by Sarah Noffke
What if I let them down?
“I think they’re waiting for you,” Lars said, still in the pilot’s seat, conducting post-flight checks. He indicated the back, where Knox’s father and Hatch were pretending like they were confused—for five minutes, they’d been debating whether the old house was the one on the right or the left.
Thanks to the cloaking technology of the Q-Ship, Lars had set it down in the shabby overgrown yard that stretched in front of the abandoned houses. Knox knew which house was his. Maybe his father really didn’t remember, since his mind hadn’t been the same after the Tangle Thief, but it was more likely that Hatch and his father were waiting for Knox to wake up and join them for the mission that he’d been brought here for.
“Yeah, I know,” Knox told Lars, and peeled himself out of the seat, giving his friend one last uncomfortable look.
“Hey,” Lars called when Knox had started for the back of the ship.
“Yeah?”
“It’s not easy to return home,” the pilot said softly.
Lars knew some of what Knox was going through. Lars had to return to Kezza when he thought that he’d never see his family again. Although their past was different, Lars could still relate.
“Yeah, it feels weird,” Knox admitted.
“That’s because whatever you think you’ll find in there,” Lars pointed through the window to the dilapidated house across the yard, “is a part of who you used to be.”
Knox swallowed, rubbing his calloused fingers together. “I guess I don’t understand why that would make me feel strange.”
Lars offered Knox a rare smile. It looked odd on the Kezzin’s usually serious face. “It seems to me that you’ve spent a lot of time looking forward. Maybe it’s tough for you to look back.”
Knox’s chest tightened. He shrugged to try and cover the sensation. “Yeah, maybe.”
“I bet you wouldn’t ever look back, if you didn’t have a good reason,” Lars said honestly.
“Yeah, if only the galaxy’s future didn’t depend on me.” Knox laughed morbidly.
Lars didn’t join him. Instead he continued checking the gauges, his interest suddenly back on his work. “Sometimes, Knox, the universe gives us gentle nudges. I’m guessing that you’ve ignored those.”
“So I’m getting pushed, is that it?”
“If we’re all connected, then fighting our personal demons is as important as fighting the biggest bad guy out there.”
Knox turned his back on his friend, irritated by what Lars probably thought was sage advice. He knew he was trying to help, but Knox wasn’t in a place where he knew how to accept advice.
Fletcher ducked his head around the open door. “I’ve swept the whole block. All is clear. You ready?”
No, Knox thought stubbornly. But he forced the corners of his mouth up and faked a smile. “Yeah, sure thing,” he lied.
CHAPTER SIX
Alpha-line Q-Ship, Landash City, Ronin, Behemoth System
The Q-Ship hovered in place before turning one hundred and eighty degrees so Julianna could spot the Otterbots’ ship. The rusty vehicle had dropped straight down before parking against the far wall of a large underground warehouse. Dim lights showed that the room was cluttered with equipment around the perimeter. Five single-person flyers sat in a line where the landing ship had parked.
“Assassins are fucking filthy pigs,” Eddie observed.
“Well they are worse than pirates, so I can’t say I’m surprised,” Julianna stated.
“You think so? Pirates are the lowest of the low, I thought.”
“Pirates kill others for their riches,” Julianna reasoned. “But assassins kill others for someone else’s money.”
Eddie nodded. “Yeah, I never understood how someone could take a blind order to kill. I’m no saint, but at least every fucker I’ve blotted out deserved it. I know that with certainty.”
Julianna gave him a skeptical look. “What about that one guy at that bar that got in the way?”
Eddie shrank back with a confused look, but quickly recovered, shaking his head. “Don’t fuck with me. That never happened. I don’t miss a target and hit the innocent.”
Julianna smiled to herself. “You haven’t missed yet, Teach. Yet.”
