“We’re sharing. I can’t protect you from another room.”
“Like hell we’re sharing.”
Nathyn took another deep breath. “My job is to protect you, not to make you comfortable.”
Debby pursed her thin lips and clenched her jaw. “Fine. You can sleep in the chair.”
He threw her bags on the ground, ignoring her little outcry of horror, and moved to the side of the bed nearest the door. He gave her a little push, directing her to the other side.
“Listen to me, Debby,” he began, “’cause I’m only going to say this once. You are going to do as I say. You are not going to complain about it anymore, and if you keep this shit up, I’m going to slap you across the face. And no, I won’t apologize for it. And NO!” he snapped when she began to interrupt him. “I don’t think Jack will fire me for it. I’m in charge. You will do as I say. Now we are going to share this bed, and you are going to get over that fact. Okay? Okay.”
Debby glared at him until he thought fire might erupt from her ears. He casually turned away to examine the contents of his pack, giving her his back and making it clear that he didn’t consider her a threat. He listened to her mess with her luggage as loudly as she could.
Finally, Nathyn moved to the in-room comm.-for-rent station, a grin playing at his lips. He inserted his pay card and dialed in the ship’s frequency, waiting for the link to connect. An image appeared, informing him the line was busy. After a short wait, Reese’s face appeared.
“Hey, old man,” Reese said with a smile as Debby crossed the room and barricaded herself in the bathroom. “What’s going on with the cap? How’s it going with his girl? She looks ready to spit nails.”
“Just had to inform her she’s not the boss.”
“Eek! How’d she take it?
“Well, if I don’t check in in the morning, assume she killed me. We should have just sicked her on the bad guys.”
“I heard that,” she called from the bathroom door.
“You’re gonna pay for that one,” chuckled Reese.
“Thanks! Glad to know you’ve got my back,” Nathyn said with a genuine smile as the sound of shower filled the background.
“She really that bad?”
“Worse. Any news from Bit and Oden?”
“Oh, they’re fine,” replied Reese with his own grin. “Oden’s loving every minute.”
“And how’s Blaine taking it?”
“Calm again. It was like crazy-Blaine was totally gone,” said Reese.
“I can’t believe it,” replied Nathyn. “Whatever set Blaine off is still in play. I don’t think we can assume anything.”
“I agree, and so does the cap. He’s watching him.”
“Good.” Nathyn nodded. “Well, other than the fact the queen bee is a Class-A bitch, I got nothing to report.”
“You want me to tell the cap that when I next talk to him?” Reese asked.
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Okay. Talk to you in the morning.”
Nathyn switched off the comm. and removed his card, his smile slipping away. This was going to be a long, long two days.
Reese switched off the comm. and put a check mark next to Nathyn’s name under the “Sunday 2000 hour” list. Everyone had checked in as planned, for the most part in good spirits and with no issues. The ship repairs were going well and no one had been spotted loitering outside the airlock.
The security officer hoisted himself out of the pilot’s chair and headed toward the staircase. Yes, things were going well.
“It’s a great idea, Dirk. You just don’t like it ‘cause it’s not from your college text books. Believe it or not, technology has changed since you went to school.”
Reese stopped on the catwalk as Forrest’s voice rang up from the living quarters below.
“That’s not the point, boy. And you can damn well learn how to speak to your superiors. Your idea is risky, and I don’t take risks with my ship.”
“It’s not your ship, it’s the captain’s ship.”
“And he has trusted me with her engines, not you. He and his father and his grandfather have all trusted me with her engines.”
“And you haven’t changed the way you’ve done things since this ship was made. Discoveries have been made. There are better, faster forms of propulsions.”
“Just ‘cause them fancy army ships do things differently don’t make it better.”
Reese bit his bottom lip, working to keep from laughing out loud. He felt for Forrest. It was a losing battle. So long as there was air in Dirk’s body he would do things the way he had been doing them since he became an engineer fifty-some-odd years ago. He considered mentioning the fight to the captain when he returned, but decided to leave it to Forrest. It wasn’t his place. After all, he was a security officer, not an engineer.
It was his job to keep them safe. It was their job to rebuild the engines.
Chapter Seventeen
Bit woke with a start, panic quickly shifting her from groggy bliss to full alertness. Oden lay on his stomach, half dangling off the wide couch, his gentle snores punctuating the unusual silence. The darkness of the room gave her no hint as to the time of night. The haze of her mind and the numbness of her limbs suggested true morning was still many hours away, and yet the thrumming of the club’s sound system had stopped.
Slowing her breathing, she forced herself to relax for fear that her panic would wake him. He shifted slightly and eased back into a deeper sleep. Carefully, Bit eased herself up onto her hands and knees, extending a leg out over his body.
She held her breath as his leg dropped to floor and froze, one of her legs held out midair. The position hurt her ribs despite the pain meds and she stifled a drug-induced giggle. If someone walked in now it would look like she was trying to mount him like a horse.
