“The lawyer?”
“He paid Danny Cole to take Paul’s place. I want to squeeze him and find out where Paul is.”
“There’s another way, and a better.”
She raised an eyebrow. She didn’t know of one.
“Follow the money, Richmond. It’s basic stuff. You didn’t think of it?”
She raised her manacled hands and wiggled her fingers at him. “I have a lot on my mind.”
He looked at her for a long assessing moment and made a decision. “Fine. We get your brother and then we leave. This is the last time, Richmond. Whether he comes with us or goes his own way, after this he’s on his own.”
She didn’t respond.
“I need an answer.”
He hadn’t asked a question. She shrugged. “I hear you.”
“Not good enough. I’ve never given a rogue a second chance, yet here I am doing it with you. I guarantee that I won’t be giving you a third. This thing with your brother ends here, or I end you. Is that clear enough?”
She nodded.
“I need to hear it, Kate.”
“I understand.”
“You understand and agree to the terms? You had better mean it, Kate. Save us all some time and be honest. Can you let him go?”
Could she? Not without seeing him safe first, she was certain of that. She hadn’t seen him in person since before he went missing all those years ago. Her entire life since then had been overshadowed by what had happened and her effort to fix it. But what if? What if she did get him out of the situation he was in? Did she expect him to come home with her, live on Snakeholme? What would he do there? He wouldn’t fit in at all, and probably would refuse to go in the first place. She couldn’t force him, and what else was there? Let him go his own way. Stone saw it clearer than she ever could.
“I agree, but I have to talk to him. I have to make it right between us, Stone. I don’t want to be like this forever.”
“This?”
“Wondering where he is, how he is, whether he blames me for things. We live a long time. You have anyway. Would you want to be left wondering for centuries?”
Stone’s eyes went distant for a long moment before focusing upon her again. “No, it sucks. I’ll help you get to him, and I’ll help him leave if that’s what he wants, but in the end you come back with me no matter what he decides. I won’t let you go again, Kate. I won’t let you go rogue.”
“Understood.”
He nodded, stood, and stepped forward to remove the manacles.
Kate rubbed her wrists free of the phantom weight, and Stone stepped away. “Thanks.”
“Go take a shower, you stink.”
“Thanks,” she said again but wryly this time. “That’s just what a woman yearns to hear after a long day.” It was a good idea. She wanted to be clean and wearing fresh clothes. She headed for the shower smiling. “Want to wash my back?”
“No,” he said coldly and Kate’s smile fled.
She made herself keep walking as if it didn’t matter to her, but it did. She had done worse than risk her life when she abandoned her friends on Helios. She had broken something precious. Stone’s trust.
* * *
Stone watched her disappear into the bedroom and forced himself not to follow. He turned away to stare out of the windows and over the city. When Richmond spoke of her brother and not wanting to spend her life wondering about him, he had understood perfectly. He knew his brother had died long ago, but that made things worse not better. He’d never had the opportunity to make things right between them and regretted that. His situation wasn’t the same as Richmond’s. His brother hadn’t gone missing, they had just drifted apart. Long before the Merki War they had become strangers to each other, but centuries later he still thought of him. In his head, he saw two boys playing in the yard and always would. For as long as his heart beat and his processor cycled through its endless code, his brother would play with him in that yard.
His attention briefly flicked to his sensors, but when he realised he was checking that Richmond hadn’t tried to skip out again, a brief burst of annoyance flashed a snarl onto his face. This was getting bloody ridiculous! She was really getting under his skin. Getting? He snorted at the thought. There was no getting. She was firmly inside his armour already and digging her out would hurt too much. He was so screwed.
