Backstab

by Everet Martins

  I open my mouth to speak, but his voice booms over mine.

  “An offer, Desmond. Tell me what you want, and I might be able to grant it in exchange for your soul.” Prodal crosses his arms.

  “My soul?” I laugh at the absurdity of the notion. “You’re a mad fool. There is no soul. We’re all born of primordial soup, more and more of us birthed from petri dishes. I have nothing to give you. If there was such a thing, I’m afraid I sold mine long ago to the highest bidder.”

  “That is a shame, Desmond.”

  I wake with a gasp. My heart thrums in my neck. I narrow my eyes at the mishmash of wooden planks making up the ceiling. I remember where I am. I remember Erinas’ betrayal. I remember watching Suro bleed out.

  Something is wrong.

  It feels like someone is slowly hollowing out my guts with a spoon. I want to cry. I want to give up and die. I’m not sure if my eyes are capable of still forming tears. I pull the sheets up to my chin and twist onto my side.

  My breath catches when I notice dark eyes watching me. Paragon. She’s in the bunk beside me, close, staring at me like I’m a lab animal. Her pupils are almost as wide as the entirety of her eye. I think she’s high on chems, but that doesn’t seem prudent for a Merc. Her lips part into a knowing smile. A part of me knows she experienced my dreams while the other part denies the notion. It might be one of her Psionic talents.

  “Rough night?” she asks in a low voice. I can feel the warmth of her breath on my cheek.

  I slowly nod, regarding her with suspicion. “Mhm.” I don’t know where I stand in her ledger. Am I just a means to an end? She could execute me without a moment’s hesitation, or torture me out of the passkey for my Spectrals. And yet she hasn’t.

  Between that weird dream and where I now rest, I feel a great sense of loss. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I’m sleeping in a den of augmented murders. It makes me realize that if I’m stripped of all my material possessions, I’m not much of anything at all. Worthless.

  I slowly turn to sit on the bunk’s side. I drive the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. It feels good. “How long have I been sleeping?”

  “About four hours,” she answers dryly.

  I’m not sure how long I sit in that position. It might have been five minutes or thirty. I start to put on my soiled clothing when Paragon tosses me a clean black t-shirt and gray jeans. I thank her and put them on. My fingers feel sore while I fumble my belt through the loops. I wipe the sleep from my eyes and lumber into the main room.

  The crew looks like they’ve been hard at work. A few black duffle bags are set in neat rows, bulging with what I guess to be weapons of some capacity. Extra mags are loaded on the dining room table and stacked in sets of three. Grenades rest in pouches like precious heirlooms.

  Nightshade is gesturing at the air and pointing at things beside Saber. His eyes flick to mine then back at the air. I presume they’re reviewing the data I sent them for the job in their ARs. They’re likely perusing the map of the Wolf Microsystems subsidiary. They’ve kept whatever they’re looking at private. If it were public and my AR had been turned on, I would’ve received a notification on my AR informing me that a local resource was available for inspection. I would then simply will the object to open, and it would appear as a translucent document before my eyes. Nightshade continues pointing and intersecting her fingers in a cross that I take to mean a street or hallway cross-sections.

  Paragon is like a shepherd, lazing a patrol around her crew and taking it all in. Her eyes slide to mine. I look away, not because I can’t hold her stare, but because I realize I’m ravenous. I try to appear as though I’m following her lead, making sure everything is in order. I’m really just looking for something edible. I wonder where Nightshade is keeping all those protein bars. I wonder how many calories are in a .45 round.

  Talos turns a corner and brushes against my back. Before I can gruff a response, he mutters, “Get all your beauty rest, String? Good, glad to hear it.” He regards me with a mocking grin, then bends over to tend to a bag. His disdain is understandable, but the group outside of Saber and Paragon aren’t aware of the world of shit I marched through before arriving here.

  Nightshade sees me for the first time, and she flinches, lips tugging into a frown. I give her a slight nod, and she returns a comical fake smile. I roll my eyes at her.

  Paragon strolls over to my side with her arms crossed under her breasts. “Something you’re looking for?” Her voice sounds weird and dreamlike.

