allies and enemies 02 - rogues

by Amy J. Murphy

  After one more reproving scowl, Kelta stepped ahead into the space, Asher and Erelah in her wake. The shutters closed behind them. For one claustrophobic moment, they pressed into this bright white room. A very subtle shift to the floor told him that they were in a level riser, moving downward.

  The doors opened into a low-ceilinged room, the blast-proof wall coated with smooth plas-crete. The space ran deeper than he’d imagined. Panels of light from overhead fixtures did little to push back the inky shadows. The air felt dry, but there was a musky animal smell here, like a warren or a den. Shelves lined the walls, piled high with crates and storage bins. Workbenches overflowed with nameless bits of junk, empty food wrappers and tools. He glimpsed movement in the corner. It was a line of vid panels. All showed various views of their party, filmed by hidden sense-eyes and vid crawlers.

  “Poor man.” Kelta took in the shambled state of the room. “Fates help him.”

  Asher caught the sadness in her tone. She had been close with Picus in her youth, but what that relationship entailed, she had never explained. Her voice suggested such sorrow and loss.

  “Fates help me what, dear Kelta?” Picus called from the darkness. A mechanical hum grew louder.

  Asher stiffened, holding Erelah closer to him. Another device. A trap?

  The misshapen form disengaged from the fold of shadow. Picus’s withered body seemed more encased in the mechanized chair than riding atop it. A head of long silver hair. Sunken features covered in sallow skin. Dark eyes that glinted with painful intelligence. Electrodes dotted the crinkled skin of his arms. Asher got the distinct impression that the equipment was an extension of him.

  The treads of the chair ceased their roll.

  Kelta was too good to show her true reaction. She stretched a warm smile at the strange man, arms out at her sides. “It has been too long, friend.”

  “You like my new toy?” Picus gestured with a withered, twisted arm to the chair. His voice was brittle and poisoned. “Hard fevers were especially kind to me. Keeping me alive to see my body fail. But I see you are as lovely as ever.”

  Kelta faltered. A rarity for Asher to see this steel-spined woman left speechless. Something else passed between them. A knowing look. A familiarity.

  Asher stepped closer, once more shifting Erelah’s weight in his arms. “Help her.”

  Picus seemed to realize there were others present. “Ah. Show me this Human you have brought me, Guildsman. I’ve never seen one living.”

  75

  “She is Palari?” Kelta whispered in a mix of dread and awe. “Why did you not tell me?”

  “Promised not to. Besides, she doesn’t have leathery wings or fangs. I checked. Thoroughly.” Asher felt her reproving stare but did not look up from Erelah’s form resting on the table in the middle of the room. This one seemed clean, antiseptically so, compared to the jumble of the splicer’s warren. Metal cabinets glinted from the walls. The lighting was brighter. The air tingled with ozone and antiseptic.

  Picus moved with surprising skill and precision. After some convincing, Asher had allowed him to hook up a pharm pack to her arm. Once the medicine seemed to take hold, her breathing evened out, deepening. Her body no longer twitched. No amount of noise or jostling seemed to rouse her. All perfectly reversible, Picus explained.

  “But she is Kindred,” she argued. “A Last Daughter…”

  “A long story—”

  “A mysterious one at that.” Picus turned away from the glow of the screen. “There is old damage. Some new. Very elaborate. Very interesting.”

  Asher frowned at the excitement in the strange man’s voice. Erelah was more than an interesting diversion. “You can help her.”

  Picus gave him a blank look. Seemed to remember the primary reason for his exam. “Of course. But there are…obstacles.”

  “If you need payment…” Kelta stepped up.

  He snorted. “Always scrip with you lot, isn’t it? I want for nothing.”

  A wounded expression flitted across Kelta’s face. The comment meant something more to her. She drew her chin up. “Then what is it?”

  “An invading genetic system seeks to overwrite hers, namely the neurosynaptics. I would not be surprised if she had certain…abilities.”

  Asher stiffened. He ignored Kelta’s inquisitive stare. It was Erelah’s secret to keep.

