by Faith Hunter
Laying out the Outlaw command structure and using the pseudonym “McQuestion” indicated Marconi knew a lot about the Outlaws. “You will also take one of my sons and train him at your side. Those are my conditions for my help.”
Jagger sipped, closed his eyes in happiness at the taste. Opened them and focused on Marconi. “These are conditions I will take upline. The hostage will wear an Outlaw Morphon instead of his own. If he dies by his own stupidity, in an accident, in any way that I can’t control, there will be proof. And there will be no war, no repercussions for any act of God or boyhood stupidity.” He shrugged. “All boys have stupid moments.”
Marconi said, “He can call home. Talk to his mother. His brothers and sisters.”
“Supervised calls. Trip home for Christmas if you pay for transportation costs.”
“Agreed. And I will provide funds to supplement his food for one year.”
Jagger grinned again, showing strong teeth, finally getting deeply into the bargaining. “Food and water. Weapons, ammo, bike, gas, and repairs. And one pound of roasted coffee beans, unground, this brand, every quarter. And, of course, McQuestion may have conditions as well.”
The Marconis looked at each other, their eyes saying so much. “Deal,” they said together.
“Deal,” Jagger said. They clicked glasses. “Which kid?”
“Jacopo.”
The boy serving the espresso nearly dropped the carafe. His eyes went wide. “I will bring honor to my family and to the Charleston chapter.” They were formal words, similar to one of the vows new Outlaws swore before they were confirmed. The kid should be too young to be a made-man, but the war had changed everything. I received my battlefield Outlaw patch and tattoo at age twelve. Jacopo was being offered a great honor and responsibility—and being placed in danger. He was all in. I had a feeling he was a full chapter member. Marconi clearly had big plans for this kid.
Jacopo turned to Jagger. “I will bring honor to the enforcer of McQuestion.”
Marconi said, “You will go with your brother to this woman’s med-bay and confirm your brother’s safety. Then you will join the enforcer.”
Bugger. I figured I had a good chance to keep the sick kid blindfolded for the ride to the scrapyard, but keeping a healthy one in the dark was a lot harder. Marconi would know where I live. Mateo would have a meltdown.
Jagger frowned. “You ride?”
Jacopo’s white teeth flashed. “I’m the best on a bike in the entire family. I’m next to Mina with knives and weapons. I have the highest IQ.”
“And the least modesty of all my children,” Lucretia said, her words dripping sarcasm.
“You patched?” Jagger asked.
The room went still. I caught a flash of Spy’s face overhead. She was staring at Jacopo as if she wanted him to pet her. Or as if she wanted to eat his dead body. Hard to tell which.
Jacopo glanced at his parents and his father gave a scant nod. His mother frowned. “Yes. In the interests of full disclosure, my first two kills were from a night that armed intruders tried to get in the house. I was ten.” Jacopo’s face went hard, and it was clear he was no longer bragging. He was stating facts about something that had marked him deeply. “Our babysitter was killed when they entered from an upstairs bedroom window. She fought hard, and it bought me the time I needed to make it downstairs to the gun safe. Papa didn’t know I knew the combination. One intruder died on the stairs. The other one made it to the main level.”
Lucretia and Daniel’s fingers touched and laced together. The memory was painful to them all.
“Weapons?” Jagger asked, gently.
“Nine mils. I wasn’t a good shot. They had to patch up the walls. In the last five years, I got better.” Jacopo’s face was a stone, and he looked older than his fifteen years. “Now I don’t miss. Ever.”
I sighed and held the tiny cup in my gloved hands, sipping, thinking. He was fifteen and busting at the seams with piss and vinegar like some super teenage ninja who I had to protect from my own queen nanobots. God help me. Things were getting complicated.
The evidence I had with Mateo and Cupcake suggested that being inundated with Berger chips didn’t destroy the nanobots, but the overload of info did rewire the victims’ brains, giving them an increasing freedom of choice.
Jagger still needed more Berger chips. A lot more. Either that, or his own attraction to me was keeping him in thralldom. So far, setting him free was a failure. If Jacopo were accidently transitioned, I could get my people killed.
