Shoot the Messenger

by Pippa Dacosta

  The boot prints led me down the corridor. My whip’s magically charged tendrils licked at my ankles. Sota was a ripple in the air a few meters ahead. With a brief nod from me, he drifted forward through a doorway. Sota’s feed flickered in my vision. He looked down, revealing a sweet piece of kit: a high-powered rifle resting on its stand.

  I stepped into the room. “Deactivate stealth.”

  Sota hovered in close to the rifle while his gears and plating rebuilt his armor, once again cloaking him in matte black. His lens grew, telescopic action letting Sota get an up-close look at the weapon. “Its construction doesn’t match any in my databanks.”

  If a tactical drone didn’t recognize it, then the rifle was rare, possibly unique.

  “Self-guided projectiles,” Sota went on. “Neuro-controlled. This rifle is not human compatible.” Sota’s voice held a note of awe. “Is it wrong that I’m a little turned on right now?”

  I chuckled and crouched on the opposite side of the gun. “You’re always turned on.” Reaching out a hand, I stopped short of touching the weapon. The last thing I needed was to leave evidence of my being here.

  Sota swiveled toward me. “Kesh!”

  A hand twisted in my hair, yanking me up and shoving me forward. My cheek hit the wall—rattling my teeth and igniting fiery pain through my jaw. I flicked my whip, or tried to, but a viselike hand twisted my arm behind my back, angling my shoulder on the edge of agony. Another twitch and my attacker would break my arm.

  “Retaliate with equal force!” I hissed, knowing Sota would fry this asshole in seconds. I’d lost Sota’s view in my vision when he dropped stealth, but I didn’t need to see whoever it was. Any second now, Sota’s armory would buzz and turn this guy to dust. Any second…

  “Sorry, Messenger,” a smooth male voice purred, coming in close to deliver his words and brushing them against the curve of my neck like a lover delivering promises. “Your drone is not responding.”

  I jerked my head back, slamming my skull into bone with a satisfying crunch. He grunted, grip loosening. I bucked free and whirled on him, teeth bared, whip cracking, sparks flying—and froze.

  Protofae.

  No.

  It can’t be.

  This one didn’t look like the willowy wraiths often depicted in history books. Strength radiated from a powerful physique honed over the years for battle. Under his arm, he’d trapped Sota, and where his sleeve rode up, dark, intricate tattoos marked his skin. Those marks told me exactly what he was. A warfae.

  A dribble of blood ran from his nose. He ran his tongue over his lip, licking it clean.

  Impossible. He couldn’t be here. The treaty forbade it.

  His lips held a wild snarl, the type issuing a warning. That same warning burned in his long-lashed blue eyes.

  Sota was silent. The fae’s bicep strained, trapping my drone still.

  I blinked, almost expecting him to vanish and for this to be a hallucination. But he hadn’t moved, and there, gripped in his hand and pressed against Sota’s casing, a slim, silver device blinked a single blue light: a portable EMP. One hit and Sota’s personality would be fried. Sota was… unique. Losing him wasn’t an option.

  Sota’s red eye stared through me.

  “Don’t…” I pushed out an empty hand, showing the fae how I wasn’t attacking. If he decided I was too much trouble, my whip wouldn’t save me. I scrabbled around my head for the correct protocols, but the shock of seeing him here tripped me up. Should I kneel to him? I would have, once.

  His eyes flicked between the drone and me, reading my face, my fear, scrutinizing it all. Sharp, angular features spoke of the cruelty he was capable of. His dark hair was pulled back in a tight, intricate braid and clasped close against his skull, further accentuating his knuckle-breaking bone structure. Black battle tattoos tracked down his neck and disappeared beneath his collar. The more tattoos a fae had, the more enemies they had killed. How many did he have?

  I had tattoos like his, but I wasn’t fae. I never would be, never could be, despite my sacrifices.

  I swallowed. “That drone… Please, don’t take hi—it.” How could I explain to a fae that I needed Sota—needed tek—like I needed a part of me? “I don’t care what you are. I won’t tell anyone you were here.”

