Running Start

by J. A. Sutherland

  “Nobody showed me anything,” Mason said. “Ralph hardly said a word — in fact, he couldn’t, because he has this really bad cough and —”

  “Cough?” Fuentes asked, not taking her eyes from the bellman.

  “Achoo,” Ralph said.

  “That’s a —”

  “Stenner has my mom,” Mason said.

  Rosa had time to think on the way back to the Waldorf.

  She was convinced that the damned, nosy butler had seen to it that the kid found her — somehow. The kid insisted Frederick hadn’t said anything, and that the bellman, Ralph, hadn’t helped him find her, but she still figured that’s what happened. She also figured there was no way she could prove it and less she could do about it.

  Then they arrived back at the suite and she found that Frederick had a bath drawn in her room, with a champagne cooler full of her favorite beer bottles and a bucket of shrimp beside it, along with fresh clothes, her purple leathers, already laid out on her bed for her.

  She decided to forgive the judgmental little shit.

  Besides, if he hadn’t helped the kid find her, then Stenner would have got him.

  Still, she was a little angry with the butler and wanted him to know it.

  Unfortunately, she didn’t think any of her usual ways of telling someone she was angry would work on the butler. No matter what she called him, he’d probably just nod and take it in stride. Nothing seemed to faze him.

  She thought of some uppie vidshows she’d seen, some of the true-life, this is real life ones she thought were on just to keep the lowlies happy in their place, because happy and hard work were what might get you up there — or really good luck, like sports or being able to sing. The uppies never seemed to yell or call each other names — they were pretty boring, really, except for the cars and private shuttles and incredible resorts.

  She turned in her room’s doorway after taking in the bath setup and clothes laid out for her and met Frederick’s gaze.

  Rosa said calmly, “I’m quite disappointed in you, Frederick.”

  The butler hung his head for a moment. “Of course, Miss Fuentes.”

  Rosa slid the door to her room shut before she apologized to him like she suddenly wanted to.

  Damn it, between him and the kid she couldn’t keep a good mad going for more than a few minutes without feeling guilty about it. Maybe she should track down the bellman, Ralph, and give him a good kick — that guy’d been a smug little shit, in addition to judgmental.

  She stripped off her soiled clothes and headed for the bath, wincing as she pulled the shirt over her head and got a whiff of it. The beer had been really bad, but did it really smell like —

  “Did I pee myself?”

  Thirty-Three

  “You were right to come get me, kid,” Fuentes said.

  She looked — and smelled — a lot better after her bath.

  Mason had started to object when she’d gone straight for her room as they got back to the suite, but Frederick had cleared his throat — Mason hoped he wasn’t coming down with a cold like Ralph had — and the distraction made him think twice. A bathed and fed Fuentes was usually nicer and he thought she might come up with better plans, too.

  “I thought if I left, Stenner would chase me, since I have most of the money, and he’d leave you alone,” Fuentes went on. “I guess he went after your mom because I really don’t have any family.”

  She went to the buffet and filled a plate with cookies and little cakes.

  “How can you eat?” Mason asked.

  Fuentes frowned around a mouthful of chocolate cake. She poured a glass of milk and rinsed her mouth.

  “You know as well as I do not to pass up a chance to eat, kid.” She waved at the buffet. “You should do the same thing.”

  “We need to save my mom!”

  Fuentes sighed. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You guess? Geez, Fuentes!”

  “Yeah, okay, all right?” She sighed again. “Everyone I ever called ‘mom’ was just some foster-bitch in it for the money — so there aren’t many people Stenner could hold over me like this. My grandma, maybe, but she’s probably dead by now.”

  “I’m sorry —”

  “Oh, shut up, kid.” Fuentes sat down and began nibbling on a cookie. Her eyes took on a far away look. “This is going to be tricky. We’re going to have to appear to give Stenner what he wants long enough to get your mom to safety and then us too.”

  “Appear?”

