by T C Archer
“No one knew we were working together,” Brent said.
“We assumed no one knew. But Jimmy was ready with a real gun.”
Brent’s mouth thinned. “I heard the shot but thought it was sound effects.”
Fontana recalled Jimmy shooting the pool cue from her hand and became aware of the dull throb in her arm. She felt along her forearm down to her hand. The wrist and ball of the thumb shot pain up her arm when she touched them. This would take the bionanobots a little longer to repair than the tweaked ankle.
“He shot the cue stick out of my hand,” she said.
Brent’s eyes darkened. “You’re hurt? Fawn—”
“I’m all right. It’s no more than a sprain at most. I can always see the hotel medi-bot. You’re in worse shape than me. They banged you up pretty good.” Though the way he was pumping into her, she would have never known he’d been punched.
Brent shook his head. “I’m fine.”
Fontana shifted her attention to his neck where Pockface had slugged him. She traced the darkening spot on his flesh. “This bruise says otherwise.” He hadn’t so much as grunted when the men had hit him, or even when she’d been riding him like a Symbian bull.
“Really, I’m okay.”
She studied him. “What skill level did you tell them you had when you bought this adventure package?”
“I listed my experience on the university track team and the Ironman Triathlons I compete in every year.”
“That’s athleticism. Nothing special.”
“I did tell them I had moderate experience in combat training and self-defense.”
Fontana stilled. “Where does an engineer get that kind of experience?”
A sheepish smile spread across his face. “I fibbed.”
“You what—why not just throw in weapons, surveillance, and operations for good measure?”
“I did, as well as the fact I can run a three-minute kilometer.”
She stared. The fool. When programmed into the gaming algorithm, his answers would—had—created a high-level challenge. High enough to account for the use of real weapons and brute force? Stephaney would be more than right. Fontana had miscalculated right down the line—including not taking into account Brent’s part in this fantasy.
The only truth he’d told was that he could run. She recalled the bunch of his ass muscles that day at Spacer Jack’s. Running, biking, and swimming had gotten him into phenomenal shape. Did being in such great shape really prepare him for this fantasy? A thought struck. She was made for this type of fantasy, had wanted rough play, which was exactly what she’d gotten. She shook her head. The gods were laughing their asses off.
Fontana recalled seeing the woman in the car a few minutes ago and realized what had caught her attention; the woman was the Lauren Bacall look-alike. All amusement vanished. What were the odds of seeing her a third time in twenty-four hours in a population that never fell below three million? Was she part of the Track Cartel, or was Stephaney having Fontana watched? The upper floors of her hotel came into view though the front windshield, bright against the nighttime backdrop of streets.
“Give me your shirt until we can get to my room,” she said.
Brent looked shocked. “And go into public half-naked?”
She gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “For you, an underwear-only ensemble is overdressed. I, on the other hand, could get arrested going into the hotel in my underwear.”
“Anything for you, Fawn.” He began unbuttoning the shirt.
They drew closer to the four-story glass facade with onion-tipped spires on both sides. The guest suites, shops, pools, and restaurants extended behind the huge lobby in a two-story sprawl that couldn’t be seen from the street. On her first day there, she’d gone halfway around the curve to see what the property looked like from above. The hotel was in the shape of the letter H with the lobby in the shape of a hat topping the H. The pool area was inside the top half of the H, and a Babylonian garden lay inside the bottom half.
The taxi stopped as Fontana finished wrapping Brent’s shirt around her waist. They exited the taxi and started toward the entrance. They’d entered the hotel and had almost reached the inner hallway when the patter of sandaled feet echoed toward them.
“Miss Fontana. Please, Miss Fontana,” Ahmed called. “He can’t walk in here half-dressed.”
“We’re going directly to my room,” Fontana said.
“Oh.” He raised a finger. “A man was here, asking for you and the coat.”
She exchanged a glance with Brent.
He addressed Ahmed. “If I bring it here, can you give it to him when he returns?”
Ahmed bowed with hands clasped at his ample stomach. “I would be happy to, Mister…”
“Yari.” Fontana grasped Brent’s arm and started them forward again.
They hurried from the lobby and turned down the deserted corridor leading to her room. “We’ll have to order you some pants,” Fontana said.
They approached a T in the hallway. He slipped an arm around her waist and hugged her close as they walked. A laser flash fired to Brent’s right. His arms locked around her, and he dove for the hallway leading to the left. Another flash hit the wall as they landed nearly around the corner. Brent rolled them away with the momentum of his weight. Their shoulders slammed into the wall. Pain radiated up the arm she’d wrenched when Jimmy had shot the pool cue from her hand. Brent shoved to his feet, dragging her with him, and leaped for the opposite wall out of view of the shooter.
Fontana peered around the corner. At the far end, the edge of a man’s face was visible around the corner of the wall. He fired. Fontana jerked back as the beam bit into the wall beside her head. What the hell? Another real weapon on the fantasy planet?
“Who is it?” Brent demanded.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Was the shooter part of Brent’s fantasy package, or had the New Kenyian sent the man? Maybe the cartel?
