Firewall

by R. M. Olson

  Ivan turned and saw her, his face forming a look of mingled happiness and wariness.

  “Jez?” he asked cautiously.

  “Yep.” She came over and dropped down into a seat beside him, still grinning broadly. “What the hell are you doing here, you sly bastard?”

  “Last time I saw you, you looked closer to dead than alive,” said Ivan, his expression bemused and still slightly cautious.

  Jez laughed loudly. “Can’t get rid of me that easily. Anyways, it’s been like two months. I got over it.”

  “That—isn’t very long, for some people,” murmured Ivan. “Although I’m beginning to suspect that for you—” He shook his head. “So, I assume you’ve been keeping busy, then.”

  She shrugged. “Well, since then basically Lena tried to blow us up—”

  “The smuggler boss?” asked Ivan, in a sort of fascinated horror, turning to Tae. Tae nodded.

  “And then the government tried to blow us up, and some police officers tried to blow me up, and then some assassin tried to blow me up, except tech-head here disarmed the bomb—” she paused a moment. “OK, the assassin might have been government too. Anyways, and then Lev’s old university professor tried to blow me up, and then we breathed in a bunch of crap that supposedly is going to let the government kill us all as soon as they figure their way around whatever Lev and Ysbel and tech-head did to mess with their system, and then the mafia kidnapped Tae’s friend, and then—” she paused again, considering. “Nope, guess that’s all.”

  Ivan stared at her for a moment, then stared back at Tae.

  “I—what—I—Is she telling the truth?”

  Tae sighed heavily, and nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  Jez leaned back and enjoyed the look on Ivan’s face. “Hey,” she said, when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to say anything unless someone stepped in. “Didn’t peg you as the type to join the mafia.”

  Tae glared at her. “He didn’t join the mafia. He’s here because there’s something going on, and he’s trying to figure out what it is.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? What is it, then?”

  Ivan turned back to her, his expression concerned. “I wish I knew.” He sighed. “I haven’t been able to learn much. I’ve only been here two weeks or so, to be honest. But he’s moving his people around, and there are weapons and credits flowing in here like he’s calling in all his favours. Whatever it is—” he broke off, shaking his head. “I don’t know if you’ve ever had a run-in with the mafia, either of you, but if they end up with more power—well, you think the system is bad with the Central Committee in charge.” His voice took on a hint of wryness. “It is bad, I know—I spent four years in prison proving it. But this would be worse. Much worse. These people are brutal. They make the government enforcers look like damn saints.”

  Jez watched him, a faint unease stirring in her stomach.

  To be honest, she’d felt uneasy since the moment they’d set foot on this ship, but she’d managed to push it aside until now, managed to convince herself it was because of that idiot Lev and because she was stir-crazy, and because she wanted to be back on the Ungovernable.

  But it wasn’t.

  She’d worked with Lena, for years. Lena had been working with what she had, and what she had was a small crew and a few beater ships, and just enough more ruthlessness than the other smuggling bosses to take jobs that no one else would.

  But Grigory, working with what he had?

  She shivered.

  Still … Jez knew what had happened to Masha’s family, at least some of it. And she was pretty damn sure that Masha wouldn’t work with these bastards unless she had a very, very good reason to. And so far, Masha hadn’t actually betrayed any of them, at least not yet. Even when she probably could have.

  “So,” she said at last, “what do we do?”

  Ivan raised an eyebrow at her. “Well, I was actually hoping that Tae would explain to me what you’re all doing here. I mean, besides apparently almost getting killed.”

  Tech-head’s expression was back to its customary mixture of worry and frustration. She sighed and leaned forward. “I’ll tell you,” she said quietly.

  Tae shot her a grateful look.

  “We didn’t plan on coming here, exactly,” she said. “Except they kidnapped one of Tae’s street-kid friends, and told Masha to show up here if we wanted her back. And—” she shrugged. “I guess after everything, we didn’t really want Masha to go alone. So we came with.”

  Ivan turned to Tae, his mild face creased in concern. “Are they still holding your friend?”

