by Chele Cooke
“They’re all military,” Keiran answered. “Hence their… their… dickishness!”
Georgianna snorted.
“Coming from someone who could be considered to be involved in a Veniche military organisation…” she suggested, leaving her comment hanging in the air between them.
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t brought up saluting and bowing to Casey’s every demand, now was I?” he asked, grinning back at Georgianna.
“Okay, so he’s military,” Wrench interrupted. “Makes sense about the collar then.”
Taye picked up the pouch of foinah leaves and began dealing out portions for three cigarettes into papers, evening them out before he dropped the pouch onto the ground in front of him.
“He’s some kind of commander,” he explained.
“So, we’re gonna need a solid plan with backups,” Keiran agreed.
“What do you suggest?” Georgianna asked.
Out of the four of them, Keiran had the most experience in these sorts of things, closely followed by Wrench. The two had been in the Nerrin together. From what Georgianna knew, both from Keiran and from Liliah, who had taken the opportunity to tell Georgianna about their tribal days, the two men had been hunters, meaning that they had a lot of experience in planning attacks, even if those attacks had been against animals. Once the Adveni arrived, it was only natural that the two joined the Belsa, though Georgianna also knew a lot of hunters who had preferred to keep their heads down and avoid joining the rebel group. More recently, however, a hunter had come to mean something completely different to most people. A hunter was an Adveni whose job it was to track down Veniche who had escaped punishment for a crime. From the Adveni perspective, Keiran and Wrench were no longer hunters, they were very important prey.
“She’s got a collar on, right?” Wrench reconfirmed. “We’re gonna need somewhere to get rid of it. Can’t risk one of those coming into Belsa, not for anything.”
“She’ll be coming to the Carae!” Taye corrected fiercely, looking up from the papers in his lap.
“You want one of those collars in the Carae?” Keiran asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over at Taye. “Good luck keeping the Adveni off your ass, you do that.”
“Where she’s going isn’t the point,” Georgianna interjected. “Wrench is right. We need somewhere else, somewhere we can remove the collar before she goes underground.”
“Where?” Taye asked.
“Oppression City,” Wrench suggested. “Busy as hell, especially if we get it at the right time. Even the Adveni will have trouble getting through quickly.”
“Alright,” Keiran agreed slowly. “Wrench, can you find a place? I would suggest the Trade, they’re always willing to help, but Oz won’t appreciate an Adveni battalion bearing down on his ass. Get somewhere central enough that it’ll hold the Adveni up.”
“Doesn’t that mean we’ll be held up?” Georgianna asked in concern.
Keiran glanced at her, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips.
“Well, yeah, but we ain’t got a lot of choice.”
Georgianna nodded. She didn’t exactly know a lot about battle tactics. Keiran probably knew best.
Taye leaned forward, offering one of the rolled cigarettes out to Keiran. He accepted it gratefully, holding it up in a toast to Taye before he stuck it between his lips, but he didn’t light it. Almost immediately, he plucked it from his lips and used it to point at Georgianna.
“Oh, and another thing,” he announced. “We’re doing it on a day you’re at the compound.”
“What?” Taye and Georgianna demanded at the same time.
“Why?” Georgianna asked.
“We need her!” Taye exclaimed.
Keiran dug into his pocket, pulling out a lighter, a convenience the Adveni had brought to Os-Veruh with them. Lighting his cigarette, he inhaled before bringing it down from his lips, blowing the smoke up into the dry air.
“You asked that guard about the girl,” he explained, looking at Georgianna squarely. “Minute she goes missing, you’ll be suspected of being involved. We need to make sure they got nothing on you, that you’re somewhere the Adveni can recognise you.”
“But, what if we need her?” Taye asked, holding a cigarette out to Georgianna.
“The first priority is going to be that collar,” Wrench said. “No matter who needs what. The longer that collar stays on, the more likely we’re carted off to Lyndbury to be sold with your girlfriend. I say George meets us later. We get to Oprust, we remove the collar, everything else comes after.”
