The Liquidation Order

by Jett Lang

  She turned onto her side to face him, widened her eyes. “I must have given you what I had. You’re acting strange.”

  Jack shook his head, grinned. “We were fugitives before this, dead men in any city. It’s good Syntheia picked us up, bought us here. I imagine we were a steal, considerin’.” He propped up on his elbows and regarded her with black irises. Under the mosaic light, they seemed almost blue. “It was this or a life on the run. I don’t need that shit.”

  “Is this your version of an apology?”

  “I’m not usually one for backpedalin’, but, you know, I was wrong. So, if you’re wantin’ it direct: I’m sorry.”

  “Accepted.” He started to speak and she silenced him with a pointed finger. “If the next thing out of your mouth is about make-up sex, I swear–”

  “Boo,” he said, his mock-frown deep.

  She picked up the sleek, dull-edged dossier from where she had left it before Five-Nine had barged in and asked them to follow it to the armory. She flipped through it, returned to the page she’d been on. Hi-res photos of the basement level, the far-spanning stairwells, and the triple-sealed autodoor the strike team would have to, somehow, get through. Wayne’s precautions went as deep as his facility, it seemed. The handscanner beside the autodoor, which would be offline when she and Jack took out the back-up generators, was coded to Wayne’s prints alone.

  This was his sanctum. And, if they succeeded, it would be his grave.

  “Those lab boys can whip up a mean door, huh?” Jack said, resumed his ceiling-gazing.

  “A diamond and steel infusion,” she read. “Can a plasma cutter go through something like that?”

  “Won’t know till we get there.”

  “Your wisdom is infinite.”

  “Everyone else is a small-fry compared to Wayne. Can’t speak from experience I don’t have,” he said. “Well, I could, but then I’d sound like a student.”

  Queen snorted a laugh.

  “Lady-like,” Jack said.

  She swung her legs off the side of the bed and stood, the dossier held open in front of her downturned face as she navigated to the cherrywood table. She dropped the folder onto the surface and looked over her shoulder at Jack, beckoned him with a come-hither curl of a forefinger. He raised his eyebrows, came hither.

  Keen to her discretion, he mouthed, “What’s up?” as he pulled out a chair.

  She emptied the clipped hardcopy and pictures, stood the dossier up as a screen. Jack did the same with his own, which was already on the table. There was a draft in the room, the low and rattling hum of a circular vent on the wall between their beds. Jack weighed down the orderly stacks with a drink coaster. The corners of the papers fluttered lightly but stayed in place.

  With the upright binders forming an enclosure for only the white light above them to penetrate, she mouthed, face downturned and watching him sideways, “What do you think?”

  “I think we couldn’t be less obvious.”

  “Better idea?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then.”

  “There’s a hole in the infiltration. Namely, how we’re breakin’ in. We’re goin’ to the basement, so I assume it has to do with a tunnel, but I suppose Syntheia wants us guessin’.”

  “A tunnel,” she breathed. That’s what I need. More close spaces.

  Jack put a hand on her arm. “I’ll be there with you. It’ll be fine.”

  “We have to worry about ourselves in there. No one else. Less on the mind.”

  “Clearer heads,” Jack said, nodding a fraction of an inch.

  “Agreed.” She considered their impromptu dossier wall. “There isn’t a way to make this any less suspicious, is there?”

  “I can think of one, sure.”

  He kissed her. His lips, with a softness that had surprised her the first time, too, crushed against hers. Smell of mingled sweat and gun smoke on his skin. He brushed the dossier folders aside, and let them fall.

  Father’s Keeper

  At least Queen could spread herself out in the trunk of Syntheia’s hover transport; the occasional jostle of turbulence interrupted an otherwise smooth flight. Jack lay next to her reading, a small LED spotlight on the blueprints to Wayne’s underground fortress. He constantly shifted, itched at his wounded hand. Syntheia’s medical team had given him a once-over, hooked him up to a machine with innumerable lights, switches, and dials, and pumped him full of some pearlescent liquid. For Queen, it had been just a shot’s worth.

