by J. S. Morin
“Not letting you give this race away,” Carl said. “If the rest of them don’t have to—”
“I’m working on it!” Stacy shouted at digitally reduced volume. She was easier to tolerate that way. “Pull up now or take a no-point run.”
“I’m not pulling out until—”
“You’re done.”
Carl pulled up immediately. “Shit you’re wound tight today. I’m going.” The other racers were already gaining altitude, returning to safer heights.
“Too late,” Stacy replied. “You don’t talk your way out of this one. Report to the hangar for transport.”
Carl slammed a fist on the console. He made sure the comm was off and shouted curses until his throat was raw. Huffing for breath, he navigated to an orbital trajectory to make better time to the hangar. The sooner he had his feet on the ground, the better.
“You about spent there, Cicero?” Roddy asked over the comm. Carl’s breath caught in his throat. “Yeah, I heard that little tirade. You got some words in there I’m pretty sure ain’t words.”
“I turned off the comm,” Carl said. “How did you—”
“Burned-in connection,” Roddy replied. “Now how about you don’t crash that thing and we go cool off somewhere?”
# # #
It was less fun after that. Carl lost his place as the golden boy of Silde Slims. Stacy had been so mad that Carl counted himself lucky that he was still in the contest. He toed the line, raced safe, and played by the rules. The points contests went hit or miss, with Carl bobbing along near the front of the pack, but never atop the leader board. He was sick of Stacy’s bullshit and her excuses. Jordan and Gurdi were every bit as guilty as him, but had somehow avoided penalty. If she had it in for him, fine. But he wasn’t going to let her run him out of the contest. He was sticking it out to the money race.
He’d taken solace in his rendez vous with July. But somewhere along the lines things had changed between them. He must have pissed her off at the hotel that night, or maybe he had misread her all along. Either way, she brought news from the Mobius and took back orders for them. And sex was always sex. Their relationship wasn’t that far gone.
The contest was almost over. In the final run-up, Carl had come in with 3.5 seconds in penalties relative to the leader. Three weeks of one shitty, vaguely racing-related task after another, all boiled off until nothing was left but a few seconds of starting time. Tomorrow would be a day of prep, interviews for the holovid audience, and a glitzy dinner so everyone could celebrate before 93.75% of them were sent home as losers. The day after was the big race. Tonight was sweet, sweet oblivion and a well-earned night’s sleep.
The door to Carl’s quarters opened. “Not sleeping planetside with your slut?” Jordan asked as he entered.
“I am so looking forward to vaporizing you on Sunday,” Carl replied without rising from the top bunk.
“Good segue,” Jordan replied. “Because I need to talk to you about Sunday.”
“You can’t have my autograph.”
“No one’s going to want your autograph,” Jordan said. “Because you’re going to throw the race. No one cares about a loudmouth loser who can’t deliver a win. ”
“Skip back to the part where I’m going to throw the race,” Carl said. He sat up and furrowed his brow at Jordan. Something was wrong. That oh-shit-we’re-going-to-die instinct was tickling the back of his mind. Jordan wasn’t going to kill him, so the instinct was calibrated wrong, but something troubling was unfolding here. “I’m not throwing the race. I’ve got plans for that prize money.” Plans like dividing it up among his crew and July.
“You’re going to throw the race because of this,” Jordan said. He pulled out a datapad, and it started a playback.
Carl heard his own voice. “I need a clone. Of me.”
“Out of the question!” Puente responded.
“And the twenty-five grand we were originally supposed to get.”
“Harmony Bay has no cloning capability beyond simple limb and organ replacement. And it would be unethical to—”
“Stow it. We met the cloned professor guy. Did you not get the report—”
Carl reached down and grabbed the datapad from Jordan’s hand and flung it against the wall. It was sturdy enough that it didn’t shatter on impact, but the playback stopped. “You bugged our goddamn room?” Carl grabbed Jordan by the collar with both hands. Hatchet had cleared the room for bugs, but that didn’t prevent new ones. Carl had been a fool to conduct business there.
