Audacious (46 page)

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Authors: Mike Shepherd

Tags: #Science Fiction, #Fiction, #Adventure, #General

BOOK: Audacious
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15 Abby found that the old neighborhood had changed a lot… and not changed at all. Tram Line 79 no longer went to Five Corners. It was now Line 128. But the tram Abby rode in could have been the same one she rode out fifteen years ago. She was tempted to peel off the layers of graffiti to find what it had sported back then. The evil-eye of the tram cop suggested he’d be none too happy if she produced a knife and took it to his bit of Eden. On reflection, the layers of graffiti might be all that held the old wreck together. Abby had been careful to dress down. Still, she wasn’t nearly as shabbily dressed as the young woman whose name Abby refused to remember after she left Five Corners and swore it had seen the last of her. So why was she coming back? She’d already been greeted. Twice. She’d pulled one young girl’s hand out of her purse. The kid had her hand already around Abby’s wallet. The maid of many faces restrained the urge to break a wrist. The kid, maybe ten, was just trying to

16 The street ahead looked ready to be bulldozed. But there, waiting for Abby under the awning of the one place on the block not crumbling away, was the little girl she’d given the ice cream to. The kid was still licking sweetness from her fingers. As Abby came alongside the kid, she fell in step with her. “You put Promie down good.” “He looked in need of it.” “He’s gonna remember you.” “Maybe you shouldn’t be seen talking to me,” Abby said, not looking down. Those eyes were so huge. So dark. So full of untasted need. Abby wanted nothing to do with them. The kid kept walking beside her. “Whatcha doing here?” she asked. Abby meant to say no more to this stray. Then found herself muttering, “Looking for something. Or someone.” Abby had just spotted a pattern when she’d been so rudely interrupted. At the moment, all she’d wanted to do was get out of Five Corners. At that moment, she’d noticed the pattern. Every move Momma Ganna made put her farther from Five Corners. Maybe Abby wasn’t the

17 “Well look what the cat done brung in,” was Momma Ganna’s greeting for her long lost daughter. Why was Abby not surprised. “She followed me home,” Cara said, grin stretching from ear to ear as she enjoyed the scene. “Can I keep her?” Momma Ganna snorted at Abby, the old disapproving snort the teenager in Abby remembered so well. “You keep her, she’ll break your heart, like she breaks any heart that lets her in.” Abby had been surprised at the house Cara led them to. The block was solid row houses, stone and brick, three-or four-stories tall. None were abandoned. Yep, Momma was coming up in the world. Two blocks over and she’d be in Hepner neighborhood. It’d been gated once, to keep the riffraff of Five Corners out. And Momma had aged well. Cara was wrong about her being fat; Momma was pleasantly round with hardly a sag or wrinkle. Wonder who’s paying for the body work? was Abby’s professional question. “What kind of name you going by?” Ganna asked. “Nightingale. Abby Nightingale. Wh

18 The tram was in the station. Abby risked running, but it pulled out before they got to it. That left Abby with an awkward twenty minutes for dudes to reconsider. And two very quiet kids that wouldn’t look her in the eye. “What’s going on? Cara wouldn’t shut up when I first met her. Now you two look like someone stole your allocation of nouns for the rest of the month?” Cara didn’t meet Abby’s eyes as she mumbled. “You going to go away and never come back. You did for fifteen years,” she blurted out. And locked eyes with Abby. “I did that. But I’m here now, and my employer is like to be here for a while. I’ll be coming back. Besides. I owe Bronc a computer.” The relief on his face showed he figured her to stiff him. Abby tried to show her commitment without letting him know she’d seen the doubt. “Let me see what you’re using for a ’puter. That doesn’t look like anything more than a reader like you see in the doctor’s office.” “I wouldn’t know. Never been to one,” the boy said, but of

19 Princess Kris Longknife wondered whose good day she was having. It couldn’t be anything she deserved. The morning started with a fine run with the Marines. Some Navy and Army personnel attached to the embassy jogged along with them. Even Chief Beni and Commander Malhoney were up early, leading a small detachment in a spirited walk. Strange what having a princess around did to middle-aged men. And the business hagglers had finally talked themselves out. They settled within pennies of where Kris figured they would three days earlier. But they’d spent those days arriving at it, and both sides seemed delighted at how hard fought their victory had been. Their bosses would be so proud of them. And there’d be no questioning that they’d earned their expense accounts. You’d think they’d won a battle. Kris did her best to join the victory spirit, including lunch at The Vault, one of the most expensive places Garden City had to offer. It should have been a fabulous time. Four men paid court to

