Danger’s Vice

by Amanda Carlson

  Case gently laid the old man back into a resting position, patting him down, inspecting his pockets. “They took him by surprise. He would’ve fought it if he’d seen it coming, but there are no signs of resistance.” Case unfurled one of the man’s closed fists, and three coins dropped out.

  “They paid him,” I said, “then killed him. In the end, he was a liability if we came back.”

  Propellers sounded nearby. Case grabbed my arm and spun us around. “We’re getting out of here now.”

  “I’m right behind you,” I said. We’d both left the doors to the craft lofted. Within a meter of Seven, I vaulted off the ground, landing in the passenger seat, my arm simultaneously bringing the door down to secure it as Case did the same. “I hope you didn’t burn out all your hydro-boosts getting here. Because we’re going to need them.”

  Whoever was coming after us would give chase, and by the sound of the propellers, they were almost on top of us.

  Case accelerated as the craft darted in behind us. It wasn’t familiar to me, and I made it my business to know many of the crafts in the city. “Strap yourself in,” he grunted. “It’s going to be a rough ride.”

  I already had my arms through the straps. “One step ahead of you.” I buckled in, leaning forward as far as I could. “I know how to ditch them. This neighborhood is full of wasted buildings. Follow my instructions, and we should be able to lose them.” It was going to be a bitch to do it in the dark, but we didn’t have any choice. “Up ahead at that intersection, take a right.” I gestured out the windshield. “One block down, left. There will be a building on your right with a hole running through the middle. There’s a steel beam that juts down halfway through. When I say dip, do it. The likelihood of the other craft knowing it’s there is highly unlikely. If they follow, they crash.”

  Case did as I directed. They were tailing us, but they weren’t gaining.

  “Here?” Case asked, strumming with tension.

  My head whipped around. “Yes, go,” I urged, gripping the dash as he whipped the craft into the building. In my head, I counted to two. “Dip!” Seven fell effortlessly, regaining herself in the next instant. There was a slight grating sound running along the roof—Case had successfully skimmed the beam, but it’d been close. I turned to watch for the other craft. It wasn’t behind us. I turned to Case, confused. “They didn’t follow us in.”

  Seven exited out the other side of the building, and Case veered east, keeping low. “The monitor is clear. There’s no craft in the area.” He was right. No red blinking light, no beep.

  That meant they were already more than a kilometer away. They’d either gone back the other way, or they’d landed and switched off power. No matter what, it was confusing. They’d had us in their sights. Why not come after us? “I don’t understand.” I craned my head around one more time to be sure. “Why wouldn’t they give chase?”

  “Maybe we had it wrong,” he answered casually. “Maybe we caught them off guard, and they were coming back from doing something else when they encountered us.”

  “Or maybe they recognized your craft and backed the fuck off.” My voice held all the pent-up anger cascading through my body. I was getting sick of this. Trusting this guy was impossible.

  “I’m no friend of theirs.” His hands gripped the controls tightly. “The old guy would’ve told them we were together. That implicates me.”

  “It doesn’t implicate you if you’re actually on their side,” I said. “None of this adds up.” Frustration didn’t come close. “Once I get Luce and pick up the kid, we go our separate ways. I’m done with this bullshit.”

  “I’m not lying to you.” His jaw clenched. “I’m not colluding with them. I have no idea why they didn’t follow us.”

  Case could be telling the truth, or he could be lying. There was no way to tell for sure, and based on his past record, it could swing either way. “It was your idea to go back and question the old guy, exactly at this time. It was convenient for him to have been killed moments before we arrived. Then to have a craft waiting to spy on us? It doesn’t add up, no matter what you say.” I faced forward in my seat, my spine straight. “If I hadn’t been with you, maybe my residence would still be in one piece.”

  “Maybe.”

  My gaze shot toward his. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you admitting your guilt? That would be a first.”

