Hand of Raziel (Daughter of Mars Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  Pink Hair hit the ground, while the two remaining thugs lingered on their feet, supported by the claws speared into their chests. Blood oozed from throats that resembled shark gills. One wheezed, one gurgled. Two seconds later, they fell backward, away from her blades. She stooped in a circle formed by three pairs of boots and wiped her weapons off on their clothing.

  “Street thugs… Not even amateurs.”

  She left them where they fell, and moved further down the alley. A turn at the end brought her to a narrow passageway rife with the stink of cheap artificial fish. Zoom fiends and a few whisp-heads piled against the wall, lost in whatever worlds their drugs had carried them to. A strip of cherry-red fluttering in the downdraft of a ceiling vent caught her eye near the end: a Marsborn girl who had dyed her hair, sixteen maybe. For some minutes, Risa stared at the strip of color over the teen’s face, blood poured on snow.

  That could’ve been me.

  She stepped over the sleeping figure, replaying the memory of her first encounter with Garrison. She’d been on her own for a couple months shy of a year, begging in a courtyard of Secundus City. He’d caught her running a credit skimmer around the crowd. The machine had been in bad shape, but its former owner had it even worse. He’d been the first dead person she’d seen so close. The memory of still-warm blood squishing under her toes felt as strong as if it happened only hours ago. She’d taken the strange treasure, which chirped when someone walked by. It hadn’t taken young Risa long to figure out it siphoned money from anyone she got close to. She played a video game, running around picking up credits. At the time, she hadn’t even realized she’d been stealing. She thought the machine just made money.

  Garrison had grabbed her by the wrist when she ran by him.

  A sudden urge to rush back to Primus and be with him weighed on her heart. Anyone else might’ve hit her for stealing and left her in the street after smashing the machine. Well, he did smash the machine… He caught me. Most people concealed skimmers in baggy clothing. In hindsight, the mental image of her nine-year-old self racing about in underpants while holding the device out in the open dislodged sadness enough to permit a smile.

  She glanced back at the passage. “I’m glad he did.”

  Her throat tightened. It’s not his fault. He didn’t know what Maris would do to me. I’m the idiot that said yes.

  Three alleys over, she paused in sight of the rear entrance to the Orbital Hotel. A pair of enormous men in long, black coats stood guard on either side of a plain silver door with rounded corners. The Syndicate, a blend of corporation and organized crime, served for the time being as a tenuous ally of the MLF. They seemed to exist everywhere humanity did, siphoning wealth using all manner of unsavory enterprises from slave and drug peddling to high-end, multi-billion credit extortion schemes. Rumor had it they all but controlled interplanetary shipping to distant colonies. As useful as they were for providing weapons and equipment to the Front, Risa couldn’t get past their trafficking in young girls. We shouldn’t be in bed with these bastards. They’ll turn on us as soon as it’s in their best interest. Syndicate men always looked at her like a piece of meat, which made her expect they were calculating how much she’d be worth on the open market. Far enough away from Earth’s solar system, laws meant little.

  She squinted, studying the meatheads, the rear door, and one air handler. Taking a vent into the Orbital Hotel would require heading quite a distance away and crawling down tunnels too small to sit up in. Risa spat under her breath and approached the door, walking out in the open. Contempt and anger hid beneath a false outward calm. She put one foot straight in front of the other in a sashay that got both men staring at her hips. Good thing I brought those kids to the safe house. She cringed, thinking of Yanna lying dead in the dirt. Better that than these bastards getting them. Neither option offered a happy ending: grow up and get shot at for a living, or get grabbed off the street by these monsters. How am I still even alive?

  Her plan of walking in as if she belonged failed; they leaned into her path.

  “You’re overdressed, bitch,” said the one to her left.

  “I was hoping you’d give me an excuse to kill you.” Risa snapped her head up, flaring her eyes. “I need to speak to Walsh.”

  The guards hesitated, looking at each other. Left snarled, while his partner gazed at the violet lights.

  “You two sub-sents forget who I am already?”

  Right patted the other man on the shoulder. “Hang on, she’s Front. Their tí-zhèn.”

  I’m not a damn assassin. She forced a sinister smile. “I’ve been called worse.”