  Picus blathered on, oblivious. His tone excited. “I see remnants of nano-tech. Perhaps the primary catalyst. There are growth and death cycles, like any other organism, but for whatever reason, these invader cells stopped, all at once. It smacks of Ravstar.”

  Asher felt a hollow shudder at the mention of Ravstar. The name meant nothing to him, but he sensed the stir of Erelah’s memories. A bleak dread clung to its edges. The sudden stop of the invaders must have been what happened at Tasemar with Brother Liri, the Sceeloid.

  “If they were stopped. That is good, right?” Kelta challenged.

  “Ah. But that was not to be the end.” Awe in his voice, Picus tapped at the reads on a new screen. To Asher, it was a meaningless pattern of images and numbers. “Another trigger event happened. Restarted the invaders. They now attack the host as a whole. They’re no longer targeting only one system. Like a dead man’s switch.”

  “Erelah.” Asher ground his molars.

  “What.” Picus frowned.

  “Her name is Erelah. Not host.”

  Picus gave him another blank stare, as if the man had been alone too long and had forgotten how to interact with others.

  “What do you mean by trigger event?” Kelta prodded.

  The splicer waved a hand. “Radiation? A biochemical response to something environmental? Contact with another bio-energy?”

  Contact with another bio-energy. Asher looked down. His hand drifted to the spot on his chest where the girl had touched him in her attempt to use the Sight. It felt like centuries ago now. A needling guilt seeped into him. “There’s a way to turn them off?”

  “Already done.”

  He froze, waiting for the rest. “Then what—”

  The twisted little man rolled the chair closer. His tone seemed to be one reserved for the insufferably dense: “The damage to her helix is done. It continues to degrade. She’s dying.”

  Asher’s hand shot out. His thick fingers wrapped around Picus’s scrawny throat. “Save her.”

  Picus clawed at his wrist. He gaped like a fish.

  “Asher. Stop. Please.” Kelta pulled at his arm.

  “There’s a way. Possibly,” Picus wheezed.

  He released him to slump against his mechanical chair.

  “You were saying.” He loomed closer. Picus lurched back with his chair, smacking into the examination table.

  The man glared at him, rubbing at his injured throat. “Reactivate the nano-tech, but give it a template to repair the damage. One that’s her baseline helix.”

  “How do you get this template?”

  “You need a specimen from before anything was ever done to her.”

  Something inside Asher flattened. Impossible.

  “Or from a blood relative of her species. Mother. Father.”

  “A brother?” Asher added.

  Picus nodded, eager. “I can stave off the attacks until a donor is found. There are treatments that can slow down the degradation. But without a new helix template, ultimately…she dies. And there’s nothing anyone can do about that.”

  76

  “You don’t have to do this.” Erelah winced at the coarse rumble to her voice. The tender flesh of her throat was still swollen. The anti-inflammatory medicines Picus had given her had reduced the worst. It no longer hurt to swallow. Her voice would return to normal eventually. Until then, she sounded like a broken thing.

  The corner of Asher’s mouth pulled up. He’d promised to stop teasing her about the “sexy” quality of her voice. He used the jokes to cover things.

  “This is the only way.” He nodded at the dig-cam in his hand. Jonvenlish would be susp
icious of a stranger appearing with news of a magically resurrected sister on the other end of the Reaches. Tyron, doubly so. A personal message from Erelah might persuade them to return to Narasmina with Asher.

  “I can come with you.” She knew it for the falsehood it was. Her entire body was drained of energy. A simple walk to the waste rec and back left her exhausted.

  He captured her hand. “Picus says that’s dangerous. You’ll need to stay nearby for treatment.”

  At the mention of the splicer, she scowled. Although, he’d saved her life, she held little in the way of trust for him. The curiosity he felt toward her fell off him in waves. To him, she was more an intriguing specimen than a being with feelings. It was too much like her time under the scrutiny of Tristic’s dutiful minions.

  Asher’s presence made Picus scarce. Kelta possessed the ability to tolerate him and kept him from being a nuisance.

  Erelah did not relish staying here in this sunless warren of labs and sinister-looking tech.

