I hadn’t wanted to kill someone that much in a long, long time. Angel’s control might have saved me from a world of hurt, but she’d done so at a cost, violating every illusion I might have held about being in control of the situation.
“You here to arrest me?” I said, redirected anger grinding Angel’s control thinner by the moment.
“Should we be?”
Sensing the critical moment with Dengler had passed and knowing I was only getting more angry with her, Angel relented, releasing control of my body.
I almost sagged, but my pretty little hate-on for Dengler made my flesh light, my bones strong, kept me from sinking.
Rather than reach out and take him by the neck, I crossed my arms and leaned against my door, pretending a level of calm I certainly did not feel. “Fake it till you make it,” my old partner used to say.
“I won’t waste my time answering that.”
Keyode shook his head. “Where did you go last night, after we left you at the club?”
“Dropped off a friend at her place, then came straight here.” I thumped my palm against the coffin door. “I needed to supplement, and the medichine has the logs of my use . . .”
“Just a moment.” I felt something akin to a static shock leap from my hand to the coffin lid. “I have to wipe traces of my presence . . . and . . . restore the original logs . . . done,” Angel said.
“Can we see them?” Keyode asked the question quickly, before Dengler could speak.
“Of course. What’s this about?” I asked, opening my door.
“This ‘friend’ wouldn’t be Siren, the singer from the club, would it?” Keyode asked.
“Yeah, I took her home after you took Shar Pak off my hands.”
“That’s what Tongi told us. Siren didn’t show for rehearsal this morning. Said last he saw, you were sniffing around her after the show last night.” Dengler’s fingers placed air quotes when he said “sniffing,” trying to make me think he was only repeating what Tongi said.
“That’s bullshit,” I said, my voice a growl as anger roiled within me again. “Tongi asked me to see Siren safely to her place. Which I did. Then I came home. As I said.”
“Just let us see these supposed logs, Muck,” Dengler grated.
I reached up into the coffin and brought out the medichine.
Dengler glared at me, clearly angry I had an alibi. “We’ll have LEO go over it—thoroughly.”
Anger firmly in check now it seemed there was an end to this “interview” in sight, I shrugged. “I’ll need it back, though.”
“Give him a property receipt, Key.”
“Sure thing, Deng.” Keyode took out his hand terminal and started the document.
“You can collect it at the station in a few days,” Dengler said, turning on his heel and heading for the lift.
“That guy’s a dick,” Angel muttered in my head.
In complete agreement, I waited while Keyode issued me the receipt. With a mumbled promise to get the machine back to me as quickly as possible, he also took his leave.
I stood in the hall a while, mouth full of bitter copper, aftermath of anger and adrenaline.
Angel gave me a full minute to calm down before asking, “Where to now?” I appreciated that, even though her ability to assume control over my body was alarming, to say the least.
I decided to get back in bed before replying. The walls of a coffin ain’t terribly thick, but some privacy was better than none, and I wasn’t planning on yelling. The door slid shut again, and the tiny space cut down on distractions. I needed to say some things, and I needed them to come out right the first time.
“Look, Angel: I appreciate that you were trying to help, but I ain’t used to being slapped down under an override like that. Not in a long time, and never outside of combat.”
“If you had lost your shit and decked him, you’d have been beaten, arrested, and thrown in detention. I can’t have that. We can’t have that. I need you, Muck. I need your help.”
“And I want to give it, but there’s gotta be some boundaries.”
“I won’t do it again unless absolutely necessary.”
Waiting a beat instead of immediately calling bullshit, I said, “Define necessary.”
“Under immediate threat of death or serious injury.”
“Fair enough.”
“What, that easy?” she asked.
“Not sure how you did it in the first place, so I don’t know how to stop you if you decide to ignore me.” I shrugged and found myself smiling crookedly, glad she did not yet have full access to my every thought. The partial lie was easier than admitting the truth bubbling at the back of my mind: I wanted so badly to be whole that I would have accepted her presence even if she flatly refused any conditions at all.
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not all that certain why I was able to either.”
“Not sure it is . . .” And that, at least, was fully true. There were so many unprecedented and interconnected issues to overcome, it was hard to know where to start. For instance, I’d never heard of an angel transplant from one host to another, let alone self-transplanting. The AIs were designed to expire with their hosts or, in cases like mine, upon removal for cause.
“So . . . if we are done pondering the imponderable?”
“Right.” I was glad to shift to a problem I had been trained to deal with. “Usually we’d check Siren’s place first.”
“Usually?”
“Well, while I don’t think much of Station Security’s professionalism or ethics, I don’t like the idea of giving them any more reason to mess with me . . .”
“More reason? I don’t follow.”
“The suspect returning to the scene of the crime and all that,” I explained, wondering if it might be worth it to try anyway. Even without recollection of the events leading up to Siren’s disappearance, Angel had, for all intents and purposes, been present for every single important event of Siren’s life and more than that, privy to the decision-making process Siren used to navigate those events. If anything were out of place or wrong at the apartment, then Angel would notice.