He decided that what he needed was the distraction of work, but first he might as well clean the room of his gear. He was sure Richmond would appreciate it. Using TacNet, he sent the suicide command to his nanotech henchmen so that her systems would come back on-line. The tiny machines throughout the suite acknowledged the order and self-terminated, falling to the carpets as microscopic dust. He moved to the bedroom door and retrieved the sonic disruptor and trip wire. He grinned remembering the look on Richmond’s face when she’d seen it. He laughed under his breath. It was even funnier because she hadn’t been one to fall for the trick during her training on Snakeholme. She had impressed him by steering her squad-mates clear of all his traps that day, and the tripwires were a special synthetic very hard to detect. Well, it just went to show luck played a part despite Richmond’s personal disbelief in it.
He took his seat on the couch in the main room and accessed the net with a coded thought to his processor. He wanted to know everything there was to know about one Malcolm Redding, and his law firm. Did he have family, friends? Was he in financial difficulties? If he had suddenly received a legacy, inherited money or property for example, where had it come from and when? The timing of something like that would be telling.
He ran a second search on Danny Cole.
Richmond seemed to feel the man was a fool to take Redding’s deal, and dismissed his story as a dead end because of that prejudiced view. Stone didn’t share it however. He understood Cole very well. A man willing to sacrifice himself to something worse than death for those he loved would have made for a good viper candidate. Had Cole been military and sent to Luna with Richmond’s intake, Stone was almost sure that he would’ve paid special attention to the man as he had with Richmond. The point was he wanted to know more about Cole’s business and financial collapse. There was something there; what he didn’t know, but something about it rubbed him wrong. He wanted to know more.
While the searches ran, he used the suite’s autochef. He hadn’t eaten yet and was hungry. He programmed coffee and sipped it while the autochef prepared the meal. His taste buds were very determined that he eat a plate of steak and eggs before too much longer.
The food was pretty good for autochef fare, he thought as he chewed. Meat was meat, and eggs just eggs, but he remembered some real stinkers he’d been forced to eat in the past. Technology was always improving, and autochefs were no different in that. New ingredients from worlds discovered over the years meant the manufacturers were always pushing the envelope of what was possible. Delays in software and hardware updates meant he could order a meal here, and then order the same one on Alizon, and have it taste subtly different unless he specified what he wanted very carefully. It made him feel old.
He snorted. He was old and getting senile if a plate of food could make him start evaluating things.
Stone finished his meal and took another cup of coffee back to the couch. He checked his sensors, but Richmond was there, still in the shower. What the hell was taking her so long? Water baby. He smirked at the thought. She always dove into a shower or pool at the least provocation. She would live in one if there had been a way to do that. Data started coming in on Malcolm Redding and he reluctantly turned away from thoughts of a naked and wet Richmond in the shower.
He burrowed into the data.
* * *
Kate stared blindly into the spray from the shower head, and watched Stone move around on her sensors. They had come back online without warning sometime ago. He must have deactivated his spook squad. Those sneaky little nano-pests of his had really thrown her off kilter. She would have to secure some for her own use on future
ops, assuming he let her out of his sight after this. She sighed. Things could be a lot worse, but she had a feeling that rebuilding trust between them would take time and effort on her part. As for their personal situation, she wasn’t sure it was salvageable, but trust had to come first. It would be the foundation for anything that followed.
She turned off the shower and quickly dried herself on huge fluffy towels the hotel provided its guests. It was quicker than using the warm air dryer in the shower, and she was hungry. Watching Stone moving around and realising he had hit up her autochef for a meal made her want to do the same. She left the bathroom and padded naked around the bedroom, diving into drawers for fresh under things and then the wardrobe for one of the hideously loud touristy outfits she had bought to augment those Stone had supplied. She wouldn’t wear her sneaksuit again so soon. She had hung it on the door, hoping the subtle but noticeable aroma of garbage would fade before she needed it again.