  He snorted. It was a raspy, masculine sound that rang of self-assurance. “All I’m saying is that if you hadn’t gone up to the roof with me, there’s a possibility your place wouldn’t have been blown up,” he clarified. “When the old man saw us together, he could’ve tipped them off. If you remember correctly, I almost got killed as well. Even if I was in league with them, which I’m not”—he cut me off before I could argue that point—“I wouldn’t risk dying over it.”

  “Why not? Maybe what they’ve offered is too enticing for you to pass up. The risks are high, but the payoff is unbelievable.”

  “Like what? What would be worth dying for? If I’m not breathing, I can’t very well partake in the big reward.”

  I gave him a look, but he probably couldn’t see it because it was dark and we were flying without lights. “I don’t know. How about wealth, or your own passel of seeker-slaves, or a chance to dominate the city? Power is addictive. If this Hutch guy has it to give, why wouldn’t you take his offer? The bomb could’ve been intended as a near miss. After all, we survived.”

  He chuckled, which made me fume. “Yeah, a harem of seeker-slaves and world domination in this shitty place. That sounds enticing. Definitely worth dying over.”

  I crossed my arms and slouched in my seat, mumbling, “People have betrayed for less.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  We were entering Port Station on foot.

  Case had insisted, and since he was flying, there had been no other choice but for me to follow once he’d landed Seven outside the area. He’d argued that the Port Station guards wouldn’t be expecting an attack without a craft. He also knew a way in, which just added to my suspicions that this man couldn’t be trusted.

  “How did you know this opening again?” I asked for the second time. I was trying to whisper, but it was tiresome, and there was no one around. At least not for another kilometer or so. I hadn’t decided how I was going to ditch Case to get the pico on my own. I’d figure that out once we arrived.

  “I already told you,” he said. “This is how I came in the first time. I paid one of the guards to give me a way in. People are easy to bribe, if you know where to find them.”

  “When I first encountered you”—encountered was a nice way of saying when you shoved me out a two-story window—“Seven was parked inside the city limits. You did not come through this opening on foot.”

  “I came in to scout the night before.”

  The area we walked through was dense with old, broken trees that finally gave way to a row of short brick buildings that hadn’t been updated since before the dark days, judging by their dilapidated state. They were unoccupied and would be hazardous to anyone’s health, the roofs caving in, their sides bowing precariously inward.

  Just past them sat the wall that ran around the small city.

  I could see the crack from here. It was big enough for a body to slip through, nothing more.

  “Dammit,” I muttered as we eased through, entering Port Station.

  “What?” Case asked.

  “Nothing.” As luck would have it, we were standing at the end of Daze’s block. His shallow apartment unit sat proudly in the middle of the street. I hadn’t expected us to come in so close. I had to make a decision. Grabbing Case’s arm, I suggested, “How about we split up? We can cover more ground that way.”

  It was dark, and we both had our visors down. I could see the look on his face through infrared, since he stood only a few centimeters away. It was confusion mixed with curiosity. “What are you talking about?” he said. “We need to stay together and find your craft.”


  I hedged. “I think we can do it better separately.” I tried to sound convincing, adding in some matter-of-fact inflections. “That way, if one of us encounters trouble, the other will still have a chance to get Luce.”

  If he could’ve taken the time to cross his arms, he would have. “What am I missing here? Nothing should be more important than getting the quantum drive back at this point.”

  Well, what good was having a quantum drive if you had no pico to read it on?

  That was tempting to say out loud, but I settled on, “I just think it’s better to split up.”

  He shook his head. “We’re only going to get one chance to get your craft, and if they start shooting, us both being there gives us better odds.”

  “Fine.” I gritted my teeth. “But I have one stop to make before we go, no questions asked. I go alone.” Before he could try to broker a deal with me, I took off, hugging close to the shadows, keeping an ear out for any trouble. Case moved quietly behind me.

