The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (199 page)

In her white girlie clothes Mellanie felt like some virgin sacrifice on her way to the altar. Everyone looked at her as if they were sharing that thought.

Her inserts were picking up a lot of power sources inside the club, most of them too small for her to use, batteries for kinky toys. She needed the real S&M crowd to have any chance of success.

They were up at the bar, a cluster of large bodies clad in black straps, shiny chains, and hoods. Kaspar Murdo was also there, standing at one end, dressed in Spanish Inquisitor robes, with rusted iron chains around his neck, dangling a variety of medieval instruments.

Mellanie detected the largest power source in the club, her virtual vision locking the position in blue brackets, fortunately at the opposite end of the bar from Murdo. It was a cattle prod, one of many items hanging from the thick leather belt of a bizarreo femfeline. Her head had sleek black fur coming down to her eyebrow line, where her modified glistening red-brown nose jutted forward; long whiskers were rooted at the side of the slit nostrils. She wore a tight sleeveless black leather costume that showed off furry arms and legs. A long tail flicked casually from side to side as she talked to two other cat girls with more restrained modifications and a loosely chained boy slave in a toga with a worried expression on his face.

Mellanie shoved herself in front of the femfeline. “I need to borrow your cattle prod,” she shouted against the pounding rock track.

The femfeline yowled at a volume that rose effortlessly above the music. She brought an arm up and extended her paw fingers in front of Mellanie’s face. The polished onyx claws that had replaced her fingertips clicked out, their points a centimeter from Mellanie’s eyes. “Kitty says lick my litter clean, sweetie bitch.”

Her companions mewled their laughter.

Someone with formidable wetwiring, all of it activated, came through the club’s screened entrance.

“No time,” Mellanie said. She froze. Specks of silver appeared on her arms and face, as if she were sweating mercury. The blooms spread rapidly, obscuring her skin. Software flooded out of her, taking control of the organic circuitry that administered the femfeline’s adaptations.

The femfeline gave a start as her own tail snaked up and wrapped itself around her neck. It tightened. Her claws retracted.

“I’m taking the cattle prod,” Mellanie announced, and snatched it from the belt clip.

The femfeline smiled in excitement. “Yes, mistress, I’ll be a good kitty for you.” Her tongue licked out, a long obscenely flexible cord of wet flesh. “Hurry back.”

Mellanie pushed hard through the packed bodies, creating a wave of commotion. Behind her, Dorian caught it and began to thread his way toward her.

“Can you remove the safety controls on the cattle prod?” she asked the SIsubroutine. “There’s a lot of power in it. If I could use it in one burst it should be lethal.”

“Canceling comparative escape option analysis. Reviewing cattle prod systems.”

Mellanie reached the screened doorway at the side of the stage. “Open it,” she ordered.

The door slid aside. The corridor behind it was lined with small private cabins. She could hear moans, some of pleasure, some of pain. A whip made a loud
crack.
Someone screamed. There was snarling.

“Cattle prod safety systems bypassed. Battery discharge rate set to unlimited.”

She looked around frantically as the door slid shut behind her. Most of the cabins were occupied. There was a single emergency evacuation hatch at the far end. “How can I hit him with it? He’ll never let me get close.”

“Running comparative remote electrical assault option analysis.”

“Oh, hell.” Mellanie dashed for the escape hatch.

Dorian zapped the door’s lock circuitry with a single burst from the maser embedded in his wrist. A small circle of the tough composite smoldered and blistered. He pushed hard, applying the strength of his boosted musculature. There was a creaking sound, lost in the raucous music. The door popped open. He walked through the screening and into the relative quiet of the corridor. His sensor scans were immediately subject to a barrage of interference. Voices yelped and groaned behind the closed doors on either side. At the far end, Mellanie had got the escape hatch open. She jerked around. Half of her skin was silver, inserts and OCtattoos directing the interference directly at him. He scanned what he could of her with interest. She was doing the same to him. More effectively, he knew, but he could see what he needed to.

“No weapons,” he said. “How curious.”

“I’ve got a message for Alessandra.”

He took a step forward. “What?”

Her inserts transmitted an encrypted signal into the corridor’s small array. The sprinkler system went off above him. Water poured down as the fire alarm sounded.

Dorian gave her a pitying look as the deluge soaked his shirt and pants. “Nobody can hear that.” Beyond the shower, Mellanie smiled.

The cattle prod lying on the floor by Dorian’s feet discharged. The water allowed its full current load to slam into him. His body convulsed, steam fizzing out of his clothes and hair. He arched his back, screaming briefly as his eyes bulged and his tongue protruded. The optical fibers woven into his hair melted. Black lines appeared on his skin when organic circuits burned, sending out thin wisps of smoke to mingle with the steam and water. Flesh ruptured volcanically where his weapons’ power cells were implanted. Blood and gore splattered across the walls.

It took five seconds for the cattle prod battery to exhaust itself. When the current failed, Dorian’s juddering corpse crashed to the floor. The SIsubroutine switched off the corridor’s sprinklers.