  “The velo compression pattern will be altered with the jdrive insertion ratios. I believe I’ve isolated the chrono-slip element and wrote new code for the navsys. But to be safe, it’s vital you avoid the velo distortions created by other vessels. There can be catastrophic consequences—”

  “I know.” He tapped his temple. “Your memories. In there. Fates help me.”

  She knew it for what it was. So did he. She was stalling him.

  “Asher…” Her throat clogged with dread. I’ll never see him again.

  It was not distrust or lack of confidence in him. It was the unknown. It pushed in around her from all sides. There was a bounty now, on both of them. Picus’s bunker was an excellent spot to hide, but Asher would be out there. Even if he journeyed to another region of Guild space, Miri knew how far the Human’s reach went. Just as she’d glimpsed in Ott’s memory, the wanted beacon uncovered by Mr. Thonn from one of the coastal markets named Erelah Veradin for her support of “criminal elements.” Although the beacon’s owner was unnamed, it was a fair guess that the UEC had distributed them. Even Ott had known it for the fabrication it was.

  Asher was simply listed as an accessory. He’d actually seemed slightly insulted by this.

  Her own kind sought her out like a criminal. How odd. Although she’d not had the opportunity to consider what type of reunion it might be, for all her recent discovery of her and Jonvenlish’s true heritage, there was no sense of communion there or longing to rejoin them. She had been raised as a Eugenes and thought in those terms. Uncle had sought to protect two of their own as vulnerable children, forgoing his status and earning the rejection of his peers. That sacrifice was wasted. Her own kind pursued her like any other predator. It was unlikely they knew she was one of them and doubtful that revealing herself as a Human would change matters.

  “I’ll be back before you know it.” He claimed a kiss.

  She wound a hand through the lapel of his coat, tucking her head against his shoulder. “Don’t make me come after you.”

  PART IX

  77

  The systematic pop of knuckles carried on the tense air. The sounds of the streets above the den seemed unwilling to intrude. Koenii sprawled behind a makeshift desk, a rusted-out overseer’s console from some long-forgotten frigate. His bare feet in their poor hygienic splendor rested on one corner.

  Sela had always harbored a particular disgust for bare feet. There was no rational cause. It did nothing to garner respect for the being that owned these particular feet. She suspected in this instance that it was some type of insult.

  Well, the feeling’s mutual.

  Sela suppressed a sneer. Instead, she rolled her neck, contributing a small chorus of pops to counter the sound of Koenii’s knuckles. She knew the answer to his proposal well before he’d ever made it. But it would not serve to blurt it out. There was nuance to these things.

  It should be Jon doing the talking. He could talk anyone into anything. Even me.

  Now he stood behind her, a foot to the right. For so long she had existed where he now stood: the subordinate’s position, looking at the backs of heads and never the center of attention, but taking in everything all the same. She would have traded spots with him gladly. He could maneuver the impossible subtleties of such interaction. Such intangibles were mystic devices to her.

  The soldier part of Sela knew the cold facts: there were six well-armed hostiles in the space. One visible exit. Judging from the bundles of wire mounted around the threshold, there was a deadlock magseal that would require a personal ident to open said exit.

  Now she had to talk a way out of here.

  Ironic did not come close to covering this.

  “The job’s a generous offer. Lucky I heard of your…team.” His eyes flicked over her shoulder to Jon before he continued. “Minimal risk. Good cred,” Koenii added with a derelict smile. “Quick work with some handsome lads, no less.”

  This generated a low round of chuckles from the Heavy Gravs lingering in the room’s shadows. It did not dispel the anxious vibe. Not one of them under six feet tall, wide bodies thick with muscles but little brains to match. What he suggested as luck, she knew as an inevitability. They’d struggled to keep off his sensory horizon in Brojos. There was only so much you could do before you got noticed.

  The job would be far from what was described. She knew this implicitly.

  For all of Koenii’s assurances that the job was an easy one, she knew it as a lie. He wanted an inventory destroyed. The details were vague. On the surface, it was a simple deal: someone owed him “due restoration” but had failed to do this in a timely fashion. This behavior required a correction. In this instance it was a cargo vessel full of “various and sundries,” which could mean just about anything. It begged the obvious question:

  “You can do this yourself. You don’t need us.”

