by Jucha, S. H.
Jodlyne added to the mêlée when she stated that she should go into the club alone. In her opinion, Serian would be unsettled by the presence of Edmas. As tunnel rats, she often went first to distract the enemy, allowing Edmas shots at diverted targets. This time, Jodlyne was pleased to see that her statement caused Edmas no end of consternation. It confirmed what she saw earlier in the afternoon at the shop, and the tiny thrill in her chest saw its flames fanned.
After the discussion’s dust settled, Jodlyne’s next trip to Espero’s city center wasn’t on the back of Edmas’ flit. She was aboard one of five personal transports loaded with humans and SADEs, which landed several streets away from Serian’s rendezvous point.
Armed with more repetitions of her orders than she cared to count, Jodlyne turned to walk away when Edmas wrapped her in his arms and whispered in ear, “You be careful.”
“Always,” she replied, giving Edmas a quick peck on the cheek. It was the first time she had kissed him, and she carefully stored the moment.
There were so many connections to Jodlyne’s implant, she felt like a comm center, as she walked the several blocks to meet Serian. The boy, as promised, stood near a street corner in the doorway of a shop, which had closed hours ago. Of course, you’re early, and you hope you’re going to get lucky tonight, Jodlyne thought, and her sense of self-worth bloomed further.
Serian tried for a kiss when Jodlyne greeted him, but she artfully dodged it, keeping a pleasant smile on her face. Her escort wasted no time hurrying them off, taking several turns to reach a narrow street that seemed to meet a dead end. When she looked at him in confusion, Serian smiled back as if he held a great secret. Then he walked up to a side wall and waved his hand to eliminate the holo-veil covering the back wall and reveal the club’s entrance.
“How clever,” Jodlyne declared. Her statement was purely for Serian’s benefit, since every step Jodlyne took was tracked by implants, SADEs, and the controller of a traveler floating silently overhead in the dark of a cloud-covered night. For her part, Jodlyne’s security protocols were inactive, and she transmitted everything she saw, heard, touched, and even smelled.
When the club entrance lit up, the twins, who controlled the operation, signaled their forces to close on the building. The traveler’s view allowed the copilot to spot the building’s rear entrances, and he signaled troopers to cover those exit points.
Serian opened the door for Jodlyne and waved her inside. A woman with a shaved and tattooed head greeted them, and before Jodlyne could think of a reason to object, she was tagged with a med-injector and waved into the club. What didn’t escape her attention was that Serian didn’t receive a shot.
The doors beyond the reception area opened, and the deafening music nearly bowled Jodlyne over. But it was the sight of teens twitching and jerking their bodies in a distant imitation of the music that Jodlyne found unsettling.
Jodlyne stepped onto the club’s dance floor, the doors sliding closed behind her, and she felt her implant connections drop off. It heightened her growing fear, and then the drug saturated her bloodstream and entered her brain, tearing loose her hold on reality.
For a lonely, frightened girl alone on a huge space station and hunted by the militia, holding onto reality was Jodlyne’s way of surviving. It was choosing to run away, climb into a giant air duct, and crawl out of sight, armed only with a meager pack of water and rations. Maintaining control was how Jodlyne lived her life, but now that was slipping through her hands, no matter how tightly she tried to grasp it.
Jodlyne looked around for Serian, but the boy was nowhere in sight. Idiot, Jodlyne thought, drugged and deserted like a tunnel-rat novice.
The harder Jodlyne fought to retain control, the faster it seemed to slip away. Soon, she was back on Idona Station running from the militia, but there were too many of them, and they caught her. She screamed and kicked, but they hauled her away to a distant orphanage — away from the rebels — away from Edmas.
The hands of hundreds of faceless children pulled Jodlyne inside the orphanage, which swallowed her like a giant animal. Then her torment began in earnest. Every cruel act she could imagine that could be perpetrated by children was foisted on her. She cried out at them to stop, but they only laughed and continued to taunt and torture her.
* * *
Z and the twins were the first ones around the narrow street’s corner. Thanks to Jodlyne’s transmission they knew exactly where to look for the concealed trigger to reveal the entrance. Unfortunately, the beam was turned off.
Z pulled up Jodlyne’s images, mapped her steps toward the entrance, and marked the position where the doors would appear.
The twins watched as Z disappeared behind the holo-veil and heard the crash of breaking doors. They and the troopers quickly followed, having tracked Z’s movements. Inside the club, the reception desk was abandoned. The inner door of the club was already closing behind Z, and the twins signaled the troopers to fan out and check the offices while they chased after Z.
A search of the club’s premises by the team revealed that the operators had fled, and the troopers monitoring the back exits reported that no one exited the building.
