On Galaxy's Edge: Ascendance (13 page)

Nero’s ears pricked up when he heard mention of Zyras’ name. He hadn’t known that Zyras Greeta had been affiliated with the Nostra. Not that it was completely unexpected, now that he thought about it. The Nostra had their fingers in as many pies as they could manage, and the drug trade was a pretty big pie. Should have killed Zyras more slowly, he thought, before returning his attention to the conversation.

“Do we have any leads?” the third alien asked, speaking for the first time.

“Not on the drugs bust. But we got a bit on the organisation from our mole, before he went dark. And we’re working on more leads at the moment,” replied the first alien.

“Who?”

“Best not to talk about that here...” the alien replied, glancing around at the people nearby. Its gaze rested briefly on Nero, as he was pretending to be interested in a nearby sculpture. The alien’s eyes didn’t linger though, evidently not expecting eavesdroppers in a place like the Mondo Club.

They soon moved on to discussing more mundane matters, in which Nero had no interest. His mind was whirling about what the aliens had been discussing, though. They had another informer? Perhaps it was just a low-level grunt who worked for him... He didn’t know, but he would have to find out. In the meantime, though...

Nero sidled up to the aliens, clutching an empty glass in his hand, acting as if he had had a bit much to drink. As he reached them, he stumbled, knocking into one of them.

“Oh, I’m sorry mate!” Nero exclaimed. “Here, let me brush that off for you,” He leaned over, and as he was reaching to unruffle the alien’s clothing, he skilfully managed to knock the drink the alien was holding. The glass tipped backwards, emptying almost all of its untouched contents onto the alien’s jacket. It leapt backwards, emitting a sort of high-pitched yell as it did so, its alien eyes managing to smoulder with anger.

“Get away from me, you fucking retard!” it shouted, looking down at its clothing that was now covered in smoking dark liquid. Whatever the drink was, it appeared to be causing the clothing to bubble a bit where it came into contact.

“Ah, I’m sorry man. I, uh... I didn’t...” Nero stuttered.

“Leave!”

Nero, happy to oblige, did, letting a small smirk play across his lips with his back turned. He kept up the drunken facade as he walked, and watched out of the corner of his eye as the alien went off to find a restroom. After letting a respectable time pass, Nero himself headed towards the same restroom.

The alien was stood by a wall, attempting to use the water that cascaded in a waterfall from the ceiling to rinse its clothes off. So far, it appeared to have got the water over its entire body, except for the areas where the drink had come into contact. As the door slid shut behind Nero, the alien looked up, a dark look coming over its face.

“You. I’ve already told you to get lost. You don’t want to mess with me.”

Nero didn’t bother to keep up the drunken act now that he was alone with the alien. Turning to the door without saying anything, he touched the electronic control panel mounted in the wall. His augmented arm synced wirelessly with the panel, hacking through the weak security procedures to gain control of the door. Nero locked it, and withdrew his arm. Throughout this, the Nostra alien watched, a slightly confused expression appearing on its features for the first time.

“Who are you?” it asked.

Nero slowly turned back to meet the alien’s eyes, staring into them with no expression on his face. After a slight pause, he answered. “Me? No one. It doesn’t matter. What I’m interested in is you. Tell me about yourself, why don’t you? We’re not going to be disturbed.”

“Why? What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with your line of work, shall we? I hear you work for the Nostra.” Nero watched the alien as he spoke, noting the shift of features that accompanied his last statement.

“I’m... I just run a small club. I don’t work for, er, for this Nostra group,” the alien replied, its eyes flicking down to Nero’s augmented arms a couple of times, and then to the locked door.

“Now, I know that’s not true. I heard you talking out there,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the door. “Just come clean. This will be a lot easier on you.”

The alien looked nervous, presumably regretting not bringing a weapon with it to the club. “Alright,” Nero said, rolling up his sleeves, as he extended a concealed blade from the back of his metal hand. “We can do it this way. It’s certainly more fun.”

“Wait, wait,” the alien protested before Nero could move. “Okay, I work for the Nostra. But I don’t have any responsibility, I don’t know much. I really can’t tell you anything--”

“Let’s see what you do know first,” Nero said, cutting the alien off. “Tell me about this new mole you were talking about out there. Who is it?”

