by David Finn
‘Do you think you’re going to save us?’
Winter was obviously in a chatty mood tonight.
‘From what?’
Winter’s laughter came on cue as she gunned down a troublesome looking bunch of gangbangers before accelerating through red lights, tires screeching. ‘Um, maybe the comet in the sky? The one about to destroy the city. You’re the big important “man on the ground”. Have we got a plan?’
He felt embarrassed. ‘Oh that. There’s a strategy group.’
Winter’s eyes rolled around sarcastically. ‘Well, I guess I can rest easy. Hey, have you thought of landing some guys on the surface, detonating a nuke? I’ve seen it work in movies.’
The Wolf watched her. He couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. Winter didn’t give him any clues, completely engrossed as she gunned the car through some fictional future city with a serious crime problem. The watch buzzed again. Iverson. Like a dog with a bone when he wanted something. A vacant unit who never called when he didn’t.
Wolf said, ‘That sounds like a bad movie script, not a plan. It’s more complex than that. The comet’s not fully in our dimension, it might never hit. This is all on the news-feeds, Winter. Freely open information.’
Winter shrugged and shot him a sweet smile. ‘I don’t really watch the news outside of sports results. Too much skewed data. The media is just a corporate lackey.’
‘So cynical for one so young.’
She shrugged, ‘But on the money. I’m just putting out ideas. And speaking of money, soldier boy, don’t forget to tip.’
‘Of course, Winter, see ya,’ he said, leaving an even five hundred by the table.
‘Later, babe.’ Winter gave him a fond wave and a hot glance as he left her room. She lived in a dormitory setup and ran her more personal massage business off the books.
Wolf hustled through draughty narrow corridors, still thinking about Winter and her tight body as he passed a few geeky college guys. He guessed there was probably ten years between them but it might as well have been a hundred years. Travelling with Josephine and being a party to all her deals had both aged and enlightened him. Winter thought him a spy, or an agent, but in reality he was caught between two lives, two worlds, and where his loyalty lay was a moot point. He stayed mobile and tried to keep things fluid.
It was cold and looked about to rain outside. Iverson was waiting for him in the carpark, leaning against a black Jag, looking severe in a black suit. Hair cut down to nothing. Face frozen pale. Iverson’s expression was a mask of barely repressed anger. Wolf resisted the urge to salute as he got close.
‘Sir, I’m—’
Iverson cracked a grin, breaking into a fond hug and clapping Wolf on the back. ‘You’re only human, brother. It’s been too long. Let’s grab a beer, or something stronger.’
Wolf wore a grin the size of Texas. ‘Cool, you wanna take it back to the Rocket?’
‘You bet,’ Iverson said, teeth flashing, a touch of grey visible in his close cropped hair. None of them were getting younger. And the crises kept coming and the deals got tighter.
The Rocket was a high class bar that catered to business travellers and understood discretion. Iverson and Wolf took a side booth. Iverson rarely touched alcohol but when he occasionally did he liked drinking strongly and getting hammered. Wolf drank whiskey. They waited till they got their drinks to start talking. Memories stirred.
Before Iverson, the only career options Wolf saw were bleak ones. It was live in the present stuff. The War was kicking up and most of Wolf’s friends had signed up. Some of them came back fast, a lot didn’t make it past first deployment. The War and the Service had hung like spectres over all of them back then—whatever pride they felt for the cause was outweighed by the cost. Most of the time it didn’t feel worth the effort. The same sergeants hustling the same streets, working on a quota, treating kids like numbers.
Pressed against the choices, Wolf had hustled small gigs down at the Portal Malls. School hadn’t panned out so well. A little bit of carrying parcels back and forth across the line. You didn’t ask anything extra about anything. Better not to know. Just stay fast and stay off the radar of the cops and the Investigators and the military and the crazies. Don’t touch the product. Don’t talk about the product. He’d been caught a few days after he was eighteen, flat out stealing provisions for a source. The Army had given him two choices and a ten cent pitch—five years prison or the Army Corps for a two year stint. No choice. So he’d punched through missions, barely caring if he lived or died, not sure who the enemy was, following orders. The Army Corps was packed with renegades, they all wanted pieces of what he could provide—and provide he did. It was what Wolf did best. Separate compartments, stay fluid. But the Army boys played rough and didn’t necessarily like a middle-man sweetening his end of the deal. They wanted wholesale prices for their pills and their product. They’d clamped down on his margin and he’d gotten desperate. He was down to about three months left on his tour and his last couple of hundred dollars when Iverson caught him hiding in a supply transport with more than one illegal weapon and a bunch of merchandise, all highly illegal.
