by Ian Whates
Chapter Two
Manny Ousaka had a nose for trouble, a keen sense which he'd developed as a survival mechanism over many years of dealing with the unsavoury and the downright vicious. He clocked the woman as soon as she came in. Tall, slim, but looking as if she worked out, with a narrow waist and an insignificant chest but well defined arms and legs, a body that looked equally capable of delivering pleasure or pain. As for the face, it was slightly too angular to be called pretty, boasting high cheek bones and pleasant enough features, but with eyes a little too close together and a slightly darker brown than her fashionably close-cropped hair. Handsome was the word that sprung to mind. Manny was not in the least surprised when the screen built into his side of the counter - out of the customers' line of sight - flashed up a negative, indicating that the state of the art facial recognition programme he'd installed at great expense had drawn a blank. This didn't strike him as the sort of woman whose face appeared on any database. While studiously rearranging the bric-a-brac on the counter before him, he watched her from the corner of his eye as she sauntered around the shop, picking up a piece of ethnic pottery here and a colourful knickknack there, with interest so feigned that it was almost insulting in its shallowness. What was she waiting for? The shop to be empty, he guessed.
There were only two other customers at that time: a Mr and Mrs Loudon Kerchenko from Sigma III. Their profiles were nowhere near as elusive as the woman's. Mr Kerchenko had grown prosperous as part-owner of a mining concern, before going on to become extremely wealthy via some shrewd dealings in tangential futures. Slightly overweight and well past the first flush of youth, there was still a keen intelligence behind his eyes and an aura of success and power about the man which explained why women found him attractive. He was currently rumoured to be having affairs with both his wife's sister and, a more recent development, the sister's daughter. For her part, Mrs Kerchenko had been a minor celebrity in her youth, a star turn in a long-running holo-drama. She remained glamorous despite having put on a few extra pounds, and liked to think of herself as an altruist. She was a vocal supporter of the underprivileged and in recent years had become patron to several humanitarian charities. Perfect, just the sort of individual Manny loved to welcome to his little emporium.
He didn't want to leave the counter untended, not with Ms Anonymous prowling the aisles, so he signalled for one of the twins to take over. The girl dutifully shuffled out from the backroom, disturbing the fly curtain in the process so that its beads clicked together like the chirping of irritated insects. He had no idea which one this was - never had bothered learning to tell them apart. Lanky, languid, painfully thin, with an androgynous figure and a face that might have qualified as pretty had it been more animated, she had sandy blonde hair which fell long and straight past the shoulders, with enough split ends to have any hairdresser twitching and reaching for the cutters and conditioner.
The twin sisters provided perfect accompaniment to the downbeat ambience of the charity store. So emaciated were their frames that they could easily have appeared in one of the displays occupying half the front window, featuring a revolving parade of images to pull at even the tautest of heartstrings. Orphaned children, tattered clothes that hung from wasted limbs, arid landscape and poverty, skeletal ribcages, tears and forlorn expressions, all tailored to persuade the observer how essential it was that they should give freely of their own abundance to help these less-privileged souls.
There was nothing in the twins' appearance to hint at their augmented nature; nothing to suggest the speed with which they could move or the lethal strength they could bring to bear in a single punch should the need arise. No, the upgrades were all hidden beneath very ordinary seeming, if somewhat listless, skin - the alloy-sheathed bones and powered joints that made his girls so deceptively deadly. They'd have one hell of a time passing spaceport security checks should they ever choose to travel off world, but that was hardly Manny's problem.
Satisfied that the counter and its sophisticated equipment were well guarded, he moved across to where Mr and Mrs Kerchenko were currently pawing at a woollen garment mass-produced in the sweat shops of Kaitu City. Manny considered the item - a hooded top with wooden peg-buttons stitched on - to be one of the ugliest things he had ever seen, but its bold designs had exactly the right ethnic feel: stylised crosses, walking birds and bow-legged stick-figure men, all depicted in chocolate brown against a pale tan background.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" he said as he joined the couple. "Hand knitted by the children of Saratoga from wool gathered off the backs of their own sheep. These clothes are the only source of income for the entire region since the ilenium mine collapse which killed so many of their menfolk."
