APPROACHING THE MOUTH of an alley in the Narrows, Pascal yanked hard on the truck’s steering wheel. Samantha winced as the metal side of the vehicle scraped along the brick-and-mortar wall of the building there, until she remembered the vehicle was borrowed.
The truck rocked as portions of the wall came free and went under the rear tires. The side mirror on the passenger side next to Samantha crumpled and tore free. Pascal stomped on the brakes and came to a sudden stop.
“Jesus,” Skadz said from the backseat. “Take it easy.”
“It has to be convincing,” Pascal replied. “Go now. Go!”
Sam pulled the door handle and pushed. It didn’t budge. Behind her the back door opened. She heard Skadz and Prumble slip out. “Help me with the door,” she called to them.
Skadz’s face appeared at her window. He motioned for her to lower the window, and when she did he grabbed the frame of the door with both hands and pulled.
Sam put her shoulder into it and pushed. Nothing.
“Hurry,” Pascal said, “they’re coming.”
“Fuck it,” Sam said. She yanked the seat recline lever and lowered herself instantly to a prone position. Then she pushed herself into the backseat and went out that door.
A cloud of dust from the collision filled the air. She grabbed Skadz by the elbow and urged him deeper into the alley as angry shouts began to drift in from the street on the other side of the supposedly crashed vehicle. The locals would be angry until the nearest Jacobite patrol arrived, which wouldn’t be long.
Prumble was already at the first turn in the alley, coughing from the concrete dust in the air. Sam urged him around the corner and then forced herself to walk. Per the plan, Skadz ran ahead to the far end of the L-shaped lane. He glanced out into the street, looking left and right, then turned and flashed an a-okay.
“Clear,” Sam said.
“All this to visit the tailor,” Prumble replied. He moved to a door on the back of an unremarkable three-story building. A sign at eye level read PRIVATE. And below that, CUSTOMER ENTRANCE AT THE FRONT.
Prumble tried the handle, found it to be locked, and gave a sharp rap on the door. Sam drew her pistol and waited.
A muffled voice from inside answered Prumble’s knock. Sam couldn’t understand the words, but the tone was clear: Go away.
“It’s Prumble. Open up, Jaya.”
“Piss off.” Sam heard that response clearly enough.
“You owe me, dammit. Open the bloody door.”
The door swung open so fast Prumble almost fell backward. Inside stood a short, balding Indian man wearing a dirty white tank top that accentuated a round belly. Thick glasses were pushed high up on his bulbous nose, tape holding together the wire frames. “I owe you?! I owe you?! What the fuck—oh, hello, Sam.”
“Hello, Jayateerth.” She mustered her best apologetic smile and glanced into the room behind him. Though dimly lit, she saw reams of heavy fabric, enormous canisters of one chemical or another, and part of a machine. She saw no one else inside.
“Uh,” the tailor said, suddenly confused. He scratched absently at the greasy, curly gray hair that ringed the bald dome of his head.
“We need your help,” Sam tried. “Can we come in and talk, at least?”
He hesitated. Sounds of commotion came in from the mouth of the alley around the corner. “Heard a crash,” Jayateerth said. “That you?”
“We needed a distraction,” Prumble replied.
The tailor nodded solemnly, as if he’d just accepted the way the city worked now. In years past all the scavengers came to Jaya’s shop for patchwork on their environment suits, and they paid handsomely for it. They still did, but under Grillo’s watchful eye. There was only one reason someone needed an environment suit, and Grillo wanted total control over who came and went from the city. Word had come down months ago that anyone wishing to procure the services of one Jayateerth Laxman had to have their order approved by the Jacobite leadership. As far as Samantha knew, there was no one else alive who could be trusted to patch the suits. Certainly there was no one who could provide what they’d come for.
“Fine,” the man said, and waved them in. When he turned to go back inside she saw a silver pistol tucked into the back of his pants. He drew it and stuffed it inside a cubbyhole on a shelf near the door.
Sam glanced to where Skadz waited. He gave her a single nod, and she returned it. They’d agreed he’d stay out of sight if possible. Jaya was known to be trustworthy, but if there were any Jacobite minders within it would be good if they didn’t provide a description back to Grillo. Skadz had already tempted fate with his initial presence at the airport, but so far they’d been lucky. None of the Jacobite guards seemed to know who he was, and Sam had talked the other scavengers into silence. Walkabout or not, Skadz was one of them.
Sam followed Prumble inside and closed the door behind her, leaving it unlocked. The room stank of glue and fabric, electronics and lubricant. LEDs hanging from the ceiling provided the only light.
