All the other ships docked around it were being loaded with cargo containers using long arms that reached into a hangar overhead. “Are you sure it’s not moving day?” Spin asked.
“Quino has a massive shipping operation. Red River Crew’s biggest business is protection, that’s why it’s so busy here, people can do business here, live under the precinct’s shield complex if they’re lucky, or just get something across the sector and know it’ll get there.”
“For a fee,” Nigel added. “Probably a big one.”
“Sure, but it’s not like the Postal Service is still running. Well, except for a couple couriers, but they’re like fucking white knights: few, powerful, and so quick you’re not sure you’ve actually seen one.”
“You’ve met one?”
“Quino says he got a delivery from one shortly after taking over the Red River Crew. I wasn’t around then,” Dorian replied.
“That’s because they’re not real, the British Alliance just wants us to believe there’s some Postal Corps that’s still delivering.”
“Why would they lie about that?” Sun asked. “What’s the conspiracy this time, Nigel?”
“Just the great big B-A trying to convince everyone that they’re better than everyone else, more cultured than us. There’s money in that somewhere,” Nigel replied.
“There is,” Spin said. The Countess was technically attached to the families who brought the British Alliance together, it was one of the critical justifications for her title and role in the old monarchy, even though she knew it was a vestige of another time. The British Alliance did still try to project an image of long standing tradition and culture, that was fact, and they did use it to increase wealth in many ways. “You couldn’t image how much their reputation is worth, or what kind of premium businesses used to pay to be associated with them. I don’t know if that’s true now though.”
“No shit,” Nigel replied. “But the Postal Corps are gone now, right?”
Spin remembered meeting a tall, blonde man in a navy blue uniform when she was still a girl. She loved the gold epaulets and medals on his jacket and giggled at the toothy grin the stiff-backed man gave her while he waited for a seal bearing member of the Countess’ House so he could deliver a hand written letter. His ship was a shining metal wedge, and his uniform was just as spotless as that quick vessel. “I hope they still exist. Something like that can only increase the good in the universe.”
“Lady’s got a point,” Dorian said. “Would be good to run into someone who only has one mission for once, no hidden agendas or ladder climbing ambitions. Hey Ferrah, me and three good friends to see Quino,” he told one of four of the heavily armoured guards in front of the main doors leading into the east side of the precinct. “Set us up with an express car, yeah?”
“All right, Dorian, they scan clean enough.”
“Just set us up with an express car, I don’t want to deal with the gallery crowd.”
“Sorry, Zero just finished a fight, Quino is still ringside.”
“Fine,” he told the guard. “Get ready for a whole variety of drama and grounder trash,” Dorian said to Sun and Spin, looking over his shoulder.
The tall armoured doors opened, revealing a second set. They had been adorned with a shield and iconography that probably celebrated the police force that once called the thick precinct building home. The central images had been ground away and replaced with two large R’s with a C in the lowest spot using some kind of etching tool. The words ‘Red River Crew’ were etched alongside the corresponding letters.
They stepped into a boxy transit car with no windows and Dorian punched their destination into the panel. “Trash?” Sun asked.
“Whenever there are enough cyborgs here who will fight, are desperate enough to fight in the Precinct, Quino plans a few fights. Round robin, fight until you can’t, blood sport shit. Lots of money flies around, all the gangs are allowed to put fighters in, but no explosives are allowed. The gangs have to watch from their own places, except each fighter can have three crewmembers. It’s always trouble, someone outside the cage always gets killed.”
“Then why does he do it?” Nigel asked.
“He loved the cage matches when I knew him,” Sun said.
“The money is so huge too,” Dorian said. “The Precinct is one of the only places where people know the fighters are going to be scanned, and the fights aren’t fixed.”
“No way, how can you make sure?” Nigel asked.
“Quino pays to have fixers interrogated and killed. I’ve seen it done,” Dorian said.
“I believe that,” Sun said.
The transit car door slid open and the sound of a large crowd, the smells of sweat and smoke overwhelmed Spin. A room large enough for several hundred people had been cleared, and there was a heavily barred cage hanging several meters above the floor. The space was well past comfortable capacity, and the arguing Dorian mentioned was immediately evident. The worst of it surrounded a small group of people in yellow and black near the side of the cage. At least two dozen men and women in prominent colours – some of them obviously cyborgs with visible implants – were having a vicious shouting match. Blood and other fluids dripped from the bottom of the cage as a few men in plastic suits cleared what was left of the most recent losing contestant away.
“You ever fight here?” Nigel asked, wide-eyed.
“Three times,” Dorian replied without a hint of pride. “First three things I did for Quino after the rebuild.”
“What? You find out you’ve been rebuilt as a cyborg and the first thing he does is throw you into a cage match?” Sun asked.
While she was asking her question, Spin was watching how the people on the walkway were moving out of Dorian’s way as he led them to the middle, to the cage. There was only a little appreciation in how they looked at him, as though they thought he was a serious contender, but most of them regarded him with fear, some with alarm. Whatever Dorian did for Quino, whether it was in or out of the cage, it had earned him a reputation.
“I wasn’t exactly cooperative when I was switched on,” Dorian said. “It calmed me down.”
