by Ric Beard
“A-nine-seven-six-three-four-one.” Miles closed his blurred eye so he could enter the code into his Tab.
“Okay, good. There’s a pack in the console. The stuff inside is blue. If you punch it and break it up—”
“An ice pack?”
“Right. Put that pack on your eye while it can still do something for you. Hell, put it on your hand, too. There’s a kit with everything you’ll need for that cut, too.” She pointed her finger under his eye as if she was going to actually touch it and he flinched. She smiled and lowered her finger. “I’d stitch it for you, but you gotta do for yourself this time.” She shouldered her rifle and shrugged her arms back into the long leather trench. “Move at night. Keep a low profile. You’re in for a long couple of days. You can’t take the interstate to Asheville. They’re moving in from that direction.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pistol, offering it.
“How will you get away if I take your ride?” he asked, taking the pistol. It had “Triangle City Fusion Tech” printed on the side.
“Always with the questions.” She jerked her head to the left and looked in the direction of the camp.
Miles swung around, looked toward the campfire, and scanned the perimeter, but it was too dark and he couldn’t make out any motion, especially with one eye.
“Where?” he asked. “Someone there?”
There was no response. He turned back to the woman.
She was gone.
Part Six
The West
Chapter Twenty-Five
Old World Pretension
Day 4
Friday, Mar 22, 2137
OK City
The building had a rundown stucco-covered exterior. It flew in the face of Sean’s expectations of Alexandra Bingham, but something told him the exterior appearance was intentional, a facade. It was no secret that Bingham was one of the wealthiest women in the city. She was the product of an entrepreneurial father who developed and patented the metal side rails that allowed the flying fortresses defending the city and its territories to relocate weaponry after each salvo to ensure maximum damage to ground targets. Rumor had it she also inherited her father’s iron will and the fierce determination he fostered on the industrial Oklahoma City streets, learning to blacksmith swords for ground combatants before the mass production of pulse weapons was possible and before the blimps took flight.
He approached from the alley per the instructions sent from the traitorous rat.
Carson. What an opportunist scumbag.
How Sean longed to shove The Three Little Pigs up his self-aggrandizing dark hole.
Fucking poser.
He rapped on the door four times.
“Name?” Asked the tanned brute who answered the door. The guard had to tilt his bald head forward to fit beneath the door frame. He was wearing a fat pulse gun on his hip. One massive hand rested on the holster. Judging from the wide energy reservoir behind the barrel, Sean assumed the electrical pulses ejected from this particular weapon were designed to employ grave diggers more than nurses.
“Sean Stone. I’m expected.”
The guard grunted in affirmation and slipped back beneath the threshold and into the foyer.
“Leave the bag.”
“I’d really prefer not to.” Sean adjusted his rucksack on his shoulder and squinted into the other man’s eyes.
“I’m sure. I’d prefer to be drinking over at The Choking Goat for free, but my preference don’t ‘mount to much, does it?” He pointed at the ground. “Leave it or leave yourself.”
Coming rapidly to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to stare the man into changing his mind, Sean dropped the bag in the doorway.
“Be careful with that, Tiny.”
The massive man rolled his eyes and grinned as he motioned Sean into the office.
It was one thing to lay low, to project a façade, but Sean would have never guessed that a place looking like such a shit hole from the outside could hide such an interior. The contrast of the unpainted stucco exterior to the plush office with its restored oak desk and soft carpet was bordering ludicrous.
Jesus.
Art with exquisite antique frames of dark, polished wood hung on every wall, each stripped, sanded, and stained to be identical. Some flowery scent filled the air from an unknown source, probably pushed in via the intake vents. There was even a genuine set of gas logs burning in the corner. He didn’t hear a blower and surmised they were purely aesthetic.
Sean spied the backstabber sitting on a velvet-covered antique sofa in the corner with his stupid white Stetson resting in his lap. The bastard hardly looked up as Sean sat. Carson appeared relaxed, occasionally touching the screen of his handheld.
This might be Carson’s game now, but it didn’t mean Sean was going to start resisting his urges to get every last jab in before he left the city.
“Still pretending you know how to read?”
Sure, it was infantile, but Carson had set him up, shoved him in a box, and wrapped it with a neat little bow.
“Very funny.” The response reinforced Sean’s estimation of Carson’s limited intellect. But the point was, he wasn’t engaging. He wasn’t in his place. This wasn’t a warehouse outside the city. Carson wasn’t stupid. He knew that Sean knew what he’d done. He just had the iron set of ball bearings not to give a shit.
Sean drummed the tips of his boots on the floor, tapping faster and faster until Carson looked down at them.
“Just relax,” Carson said. “You’re safe.”
“Yeah, that much I believe. You wouldn’t want your courier getting hurt, would you? Alexandra wouldn’t like it either.”
“Let the goon on the other side of the door hear you calling her by first name, and you might put that theory to the test.”
“Somehow I doubt it.”
Carson looked up.
