. Because voidspit Corso was half-crouched behind that desk, holding a whitefire longcaster, old miltech issue, all the lights primed and ready to fire. An equally old miltech-issue lantern lay on its side on the desk, half its light scattering across the desk’s surface, the other half getting lost in the ceiling shadows.

  The battle-rig sent a jolt through her socket, a near-reflexive need to drop her visor. She gritted past the urge. “Put the voidspit weapon down, Corso.”

  He blinked at her. Same old Corso she remembered. Same slab features, jaw like a brick, eyes that remarkable tesla-bright blue. His hair had gotten even longer since the last time she’d seen him, even further away from army regs. Multiple braids glittering with hooks and bits of bone and Elements knew what else.

  “Iari.” His gaze dropped to her shield. “Still wearing the shell, I see.”

  Good thing she’d overworked the syn already. Corso made her want to trigger it again. Beat that grin off his face. She drew a slow breath through clenched teeth and reminded herself what Jareth had said in Meditations about acting from passion instead of reason, about that which differentiates a sentient person from a beast. Void and dust, that chapter could’ve been about Corso.

  It was not about her. She pitched her voice to dealing-with-scatterwit-recruits levels. “I mean it. Weapon down. Whitefire’s illegal for civs.”

  Now he looked at her. “Since when do I count as civ?”

  “Since you took your discharge.”

  He grunted. Flicked his gaze past her shoulder like a whip. “There’s a veek behind you carrying whitefire.”

  “The ambassador’s got clearance to carry. You don’t. Last time I’m telling you, put it down.”

&nb
sp; “Or what? You shoot me? Arrest me?” But Corso lowered the weapon and powered the core down with practiced, very clearly not civ motions. He set it down on the desk, muzzle pointed politely away. Raised both hands and waved empty palms at her.

  Iari stowed her shield with a wrist-flick. Now Corso could see the damage on her rig, and his expression changed again. Thoughtful now. No outpouring of concern. A measuring look, like what could’ve done that?

  There weren’t that many things on the list. His eyes narrowed. “You want to come in, then? Shut the door?”

  “Don’t know we’ll all fit.”

  “The veek’s not that big—ah. I see,” as Char filled the doorway.

  “There is room enough, Lieutenant.” Char ducked under the lintel, surprisingly soft-footed, and, just as gently, pulled the door closed.

  Corso’s gaze came back to Iari. “Lieutenant, is it? Congratulations. Not surprised you’d make officer.”

  “Thanks.” Ungentle Ptah, Gaer had to be getting an eyeful of aura, hers and his. Pyrotechnics. More drama than a wichu opera. “Not here to be social, Corso.”

  “Yeah. Figured. So what do you want?”

  “Need your—” She routed her tongue around help. Be a cold day in Ptah’s particular hell before she’d use that word with him. “—your services. We need to find a ganglord named Tzcansi. Alw, I think.”

  “Alw, definitely. I know her. Know of her,” Corso amended. “She’s an enforcer for one of the big houses. Runs their day-to-day street operations. Has a reputation for efficiency, if you know what I mean.” He retreated around the desk, one hand within snatching distance of the longcaster, and lowered himself into his chair. He dragged his turing pad front and center and tapped the screen. “Sec. Let me see if I have a 2D of her on file. Yes. There.” He spun the tablet.

  Iari leaned in to look. So that was Tzcansi. Pretty, if your tastes ran to pinch-faced and dainty. The 2D had caught her mid-conversation, looking out of frame.

  Gaer made one of those rattle-click-hisses. “And do you know where we might find her?”

  “We.” Corso snatched the tablet back. “Tell me, Iari. The Aedis’s making nice with the veeks, now?”

  “Yeah. Called a treaty. We’ve had one for, oh, what? Sixty years? Long before either of us was born.”

  Corso sneered. “That hardware on your face, veek. You an arithmancer?”

  Gaer looked like he might answer that with a demonstration. Iari interposed her voice, her shoulder. Damn near thrust out an arm. “He’s an ambassador. Ptah’s own sake, what’s your problem? You find some ancient pre-Landfall poem someplace says traditional tenju have to be assholes to everyone else?”

  This was old ground, old argument. Old pyrotechnics happening in her aura. Please, Ptah and Hrok, Corso decide to let it drop. Her ribs hurt. Her head was starting to. It was hot in the rig, with the vents half-functional. She wanted to get home and out of the damned thing (and probably land in Tobin’s office, but even so: that prickle-backed chair was better than standing here).

  Ptah and Hrok seemed to be listening (and oh, Corso would hate the very idea some Aedian upstart Element could affect him). Corso let his gaze drop and drift past her, past Gaer, until it settled on Char.

  “What have you been up to, Iari?”

  “Today? Talking to the riev. Tracking a ganglord to a burned-out tavern, in which we found a Brood swarm. Tracking them to a warehouse, in which we found—” She grunted as Gaer slammed a foot sideways into hers. “Something else. But we’re here because a wichu artificer got murdered last night by a riev on Tzcansi’s payroll.”

  “An artificer?” Corso barked laughter like jacta bolts. “Good for the riev. About time they took a little revenge. I don’t blame ’em.”

  Char took a step closer to Corso. “I do.”

  “I? I?” Corso squinted up at Char, unconcerned by the riev’s greater dimensions. “Since when do you lot self-identify?” But Corso was frowning now. “Your damage. It’s fresh and it’s too extensive for swarm. Big Brood, maybe.” He rubbed his chest. An absent gesture, the thing you did when you had a scar running shoulder to hip and most of your guts had spilled out. (Iari knew the geography of that scar. Winced in memory.) “But I’m guessing it was another riev. Am I right? Same one who killed your artificer?”

