by Eric Vall
I felt like we had made the right decision in adding Akela to our crew with each passing moment. Hell, in just the first hour of her employment she had already proven herself more than useful. I could have probably transferred the comms system to my new suit on my own, but it definitely wouldn’t have taken me five minutes and there would have probably been more cursing and injuries involved.
As we made our way across Theron, I looked around at the station with fresh eyes. When I had last been here nearly a decade ago, it had already been a crumbling cesspool. The broker that mentored me had taken us straight up to the casinos, so we hadn’t seen much else of the station, but it was apparent in the casinos’ shoddy repair and aged decorations that the whole place was meant to evoke sentiments about Earth’s ancient gambling capital, Las Vegas. Never mind that not many people on Theron even knew much of Earth history. I guess it was the thought that counted.
What might have been antiquated charm ten years ago had quickly become ruin and decay. The people of Theron did their best to hide it, did their best to keep on living the meager lives they had been allotted, but it showed. The walls and floors were patched with panels of different colored metals, and bolts were missing at nearly every seam. Lights flickered on the lower floors, and most of the people wore threadbare garments, and the skin under their eyes was dyed purple from lack of sleep or overexertion or probably both.
These people had been suffering for a long time, all because of Terra-Nebula’s greed. I vowed that I would do something to help them, even if it meant shaking hands with a lesser devil.
The elevator ride to the peak of Theron was a lot quicker than I expected. As we ascended, the crowd that entered the elevator platform with us slowly thinned with each floor we passed. By the time we made it to the top, our group and a few haggard-looking, red-eyed stragglers, probably looking for a gambling or drug fix, were the only ones left. As the platform slowed to its final stop, Isaias finally turned to me and spoke for the first time since we left the Lacuna Noctis.
“Listen, corpseman,” he started.
“Colby,” I corrected him. “My name’s Colby Tower. CT if you want.”
The young punk rolled his eyes. “Whatever, man. Just let me do the talkin’ here, alright? Dad’s usually not one to entertain strangers, especially Corporate ones. And this deal you was talkin’ about better be legit, or it’s gonna be both our asses.”
“You do remember the part where I said I wasn’t Corporate anymore, right?” I asked him rhetorically as I ignored that last statement. “That’s kind of an important bit of information.”
The blue-eyed boy just leveled me with a flat stare and turned to face the opening doors.
Like the rest of the station, the casinos had seen better centuries. As we exited the elevator, a large lobby led to even larger double doors straight ahead of us. It looked like the doors had perhaps originally been gilded with gold, but the color had long faded to dingy brass and dusky, Odrine gray. There was a long reception desk manned by a blonde hostess in a bright red, if dated, dress. Besides her, the two burly bouncers at the door where the only people in the lobby.
As I watched, Isaias stood up a little straighter and strode across the lobby floor, his chin tilted up in defiant confidence. His cronies followed a little more reluctantly, and they glanced around like they knew they were about to get in trouble for being here. Not for the first time, I wondered what Isaias had done to piss off his father.
The bored-looking hostess glanced up as we drew closer to her desk, and then she did a drastic double take when she realized just who was walking across the floor toward her. She gaped and floundered at the sight of us, her bright red mouth opening and closing like a gasping fish.
“Tell my father I’m here to see him,” Isaias demanded before the poor woman could even stutter out a full word. “Tell him I’ve brought him an opportunity he’d be stupid to pass up.”
I winced slightly at the boy’s choice of words. It seemed like diplomacy wasn’t his strong suit. Go figure.
The hostess could only nod her head silently, a look of pure fear on her face. She tapped on her ear and relayed Isaias’s message, albeit a little more politely. There were a few minutes of delay, presumably as someone found Rosek and told him his wayward son was at the gates acting cocky. For half a moment, I worried the gangster would refuse to see us, but soon enough the hostess received her answer and gestured us to the casino doors. Isaias didn’t say a word as he spun around and marched toward the two bouncers, who now held the doors open for us. Rosek’s son met their eyes defiantly and walked past them almost as if he dared them to try to stop him. No one said a word, however, and we walked into the casino without any trouble.