Oden adjusted his pillow in his sleep and his snoring resumed. Bit cautiously lowered her left leg to the floor, careful to keep her body from touching his as she shifted her weight onto her left leg. Sadly, her foot was planted on the edge of the blanket and it shifted on the smooth wooden floor, sending her sprawling across Oden’s back, a leg on each side.
Bit winced with the pain of her collision, her breath catching in her burning chest. She froze, waiting for the awkward and inevitable moment when Oden jerked awake and demanded to know why she was sprawled across his back.
“Bi-it?” he finally moaned into his pillow, still sounding asleep, “that you?”
Bit’s mind raced. Is he really still sleeping?
“I got cold,” she whispered, nestling her head into his shoulder as she imagined a lover might do.
“Mmm,” he groaned as he reached back and adjusted the blanket over their conjoined bulk.
Bit remained motionless, forcing her breathing to slowly match his, as though she was drifting back to sleep. Oden began to snore again, but still she waited. The truth was, Oden was warm and she was extremely comfortable lying across his back, the medicine still numbing the worst of the pain so long as she didn’t move.
After a few minutes, she slowly slid off his back, careful to keep the blanket from coming with her. She froze in a squat beside the couch, watching the tattooed and pierced man mumble in his sleep, a little trace of drool marking his pillow. She reached up and adjusted the blanket, and he let out a soft sigh of contentment.
He’s gonna be so pissed, she thought as she scooted away and found her boots in the murky darkness. After a long, agonizing search, she found both of her boots and got them on the correct feet. She found her jacket, the transit card safely stowed in her interior pocket, and slipped out of the room.
Out in the lighted hallway, she laced up her boots, triple-checked her transit card, and slipped out into the enormous warehouse. The massive fight cage had been raised above the average height of a man and the flashing lights had been exchanged for florescent work lights, bathing the enormous space in a sickly green light. Men and women still bustled around the space but,
based on a cursory glance, Bit judged them to all to be workers. The patrons had long gone home.
Bit scanned the large space, finding Logan on the far side, near the bar talking with an enormous man, his muscles battling the confines of a black t-shirt. She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and marched across the club, her spine threatening to melt out her toes for sake of nervousness.
Be strong, she told herself with each step. You can do this.
“Hey there. You’re up early,” Logan said with an enormous yawn.
He waved to dismiss to the mountain of a man and turned to look at her.
“Where’s Oden?”
“He’s still sleeping. Had a rough night. I had an errand to run and was hoping you could give me directions… or if you had a map of the city I could borrow.”
Logan eyed her for a second. “Without Oden?”
“Yeah, he needs his rest and I just need to get a few things.”
“I just don’t see him sending you out on your own.”
Bit pulled out her transit card. “If he didn’t want me going out on my own why would he give me a transit card?”
Logan glanced at the card for a second and shrugged. “Okay. Yeah I got an old school map you can use.”
Bit followed him back to the bar, where he rummaged around in a few drawers before he pulled out a folded-up map. The creases were so warn she couldn’t read the words that crossed over the folds. Other than that, she saw the bold print of various district names and the gray smudges she suspected represented waves.
“Is this still accurate?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Logan shrugged before working to wind his shoulder-length hair up into a ponytail. “For the most part. We’re here, in the industry district,” he said pointing to a shaded section in the northern reaches of the city.
“Is this the landing platform?” she asked, pointing to a circle; the words adjoining it were beyond legibility.
“Yep.”
“Neat. Thanks.”
Bit carefully folded the map as she headed for the exit.
“Just out of curiosity,” called Logan, “where are you going?”
Bit turned to look back at him, her mind racing. “To our captain’s condo. I just left some stuff there.”
Logan nodded, seeming to buy it.
Bit reached the street, her heart racing through her chest. In the light of the day, the street appeared dirty and cratered with potholes. An enormous lorry trundled by, barely able to fit down the street without spilling over into the other lane. Across the street another warehouse loomed, a line of workers spilling out while another filed in for the day shift. She glanced up, amazed to find the sky barely turning gray.
A sea gull took flight from the railing of a third story balcony, suggesting the sea wasn’t too far away, just as the map had told her. The only question was which way to a transit station.
Suddenly, her self-appointed mission seemed impossible. She knew the Carnal Cave was in the pleasure district, and she knew Oden’s friends worked there, but she had no idea how to get there or what their names were. How was she supposed to find them, much less convince them to tell her anything about the MGC executives and why armed men were after her crew members?
Bit considered going back into the club, but she didn’t want to see the smug look on Logan’s face, much less deal with Oden’s well-deserved tirade.
Instead, she squared her shoulders and prepared to start down the street in a random direction.
“You look lost,” a deep voice said from the doorway of the club.
She looked up and recognized the enormous man Logan had been talking to leaning against the doorjamb.
“Can you tell me which way to the nearest transit station?”
He nodded. “Depends on where you want it to take you.”
Bit hesitated. “The pleasure district.”
The black man raised an eyebrow at her. “I didn’t see that coming. Head that way two blocks, then turn left. Can’t miss it, but I can’t help but wonder what a little thing like you wants in the pleasure district. And from what Logan tells, I doubt very much your man wants you in the pleasure district.”
