You didn’t have to, I think. “My father had his share of them, once upon a time.”
“What’s a concu . . . whatever?” Sarge asks.
“Concubine,” Pinch says. “A kept woman. “A pretend wife for an aristocrat who’s too snooty to marry a commoner. Innit right?”
“As an Orthocrat of high standing and regard,” Medici says, offended, “it behooves me to maintain a certain station in my affairs.” He stands. “My offer of employment is withdrawn. I cannot be associated with certain undesirable elements.”
“It behooves you to sit back down, Medici.” I put a hand on his shoulder and give a gentle push. “A man who has business in the Rapture trade knows all about getting his hands dirty.”
“How did you know that?” he sputters. “I don’t. I don’t use—”
I lean down close enough that he can feel my breath. “I can see it in your eyes. That pink tinge around your iris.” I pick up Medici’s soft hand. “And in your fingernails. Rapture’s a powerful thing. Touching it, breathing minute amounts of it, the drug gets in your bloodstream and deposits in your eyes, your nails, and your hair. Mr. High Standing, you’re the dirtiest person in this joint.” I slap my left hand on the table so that he can see the stub of my pinkie. “So I’m going to ask you again, why not just pay the ransom?”
“I don’t have it.” Medici bows his head. “My income flow has been disrupted the last few weeks.”
“But you have the coin to pay us?” Aziz says, a hint of frustration in his voice.
“Only just.” Medici pulls a bag from his robe. Hands it to Aziz. “That is half. The rest when you bring her back to me. I must . . . I must be going.” He looks at me, and I feel an unexpected sympathy for the man. “I have business in the bazaar.”
“Do your sources have any intel on the Razor’s location?” I ask.
“Only an educated guess,” Medici says. “His activity seems to be centered on the Warren.”
The Warren.
Just when I thought the locale couldn’t get any more buggered up.
Sarge snorts. “Ain’t that ironical. Razor was born in that Warren. Figures he’d head back after he left the service.”
If the Razor is a dalit, then he didn’t just leave the service. He’d been asked by his master to self-immolate but had refused, which means he didn’t leave on good terms. No surprise there. You don’t go from being an elite warrior to a slum warlord without some fall from grace.
“We’ll start with the Warren, then,” Aziz says. “How long have we got?”
“The ransom demand gave seven days,” Medici says.
“How many days have passed?” Vienne asks.
“You speak?” Medici says. “I thought you were mute.”
Without missing a beat, she repeats, “How many days have passed?”
“Six.”
That gives us one day, I think. Twenty-four hours.
“More accurately, a Mars day is twenty-four hours, thirty-nine minutes, and thirty-five point two seconds,” Mimi says. “Also, a Mars year is equal to six hundred eighty-six point nine eight Earth solar days. Would you like me to adjust your internal cognitive clock for more precision? It would cause a temporary but somewhat temporal disturbance.”
“Later,” I say, because Medici looks like he’s about to cry. “I’m not ready for a temporal anything.”
“Please bring her home,” Medici says, and starts to go. “I love her. She is my life.”
“Wait, you forgot something,” Aziz says. “Pinch? The ring you slipped from his thumb when you kissed him. Give it back.”
“Got me again, chief.” Pinch grins. She flips the rings to Medici, who cradles it as he catches it.
“I . . . I did not notice it gone!” Medici says.
“Few people ever do, Mr. Medici,” Aziz says. “Keep that in mind next you’re shaking hands with a stranger.”
Medici puckers up but goes. I keep an eye on the poxer until the door closes behind him.
When the dust settles, Aziz opens the pouch. He puts an equal amount in front of each of us. “There’s an odd coin out.”
“I’ll take it,” Sarge says.
“Or I will.” Pinch grins. “If you don’t nail it down.”
Aziz shakes his head. “It goes to our strategist. Vienne was right about you.” He flips the piece to me. “Don’t spend it all in one place. Grab some grub and get your gear mission ready. I need to do some asking about the Warren, so meet back at the tram station in two hours, capiche?”
We all nod in agreement.
