Haven (The Orbit Series Book 2)

by J. S. Collyer

  “You’ll get me out of here?” the clone asked Dana quietly. “Once it’s done?”

  She turned in her chair and met his eye. “I will.”

  Webb closed his eyes. His fingers instinctively went to touch the scars but he visibly stopped himself and rubbed his forehead instead. Hugo tasted guilt again but held his tongue.

  “Fine,” Webb said. “We’ll need some sort of miracle to find the bastard now. But the quicker we do the quicker we’re out of here.”

  Hugo nodded, spirits lifting. “Dana,” he said. “Did you get anything out of Bryce’s systems?”

  Dana didn’t look at them but he saw her fighting a smile. “I just might have.”

  “What is it?” Hugo said, coming over and looking at the data on her screen for the first time.

  “Credit records,” she mumbled.

  “Bryce doesn’t use credit,” Webb said, coming forward. “He’s never left this colony in his life.”

  “He might not,” Dana continued. “But the bloodgrease traders do. And it appears he likes to keep tabs on their accounts, just like our unfortunate friend in the basement.”

  “He’ll just be tracking it to make sure he gets what he’s owed in labour and luxuries,” Webb muttered.

  “He could be using it to get haemorrhoid cream for all I care,” Dana said. “All that matters is that he was monitoring all bloodgrease traders’ credit streams and one of them has to be the Ghosts’.”

  “Which one?” Hugo prompted, peering at the data as she scrolled through it but unable to see any patterns.

  “Well I don’t know, do I?” Dana retorted. “I’m not a broker. I can see that he was dealing with at least three different rings,” she pointed at a loose grouping of numbers then two more. “And some of these are account codes…I think,” she said, pointing at yet more numbers. “From what Harvey said, the account codes will be able to tell us more than anything else.”

  “Webb,” Hugo said, looking up at the clone who had gone very quiet. “You think Jazz might be able to make something of all this?” Webb was still peering at the screen. “What is it?”

  “Part of this account code,” Webb said, pointing. “That’s our yard’s ID…Sector 4’s shipyard.”

  Dana shrugged one shoulder. “I guess yards need credit to trade off-colony for materials.”

  “Yeah,” Webb said. “But these are Sectors 2 and 3’s accounts,” he pointed to some more streams. “Notice anything?”

  “I’m not a poxy broker,” Dana snapped again and Hugo put a hand on her shoulder to quiet her.

  “The amounts are larger in Sector 4. Much larger,” Hugo said.

  Webb nodded.

  “But what does that mean?” Hugo said.

  Webb shrugged. “I don’t know enough to tell you.”

  “We need Jazz,” Dana said.

  “And how exactly can we speak to her now that you have so conveniently got us blacklisted?”

  “She wouldn’t turn you in,” Dana said giving him a narrow glance.

  Webb frowned. “I don’t know what you think you know, but un-think it. Jazz is a citizen, one who has probably done too much for us already.”

  “She cares for you,” Hugo put in mildly. “She would want to help.”

  Webb gave him a searching look and Hugo kept his face blank. Webb heaved a sigh. “Fine, I’ll try and get a message to her, but it will have to be next shift, she’ll be at the clinic now. And if she tells me to get fucked I will be doing just as she says.”

  “We’re getting close,” Hugo said.

  Webb held up a hand. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Commodore. We don’t know what Jazz will find or even if she’ll look. But we can try. And in the meantime, I’m beat. We should rest.”

  *

  Webb knew he would dream of black eyes in a pale face that night, but even knowing it would happen didn’t stop him sitting up in the dark, sweating and breathing like he’d done the run from the workshop all over again. The lighting panel was turned down to its lowest setting and he could only just make out Hugo and Dana’s forms huddled in blankets on worn pallets in the dark.

  He took a moment to get his breathing under control then lay back down, pushing his sweaty hair back from his face and listening to the whirr of the fan. He rubbed his brand absently, wondering whether it might be worth trying to get it lasered off now it was useless.