“You got a raw deal. So what? We all get raw deals. Make the best of it, and you’ll be a rich man on the other side. Make the worst of it, and you’ll be pushing roses.”
“Daisies.”
“Whatever.”
“Like I can even trust I won’t get my skull aerated on the other side.”
“When she shows you the cash transfer, maybe you’ll see the break in your logic.”
“You really fucked me.”
“I deny it. Now do yourself a favor and shut the fuck up, or I might have to make Miss Bingham wait on a replacement.”
“I’m shaking in my boots, traitor.”
Carson opened his mouth to reply when the office door opened and a gaunt, middle aged woman swept into the room followed by two goons. Her pale neck contrasted the colors of her excessive make up. A perfectly mixed bun of silver and blonde hair accentuated an elongated nose and the taut tendons in her neck.
Carson rose from his seat; Sean followed suit. The woman greeted them with a warm smile. Carson took a couple quick steps toward her with his arms out. She put her hands on his shoulders and faux kissed him on each cheek.
Old world pretension, Sean thought.
“Carson, my love.”
“Alexandra, my queen.”
Alexandra looked at Sean.
“He’s ever the flatterer, my Carson,” she said as she closed the distance to Sean. She extended her hand with the palm down. “Alexandra Bingham.”
Sean could feel the other three sets of eyes on him.
He shook her hand, but didn’t kiss her ring.
“I’m Sean.”
“This I know.” She turned to walk around the desk. “I’ve had my eyes on you for some time now.”
Sean glared over at Carson. Bingham smoothed her jacket, then gestured for them to return to the sofa. “Please, sit.”
Sean sat. Carson waited until Bingham did. She crossed one hand over the other on her desk, her face still wearing the soft smile.
“I understand you are interested in my little offer?”
Sean cleared his throat and leaned forward.
&nbs
p; “I don’t seem to have much of a choice.”
Her face hardened.
“Of course, you have a choice! Carson, to what is Mister Stone alluding?” Her vocal rhythm was the practiced beat of high society in a city lacking it.
“Just a little misunderstanding. It won’t be a problem, will it, Sean?”
Oh, it was a problem, all right.
There was little doubt in Sean’s mind that one day, Carson was going to walk out of one of his haunts and experience some extreme discomfort if he had anything to say about it. But in the end, he was right. Since there would soon be a high reward in ration chits for anyone who spotted him and since the DF was so far up his split, it made little difference.
Sean nodded.
“It’s simple. I have a valuable vehicle I need transported east to—”
“Triangle City?”
The men who’d entered with Bingham turned their gazes on him. Alexandra’s expression hardened like steel.
“Sorry,” Sean added.
Her expression relaxed.
“You are forgiven, dear.” The bodyguards turned their eyes back to Bingham, and Sean could see their shoulders relax. Maybe they’d been afraid they’d have to take him out back to teach him some manners. “Yes, Triangle City.”
“Sure.”
“Very good.” Alexandra stood and waltzed around the desk to hover over them. Sean started to rise, but she waved him back into his seat. “I think you’ll like it there.”
“I grew up there,” he said, absently. When his brain caught up to his mouth, he had to suppress a cringe.
“How come I never heard that?” Carson asked. “You lived out there?”
He was distracted by images long past, of tree-lined roads in the Raleigh area. But then the practical side of his brain conjured memories of more recent clashes in a desert city between thousands of people in the streets. Corpses swinging from the roofs like pendulums over the river of blood below. After all this time, all the violence and grief he’d seen, after living in the sheer hell of the new world of the west coast, Sean Stone was finally going home.
If he survived the trip. And if Alexandra didn’t have any surprises waiting for him on the other side.
“You look pale.”
Sean looked up and cleared his throat. “Oh, I’m fine. I was just wondering why Carson didn’t make the sales pitch you just did. It would’ve been easier.”
Bingham ignored the comment.
“I don’t like your pallor.” She ticked her head toward the men at the door. “Get Mister Stone some apple water.”
“Yes ma’am,” one of the thugs said, exiting the room.
“At the other end,” Alexandra continued, “You will receive payment of three hundred thousand Union Marks from a Mister Blake Jensen, of JenCorp. I have already deposited the other half.”
“Marks?”
“Goodness, have you been living in a cave, dear? Marks are the new currency for The Union. The two markets have balanced the values of their currencies and rated them at one and a half of our dollars. Until the marks are officially adopted upon the joining of the cities, merchants on both sides can calculate the costs in local currency. You should have no problem spending Marks on either side.”
Sean did a double take.
“Did you say three hundred thousand of them?”
“Six hundred thousand,” Alexandra corrected. “Only a fair wage for high risks.”
Before laying down roots in Oklahoma City six years ago, he’d struggled for decades as he bounced from township to township deep in Horde territory. Currency was a much different thing in those places, consisting of food, tools, weapons, and clothing. The strange hankerings to go back to his childhood home in what had once been Raleigh never entirely abated, but he urged the thoughts away with the rationalization that everyone he knew there was long dead. People made places home in their minds, and he was no different. But now his options were to head back east or once again brave the wilds ruled by violence. Thinking of the place where he’d grown up and a serious influx of cash made the punch to the gut a little softer.