  Tae shook his head mutely.

  “But here’s the thing,” said Jez. “I wasn’t joking about the crap the government’s doing, with the gas that gets inside your brain. When we were at Lev’s old university, we found out about it. But we weren’t quite in time to stop it. And now there’s a thing in our heads, all of us, and basically everyone in Prasvishoni, and Tae’s friends and everybody. And Lev and Ysbel and Tae screwed up the government’s system, and it’s going to take them a while to fix it, but once they do?” She shrugged. “We’re dead. All of us. And a whole lot more people too, and there’s nothing to stop the government from using it on every damn planet in the system.”

  Ivan turned back to Tae, frowning.

  “It’s a metal alloy,” Tae said, his tone short with worry. “It’s highly soluble, and it’s highly susceptible to electricity, and they can program it. And if you breathe it in, or it gets in your water or food—once it’s in your bloodstream, it’s programmed to congregate in your brainstem. And once there’s enough of it built up—You remember the chips they implanted in your head in prison?”

  Ivan’s hand came up, with a movement that looked almost involuntarily, to touch the scar on his temple.

  Tanya had a matching scar, and Olya, and Misko.

  “They’d be able to kill you,” Ivan said softly. “They’d be able to send a charge and kill you.”

  Tae nodded.

  Ivan shook his head, and the expression on his face reminded Jez of how she’d felt the first time she’d heard about the program. Of the sick, empty, horrified hole that had opened up in her chest when they were standing on the steel walkway, gas hissing around them, and she’d held her breath until she thought she was going to pass out, and then, because she didn’t have any choice, she’d breathed in the thing that would kill her.

  “What does that have to do with the mafia?” Ivan asked at last, turning back to her.

  She shrugged wearily. “It doesn’t. Except apparently he’s planning on getting a bunch of low-life scum-sucking bureaucrats onto his ship to agree to lick his boots in exchange for credits, and Masha’s convinced him to invite the minister over the program to come along. And then he’s going to shoot her.”

  Ivan’s frown was deepening. “And in exchange you’re working with Grigory? All of you?” There was a tone in his voice that was something between worry and concern and horror, and Tae wasn’t meeting his eye, which was stupid, because of all of them, Tae was the only one who’d actually not agreed to this.

  “Well,” she said, “Masha is, and Ysbel and Lev. And I’m with them, I mean, even though I’ve basically just been cheating as many of the bastards as I can out of their credits.” She paused a moment, grinning reminiscently. “But Tae didn’t. Isn’t. He’s here because he’s too damn stupid to leave the rest of us to whatever it is we deserve, and too smart for us to be able to get along without him. So he said he’d stay to make sure we didn’t get into trouble we couldn’t get out of, basically.”

  Ivan glanced over at Tae again.

  “I—” Tae sighed. “Look, Lev thinks this is the only way to fix this.”

  “And do you?” asked Ivan at last, quietly.

  Tae shook his head, looking away. “I don’t know. Maybe. But I—” he looked up again, his habitual scowl back on his face. “I don’t believe working with Grigory is the answer. I know how the mafia work
s. I know what they do, and—” he broke off. Ivan was still watching him, one eyebrow raised.

  “Well,” Ivan said at last, but the worry was clear in his tone, “I’ll be honest, I’m with Tae.” he paused a moment. “There’s something going on. Whatever it is Grigory’s planning, I can promise you it’s more than corrupting a few government ministers. And if he has someone like Lev working with him? Or Ysbel? I’ve seen what you people can do. He’s using you for something, and it’s probably nothing good.”

  The unease from earlier had grown, and it coiled in her stomach.

  “OK,” she said finally. “You’re trying to figure out what Grigory is up to. Whatever it is you think he’s using us for. But you don’t know what it is yet, right?”

  Ivan nodded.

  Tae was looking at her, frowning.

  She shot him a grin, which didn’t seem to reassure him at all. “Well, turns out, you lucky bastard, you just might have caught a break. Because I bet you could find out things a lot more easily if you had a bit of a distraction. Keep the mafia bastards busy, let you poke around a bit.”