  The aggressive one shrank away, as if realizing the snake he taunted had venom. Risa went past them, up two steps, and through the door into a small room. Dingy light bathed everything in shades of red. A metal desk to her right stood empty, as was the facing chair.

  Guard station. Guess they wanted some air.

  The lower level of the Orbital contained the Syndicate’s brothel. One hallway led into the subterranean building past a dozen battered doors, soft sobs emanating from several. Risa imagined frightened women far from home. Some likely tethered to their beds, others bound by less tangible things―false debt and fear. Many trusted the Syndicate to get them out of the ACC. Few knew what they had signed up for until it was too late. On Earth, they had to trick them into going along, but on Mars, they could grab the unwanted.

  Mercifully, none of the voices sounded too young. Even Garrison expected the Syndicate would prove to be a mistake someday. If the MLF ever won, they would become the new government. That would make them the law, and the Syndicate their enemy… unless the new regime agreed to overlook them.

  A loud blurt of crying made her pause.

  If they did, Risa’s war wouldn’t be over. She fought for the people of Mars, not organized crime. Garrison would never allow it. I have to believe that. Raziel wouldn’t either. She gazed at a faltering LED rod in the ceiling, sputtering and flashing away its last dozen hours of life. Could she ask him to help? What chance could the Syndicate have against the might of an angel?

  You could, whispered Raziel, weak enough not to send her to her knees.

  Please… These women don’t deserve this. To hell with the Syndicate. She crept to the end of the hall.

  A faint male chuckle danced through her mind. Neither do you. The answers you seek will only hurt. Turn back and I shall ensure they are freed.

  Risa closed her eyes. That’s not fair. I’m twenty… five? I have to know the name of the man who stole my life. I have to understand why my father died. How can you make me choose between that or someone else’s freedom?

  Silence.

  Risa stared down the red-lit hallway at the junction up ahead. White light leaked in from the left, the lobby, where she would find Walsh, the local decision maker for the Syndicate. She’d have to ask him for permission to talk to Tamashī. Maris didn’t know she’d called in an ‘official favor’ on behalf of the MLF for the Syndicate to protect Tamashī. If push came to shove, Maris would deny knowing about it, which could threaten the woman’s life. Risa had to ensure that didn’t happen.

  Play nice and no one gets hurt. General Maris’s response to her protest of working with the Syndicate echoed in her thoughts. What did she know? She was only fourteen at the time, and no one took her seriously. She still had real eyes then.

  Six steps closer to the light, she couldn’t endure the pitiful weeping. Fine, you win. She turned, slouched like a child whose dog just died, and trudged back the way she came. Raziel thundered within her mind, knocking her to the carpeting before she could push the button to open the door.

  Wait. He paused. When he spoke again, the paralytic intensity had vanished. I will free them regardless. You should turn back. I do not want you to get hurt.

  Her head bowed, eyes closed. Too late.

  Risa clawed clean smears in the grime atop a heating unit, dragging herself upright with a death grip on the flimsy metal. Her body tw
itched from Raziel’s presence. She clung to the wall until her muscles once again obeyed. The scent of hours-old coffee floated on a cloud of greasy dust from abandoned cups on the guard’s table. She coughed, squinting, and moved into the hall. A few steps among the many sad voices, her disoriented stagger slipped into a confident stride.

  This is wrong. Hands clenched to fists and released. Her fingers felt no different than before she had claws in them. I could have been one of them if fate was different, if―

  You are still human, Risa, whispered Raziel.

  She scowled at the wall for the remainder of her walk to the lobby. Flaking gold and red wallpaper peeled away from rotting drywall, which exposed bits of bare plastisteel here and there. The place had the ambiance of something out of Earth’s ancient history, and the Syndicate thugs sitting around with black suits, white hats, and cigar-shaped Nicohalers added to that feel.

  Risa wondered if they felt as ridiculous as they looked.

