Jim grinned and headed for the bar on the left. Misty was tending tonight, and he was delighted. While the dancers of both genders were permitted and, frankly, expected to give “private performances,” the bartenders were under no such instructions. But Misty liked Jim, and he liked her, and if her shift ended on time, sometimes she’d serve him a drink upstairs.
“Jim!” Misty was adorable. Petite, impish, with pale blond hair, hazel eyes, and a body that had none of the outrageous curves of the dancers but was decidedly attractive, she was much more appealing, Jim thought, than any of the actual performers. “How you been? I see Tychus has found his usual seat.”
Jim laughed. “Some things never change.”
“Let’s see, Scotty Bolger’s Old No. 8 for the both of you, and beer chasers?”
“That doesn’t change, either.”
She winked. “Coming right up.”
She moved to get two shot glasses and two beer steins. He watched her appreciatively for a moment, then turned his attention back to the dancers.
They were certainly worth paying attention to. One particularly striking “performer” removed what was left of her costume and tossed it at Tychus, then turned her dark head slightly to catch Jim’s eye. He was glad he’d ordered drinks because his mouth was suddenly dry. The brunette beauty gave him a sultry wink and mimed a kiss, then continued performing.
“Her name’s Evangelina,” said a voice behind him, and he jumped, turning guiltily to Misty as she shoved the beverages at him. “She’s new. Very popular.”
Her voice held no trace of jealousy. Evangelina. Jim had to smile a little. The unit to which he and Tychus had once belonged had gotten the nickname Heaven’s Devils. Evangelina was an angelic name, and her face was indeed as lovely as any angel’s he’d ever seen painted. But that body certainly promised devilish things.
“She busy tonight?”
Misty gave him an annoyed look. “Jim, I just take drink orders. Wayne handles everything else.”
Properly chastened, Jim nodded. He leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She gave him a look. He gave her credits.
“That’s better. Go have fun. I’m off later tonight if Evangelina’s got no time for you.”
He smiled at her and returned to the table, carrying all four drinks carefully, and set them down. Tychus handed him the still-warm brassiere Evangelina had removed. “Here.”
“Uh, thanks,” Jim said. He placed it down on the table slightly awkwardly and took a sip of Scotty Bolger’s whiskey. He smiled at the familiar burn and looked around. This was home, such as it was, and had been for almost five years now. Wayne ran a good establishment: his dancers, bartenders, and dealers were paid well and liked working here. He and Tychus were always made welcome, and even though he suspected it was more because they usually showed up with fistfuls of credits rather than because they were just so inherently likable, it was a good feeling.
There had been camaraderie among the Heaven’s Devils that Raynor found himself missing. He had some of it still with Tychus, but most of the Devils—red-haired, fire-tempered Hank Harnack; kindhearted Max Zander and Connor Ward; Tychus’s onetime girlfriend Lisa “Doc” Cassidy—were dead now. Dead because of the treachery of their commanding officer, Colonel Javier Vanderspool—the one person they should have been able to trust. Ryk Kydd, the sniper who’d saved their asses more times than Raynor wanted to admit, had gone off on his own. They hadn’t kept in touch. Most of the memories of those times were piecemeal and vague; Jim hadn’t wanted to remember much about it.
But here, while this was hardly a familial establishment, there was a sense of family. Of belonging.
“It’s good to feel …” Tychus frowned. “What’s the word I’m looking for? That word when you don’t have no more stress and tension and danger breathin’ down your neck.”
“Relaxed?” Jim offered.
“Yeah, that’s it. It’s good to feel relaxed for a while.”
“You better not be spending all my credits. You still owe me from that time you pocketed more than your fair share of the deal.”
Tychus placed a huge hand to his heart, looking offended. “James Raynor, I ain’t never done no such thing.”
“Sure you didn’t.” Most of the time, this was just banter, as it was tonight. But sometimes Jim wondered. Tychus Findlay could be counted on to always look out for himself.
Jim took another sip and leaned back in his chair. His eyes wandered to sloe-eyed, red-lipped Evangelina. Again Jim swallowed hard.
“Tychus,” he said, “I got a problem.”
“Ain’t never seen a problem enough creds can’t fix, and we got ourselves a fekkload of creds,” Tychus said, downing the whiskey in one quick motion and reaching for the beer. He gave Raynor an amused glance. “So, what’s yours?”
“Evangelina,” Jim said, nodding at the goddess parading about on the stage.
“I wouldn’t call that a problem.”
“Well, see…. Usually Misty and I sheet dance if she’s free. And she’s free tonight. But … Evangelina …”
“Is smoking hot,” Tychus supplied helpfully. “Still ain’t a problem.” He winked at Jim and took a long pull on the dark amber beverage. “Have ’em both. Problem solved.”
Jim supposed it was.