Even first thing in the morning, the casinos were pretty packed with people hunched over card tables or slot machines as they flushed their meager hard-earned credits down the drain. I watched as one elderly man with almost no teeth fed credit after credit into one of the machines, his mouth slightly agape, his face washed-out by a pale blue from the light reflected off the screen he tapped at.
Neka looked around with wide, fascinated eyes as she took in the bright lights, colors, and sounds. Akela, too, looked interested, though not as enthralled as my assistant. My guess is the mechanic had never been up this high in the station before, even though she’d lived here her whole life. She probably looked around at all the decadence and debauchery and, having seen it for herself, hated Rosek just a little bit more.
As we passed one table, a patron seemed to win big, if the rowdy cheers were any indication. The drunkard shouted his success, and stupidly how much he’d just won. I saw dozens of eyes dart over to the idiot and size him up, most likely planning to jump him the moment he stepped foot outside the casino doors. Akela looked disgusted with the display, though I wasn’t sure if it was the amount of money he’d just won or his inebriated display that twisted her face.
Isaias knew where he was going and cut across the casino floor like a fish through water. No one stopped him, but I noticed security guards around the perimeter track him every step of the way, relaying his progress to each other through their earwigs. I counted more than a dozen of the muscular men in black suits with what looked like laser pistols bulging under their jackets at the hip. I just really hoped the punk that led us didn’t start any fights and that his father could look past whatever tension there was between them to appreciate the lucrative deal I was hand delivering to his door.
At the back of the casino we came to a heavy metal door, like something from a vault. Another set of two men stood post on either side, and they glared with open contempt at Isaias. The boy didn’t even bat an eye.
“Open the door, shit heads,” he sneered.
The guard on the right bared his teeth in a silent snarl, but the one on the left clicked his tongue in reproach.
“Don’t bother,” the one who had clicked his tongue scoffed. “The idiot’s digging his own grave.” He leaned over and stuck his hand on a palm scanner and dipped his head to look into a retina one. A moment later, I heard the locking mechanism unlatch, and the door swung open. Isaias marched through, but the guard held up his hand at the boy’s crew.
“Only you,” he grunted at Rosek’s son.
Isaias opened his mouth to argue, but I caught his eye and gave him a look I hoped would deter him from starting an unnecessary fight. For a moment, I feared he’d ignore me, but at last, he snapped his mouth closed with a scowl and jerked his head at his cronies.
“Take a break. Have a few drinks, play a game. On the house, of course,” he added. He stared at the guard as he said this, daring to be challenged. I saw a muscle in the guard’s mouth twitch, and the one who had snarled earlier looked like he was a moment away from throttling Isaias himself. But neither of them said a word.
When Isaias’s crew scattered, the guard turned to me with a frown.
“And who are you?” he asked me directly. I could see him try to place me, could see him try
to remember if he’d ever seen my face. I gave my most persuasive smile.
“Name’s Tower. I have a business proposition for Mr. Rosek that I think he’s going to be incredibly interested to hear. Isaias here,” I continued as I nodded at the boy, “said he could get me an audience with his father.”
“Oh he did, did he?” the guard snorted and looked me up and down as he sized me up. He then glanced at Neka and Akela, who had drawn behind me as we had approached this door. His eyes slid appreciatively over the two women, and I felt something boil in my blood at the hungry look on his face.
“And these two beauties?” he asked. I swore he almost licked his lips.
“My crew,” I answered curtly, the amicable smile wiped clean off my face. “Now, is Mr. Rosek available or not?”
Both guards scowled at my change in tone, but neither of them had the outright authority to disregard me and turn me away. If I did have business for Rosek, it wasn’t in their job description to know or have opinions about it.