Taking out six cyborgs assassins wasn’t going to be easy, but Jack had been right to send only Eddie and Julianna. This could get ugly fast. Storming these guys wouldn’t have been the right strategy; assassins reacted too fast for such an approach. Instead stealth would be Eddie and Julianna’s best advantage. Oh, and being fucking badass.
Julianna secured her armor before checking her weapons. She had a pistol strapped to each leg, a set of sheathed blades on her hip, a round of Hatch-perfected grenades in her pocket, and a rifle in hand.
When she looked up, Eddie was giving her a curious expression. “What?” she asked.
“I think you have room for another weapon,” he said.
She shook her head at him. “I wish I had the tri-rifle.”
“I seem to remember you got that amazing weapon blown up,” he teased.
“It was you, Teach, and you damn well know it,” Julianna said, trying to make her voice sound threatening.
Eddie slid up to the door for the Q-Ship. He glanced over his shoulder at Julianna. “Ever notice that you slip between calling me ‘Teach’ and ‘Eddie’?”
Julianna shrugged. “No, why?”
“Just think it’s curious,” he said coyly before opening the hatch door.
Saddal City, Ronin, Behemoth System
Knox was the last one to step into the boarded-up house. He kept expecting something to rattle around inside of him, but he mostly felt numb. Surprisingly, the house didn’t look much different than he remembered. It had been plain to begin with. Now the peeling paint and dust-covered surfaces only made it look like a washed-up memory that belonged to someone else.
A hand clapped him on the shoulder. Unhurried, he turned to find his father staring at him with watery eyes. “How are you doing, son?”
Knox’s mouth fell open, but he simply shrugged.
His father offered him a tender smile. “It’s a lot to process. It’s been over ten years since you’ve been here. Be gentle with yourself.”
“Or…” Hatch said, drawing out the word, “push yourself to remember what your subconscious is trying to hide.”
“Hatch,” Cheng said in a protective tone.
“The boy is tortured,” Hatch said, waving a tentacle in their direction. “The sooner he remembers what happened to the Tangle Thief, the sooner he can be done with this.”
Knox couldn’t help smiling at Hatch’s practical nature. The Londil definitely didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing. Maybe that’s why Knox had preferred his attention more than his own father’s lately. After ten years of separation, one might think that father and son would long to catchup. But when Cheng looked at Knox, his eyes were haunted by regret.
“I need a minute,” Knox finally said, setting off in the direction of his old bedroom.
It was the first door on the left, right next to his father’s room. The workshop was in the back; Eddie and Julianna had told him that he’d disappeared from that room. It was where the receiver for the Tangle Thief had been located.
Why don’t I remember any of this?
The door to his old room squeaked mercilessly as it opened. The room, which he actually remembered, was fairly clean. Action figures stood on a shelf on the far wall. A chest full of building blocks and loose parts sat next to a lumpy bed. The memories didn’t rush back. What was I expecting?
“I remember that you used to rummage through my trash bins in my workshop,” Cheng’s voice said behind him.
Knox turned to find his father framed in the doorway.
Cheng pointed to the chest. “That’s where you’d keep all the parts I’d thrown out.”
“Oh,” Knox replied, not sure what else to say.
Cheng strode farther into the room, stopping in
front of the chest and peering down at it. “I used to tell you that it was trash, and that’s why it was in the rubbish bin.”
“Yeah, I remember that,” Knox said, pushing his hands into his jean pockets. This didn’t just feel weird anymore. It felt wrong. Like he’d broken into a stranger’s house with a stranger in place of his father.
Cheng turned, giving Knox a pained smile. “Do you know, I started throwing out perfectly good parts just so you’d have something useful to tinker with?”
Knox’s heart palpitated suddenly. “You did? That’s weird.”
Unabashed, Cheng shrugged. He squatted down, opening the chest. “Maybe it seems a little strange. I just always thought that you’d go on to do something great if I gave you the right tools.”
“Little did you know that I’d go on to lose the tool,” Knox said morosely. He knew this self-defeating attitude was doing him no good; he was starting to get on his own nerves. But it was hard to stop abusing himself, now that he’d started.