When he first saw the tall white guy in a black jumpsuit enter the transport, reeking of Investigator, Wolf felt his whole world get bleaker, total monochrome. Fight or flight. But the tall, thin white guy that reeked of cop played an unexpected hand and things had worked out quite different.
Iverson waved his hand in front of his face, smirking. ‘Hey, buddy, you in there?’
Wolf jerked back to now. ‘Sorry, just remembering. It’s been a long time, William.’
Iverson cracked his neck and raised his glass. Wolf could see the strain. He didn’t want to ask the obvious question about his wife. If he’d found her, alive or dead, Iverson would say. That was the tenor of their relationship—formal but close.
‘Sure has, Wolf. But we’re here, alive, so fuck the world.’
Wolf nodded, clinking glasses. ‘Fuck the world.’
Iverson ran his hand across his scalp. ‘Ok, so how close are you to it this time, Wolf.’
Wolf laughed as Iverson sank deep into the couch, sipping his rocket fuel. His expression was almost vacant but Wolf knew he was all ears. He looked deep into Iverson’s eyes. Wolf swore he could see a red light. Iverson was recording everything.
‘I’m close, William.’
Iverson laid a small circular metal button on the table and pressed it. An electronic shield enveloped the cubicle, green laser reflections screening off the rest of the bar. Nobody noticed or commented. Soothing hypnotic waves floated off it. The drinks would keep coming. Suspicion wouldn’t. Wolf felt himself calm down, layers of cover peeling off.
Iverson gripped Wolf’s hand. Wolf saw the military signet ring. The emblem of the eagle pressed into gold. The Wolf blinked, trying to hold on.
‘She’s still missing, Wolf.’
‘Natalia sure was one good woman,’ Wolf said.
‘The best.’
Iverson smiled. ‘Although your little masseuse friend isn’t too shabby either.’
Wolf guffawed just as Iverson sank the needle into his finger. A tiny pinprick of blood which Iverson mopped up with a napkin while it coalesced on the skin.
‘Where is the Lady Josephine, Captain?’
‘Fled,’ the big man mumbled. ‘Fled with the assassin, Demorn.’
Iverson’s voice was smooth, friendly but not too friendly. His slender fingers rapped the table.
‘The assassin is dangerous. A random factor. I’ve heard of her, her reputation. Funny our paths should cross down here, so far away from the Front.’
‘She beat the city guards and escaped Hive Assassins.’
Iverson grinned. ‘I’m close to forty with a bad knee and I could do that, Wolf. But I like her.’
Wolf laughed.
Iverson flashed those perfect teeth. ‘You volunteered, Wolf. For all my missions, you volunteer.’
Wolf shook his head. ‘Vol
unteer for this or volunteer for an interment camp. What a choice.’
Iverson clasped his shoulder. ‘Don’t be like that. I never sent a single person to the camps. I use my assets.’
Wolf finished his drink. Iverson was leading to something, he could feel it.
‘Do you remember why you agreed to do this, Wolf? Do you know why you took this mission?’
Wolf nodded slowly. ‘Things were broken . . .’
Iverson pulled a tiny crystal from his suit. It shuddered in his hand. The Wolf seemed to wake through the fog that the device on the table put him in, coming up through layers of pacification.
Iverson’s voice was tinged with a hint of a preacher. ‘Look upon it, the works of Gods and Men! Look at our ruin!’
Wolf was dreamy. He dreamed out as the tiny red rock became multiple globes spinning around an invisible sun.
‘We have destroyed the world. We fractured the Universe. Do you realise that, Wolf? In our arrogance we broke the world and now we stumble, blind, breaking it ever more.’
