And that was about it, really.
Haakinen took his package and his leave.
Siarente took Envelan up the umbilical to her ship.
Auvy took my hand and we went home.
I had the feeling that Sia wasn't going to find it as easy to get her sister back from the boosters as it had been to get her back from the Guristas, but it wasn't any of my business.
My fee arrived as promised, with a bonus 'for my trouble' that was itself double the sum agreed. So did a flat package wrapped in soft silver tissue and tied with the kind of elaborate bow that was clearly the product of someone's life-long practice. Rich people's shops had people like that, I knew, people who spent every working day making sure that the expensive things they sold were wrapped up in a way that made it clear just how expensive they were.
The package was addressed to Auvy, not to me. I didn't object to an excuse to see her again, so I took it over. When she pulled the ends of the bow the whole thing slithered open to reveal a pool of pale fabric the same color as shrip tea, a pale green promise of sweet refreshment, with a name discreetly stitched into the hem that made Auvy's eyes widen.
Straight from the Crystal Boulevard, with Siarente Ross's thanks for Auvy's help.
The money was an easy gesture, but the dress had taken at least a few moment's thought and effort. Seeing Auvy's smile when she saw it made me hope Siarente's faith in her sister wasn't misplaced, that Envelan would find something worth staying sober for, at least some days of the week.
And that I'd be lucky enough to never see either of them again.
Auvy, of course, had to try the dress on right away. She whisked away to the 'fresher, and I helped myself to a drink and took out my neocom to look again at the little twirling holo next to Sia's entry in my transaction list. Pretty girl, blue eyes, blonde hair.
She didn't look like trouble.
I sipped my whiskey and looked at the holo and thought about that, about podders who looked and acted like normal people, about the vast dark spaces between the stars where they lived as comfortably as I lived in my one room with its fold-down bed and fold-out table. About capsuleer ethics, about love and family and other lost causes that people would risk everything for before they gave up the faith.
I mighta got maudlin, but Auvy came back from the 'fresher, wearing her new dress.
Auvy did look like trouble, especially in that dress. Well, she is trouble.
But not the kind a smart man would want to avoid.
And not the kind a man would ever regret.
Sunday
Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 14
At a gesture from Haakinen, Envelan was yanked forward to stand in front of the desk, beside Sia's chair. Everyone seemed to have forgotten me and Auvy, which was just fine as far as I was concerned.
"I have a package I need moved," Haakinen said. "A small package. And a sensitive one."
Sia nodded, looking a little pale. "You want me to take it?"
"Through null-sec?" Envelan protested. "Sia, no. I- I've got the implants too. I'll do it. I can fly a shuttle."
Saying that seemed to scare her a lot more than the idea of being tossed out an airlock had a few seconds before.
Haakinen glanced from Envelan to Sia, "I had understood that your implants were... non-functional, Ms Envelan. Regardless, it doesn't matter to me who does it as long as it gets done. But whoever it is better be able to do it."
"I can," Sia said. "I have a good fit. Fast."
"A shuttle's fast," Envelan countered. "It's my mess."
"A shuttle?" Sia said. "In null-sec? Through gate camps and bubbles? No, Ani. Be sensible. I'm the pilot. Would you let me lead a boarding party instead of you?"
Envelan shook her head, jaw set, face white. "That's different. I don't want you tangled -" She snapped her mouth shut, then said "I don't want you here."
"Maybe it's different," Sia said. "And maybe you don't want me here. But I am. And I think I have a better chance of getting through. Don't you?" She reached out and put her hand over Envelan's. "It won't take long. I'll be right back, and ... we can talk then."
Envelan closed her eyes for a second, and then her expression hardened and she yanked her hand out from under Sia's. "My answer's not going to be any different then."
"Of course," Haakinen said, "if something should happen and the package is lost, some other way to pay the debt will need to be found. I will see that your sister and associates are well taken care of until you return, Ms Ross."
The threat was really just a formality, we all knew what'd happen if Sia didn't do the job. But then, Haakinen seemed like a formal kinda guy.
Sia glanced at him, and then looked back at Envelan. "Nothing will happen. And if anything happens to my sister while I'm away, M'ser ..." She paused. "They tell me I am likely to live a very long time."
Haakinen inclined his head. "We understand each other," he said. "The package will be waiting for you at the Intaki Commerce Trading Post station in DP34-U. And it is delicate, Captain Ross. Do not take too long."
Sia stood up and glanced at Envelan, who shot a startled glance at Sia exactly as if the pilot had spoken.
She had, I realized. Guess Sia isn't the only one in the room with an internal neocom.
The two women looked at each other for a moment, and then Envelen shrugged a little and nodded.
A flicker of hurt showed in Sia's eyes as she turned and left, face pale but head held high.
They offered Auvy and me seats once the grown-ups were done discussing business. Envelan took out a pack of cigarettes, and without asking Haakinen if he minded, lit one with the same combustible fingersnap she'd used before. Sitting there, feeling like I was facing a school exam except this time it was one I had to let someone else take for me, I almost wished I smoked. It seemed to keep Envelan calm, except for the fine tremor in those metal fingers holding the cigarette.
Her unfocused gaze fixed on the floor, she muttered something. Thinking she was trying to avoid Haakinen overhearing something, I leaned over and hissed, "What?"
She blinked and frowned, then hissed back in a rush, "Wasn't talking to you."
Right. Most people learn pretty quick to keep their internal neocom conversations, well, internal.
Mind, most people generally weren't the casein-grey color Envelan had gone, and most people wouldn't have been sweating that much in a pleasantly temperature-controlled room.
She drew on her cigarette again, the tremor gone to a shake, and muttered, "Use the cloak. Hit warp, cloak right away.Good. You're doing good. I'm not going anywhere. Just - " She clenched her jaw and bent forward, almost suppressing a groan.
I wasn't the only one who could recognize withdrawal.
"Something to make your wait more comfortable?" Haakinen asked. The corners of his mouth twitched up again, "On the house."
Envelan glanced at him. "Fuck...off." Her chattering teeth nipped the words into little pieces, but her expression was crystal clear. She bowed her head, eyes closed, and murmured "Just be careful. I'm here. You'll be okay."
Auvy and I waited, me at least trying to eavesdrop, until Envelan's whispered Thank the Ancestors and a blink on the display on Haakinen's desk both signaled Sia's safe arrival back at the station.
Envelan opened her eyes and went to draw on the cigarette that had burned itself to the filter between her fingers. She grimaced and flicked it away, tapping out another with hands shaking so badly it took her three tries to get the cigarette in her mouth.
"She says you can have your package when we're all at the hangar," Envelan said.
They hustled us down there, and there were a couple of tense moments with Sia and her guards on one side with Haakinen's package on a cargo-loader, and us on the other. Lots of people with guns and hard stares. I took Auvy's hand to make her feel better, or maybe to make me feel better. Envelan stared at the floor, shivering.
"The package first, please," Haakinen said.
Sia shook her head. "At the same time, I think."
He nodded slightly. Sia gave a signal and the trolley edged forward. The three of us started forward as well, dodging the trolley as we passed it.
Sia's guards closed around us and I breathed a sigh of relief, and realized how strange my life had gotten: surrounded by a podder's armed guards inside her hangar wasn't what most people thought of as safe.
She reached out to Envelan. Envelan, pale and sweating, kept her distance.
Sia let her hand drop to her side.
"I have a package I need moved," Haakinen said. "A small package. And a sensitive one."
Sia nodded, looking a little pale. "You want me to take it?"
