“Got to keep his voice, too,” Sorensen went on, unabated. “All the syllables and sounds were recorded before the transition.”
“This is illegal,” Morvan whispered.
Sorensen shrugged. “Shetland doesn’t think in terms of ‘legal’ and ‘illegal.’ We operate on a different level. If we didn’t, we never could’ve ended up with Maxwell here. We call him a ‘transapien.’”
Maxwell lifted his forearms and snapped out a long, skinny barrel on one side and a short, stubby barrel on the other.
Sorensen’s spiel went on. “His mechanical innards are encased under ten centimeters of Lonsdale nanomesh. It’s a modification of lonsdaleite. Hard as diamond. We engineered the allotrope ourselves. The body is practically indestructible. Isn’t that right, Maxwell?”
Maxwell nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Sorensen tapped another button. Two heavy, long-barreled automatic machine guns lowered from openings in the ceiling. They pointed directly at the unflinching transapien. The TransTek executive looked at Morvan with newfound pleasure in his grin.
“Care for a demonstration?”
The Scavenger
Chapter Forty-One
Orion Arm, on the planet Agora . . .
Strange and Sierra hunched together, sitting face to face in the crew den as Strange worked the airbrush in tiny strokes over Sierra’s cheek. The glossy, green stems and prickly leaves already climbed up her face from the base of her neck. Now Strange was adding the finishing touches to the fuchsia flower petals on Sierra’s temples while jawing her gum intently. Jai and Jabron stayed on the other side of the crew den, Jai sitting Indian-style on the floor, tapping on his tablet, while Bron leaned against the hatch frame to the private rooms, gnawing kelp jerky.
Davin slapped the clip into his handgun, slid the gun into its holster, and fastened it on his belt behind his back. He felt surprisingly decent. Only a slight headache from the night before. His Flotsam genetics came in handy for some things.
The prima filia seemed none too happy to have her pretty skin airbrushed and dabbed with Strange’s grease-stained cloth. She looked as tense as a cow in an ice cream shop.
“No worries, Dollface,” Davin said. “Strange has years of experience. Worked in a tatt parlor for how long?”
“Three years,” Strange said without breaking concentration. “Only ‘cause pilot jobs don’t come around all that often.”
“I’m more worried about why you’re carrying a gun,” Sierra said.
Davin crossed his arms. “Just a precaution. It’s the wild, wild West out there. All kindsa creeps lurking around.”
She made no expression in reply. Davin’s eyes flicked to the side, meeting Jabron’s for a brief moment.
“This still doesn’t feel right to me,” Sierra said. “The agent never gave a name? A duress code? Anything?”
Davin shrugged. “I never talked to the guy. Or gal. I don’t know anything about ‘em. All I know is my main man Jimmy Powers assures me they’re legit. Definitely from the Carinian government.”
It was technically true.
Across the room, Jabron gave a slow, subtle nod. None of the others seemed perturbed by this, except maybe Strange, who could hide her emotions like a professional. Strange had a heart, but it didn’t control her. She was a scavenger. When it came down to it, she would do her part for the crew. She would airbrush an innocent girl’s face and sell her to killers. Sometimes that’s what the job called for.
Even if Davin didn’t like it.
“There,” Strange said with finality, sitting back and leaning side to side to look at the twin roses from all angles. “How’s she look, Cap?”
Davin stepped closer and grinned. “Like an Apexian debutant going into the city to shop at all the trendiest boutiques.”
Sierra cracked a wry smile. “Sounds awful.”
“No?” Davin said. “Your dad didn’t let you shop when you were a teenager?”
Her smile faded. “I’m sure he would’ve preferred a daugher who liked to shop.”
A silence filled the air a few awkward seconds before Strange cut it off. “Go take a look at yourself in the mirror.” She nodded toward the crew bathrooms. “Let me know what you think.”
Sierra stood and drifted away in her nimble gait. She was the type who barely let her heels touch the floor when she walked, each step falling first on the balls of her feet. Davin looked away so his crew wouldn’t catch him admiring. Once Sierra had disappeared into the hatch, he stepped closer to Strange.