  “Well, I’m not giving up the money —”

  “You have to!”

  Fuentes sighed. “I’ve got it figured, kid. Stenner will get most of it, in such a roundabout way that it’ll give us time to get away. Once he has most of it, he’ll forget about us and your mom.”

  “You think so?”

  Fuentes nodded, but Mason had his doubts. “He said he had to make an example of us.”

  Fuentes shook her head. “Yeah, he said that and it might be his plan, but an example only works if you publicize it, and I don’t think Perigree really wants a lot of people knowing what I did. Stenner used that to scare us. As it is, if they get most of the money back, we’ll just be two widgets that broke out of their prison factory. Not worth the time of tracking down anymore.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah.”

  Any question Mason might have had about how to get in touch with Stenner was solved by the man himself calling a few minutes later.

  Mason’s explant showed the text of the incoming call and he grabbed the speaker to turn it back on. It was already paired, so as soon as it was on Stenner’s voice came through.

  “Mr. Guthrie?”

  “Where’s my mom, you shit!” Mason yelled.

  He hadn’t been planning to yell — he’d had it in his head to be all cool, sort of like Fuentes looked now, but the words just came out as soon as he heard Stenner’s voice.

  “If you’ve hurt her I’ll —”

  Fuentes put a hand over his mouth and leaned closer to the speaker.

  “What do you want, Stenner?”

  “I take it this is Ms. Fuentes? Good. I want what my employer wants. The two of you have made quite a mess for Perigree to clean up.”

  “Out with it,” Fuentes said.

  “No,” Stenner said, “not over a line. The two of you will meet with me in person again — not at the Waldorf, they seem to have banned me.” The man sounded amused at that. “Same club as before. I’ll see you there at six station-time. Have the money ready to transfer, or we start our examples with momma-Guthrie.”

  Stenner disconnected and Fuentes took her hand from Mason’s mouth.

  Mason sat staring at the table for a while; Fuentes paced around the suite. She grabbed two beers from the cooler and put one in front of him.

  Mason hadn’t ever drunk before, but he took a long swig anyway.

  He nearly spewed.

  “Oh, crap, that’s awful!” he said after he’d gotten it out of his mouth. Not wanting to swallow the disgusting stuff, he’d looked around for somewhere to spit it and finally settled on getting it back in the bottle. He set the bottle on the table and looked at Fuentes. “How can you stand it?”

  Fuentes took another drink.

  “Yeah, that’s usually the reaction for the first one, but it got you out of your funk.”

  “My —”

  “You were in a funk. Just staring at the table. I need you here and thinking.”

  “What’s to think about? We meet with Stenner, give him the money, and get my mom.” He stared at her, trying to make her understand he was serious.

  “Are you drunk from one sip?” she asked. “You’re all googly-eyed.”

  “I —”

  “Never mind, kid. Look, do you really think it’ll be that easy? They’ve got her somewhere on Earth and the money’s in a Mars First account — yeah, the transfer can be immediate, but then how do we make sure they let your mom go? And that she’ll be safe after — or that we’
ll be safe? Unless you want Stenner to kill you.” She paused. “I wonder how Stenner even found us so quick in the first place. We need to know that before we can be sure of getting away. I should have considered that before.”

  “Yeah, how’d they manage that?”

  Fuentes frowned. “Maybe DNA from the bike,” she said. “If they matched that up with my new ID — but they should have lost me at the spaceport. Private shuttle records are private and the station wouldn’t have given out our info. Any trace from Earth usually gets stopped at the edge of atmosphere.”

  “Stenner was here pretty quick — could he have already been on station?”

  “Maybe, and if he was, then he’s got his own contacts here — the station admin might not cooperate, but anyone can be bribed. Maybe I should have offered a bribe when we got here, I don’t know.” She frowned again, then snapped her fingers. “Fucking paper — that’s it!”

  “What?”