"Through null-sec?" Envelan protested. "Sia, no. I- I've got the implants too. I'll do it. I can fly a shuttle."
Saying that seemed to scare her a lot more than the idea of being tossed out an airlock had a few seconds before.
Haakinen glanced from Envelan to Sia, "I had understood that your implants were... non-functional, Ms Envelan. Regardless, it doesn't matter to me who does it as long as it gets done. But whoever it is better be able to do it."
"I can," Sia said. "I have a good fit. Fast."
"A shuttle's fast," Envelan countered. "It's my mess."
"A shuttle?" Sia said. "In null-sec? Through gate camps and bubbles? No, Ani. Be sensible. I'm the pilot. Would you let me lead a boarding party instead of you?"
Envelan shook her head, jaw set, face white. "That's different. I don't want you tangled -" She snapped her mouth shut, then said "I don't want you here."
"Maybe it's different," Sia said. "And maybe you don't want me here. But I am. And I think I have a better chance of getting through. Don't you?" She reached out and put her hand over Envelan's. "It won't take long. I'll be right back, and ... we can talk then."
Envelan closed her eyes for a second, and then her expression hardened and she yanked her hand out from under Sia's. "My answer's not going to be any different then."
"Of course," Haakinen said, "if something should happen and the package is lost, some other way to pay the debt will need to be found. I will see that your sister and associates are well taken care of until you return, Ms Ross."
The threat was really just a formality, we all knew what'd happen if Sia didn't do the job. But then, Haakinen seemed like a formal kinda guy.
Sia glanced at him, and then looked back at Envelan. "Nothing will happen. And if anything happens to my sister while I'm away, M'ser ..." She paused. "They tell me I am likely to live a very long time."
Haakinen inclined his head. "We understand each other," he said. "The package will be waiting for you at the Intaki Commerce Trading Post station in DP34-U. And it is delicate, Captain Ross. Do not take too long."
Sia stood up and glanced at Envelan, who shot a startled glance at Sia exactly as if the pilot had spoken.
She had, I realized. Guess Sia isn't the only one in the room with an internal neocom.
The two women looked at each other for a moment, and then Envelen shrugged a little and nodded.
A flicker of hurt showed in Sia's eyes as she turned and left, face pale but head held high.
They offered Auvy and me seats once the grown-ups were done discussing business. Envelan took out a pack of cigarettes, and without asking Haakinen if he minded, lit one with the same combustible fingersnap she'd used before. Sitting there, feeling like I was facing a school exam except this time it was one I had to let someone else take for me, I almost wished I smoked. It seemed to keep Envelan calm, except for the fine tremor in those metal fingers holding the cigarette.
Her unfocused gaze fixed on the floor, she muttered something. Thinking she was trying to avoid Haakinen overhearing something, I leaned over and hissed, "What?"
She blinked and frowned, then hissed back in a rush, "Wasn't talking to you."
Right. Most people learn pretty quick to keep their internal neocom conversations, well, internal.
Mind, most people generally weren't the casein-grey color Envelan had gone, and most people wouldn't have been sweating that much in a pleasantly temperature-controlled room.
She drew on her cigarette again, the tremor gone to a shake, and muttered, "Use the cloak. Hit warp, cloak right away.Good. You're doing good. I'm not going anywhere. Just - " She clenched her jaw and bent forward, almost suppressing a groan.
I wasn't the only one who could recognize withdrawal.
"Something to make your wait more comfortable?" Haakinen asked. The corners of his mouth twitched up again, "On the house."
Envelan glanced at him. "Fuck...off." Her chattering teeth nipped the words into little pieces, but her expression was crystal clear. She bowed her head, eyes closed, and murmured "Just be careful. I'm here. You'll be okay."
Auvy and I waited, me at least trying to eavesdrop, until Envelan's whispered Thank the Ancestors and a blink on the display on Haakinen's desk both signaled Sia's safe arrival back at the station.
Envelan opened her eyes and went to draw on the cigarette that had burned itself to the filter between her fingers. She grimaced and flicked it away, tapping out another with hands shaking so badly it took her three tries to get the cigarette in her mouth.
"She says you can have your package when we're all at the hangar," Envelan said.
They hustled us down there, and there were a couple of tense moments with Sia and her guards on one side with Haakinen's package on a cargo-loader, and us on the other. Lots of people with guns and hard stares. I took Auvy's hand to make her feel better, or maybe to make me feel better. Envelan stared at the floor, shivering.
"The package first, please," Haakinen said.
Sia shook her head. "At the same time, I think."
He nodded slightly. Sia gave a signal and the trolley edged forward. The three of us started forward as well, dodging the trolley as we passed it.
Sia's guards closed around us and I breathed a sigh of relief, and realized how strange my life had gotten: surrounded by a podder's armed guards inside her hangar wasn't what most people thought of as safe.
She reached out to Envelan. Envelan, pale and sweating, kept her distance.
Sia let her hand drop to her side.
Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 13
The room they herded us into was like a Caille socialite: a lot of time and money had been spent making it look like a picture out of a magazine, and the result was perfectly put together and perfectly empty of anything that even remotely resembled individuality or personality. At one end was a desk so bland it almost put me to sleep looking at it, and sitting behind it was a nondescript Caldari who looked like an accountant, if accountants really looked the way the directors of holos thought. His suit was in a style a couple years out of date, and it looked a little worn, but well cared for - it went well with the old-fashioned spectacles and the comb-over. He was flipping through an expense report as we were hustled into the middle of the room.
Varakin Haakinen, the most powerful Gurista on the station, didn't look up.
I exchanged a glance with Auvy, neither of us having to say aloud what we were both thinking. This doesn't look good.
Envelan caught the look. "This has nothing to do with you," she said. "Haakinen is a business man, no profit in hurting bystanders. This is my problem."
I couldn't quite share her faith in Haakinen's reasonableness.
I leaned closer to Envelan, "You're the Rabbit. What happens now?"
She shrugged. "We wait," she said. "Take our chance when it comes. I'll get you out of here, anyway." She was talking to me but looking at Sia as she spoke, and then frowned a little. "Sia?"
I turned. The pilot's face was pale, and she had the glassy-eyed expression of someone trying to decide whether throwing up or passing out was the better option.
"Do you think I might have some water?" she asked softly and very politely, and then folded up where she stood.
Envelan brushed me aside and caught Sia before she could hit the ground. All around us, hands went to guns. Envelan ignored them, and lowered Sia gently to the floor. The podder wasn't out, not quite, mumbling that she was okay, she'd missed breakfast, she was fine.
"Someone get a medic," Envelan ordered, exactly as if she was in charge, and the authority in her voice was enough to make a couple of our guards twitch reflexively.
Haakinen glanced up, and said mildly, "I appreciate your desire to stick to a winning tactic, but I think you'll find the staff here a little better trained than Inheras's."
"She's not faking," Envelan said. "She's not cut out for this sort of shit." When Haakinen's expression didn't change, she added almost pleadingly. "'At least let her have some water."
Haakinen considered, then nodded slightly. A flunky brought a glass of water, the guards watching closely as he set it down near Envelan and beat a hasty retreat. Envelan dipped one finger in it before she helped Sia sit up and held the glass for the pilot to sip.
"Expecting poison, Ms Envelan?" Haakinen with faint amusement.
"Not really," Envelan said. "But I'd kick myself if I turned out to be wrong."
Sia finished the water. A little color had come back to her cheeks and now she just looked tired, mostly.
