Shooting the Rift - eARC

by Alex Stewart

  Wymes nodded. “Because we’d expect the same courtesies extended to any of our information contractors detained by the Commonwealth.”

  Remington went on as if he hadn’t even heard the interruption—possibly because he hadn’t. “Instead of which we’ve all lost time and money we couldn’t afford.”

  Apart from the compensation payment, I sent dryly.

  “Bugger the compensation payment!” Remington retorted, leaving Wymes looking faintly confused. “You’ve made us look like idiots! We’re Guilders, we’re supposed to be on top of every deal, and now every second-rate hustler we take a contract with is going to think they can put one over on the Stacked Deck because you did! There’s no amount of money can buy back a dented reputation!”

  “Who’s going to know?” I asked.

  “Everyone! You think the Ebon Flow mob are going to keep quiet about it after the way you picked a fight with one of them? Not to mention the Freebooters. They’ll pass on anything that’ll make the Guild look bad.”

  “They’re letting the Freebooters go too?” I asked. Not exactly the most pressing concern I had right then, but my head was still reeling at this unexpected reversal, and I suppose I was grabbing at whatever piece of mental flotsam floated by in an attempt to regain my footing.

  Wymes shook his head. “They still have charges to answer in the civil courts. We’ll turn them over once the paperwork’s done, and we’ve cleared the other ships. Shouldn’t be more than a day or two.” He shrugged indifferently. “I don’t imagine they’ll be in any hurry to leave, anyway; they won’t find their next accommodation nearly so comfortable.” He looked at me, like a hungry cat contemplating a rodent. “Neither, I’m afraid, will you.”

  Well, he was right about that, though perhaps not as much as he’d thought. Even though the cell they moved me to was a good deal smaller than the room I’d been staying in, my quarters aboard the Stacked Deck hadn’t been all that much bigger, so I didn’t find it as claustrophobic as I might have—although being unable to leave whenever I felt like it made a big difference, of course.

  Wymes had, at least, granted me a degree of privacy in which to get dressed before leaving the internment area; since my old room had only one exit, which made trying to run for it impossible, and hiding in the wardrobe didn’t look like much of a long-term strategy, he’d agreed to wait outside in the corridor for a few minutes while, as requested, I put on my pants.

  By the time he and his escort came back inside, I was fully dressed, and had packed the few items I thought I might be allowed to take with me—spare clothes and toiletries, for the most part.

  Wymes nodded approvingly as he rummaged through the bag. “I see you like to travel light.”

  “I didn’t leave home with much,” I said.

  “So I gathered.” He plucked out my shaving kit, and held it up. “This is a joke, right?”

  “Do you see me laughing?” I asked, before it dawned on me he was actually serious. “You expect me to fight my way to a docking bay and hijack a ship with an inch-long blade?” I asked, incredulous.

  “That’s more than long enough to sever an artery.” He tossed it on the bed. “Nice try.”

  “Is delusional paranoia a job requirement for you people.” I asked, “or did you just decide to go with what you’re good at?”

  “You should know.” He finished rummaging through my pack, and lobbed it at me; I caught it by reflex, and Wymes nodded, confirming the impression of my reaction time he’d gained during our duel of pens. Another mistake on my part; I should have fumbled it, and made myself seem less of a threat.

  Fortunately, the crowd of my shipmates had left the corridor before we emerged, most of them busily collecting up their possessions in their own quarters. The few exceptions we encountered acknowledged me with what I can only describe as distant embarrassment, unsure how to engage with me, and by no means convinced that they actually wanted to.

  The exception, of course, was Clio, who broke off from arguing with her father in the common area as we passed through, and hurried over to bar our way. She glared at Wymes. “You’re making a big mistake,” she said. “He’s still protected until his appeal’s been heard by the Guild Mistress.”

