Windswept (32 page)

“Nariel?” I said.

She nodded. “Took you long enough.”

“What the hell happened to you?”

“
You
did,” she said. “After Vishnu’s Palm, I got blamed for everything: the supply chain breakdown, the riots, the low-g puking. All of it.”

“That shouldn’t have happened.”

“But it
did
,” said Nariel, showing me her teeth. “And there was no way to come back with that kind of black spot on my record. I was poison to every single division at Corporate. Even the brothels wouldn’t take me as management. The only way to keep up my end of my Indenture was to completely switch jobs. I had to become a ship’s engineering mate. You know what it’s like to go from management to the lowest, shittiest job in the company?”

“Ship’s engineer’s still a good gig,” I said.

“I was
somebody
before you came along!” she yelled. “I was going places, and I was going to write my own ticket, and
you
fucked me over!”

“No, I didn’t,” I said, sitting down. “You never did the work, Nariel. You didn’t listen to me. You didn’t go over the details.”

“Well, I’m going over them now,” she said, and she whipped out a taser and shot me.

Good thing I was already on the ground, or the fall would have knocked me out. I
wished
I’d been knocked out; it would have saved me from the horrible feeling of having every muscle lock as my brain lit up.

By the time a squad of goons hauled me into the cargo can, the pain had stopped. I might as well have been a bundle of palm fronds from the way they passed me down the hatch to the floor. My entire body felt like it was made out of wood, and my mouth and tongue kept making embarrassing sounds every time I tried to talk.

“That was just as much fun as I’d hoped,” Nariel said, holstering her taser. “I’ll have to see if I can do that again.”

“Unghaagh.” My hands were wads of bread dough, but there was a tingle in my arms.

“Priceless,” she said, tapping her temple. “The image of you going down like a sack of coconuts is one that I will treasure for a long, long time.”

“Unghaaffff...” A little more feeling, and my hands managed to find my pockets.

“God, even now, you can’t keep quiet, can you?”

“Fuhhhh...” My fingers found the gun. My thumb flicked the safety, and the rest of my fingers gripped as tightly as they could.

“‘Fuck you’? Is that the best you’ve got?” Nariel laughed, and the other goons chuckled with her. She hunched over me, her inked and scar-puckered face hovering above mine.

“Fuh...forgot...” I hoped I had enough fine motor control to pull this off.

“What? To up the voltage?”

“...to frisk me.” And I pulled out the gun, held it under her chin, and fired.

Nariel didn’t just scream, she
yowled
, a trapped animal roar. She brought both hands to her face, which gave me plenty of room to kick her in the gut. She rolled away, and I got to my feet, as wobbly as they were. I fired off what was left in the mag as I gimped for the hatch. The goons shouted, and Nariel roared as best she could with her now-shattered jaw, “KILL HER!”

I threw the empty gun and connected with her face. Two goons swung their rifles at me, but I pulled myself up through the hatch into cool, salt air.

We were now over open ocean, low enough to get some spray and high enough to scare the shit out of me. The can thudded and shook, and I held onto the hatch’s lockarm as hard as I could while I tried to get my bearings. The lifter port lay dead ahead. The sea churned with traffic: tugs pulling flotillas of empty drop cans to watering stations, then queuing to load the filled cans on the up line. Quick launches snagged runaway debris for the recycler, and barges hauled fresh crews to the port, an island of coral steel and rock and thousands of kilometers of shimmering, black ribbon climbing up into the sky.

Dozens of airships loaded with priority cargo from the down line headed to shore, all of them skimming the tops of the waves to take advantage of the ground surface effect. But a few flew toward the port, and all of those were hauling cargo cans. I tried again and again to get a hold of someone, anyone, but my pai refused to make a connection.

The hatch blew open, and Nariel clambered onto the roof. Her jaw, purple and bruised, hung open, and she roared as she charged me. I had no room to dodge, and no agility to do it, so I just turned and leaped over the side of the can.