  They glanced at her, one indifferent, two nervous, and the last making little effort to hide how he studied her body-hugging suit. Behind a lattice of fanciful brass whorls, an older man in a pinstriped dress shirt, silver threads on jet-black silk, leaned back from his desk within an enclosed booth. He wasn’t Marsborn, though life underground had drained color from his cheeks. Eerie blue-green light bathed the right half of his face from an unseen terminal pane. She halted, staring at him. His face zoomed into magnification, indicator lines tracing pupil dilation, eye orientation, perspiration level, and calculating the meaning in the tilt of his lips. A tiny computer inside her head created two wavy lines floating beside his face. The upper one would peak and dance each time he spoke. The farther apart they got, the more likely he lied.

  In his eyes, her face reflected, porcelain pattered with the shadow of the decorative barrier. Her glance drifted to the lines, tiny simulacra of ocean waves.

  “Walsh,” said Risa.

  Stubby sausage fingers whitened at the joints. He gripped the desk. “You…”

  Her cyberware tagged a fear response. Anger, which often followed being called an assassin, hid below a veneer of ice. Risa set her gaze upon his chest, at a bristle of steel wool poking out of the unbuttoned collar. Lack of eye contact let her hide her contempt for the Syndicate man. She hoped it unbalanced him as well. Her reliance on her Wraith implant to see motion in the dark had given her a reputation. When she looked at nothing, death followed. Men who solved problems with guns and knives got on edge around a woman who could see them coming from any angle.

  “I’m only visiting. This isn’t official business.” She stood statue-still, offering no readable body language. “I need a few minutes of time with one of your guests… Tamashī.”

  Springs creaked under Walsh shifting his weight. Floating indicators drifted apart to accommodate a widening smile. Estimated fear became neutrality, followed by avarice. Walsh released his grip on the desk, resting his hands on his spherical gut, drumming fingers into cloth in a rhythmic wave reminiscent of the legs of a running centipede.

  “So, the Front needs another favor.”

  “No, this is personal.”

  The chair groaned. Walsh stood, leaning forward until his nose hovered a hair’s breadth from the lattice. Synthetic bourbon exuded from his pores and blasted from his nostrils. Risa didn’t flinch, not even when the system indicated lust.

  “You are wasting your talents with that lot, girl.” He ran his fingers over the metal. Were it not for the grating, he might have touched her cheek. “Even with those creepy modded eyes, you’re entrancing. I can make you rich, comfortable.”

  She turned to the side, hiding her growing disgust. “I am no one’s kept woman, Walsh. Nor would I do that.”

  He straightened, face pulling away from the barrier. “I’ve heard the rumors. I know you can kill ten men as easily as breathe. You’re dead inside, aren’t you? How is entertaining the wealthy any worse than that? You could make fifty thousand credits in two hours.”

  Four patterns formed in her mind. Each a different set of maneuvers to kill Walsh and his guards before any of them had drawn a weapon. Risa closed her eyes. “It just is.”

  “Oh, the old righteous indignation bit? Think you hear the voice of angels or some shit like that?” Walsh, and his men, chuckled. “Well, the only thing more dangerous than a desperate man is a religious one.” The tip of his Nicohaler glowed like a red ember. Chocolate-scented white vapor slid from his nose.

  “I require only a few minutes of her time. I know she is under your protection, and out of respect for our arrangement, I am asking.”

  Walsh eased himself back into his chair. Imitation leather creaked under his weight. “Personal, huh? Tell ya what. I do you a small favor and you do us one. I’ve been trying to find someone good enough to get into the office of Governor Almden. I need eyes and ears in there.”

  “You’re setting me up.” Risa said it even though the lines stayed close.

  Walsh made an overacted ‘who, me?’ gesture. “I’d do nothing of the sort.”

  The lines flew apart.

  One of the thugs jumped when her head snapped up to make eye contact with Walsh. “I’m sure you wouldn’t.”

  “Calm down,” said Walsh “All I’m asking you to do is get in and plant a few snoopers.”

  Risa let her gaze drift away. “All right.” Almden’s a tool. I’ve no love for him.

  “Stop by on your way out, hon.” Walsh gestured to his left. “Your friend is in room 4-9.”

