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“You know Odyssey wants you back, right?” Mack said, when I came round after having the tracker taken out.
I swallowed against a dry throat, and he handed me a glass of water.
“And you know the bounty for your return would turn us quite a profit...”
I paused, in the middle of taking the next sip, and stared at him over the rim of the cup. He handed me two round, white pills.
“Painkillers,” he said, and I took them, holding them in my hand.
He waited, and then sighed.
“You need to take those.”
I didn’t agree, and my face must have said as much, because he sighed, again.
“You either take the tablets, or I’ll tell the doc.”
And what, exactly, would the good doctor do? I wondered, and Mack read it in my face.
“He’ll bring me a hypoderm, and we’ll make sure you get your painkillers that way.”
Another needle, huh?
I took the tablets, and hoped Mack wasn’t as much of a lying sonuvabitch as I thought he was.
“You said I had skills you could use,” I said, when I’d swallowed the tabs.
Mack frowned.
“That was when I thought you were dead to Odyssey.”
“Now?”
“Tens thinks the signal got through.”
I finished my drink in several hasty swallows, and passed him back the cup, and then I pushed back the covers, and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
“Time I was going, then,” I said, and slid off the bed.
I don’t know what unnerved me more, the fact Mack said nothing to dissuade me, or the fact he just watched me get out of bed, and didn’t move.
“Where will you go?”
I took a step toward the door, and still he didn’t move.
“Better you don’t know,” I told him. “Better no one knows.”
His next words were a little disconcerting.
“And how are you going to leave?”
I quirked an eyebrow at him, and then went for the door as fast as I could go. No way was I going to tell him how I planned to commandeer a shuttle, or jettison myself inside a life pod. Better to keep him guessing as to which option I was going to take.
I was pretty sure he’d have worked out it was one of the two, but there was no point in making it any easier. At least I was dressed, now. Standard-issue ship’s fabricator stuff, and nowhere near as good as the stuff Odyssey had given me, but I’d replace THAT later. As the man said, I had skills. I heard him come out of the room behind me, but I didn’t look back.
It was a little disconcerting to not hear him running and shouting in my wake—kinda made me wonder what tricks he had up his sleeve. I saw a door open up in the corridor ahead, and watched as Tens stepped out. From what I’d seen, this was Mack’s main comms guy—and he didn’t look impressed.
“Leaving us so soon?” he called, turning toward me, and I slowed, glancing around to find the nearest door.
There wasn’t one. Judging by the symbols in the corridor, the door Tens had come through was the one I needed in order to reach the life pods, and the door to the hangar was the next one past him. I stopped, half-turning so I could see Mack walking purposefully up the corridor toward me, and not a door between us. Well, shiiit. Tens called out again.
“Do you even know where you are?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. Pretty much anything I said was going to show me just how much I hadn’t thought this through, and it wasn’t something I wanted to face. For an Odyssey-trained operative, I’d been more stupid than when I’d snuck aboard the Lockyer’s, and that was saying something.
I could have sat down on the floor and waited for them to come, but that just isn’t my way. I’d grown up either avoiding fights, or being decisive enough to end them. I’d grown up fighting prejudice about what girls were good for, and just what they could and couldn’t do. These two home-grown gorillas wanted to keep me on their ship? They weren’t gonna get to do that without a fight.
Given the door I wanted was closest to Tens, I figured I’d head that way, first. Besides, maybe I could take Tens down before Mack reached me. I remembered the length of corridor behind me. Yeah, and maybe baby giraffes were born doing the cha-cha-cha. Still, it was worth a try.
Tens was a comms guy. What were the chances he’d had the same training I’d had... right?
He watched me come, walking down the corridor to meet me half way. Decent of him. I made as though to go around him, and thought maybe he’d let me pass, but then he stuck out his foot and tried to put me on my ass. I hopped over his leg sweep, and pulled back out of reach of his first strike.
Man, he was fast. Way fast. At least, I was closer to the door.
I backed up, and he followed. I glanced back to the door, and he was on me faster than I’d thought possible. Ribs, lower bicep, shoulder, jaw-line, out.
Holy. Fuck.
Next time I woke up, I was in cuffs and hobbles, and Mack was crouched beside me.
“Wh..” I swallowed, blinked, and swallowed, again. “What do you want?”
“How about a really good reason not to waltz you out the nearest airlock?”
Yeah, that was a conversation stopper.
I coulda said because Odyssey would pay them good money to return me, except there was no way I was going back.
