by M J Gauntlet
Downing the last of the kaffee, Zax made up his mind. After lunch with Lauria, he would turn everything over to the police or the Imperial agent and get on with his life! But even as he thought it, Zax felt a vague uneasiness that he was somehow letting his father down.
Calling the thin waiter over, Zax absently took out his eunit disc and handed it to the waiter to pay the bill. The man took it from him and pressed it against the register tablet. The tablet paused for a second, then emitted a harsh buzz. Frowning, the waiter pressed the disc to the tablet a second time, and again it buzzed. Zax looked up in mild surprise and took the disc back. That was odd. He looked at the eunit disc he had handed over and realized that he had used his regular credit disc instead of the pre-paid one. He frowned. That should have made no difference, there were ample eunits available in both.
Shrugging, Zax fished out the pre-paid disc and handed it over. This time when it was pressed on to the tablet, there was an immediate chime that indicated that the transaction was approved.
“Something seems to be the matter with your Imperial disc,” the waiter said, with a touch of concern, “If I were you, I’d consider looking into it right away. I’ve heard horror stories where it has taken months before the bank was able to straighten a eunit disc problem out.”
Zax nodded nonchalantly, but he had a vague feeling of unease. Checking his chrono, he saw that it was a good half an hour into the lunch period. Something must have held Lauria up at the bank. Maybe her presentation had taken longer than she had anticipated, if so, then that was good news. It must have gone well. He decided to meet Lauria at the bank instead of waiting for her at the restaurant. A small knot of disquiet was beginning to form in the pit of his stomach.
With a curt nod to the waiter, Zax exited the café and walked over to the bank. After entering, he walked up to Lauria’s desk but saw that it was vacant. She was probably still in the big meeting. He idly thought. Walking over to the adjacent desk he caught the eye of the trainee…what was his name again, ah yes Vince Renee… he remembered suddenly. “Excuse me, Messer Renee wasn’t it?”
The young man looked up with a smile and reached out his hand. Zax took it (noticing the palm tattoo) and gave it a single firm shake. “Well, hello again Messer Grayson, I believe the name was, can I be of assistance?”
“Why yes, as a matter of fact, you can. Could you please inform Ms. Talbot that I will be waiting for her at the bistro when she is free?” Zax said, releasing the man’s hand and beginning to turn towards the bank doors.
Vince’s face fell slightly with an embarrassed look, as he answered Zax. “I’m sorry Messer Grayson but Ms. Talbot is unavailable today. She failed to report to work this morning.”
Zax stopped dead in his tracks and swiveled back to look the man in the eyes. “What?... What was that you said?” he asked. The knot of unease he had felt earlier in his stomach, had suddenly become a feeling of dread the size of a boulder!
“I said, Ms. Talbot did not report to work this morning and failed to call in her absence. It is most perplexing; she is usually most prompt and reliable. Most perplexing indeed.”
Feeling a little stunned, Zax walked over to an alcove containing several cushioned couches for the patrons and sat down. This made no sense. Lauria was supposed to have left the apartment just a few minutes after he had. She said, all she had to do was to print out a few pages for her presentation and she would be right out. Zax knew how important today’s meeting was for her, and it would have taken something extremely important to cause her to miss it.
As Zax sat deep in troubling thought, two other people walked over to the junior assistant’s desk and began to have a huddled conversation with the man. One of the men was dressed in a guard’s uniform, while the other wore the expensively tailored suit of a bank executive. After a few minutes of hushed discussion, Vince stood up and began to scan the banking floor. Catching site of Zax sitting in the alcove, he pointed him out to the two men. Both looked over at him, then turned to walk in his direction. Upon reaching him, the bank executive bowed slightly toward Zax.
“Good second morning to you sir,” he said, extending a well-manicured hand. “I am Messer Wu Tung, bank vice president, and this is Messer Walls,” Wu Tung said, indicating the armed guard at his side. Rising to his feet, Zax took the outstretched hand and gave it a perfunctory shake. As he did so, he noticed that the guard didn’t offer his hand and stood slightly towards the back. Without waiting for Zax to give his name, Wu Tung began to speak.
