Red Gambit: Book One of the Harvesters Series

by Luke R. Mitchell

  “Got a fresh one for you, ya sick bastard,” said one of the escorts.

  Jarek paid them little mind. Behind Baldy, in the dirty cell, Michael Carver huddled against the concrete wall like a beaten dog.

  Jarek had only interacted with Huxley’s protégé in passing, but it wasn’t hard to see that he looked like hell. The big dude was curled into an impressively tight ball, and when he looked up, his dark face was ashen and bruised, his lips visibly cracked and caked with bits of dried blood. His eyes were a little wild and disoriented, but they seemed lucid enough as they locked onto him in sudden recognition.

  “Yo, Mikey!” Jarek said. “Fancy seeing you here, man. Long time.”

  Michael ran a hand over his short, bushy crop of dark hair, his movements cautious and twitchy, which wasn’t so surprising given the way Baldy was staring at him.

  “Yeah, man, been a little tied up.”

  “Ha!” Jarek turned a wide smile on Baldy. “Tied up … See what he did there?”

  Baldy stared at him as if he were questioning Jarek’s mental stability. Which was probably kind of rich, coming from him. Finally, he shook his head. “Someone lock this idiot up.”

  “Oh, oh!” Jarek shuffled in place and jutted his head toward the cell opposite Michael’s. “Can I have that one?”

  Tom let out an irritated growl and stepped toward Jarek, but he froze as a voice called from the brig’s entrance, calm and authoritative.

  “Calm yourself, Tom.”

  An athletic-looking guy with a buzzed head and cold eyes strode confidently toward them. In a base full of armed, armored men, his cargo pants and form-fitting T-shirt stood out. Jarek pegged him as Seth Mosen, the Overlord’s right-hand man (or at least the closest thing to one who wasn’t a raknoth). He’d never had the displeasure of meeting Mosen, but he’d heard a few stories—the kind that elicited dubious frowns and sent chills up spines.

  “Jarek Slater,” Mosen said, eyeing him with a keener version of Baldy’s creepy stare. If the things he’d heard about Mosen were half true, it was more than sadism that was off behind those pale eyes. “The Soldier of Charity himself,” he added, splaying his hands in mock awe. “They didn’t tell me we had a celebrity on our hands.”

  “Oh don’t sell yourself short, Mosen,” Jarek said. “You’ve got quite the reputation yourself.” In a mutter that was still audible, he added, “As a creepy psychopath.”

  Tom inched closer to Mosen with the air of a dog looking for a treat. “I thought I best let you lot decide how to handle him, what with him being the second one tonight and all.”

  “And the second-best-looking one at that, from what I’ve heard,” Jarek said, wiggling his eyebrows. “How many of your asses did that little blond girl kick, again?”

  Muscles tensed on Tom’s neck and jaws, but he bowed his head deferentially as Mosen opened his mouth to speak.

  “Normally, I’d say you should use a gag with world-class wiseasses like Slater here, but he raises a fair point. The girl. What happened?”

  Tom proceeded to sputter out a story about a young blond woman bursting into The Rath, waving around some kind of pre-Catastrophe tech that let her stop bullets and throw full-grown men around like rag dolls. It sure sounded like the explanation of a baffled guy who’d seen some mind-boggling shit and either knew nothing about arcanists or firmly disbelieved they existed. Pryce was going to do backflips if this panned out.

  Jarek didn’t miss the way Michael’s eyes widened at Tom’s story. It stood to reason he might know the chick who was willing to kick an entire bar’s ass to track him down, but the fact that she’d decided to even hit The Rath for that information (not to mention the worried recognition in Michael’s expression) … Something didn’t quite add up.

  But now wasn’t the time to worry about it. Right now, he needed to find a way to talk to Michael before these a-holes pulled one or both of them off for a nice, private torture session.

  Mosen’s expression was unreadable as Tom concluded his tale.

  “Crazy shit, huh?” Jarek sidled up closer to Mosen and leaned into his personal space with a conspiratorial air. “You wanna know what I think, man?”

