“For her release.”
“Fine, fine,” Meyer said, waving the impatient hand again. “Though I don’t know what you care for her freedom. She’d just be picked up again if she weren’t with you.”
“Perhaps.”
“I’ve had you watched for weeks now,” Meyer said. “In fact, I placed you here.”
“Pardon?”
“What, didn’t you wonder why you found a house so conveniently empty and open for you, just waiting?”
“Yes, but…”
“But what? I found you in Moines with no trouble, had a few cars drive by to point you in this direction. You’re very predictable, you know.”
“I see.”
“And then it was a matter of sending one of my girls away and leaving her house at your disposal. It was almost too easy.”
“I see,” Draven said again, his lips stiff.
Meyer waved a hand. “I’m sure you can thank me later. So far, it really has paid off. Watching Byron go mad for you has quite entertained me.”
“Go mad?”
“The only disappointment was that after I had my dogs chase you into the house, you hardly spent any time with his sap. I quite enjoyed the bits I saw, though.”
Draven sat frozen. Did Meyer know, then, what had passed between him and Cali? Had he placed eyes in the walls to watch them?
“I wouldn’t have intervened if it weren’t for Byron finding you,” Meyer went on. “I would have been content to observe for a while longer. But since we were so rudely interrupted, I have to ask you, what are you getting from this sap? Why do you care so much about her?”
“I do.”
“But why did you steal her if you’re not shagging her or drawing from her?”
“I draw from her.”
“I’ve been watching. You haven’t drawn from her in a week, and tonight you drew from someone else’s sap when you had your own right out in the backyard. Why even take her from Byron if you’re not using her?”
“Perhaps I wanted to give her freedom.”
“But you haven’t, have you? If you had, she wouldn’t be here with you.”
Of course Meyer was right. If Draven had truly given her freedom, as he told himself he had, she would have left long ago. “And where would she go?” he asked. “You said yourself she’d be picked up.”
“There are places. Places where humans live, free from Superiors altogether.”
“Tell me where.”
“It has to be so. If we can imagine it, it exists. Don’t you agree?”
“Existing somewhere and being somewhere I can take her are two different possibilities.”
“Perhaps,” Meyer agreed. “So you tell me you only stole her to give her freedom, which you haven’t given. This is all?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t bugger her? Not even a little? One time maybe?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“You don’t wonder what it would be like?”
“Do you?”
“Ah, no. Not really. Perhaps I already know.”
“You don’t have to murder someone to know it’s wrong, and you don’t wonder about the morality of it, do you?”
“But she’s a sap.”
“She’s a person. If I killed her, it would be murder.”
Meyer studied him a long moment. “You love her, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. She’s my pet and constant companion.”
“Yes, I suppose she is. They are quite lovable, aren’t they? Although I find the babies the most lovable. She’s a bit large for a lap-pet.”
“That depends on the size of your lap.”
“You are both delightful,” Meyer said with a small laugh. Then his face turned serious so quickly it was difficult to imagine he’d ever laughed in his life. “But I don’t like your answer.”
“Meaning?”
“It means, you haven’t told me why you took her, what you do with her that makes her worth turning to a life of crime, as my mum would have called it. I myself respect that in a man, the ability to live without law and not turn to a heathen. But to give up your life for a sap?”
“She was my right,” Draven said. “I earned her, and Byron tricked me so that he could buy her first. She was owed me.”
“Ah, yes, revenge. Very good. That’s all I wanted to know.”
“Can she go?”
“Yes. But answer the other question, too.”
“I don’t do anything with her. I try to survive, to keep her alive. That is all.”
“Yes, I guess necessity outweighs most everything in life, doesn’t it? But let me ask you. Do you want me to get you new papers?”
“They don’t work for me, old or new. Not until I serve a sentence.”
“I’ll tell you what. If you ever need anything, papers or anything else, don’t hesitate to ask. I can get many things done that you think are impossible. Will you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Goodnight then.” Meyer reached back and performed a series of quick pinches, and the cuffs slid open. Cali sat upright and rubbed her wrists together, giving Draven a sour look.
He pulled her over the seat and wrapped his arms around her. “Goodbye, my little pet, my jaani,” he said. He pressed his lips to her forehead and inhaled the scent of fear and sweat and wonderful sap. He didn’t want to release her, but after a long minute, he did so.
“Nonsense,” Meyer said. “She wouldn’t last the night without you. Go on and take her.”
“You’re releasing me?”
“Yes, go on. I have no need for you. I’m not an Enforcer, and I don’t have secret prisoners locked away in my basement. I’m just a normal old bloke with lots of money. I don’t need a reward for catching you.”
“I have nothing to offer in return.”
Meyer lifted the backpack and pushed it into Draven’s arms. “Of course you do. You keep Byron’s sap and escape again. He thinks he’s waiting for you to come home. Watching him realize you’ve gotten away will be priceless.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“By getting as far from here as you possibly can. Never fear, I’ll be watching you. This is my city. I’ll know if you squander this opportunity. Now, I’m going to stay a while. Go west and he won’t see you.”