Brent snapped his fingers. “Of course. They have me under surveillance. They know you’re helping me. I bet they’re amping up the challenge on my package.”
“My room is five doors down,” she said.
“Is it safe?”
“Safer than being out in the open.”
At the sound of pounding feet on carpet, Fontana peered around the corner. The man was racing toward them. He fired another shot. She yanked back and grabbed Brent’s hand.
“Time to test those legs of steel.”
They started at a run down the hall and came to a skidding halt at her door. Fontana thumbed the lock. The door dematerialized, and Brent shoved her through, then dove in after her as another laser shot hit the wall. The door flickered into solidity, then vanished. Sparks erupted from the doorjamb. The door became translucent amid a shower of sparks, then vanished again. A heartbeat passed, but the door didn’t rematerialize.
They sprang to their feet and met each other’s gazes. No door, no security, they mentally agreed.
They sprinted toward the French doors. Fontana felt an unexpected urge to laugh. This was the second time Brent was running from her room nearly naked, and this time he was dragging her along with him. They reached the doors, and he pushed them open. Laughter and the sound of water splashing filled the air. Brent started forward.
“Wait,” Fontana said. “We can’t let him open fire on innocent people.”
Not to mention, she wanted to know who the asshole was. She hesitated, suddenly realizing she couldn’t chance revealing to Brent the fact the Corps had her in hiding on Sagitariun or her personal mission. She’d have to let the man get away. Would he willingly go away? No, she decided. She and Brent would have to run together. But if anyone got hurt…
Fontana’s pulse accelerated. There had never been so much as a hint of crime on Sagitariun. Yet she’d been here all of five days and might get herself or someone else killed because she’d used the space station as a contact point for finding out what the Track Cartel was up to. Wouldn’t the Corps love the
fact that one of their soldiers single-handedly brought crime to the fantasy resort?
Yeah, Stephaney would be right yet again.
Fontana silently cursed, then grasped Brent’s hand. “Leave the doors open. He’ll think we ran.”
They hurried back to the wall that butted up against the bathroom. If the man entered the room, he wouldn’t be able to see them until he was even with the wall. She would have to be fast, but she could disarm him before he got off a shot—she hoped. Fontana pushed Brent against the wall, then pressed close beside him near the edge. She lifted a finger to her lips. He nodded.
A second later, the man raced past them into the room. Fontana leaped on him. He twisted as they went down, the weapon pointed at her. She seized his arm, but another larger arm seized the hand with the weapon, wrenching it back the second before they hit the carpet.
Brent was on the floor beside them, his fist crashing into the man’s face before the man could react. Blood spurted from his nose. Brent seized her shoulder and yanked her to her feet. She blinked. He had the weapon in his hand.
Fontana stared. “You sure you haven’t had Corps training?”
He hugged her against his side. “I played college roller-ball and am on the engineers’ triathlon team. Keeps me in shape.”
She couldn’t believe it. The man was genuinely enjoying himself. She’d wanted rough play. So did Brent.
Their attacker moaned. Fontana dropped to her knees beside him. She racked her brain for anything that would get Brent out of the room, but nothing reasonable rushed forward. Yeah, she was going to have to let the guy get away. But how to accomplish that when Brent was determined to save Sagitariun from falling into the sun—and save her from herself in the process?
Chapter Eleven
The man’s eyes opened, and Fontana seized his lapel and yanked him to a sitting position. “You go back and tell the Bull we don’t like being fucked with.”
Would Brent buy that a 1920s mob boss had sent a guy to get them with a modern weapon? For all she knew, it could be true. She hoped it was true.
Fontana stood, pulling the man to his feet, then shoved him into Brent’s arms. “Should we give him the same treatment Jimmy’s boys gave us?”
Brent grinned. “Got any rope?”
“Strip him.”
Brent’s grin widened. “Perfect.”
“I’ll get a towel. We’ll tear some strips, then tie his hands behind his back and toss him into the hallway.”
“You’re out of your minds,” the guy said.
“Probably,” Fontana said, and breathed a little easier. He hadn’t threatened to have the cartel come after her if she didn’t release him, which was exactly the threat a cartel member would make.
She took the weapon from Brent, and he began to wrestle the man’s coat off. She stuffed the weapon into her waistband and hurried to the bathroom. A muttered “Oof” and an indistinguishable curse followed her. Fontana returned to see that Brent had the guy on the floor, belly first, with his knee in his back. The man’s shirt lay on the floor.
“Not bad.” She laughed.
Fontana crossed to the dresser and pulled out the medical tape. Brent held him down while she wrapped his hands behind his back. When they had his pants and underwear off, Brent pulled him up. Fontana tracked her gaze down his body. He didn’t have Brent’s physique, but he was nicely built, and his package showed promise—though, at the moment, fear had the better of him, and he was about as uninspired as a man could get.
“I wonder what they’ll think when their boy comes home to roost as naked as the day he was born,” she said.
“You can’t do this,” the man said.
“I think the Bull’s words were I will.” Fontana gave him a broad smile.
“Who’s the Bull—” the man began, but Brent pushed him toward the front door. The man dug his heels in, but Brent outweighed him by twenty kilos. Brent forced the man over the threshold.