  Mosen looked at him as if he were a particularly stubborn clump of scum caught at the bottom of a drain. “No.”

  “Because I’ll tell you what I think. I’d say that Tommy-boy here—”

  Mosen pivoted and drove an open palm into Jarek’s chest. The attack was viciously fast and strong, and in the split second leading up to it, Jarek could have sworn Mosen’s eyes flashed light red.

  Jarek crashed back into the bars of Michael’s cell. He managed to keep his chin tucked tightly enough to avoid slamming the back of his head into the bars, but there wasn’t much else to be done. He slumped to the floor, back against the bars, as a wave of pain enveloped him, resolving into specific areas across his back and bound arms.

  The worst of it was the elbow that had caught a bar full on. “Argh! Why do they call them funny bones? How is this funny?”

  “You’re an annoying little shit, you know that?” Mosen said. “Without that damn suit, that’s all you are.”

  “Speaking of which,” Jarek said, “you haven’t seen a stolen exo lying around somewhere, have you?”

  For a second, Jarek thought he’d poked too hard and that Mosen might kill him then and there.

  Mosen turned on his heel. “Tom. Cutter. A word.”

  “Ah, come on, guy!” Jarek called after him.

  Mosen stopped Tom and Baldy by the next cluster of cells and began speaking in a low tone. Tom’s three beefy thugs and the two Reds who’d escorted them to the brig were talking among themselves and trying to eavesdrop on the bosses.

  Now or never.

  “Yo, Mikey.” Jarek spoke quietly over his shoulder without turning around. “How ya holdin’ up?”

  “Fantastic, obviously,” came Michael’s voice, equally quiet. “You still in one piece?”

  “Got ’em right where I want ’em.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’m looking for my suit. Heard you might know something.”

  “Wait, did you—”

  Shuffling from inside the cell.

  “Did you get captured on purpose to ask me about your exosuit, dude?” Michael’s voice was closer now.

  “Let’s just say it’s gonna be an embarrassing story if you don’t know anything.”

  Silence. Then, “I might know something.”

  He froze, pain forgotten. “Tell me.”

  “Get me out of here.”

  One of the Reds looked over from the thug huddle. Jarek shot the guy his iciest grin, and the guard turned back to the huddle, uninterested.

  “Tell me where to find Fela, and I’ll bring back the artillery,” he said quietly.

  “No, now,” Michael said, a hint of frantic desperation in his tone. “Get us out now, or no deal. You’re going to need me with you anyways.”

  Jarek clenched his jaw. The fact that he would have done the same thing in Michael’s position didn’t make the demand any less infuriating. “Prove you’re not fucking with me, and we can move on to how the shit you propose I do that.”

  “Huxley hid your suit in his safe with the rest of our score. I don’t know where it is, but I know how to find it.”

  Jarek turned that over, watching Tom waving his hands as if deflecting blame. It wasn’t exactly hard proof, but it might have to do. Besides, if he could trust anyone in the room (or in the Resistance), it was probably Michael Carver. From what little he’d seen and heard, the kid was a boy scout through and through.

  “Fine. I get us out, you take me to Fela. Deal?”

  “Just like that? You’re going to trust me?”

  “Hell no. Trust is for sissies. But we don’t have time—and if you’re lying to me, I can always kick your ass later. Win-win.”

  “Uh, okay then. What’s the plan?”

  That was the question, wasn’t it? He’d always been a
let’s-see-what-happens kind of guy. He’d played out a few scenarios and escape routes in his head earlier, but those were more fluid possibilities than actual plans, and they sure as shit hadn’t involved springing a buddy.

  “Well …”

  “You don’t have a plan, do you?”

  “Please. What kind of guy walks into an enemy base without a plan?”

  A heavy, whooshing sigh from the cell.

  The sound of his name drew Jarek’s attention to Mosen’s private huddle.

  “He was asking about Carver, sir,” Tom was saying.

  Shit. The big idiot.