Time didn’t slow down like they said it would during Sudden Disaster Preparedness. Everything, the wind, the surf, the water, all of it rushed up at me, and it took everything I had to do what my instructors had drilled into my head: point my toes at the sea, hold my hands to the sky, and clench everything closed as hard as I could. The water was cold and clear, and it felt like I fell forever, but I followed my bubbles as I grabbed my way up, until something dark and heavy fell on top of me. I fought to right myself, and looked straight into Nariel’s eye. She yelled what sounded like my name, but the red foam bubbling from her mouth garbled it.

The weight of her armor pulled us both down, and I couldn’t break her grip on my shirt. I also couldn’t get out of my shirt, thanks to an arm that refused to move properly. Nariel gave me a broken-toothed smile, one that said she was perfectly happy to drown as long as I went with her. Everything started to darken, and my lungs burned, and I realized that if this was the way I was going to die, it would be even more embarrassing than going out in a sewer pipe. I was about to be killed by a Ghost, the hardest of the Big Three hardcore, and that was unacceptable.

Even though the water slowed me down, I got in a good punch to Nariel’s jaw. She screamed and let go, giving me enough time to kick free. She kept sinking, and, God help me, I thought about letting her. If there’s anything worse than being killed by a Ghost, it’s not letting one get reamed by a Union court. I reached for her waistband and prayed she never got upgraded armor. The two emergency tabs were there, and I pulled with all my might. Her armor blew away from her, and I grabbed her by the hair and fought to the surface. I didn’t stop until we both exploded into the daylight.

My lungs burned and my head rang as oxygen got back into my blood. I had just gotten the fuzz out of my brain when Nariel pounced on me again. She got her hands around my throat, and I went back under the water. I clawed at her, my hands slapping at nothing. It got black, the water filling my nose as her hands grew tighter. I felt something soft, and all I could do was push it with my thumb. Nariel let go, and I swam away as hard as I could, coughing water out of my lungs.

Nariel yowled, grabbing her scarred and puckered face. The eyepatch no longer sat on her face; I had jammed it into her eyesocket. “Augh ew,” she said, then texted,
Fuck you
. She glared at me with her good eye as the waves splashed the blood away from her face.

“No, Nariel, fuck
you
,” I said, treading water as we bobbed along. “The only reason you’re not sinking to the bottom of the ocean is because I was there, and the only reason I was there is because you kidnaped me. You owe me twice over.”

I do not owe you a damn thing
, she sent. I loved how her pai still followed WalWa protocol and made sure her texts followed correct business letter grammar.

“You think your life is worth that little?”

Nariel made a horrible coughing sound, like she was hacking up a hedgehog. It took me a few seconds to realize that it was laughter.
That is funny. We are drifting in the middle of the ocean, and you are still trying to recruit me. I wish you could see the look of desperation on your face.

“I can see us getting eaten by squid if we don’t get picked up soon,” I said, but she just kept up with her coughing laugh as we both floated. I turned away and tried to flag down a passing barge, but my voice couldn’t carry over the water. My pai was completely useless, too; it couldn’t pick up a network, even though I knew there should have been plenty of signal bouncing around.

“Is it your fault I can’t call anyone but you?” I said.

Your broken head is a pre-existing condition
, Nariel texted, followed by another coughing laugh.

“Funny,” I said. “So, you’re probably not going to be any help, right?”

She just kept laughing.

“Too bad,” I said, kicking off my boots and letting them sink. “Because I have something you’re going to want pretty soon.”

Her coughing laugh turned to real coughing as a swell hit her in the face.
Do you have more pithy advice?

I slipped off my pants, thankful that I’d dressed from the practical drawers in my wardrobe. The thin weave meant it was easy to knot the legs shut. I whipped my pants over my head, and they filled with air. Another quick knot in the waistband, and I let my pants hit the water with a wet slap.

“Nope,” I said, tucking my pant legs around my shoulders and kicking away. “Just flotation.”

Nariel stopped laughing.

“I still have a shirt,” I said. “Not as buoyant as this baby, but it’s better than nothing.”

I would rather die.

“Another hour, and you just might get your wish.”

I did a lazy scissor kick, easing back and letting my lungs and my pants do all the lifting for me. Another swell rolled through us. I bobbled over the wave, but Nariel got water right in her gaping mouth. She coughed, hard and wet, and I said, “You can use a hand to keep your mouth shut, or you can use it to stay afloat. Tough choice.”