  “Food. Some water would be great too.” I clear my throat for emphasis.

  “There are nutrition bars in the box over there. Everything the body needs.” She points at a small crate with a ruffled tarp.

  “Everything the body needs?” I ask, winking at her. She gives a breathy snicker as I retrieve a few bars. I can’t help but feel like she’s playing along with my poor attempts at flirtation. She is appeasing my ego.

  “Water.” She throws me a liter-sized plastic bottle, which I barely manage to catch in one hand. I clear a small space among the explosives and ammo on the table and rip into one of the bars. It’s not bad, a mealy mix tinged with vanilla and honey. I examine the plain white wrapper. It looks like something poor people eat.

  I slowly twist off the bottle’s plastic cap. I savor the click as it snaps free from its securing ring. I look at the ragged plastic teeth lining the bottom edge of the cap. It’s been over ten years since I’ve opened a bottle like this. “Wow, this is old school. Do you print this stuff here?”

  “None of this is printed. Contrary to what you may think, not everyone can afford to have all of their food and water printed on demand.” Paragon smirks at me. “Nightshade makes the bars.”

  Nightshade raises a cinnamon eyebrow at me, daring me to criticize them. I take another bite, nod at Nightshade, then raise my half-consumed bar in a salute. “These are good.”

  It’s hard to imagine someone as salty as Nightshade doing domestic work. I picture her in an industrial kitchen wearing a pink and white polka dotted apron, humming while mixing a new protein slurry. I’m surprised to find a lack of razor blades and arsenic in my ration. Nightshade looks away from me with a scowl. She needs a lesson in social etiquette.

  Paragon takes a seat adjacent to mine. She takes one of my bars and delicately removes the wrapper. “Do you know how unusual this situation is?” She takes a bite.

  “Which situation exactly?” I swallow and sip my drink. Paragon gestures for the bottle, and I slide it over to her.

  She points at me with an elegant finger. “You. Here, with us.”

  “Yeah.” I nod a few times. I start into my second protein bar. My hunger scorches in my brain.

  She blows out a long sigh. “I need you to help us, Desmond. I need you to give us more. We’re all hoping there are details about this job that you’ve conveniently omitted. I hope that we’ve earned that level of trust with you, seeing as we did just save your life.”

  I impulsively start to voice some words of protest but manage to keep my words behind the vault of my lips. I breathe deeply, trying to settle my spiking heart rate. Paragon turns and gives an overt nod to Nightshade. “Turn on your AR, if it’s not already.”

  “Very well.” I relish rejoining the life of the civilized. It takes a full second to boot up. I can’t see the risk now that Suro is dead and surrounded by a team this capable.

  An alert flashes in my AR. Nightshade has shared the intel she was reviewing with Saber. I open it.

  It flashes before my eyes in an opaque bluish light. It’s the map I included in the package I gave Paragon and Saber. It has been heavily annotated with notes. There are red marks on it at hallway intersections and street choke points around Wolf Microsystems. When one of the red nodes is clicked, a dialog box opens like a thought bubble, revealing the team’s concerns and potential security threats.

  Each team member’s notes are highlighted in a different color with their initials at the end of
the text string. I rotate the 3D map, scanning for things they might have missed. They’ve added notes for things I hadn’t considered such as hidden machine gun turrets in long hallways. These guys are fucking paranoid. It’s a corporation, not a Falcon base.

  I blink and close the map, settling my focus back on Paragon. “There is little I haven’t told you. Maybe we should go back to the high level.” Everyone starts to crowd around the table, hanging on my words. All eyes are on me. “I presume Erinas has contacted you and told you I am no longer the String for this job?”

  Eyes flick between members of the Merc crew, revealing the truth of my assumption.

  I continue. “I’m a veteran of this game. I know how it works. I trust that your word is your honor.” I regard Paragon. “You said that you would help me. Clearly, the job is still on with my replacement.” I gesture at all the gear strewn about the table.

  “The job is the same,” Saber says, splaying his metallic hands across the table.

