“He’s here,” I call to Doctor Azong.
“Step aside.” She motions to the android to follow her. Seconds later, Buir’s piercing shriek electrocutes my ears. I rush inside just as the second android crumples to the floor. Buir peers out from the galley, one hand clapped over her mouth. The android’s head rolls listlessly to a halt under a table. Ghil holds a knife to Doctor Azong's throat. “This your dermal sculptor?” he growls.
I grimace. “Turns out she engages in more than illegal dermal sculpting services when the price is right.”
“She came here for the rest of the dargonite,” Velkan explains.
Ghil shoves her down on a bench. “Are you even a doctor?”
She flashes him a venomous look. “Of course, I’m a doctor. You can’t operate a business on Aristozonex without legitimate qualifications.”
Ghil eyes her skeptically. “If you’re running a bogus ship maintenance business on the side, I’m willing to bet you’re not making your money sculpting. You’re moving dark market cargo through Aristozonex.”
Doctor Azong tightens her lips.
“All the answer I need.” Ghil scowls. “The question now is what are we going to do with you?”
“First,” I say, glaring at Doctor Azong, “we’re going to put her to work doing what we paid her to do. And as penance for this stunt she pulled she can throw in a complimentary facial reconfiguration for you, Ghil.”
He shakes his head vehemently. “Don’t trust her. I’m not letting her anywhere near me with a knife.”
“I’m not a butcher,” Doctor Azong says, sounding exasperated. “Dermal sculpting is a robotic laser procedure. The face is partially dissolved and remolded during the process.”
Ghil grunts. “Don’t matter.”
“She has no choice but to cooperate now,” I say. “Unless she wants to leave this ship in the back of her maintenance van, piled up with her androids’ corpses, she’ll perform whatever procedures we tell her to.”
Ghil nods to Velkan. “You first.”
“Does it hurt?” Velkan looks directly at Doctor Azong.
She gives a quick shake of her head. “Your pain receptors will be in a state of deep freeze during the procedure. You won’t feel a thing.”
“If anything happens to him, you won’t leave here alive,” I say.
Her cheek twitches once, but her glacial eyes betray no emotion. “My sculpting record is flawless.”
“Good, let’s begin then,” I reply.
Ghil turns to Buir. “You go with them, I’ll clean this place up.”
Buir gives a grateful nod and steps gingerly around the headless androids.
Ghil picks up a laser gun and hands it to me. “Just in case.”
I point it at Doctor Azong and gesture for her to exit the room first. Velkan follows, and I bring up the rear with Buir.
“Do you think androids feel pain?” Buir whispers to me.
“Of course not. They shut down the instant Ghil cut their wiring.”
Buir sighs softly. “It was a horrible way to go.”
“Ghil did what he had to do,” I say. “If he hadn’t, we’d all be dead by now.”
Back downstairs in the cargo bay, Doctor Azong moves swiftly into professional mode. She opens the back of her van to reveal a gleaming gurney surrounded by a dazzling array of unfamiliar equipment. She reaches inside and dons an electronic full face mask with robotic eyes and then gestures to Velkan to lie down on the gurney. “On your right side,” she instructs him.
Buir and I watch from outside the van. I squeeze her arm, a mixture of apprehension and excitement tingling through me. “I can’t believe this is really happening.”
Doctor Azong pulls an overhead light into position and settles down in front of a row of screens.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Capturing the 4D image of the holographic tattoo and then programming the laser to extract it at the right depth. After that, it will simply be a matter of touching up the wound with regenerated cells. In a couple of hours, you won’t even see a mark.”
“Doing okay, Velkan?” I call to him.
He lets out an exaggerated yawn. “Just trying to nap, if everyone would quit hollering.”
I give a nervous laugh. He’s way more relaxed about the procedure than I am.
Ghil appears at the top of the stairs dragging the decapitated bodies of the two androids. He yanks them unceremoniously down the steps and tosses them in a heap a short distance from the van. “I’ll load them up inside once she’s done. She can take her trash with her.” He disappears back up the stairs and returns a few minutes later with the heads.