I am not giving you anything.

“I haven’t even asked,” I said. “I just want to help.”

Go to hell.

Another swell, bigger than the previous one, lifted us into the air for a moment. “I think the tides are shifting,” I said after we’d settled. “We’re going to get some serious whitecaps. Think you can handle that?”

This time, Nariel flailed to keep her head above water. She gulped another mouthful, then texted,
Please help me
.

“Oh, changing our tune?” I said. “Isn’t your magical Ghost training going to save you?”

Please help me.

“You gonna tell me what you know?” I said, pulling off my shirt and tying the sleeves shut.

The next swell was about a meter high, enough to drop us both with stomach-churning speed. I inflated my shirt, while Nariel choked and thrashed until she yelled “YEAH! YEAH!”

I swam over and handed her my pants. She grabbed onto them, and I hugged the shirt. “Of course, that was under duress, so it’s probably bullshit, but at least I have a recording of you wailing for help. That’ll probably come in handy.”

Nariel just sniffed.
You are still a bitch.

“You know, I’m just trying to get by,” I said. “You’re the one who brought an armed kill squad here. Doesn’t that make you a little overzealous?”

You have no idea what is happening here, do you?

“I know that your goons carted away a lab full of very nasty fungus,” I said. “I know that the creator of that fungus was working with a guy who’s growing a new variety of cane that’s probably resistant to that fungus. I know
that
guy has a new refinery inside his old one, and that a bunch of people who were supposed to be dead aren’t. You have anything to do with that?”

Nariel snorted.
You should have gotten me to talk before you gave me this float. That was the first thing we learned in business school: money on the table before anything gets signed.

“True, but we also learned not to waste our time dealing with cranky suppliers when you could go to another one with less effort,” I said.

What is that supposed to mean?

“It means that one of your team is going to Breach for real, which means I’ll find out what I need to know.”

She snorted.
Are you talking about Banks? Do you really believe him? He is
trained
to deceive.

“That’s a chance I’ll have to take.”

There was a sudden blast of a horn behind us, and I looked to see a fleet of police cruisers chopping toward us. For a brief second, I tensed, but then I saw Soni, Jilly, Banks standing on the prow of the lead craft.

The boats slowed and turned, and two life rings flew over the side. I helped Nariel into hers, and they hauled us out of the water and onto the heaving deck. Jilly threw herself around me, and Soni and Banks stood nearby, both wearing shit-eating grins.

“Jesus, boss, you are so badass,” said Jilly.

“Please promise me you won’t try to follow in my footsteps,” I said. “It’s just not worth it.” I looked at Soni. “I am so glad to see you that I just might start crying, so let’s get going.”

“Where did she come from?” asked Soni, pointing at Nariel as a cop wrapped her in a blanket.

I shrugged. “Y’know, some people just come along for the ride.” Despite her bulk, Nariel looked small and sad.

Soni looked at the half-naked woman, then at me and said, “Padma, what the hell is going on?”

I shivered. “You got any extra trousers on this tub?”

“Let me get this straight,” said Soni, her armor clacking as she sat back in her chair. “Vytai Bloombeck... was a
genius
?”

Soni, Banks, Jilly, and I were in a spartan cabin belowdecks. There were the standard office table, chairs, and brain-fuzzing fluorescent lighting. Banks leaned against the bulkhead, looking out the porthole at the blue-grey ocean. Jilly bounced in her seat. Soni sat opposite me at the table, fiddling with a pad. Except for the thrum of the engines and the roll of the boat, we could have been back at a precinct house.

“Well, I wouldn’t go
that
far,” I said, scratching my leg through the spare tactical uniform Soni had loaned me. “But the man certainly had a talent for growing mold.”

“I know,” said Soni. “I’ve seen him.”

“Not the kind
on
him,” I said. “Well, not
just
that kind. Look, just watch the footage I shot over the past twelve hours, and everything will become clear.”

“We tried,” said Soni, showing me the pad. There was nothing but static. “Your head’s a bit messed up.”

“Well, you’re the one who waved that lightstick at me,” I said.