20 Nelly , TELL JACK, ABBY, AND PENNY I WANT THEM IN MY QUARTERS NOW! Kris thought as she marched into the embassy. TELL THEM FIVE MINUTES AGO WOULD BE EVEN BETTER. OH, AND TELL PENNY SHE CAN BRING HER THUMB SCREWS. YOU ARE JOKING, KRIS? JUST TELL EACH OF THEM WHAT I TOLD YOU TO TELL THEM. YES, YOUR HIGHNESS, MA’AM, BOSS. Kris found Abby already in her quarters. “You got a command performance, baby duck,” she said, removing Kris’s cover and running a testing hand through her hair. “Ambassador says there’s this charity art show that you just must make an appearance at. Oh, and he suggests that you spend some of that Longknife money buying some of this art… for goodwill sake.” Kris stepped away from her maid. Was this for real, or was Abby just doing another one of her Oh-we’re-so-busy-no-time-to-talk song and dances? The arrival of Jack and Penny interrupted that dance. To Kris’s disappointment, the professional interrogator was not juggling thumb screws or pushing a rack. And people sa

21 Kris had a lot to think about, and as usual, the only time she had was in the tub… while Abby did her hair. Abby had a mother. Not all that surprising. Kris had a mother… and did her best to avoid her. Interesting that Abby seemed inclined to do the same. But it wasn’t Abby’s family dynamics that might kill Kris. Somehow, despite all Eden did to hide things, said mother knew Abby was back in town… and working for one Princess Longknife. That must have taken a lot of pull. How did Abby’s mom do that? Why? Or was it just blowby?… Some crumb of information that dropped into that motherly ear. From whom? And what was their interest in Kris’s safety? Kris reviewed her thoughts and came away with way too many question marks. Given a chance, she’d gladly vote to outlaw that particular punctuation. Kris snorted and almost got soap up her nose. All the money she’d spent on Nelly. All that computer to make sure she’d have information at her fingertips, and Eden was stonewalling her. I AM SORR

22 In the stories and the vids, the grizzled sergeant shouts freeze and all the troops do just that. Possibly, if you’re moving carefully through a battlefield, you can do it. Kris had tried it, once, moving across a minefield, and done a passably good job of freezing. But who takes the same care walking through an art show? Kris was fast learning that she could end up just as dead either place. Even as Kris ordered those around her not to move, she knew she was in no position to take her own advice. One foot was up and way too far out for her to keep from finishing the step. Everything depended on what sensors the auto-gun had. If it had motion sensors, the last one to move just might get away with it… assuming the magazine had run empty on those that moved first. If it had Kris’s picture in its brain, nothing much mattered. If it was under the remote control of some assassin, again, nothing much mattered. Or it might just aim for sound. In which case, Kris was again in trouble. She d

23 Captain DeVar moved them out as quickly and smartly as Kris expected of a Marine. Kris only tossed two monkey wrenches into his well-ordered plan. Kris might not have been perforated by the darts, but she was quickly coming to feel like she’d been worked over with a baseball bat. Several of them. Despite the pain, there were things Kris had to do while the moment was right. “Captain, assign your best electronic tech to that pile of wreckage,” Kris ordered, though gritted teeth, managing to give the auto-gun a limp wave. “Already in the works,” Captain DeVar snapped. “Nelly, get Chief Beni down here. I don’t want that auto-gun vanishing without us getting a complete workup on it.” “Definitely will do. Now, ma’am, I want you out of here,” the good captain insisted. “Take me over there on the way out,” Kris insisted. “By those women at that table.” With an exasperated sigh, the captain waved the stretcher bearers in that direction. Hotel employees were busily rolling out tables and set

Interlude 2 Grant von Schrader smashed the Close button. The latest report on the afternoon’s happenings vanished. “Is that little idiot back yet?” he demanded of his supervisory computer. “If by ‘little idiot’ you mean Ms. Victoria Smythe-Peterwald,” his computer answered dutifully, “she has just returned. Should I ask her to come to your office?” “For the duration of her stay you may assume that ‘little idiot’ means only Ms. Victoria, and yes, you may tell her that I want her here right now.” Grant returned to his overview of the situation while he waited. He did not like what he was watching. Unlike most news stories that were reported once and stayed the same, this evening’s events were changing. Growing. Couldn’t anyone shut up those two old biddies! No, that was not the problem. Why were those two still getting face time? Why hadn’t those two’s ramblings been buried? Ms. Victoria entered, looking very smug. He would have to stomp on that… hard. “I see you missed that Longknife bi