Buir shudders and backs away from the pile of android remains. “I know they’re not human, but they seemed so real. That’s what makes it disturbing.”
Ghil shoots her a sympathetic look. “You can wait up in the galley with me if you want. I don’t need to see Velkan go under the laser.”
“I’m a good nurse.” Buir tweaks a smile. “Not much of a mortician. I’ll stay here in case Trattora needs me.”
Ghil nods and heads back up the stairs.
Doctor Azong spends the next thirty minutes adjusting images and running calculations on her screens before turning on the robotic laser. My gut churns with renewed doubt. What if she’s not as good as she says she is? What if she botches this completely and severs an artery? My emotions rise and fall as the minutes tick by and the faint humming of the laser grows more invasive in my mind.
After a while, Buir curls up on a nearby tarp and closes her eyes. I sit down on a crate and finger the laser gun Ghil gave me, toying with conflicting thoughts ranging from berating myself for ever going into Doctor Azong's practice in the first place to picturing a free Velkan at my side as Cwelt’s High Husband.
“The procedure is finished.” Doctor Azong pulls off her mask and rubs her eyes.
I jump to my feet and hurry over to the van. Velkan sits up on the gurney. I stare in disbelief at the left side of his neck. Flawless, not even a patch of discolored skin betrays the fact that he wore an implanted holographic serf tattoo for most of his life.
“It’s gone!” I whisper to him.
He rubs his hand over his neck, frowning. “Doesn’t feel any different.”
I look around for a mirror and then pull one down from the ceiling on an adjustable arm.
Velkan stares into it, twisting his head from one side to the other as if he’s afraid the tattoo has simply moved. His lip trembles. I choke up inside at the sight. It’s dawning on him that he is truly free at last, no longer marked as a serf and no longer condemned to a life of slavery at the mercy of his owner. Tears glisten in his eyes. “You took a huge risk for me, Trattora. Now that I’m free, I’m going to help you trace our bracelets and liberate Cwelt.”
I nod, blinking back my own tears.
“You did a good job,” I say to Doctor Azong, begrudgingly. “I’ll get Ghil to come down here now. Maybe this will persuade him to trust you with his face.”
Ghil is equally as impressed with the removal of Velkan’s tattoo as the rest of us, but still wary of undergoing the more involved facial reconfiguration required to permanently alter his appearance.
Doctor Azong shrugs. “In that case, I can give you some lenses to fool any optical scanners that pick you up—a temporary fix, they won’t last long.”
Ghil takes the box she hands him and stuffs it into his pocket.
“I’ll give it some thought,” he says, gruffly, before walking over to drag the androids inside the van. “In the meantime, I reckon we should ask Doctor Azong to tell us more about her connections in the dark market so we can unload that dargonite.”
Doctor Azong darts a glance to me and then back to Ghil again. “I can find you a buyer. Dargonite is a hot commodity right now.”
“How can we trust you not to betray us to Minders?” I ask.
“What would I tell them?” She arches a reproving brow at me. “That you kille
d my androids while I was conducting a search for dargonite on board the ship I was performing an illegal dermal sculpting procedure on?”
Ghil rubs his jaw thoughtfully. “If you set up a deal for us, we’ll cut you in at five percent.”
Her eyes glint greedily. “Five percent of how much?”
Ghil’s face hardens. “Of more than you know what to do with. Take it or leave it.”
She gives a sharp laugh. “Give me a couple of days and I’ll see what I can come up with.”
Quick as a flash, the blade of Ghil’s knife is under her chin. He moves it higher until her head tilts back and he is looking into her dark eyes. “You have until tomorrow morning by ten. Double cross us again and next time your head will roll.”
Fear ripples across her flawless features. She gives a shaky nod.
“Now get back in your van and take your wretched robot mob to recycling.”
