Fortune's Folly (Outer Bounds Book 2)

by Sara King

  He found a café that he often frequented when he was in Silver City and ordered a burger, fries, and a whole carafe of coffee from a waitress he remembered called herself ‘Petunia’ to hide the fact she’d been born with the name of Henry. Then, on a café napkin, using a pen he borrowed from his sashaying waitress, Milar began to try and figure out what Anna had done to his wife-to-be.

  She’d mentioned the device changed Tatiana’s DNA as it replicated within the brain, that it was making Tatiana more and more alien as time went on. It also seemed to have given her a means to broadcast on an alien level.

  Milar spent three hours and eighteen napkins trying to reverse-engineer Anna’s work, but he had spent much too long hunting Nephyrs instead of studying biology, chemistry, endocrinology, and human anatomy. Aside from memorizing the points of nerve groupings, locations of major blood vessels, vulnerabilities of the skull and abdomen, and best places to put a blade to extract the most pain, he’d shrugged off the pertinent courses when offered to him. In the end, he threw his napkins aside and stared at his cold, uneaten burger in growing depression.

  Why had he promised to find a doctor for her? It had been fear and reflex, and now he was sitting in Silver City with no idea how to find her someone who could help, faced with the prospect of going back to her with nothing to show for it.

  His waitress came back, obviously curious why he hadn’t touched his burger. “Deadline approaching?” she asked.

  Was there ever. Milar sighed and decided to take a shot in the dark. “You don’t know a kid by the name of Steffen Hayes, do you? A pharmacist’s son?”

  The way the woman stiffened, it was exceedingly obvious she did know a kid by the name of Steffen Hayes. “No,” she said, much too casually and helpfully. “He a local?”

  Milar frowned. “Look, I’ve been in here before. I’m not a floating coaler.”

  But that only seemed to make the woman more suspicious. “You’ve never been in here before.”

  Milar scowled at her. “Look. Petunia. I think I’d know.”

  Petunia wasn’t wearing any nametags or other indicators, so he would’ve thought that would convince her. Instead, she only seemed to grow more suspicious. “I work this joint every day of the year, all day every day. My grandpappy started it back when Silver City was just a communal well and a couple huts. I’ve never seen you before in my life.” She raised a triumphant brow at his tattoos. “I think I’d remember.”

  Milar squinted at her, clearly remembering that her grandpappy had been hanged for trying to stop a Draft, and that she was unmarried with two kids. “Is your real name Henry? Your mom wanted a boy and died in childbirth, so they left it the way she’d wanted it?”

  Petunia scowled at him. “Get out. And take your creepy drawings with you. She shoved the wad of napkins at him.”

  Milar frowned, suddenly having trouble knowing if he was remembering visiting the café in the past…or if he could possibly be remembering the future.

  “Shit,” he whispered, getting goosebumps all over.

  “Yeah, shit is right,” Petunia said. “I know a coaler when I see one. Get out, or I’ll get my sons in here to make you disappear.”

  “Honey,” Milar said, allowing a little darkness to creep into his voice, “then you’d have a couple of dead sons and I’d still be sitting right where I am.”

  She swallowed, but he had her attention.

  “I want you to do something for me,” Milar said.

  She spat on his burger.

  Ignoring it, Milar said, “I want you to go to the Coalition band and go look up the recent newscasts. Search for Miles Blackpit.”

  She snorted.

  “Trust me,” Milar said. “You’ll want to do this.”

  She gave him a suspicious scowl, but left him at the table to do as he suggested. When she rushed back ten minutes later, she was white-faced and crouching slightly as she moved, like she expected a Nephyr to be looking through the window, or for Coalition police to step through the front doors at any minute.

  “You’re supposed to be dead!” she cried. Then, wincing and glancing over her shoulder, she lowered her voice and said, “They broadcast your death all over Fortune!”

  “Yeah,” Milar said. “I escaped again, so they faked it. Didn’t wanna lose face. Pretty sure they have a couple death-squads out to hunt me down. Already took out one of them.”

  “Shit,” the woman whispered, eying the door.