24 “Hey, you alive?” was deadly cheerful, coming from Abby way too early the next morning. “Not sure,” Kris mumbled. “I feel like I’m being tormented by little devils like Tommy’s grandmum warned him about. Come close and let me see if I can move my arm enough to throttle you. Tommy said you can’t kill the real demons.” With a thoroughly ugly grin, Abby approached Kris’s bed. After further thought… and an effort to move that sent her whole body screaming in pain… Kris decided to let Abby live. “You two hungry?” Abby asked. “Cause the President of the Officer’s Mess has declared dirty rules. You can show up in sweats.” Abby tossed a Navy blue-and-gold set in Kris’s lap. “Hey, that hurt.” “Can’t this clinic arrange for hospital chow?” Jack asked as Marine red and gold dropped on his blanket-draped belly. “Hate to tell you” came in Doc’s happy tones. “But this is just an embassy clinic. We aren’t staffed to handle really hard cases.” “So what are we doing here?” Kris asked. “Well, we didn

25 “Are you sure?” Abby asked. “Auntie, Bronc’s not like other men. When he says he’ll do something, he does it. He said he was going by the shop today to show off his new gear. He spent yesterday playing with it, getting it tuned in. Figuring out what it would do. He was like a baby with a new rattle, I told him. He was fun. “But he didn’t make it to the shop. Mick didn’t see him. And the Bones, they aren’t on the street today. At least none of the ones I spotted would talk to me. They’re avoiding me. The Bone Man has to have taken him. Abby, I don’t dare go to the Crypt to see the head Bone Man. Not by myself.” “No. Don’t. Can you make it to the tram station?” “Yes.” “I’ll meet you there as quickly as I can. It may take a bit. I need to get some things.” Kris could only guess what those things were. But she knew for sure what one of them was. A princess. Abby offered further hope and advice to take care before cutting the line. “You’ll excuse me, I seem to have pressing business else

26 Abby hurried off the tram, trying not to look frantic as she searched the station for Cara. Behind her, she could hear the Marines moving more slowly, more carefully. She’d let them take the safe route. For Cara, Abby hurried in where any smart operator would fear to tread. No surprise, Cara wasn’t in the station. To hang here for too long would only invite trouble. So Abby beat feet for the street, getting way ahead of her Marine squad. She liked Sergeant Bruce and his squad of King Ray’s Misguided Children. He’d protect her back… if she didn’t outrun him too much. The captain’s orders to his troops were quite clear. “I want you all back. I don’t want to break more heads than we have to. If it’s a street fight, use brass knuckles. If it’s a knife fight, pull your automatics. If they shoot, Sergeant, go to fully automatic and snipers, take down the ones with guns. Hard. I repeat, I want all of you back for chow.” “Ooo-Rah” had answered that. The street in front of the tram station w

27 Kris let the Marines do their thing, waiting in the back seat of the middle rig, careful not to step on any of the captain’s sparkles. Though she was only seeing it from the rear, so to speak, the show was quite impressive. With full-battle rattle, it would be as intimidating as all get out. It was probably the lack of full-battle gear that left someone with the guts to shoot. Kris was about to let Captain DeVar hand her out of the rig. That would normally have been Jack’s job, but what with both of them beat up, it would not have been very impressive for them to fall flat on their asses. So Kris was just that extra second longer in dismounting and someone was just recovered enough to take a shot. It was a strange battle to listen to. Or maybe this battle was a unique affair. A pistol snapped off full-power rounds as fast as someone could pull the trigger. Another joined it. Then more. From around Kris, she heard the pop of one low-powered sleepy dart. Then another single shot. Then

28 The tables in the restaurant showed evidence of hasty abandonment; not all the chairs were upright. The diners, men and women, now lined the side walls and back. Very nervous men. Scared women. Then again, the nervous were likely scared, too. And the same with the scared. The captain was right. This was no place for a lady. But Kris was a Longknife, not a lady. She left the bystanders to her Marines and concentrated on the two guys trying to look cool at the one occupied table toward the back of the room. One wore a white shirt and slacks. The head Bone Man? The other sported red slacks and a bright yellow shirt with poet sleeves. If that was the Rocket Man, he’d certainly never seen rocket exhaust. Two women sat behind them in skimpy, but colorful garb. Were they adornments… or the brains? That was only one of several questions Kris needed fast answers to. Why were there two bosses here? Had her Marines interrupted a gang confab? Would one gang come to another gang’s hangout? Clear

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