Environment suits of every size, shape, and color lay in stacks along one wall of the long room. Floor-to-ceiling shelves along the opposite wall contained all manner of supplies and spare parts, organized in a way Samantha figured only Jaya could understand. Mismatched tables ran down the center of the space, each covered with suits in various states of assembly or repair. Scraps of fabric littered the floor.
At the far end of the room was a closed door. Next to it, a scrawny child slept on a cot.
“Blink!” Jaya called out.
The kid, a girl of no more than ten, Samantha decided, rose immediately and stood on bare feet, eyes still bleary from sleep. She blinked rapidly.
“Go out front, girl, and make a ruckus if anyone comes in.”
The child gave a nod, her eyes continuing to blink erratically. A nervous tic that had earned her her nickname, apparently. She turned and slipped through the door, briefly revealing stacks of cardboard moving boxes.
“All right,” Jayateerth said. “I’m listening. What do you need?”
“An environment suit,” Prumble said.
“This I know.”
“For me.”
“This is impossible.”
“In two days.”
“This is goodbye. Thank you for the visit. Nice to see you.” He swept his arm toward the exit.
Prumble didn’t budge. “You have to help us, Jaya. It’s important. For old times, please.”
“Old times?” The short man leaned against his shelves and folded his arms. “My recollection of old times is that you still owe me a lot of equipment. Things I paid for in advance.”
“Blackfield blew up my garage! I’ve been in hiding!”
“Two years and you can’t send a messenger?”
Sam sat on one of the tables, testing it first and deciding the wooden thing was sturdy enough. “C’mon, Jaya. Everything’s changed. None of that matters anymore.”
The man ran a hand over his face and stared up at the ceiling for a long moment. Then he turned to Sam, the look in his eyes profoundly sad. “I’m tired, you know? Tired of all this. I just want to tend my garden and watch the sun rise and set. I didn’t want any trouble with Platz, or Blackfield after him. Especially not with these new fuckers.” His voice dropped to something just above audible on the last word.
No one said anything for a long time. Then Sam tried a different tack. “Jaya, what’s with the boxes out front? Going somewhere?”
He waved a dismissive hand toward the door Blink had used. “In a week, to a place over by the stadium. Something about consolidating essential services. Can you believe that shit? I’ve been in this building for sixteen years. Now I’m going to be stuck in some basement at Selby, surrounded by Jakes, Grillo breathing down my ass.”
“Selby,” Sam said. “That rings a bell.”
Jaya nodded. “Selby Systems, Limited. The only remaining supplier of propellant for moving those stations around. They had an exclusive with Platz back in the day. Grillo’s got the factory running again.”
“That explains a lot of the lists Grillo’s had me handing the crews lately.”
“A lot of raw materials for that goop they produce, you know. And they’ve got it fired up to full capacity.” Jaya ran one hand tenderly along the wooden table in front of him. Years of stains and scrapes marred the surface. He let his hand fall to his side. “Once I’m over there Grillo will have all his Orbital needs under one roof.”
She glanced at Prumble, and he stared back at her. “One place to guard,” the big man said.
“Yeah,” Sam replied.
Finally, Jayateerth turned to Prumble. “What do you need a suit for, anyway? What business do you have outside that you can’t just send her?”
Prumble fixed a hard stare on the man. “We don’t plan to come back, Jaya.”
“You’re going to die out there? A bullet would—”
“There’s another aura,” Sam said. That stopped the man cold. “Another safe place.”
“Ridiculous,” he said. He wanted to believe her, though. She could see it in his eyes—a flicker of hope like a match being lit and settling into steady flame.
“Skyler found it.”
He glanced between the two of them, then his gaze became distant. “Where?” he whispered.
“Make the suit,” Prumble said, “and we’ll tell you.”
A light rain had begun to fall when Sam stepped back out into the alley. Skadz stood casually at the western end, one foot propped on the wall he leaned against, cap pulled low as if he slept. She glanced at her wristwatch. They’d been inside for just under an hour as Prumble’s measurements were taken. Jaya had grumbled and moaned at the difficulty of making a suit that would fit, but in the end declared they could pick it up in twenty-four hours. The prospect of moving somewhere, anywhere, other than Darwin turned out to be a fantastic motivator.
Telling him about Belém was a risk, but one she thought they’d forgive at the prospect of having someone with Jaya’s skills in their fledgling camp.
Sam whistled to get Skadz’s attention, then pointed at her watch. The rendezvous was only minutes away. He waved and remained in position while she walked east to the bend in the alley.