From the traveler overhead, Cordelia sent,
Inside the club’s dance space, Étienne and Alain stared aghast at the twitching teens. They located the music source and shut it down about the time Z located the comm jammer and deactivated it.
Edmas, waiting at the entrance to the narrow street, couldn’t contain his impatience any longer and raced into the club. He connected to Jodlyne’s implant and was struck by the chaos of the images he received. Threading among the bodies, some motionless and some still twitching, Edmas made his way to a corner of the club and found Jodlyne huddling there, her knees drawn to her chest, and sobbing.
Terese finished sending her requests for additional support and ran for the entrance with Pia Sabine, her good friend, right behind her. Their implants tracked the positions of Edmas and Jodlyne, but they were momentarily halted by the vision of teens, their eyes vacant, standing and twitching or lying comatose on the floor. Edmas’ cry for help was repeated, and they worked their way to the corner to find him cradling a whimpering Jodlyne. His eyes beseeched them for help.
Pia snapped open a small med-kit for Terese, who pulled an injector and selected an ampule to load. Immediately after the injector’s application to Jodlyne’s neck, she quieted. Pia would have called for a grav-stretcher, but Edmas struggled to his feet, hauling Jodlyne upright. He picked her up in his arms and carried her through the throng to the club’s exit. She would not spend another moment in the maddening place if Edmas could help it.
Terese and her people went around administering the soporific to each teen until they ran out of ampules. They concentrated on moving the sedated, while they waited for resupply. Med teams transported the teens to Espero’s primary hospital, returning as quickly as possible for the others.
* * *
Cordelia was tied into the traveler’s controller. Three people had popped up on the club’s roof from a concealed hatch, while Z, the twins, and the troopers searched the premises. The copilot and she monitored the fugitives’ flight, while the pilot paid attention to their navigation.
Captain Escobar, an ex-Terran Security Forces officer and friend of Tatia Tachenko, was seated beside Cordelia in the traveler’s passenger section. The captain was a member of the growing Haraken securities cadre who reported to the twins.
Behind the captain were fifteen troopers. The greater number was Tatia’s idea. Having spent
much of her time in operations against criminals on New Terra, she told the twins that it was more than likely their targets would have a clever escape plan, and the traveler and troopers would help negate their options. As Captain Escobar tracked the fugitives with Cordelia, he had to admit that his former TSF superior had called the shot dead on.
The three fugitives made their way across several rooftops before they shot a zip line to cross a street to the next rooftop. The gang repeated this several times before they dropped over the side of a building to a waiting grav-transport. Moments later they were airborne, racing for the outskirts of Espero.
Above, the traveler’s pilot kept pace with the grav-transport. After the city limits were left behind, the lights of the fleeing transport were shut off, and its dark silhouette was lost against the landscape to the naked eye. The copilot switched the traveler’s controller from visual scanning to a grav-wave detection signal, which was bounced off the fugitive’s transport.
Cordelia could hear the sadness in the captain’s words. Apparently, some of your associates were not so fortunate at keeping the criminals’ habits at arm’s length, she thought.
The controller’s telemetry displayed the transport’s grav-wave halted, relative to the background wave of the planet. The pilot switched to an infrared view, and three heat-emanating figures hurried from the transport to disappear into a construction shed, which was still radiating the heat it absorbed during the day from Hellébore. At Captain Escobar’s direction, the pilot silently landed the traveler in a meadow 200 meters away.
Cordelia rose but the captain blocked her way.
Cordelia sympathized with the captain’s plight and relented, but not without giving him some parting advice.
Captain Escobar was no amateur when it came to arresting criminals, and he had a superb track record of capturing the vast majority alive. Instead of working his team close to the shed, surrounding it, and rushing in, Escobar formed his troopers in a loose cordon and settled down to wait.
After the troopers exited the ship, Cordelia ordered the pilot to lift off and position the ship to monitor the criminals if they evaded the captain’s team. She smiled to herself, watching the captain’s men on infrared as they settled into fixed positions, while the chronometer marched relentlessly on.
On the ground, Captain Escobar gave his adversaries three hours to settle down and believe they had escaped capture. Then he signaled his people to tighten the ring around the shed. From the small outbuilding’s rear, two troopers ignited plasma rifles and started cutting through the wall along the roof line. The panicked fugitives raced out the front door, and several blasts from stun guns dropped them to the ground.
After removing their weapons and searching them for anything dangerous, the captain signaled the pilot, who landed the traveler meters away. Cordelia rechecked the restrained and comatose prisoners, searching for data material and hidden tools. Finding nothing, she nodded to the captain, who ordered the captives hauled aboard the traveler.
-6-
As the drugged, but now sedated, teens were evacuated to receive emergency medical attention, Julien and Z searched the club for evidence of Christie and her friends.