The fone had the most horrible noise in the world. Especially if you were dreadfully, agonizingly, and profoundly hungover.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Raynor felt as if his eyes were glued shut and his limbs weighed a thousand pounds each. Fifteen angry elephants were stampeding inside his skull. “Just shut up,” he told the fone. What came out of his dry, foul-tasting mouth was “Uuhhnnggg …”
The girl lying beside him murmured something, shoved at his chest weakly, rolled over, and covered her head with a pillow. For a terrible moment, Raynor couldn’t recall which one he had decided to take to bed. He wrested one eye open. Judging by the length of the female body under the covers, it was Misty.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Turn it off,” snapped Misty, her voice slightly muffled. Jim moved his heavy-as-lead body toward the table and made an attempt to get the fone. He encountered his Colt first—as he should have—and shoved it aside. His fingers closed on the fone for an instant, fumbled, and succeeded only in knocking it off the table. He swore and leaned over to get it.
The blood rushing to his head only exacerbated what was vying for the Worst Hangover in the Universe title, and he almost threw up. With a heroic effort, his hand closed over the fone. He heaved himself back onto the bed and looked at the message, rubbing his bleary eyes with his free hand.
It was from one Myles Hammond. The message consisted only of a handful of coordinates.
Jim tossed the fone back onto the table. It made an incredibly loud clatter.
“Shit,” Raynor said, and covered his face with the pillow.
PITT TOWN, NEW SYDNEY
The terrain was all but lifeless. Not quite the unforgiving emptiness of the badlands: there, people had never quite dwelt comfortably. Here, they once had thrived. And that made it feel all the more empty.
Once-hospitable land had been bombed into aridity. No grass, no trees. The only sign that life had once flourished here were the skeletons—though mercifully not of humans, not anymore. The skeletons that loomed on the horizons were those of bombed buildings. A wall here and there, or a pile of tumbled plascrete—sometimes an entire house missing only the roof and people to live in it—stood silent, accusatory sentinel over the area. These were stark reminders of what human beings could do to each other when one faction decided it didn’t like another. The Guild Wars, the wars in which Raynor and Findlay and their other friends had fought, had seen to it that this was all that was left of Pitt Town. Jim would like to think that people wouldn’t forget, that they would learn from it, but he knew better than that. There would be other bombed-out skeletons in other places, in other planets of the Confederacy. The only difference between wars was how long the lull
s between them lasted. Once, he had been naïve enough to believe in things like a “cause” and “justice.” And then he’d fought in the Guild Wars and seen, up close and very personal, that the only “causes,” really, were those of the individual. With good people, there were good causes. With selfish, evil people—
Jim hadn’t even left a note for Misty. He hoped to be back before she woke, and if not, he knew she’d simply shrug and get on with her day, with her life. The message from Myles Hammond had told him too little and too much, and both things had put him in a foul mood. And when he was in a foul mood, he tended to not want to be responsible. Besides, the wind in his hair felt good.
He veered to the left, to the remains of a building so nearly obliterated that it was impossible to tell what kind of function it had served in better times. It was large, so Raynor guessed it was a public building of some sort. Saloon, hotel, magistrate’s office—all were hideously equal in the aftermath of a war.
He brought the vulture to a halt. He checked his fone. According to the navigation system on the vulture, the coordinates that his old friend Myles had sent him should be just a few steps ahead. Raynor trod carefully over the broken lumber and shattered plascrete. And there, partially obscured by the pile of rubble in which it had landed, was what he had expected to find.
The beacon was an older model, small and decidedly not sleek. But it served its function. Jim nudged it with his toe and debated with himself.
He didn’t want to find out what it said. He really, really didn’t want to. There was no way in hell that anything Myles had to say to him at this point in his life was going to be good news. His hangover was receding but still there, crouching in the back of his mind like some dark beast. He rubbed at his beard.
But he did have to find out what it said. He owed the man that much—he owed himself that much. Sighing, Raynor squatted down, pressed a button, and activated the beacon.
A holographic image of Myles Hammond appeared. Jim hadn’t known Myles when he had hair, but the fringe that had encircled his head above the ears was now snowy-white rather than gray. He had always been lean, but now he looked even thinner. All in all, he looked older than Jim remembered him—older than a mere five years should have aged a man—but that was no surprise. War and time did that to people.
But Jim suspected mostly war.
“I’ve always been a blunt man,” said Hammond’s image, “and I don’t beat around the bush. Jim, you need to come to Shiloh, and you need to come soon. There’s issues with the money you been sending to your mom.” The hologram sighed. “She ain’t taking it, Jim. She’s getting by, thanks to something called Farm Aid. By that I mean she’s getting food and the basic comforts, but …” The image looked flustered. “I can’t tell you what I need to this way. We need to talk in person. Come on back to Shiloh. Come on home.”
The image flickered and disappeared.
Raynor stared at the spot where the image had been. What did Myles mean, “issues” with the money? Why wasn’t his mother taking it? He couldn’t go back to Shiloh. Myles knew that. What was going on? His mother needed that money. Had needed that money for a long time, since before his father had died. It was the reason he had joined the military in the first place—to help out with money back home—and now there were “issues” …?
His eyes narrowed. Was what Myles had said really true? The whole thing was really kinda strange, when you thought about it.
Anger flooded him. He swung his leg back and was about to boot the beacon all the way to Shiloh. He gritted his teeth, turned, and kicked out at a rock instead. He wished he could tear this whole place down around him with his bare hands. He forced the anger down and ran a hand through his wind-tousled hair, then made his decision.