∆∆∆
It was midnight, but we were too coffee-wired to go to sleep. When you haven’t had good coffee in years and you drink two cups of espresso, it jumpstarts your body like an anti-grav grabber. You feel like you’re floating, vibrating, and you have to move. So Jagger, our bodyguard, Cupcake, five cats, and I ordered a rental car recommended by Marconi (which meant he likely owned a percentage of the company) and drove to see the earthmover he had reserved for us. We were exceptionally well-dressed visitors to the equipment yard, but no one said anything about the strappy heels and the dresses, not after Marconi’s call and approval. We traipsed across dry rutted ground to the earthmover, and Jagger looked it over.
Half a century ago, it was the latest model, one designed to use a variety of shovels, buckets, snowplow, moldboard, and grader. The paint was long gone, but the mechanics and hydraulics looked well maintained, and the bucket was new and not missing teeth. In a shed nearby was a high-capacity pump, which came with a bladder system, and Jagger seemed to know why that was important and how to use it. He and Cupcake and the bodyguard—I finally learned his name was Amos—had a long conversation about the equipment and its limitations and strengths. I listened and learned a lot about bladders, valves, gear boxes, and hydraulics. It was information a scrapyard owner and any warrior might need.
We got back to the hotel before 2:00 a.m., sent Amos off, and we three curled up on the sofa and the chair, with the cats running everywhere, mock hunting. Together we went over prewar city maps and new maps, and discussed getting the machines to the swamp where the Simba was buried. I hadn’t seen wetlands in years and was looking forward to it.
At breakfast, I would be bargaining for the rest of the equipment we needed to rescue the battle tank. We needed my trades with Morrison’s Foundry, Metals, and Scrap to provide us with a single piece of military equipment that a snoop from Harlan’s old network had suggested Morrison possessed. A rare, hard to turn over, and very expensive piece of equipment that fell off an Army truck—meaning it was stolen.
Marty Morrison was a sneaky bastard. I had to be on my toes.
So of course, I crashed at 4:00 a.m. I never heard Jagger leave.
The only good thing about the busy night and the crash was that Jagger’s afternoon kiss and its promise of mind-blowing sex went nowhere. Which was good. Because I had already surely reinfected Jagger by sticking my tongue down his throat.
∆∆∆
There was no espresso to wake me up. Jagger did that by banging on our door. It was so loud the hotel patrons up the hall shouted in irritation.
Cupcake and I got fast showers—God, I loved water!—smeared on sunscreen, dressed in sun-protective clothing and gear, grabbed weapons, and headed into the day. Jagger was in the hotel’s secure parking area, sitting on his anonymous bike beside the big rig. Amos was standing beside him, carrying a rifle, a shotgun, two handguns, and a daypack. When Cupcake maneuvered the huge diesel onto the road, the bodyguard jumped into the bed and made himself comfy, protecting the trade items. I liked Amos. He was dependable, not trigger-happy, steady like a rock. And he brought his own guns.
Morrison’s Foundry, Metals, and Scrap was on the other side of the river, and Cupcake maneuvered the rig over the rickety bridge like the pro she was, chattering incessantly. I was pretty sure that if I’d had coffee, I would feel less inclined to strangle her. Maybe.
Jagger followed us on his motorcycle, weaponed up like he was going to war,
meaning he carried everything he owned that cut, sliced, diced, boiled people’s innards, or went bang. At Morrison’s, Cupcake pulled in where I instructed, and parked the rig while I fluffed my spiked hair, smeared on fresh lipstick, and prayed Marty would serve coffee with our breakfast.
I secured my weapons: a ten-millimeter strapped over my jeans at my left thigh, a .32 holstered at my spine over a T-shirt and under a loose cotton shirt, and a blaster holstered on my right thigh close beside my hand. I had done business at Morrison’s four times in the past, but I’d never had a stack of sterling or the jewelry Cupcake had unearthed. I didn’t want Marty to think I was a pushover, or that he could help himself, or about his profit margins if he ended us and dumped our bodies in a hole.