  “The paper records from Bright Hors',” she said. “Those had our pictures on them. All someone would have to do is scan them and run some facial recognition — a lot of the station cams are public access. All the bastard had to do was wait for a ping on the Waldorf’s lobby cam and then bribe some front desk flunky to give him our room number.”

  “I don’t know,” Mason said. “Frederick was pretty clear about how serious the hotel takes people’s privacy and security —”

  “Frederick’s well-paid, I bet — he services suites like this, after all. Even some kid working in the restaurant could match names and room numbers, though. They must have that stuff for room service … or the deliveries.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Fuentes sighed.

  “No, kid, I guess it doesn’t.”

  Thirty-Four

  They met Stenner at the same table at the same club. Rosa still didn’t have an idea of how to move the money in such a way that she and the kid could escape after it started. She’d have to wing this one.

  “Where’s my mom?” the kid asked as soon as they sat.

  “Safe … for now.”

  “If you hurt my mom I’ll —”

  “You’ll do nothing,” Stenner said. “Mommy’ll be okay so long as the two of you cooperate. If you run, she’ll suffer every day you’re free — and, in the end, the last thing she sees will be a recording of your death. Perhaps she’ll get to watch you being put out an airlock and see your eyes boil — or is it freeze?” Stenner’s brow furrowed. “Or do they pop? I always forget which.” He smiled at Rosa. “Want to find out?”

  Rosa’s stomach was in knots. Stenner scared her, and she didn’t like being scared — but the guy was just creepy beyond the regular creepy she could deal with.

  “If we give the money back, what’s to stop you from killing us anyway? Or dragging us back to Bright Horizons?”

  Stenner laughed. “As if they’d want you — no, I can pretty much promise you’ll never see the inside of another Perigree facility, Fuentes. The little stunt you pulled was expensive and hard to clean up.” He laughed again. “I’ve never had to smooth so many judges in my life — you scared the shit out of them. Those agents of yours … man, they did a number on things — and the cleanup … the systems guys had a lot of trouble piecing together what you did and they only found bits and pieces of the actual agents. Nice work. Pretty work.”

  Rosa thought he meant it as a complement, but it only scared her more.

  “I wouldn’t have expected it from your background,” Stenner said.

  “Fuck you,” Rosa said before she could stop herself.

  Stenner just smiled.

  “So right now,” he said, “you’re trying to scheme a way out of this. Maybe you’re thinking about some convoluted transfer arrangement that lets you and the kid — and mommy too, of course — get away, maybe with some of the money. You think we’ll be happy with that.” He shook his head. “We won’t. You’re going to transfer the money all at once, and if you don’t, then mommy pays a penalty. Then we’ll try again, until —”

  Stenner broke off and got the far away look in his eyes of someone accessing his implant. His eyes darted back and forth as he read words neither Rosa nor the kid could see.

  Rosa frowned. She wasn’t particularly eager to hear the rest of Stenner’s threats — and didn’t want the kid to at all, because he was on the edge of his seat and looked like he wanted to hit Stenner more and more with every word — but she wasn’t used to people just … stopping in the middle of their ultimatums.

  “We —”

  “Shut up,” Stenner said, holding up a finger in the wait-a-minute gesture.

  His eyes danced some more as he read whatever his implant had received, then he sat back and closed them, brow furrowed and lips set in a frown.

  When he opened them again, he didn’t look at Rosa. Instead he raised an arm to signal their waitress.

  “Elyx — a double,” he said when she arrived, then he went back to frowning.

  Rosa stayed silent, wondering what was going on. She didn’t want to say anything until she understood how whatever message Stenner’d gotten affected them.

  Stenner’s drink arrived, a glass of clear liquid that could have been water, and he downed half of it, then sighed and took a sip before setting the glass down.

  He drummed his fingertips on the table and looked at Rosa.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You might just be the luckiest little bitch I’ve ever seen.”

  “Hey!” the kid said.