Velkan opens the front door and gestures to her to climb in. I cast an admiring glance at him. Even his stance seems different to me somehow; he’s holding himself like a free man, with a sense of dignity that is lost to those held too long in servitude.
After Doctor Azong's van exits through the security gate and disappears down the street, we gather around in the cargo bay to discuss our next move.
“We can’t do much of anything until we cash in that dargonite,” Ghil says. “We’ll have to wait and see if Doctor Azong comes through for us.”
“We have some time to kill before then,” I say. “I want to track down that address Roma gave me for the pawn emporium.”
“And we still need to shop for clothes,” Buir reminds me.
Velkan and Ghil exchange discomfited looks.
“She’s right.” I run a critical eye over them. “You can’t walk around Aristozonex in grease-stained overalls. We need to look the part.”
“What part is that exactly?” Ghil asks.
“Wealthy traders,” I reply. “That’s what we’ll be before too long, so we might as well practice. Come on, let’s all go into town.” I hand Velkan the new CipherSync Sarth got for me. “This is yours now.”
Our first stop is at a glittering clothing mall where we step inside full body scanners that zap our measurements and then ply us with a digital catalog of iridescent skintight jumpsuits and matching BodPaks—body-hugging pouches of various shapes and sizes for carrying personal items around in. I stare in bewilderment at the array of options to choose from.
“Are you seeing this?” Buir says. “Some of these suits monitor blood pressure, temperature, even emotions. And this one cools or heats according to your body’s requirements.”
“I’m still stuck on the prices. One suit each,” I stress. “I don’t have that many credits on my CipherSync.”
Ghil grunts and pulls up his sleeve to consult his own CipherSync. “I can help. Been putting a bit away here and there.” He turns to Buir, somewhat flustered. “Get what you want.”
She smiles back at him. “Thank you, Ghil, that’s very generous of you.”
We end up purchasing three outfits each, figuring that should be enough to tide us over for a few meetings with prospective buyers, and anything else we need to look presentable for. I stash my bracelet, along with my dargonite, in my new BodPak. I can’t hide anything under a skintight jumpsuit.
“All right,” I say, when we head back out into the street all decked out in our strange new outfits and coordinating BodPaks. “Now we need to figure out how to track down that address.”
Ghil raises his hand and hails a driverless vehicle. “The LevCab will take us there.”
When we climb in, he peers at the address displayed on my CipherSync and reads it aloud to the vehicle.
“Locating tango, thirty-nine, alpha, victor, zero,” an electronic voice chimes out. “Destination set. The Syndicate invites you to sit back and enjoy your journey.”
I stare transfixed through the tinted window as we rise above the pristine inhabitants of Aristozonex strolling in and out of the dazzling store fronts and elegant eateries lining the streets. Health centers proclaiming the rejuvenating benefits of their heliospheric services, and casinos offering the chance to rack up millions of credits in celestial blackjack, loom large on every corner. Opulent hotels advertising rooftop bioluminescent pools and rapid drone transportation to the theater district are scattered throughout. Students stream out of a large EduPlex, clutching DigiPads and chatting to one another.
All too soon the electronic voice announces, “You have arrived safely at your destination, courtesy of the Syndicate.”
“Looks kind of high end for a pawn emporium,” Velkan remarks, climbing out of the LevCab.
“There are plenty of casinos here,” Buir points out. “I bet the pawn business makes good money.”
Ghil snorts. “That’s ‘cause gambling’s about the only thing left on Aristozonex that involves risk.”
“I might be able to get more information if I go in alone,” I say. “Why don’t you wait for me at that cafe across the street?”
Velkan frowns. “Sure you don’t want me to come along?”
“Let’s see how I do on my own first.”
Inside the pawn emporium, I glance around at the vast array of jewelry, relics, clothing and antiques. A hologram overhead boasts wares from every planet in the Syndicate, and beyond. I make my way to the back of the store, feigning interest in various items along the way until I reach a jewelry counter. I lean over the glass and scan the contents displayed inside on the off chance that I’ll spot a bracelet like mine.