They knew this, and that’s why they stepped aside without another word and let us pass, after a cursory pat down of course. As I stepped over the threshold, one of the guards whispered, “dead men walking,” but the door clanged shut behind us a moment later, and we were alone in a short, darkened hallway that led to a door about thirty meters ahead of us.
“Talk about a fuckin’ welcome wagon,” Akela muttered behind my right shoulder. Neka hummed worriedly in agreement, and I felt her tail wrap loosely around my left wrist.
“Yeah, well Pops and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms,” Isaias grunted. I could just barely make out the color of his eyes in the gloom, and they looked like twin blue flames.
“What did you do?” I questioned. What could have caused such animosity?
Akela snorted in the darkness. “He stole a lot of daddy’s money from what I heard.”
Ah. That would do it.
“What could you possibly have needed more money for?” I asked incredulously. “You couldn’t have been wanting for much, living up here.”
Isaias didn’t respond for a moment, and in the darkness, I couldn’t read his expression. “Hookers, mostly,” he said at length. “Some drugs, imported hooch, you know. The necessities.”
That sounded like the flippant answer I’d expect from an entitled gangster’s son, but … something in his voice gave me pause. He was lying, or at least not telling me the whole truth. There was more to the story there.
But I wasn’t a therapist, I was a broker, and I had a job to do.
“Rosek isn’t going to open fire on us the minute we walk through that door, is he?” I directed at Isaias.
The boy laughed, a hollow, dry sound. “Nah, not his style. He’s the one to get ya when you least expect it.”
“Terrific,” I muttered.
As we walked down the hallway, we passed a series of doors, all shut and locked and bolted since, I assumed, this is where Rosek kept most of the casino’s money. I thought once we got through the door, Isaias would lose some momentum as he drew closer to his father, but it seemed like the opposite was true. The boy walked at a fast clip and his heels struck sharply at the metal floor. My legs were longer, so I had no problem matching his pace, but Neka and Akela nearly had to jog to keep up.
In no time, we had reached the door at the end of the hall, and before I could even say anything, Isaias shoved it open and burst inside. I had no choice but to follow suit and prayed the kid wouldn’t ruin this deal for me before I could even put it on the table.
The room we entered was a lavish office, fit for the king of a small and lucrative empire. Lush carpets covered the cold metal floor, in threads of red and gold and silver. The walls were hung with artwork that I guessed was meant to look tasteful. There were some couches and other lounging areas for ‘entertaining’ around the edges of the room, all decorated in matching or complimenting colors. However, as I looked closer, I could see how everything was touched with decay, how the edges of the carpets were frayed, the paint of the artworks cracked and faded, the couches and cushions tearing along the seams.
Still, it was worlds and thousands upon thousands of credits removed from anything even remotely in the same vicinity as the poverty that covered the rest of the station.
And there, in the very center of the room, behind a very out of place and out of date, large, wooden desk, sat the uncrowned king of Theron himself: Thaddeus Rosek.
It seemed that in more ways than one, Isaias was a foil to his father. Where the boy was lanky and sharp-edged, Thaddeus was stocky and roughly finished. He had a square head to go with his square jaw and square body, and his eyes were shrewd, close-set, and dark brown in color. It looked like Isaias must have gotten his eyes from his mother … along with everything else.
For a moment, the room was dead silent as father and son stared at each other, neither one of them blinking. Hell, Isaias didn’t even seem to be breathing.
Finally, Rosek snorted and leaned back in his chair, and the tension in the air broke or at least lessened to the point where it was no longer suffocating.
“Well, well, well,” Rosek said, and there was definitely a mocking quality to his gravel-rough voice as he looked at his son. “That didn’t take very long, Isaias, did it?”
The boy scowled. “Do you see me beggin’?” he snapped.
Rosek raised an eyebrow and spread his arms out. “You’re here, ain’t ya?” he countered, and then his eyes went to me at last. “And it looks like you’ve brought friends.”