  She walked off without another word, taking a narrow hallway past two bathrooms to a bank of elevators. Crimson carpet and brass doors complimented the red velvet wallpaper. The Orbital felt like it tried too hard to be classy, and came off tacky. She pushed a button on the wall and waited for a moment before the doors slid apart with a ping. Risa stepped into a cylindrical elevator incapable of carrying two people without a certain degree of intimacy. Had she not grown up in a claustrophobic vent system, it might have bothered her.

  Four levels below the city, the capsule walls parted to reveal a narrow hallway lined with doors. Chemicals tainted the air with the scent of gun oil, cheap perfume and cleaning solution. A glossy black metal skeleton at the far corner lifted its head in her direction. Two red spots in its skull widened, flickered, and narrowed. The fedora perched atop its head almost made her laugh. It kept its glow-eyed stare locked on her while she moved to the fifth door on the right. Sublevel four, room nine.

  If there’s a live brain in that thing, he’s not gonna be stable.

  A light knock failed to get an answer, as did a subsequent pound. She reached up behind her head, scratching at her neck. Under cover of her hair, she tugged a standard M3 interface wire out of the collar of her ballistic stealth suit and plugged it into the socket behind her ear. The other end tugged out of her sleeve, surreptitiously finding the port on the door panel while leaning on the wall to block the cyborg sentinel’s view. She flashed an innocent smile.

  Risa made a show of impatient eye rolling as an interface panel opened in her vision―a rendering of the door’s security system. It felt like playing a video game of sorts, hacking the electronic lock with a series of attack programs. The tiny chipboard in her head heated to an uncomfortable warmth in the back of her neck. Most people used those for neural-rom softs, gaining knowledge of languages or utilizing skills from someone else’s cortical imprint. Few risked loading hackware since it often resulted in catastrophic hardware failure from data overload.

  Given its location, that could kill.

  Fortunately, her little cat-eared ninja avatar made short work of the door’s defense program and the light shifted from red to green. Risa palmed the wire, unplugging it with a subtle roll of the wrist as she slipped through the door.

  Jasmine hung in the air of a modest room lit by a hundred-inch screen projected from a holo-bar mounted to the wall on the right. The image swam with color, filled with bouncing, singing Japanese boys who couldn’t even
have been twelve yet. Fortunately, the sound was off. Tamashī lay sprawled among silver metallic sheets on a Comforgel pad on the left, like some Renaissance nude drowning in a mercury lake. Folds and ridges in the cloth glinted in the ever-changing colors from the concert. A wire connected a fist-sized glossy black box on the nightstand to a spot behind her right ear. The young woman’s head bopped left and right in near-sleep to music Risa felt quite thankful not to hear.

  Risa moved to the holo-bar, swiping her finger over the mirrored finish, a half-inch from the sensor. The screen collapsed in on itself, leaving the room dark. Risa kept her back to the bed. The wispy grey form of a human figure sat up in the blackness, motion sensed by the Wraith system.

  “What are you doing in my room?” screamed Tamashī. “Get out!”

  When the figure seemed to gather the sheets about her undeveloped chest, Risa turned.

  “I’m not here to hurt you. I need your help.”

  A tendril of grey smoke slid left from the figure and formed the shape of an outstretched arm. After a weak electronic chirp, room lights came on. Tamashī held the bedding tight to her neck, shivering in fear. As her eyes focused, she relaxed.

  “Risa?” she whispered. “You’re alive!”

  A smile spread over her lips. “Should I not be?”

  “Those guys that came after you looked serious. I couldn’t find a damn thing on them. I think they’re C-Branch.”

  Military intelligence. “Whoever they are, I haven’t seen them again.”

  Risa wandered over and sat cross-legged on the silk-covered Comforgel pad, arms in her lap. Tamashī flung the sheet aside and stood, casually naked, for a few seconds smiling at her. She walked across the room to a bundle of white cloth draped over the back of a chair and wriggled into an oversized white t-shirt bearing a chibi likeness of Koemi.

  The cartoon girl was an anthropomorphism of Shōrishima, an artificial island east of Japan. Whoever designed the shirt put the oversized eyes in just the right place to appear bulging when worn by a woman. For all Risa knew, Tamashī could’ve been older than her, or as young as she looked―and acted. Granted, the odds of the hacker being under eighteen were slim. Even in Japan, one had to be of age to have cybernetics.