"How awful," Mrs Kerchenko said on cue.
"A great tragedy," Manny agreed, making it up as he went along and enjoying himself immensely. "If our sourcing agents hadn't found them and established routes and systems through which they can export and sell these exquisite handmade clothes, I shudder to think what would have become of them by now."
"How many of these do you have?" Mrs Kerchenko asked, batting her long, spidery eyelashes.
"Only what you see here," he replied, indicating the stack of half a dozen neatly folded and identical garments from which she'd taken the top one. "There's a limit to how many the children can actually produce."
"Of course, I understand. We'll take the lot, won't we, Lou?"
"Hmm? Sure. Whatever you say, my love."
Impulsively, she reached out to grip Manny's hand. "I want to thank you for all you're doing to help these poor children."
Was it his imagination or did her hand linger a fraction longer than it needed to? No, not his imagination; he felt her well-manicured thumbnail very deliberately caress his palm as she let go. A little startled, he glanced up and caught her fleeting smile. It was enough to make him wonder exactly how much she knew or suspected about her husband's playing around, and what she did to compensate. Manny had no illusion about being god's gift to women, but he knew that his dark features and twinkling eyes leant him a certain rakish charm. Trouble wasn't the only thing he had a nose for - albeit a slightly crooked one, the result of a long-ago fist fight which he'd failed to correct in his youth, misguidedly retaining the defect as if it were some badge of honour. He sensed that this glamorous if slightly plastic-looking woman, with her arm draped so casually through that of her husband's, was his for the taking.
"I just wish there was more we could do to help," she said.
"Well, if you'll trust me with your wric details, I could always put you in touch with our agent who handles the Saratoga account, see if there's anything that could be sorted out."
"Really?" she gushed. "Oh, that would be so wonderful."
Wonderful indeed, if he could screw her both physically and financially. "How much longer are you going to be in town for?"
"Another week or so. That's right, isn't it, Lou?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"My husband has a little business to attend to while we're here."
Leaving her alone for long periods, no doubt. An invitation if ever he'd heard one. Manny realised he hadn't even bothered checking her first name. A fine looking woman, no question. Her forehead might be as immobile as her elegantly curled golden hair, but he bet those full, plump lips could suck life back into the dead.
Moments later the couple breezed out of the shop, secure in the knowledge that the precious garments would be delivered to their hotel later that day, while Manny's credit account had swollen a fraction and his WRist Information Centre pulsed with a little green envelope signifying the arrival of Mrs Loudon Kerchenko's contact details, squirted across from her own wric. Maybe now he'd get to learn her first name.
All in all, a highly satisfactory interlude, which held the promise of even greater satisfaction to come.
The rattle of something crockery-based being placed carelessly back onto a shelf reminded him that the shop still had one other cu
stomer.
He glanced across at her, to find a hint of amusement in the eyes that looked back. Abandoning all pretence of examining the merchandise, the woman started towards him. The way she advanced brought to mind a predator stalking its prey, and Manny was glad to have Sia or Maisie - whichever one of the twins this was - just a few steps away. Sia, he belatedly realised. She was the one who'd come in that morning with a white-headed zit ready to erupt from the centre of her forehead. The spot was now gone, but a livid red mark bore witness to its recent passing.
The security scans hadn't shown any obvious weapons on the woman, but there was a blank patch where her belt bag sat against her hip that had him worried - something the scans couldn't penetrate.
"Manny Ousaka?" she asked.
"Who wants to know?"
The smile didn't fool him for a second. It never reached her eyes. "The name's Boulton."
"All right, Boulton, I'm guessing you're not really interested in helping our society's forgotten poor by buying any of my stock, so what exactly do you want?"