"Just take it easy," Envelan told her, more gently than I would have believed she was capable of. "You'll be out of here in no time and the docs'll fix you up."
"I'm all right," Sia said. "It's just this vertigo, since they put the neocom in." She rubbed restlessly at the skin behind her ear and Envelan reached out to capture Sia's hand in her own. Sia blinked and started. "I'm all right, Ani, really." She squeezed Envelan's metal fingers with a weary little smile, and for a fraction of a second they looked like the sisters Sia kept insisting they were.
Then Envelan yanked her hand away and got back to her feet. She turned to face Haakinen, who'd been watching the two of them with alert interest. "Look," Envelan said. "I know you and me have got some things to sort out. But the others, they have nothing to do with this."
"But I think they have a great deal to do with this," Haakinen said mildly. He touched a button on that bland desk and a holo-display spray to life above his head: Sia in the Colonel's HQ, at the poker table, me in the background, Inheras pushing a stack of chips into the middle of the table. Haakinen steepled his fingers. "Inheras is quite ... resentful at losing so much money to a cardsharp. And I tend to agree we should discourage people with the idea of cheating our organisation."
"I didn't cheat," Sia said from the floor. She tried to get her feet under her to stand. When no-one else moved, I took her arm to help her. She swayed a little and then steadied. "Not M'ser Inheras, anyway."
"You just happen to be that good a poker player?" Haakinen said with polite disbelief.
Sia smiled, sweet and guileless as if she'd never ripped open a battleship's hull and sent thousands to their deaths. "I'm quite good at mathematics," she said, and let go of my arm to run her fingers through her hair. The honey-colored curls bunched between her fingers, revealing the pale column of her neck - and the glittering jeweled caps over her podder plugs.
There was a little silence in the room, as if everybody was simultaneously taking a quiet, careful breath. Haakinen looked at Sia with an expression as neutral as the dull blank case around a racing warp-core. "I see."
Sia let her hair fall back over her shoulders. It shifted and rustled as she shrugged slightly. "And besides," she said, "He should have paid as much attention to my cards as he did to my cleavage." She blushed a little as she said it, like a schoolgirl pronouncing a dirty word or a Kaalakiota accountant announcing less than seven percent ROI.
Haakinen looked at her gravely. "I'll pass on your advice," he promised, and gestured to a flunky. "Bring Captain - ?"
"Ross," Sia supplied.
"Bring Captain Ross a chair."
The chair was set on the other side of the desk to him. Sia settled herself in it, calm as cooled casein, if you couldn't see the rapid flutter of the pulse in her neck. She had to know what Haakinen did, what everyone else in the room knew now: a pod pilot wasn't an inconvenience or a future 'example'. In Haakinen's ledger, Sia Ross had just gone from a silly little rich girl out of her depth to someone who could easily have brought a small army to avenge Inheras's efforts to get his own back.
I wished she had, right about then. Even on short acquaintance though, I could tell: that wasn't the sort of thing that would occur to Siarente Ross.
Haakinen's expression hadn't changed, but there was a tension in the air as the silence stretched on. You didn't make an example of a podder, but you might make them and everyone who'd seen them near you disappear to protect yourself. For a moment it seemed likely that Haakinen would solve his problems the old-fashioned way: by tossing it out an airlock. I wasn't the only one who it occurred to, I glanced at Envelan and saw the thin blue lines of nano-tatts creeping up her neck. War paint. She was as tense - more tense than I was, like an anti-matter charge in the breech, just waiting to explode into self-annihilating destruction.
Then Haakinen sighed, "Inheras can sometimes let his temper override his better judgement. I will see to it he apologizes, and I trust we can leave this unfortunate lapse of his behind us." He gestured to Auvy and me, "Can your associates see you to where you would like to be, or would you like an escort?"
It was clearly a dismissal, and just as clearly, Envelan wasn't included.
Sia paused. "I'm sure that my three friends can see me safely home."
"I'm afraid we have a misunderstanding," Haakinen said. "Ms Envelan's betrayed the trust we placed in her, Ms Ross. She killed several of my employees - her colleagues. I'm sure that you understand that I can't let something like that go."
"Mmm," Sia said. "I'm afraid we do have a misunderstanding. I can't leave without Ani."
"You can," Envelan said. "And you will."
"You'll have to leave without Ms Envelan," Haakinen said. "Or not leave at all." The threat was unmistakable. The risk benefit analysis had clearly changed.
"Get the fuck out, Sia," Envelan said. "I told you: I don't want you here."
Sia flinched a little at the harsh note in Envelan's voice, but her gaze stayed steady on Haakinen. "I can't leave without her."
"Why not?" Haakinen asked. "What is she to you?"
"She's - "
Envelan cut her off. "No-one. I'm no-one. So kick the podder out and she'll forget all about this. Won't you."
Haakinen narrowed his eyes, and remarked to no-one in particular "I do hate taking risks I don't understand."
He flicked a finger and one of the guards stepped forward, drawing her gun in the same smooth motion. Sia's yelp of surprise was barely audible beneath Envelan's snarl as the guard grabbed Sia by one arm and pressed the muzzle of the gun to her cheek.
"Get your fucking hands off her!" Envelan lunged, nanotatts flooding over her face, eyes wide and teeth bared, but the guards were ready for her. Sia screamed and kept screaming, shrill as a boiling kettle, as Envelan went down, five of them holding her, face to the floor, prosthetic arms twisted up behind her back past the point my arms would have broken, and still struggling.
"'No-one', I see," Haakinen said. "Hardly seems so."
"Don't hurt her!" Sia was crying, words barely intelligible through her sobs, not pretty tears calculated for effect but the brink of hysteria. "Please, please, don't hurt her, please!"
Haakinen looked from one to the other. "That is really up to her, Captain Ross. One more time, Ms Envelan. How do you know Captain Ross? Why did you kill your own colleagues to protect her?"
Envelan hesitated, and the guard by Sia pushed the gun harder against her face, the pressure of the muzzle turning the skin white.
"My sister." Envelan's tone was tinged with defeat, "She's my sister."
I saw the glances pass between the guards holding her down. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that their grips eased a bit, too.
Caldari put a lot of stock in family. And the Guristas might have plenty of Caldari who don't quite fit in to the State, but they were Caldari, all the same.
"Well," Haakinen said. "Why didn't you say so?"
He flicked a finger and the guards holding Envelan hauled her to her feet, while the one holding the gun to Sia's head holstered her weapon and stepped back. Sia scrubbed at her tear-stained cheeks with her hands and took a step towards her sister, then stopped as Envelan moved just exactly that much away.
"It doesn't change anything," Envelan said. "She's got nothing to do with it. Send her back to her hangar."
Haakinen looked like he might be balancing accounts for all the expression he showed. "Nice try, Ms Envelan. Let loose a pod pilot with a blood feud?"
"It not for her the way it is for us," Envelen said urgently. "You can let her go - she won't hold a grudge."
"Is that true, Captain Ross? Family doesn't mean to you what it would to a Caldari?"
Sia took a shaking breath and found some reserves of composure from somewhere. "I don't know," she said. "I suppose we can't ever know exactly what's in someone else's head, can we? Maybe it is different for me. All I can tell you is, I won't leave here without my sister. I can't."
Envelan closed her eyes. "Sia ..."
Haakinen studied Sia for a moment, then Envelan. "Inheras seems to be making all sorts of errors of judgement lately." Suddenly, I wouldn't have given a bent half-syn for Inheras's career prospects. "Well, we have a problem. Ms Envelan's actions may have been inevitable, given Inheras's misunderstanding of the situation, but there is still a debt to be paid."