I pulled on thin leather gloves that covered my bicolor-ant scars and swung down from the cab. The cats dropped down after me. “As soon as you find the new containers, let me know,” I said to Spy. “They’ll smell different from containers that have been in the scrapyard for years. And watch out for junkyard dogs.”
She tilted her head, clearly insulted that I thought she and her pals couldn’t handle a dog or two. The cats scattered.
I tapped my comms and said quietly, “Mateo?” The SunStar’s EntNu communication system was handy in case we needed info not available on my outdated Berger chip. And in case Mateo had to mount a do-or-die rescue, giving away all our secrets and probably getting caught and stripped out of his warbot suit. Which would kill him. The last thing I wanted.
“Copy,” his metallic voice said.
I walked around to the side of the truck bed and peered at Amos through the side slats. “Stay put. You hear shots, you protect the trade items. If there’s a firefight and we get through this alive, your bonus will be nice. And stay out of the sun.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He grinned through a full beard, missing teeth attesting to his familiarity with fistfights, and popped open an umbrella I hadn’t seen. He relaxed in its meager shade.
I met Jagger and Cupcake, adjusted my 2-Gen sunglasses, and tugged the gloves tighter for possible weapons draw. “Let’s go have breakfast with Marty.”
“Rock and roll,” Cupcake said. She tossed the bag of jewelry she had brought to trade and caught it one-handed, before tying it to her belt at her split cotton skirt. She looked tough yet feminine, wearing biker boots, a plaid shirt tied at the waist, and Little Mama’s old hat, which she had called a fancy Panama sunhat. She carried a sawed-off shotgun, one I hadn’t seen before, and I started to tell her the recoil would knock her on her ass, but she did have my nanos. She probably could handle the recoil just fine.
I led the way to the front door of the sales room, smelling bacon and maple syrup on the air. Marty had never offered me breakfast before. Cupcake said, “By the way, I’m your security, personal secretary, and antiquities specialist. My job is to make sure you get the biggest bang for your buck. And keep Marty off-balance.”
I chuckled. “Knock yourself out. He knows me as Ms. Smith. If you have to use a first name, go with Heather.”
Cupcake entered—shotgun to the fore—and stepped to the left. I entered and stepped beside her. Jagger followed to the right and closed the door. After the bright daylight, the interior of Morrison’s was blindingly dim. I pulled off my sunglasses, even my weird eyes needing light. The public area had been refloored, the walls painted, and a new sales counter installed. Three men stood behind it, two of them with weapons out. The one without a weapon drawn was Marty.
“Ms. Smith!” he called out, too loud, hale and hearty. “Just in time.” He rounded the counter and indicated the small area to the right of the door. It had once been an octagonal nook with tall windows, but had been redecorated since my last visit, now with a round table and chairs, the windows draped. Marty pulled out a seat for me, one facing the windows, my back to the door. Cupcake slid around me and took up a position in an angle of the nook. She stared at Marty as she pulled out the chair in the most secure spot. Without a word, I took the seat she offered. Jagger moved across the room to a better firing angle. He could take down the armed men behind the counter, shoot Marty in the back, as well as cover the front door and the hallway leading into the back of the shop. Or he could stand there looking scary. Which he did.
I settled myself and said to Marty, “It smells divine. I was honored when my assistant said you invited me to breakfast.” I pulled off the holster and blaster with a melodramatic relieved sigh and placed them on the table, inches from my plate. I smiled at Marty.
Marty Morrison had never seen my funky orange irises. They gave some people the willies. Marty stared at them, seeing the color, not me. I had considered that my weirdness might be useful. Seemed I was right.
Cupcake asked, “Breakfast first, or deals?”
Marty dragged his gaze to Cupcake, who had perfectly gorgeous but normal blue eyes. He frowned as if he felt something was wrong, but he couldn’t say what. Then he flashed that salesman’s smile I remembered from before and said, “Mix it up? A little show-and-tell, a little food, a little dickering.”