The borrowed truck no longer blocked the alley entrance. Good, Sam thought. Pascal had done his job. Well, that or the vehicle had been stolen or apprehended by one of the street patrols. In a few minutes they’d know, one way or the other.
While Prumble waited in the middle of the alley, Sam walked around the bend and moved up to the gap they’d originally entered through. A pile of debris still lay in the road beyond where the truck had clipped it. A few kids were collecting the larger chunks of concrete onto a shabby wheeled cart. They scattered at the sight of her.
She looked both ways and waited. The street wasn’t too crowded. None were, really, under this new regime. Nobody really knew what was allowed or frowned upon in the Jacobites’ view, and even the obvious things were enforced erratically. Only one thing seemed certain: The cult, or rather Grillo’s muscle behind it, owned the city now.
A vendor rode by on a rickety bicycle, mesh bags of jackfruit and some overripe durian hanging from the handlebars. He circled back, a salesman’s grin forming on his weathered face, but which vanished when Samantha shook her head. The man completed his circle and continued down the road, his bike splashing through potholes.
“C’mon, Pascal,” Sam muttered.
She heard the truck before she saw it. Pascal hadn’t turned on the headlights, and with the near-silent electric motors he was only thirty meters away when she spotted him through the misty rain. She turned, nodded to Prumble at the elbow in the alley. He turned and nodded to Skadz down at the other end.
Pascal rolled to a stop across the wide street. When she met his gaze, he pointed back the way he’d come. Sam looked, and her heart sank. A street patrol of toughs in Jacobite colors jogged after the vehicle. There were six of them, which meant a seventh would be lurking behind. They often kept one member back, usually the one with a gun, in case trouble arose. Sam guessed that trouble to them meant drunken mah-jongg spectators who had yet to come around to the Jacobite way of thinking. A brawl might ensue, but one gunshot in the air would probably be enough to disperse such a crowd.
The way this group jogged up to Pascal’s borrowed truck, however, brought goose bumps to her arms. They were fanning out. One even came to Samantha’s side of the street, as if expecting Pascal to get out and run.
What the hell are they doing? Pascal was dressed in Jacobite garb, and a vehicle in Darwin said “don’t fuck with me.” Yet on they came, and they clearly weren’t stopping to chat.
She glanced over her shoulder. Skadz stood behind her, gun drawn. He’d probably sensed the danger from her posture. Prumble lingered farther behind, looking more irritated than anything else.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
Skadz nodded and pressed himself against the wall. Prumble took a few steps forward, craning his neck to see what was going on.
The Jacobites reached the vehicle and surrounded it, two of them moving around the front. Pascal could still drive away, but he’d kill or injure two of them in the process.
“Out!” one of the patrol shouted.
Pascal complied. His eyes darted to Samantha briefly, looking for guidance. “Easy,” she mouthed.
The patrol surrounded him. The leader of the group moving right up to her pilot in a blatantly aggressive stance. He was saying something, agitated. Pascal started to argue something, but after a few seconds he just looked at the ground with his shoulders slumped.
The leader took a pinch of Pascal’s poncho between two fingers and tugged at it.
Fuck. Sam drew her pistol, wishing she’d brought her shotgun. “Skadz?”
“I’m ready. Lay it out.”
“Go around. The trailer with the gun.”
“On it.” He slipped away silently.
She watched him go, and held up a hand to Prumble, motioning him to remain in the alley.
When she glanced back around, she saw Pascal doubled over on the ground. The leader loomed over him, spitting words into his ear, still tugging on the improvised garment Pascal had worn.
Sam slipped around the corner, hands behind her back. She walked swiftly toward the truck, sizing up the group as she went. There were two outliers: Gun, down the street and about to meet Skadz, and the one that had come across to Samantha’s side of the street. He looked unarmed and was thin. Their fastest runner, in case of chase, she guessed. She ignored him for now.
The leader was still crowding Pascal. She heard the word pretender and some pseudo-religious nonsense. He had two heavies just behind him, ready to move in and help if Pascal resisted. Their attention was fixed on the man on the ground.
The two who’d come around the front of the truck were closest, and they had their backs to her. She decided to start there.
A yelp of pain down the street, out of sight. Skadz had struck. One of the heavies heard it, looked back that way.
The one across the street by the wall finally noticed Samantha. “Oy,” he snarled. “Piss off, whore.”
Sam ignored him. The two in front of her were alert now but still looking the wrong way, confused. She closed the gap, raised her pistol, and shot the first in the back of the knee. His leg buckled and he started to go down.
