‘Sven . . . thought you might be here.’
Carl goes missing between the hotel and where we are now. Maybe he figures he’s paid his debt. Maybe he simply disappears for a piss, loses track of us and can’t find his way back. I get to keep his coat; he gets to keep the ferox-skull armband, the side arm Neen gave him and the Kemzin he picked up on his way into the centre.
Having lost Carl, we find Anton.
It’s one of those nights.
Or rather he finds us, standing in the early dawn, staring at what remains of the general’s house. Flames have gutted Jaxx’s mansion and reduced it to a smouldering shell. An impressive, five-storeyed shell, with half its roof in place, and a twist of marble stairs, seen through the hole that tank made below in the wall.
But a shell all the same.
We’re here because I’m worried Colonel Vijay will want one last look at where he grew up and his father died. Don’t know if the colonel knows about Sebastian Thomassi declaring himself a prince. Or the traitorous deal Clan Thomassi has agreed with the Uplifted. If he does, then the colonel knows he’s a dead man for sure. If he doesn’t, he must still suspect it.
General Shadow Luc is no longer his worst enemy.
When the UFree want you dead there’s nowhere in the galaxy to hide. I’m beginning to realize that. We need a plan. When you’re up against the UFree or the Uplifted and Enlightened it has to be a big plan. When you’re up against both together . . .
Sweat sticks my shirt to my back, and the morning air is hot and static around me. Iona’s already vomited once. She now looks as if she’s about to do it again. Shil’s scowl has closed down to an empty blankness. Even Neen looks shocked by the carnage around us.
‘Fuck, sir . . .’
He doesn’t bother to finish.
The whole area south of the river stinks of death. Each new street is a makeshift abattoir. We stand, watching Jaxx’s house, with our backs to other houses that smell like open-doored butchers, and the stench is impossible to ignore. Walking up to Iona, I punch her lightly in the stomach.
She vomits up the rest of last night’s food.
‘Find her some water,’ I tell Neen. It’s bad enough he brought Iona along without her having hysterics on us.
Between drinking and squabbling, the civilians in the square wait for the mansion’s roof to fall in. As they do so, a scout car pushes through them, as if they were as much a part of the stench as the air itself.
Obviously, it’s been a long wait. Most of the crowd are falling-down drunk. One man sits in the gutter, beating out a march on his naked belly. When he sees Leona look, he laughs, and laughs louder when she looks away.
‘Fuckwit,’ Rachel says.
When the roof falls, the crowd cheers.
Sweeping his field-glasses over the crowd, the man in the scout car ignores their noise. Seems the Wolf has the same idea as us.
‘Looking for Vijay,’ Anton mutters.
Think that is what he says.
Hard to tell, given the mess he’s in.
Helmet missing, side arm minus its clip. Bottom lip split. Blood from a broken nose splashing his flak jacket’s urban camouflage. One of his eyes so badly bruised its lid is inside out.
He’s sliced the bruising to release blood.
Either that, or it burst.
‘Iona . . .’
Neen’s squeeze hurries forward. Large breasts, generous hips. I must have been mad. Having someone this attractive in the unit is a shit idea.
‘Boss,’ she says.
‘It’s sir.’
Iona looks from under her lashes. She’s checking if I’m still cross.
‘Boss when we’re off duty. Sir when we’re on duty. Got it?’
She nods enthusiastically.
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Sew up Anton’s cut eye.’
Pulling thread from her pocket, she hesitates. Turns out, she’s deciding where to start. Her choice is good. Tacking the middle, she ties it off. You stand a better chance of getting a clean scar that way.
A couple of loops close the cut.
She sews the bridge of his nose without being told.
When she’s done, Iona returns her thread to her pocket, puts the needle back in its case and risks a glance at Neen. He smiles and she smiles back. Shil sees me watch her watching her brother’s first serious lover and scowls. My sour grin only makes her own scowl fiercer.
Leona looks on with interest.
‘He’s going,’ Anton says.
Seen it already. That tells me three facts. One, General Luc hasn’t seen us. Unless we’re not that important in his scheme of things. And two and three . . . Either the Wolf thinks he’s waited long enough, or he knows something we don’t. And the Wolf strikes me as a man who waits as long as it takes.
‘We’re moving out.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Neen says.
‘Want to tell me where you’ve been?’
I wait till we’re moving before asking Anton my question. Leona and Rachel are far enough ahead to be out of hearing. Shil’s buried in her own thoughts five paces behind and Iona’s five paces behind that. She’s going to be our medic.
The crowd lets us through without really knowing why. Neen takes point, with Ajac at the rear, because it’s time he started earning his place.
‘Went to get this.’
Reaching into his pocket, Anton produces a small black disk. It lights when his thumb brushes the middle and he checks no one has seen.
‘Five million credits,’ he tells me.