  Then he remembered how his skin didn’t seem to respond to the lasers and turned over to try and get away from the thought. He reached out in the dark and touched his fingertips to the wall, imagining he could feel all of Haven pulsing behind it. He hated the place, he was sure of it. The memories he’d inherited were not happy ones and his own were even worse. But now he was facing exile…he realised how he’d come to think of this place as home. In an Orbit in which he didn’t feel like he could ever belong, this colony had given him the chance to scratch together some semblance of a life. He admitted to himself now that when he’d run away and left Jazz before they’d closed their business deal, he hadn’t wanted to leave…his fear had just overridden everything else. He’d done nothing but drift since.

  He chewed his lip. When Hugo had turned up at his door, deep down, he had been secretly pleased for a direction.

  He sat up with a sigh, knowing there was no point in trying to go back to sleep while his head was in this place. He peered at the chrono on the workstation and figured Jazz should be back from the clinic. He grabbed one of the disused wrist panels off the shelf and eased himself out the hatch as quietly as he could. Neither Hugo nor his sister stirred. They both talked tough, but this had to be taking it out of them.

  He pushed those thoughts aside, determined to stay angry with them and straightened up in the dark passage outside the bolthole. A shiver ran over his skin but he made himself take a few paces down the silent betweenway before booting up the wrist panel.

  The light made him blink and illuminated a little of the ancient passage. The screen was cracked and the display took a few determined jabs to get it to obey. Either he’d picked a very old panel or Harvey’s friends didn’t care much about keeping the bolthole well stocked.

  Eventually he found the old hardware’s equivalent of a communicator and punched in Jazz’s code from memory. It flashed ‘Connecting’ for long enough to convince him Jazz was either asleep or not answering the unidentified number when the flash faded to a steady green light and Jazz’s voice came from the tinny speakers.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jazz, it’s me.”

  “Ezekiel? What the hell? I’ve been trying to get you for hours but your comm’s off. What the hell has happened?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Webb said, wondering where to start. “Something…kinda…came up.” He was so familiar with Jazz’s silences that he could tell the one that met this comment was a disdainful one. “Look,” he began.

  “Don’t,” the broker said, then, after a sigh. “Don’t explain. You don’t have to. But I will let you know that your little stunt at that workshop is all over the newsreels. They’ve put up pictures too. Whatever you were planning, you should give it up and run.”

  Webb chewed on his lip. “They’ve impounded Nod.”

  Another silence. “That’s not good.”

  “No. No it’s not. Look, Jazz, I agree with you. We should run. But we can’t so…we’re not. Not yet.”

  “Zeek,” Jazz began, a warning in her tone but Webb cut her off.

  “Hugo is determined. I still owe it to him and his fruit-loop of a sister to try and help them survive this idiotic venture. Plus, Dana is now my only way out of this colony with my neck still in working order.”

  She sighed. “What are you going to do?”

  Webb hesitated. “Bryce had trader data. Account data by the look of it.”

  “Is that so?” Jazz said a little too casually.

  “It might be the key to finding the Ghosts,” Webb said, trying to sound more hopeful than he was. “Would you take a look at
these numbers, see if they tell you anything?”

  There was another long pause and Webb wondered whether he could sense more of their friendship crumbling away. “I can take a look, if you really think it will help.”

  “If it doesn’t,” Webb said after a shaky breath. “Maybe I can convince the Hugo duo to give this up and we can get out of here.”

  “You’ll be gone for good this time.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Where should I meet you?” Webb asked after an awkward silence.

  “I’ll come to you. It’s safer. Where are you?”

  Webb frowned and stared around the dark passage. “Do you know I haven’t the faintest damn clue. I’ll see if this wrist panel can tell me,” he said, looking at the old locater without much hope.

  Another sigh from Jazz. “I’ll find you. Keep that panel on. My tracker should be able to find it. But we’ll have to be quick because I’m due in the clinic again next shift.”

  “Great. And…Jazz?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  She sighed again. “Just try and not threaten to blow anyone else up before I get there, ok?”

  Webb smiled as the connection cut then rubbed his eyes, took a breath and ducked back in the bolthole.