Perhaps that was the idea.
He could feel both Bingham’s and Carson’s eyes on him as he worked through the math.
“Does this mean you accept?” Alexandra asked after another minute.
“Yeah, I accept.”
Alexandra smiled and rose to her feet, offering her hand. Sean mirrored her and shook her hand. Carson surprised him with a rib rattling slap on the back. Sean wanted to snap his arm.
“Good man,” Carson said. “Maybe in a few years I’ll head out and look ya up, pardner!”
“I hope so. I sure hope so.”
Carson must have detected the sarcasm in Sean’s voice, because his face went slack.
“You are exhausted,” Alexandra said. “Your hands are shaking. You’ll be my guest for lunch, followed by a restoring siesta. Then my people will smuggle you out.”
Sean gave her a flat look and tensed his shoulders.
“You are quite safe here, Sean. I assure you.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Martha
Statesville
By the time Miles got to the vehicle, his body was finished. The sky overhead was still black, but the stars had disappeared behind a wall of dark clouds. Lightning flashed in the distance. He tossed aside the bricks used to weigh down the tarp, crawled under, and let it drop behind him. He waved the light from his handheld across the door but found nothing resembling a handle. There were no buttons, no discernible marks.
Great, the ninja woman had left him a vehicle he couldn’t even get into.
His left hand was protesting, the cut under his eye had a nice burning sensation going, and his vision on that side was still blurry. He cursed and kicked the door; his foot strike barely made a noise. Lowering his head and giving off a good, long growl, he placed his palm on the door to lean for a moment with the tarp hanging over his back. Two seconds later he heard a whir and a click, and the door began to rise vertically, lifting the tarp. He shuffled out of the way and slid into the contoured seat inside the vehicle, watching the door complete its opening cycle. The door sat open. Miles leaned back in the seat and growled again as his shoulder ached. He scanned the center console. There were five buttons fashioned of different colored plastics. Any fool knew red was out of the question if one didn’t know a button’s purpose, so he ignored that one. He tried the green one first. The panel in front of him lit up, and the system began a diagnostic check.
“Welcome back, Sasha,” the voice said. Somehow Miles didn’t think that was good.
“Thank you?”
“Voice not recognized. Please enter the override code.”
“Oh, shit, of course.” He pulled up his Tab, tapped and scrolled. Then he looked around for the number pad.
“Please enter the override code,” the voice repeated.
“I hear you, bitch. Jesus, give me a god-damn second.”
“Acknowledged.”
“How do I enter the fucking code?” Miles yelled at himself.
“You may enter the override code by verbal commands. Please enter the override code.”
Miles sneered.
“A-nine-seven-six-three-four-one.”
“Code acknowledged. Please speak your name for system recognition.”
“Mi—” he stopped himself. He wasn’t in Triangle City anymore. His mission was over. “Lucian.”
“Your vocal graph will be associated with the name, Lucian. Do you wish to keep this name?”
“Yes.”
“Hello, Lucian. Welcome to the Black Cat Single-Passenger Assault Vehicle. Would you like a tutorial of the system’s interfaces?”
“Oh, praise-the-universe-fucking-hell-yes-please-Martha.”
“Would you like the system to be designated ‘Martha,’ Lucian?”
“Sure.”
“The system will now awaken and respond to verbal commands upon use of the designation
‘Martha.’”
“Could you also close the damn door, Martha?”
The door began to whir closed.
While Martha rattled off the user manual, Miles started rummaging around for supplies and found the med kit the woman in black—Sasha, presumably— promised him beneath a console at the back of the main panel.
“The Black Cat Prototype Single Man assault vehicle, or BCP, is designed for escort functions. It has dual pulse cannon, an out bound, short range Electromagnetic Pulse for close range engagements, and kinetic-powered energy-resistant exterior plating. Its top speed is forty miles per hour.”
“Damn.” The system paused and Lucian realized it was because he had spoken. “Resume.”
“The armor plating absorbs solar energy to minimize fuel consumption. The vehicle is equipped with twelve swiveling three-hundred-sixty-degree tracks allowing it to take impact from any direction without tipping.”
“Who manufactured this thing?” Miles asked.
“That information is not available, Lucian. Classification code TS1.”
“Who was the occupant prior to me?”
“That information is—”
“Okay, fine!” He rummaged through the first aid kit for a bandage.
After tending to his shoulder, checking his stitches and cleaning up that wound, applying a salve to the cut under his eye, and pulling out three small ice packs, Lucian yawned and asked, “What’s the best way to sleep in this thing?”
“The seat folds flat and inflates, Lucian. The windows tint to black. Would you like me to prepare the cabin for sleep mode?”
“Yes.”
“Please keep your hands in front of you while the system prepares the BCP cabin for sleep mode. Sleep soundly, Lucian.”
“Nice touch.”
“Thank you, Lucian.”
“How do I stay warm in here?”