In a back room of the club, Julien pulled in a mouthful of air and ran sampling analyses on its contents. He froze, bent to the floor, and pulled in a second sample.
Étienne tracked the SADE’s open comm link, and found Julien was on his hands and knees with his face to the floor, pulling in air, waiting, moving, and repeating his action.
“They were here … all three of our girls, for hours,” Julien announced, rising and immediately relaying the same information to Alex.
* * *
The three prisoners were taken to the Security Directorate and settled into different interrogation rooms, where they woke hours later after their stuns wore off. The Harakens waited and watched them on the monitors, deciding how best to interrogate them.
“That’s the leader,” Tatia said, tapping the monitor, which showed Dar.
“This one is quite self-assured,” Renée said, pointing to Lacey.
“I think this is our weak one,” Alex said, indicating Trembles. “He might be big, but he looks nervous. I’ll take the leader. Tatia and Renée, you have the woman. Something about her says she might prefer to talk to the two of you. Julien, Cordelia, and Z, you talk to Trembles. I think he will crack if he faces a wall of nonhuman entities.”
The twins followed Alex into the leader’s interrogation room, intending to intervene if Alex’s anger overcame his good sense. Settling across the table from the leader, Alex connected the interviewers’ implants and linked the group to Julien, who added Cordelia and Z.
“What do I call you?” Alex asked.
“Dar will do,” the man answered.
“I’m looking for my sister. Where is she?”
“Who’s your sister?” Dar asked nonchalantly.
“One of the three women you kidnapped and stuck in the back room of your club? Where are they?”
“Oh, those three fems. Didn’t know one of them belonged to you. We just follow orders. The boss says he wants young fems, and we collect and send them to him.”
“Who’s the boss?”
“Goes by the name of Mr. Blue.”
“His full name?”
“Don’t know it.”
“Here’s the problem, Dar. You’re lying to me. You say you didn’t know one of the women was my sister, but after you kidnapped them, you worked really quickly to get them off planet. Now, you tell me you work for Mr. Blue, but you really work for Peto “Craze” Toyo.” For the first time, Alex saw a crack in Dar’s cool façade.
Tatia and Renée stood in front of the woman prisoner, crisscrossing in front of her as they paced the cell. Immediately after entering, they saw Alex’s observation was correct. The woman’s eyes lit up at the sight of them. She couldn’t seem to make up her mind, which of her interviewers she wanted to watch, and her eyes flicked from one to the other.
Renée replied.
“Did you hear, Ser?” Tatia said offhand to Renée. “They found this one’s competitors.”
“Wonder if this crew would have gotten the same treatment?” Renée wondered out loud. “End up stacked like frozen specimens in a cooler.”
“Barber’s not like that crazy fem, Cherry,” Lacey blurted out.
In the next interrogation cell, Trembles kept mentally repeating Dar’s order to never talk to the adz, but the three characters, who stood absolutely still and silent in front of him, were unnerving. They had been standing there, unblinking, not a muscle twitching, for a while. It was unnatu
ral to Tremble’s way of thinking, like so much on this strange planet. He desperately wanted to go home to New Terra.
“Looks like you’re too late,” Cordelia suddenly announced to Trembles and started for the door.
“Too late for what?” Trembles asked, a little too anxiously.
“Too late to confess,” Z added. “Dar and Lacey are already doing that, and they’ll get the deal.”
“Uh-unh … no, they didn’t,” Trembles protested.
“Of course they did,” Julien said. “Here’s proof. Who’s your top boss?”
“Mr. Blue,” Trembles said, happy to show he could stick to the script.
“No … Peto “Craze” Toyo, according to Dar,” Cordelia replied.
That threw Trembles off balance. Dar was the tough case among them. He couldn’t figure him talking.
“And according to Lacey, your immediate supervisor is Barber,” Z said. “Is he as bad as Cherry? I mean eliminating her crew when one of them gets caught is pretty harsh.”
“Cherry’s people are dead?” Trembles asked.
“Cold storage,” Julien replied, shaking his head, displaying his incredulity.
“Is that Barber’s technique for cleaning up messes, like when his club gets raided?” Cordelia asked.
“No, Barber wouldn’t do that to us. We’d be on the freighter and be gone,” Trembles declared hotly.
“Like the girls,” Julien said softly.
“Yeah, like the girls … hey, no … what … I didn’t say anything.” Trembles squirmed in his seat, thinking Dar and Lacey were going to smack him good for opening his big mouth.
* * *
Knowing the girls entered the club in the evening and were spirited aboard a ship in the early morning hours, the SADEs searched for any freighter exiting Haraken’s three orbital stations during that narrow window of time. Seven freighters undocked from stations, but three were headed for Méridien and were excluded from consideration. The other four were bound for New Terra, sailing under the Oistos flag and exiting McCrery Station.
