“That’s what I mean,” said Lace. “She can cut in on us.”
Harry clanked across the hangar, head turning to look left and right at the other operatives gathered there. Twenty guys, give or take. That’s a lot of dollars per hour to have standing here with their dicks in their hands. “I don’t get it.”
“The link,” said Lace, sounding tired. “It’s just for you and me.”
“Right,” said Harry.
“So how does she talk on it?”
Harry paused, one of his metal toes clanking a quick tap on the floor. “Hell if I know. You asked her?”
“Yeah.”
“What did she say?”
“She laughed.” Lace sighed. “She’s pretty good. It’s like she thinks it’s a game.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Well, Harry, I don’t know,” said Lace. “It’s probably a game right up until the link gets jacked, someone hacks your core, and you blow a reactor in the night.”
Harry looked at the platform at the front of the hanger, the Apsel falcon embroidered gold against black on the podium. He looked back around at the others in the room, a soft hum escaping from somewhere in his chassis. “He’s late.”
“Don’t change the subject,” she said. “You want your core to blow?”
“I don’t know,” said Harry, metal hand coming up to the back of his head, old meat memory taking over. He stopped, looking at his hand as the big metal fingers clicked open and closed, then put it back down at his side. “Would it stop your bitching?”
“Your problem is you don’t appreciate artistry.”
“Artistry? So you’ve worked out how Carter hacked the link?”
She sighed. “No.”
“Keep working on it,” he said. “You’ll get it.”
“Yes,” said Lace.
“You’ll keep working on it?”
“Maybe, but not that. Yes, in answer to your earlier question.”
“You know I hate this game, Lace. You change the subject six goddamn times, and get hurt when I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“You asked,” she said.
Harry replayed their conversation on the overlay, looping back the last thirty seconds. “Technically, I didn’t ask.”
“It was implied.”
“So he’s running late?”
“Is that a question?”
Harry clenched one of his metal fists as Lace’s laugh came down the link. “How late is he?”
“About five minutes. His air car landed a couple minutes ago.”
A door next to the podium opened, and Gairovald Apsel walked through it. Two men in black suits walked with him. Harry’s optics zoomed in on the man, picking out a small flower in his suit’s lapel button hole. “Is that an… It’s an orchid, but tiny.”
“Shhh,” said Lace. “You’ll miss the briefing. He has people. To engineer his flowers.”
“Christ,” said Harry. He stopped shifting, setting the chassis into stillness, a soft whine escaping the back as it parked.
“Good morning,” said Gairovald, his voice coming in audio and over the link at the same time. “I’m sorry about the hour.”
“He looks very handsome,” said Lace. “Better than his photo. He can wake me up at four AM any time.”
Harry ignored her. Gairovald was still speaking. “Earlier this evening, one of our operatives attempted to recover lost Federate intellectual property. This IP was stolen from us by a senior within the R&D team.” He raised a hand. “A file will be supplied with all the details.”
He cleared his throat, then took a sip of water from the glass on the podium. “It appears, on review of the mission, that our operative was a part of the heist.”
“What?” said Lace. “What did he just say?”
“On your overlays,” said Gairovald, “are the details of the two people in question. Jennifer Haraway, recently head of Atomic Energy, and Mason Floyd, one of our senior Specialist Services agents. They are to be considered your top priority for recovery.” Gairovald cleared his throat again, then straightened one of his cuffs. “Recovery, or termination.”
“Fuck me,” said Harry. “Fuck me.”
“He didn’t just say that, did he?” said Lace. “What does that even mean?”
“Quiet,” said Carter. “The worst is still to come.”
“The worst?” said Lace, but Carter was gone.
Gairovald walked out from behind the podium, standing on the platform in front of the operatives. Some of them shifted nervously, but most just looked bored. “Harry Fuentes.”
Harry jerked, the chassis coming to life with a sudden low hum. He stepped back a half meter, knocking a chair backwards. The man next to him scrambled away, then looked up at him.
“Watch it, asshole,” said the man.
“Sorry,” said Harry, then turned the PA down as it boomed and echoed across the hanger. He looked back at Gairovald. “Sir.”
“You were on this evening’s mission?” Gairovald was looking at one of his shoes, the shiny black leather a dark mirror. He looked up at Harry. “Mason requested your involvement?”
“I… Sir. Yes.” Harry shuffled, metal feet scraping against the concrete floor. “Sir, what is this about?”
“Don’t worry, Fuentes,” said Gairovald. “You’re not under investigation.”
“I’m not?”
“No,” said Gairovald. “We’ve reviewed the footage, and it looks like you… engaged as instructed.”
“Sir?”
“Floyd went into the structure?”
“The Hole? Yes, sir.” Harry shifted again, then said, “He went in through the roof.”
Gairovald waved a hand. “We lost contact with his link. Some interference.”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “About that. I lost him for a while too.”
“It looks like he deployed some kind of technology to hide his movements,” said Gairovald. “Carter’s still piecing it together—”
“Carter?”
“As I said, Carter’s still piecing it together. She has a record of a tight burst from Floyd requesting you pull back. The link record is audio only, full of static.”