Everyone jumped at the crack of the gunshot. The noise echoed down the streets like thunder.
Sam shifted her aim to the second and fired again. The round took him in the thigh, a bit higher than she’d wanted so she squeezed another around. But he’d moved, and she missed. Despite his wound, the man spun around and swiped at her, knocking her gun away.
The leader spun toward her, as did his two heavies, Pascal momentarily forgotten. One heavy carried a police baton. The other was unarmed. No, she saw the glint of metal in his hands. Her heart lurched. Two pistols? Then she realized the man was adorned with brass knuckles on both hands.
The one near her staggered when his swipe attack forced him to put weight on the wounded leg. Sam slugged him with a right hook and he flew backward, knocking his head against the front of the truck as he fell.
She glanced around for her gun as the two heavies came around to face her, putting themselves between her and the leader. The weapon, she realized, had slid under the vehicle. She’d never get to it in time. Right.
Movement across the street. The scrawny runner had come halfway across. Indecision flashed in his eyes—join in, or go get help?—and he hesitated. A huge shape emerged from the alley and loomed up behind him. Prumble. Sam winced. She’d wanted him to stay out of sight. Any onlookers would have a hard time describing Sam and Skadz, but Prumble’s immense frame would be an almost immediate giveaway.
Pascal grabbed at the leader’s leg. The man jumped back and then kicked the pilot in the stomach. Pascal groaned and curled into a fetal position.
Better end this quickly, she thought.
Knuckles stepped toward her. Sam grinned at him. He grinned back and swung. The meaty fist whooshed just over her, so close she felt the cap on her head shift as she ducked under the blow. In the same motion she yanked her knife free from the sheath on her calf, lurched forward onto one knee, and thrust the blade forward into his belly.
He screamed, twisted away. She lost her grip on the hilt of her knife at his sudden movement. Knuckles staggered, his scream turning into an inhuman wail. Sam clubbed him on the side of the head and he went down.
The runner in the street turned to go for help. He took one step and ran straight into Prumble. The big man lifted the poor kid up by his armpits, then slammed him down into a raised knee. Six meters away and Samantha still heard the jaw break. Prumble heaved the limp body up again and tossed it into the wall across the street.
At this, the leader broke and ran.
The second heavy with the police baton still seemed willing to fight. Samantha let him come to her; she raised her fists, her gaze dancing between his eyes and the black stick in his hand. The man moved in fast and swung in a controlled manner, surprising her with his skill. She was forced to dive backward and roll.
When she came up she noticed the leader, now fifteen meters away and fading in the gray murk of light rain. He skidded to a stop, and then Skadz appeared and tackled him.
Police Baton came at her again. She tried to duck left and her foot slipped on the damp ground. His blow caught her on the shoulder—the meaty part, luckily. It still erupted in pain and sent her to the ground.
Sam rolled twice, grunting each time her shoulder met the asphalt. She’d have a nasty bruise in the morning. Worse, if she didn’t get up and finish this asshole.
She started to stand, and then Prumble was there.
The big man came at the heavy with surprising speed. Baton swung but his footing was wrong and he didn’t get much behind the blow. Prumble blocked the riot stick with his forearm and the black baton flew from the man’s hand. Then Prumble lifted one massive leg and kicked outward. His foot plunged straight into the heavy’s stomach and pushed him a full meter back until he slammed into the door of the truck.
Prumble continued toward him, both arms held out, hands upturned, middle fingers extended.
The thug tried to run, but Pascal suddenly reached out and gripped his ankle. The Jacobite went down hard, landing next to Sam. She leapt on him and clasped her arm around his neck. “Finish them off,” she said through gritted teeth. “No witnesses.”
Thirty seconds later the truck drove away, seven bodies left behind in its wake. Sam saw pickers rushing out from a half-dozen nearby buildings before the whole scene faded into the distance. With any luck, they’d drag the bodies off the street before they stripped them clean.
Her heart hammered in her chest. This marked the first overt action they’d taken against Grillo, and in her mind leaving a trail of bodies did not equate to a good start. Even if they could get back here tomorrow, the place would be swarming with Jacobites—inner-circle types, probably—looking for answers. She’d have to hope the locals kept quiet or didn’t see enough to describe them.
On the other hand, it only took one poor beggar to describe them—a fat man, a tall woman, and a black guy with dreadlocks—and they’d be blown. She cursed inwardly. They needed to be more careful, avoid trouble until the time was right.
Darwin didn’t work the way it used to.