Draven did not wait for Meyer to change his mind. He slid from the car, pulling Cali after him. He clutched the backpack as he knelt for Cali to climb onto his back. Without another glance at the stone house, he set off into the dark before dawn. A morning bird began its song just as he turned out of the neighborhood and onto the road leading south.
PART TWO
THE ROAD
CHAPTER twenty
Byron sat on the small couch with his feet on the coffee table and shifted to get comfortable. They should be back soon. Even if Cali could stay out all day, Draven would be getting a headache. Byron had closed the blinders halfway, so the light didn’t reach too far into the house, but outside, the morning had grown blue.
Any minute now.
It had taken Byron longer than he’d anticipated to find the pair without the aid of a tracking mechanism. But he’d done it. Nothing stayed hidden forever. Artifacts drifted up through mudflats, bodies frozen in a lake all winter rose with the spring thaw, shifting dunes in a desert revealed bones from those long-dead. Now, he didn’t have to wait centuries to find what was lost. There were new ways to find things all the time.
Everything had a smart chip now, even sapiens. Especially sapiens. He didn’t know if they should be called smart chips, though. That implied an ability to make them intelligent, which was impossible.
Byron resisted the urge to stand and pace. He’d done that for hours. Silent waiting was required in the dawn hour, so Draven wouldn’t sense his presence as he approached. The clever little bloodbagger thought he could elude Byron. He thought he was so smart and cunning, making the door appear closed from the outside, even upon close inspectio
n. It was closed, but that tiny pebble kept the seal from engaging.
And what had they done with the owner of the home? Surely they had killed her. They had probably announced their presence at the front door so they’d look innocent, maybe even asked for help or pretended they belonged there, that they were new to the neighborhood. But of course Draven wouldn’t bring along a sap for that. It would look strange, like he was inseparable from his pet. If he was going to do that, he might as well walk around announcing his perversion.
That she had been violated and damaged beyond repair was a certainty. But that wasn’t the issue anymore. Byron had replaced her. Still, Draven could not simply keep the stolen goods, no matter how mangled she’d become. He had to be punished, and the sap had to be rescued. If he stole and got away with it, it would tell others that they, too, could be rewarded for such renegade behavior, could suckle from the teat of their government while it slept in false security.
Byron checked his pod. They should be back by now. He knew from the rank smell of the house that they’d stayed there for more than a few days. Draven thought he’d gotten away with it, that he could take over a house, and no one would suspect a thing. He’d gotten cocky. Not quite cocky enough to parade around in front of the house pretending he’d bought it, but probably soon. Thirds were all alike, too humanoid to be called Superiors at all.
But where was he? He couldn’t have known Byron was coming. Byron hadn’t even known until tonight. He’d only gotten the tip at the last moment, just in time to go to Draven’s and lie in waiting for the bastard to show up. He’d parked his car down the street with a nice couple who had been happy to help an Enforcer.
After another hour, Byron had to close the blinders completely. The sun had risen, shining cold and bright and translucent like the lemonade his wife had missed so much in their early Superior years. Byron could not accept defeat. They must be coming back. They lived here. Their stink was everywhere—not just sapien stink, but Cali’s particular brand of stink. And Draven, his scent was here, too, a constant undertone of hers. Byron had to admit it was true in the last corner of his mind, where he’d harbored the suspicion that Meyer Kidd had fabricated the whole disgusting idea. Right up until the moment he’d walked into the bedroom, Byron had held out on fully believing it, not out of faith in Draven but in his own ability to judge a man.
In the bed—Christ, it was really true—their scent had mixed almost equally, with hers only overpowering Draven’s by a shadow. What a god-awful stench had risen out of that bed, fanning Byron’s ignescent rage until he could hardly bear it. His own sap, taken as a sex-slave by a vicious pervert.
Byron jumped up, unable to contain his agitation. What if he was too late, and they had moved on? What if he’d bribed a local Enforcer to tip him off? The thought fed the flames of Byron’s anger. It was bad enough having Milton thwart his every attempt at justice, but to have Draven worming his way into the trust of Enforcers, staying one step ahead of Byron…it was intolerable.
Byron slid on his sunshades and went out the back door again, into the sapien hut where Cali had stayed at least part of the time. Byron’s frustration grew at each new stumbling block, each thing he failed to understand. The most likely explanation, of course, was that she stayed here except when Draven summoned her to indulge his carnal perversions.
It was the only way to explain her presence in the sapien quarters, and to explain why most of the house smelled only faintly of her while the bed was saturated with her cloying stench. The straw bed here had been used, too. Maybe Draven gave her time to recover between assaults, though more likely, he sent her from the bed after their coitus, limping and broken, until the next night. Byron felt no pity, just an overwhelming revulsion at the thought of ever touching her again.
After returning to the house, Byron retired to the bedroom where the darkness was complete. All day he waited, not sleeping, not breathing. He’d rather suffer the discomfort of shutting off that function than to breathe their sex smells.
When the afternoon had worn on towards evening, he could contain himself no longer. He burst from the bedroom, gulped in air, and found that the stench had absorbed into his clothing like subtle tortures insistent upon inflicting his nostrils. He paced, growing more and more frantic, more furious, more incredulous. Somehow they had known he was coming. When it grew dark out and still they did not come, he returned to his car and drank his cans of sap, staring down the street at the little stone house.