“Yeah,” said Harry. “I got that instruction.”
A small smile tugged at Gairovald’s face. “We also have your reaction on file.” He took another sip of water, then continued. “We were wondering if we could use your… relationship in some way.”
Harry looked at the men around him, and then back to the platform. “I’m not sure I follow. Sir.”
Gairovald nodded, then gestured with his hand. “The rest of you can go. You have your mission. Find Haraway. Find Floyd. Remove them from the field, by any means necessary. Fuentes, please stay.”
The operatives filed from the hangar, one or two looking at Harry as they passed him. Harry waited for them to go. “Lace?”
“Yeah.” She sounded worried.
“Can you talk to Carter?”
“Yeah,” she said. The link clicked off, leaving Harry alone with Gairovald and his guards.
“Fuentes?”
“Sir.”
“Fuentes, how well do you know Mason Floyd?” Gairovald stepped down from the platform, walking towards Harry. His guards followed, a few steps behind.
“I don’t know,” said Harry. “I don’t play poker with him.”
“Are you friends?”
Harry screamed and screamed, but no sound came out. His lungs were full of fire, the lattice thrashing and flailing against the wheel. The door ripped open, and a man’s hand reached in to grab what was left of his —
“Not really,” said Harry. “I shot him once.”
“I know,” said Gairovald. “For all that, he saved your life.”
He felt himself rolled, God oh God the pain. The cold wet of the rain washing over what was left of his body. Something on his legs cracked and flaked away, and he kept trying to scream, one hand reaching out —
“I guess,” sai
d Harry. He looked down at the chassis. “Yeah.”
“I think he chose you for this mission, Harry, because you wouldn’t ask questions,” said Gairovald. “I think he played you.”
“Sir?”
“He picked the one man as backup who wouldn’t second guess him. The one man who owed him.” Gairovald started to walk around Harry, and Harry swiveled his chassis to follow. “Do you think that’s fair?”
“It might be,” said Harry. “Mason’s a bit of an asshole.”
That smile quirked Gairovald’s lips again. “Yes, yes I think he might be.” He continued to walk around Harry, looking him up and down. “How is the chassis?”
Harry paused, surprised at the question. “It’s…”
“Tell him it’s amazing,” said Lace. Her voice was hard. “Don’t think, just say it.”
“It’s amazing,” said Harry.
Gairovald nodded. “We did the best we could with you, Fuentes. There wasn’t much left to work with. Not after Floyd… Recovered you.”
Harry stopped swiveling the chassis, leaving Gairovald to walk behind him. “Recovered. There’s a word.”
“That’s what he did, though. After his handler sold us out. We reviewed it, of course. It wasn’t clear whether he should have guessed his handler was a thief, so we let it slide. Once.” Gairovald walked around into Harry’s field of vision again. “Not a second time. Do you understand?”
“Say you understand,” said Lace.
“I understand,” said Harry. “I… I appreciate the opportunity, sir.”
“To help with Floyd?”
“No, sir.” Harry’s hands clicked as they opened, and he gestured at himself. “For the second chance. For the conversion. I…”
“Yes?” Gairovald was looking up at him, face blank.
“Mason brought me back, but the Federate put me back together.”
“Nice,” said Lace.
Gairovald smiled. “Of course, Fuentes. You were — still are — an excellent asset. We look after our own.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Gairovald waved his hand. “Think nothing of it. You’ve more than repaid the investment.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Fuentes.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Floyd will contact you.” Gairovald started walking away, leather shoes licking at the concrete floor. He turned, looking back. “When he does, go meet him. Find him. Find him for me, and…”
“I understand, sir. Find him,” and Harry raised his metal hands in front of his optics, clenching and unclenching them, “and remove him from the field.”
Gairovald cocked his head, then smiled. “Exactly. Good morning, Fuentes.” Gairovald left, his guards a double shadow behind.
⚔ ⚛ ⚔
“That was intense,” said Lace.
Harry looked around at the empty hangar. He’d been standing in the middle of the chairs for a couple of minutes, not moving.
“I said,” said Lace, “that was intense.”
“I heard you,” said Harry. “What’s with the audio prompts?”
“Did Gairovald just say you were a great operative?”
“Yeah, I think so,” said Harry. “I’m not sure though. Whole thing was a bit off the chain, you know?”
“What I mean is, you’re basically retarded,” she said.
“What?”
“He was testing you, Harry,” she said. She was talking fast. “He was testing you, to find out how deep it went.”
“I—”
“Don’t talk,” she said. “I…”
“I know,” said Harry. “It’s ok.”
“No,” said Lace. “It’s not… I just—”
“Don’t worry,” said Harry. “It’s ok.”
The link was quiet, then she her voice came back, small and still. “He can’t take you too. I won’t have anything left.”
Harry didn’t say anything for a few minutes, clanking across the floor of the hanger. He stopped, looking at the metal of his hand again, the Apsel falcon black on his arm. “Lace?”
“Yes, Harry.” Her voice was clearer. “We’re a good team. Forget I said anything. I’m sorry, look—”
“No one will touch you again. Do you hear me?” He walked towards the hangar door, not looking back. “Not ever.”
