by Steve Perry
She collapsed, let her muscles go limp, and dropped to the floor as the bioelectric bolt crackled from the man’s finger at her, singeing the fur on her left shoulder as she fell—
He was moving too fast to stop as he leaped for her, hands open to grab—
Formentara yelled, “Contact shocker!” but it was too late, Kay was already on her back and she thrust her right foot up hard in a kick at his crotch even as he flew over her—
The jolt of electricity surged through her bare foot from the contact even as she felt his testicles mash under her heel—
Kay blew out a hard breath and entered spokoj. She might be injured from the electric jolt, but she’d have to deal with that later. Now she needed the ability to move and spokoj-mind wiped away the pain that would hinder her—
She came up as Gee landed and turned to make another run—
She was ahead of him. She leaped, claws extended—
He tried to twist and step out of the way, and trying both at once was too slow—
She caught him across the chest with her right hand; the claws sliced through the green fabric and his pectoral muscles, opening four gashes from his left shoulder to his right side—
She caught his frown as he triggered his own pain dampers—
She was on him, but his bioelectric charge was depleted—
She felt a tingle, no more as she shoved him and swept his lead foot—
He fell onto his back and she dropped—
Formentara, yelling: “Don’t kill him! Don’t kill him—!”
At the last instant, she retracted her claws and hit him with a palm to the forehead, banged the back of his head against the floor, hard—
She saw the whites of his eyes roll up as he lost consciousness ...
~ * ~
Kay said, “I might break one of those restraints. Three should be sufficient to hold him.”
Formentara said, “Maybe. Or he could overload his Golgi stretch-reflex and snap half the bones in his body with the force of his contractions. Get loose, or kill himself, neither of which we want.”
Kay had glued the claw wounds on his chest shut and helped Formentara strap him to the augmentation table. He was coming around, blinking, disoriented.
“Can you get him to tell us what we want?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll be able to shunt stuff back and forth enough so he’ll talk.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Gee said. He managed a weak smile.
“You could have a dozen traps in you,” zhe said. “Now that I know what I’m dealing with, I’ll be able to find and disarm them all.”
“I don’t doubt it. But you won’t get that far. See you on the other side, hey?”
Zhe reached for a control, but it was too late. His eyes bulged, and the whites went red with hemorrhages. He exhaled, a death rattle, and was gone.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit!”
Kay looked at hir.
“He had a demand-explosive charge in his skull! A bio-bomb powerful enough to cook his fucking brain! Shit!”
Kay stared at the body.
Well. This could not be counted a major victory.
~ * ~
TWENTY-SEVEN
When the hopper landed, and they picked up Formentara and Kay, Jo caught the grim expression of Formentara’s face. “That bad?”
“Don’t fucking ask.”
Kay said, “We captured him. He suicided before we could question him extensively.”
“Before we got a fucking thing,” Formentara said.
“Not precisely so,” Kay said.
Zhe looked at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Consider what we did learn. Gee worked for somebody well-off. He was hired offworld and transported here, at what was probably no small cost, and he was willing to kill us and risk death, and when that failed, kill himself before he would give us the information we sought.”
Gunny said, “Yeah, so?”
Jo said, “So even if he was making a shitload of money for the work, what would possess a man to kill himself rather than just roll over on whoever hired him? What’s worse than dying?”
They considered that for a moment.
“And why an augmented Rel?” Gunny said.
Nobody had an answer for that one.
“We’ll see how much we can backwalk the late M. Gee,” Formentara said. “I have contacts who will know.”
“Might not need to know,” Gramps said. “We have the store manager.”
In the backseat, Sid sat staring at the ceiling, grinning stupidly.
Formentara said, “I’ll want to scan him. Make sure he’s not carrying a death pill, because they have been dropping like fucking autumn leaves around me.”
Jo nodded. After Booterik, she had considered that, which was why they decided to make sure Sid was stoned enough he couldn’t trigger a suicide if he was so inclined.
Wink said, “I’ll make sure he stays under deep enough so he won’t do anything foolish even if he is rigged.”
“The disruption at TotalMart is done, and they are screaming loud and repeatedly to every authority on the planet,” Gramps said.
Jo picked it up: “If Sid is innocent, he’ll be turned loose, and the Rajah will fix whatever needs to be fixed. TotalMart isn’t going to shut down a store making that much for the corporate coffers, and if they want to do more business here, the Rajah can stop it.
“If he is guilty, TotalMart will cut him loose in a nanosecond to keep the Rajah’s goodwill.”
