| |
––––––––
“You are one devious, conniving, little shit!” were the words that greeted me when I started to open my eyes, again—and Mack sounded so angry that I had rolled away from him, and launched myself into the wall on the other side of the bed before I’d managed to properly wake up.
“Captain!”
Oh, good. The doc was here.
“And I ought to—”
“Captain!”
“What!”
“You might want to wait until she’s fully conscious, sir.”
“Goddammnit, Cutter!” but he caught me as I pitched forward off the wall, and I figured I might forgive him a lot for that.
After all, if he’d let me go, I’d have taken a header into the floor... again.
He held onto me for a bit longer than he had to, and then laid me back down, and pulled the covers up around me.
“D’you know when she’ll come ’round?” he asked, but his voice was already fading, as sleep reached up to claim me.
The doctor’s voice was indistinct. “Soon, sir.”
“I’ll wait.”
Well, that was nice of him. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or afraid—and then I remembered it was Mack, not Bendigo, and definitely not Bastien, and I relaxed.
It didn’t last, though. I woke up screaming, and this time, I was glad the bed was tucked into a corner of the room. I huddled in the corner, with the pillow in front of me like a barricade, and the blanket drawn up in front of that.
It took me a while to work out what I was saying, and even then, I couldn’t work out why.
“No. Nonononono. Nono.”
“Easy there, girl. Anyone would think we were going to—”
“Tens!”
“Right. Sorry. Cutter! You need to open your eyes, now.”
I did?
I did.
Oh.
I stared at Mack, Tens, and Miss Delight, and realized there was someone missing.
“Where’s Rohan?”
“He’s grounded,” Mack said, and I stared at him.
It was Tens who explained.
“His mum caught him trying to hack one of the maintenance worker’s heads while they were drunk. Had me tie down his implant for a week, except for essential lessons.”
Delight cleared her throat, and both men glanced at her. So did I.
“We need your implant,” she said, blunt and straight to the point as usual.
“I... You... Why?”
“Because it’s still exfiltrating data, which is not for public consumption, and Bendigo’s ship is still broadcasting like a bitch. We can’t keep selectively jamming for much longer, and we can’t do a blanket jam, or we’ll lose the data.”
Oh.
“Give me a minute.”
It didn’t take me long to find the data feed she was talking about, or, at least, to locate where I thought it was. And I remembered Rohan locking down my head so I couldn’t have given in to Bendigo or Bastien’s demands for access, even if I’d wanted to. I glared at Tens.
“You need to let Rohan use his implant,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I can’t unlock what he’s done to mine.”
“Let me in.”
But I remembered the party-line happening in my mind, as I’d had Rohan drive me out of Bastien’s sick little laboratory.
“Aren’t you already there?” I asked, and then glared at the three of them. “Aren’t you all already there?”
This earned me an embarrassed exchange of glances between them, and then a somewhat subdued admission from Tens.
“We, ah... We were piggy-backing with Rohan. We didn’t realize he’d done exactly what he’d said he’d done.”
They turned as the door opened behind them, and I caught Delight’s muttered comment of, “That was supposed to be locked!” as Rohan came through. I looked at Tens, and couldn’t help yanking his chain.
“Guess he’s not quite as locked down as you thought,” I teased, and was pointedly ignored.
Rohan was completely unrepentant, and inexplicably unafraid. He smiled at me, and then blushed red to his hairline.
“I’ll fix it,” he said, coming to stand beside the bed.
“You don’t have to stand that close, you know,” Delight snarked, and Rohan looked at her.
“Yeah, I do, but not to undo what I did, just to make sure she’s okay.”
And then he added a sentence that had Mack’s jaw drop open in shock.
“After all, she’s been locked in this room with you, hasn’t she? Who knows what you’ve done!”
I don’t know what Delight had done to earn that comment, but she clearly did. I watched her lips curve into an unrepentant smile, and she tilted her chin toward Mack.
“And you told me to tell recruiting ‘no’,” she said, turning back to the boy. “So? Get to work.”