Mellanie walked over and peered down at the gently steaming body. The legs spasmed a couple of times.

“I’ll tell her myself,” she said.

Kaspar Murdo was enjoying the evening. It was a good crowd in the
Cypress Island
’s club. He knew a lot of them, and there were several promising newbies. Everyone said Death by Orgy was hot. He was looking forward to seeing them perform.

Then this
vision
in a fluffy white top and miniskirt sidled up to the bar barely a couple of meters away and asked for a beer. A first-lifer by the looks of her. She appeared slightly shaky, as if she was shocked by what she was seeing and trying not to show it. That meant she was curious, and not instantly repelled. It was a vulnerability he knew exactly how to take advantage of. He’d be able to encourage her at first, drawing her closer, reassuring her until she trusted him. Then with that trust established he could begin her training.

His bulk allowed him to push easily through the eager authoritarian animalists and bizarreos who were gathering like storm clouds around their oblivious prey. He glared any objectors down, snarling back when he was barked at by a canineman. “This one is on me,” he told her as the girl proffered a one-pound note to the barman. “I insist. That means there can be no argument.”

She nodded with nervous gratitude, glancing at the instruments on the end of his chains. “Thank you.”

“Kaspar,” he said.

“Saskia.”

He grinned in a friendly, paternal fashion, and lifted one of his chains to show off the crude iron and leather device on the end. “Crazy, aren’t they?” he asked in a fashion that invited her to share the joke.

She smiled sheepishly. And Kaspar’s evening became the best in a long, long time.

It was close to midnight local time when the express from Paris slipped into Tridelta’s CST station. Renne was secretly delighted about that: it meant they’d get a look at the jungle. “Get us a riverside hotel as close as you can to the Octavious,” she told Vic Russell.

“Absolutely,” he said enthusiastically.

“The closest and cheapest, Vic.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Aren’t we going straight to the Halgarth team?” Matthew Oldfield asked.

“They can handle the rest of tonight’s shift,” Renne said. “Warren will let me know if there’s any status change.”

“Okay.”

“Gives us a chance to settle in before we see what Bernadette is up to. Don’t you want to see the jungle?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Right then.” She told her e-butler to call Tarlo. “Where are you?” she asked when he accepted the call.

“Stakeout in a garage on Uraltic Street. A police informant we interviewed earlier said Beard would be here tonight.”

“I hope you’re wearing rubber socks. Those car batteries have a lot of current in them.”

“Very funny. What do you want?”

“I’m at the CST station.”

“In Tridelta?”

“Yeah.”

“Why? Has Hogan sent you as backup?”

“No. I’m following Bernadette Halgarth, Isabella’s mother.”

“You’re doing what?”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got Vic and Matthew with me.”

“Does Hogan know? For Christ’s sake, Renne, I thought you’d dropped the whole Isabella thing.”

“I had. But Christabel Halgarth put Bernadette and Victor under surveillance as a favor for me, I didn’t even have to ask her. Both of them have been receiving and sending some encrypted messages, nothing too suspicious; but today Bernadette just dropped everything and came here. Halgarth security has her under surveillance at the Octavious hotel, which again is a strange choice for a socialite like Bernadette. We’re going to join them in the morning.” She waited for Tarlo to answer.

“Got us a hotel,” Vic said cheerfully. “Not very cheap, sorry.” He and Matthew shared a grin.

Renne waved a hand for silence. Her virtual vision showed her the link was still active. “Tarlo?”

“Yeah, hi, sorry. Do you need any help?”

“Not yet. But if we do, I’ll yell for you. And that’s a reciprocal.”

“Sure. Thanks. Okay, good luck.”

“Yeah, you, too,” she told him.

“Paula, we’ve got an interesting situation developing.”

“What is it, Hoshe?”

“I’m with Nadine and Jacob on Illuminatus, running the electronic surveillance on Tarlo while he goes after Beard. Now Gus and Isaiah have joined us; they’re monitoring Renne.”

“So both targets are on Illuminatus?”

“Yes. Renne arrived twenty minutes ago, following Bernadette Halgarth. As soon as Renne got here she called Tarlo, then five minutes later Tarlo called Bernadette. It was an encrypted message and routed through a onetime address, but for once we got lucky; we infiltrated scrutineer software into Bernadette’s hotel node as soon as Warren told me she was here. We haven’t managed to decrypt yet, but the message Tarlo sent is the one she received. It looks like Tarlo was warning her she’s under observation. There’s no other reason.”

“Tarlo. Damnit.”

“I’m sorry, Paula.”

“Not your fault. I knew it had to be one of them.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Keep a close eye on him and Bernadette. I’ll join you in a couple of hours.”

“Are you going to tell Renne?”

“Possibly. Our priority has to be getting Tarlo into custody. But I don’t want to scare off Bernadette until she’s contacted whoever she’s there to meet. This is our first real chance to penetrate the Starflyer agent network. Timing is going to be critical.”

“Tarlo’s going to be wetwired. Bernadette as well, probably.”

“Definitely. Don’t worry, my team will be armed.”