  “Shut up, kid,” Rosa and Stenner said at the same time, making Rosa flush when Stenner gave her his creepy little smile.

  “Those agents you wrote,” Stenner said. “They were good.”

  Rosa said nothing, but she sensed there was an opportunity coming. Something had happened that made Stenner less interested in killing them and more interested in … them. Or her, at least. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. Maybe in the short-run.

  Of course, the short-run was probably the best they could hope for right now.

  “My old high-school counselor could tell you how good,” Rosa said, “but you’ll need a federal visitors pass to ask him.”

  “Yeah,” Stenner said, “I read your file and tracked him down after. The first try was over the top, but the second —” He nodded. “Very believable. Evidence in the right place. Nice setup.” He continued to stare at her. “You learned from your mistake. That’s good. What’d he do to deserve it?”

  Rosa flushed. She didn’t want to talk about that. “Let’s just say the sentence was appropriate.”

  Stenner nodded. He chewed on the inside of his cheek and took another drink.

  “Occasionally,” Stenner said, “in my line of work, things happen. Coincidences — which I’ve learned not to ignore.” He pursed his lips. “So I’m going to offer you an alternative to the ‘give back the money and then die quick instead of slow’ scenario.”

  “Does it start with ‘keep the money’?” Rosa asked.

  Stenner actually laughed.

  “No, but it doesn’t end with you screaming, so it’s probably the best you can hope for.”

  Thirty-Five

  “I have a certain amount of … discretion,” Stenner said, “in how I handle some things, so long as my superiors feel the necessary points have been made, and I’ve just now gotten a company alert — with a priority higher than you two, which is unusual.” He drummed his fingertips on the table some more. “And might be right up your alley, Fuentes.”

  Rosa watched him carefully. Working for Stenner — working for Perigree — was not what she wanted to do, or how she’d seen this meeting playing out.

  “So here’s the way it’s going to go down,” Stenner said. “From now on, I own the two of you. You’re mine. Oh, you can do as you like most of the time, but if I call, you come running and do as you’re told. And the first thing you’re going to do — call it a start at repayment for the trouble you caused — is this ne
w job. You give back the money, do this job, and then go your own way until I need you again — and this way both you and mommy don’t get hurt.”

  “Work for you?” the kid asked before Rosa could stop him. “Are you nuts? You kidnapped my mom!”

  “Oh, grow up, kid,” Stenner said. “We didn’t kidnap her, we made her a job offer.”

  The kid’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

  Stenner shrugged. “We wanted her under our control and not hurt … until we need her hurt. Grabbing someone always has risks. Better they come along willingly — at least at first.”

  “But —” the kid looked as stunned as Rosa felt. She’d expected the kid’s mom to be tied up in some abandoned building or something. “So you’ll let her go if we do this?”

  Stenner shook his head, lips twisting. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, kid.” He held up a hand to stop the objection he must have known was coming. “She’s not hurt, she’s not a prisoner somewhere. She got a job offer from the same company that hired you — don’t look so surprised, Perigree doesn’t want it known the two of you escaped, so that report she got of you being ‘arrested’ was a mistake, see? Instead, you were recruited by Perigree at your school and took a job at a facility in Russia — very quick, very hush-hush, and as a recruiting bonus, she’s got a nice, cushy secretarial job for some middie-manager in accounting.” He pointed at Rosa. “Your mom, if we could find her, we wouldn’t have put in accounting, just in case that numbers-shit ran in the family; his I think we’re safe with.”

  “Why should I believe you —”

  “Kid,” Stenner interrupted, “I don’t lie to people. If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be screaming — if I wanted to hurt your mom, she’d be screaming. Call her again when you get back to your room — the number’ll be working and you can ask her. Just don’t say the wrong thing or this deal goes very, very dark, understand?”

  The kid nodded, but Rosa wasn’t convinced.

  “If it’s the agents I wrote that are right for this job, then why do you want both of us?”