"Information."
"Ah." That word was music to Manny's ears. Perhaps he'd misjudged this ice-cold woman and the day was going to keep getting better after all. Information, was it? Manny's life-blood, what he lived and breathed. The shop was more than just a front, more a hobby he indulged himself. It brought in a few bucks and let him keep his hand in at dealing with the great unwashed. His real business was that of listening, finding, enabling, procuring - all for a price, of course. Manny was a fixer, a facilitator, the man with one ear to the ground and the other to the gods. You wanted to know what was going down before it actually went down, you came to Manny. You wanted a particular piece of kit for a particular job which the law said you couldn't have, Manny was your man. If you had a hankering for the latest synthetic narcotic or contraband tech, Manny was your first, your only port of call. 'As long as you can pay, I'll find a way,' was his proud motto.
He stood straight, feeling taller and more important in the process. "Information, you say... about what, exactly?"
"An old friend of yours, a mutual acquaintance; one Jim Leyton."
The smile died. He could taste its bitter corpse on his lips. "Leyton? Sorry, never heard of the man." As lies went, this was a poor one. It didn't even convince him.
The woman sighed. "Manny, Manny, I'm disappointed." She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "You don't want to play that sort of game with me, I promise you."
Manny flicked a quick glance towards the nearby twin, reassured by her presence. This Boulton might think she had the upper hand, but he still had a pair of aces up his sleeve.
"Look, lady..."
"Let's cut the bullshit." The woman actually had the audacity to get bolshie with him, here, in his own place. "You're Leyton's principle contact in this sector, someone he meets with regularly."
'Meet' wasn't exactly the word Manny would have used. The man dropped in from time to time - in the same way that a bomb might drop through the ceiling. An alarm flashed red on Manny's screen. It meant that somebody was mounting a concerted effort to hack his systems. "What the...?" He glared at the woman. "Are you doing this? Get the hell out of my systems!"
Sia started forward, but in the blink of an eye Boulton whipped out a gun - damned hidden compartment. Manny knew that gun. Either this was the same weapon Leyton habitually carried, or his bodyguard wasn't the only twin in the room. Shit! Don't tell him this Boulton was some kind of female equivalent of that bastard Leyton.
Before he could react, before he could think to say anything, there came a muffled whumpf. The gun was clearly silenced. The bullet punched into Sia's forehead, right where the zit had been, and exploded from the back of her skull in a shower of shattered bone, blood and gore which smacked against the wall behind her.
The twin's body had not even had a chance to fully crumple to the floor before the gun swivelled towards Manny, centring between his eyes.
"Unless you want your other dolly guard to be the third person I kill here today, I suggest you tell her to come out now with her hands raised and empty."
"You heard the woman," Manny called. "Get your ass out here."
The second twin, Maisie, emerged; hands held level with her ears as instructed but eyes burning with defiance. Boulton must have spotted the latter too and decided she didn't need the potential complication, because, after a brief frown as if she were weighing up the options, she brought the gun smartly around and shot the second girl as cleanly and finally as she had the first. Two bloody splatters now decorated the wall.
So much for augmentation.
Manny swallowed on a sand-dry throat as the gun returned to cover him. He made certain to stand very, very still.
"That's better. Just you and me now." Her smile sent a chill sliding down the length of his spine. "You were about to tell me everything you know about Jim Leyton."
"Yeah, sure, anything you say."
"Oh, and while we're having our little chat, you won't mind opening up your systems, will you? Just to confirm there's nothing you've... forgotten."
"Ehm, sure, of course not."
"Good, only that's an impressive security system you've got there, and while I'm sure we could hack it eventually, everything will be so much quicker if you invite us in."
Manny hurried to comply.
"Perfect. Now, for openers, when was the last time you saw our dear friend Leyton?"
Manny took a deep breath. He had a feeling that Boulton wasn't going to like the answer, that he hadn't seen Leyton in a while - never mind that it was the truth; this was one woman that he really really didn't want to disappoint.
