Slow Burn Dark

by A. B. Keuser

  Twenty-Four - Flynn

  Flynn had spent fruitless hours in the mines, and was on the way home—to cross yet another dead end off his list—when Henri flagged him down.

  “You and I need to talk,” she pointed him toward her office and he motioned for her to lead the way.

  She walked faster than he did, and he didn’t need her skirts sneaking up to tangle in his legs.

  When he stepped into her office, closing her door and dodging debris, she was already seated at her desk, flipping through paperwork as though she hadn’t asked him to come with her.

  He didn’t have anywhere to be, so he moved to survey the street outside.

  “I need you to fill out some forms so I can file them with the local office and get you paid.”

  He grimaced at his own reflection.

  There had been no problem using his real name. Archimedes had kept his identity a close secret. Most of the men he’d fought with hadn’t known his last name, and there were millions of Flynn’s in the universe.

  But official papers…

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  Henri looked up, eyes narrowed, but not… he thought… because of him. “Surely you have some form of identification.”

  “Never got around to it.”

  Grumbling something about stupidity, she pushed the papers aside and tappe din a dozen commands into her tablet.

  “Starting to regret you let me stay?”

  “How could I turn away the brother of Archimedes Holzen’s best friend?”

  “My sister serves the Great Mother above all else.”

  “Still better to keep you where I can watch you.” She smirked, shaking her head with a single breath of a laugh. “I wouldn’t have given you as much authority here if I hadn’t looked into you. The fact Holzen put a bounty on you helped clear up some of it.”

  “That would have been nice to know.”

  “It might have kept you out of a hospital bed.” She slid a pad to him.

  All the information looked correct.

  “It doesn’t have to pass a full inspection. Migrant workers come and go year round. If we’re audited, I can blame you, and I’m sure you’ll be long gone by the time that comes around.”

  “Then why do I need to fill it out at all?”

  “Because there are people in my office who couldn’t care less about you right now… but if I throw unmarked credits at you, they’ll get curious real fast.”

  He took the pad and then looked at her. “For both our sakes, pay Putty. I know you have his information on file already, and if he doesn’t want to release the funds for me, I have no problem pretending to steal from him.

  She watched him for a long moment, then nodded. “Be careful of that bounty.”

  She turned back to her work, and within a moment, he was certain she wouldn’t notice if he’d sat down to watch her.

  As he stepped back out onto the street, Chad called him.

  Or… didn’t.

  Either way, his beat up phone had rung, he’d answered, whatever Chad had tried to say was muffled and cut off… and he didn’t answer when Flynn called back.

  On another day, Flynn might have shrugged it off and gone home… he was tired enough he wouldn’t mind ignoring the call, but Chad wasn’t the sort of person who called for no reason and…

  The medcube’s door was wide open.

  The facility inside, eerily empty.

  Chadrick’s computer was on, unlocked, and fully accessible.

  Pulling the gun from his hip, Flynn stepped carefully around the gently beeping equipment, looking for any sign of the doctor and what had forced him to break protocol for the first time in… possibly ever.

  The beds were all empty, the diagnostic booths too….

  Chad’s latest patient was nowhere to be found either.

  He was about to consider it a double kidnapping when something dull thudded around the corner that led to the bathrooms.

  He peeked around the rounded edge of the wall, not sure what to expect.

  The door of the men’s lav was open—broken open—and Chad sat against the opposite wall, struggling against the white bindings around his wrists.

  He flinched at the sight of Flynn, but immediately relaxed and turned, offering hands.

  But Flynn pulled the torn sheet from the doctor’s mouth before he sliced the surgical tape starting to cut off circulation to the doctor’s hands and feet.

  “I should have seen it coming” Chad blurted the words as he pulled the gag from his neck. “She was too damned nice.”

  “She could barely stand…” Flynn sliced the final bonds and helped him up. “How’d she do this?”

  Chadrick moved to the sink, running his cut wrists under the cold tap.

  “Men.” He said, gulping audibly. “Three of them, maybe four, burst in here. The same ones, I think, from the shack. They took her, you have to go after them.”

  “Not until I’m sure you’re okay.”

  “Go. Deal with them, I’ll be fine.”

  Flynn didn’t go, he needed to be sure Chad wasn’t lying to him.

  “I said,” Chad shoved him, “Get out of here.”

  Running out the back, Flynn looked for any sign of them.

  But they’d been gone for too long…

  A flash of teal and lime disappeared around a corner, and Flynn heard his brother shouting.

  It was as good a lead as he was going to get.

  Running after, Flynn caught sight of them as he left the tightly bunched buildings. Ahead of Putty, they ran like they’d trained for marathons—Chadrick’s patient slung over one of their shoulders. A pair of bags on others’.

  There was no hope he’d catch them… and in the end, there wasn’t any hope for Putty to have caught them either.

  When he joined his brother, Putty stood on the edge of a gulch, glaring into the distance, to the dust trail speeding toward the NEU terrafarm colony.

  “We’ll never catch them.”

  “How much did they get away with?”