Jordan slapped away Carl’s hands and backed off. “I’ve got friends holding copies of that,” he said. “If that gets out, you’re done. You were acting weird. People coming and going from the room when I wasn’t around. I wanted to know what you were up to and hit the jackpot.”
Carl’s mind raced. If he got nabbed by Phabian security forces after the contest, the plan was off. There was no way Silde Slims would let him race for them after that recording went public. He’d be on the Mobius and deep in astral, hoping to stay ahead of the law. Cloning was twitchy business. Medical cloning was parts only, no bodies. He as good as got that flunky Puente to admit that Harmony Bay had living clones running around. That was bad news for them, too, which could have its own consequences.
“You don’t know who you’re playing here, kid,” Carl said.
Jordan rolled his eyes. “That the best you’ve got, grandpa? Go back to your ancient music and thousand-year-old holovid references. That bluff won’t work on me.”
Carl swallowed. “I’m not bluffing.”
“You’re a con man, a shakedown king, nothing but air,” Jordan said. “I bet you got thrown out of the navy and someone would have looked bad falling for your shit so they covered it up. You get to play pretend hero, and no one can say atoms about it. Smooth gig if you can land it. I’m not bluffing either.”
There is a trigger buried within every man—deeper in some than in others—that prompts him to answer words with punches. Carl felt his jaw and fists clenching and knew he was close to his limit. Whatever Jordan said, whatever he did, if Carl knocked his teeth out, that was the end of the plan. No race, no heist. No heist, no Squall. Without even the contest victory, he’d be walking away empty handed with a lot of other empty hands reaching his way.
He’s nothing, Carl told himself. You’ve got him. Just play along for now. He relaxed his fists and took a deep breath, letting himself fall for his own lie. “You win, kid. I’ll keep with the pack, and someone takes it from me at the end.”
Jordan backed toward the door, aiming a finger Carl’s way. “You just remember that. Play ball and no one ever needs to hear that recording. Don’t drop out or do anything suspicious. I want a nice, clean win with no controversy. Best for you and me both.” He opened the door. “But I think I’ll still sleep better anywhere but here tonight.”
And then he was gone. Carl let the reality of the situation settle back over him. “Roddy,” Carl said, fumbling with his datapad in haste. “Get over here. We have a problem.”
# # #
Mriy didn’t get many comms. She liked it that way. But this one from the human Clay Puente was one she had been looking forward to. Carl hadn’t told everyone about the shipment he was receiving—his instructions had been clear. It was the sort of behavior that brought excess fretting from Esper and lectures on operational risk-taking from Tanny. Mort would back her up to make sure Harmony Bay didn’t try anything to double-cross them. Mort was the only human she’d ever met who had no squeamishness at all; even Tanny had a flinch of reaction to death and maimed bodies.
So it was just the two of them, in the dark hours of night while Tanny and Esper slept. Mriy handled the controls of the cargo bay ramp. Mort stood by in plain sight at the back of the cargo bay, wearing the ritual pendant that marked him as a member of the humans’ main wizard cabal. Clay Puente wore his company uniform, accompanied by two haulers in less elaborate versions. They unloaded a cryostasis pod and brought it over on an an
ti-grav dolly.
“You’ve got our delivery?” Puente asked.
Mriy nodded toward Mort. “He has it. I want to see first. Those are my orders.” Carl hadn’t been nearly so specific, but acting on orders made it hard for someone to argue. It shrugged responsibility onto someone not present.
“I will need to scan the… package. Those are my orders,” Puente replied.
Mort took his cue and strolled down the cargo ramp, tucking the pendant inside his sweatshirt as he went. “We didn’t open it, alter the contents, or swap it with a fake. This is the genuine article… whatever the hell it is.”
“That is none of your concern,” Puente replied absently, already scanning the palm-sized box with a device carried in a satchel over his shoulder. Mriy and Mort waited for the Harmony Bay person to finish. He snorted. “I can hardly believe it. You’ve delivered. I had quite a bit of resistance from within my organization. Some questioned whether we should go to the trouble of meeting your terms.”