Rohan turned to me, but not before I saw the hand Tens laid on Delight’s arm. I watched as she glanced down at it, and then up at Tens, and her smile tightened. The frown on his face deepened, and they locked eyes for a breath or two, before Tens shook her shoulder, and then let her go.
I’m not sure what passed between them, but I’m guessing it wasn’t well wishes and an exchange of email addresses. Mack was possessive as hell about his crew, and it looked like Tens might just be the same way about his apprentice.
Rohan waited until they were no longer focused on each other, before he turned back to me. I looked into his face, and was damned if the kid hadn’t aged five years.
“I ran you into a wall,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I managed a shrug, which was difficult in the face of his very obvious distress.
“You did your best.”
“No. I got distracted.”
“With what was happening behind you, it would have been a miracle if you hadn’t.”
“And I locked you out of your own head.”
I reached out and laid my hand on his arm.
“Rohan,” I said. “You had to do that. With what was about to happen to me, if you hadn’t gotten me out of there, well... you had to lock that implant away. You did good, man.”
He brightened a little, at that, and then shot an angry glance at Delight, his captain, and his instructor.
“I did a Delight kind of good, though,” he said, “and I’m not proud of it.”
I followed his gaze, and watched color stain the agent’s face.
“Did she tell you what to do?”
He shook his head so fast I thought he was going to dislocate something.
“No. It was my idea.”
“But it was something I would have done,” Delight broke in, and Mack and Tens nodded.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“And me.”
Rohan did not look comforted, so I squeezed his arm.
“Welcome to my world, kiddo,” and then I took my hand away. “So. You going to undo what you did?”
He brightened.
“Yep. Just let me tweak a couple of things, first. You know, to make up for the wall, and locking you out.”
He was a sweet kid, but if he did what I thought he was going to do, Tens and Mack weren’t going to be very happy with him, and I couldn’t let that happen.
“You don’t have to,” I said, but Rohan stopped me before I got any further.
“Yeah, I do,” and he shot a defiant glance back toward the three adults standing just beyond him. “I’m not like them.”
Not yet, kiddo, I thought, and sighed.
“Fine. You do what you gotta do. Just don’t break anything, okay?”
“Not ever,” he told me, and I knew he wasn’t referring to breaking anything, but to becoming like the others in the room.
I chose not to argue with him. It’s always best not to argue with the guy that’s tinkering with the implant that’s stuck inside your head—especially when that guy has just been through the ringer like this one had, and especially when he’d faced down challenges way before he should ever have had to.
“It was fun,” he murmured, even though I could feel him doing something to the programming in my implant.
“Hey!” Mack said, and Rohan started smirking.
“Don’t you...” was as far as Delight got, and Rohan’s smirk had turned into a smile.
He made one final adjustment, and Tens echoed it with a sound of frustration.
“You and I are going to have a talk about the company you’ve been keeping,” his instructor said, and Rohan’s smile dimmed.
From the light connection he’d made, I got the impression that disappointing Tens was something he hadn’t chosen to do lightly, and I felt sorry for him—but not too sorry. Not a single one of them had had permission to be inside my head in the first place, and I was glad they were gone.
“Exactly,” Rohan said, then followed it with. “You’re welcome.”
And I realized he was reading my mind in the same way Mack and the rest had been doing. I frowned, but Rohan set to work unlocking the compartments in my mind that he’d locked down so I couldn’t get to them under pressure from Bastien.
Instead of leaving when he was done, though, he hesitated, and I saw he was studying what I’d done with the data I’d been streaming from the Ghoul’s computer. When he spoke, he sounded uncertain.
“Can I... Can I come along and watch what you do?” he asked.
“Hey!” Tens protested, and I smiled.
“Sure you can,” I said, knowing Tens probably wanted his apprentice to take notes, anyway.
Rohan’s mind presence gave a kind of happy blip in my head, and I took him out along the link I’d created between my implant and Bendigo’s ship. I figured I wouldn’t need to explain anything, but I offered anyway.
“Any questions, just ask.”
“Could you walk me through it?”
And I blinked.
“Sure, if that’s what you want.”
“Yes.”
