Bit eyes ran to their side arms, and she thought she spotted the tell-tale bulge of a knife strapped to the younger man’s ankle. Either way, they both carried the easy grace of knowledgeable fighters.
“And who is this?” the older man asked.
“You get a new girl without telling us, Bernice?” the younger man asked, his fingers tapping threateningly on his gun.
Miss Bernice wasn’t unnerved by his display. “No, Rudy. She’s not mine.”
The older man, Rudy, stepped toward Bit. She stood her ground, carefully keeping her features neutral.
“And who might you be?” Rudy asked.
“Larissa Earnest,” she replied, using her legal name.
“You in need of protection, girl?” he asked as he pushed one of her dreadlocks back behind her ear.
Bit knew what he meant. Protection equaled ownership. Most women in the slums wanted a protector—a man to call her own. Bit knew better. She knew what it cost a woman to have a protector.
“And who’s gonna protect me from your dick?” she asked, failing to keep her sharp tongue in check.
Thankfully, the man burst out laughing, glancing between Bernice and his companion. Bernice looked nervous, despite her rigid control, and the other man looked bored.
“Well said,” Rudy said with one last chuckle. “But really, I can provide you all the protection you need.”
She turned, pulling her shirt down to reveal her tattoo. “I have all the protection I need… sir.”
Rudy smirked at her little display of disrespect. “So I see. Well, there’s nothing wrong with a little entertainment.”
“My owner expects me back.”
“The thing is your owner sent you into my turf. And anything on my turf belongs to me,” Rudy said as his hands caressed her cheek before sliding back and gripping her neck.
“Then I best skedaddle.”
Rudy laughed again, glancing over his shoulder at his companion. “You’re adorable. Miss Bernice, please get us a room.”
Bit let her features fall into a glare. “I’m not going with you.”
With the speed of her slight frame, Bit grabbed his wrist, pressing into his tendons just as Randal had taught her. His fingers released her neck against his will. At the same moment, she drove her knee into his groin—twice in quick succession.
The older man slumped over, his hands going to his crotch. Bit ducked to the side just as she heard the sound of a firearm being discharged in close proximity. Immediately, she ducked the other way, expecting the gunner to try and adjust. The move had been drilled into her so many times by the security team that she did it out of reflex.
The younger man—the one firing at her—growled incoherently as she rammed into his stomach with all her might, her shoulder driving into him like an athlete of the original football game—back when they still were allowed to touch each other. She drove the smaller man off his feet. He grunted with the impact and tried to slam the butt of his gun into her spine. He missed, but it would still leave one hell of a bruise on her back. She knew from experience.
With her momentum, she slammed him into the door, quickly shifting her arms to catch his hands before he could bring the gun to bear on her. In their struggle, he fired the weapon, and Bit hoped there wasn’t anyone in the room above them.
Their interlocked arms jerked down and to the side, forcing their hips into contact. Bit slammed his hand into the framing of the door until he dropped the weapon. Stepping on the gun, Bit released his arms with a jerk, sending him off balance, and slammed her right fist into his gut. Before he could recover, her left fist rounded on his face, sending him sprawling.
Bit spun on the weapon as though it was a dance shoe and kicked Rudy in the face, sending blood flying from his broken nose. Both men groaned as she bent to retrieve the gun. She sighted down the pistol at one fallen man, and then the other, confirming that they were down and not about to get up again.
“Sorry ‘bout that, Miss Bernice. Will they be a problem for you?”
Miss Bernice shook her head. “Nah, child. I have the best whores in Soweto, and he knows it. He wants his men serviced, he’ll forgive me. You on the other hand… Now get out of here before they come to.”
Bit nodded, scooped up her dropped pack, mouthed “thank you,” and ducked out of the brothel. She scurried out of the narrow alley and into the main street. For a moment, she considered fleeing the Soweto District, but it was where Delci, the pseudo-doctor, lived. She needed to see Delci.
