by Jett Lang
“Respectfully,” Ellie said, “Chamber warrants a team that is experienced and unknown. He’ll expect this.”
Syntheia smiled her regal smile, a manicured hand coming to grip Ellie’s black armored shoulder. “He will expect my envoys. Envoys that will present him with the legal paperwork to make the merger of our two companies official. As you can see, I am too grief-stricken to attend the meeting myself. I have signed the documents; he need only add his own signature.” She let her hand gracefully sway back to her side. “And he will.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
“The pilot knows where to drop you,” Syntheia said. Then, regarding Jack, she added, “You and I are going to get along swimmingly now, are we not?”
His jaw tensed. “We are.”
“Do you have any concerns about the direction I am taking this business?” Syntheia closed the distance between them in two quick steps, close enough to give Queen a whiff of her sweet-smelling perfume. Wildflowers.
“No, ma’am.”
“Look at me,” she said, and flicked his chin. “Answer the question again.”
“There’s no problem on my end.”
“Will it stay that way?”
“Yeah.”
“You are not upset that I own you?”
“Everyone is owned by someone.”
She beamed up at him, perfect teeth on show. “Oh, my dear Jack: Banality does not suit you. If what you say is true, who owns me? My customers? My employees? Their demands?”
“I’m not an economist.”
“You most certainly are not. You are my personal gun. When I say, ‘Shoot,’ you ask which way and what caliber. You are an intelligent man. You grasp this notion.”
Ellie cleared her throat before Jack could make the mistake of speaking his mind. “Ma’am, we should be off as soon as possible.”
Syntheia held her smiling stare for a moment longer, then turned on her black heels and strode toward the far end of the hangar.
“I expect good things, Ellie,” she called, a slender, tanned arm waving over her right shoulder.
Ellie nodded for them to climb into the refueled hovercraft. Before he could, Queen took Jack’s arm.
“Looks like you’ve got a job,” she whispered.
“For what it’s worth.”
He shook himself free, and stepped into the vehicle.
Fallen Angels
They stepped out onto the rain-slickened concrete platform. The streets of Angel Bay glittered with a luster that was never-ending, and bright as day. Near the open-air landing zone, product-minded people crossed the sidewalks with an obvious disinterest in anything besides their bright, laminated shopping bags; their topics of discussions invariably winding back to the contents within. Two women strolled by, giggling over something, swinging green bags against their knees. Jack stretched his arms in his jacket. Civilian clothing chosen by Syntheia; nothing like he’d normally wear. Gone were the days of ugly printed shirts.
The guard at the exit gate scanned her ID. The emblem embossed on his front pocket was Wayne’s corporate crest; the gun-and-sword symbol was an epidemic that had spread from kiosk to customer as far as she could see. Had it been that way before and she hadn’t noticed? Was she seeing Wayne everywhere, now that he was dead?
They exited the barred-off landing zone. Under a starless sky, the three assassins melded with the crowd of loyal consumers. The insatiable current would deposit them at the meeting point Syntheia had arranged, and Chamber would be there; as senseless to his impending liquidation as the late Wayne, whose legacy remained only on the products toted by the masses.
※
“He’s not seeing anyone right now,” said the kid in the yacht club guard booth. His white navel outfit was ill-fitted. A replacement. “He told me to keep these gates shut. For everyone.”
He shrugged, eyed the holo-magazine on his desk. Racing highlights sped in HD over glossy pages, and the slickened windows of his booth blurred the finer details of near-misses and vehicular slaughter.
Ellie was not to be turned away. “New to this post, I see. Gonna drop you a line here, and be sure to write it down: Orders change over the course of the day.” She tapped the glass when he didn’t look up. “When were you told to bar the gate?”