  “That’s not my understanding,” Wymes said levelly. “If he is reinstated following your appeal, we will, of course, pay appropriate compensation. But unless and until that happens, he’s a Commonwealth intelligence agent—”

  “Alleged agent,” I interrupted.

  “—and subject to the civil and military codes governing acts of espionage.”

  “If you hurt him,” Clio said, with cold intensity, “I’ll have the Guild embargo this entire system until the most sophisticated piece of technology still working on Freedom is the ox cart.” Wymes began to smile, then hastily suppressed it. Don’t make threats you can’t follow through on, I sent her. It makes you look weak. Something I’d learned early on, growing up with a sister like Tinkie, although I imagine it wasn’t exactly news to a Guilder either. But Clio wasn’t all that big on hiding how she felt. “Right after I finish removing your testicles with a rusty spoon,” she added for good measure, and suddenly Wymes wasn’t amused at all.

  “If you insist on staying behind to play out this ridiculous charade, I’ll see to it you have access to the communications net,” he said stiffly. “Under supervision, of course.”

  “Guild communications are privileged,” Clio snapped back. “You’ll give me full access to an outgoing channel through my neuroware, and if I even suspect my discussions with the Guildhall are being monitored you’ll be spending the rest of your career cleaning the heads on a garbage scow.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Wymes said tightly, recognizing the first moderately credible threat for what it was.

  “That’s my girl,” Rennau said fondly, ruffling her hair. He picked up his kitbag. “So there’s really no chance of you changing your mind?”

  Clio shook her head.

  “Didn’t think so.” He sighed, resigning himself to the inevitable. “Look after yourself.”

  “You too,” Clio said, her expression softening. “Love to mom, if you run into her first.”

  “Will do.” Then he turned, resolutely, and hurried away, keeping his face averted.

  “We’d better get moving too,” Wymes said, and led the way out of our quarters.

  Good news, it seemed, travelled fast—all my fellow internees seemed to have heard that the Commonwealth spy no one really believed in had been unmasked at last, and were feverishly preparing for departure. Which didn’t stop a lot of them from pausing in the act of whatever they were doing to stare, glare, or, in one or two cases, catcall, depending on their temperament. I’d expected Deeks to be one of the most vocal, but in the event he just turned his head without comment to watch me go by, and resumed stacking boxes outside the Ebon Flow crew’s quarters.

  I glanced round, hoping to catch sight of the Freebooters, but they seemed to be staying in their quarters—which I could hardly blame them for. The ferment of activity in the rest of the cavern would only have reminded them that their stay here was coming to an end, along with the short period of relative liberty it represented. I could still detect Baines’s datasphere, though, so I sent a quick farewell message: Didn’t work out. Sorry. Which probably wasn’t much in the way of consolation to a man facing jail time, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. Of course it did cross my mind to kick over the file I’d swiped for him in any case, but with the crew of the Stacked Deck already on their way to the docking bay, and no chance of cutting a deal with anyone else, being caught in possession of it would only create more problems for him than it would solve.

  As we approached the pressure hatch I’d passed through before, I glanced quickly at the guards on duty, finding, to my relief, that neither of them was Jas. I was never going to see her again, that much was certain, and I didn’t want my last memories of her to be tainted with the embarrassment of be
ing brought together again under these circumstances.

  The rest of the journey was made in silence; I didn’t feel much like talking, and Wymes seemed content to let me brood for a while, no doubt hoping that it would soften me up. In fact he didn’t speak again until I was standing in my new cell, looking around at the spartan furnishings.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said sarcastically.

  “Cozy.” I walked the three paces from the door to the bed, and dropped my kitbag on it. “Interesting decor. Minimalism still fashionable in the League, is it?”

  “Glad you like it. Because if it’s up to me, you’ll be in here till they take you out and shoot you.” He paused for a moment, waiting for a reaction I was damned if I was going to give him the satisfaction of. “Unless you decide to cooperate.”