“I understand that you are seeking to speak to Ms. Talbot. May I inquire as to the nature of your business with her? Since she is currently unavailable, maybe I could be of some assistance.”
When Wu Tung had extended his hand, Zax saw what he expected to see… a palm tattoo. Even if he had not seen the tattoo, the slight condescending tone in the man’s voice would have been enough. Zax had heard that patronizing tenor too many times, not to be able to recognize a conceited Firster when he heard one.
“Are all customers treated so royally?” Zax said cavalierly. “A full vice president no less to see to my needs, my…my, what an efficient little bank you have here Messer Tung.”
Wu Tung stiffened slightly at the off-handedness of Zax reply, but was able to maintain his composure.
However, the guard, with an ugly scowl took an involuntary step forward, forcing the bank manager to motion him back as Zax continued speaking.
“Never mind, it was nothing really,” Zax temporized. “It is just that Ms. Talbot was previously so helpful to me in setting up a new account here at the Imperial branch, I just wanted to thank her personally, that’s all. If you could be so kind as to inform her of my gratitude when she arrives, I would appreciate it.” Zax switched his gaze to the guard, while raising a quizzical eyebrow. “I’m sorry…is there something wrong?”
“Er…No, not exactly…it’s just that…No, nothing is wrong at all. I will pass along your message sir, sorry to have disturbed you,” Wu Tang said hesitantly, then promptly turned on his well-heeled shoes and disappeared back toward the main offices. The brawny security guard was trailing close behind him.
Meanwhile, Zax’s mind was in a turmoil. Something was wrong! The growing dread he was feeling earlier, was blossoming into a full-blown panic attack. There was no way Lauria would have missed coming to work today, unless… his train of thought stopped there. He refused to speculate. All he wanted to do now was to get out of the bank and head directly to her apartment. It took all his strength of will, not to run full bore out of the doors.
Walking through the doors, Zax turned the corner, then he bolted to the corner skycab stand, drawing curious stares from the pedestrians he passed. Reaching the stand, he repeatedly jabbed at the call button until, within a few minutes, a bulky green and white cab drifted into view and settled down, hovering just above the street curb. The passenger door opened, and a short span of steps automatically extruded from its side. Not waiting for the steps to fully extend, Zax simply dove onto the upholstered seat and fumbled in his pocket for the data keycard Lauria had given him the previous day. Finding it, he slid it into the slot marked “destination” and seconds later a holographic map appeared, displaying a gridded map with two routes; one outlined in green along with the unit charge, the other was marked ‘express’ and was outlined in red along with a higher charge. Taking out his data disc, he placed it into the slot marked ‘payment’, chose the red route, and hit the accept button. There was a momentary pause, then the cab speaker announced, “funds unavailable”. Swearing, Zax saw that he had again, taken out the damn, malfunctioning, planetary disc. In his panic, he had forgotten to get the matter settled while he was back at the bank. Switching to the pre-paid disc, he swiped it and was rewarded with a “payment received” message. I’ve got to get this eunit disc straightened out. I should have done it when I was in the bank, but that can wait. Zax thought to himself as the cab rose up into the air lanes and sped away.
As the skyca
b lifted skyward and joined the traffic above it, a single figure stepped out from behind a flashing kiosk holo ad and began speaking urgently into a handheld com unit.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zax sat on the edge of the upholstered skycab seat, willing the skycab to go faster. The trip holo projection floating above his head, that estimated the skycab’s progress towards its destination, indicated that he was about a block away. Unexpectedly, a red grid flashed, superimposed itself over the map and the internal speaker initiated.
“The designated terminus is under police restrictions. Entry into the restricted zone is by authorized vehicles only. Do you wish to alter your destination?”
Zax pressed the override button on the panel and the vehicle slowed and came to a stop, hovering in the shoulder airspace reserved for disabled vehicles.