The young man flipped a page or two absently. The carnage was a rainbow haze on his suntanned skin. “I’m not allowed to tell you those things. I don’t want to lose this job over a breach in protocol. My uncle runs the place and he’ll be upset if I–”
“Uncle Chamber will be more upset if you don’t let us in,” Ellie said. “Two minutes. I’m going to call my boss. They’ll call your uncle. That little radio on your lapel will tell you that you’ve made a mistake. A big one. That’s what you want?”
There was dark red color on his cheeks. Not all of it was from the magazine.
“N-no,” he said. “Sorry, I don’t like calling things in. Makes me nervous. I have a condition and I take these meds for it and–”
“Work it out on your own time. Check in.” She turned up the collar of her black windbreaker.
“R-right. Right, I will.”
After a bit of back and forth with an older-sounding man over the radio, the kid was informed his orders had been changed an hour ago in anticipation of three VIPs. He turned from them when he heard that, clutched the radio. Bent over and steadied himself with one hand on his desk. The older voice asked why he was checking; the information had been posted in the booth. Did he need to come out and check on the problem personally? The kid managed to stutter an apology, and signed off.
He stormed quickly out of his booth and unlocked the gate for them. The assault rifle slung over his back looked two sizes too big for him, and his maritime cap had gone lopsided in his rush to assist. Ellie stopped midstride to adjust his hat, whispered some unsmiling advice to him, and beckoned Jack and Queen up the cobblestone road.
※
Mr. Chamber was sitting cross-legged atop his desk when the three assassins entered his third-floor office. He had his back to them, his iron-grey hair cut shorter than Queen remembered. His suit jacket was abandoned on the arm of a chair by the hologram fireplace. Synthetic logs crackled and ice tinkled as Chamber downed a glass of something she couldn’t see. He kept his eyes on the expansive window that overlooked the harbor; beyond, the black waters of the Eastern Sea rose and fell with a pre-storm violence.
“Tempestuous out there,” Mr. Chamber said, despondent. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
Ellie ushered Queen and Jack ahead of her. They took the two seats in front of Chamber’s desk, and he remained facing the window. Ellie’s blank face loomed behind him in the nighttime reflection on the window, a mirror of the warmly lit office. She crossed her arms.
“Should look to improve your night staff. Woefully lacking.”
“Family members generally are,” Chamber said. He refilled and lifted his glass. The clatter of cubed ice: that old, empty sound. A surge of heavy pattering against the windows. Rain droplets merged into coursing rivulets.
“Brought the papers, as requested,” Ellie said. She unfolded clean white parchment from an interior pocket and laid it on his mesquite workspace, which lacked any of the organized clutter Queen had seen on her first visit. She wondered how often Chamber used his desk as a platform for meditation. He must have truly felt the storm coming to display himself like this, half drunk and miserable.
“I’m afraid I’ve misplaced my pen. It’s been rather hectic here lately; you’ll have to forgive me.” Chamber clinked his glass onto a coaster beside him. On the horizon, a sailboat’s light signaled the shore. “Don’t know why you’d take a boat out in weather like this. Really don’t.”
“The challenge of it,” Jack said.
Mr. Chamber chuckled mirthlessly as he loosened his tie from his bleach-white shirt. “Never found pleasure in unnecessary risk, but the world is plentiful with idiots.”
Ellie fished a red-cased pen from the same
pocket the parchment had been in. She made a point to click it a couple times. “Black ink,” she said, and placed it next to the document.
Chamber reached a hand behind and took the pen, his eyes on the intemperate bay. “A hostile color to bring to a meeting like this. Have I insulted the owner-to-be?”
“It’s my favorite color.”
“I would have taken you for blue, my girl. Now Queen here, she has those red eyes that spell out the whole sordid tale.” He twisted himself around, thousand credit wingtips dangling from the desk. Grey eyes locked on Queen. “Or am I wrong?”