I pocket the coin. I try to catch up with Vienne, but she follows close on Aziz’s heels, ahead of Sarge. Only when she reaches the exit does she look back. Her gaze fixes on me as the sun hits her hair. Then the door closes behind her.
“Got it bad, right?” Pinch says.
“Huh?” I jump, startled by her voice. “Got what bad?”
Pinch laughs and pats my shoulder. “Never mind. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch at the bazaar, since you’re flat busted broke and your gut is growling like a minigun.”
“What? I have mon—” I pat my pockets furiously and look at the floor, moving a chair aside.
“Looking for something?” She is rolling three pieces of coin through her fingers, like a magician.
“You carking pinched my money!”
She flips the coins into the air. “Carking? That’s the best you’ve got? Tää on täyttä skeidaa, do I have a thing or two to teach you about cussing.”
We step outside into the light. Vienne and Aziz are nowhere to be found. I sigh, disappointed.
“Try this one,” Pinch says. “Piru vieköön.”
“Piru vieköön,” I repeat.
“How about a little German? Der scheisskerl.”
“Der scheisskerl!” I say, getting into the guttural sound.
“That one will get you punched in most places,” she says. “But this one, cào nĭ zŭzōng shíbā dài, will get you shot.”
As we move among the tables, the patrons hop out of their chairs, scattering before us. Just because a couple of blighters got tossed around. Wimps.
“Shot?” I ask. “Cào nĭ zŭzōng shíbā dài must be a huge insult.”
“Carking A,” she says, and explains what it means, making me laugh. “Here’s another one. Jiao nshng haizi zhng zhi chung. Don’t say that to new parents. How about a little Finnish? Vittujen kevat ja kyrpien takatalvi.”
“Vittujen kevat ja kyrpien takatalvi,” I repeat. “That rolls off the tongue nicely.”
As we walk through the streets, Pinch teaches me phrases from seven different languages, so that many that there’s no way I can remember them all.
“You will remember them,” Mimi says. “I am storing the information in my data banks for later use.”
We reach the edge of the bazaar, where delicious odors are wafting toward us, reloading that minigun in my belly.
“That’s enough lecturing,” Pinch says. “Now about that nutria.”
My stomach growls. “Never in my life did I think that rat would sound so delicious.”
“Get used to it,” Pinch says. “If you live the life of a mercenary, you’re going to be eating worse than that. A lot worse.”
Chapter 3
New Eden
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 2. 3. 17:43
A river splits New Eden in half. On one side is the rundown, sagging city. On the other is an overripe labyrinthine slum that would make a shantytown look like Nirvana.
This is the Warren, the kind of place you step into and don’t come back. Never to be heard of again.
The crew’s rendezvous point is located on the “good” side of New Eden. It’s a riverside ryokan, an old-fashioned roadhouse run by an older woman who doesn’t get all chuffed when five mercenaries loaded with high-powered weapons ask for one east-facing room on the fifth floor. She even provides tea service and a quiet spot for prayer, both of which Vienne and I enjoy before the rest of the davos shows up—which h
appens all too fast for my taste.
“You know the plan,” Aziz says after the innkeeper has poured us all a fresh cup and bowed her way out of the room. “Let’s get with it.”
“Roger,” we all say in unison, all of us dressed in civilian clothes. Five Regulators dressed in nothing but armor would all but guarantee we’d never find Charlotte.
My job is to act as Vienne’s spotter: I open the curtain and am greeted with a view of the Warren in all its disgusting glory. Using a pair of omnoculars, I scan the three entrances to the slum, counting the number of people who pass in and out. Not people, customers. For what it is, the Warren is a hotbed of capitalist activity. None of it legal, I bet. The inhabitants of the Warren are called đibui, which, loosely translated, means “dust boys.” They’re also known by soldiers who’ve had to fight them as wobblies.
“According to statistics I downloaded at the library,” Mimi says, interrupting my train of thought, “roughly eight-seven percent of that trade is illicit, if estimates from CorpCom bureaucrats can be considered accurate.”
“Thanks for that tidbit,” I say. “Know anything about the blighters who run the place?”