Iverson caught the rock in his hand. The globes stopped spinning.
‘Is it this world?’ Wolf asked.
‘Does it matter? It was a world, filled with people, and they are gone. That’s why the Lady Josephine is so much more dangerous than the comet in the sky, or even the Prussian Front breaking for good. I can feel what this woman is capable of. She will break everything, until there will be nothing but automatons tending to a wasted land, beneath a sky filled with dead things that called themselves gods.’
Wolf nodded, his eyes huge. Iverson wore a solemn expression, barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes. A lot of his best people were holy rollers. Wolf, for all his jaded experience, had retained a remarkable faith in God. Iverson envied such strong faith. Built to withstand storms. Who was he, a cynical, disconnected Investigator who communed with his files and his computer, to tell them any different? He depressed the buttons and put the shield back into his suit pocket. The green laser vanished.
On cue, a hostess brought them both strong coffees.
‘No surprise that Josephine slipped the net again. Do you know where she would go with the heat on?’
‘To her safe house. High up in the private districts. You have to catch one of the undead cabs to access it.’
Iverson laughed. ‘What a bizarre city.’
As Wolf got up to leave, Iverson caught his arm. ‘Your masseuse.’
‘The college kid? Winter?’
Iverson smile was a twitch. ‘Sure. Winter. Cute name.’
‘What about her? She’s just a kooky college kid, good fun, no threat.’
‘Sure.’
Wolf gave him a hard glance. This wasn’t like William. Iverson didn’t care about who he dated, Iverson didn’t care about much but the mission. Looking in his haunted pale face, Wolf wondered where this mission was going.
‘The assassin. Demorn. Winter dates her, when she comes through town.’
Iverson paused to take a sip of his drink. ‘And she’s in town.’
Wolf smiled. ‘It’s a massage, she has plenty of clients. What do you want from me, man?’
‘I just wanted to let you know.’
Wolf didn’t know what to say. Sadly, what flashed through his head was a sequence of Winter and her tight body doing things he wanted. He wasn’t angry, just on edge and hungry for her.
He shot an embarrassed grin. ‘I’m just a client.’
‘You’re a friend. She only fucks friends. Demorn’s more. They go to movies together, they confide, they sleep over, probably plan their weddings.’
Wolf snapped, ‘I don’t care. Jesus, this isn’t high school! You need to loosen up, man. I don’t barge into your personal life shouting orders.’
Iverson raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. ‘Cool, sorry. Half my head’s back in the Front, I’m wound tight. Natalia is probably dead. My implant has been feeding me static channels.’
Wolf finished his drink. Iverson and his wife had a vibe that played heavy, always had. ‘Ah, it’s ok. Drama be dramatic.’
‘Just be careful. Has she asked you about anything important?’
Wolf remembered that chatty mood of Winter which felt days ago but was only a couple of hours, tucked up in her cozy dorm.
‘Nah. She just likes to play her Xbox. Winter’s chilled. Kind of sweet. I like her.’
Iverson gave him a smile of ice and pity. ‘I believe you, Wolf. Sorry to bring it up. Let’s get out of here.’
They left the table, Iverson taking care of the cheque. The lounge singer had started, a beautiful, older black woman singing a slow and heavy number. Wolf wondered what it would be like to not follow Iverson. Stay here instead, keep drinking good, hard liquor, get wasted and let this woman and her deep songs carry him into the night. Iverson could follow whatever trail he wanted. But Iverson was already heading for the door, polite to a fault as he threaded his way through the room with his typically inexorable purpose. There was no stopping now, Wolf knew. The mission was live and happening. A year of cover had led him into this city of gamblers and thieves, led him to the Lady Josephine and that whole bundle of crazy. Where she hopped, he hopped, and the line between truth and lies was indistinct, his compromises inextricably tied to his loyalties which seemed as fickle as the wind.
Without Iverson there to anchor him, Wolf felt he was two plays from shacking up with Josephine permanently. But there was never no Iverson, and Bay City was no more a destination than anywhere else, and Josephine was a mark and a target. His role a part in a sequence which he played from the fringe. Wolf left the bar. Death-horses neighed outside the club.