“Nice to know how money works, isn’t it?” Gramps said. “All about the bottom line.”
~ * ~
Formentara scanned M. Sid and determined that he was free of aug and mechanical traps. Zhe stomped off to make some calls about the late M. Gee.
Wink ran his diagnostics and confirmed there weren’t any poisons set to release inside the store manager. He fiddled with the inflow of neurochem and put Sid into a more blissful state that made him receptive to questions.
Jo took the lead, with Wink standing by; Gramps, Gunny, Kay, and Cutter were in the next room watching through a one-way glass.
“How are you feeling, Sid?” Wink asked.
“I feel fucking great!”
“Good, good. My friend Jo here wants to ask you some questions, how would that be?”
“That would be fucking great! She is fucking gorgeous. I’d like to see her naked!”
Wink smiled. “All yours.”
Jo shook her head. “Let’s talk about the Rajah’s daughter, Indira.”
“Sure!”
“Do you know where she is?”
“Nope.”
“Do you know who kidnapped her?”
“Un-uh.”
“Do you know how a file that speaks to this got into your accounting records?”
“Yeah, sure!”
“And how did that happen?”
“I put it there.”
“Why?”
“Because Larro told me I should.”
“And who is Larro?”
“Larro is my best old friend from forever! We go waaaaaaay back.”
“And does Larro have another name?”
“Yes!”
Jo glanced up at Wink, who shrugged. “The chem tends to make them literal.”
“What is Larro’s other name?”
“Vattack. Would you take your clothes off so I can see you naked?”
“Not right now. Where might we find Larro?”
“Can’t find him.” He shook his head. His demeanor changed from giddy to sad.
“Why not?”
“He’s dead. And cremated.”
Jo and Wink exchanged glances.
“How did he die?”
“Hopper accident. It crashed. Poor Larro.” He started to cry.
Wink said, “Don’t cry, Sid. Think of seeing Jo here naked.”
Sid stopped crying. He smiled.
Wink’s earbud popped: “Got it,” came Gramps voice.
“Larro Vattack, age fifty-one, killed in a one-hopper crash three days ago off the southern shore of Lake Dep.
“Police reports indicate that the main repeller blew, and the safety couldn’t keep the craft from landing in the water. Emergency floats deployed, but the hopper leaked, filled with water, and Vattack drowned before help could get there. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. I’m digging into his background now.”
Wink shook his head. Vattack was dead and it looked as if that would kill their lead, too. Fuck!
Jo said, “Did Larro tell you why he wanted you to put that file about Indira into your accounting record?”
“Yes!”
“What did he say was the reason?”
“He said that it would be good for business.”
“Did he say how?”
“Yes!”
“And what did he say about that?”
“That there were people who would be more disposed to loosen regulations up if the Rajah was gone.”
Jo frowned.
“And how was this supposed to help the Rajah to, ah, go?”
“Larro didn’t say.” He paused, his face going sad again. “Larro’s dead now.”
“Don’t cry,” Wink said. “Jo is thinking about taking her clothes off.”
Sid went back to his happy face.
“Jo is also thinking about slapping that shit-eating grin right off Dr. Wink’s face,” she said.
“That would be fun to watch!” Sid allowed. “Especially if she is naked!”
Wink chuckled.
“How is Indira’s kidnapping connected to the Rajah’s leaving?”
“I don’t know.”
Jo asked several more questions, circling around the subject, but it was apparent that Sid didn’t have anything else of substance to offer. He’d done a favor for a friend that he thought would benefit them both.
Wink shook his head. Well. So much for this road. Zeth the Rel was dead. His brother Booterik was dead. The guy who had augmented Booterik was dead. The guy Sid could give them, Larro, was also dead.
It seemed an awfully convenient set of coincidences.
~ * ~
“So, what do we do with Sid in there?” Gunny said. “We gonna turn him over to the Rajah’s security?”
“He’s guilty of something,” Cutter said, “but I’d rather keep him to ourselves for now. No point in risking any more intel leaks than we already have out there.”
Gramps said, “So we are now looking at a conspiracy to kill the Rajah as part of the kidnapping?”
Cutter shrugged. “Maybe. We seem to be looking at something pretty convoluted, being run by somebody who isn’t taking any chances it will come to public light, and who is rich and ruthless enough to eliminate anybody who might try to do that.”
Gramps said, “Incoming call from XTJC for the colonel.”
Cutter smiled. “Put it on speaker, no visual.