“Do you think Beck could get some Belsa to help?” Georgianna asked, turning the unlit cigarette over and over in her fingers.
Wrench watched Georgianna as he sucked in a lungful of smoke and let it flow lazily past his lips.
“Jobs like this, the less people the better. More people that know, the more likely someone will talk.”
“A Belsa talk to an Adveni?” Taye asked. “Come on.”
“No, to a friend,” Keiran answered. “Guy talks to his buddy over a drink about how they’re helping break out a pretty little piece of ass from the Adveni. The friend talks to another friend. That guy tells an Adveni for a few coins.”
Georgianna wasn’t sure which Taye looked angrier about, that Keiran had proven his scepticism wrong, or that he had called Nyah a pretty little piece of ass. Even Georgianna felt a stab of annoyance at the latter. She didn’t mind jokes about him seeing other women, she didn’t even mind that it happened. But it didn’t mean he had to talk so openly about it in front of her.
“What if we don’t tell them what it’s for?” she asked. “Just a couple of guys to hang out around the place where Wrench’ll remove the collar? So they can warn you guys if Adveni show up?”
Wrench thought about it for a minute before looking at Keiran.
“She has a point. A few lookouts might be helpful, especially if this collar proves difficult.”
“Alright,” Keiran answered. “We’ll try to get some men to look out.”
Though, for some reason, he didn’t seem too happy about it, quickly taking a swig of the wine.
“George, you got some paper?” Wrench asked suddenly.
He reached out and took the bottle of berry wine from Keiran, drinking down a mouthful as Georgianna tucked the cigarette behind her ear and dug into her bag, pulling out her journal and a pencil. Placing the bottle down between them, Wrench took the journal and opened it on the back page, checking both sides before he began scribbling something down. Georgianna picked up the bottle as she watched him, sipping the wine thoughtfully.
“When can we do this?” Taye asked hopefully.
Keiran glanced at Georgianna expectantly, but she could only shrug.
“This is a list of things I’m gonna need,” Wrench explained, placing the journal down between them. “Once we have those, we can go the next time George is in the compound.”
“And I’ll meet you after,” she added, glancing at Keiran.
As Taye reached out, holding the journal open at the back page to get a good look at the list, Keiran reached out and brushed some of her hair back. Smiling, she leaned in as he placed a soft, simple kiss on her lips.
“And you’ll meet us after.”
Despite the fact that Taye and Keiran seemed intent on not getting along with each other, they ended up having a pretty good night. Keiran had brought berry wine and a bottle of Adveni-brewed liquor that Georgianna had given him to get them significantly merry, and Taye had enough foinah leaf to last them until the early hours.
In the predawn they made their way, admittedly with some wavering along the path, back into the city, Taye peeling off when they reached the entrance to the Carae. Georgianna knew that really she should go back home. Though, seeing as she needed to speak to Beck, she accepted Keiran’s rather blunt and dirty suggestion that she come to his place instead. Wrench made the usual jokes of course, but in all reality, by the time they got back to Keiran’s shack, Georgianna w
as so tired that Keiran just slipped an arm around her under the blankets and pulled her close. Georgianna was asleep within moments.
Later that morning, she set about locating Beck. His tunnel car was empty and no one had seen him since they emerged from their own homes. In the end, she stopped by Medics’ Way to find Lacie in the hope that she might know where her adoptive father may have gone. Lacie informed her somewhat distractedly, as she sketched in a notebook, that Beck had been gone before she woke that morning.
The sun’s highest peak had been and gone before Georgianna found Beck, sitting with a group of men, plans lying across a couple of crates in front of them. One of them, an older man Georgianna didn’t recognise, glared suspiciously at her, but Georgianna waved him off.
“I’m not staying,” she explained. “I just, uh, need to speak to the marshall.”