“We met them,” Mriy said. “Did you?”
Puente waved a hand toward the cryostasis pod. Mriy and Mort took opposing sides of the coffin-like tube. Puente touched a button on the front console and the interior lit. It was Carl. “As promised. Inert, but all transplant-grade.”
Mriy bared her teeth by reflex. “False meat. Mindless. I don’t know why Carl would want such a thing.”
Mort pinched his chin between thumb and forefinger. “So peaceful. He looks almost… honest.”
“You are both satisfied?” Puente asked.
“Yes,” Mriy said. “Place the pod inside.”
They were getting into a habit of collecting cryostasis pods. Hopefully they would keep this one long enough to sell it; they were worth good money all on their own. The two haulers pulled the pod up the ramp and into the cargo bay, setting it down near a large object covered by a tarp.
“Whatcha got there?” one of the haulers asked conversationally as he reclaimed his anti-grav dolly from beneath the pod.
There was roughly 60% of a racing ship under there with hardly a working part among them. If anyone were to want to overhaul it into a space-worthy craft, the first step would have been to jettison everything and start from bare floor. “You have your box. Go.”
The hauler nodded hurriedly. Being azrin had advantages at times. A quick flash of claws reminded humans that they weren’t dealing with one of their own kind, but a sentient weapon. Still, the men from Harmony Bay set her nerves on edge. Who could ever be sure what strange scientific knowledge they might use? She breathed a sigh of relief when the cargo ramp sealed shut.
“You liking those new claws?” Mort asked.
Mriy extended the black, artificial replacement claws and studied them a moment. This had been the first time she could remember baring them without giving a thought to their non-Mriy origins. “Maybe. Won’t know for sure until I kill with them.” It was the kind of statement that kept most humans on edge.
Mort just chuckled. “Not today. Wait until someone deserves it.”
# # #
Carl and Roddy arrived at the hangar by separate routes, just as they had discussed. Carl got there first and popped a few panels off the Squall to look inside. It was just like the old days, when he would take a gander into the inner workings of his Typhoon and be equally perplexed at how the hell it flew. Sure, he could name most of the parts, same as he recognized all the letters in the Latin alphabet. Both were utter mysteries beyond that.
“Ramsey, the hell you doin’?” Roddy shouted as he approached. “Get your clumsy ape-mittens out of that ship.” He was carrying one of the insulated thermal mugs from the cafeteria and took a long drink from it. Must’ve felt good. Poor guy.
“I was wondering where the hell my mechanic was,” Carl replied. “We’ve got… thirty-eight hours to get this teapot ready to race. I lost points this week because my ship was slower than the others.”
“Suuure,” Roddy said. “Blame the guy keepin’ your ass from getting dusted when you overfly the grav dampeners. It’s a fucking chore keeping up with all the dings you put in this thing.”
“Hey, this isn’t Funtime Raceland,” Carl replied, invoking the title of an insipid children’s computer game. Grabbing a spanner, he emphasized his point by knocking it against the hull. “Ship. Shape. Day and a half. Move it, four-hands. We’re burning seconds here.”
“You and every other flyboy think this shit is so easy,” Roddy said, taking another chug. He sauntered up to Carl and craned his neck to look him in the eye from two-thirds of a meter below. “Then you fly like a taxi driver, get your ass served back to you on a platter, and blame the mechanic. Like it’s my fault you can’t hold a formation for more than five seconds at a time. Grow an attention span!”
“It would be easier to concentrate if I wasn’t constantly in fear for my goddamn life,” Carl said, raising his voice and drawing the attention of a few nearby maintenance crews and the mechanics of at least three other ships. “But instead I’m fighting imbalanced thrusters and wondering whether attitude control really just cut out for a split second or was it just my imagination. Because I’ve got a shitty imagination, and I don’t think I’d waste it on that sort of thing.”
“If you had any other mechanic covering your ass, you’d be dead right now!” Roddy shouted.
“You think so, little man?” Carl shouted back. “You really think so? Well, I guess we’re going to find out. You’re. Fired!”