“Fine,” Cupcake said. Still keeping the shotgun aimed in the general direction of the armed men, she took the bag of goodies from her belt and placed it on the table. She loosened the drawstring and reached in, her fingers clinking around in the bag before removing a random gold wedding band encrusted with diamonds. My eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets. She tossed it to the center of the table where it rolled before stopping. “There’s the show. The tell is a princess cut, colorless, white fluorescent, GIS flawless, two-carat center diamond, with two side-stone bullets of high-grade rubies mounted on a twenty-four-karat gold band.” Cupcake scooped up the ring and deposited it in the bag, Marty following each movement with avarice in his eyes. “Now feed my boss lady. She gets ornery when she’s hungry.”
In my earbud, Mateo chuckled, the sound almost human. “She used new Berger chips. Cupcake’s been studying your scrap.”
Marty smiled again and said, “For us, waffles, real scrambled eggs, real bacon, real maple syrup. Egg-and-bacon sandwiches for the bodyguards. Coffee for everyone.” He looked back at the armed men. “Notify Wanda we’re ready.” He took the dangerous seat, back to the door.
A moment later, a woman appeared carrying a tray, and she served our plates. My mouth watered. Wheat had taken a hurting when the atmosphere changed, and getting real bread, especially something fancy like waffles, was a rarity. While I felt guilty about feasting while my “employees” munched on sandwiches, it wasn’t enough to stop my enjoyment.
When the meal was over and the only thing left was eggy, maple-y grease smeared on the plates, Cupcake placed the bag of goodies in my hand.
I shoved my plate to the center and weighed the clinking bag hand-to-hand, thinking about all the sheds and containers Cupcake had been inventorying. Thinking about the cats outside looking for the piece of equipment I needed and hoped Marty had. I watched Marty’s eyes as they darted from mine to the bag and back. Wanda removed the plates. The office went quiet except for the soft clink of jewelry. I waited.
“I liked the ring,” Marty said. “Two hundred US for it.”
I chuckled, the bag moving. Still waiting.
“Three hundred,” he said.
I counted four clinks before I said, “I’m not interested in money. I want something you might have in trade.”
“Yeah?” Marty leaned back. Trade meant off the books. Trade meant no taxes, no records. Trade meant possibly, potentially, likely, illegal items changing hands. “I might consider trade.”
I thought about Spy and gripped the table to control my reaction. You see anything?
She sent back a dizzying array of sheds and locked shipping containers. I spotted a repainted one, camo brown over military green, and sent her that way. If Marty had what I needed, it would have been overpainted. Spy and the other cats zeroed in and began to search for a way in, clawing at rusty corners, vaulting to the top.
I opened the bag
and started to reach in, then stopped. “Do the honors?” I asked Cupcake. Since I had no idea what was inside, that seemed wise. She retook the bag and removed the original ring. Marty accepted it and pulled a jeweler’s loupe from a pocket. I had never used a loupe, but Marty was clearly an expert, his hands braced on each other to steady the ring and loupe, minuscule movements back and forth and side to side to get a good angle. When he was done, he leaned back in his chair and looked unimpressed, except for a faint uncontrolled gleam in his eyes. Cupcake took the ring back and returned the bag to her belt.
“What else you got?” he asked.
“The man isn’t interested in jewelry,” I said. “Outside.” I stood and had the pleasure of seeing Marty blink. He wanted to see more jewelry, so that would be the last thing I showed him.
The day’s heat had multiplied into a vicious miasma of junkyard stinks: old petrol, burnt motor oil, hot steel, rotting rubber, caustic substances, and dog poo. That was one problem with most junkyards, the dogs. Cats buried their scat, so the stench was less potent. Marty didn’t clean up after his dogs, letting the waste dry in the heat. At least there was no hot-metal stink and exhaust from the foundry. The last time I was here they were pouring steel; the stench and heat had been astounding, rising in waves high over Morrison’s. My Berger chip chirped, Convection causes variations in the temperature of very hot air, and that variation—
I shut it off. Pulled my glasses back over my eyes. “Amos?” I called. “The man’s coming up. Unwrap the trays.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Amos called back. I heard him moving around.
I gestured to Marty. “Help yourself.”
He hesitated. “You left a guard?”