Envelan nodded. "Let my sister go. I'll pay what needs to be paid."
"I don't think you should be giving orders." A twitch at the corners of Haakinen's mouth, "And I don't think you'll be able to make the kind of payment I have in mind."
Varakin Haakinen, the most powerful Gurista on the station, didn't look up.
I exchanged a glance with Auvy, neither of us having to say aloud what we were both thinking. This doesn't look good.
Envelan caught the look. "This has nothing to do with you," she said. "Haakinen is a business man, no profit in hurting bystanders. This is my problem."
I couldn't quite share her faith in Haakinen's reasonableness.
I leaned closer to Envelan, "You're the Rabbit. What happens now?"
She shrugged. "We wait," she said. "Take our chance when it comes. I'll get you out of here, anyway." She was talking to me but looking at Sia as she spoke, and then frowned a little. "Sia?"
I turned. The pilot's face was pale, and she had the glassy-eyed expression of someone trying to decide whether throwing up or passing out was the better option.
"Do you think I might have some water?" she asked softly and very politely, and then folded up where she stood.
Envelan brushed me aside and caught Sia before she could hit the ground. All around us, hands went to guns. Envelan ignored them, and lowered Sia gently to the floor. The podder wasn't out, not quite, mumbling that she was okay, she'd missed breakfast, she was fine.
"Someone get a medic," Envelan ordered, exactly as if she was in charge, and the authority in her voice was enough to make a couple of our guards twitch reflexively.
Haakinen glanced up, and said mildly, "I appreciate your desire to stick to a winning tactic, but I think you'll find the staff here a little better trained than Inheras's."
"She's not faking," Envelan said. "She's not cut out for this sort of shit." When Haakinen's expression didn't change, she added almost pleadingly. "'At least let her have some water."
Haakinen considered, then nodded slightly. A flunky brought a glass of water, the guards watching closely as he set it down near Envelan and beat a hasty retreat. Envelan dipped one finger in it before she helped Sia sit up and held the glass for the pilot to sip.
"Expecting poison, Ms Envelan?" Haakinen with faint amusement.
"Not really," Envelan said. "But I'd kick myself if I turned out to be wrong."
Sia finished the water. A little color had come back to her cheeks and now she just looked tired, mostly.
"Just take it easy," Envelan told her, more gently than I would have believed she was capable of. "You'll be out of here in no time and the docs'll fix you up."
"I'm all right," Sia said. "It's just this vertigo, since they put the neocom in." She rubbed restlessly at the skin behind her ear and Envelan reached out to capture Sia's hand in her own. Sia blinked and started. "I'm all right, Ani, really." She squeezed Envelan's metal fingers with a weary little smile, and for a fraction of a second they looked like the sisters Sia kept insisting they were.
Then Envelan yanked her hand away and got back to her feet. She turned to face Haakinen, who'd been watching the two of them with alert interest. "Look," Envelan said. "I know you and me have got some things to sort out. But the others, they have nothing to do with this."
"But I think they have a great deal to do with this," Haakinen said mildly. He touched a button on that bland desk and a holo-display spray to life above his head: Sia in the Colonel's HQ, at the poker table, me in the background, Inheras pushing a stack of chips into the middle of the table. Haakinen steepled his fingers. "Inheras is quite ... resentful at losing so much money to a cardsharp. And I tend to agree we should discourage people with the idea of cheating our organisation."
"I didn't cheat," Sia said from the floor. She tried to get her feet under her to stand. When no-one else moved, I took her arm to help her. She swayed a little and then steadied. "Not M'ser Inheras, anyway."
"You just happen to be that good a poker player?" Haakinen said with polite disbelief.
Sia smiled, sweet and guileless as if she'd never ripped open a battleship's hull and sent thousands to their deaths. "I'm quite good at mathematics," she said, and let go of my arm to run her fingers through her hair. The honey-colored curls bunched between her fingers, revealing the pale column of her neck - and the glittering jeweled caps over her podder plugs.
There was a little silence in the room, as if everybody was simultaneously taking a quiet, careful breath. Haakinen looked at Sia with an expression as neutral as the dull blank case around a racing warp-core. "I see."
Sia let her hair fall back over her shoulders. It shifted and rustled as she shrugged slightly. "And besides," she said, "He should have paid as much attention to my cards as he did to my cleavage." She blushed a little as she said it, like a schoolgirl pronouncing a dirty word or a Kaalakiota accountant announcing less than seven percent ROI.
Haakinen looked at her gravely. "I'll pass on your advice," he promised, and gestured to a flunky. "Bring Captain - ?"
"Ross," Sia supplied.
"Bring Captain Ross a chair."
The chair was set on the other side of the desk to him. Sia settled herself in it, calm as cooled casein, if you couldn't see the rapid flutter of the pulse in her neck. She had to know what Haakinen did, what everyone else in the room knew now: a pod pilot wasn't an inconvenience or a future 'example'. In Haakinen's ledger, Sia Ross had just gone from a silly little rich girl out of her depth to someone who could easily have brought a small army to avenge Inheras's efforts to get his own back.
I wished she had, right about then. Even on short acquaintance though, I could tell: that wasn't the sort of thing that would occur to Siarente Ross.
Haakinen's expression hadn't changed, but there was a tension in the air as the silence stretched on. You didn't make an example of a podder, but you might make them and everyone who'd seen them near you disappear to protect yourself. For a moment it seemed likely that Haakinen would solve his problems the old-fashioned way: by tossing it out an airlock. I wasn't the only one who it occurred to, I glanced at Envelan and saw the thin blue lines of nano-tatts creeping up her neck. War paint. She was as tense - more tense than I was, like an anti-matter charge in the breech, just waiting to explode into self-annihilating destruction.
Then Haakinen sighed, "Inheras can sometimes let his temper override his better judgement. I will see to it he apologizes, and I trust we can leave this unfortunate lapse of his behind us." He gestured to Auvy and me, "Can your associates see you to where you would like to be, or would you like an escort?"
It was clearly a dismissal, and just as clearly, Envelan wasn't included.
Sia paused. "I'm sure that my three friends can see me safely home."
"I'm afraid we have a misunderstanding," Haakinen said. "Ms Envelan's betrayed the trust we placed in her, Ms Ross. She killed several of my employees - her colleagues. I'm sure that you understand that I can't let something like that go."
"Mmm," Sia said. "I'm afraid we do have a misunderstanding. I can't leave without Ani."
"You can," Envelan said. "And you will."
"You'll have to leave without Ms Envelan," Haakinen said. "Or not leave at all." The threat was unmistakable. The risk benefit analysis had clearly changed.
"Get the fuck out, Sia," Envelan said. "I told you: I don't want you here."
Sia flinched a little at the harsh note in Envelan's voice, but her gaze stayed steady on Haakinen. "I can't leave without her."
"Why not?" Haakinen asked. "What is she to you?"
"She's - "
Envelan cut her off. "No-one. I'm no-one. So kick the podder out and she'll forget all about this. Won't you."
Haakinen narrowed his eyes, and remarked to no-one in particular "I do hate taking risks I don't understand."
He flicked a finger and one of the guards stepped forward, drawing her gun in the same smooth motion. Sia's yelp of surprise was barely audible beneath Envelan's snarl as the guard grabbed Sia by one arm and pressed the muzzle of the gun to her cheek.
