Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3

by Amy J. Murphy

  “He claims to know you…or at least of you.” He made no effort to hide his suspicion.

  Jon shrugged, knowing how the imprecise gesture would grate at the man.

  Utaemon’s mouth flattened. “Very well.”

  He turned and walked back into the vault. Deciding that was about as friendly an invitation as he was going to receive, Jon followed.

  Unsurprisingly, the cramped interior had been ransacked at some point. Cupboards stood gaping open. Gaming tiles dotted the floor in brightly colored gaiety. Worthless paper scrip crunched under foot like the husks of dead insects.

  The prisoner sat at the center of the metal room. He was an angular, bony thing dressed in a loose-fitting tunic bearing the distinct Poisoncry sigil on the left chest. His pale hands were folded patiently in his lap. Shackles bound his wrists and another set fixed him to the chair around the forearms and ankles. Bruises spotted his bare scalp. His sunken features were arranged into an aloof expression under a sloppily applied bandage. If he were in pain, he did not show it. His eyes, a strange shade of ocher, held a mild look of expectancy, as if Jon and Utaemon were there at his beckoning.

  “This Poisoncry filth was apprehended in a facility not far from here.”

  “The bandages?” Jon suppressed a shudder at the black veins that pushed up from the pale frost of skin. It was some of their infamous tech, but he could swear he saw it move.

  “Any implants that posed a danger to himself or others were disabled or removed.” Utaemon’s lip curled in disgust. “However, there are parts that render him useless to us if we attempt to tamper with them.”

  Amusement flickered across the Poisoncry guildsman’s face. It was plain he was waiting for Jon to address him first. This was some sort of psychological foreplay that meant something to the strange-looking man.

  “You’re Fisk?” Jon asked, feeling a little ridiculous. He’d never interrogated anyone in his life. The Regime had people for that.

  The man inclined his elongated head in acknowledgment. The move was elegant, cordial; as if they were being introduced at a gala instead of inside a cell.

  “Captain…apologies…Officer Veradin.” Fisk’s voice was a sibilant, unnatural sound. No one was born with a voice like that. “It seems you’ve had a change in rank as well as occupations of late.” The man smirked as if they shared a joke.

  Jon felt a trickle of dread. Fisk knew far more about him than just a simple status change.

  Fisk canted his head, fixed on Utaemon now. “I said I would treat with Veradin. No one else.”

  Jon heard the captain inhale. It was a long angry draught of air, bordering on a growl.

  “This is probably nothing,” Jon said. The whole while, he stared at Fisk as if discovering a nasty and particularly large funnel spider in his bunk. “Just a ploy. You know how deceptive they can be.”

  The captain answered with a harrumph and left in an air of indignation. There was little doubt he’d stand right outside of the room in an attempt to eavesdrop. Let him.

  Jon righted an overturned stool. He settled atop it, facing Fisk, his forearm resting on the stock of the Guild-issue sidearm in its holster. Fisk’s strange-colored eyes flitted over his forearm, settling on the icon inked there. Recording. Filing away. Savoring.

  “The mark of the entwined souls. I should offer you congratulations on your…marriage,” Fisk said, canting his head. “Another relatively recent development.”

  This…thing knows her. The notion settled into his gut with sinister coolness. This isn’t about me. This is about Sela.

  “You seem to know a lot about me,” Jon replied, avoiding the obvious question. The one Fisk wanted him to ask. How? “I never knew you existed until tonight.”

  “It is my business to know things. It is how I best serve my Guild.” Another graceful bow of his head.

  “And how do you seek to serve your Guild now? Why ask for me?”

  “Information, of course. Truth. I believe we are both men of truth, Captain.” His gaze softened as if he were reading something in the air around Jon. “For instance, I know your truths. Jonvenlish Veradin, a dishonored Kindred.” Fisk drew the word out with a knowing smirk that made the hair on Jon’s arms stand on end. “Deserter to the Regime with his Volunteer subordinate. Such a romantic story.” His voice sharpened. “Such a tragedy in the end.”