  He regarded the whip and pistol and raked his derisive glare over me, making it clear how he looked down on my kind—humankind—with disdain. “No, you won’t.” He backed out of the door.

  No, no, no. My drone was irreplaceable. I’d built him from discarded scraps and fragments of code, given him a new life. To begin with, he had served a purpose, but he had grown into more than a tool. Sota was my friend.

  I dashed after the fae and darted down the corridor, following snippets of his shadow. Fae were too fast—one of the many reasons they thought themselves “superior.” But I’d learned to be fast too. Learned to run with them, hunt with them and to be hunted.

  It had been so long, and those memories were so deeply hidden they almost felt as though they belonged to another person. How could he be here?

  It didn’t matter. I needed to win this.

  That damn drone was everything to me, and more. The secrets he held. If they got into the wrong hands…

  Seeing him swing around a corner and hammer down the stairs, I dashed ahead, bounced off the wall and leaped down the stairs in one pounce, landing and launching into a run. There, ahead, he sprinted in a blur, dark braid lashing. Maybe I could catch him. Maybe…

  He shot through an open segment of a container and launched into the air, apparently at… nothing. He fell—and landed in a perfect roll on a neighboring block of containers. I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t slow down. My boot hit the edge and I sprang. There was never any doubt I would make it. I hit the container roof and fell into a roll, snapping pain through my shoulder. The momentum carried me onto my feet. He was gone again, darting downward, leaping and vaulting over gaps and barriers—down, down, down. Impossibly fast. I hesitated at the edge of a 160-foot drop. A hovertram pulled away from the tramstop below us.

  The jump I needed to make was too far… Recycled air pushed at my face, whispering encouragement. He was already racing toward the edge of another roof, free-running closer and closer toward the moving tram.

  It was already too late. I’d never catch him in time.

  I plucked my pistol free, lined up my sights—

  He dropped off the edge, fell through the air like an arrow, and landed catlike, poised on the tram’s roof.

  Crosshairs danced across his back. I tugged the trigger. The pistol spat and my heart leaped. The fae feigned left, avoiding the bullet as easily as if I’d thrown a stone.

  He has Sota…

  The warfae straightened on the tram’s roof, rocking with its movement. He turned. The wind tugged at his dark clothing and whipped his braid across his shoulder. A vicious smile slashed across his lips, the kind of smile I’d seen before, heralding the death of so many. Malice flashed in his eyes. His glare bored through me, daring me to chase him down.

  I lowered my pistol.

  Under his arm, Sota was silent, his lens dark. I reached through the mental link but found it stretched too thin to be of any use. “I’m coming for you, my friend…” I sent. The words had barely left when the link snapped, whipping back against my psyche. There was no way of knowing if Sota had heard.

  I pointed at the warfae and mouthed, “I’ll find you.”

  With the challenge laid down, his savage smile grew until the tram carried him out of sight between container towers.

  Dry air washed over me from a hovercab above. I turned on the spot, suddenly exposed. My message recipient was dead, killed by me—apparently. And a warfae had just stolen the evidence of my innocence.

  Sirens squealed in the distance.

  I turned away from the edge and dropped onto rickety scaffolding, out of plain sight and into thick shadows where metal clanged and cloying air hung limp.

  I had to fin
d Sota. If that fae discovered my secrets, more than just my life would be at stake.

  Chapter 2

  Lights blinked on in my habitat container, welcoming me home with warm “tropical sunset” hues. Sota had set the theme, saying he liked to feel the warmth in the light. I’d given up correcting him on the limitations of his feelings. He liked his fiction. Now the white and orange halos of color splashed against the wall only reminded me that he wasn’t here to argue.

  “Lights, default.”

  The lights lifted to a brighter white, illuminating the small rectangular space I called home.

  The one window looked out into a narrow gulley between containers, affording a view consisting of a 5x5 patch of corrugated cladding for the identical rows of containers opposite mine. I pulled the blind down and flicked a switch to turn on the fake rain-on-glass projection. I hadn’t felt real rain in a long time. The projection was nothing like the real thing. The fresh, clean smell, the pitter-pattering sound. Best not to think on it… I’d already woken too many memories today.