Cheng held up a mess of wires and bolts. “What was this, anyway?”
Knox nearly choked on the spit in his mouth. The memories blasted him like an assault rifle. The walls within his mind that had prevented him seeing his past came crashing down. The dust cleared showing him what had eluded him.
He used to pretend to make whatever project his father was making. The object his father held up was Knox’s version of a Tangle Thief. He remembered that he’d been holding the other part of it when he left his room. He remembered! Memories were rushing back to him.
He saw clearly in his mind the day his father disappeared. Knox had opened the door to his bedroom. The living room was empty.
“Dad?” he’d called out, his crummy version of the Tangle Thief in his hands.
Guessing his father was in his workshop as usual, Knox headed in that direction.
The memories were clear now, like photographs that had recently been taken.
He remembered walking into the workshop… His father wasn’t there, but part of the Tangle Thief was. And it was glowing. Knox wasn’t scared. He’d been trying to find his father all day, using his own Tangle Thief, but of course it hadn’t worked.
Knowing that this was his best chance, Knox reached out and grabbed the glowing Tangle Thief his father had left behind. With the receiver in his hands, he operated it the way he’d seen his father do when configuring the settings.
Knox whipped his head up, an urgency in his eyes.
“What is it?” Cheng asked, sensing the immediacy in his son.
Knox didn’t answer. Instead, he spun around and sprinted out of the room, through the living area, and into the workshop.
Hatch looked up at Knox’s sudden entrance, and Knox’s eyes fell to a burned section in the middle of the floor. That was the last place he’d stood.
Hatch indicated to the spot with his tentacle. “A tear was opened right there it seems, probably after you were transported, and definitely after we’d searched the house for you two. Thankfully it appears to have closed naturally, but this is an example of the repercussions of using the Tangle Thief.”
“Are we in danger?” Knox asked, staring around the old workshop.
“Radiation levels appear to be normal,” Hatch reported. “A few years ago, they were probably lethal.”
“And every time the Tangle Thief is used, it will open one of the tears in the universe?” Knox asked, even though he already knew the answer. He was talking because it was easier than facing the truth.
“Yes, as you damn well know, the Tangle Thief creates tears when used. And these tears will get larger and larger, as it is used more often and for bigger jobs,” Hatch said, waddling over until he was standing right in front of Knox. “Now, you want to tell me why you’re staring at that spot?”
Knox pulled his gaze away from the floor, not quite looking at Hatch. “It all came back to me. I remembered everything that happened. I remembered using the Tangle Thief to find my father.”
“You did?” Cheng asked at Knox’s back.
He couldn’t bear to turn around and face his father, so he continued staring at the floor.
“But…?” Hatch asked.
“But…” Knox covered his head with his hands. “But after entering Area 126, I can’t remember anything else.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Landash City, Ronin, Behemoth System
Brodie ran the polishing rag over the hilt of his katana, his attention momentarily distracted as Dec’s ship landed.
It’s about damn time, Brodie thought.
He’d been on watch for most of the night and was fucking tired as hell. The metal on metal in his spine crunched as he stood from his station by the entrance to the Otterbots’ headquarters. He picked up the raccoon hat he loved almost as much as his sword, and stuck it on his head.
The katana had been a gift from his father, who didn’t know that the same steel would be operating his son’s body one day. Because of the damn Trid scientists, he was currently seventy percent machine. They had said that he should be happy to be alive. Then they’d laughed at him and called him ‘Rabid Raccoon’ and a ‘dysfunctional otter’.
Those scientists hadn’t been laughing when Brodie lopped their heads off with a single stroke of his sword.
The hat, which was starting to lose some of the hair on the tail, had been a gift from his grandfather. He used to tell Brodie stories of raccoons tearing through his garbage back on Earth. His grandfather had tried time and time again to catch the creatures, but they’d always foiled him. ‘Trash pandas’, he’d called them.