  There was a look of dawning realization on Ivan’s face, and dawning horror on Tae’s.

  “Jez—” Tae began. “You’re not going to—”

  She grinned wider.

  “What are you—”

  She rolled her eyes. “Relax, tech-head. It’s basically not even dangerous.”

  “Why do I not believe you even a little bit?” he said through gritted teeth.

  She shrugged. “Maybe you have trust issues. Anyways, I’ve been gambling with those mafia bastards, and—”

  “You’ve been—” Ivan started.

  “And thing is, they all want to know how I’m cheating them, it’s basically driving Fyoder crazy, so they keep agreeing to gamble with me. And anyways, I figure I can keep at least some of them focused on something other than a couple idiots who want to play spy, at least a few days.” She stood, with a sigh of happiness.

  She damn well needed something to keep her mind off … well, off everything.

  “You’ve been cheating—” Ivan said.

  “Jez, you can’t just—” Tae began at the same time. She gave both of them a tight grin.

  “Look. I can. And I have. And here’s the thing, if I’m stuck on this damn ship for one more day without doing something I’m going to start getting into fights, and then I figure they’re going to eventually get sick of me and try to kill me, so—” she shrugged. “So figure this is doing me a favour too.”

  Tae sighed. “Jez.”

  “It’s a good idea, tech-head. I was going to do it anyways. You may as well take advantage.”

  “You were going to do what, exactly?” asked Ivan cautiously. Tae turned to him in exasperation.

  “She was going to go into a mafia-run gambling hall and cheat the highest-ranking mafia officers she can talk into playing with her out of everything they own, is what she was going to do.”

  Ivan raised an eyebrow. “That sounds—about what I would have expected, to be honest.”

  “Yep,” she said cheerily. “Anyways, I have an appointment down in the gambling hall in about ten minutes. I was just getting ready to head down there when you two showed up. So—” She shot them a jaunty grin. “Gotta run.”

  Tae had dropped his head into his hands. She rolled her eyes at him.

  “Tech-head. Relax. They’re not going to kill me until they figure out how I’m cheating them.”

  “How … exactly are you—” began Ivan.

  She winked, sauntered to the door, and pulled it open. “Good to see you, Ivan.”

  “Be careful,” he called after her. “There are people down there who— “

  She didn’t hear the rest of the sentence, because the door swung shut behind her.

  She stood in the passageway for a moment, bouncing on her toes. The unease from earlier was still twisting in her stomach, and it mixed with the vague sense of wrongness she’d had ever since she set foot on this ship, and with the tight wad of something in the back of her head, that she wouldn’t let herself think about, and that tried to crack open every time she looked at Lev, and it set her fingers drumming restlessly against her thigh and her heel tapping against the carpet if she stood still for even one second.

  She took a deep breath.

  It was fine, and she was fine. It would all be fine, she just needed to get into the gambling hall, and maybe tonight would be a good night to get drunk.

  No.

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  Ivan was here, and he wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something wrong. And maybe he was right, maybe Grigory was using Lev and Masha and the others for something, and they had no idea.

  Or maybe—

  Masha wasn’t telling them everything. Masha never told them everything. And maybe, just maybe—well, after however many months, she had actually begun to like Masha. She’d actually begun, just a little, to trust her. But Masha knew a hell of a lot more than she was letting on.

  And the look on Masha’s face when she’d first seen Grigory, that had been gone so quickly that Jez almost thought she might have imagined it—

  Well. Let Ivan and tech-head figure that out. Right now, she had an appointment to keep.

  She wasn’t more than half-way to the gambling hall before a voice from behind her stopped her dead.

  “Solokov.”

  The voice was unfamiliar, but there was a purring menace in it that told her whoever it was either knew her, or knew of her.

  She turned slowly.

  Five boyeviki stood there casually, blocking the hallway.

  None of them looked like they were here to make friends.