"Get your fucking hands off her!" Envelan lunged, nanotatts flooding over her face, eyes wide and teeth bared, but the guards were ready for her. Sia screamed and kept screaming, shrill as a boiling kettle, as Envelan went down, five of them holding her, face to the floor, prosthetic arms twisted up behind her back past the point my arms would have broken, and still struggling.
"'No-one', I see," Haakinen said. "Hardly seems so."
"Don't hurt her!" Sia was crying, words barely intelligible through her sobs, not pretty tears calculated for effect but the brink of hysteria. "Please, please, don't hurt her, please!"
Haakinen looked from one to the other. "That is really up to her, Captain Ross. One more time, Ms Envelan. How do you know Captain Ross? Why did you kill your own colleagues to protect her?"
Envelan hesitated, and the guard by Sia pushed the gun harder against her face, the pressure of the muzzle turning the skin white.
"My sister." Envelan's tone was tinged with defeat, "She's my sister."
I saw the glances pass between the guards holding her down. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that their grips eased a bit, too.
Caldari put a lot of stock in family. And the Guristas might have plenty of Caldari who don't quite fit in to the State, but they were Caldari, all the same.
"Well," Haakinen said. "Why didn't you say so?"
He flicked a finger and the guards holding Envelan hauled her to her feet, while the one holding the gun to Sia's head holstered her weapon and stepped back. Sia scrubbed at her tear-stained cheeks with her hands and took a step towards her sister, then stopped as Envelan moved just exactly that much away.
"It doesn't change anything," Envelan said. "She's got nothing to do with it. Send her back to her hangar."
Haakinen looked like he might be balancing accounts for all the expression he showed. "Nice try, Ms Envelan. Let loose a pod pilot with a blood feud?"
"It not for her the way it is for us," Envelen said urgently. "You can let her go - she won't hold a grudge."
"Is that true, Captain Ross? Family doesn't mean to you what it would to a Caldari?"
Sia took a shaking breath and found some reserves of composure from somewhere. "I don't know," she said. "I suppose we can't ever know exactly what's in someone else's head, can we? Maybe it is different for me. All I can tell you is, I won't leave here without my sister. I can't."
Envelan closed her eyes. "Sia ..."
Haakinen studied Sia for a moment, then Envelan. "Inheras seems to be making all sorts of errors of judgement lately." Suddenly, I wouldn't have given a bent half-syn for Inheras's career prospects. "Well, we have a problem. Ms Envelan's actions may have been inevitable, given Inheras's misunderstanding of the situation, but there is still a debt to be paid."
Envelan nodded. "Let my sister go. I'll pay what needs to be paid."
"I don't think you should be giving orders." A twitch at the corners of Haakinen's mouth, "And I don't think you'll be able to make the kind of payment I have in mind."
Saturday
Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 12
We were all hurrying back to the side entrance when Sami commed again, and I put my neocom on speaker, "I've got some good news, and some bad news. And you aren't gonna like the good news."
"Well, just tell us both." Envelan looked impatient.
"Bad news is that with the alarm going off, they've locked down the way you came in, and they are working to lock me out of the system. Good news is I managed to keep another way out unlocked..."
"And?"
"And it's the front entrance."
Envelan and Auvy both cursed, and I admit I might'a said a couple words that mama Tarva would have hit me with a spoon for knowing. There wasn't much to be done, though. We followed Envelan's lead toward the front.
Sami still had access to some of the internal surveillance, so she helped us avoid a lot of the 'ristas goons in the maze of corridors that made up most of the HRW complex - which meant they were coming up fast behind us when we broke out across the lobby.
Sia was bringing up the rear, limping in her single shoe, clearly not as used to running for her life as me or Envelan - or Auvy, since she'd started hanging around with me.
We stopped at the last corner before the lobby. A quick peek showed the 'receptionist' had found a mag carbine and a couple armed friends somewhere, and an auto-turret nosed around suspiciously from its mount in the ceiling. Things were looking bad.
Then the sharp, piercing bark no spacer wants to hear: The hull breach alarm.
It was only moments before the insistent blatting was almost drowned out by a rush of air past us and doors slamming shut behind us. The lobby doors slammed open as atmo was sucked into HRW. Flashing arrows lit up urgently indicating that out the door and well away would be a better place to be, and a pressure door started dropping across the entrance. Dropping slowly.
The three in the lobby ran for it, too distracted to notice the auto-turret now hung limp, swaying listlessly in the gale.
One of the arrow-strips near me started scrolling words, "Get going, love Sami."
We made a break for it across the empty lobby.
Once we were outside, we picked up the pace. We were barely outside before someone had over-ridden the alarm and gotten the internal doors back open. Guristas swarmed out of HRW like fighters out of a Nyx. We dodged down a side corridor, cut through a stall selling knock-off Dessuetto bags and then dropped down a level via a service staircase. Sia finally lost that lone shoe.
I was in front as we burst out of the stairwell, so I'm the one that bounced off a wall wearing a grey Huas suit. The others skidded to a halt behind me.
We were facing a semi-circle of big and ugly. These weren't your Syn-a-dozen muscle. These were people with enough wiring and modification that they probably needed a permit to walk down the street anywhere except Syndicate. Veterans of fights where being all-human meant being dead. These weren't Knuckles' goons, they were a whole better class of thug. One of them gave us a nasty smile, "Boss wants to see you."
"Well, just tell us both." Envelan looked impatient.
"Bad news is that with the alarm going off, they've locked down the way you came in, and they are working to lock me out of the system. Good news is I managed to keep another way out unlocked..."
"And?"
"And it's the front entrance."
Envelan and Auvy both cursed, and I admit I might'a said a couple words that mama Tarva would have hit me with a spoon for knowing. There wasn't much to be done, though. We followed Envelan's lead toward the front.
Sami still had access to some of the internal surveillance, so she helped us avoid a lot of the 'ristas goons in the maze of corridors that made up most of the HRW complex - which meant they were coming up fast behind us when we broke out across the lobby.
Sia was bringing up the rear, limping in her single shoe, clearly not as used to running for her life as me or Envelan - or Auvy, since she'd started hanging around with me.
We stopped at the last corner before the lobby. A quick peek showed the 'receptionist' had found a mag carbine and a couple armed friends somewhere, and an auto-turret nosed around suspiciously from its mount in the ceiling. Things were looking bad.
Then the sharp, piercing bark no spacer wants to hear: The hull breach alarm.
It was only moments before the insistent blatting was almost drowned out by a rush of air past us and doors slamming shut behind us. The lobby doors slammed open as atmo was sucked into HRW. Flashing arrows lit up urgently indicating that out the door and well away would be a better place to be, and a pressure door started dropping across the entrance. Dropping slowly.
The three in the lobby ran for it, too distracted to notice the auto-turret now hung limp, swaying listlessly in the gale.
One of the arrow-strips near me started scrolling words, "Get going, love Sami."
We made a break for it across the empty lobby.
Once we were outside, we picked up the pace. We were barely outside before someone had over-ridden the alarm and gotten the internal doors back open. Guristas swarmed out of HRW like fighters out of a Nyx. We dodged down a side corridor, cut through a stall selling knock-off Dessuetto bags and then dropped down a level via a service staircase. Sia finally lost that lone shoe.
I was in front as we burst out of the stairwell, so I'm the one that bounced off a wall wearing a grey Huas suit. The others skidded to a halt behind me.