“You got the plan down?” Davin whispered. “You and Jai’ll leave about ten minutes after us and go—”
“Yes, yes!” Strange hissed, waving him away. “I remember the plan! Shush!” She eyed the bathroom.
Davin grabbed his leather jacket, swung it onto his arms, and pulled it snug against his back. The jacket gradually extended at the bottom, concealing his gun. He ignored the knot in the core of his stomach and nodded at Bron, who still ruminated on kelp jerky. “What flavor?”
“Barbecue,” Bron rumbled and lifted the bag toward Davin.
“Hell yeah.”
Bron tossed him a strip of the thick, smoked seaweed. Davin pointed it like a stylus at Jai.
“Jai, good to go?”
Without looking up, the little genius rattled off, “Kick ass, take names.”
Davin nodded and ripped into the jerky. It tasted like heaven but did nothing to calm his stomach.
* * *
In Davin’s personal quarters, Sierra stepped around the strange magnetic exercise machine on the ground—a tube-shaped device with worn handlebars—and picked up her copy of The Hidden Words, frayed and ragged around the edges from generations of use. The familiar weight of it gave her no comfort this time. Instead, she glanced over her shoulder before pushing the bulk of pages away from the back cover. A soft, rectangular section of the thick cover slid downward, revealing a thin, flat blade atop a narrow, Izowood handle. Enough to injure. Enough to give her a sliver of confidence and some sense of security.
Sierra slipped the handle under her bra, between her breasts, invisible under her loose clothes. Her heart still felt constricted, her mind torn. What if she had to use it? Could she bring herself to? Every person, even these scavengers, was created from the same dust as her. They were God’s beloved no less than her. Yet the cold metal pressed against her skin gave her comfort. Comfort? She should have been repulsed by it. Instead she sought its protection.
Sierra remembered when the Prime Security Unit had showed her how the knife fit into the book cover and how to use it. They wouldn’t let her leave the building until she promised to use it if her life was in danger. She had to lie then, but it was no lie now.
Something in her wanted to trust these strangers, to believe there was good in them deeper than any evil, but her gut wouldn’t let her. She had heard them whispering when she stepped into the bathroom. Whatever they were talking about, something about this situation felt off. Wrong. They were keeping something from her. And she couldn’t read Davin. At times, he was as transparent as glass. Not now. Not anymore. Now he had secrets.
Sierra paused just inside the hatch, contemplating the idea of plunging the tiny blade into Davin’s chest. Could she make herself do it? Could fear make her do it?
Chapter Forty-Two
Davin concentrated on walking casually beside Sierra, examining the faces of passersby, watching for any hint of recognition. Sierra’s twin roses tatt seemed like enough to throw people off at first blush, but if they gave her a good look . . .
Luckily, the Rothbard Heights Mall kept most people thoroughly distracted with its shifting display screens and hovering ad bots reading people’s faces and flashing targeted advertisements. They annoyed the hot bile outta Davin, but they were remarkably effective. He wouldn’t have the utility watch he wore every day if not for one of them.
Jabron followed a few paces behind, keeping a stiff back to prevent his handgun from forming a lump in his j
acket. He glanced around a little too conspicuously, but Davin let it go. What Jabron lacked in subtlety he made up for in sheer badassery. Davin never wanted to end up on the wrong side of a fight with him. Plus, the mall’s central corridor had four levels, each with a glass-panelled balustrade where people leaned, looking down on the main level. Anyone here could be the buyer Jimmy had set them up with. The buyer would approach them at some point, but Davin had no clue when or where. He didn’t like the vulnerability of not knowing, like a blindfolded boxer, guessing where the punch would come from.
“I’d like to thank you,” Sierra said, breaking a silence Davin hadn’t even noticed was there. They stopped in front of a fountain where embedded lights shifted the color of the water through the rainbow. Sierra’s voice sounded calm, but her eyes were penetrating, inspecting Davin for the answer to some unasked question. “For rescuing me. Not giving me to the Abramists. That would’ve been the easy thing to do.”