He thought she was gone, until she said, almost too soft to hear, “I hear you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The forecourt was empty of other vehicles, the pumps standing alone, tin soldiers in a row. A couple of charging stations stood off to the side — one looked broken. Demand for standard fuel types was dropping now that Apsel was shipping reactors for cars. Mason walked from the van, pulling off the helmet. He spat out the taste of roasted chestnut, the shaky fingers of overtime still stuck inside his head.
“She remembers you, you know,” said Carter.
“What? Who?” Mason walked towards the front of the station, one of the lights flickering above the doorway. The rain howled around the forecourt, the canopy above him keeping the sting of it away.
“The illegal,” she said.
“The illegal?”
“You know her,” said Carter. “Black lipstick.”
“Oh,” said Mason. “Bonus Round. Yeah, I got that.”
“She’s not your type,” said Carter. “Right? Because if she is, you’ll fuck up the mission. Say it.”
Mason nodded to himself, then ran a hand through his sweat-slick hair. The white of his boots tapped through puddles on the concrete, and he could see his reflection stretched out in the water in front of him. “Sure,” he said. “Say, Carter.”
“Yeah?”
“What’s my type?” Mason put a hand on the door of the station, pausing to look through the glass. One man, behind the counter. Two, in the aisles. He sighed, then pushed his way through into stale, tired air.
“We’re not having this conversation,” she said. “Where are you taking the payload?”
Mason stopped in his tracks, standing between the checkout and the aisles of the station. The two men in the aisles looked up at him, then looked away. “What do you mean, where am I taking them? Back to HQ. Where else?”
“That’s not a good idea,” said Carter. “You’re compromised.”
“I’m… Wait a second,” said Mason. He walked up to the man behind the counter, dropping a quick smile. The man was a little older, grey showing through his uneven shave. “Hey.”
“Hey,” said the attendant. The man looked at Mason’s armor, taking in the subs at his belt. “Help you?”
“Maybe,” said Mason. “I need… Lemme see. You got any language packs?”
“Sure,” said the attendant, looking at the Apsel falcon on Mason’s armor. “English? Or German, maybe?” He coughed, a wet sound, then pointed with his chin. “Back there. Next to the sodas and road beers.”
Mason nodded his thanks, then moved back through the store. He snagged a basket, carrying it in his left hand, tossing the helmet inside. The rubber soles of his armor squeaked across the tired linoleum of the floor. “What do you mean, ‘compromised?’”
“So, that,” said Carter. “It’s a bit crazy up here.”
“Right,” said Mason. “The mission—”
“It’s not the mission,” said Carter. “It’s… Ok, it’s the mission. Sort of. This evening, there may have been violations of the Syndicate Compact.”
Mason frowned. He paused in the aisle, looking around. “Where the hell… Oh, here they are.” He found the language packs hanging on an old wire frame, the Reed logo in the top corner. “You reckon the kid is more into strawberry or chocolate?”
“Does it even taste like strawberry?”
“You’re right,” said Mason. “Chocolate.” He grabbed one of the packs from the shelf, flipping it over to check the back. “English… Right.”
“Don’t forget the mix,” said Carter.
“This is why I hate shopping with women,” sai
d Mason. “You saw back there? At the bar? Guys with guns, right?”
“Yeah,” said Carter. “I saw.”
“You saw me shut the room down. That was me, right?”
“That was you, Mason,” she said.
“So I’m okay managing to shut down a room full of assholes, but you don’t trust me to go shopping by myself?”
“Of course not,” said Carter. “You’re a man.”
Mason sighed, then walked past the two men still in the aisle, nodding at them. He made his way to the refrigerator at the back. “You’re going to have to unpick that one for me.”
“It’s not worth the trouble,” said Carter. “So, the compromise I was talking about.”
“Yeah. We didn’t violate the Compact.” Mason looked into the fridge, then grabbed a couple of liter bottles of water. After a brief pause, he pulled out a couple of cans of energy drinks. “It was our IP.”
“Maybe,” said Carter. “That’s not the important part. It’s pretty clear that Reed and Metatech violated the Compact. There’ll be… consequences.”
“Sure,” said Mason. “What’s the problem?”
“You are,” said Carter.
Mason stopped in the aisle, looking at the attendant behind the counter, then at the two men. “I’m the problem?”
“You have a history, Mason.”
“I was cleared.”
“It’s still a history,” she said. “Gairovald’s reviewed the ops footage.”
“So?”
“Try and look at it from his perspective,” she said. “He sent you out to kill a thief.”
“With you so far.” Mason looked into the basket, then cast an eye around the store. “You think we need food?”
“Almost certainly,” said Carter. “The thing is, he sent you to kill a thief, and no thief was killed. He changed the mission parameters to support Haraway. He thinks you’re going to bring back new assets—”
“The girl.” Mason frowned. “And a boy. And a… A man.”
“—but that came after, and you’ve only got one. What he’s got is a lot of footage of an op gone bad, damage to company assets. Here’s the important part, though.”
“I’m listening.”
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