  Whatever it was – she hadn’t asked, they hadn’t said – it didn’t take long to have an effect. She had gotten the shakes at first, but they were replaced now by an overwhelming sensation of wellness. Her surroundings were clearer, colors more vivid. The spotlight in Jack’s hand was almost dazzling. She didn’t think they’d been given a narcotic: It had been hours since it entered her system and she wasn’t coming down. If only all the good feelings weren’t coupled with the fact that she was in a fucking trunk.

  I really hope you’re wrong about this tunnel, Jack.

  “What was in that stuff?” Jack muttered, scratching under his boots. The schematics for Wayne’s facility slanted over his side.

  “You got me.”

  “Huh?” Voice far away, his concentration on the itch or formication, or whatever he was feeling.

  “I don’t know.”

  “It’s like fuckin’ healin’ on overdrive.” He scraped his fingers across the white nanothread socks under his black boots – a present from the med staff. He strung a few expletives together under his breath. Scratched and scratched.

  “Leave it alone,” she sighed.

  He scratched some more, ignored her.

  She shook her head. “Alright, be an asshole about it. See how far that gets you.”

  He continued to be an asshole about it. She turned away and closed her eyes, his stubborn male stupidity an unsightly thing. She ran her fingertips over the laminated blueprints on her chest. Its contents were memorized, but there had been revisions, to her copy and to Jack’s. It went without saying that they’d be left in the vehicle for disposal.

  “How are you not feelin’ this?” Jack was bordering on frantic.

  “They didn’t give me as much.”

  He clicked off his flashlight. In the dark, the motions of his fingers stilled. “Why do we do this?”

  “Is that rhetorical?”

  “No. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I never took that master key from that kid. Bet I’d still be toolin’ around New Paradise and cartin’ broken people to the clinic.” He made a small noise, not quite a laugh.

  “We have to stay focused.”

  “Sure.”

  She rubbed her eyes. “Whatever sentimentalism you’ve got left in your system, get it out before we land.”

  He’d breathed the first syllables of some quip when turbulence struck. Their ample cabin rumbled briefly, returned to normal. His breathing was faster, shaky. She listened as he steadied his nerves.

  “That pilot doesn’t know anythin’. Amateur.” He repeated the last word in a whisper. A quiet invocation.

  “It’ll be fine,” she said, and found his hand.

  “Yeah. Yeah, it’ll be fine.”

  “The job is all that matters.”

  She’d lost count how often she had spoken of or thought about this. It was her mantra, and she sensed it needed to become Jack’s. That he needed it more than anything in the wake of his career loss. He was at the bottom again, because of a sacrifice he made for her. Deep down, she couldn’t say she would have done the same thing for him.

  He made some quick, unreadable gesture in the darkness that might have signified acceptance. Gently, he squeezed her hand and turned away from her.

  “Ten hours, right?” Jack said.

  “I’ll wake you when it’s time.”

  He fell quickly into a rhythm of slumber. His broad shoulders rose and sank. Rose. Sank.

  People like him – like her – were
taught how to sleep under arresting conditions. But here she was, fraught with apprehension over a man she hadn’t known for long at all. It made her pause. A connection like this, to a person like him, wasn’t her style at all. Infrequent one-nighters in hotel bars were her style. Things with Jack were bordering on long-term, and it made her feel foolish. As though she were a girl again, dreaming those childish dreams of marriage, long before training and career building had immolated what was left of that prepubescent fairytale.

  It would be simpler if he was dead. So much simpler.

  She reached out and felt his back expanding, contracting. She did not take her hand away in all those sleepless hours before they touched down.

  ※

  Moonlight slashed over Jack’s back, and he pushed himself up with one arm. He cleaned the sleep from his eyes with his other knuckles. His blueprint slipped from his armored chest like a blanket. Queen crumpled it up and tossed it into the corner with hers. The two of them were to arrive on the outskirts of the facility, aboveground, at a basecamp designated for infiltration. Whatever that meant.