He knelt beside the beacon and erased the message on it. Thumbing a button, he heard it click and hum and come to life as it recorded.
“Can’t come to Shiloh, and you know it. I got the heat all over me. And … tell Mom to take the damned money.” Somehow. Get her to take it, and you better not be touching one lousy credit yourself. He thought of Karol Raynor, that steady, stable, wise woman, and swallowed. “I don’t care how you do it; just do it. And don’t contact me anymore unless you gotta.”
And that was all he had to say, really. For all his comments about being a man who didn’t beat around the bush, Myles was being very cryptic. Raynor ended the recording. He tapped in a few coordinates, flicked a button, and the beacon whirred and vibrated for a bit before retracting its landing legs and moving slowly skyward, hovering there for a moment before suddenly shooting straight up.
It was going home, to Shiloh.
Jim Raynor wasn’t.
CHAPTER FIVE
TARSONIS CITY, TARSONIS
Ezekiel Daun’s duster moved with him, billowing about his calves as he strode fluidly down the long, dim hallway. In one hand he carried a small satchel. His booted feet were muffled by carpeting as he was led through the building by a cheerful, smiling young man. The high-rise was a maze of corridors and elevators and secured rooms, most of which looked identical, so Daun supposed it was logical to assume he might get lost.
He knew, however, that such a concern was not the real reason for the guide. He had been examined—politely and courteously and with many apologies, but still frisked—when he had arrived. The guard had worn an expression similar to the white-clothed man who was leading him at the moment; apparently the boss man wanted all his employees to be resocialized. Daun imagined that made them easier to manage.
All his employees, of course, except those he had to go outside his little group to hire.
Like Daun.
“And these are the master’s quarters,” the resocialized servant, or resoc, said, stopping in front of a large door. In contrast to the sleek, modern, artistic feel of the rest of the high-rise, this door looked somber and forbidding. It would take a lot to break through the thick neosteel door, and the keypad on the right demanded not just a code, but fingerprint and retinal scans as well. Humming a little to himself, the resoc entered the code and submitted the other verifications of his identity. After a moment, with a groan of protest, the door slid open. It was even more dimly lit inside than in the corridor, and initially Daun could see nothing.
“He’s expecting you,” the resoc said. “Please go on in.”
“Thanks,” Daun said.
“I’ll be waiting right outside to take you back when you’re finished.” The resoc beamed as if the prospect of this made him deliriously happy.
“Of course you will.”
The attendant’s smile never wavered as the door slowly closed.
Daun’s eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but this certainly wasn’t it. There were various computer stations and other pieces of equipment in the room, outfitted with many blinking lights and operated by resocs who did not give Daun a second glance. But that was not what so intrigued Daun.
What intrigued him was a large metal coffin. Or at least, it looked like a coffin. Lights chased one another along the outside, and several tubes went in and out from small apertures. Another caretaker stood discreetly off to the side in front of a screen on which statistics rolled constantly, and a strange bellows-like contraption moved slowly overhead. There was a rhythmic noise, a sort of dull thunk, that occurred every few seconds.
There was one thing that made it significantly different from a coffin, however.
A head was sticking out at one end.
Daun smiled a little at the contraption. His smile widened at the sound of a voice, hollow and echoing and obviously artificially enhanced.
“Ezekiel Daun,” the voice rumbled.
“The same,” Daun said.
“I presume you have brought good news.”
Ezekiel shrugged as he opened the satchel. “Well, if you call this good news, then it’ll make your day.”
He reached into the satchel, grasped something, pulled it out, and tossed it in th
e direction of the iron lung.
Bouncing and rolling, the head of Ryk Kydd came to a stop and stared sightlessly back at Daun. His expression was frozen in stark, utter horror, the eyes shut, the mouth open.
“Bring it here,” the voice ordered. “Let me see it. Quickly, you idiot!” One of the resocs stepped forward. His face betraying nothing but calmness, he grasped the severed head by its hair and lifted it up, showing it to the man in the iron coffin.
The only sound for a moment was the rhythm of the machine.
“It’s a start, Mr. Daun.” The resoc stepped back, casually holding the head as he awaited further instructions.
Daun narrowed his eyes.
“I believe you have two more left, don’t you? Don’t come back until your satchel bulges with two other trophies: Tychus Findlay and James Raynor.”
Daun grinned. “Don’t worry, old man. They’re next.” He inclined his head and went to the door. He rapped on it, and it opened. The resoc awaited him, smiling.
“Seems like you like your job an awful lot,” Daun said to the resoc.
“Why, yes, sir, I do.”
“So do I.”
* * *
Tychus was very warm. It was because he had company.
Curled up spoon fashion in his arms was the lovely Daisy. She was sleeping soundly, snoring just a little bit. In Daisy’s arms was Annabelle, also dead to the world. Behind Tychus, her arm draped over his waist, was Anna-Marie, and snuggled up with her was Evangelina.
“Mornin’, sunshine.”
StarCraft II: Devil's Due Page 4