When she entered the main room again, fully dressed and ready to eat, she found Stone already back at work. It was a snub that he hadn’t waited for her to return before eating. His way of saying he was still pissed, and not yet ready to forgive her. He was sitting on the couch working on the net. He was staring into the distance at nothing, or seemed to be, but in reality his eyes were focused on streams of data. She had come to recognise a viper hard at work with internal business. The eyes seemed unfocused but weren’t. They seemed not to move, but did in small ways, and if she watched very carefully she could see his pupils react to what he was seeing. An unenhanced Human would see a man lost in thought, but she knew and wondered what he was doing. He wouldn’t tell her until he was ready and she wasn’t going to ask. She’d be damned if she would beg for data.
She headed for the autochef.
She took her time cycling through the menu unsure of her appetite. She should probably choose something filling and sensible and boring, but she was feeling a bit down. The breakfast menu was tempting, but it was late afternoon already; it seemed a little too decadent of her to choose buttermilk pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, and maple syrup. She glanced at Stone. Fuck it. She wanted happy food.
She chose the breakfast with a plate of bacon on the side just because she could, and coffee. Coffee of course wasn’t in question. When the autochef dinged, she took the tray of food over to the couch and dropped heavily onto it in an effort to make Stone take notice. He ignored her. He knew she was there of course, but he was ‘too busy’ to even glance at her.
Fine!
She tucked into her food and when his hand sneaked toward her tray to snatch a piece of bacon, she smacked the back of it. He turned to regard her in surprise, but it was her turn to ignore him. She chewed her food staring straight ahead as he had been. She went through the bacon and then the pancakes. The fruit made her groan in pleasure, and Stone snorted obviously thinking she was taunting him. She wasn’t... well not much. The food was really good. She relented by leaving one strawberry for him, just to show him some mercy and prove she could have left him nothing, but was choosing to share. He took the strawberry, bit into it, and smiled.
Mission accomplished! A smiling Stone was a Stone on the path to forgiving her. Forgiveness would lead to trust, and trust would lead to sex, and sex would lead... it would lead to regaining what she had lost. His friendship.
“I know where your brother is,” Stone said dropping his bombshell. “You’re not going to like it.”
Kate’s jaw dropped.
* * *
22 ~ Old Acquaintances
Stonefield, Wastes of Douna, Northcliff
Kate muttered another curse. “Fucking Whitby. Can you believe it, Stone? Of all the people I never expected to meet again this side of hell, Captain Dickhead Whitby the turd! What are the odds?”
Stone coughed to smother his laugh. “Richard Whitby the third isn’t in the Rangers anymore, Richmond. Seems like he’s moved up in the family business. Can’t say I blame him. He put in his expected five year stint, as every well to do son of Bethany must, but he was never going anywhere in the military. He’s not cut out for it.”
“Big surprise,” she sneered. “He’s nothing like Ian.”
Stone nodded. “Hiller has the moves, no question, but he had more motivation than most.”
That was true. Ian Hiller hated the Whitbys as much as she did and with more reason. He’d had closer dealings with them than she had. She hated all of The Ten, but it had actually been the Baxters who had destroyed her father not the Whitbys. That wasn’t the case with Hiller. His entire family was made destitute by Gerald Whitby, the current head of the family and holder of the Whitby seat in Bethany’s government. The Whitbys had propped Ian up as a figurehead to control the Hiller vote, humiliating him every day until he’d become desperate to escape Bethany. His induction as a viper into the regiment had been his salvation.
Kate’s beef was with all of The Ten because they were all insufferable shits and ran her world with no regard for its people, but Whitby in particular because the family was at the top of the food chain currently, and ruled Bethany’s Council with ruthless efficiency, and she admitted reluctantly, political skill. She hated politics. It killed more people with words than a soldier ever had in battle, but those wielding the words didn’t care as long as their lily-white hands stayed clean. Despite being an assassin for them on occasion, and knowing at the time how they were using her to bring their rivals grief, her hands were cleaner than theirs were by far.
“Fucking Whitby,” she spat. “What is he thinking? How could Paul link himself to them, Stone? Why the hell choose Whitby Corp?!”