  “Right. I would imagine Erinas sent you a remittance to make up for the bump in the road, as it were.” The group offers nothing but silence. “I have a mutually beneficial idea. We still do the mission, but there’s a way for us to garner a bigger payout. Nightshade, I’ll need your help. If that’s alright, Paragon.” I meet each of the women’s eyes, giving each a nod.

  “What’s your idea, String?” Paragon’s words are steeled, the softness gone from them.

  I raise my hands in a gesture of innocence. “I need to confirm a few data points first. I also need to thank you for letting me sleep, for the gears of my mind are back in action. I think I know a way we can all profit from this. The core of the gig should be the same. The intel should still be good. Is everyone comfortable with the intel?”

  No one objects to my usage of the word ‘we,’ which is a good sign.

  Nightshade sniffs. “Wolf Microsystems has a new encryption cracking algorithm. We’re going in to lift it. Simple enough. The facility seems fairly benign, but we take all precautions.”

  “It’s true there’s another team backing us up?” Talos grunts, leveling me with a hard stare. I notice the luster of his eyelashes and how they flutter when he blinks. I know a lot of women that would kill for eyelashes like that.

  “Yes.” I nod at him. There is no fucking around with this crew. “I hired them to die, actually.” I pause before I go on, seeing every expressionless eye staring a hole through my chest. “They’re going in to die,” I affirm. “The other Merc crew will get there first and walk into a trap. I left some intel out and fabricated others. When the distraction is live, you’ll go in and get the real work done.”

  “The distraction…” Paragon blinks.

  Nightshade regards me with a frown of distrust. Saber’s eyes are wide like a wolf to prey. Talos snickers while shaking his head. “Fucking piece of shit snake, String,” he mutters.

  Nightshade rubs a hand over her head, raising her eyes to peer at the roof. “We’re just going to… going to let them die?”

  I say nothing. Hiring a crew to go down is common. They know this. They just don’t want the truth dragged into the light. It’s a risk for me if they were to survive. I make sure those I send to the executioner’s block don’t have a chance at vengeance.

  “How do we know we’re not the crew to go down?” Talos barks.

  “You’re not. And didn’t you just kill a fellow Merc? Wasn’t Suro in the same line of work? Convince me that you honestly care about the death of your competition,” I say in bewilderment.

  Talos crosses his arms. “Prove it.”

  “Prove what?” I hiss.

  “Prove we’re not the fall crew.”

  I stare at him. “I can’t. All I can give you is my word.”

  “A String’s word,” Talos scoffs. “Not worth the shit I scrape from my boots.”

  Paragon raises triumphant eyebrows. “We know we’re not the crew going down because Desmond is going with us.”

  “I am?” The words tumble out of me. I feel light, much like floating in a warm bath.

  “I like it.” Saber chuckles, and it sounds weird on him.

  “Thought you’d get out of this without skin in the game, didn’t you?” Nightshade says, grimacing as she uses the table’s edge to stretch her fingers.

  “No, no, no.” I shake my head in protest. “You can’t be serious? I’d just slow you down. And I don’t know the first thing about fighting.”

  Paragon leans toward me, her voice silken. “Don’t worry. You’ll be behind all the action. Think of yourself as a living insurance policy.”

  My confidence wilts like a tomato that’s been exposed to a full week’s worth of radiation. I’ll find a way out of this. I will not be on the front lines. Fuck them for not believing me.

  Taking a deep breath, I force my racing heart to slow. In reality, I don’t blame them. In their position, I might’ve done the same.

  Hard as I try, I can’t see a way out. With a heavy sigh, I accept this fate

  “You tried to shoot Suro once, didn’t you?” Saber asks, peering up as if recounting my story. “That’s right. You did. You’re braver than you look, Desmond.”

  “Uh, thanks.” The terror of that moment returns to my limbs. Despite the quiver in my legs, I’m impressed at past Desmond’s actions. I don’t think I could do it again.

  “Go on, the plan,” Paragon interrupts before someone can further berate me. I return to my former thought thread, still taut in my mind.