“Affirmative,” she says. “The Warren is governed by individuals referred to as đibui. They are a loose confederation of warlords and tribal leaders answering to one individual known to you as the Razor.”
“Oy, Turtle,” Vienne says as she sets up a tripod next to Pinch, who sits on the sill, practicing a magic trick. “The point of spotting is to report to the shooter what you’re spotting, not talking to yourself.”
“Right.” Damn, I’ve got to get better at this talking-to-Mimi thing. “Lots of activity around that high hill with the bright blue shack on top. Must be the Razor’s base.”
“I don’t like this plan,” Vienne says.
“I mark the door at three hundred and fifty kilometers.”
“Three hundred and twenty,” Vienne says. “I still don’t like this plan.”
“Why don’t you like it?” Aziz appears next to Vienne, standing between us, sipping a cup of tea. “It’s a good strategy. We infiltrate the Razor’s base, do a quick snatch-and-grab of the target, exfilitrate the Warren, and complete the extraction.”
Vienne sets her armalite on the tripod. It’s been equipped with a long barrel designed for sniping. She looks at Aziz, then begins calibrating the rifle. “Because I’m stuck here. If something goes wrong, I’ll be out of the action.”
“Nothing’s going to go awry,” Aziz says.
“Something,” Vienne says, sighting the target through her scope, “always goes wrong.”
Aziz smiles. “I never took you as a pessimist, Sidewinder.”
“I’m not,” she says, glancing at me. “I’m a realist.”
“Huzzah, you wankers! How’s this for camo?” Sarge bellows as he comes out of the latrine. He’s dressed in rags, his face covered in mud, and he reeks of manure.
Pinch covers her mouth. “Du hast den Arsch offen! What is that stench?”
“Javelina shite!” Sarge throws his arms wide and does a three-sixty so that we can fawn over his skills. “Found a whole lagoon of it out past the bazaar. Thought I’d make the part more authentic, like.”
“So you bathed in it?” Pinch says, coughing and gagging.
“Didn’t want to blow my cover if they got too close.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “Nobody’s going to get within five meters of you.”
“Including us,” Aziz says. “Out, before the landlady gets a whiff and throws us all on the street.”
Sarge drops his arms and frowns, looking crestfallen. Then he snatches up his armalit and goose steps to the door. It slams behind him.
“Why is it always the ones named Sarge?” Pinch says.
“Enough chatter,” Aziz says. “Once the target is in place, and we’re ready to spring the trap, I’ll contact you all via the telemetry functions in your armor.” He places a hand on Vienne’s shoulder. She doesn’t shrug it off, and I feel my blood boil. “Our shooter’s in position, and our window of opportunity is closing. Let’s move.”
“Warning, Cowboy,” Mimi says. “I am detecting elevated heart rate and excretion of stress hormones in your bloodstream.”
I glare at Aziz’s hand, waiting for it too to move out. “I wonder why.”
“I can postulate a theory. Would you like to hear it?”
“Sarcasm, Mimi,” I say. “You should learn to detect it.”
“Directive accepted,” she says. “In order to examine this phenomenon, it may be necessary to replicate it.”
“No problem,” I say as Aziz finally lifts his carfarging hand and signals Pinch to follow him. I take the chance to nick a few tea biscuits for later. “I’ve got enough sarcasm for both of us.”
Sarge meets us at the door. He bows. “After you?”
“I thought I told you to leave,” Aziz says “Out. Double time.”
Sarge grins through his grayed teeth but complies.
I am the last out. I lock the door and almost pull it shut. “Vienne?” I ask from the door.
“What?” she says without taking her eye off the scope.
“Do you ever miss them? Our old crew?”
“Sometimes.” She draws back from the rifle but doesn’t look back at me. “I miss Mimi and her stupid poems. Sometimes it’s like she’s right there with me, telling me to make her proud. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I know just what you mean,” I say. “Well, good luck.”
“You, too,” she says.” You know how I hate collateral damage, so keep your head down when the shooting starts. I don’t want to make a mistake and blow your brains out.”