“I see your point,” Angel said. “So what do we do?”
“Run down the Shar Pak angle first. If that well comes up dry, we circle back to her place. Assuming you don’t remember something in the meantime?”
“I won’t. Not on my own. My programming requires off-line memory backups for the long-term stuff. They would be at the apartment,” she said. I sensed a kind of helpless anger from her. Like she was frustrated by knowing less than she should.
“Station Security would have grabbed those first thing. If Dengler’s visit means Station Security is looking at me for Siren’s disappearance, and if Shar Pak is the only person we know has both a reason to stick it to me and an unhealthy obsession with Siren, then it stands to reason he should be our prime suspect. If for no other reason than his proven ties to Station Security. Framing someone isn’t that much of a stretch for someone willing to trade his integrity for cash the way they did for Pak.”
“But someone had to pay the bribes, right? I mean, is he his own boss?”
“No, he’s not. Not entirely,” I said, mind running down what I’d heard over the years.
“What does that mean?”
“It means . . . that if I didn’t hear word one about Shar Pak in all the years I’ve been buying my pharma on the black market, he’s Ncaco’s man. And that means trouble. Last Stop doesn’t exactly have a reputation for large crime organizations, but then that’s a feature, not a bug, of a truly efficient criminal enterprise . . .” I considered a moment, then added, “Ncaco’s organization is whispered of in frightened tones, as if saying his name is enough to invite retribution.”
“But you were buying from someone else.”
I nodded. “His only rival
—I can’t even call it competition, really. Their markets touch on one another, but my dealer is small potatoes and doesn’t deal in recreational pharma.”
“All right, assume you’re right about all that, shouldn’t we be going directly after the leadership, then?”
“Ncaco?”
“If that is the leader’s name.”
“No thanks. He’s got a reputation as a heavy, with serious muscle to back him, and I don’t want to make a try at him unless I know he’s behind it.”
“I understand this is not a military op against a conventional enemy, but shouldn’t this Ncaco know what his people are up to? I mean, Pak is using his organization’s assets for personal ends that might endanger the organization, right?”
“Not necessarily. Criminal organizations are even less hierarchical than insurgent groups. Especially multispecies criminal organizations like Ncaco’s crew . . . all of which points to the possibility that Shar might not have had approval from the boss for Siren’s kidnapping.”
“But, following that reasoning, how does Pak get me pulled from Siren and, for that matter, take her down without serious technical—and physical—backup? And equally as important, why?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Could be a fan-obsession thing, or something like that. Or revenge for her kicking his ass. As to how, he may be running his own shop and stumbled across some weird experimental tech to accomplish his ends. There’s always some new tech coming out . . .” That part sounded dubious even to me.
“Sounds like a great many ifs again, but criminal gangs are not my area of expertise. A related question arises, then: When we roll Shar up, won’t Ncaco twig to the threat you pose to his organization?”
“That’s always a possibility, but I’m hoping Shar is low enough on the ladder that I’ll have a chance to speak my case before Ncaco takes direct action. Besides, I don’t have a team, and that’s what it would take to safely try and take Ncaco down.”
“If you say so.”
“Based on my ten years doing this kind of shit for CID, I think my thoughts have a bit of weight,” I said, stung by her dismissal.
“I was not questioning your experience, merely your tactical decisions.”
The answer made me twitch. “Just what was Siren’s service classification?”
“I can’t answer that, civilian.”
“Which is sort of an answer in itself,” I said, remembering Siren’s perfect takedown of Shar.
“I can’t comment on that, civilian.”
I laughed a little, back on a bit of a high from having my mods back in service, an angel on my shoulder, and remaining free of arrest.
“May I make a suggestion, oh humble seeker of Siren?” Angel asked.
I nodded, suspicious of her tone.
“Perhaps we should get some weapons first?”
“That’s . . . not a bad idea, Angel.”
“I try.”
“And I have an idea where we can find some . . .”
CHAPTER NINE
Angel
“This is so strange,” I said as we climbed into the cab I’d called.
“What’s that, Angel?”
“You, this body. You feel wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I feel better than I have in years.” Muck was trying to make a joke.
I ignored it. “No. Your mind tastes acidic and sharp, where I’m used to Siren’s softer, subtler thoughts.”
“Hey, I can be subtle—”
“And you’re so BIG. You’re just this big mass of unrestrained brute power! Siren was always strong, but this . . . I don’t know what to do with it! I mean, I’m used to her muscles and curves, but you’re all hard lines and smashing force. I don’t even know if I could operate your body, to tell the truth. Just look at the differences between you!”
I flashed my image into our mind’s eye from a couple of days ago: standing in front of the mirror in Siren’s bathroom, holding up my shirt to look critically at the definition of my abdominal muscles.
He shifted us in our seat and tugged against the suddenly tighter front of our trousers.
“Really?” I asked, incredulity staining my thoughts. If more strength and muscle power was the upside of suddenly being male, this was the downside. Erections were extremely inconvenient.