“I got skills you can use,” I said, and watched his lips tighten in a thin line.
“Yeah,” he said. “So?”
“So, what job did you have in mind?”
I watched him go still, took a guess he was having a real serious conversation with his comms man, or one of the other crew, figured I didn’t blame him—then decided to push it.
“You want me, or not?”
That earned me a glare, so I poked him again.
“Or are you too chicken-shit afraid of Odyssey to go get your balls back?”
He laughed, then, which was not the reaction I was looking for—and then he stood up, and turned away so I couldn’t see his face. I watched him raise his hand like he was pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, and smirked because I knew I’d gotten under his skin.
“You are some piece of work,” he said, still turned away. “I’m not even sure why Odyssey want you back... unless it’s to space you themselves.”
Say what?
I don’t like being tied up, and I really don’t like people talking about spacing me... or waltzing me out an airlock. Makes me cranky. And I was bored. I jack-knifed over onto my side, and used the little bit of leverage I had to take his legs out from under him.
This... This was really not my best idea ever, I thought, as he hit the floor and then bounced. Truly. Like, what was the guy? Part cat? Cos he landed pretty much the way I expected, but then he twisted in a sort of sideways leap, before I could roll away.
“Goddamnit!” And it was his turn to smirk—as he slammed me into the floor, and pinned my hands and arms against my chest with his body. I glared up at him, wondering how in all the stars I was going to shift his weight. That smirk got wider, almost became a smile.
If looks could kill.... Man, don’t I wish. His face was a foot above mine. His head would have exploded. He thought something was funny as hell—and then the door opened, and the smirk went away.
“So, you want to hang onto her for a while?”
Now, there was a voice I didn’t want to hear. Agent Delight had already offered to put me down, once. I momentarily froze, and then tried to twist out from under Mack’s body.
“Maybe.”
He shifted position, propping himself up with one hand on the floor, and a forearm across the top of my chest. Just my luck that he kept my hands trapped between us.
“Goddamnit, Mack!”
I tried to see past him, watched as Delight’s booted feet came into view. Couldn’t move away, when she bent down to stare into my face. Judging from her expression, she was pretty pissed, but she didn’t say anything, just assessed me with a good long stare, and then straightened up.
“We’ll charge you the usual fees for using one of our agents,” she said, and I heard her feet moving toward the door.
“Like Hell, you will,” Mack said, and levered himself off me.
Delight stopped, but Mack ignored her, when I started to move.
“Stay,” he said, as I wriggled into a sitting position.
I looked from him to Delight, and promptly disobeyed. That earned me a hand in the hair as I was hauled to my feet, turned, and pushed face-first into the nearest wall. I ducked my head in time to hit forehead and not nose first, but the effect was pretty much the same.
“I saw the number she pulled to get away from you,” Mack said, keeping my head right where he’d planted it in spite of me trying to move away, “and I’m darned sure she’s only just got through Basics.”
I stilled. The last two-and-a-bit years had been Basics?
“Your point?” Delight sounded bored.
“You could hire us for the internship phase of Advanced.”
There was silence. Mack got pushy, and I guessed he’d found some sort of advantage.
“That was the next step, after this mission, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Delight sounded wary.
And Mack’s grip on me shifted, as though he was moving to let Delight have a better look at me. His next words confirmed it.
“I mean, do you really want this much trouble loose in an ops area—especially when it’s the kind of trouble that really doesn’t want to be there?”
The silence lasted a little longer, and, when Delight replied, she did not sound happy.
“What I want doesn’t come into it. I have my orders.”
Someone gave Delight orders? As in orders she didn’t like and had to obey? For some reason that made my day—so I didn’t try stopping the short giggle that bubbled out of me. I didn’t need Mack giving me a rough shake to know just how bad an idea it was to antagonize the agent. Her next words confirmed it.
“Yeah. Laugh it up, shit-for-brains, but my other orders are to put you down if I can’t bring you back... and you wouldn’t be the first.”
“So, paying out her contract is out of the question?” Mack interrupted, and his query had a desperate edge.
I wanted to turn my head and stare at him. Couldn’t. Move. An. Inch.
Apparently, he’d had the same effect on Delight. Her next question was pure curiosity.
“Why would you do that?”
And the pressure on the back of my neck increased, but Tens voice came over the comms before Mack could reply.
“Well, you know how he likes to pick up strays...”
And Delight was amused. I heard her feet move, as she turned to Mack.
“Are you sure you don’t have enough trouble on board already?” she asked.