He threw the pen in her lap. She moved to hand it back to him, but he stared, unblinking, like she was a piece of meat rotting before him. There was hatred in those tired eyes, and something akin to bewilderment. He knew she should be dead, yet here she sat; a mockery. He was just an old man without a worthy heir. She felt no guilt over her part in the killing of Chamber’s son. In her profession, steady income was not the bedmate of morality. Her only regret was that the political hijinks of two major players had cost her her job. Chamber could probably read all of it in her face, see her unburdened conscience.
“Jack, find another pen,” Ellie said, but Chamber reach out to Queen to snatch the red one. He clicked out the nib.
“Maybe this is the appropriate color for a deal like this,” Mr. Chamber said. He grabbed the contract and started perusing its text. “Little lady wants to buy out all my worthless kids. Good on her. And she’s been so kind as to match their stock prices and then some. She’s a generous one.”
“She’s fair.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“Provisions have been made for extended family. Help to avoid future confrontations.” Ellie brushed off the sleeves of her dampened windbreaker.
“Substantial,” he said as he turned to the window again. “She thought of everything. Who wrote this?”
“She did.”
“She is authorized?”
“Certified last year. The stamp is authentic, if you care to check.”
“I’ve seen enough forgeries to know.” He came to the bottom of the page: “She signed already.”
“Was told she informed you.”
“Oh, she did. What she didn’t tell me, is why Wayne’s personal Liquidationist is delivering mail when his life is supposed to be on the line.” He put the document aside.
“Just a messenger for his daughter.”
“A messenger,” Chamber said. “Now see, I’ve met a lot of messengers in my time, and I have to say that not one of them was like you.”
“Dad always said I was different.”
“I’m sure he did.” Chamber’s smile turned crooked. “Did Wayne say it, too, right before you did him?”
“Did what?”
“What a bitch is trained to do for her master.”
He swung his legs to the right side of the desk and sprang off, his days of swimming keeping him limber. He went over to one of the bookshelves flanking the hearth of wavering flames. Thunder rumbled overhead, and the monolithic windows trembled with the reverb.
Ellie unfolded her arms. “What’re you doing?”
“You want my signature.”
“The pen is–”
“Fuck the pen,” Chamber snapped. “We all know about the pen.”
He pulled a coverless book from the shelf, and brought it over to the desk. Leafed through the pages, in no hurry as he searched. Chamber let his forefinger guide his eyes across every suspect line, just the way Queen’s mother used to read. Finger first, eyes second. Once he happened upon what he’d been looking for, he rotated the open book toward the assassins.
Ellie stepped closer, her shadow darkening the frayed, yellowed pages. She tapped her index finger on the paper. Chamber’s signature. A mess of elaborate whirls and flicks. “We can leave once this is on the agreement.”
The older man rolled his office chair over the topography of big game rugs and brown laminate.
“Do it yourself.” He sat, propped his wingtips up on the desk. “I’m done.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Let’s not play dumb in front of the kids, girl. Syntheia sent you here to cut me out of the deal. There is no partnership. I’m not signing off on anything that lying whore sent me. She lost her chance when I recognized you. Here I thought she would make a halfway intelligent partner, but it seems she’s as stupid as her daddy.”
His smug assurance had returned to his words and his posture as he sunk into the rust-hued leather. Hands behind his head, Chamber said, “If you want my signature, why don’t you copy it?” He nodded at the book and laughed. “Get out of my office.”
Ellie straightened herself, tugged at the hem of her jacket. “Okay.”
She had her pocket-gun leveled at him. He scrambled to swing his feet off his desk, and made a yelping noise that turned into a gurgle when she shot him through the esophagus. Jack and Queen got to their feet, and watched was Chamber’s bloody fingers clenched around the wound. He fell from his chair and hit his head against the floor, eyes wide with rage and surprise as Ellie stood over him. She cocked her head, watched the man gasp for air, then kicked him hard enough in the ribs to flip him onto his back. Blood dribbled from his mouth, down to the new hole in his throat. The rest of Ellie’s clip whispered through his chest, and his squirming came to an end. Chamber’s black blood pooled across the laminate, slowed when it met one of his animal skin rugs.