Beck took hold of Georgianna’s elbow, leading her down the tunnel a hundred yards or so before he turned to her. He looked tired, lines that previously appeared and vanished depending on his expression slowly wearing their way into his skin. The circles under his eyes were darker than normal and Georgianna gazed at him in worry for a few moments, even after Beck indicated that she should start talking.
“Georgianna…” he urged, his eyes widening expectantly.
“Oh, right, yeah. I uh, I wanted to ask if there was any chance of getting a few Belsa to stand guard for us.”
Beck looked at her, puzzled as he shifted his stance, crossing his arms over his chest.
“For?”
Shuffling her feet awkwardly, she didn’t know why she felt so nervous asking this of Beck. She’d asked favours of him before and never felt this knot in the pit of her stomach. The only thing she could think of as the cause was that Beck was a friend of her father’s and she already knew that he would not be happy about what his daughter was planning to do.
“A friend’s partner was taken by the Adveni a few months ago. She was sold to a man living in the Adveni quarter and we want to get her out. We need a few men to stand guard in Oprust while we remove her collar to let us know if any Adveni are coming.”
Beck frowned as he looked down at her, pushing his lips into a thin line, his expression thoughtful. For a moment, Georgianna thought she saw a hint of anger in his face and wondered if she should say more, if she should explain that Keiran and Wrench had already agreed to help them. She considered telling him that they had a plan in place, or at least, the beginnings of one, but she quickly decided against it, standing silently as Beck considered what she’d said.
“I’m sorry, George,” he said, letting out a low sigh. “I can’t risk a number of men for the freedom of one girl. If they were discovered to be Belsa, they would face the rope.”
Georgianna sighed and looked down at her boots, but she couldn’t fault Beck on his logic. If they were discovered, the people who stood to lose the most were Wrench and Keiran. They would be executed for Belsa affiliations if it became clear the Belsa were involved. Having a group of men standing guard would make it obvious that this was a Belsa operation. Nyah would be sent back to her owner, Georgianna and Taye to the yard. The Belsa faced a much fiercer penalty.
“I understand,” Georgianna answered sadly.
She immediately felt bad that her tone was not cheerier, that she was possibly making Beck feel guilty about not being able to help. While she’d hoped he would, it would be stupid to have expected it.
“Look, if I can help in some other way…” he suggested.
“No, no, it’s okay,” she interrupted, trying her best to sound more cheerful. “I understand that you need to look after the Belsa. I was only hoping anyway.”
Beck nodded slowly. Suddenly remembering Wrench’s list, Georgianna tugged the book from her bag. She opened it to the last page and turned the book around so that Beck could see.
“Can you get any of the things on this list? Wre… We need them to get the collar off.”
Studying the list, Beck’s brow furrowed. He tapped a finger against his jaw until he pointed to two of the items on the list, one of which, Georgianna had been sure would be the hardest to find.
“I can get the absorber,” he answered. “Managed to get a couple from a raid a while ago. I’ll keep the other bits in mind.”
“That would be great, thank you!”
“When do you need them?”
“Soon as possible,” Georgianna answered shyly.
Beck nodded.
“Alright, stop by my car tomorrow, I should have them for you,” he said. “Now, I’m sorry, Georgianna, but I really need to get back.”
Georgianna nodded gratefully, closing the journal and slipping it into her bag.
“Thank you again, Marshall.”
Beck had already turned and taken a few steps back towards the other men when he waved a hand above his head dismissively.
“Beck!” he called back.
Georgianna laughed as she made her way back down the line.
She had promised to meet Taye that afternoon in the hopes that they’d be able to find some of the items on Wrench’s list down in the Junkyard. While she had considered ripping out the list and simply giving it to Taye, she was now glad that in their slightly drunk state, she’d completely forgotten.
As she walked, she took the journal from her bag, placing marks next to the items that Beck had said he could find for them. They really were lucky that Beck thought he could get an absorber, as the likelihood of finding one in the Junkyard, or anywhere, was going to be slim.