We were facing a semi-circle of big and ugly. These weren't your Syn-a-dozen muscle. These were people with enough wiring and modification that they probably needed a permit to walk down the street anywhere except Syndicate. Veterans of fights where being all-human meant being dead. These weren't Knuckles' goons, they were a whole better class of thug. One of them gave us a nasty smile, "Boss wants to see you."
Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 11
It took me a moment of flailing panic before I realized that it wasn't one of the Bunnies on top of me. The form I was tangled up with was too soft and yielding to be a guard, and no self-respecting gangster would have chosen such a delicately floral perfume.
"Having fun there, Rory?" Auvy said acerbically, standing over me.
"Would you mind," Sia said politely, "Moving your hand?"
I let go of the pilot's - well, I moved my hand - and she scrambled up off me.
Auvy folded her arms. "Are you going to get up?" she said. "Or just lie there until the Rabbits catch up with us?"
"How did you - ?" I asked as Envelan reached down and hauled me bodily to my my feet.
"Oh, we should sit around waiting for your heroic rescue?" Auvy said. She shrugged. "Sia came over all faint and when the bozo they had watching us rushed to help her, I hit him over the head from behind." She rolled her eyes. "He was too distracted by the chance to cop a feel to hear me coming. Why is that breasts make men so stupid?"
There were a dozen things I could have said to that, none of them wise.
Envelan saved me. "Hate to interrupt the reunion," she said, "but we tripped at least one alarm on the way in and someone's going to check on you two sooner rather than later." She jerked her head towards the way we'd come. "Less chit-chat, more running."
"You tripped an alarm?" Auvy said, starting down the hall. "That's really helpful, Rory, why didn't you just send Knuckles a mail to let him know his prisoners were escaping?"
"Look, I didn't know you'd have everything under control when I got here," I said, following her.
Behind me, Sia reached out a hand towards Envelan. "Ani ..."
Envelan drew back. "Get moving," she said curtly. "Try to get back to the hangar without getting anyone else killed, can you?"
Sia flinched, and limped after Auvy, wearing the one shoe that hadn't been left on the floor of the storeroom.
Envelan met my eyes with a hard don't-give-a-fuck stare.
If I hadn't seen her face when she'd realized the 'rista's had Sia, I might have even been convinced.
"Having fun there, Rory?" Auvy said acerbically, standing over me.
"Would you mind," Sia said politely, "Moving your hand?"
I let go of the pilot's - well, I moved my hand - and she scrambled up off me.
Auvy folded her arms. "Are you going to get up?" she said. "Or just lie there until the Rabbits catch up with us?"
"How did you - ?" I asked as Envelan reached down and hauled me bodily to my my feet.
"Oh, we should sit around waiting for your heroic rescue?" Auvy said. She shrugged. "Sia came over all faint and when the bozo they had watching us rushed to help her, I hit him over the head from behind." She rolled her eyes. "He was too distracted by the chance to cop a feel to hear me coming. Why is that breasts make men so stupid?"
There were a dozen things I could have said to that, none of them wise.
Envelan saved me. "Hate to interrupt the reunion," she said, "but we tripped at least one alarm on the way in and someone's going to check on you two sooner rather than later." She jerked her head towards the way we'd come. "Less chit-chat, more running."
"You tripped an alarm?" Auvy said, starting down the hall. "That's really helpful, Rory, why didn't you just send Knuckles a mail to let him know his prisoners were escaping?"
"Look, I didn't know you'd have everything under control when I got here," I said, following her.
Behind me, Sia reached out a hand towards Envelan. "Ani ..."
Envelan drew back. "Get moving," she said curtly. "Try to get back to the hangar without getting anyone else killed, can you?"
Sia flinched, and limped after Auvy, wearing the one shoe that hadn't been left on the floor of the storeroom.
Envelan met my eyes with a hard don't-give-a-fuck stare.
If I hadn't seen her face when she'd realized the 'rista's had Sia, I might have even been convinced.
Friday
Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 10
HRW Transport didn't look much like a front for the Guristas. I guess that's the point though. Sami's collection of video feeds showed the front entrance was in a nice, upmarket business district. Plants - real ones - ran down the broad corridor in front of HRW's doors. A corporate logo; understated, expensive looking furniture; a desk with a receptionist visible inside the lobby.
There were signs, if you knew what to look for, that there was something a bit different about HRW though. Those doors were thick enough to distort the image inside ever so slightly, and and in a way plain glass wouldn't. A close look showed that an awful lot of the people going in and out of the HRW complex were discreetly armed, too.
Well, that was why we weren't going in the front.
The side entrance that Sami and Envelan had decided on was accessed through the back of a place selling shoes, two levels higher and in a section mostly occupied by factory works and people in the service industries: people who couldn't afford to see whatever the 'ristas might get up to.
I waved off an Achura fellow who couldn't have been much more than four feet tall and told him I didn't need any help finding my size. Envelan glared at him when he persisted, and I was glad for his sake when he backed off. She might blame herself for Sia getting taken, but I wasn't sure she wouldn't take it out on someone else anyway.
The entrance was behind a false panel in the back. We waited for the little guy to be distracted and then slipped into the 'employees only' area. Sami did her magic and the door slid open, revealing a surprised looking guard. I gave her a good whap with my stun-stick before Envelan could do anything more permanent. Envelan snorted and ducked into the corridor beyond. I followed close behind her. Sami called, "Rory, looks like you tripped something. A general alarms gonna go up in the next couple minutes. That's as long as I could delay it."
I was telling Envelan about the alarm, when three more Guristas came around a corner ahead of us.
They were surprised to see us, and that's probably what saved our asses. It gave us time to get close enough before they could draw. Envelan clocked one, who went out like a light - just unconcious, I hoped. I jabbed the other in the stomach with the stun-stick, then gave him a tap to the back of the head on his way down to make sure he got plenty of rest.
Envelan was struggling with the last guy. He didn't look like much, but he was holding his own, and they were both moving faster than I could follow. So he was wired.
Still, he seemed pretty focused on Envelan, so I picked my moment, and whacked him upside the head. Envelan glared at me like I'd just kicked her favorite puppy, but I guess that's gratitude for ya.
"Come on," I said, starting forward. "Sami says they're - "
I rounded the corner and got knocked straight on my back.
There were signs, if you knew what to look for, that there was something a bit different about HRW though. Those doors were thick enough to distort the image inside ever so slightly, and and in a way plain glass wouldn't. A close look showed that an awful lot of the people going in and out of the HRW complex were discreetly armed, too.
Well, that was why we weren't going in the front.
The side entrance that Sami and Envelan had decided on was accessed through the back of a place selling shoes, two levels higher and in a section mostly occupied by factory works and people in the service industries: people who couldn't afford to see whatever the 'ristas might get up to.
I waved off an Achura fellow who couldn't have been much more than four feet tall and told him I didn't need any help finding my size. Envelan glared at him when he persisted, and I was glad for his sake when he backed off. She might blame herself for Sia getting taken, but I wasn't sure she wouldn't take it out on someone else anyway.
The entrance was behind a false panel in the back. We waited for the little guy to be distracted and then slipped into the 'employees only' area. Sami did her magic and the door slid open, revealing a surprised looking guard. I gave her a good whap with my stun-stick before Envelan could do anything more permanent. Envelan snorted and ducked into the corridor beyond. I followed close behind her. Sami called, "Rory, looks like you tripped something. A general alarms gonna go up in the next couple minutes. That's as long as I could delay it."
I was telling Envelan about the alarm, when three more Guristas came around a corner ahead of us.