She tucked the stolen gun into her trousers at the small of her back, pulling her shirt over it. Walking faster than the general foot traffic, she weaved through the street, zig-zagging north towards the edge of the suburb. Finally, she reached a collection of buildings with so many add-ons it was impossible to tell where one began and the next ended. Catwalks connected the various buildings on the outside and, if Bit’s memory served, the buildings were connected through tunnels and elevated breezeways. Some of the breezeways had even become enclosed over the years.
Bit ran into the main entrance of one of the buildings and headed up the stairs. None of the older buildings had elevators—or if they did, they stopped working long ago. On the fifth floor—where that set of stairs ended—she weaved through the various hallways, some of them even turning into what had once been an apartment before some tragedy. The structure had been redone so many times it was impossible to tell what the original layout had been. Eventually, she transferred to the next building through a half enclosed breezeway.
As she jogged, she passed mothers with children on their way out for the evening, men returning from their work, and beggars who sat in their doorways just as they might on the streets. Some of the apartments had been turned into shops, their walls cut out to display their wares. Other apartments provided other services. She even spotted a barber working on a man’s curly brown hair through one open door.
The labyrinth of interconnected housing had slowly been turned into its own exclusive town. Even in the twelve years since her last visit, the town had grown more confusing and secluded. She reached the next set of stairs and continued up, slowly growing out of breath.
At the tenth story, she exited the staircase and took to searching. She couldn’t quite remember where Delci kept her little clinic, but she knew it was on the tenth floor. After a few turns, she found a door propped open with a line of bedraggled people pouring out of it. Bit slipped past them and started to enter.
“Hey!”
“No cutting!”
Bit raised her hands. “I’m not here for medical treatment. Just information.”
Multiple people flipped her off and she retrieved the gun from the back of her waistband. They grew suddenly silent. She slipped into the little clinic and spotted Delci. Like Miss Bernice, Delci had aged over the twelve years.
“There’s a line,” Delci snapped. “I don’t care if you’re armed. There’s still a line.”
“Just need information, Delci, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
“Do I know you?” The woman frowned.
“You knew me about twelve years ago, by the name of Bit.”
Recognition dawned on Delci’s features. “Of course, I thought those eyes looked familiar. Boy, you’ve changed,” she added, her eyes dropping to the gun.
“Yes, I have. Do you remember Douglas Zandri?”
Delci went back to bandaging a woman’s burned hand. “He was your owner, am I right.”
Bit nodded. “Yes.”
“Yes, I remember him.”
“Do you know where he went from here?”
Delci was quiet for a moment. All appearances suggest she hadn’t heard Bit, but she knew better. Delci was thinking, her hands working at the same time.
“I thought he moved north to Dobsonville.”
“What for?”
Delci shrugged before helping the woman to her feet. “No idea. Now I’ve told you what you wanted. Unless you plan to help, you need to go.�
�
“You don’t want me to stay. I pissed some guys off at Bernice’s.”
“Oh?”
“Beat them up.”
Delci rolled her eyes as she guided the next patient in—a young man with a cut across his brow. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. Who did you beat up?”
It was Bit’s turn to shrug. “Some guy named Rudy.”
Delci’s movements froze. Bit suddenly realized she might have kicked the wrong dog.
“You hurt Rudy?”
“What’s the big deal?”
“Rudy runs Soweto now. He doesn’t tend to tread here much, but the rest of the burb he runs. You just poked the tiger, Bit. It’s best you leave now.”
“Wait,” said the patient. “Let’s take her and give her to Rudy. She’ll be worth gold for sure.”
Bit didn’t hesitate to raise her stolen gun to his face. “No, thank you,” she said as she backed out of the clinic.
As she reached the doorway, she felt a blow to the back of her head before the world went black.