  “I’m assuming you’re going to get the point of all this soon.” Jon’s jaw tightened. “Or is this just some joke? I’m very busy—”

  “I never joke, Jonvenlish.” Fisk sighed. “Not when the ironies the worlds offer are entertainment enough. You’re not busy. Nor are your attentions demanded elsewhere. Unless you count business as the time you spend downing rum. I smell it on you even now—that, and the desperation.”

  Jon felt a dangerous smile build. Anger boiled over the customary bleakness. He longed to release it on this man. A lucky guesser. Or maybe an empath. They existed here. And Fates knew what things Poisoncry had learned to do and make with their unchecked quest for advanced technology, a drive that had supplanted religion for them. “Go on.”

  “Your…wife.” Fisk spat out the word like it bore an unpleasant taste. “Sela Tyron is alive. I know where you might find her. I wish to trade. My freedom for her location.”

  Jon moved faster than he could think. His left hand locked around the back of Fisk’s neck, sidearm magically in his right and pressed under the pallid jaw. The priming mechanism’s high-pitched whine filled the heavy air of the metal room. He was aware of excited shuffling behind him as the guards or Utaemon reacted.

  “Tell me. Everything. Right now.”

  Seventy-One

  The Resource Center stood out in stark contrast to the remains of Brojos. Like all of the things Poisoncry Guild built or made, it glinted of high tech that was practically magic compared to the decayed ruins of the rest of the settlement.

  Spires dotted with lights raked the sky from its roof of brushed metal. There were no windows. The only visible entrance seemed to be from above, as atmo ships buzzed in and out from an opening at its center. It brought to mind flies flitting about the carcass of a dead animal under the weak-tea Hadelia sun. The perimeter of the place was spotted with abandoned warehouses and rusted-out ship’s skeletons, places that would have provided ample shelter to the ragged populace of Brojos. But they wisely chose to stay clear of the complex.

  “Like I said, no way in save from up top.” Dex (or was it Vin) stood at Tyron’s elbow. The two young men—identical twins—had followed her around like loyal spike hound pups since she’d walked into their midst the previous day.

  She still wasn’t entirely certain she had the complete loyalty of all the Heavy Gravity Boys. She wondered if they truly knew what bad luck their chosen name implied. She suspected they’d chosen it because of its menacing sound. Heavy gravity. It was a common term used by infantry to imply bad luck—but that which had been brought upon them by one of their own who had failed in his or her duty. Drillers would increase the a-grav at the training facility as a form of punishment and force the entire unit to complete an exercise until satisfactorily executed.

  Although all of the Heavies wanted to join the scouting expedition, she had selected a total of five. She had given out numbers to the remainder of the group; it was easier than trying to recall over thirty new designations. They were all monosyllabic names; she suspected shortened versions of once-grander versions. The truncated remnants reduced them in importance, akin to the crumbling ruin of this world. The realization of how poor her ability to recall new information had become, something as simple as a name, was deeply unsettling. It seemed wrong.

  “Places like this are made to keep people from getting out. They’re not so concerned with people getting in,” she said, lowering the optics. They were heavy, a relic from a bygone era, but remarkably functional. Yet another reminder of the limited resources at hand.

  Vin—it had to be Vin; he was the one with the scar over his left ey
ebrow—made a derisive snort. He seemed to be the more intelligent of the twins, which was not saying a lot. “Would be if we had an actual reason to try it.”

  Dex elbowed him violently. “On Bix’s say. That’s why we go.”

  “Don’t recall putting your little piece in charge,” Vin shot back.

  “I ain’t no one’s anything.” Bix lunged up from her spot in the rocky outcropping.

  “Good.” Vin squared off on his brother and gave an evil grin. “Then maybe you and me talk later, sweetness.”

  Bix inserted herself between the brothers. She stabbed a finger at Vin’s bulky chest armor, having to stand on tip-toe to do it. “That’d be hard to do with a broken jaw!”

  Not this again.

  Tyron ran a hand across her scalp, feeling the daily headache forming deep behind her eyes. The siblings seemed to excel at goading each other. Bix’s presence only made it worse. Tyron had already witnessed an argument over ownership of a combat blade, which she’d ended by claiming it for herself. At this rate, holding the squabbling infant for Bix seemed a more appealing pastime.

  “Stop it.” She kept her voice low, but the threat vibrated. “Right. Now.”