  I pulled up in front of the trash bin that I’d stuffed Daze behind a couple of nights ago. It was overturned, and I had to ease around the mound of garbage to get to the front door. Case had to recognize where we were. “Stay here,” I whispered as I made my way up the front steps. Immediately, footfalls echoed behind me. I spun around. “What are you doing? I told you to stay.”

  With a straight face, Case said, “I can help you get the pico.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I’m after that?”

  “I thought you might be going after the supercomputer tucked in the floorboards under the kid’s mattress.”

  “How the hell did you know?” I whisper-yelled as I stepped over the threshold, allowing the outskirt to follow me inside. I felt like shoving him up against the wall by his lapels, but instead, I stayed on task.

  “I overheard you talking to Daze back at the bunker. I thought coming into Port Station this way would make things easier.”

  Now it was time to act. I slid my taser out of my waistband as I turned, getting in Case’s face, causing him to take a step backward, his shoulders hitting the wall behind us. The fingers of my free hand tiptoed up his chest, my voice calm and steady. “It would be physically impossible for you to overhear us from all the way in the back of the barracks. How many voice recorders do you have set up?” When he didn’t answer speedily, I brought my other hand up and placed the taser against his neck. Now, Case was a big guy, at least a head taller than I am, and much thicker. He could’ve overpowered me if he wanted to. But I’d also gotten the best of him quite a few times and could discharge the taser before he could fully dislodge me. I sensed his weariness and indecision.

  “Three,” he finally admitted. “And they’re not recorders, they’re amplifiers.”

  When was I going to learn? Apparently, never.

  The worst part was, I would’ve done the same thing. I’d fallen victim to yet another thing I hadn’t bothered to consider. “I haven’t noticed an earpiece.” Amplifiers required the person listening in to have an ear device. He reached into his front pocket and pulled out something the size of a pebble. I leaned over to inspect it. It was an incredibly rare amplifier, something crafted just before the dark days. It was made of pliable elastomer and was meant to be molded into your inner ear canal. I’d seen only one other in my lifetime. In a government office. The one I used was big and clunky, obvious to anyone who was paying attention. I shoved both my hands against his chest, angry at my lack of foresight, and took a step back. “The rules of trust include not spying on each other. But then, you haven’t been truthful with me since the very first moment I met you, so I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s my fault for not assuming you were listening the entire time.” I narrowed my gaze. “I better not have a tracker in me.”

  “No tracker.”

  I started up the stairs. “You’re hacking away at any amount of trust we’ve built in the last few days by constantly sneaking around.”

  “We’ve built trust?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Er…no,” I conceded, frustrated. Listening for a threat and having a conversation with the outskirt wasn’t the best idea. “But if we had, it would be totally destroyed right now.”

  He followed me closely, his voice dropping low. “If I wanted the pico for myself, or had been in contact with Tandor’s men, I would’ve found a way to part ways with you hours ago to retrieve it. When we arrive upstairs, and the pico is still where Daze said it would be, you’ll know I’m being honest.”

  “We’ll see.” Once inside Daze’s apartment, I headed straight to the bedroom. I hoisted up the stained mattress that Daze had spent his first eleven years on and tossed it aside. Kneeling on the floor, I flipped up my visor, tapping both shoulder lights on so we could see.

  “Here, use this.” Case handed me a long, thin piece of graphene with a curve at the end. He must have some deep pockets in that trench.

  I stuffed the modified tool into a crack in the wood, testing for a loose board. It was amazing the wood hadn’t decayed beyond recognition after all this time. About twenty years before the dark days, wood had been coated with a strong, newly invented polymer coating. It hardened to a superstrong finish. But even that had eroded in most places over the last sixty years.

  After my third try, I found what I needed and the board came up easily. I set it aside and did the same to the one next to it.

  Case and I both leaned over, gazing into the newly exposed opening.

  It was empty.