“Not my fault,” he muttered. “You were showing me all these sleek muscles and curves . . .”
“All right, enough.”
“You started it.”
“Fine. Make it stop. Go away, whatever.”
He laughed.
“Doesn’t work that way, Angel. Sorry. Just gonna take some time. Maybe just think about something else, huh? Something foul and disgusting . . .”
“Like why on earth we’re wasting our time with a two-bit bliss dealer?” I shot back at him. I’d heard his explanation earlier, but I still didn’t like it. Too many ifs. “That guy couldn’t even get close enough to lay a hand on Siren, let alone rip me from her synapses. We should be going straight at his boss.”
“I told you,” Muck sighed, adjusting our crotch again and turning to look out the window of the autocab. Station lights flickered into a blur as we sped by. “We have to completely eliminate him as a suspect first. Stranger things have happened, Angel. Trust me on this. It’s basic police work.”
“Right, fine. I think it’s a mistake, but you’re the detective.”
“Was.”
“Whatever. Was. So then why, detective, are we headed to this end of the dock? Because there’s nothing down here but access to the kinds of orbital yachts that cost way more money than any bliss dealer is going to earn in a lifetime.”
“Thought you wanted weapons.”
“Yeah, but where are you . . . ohhhh,” I said, reaching out to the info-
net stream to confirm my suspicions. Since Muck’s hand lay against the back of the cab’s seat, I was able to tap into the cab’s data net through the nanoprocessors in the seat fabric. Sure enough, there was a private weapons collection registered to one of the yachts docked here. “You’ve got expensive taste.”
“I like my weapons reliable,” Muck said, and I felt a sort of smug humor saturate our mind. It immediately raised my suspicions.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, and slammed a mental door shut. Damn. I’d hoped he’d forgotten how to do that, since he’d lived for so long without an angel. Apparently, though, he’d remembered how to institute privacy protocols with no problem.
“You sure you’re up for hitting one of these yachts?” I reached into the infonet streams and scanned for public information on ownership and registry. I took care to work quickly, just another angel doing their job. Nothing to see here. “Everything’s going to be pretty well protected with multilayer security . . . ohh. Wait. Really? Are you really thinking of going after a Vmog’s weapon collection?”
To emphasize my point about how stupid an idea that was, I pulled the infonet data-dump on the Vmog species and slammed it into the forefront of our conscious mind. Muck found himself suddenly contemplating the fact that of all the known races, the Vmog were perhaps the most dedicated—and thus the most dangerous—of collectors.
Humanity had nicknamed them “crows” at first contact, due to their avian-like features. The Vmog walked upright, had “wings” of skin that stretched between their forelimbs (which ended in dexterous appendages with eight digits apiece), and their aft, locomotive limbs. The Vmog home planet had a gravity of less than 0.75 g, so they tended to be tall and willowy compared to humans. They could also fly in gravities less than or equal to that of their planet. Luckily for humanity, they’d evolved so that the main sensor suite (analogous to a face, with visual, auditory, olfactory, and taste receptors, as well as their communications mechanism) was in the center of the main torso-like trun
k, so most humans could make eye contact with little difficulty. I found it interesting that both the Vmog and humanity placed such cultural emphasis on eye contact, but so it went. I suspected it came from a shared past as omnivorous apex predators.
Like us, the Vmog had served the Mentors during the war, creating new and better weapons of destruction. It had been a Vmog artist who had designed the bioweapon that ultimately wiped out the Xlodich.
But we’d been the one to pull that trigger.
The Vmog might better have been nicknamed “magpies,” honestly. Because whatever caught their eye managed to capture their entire imagination. The species made its name as the premiere tech artists in the known galaxy. Vmog designs underlaid all the so-called “bubble-drives” that powered the Administration fleet, and Vmog engineering principles kept most stations, including this one, functional. They were artists, completely dedicated to their craft. A Vmog would work itself literally to death in order to produce its crowning achievement, its masterpiece. About 70 percent of Vmog artisans didn’t survive the creative frenzy. Those who did were famous throughout the galaxy. Such a Vmog would retire wherever it liked, surrounded by adoring consorts who wanted nothing more than to mingle genetic material with such an accomplished member of the species. Though an Emeritus would no longer create, he or she often collected relics and examples of their genre of “art,” and would employ extraordinary measures to protect those collections. It didn’t matter whether they were hoarding ancient atmospheric aircraft engines, communications tech from across the galaxy or, in this case, weapons.
“So you think it’s a bad idea to go after Emerita Bellasanee’s guns, and yet you’d have me take on Ncaco?” Muck said as I flashed this information across his brain.
“He is still the best lead we have. I don’t know why you keep insisting we tiptoe around him.”
“Yeah. I guess you don’t know anything about Ncaco, huh?”
“Obviously not.”
“Well, believe me, you don’t want to know. Making an enemy of Ncaco is a stupid, stupid move. He has quite the reputation as a creature of will.”
Second Chance Angel Page 6