They were surprised to see us, and that's probably what saved our asses. It gave us time to get close enough before they could draw. Envelan clocked one, who went out like a light - just unconcious, I hoped. I jabbed the other in the stomach with the stun-stick, then gave him a tap to the back of the head on his way down to make sure he got plenty of rest.
Envelan was struggling with the last guy. He didn't look like much, but he was holding his own, and they were both moving faster than I could follow. So he was wired.
Still, he seemed pretty focused on Envelan, so I picked my moment, and whacked him upside the head. Envelan glared at me like I'd just kicked her favorite puppy, but I guess that's gratitude for ya.
"Come on," I said, starting forward. "Sami says they're - "
I rounded the corner and got knocked straight on my back.
Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 9
Sami's news wasn't good. Envelan had gone well and truly to ground, no surprise given what the Guristas must have thought of the outcome of the last job they'd sent her on. There were parts of the station where even the 'ristas trod warily, where Sami's electronic tendrils could catch only glimpses, and Envelan had lost herself in these. Sami reported what she did see, over the next few days. Envelan leaving the 'office' of a known dealer. Envelan at different clubs so far below-decks they were practically sitting on the planet. Envelan beating some poor mugger stupid or desperate enough to try his chances with her. Never more than five or ten minutes in one place, never the same place twice. She knew what she was doing, maybe by instinct since Sami said even in those few places she saw her, she was obviously high as the podder-decks. Maybe the Guristas were even more relaxed about their employees' habits than I'd heard.
Or maybe it was just that Envelan didn't even have a job as an enforcer to make it worthwhile to stay sober enough to get out of bed in the morning.
It took some doing to talk Sia out of heading straight after her, but a few pointed references to the outcome of her last bright idea eventually seemed to get through.
She worried that full lower lip between her teeth for a moment. "Well," she said at last, "If I can't go to her, she'll just have to come tome."
"She made it pretty clear that wasn't on the cards," I reminded her.
Sia waved that away. "She'll come," she said. "I know how to make her. Rory, we'll need somewhere that isn't here. Somewhere less secure."
I could have asked her how many bodyguards she was planning to get killed.
Maybe I should have.
Sami found the place. A storeroom near the edge of a Gurista territory we could rent. Envelan would know what that location might mean. We got there - me, Sia, and Auvy - and Sia made the call.
I dunno what she said over her internal neocom, but from the look on her face it wasn't Captain Ross would be obliged if you would join her for tea.
She opened her eyes and said quietly. "She didn't answer. I left a message. She'll come as soon as she hears it."
"I hope you're right," I said, and not just because sitting here so close to 'ristas territory gave me a strange naked feeling, and not in a good way.
Sia smiled bright, bright like neon and plastic flowers, "She'll come. Soon."
We'd been waiting in the storeroom for six hours, me getting even more nervous than I had been, Sia's confidence beginning to waver, Auvy doing her nails. Then I saw a flash of hard blue through the window. I recognized the eyes, even if the dark circles under them were so deep the shadows looked like bruises. I got to my feet. Auvy and Sia turned at the movement, and Sia spoke, "What-"
I interrupted her, "Think I saw something. Stay here, I'll check it out real quick."
It looked like she was about to say something else, but Auvy put a hand on her arm and said something quietly to her. That was my last look at them as I slipped out into the corridor and hurried in the direction I'd seen the eyes go. I caught up with Envelan just around the corner.
Then I realized I didn't know what to say. "Hey you!"
She spun. "Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?"
Her clothes looked like she'd slept in them, more than once; limp strands of hair had come loose from their ponytail and hung lankly in her bloodshot eyes. A muscle jumped irregularly in her cheek. She looked like she'd been at the bottom of an ore bin when it was tipped into the refinery; like if she'd tried to donate herself to one of the black market biomass dealers, they'd turn her down for quality control reasons.
Or like the fourth day of a three day bender.
I held my hands up, "Whoa. Just someone your sister hired. She just wants to help you."
Envelan took out a cigarette, fingers moving in quick, nervous twitches, "I already told her, I don't need any spirits-damned help. You know what's good for you, you'll make sure she understands that." She snapped her fingers and a flare of plasma incinerated the top half of the cigarette. "Shit. This little plan your idea?"
"Hers," I said. "She said you'd come if she was in trouble. Of course, that was six hours ago."
Envelan drew on the cigarette and looked away. "I overslept. So I guess she can't rely on me after all, can she? She's better off - "
A scream, quickly muffled, came from back in the direction of the storeroom. Envelan was past me at a sprint before the cigarette she dropped hit the ground.
I followed her almost as fast.
One of Sia's blue velvet shoes lay on its side in the middle of the floor.
Other than that, the room was empty.
The expression on Envelan's face looked like the chill in your guts when that outside airlock door opens. She spoke so low I almost didn't catch it, "Ancestors wept, I led them right to her."
My neocom buzzed. It was Sami. "The alley out the back," she said, without any of her usual preliminaries. "Six of them, heading left - "
I took off, Envelan following me this time. The alley was already empty when we got there and I headed left.
It was a blur: We ran past hard-eyed dealers and their muscle; past men, women, and more exotic genders wearing more makeup than clothes and cat-calling from just outside luridly painted hatches; past food-stalls selling grey-on-a-stick that'd probably seen the inside of a chemical drum, but never the inside of a hydro-bay or growing vat, much less a real sky.
We seemed to be gaining, but Sami's directions grew more and more hesitant.
I came to a stop at the junction of six corridors. "Which way, Sami?"
"I - " she paused, and then admitted. "I don't know. You're in a blind spot and -"
I swore.
"I'm sorry, Rory," Sami said, and she really did sound sorry.
Envelan caught up with me, panting. "Where - ?"
"We lost them," I said.
"Spirits fuck," she snarled, "Trust a low rent incompetent - " I expected her to go on to her opinion of my ancestry - that's how it usually goes, in my experience - but whatever else she had been going to say disappeared in a grunt of pain and she leaned forward, curling around like someone had just kicked her in the stomach and bracing herself against the wall.
I took a quick step backwards before she threw up, and asked cautiously. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fucking fine." Envelan straightened, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, and looked around. "You try that way, I'll go - " She turned around on the spot, picked a direction and staggered a few steps.
"Not sure that's a good idea, Envelan," I said, heading after her, grabbing her sleeve when she kept going.
She spun back, hand raised for a blow, then lost her balance with the movement and fell heavily against the wall. "Shit. Shit." Her artificial arms twitched spasmodically and she began to shiver, tried to get up and then vomited again.
"Look," I said, squatting down not too close to her. "We need to make a plan. Sami will keep trying to find them. Once they stop moving, she's got a better chance."
Envelan looked at me, or tried to, her gaze persistently tracking left every time she brought it back to my face. "I led them right to her. I've got to get her back."
"You've got to get yourself sorted out before you can help her," I pointed out.
The trip back to my office was no picnic, but we managed, and I got her a good strong cup of coffee. She cleaned up in the restroom while I was making it, and when she came back she looked a lot better.
I was careful not to ask. "We need to make a plan. Sami should know where they were taken pretty soon."
"We find out where they are." She looked at me, her voice deepened to a hoarse growl, "We go in and get her. Them."
"Well, that's certainly a very simple plan. Let's add we do that with as little noise and violence as we can manage." I sighed and explained, "We don't need heat coming down on us while we're there, and we don't need them being too excited about following us either."
"Fine. Fast, quiet, and as few casualties as possible."
I figured that was the best I was likely to get. I nodded, and Sami piped up, "Found them."