Spin wondered if it calmed him down, or brought him to heel as she watched Nigel’s reaction. Nigel’s eyes were darting between the cage in the middle of the space, Dorian, and something up ahead that Spin couldn’t see thanks to her height deficiency compared to him. Then she heard it, the sound of one voice cutting through the crowd. “Shut your fucking hole before I fill it with my boot! It wasn’t a fair fight, you’re right, your guy was overcharged and had an extra set of support servos!” The source of the voice came into view, it was a thick, heavily muscled man with transparent skin across his shoulders and chest. The glint of metal underneath that synthetic flesh revealed that he had most likely replaced most of his bones with a new reinforced metal structure. “The scanners caught it, and Zero over there said he wanted the challenge. I didn’t want the fight to go on, but when Zero says he can tear someone up, I believe him, and that’s what he did. So you take your scrap metal, pound of flesh, and his brain case home, and explain to your boss why the Raven Sky Crew is banned from the Precinct, got it?” The crowd surrounding him thinned, the group wearing yellow and black were the first to beat a hasty retreat.
“Oh my God, what has he done to himself?” Sun asked quietly, looking at the two-and-a-half-meter tall cyborg who had just dispersed a crowd of twenty with his booming voice.
“It’s the Red River Crew way,” Dorian said. “They would only allow him to take leadership if he replaced at least half of himself with machines, so he started with his bones to prove himself even more.”
Quino took a long drink from an amber bottle marked with a large M then put it down on the edge of a squared off set of box seats. “Dorian, good to see you made it back, I was about to push your button.”
“Got a little side tracked, and found some friends,” Dorian explained as he led Nigel, Sun and Spin to Quino’s side.
“If you didn’t end Chuck before you murdered Hoket, I’d care a lot more, but you’re not in trouble. Leaving Chuck where you did put the scare in those gutter rats.” Until Spin got close enough to see differently, she thought Quino was wearing a jacket that was transparent in the shoulders and open across the chest, but she was mistaken. His skin was pierced with loops along his back and sides, and grey cloth hung from them, draping down to the floor. She could see a shimmer above them, like there was some kind of energy all around him, and she suspected they were the source.
“Holy shit, is that Sun?” he said, a giant smile spreading across his human looking face.
“Good to see you again, Quino,” Sun said, offering him a hug as though he hadn’t changed at all since she’d last seen him.
A slight puff of air and the disappearance of the shimmer surrounding Quino told her that his personal shield had been lowered. He was very gentle with an embrace that was a little too long. “Man, it is good to see you. Where’s White?”
“You didn’t hear?” Sun asked, taking a pair of steps back. The slight aura of energy around Quino returned. “He tried to sell us to slavers through the UCA.”
Quino’s smile disappeared. “That piece of shit,” he muttered. “Don’t tell me Boro and his guys stayed after that.”
“Boro was sold too, got killed escaping. I don’t know about the rest of his guys.”
“Nigel?” Quino asked, turning to him. “You filled out, boy. I didn’t recognize you. Sorry about Boro, he was one of the best. Not just machinists, mechanics, but people. C’mon, let’s get to the office, I don’t want to give these Crew and Clan shitheads something to gossip about.” He led them part way around the cage, where Zero was having a woman with spikes jutting from her head in rows attend to his damaged mechanical arm. A hatch opened in the floor, and they followed Quino and two soldiers in heavy red powered armour down a set of stairs.
The office below was filled with holographic projections of different arenas, most of them were empty. One of the largest projections featured a larger arena with sun baked sand and a muscular man in a gilded loin cloth getting ready to announce new contestants. “The show doesn’t stop, not really, so the betting never stops. Zero is getting fixed up and will be fighting in the Gyro tomorrow.” He offhandedly pointed to an arena cage that was slowly spinning and tilting.
“Against the Noran?” Dorian asked.
“Against Noran.”
“He’s going to get killed. He’s not allowed to upgrade anymore and his balance is shit.”
“He doesn’t think so, and his career should have ended a dozen fights ago,” Quino said. “So I let him fight. I’m betting against him, yeah, but he’ll probably win just to stick it to me. You interested in vying for champion of the Precinct when he goes down?”
“No, Sir,” Dorian said.
“You know, I didn’t have a dick installed when you were put back together, but I don’t remember having a pussy put in either,” Quino sneered. “Go see Xem, she’s got someone for you to track down.”
“All right,” Dorian said. “Good seeing you again, and good meeting you, Spin. Here’s my ident, just in case you come this way.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll give them your ident, fuck off,” Quino said. Dorian retreated down the hallway in one direction as Quino led them in the other direction. “Something’s wrong with that kid. He won’t fight in the arena anymore, but he’ll kill anyone I point him to outside the cage. With his mods, he could take Zero out, maybe, definitely most of the ladder under him, but that wouldn’t clear his debt. Close, but not quite.”
“How much does he owe?” Nigel asked.
“Oh, that’s right, he’s your cousin, right?” Quino asked.
“Old friend.”