“Why do you...? Ah, so you’re...?”

“That’s still irrelevant. The mole?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know who he is. I don’t get told those sorts of things - I mean, would you tell your guys that sort of stuff?”

“See, it sounded to me like you did know. And it sounds like you know it’s a man, too.” The alien flinched when Nero pointed that out. Nero watched him, expectantly.

“Look, maybe I do know who he is. But I can’t tell you. They won’t just kill me when they find out I told you. They’ll, they’ll do things...” Nero watched as the alien started to visibly shake “... things I... I can’t,” it finished. Nero shrugged, accepting that the alien was too scared to talk. “So you’re not going to say anything, then?” he asked. The alien shook his head.

“Fine.”

With the black blade still extended, Nero slashed his arm across the alien’s neck. The move was so quick, the alien didn’t even have time to react, not even managing to raise its arms to prevent the attack. Black liquid quickly began to gush from the wound, pouring onto the floor as the alien slowly crumpled. It fell to its knees first, and then crumpled on top of its legs, head and torso going backwards to hit the floor with a loud thud.

Looking down on the body for a moment, Nero bent over to wipe the blade on the alien’s clothes, carefully removing the thick black liquid until the carbon blade was pristine again. It then retracted into Nero’s arm, as if it had never even existed.

Knowing that someone else might try to come into the restroom, and find the door locked, he didn’t waste any time in getting rid of the body. Towards the back of the restroom, on the far wall, was an air vent mounted near the ceiling. Opening this up, it looked as if the alien might just be able to fit inside, at a squeeze. It was worth a shot.

Nero went back to the body. With his enhanced arms, it was virtually no effort to pick up the large body, albeit slightly unwieldy. He carried it over to the vent, and with a bit of effort, managed to squeeze the sticky, wet body into the hole. It left a few black smears around the edge of the air vent, but with the cover back in place, it was pretty well hidden.

The blood on the floor only took a moment to wipe away with one of the complimentary towels in the fancy restroom, and the room was back to its pristine initial state. With a final glance at his handiwork, Nero went to the door, hacking back into the control panel to unlock it, and stepped back out into the main hall.

“Drink, signore?” came the query from a nearby waiter.

“Certainly,” Nero said, giving the small alien a large smile as he picked up a glass.

****

Sat at the Mondo Club’s bar an hour later, the music had improved, and the lights had been dimmed. The ambience was a bit like the clubs Nero was used to attending, though with a noticeably different class of customer. For the past ten minutes he had been watching a rather large man sat in a wingback chair a short distance from the bar. A stream of attractive young men kept coming up to him with various bits of food or drink, who the man would then talk to for a minute or so, and then they’d leave. Nero couldn’t quite understand what was going on, since the men coming up to him weren’t waiters, and he was curious.

Meanwhile, sat at the bar itself, there was a startlingly attractive woman a few seats along from Nero. She had sat down a couple of minutes ago, shot an intriguing glance at Nero, and had then steadfastly ignored him. Not knowing the social niceties in these Scrapers, he had no clue what this meant. That said, he was hoping it meant what he thought, since he intended to buy her a drink.

“One of these, please,” Nero said to the waiter behind the bar, holding up his drink, “for her,” he said, gesturing to the woman. The barman poured out one of the smoking dark green drinks - Nero had discovered the Nostra alien’s choice in drinks had been rather good - and delivered it to the woman. She graciously accepted it from the barman, and inclined her head to Nero. This was an alien world for Nero, who was used to the directness of the places in which he grew up.

Deciding that he’d waited long enough, he slid off of his bar stool, and moved over to the woman. She was perched on her stool, back ramrod-straight, with a dignified expression on her face. Dressed in an elegant orange and purple dress, which had artfully-cut holes that didn’t leave much to the imagination, she was one of the most striking women Nero had seen.

“You know, I haven’t seen you at one of these parties before,” she said as Nero approached. “And I know most of the people who attend these things.” There was a slight sparkle in her eyes as she spoke, hinting at a sense of humour not far from the surface.

Nero smiled. “I’m from another part of the city. You probably wouldn’t know it.”

“I’m sure,” she said, giving him the once-over, focusing briefly on his augmented arms. “I must thank you for the drink. You have good taste.”