  I was just about to draw my Gem when Case edged me out of the way, dropping to his stomach as he dipped his arm into the hole. A scraping noise followed, and I held my breath. He tugged something out.

  It was much smaller than I’d anticipated. No bigger than twenty centimeters square. “That’s it?” I was skeptical.

  Case handed it to me. “I would assume. I’ve never seen one before.”

  I turned it over in my hands before sliding it down the front of my vest. Now was not the time to investigate. We had to get out of here. “Double-check to see if there’s anything else down there. I promised Daze we’d get it all.”

  Case reached down and came back with a small box, something that looked to be a carbon pen, and an old action figure of some kind. Before the dark days, the toy industry had been huge. Literature and movies had all had accompanying merchandise. Since making a movie was easy, as was procuring a 3-D printer to make toys in mass quantities, the market had been saturated with both. A movie could be directly uploaded into people’s homes, for a nominal fee, the moment it was finished. The screen in my home in the canals would’ve been used for that purpose.

  Books had been similar. They could be uploaded to any device, and you could pick any voice you wanted to narrate, even someone famous. Or you could read at your leisure from anyplace in your home that had a screen, including your cooling unit. Children’s books had come with a choice of stable or animated. The entertainment industry had been a vast money-making empire that had consistently and effectively adapted to ever-changing technology.

  Without being asked, Case tucked Daze’s possessions into his coat pocket.

  We headed back down the stairs. I was almost to the front door when a figure stepped out from a doorway on my right, holding what looked to be a metal rod. My weapons were already drawn, my shoulder lights illuminating the face of a middle-aged woman dressed in a raggedy outfit.

  She waved her meter-long piece of silvery titanium back and forth in a menacing way, like she was trying to ward off an evil spirit. “What are you doing?” she clucked. “You don’t belong here!”

  “Tell me about it,” I muttered, forced to stop and deal with the situation, rather than just leaving. “We’re just passing through.”

  “What did you get up in there?” She spoke in a heavy accent. So much so, I almost couldn’t understand her. It sounded close to whadja git a en der. It was a pidgin form of English that many people outside the city limits used. She’d likely
never ventured away from Port Station. “The kid and his mama lived in that unit. Whatever is theirs is mine.” I strained to make out her exact words, but the meaning was clear: She wanted what we had.

  Was she honestly coming up against my firepower, aimed solidly at her midsection, with a tube? Did I not look intimidating enough in my synthetic leather, gloves, helmet, and boots? This woman wore a government uniform that had been pieced together, sewn into some sort of housecoat.

  She swung the rod at me.

  I was forced to take a hop back, which pissed me off. I didn’t have time for this. “Whoa, lady. Have you seen these things I’m holding?” I wiggled my hands to draw attention to my weapons. She honestly couldn’t miss them. “I can do a hell of a lot more damage than that piece of hollow titanium, especially since I know how to use them real good.” I ended the last bit in pidgin, so it sounded like sin I ken use dem ril gud. Just to make sure she understood me and there was no gray area.

  “Your fancy-ass shit doesn’t impress me. I want my stuff.”

  My eyebrows rose.

  This had to be a joke. Bad people with access to bombs just blew up my entire residence. I sensed Case’s laughter behind me. But instead of tasing her and being done with it, I leaned forward and asked curiously, “How do you know the boy who lived upstairs?”

  “His mama and me were close.” He mam en my wire closs.

  Huh. You don’t say, lady. “Were you by chance the boy’s sustainer after his mother passed?” I didn’t add the one who was going to sell him into slavery.

  “Yeah, that was me. Now give me my stuff back.” She swung the tube again.

  This time, I didn’t flinch.

  “That’s not going to happen.” I took a step forward, my face hardening into a don’t fuck with me look. “Not only is it not your stuff, but I have a few issues with your sustainer abilities. Was it true that you were going to sell Daze into slavery for a few quick coins?” My voice was ramping up toward rage. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together would’ve taken a step back.