She woke with a bitter taste at the back of the throat and mucous clogging her mouth. She tried to swallow but was interrupted as somebody grabbed hold of her and attempted to pull her upright. Her eyes shot open and harsh facts tumbled into place: guards, prison, Sheol Station.
"Get up!" Wisely, the man had stood back.
Prisoner 516 did as instructed.
"Arms!" She dutifully brought both behind her back to be cuffed. It was then a case of shuffling out of her cell and trudging between the two guards - one in front and one behind. Neither of them touched her, not now she was awake. They'd learnt that lesson. Besides, the cuffs now securing her wrists were capable of delivering a surge of pain enough to ensure obedience. The guards remained wary though, she could sense it. Small satisfaction perhaps, but that was all they'd left her.
The catcalls and wolf whistles that trailed her passage were irrelevances she barely noticed anymore, as were the shouted promises of what her fellow inmates would do to her given half a chance, and how they'd have her moaning for more. Given that chance, she'd break every bone in their bodies, leaving them even limper than their dicks, but such defiance echoed only in her head these days; she could no longer spare the energy to vocalise it. She knew that elsewhere on the station there were political prisoners, subversives, cybercrime kingpins, industrial fraudsters, and assorted intellectual giants whose genius refused to conform and who, therefore, were too dangerous to remain at large. Not here, not on this landing. She shared this level with the thugs and the psychopaths, the perverted bullies and the sadistic murderers, those whose crimes might embarrass the government and so would never be allowed to come to trial. She was the only woman on the entire corridor.
They had put her here to intimidate her. It didn't.
Her current destination, on the other hand, did. She knew precisely where they were taking her: to the clinic. Such a deceptively innocent-sounding name for such an evil place. It was a bland oblong box, as were all rooms in this facility, which had once been a starship - a vessel which official records cited as decommissioned and broken down for scrap more than a decade ago. The clinic was the modern, civilised face of an institution that reached back into man's darker, cruder past: the torture chamber. The functional angles of the room's walls and ceilings and the clinical brightness of its surfaces presented a mislead
ing veneer. Strip them away and beneath you would find ancient brick walls damp with subterranean moisture and oil-drenched torches that guttered in wall brackets, while the black upholstered chair which formed the room's centrepiece hid within its depths a set of iron wall manacles and the wooden frame of a rack. The attempt at innocence didn't fool her for a second.
The bald-pated round-shouldered Dr Etherington, whose name slipped so readily into 'Deathrington,' looked down his prominent Roman nose as she entered. "Ah, 516. How nice to see you again."
She trusted that her answering glower was eloquence enough. The orderly who hovered behind the good doctor was an inconsequence, but Deathrington she would deal with, somehow, some day.
One guard took station by the door, the other behind the chair. Both had drawn their shockclubs. This was the moment they would expect her to try something, when the manacles came off - she had done so before, but not this time. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction. So the prisoner stood docilely as the cuffs sprang open, flexing her wrists for the all too brief seconds of freedom before a smiling Deathrington motioned her to sit down. She did as instructed, silently vowing that her next attempt at escape would be when they didn't expect it, and that she would succeed.
Steel bands closed around her ankles and wrists, holding her firm, and she braced herself for what was to come. Method, that was the only difference between this place and its ancient counterparts. Torture had evolved, although the intentions were certainly the same - to break a person's will and loosen the tongue, to unlock their most guarded secrets. Nor had the chief tool - pain - changed, though the way it was administered certainly had.
What need did the torturer have for flails and forks and thumbscrews when his victim could be primed with a drug that made receptors so sensitive that the movement of air against the skin induced a sharp intake of breath, an involuntary wince of pain? Prisoner 516 felt a telltale tingle at her wrist as the micro-spray permeated her skin.
What need of heated irons or dripping water when the body's nerves could be isolated and stimulated at will and impulses targeted at specific areas of the brain?