  Char looked at Iari. Waiting permission to speak, clear enough. Iari nodded. “You can answer.”

  “Yes.”

  Corso waited, clearly expecting more of an explanation. When it was clear Char was done talking, he shook his head. “Okay. You’re not going to tell me anything else.”

  “Your affiliation is unclear.”

  “That means you don’t trust me?”

  “Correct.”

  Gaer made that throat-clicking sound again. Waved off Iari’s glare and, oh Elemental miracle, kept his cleverness behind his etched, dyed teeth.

  Corso met Gaer’s smirk, matched it, added a pair of tenju tusks. Of course that was what their species shared in common custom: dominance measured in dental displays.

  Iari wanted to muzzle them both. She rammed her foot into Gaer’s, no attempt at hiding the gesture. She put both hands flat on Corso’s desk, not quite slamming, and leaned forward until he had to look up at her.

  “Listen. I need to know what Tzcansi did to the riev to get it to kill someone. I need to ask her, personally.”

  “Yeah, she’s going to love talking to you.” Corso jerked his chin. “That shell you’re wearing. That shield. She’ll open right up.”

  “Just set up a meeting.”

  “If I can find her. Whatever you did today—if she’s behind it even a little bit, she’ll have gone to ground.”

  “You saying you can’t find one little alw in Lowtown?”

  “Oh, fuck you. I can find her.” Corso leaned back. “What do I get?”

  “Your usual fee.” Iari gestured back at the door. “P.R.I.S. What is that, Private what and Investigation Services? You’ve got a fee schedule, right?”

  “Reconnaissance. And right.”

  “So give me your account number. The Aedis will set up the payment.”

  “Like I want to be in the Aedian accounting system as a fucking vendor.”

  Probably meant he had no account. All right. “We can work out cash, then.” Not convenient for paperwork, and Iari would have to deal with Sister Rie, quartermaster and head bitch (no, not quite head—Sister Diran had that title), but she’d get Tobin’s authorization.

  “Iari,” Gaer murmured, and she realized she’d drifted. That she needed to say something.

  She gathered the threads of the last few moments. Corso should’ve said yes to cash payments. Assume that he had. She guessed what came next in the conversation. “Fee schedule,” she said. “Need a copy.”

  Nope. Not the right thing to say. Corso was looking at her, defiance at war with voidspit worry, like he was still corporal to her private, like he hadn’t been playing civ for the last ten years while she’d put on that shell and helped push back the last surge. He’d been on his ass here in B-town while she’d been at Saichi. Fuck him for worrying.

  “I’ll invoice,” he said. “Waive the advance. I reckon the Aedis is good for it.”

  “You mean, you’ll overcharge.”

  “That matter?”

  “Not if you get results.” Iari pushed off the desk. Her elbows ached. Definitely something off with her implants. The nanomecha should’ve effected at least some repair by now. “Comm the Aedis when you have something. Somebody will know where to find me.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Corso sat for a very long time staring at the door through which Iari had appeared after damn near a decade, and through which she had disappeared again (without looking back. Iari never looked back). He could still smell the hot metal of her battle-rig, the acrid fumes leaking out of it. It left a
little burn on the back of his throat, sour and sharp-edged. That was a power-cell on its way out, cracked and leaking. She’d be lucky if she made it back to the Aedis. With that kind of damage, a rig could just quit. Oh, she’d be fine (she was always fine). That one-armed riev could probably carry her. Or the veek, who smelled unexpectedly like burnt sugar, gritty and confusing on Corso’s tongue.

  Voidspit veek in his office. He wondered if anyone else had seen. Mak or Devi. They wouldn’t let him hear the end of it. Veek and a voidspit templar and a riev. The whole neighborhood had probably noticed. Tzcansi probably had. He wouldn’t have to look for her if she came looking for him.

  That could be a problem.

  Corso’s jaw ratcheted tighter. Hard to say if he’d get more judged for the veek or for Iari. That templar shell of hers. Fuck. He’d known she’d survived Saichi; he checked. He’d known when she ran a check on him, when she’d discovered his association with the Vulgar Vakar. He had friends in the peacekeepers (the kind you could bribe); they always told him when someone from up there ran his name. Corso had thought then—eight years ago, after that check—that she’d come see him. That maybe she’d be ready to give it up, this templar voidspit, and come back.

  Looked like that wasn’t going to happen.

  Corso leaned forward, finally, and dragged his longcaster back across the desk. Call him civ, would she? Void and fucking dust. He’d taught her how to use ’casters, jactae, all of it: how to change the cartridge under fire, how to field-strip and repair. Civ. Right.

  Iari had said civ to him, but Corso had heard gutless. Because he’d quit when his enlistment was up. Because he’d decided someone else could deal with the fucking surge—like the fucking Aedis, because they had the templars and the priests and the funding to manage. Confederate marines, regular army—what he and Iari had been—were just there to slow the Brood down, and the best way to do that was by dying. So no, thanks, he was done with that.

  Iari had said only, The surge isn’t over. Someone’s got to deal with it. And then she’d walked out.

  Corso popped the cartridge and checked the longcaster’s charge, let his fingers move through patterns as familiar as eating, drinking, fucking. He stowed the weapon, finally, butt-down in the corner, and heaved himself out of the seat. His knee hurt a little. Bruised from a collision with the desk, which was fucking heavy and which he’d sent skidding across the floor by a good half meter. He replaced it now, gripped the corners and dropped his hips and pulled.