“Shut it down, Richmond,” Stone said under his breath. “You keep on bitching about Stonefield’s management, and I have a feeling security is going to take notice. He nodded toward a huddle of people glancing at them and whispering. “The nice citizens are wondering if they need to call the psyches. Smile.” He nodded politely to the bar’s patrons and smiled. They turned away.
She shut up, and drank her beer, but resentment was simmering just below the surface. Three days in Stonefield and they still hadn’t found a way through to her brother. They knew where he was. She had seen him on the street surrounded by a security detail. Who did they think he was, the bloody President? It was annoying as hell and worrying too. Why did he rate such extreme security measures?
Stonefield was owned and operated by Whitby Corp. and was one of the many new mega-city/factories in the deserts of Northcliff that had sprung up since the discovery of the Shan. Everyone living here ultimately worked for Whitby Corp. or one of its affiliates. It might seem otherwise, but scratch the surface and she would quickly discover a real estate company owned by Whitby Corp. owned the bar that sold the beer she was drinking. The nano-smelters, mines, nano-assembly lines, the shipping companies, employee housing, the malls, the bars, breweries, agridomes... everything owned, rented, or operated by Whitby Corp. and its affiliates. Stonefield’s rival cities were owned and operated the same way by rival corporations. Paul could have chosen any of them, but he hadn’t. He’d chosen this one.
Why?!
Kate growled in frustration and Stone gave her a warning look. “What are we waiting for?
“I told you, I have to study the situation.”
“I hate this. We know where they’re keeping him. We could get him out easy enough.”
“Richmond, I’ll say this one more time. The regiment can’t be connected to this. Cannot and will not. If, as you say, we bust him out and escape, we have to do it through normal, explainable, means. We can’t leave them questioning how it was done. It only takes one person speculating a little too freely for this to blow up in our faces. It explodes, and I guarantee you won’t like facing the General when we get home. Your brother will be the least of your worries then.”
She grimaced. She could imagine. “Yeah, yeah.” She took a sip of her beer ignoring the absurd alert that flashed a toxicity warning on her display. So alcohol was a poison
, who cared? That was the whole point in drinking it! “Why do you think Paul and Dickhead are so chummy?”
“Working on it.”
“That’s what you said last time, Stone.”
“And I’ll say it next time too unless you leave me alone to work on it!”
She smirked.
Kate glanced around the bar slowly taking inventory of the patrons and staff. None seemed overly interested in them after the whispering group left the bar. She was sure they’d only been interested because they were strangers. There was nothing else to differentiate them from the locals, not even their clothes. Stone had mentioned needing to buy some that better blended with the locals when they first arrived in Stonefield, and they’d made it their first order of business. Their tourist colours had stood out too much. Most of the bar’s patrons wore company colours—blue one-piece coveralls over their skinsuits, declaring their allegiance to Whitby Corp. Different colours and badges spoke of the varied divisions within the greater corporation, or of affiliated companies under contract to Whitby. The time of day meant very few people were wearing their civilian clothes. It was just after midday, and most here would be returning to work after their noon break.
Stone had chosen the bar because it was close to Dickhead’s hotel. Stone had sent his spies into the building using the comings and goings of hotel staff to infiltrate the penthouse where Dickhead was staying. It was in that suite of rooms that Paul and his new best friend were doing interesting things—things that Stone was trying to wheedle out, things that must be extremely important to Whitby Corp. Seeing as profit was God to any corporation, Paul must know something worth a lot of credits. Why else spend five million to save him?
Stone muttered a low curse, but Kate couldn’t make out what the problem was. He was muttering constantly under his breath, as if giving orders audibly to his minions. He wasn’t of course; he was using TacNet to control and monitor them. He was totally lost to his battle in the unreal world of the net. He trusted her to keep them safe in the real one.
Merkiaari Wars: 04 - Operation Breakout Page 27