He went back inside and unleashed his fury upon the cozy dwelling that must have seen horrors he could only imagine. He demolished the furniture, decimated the entire house. He couldn’t think clearly with so much rage boiling inside him. But he couldn’t expend all his anger. He needed enough to keep his mind needle-sharp and driven.
When he was done in the house, he spared one last glance at the destruction before he left. He’d do worse to Draven when he found him. Forget cat and mouse. When he found that mouse—and he would find him—he wouldn’t have patience to toy with him. He’d snap the despicable creature’s neck and stomp him until nothing was left but a smear of blood in the dirt.
CHAPTER twenty-one
Meyer sat in his office watching the corner section of his screen. The green dot was gaining on the red dot, he was sure of it. This was so much fun. Better than a vid, and Meyer liked vids. Real life was so much more interesting, though. Alas, when this game was all played out, he’d have to find something else to occupy his idle time. He’d grown tired of vids for the moment. Nothing good had come out in the last twenty years—maybe fifty.
Yes, the green dot was closing in. The red dot wove a path on his screen, a thin red line with a circle at the end. That was the smart chip he’d put in the backpack. The green dot followed a more predictable course, as Byron travelled by road. Getting a chip into his car had been trickier, but luckily Byron had left his car unattended while he broke into the house. The house that belonged to one of Meyer’s girls, and therefore, to him. It was only right that he returned the violation.
“How fascinating,” Meyer murmured to his screen.
He zoomed in on the dots to find the exact location of each before deciding that, for tonight, Draven had the advantage. Dawn had broken and the sun would rise soon, and Byron would sleep for the day. Draven stayed on the move longer, being younger and less sensitive to light, and he began earlier in the evening. Still, he moved slower, and Meyer predicted that the next night, the dots would intersect. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to plant a smart chip on Byron’s person, so he wouldn’t know the exact moment they collided. But he could guess well enough.
He had decided not to interfere again—at least not yet. He’d see what happened, although he was fairly confident of the outcome. A starving Third wasn’t much competition for Second Order Enforcer. The female sap would become Byron’s again, as she had been, and Draven…well, it was a shame he’d meet his end so soon. Meyer had quite enjoyed their little chat. But it couldn’t be helped. These things happened to people who broke the Law. The ones who didn’t have money, anyway.
Meyer sighed. He’d have to find a new way to aggravate Byron. Of course, if Byron kept the sapien he retrieved from Draven, Meyer would have the opportunity to get Byron’s goat, as the old saying went. But Byron only wanted the sap because he felt entitled, much like Draven did. Once he’d killed Draven, Byron would have won, and the prize would be worthless. He’d send the runaway sap to the blood bank.
Meyer spun around in his ergonomic leather chair, taking in the morning view of Moines, bustling with closing activities, the lights still on and the fog drifting listlessly through the streets. For a while, he sat motionless, his eyes narrowed, staring without sight into the city below. Then he swiveled and touched the bottom left quadrant of his pop-up screen. After a second and a half, Eva’s smiling face filled the panel.
“Hi, Boss,” she said. “What a surprise. You never call me. What can I do for you, sir?”
Meyer kn
ew Eva only by face and name, as well as a few of her activities inside and outside work. Since hearing of the condition of her shelter, he liked her a good deal less. Though he rarely interfered in his employees’ after-work activities, he was quite fond of homo-sapiens.
“I’ve an assignment for you,” Meyer said.
“What is it?” Meyer didn’t like his employees sirring him to death, so he’d had them do away with the formality. Some had trouble quitting the habit, but some shed it almost too easily—like Eva. She rarely used the term of respect.
“Glad to find you so willing.”
“I’m always happy to do what I can, Boss. Got something fun for me?”
That was Thirds for you, always interested in fun and nothing more. That’s why they never advanced as Meyer had. Still, he had to feel for them. They couldn’t advance much even if they tried, and seeing them strain in their traces was just too pathetic.
“Very much so, dear. I’m sending you to Merida.”
“What?”
“The big city in the Funnel.”
“Yes, sir, I know where Merida is. Why do you need me there? Are we opening a new office?”
“This is more of a personal matter. I need your utmost discretion.” Eva was the right sort of girl, and she’d been on his mind because of his recent dealings with her.
“Of course, sir. I’m flattered you’d think of me.”
“I thought you would be. Very well. Why don’t you come by my office, and I’ll lay it out for you.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
It took her one minute and forty-four seconds, but who was counting? Eva entered the office, bowed her head to Meyer, and waited for him to acknowledge her.
“Go on, have a seat,” he said, drumming his fingers on his marble desk.
“Yes, sir. So, what do you need me to do? It sounds like fun already.”
“Loads, I’m sure. I won’t go into background detail, just tell you what I need from you. There’s a certain woman I would like you to befriend.” With a flick of his wrist, he reversed the image on his screen so it faced Eva. “Her name is Marisol Kingsley. I need you to gain her trust and become close with her.”
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