  She grinned at them. “That’s me. Who’s looking?”

  The man stepped forward. “We are. We’re here to teach you some manners before you go down to the gambling hall tonight.”

  She felt her grin widen. “Yeah? Well, sorry to disappoint you, Fyodor already did that. So figure you all can—”

  “Fyodor asked us to finish what he started,” said the man.

  Jez dived out of the way as one of the women, who’d been edging her way along the side of the corridor, leapt for her.

  She rolled, jumped to her feet, and took off at a dead run, heart pounding.

  No time to call for help, and honestly, calling for help would probably only get more people hurt.

  Someone grabbed her by the arm, and as her momentum swung her around, she caught a fist in her stomach that knocked the breath from her. She doubled over, gasping, and caught another fist in the ribcage.

  Damn.

  She grimaced, pretending to go limp, and when the grip on her arm loosened she straightened abruptly, jerking her arm from her attacker’s grasp and bringing up her elbow to connect with his jaw. He staggered, and Jez ducked another fist, driving the top of her head into the woman’s sternum. The woman fell back, gasping for breath, and someone else grabbed Jez from behind. She stamped down hard on the toe of a soft boot, and its owner howled in pain. Jez spun, her back against the wall, and yanked out Ysbel’s modded pistol.

  “You think—” one of the men growled.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  All five of her attackers dropped, stunned, to the ground.

  Jez looked around at them in satisfaction, then tapped her com to the private line. “Hey Ysbel. Got the right gun this time.”

  “What trouble are you getting into now, you lunatic?” grumbled Ysbel though the com.

  Jez shrugged. “Me? None at all. The idiots who tried to attack me, though—”

  Ysbel sighed heavily. “Well. I’m glad you picked up the right pistol this time.”

  Jez shoved the gun back into her pocket, wincing slightly at what was probably going to be a pretty impressive bruise across her ribcage. “Me too, actually.”

  She tapped off the com and surveyed the unconscious boyeviki for a moment before she headed down to the gambling hall.

  Wo
uldn’t Fyoder be in for a surprise.

  She glanced around quickly at the gambling hall entrance. Her marks were already waiting, a man and a woman she didn’t recognize.

  She paused abruptly.

  And one man she did—Fyodor himself.

  For half a moment, she considered ducking back out the door. But if he wanted to try to either kill her or beat the hell out of her again, she’d rather it happen in the gambling hall, in full damn view.

  He looked up and saw her, and for a moment surprise and fury chased themselves across his face.

  She gave him a wink and sauntered across the room. Her heart pounded, every muscle in her body tight.

  “Hey there, you bastard,” she said, sliding into a chair across from him. “Surprised to see me? Your friends here must have told you I’d be coming. Thought I’d get into an accident on the way over?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Jez. I’m glad to see you alive and well.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Really? Because that’s not what I would have guessed. Considering you damn well had me ambushed in the corridor on the way here.”

  The other two glanced at Fyodor, but he didn’t take his eyes of Jez’s face. “Don’t overthink your importance, Solokov,” he said grimly. “They were there to do something I couldn’t—teach you manners. And if you killed them—”

  She grinned breezily. “Nope. ‘Course not. Because I’m not a rotten plaguer like you are. They’re alive. Might wish they weren’t when they wake up, but—” she shrugged. Then she leaned forwards on the table. “But, be a shame if word got out that when you can’t win at tokens, your next step is murder. I mean, I’m sure everyone in this hall knows you’re a damn murdering scum-eater, but you want them to know you’re a bad loser as well? That’d be a bit of a mark on your reputation.”

  The fury in his face was now completely unmixed with any other emotion. “Listen, Solokov—” he began through his teeth.

  She leaned back. “Here’s the thing, though. It’s your lucky day. Told your friends here I’d play nice and slow tonight, give them a chance to figure out what I was doing. Since you all seem to be so damn convinced I’m cheating somehow. You can watch. You figure it out, guess you can kill me without any issues. Because hell, who cares if you kill a cheater? So—” She shrugged again.