He whirled. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”
Brent laughed. “Tell the Bull that.”
He tried to push back into the room. Fontana whipped the weapon from her waistband and fired a shot at his feet.
He jumped back, eyes wide. “That thing is real.”
“You didn’t mind that when you were using it on us,” she said.
“I wasn’t—”
She fired again, missing his left foot by half a centimeter. He leaped back.
“You’d better get running.” She fired again. He jumped back another step. “If I take off a toe,” she said, “I can claim you shot yourself in the foot.” She fired again.
He whirled and raced down the hallway.
Fontana watched until he disappeared around the bend in the hallway, then turned. She looked from the open doorway to Brent. “He broke my door.”
* * * *
Morning sunlight bounced off the Arc de Triomphe in the distance as Fontana drank mimosas with Brent in a French Quarter café. Despite the fact the arch was a hologram, the replicated twenty-second-century Paris Boulevard was spectacular. Clunky robot waiters whirred between the tables, electric hover-cars shuttled along the street, and the tables had voice-activated menus.
This morning appeared to be a normal day, but Fontana had decided that being part of a Sagitariun fantasy package was akin to being committed to a psychiatric ward. Separating truth from fiction was impossible. Until she’d met Brent, she would have bet a year’s pay that doors wouldn’t be blown out as part of a fantasy package and lasers wouldn’t take bites out of hotel walls.
She set her champagne flute on the table and picked up a croissant from the plate sitting between them. “Were your previous fantasies as aggressive as this one?”
He shook his head. “No. I decided I wanted a little more action, so I updated my profile in hopes of increasing the challenge.”
Fontana paused in spreading chocolate across her croissant and lifted a brow. “By updated your profile, you mean lied.”
He shrugged. “I can’t be the first guest to do that.”
No, he couldn’t, and Sagitariun must know that. They couldn’t be naive enough to give such an aggressive fantasy to every guest who claimed to have such a hardcore background. They would have done due diligence with a thorough background investigation to make sure the vacationer could handle such rough sport.
Given the fact that her work background was highly classified, her public information contained only mundane information: born on Freedom IV, educated at Princeton on Earth, degrees in economics and political science, worked as a courier, and was currently a colonial consultant. But her training, undercover assignments, true employer, commendations, rank, and achievements remained off public record.
Yet the unexpected violence of the last two encounters would fit her real-life profile, which seemed to indicate that the resort knew she was helping Brent, had investigated her, and had discovered the truth. Given their neutral politico-economic status, Sagitariun Resorts, LLC was a powerful entity in this quadrant of the galaxy. Powerful enough to gain access to secrets? Was she stretching the facts to match the conclusion she wanted, or was the reason simpler: the cartel had found her?
“No word from Jimmy on the return of his boy?” she asked.
Brent took a deep draft of his mimosa. “I think we scared him off.”
Fontana bit into her croissant and closed her eyes as the dark chocolate slid across her tongue. She hadn’t had real chocolate in a decade. She released a contented sigh and opened her eyes. “You’ve got two more days on your vacation. Wait and see how much they increase your challenge before thinking we’ve got anyone scared.”
“Maybe three days,” he said. “I should hear from my agent this morning as to whether or not they’re going to add the extra day.”
An extra day with him would give her less time to think about what it was going to be like when he was gone. “How are your bruises?” she asked.
“A little tender, but the bionanobot
s did a great job.”
“It didn’t seem to bother you last night.” Butterflies flitted inside her stomach at the memory of their quick shower while they’d waited for a new pair of trousers to be sent up. Brent knew how to get wet…how to get her wet.
“Neither did your wrist.” He winked.
She raised her champagne glass. “You’re good medicine.”
He did the same. “As you are.”
They clinked glasses, and Fontana lifted the glass to her lips. She slowed in washing down the chocolate and croissant, startled by the contented warmth that rippled through her. The uncertainty of whether or not the cartel had found her and the unknown identity of their attacker had her worried. But she couldn’t deny that Brent made her happy. How much fallout would there be when they parted company? Did they have to part company?
Guilt surfaced. Could she so easily forget Jenny? No. She would stop the Track Cartel from intercepting Jenny’s remains before she reached Earth—which meant her time here on Sagitariun with Brent would be all they had.
“Maybe we should make the first move.” Brent’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Fontana nodded and took another bite of her chocolate croissant. “What do you mean?”
“Why not pay the Bull another visit?”
“The code probably isn’t there anymore.”
A waiter-bot trundled up to the table. “A message arrived for you, sir.”
“I’ll view it here,” Brent said. The table surface glowed under his plate. He slid the plate aside and read. “It’s from my agent.” His eyes moved across the screen another moment; then he looked up. “She wants to see me. That’s never happened before. Do you think they’ll cancel my contract because we’re working together?”
“If she does, we can lie around in bed for the rest of your vacation.” She could use the memories to warm her on her next assignment.
His eyes darkened. “True. Then start all over again when we get back home.”
When we got back home?
Fontana reached for her glass, then cursed the tremble in her hand. She willed her fingers into submission and lifted the glass to her mouth. “Where’s home?”