Chapter Four
Rudy blinked as the haze cleared from his mind. One thing was for certain, his groin and nose hurt like he’d been dancing with a devil-whore. He groaned as he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. A quick glance around the room showed Dimitri sprawled out next to the door of the brothel. He turned his head to see Bernice standing in the doorway to the rest of the brothel, leaning heavily on her cane.
“I wondered when you’d come to.”
Rudy growled as he hoisted himself to his feet. “Who was that girl?”
Bernice shrugged her stooped shoulders. “Just an indentured servant. I used to have dealings with her owner from time to time when she was a little girl. She’d sit with me while he went upstairs.”
He gave another growl as he grabbed his nose and slammed it back into place. Crossing the room, he nudged Dimitri with his steel-toed boot. The young man groaned and began to shift.
“She was trained,” he snapped turning back to the madam.
“That’s new. She was just a child when I knew her last.”
“You should have warned me.”
Bernice’s eyes grew wide under the folds of her skin. “Until now, you didn’t need any warning, especially when it came to a small girl like her.”
Rudy crossed the room in two steps, glaring down at the old woman. “You little bitch!”
“I’ve been called worse.” She shrugged again.
“I should take you out for this.”
“For what? Talking to a girl who wouldn’t take any of your crap, Rudy? You know perfectly well if you touch me none of your men will get serviced by my whores. And without my whores, no one will want to work for you. Your power will crumble.”
Rudy spouted a creative string of curses, belittling Bernice, her mother, and her ancestors in general. Finally, his cursing stopped and he shook his aching head.
“Where did she go from here?” he demanded.
“She went to Delci’s,” said Bernice with a knowing smirk.
“Dammit!” Rudy barked. “Damn all you women straight to hell! Dimitri, let’s go!”
The younger man was barely to his knees, but Rudy grabbed the door, slamming it into his second-in-command and marching away.
Dimitri will follow if he knows what’s good for him.
Jack and his crew stepped out of the cantina. The sun was beginning to set, though he could barely tell through the city’s smog.
Is this how Bit lived? he wondered, watching a barefoot child race by him, a large sack balanced on the child’s too-skinny shoulders.
“Now what?” Oden asked, breaking into his sad thoughts.
“I have no idea.”
Dirk threw up his hands, nearly hitting a pedestrian. “This is ridiculous! We don’t even know if she came to Johannesburg.”
“She came to Johannesburg,” stated Blaine.
“Fine. Let’s say she did. This is a city of millions or more. How are we supposed to find her? She’s gone, Jack. Just report her to the authorities and let’s get back to work.”
“I’m not reporting her.”
“Oh for pity’s sake!” snapped Dirk, his hands raising in a gesture of disbelief.
“Dirk, if you’d like to return to the Lenore, I’m sure there are repairs in need of your attention.”
Dirk glared at his captain. “Am I being dismissed?”
“If you can’t shut your trap.”
Dirk’s glare turned into a look of astonishment. “Consider this my formal resignation.”
Jack’s expression matched Dirk’s shock as he watched his lead engineer turn and walk away without another word. The captain took a deep breath, trying to calm his agitation, but it only resulted in coughing. When his coughing calmed, he looked at his crew, eyeing his XO. Each one looked more annoyed than the last, and for a second Jack wondered if they were upset with him or Dirk. Slowly, he realized their gazes were turned toward the departing engineer.
Even Kat, who didn’t know Dirk all that well, was giving him a dark glower. Jack’s mother had suggested Kat to him for a new XO in the hopes that Kat would be a guiding force in Bit’s life. Jack had always seen the beautiful woman as an excellent officer, but thus far, she had not impressed him, nor had she made friends with Bit.
“Well, Forrest, it looks like you’ve been promoted,” Oden said, slapping the second engineer on the back.
Jack rolled his eyes glancing over at the two men. He didn’t argue. Though it wasn’t Oden’s place to say so, he spoke the truth—Forrest was their new chief engineer.