  “Enough, I saw them pile four bags and a small crate in the back of their buggy before they tore out of here.”

  “We won’t know what they were after until Chad does a full inventory.”

  Putty pulled in a shuddering breath. “Do you think she was actually an addict? Or was that just makeup and acting to fool us?”

  “I’ve seen more maddicts on either side of the void to know that she wasn’t faking.”

  “Too bad they weren’t stealing her a cure.”

  “There isn’t one.”

  “I know.” Putty glared into the distance and spat. “Go check on Chad. I’ll let Henri know what’s going on… see what she wants to do.”

  “Tell her I suggest a request for full assault on the NEU from a Colarium tac team.”

  “You? Suggest Colarium involvement?”

  “It’s the only way I can suggest violence with the likelihood of zero losses on Henri’s side.”

  “You’re right,” Putty said rolling his eyes. “That does make more sense from you.”

  Flynn left him with that comment and ignored the stares of those who’d witnessed him run past as he retraced his steps, looking for any sign that the woman or her accomplices had dropped a clue to what they’d taken.

  But there was nothing.

  Even their footprints were gone, swept away by the warm breeze that swirled around him now.

  Not so, the medical pod.

  Flynn didn’t stop to look at the broken interior door, or the bed where the woman had lain bare minutes before. He went directly to Chad’s still open terminal and called up the security tapes.

  Sweeping up the broken shards of plastic glass, Chad grimaced at the video feed replaying the events that had seen him tied up in his cube’s lav.

  It only took a few moments’ observation to know the woman hadn’t been in charge. He wasn’t even sure she’d been conscious as the assailants knocked Chad around, emptied out ca
ses, and threw her over a shoulder before the left.

  “They didn’t take any of the data.” Chad said, his broom had stopped. “Everything they took won’t amount up to more than ten thousand Colar notes lost. There are dozens of items in here that would have made it worth it, but if they’d taken a single hard drive, or even done a quick download, they would have been able to make an easy billion selling the Colarium information we have here to the Lazarai and other interested parties across the void.”

  “They’re cultists. Who knows what their motivations are.”

  “Maybe.” Chad rewound the recording and glared at it as the first part of their assault played through. “Something’s wrong.”

  “Aside from the fact you’re being held at gunpoint?” Flynn asked, moving to watch the screen with him.

  “They were looking for something that wasn’t here… it’s almost as if they grabbed the supplies to make it look like a robbery.”

  “What else could it be?”

  Rewinding it a few times, letting it play through, Chad cursed and finally looked up.

  “It was you.”

  Startled, Flynn looked back at the monitor, but they weren’t dealing with another doppelganger. “Even as good as they are at avoiding the camera’s getting a glimpse at their faces, we both know none of them are me.”

  “No. They were looking for you. In all the distraction, I didn’t notice at first.

  He set the recording back to the beginning again and pointed to the man who went immediately to the room Flynn had been in after his aborted garroting. Then, his finger traveled to the man who seemed to be in charge. An argument played out in a trio of curt, garbled sentences. And then, the chaotic robbery took place.

  “What does the NEU want with you?” Chad asked, still scowling at the screen.

  “Apparently there’s a price on my head.” Flynn touched the cloth around his neck. “At least, that’s why I had a wire around my neck a few days ago.”

  With a dark glance toward the door, Chad pulled up the nexus and searched. The bounty came up… vague, but with one important detail.

  Glancing at Flynn’s throat, he said, “You might want to invest in turtlenecks.”

  “Too late for that now.”

  “Go home,” Chad pushed him away. “Keep that gun on you.”

  “At least until Henri wants it back.”

  He ducked out of the med cube and headed home… avoiding Susans.

  That was why he scuffed to a stop a half block from the hostelry, staring at the man who’d stood in his way before.

  Different suit, same level of slime.

  He didn’t take his eyes off the man—who hadn’t yet seen him—and slipped into the alley way. At the edge of the shadow, he could see the interaction… but he couldn’t hear it.

  “My mom says the only people who skulk are ones who’ve done something wrong.”

  Flynn looked down to where Seamus stood, their gaze on the man and his unseen conversational partner.

  “Sometimes we do it so we don’t get ourselves in a position to do something wrong.”

  Mischief trotted over, popping up on her hind legs to tap a wet nose to his hand, and then turned in a circle before she sat on his boot.

  “Fair enough.” Seamus’ mouth twisted as the man waved at whoever he’d been talking to and turned to walk away.

  “Who is that?”

  Seamus shrugged. “I’ve never seen him before, but he’s wearing a suit and he just left a group of the RTF workers on their monthly binge. Susan won’t let them into her bar anymore, so they go there instead.”

  The man he’d unfortunately met had to be Giuseppe Refuti.

  “Any of them with yellow cuffs?”

  “All of them.”

  Flynn waited, long enough that the man was out of sight before he gently nudged Mischief away stepped back out of the shadows.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Going home.”

  “Good. Then you can teach me how to shoot.”

  “I’m not going to do that.”

  “Yes you are. You said you would, and we both know you won’t go back on your word.”