“Well, thank you. Though I must admit, I only discovered it tonight. We don’t have these drinks where I’m from.”

“No? You’ll have to tell me more about where you’re from sometime.”

“Sometime,” Nero said with a trace of a smile. “In the meantime, perhaps you’ll tell me where you’re from.”

“Me? Oh, nowhere interesting. I have an apartment in this building. 27-73. It’s a modest place, but it’s home, you know?” Nero nodded in agreement. She took a sip of her drink, the smoky vapour brushing over her face as she did so.

“I’m Ami,” she informed him.

“Nero. Nero Leydon,” he replied.

“Leydon? I’ve never heard that name before. It sounds like an old--”

“It was my mother’s name. I don’t know where she got it from, I’m afraid,” Nero said, cutting her off. She raised an eyebrow in response, but didn’t say any more on the topic.

“So if you’re not from around here, Nero Leydon, what do you do for a living? Most of the guys I know either own a factory out in the wastelands, or live off their parents who own a factory in the wastelands. Which category do you fall into, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“There are just the two categories are there?” Nero asked, interested in the goings-on in the Scrapers in spite of who he was talking to.

“Indeed.”

“Well, I don’t fit into either one. I, ah, have a few operations that I run. Trade businesses, really. Nothing too exciting, but they make a tidy profit.”

“Quite. Enough to get you into places like this,” she said, looking up at the grand hall they were both sat in. Nero glanced up too, noting that the place had finally begun to quiet down, the time evidently having come when most of the guests started to go home.

They sat at the bar talking for another few minutes, covering a number of subjects that Nero felt he could freely talk about, before he glanced over Ami’s shoulder. A short way across the hall were the other members of the Nostra that had accompanied the one now inserted into an air vent. Nero watched them as they talked to each other, their body language - though alien - managing to convey a worried sense of urgency. Nero smirked to himself as he watched.

“Something funny?” Ami asked, glancing over her shoulder.

“What? Oh, nothing. I just thought I saw someone I knew. Turned out not to be them, though.”

“Of course,” she said, a strange expression on her face. “Well, I think it is about time I was leaving, Nero.” She stood up from the stool, with Nero following suit. “Are you coming with me?”

Taken aback by her directness, Nero took a moment to process her question. She raised an eyebrow as she was waiting. “Come on, are you really going to refuse?” she teased.

“Maybe.”

“Oh?”

“Okay, no, I’m not.” He held out his arm for her.

“Quite the gentleman tonight, are we? Well, let’s go with that,” she said, as she took his carbon arm in hers. “Huh, it’s warm,” she commented.

“Of course,” Nero said, as they walked out of the grand hall.

****

Nero awoke to a loud beeping inside his skull, and a bright flashing green light in front of his eyes. Sitting bolt upright, the sleep haze took a moment to clear from his mind. The soft bed he was on didn’t quite make sense to his slightly addled brain, and the hangover from the night before didn’t help matters.

It was a few seconds before the sound stopped and the green light disappeared, the alarm he had set finally deciding he was alert enough. Nero groaned. He’d have to change the type of wake-up call. With the chip implanted in his brain, there had to be a gentler alarm he could set. He made a mental note to try something else the next time.

Glancing at the clock in the corner of his vision, displayed on the holographic overlay, he saw that it was 6:01 in the morning. He groaned again. What time had he gone to sleep the night before? It must have been after 2:00 in the morning. He’d only managed less than four hours sleep. Finally realising where it was that he’d gone to sleep, he looked over at the other side of the bed. It was still dark, but he could see the peaceful form of Ami curled up on the bed, her chest slowly rising and falling as she breathed in and out.

Watching her for a moment, Nero briefly considered waking her, but then decided against it. It was too early, and besides, he had to be off. Carefully climbing out of the bed, seeing in the dark with the help of his holographic vision overlay, he found his clothes. He slipped back into the rugged black material, and took one final look around Ami’s apartment. It was still astonishingly big to Nero’s eyes. The house he grew up in would have fitted into the bedroom alone a few times over. In addition to that, there was a huge living area, as well as a food prep place and an exercise room. All with an astonishing view over the city from the panoramic windows.