Davin found it hard to disconnect from Sierra’s gaze. Her eyes commanded him. He shrugged. “We’re scavengers, yeah, but we’re not heartless.” A sudden lump formed in his throat.
Sierra’s look became even more searching, more pensive. Either the girl couldn’t hide her concern or she wanted to communicate something without speaking. Davin couldn’t tell. Jabron meandered up.
“Gonna take a look around,” he said in a low voice. “I won’t be far.”
As Bron disappeared into the crowd, Sierra’s face returned to its normal, tense state, concealing whatever concern had been there before. She wandered over to a stand in the middle of the corridor that had multiple rows and levels of hanging jewelry, necklaces mostly. Davin watched as she picked up the delicate chains that had fallen onto the shelves and hung them back onto their display props. Not shopping—organizing. Davin almost laughed.
“Gotta admit,” he said. “You’re not quite the girl I expected you to be.”
She looked over her shoulder at him with a coy smirk. “Oh? What exactly were you expecting?”
Davin stepped beside her and began re-hanging fallen necklaces as well. He glanced up every few seconds at passersby: a woman pushing a levitator carriage holding a baby; a tall, middle-aged woman with a sharp nose and jawline; a pair of teen girls whispering to each other in paradoxically loud voices. One of them had tattoos of birds with outstretched wings on her temples, the other a maze of green leaves and red flowers running down the back of her hand and up her forearm. Davin grinned. With Sierra’s disguise, she fit right in with these airbrained mall-goers, yet she was worlds apart.
“You come from a family that has all the money and power in the world,” Davin said quietly. “But you don’t act like it.”
Sierra glanced sideways at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t assume you know what a prima filia’s like until you meet one.”
“Don’t run into ‘em all that often,” Davin said. “But I’ve learned my lesson: Don’t assume anything about celebrities.”
Her chest bounced with a quick laugh. “I’m no celebrity. People only like me because I fit the mold of what a prima filia is supposed to be.”
“What mold is that?”
“The girl who’s softspoken and sweet,” she said, voice hinting at bitterness. “Naive. Good for photo ops and motivational speeches and not much else. The innocent girl who doesn’t understand the real world, who has nothing important to say about the galaxy. The girl who’s nothing but . . .” She shook her head.
“But what?”
Sierra hung the last fallen necklace and faced Davin. “A princess.”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re so touchy about that word.”
Sierra shrugged. “That and the fact our government isn’t a monarchy.”
Davin put on a serious face. “Yes, of course. Uh, remind me again the exact term for your type of government?”
“Theocratic republic.”
“Yes, yes,” Davin said. “Theocratic republic. Of course. I knew that. It was on the tip of my tongue.”
She tried and failed to surpress a smirk. “Memory lapse, huh?”
“Yeah, I remember it now. It’s on the test you have to take to become a scavenger.”
Sierra giggled a light and endearing laugh, eyes crinkling with a cute sparkle. A warm satisfaction spread through Davin’s chest at the sound and the feeling of her happy eyes on him. She had loosened back to a peaceful state—the state he’d only experienced when she’d been unconscious. It felt nice. He could see the “innocent princess” that everyone else seemed to see—the girlish face and delicate skin and trusting eyes. But in her reluctant smile, he also detected something more: a surprising thoughtfulness. An eager, intelligent voice longing to be heard. Davin felt like the younger one, only beginning to realize how many more layers of complexity existed in the world than he knew about.
Behind Sierra, a ways down the corridor, he noticed a glowing Jazzie Mike’s sign—the saxophone “J” and kelpburger dot of the “i” in “Mike’s” gave it away.
“Can I buy you a kelpburger?”
Her face tightened in disgust.
“It’s better than it sounds. I swear.” He took her by the hand and led the way.
* * *
Davin and Sierra sat across from each other at a table bolted to the floor. The tabletop screen shifted from one advertisement to another, for Macy’s one minute and Modern Threads the next, then Smoothie Shack—all places in the mall. Sierra held the drippy kelpburger in her fingertips as she chewed contemplatively. Davin watched and waited.