  “Listen,” Milar said, “something horrible was done to a friend of mine. She was experimented on—someone tried to turn her into an alien.”

  Petunia swallowed. “Oh jeez. I heard about stuff like that. People were going missing in Rath…”

  “I need your help finding someone who can fix her,” Milar said. “A friend of mine said there was a kid called Steffen Hayes here in Silver City who can make miracle-drugs.”

  Her eyes widened. “You want him?” she whispered. “Steffen’s nuts. Like the goddamn boogey man. Creepy little floater. He comes in here on Wednesdays and does his books. The whole restaurant clears out and he costs me an afternoon in wages ’cause nobody wants to eat with him sitting in here, but I’m too scared to tell him not to come back.”

  “How do I find him?” Milar demanded.

  “His dad’s one of Geo’s Yolk purifiers,” Petunia said. “He’s got a storefront of herbs and botanical salves, but everybody knows not to go in there.”

  “I need to find him,” Milar said. “My friend’s gonna die if I don’t do something.”

  Still, she looked hesitant to send Milar after Steffen. “Can’t you find somebody else? That kid is…weird.”

  “Believe me,” Milar said. “I’m well-acquainted with weird.”

  Petunia let out a hesitant breath and said, “Old town. Slumside. Look for Botanicals of Fortune.”

  Milar grunted and dug out his credit to pay. Handing it to her, he said, “You’re sure I’ve never been here before?”

  Petunia laughed. “What, you got the damned Wide or something?” Snorting, she took his coin. “Yeah, I’m sure.” She didn’t stay at the table long enough to see the sweaty, pale-faced look Milar was giving her back as she retreated.

  Botanicals of Fortune was a small shop with a peeling painting of a dripping red honeyflower poised on the sign out front. Getting to the shop, however, was an exercise in survival. The streets of Silver City had been crawling with more Coalition patrols than Milar had ever seen in his life. Nephyrs were everywhere, and it was difficult for him to even find a restroom without having to duck out again as a Nephyr came walking out. Assuming they were swarming Silver City for some other reason, but wouldn’t miss the chance to take him if they ran across him, Milar was exceedingly careful not to be seen, sticking to the back alleys and utility accesses, and it consequently took an extra three hours to sneak into Slumside and find the right shop, all the while knowing that nobody was there with Tatiana to keep her from using that gun he’d given her.

  Inside Botanicals of Fortune, there were racks upon racks of herbs, poultices, essential oils, dehydrated feet, pickled tongues, powdered hearts, and just about every other thing that an ailing, desperate customer might decide could help them in place of expensive Coalition medicine or nannites.

  The shop bell jingled when he opened the door, but there was no one running the establishment, nor did anyone show up when he rang the chime at the front counter.

  “Hey!” Milar called.

  No one responded, but there was a rustle in the back.

  “Hey, I need to talk to the owner!” Milar called.

  Still no response, but definite movement in the back.

  “You’ve got a customer!” Milar shouted, ringing the bell again, louder and more repetitively this time.

  “Goddamn it!” a kid snapped. “Just give me a goddamn minute!” A wiry teenage boy with horrendous chemical scarring over his hands and face stormed from the back room, a pile of boxes in his arms. He slammed the boxes down on t
he counter, making the contents tinkle dangerously. “What do you want, you—” he stopped, cocking his head up at Milar, “—Academy escapee with a four million bounty on your head?” He sounded almost curious, his one functioning brown eye looking both interested and amused. The other eye was cloudy and tilted to one side, like the very muscles holding it in place had been seared along with the lens.

  Before Milar could respond, the teenager snapped, “Yeah, I know he’s worth a lot of money. I wanna see what he’s got for us before we turn him over.”

  Milar stiffened and glanced over his shoulder as he reached for his weapon.

  As if he hadn’t said anything at all, the kid conversationally said, “So. Dude. What brings you to the slum district?”

  Milar squinted at him, hand still on his gun. “I’ve got a friend who’s got an issue.”

  “He says he’s got a friend who’s got an issue.” The teenager cocked his scarred head. “Fuck yeah, I want the money. No, Dad can suck it. It’s all mine. I’ll just let him walk out the door then tag him with a transmitter. It’d get me out of this dump for good.”