“Can I be of assistance?” a young woman with a shiny black bob and a heavy fringe that frames sharp eyes asks.
“Yes.” I smile broadly at her. “Roma sent me.”
The woman curls one brow upward and looks me over with an air of mild surprise. Despite her flawless skin, her unfortunate combination of features fail to complement each other; eyes too far apart, pinched nose too narrow above her pale lips. “I’ll fetch my father,” she says.
My heart beats a little faster. Evidently, Roma is code for something more important than your average transaction. My palms begin to sweat and I sense my new jumpsuit adjusting temperature to compensate. I could have used one of these out hunting on cold days in Cwelt—much more practical than a shamskin.
A burly man with a goatee and dramatically arched black brows walks up to me. “I’m Stefanov,” he says with a quick curve of his lips. “I understand Roma sent you.”
“Yes, she said you might have some information for me about a bracelet.” I pull out the chain from my BodPak and hold the bracelet out for him to see.
He pulls a laser loupe out of his pocket and examines it from several angles before straightening up. “It’s a fascinating piece, I’ll give you that. No Syndicate stamp, so it wasn’t crafted on Aristozonex or any of the other Syndicate planets.”
“Roma mentioned you sold one just like it a few months back.”
His eyebrows peak and he folds his fingers in front of him. “It was exactly the same, except for the name engraved on it.”
“What was the name?” I ask, breathlessly.
“It was unusual, I remember that.” He pulls out a DigiPad and scrolls through it. “Here it is, Ayma.”
My heart thumps so hard it hurts. The name means nothing to me of course, but somehow Ayma is connected to my past, like Velkan. “Can you give me the seller’s address? I’d like to find out more about the origin of my bracelet.”
Stefanov purses his lips. “I’m afraid an address won’t do you any good.”
“Why not?”
He looks at me with a bemused expression. “The bracelet was stolen.”
23
“You mean … the person who sold it to you stole it?” Hope deflates faster than I can catch a breath.
Stefanov shrugs. “It looked legit at the time, but it showed up on the hot list a few hours after I bought it.”
Everything inside me shrivels. How can I possibly
trace a stolen bracelet on Aristozonex? It was naive of me to think this was ever going to be as simple as asking for an address. I run my fingers over my temples trying to figure out some way to trace the bracelet back to its owner. “Tell me about the hot list. How does it work?”
“As soon as someone logs a theft on their CipherSync, the item is uploaded to the hot list on the stellarsphere and distributed to Minder Depots everywhere.”
“So, the Minders would have an address for whoever logged the theft?” I say.
Stefanov tweaks an eyebrow upward. “They won’t divulge that kind of information.”
“They might if the price is right.”
Stefanov narrows his eyes at me. “You couldn’t even afford to pay Roma her asking fee. You certainly won’t be able to afford to bribe a Minder.”
I take a step toward him and lower my voice. “And what if I’ve come into a small fortune since I saw Roma?”
His eyes glint as he processes my words. “All the credits in the galaxy won’t do you any good if you don’t know which Minders can be bribed. There are those so loyal to the Syndicate, they wouldn’t flinch if you offered them five hundred thousand credits.”
“How about a million?”
Stefanov rubs his thumb meticulously over his goatee for a moment or two. “I may have a contact.” He flicks a glance over at his daughter who is busy assisting a customer. He lowers his voice. “But that kind of information is expensive.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred thousand credits.”
I hesitate, not because I can’t afford it, but because I know I’m being ripped off. But I’m desperate to get my hands on the information. And being desperate makes me susceptible to an outlandish deal. “Done,” I say, in a resigned tone.
Stefanov’s lips twitch into a satisfied smile that doesn’t add any warmth to his eyes. “Naturally, payment is expected up front.”
Girl of Fire: The Expulsion Project Book One (A Science Fiction Dystopian Thriller) Page 18