  They backed away from each other.

  “Three,” she called out, still staring down the brothers. A brute of a man, covered in inkwork, rolled up, stopping in front of her. “Report.”

  “No openings from the spinward side neither…sir,” he said, tagging on the salutation. Like the others, Three was anxious under her attention. It was as if they expected her to create a miracle. Whatever impression her former self had made in the time Before, it must have been truly grand. She’d done her best to avoid their questions about this period of time. Although she told herself that confessing her defunct memory would weaken their resolve to follow her, it was her pride that was the biggest sticking point. Their pity or disappointment would be insufferable.

  She felt them all watching her now, waiting for a living god to speak. She hated the attention, hated the deficient, languishing beast that was her memory. She hated whoever this Sela Tyron was that came before. A tide of directionless fury welled in her. She ground her teeth. Think!

  “We’ll need one of their atmo-runners. Looks like the only way in.” She regarded their blank stares. They might be powerful soldiers, but there wasn’t a keen mind among them.

  “I got an idea.” Bix chewed her lip as if weighing her words. “Might not like it none.”

  Seventy-Two

  “You!” The ancient woman hissed the word through the crack in the door. “I told you never to come back!”

  “Must have forgotten,” Tyron said dryly. “Been happening a lot lately.”

  She shoved the door back. It struck the wall with a solid clang that seemed to rattle the entire structure.

  Mauldro Techyan scrambled into the center of the cluttered room. In her gnarled hand, she held one of the oldest pulse guns Tyron had seen yet. It was more likely to self-combust than fire. Perhaps Techyan realized this as well, for she tossed it onto one of the already overburdened workbenches nearby.

  “What do you want, breeder?” she asked, glowering.

  “Your undivided attention.”

  Tyron was disappointed. Part of her had hoped that returning to this place would jog something loose. But there was nothing; just another unfriendly face that hated her for reasons she couldn’t recall.

  “Quite the haul.” Vin tromped through the door behind her. Dex followed up with an appreciative whistle. They gawked about the room like children that had discovered a hidden store of sweets and other treasures.

  “Don’t touch a thing!” Techyan cried, moving in their direction.

  Tyron stepped in her path, clapped a hand on a bony shoulder. “Stay.”

  Bix slid into the room last, shutting the door behind her. The girl was drawn to a table piled high with fresh e-rations.

  “Commander.” She snatched up one of the foil-wrapped bundles and tossed it to Tyron.

  The unmistakable Poisoncry sigil—vines engulfing a hand—was stenciled across its top. A quick glance at the bench told her there was enough there to feed a squad for a week—or the Heavy Gravity Boys for a day.

  “You’ve got friends in all the wrong places, it seems,” Tyron said, allowing the pack to drop to the floor.

  “I don’t answer to you, breeder.” Techyan thrust her chin up, wrapped the tattered cloak over her shoulders more firmly. “I do what I must to survive. Just as anyone.”

  “I keep hearing that,” she replied, stopping to toy with a tray of metal instruments. The items meant nothing to her, but it seemed to make Techyan nervous, so she continued her rummaging as she spoke. “Not convinced that’s how it should work.”

  From somewhere deep within the darker recesses of the hovel came a crash. It was followed by an avalanche of breaking glass and the sounds of many tiny objects striking the floor.

  Tyron shut her eyes briefly. Vin and Dex—again.

  “Boys!” she bellowed.

  The young men reappeared wearing sheepish expressions.

  “What did I say about touching things?”

  Vin jerked a thumb at Dex. “He did it. Whole shelf went down—”

  “He’s lying,” Dex shot back.

  Tyron did not bother to look at them. “Go. Wait. Outside.”

  “Yessir,” they intoned.

  “Got your children after all,” Techyan muttered.

  She frowned. “What’s that mean?”

  Techyan ignored the question. Her brow furrowed. She leaned closer to study the scar at Tyron’s temple. It had healed to a waxy pink circle, far too perfect to be anything but man-made. “Interesting. Never seen anyone with a neural implant in your…condition.”

  Tyron leaned back warily. “What condition is that?”

  “Autonomous.” But the woman pursued her, intrigued. She reached out to touch the scar. “Any pain?”