“Make sure you move into the chief engineer’s quarters when we get back to the ship,” Jack said in an effort to confirm Oden’s misspoken truth. “But for now, we need to focus on Bit. Anyone else have any ideas?”
“If she’s here for that contact of yours, why don’t we go to his office?” suggested Blaine.
“I don’t know where that office is. Our contact with Douglas was limited. He was just a contact person. I’m not even sure they have an office here.”
“If he was contacting you, then you have his frequency,” said Randal. “We can backtrace that to his location.”
“From the ship,” added Jack.
Randal nodded. “Yes, we’d have to do it from the ship.”
Jack looked around at his crew. “I need someone to go back to the ship and backtrack the frequency. Any volunteers?”
To no surprise, the men looked around, each trying to hide from their captain.
Finally, Vance stepped forward. “I’ll go back. I admit I’m not much help with this kind of stuff.”
“Anyone else? Vance shouldn’t have to spend all this time alone. Last time we had to split up like this the ship was attacked and was not properly protected. We won’t do that again. I want the ship well protected… and Reese has already done his duty on the ship”
The group laughed, one or two slapping the scarred man on the back. When the laughing stopped, no one else volunteered.
“In that case, if it’s all right with you Randal, I want Blaine and Nathyn to go back to the ship, along with Jeremiah and Forrest,” announced Jack.
Blaine opened his mouth to argue but thought better of it just in time. Jeremiah quickly nodded, always willing to do what he was told. Nathyn and Forrest kept their mouths shut.
Randal nodded. “It’s for the best, Blaine. Nathyn. Take care of our ship. No one gets through you two.”
Blaine nodded and, after a few short minutes of planning, he, Nathyn, Jeremiah, and Vance left the group. Their numbers were shrinking, but Jack still had his XO, two pilots, and three security officers.
“Where do we go until Blaine gets that frequency number?” Randal asked, always the pragmatist.
“I suppose we find a hotel.”
They all looked around at the run-down suburb, their hopes of finding a safe, comfortable bed decreasing with each scan of the street. It was going to be a long night.
&nb
sp; Blaine led the group away from Jack and the crew, heading toward the nearest lift up to one of the hovering platforms. He kept them walking until they had made a few turns and were out of sight of his captain. Suddenly, Blaine turned back, nearly sending Jeremiah falling onto his rump.
Nathyn grabbed the younger man to steady him. “Why are we stopped?”
“We could go to the ship and sit on our asses,” began Blaine, “or we could go look for Bit ourselves.”
“They would know what we were doing within twelve hours… when no one contacts them and reports the frequency number.”
“Not if Vance goes up to the ship and pretends like we’re all up there.”
“I don’t know how to get that information off the communications system,” countered Vance.
“I can teach you the steps. It’s very easy. And then you can contact me with the information and I’ll call it into the captain like I’m up there with you.”
Nathyn released a long sigh. “Do you have some idea where she is that the captain hasn’t thought of?”
“He wasn’t even willing to try and find an office for Morgan Reactors or any of their sister companies. I think we should start with that. Let him chase after a frequency code.”
Nathyn glanced at Vance. “What do you think?”
“I think we should do it,” said Jeremiah before Vance could reply.
“You don’t get a say,” snapped Blaine.
“Why not?”
“You’re a boy.”
“If I get a say as a cook, then Jer gets a say as a boy. But I’d suggest that boy rethinks his position. We’re talking about mutiny here.”
“Whoah!”
“Hey, now!”
Nathyn and Blaine exclaimed in unison.
“I know you don’t like to hear it,” continued Vance, “but going against the captain’s orders is essentially mutiny. We need to obey him.”
“But we also need to find Bit,” argued Blaine.
Jeremiah crossed his arms. “Well, I’m still in.”
Vance shook his head. “I can’t agree to this.”
“I can’t let Jeremiah do this without me,” added Forrest, speaking for the first time.
Mayhem and Mutiny Page 2