  Milar gave the kid a really long look, trying to determine whether or not the kid was screwing with him. “So you wanna get out of the slum?”

  The kid blinked at him, looking startled. “Yeah, he wanted to know if I want out of the slum. No, I don’t know if it’s a trap!”

  “It’s not a trap,” Milar said.

  “It’s a trap,” the kid said, balking. “First thing out of his mouth was it’s not a trap. That always means it’s a trap.”

  “Listen, kid,” Milar said, “I’m looking for Steffen Hayes. I’ve got a job—”

  The kid scoffed. “He says he’s here to give Steffen a job.” He chuckled to himself. “Yeah, I know, right?”

  “—that,” Milar continued, gritting his teeth, “will pay him a lot of money.”

  The kid started laughing. “Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. Probably not. I’m thinking a villa on Trinoi.”

  “Steffen a friend of yours?” Milar demanded.

  “No way,” the kid said calmly. “Never heard of a Steffen. My dad’s name is Hayes, though. Wanna step in the back to meet him?” He lowered his voice and said conspiratorially, “I just invited him into the back. You ready with those tasers?”

  Milar watched him carefully, analyzing the kid, trying to figure out exactly what he was dealing with.

  The lanky kid watched him back, a placid grin on his face.

  It was the placid grin that finally decided Milar. Anyone who could recognize him and put an accurate price to his head in a split second was not stupid.

  Leaning across the counter, Milar said, “A Yolk Baby screwed with a friend of mine. Did something to her that’s making her Shriek like a goddamn alien. Everyone’s telling me there’s no cure, that she’s just doomed to keep killing people by accident.” Milar pulled out his knife and started idly scratching off an unidentified brown stain from the counter with its monomolecular blade. “I think someone smarter than me needs to figure it out, or he and I are both going to figure out what his intestines look like.”

  The kid gave him a really long look, then said, “How much?”

  “How much do you want?” Milar said.

  The kid grinned slowly. “I want a lab in Rath, when you guys kick the coalers out.”

  Milar frowned. “‘You guys?’ What guys?” Collie forces kicking the coalers out of Rath was about as likely as taking over the Orbital with five men and a six-pack of sap beer.

  Steffen cocked his head. “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “Jeez, you must’ve found yourself a real good hole to hide in. It’s all over the waves.” Steffen swung the counter vidscreen around and put on the local news. Immediately, Milar was assaulted with images of Nephyrs clogging the streets of Silver City, marching people out to the airfield, hands over their heads. An instant later, they showed an image of a crowd cheering around a woman holding a pistol, standing beside another Nephyr. In the background, the crowd was lifting a dead Nephyr up by his foot.

  “Wait a minute,” Milar said, squinting at the tiny image on the screen. “Is that…”

  “Magali Landborn,” Steffen said. “There’s a fifty million credit bounty on her head. And sixty million for the Nephyr with her. You’re considered small fry right now, dude.”

  Milar stared at the images of the same duo taking out several Yolk factories, surrounded by their faithful followers, which were growing in number by the day.

  “Fuck me,” Milar whispered.

  “I was guessing you’re with them,” Steffen said. “Aren’t you?” The way he said it, Milar’s deal was in jeopardy of expiring.

  “I’m with them,” Milar said. “Me and my brother.”

  Steffen nodded. “Then I want my choice of labs in Rath as my payment.”

  “It’ll be years before we take Rath,” Milar growled. Aside from the six hundred and seventy-two specialized sentry robots stationed in Rath—including four altrameter muskers—thousands of Nephyrs, and hundreds of Coalition aircraft that held Rath as tight and secure as a Yolk lockbox, it also was home to the biggest stronghold of regular infantry on the planet. “But when we take it, I’ll even throw in a couple Ferrises, after we forcibly decommission them.”

  “Tell you what,” Steffen said, straightening. “You come back to me once you’ve got something to bargain with.” He started to go back to his boxes.