The small device was Adveni by design and practically impossible to pronounce in Adtvenis, so it had been dubbed “absorber” by the people of Os-Veruh. It was only a small tab, the size of a coin, but when attached to a sheet of metal it absorbed the charge of a copaq weapon, or a less powerful cinystalq collar, rendering the shock administered useless. The Adveni had them attached to their shields when they fought to protect against being hit by their own weapons. Obviously none were offered to the Veniche, so the only way to get one was take down an Adveni in full combat gear. When Taye had asked Wrench, the Belsa explained that it was to do with the charge of an Adveni weapon, neutralising it by sending out an equally powerful counteractive charge.
Wrench had drawn a rough sketch on the back page of Georgianna’s journal of the collar, showing that when the collar was detached, the charge constantly flowing through it, usually administered in small doses to send a jolt of pain through the wearer, escaped and jumped into the nearest compatible substance, the neck of the person it had been fastened around. That amount of charge jumping straight into the body was enough to kill instantly, so the absorber was used to take away at least a portion of the charge. He couldn’t promise that Nyah would be completely unharmed. She might receive a burn from the overflow, but at least it wouldn’t kill her.
It was only as Wrench explained these things, how he would detach the collar and ensure that the charge went into the absorber and not Nyah, that he would need to be very careful to cut the right parts at the right time, that Georgianna fully understood how Wrench had earned his nickname.
Finding Taye in his tent, idly strumming on a guitar that Nyah had scraped money together for months to buy him, Georgianna slumped down onto the thin mattress he used as a bed.
“Beck can’t give us men for a guard,” she explained. “But he got two items off the list, including the absorber.”
Taye looked disappointed about the guard, but he couldn’t exactly be angry when Beck was offering them an absorber to use.
They made their way down to the Junkyard, though this time, instead of leaving Georgianna at the outer fencing, Taye took full responsibility for her with the guard and led her inside through the stacks.
The place was a maze, and an exciting one at that. Every way Georgianna looked there were different things to see. Every few seconds she had to stop herself from squeaking in excitement as she spotted something that she could use, and every thirty seconds or so, had to hold her
tongue from asking Taye what the hell something was.
Finally coming to a break in the stacks, Taye turned to her.
“Ok, so what do we still need?”
Georgianna tugged the journal back out of her bag and opened it up. She counted down the list once before she went back to the top, glancing around her as she did.
“Ok, a silver or gold knife, a pair of hide gloves.”
“He doesn’t have gloves?” Taye asked, cocking an eyebrow in amusement.
“Burned out, apparently,” Georgianna explained. “Shows he’s done it enough times, I guess.”
“I guess,” Taye repeated. “What else?”
“Umm,” Georgianna murmured, scanning down the list. “Rubber sheeting.”
Taye nodded, glancing in each direction leading off from the gap in the stacks before he nodded more firmly. Setting off down the gap in front of them, he walked a few metres before stopping, looking at the shelves in front of him. Georgianna had to admit, it was pretty cool that they’d managed to build shelves in here. She could only imagine how it would have been if they hadn’t: piles of objects and supplies, with the thing you wanted down at the bottom. The problem, however, quickly became apparent as Taye looked up, and realised that even he wasn’t tall enough to reach the top shelf.
“Here,” Georgianna suggested, slipping the strap of her bag from her shoulder and dumping it on the floor. “Give me a leg up.”
Taye stepped away from the shelves, interlinking his fingers into a cradle, which he bent down to hold at a decent height for Georgianna to put her foot in.
“Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Alright, up!”
Georgianna was pushed into the air. Kicking out, she placed her other foot on one of the mid-level shelves, pressing more weight onto that foot and using Taye to merely keep her steady as she picked up a box and lifted it from the shelf with one hand, peering in. She quickly replaced the box and took the next one, finding that it had the knives they wanted. A little blunter than perhaps would have been useful, Georgianna glanced down at Taye.