Iverson signalled a cab, clambering in, laughing about how the Jag could take its chances for a night. He seemed infected with some brutal, casual joy that Wolf couldn’t share. Wolf cast a suspicious glance upward to the comet. It burnt in the sky, oblivious to the machinations of gamblers and thieves.
It didn’t help that all Wolf could think of was Winter, her body lit up by some crazy red rock. He couldn’t remember what he had told her. He could only see her smiling, glassy eyes playing an Xbox game, her asides to him just sly drawls and laughs. If there was treachery Wolf wondered if it was himself who was the traitor. Wolf who pushed himself so deep into these situations where his cover had become him.
Iverson clapped him on the knee. ‘Hey, deep thinker, shake it off. It’s not all bad news and glum tidings.’
Wolf was blank. ‘Do you even know what Josie wants to do?’
Iverson leant back in the cab. His suit was slightly ruffled but suddenly he didn’t look drunk at all. There was a certain quality in Iverson that Wolf both admired and despised. ‘I can guess but enlighten me.’
Wolf felt loose and scattered. The magic and the alcohol pounded at his head.
‘She knows everything got messed up. She remembers. The whole world, the universe. Josie wants to put it back together. Says she has a way.’
Iverson was impossible to read. He looked out the window into the darkness.
Iverson said, ‘The universe is vast and we are small. How could one failed diplomat ever presume to fix so many things?’
Wolf realised the truth drug was running strong. His heart beat strong and wild. Nervousness and fear warred with his normal discretion, learnt from Josephine, his mouth watering to share confidential information. This was as much an interrogation as the scene in the bar. Wolf knew enough to know Iverson didn’t trust him totally. A part of them both was still in the transport from years ago. It was still fight or comply.
Wolf spoke, his words almost slurred as he fought them, then stopped caring. Iverson owned him more than anyone else.
‘Josie says she has a key. A way to reset everything.’
Iverson raised an eyebrow. Wolf shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s a key to a machine. I don’t know. She plays mysterious. But now she has the Asanti. The assassin.’
Iverson nodded. ‘Demorn. Quite the rep. I got a recap of what we
nt down from the local beat cops.’
‘Who?’
‘Lydia.’
Wolf snorted. Maybe Iverson wasn’t quite the master of the universe he thought he was. ‘Lydia’s not a cop! She’s private security for one of the casinos.’
Iverson was sarcastic. ‘For Triton. For the biggest gambling house this far South, they run the heat on the Souls Tournament, own the most fighters, take home the biggest cut. Lydia’s as much of a cop as Bay City gets.’
He had a point. ‘And you trust her?’
‘She served on the front with me, Wolf. We saw true horror. More than just the War and what men do to each other.’
‘Lydia’s been down South a long time, William. People change. They worry about whoever’s paying them right now.’
Iverson’s cool was implacable. ‘This is so much bigger than Bay City or the comet. Do you know where the Asanti came from?’
Wolf was puzzled. ‘A dead world.’
‘A murdered one. Killed by a malignant force. Order scientists theorise a reality virus.’
Wolf filled in the blanks. He had heard it all before, though it was of little interest to him. Wolf preferred something he could hit, shoot or make a deal with.
‘Ultimate Fate. The death cult myth. Do you believe in that mumbo-jumbo?’
Iverson’s grin was like a muscle twitch. ‘I haven’t got a religious bone in my body. Even less time for cults. These gods these idiot cultists pray to are demons, barely restrained from our reality. And by demons I mean parasitic reality bending aliens.’
Iverson pointed to the roof of the cab. ‘There’s nothing to trust up there, nothing deserving of our worship. The temples are coated in blood.’
Wolf whistled. ‘Wow, so you don’t like religion.’
Iverson drummed his fingers along the window. The cab kept rattling along the cobblestones. His voice was matter of fact.
‘The demons took my wife, Wolf. I’ll burn this world if I have to. They will never claim it.’
Wolf knew the stories about Iverson’s wife, but their relationship had never been overly close. It was a boss handling his operative. A pace and a distance that suited them both. Wolf realised it had been years since they were face to face. Iverson looked both older and colder.