  “Savvy as she’s pretty to vid.” His tone was anything but complimentary. “Let Koenii worry on the details. Needs to look the hand of other parties at play. You can flit in and out like ghosts. No one the wiser. It could easily be an act of the Fates.” He spread a thick-fingered hand in a conjuring gesture.

  Koenii was an opportunistic parasite, like everything else in this port city founded by castoff Regime and Fleet. The souls abandoned here when the Treaty of Ashes created the Reaches had tried to carry on at first. Even the best intentions become corrupt over time. Koenii seemed an embodiment of that. His thick frame was clad in a decades-old Fleet officer’s tunic, beneath that a bone-breaker’s squadron vest strained to cover his paunch. Stringy wisps of yellowing white hair crowned his scalp.

  He raised a scraggly brow at her. His eyes, the dangerous deep maroon of a full-blooded Binait, moved over her up and down in an appraising manner. It did not intend lust, but measure. She was not worried about him guessing her thoughts. The male Binaits were not empathic like the females of their kind. Those, she avoided.

  Some of the males, however, were good intuits. It explained Koenii’s position of power.

  “You and your…retainer…are new here, Tyron.” Koenii’s gaze drifted to Jon, who had remained blessedly mute. “So I’ll give you the grace of time to ’sider my generous terms. Got to the shut of the day, even.”

  “The answer will still be no.” Jon’s curled High-Eugenes accent hung bright in the tense air.

  Sela shut her eyes. Now? Now he does this?

  Hadelia—Brojos specifically—held no love for Kindred, even those from ruined castes. Fisk had been telling the truth about that. Where the ever-mixing populace of Obscrum was too busy to garner such petty hatreds, Brojos was insular. Their heritage called from conscripts, Volunteers, discarded techs—all those who once felt the boot of Kindred on their neck. They blamed Kindred for the Treaty of Ashes, the Collapse…all the reasons the Reaches were abandoned by Origin. Entire rooms would glare in silence the moment Jon opened his mouth and his crester accent rolled out. He knew this, too.

  Sela threw him a glance over h
er shoulder. She was not surprised by what she saw: that same defiant set of jaw, the posture and bearing of a military officer even though that captain’s uniform was long discarded.

  This place had forced that role change—an event that he claimed was amusing. It had to sting. To know that you were considered a lesser being, just by virtue of your birth and laden with sins you never committed but were blamed for nonetheless. And considering his true heritage as Human, even doubly so.

  Ignoring her, Jon did not shift his challenging stare from Koenii, another mistake. Done on purpose. Hiding her left hand behind her back, she signed at him: Quiet.

  Was he trying to get them killed?

  “You like where your tongue currently resides, boy?” Koenii growled.

  In response, there was the shift of bodies, the rub of leather as the Heavy Gravs tensed.

  Sela had avoided them ever since that first encounter in the tavern. To them, she was a true soldier of the Regime, a “prime” purpose-bred, trained since birth. Their awestruck expressions were too much like worship. It made her distinctly uncomfortable. Perhaps Koenii feared the influence she might have over his men. All the better reason for him to find a means to be rid of her.

  She snapped her attention back to the mob boss, stepping into his stare-down with Jon.

  “We’ll do it. I require payment: half up front. Guild credit,” she answered in Regimental. In front of the Heavy Gravs, it was a demonstration of respect, courtesy. “The remainder upon completion.”

  The speech provoked a ripple of whispers from the Heavy Gravs. To them a mythic creature had spoken words of rapture. It was a hollow bluff to keep herself and the man she loved alive long enough to get out of the room. A man who right now was probably staring incredulous holes into the back of her skull.

  It was enough to flatter Koenii’s ego and divert his growing ire. His attention crept back to Sela. “Big ask, girl. Considering the sitrep.”

  “You want this done right. Clean. Quiet.” She watched something shift behind those maroon eyes. “And, because you’ve got no one else.”