Ellie bumped his chair aside and collected her pen.
“Didn’t need him after all?” Jack said.
Ellie examined the book Chamber had opened, then flourished a cursive replica of his full name on the signature line of Syntheia’s contract.
“Did he know you could do that?” Queen said.
“Unlikely,” Ellie said. She tucked the folded parchment into her pocket. “Night crew here is sparse. No security feed in this room. Twenty minutes, clean up and clear out.”
She awaited them by the double doors, her hand on one brass knob. Queen looked over the furniture and animal skins displaced in the brief struggle.
Jack said, “Raiders here, too?”
“You’re catching on.”
※
Ellie showed them to a safe house in the heart of the city. There, they stripped, incinerated their clothing, showered, and dressed. Ellie dismantled then cleaned their pocket-guns, put each little piece into its own zip-bag. She slipped on a leather jacket with the bags pocketed. It had black patches on the shoulder blades, was weather-worn, broken-in, and it fit her too well to belong to anyone else. An off-duty outfit. Queen knew better than to believe there would ever be a time when they were not on call, and that was how she preferred it; a life of activity over apathy.
As for Jack, she still couldn’t be sure. He had carried out what needed to be done in the moment, but nothing had been asked of him outside of his attendance. Ellie had pulled the trigger, both times. He was only a voyeur, and no real test of loyalty had been completed: to her, or to Syntheia. She had no issue taking orders from Syntheia, or anyone else that would keep her secure and paid. Jack wasn’t wired that way. She almost longed for a way to rework his brain, anything so they could enjoy their new employment – however indentured it was – together. Anything that would keep him docile in front of Ellie, their superior in this jumbled corporate jigsaw.
He was by a footlocker tying his new boots, and seeing him there, so listlessly knotting and looping, she sensed the wheels turning. Ellie shut her paint-flecked locker with a metallic clang.
“Did well,” she said. “Could have gotten out of hand.”
“We aim to please,” Jack said.
“Stay that course, then.” She wandered over to the room’s one window. The light from advertising holograms filtered through. Washed-out colors danced across her face.
Queen rose to join her by the sill. Silhouettes sauntered in and out of 3D advertisements for a healthier body and a greener planet. Infinitely stunning
models smiled invitingly to the crowds below. Ellie opened the window, and let in all the merriment and slurred curses from below. Ceaseless movement in a wilderness of lights. It reminded Queen of home in the New Paradise Entertainment District in a lot of ways, right down to the blissfully unaware population.
“About the forgery,” she said.
“Duplicate,” Ellie corrected, watching the crowd.
“Where’d you learn signature copying like that?”
Her superior leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Grade school. Helped with the job search.”
“I bet it did,” Jack said from his bench, a cynical undertone in his speech. Ellie ignored him.
“They don’t scrutinize these mergers closely if you grease the right palms. The boss has plenty of grease.”
“They’ll investigate Chamber.”
“And find nothing conclusive. An unexpected break-in and shooting. Disgruntled workers, raiders. Whatever explanation is fastest.”
Jack got to his feet, took a few steps toward them. “Can you really sweep a man like that under the rug so easily?”
Ellie didn’t say anything for a moment, focused instead on the saturated middle distance. Quietly, she said, “Greater men have been.”
“Ellie,” Queen whispered. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Wayne.”
The woman pushed herself away from the wall and strode to the other end of the two-room apartment. She grabbed a hiking backpack from Jack’s bench, leaving two identical packs behind. Rations, water bottles, extra clothes, bug spray, and a medical kit inside. Couple of blood sports magazines for good measure. Three friends out exploring nature, it would appear.
Not that anyone in the city cares.
Syntheia’s orders were going to have them journeying to the autumnal forests surrounding Angel Bay. A two hour trip on foot, including the elevated train that would speed them to the outskirts.