Must see the shock in my eyes, because he shrugs. ‘Debro’s escape fund. Figured I should collect it.’ Anton smiles sourly. ‘Only Debro,’ he says, ‘could glue it under the leg of a cousin’s chair for safety.’
‘It’s tied to her DNA?’
‘Unformatted,’ he tells me. ‘Totally open.’
Fuck . . . I could kill him, lose myself in this crowd, talk my way off-planet and drink myself stupid, surrounded by the most beautiful whores five million credits can buy. A house the size of a city, a hot tub that can take ten, plus me.
‘Put it away,’ I say. ‘Before someone mugs you.’
‘Not likely,’ he says. ‘With you around.’
Stupid bastard means it. Leaving Anton to his fortune, I push forward until I reach Neen’s side.
‘Copters,’ he says.
The first we’ve seen since this began.
Three black wasps hang over the river bank, door gunners hanging from open hatches, their long-magazine Kemzins tied with bungee cords to the sills above. One of the copters has an underslung thermal scanner sweeping the roofs. When three wasps become five, I know it’s serious.
‘Jaxx,’ says Neen, flicking frequencies. ‘They’ve got him cornered.’
‘Vijay?’ I say.
Neen looks surprised at my question.
I know it’s Vijay. What interests me is Neen calling him Jaxx.
The beginning of an idea is stirring. It’s an insane idea. All my best ones are, but this is a long-term idea, a big idea . . .
Never had one of those before.
I’ll tell the others later. If there is a later, because my idea depends on us getting out of this alive. And it’s not even a starter unless we can get Colonel Vijay out of this alive as well . . .
A hand signal stops my team where they stand. Civilians push around us, irritated we’re in their way. The first man to voice his opinion gets punched to the ground by Rachel. The man goes down and stays down. They’re better behaved after that.
My second signal says close up.
When I’m certain we’re gathered, armed and ready for anything likely to happen, I pass control to Neen, tell them to stay close and begin pushing my way towards a side street leading to the river’s edge.
Shil wants to know why I’ve given her brother operational control. It shows in her face. I surprise myself by telling her.
‘Going to let the kyp feed.’
Her eyes widen. Shil knows how I feel about that.
Static, fever, a sourness in my throat. The side effects of feeding the kyp follow the same pattern every time. Going to do it all the same.
‘Almost there,’ Leona says.
The others think she’s talking about the river.
Hidden pipes and buried pumping stations form a ghostly overlay in front of me as Farlight’s AI comes on line. Looking deeper reveals electric substations and underground walkways.
A maze of tunnels ends at a filter house so old its filters are clogged with a century’s worth of waste. No way into the houses in front of us, though.
‘Earth to Sven,’ the gun says. ‘Anyone home?’
‘The system is up. But OctoV has gone.’
‘Sven,’ it says, ‘that’s impossible.’
It isn’t. I have no sense of our glorious leader’s presence. The information is waiting, overlaid and organized, but there are no thoughts behind it. No one watches while the last of the data unravels itself for me. And the kyp in my throat is almost well behaved, which is proof enough – barely a roil of its exoskeleton or an aftertaste of static.
Won’t last, of course.
The Uplifted will take over. For all the U/Free guarantee our freedoms, and our new leader Prince Thomassi promises life will get better . . . The Enlightened will want our lands, our trade routes, our data havens.
Well, not my lands, routes and data, obviously. Because I own fuck all of fuck all. Unless you include Golden Memories, and we own that between us, and something says we won’t be seeing it again for a while anyway.
‘Your choice,’ Leona says.
She’s talking to me, has to be. Since I’m the one she’s looking at.
‘Sergeant,’ Neen warns.
When the SIG suggests we let her speak Leona nods, a little too gratefully. My glare warns her to behave. ‘I don’t imagine,’ I say, ‘Prince Thomassi will be kind to his prisoners.’
She scowls. Maybe at my use of prince. Mostly likely at the threat. Neen’s scowling for a different reason. He doesn’t know what is going on.
‘Leona’s precog.’
‘Like Iona?’
‘Different skill set.’
Neen doesn’t like that idea.
That is fine, because I don’t like it either. In fact, if Leona turns out to be a problem I’ll kill her. She’s only a temporary manifestation of our glorious leader, after all. An avatar. The word finds its way into my mind.
It’s not like she’s the real thing.
‘Actually,’ she says, ‘it’s exactly like.’
‘In your dreams.’
I’ve talked with OctoV, felt the power of his mind as it turned from a million problems on a thousand different battle fronts, to concentrate on the tiny irritation I represented the first time we met.
‘Sven,’ says Leona. ‘Think bigger.’
‘You call him sir,’ Neen snaps, stepping forward.
Leona looks at him, then nods. This time she means it. After a long scowl to make sure she knows he’s the senior sergeant round here, he steps back.
‘We’ll talk later,’ I tell Leona.
That sounds enough of a threat to satisfy Neen.