“Yeah,” I say and then think, I love you, too.
“Sarcasm?” Mimi asks as I lock the door behind me.
“Half and half,” I say. “Half and half.”
A dozen rickety footbridges span the river between New Eden and the Warren. The river is full of garbage. Children wade through the garbage, collecting scraps of what-have-you. The water is covered in greenish-brown scum, and it stinks like an open-air latrine. Seeing little ones neck deep in the filth turns my stomach. How can people live like this? How can the Razor, the leader of the đibui, live with himself?
As Pinch and I walk across one such rickety bridge, I scope out the rabbit warren of huts, houses, alleys, and twisting paths. The place is a nightmare, and I can’t imagine how anyone could survive in it. But because the poor and wretched never stop coming, the Warren is one of the most densely populated settlements in the prefecture, and probably all of Mars.
“Aziz expects us to find the target in that mess?” I ask Pinch.
“No, he expects the kidnapper to find us,” she says. “Now smile and pretend we’re all chummy.”
“So we’re bait?” I say. “Is that Aziz’s plan?”
“What’s the matter, afraid you’ll catch something?” she says, moving close and batting her brown eyes.
“More like I’m afraid you’ll steal something.”
“It’s only stealing if I don’t give it back.” Pinch squeezes my hand. She swings our arms, like we’re lovers taking a stroll. A stroll over a rat-infested, garbage-clogged river. The scene has romantic interlude written all over it.
“Sarcasm?” Mimi asks.
“Ding-ding,” I say. “We have a winner.”
“Data point recorded,” Mimi says.
Pinch cuddles up to me, laying her head against my shoulder. She gives my arm a squeeze.
“Blood pressure is rising,” Mimi says.
“What’s this about?” I say, trying to act casual.
“Following orders,” Pinch says. “Doing a convincing job of pretending we’re lovers, and by extension, making the Sidewinder red-eyed with jealousy.”
“Her?” I say. “Why would she be jealous?”
“Kuso!” she says, looking at me with mischief in her eyes. “You really are green, aren’t you?”
Phttt!
Beside the footbridge, the dirty water splashes high.
Pinch pulls me closer, stands on tiptoes, and plants a kiss on my cheek. “Let’s see how that—”
A meter in front of us, one of the planks explodes, spraying splinters into the air.
“There we go,” Pinch says, laughing. “Looks like Sidewinder’s blood is boiling.”
“Vienne?” I look back at the ryokan. At the fifth floor with the lone window open. “She’s sniping at us?”
Pinch plucks a long splinter from the bridge. She holds it up to the sun, examining the edge of a bullet hole, then hands it to me. “What do you think?”
What do I think? The idea that Vienne is jealous makes my heart soar, but I’m not about to spill my guts to Pinch. So, instead, I examine the hole in the splinter. “She’s using full metal jacket rounds.”
“To be precise,” Mimi says, “three-thirty-eight magnum rimless bottlenecked center-fire cartridges.”
“Mimi, aren’t you supposed to warn me when I’m in danger?”
“You were in no danger,” she says. “Based on the available data as well as our combined experience, if Vienne had intended to hit you, you would be dead.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?” I say.
“My purpose is to provide information, Cowboy, not to provide solace.”
“Thanks for clarifying that.” I unlace my hand from Pinch’s and tell her, “Maybe it’d be better if we weren’t so—”
“Cuddly?”
“Demonstrative.”
“Afraid the Sidewinder’s actually going to shoot you?”
“Nope. Afraid she’s going to shoot you.”
“She wouldn’t dare.”
“You don’t know Vienne,” I say, “I once saw her take down a Mahindra brigadier from over three hundred meters. Didn’t even bat an eye.”
“I’m wearing symbiarmor.”
“So was he.” I touch the base of her skull. “The bullet hit the sweet spot. Blew his head right out of his helmet.”
Pinch steps away from me. “You’re a handsome hunk of man flesh,” she says, “but not worth taking a bullet for. I’ll have to find another way of yanking the Sidewinder’s chain.”
“You make a habit of buggering off expert snipers?”
Rising Sun Page 4