  Tyron slapped her hand away. “I’m splendid.”

  The splicer grunted, unconvinced.

  “She don’t ‘member much of nothin’,” Bix volunteered, gnawing open the wrapper to a ration bar. She took a healthy bite. “Got all mixed up in the brain box.”

  Tyron glared at Bix. Divulging a weakness to a potential hostile was a grievous error. She’d essentially just delivered leverage to their adversary.

  “A shame. Gerbrand had taken such care to cultivate eidetic memory in his creations. I might be able to fix that.” She stepped back, waving an arm to indicate a row of machinery that could either be a clothing sanitizer or a medical scanner. “Let’s have a look, then. Yes? Exterior port may be gone, but likely t’be more embedded under your skull.”

  Tyron eyed the machine with distrust. Techyan didn’t strike her as someone who did anything out of the kindness of her own heart. However, there was such strong temptation to return to order the mush of disconnected thoughts and ideas that composed her understanding of Before. She actually took a step toward the device then stopped, mid-stride.

  Weakness. This is not about me. We waste time.

  “Irrelevant.” She folded her arms. “This is a purposeful distraction.”

  “Pray tell. What is it that brings an amnesiac breeder and a passel of children come to threaten old Mauldro?” The woman rounded her shoulders. A creakiness entered her voice as she tried to look harmless. That was not a word Tyron would have picked for this crafty old splicer.

  “We need a means to get into the Poisoncry facility at the spinward section of the city.”

  “The Resource Center?” Techyan scoffed. “You have had your brains scrambled. To what end?”

  “A rescue.” Bix chewed. “Goin’ to look for my crewies.”

  “Why is not essential for you to know.” Tyron motioned for Bix to be quiet.

  The girl flung one of the ration bars at the old splicer. It bounced off her chest and landed at her feet. “But you know that already, don’t you. You’ve been tellin’ those skews where
to find people to cull, how to trap them. That’s where these come from.”

  Tyron pointed to the Poisoncry sigil glaring up from its shiny surface. “I want you to contact them, to send their culling vessel. Say you’ve found some more subjects to be…resourced.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  Tyron leveled a stare at the woman, then yelled. “Boys!”

  Vin and Dex shouldered back into the room eagerly. “Boss?”

  “Take it all,” Tyron said. “It may take a few trips, but if you get the rest of the Gravs here it’ll be shorter work—”

  “No!” Techyan pushed against Vin’s chest. She might as well have been trying to force back a wall. “Don’t you dare. This is mine!”

  There was a crash from the opposite side of the room. Dex hissed, feigning remorse. “That looked important. Was it?”

  “Okay. Stop. Stop. I’ll help.” Techyan wrenched a box of medicines from Vin’s hands. “They’ll likely just kill you anyway.”

  Seventy-Three

  The Poisoncry culler was late by nearly twenty minutes, according to the chrono Dex had lifted from the splicer’s place. Bix had shown him how to read it. He’d begun to suspect that the shriveled old Techyan had scammed them when the vessel settled into the clearing. Vin bitched that they should have taken Techyan’s stash anyway, but Tyron insisted that they leave it. Still, they’d kept a guard on the splicer, just in case she tried to warn off the Poisoncry guildsworn. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere soon.

  Excitement tightened his gut. He knew he should be more fearful, worried. But this was a real operation with a bona fide Volunteer at the helm, not one of Vin’s smash and grabs. This is was how it was meant to be.

  Tyron was a dark shadow nearby, stretched out on her stomach, rifle trained on the atmo-runner ship. She was the best shot; it was only right she got the scoped rifle with the best charge. He was about to see a master at work. Glory all!

  Under the settling dusk, he glimpsed a sliver of blue light split the runner’s mid-ship hatch as it purred open. Four Poisoncry guildsmen walked down the ramp. They weren’t dressed in engagement armor, just the padded shipsuits. Only two of them carried heavy weapons. All of them looked to carry stunners hanging from their thick belts. A large, spindly shape uncoiled from the hatchway, and Dex felt his mouth go dry. It was a culler-mech. He cursed under his breath. Little wonder they weren’t heavily armed. Culler-mechs could do the damage of six men.