  “What?” Mosen snapped, glancing back toward Michael and Jarek. “And you didn’t think to tell me that before you brought him straight to Carver? You!” He pointed at the two Reds standing with Tom’s men. “Bring Slater here.” He shot Baldy a meaningful look. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this right now.”

  Double shit. Jarek’s stomach tightened. Looked like their time was up.

  The one upside of having his hands bound behind his back was that he was supremely prepared to shoot Michael a discreet thumbs-up as he said quietly, “Operation Save the Boy Scout commencing. Phase One.”

  Now all he had to do was figure out what the hell that operation entailed. No big deal.

  Four

  Rachel leaned back from the concrete barrier at the outer edge of the freeway to consider everything she’d observed of the so-called Red Fortress in the past hour.

  The place hadn’t been hard to find. Between the ten-foot perimeter wall and the small armada of armed men making the rounds within, it was pretty clear the complex was hosting a serious operation. Of course, it wasn’t like there was a sign hanging out front. It was still possible she’d stumbled upon the wrong hive of armed goons, but she didn’t see any other super-bases in the area.

  Had the situation been different, she would have taken her time and done due diligence before engaging in this kind of madness. Actually, scratch that. She would have passed on sticking her neck onto the chopping block and gone home instead, back to Unity, the closest thing to safe one could hope to find these days.

  But if Michael was truly in there, that wasn’t an option. At least, not until she had him by her side. Once that happened, they would return to Unity even if she had to drag her brother there by his spongy locks.

  She tried his comm for what had to be the millionth time in the past week. The call went straight to voice mail like it had every other time. She ended the call with a curse.

  How much could she really trust the word of that big gorilla-man Tom? Enough to try slinking into a heavily guarded fortress in the hopes that Michael was really in there? Maybe she could snag one of the patrolmen and pick his brain before she was past the point of no return. Of course, that would introduce a whole new set of risks.

  The thought of descending from her perch, of standing and willingly moving into that den of danger, made her want nothing more than to be home, to be in her own bed, safe and secure and content under a pile of blankets. As proud (and surprised) as she was that she’d kept it together back at the pub, this shit was not her cup of tea—not even close. Sure, she’d dealt with her fair share of ornery and sometimes violent assholes during her years helping keep the peace in Unity. She’d trained to handle herself. She’d helped scare off marauders with flashes of light and fire on occasion. But going it alone, surrounded by a roomful of hard men looking to hurt her as she had been back at The Rath …

  It had taken a good fifteen minutes for her breathing and heart rate to even begin to slow after the fight and the better part of an hour to get her hands to stop shaking.

  And here she was, about to wade into worse than that.

  At least the catcher had worked—that was something. She’d tested it before, of course, but it was a new creation, and given the complexity of the enchantments she’d laid on the device, she’d been more than a little skeptical about whether the thing would successfully stop bullets when it really mattered. Relying on the catcher probably still wasn’t the best idea, but as long as no one got too close to her, she feasibly shouldn’t have to worry about getting shot. She’d have to deal with the cold as the thing drew the energy it required from the air around her, but that was a small price to pay.

  But enough. She’d been watching the Red Fortress long enough to know she wasn’t going to gain any additional insight sitting here. She was only wasting time because she was afraid. If Michael was in there, he could well be running out of time.

  She needed to move, and that meant breaching the Red Fortress.

  In reality, the place looked like more of a fortified factory complex than an honest-to-god fortress. Still, whether or not the place would stand up to heavy artillery wasn’t exactly important right now. It was only her, after all, and the sheer number of armed men in there was more than enough to make the prospect of storming the place sound like suicide.

  Of course, just because she couldn’t walk away didn’t mean she had to go in staff blazing. With a little luck, she might be able to find Michael and slip out before anyone noticed a thing. The perimeter wall would be easy enough to hop. It was the question of what she’d do from there that was twisting her stomach into knots.