Roddy stared up at him, chest heaving. They locked gazes. Carl could see Roddy struggling not to burst out laughing. He was having the same trouble. But Roddy composed himself. “Well good luck, flyboy. You’re gonna need it.”
# # #
“Have you been drinking?” the shuttle pilot asked with an accusing frown.
Roddy had grabbed all his stuff and boarded the first Phabian-bound shuttle off Velocity Prime. His shouting match with Carl hadn’t ended more than ten minutes ago. The beer was settling into his belly and spreading all through him like a child visiting home after college—it had been gone too long, but it was just as welcome as always.
“Sir, it’s a well-known biological fact that laaku can’t handle alcohol,” Roddy replied. The pilot was human; what did he know? “The smell is from spending the last three hours scrubbing the insides of my pilot’s Squall. I’m in an unusually good mood because I’m heading home for the night to get laid.”
“Smells like beer to me,” the pilot replied skeptically.
“You smell cleaning solution, and it makes you think of beer?” Roddy asked. “Sounds like you’re the one with the drinking problem, buddy. I tell you what though. You see if this thing can pump out some Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, or Dizzy Gillespie—preferably all of the above—and I’ll make it worth your while when we get planetside.”
“Sure thing, boss,” the pilot replied. Terras made worlds spin. If they couldn’t buy him some jazz to help him think, Roddy would have figured he was in the wrong universe.
Carl’s backup plan—as usual—was light on detail and big on optimism. The big idiot had his fun; it was time to dump cargo and hit the thrusters. But no, Carl wanted to turn and fight. Not taking home the cash prize was going to sting, but if they could get the ship, that was enough—at least for Carl. The very final piece of the plan was the only one Carl had sworn him to secrecy on, and the one guaranteed to piss everyone off.
Carl was planning to keep the Squall.
It pissed Roddy off just thinking it. He had half a mind to ditch Carl for real and let him swing in the wind a little before letting him slink back to the Mobius. But even better might be to let the plan go through, then sell off the Squall whether Carl liked it or not. He’d pitch a fit, but the crew deserved a take on a job this long and complicated.
The shuttle trip promised five hours to work things out. Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew came over the speakers in the passenger compartment. Roddy took a backup mug of cafeteria beer from his duffle bag, closed his eyes,
and wondered how they were going to pull it all off.
# # #
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
Tanny’s reaction was about what Roddy had expected. As soon as he came aboard, they all knew something was up. All the heist planning had been done face-to-face, and Roddy’s presence meant that something last minute had gone wrong. July was supposed to ship out to Velocity Prime that evening to pick up Carl’s final instructions, but that wasn’t going to happen now. This was pants-shitting time.
“You gotta love Ramsey,” Hiroshi said with a burglar’s grin. “All these years, and he’s still the same. Sure, the work’s different, but the stupidity-based planning—same as ever. You can’t even argue with him about it; there’s no place to start picking at it because the whole thing’s loose ends. You’ve got the choice to either follow or bail. Me? I’m not bailing on him, even if it gets us all killed or arrested.”
“What the hell did he do for you?” July asked. “I’ve never owed anyone more than just terras before. I didn’t sign up for this bullshit.”
“Good,” Tanny said. “You can be a racing widow when this is over, but there’s no share for you. You want this to go off right so you’re not dragged into a scandal, go pick up Kubu. We won’t have time to come back for him after.”
“How am I supposed to get him?” July asked. “I don’t even know him. He doesn’t know me.”
“I’ll go too,” Esper said, perking up. “He likes me. I’m sure he’ll be eager to get home, no matter how much fun he’s been having. He must miss his Mommy.”
“It all comes down to you two,” Roddy said, looking from Tanny to Mort. “I found us the sensor shadow to hide in, but can you come out of astral in that exact spot?”
Mort shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I can put us below any astral sniffers they’ve got. Science doesn’t know shit about the lower reaches.”
“No purple this time,” Esper said, wagging a finger but still smiling. Last time Carl asked Mort to take them deep into the astral, they almost hadn’t come back up.