  “I’d be happy to.” I sat down on the narrow bunk, finding it a little more comfortable than I’d expected; which, as I’d expected the mattress to feel like a bag of rocks, still wasn’t saying much. “But I don’t know what else I can tell you. Last time we had this conversation, you said you weren’t interested.”

  “Not in the sacrificial data you knew we’d know already.” Wymes nodded thoughtfully. “Smart move, by the way. I really had written you off as a small-time chancer after that, until Captain Remington started putting two and two together.” He leaned casually against the door jamb, silently challenging me to try and get past him, but I had more sense than to rise to the bait. With his tweaked strength and reflexes he’d be more than a match for me, although my fighting skills might take him by surprise just long enough to give me an edge. Even if it did, though, the place was swarming with troopers, who’d bring me down long before I made it to the first security door—which I wouldn’t be able to open in any case. All I’d succeed in doing by making the attempt would be to remind him that there was more to me than appeared on the surface, and I wanted to divert his attention from the physical side of that at least. Why play your cards face up, as Jas had once put it.

  “Shame he made five,” I said.

  “I don’t think he did,” Wymes said matter-of-factly. “I think he was right on the money with everything he deduced. I think Jenny Worricker put you on that contract-bender’s barge to gather intelligence for her, and set you up with a handler on Numarkut you could channel it back to her through. And when you found you had a cargo for a League world, you thought you could really go to work.” He paused again for effect, a habit I was already beginning to detest. “What do you think?”

  “I think I’m as insulted by the phrase ‘contract-bender’ as any other Guilder would be, and you ought to apologize for using it,” I said. To be honest I couldn’t have cared less, but I knew it was a disparaging term common among non-Guild freighter crews, and anyone using it in a dockside tavern had better be as quick with their fists as they were with their tongue. If I was going to carry on playing the affronted innocent, I’d better be seen to react to it in a typically Guilderlike fashion: so I got slowly to my feet, clenching my fists. I paused. “Still waiting,” I said.

  I never even saw him coming: suddenly something slammed into my midriff, and my face met a rising knee. Fortunately, even winded, my reflexes cut in, letting me ride the blow to some extent, or he’d undoubtedly have broken my nose. As it was, it started bleeding so copiously he probably thought he had anyway. I collapsed back onto the bed behind me, and, to add insult to injury, cracked the back of my head against the wall. The biomonitor kicked into life, assuring me none of the damage was serious, so I ignored it in favor of the light show sparking and fizzing on the back of my retina.

  Before my vision had time to clear Wymes was on me again, in a blur of motion, grabbing the front of my shirt and hauling me to my feet as effortlessly as I’d have lifted the pillow.

  “You’re not a Guilder, and I don’t have to take that shit from you. Do we understand one another now?”

  “We do.” I nodded, still gauging his strength, which I’d underestimated as much as his speed. He could probably hold his own against Rolf, let alone me. “But you just made a big mistake.” I had to regain the initiative now, or it would all be over; letting him gain the upper hand would be tantamount to admitting my guilt. “Two, in fact.”

  “Which are?” He didn’t sound all that concerned, but I’d been to enough Avalonian cotillions to know underlying uncertainty when I heard it.

  “My neuroware’s recorded this assault, and I’ll be relaying it to my advocate as soon as she visits. Who’ll enter it as evidence at my appeal hearing.” I twisted my features into a smug grin, which I was pretty sure would get under his skin. “Where we’ll see how much the Grand Mistress appreciates your choice of language.”

  “And the second?” He did a pretty good job of appearing unconcerned, I’ll give him that. He even shook me a little, to emphasize how in control he was—which he wouldn’t have had to do if he really had been.

  “You’ve just doubled the price of any information I do have that you might want,” I told him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  In which an unexpected visitor makes a tempting proposition.