  Milar grabbed the wiry kid by the collar and dragged him close, until the tip of his blade was pressed tight against the base of the kid’s throat. “You know what a monomolecular blade does to malfunctioning neurons?”

  “Malfunctioning how?” Steffen said, on his tiptoes.

  “You’re acting like I won’t carve on you for pissing me off,” Milar said. “Obviously, you’ve got a crossed wire, so I’d be happy to remedy that.” He leaned close, grinning. “Hell, I’ll uncross them all.”

  Steffen seemed to consider. “You said a Yolk Baby did it? Which one?”

  “Anna Landborn,” Milar said, releasing him.

  Immediately, Steffen’s breath hissed between his teeth and he hesitated at the boxes. “You pissed off CandyCorn?”

  “‘CandyCorn,’” Milar growled, “is gonna take a beam between the eyes the next time I see her.”

  Steffen snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  “It isn’t luck,” Milar said, allowing the ice in his voice to betray the loathing he felt for the little bitch. “It’s skill. And when I’ve got her malevolent little body jerking and bleeding out on the ground in front of me, it’ll be justice.”

  Steffen eyed him and scratched his scar-patchy scalp. “So I take it she installed some form of onboard tech? Or was it a biological change?”

  “Both, I think,” Milar said. “Anna said she was altering her DNA at the point of replication, a little bit at a time.”

  Steffen considered, his brown eye thoughtful. “They’ve only found three compounds that have a dulling effect on Shriekers’ emanations, but all three of them are totally fatal to humans.”

  “Make a new one,” Milar said. “My fiancé’s already given me the Wide once.”

  Steffen hesitated, giving Milar a careful look. “You don’t look like you’ve got the Wide.”

  “I got lucky,” Milar said.

  “Normal people don’t get lucky,” Steffen said, still peering at Milar like he was some especially interesting specimen of beetle.

  This was why Milar hated the scholarly types. “Will you come meet her?”

  Steffen laughed, his thin chest heaving. “What, meet a girl who can Shriek at any time, totally on accident?”

  Milar stiffened at the mockery in the teenager’s tone. Before he could respond, however, Steffen said, “Are you kidding? I’d eat my own sweaty socks at the chance to undo something Anna did.” He grinned, and his scarred face left a lopsided sneer. “With pleasure.”

  “Sound
s like it’s personal,” Milar offered.

  Steffen snorted. “Couple of years ago, CandyCorn had me try out a new chemical reaction because she thought it would be funny. Told me she’d discovered a way to synthesize Yolk.” Steffen gestured to his scarred face and hands. “Walked me through the whole process via a live feed, then laughed when it exploded in my face. Was just trying to prove she was smarter than me because I didn’t recognize what she was doing.”

  “Sounds like Anna,” Milar said.

  Steffen cocked his head at him. “So you’re gonna kill her? Really?”

  “If I see her again, she’s dead,” Milar replied. If the things he remembered from the Wide were any indication, the world would be better off without her.

  Steffen grinned. “Then let’s go figure out what’s up with your friend.”

  Milar gestured to the back room. “You need to leave a note for your pop?”

  “Nah,” Steffen said, stepping from behind the counter. “I’ve been running this place alone for the last five years, ever since Dad took to drinking and fell into a ditch and drowned.”

  Milar tried to imagine what kind of teenager could have run something as lucrative as a Yolk distillery for five years under the radar—and apparently not spent a cent of it, if the ragtag building was any indication.

  Steffen grinned as if he could read his mind. “And no, I really don’t give a shit about your four million credit bounty. A high-tech lab in Rath, though… Now that I’m interested in.”

  “If I’m still alive at the end of this, you’ll get your lab,” Milar promised. “Until then, I’ve gotta go grab my brother and get him out of this hornet’s nest.”

  Steffen frowned. “You know, come to think of it, you look a lot like that guy and his dad they were hauling out of the business district a couple days ago. Must’ve been a big prize, ’cause they had two altrameter muskers walking alongside two whole platoons of Nephyrs. Both of ’em were chained to the trailer, drugged out cold. Hell, I think there’s only four muskers on the whole planet, and they had two of them here. It was awesome.”