  Over their last breakfast with Syntheia, neither she nor Five-Nine had specified much, except that Queen and Jack would have to travel through an older section of the facility first. Relatively little information was available. But nothing should trouble them down there. Queen had asked, “How old?” when she really wanted to ask, “How narrow?” Five-Nine had repeated, “Old.” Syntheia had given her an appraising look over her blue mug.

  They had then been led to the armory, where the aged butler, with red-rimmed eyes and a tired tone, dressed them in light combat armor. Syntheia’s armor from before. The butler’s wrinkled fingers tightened it to specification. His work complete, he gave them a triple-check and bowed his head. Asked if there was any other way he could serve them, his head still lowered. Deeper than submission. A sublevel she hoped to never reach.

  Jack was the first to leave the craft. His black-clad form passed over Queen like a phantom, conjured from some dark place. She caught his gaze. Cold, far-off eyes. In that moment, she meant nothing to him. The job was all that mattered and she was a means to its resolution. Where had that steel been when she was his target? Had she finally gotten through to him? She focused elsewhere, and stepped onto the ground.

  Ice wind stung her face. Frozen, dead grass crunched under her boots. Her bulletproof attire came with a hood made of the same resilient material, and she pulled it over her head. It clung firm to the top of her skull with a combination of static and suction. She wasn’t sure she liked it. Too close.

  The pilot stood before them, his reflective faceplate duplicating the star-lit tundra. The moonlight was strong enough for her to make out his blonde soul patch under full, emotionless lips.

  “I have everything you need, right here,” the lips said in deliberate monotone, no accent discernible. He gestured at the ground. Two long, parallel nylon gym bags rested there.

  Jack hoisted up one bag, and she the other.

  Queen was sure the pilot was watching them closely from under that visor. He said, “The site is close. I hope you remember the path. It’s not a good idea to get lost in this region.”

  “No extra clothes, no camping equipment?” she said. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “Then you have to make do,” the pilot said. “Or hope that Wayne’s men are forgiving.”

  She unzipped a flashlight from her duffel and frowned. “Syntheia can’t afford night-vision? I thought this was a professional operation.”

  “You have what you need.”

  “Is that everything?” Jack said in the apparently contagious monotone.

  “Extraction,” Queen said.

  The pilot shook his helmet, stars and landscape distorting. “You’ll know when I do. Over the radio.” He tapped the side of his helm with a gloved middle finger.

  The man walked around them and ducked under the hover’s pilot-side door. It was a different model from Jack’s, which had a slim, sporty look to it. This one was all about cargo storage. Larger backside, narrower front. Could probably seat a dozen or so inside the back, excluding the trunk. Made her wonder why they’d stored them in the there. Just in case they were stopped? Syntheia wanted them delivered safely and unseen, apparently. She took that as a good sign for them coming out of this alive. Or maybe it was false hope to help dull their senses when the business was done, and then the whole thing would fireball and crash to earth; the evidence of their deed ashen and inadmissible.

  Stop it. You sound like Jack.

  The two assassins had entered a slender, wilting strand of spruce by the time the hovercraft’s whining engines faded out of earshot. Jack led, Winnow out. She looked back only once, their transport already a speck in the night sky. A star. She almost wished on it.

  She looked ahead. Jack was farther along, her slowed steps gone unnoticed. She hefted her bag over her shoulder and made certain her Winnow was secure to her hip. She let him keep to his brisk pace. He needed the distance. Perhaps she did, too.

  ※

  They located the campsite within the hour. It was little more than a camouflaged tarp staked into the earth, the sharp shadows of spruce trees sinister in the moonlit clearing. Inside the tent was a circle of dented, aluminum foldout chairs and a central stone pit. Queen handed Jack her LED flashlight and he turned in it on, shined the bluish white light on the pit. It looked laminated, unnatural. She bent and tried to loosen one of the stones from the pile. Didn’t budge. She felt along the underside, discovered every faux-rock was attached to the next. Rapped it with her knuckles. Hollow vibrations replied.