Finally, Sierra swallowed and stared at her burger in disbelief. “How do they make kelp taste like that?”
Davin laughed. “See? Good, right? Finest kelpburger in the galaxy.”
“It’s . . . unique,” Sierra said. “Better than I expected. A little messy though.”
“Comes with the territory, sweetheart.” Davin crammed a bite into his mouth. “S’why the g’Lord invented napkins.”
He should’ve swallowed first. Sierra took another small, dainty bite, making Davin feel like a barbarian.
“I like the sauce,” she said after a period of silent chewing.
“Jazzie Mike’s Secret Sauce,” Davin said. “Everybody likes it.”
“So you came here often as a kid?”
“You mean the mall or Jazzie Mike’s?”
“Either one,” she said. “I want to hear about your life. What it’s like to grow up on Agora.”
Davin sat back and thought about it. It felt like a big request. “Okay. Yeah, I came here sometimes with my friends. Not often. We had to take the ferry. Pretty expensive for a Flotsam kid.”
“Your parents let you go wherever you wanted?”
Davin almost laughed. “You could say that. My mom was kinda hands-off. Being out with my friends worked out best for both of us.”
“I guess your dad was hands-off, too?”
“Never knew my dad. He disappeared when he found out my mom was pregnant. So, yeah, the ultimate hands-off dad.”
Sierra’s eyes sank. “Sorry for prying. That was insensitive.”
“No big deal,” Davin said. “Never knew the guy. From the things my mom said, I probably wouldn’t want to know him.”
A foursome of twenty-something girls with flowery wrist tatts sat down at the table next to them, chatting like morning birds. Davin ruled out the possibility of them being the buyers.
“I thought it was bad having a prime minister as a father,” Sierra said. “Guess we’ve both got those kinds of families.”
Davin couldn’t withhold a laugh. “I can’t see how our families are the tiniest bit similar.”
“We’re both distant from them,” Sierra said with sincerity.
Davin crossed his arms and shrugged. “I don’t know. I think of family as whoever you can’t imagine your life without. My crew is my family.” It surprised Davin to hear himself say that, as if he hadn’t realized it until that moment.
Strange’s voice piped through Davin�
�s earpiece: “Aw, that’s sweet as hell, Cap.”
Davin hid an embarrassed smirk. He’d forgotten the others were listening in.
Sierra stared off at nothing like a forlorn puppy. “If that’s what family is, my family’s not very big.”
Davin’s smirk turned to a real smile. “Always time to add to the ranks.”
For a quiet moment, the world moved around them while they sat in stillness, eyes lingering on each other without shyness or embarrassment. Subtle warmth welled in Davin, a pleasant lightheartedness. Sierra looked at him like no one ever had. In that calm, delicate moment, he felt something new and different. He felt valuable. Admirable. When Sierra looked at him, he felt like a good man.
Over Sierra’s shoulder, a woman walked by, eyeing them. Just a brief glance, but Davin noticed. He recognized her. It was the hard-faced, sharp-nosed woman who had walked by while they hung necklaces at the stand. She wore normal clothes, but something seemed off about her. She didn’t fit in here. She walked across the food court toward nothing in particular, just zigzagging through the tables.
Maybe it was the buyers, maybe it wasn’t, but Davin sensed it coming. They were close. He looked around, trying to be inconspicuous. No one else stood out, but he sensed others nearby, watching.
The lump in his throat returned with a vengeance.
Sierra noticed. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” he said, then hesitated. New thoughts flooded his head, things he never thought or cared about before. “Sierra, let me ask you something. Without you in the picture, everybody thinking you’re dead, what are the odds Carina goes to war with the Sagittarians?”
Sierra shook her head and sighed. “I don’t know. There are others who don’t want war. My father is one of them. At least he was. But if he thinks the Sagittarians killed me . . .” Her eyes met his again, sober this time. Gloomy. “There’ll be war. It’s just be a matter of time.” She paused. “That’s why it’s so important I get back to Baha’runa. They need to know I’m alive. They need to know who did this.”
Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series Page 23