  “Do we both know that?” He looked down at the kid, wondering if their mother knew the sort of hellion they were raising. “Maybe I lied. Maybe I’m going after him.

  They grabbed Flynn by the shirtsleeve and dragged him toward the junkyard. “Don’t use him to try to get out of it. You promised, and I don’t plan to let you back out now.”

  With more force than the kid should have been able to wield, Seamus dragged him almost all the way home.

  The section of the scrap yard Seamus had chosen fit all of the criteria Flynn would have requested. There was nothing among the heaps of metal, or half melted rubber he could object to.

  Damn.

  “Missy,” Seamus said, pointing toward a shaded spot behind them. “Chill out.”

  Mischief did as she was told and padded over to curl up in the dirt, head resting on an old wheel rim.

  If only half of the soldiers he’d fought with had been that well trained.

  Flynn pulled the gun and popped the charged sliver and clip out before handing it over to the kid.

  “I thought I was going to get to shoot something.”

  “Not the first time. I don’t trust you to hit a target yet, and neither of us want you putting a hole in yourself… or me… or one of the slags for that matter. Nika would skin you alive if you screwed up his Colarium contract.”

  “Can’t kill something that’s already dead.” Seamus said, holding the gun up like an idiot in a vid.

  Flynn corrected their stance, instead of correcting the inaccuracy of their statement. Flynn had killed quite a few soldiers who were “already dead.”

  “Be serious, or you’re never going to get the loaded version.”

  Sobering, Seamus stood up straight and held the gun in a mimicry of the way most people did. Right hand gripping, left supporting beneath the clip…. Finger wrapped around the trigger.

  Flynn moved it, straight along the receiver. “Unless you’re ready to fire, you keep that off the trigger. You don’t want to flinch when someone sneezes and shoot someone you didn’t mean to.”

  With a jerky nod, the kid did as they were told and aimed at the far side of the metal canyon. “Like this?”

  “Exatl—”

  They both turned sharply as a clatter and clank sounded to their right.

  Mischief was in front of Seamus before Flynn could blink, head down, muscles tensed.

  Flynn snatched the gun from their hands and shoved the clip back in, not sure who to expect.

  It turned out to be a “what.”

  The slag stuttered toward them, joints locking, its movements jerking.

  It looked at him, eyes blinking, arm raised halfway, and then turned sharply away. As if its processors had failed for a minute and then reinitialized.

  Nika’s pets were not as safe as he thought.

  Seamus pulled Mischief back, a quiet word calming her. “What the heck was that?”

  Flynn had no idea.

  “Go home. I’ll teach you later… when the dead aren’t hanging around.”

  Flynn walked them to the gate and waited until they were half way down the street before heading through the yard to the enormous building that housed Nika’s home and office.

  Flynn ignored the unsettling creak of the stair boards beneath his feet as he walked up to the scrapper’s cluttered office.

  In front of a dozen screens, the man’s hands were balled to fists, knuckles white, and he looked ready to spit at the imagery in front of him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Someone tried to remote hack my slags.” Nika pounded a fist on the table and glared at the screens in front of them as though they had personally betrayed him. “Someone has it in for you, Monroe.”

  “Oh, I’m sure more than one person would fall into that category.”

  “Who wants yo
u dead? Who, that could also remote hack a Colarium secured processor and implant a kill command?”

  “But not one that was good enough to get past your control cycling.”

  “And aren’t you thankful for that.”

  “I’ve clearly found the Great Mother’s favor.”

  “If you’d ever like to share, I’m sure most of us would be happy for you to spread that around.

  “That’s not how it works.”

  Nika studied him for a long moment and then said, “There was a man in town, asking about you.”

  “Skinny guy in a suit?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Giuseppe Refuti wasn’t going to be a man he could ignore.

  Twenty-Five - Kathrynn

  Kathrynn opened her eyes to the searing white flash of a successful fold and breathed deeply against the cold that had held her captive as time spiraled out and the demons within bent space tried to drag her into the icy hell with them.

  One breath in.

  One out.

  Repeat

  She needed to keep herself in check until she was certain her heart and lungs would play their part.

  They lingered in the fold point, as Maggie went through her post-fold checks in silent precision.

  “We were only three kilometers off target.” She finally said, fingers fluttering over the control panel that, if Kat didn’t know better… would have looked like it had taken leave of its sense. “Now tell me why we want to be here.”

  Ignoring the instruments, Kathrynn pulled her buckles free, cast off the straps as though they were snakes and stood. The console’s metal was icy under her fingertips as she pressed both hands to its surface and leaned toward the darkness outside. Her nose touched the viewport.

  It took three visual scans, but she finally found it… the thing that wasn’t there.

  “I’ve always liked the idea of a slow burn dark. The idea that there are truly places in this universe where nothing--not even light--exists… but this isn’t one of them. The void is a little fuller than it seems.”

  Leaning on her elbows, Maggie peered into the dark too. “What do you see with those eyes that I don’t.”

  “There’s a black body here.”

  Maggie flinched, eyes going to her sensors.