  “Rise and shine,” he said, keeping his voice clipped.

  “Wha?” Dana grumbled, sitting up and blinking.

  “You wanted progress,” Webb said, flicking the switch on the lighting panel and flooding the room. “Jazz is on her way to see if this data of yours is actually going to help us any.”

  Dana muttered darkly and shoved back her blankets. Hugo had already rolled his up and was putting them away in one of the many cupboards. As soon as Dana had shoved hers away she resumed her place at the workstation.

  “Harvey never told me about these betweenways,” Hugo murmured as he pulled open a door next to the lockers to reveal a cramped washroom.

  “Maybe you should have asked her more questions,” Dana said.

  Hugo glared at his sister and shut the washroom door behind him.

  “Hey, Dana,” Webb said after a moment. “Your brother’s a good man, you know. You should cut him some slack.”

  “You think you know him. You don’t. He’s just like the others.”

  Webb gave it up and helped himself to a Nutripak, slumped cross-legged on the floor and tried to see what sort of specs the wrist panel had. Hugo came out of the washroom with the ends of his hair still damp and stood over Dana to watch her work, his face clouded. Webb was momentarily startled by how similar they looked when they were concentrating.

  He shook his head and turned his attention back to the wrist panel. He was just beginning to suspect that it didn’t have a range wide enough for Jazz to be able to track them down when it beeped.

  Webb activated the comm “Jazz?”

  “Zeek? My tracker says I’m right on top of you. Where the hell are you?”

  “What can you see?”

  “I don’t know…relay sheds? Storage bunkers?”

  “Sit tight, we’ll come get you.”

  “I’ll go,” Dana said, already heading for the hatch. “You’ll only get lost.”

  Webb and Hugo didn’t say anything and barely looked at each other until Dana climbed back through the hatch with Jazz in tow. The broker blinked around the bolthole, but Dana ushered her straight to the workstation.

  “It’s all there,” she said.

  Jazz threw Webb an unreadable glance then sat at the workstation and started typing. He came and leaned over her shoulder as she frowned at the numbers.

  “Does it mean anything to you?”

  “Yes,” Jazz said.

  Hugo came forward with Dana crowded around the screen too.

  “What do you see?” Hugo asked.

  “Is Sector 4 looking weird to you?” Webb said.

  “It all looks weird to me. The refinery shouldn’t have this much credit. And there’s no legitimate reason for them to transfer it to the Sector 4 shipyard.”

  “That’s what they’re doing?” Webb asked.

  Jazz nodded

  Dana straightened up. “Why wouldn’t a refinery have credit? Don’t they deal the bloodgrease?”

  “Not for credit,” Jazz said. “Refineries don’t need credit. They only deal on-colony.”

  “Or are supposed to,” Hugo said. “This must be illegal credit from the traders selling it in the Orbit.”

  Jazz shook her head in disbelief. “If the Elders knew about this…”

  “They don’t? Surely they know people trade this stuff off-colony?” Webb said.

  “They do,” Jazz said. “And they let it happen since the traders normally give them their fair cut. But I’ve never seen Orbit bloodgrease trade rack up these sorts of amounts. And none of it is going to the Elders.”

  “Bloodgrease traders with more credit than they should have…” Dana said. “This is what Harvey found.”

  “We don’t know that yet,” Webb said.

  “This is big,” Dana said, looking at Jazz’s face. “No one steals or lies round here. Smuggling credit? And lots of it?”

  “It’s big,” Jazz said.

  “We may have stumbled into some serious shit here, guys,” Webb said into the silence that followed.

  “Can you tell anything else?” Hugo asked, light back in his eyes. “Who in the shipyard the credit has gone to or why?” Hugo asked, still peering at the numbers like he was forcing them to make sense.

  Jazz shook her head. “I can’t. But to shift this kind of money with no one noticing? They’d need a broker. The broker would know everything.”

  “Can you tell who the broker is?”

  “I already know who it is. I can tell from the transfer signatures.”

  “Who?”