I hated this man already. I hated him on sight, from the oily sheen to his skin, to the glimmer of gold in his teeth. I hated him on principle, but hate had nothing to do with the job, so I pushed it away and stepped forward.
“Colby Tower,” I said as I stuck out my hand to the gangster. “Nice to meet you.”
Rosek narrowed his eyes at me and crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair. I let my hand fall back to my side.
“I don’t see nothin’ nice about it,” the gangster sniffed as he eyed me up and down.
“Well, that’s because you haven’t heard my offer yet,” I cajoled with my best broker’s smile, but Rosek just leveled me with the same flat stare his son had in the elevator. Maybe the two males were more alike than I thought.
Rosek considered me for a moment, but instead of asking about the offer, he said, “How did you and Isaias meet? I don’t believe I’ve seen you around these parts before, Mr. … Tower, was it?”
“I’m fairly new in town,” I shrugged vaguely. “And to be quite honest, I met your son while he was trying to commandeer my ship.”
That seemed to pique the gangster’s interest. “Oh?” he questioned. “And you didn’t shoot him on sight?”
He seemed almost … disappointed that I hadn’t. Guess he wasn’t gunning for any father of the year awards.
I laughed off the comment and gave another shrug as if to say what’re you going to do. “I thought about it,” I said, “but then I considered that perhaps Lady Luck was knocking on my door.”
“And how’s that?” Rosek questioned, his face unreadable.
“How else was I going to get an audience with the most powerful man on Theron?” I replied with another shrug. “But, all the sudden, there’s your son in the middle of my cargo hold and wouldn’t you know it, I had a proposition for you.”
I could see a muscle in Rosek’s temple flutter, probably from doing his absolute best to pretend like Isaias wasn’t trying to bore a hole through the side of his head with his eyes. I could tell the gangster just wanted to get rid of me, but I had made him just the slightest bit curious arriving with his son, bold as brass.
“Go on,” the gangster finally said at length, “but be quick about it. You have five minutes, and then I have other matters I need to attend to.” His eyes cut back to Isaias and there was thinly veiled fury there. I could tell I was barely even registering to the gangster, but at least he didn’t refuse me right out of the gat
e. I would have liked longer than five minutes, but I’d made do with worse.
I’d have to work a little to gain his undivided attention.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely and then cleared my throat, widened my stance, and folded my arms behind me against the small of my back. I relaxed my shoulders and took a deep breath. This was the fun part. This is what I was good at.
“I’ll get right to it,” I said and looked Rosek square in the eye. “I’d like you to invest about three hundred thousand U-credits into fixing the broken docks you have here on Theron. Right now. And don’t try to lie, we both know you have the means for it.”
There were a few deafening beats of silence, and I couldn’t see the faces of my crew, but I could feel them gaping at my back, probably a mirror image of Isaias’s face right beside me.
Rosek, to his credit, was able to control his expression. He just stared at me flat-eyed, his mouth a tight, pursed line as he looked me up and down.
“And why,” he drawled, a hint of incredulity at the edge of his words, “the hell would I do that?”
I couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Because you’re a philanthropist at heart and want nothing more than to help the people of this station,” I offered. It was a joke, I knew Rosek didn’t have a compassionate bone in his body, but it seemed he also lacked a humorous one.
“If you continue to waste my time, Mr. Tower ...” he threatened, but I held up a finger to stop him.
“Just bear with me a moment, please,” I asked of him. The gangster frowned sharply but waved his hand impatiently for me to continue.
“Alright,” I started, just warming up now. “To put it simply, Theron has become an abandoned cesspool in the middle of nowhere ever since Oevis dried up. No offense to your home, of course,” I added.
“None taken. Are you gettin’ to a point any time soon?” Rosek grunted.
“Yes, yes, just a moment more. So we both agree that Theron is a shitty port in the endless storm of space. You’ve done alright for yourself here,” I said, emphasizing ‘alright’ as I gestured to the worn carpets and cracked paint, “but you could do so much better.”