“Right, grew up together. I remember him telling me. I’m sure it’s more than you’ve got, if that kind of platinum landed on this world, I’d know about it.” They came to a broad set of double doors and entered a room wallpapered with displays of the megacity. They were enhanced by holograms that focused on different major events. A violent conflict between people on two skyscrapers was the focus of the right side of the room, and the arrival of a scarab-like ship atop the Precinct was the focus on the right. Before Spin could see more, Quino dismissed the holograms with a gesture. He sat in a chair that rapidly rose from the floor. It was transparent plastic on the outside, but was filled by water jets that caused the surface to ripple and push against whoever sat down. A long seat across from him did the same, and the trio sat down. “So you’ve come hat in hand to me now that I’m top dog of the Red River Crew.”
“No, actually,” Sun said. “We’ve got financing, that’s not the problem. What we don’t have is a fighting ship, but we have one we could trade for it.”
“I guess that’s where the one you haven’t introduced me to comes in,” Quino said, leaning towards Spin. “Spin. Who is Spin?”
“Escaped slave,” she replied as she ignored his inspecting eyes. One of those wasn’t human anymore. He was taking a scan. “Kidnapper, thief, and the financial backbone.”
Quino sat back, his seat shifting with his weight slightly. He didn’t speak, but looked the three of them over as if taking them seriously for the first time. Spin knew this game. If she filled the silence with more information, or some pointless quip, he would win. If he was a master negotiator, he was trying to keep them off balance, but it was more likely that he had some kind of connection to the solar system’s Internet. He was looking them up. Looking her up. She was about to find out if word of their wanted status had arrived.
“You’re a doll,” he said as though turning the information over in his head. “But who did you escape from? You’re rare, everything about you is behind an old Geist paywall, so even they thought someone might try to steal you if they knew what you looked like.”
“You’ll hear about it soon enough, but that doesn’t matter,” she looked to Sun, who nodded.
“We have this high speed luxury transport to trade, I thought you might be interested,” Sun said, projecting a hologram of the Fleet Feather into the middle of the room.
Quino whistled his appreciation. “Damn, I haven’t seen one of those in years. I’ll give you three hundred million plat right now for her, a little high, considering the damage, but I know having a sky chariot like that will make an impression. Especially if I install a new shield.”
“We need to trade for a better armed ship,” Sun said. “We’re going to need firepower where we’re going.”
“Sorry, can’t help you. All the Crews are fighting the Nays, and when we’re done taking those anarchists out, we’ll go right back to fighting each other full time. This is the wrong system to find an armed ship in. Now, if you have a couple months to spare, I could convert something for you. Something bigger, more cargo space, maybe almost as fast with custom guns like you’ve never seen,” Quino said.
“You don’t have anything ready you could trade to us? I mean, I could pick up a ship with racks and class five firepower in Owano for two-twenty-five, and that’s with thrusters to match.”
“That’s Owano, not here. I’ve got people off world raiding ports that’ve been taken over by AI’s and hitting dead worlds, looking for anything that has a gun and will turn on just to keep pace with the Nays so I can hold this place. Why don’t you and miss money here go hit Lokun or Siritis, they’ve got more ships than they can handle and only take plat.”
“That’s in the wrong direction,” Nigel said.
Quino laughed and pointed at Spin. “You’re hers,” he said. “You were that doll that got away from the Countess on Bad Bot day! No wonder White turned you over, you were probably his retirement plan once he managed to get the UCA to cough up their private most wanted list.”
“Private list?” Spin asked.
“Yeah, it’s the special most wanted. The ones the ultra-rich and super connected pay them directly to retrieve. If everyone knew it was real, they wouldn’t exactly lo
ok like the good guys to the liberation folks, people like us. People who hate slavery. Makes them look like a bunch of thug bounty hunters.”
“You seem to have quite a few slaves yourself,” Spin said.
“People owe me money and can’t pay,” Quino said. “They do the jobs I think they can take, the ones that will get them out from under debt as fast as they can. For your buddy, that’s assassination for hire. He’s the Red Crew murder man.”
“Slaver,” Spin said quietly. Her temper was getting the better of her.
“Not for a fucking minute! I could let the kid sweep floors and clean toilets, but he’d be here for a hundred fifty years!” Quino shouted, his voice so loud that it made her ears ring. He shifted and settled in his seat then shook his head. “This one knows how to get under people’s skin,” he laughed. “Draws you in with honey and hyacinth and slips the blade right in. You tell her that guilt grinds me? Or did she figure that out on her own?”
“I barely had time to tell her anything,” Sun said.
“What’s your bond to her? She paying you?” Quino asked.
“She saved me, and she’s my friend.”
“Well, it’s still no on the ship, but I’ll have my people repair your ship. Cost, no labour. It’ll be done in three days.”
“You haven’t seen the damage,” Nigel said.
“I have,” Quino said, pointing to his temple. “Little brain bud in here’s got me connected to all the major networks. Probably cost you thirty-five thousand in parts if you want some armour with your plating, twenty if you have stamped plat.”
“Molecularly stamped and certified United Core World Authority platinum?” Spin asked. “I’ll give you twelve thousand.”
Cool Pursuit: Chaos Core Book 2 Page 7