  “Right.” I sniff. “It’s a fairly simple plan, I think. No need for anything too complicated, right?” I look to Paragon, who responds with a slight incline of her head. “You’ve guessed right, that this is an inside job. I suppose it was rather obvious. It didn’t make any difference to me as long as I was getting paid. But now it does. There’s something more here. I am… was one of Erinas’ best Strings. You don’t dump your best without a legitimate reason.”

  “Maybe they just got tired of your fucking arrogance. Have you considered that, Desmond?” Talos chuckles with a murderous grin.

  I can see that he is only trying to rattle me. Perhaps this is a test. “No. I’m good, and I’m not saying that because I think I’m good. I’m quantifiably better than my peers. I consistently make top ranks with the most successful jobs and least mishaps.”

  “Uh-huh,” Talos mutters.

  “Look,” I say spreading my arms toward Talos. “I have an idea we can use. I’ll just need Nightshade’s expertise in confirming it.”

  “Your move or ours, Desmond?” Paragon says with a flat expression. Her eyes swim with inky blacks.

  I knew this issue would invariably arise. “I owe you guys. You saved me from Suro and picked me up when I needed it. I won’t forget that. I swear I will make it up to you when I’ve regained a position of power in Erinas. I’d say we’re in this together now. I’m no fool. I know you’re not helping me because it’s a benevolent gesture. You’ve earned my goodwill, and I will make it worth it. What we find will translate into more Spectrals for you, and hopefully, a reclaimed status for me.”

  Saber speaks up, and I had almost forgotten he was there. “They tried to murder you, Desmond. Are you nuts? Why would you even consider going back to them?” His passion seems genuine. Am I in with them now?

  “No, it’s not the company at large. This must be the work of an individual, maybe someone I inadvertently pissed off. Sure, I’ve made enemies as anyone will in the workplace. When it was apparent, I always made an effort to smooth things over. I’m likely in the way of someone’s promotion, and the most viable solution was to remove me. I want to screw the person who tried to fuck me.”

  “That sounds weird,” Nightshade snickers.

  “Yeah. Well, that’s how these things go. The corporate world is a big game of chess.”

  “Damn. Can’t say I envy that life,” Saber says.

  Paragon is squinting at me, giving a slight shake of her head. Talos eyes me with abject disgust.
>
  “There are pros and cons to all of our jobs. You all think you’re free while I’m a slave to the company. But what are you without Strings? Gangers. Maybe worse. You don’t understand how this life works. I, and the people who employ me, make things happen.”

  “Please, do tell us how the world works, Desmond,” Paragon says with a musing smile.

  I continue, not allowing her belittling to affect me. “Most people think the corporations are these lumbering giants with a single brain. But they’re me. And the person who wants to kill me. If Suro came for you, would you quit being a Merc and go back to whatever you did before this?”

  Saber lifts his chin. “He didn’t come for us. Suro wanted you.”

  I shake my head at him. “That’s not the point. If someone tried to kill you at Mint, would you never return to the club again? Not if you loved the place. If a rival crew tried to gun you down in an alley, would you forever avoid alleys if it were a crucial component to your business operations?”

  I pause to take a long breath. My examples suck. Someone’s boot scrapes.

  A throat clears, and I plunge on. “The point is that someone, an individual, is trying to fuck me over. Someone who knows more than I do. When I find who it is, I’m going to oust them and retake what was mine.”

  “A bold plan. I suppose I can see your logic.” Saber nods, mechanical eyes gleaming. Talos only shakes his head as if everything I said was utter shit. Nightshade regards me in what I interpret as newfound respect. The group breaks up and shuffles away, attention back to their own individual tasks.

  Paragon remains, and she is unreadable, staring through me. I wonder if there is something she sees that I’ve missed. I wonder if I fucked up somewhere. “Everything okay?” I ask her.

  “Mhm,” she says distantly. Her eyes find focus and meet mine, features softening. Her gaze excites me and brings a surge of blood to my crotch. I want to fuck her, but this isn’t the time or place. I have to salvage what remains of my professionalism with the crew. If this were back in Boston, or any place where I lived under the guise of an Okox Dashboarding teacher, I’d be trying to bring her back to my room.