“Destination overrides in effect. Please select your new destination,” the cab’s mechanized voice chimed.
“Cancel destination. I am ready to disembark here,” Zax spoke hurriedly, into the built-in microphone.
“Very well sir, the charge is twenty-six eunits and thank you for choosing Quickcab.”
The cab quickly descended, the door nearest the street curb lifted and Zax exited. The skycab rose and veered off to the right, disappearing into the flowing traffic above. Ignoring the cab’s departure, Zax took a moment to look around and get his bearings. Finding that he was only a block away from Lauria’s apartment complex, he took several deep calming breaths. Zax then forced himself to calmly walk down the quiet neighborhood street and turned the corner leading to Lauria’s block. Zax’s blood ran cold as his feet rooted themselves to the pavement. All he could do was to stare at the scene in front of him, not wanting to believe what he was seeing; he was sinking into a horrible sense of déjà vu!
There were two Plex city government vehicles hovering, jammed up against the entrance of the apartment complex. One bore the green and white stripes of a police skimmer; the other was the cream white color of a morgue contragrav van. Zax had an instant, painful, flashback to the previous time he had seen that same type of vehicle: at the smoking crater of his ruined home. Forcing his feet to move, he walked towards the tableau before him in a semi-conscious daze. The gates were opened wide, to allow a contragravity gurney to glide by, which had a body shaped lump resting on its surface. The gurney was screened, but Zax had no doubts as to the identity of the body that was floating by. As the countergrav stretcher passed through the contragrav shield boundary of the morgue van, the screen over the gurney flickered just long enough for Zax to recognize the blood-stained face of Lauria. Her eyes were still opened wide in surprise.
Zax was never sure how he had made back it to Omar’s bistro, his mind and body shrouded in a haze of fresh grief, emotional pain and physical shock. The next thing he knew, he found himself sitting at the same table that he and Lauria had sat at only a day or so ago. Looking around, he somehow wasn’t surprised to find that the usually ubiquitous Omar, was nowhere to be seen. Zax overheard one of the waiters tell a customer, that Omar had been called away on family business. A pitcher of water and a glass was set down in front of him on the table. Mechanically, Zax pored himself a glass and started to drink. But even after drinking several glasses, Zax’s mouth still felt horribly dry.
Zax’s mind was a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions. He found that he couldn’t hold one coherent thought in his head. Zax somehow knew that to hold one thought, would bring the flood of devastation and pain, that was barely held at the edge of his consciousness. The only thing that kept repeating in his brain was Lieutenant Fuller’s prediction about him being a ‘Typhoid Mary’. A horrible sense of guilt and depression descended on him, forcing him to squeeze his eyes tight as he tried to somehow wipe the image of Lauria’s body out of his mind. The thought of her lifeless form, with its dead eyes staring out into space was too much to bare. It was just recently that she was sitting right here next to him laughing and chatting…it was just too much! That image triggered a flood of similar visions: his home burned to the ground, a charred lump of flesh that was once his father, even a childhood flashback to when he saw is father carrying his mother’s limp body, back into their small home.
Abruptly, Zax stood up and bolted from the restaurant, almost knocking over a trio of men who were just sitting down at the table next to him. Without looking back at their surprised faces, he found himself out on the street and walking with long strides towards the center of town. Zax just kept walking, no destination in mind, aimlessly rambling deeper into the city’s core. Finally, after what seemed like hours, in a state of almost total exhaustion and grief, breathing raggedly, he stopped. Looking around he found himself in the open parkland, about two kilometers from downtown. Finding a park bench he collapsed down onto it and began to sob, which began to sound like the keening of a wounded animal, as he tried to take a breath of air between the deep hacking cries of anguish.
Typhoid Mary… carried the disease with her to those around her…they would contract this fatal disease and die… Those around her died, but she remained immune… kept echoing inside his head.
Zax dazedly, felt a slight itching along his right lower arm and looking down at his forearm, he realized that the surface of the sheath was pulsating with various colored light patterns. The sleeve was alerting him, that someone was attempting to contact him. Tapping the disarm code onto the sleeve, Zax looked down at his wristcom and saw that there were three text messages queued.