Sia and Auvy had been taken to the offices of a Guristas front company, HRW Transport. Envelan shook her head at the name, "Should have fucking knew it. When Inheras isn't busy being Haakinen's lap-dog, that's where he runs his parts of the operation from. Hell, I've been there before. Security's tight, especially at the front entrance, but there are a couple side entrances that might have potential. Less security cause Inheras doesn't want too many people seeing what goes ina nd out through them."
"Sami, can you open one of those side entrances?"
"By the time you two get over there? Yeah. Probably."
"That'll have to do." I studied Envelan for a moment, "Are you-"
"You worry about yourself, you unwired, feddie rent-a-cop."
Well, she was right, it didn't matter. I was going to get Auvy out, one way or another, with or without her help.
Or maybe it was just that Envelan didn't even have a job as an enforcer to make it worthwhile to stay sober enough to get out of bed in the morning.
It took some doing to talk Sia out of heading straight after her, but a few pointed references to the outcome of her last bright idea eventually seemed to get through.
She worried that full lower lip between her teeth for a moment. "Well," she said at last, "If I can't go to her, she'll just have to come tome."
"She made it pretty clear that wasn't on the cards," I reminded her.
Sia waved that away. "She'll come," she said. "I know how to make her. Rory, we'll need somewhere that isn't here. Somewhere less secure."
I could have asked her how many bodyguards she was planning to get killed.
Maybe I should have.
Sami found the place. A storeroom near the edge of a Gurista territory we could rent. Envelan would know what that location might mean. We got there - me, Sia, and Auvy - and Sia made the call.
I dunno what she said over her internal neocom, but from the look on her face it wasn't Captain Ross would be obliged if you would join her for tea.
She opened her eyes and said quietly. "She didn't answer. I left a message. She'll come as soon as she hears it."
"I hope you're right," I said, and not just because sitting here so close to 'ristas territory gave me a strange naked feeling, and not in a good way.
Sia smiled bright, bright like neon and plastic flowers, "She'll come. Soon."
We'd been waiting in the storeroom for six hours, me getting even more nervous than I had been, Sia's confidence beginning to waver, Auvy doing her nails. Then I saw a flash of hard blue through the window. I recognized the eyes, even if the dark circles under them were so deep the shadows looked like bruises. I got to my feet. Auvy and Sia turned at the movement, and Sia spoke, "What-"
I interrupted her, "Think I saw something. Stay here, I'll check it out real quick."
It looked like she was about to say something else, but Auvy put a hand on her arm and said something quietly to her. That was my last look at them as I slipped out into the corridor and hurried in the direction I'd seen the eyes go. I caught up with Envelan just around the corner.
Then I realized I didn't know what to say. "Hey you!"
She spun. "Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?"
Her clothes looked like she'd slept in them, more than once; limp strands of hair had come loose from their ponytail and hung lankly in her bloodshot eyes. A muscle jumped irregularly in her cheek. She looked like she'd been at the bottom of an ore bin when it was tipped into the refinery; like if she'd tried to donate herself to one of the black market biomass dealers, they'd turn her down for quality control reasons.
Or like the fourth day of a three day bender.
I held my hands up, "Whoa. Just someone your sister hired. She just wants to help you."
Envelan took out a cigarette, fingers moving in quick, nervous twitches, "I already told her, I don't need any spirits-damned help. You know what's good for you, you'll make sure she understands that." She snapped her fingers and a flare of plasma incinerated the top half of the cigarette. "Shit. This little plan your idea?"
"Hers," I said. "She said you'd come if she was in trouble. Of course, that was six hours ago."
Envelan drew on the cigarette and looked away. "I overslept. So I guess she can't rely on me after all, can she? She's better off - "
A scream, quickly muffled, came from back in the direction of the storeroom. Envelan was past me at a sprint before the cigarette she dropped hit the ground.
I followed her almost as fast.
One of Sia's blue velvet shoes lay on its side in the middle of the floor.
Other than that, the room was empty.
The expression on Envelan's face looked like the chill in your guts when that outside airlock door opens. She spoke so low I almost didn't catch it, "Ancestors wept, I led them right to her."
My neocom buzzed. It was Sami. "The alley out the back," she said, without any of her usual preliminaries. "Six of them, heading left - "
I took off, Envelan following me this time. The alley was already empty when we got there and I headed left.
It was a blur: We ran past hard-eyed dealers and their muscle; past men, women, and more exotic genders wearing more makeup than clothes and cat-calling from just outside luridly painted hatches; past food-stalls selling grey-on-a-stick that'd probably seen the inside of a chemical drum, but never the inside of a hydro-bay or growing vat, much less a real sky.
We seemed to be gaining, but Sami's directions grew more and more hesitant.
I came to a stop at the junction of six corridors. "Which way, Sami?"
"I - " she paused, and then admitted. "I don't know. You're in a blind spot and -"
I swore.
"I'm sorry, Rory," Sami said, and she really did sound sorry.
Envelan caught up with me, panting. "Where - ?"
"We lost them," I said.
"Spirits fuck," she snarled, "Trust a low rent incompetent - " I expected her to go on to her opinion of my ancestry - that's how it usually goes, in my experience - but whatever else she had been going to say disappeared in a grunt of pain and she leaned forward, curling around like someone had just kicked her in the stomach and bracing herself against the wall.
I took a quick step backwards before she threw up, and asked cautiously. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fucking fine." Envelan straightened, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, and looked around. "You try that way, I'll go - " She turned around on the spot, picked a direction and staggered a few steps.
"Not sure that's a good idea, Envelan," I said, heading after her, grabbing her sleeve when she kept going.
She spun back, hand raised for a blow, then lost her balance with the movement and fell heavily against the wall. "Shit. Shit." Her artificial arms twitched spasmodically and she began to shiver, tried to get up and then vomited again.
"Look," I said, squatting down not too close to her. "We need to make a plan. Sami will keep trying to find them. Once they stop moving, she's got a better chance."
Envelan looked at me, or tried to, her gaze persistently tracking left every time she brought it back to my face. "I led them right to her. I've got to get her back."
"You've got to get yourself sorted out before you can help her," I pointed out.
The trip back to my office was no picnic, but we managed, and I got her a good strong cup of coffee. She cleaned up in the restroom while I was making it, and when she came back she looked a lot better.
I was careful not to ask. "We need to make a plan. Sami should know where they were taken pretty soon."
"We find out where they are." She looked at me, her voice deepened to a hoarse growl, "We go in and get her. Them."
"Well, that's certainly a very simple plan. Let's add we do that with as little noise and violence as we can manage." I sighed and explained, "We don't need heat coming down on us while we're there, and we don't need them being too excited about following us either."
"Fine. Fast, quiet, and as few casualties as possible."
I figured that was the best I was likely to get. I nodded, and Sami piped up, "Found them."
Sia and Auvy had been taken to the offices of a Guristas front company, HRW Transport. Envelan shook her head at the name, "Should have fucking knew it. When Inheras isn't busy being Haakinen's lap-dog, that's where he runs his parts of the operation from. Hell, I've been there before. Security's tight, especially at the front entrance, but there are a couple side entrances that might have potential. Less security cause Inheras doesn't want too many people seeing what goes ina nd out through them."
"Sami, can you open one of those side entrances?"
"By the time you two get over there? Yeah. Probably."
"That'll have to do." I studied Envelan for a moment, "Are you-"
"You worry about yourself, you unwired, feddie rent-a-cop."
Well, she was right, it didn't matter. I was going to get Auvy out, one way or another, with or without her help.
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