  She checked over her gear one last time. Her bullet catcher was ready to go, as was the cloaking pendant hanging from the thin chain at her neck and the twin batteries clipped at the back of her belt. When she was ready to go, she hefted her staff, a much more versatile tool than the rest. It had evolved along with her skills as an arcanist, beginning as little more than a kind of telekinetic battering ram and growing steadily in function and precision alongside her creativity with the arts of channeling and enchanting. It also made a handy whacking stick when the need arose.

  She killed her comm holo and closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to dissipate some of the anxious energy. As if that were going to happen.

  She stood, took one last look, and leapt over the concrete barrier at the edge of the freeway. As the ground rose up to meet her, she focused her mind and channeled the energy of her falling body, redirecting it into telekinetic force applied at an upward angle to slow her fall. A familiar crackling buzz rushed through her head and body as the energy flowed through her, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

  Despite having jumped from a height of twenty feet, she touched down as if she’d simply hopped from a small stepladder, no worse for the wear aside from the small expenditure of effort.

  As she stared up at the looming Red Fortress, worried scraps of plans swirling through her mind, only one thing seemed certain: if and when she got Michael out of this whole mess, she owed him one solid kick in the ass.

  SHE COVERED THE DARK STRETCH between the highway and the Fortress wall at a light run, keeping as low and quiet as possible. A few yards from the perimeter wall, she gathered herself and jumped, drawing energy from her surroundings to telekinetically amplify her leap to something well beyond what would be humanly possible. The ten-foot wall passed beneath her, and for a brief second, a small trill of panic rose at the sight of the ground rushing up to meet her on the other side. Then she took another pull of energy, applied another effort of will, and settled safely to the grass inside the perimeter of the Red Fortress.

  She remained frozen for a second.

  No shouts, no shots.

  The only guy in her immediate sight was thirty yards away, headed toward the far end of the complex with his back to her. For the moment, she seemed to be in the clear.

  The yard between the perimeter wall and the Red Fortress itself was lit along its considerable length by several large floodlights. Ample patches of shadow remained beside the stacks of supply crates and lines of transport trucks that populated the space.

  She was moving to take cover behind a line of trucks to wait out the lone patrolman when the sounds of voices and crunching gravel from the direction of the front gate made her stop in her tracks.

  She forc
ed herself to breathe again. With a base this size, people were probably coming and going at all hours. It had nothing to do with her. She was still good.

  That didn’t stop her from flinching when the front gate gave a pair of sharp clicks and began to pull open with a low hum. She covered the last few feet to the nearest truck in a panicked shuffle and hunkered down by its front grill, gripping her staff as if it were the only thing keeping her from plunging to certain death.

  Yeah, she was still good. Definitely.

  Get it together.

  She peered around the front of the truck. A dark SUV pulled through the front gate and headed for the building entrance. She glanced over her shoulder to ensure she was still alone. Ahead, the rear left door of the SUV popped open, and a big guy slid out.

  He only looked around for a second before turning back to the vehicle, but she recognized him. She was sure about that. It would take more than a couple of hours to forget the face of the guy who’d tried to shoot her dead in that awful pub.

  More men began to emerge from the SUV, five in total. She sucked in a breath when she spotted gorilla-man Tom. What the hell were these guys doing here?

  They must have come to track her down for revenge, or at least to tip the Red Fortress off to her. But wait—one of the guys from the back seat had his hands bound behind his back. The possibilities expanded.

  The maybe-prisoner was on the tall side, with dark hair and a lean build. He was the only one of the five she didn’t recognize from earlier. He stood out. As she watched, he had some kind of exchange with Tom, who stepped forward to backhand him. The guy leaned out of harm’s way on the first strike, but the other men immobilized him and Tom threw a sharp jab into his handsome face. The guy shook off the punch, and by the time the five of them turned to head into the Fortress, he actually wore an amused grin.

  She was ready to bolt just observing the interaction. She watched them go, wondering what the guy had done to land himself here, and maybe admiring the view of his retreating backside just a little bit, despite everything else.

  It didn’t matter what he’d done, she reminded herself. She was here for one thing, and the sooner she got Michael, the sooner she’d be able to get out of here. All she had to do was—