  “Under here,” she said.

  Jack holstered his weapon, hunched on the other side, and found purchase. He mumbled “go” around the flashlight clamped between his teeth. They lifted the campfire-hatch up and aside, dropped it on the withered grass. Jack took the flashlight out of his mouth.

  The white-blue light cut into a hole not much wider than him. A stainless steel ladder started below the surface, its rungs bolted to the concrete.

  “Long drop,” she breathed.

  Jack placed his foot a few rungs down and offered her the flashlight. The cone of light beamed back on the torso of his black armor. She took it, shouldered her duffel bag squarely against her back. Everything seemed heavier as she stared into that narrow, illuminated tunnel. Had the tent always been so small?

  “Hey.” Jack’s voice was gentle, but his eyes were still hard as they stared up at her. “It isn’t as far as you think.”

  “Can’t see the bottom,” she said, tried to steady the shakes in the both her hands. “I think it’s farther than I can handle.” When he tried to reach for her, she darted backwards. Shook her head. “No.”

  Jack vaulted from the maintenance hole with agility surprising for his size. The tent’s dead carpet crunched under him. He approached her slowly, his hands up in placation.

  “Okay. You’re okay. We can take this easy. One step at a time.”

  “Don’t come any closer.” She withdrew her Winnow, but it was the flashlight she aimed at him. His shadow, wrinkled on the weather-beaten tent, stayed still. He gave her a small nod.

  She grabbed one of the aluminum chairs by the backrest and placed it behind her. Sat. Didn’t take her eyes off Jack.

  “You’re a big problem for me, you know that? That’s what you’ve been from the start.”

  “Is that right?”

  She swallowed, throat dry. Yanked her hood back. “You’ll continue being a problem, too. And that’s the truth. No dancing around it.”

  Jack only watched her, listening. Beneath his vacant expression, he was likely calculating the best way to disarm her. If he had read her profile, then he knew the swiftness of her draw. She didn’t raise her weapon.

  “Why would you do this? Why would you let me go? No one is that special, Jack. Not as special as Seniority in liquidation. You’ll never find a career like that again, not even if Syntheia lets us live.
You do these things without consideration.” Queen wiped the back of her gloved hand across her forehead. “There’s something wrong with a man that chooses a woman over himself.”

  “You don’t believe that. You were willin’ to run away together, before that debacle in the forest. I’m makin’ an effort with this job for you.”

  “All you’ve done is antagonize Syntheia. What if there’s only room for one of us, after all this? What if she makes me choose?”

  “The way I chose you over a career? The way I chose you over the greater good? I wouldn’t be anywhere near this Wayne thing if it wasn’t so damn important to you.”

  “I didn’t ask you to choose anything. Ever.”

  “I didn’t bring up the decisions that I made so I could hold them over your head. Everyone has to make choices. And so will you.”

  “What if I can’t choose?”

  “You have to. Either you choose for yourself, or someone forces your hand.”

  Queen ground the flashlight and the barrel of her gun over her legs. Palm-sweat gathered inside her gloves, and she rocked back in the chair.

  “Choose to come down the tunnel with me. That’s all you have to do right now.”

  And what about later?

  Jack touched her shoulder. “We’re runnin’ late.”

  He turned his back on her and reentered the vertical passageway into the pitch black. Same fluid agility. She hadn’t seen the full effect of his augmentations before. It wouldn’t do to forget that he was just as able as she was, with all the advantage of experience. And now he was on autopilot again. Focused. Lost to her.

  She holstered her pistol and walked over to the brim of the descent, flashed the light over the concrete and steel below. Ignored Jack’s upturned face, his stare. She didn’t need his judgement or his concern over what was, admittedly, a simple downward climb. Simple, but deep. She met Jack’s eyes in the peripheral of illumination.

  “We’re behind schedule,” he said. He patted the first steel rung. The metal echoed. She inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth.

  “Okay.”