“Cutter here.”
“Hatachi here.”
“Good evening, Colonel Hatachi.”
“You think so? I’m looking at a report regarding a major disturbance at the TotalMart upcountry in Dep-by-the-Sea. Something about a missing manager and an EMP bath that scrambled the entire store’s comnet.”
“I think I heard something about that.”
“Imagine my surprise.”
“Why would this concern J-Corps? Wouldn’t it be a local police matter?”
“Unless it was an attempt to screw with interplanetary commerce, which would put it into my jurisdiction. Big store goes down, it can cause a ripple effect.”
“That’s true.”
“Somebody footprinted the store with a warbird’s tuned EMP and bollixed the com and cam circuits. By the time security got it all sorted out, the store’s manager was gone and a cart driver and a couple of bodyguards woke up with trank-dart hangovers. Somebody with pretty good strategy and tactical skills shut the sucker down and waltzed the manager out.”
“Interesting,” Cutter said.
“Just before they went down, the store and parking-lot cams got good images of some particular customers coming and going, and they sure did look like military.”
“In uniform? You have IDs on them?”
“No, of course not. Facial recogware doesn’t match them to anybody we know, and I’d guess skinmasks made that so. Which is good; otherwise, I might have to make some arrests.”
Cutter waited.
“Look, we both know you did it. We also know it had the Rajah’s blessing, or you wouldn’t have gotten access to that satellite. And TotalMart doesn’t want to piss off the Rajah, so while local security is screaming, TM Corporate is not making waves. Nobody will back me up on this, but I don’t like it, Cutter, not a deminoodle’s worth. You are perilously close to stepping over the line, and if you do, I am going to hammer you into the ground like a piton.”
“Always good to know that the XTJC is on the job,” Cutter said. “Maybe once our contract here is over, you and I can get together and have a drink. I have a bottle of Hiram Connery’s White Label that’s about ready to open.”
There was a pause, then a chuckle. “White Label? You can afford that? If you aren’t in the stockade when you get done, I’d be pleased to raise a glass with you.”
Cutter smiled.
After the disconnect, Gramps said, “Scotch? You’re a bourbon man.”
“Yep. But Hatachi drinks scotch, and a bottle of White Label would cost him three months’ pay,” he said. “Probably be a good idea to buy some—TotalMart will have it in the locked liquor room. Be sure to get our discount.”
“ ‘Know your enemy,’” Jo said. “The Art of War.”
Cutter nodded. “Yep.”
~ * ~
Outside, with a rainstorm threatening to cool off the still-hot twilight, Jo approached Kay. “How was it with Gee?”
Kay knew she was asking about the fight. “He was armed, fast, and strong, but relatively unskilled. The end was never in doubt.”
Jo nodded.
Kay knew what she really wanted to know. “You would have defeated him.”
“You think?”
“It might have taken you a little longer than it took me.”
Both fems grinned at that.
~ * ~
In the com room, Gramps tuned the screen so Gunny could see it. He said, “I have chapter and verse on one Vattack, Larro Herome, and none of it tells us why he would have planted false information about the kidnapping. He was a businessman, he owned a string of warehouses up and down the coast in three countries, from Westwood, in Pahal, to Long Port in Depal, most of ‘em in Dep or the capital, and used mostly for agricultural storage. Guy was worth eight or nine million.”
“Another rich guy who ought not be involved with kidnapping for money,” Gunny said. “Anything else in common?”
“Nothing that seems to matter,” Gramps said. He sniffed. “Is that perfume you are wearing?”
“No. Body wash. Quartermaster said they were out of unscented.”
“Uh-huh. Wouldn’t have anything to do with that hot young bouncer you’ve been working, hey?”
“No more than your new haircut has to do with the businesswoman you’ve been talking to.”
“My, my. Spying on me?”
“You got room to talk.”
Gramps smiled.
~ * ~
Formentara leaned back from the subspace com and pondered what zhe had learned. Gee had gone to TAU. He had been a rising star on the biggest Venusian wheelworld, Vesta, he’d had fast hands and new ideas, according to hir sources, and was making good money in the Solar System as a backup augmentor. He’d space in, do something tricky, and move on. If you were good and willing to travel, you could always find work.
He was too fond of sampling his own product, and that was going to kill him eventually, but on a scale of one to ten, with most of the augmentors here being a one and Formentara hirself being a ten, Gee would have rated a four, maybe a five. He
could have make a good living staying in-system and ghost-programming for others.