  Unhooking my whip and pistol, I set both weapons down on the kitchen counter and shrugged off my coat. A few dark spots marred the coat’s fabric. Any permanent marks would interfere with the garment’s ability to enhance my tek-whispering. Hopefully, its self-clean coating would soon break down the blood.

  I planted my hands on my hips and scanned my container. How was it possible this space felt smaller?

  Sota’s dock sat empty. Its receiving light blinked, searching for the drone’s signal.

  I would get him back.

  So, the guy was fae… So, he’d killed a mineworker… I had faced much worse.

  Tussling with the fae hadn’t been on today’s to-do list. Get up, go to work, deliver messages, come home again, rattle around my container, maybe drop by The Boot. My days weren’t complicated. That’s the way I liked it. Easy. No drama. That was the way it had to be.

  I watched the fake rain stream down the projector screen. Like a thousand tears.

  How long had it been? Five years? And in all that time I had never once slipped. Here, I was a nobody. Just a messenger. Invisible to people as well as tek. But now…?

  This wasn’t about me. It couldn’t be. The fae had taken Sota because of the footage of the assassination, leaving me to take the fall. That was all.

  I combed my fingers through my hair and winced as my nail snagged on a dried clump of something I didn’t want to think too hard on. Stripping off, I stepped into the shower tube and braced both hands against the pads. Air mixed with chemicals blasted over me from above. The burn quickly faded to an almost pleasurable numbness. Dark, swirling thorn tattoos marked my skin. Sometimes I thought they looked like vines, other times like shackles. Reminders. Brands. Memories. I pushed the thoughts away and ignored it all, like always.

  At least Crater’s death had been quick. The asshole hadn’t seen his end coming. That had to be better than having death stalk you for weeks, months, years. A criminal like him, he must have known someone would take him out eventually. But why did the warfae want Crater dead? How was a mineworker embroiled with a fae who shouldn’t exist? A fae who used tek, a fae who moved freely on Calicto a thousand years since the treaty. Enough damned time had passed that most common people thought they were a myth, a story told to keep foolish settlers from roaming into the no-go zones at the edges of Halow space.

  Doesn’t matter.

  Sota had the evidence I needed. His footage of the scene was the only definitive proof that I was innocent. I had to get him back. Whatever Crater and the fae were involved in, I didn’t need to know the whys or what-fors.

  Dry-showered and skin buzzing, I dressed, tossed back a protein bar and flicked on the newsfeed. An image flickered in the air, recoiling from my resonance. I moved away, and the picture cleared.

  “…was a prominent figure among the mineworkers’ union, having successfully campaigned for a substantial ration increase…” I picked up my coat and brushed the dried blood off. “Authorities have admitted that there appears to be no recorded evidence of the assassination and that the security systems failed to detain the offender, who is still at large. Arcon—the manufacturer of ninety percent of Halo’s surveillance and detainment systems—chose not to comment.”

  Arcon. I snorted a laugh. They had sent someone after me after learning that an illegal messenger could stroll through their tek as easily as walking through an open door. Of course, they had brought all their ultra-enhanced tek with them. Their conclusion? I didn’t exist. Tek-whisperers were a myth. Their security was infallible. That was the day I upped my delivery rates.

  Was that how the fae had eluded Calicto’s planet-wide scanners? How else might an armed fae move so freely in one of the most monitored societies in the Halow system?

  My smile faded.

  Everyone left a trail on Calicto, if you knew where to look.

  I threw my coat over my shoulders and hitched my weapons. I was getting my drone back—and no mythical warfae would stand in my way.