His grandfather learned the animals were attracted to metal. He fashioned his own version of a bear trap, right out in the open with no bait in it. The racoons’ own curiosity got the better of them, and it was one such unlucky animal whose fur made Brodie’s hat. He somehow related to the animal, as strange as it was to admit. His own attraction to metal had been both his undoing and his saving grace.
Brodie slipped his father’s sword into the scabbard at his back as Dec lumbered around the ship. The obnoxious Trid wore a crooked smile across his face that was flecked with blood. So the mission was successful, it appears.
Dec’s lower half was titanium, which meant that he made a shit-ton of racket when trotting to his bunk at night. His shark face was completely intact, which was too bad because there was nothing good about the pointy nose or black eyes.
Brodie still couldn’t believe he’d partnered with a Trid, but the money was good, so who cared if they killed a few targets to stay alive?
It was about survival of the fittest, and they were the strongest around.
“Hope we’re having steak, because I damn well deserve it,” Dec yelled, shouldering his giant gun.
Brodie was opening his mouth to tell the fucker off when, almost silently, three bullets ripped into Dec, the last one going through his head. Dec stumbled forward, blood bursting from the wound on his head, before he fell.
Behind Dec stood two figures. A tall man with a fierce expression who held a rifle, and a defiant woman, her hands calmly by her side.
These fuckers picked the wrong place to raid, Brodie thought, pulling his sword and. whipping it up sharply, swinging it through the air in a blur.
The man fired his rifle, but sharp movements of the katana easily deflected the bullets. This wasn’t Brodie’s first rodeo; if these two fucktards were raccoons, they’d make great hats after he was done with them.
Brodie halted when the firing ceased, and lunged low, his sword positioned in front of his body. The man lowered his weapon, giving his partner a look.
“Shoot him in the foot,” she ordered.
Is this chick serious? His foot, like most of the rest of him, was pure steel. He smiled, gripping the hilt of his sword. He wouldn’t even have to deflect the next attack.
The man lowered his weapon slightly and shot three times at Brodie’s foot. The assaults had no effect on him, and the man reloaded his gun. Brodie wa
s preparing to launch forward and take these pirates out for good, when the woman reached for something.
It was all a blur. Brodie had been focused on the man and staring at his own foot. He didn’t notice the woman pull out a blade and launch it through the air until it was too late. It spiraled closer and closer until it stabbed him in his fleshy chest.
He gurgled on a mouthful of blood. Then he stumbled back, hit the wall, and choked on his last breath.
~~~
“‘Shoot him in the foot’?” Eddie asked, kneeling down to retrieve the knife from the cyborg’s chest. He wiped it on the dead man’s sleeve before handing it over.
“It was a diversion tactic,” she said, taking the knife and sheathing it. “I had to inflate his confidence, otherwise we were never getting past that damn sword.”
“Speaking of the sword,” Eddie said, looking down at the dead man. “What do you think of adding it to our personal collection? I kind of like the idea of slicing that baby through the air.”
“It’s not a fucking rail gun, but sure, why not,” Julianna conceded.
“What is he wearing on his head?” Eddie asked, inspecting the strange hat with a striped tail hanging from its side.
“It’s made from a raccoon,” Julianna explained. “This guy apparently thought he was Davy Crockett.”
“Who is that?” Eddie asked. The name sparked something small in the back of his mind.
“The Alamo. Texas Revolution,” Julianna supplied.
Eddie shook his head, nothing coming to mind.
“Are you still reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?” she asked.
“I’ve moved on, actually,” Eddie admitted. “Chester has me reading the Hobbit now.”
“Alright, no more fantasy for a while,” Julianna said with a smile. “You’re brushing up on history.”
“You and Chester handle my reading list, would you? I’ve got enough to think about,” Eddie said, sliding his ear up to the door where the raccoon cyborg had been stationed. On the other side, Eddie could make out booming voices.