The first message was from Jinn:
Zax, it said, is everything alright? The police were here looking for you again, but this time it was only that spooky man. Please be careful, ok?
The second message was from the Imperial Bank in Plex:
Your account has currently been suspended. Please contact the main branch as soon as possible to rectify the matter.
The third message was ominously cryptic.
I know you didn’t kill her. If you want to know more about what’s going on then, meet me at the trees where you first parked your floater, WARNING… your floater and clothes are probably bugged take precautions. You are in grave danger.
Zax stared at the last message, with a disbelief and anger that cut through his grief. Did that mean that the police think that I killed Laura?! What the fuck was going on? What danger? Rising from the bench, he made sure his facial scrambler was activated and called for a skycab, using his untraceable eunit disc. Within minutes, he was back in the air and headed back to where his miseries had begun…Last Town.
Shit, Shit, Fucking hell. DAMN THE IDIOTS TO THE SIXTH STINKING HELL OF SETI. M’Lak de Drayton had always taken pride in that, he always managed to remain calm and cool under duress, but as he looked down at the bodies of his ex-employees, he was fucking pissed. Is everything on this hellhole of a planet directly working against me?! the Marcosian agent wondered. All he asked them to do was to detain and capture the female. That’s all!
M’Lak had stressed that no harm was to come to her, so she could be used as leverage against Zaxxion Grayson. The two men seemed competent enough to handle a single female, all they had to do was to taser the bitch and convey her to their meeting place. But they said that when they attempted to subdue her, she resisted using some type of hand-to-hand combat training, and things had quickly gotten out of control. They kept stressing that the shot that killed her was an accident. They both swore to that, even as he shot them both through the head.
After having followed the Zaxxion Grayson to the LAG offices and later to the bistro then later to the bank, M’Lak was then forced to disengage from his target, when his minions had contacted him with their failure. M’Lak knew he had to act fast if he were to clean up the mess the two bunglers had created. He couldn’t afford to leave any loose ends. Especially if, as he suspected, the Imperial Special Branch was involved.
It seems that everything that could go wrong, with this mission, had gone wrong as he ticked off in his mind the events of the past fifty-
six hours.
First, the normally dependable Cree, had somehow been bested by an old retired Imperial space scout, resulting in the death of both the Cree and the subject, and in the process losing me the chance to recover the suspected hidden data, directly from the source. Then, after following the boy and planting tracers on him, which in turn led me to that degenerate lawyer, I was unexpectedly interrupted by a gang of street punks, forcing me to eliminate them without taking the correct precautions. Because of the tiny slip of not wearing protective gloves, I was forced to rush the torture of the attorney, to find out why the primary target’s son was contacted. Unfortunately, by the time I had gleaned the necessary information from the lawyer (she was far more resistant to my methods than expected), Zaxxion had already arrived at the Imperial Bank and gained access to whatever might have been stashed in the safe deposit container.
M’Lak was honest enough with himself to admit that initially, he had become overconfident in his ability to re-establish his link with his target. At that time, the signals from the trackers had remained strong and there was no indication that they had been detected. M’Lak felt assured that despite the delay with the attorney, he would be able to reestablish contact with his target later that next day. To his dismay, both the bugs had abruptly gone dead, leaving him with a vague location, somewhere in downtown Plex. It was only due to sheer luck and planning that he was able to reestablish contact with young Zaxxion Grayson, and in doing so, discover his liaison with the young bank employee.
Upon acquiring the two assets, M’Lak had given them the simple (HA!) task of kidnapping the woman, while he was to approach Zaxxion and inform him of her abduction and the conditions of her release. That was twelve hours ago. In that brief time, his target had fallen off the grid, he had to eliminate his two assets and there were indications that the Imperial Special Branch had now taken an interest in his quarry. Now, the only option left to him was to rely on his sources within local law enforcement to find the whereabouts of Zaxxion Grayson.