  Jazz looked between them all. “She’s a friend.”

  “So?” Dana said.

  Jazz’s face hardened. “So, it’s bad enough that I’ve found this out. I’m not going to drag her into some Outsider’s crusade.”

  “Jasmine,” Hugo began and Webb could see him fighting to keep his voice calm.

  Webb held up a hand. “Hang on,” he said. Both Dana and her brother were standing with shoulders tensed and arms crossed, determination etched into their faces. He wondered if they knew how alike they looked then shook it away. “Just, back off you two, ok? Jazz?”

  “Zeek,” Jazz said, keying in commands and the screen went blank. “I think you’ll agree I’ve risked a lot already.”

  “We just want to talk to her. That’s all. She doesn’t even need to know you’re involved.”

  “We’re not going to report her to anyone,” Hugo said.

  “No, but I should.” Jazz said, staring at the blank screen.

  Webb chewed the inside of his cheek. “Just let us speak to her. You don’t know, maybe someone’s got a hold on her and is making her do all this. Maybe we can help her.”

  Jazz’s usually calm face was drawn. “Fine,” she said eventually. “She’s called Celeste. We’ll talk to her. But I’m taking you to her to speak in person. Nothing’s going through comms that can be tracked.”

  “No problem,” Webb said. “Anything you say.”

  “And if I want you to leave,” Jazz said. “You do it. Or I’ll turn you in myself.”

  “Whatever you say,” Webb said again, keeping his face blank, despite the claw of hurt that hooked itself inside him at the look in Jazz’s eyes. “Consider us at your mercy. Right, guys?”

  Dana and Hugo nodded.

  “Thank you,” Hugo said, already going to the lockers to retrieve his cap and weapons.

  Dana didn’t say anything and Webb wasn’t sure he liked the calculating look in her eye.

  X

  Dana led the way back through the labyrinth of dark betweenways. Jazz followed her and Webb followed Jazz. He could tell even in the near dark the broker was tense. Hugo was close on his heels, hurrying them on with muttered orders.

&n
bsp; Even Webb had to admit this felt like they were finally on to something, but when they had returned to the gloom of Haven, he was taken over again by the sensation that time didn’t pass on this colony. The light stayed the same, the smell stayed the same and every shift was followed by another.

  Hugo telling him to hurry snapped him out of his thoughts and he trotted to catch them up. They returned to where they’d left the mopeds. Webb examined the two they’d stolen and removed the only part of their electronics he thought could be tracked, grinding the microchips under his boot heel. Hugo started his moped without flinching but as Webb sat on his own with Jazz climbing on behind him, he couldn’t completely suppress the wash of guilt.

  “You’re already blacklisted, Webb,” Dana said, looking at him with an arched brow. “Stealing that thing’s hardly going to make a difference.”

  “This could have been someone’s livelihood,” Webb said, fighting to keep his temper.

  “Shall we go?” Dana said, infuriatingly calm.

  Webb refrained from answering, not even mollified by the warning glare Hugo shot his sister. He turned on his engine and followed the Hugos out of the lean-to. It was mid-shift again and mercifully quiet in the twisting, narrow streets.

  “Will this broker talk to us?” Dana called to Jazz but Webb shushed them.

  “Let’s just try and get there without getting spotted first, shall we?” he called over the whining of the engines. Jazz directed them with instructions muttered into his ear. Her arms were warm around his waist but he felt too guilty to enjoy the feeling.

  It was almost two hours before Jazz was tapping his shoulder and saying in his ear to slow down.

  It was brighter here. He blinked and looked up and was startled to see they had come right up to the outskirts of the Planning District. Spires and towers, all illuminated in a bright, even green, reared up ahead. Some stretched almost to the hull and were shaped a dozen different ways but all uncharacteristically elegant. He’d never seen it up close before. It was like something from another colony…another world even.

  The light from hundreds of windows on dozens of floors, intersecting walkways and banks of floodlights pooled for miles, showing up the harsh lines in the concrete and metal structures around them. He saw for the first time in weeks just how dirty his clothes were.