“He’s not my man,” she said in way of parting before heading in the direction he had indicated.
She heard him chuckling behind her but ignored him.
Bit knew she was making a mistake, of sorts, but she had to do something to get Oden off his backside. They couldn’t just sit in that smelly little room for two days and let the others take the risks. If he had a contact who might be able to find something out, then they had to at least try. Bit knew it wasn’t very likely that she would be able to find the contacts herself, but if Oden woke up in time, he would catch up with her. The trick was, she had to get far enough into the pleasure district for him to be invested in her project. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if he just threw her over his shoulder and marched right back to the club.
Bit took another deep breath, spotted the turn and took it. She tried to increase her speed, but the faster she moved the more her ribs hurt. Bit plunged her hands into the pockets of her jacket only to find lint, the bottle of her pain pills sitting on the T.V. stand back in the room, guarded by a sleeping Oden. She cringed at the thought of a long train ride without them, but soldiered forward.
She reached the transit station and, to her relief, found a map of the city with bright-colored lines showing the routes of the tracks crisscrossing all over the city. In short order, she figured out which train she needed to be on—the one with the blue signs on it. The only problem was, she had no idea which stop to get off at. She scanned the map a second time, finding the pleasure district tinted in pink. It spanned a large swath of land bisected by what appeared to be a wide hook-shaped inlet. The inlet was surrounded by a green-shaded stretch of land, which Bit guessed to be parkland. Whatever the pleasure district contained, it stretched across a swath of land at least twice, if not three times, the size of any other district in the city.
Bit swallowed the lump in her throat. Her project was doomed to fail.
A train approached and, to her amazement, it was a blue one. She boarded it with the intention of just getting off at a random stop in the pleasure district. She nodded to the station attendant and climbed aboard the first car, hoping to have a good line of sight to whatever there was to see. To her disgust, two blocks into the journey, the train dipped underground and remained in the dark through the entire journey.
Bit watched the light-up map stationed above the door of the train, the lights of each station lighting up as they reached it. They entered the pink area and Bit waited until the third stop before she got off, nodding to the conductor as she did. She climbed the stairs, her arm unwittingly glued to her aching side.
On the surface, she found herself on a deserted street lined with the shortest buildings she had thus far seen in the city. Most only rose to four or five stories tall. Beyond them she could see tall trees growing in the distance. Bit took a shallow breath through her nose, reveling at the smell of fresh air devoid of burnt oil or rotting fish.
The display windows of the buildings were shuttered for the night, the stores and boutiques not yet opened. Bit glanced up, wondering what time it was. The gray sky was just beginning to shift towards pink—still extremely early. She guessed it to be around four in the morning, though she knew her guess was likely off.
Bit pushed forward, scanning the signs for the Carnal Cave Strip Club. Though she didn’t know what a strip club was, the words “carnal cave” gave her an idea. Within a block she knew she was in the wrong neighborhood.
Bit felt her face drop into a sad frown. She considered getting back on the train and going to the next stop. She wanted to stay near the stations so that Oden could find her easily, but she also didn’t want to endure another jostling trip.
Instead of making a decision, Bit sat down on the curb, pulling her knees up under her chin.
Oden woke with a sta
rt. Something wasn’t right, but his sleep-fogged brain couldn’t detect what it was. Slowly, he realized he was too cool, despite the blanket draped over his body. Oden carefully turned his head to find the other side of the couch empty. He jumped to his feet, dumping the blanket to the floor. A quick scan of the room convinced him that Bit was gone.
Where could she be? he wondered as he scrambled for his boots and jacket.
As he frantically dressed, he noticed her boots were gone too. In record time, Oden dashed out of the room and into the club’s main room. The workers were just finishing the morning’s cleaning before seeking the oblivion of sleep. Oden ignored them as he ran for the main entrance. Reaching the street, he skidded to a stop, glancing up and down the street.
Where would she go? She didn’t know anyone in the city other than the ship’s crew, and they were scattering throughout the giant labyrinth. Surely she wouldn’t leave him to try to reach them. Could she be trying to get back to Blaine? No, not after what he did in the mess hall!
The only thing she cared about was figuring out why men were after her or the crew…
“Dammit,” he cursed just loud enough to draw the attention of the morning pedestrians.
“You looking for your girl?” asked a deep voice from the club’s doorway.
Oden turned to eye the club’s famed bouncer. “You seen her? You know what she looks like?”
“The girl with the outrageous dreadlocks. Haven’t seen hair like that since I was last on Earth.”
Oden nodded. “That’s her. Where’d she go?”
“She asked where the nearest train station was. I gave her directions to the one on Kent. You know the one? What’s the big deal?” the bouncer asked upon seeing Oden’s glower.
“She’s an indentured servant who’s never been on Mars before, and there may be people after her. And she has two broken ribs. She has no business on her own in this strange city.”
The man’s large face drooped into a look of self-directed disgust. “Look, I’m sorry man. I didn’t know. You want me to help search for her?”
Broken & Hunted Page 15