  The air in the market gulley smelled like salted meats, sweating spices and the press of too many bodies all funneled into a narrow stretch of street wedged between two rows of tightly packed habitat containers. This was Sage, Calicto’s B Sector, and my neighborhood. Vast fans hummed above, drawing air through the gulley and recycling it through various filters, only to push it out again below our feet, drier, and laced with something sweet and sickly. Some bureaucrat a million miles away probably had to tick a box labeled “Calicto Aid,” and figured the smell of flowers would put smiles on our faces. Unfortunately, what they couldn’t have known unless they’d bothered to take the time to visit, was that artificial fragrance mixed with Calicto’s habitat air made a nauseating combination. I’d lived here for enough rotations that it no longer turned my stomach, but it kept home container prices down and the tourists away—just the way Sector Bs like me preferred.

  I carved through the crowds alone. Usually, Sota would be providing a running commentary, listing any new imports from around the Halow system. He prattled on about nonsense so often that I filtered him out, but now that I was alone, I missed the constant stream of information and found myself strangely disconnected from the goings-on around me. I also missed his early detection sensors. He could have spotted any of Crater’s gang long before me. It was unlikely Crater’s crew would track me back to B Sector—like their security sweeps, I’d whispered my way around any nearby monitoring devices, preventing them from capturing my image—but there was always a chance I’d missed a device, especially if any of his crew had ocular implants. Biotek was difficult to whisper around.

  I nodded at a few familiar faces. Questions lit up in their eyes when they noticed I didn’t have Sota shadowing me. I hurried deeper into the gulley where the lights struggled to penetrate the gloom. Naked cables crisscrossed the space above the gulley, turning the thoroughfare into a tunnel. It’s widely known that all the “best” things happened in the sinks—the name given to this end of the gulley. “Best” for B sectors, generally meant rowdy, dirty and probably illegal. Cameras had long ago failed, leaving the authorities blind to the sinks, and none had dared to venture down here to fix them. Not in sight, not in mind, as Merry liked to say.

  It was Merry I saw as I peeled back the thick, leathery drape and entered her ramshackle hut. Merry wore a high-collared coat, buttoned all the way from her ankles to her chin. I’d never seen her wear anything else, but I’d never seen her outside the hut either.

  She muttered to herself, lost in concentration as she lifted storage boxes and shuffled various bits of substation trinkets around the large front desk.

  “Merry.” I let the drape fall closed behind me, muting the sinks’ background hum.

  “Yes, yes.” Merry waved long fingers at me, either shooing me away or just acknowledging my arrival. She continued to flit about behind the desk, scurrying back and forth.

  “Crater is dead.”

  “Crater
, Crater… Should Merry know Crater?” she asked quickly.

  “One of today’s recipients and the mineworkers’ union leader.”

  She stopped, straightened from her hunched posture, and finally looked over. “Oh.” Her nose twitched, a sure sign she was disappointed. “Before or after Kesh get her cut?”

  “Before.” Her glossy marble-like eyes contracted. There was little Merry hated more than not getting paid. “It gets worse,” I said. “Crater’s crew think I killed their leader, and the evidence I didn’t is on Sota, but he was stolen from me.”

  “Stolen?” She barked a short, tinny laugh and went back to her searching. “Must be some thief to steal drone from Kesh.”

  Some thief, indeed. I couldn’t tell her about the fae. At best, she would think I was lying. At worst, she would alert the authorities and I’d suddenly be at the center of a planet-wide fae hunt and I did not want that heat. The less attention on me, the easier things were.

  “Merry, I need to know who sent that message.”

  She shook her head. “No, no, no…” And pointed a finger. “Kesh know that information is secure. Merry not paid for snooping. Merry paid for discretion.”

  “I know that.” I reined in the frustration from my voice, but Merry’s ears heard everything. Her wiry eyebrows pinched inward. “But this is different,” I told her. “He has Sota.”

  “Pfft, make another drone. Take another message. Innocence easy to prove. Surveillance.” She circled her hand above her head, even though we both knew there was no surveillance in the sinks.

  For people like Merry, it was easy to forget how the surveillance that monitored them, kept them safe, didn’t apply to me. Normally, being a tek-whisperer was an advantage, but not today, not when I needed that proof. If there was any footage out there, it probably consisted of me running away from the scene.