  After that there was nowhere for the conversation to go, apart from a litany of half-hearted threats on his part, and increasingly snide comments on mine, so Wymes finally left me alone to drip blood on the sheets and brood. No doubt he was hoping that the chance to assess my position undisturbed would leave me dispirited, and I have to admit he wasn’t wrong about that. From where I was sitting, it looked pretty dire, with only the remote possibility that Clio could somehow prevail on the local Guildhall standing between me and a firing squad.

  Before they hauled me out to shoot me, though, Wymes would want to wring me dry of all the information he believed I possessed, and that clearly wasn’t going to be pleasant. He’d already shown he was willing to get physical if he thought that would help, but I didn’t imagine for one moment that he’d resort to methods that crude when there were plenty of other, more subtle, ones to hand. For one thing there was my ability to record everything that happened for posterity, which I was certain being reminded of had rattled him, however much he’d tried to hide it; there was still a remote possibility that my Guild protection would be restored, and if that happened he’d be held accountable for every step he took over the line. And, for another, simply battering the information he wanted out of me would be unreliable at best—we both knew I’d say pretty much anything to avoid that, whether it was true or not, and he, or his associates, would have to waste an inordinate amount of time verifying everything he got that way. It was far more likely they’d use some biotech glop to mess with my brain chemistry, twisting my perceptions to the point where I’d happily tell them everything I knew because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

  The other possibility, I really didn’t want to think about. Leaguers might have some weird cultural prejudice against neuroware, but they understood how it worked right enough, and their data nodes were just as compatible with it as anyone else’s—as I’d recently found out for myself. It wouldn’t take much to do in reverse what I’d done to gain access to their node, and strip-mine my ‘ware for every last scrap of information it contained. If I was lucky, that would be no more harmful than meshing-in normally—but if I wasn’t, the results could be dire, ripping enough holes in my neural network to leave me a drooling vegetable.

  Then there was Mother and Tinkie to think about, potential casualties of the League’s covert invasion of Rockhall. At the moment, it seemed, I was the only one able or willing to warn the Commonwealth that it was coming: although quite how I was going to manage that under the circumstances I didn’t have a clue.

  Such cheerful thoughts kept me occupied for several hours, which I tried to while away by running recreational ‘ware, or taking a more detailed look at the data I’d swiped, although neither held my attention for as long as I’d hoped. I wasn’t in the mood for taking refuge in virts, and there didn’t seem much point in reviewing someth
ing the League would delete as soon as they managed to force their way into my head.

  All of which meant I was at a pretty low ebb when the lock on the door disengaged, hardly bothering to raise my head as it was pushed open from the other side. Then I realized who it was, and jumped to my feet in astonishment.

  “Jas! What are you doing here?”

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” She looked at me quizzically, taking in my appearance, which, despite a wash after Wymes’s departure, was still more than a little rumpled. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” I said. There was no point talking about it now; she was hardly likely to report him even if I did go into the gory details. I waved a hand at the bunk. “Can I offer you a seat?”

  “I bet you say that to all the girls.” She grinned, and accepted the invitation. I followed, settling next to her, feeling faintly uncomfortable. All right, fair enough, there was nowhere else to sit, but it was still a bed after all, and the subtext wasn’t exactly lost on either of us.

  “Only the cute ones,” I said, returning the smile. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me either; for the first time since we’d met we were free to flirt openly, away from the prying eyes of her squad mates and my fellow internees, and all I’d had to do to make it possible was get myself thrown in jail.

  “We need to talk, Si.” I’d never seen her eyes so close and clear, and they drew me in, until the rest of her face seemed to fill my entire field of vision. “You’re in serious trouble.”

  “I believe I am,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure I was talking about my arrest any more. I could feel the warmth of her body, radiating against my own, a tingling precursor of the physical contact my imagination kept foreshadowing, despite my best efforts to concentrate on the grim realities of my precarious situation.

  “I’m serious.” She pulled away a little, and I found myself a bit more able to concentrate on her words. “Are you really a Commonwealth spy?”