“He’s just annoyed because you hacked his system to teleport aboard,” Mack replied.
“Suck it up, princess!” and I knew she wasn’t talking to Mack.
The lights around us flickered.
“Tens...” Mack’s warning was tinged with worry, but the lights flicked back to normal.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” the comms guy said, his voice echoing over the intercom, and Mack relaxed.
“Too right,” Delight muttered, “because then I’d be forced to blow this tub out of the air.”
Mack’s grip tightened enough to hurt, and I gasped. He shook me again.
“Hey!”
“Yeah, hey,” Delight mimicked. “What did she do?”
Honestly, when I got out of this, I was... I... uh... well, fuck it all.
“Fine,” Delight said, as though she’d just received the answer to a question she’d asked a while ago. “HQ agrees to you taking on the Advanced training, but you’re doing all of it and not just the internship. Maybe you can turn her around... and they have an assignment to start you off with.”
They do... and they did? But Delight didn’t stop. I heard her footsteps moving toward the door.
“Usual contract terms,” she said, and I heard something fizz. “What?”
Again, the intercom spoke—and Tens sounded more than smug.
“You only get to use that trick once.”
Delight sighed.
“Go on.” And the tone of her voice said it had better be good.
Mack took over.
“She’s trouble,” he said. “More trouble than an ordinary trainee. We’ll have to take precautions. Costs of keeping her in hand will be higher. Compensation is in order.”
“Agreed.” Delight’s reply was reluctant. “And?”
“And then there’s the retrieval.”
“I was under the impression you got paid for that.”
“Not exactly,” Mack said, and shook me, again. “We had to give it back. Client was one of our regulars.”
Oh. Well, crap. I sighed.
“Did you find out before, or after, you picked her up?”
“Before,” Tens said.
“Did the client ever know the money went missing?”
“Nope.”
“So, your point is?”
“You owe us for rescue and retrieval.”
I was being retrieved? I sighed, again. Well, this day was getting a whole lot better... NOT!
Mack pulled me back off the wall about an inch, and then punched me back into it. The world went just a little bit fuzzy.
“And she needs the kind of implant you use in advanced training or she won’t be able to do the kind of work you’ll want her to do. The one she’s got won’t cope.”
“Oh, we could—”
But Mack didn’t let her finish.
“I think it would be best if we did that, but you’re paying for it, or she won’t be up to speed.”
“Then it should be our implant.”
“We have business we don’t share.”
“You have secrets from Odyssey?” Delight’s fake surprise didn’t fool any of us, not one little bit.
“Call it an industrial courtesy.” Mack was matter-of-fact.
“Odyssey would rather not be paying your security costs.”
“Odyssey would be the cause of the breach.”
“We could put in modifications...”
“There would still be operational aspects you needn’t know real-time.”
“We download the implant anyway.”
“We can sanitize our own. Not yours.”
“And your point is?”
Mack gave me another shake, and I groaned.
“Don’t you think we’re going to have enough trouble with her, without having to worry about Odyssey interference, too?”
“We would never.”
“It’s been known.”
“We’d be more comfortable with our own equipment in her head.”
“You replace it at the end of internship, anyway.”
I tried to read the stunned silence that followed, but Mack pushed his point.
“You pay the surgery and base hardware costs. We’ll cover the cost of software and content.”
“Done, but you’ll put nothing in that thing that can take her out.”
Say what?
“Why not? Odyssey would?”
Say thefuck what? But Mack wasn’t finished.
“We’ll put in what we deem necessary.”
More silence followed, but I guessed this was because Delight was communicating with her masters. I wondered if I could break Mack’s grip, bent my knees, and braced my feet against the wall.
“I need a minute,” Mack said.
“Take all the time you want,” Delight told him, and I swear she was smiling.
I half expected to get nine kinds of crap kicked out me, because I’d decided that was what it was going to take for Mack to stop me from hobbling right out of the room and down the corridor to the nearest life pod. No way, was I going to hang around while I was bartered away to someone who was going to stick something in my head that was likely to kill me. No. Way!
I tried to push off from the wall, but Mack just stepped in and leaned on me.
“Just hold still,” he said, the last word sounding like he was holding something between his teeth—and then I heard the pop of a cap coming off. A small cap. Like the cap on top of a derm. I turned my head, trying to get a look, just as Mack held the compressor against my skin.
“No,” I said, but my voice was choked by fear, and what should have been a shout was no louder than a whisper. “No needles. No nee...”
There was a hiss as it fired.
“Dammitall, Mack.”