And, so, I began, explaining just how mad I’d been at Bendigo, and just how sure I’d been that he was going to kill me at the end of the job.
“So, I pretty much figured he was going to get away with murder. He was going to screw over Mack, and he was going to go right back to providing everything he’d provided before, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it, so I made sure the data got out. Someone would hear it and rescue me, and stop him... or maybe just stop him.
“That, and it was going to drive Bastien the Ghoul crazy and force him to come out of wherever he’d been hiding, so he could try and get his data back, and that was the only chance we had of nailing him. This is how I did it.”
And I explained about being given the link, “because without that link, I was pretty much screwed. In that way, I was lucky Bendigo needed me. He just didn’t expect me to be able to get out of the storage memory.”
“He should have air-gapped it,” Rohan commented, and I just knew Delight, Mack and Tens were taking notes.
“Eyup, he should have,” I admitted, “but he didn’t. Now, take a look at this,” and I showed him how I’d set up the duplication, storage and broadcast process. I made sure I did as Delight had asked, and shut down the system broadcasting wide, but I kept the storage system running, and I set up a second broadcast. One that tight-beamed the data flow direct to an open server on Mack’s ship.
“Hey!” Tens, at least was paying attention to more than what I was saying, because I hadn’t talked Rohan through the steps of that last little set-up.
“What?” Delight wanted to know, but Tens didn’t tell her.
I felt Rohan’s interest spark, and saw when he began to think I was just as devious as any of the rest.
“But nicer,” he hastened to assure me, when he realized I’d caught that thought. “Much nicer.”
I smiled.
“You don’t know me very well,” I said, reaching out to pat him on the shoulder. “Now, get the Hell out of my head.”
“Hey!” but Rohan wasn’t truly offended, and I saw when he decided he just might leave the tiniest link, in case I ever needed to call him for help, again—or in case he ever needed me.
I could have called him on it—and I probably should have, but it felt good to have someone who wanted to be a friend, so I pretended I didn’t see, and felt him breathe a sigh of relief when he thought he’d gotten away with it. Cheeky little beggar.
“Thank you,” I said, and he nodded, and headed for the door.
Tens grabbed his arm on the way out.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he said. “I’m going to have to put that block back.”
Rohan made a show of pretending nonchalance.
“Sure thing,” he said, shrugging free of Tens’ hand, and sliding out of the room. It didn’t take much to know he’d be gone as soon as the door closed behind him.
Apparently, Tens knew it, too, but he also didn’t want the boy in here for the grown-ups’ conversation that was next. Come to think of it. I didn’t want to be here for that, either. I laid the pillow down at the head of the bed, and pushed the covers back. It took me a moment to realize I was no longer nude, but wearing a light-weight nightshift.
Cool. That made the next bit a lot easier.
I wriggled out of my corner and slung my legs over the edge of the bed, and that’s when Mack realized what I was doing. He stepped forward so that his thighs were touching my knees, and my head was level with his chest.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
I looked up at him.
“I need to pee.”
It was a blatant lie, and we both knew it, but I saw Mack’s lips twitch, and knew he’d give me the benefit of the doubt. Instead of getting out of my way, though, he reached out, and hit a panel on the wall beside us, revealing the san unit behind it.
“By all means,” he said. “We’ll wait until you’re done.”
I glared at him, and he stepped back, putting himself between me and the door to the corridor. I went to the bathroom, closing the door behind me, and contemplating not ever coming out.
“Don’t make me come in there and get you.”
I’d thought Rohan had taken all of Mack’s link out of my implant, but Mack was reading me like a book. I did a double check of my head in the privacy of the san. I still hadn’t found out how Mack was reading me, when there was a knock at the door.
“All. Right! I’m coming,” I said, and got myself out of there, before Mack or, worse, Delight, decided to come in and get me.
“About time,” Delight grumbled, as I emerged.
“Lucky,” Tens added.
Mack just looked at me and raised his eyebrows. He was leaning on the wall, right beside the door.
I didn’t bother crossing over to sit on the edge of the bed. I closed the san door behind me, and leant on it.
“So,” I said. “What do you want to know?”
“Cute,” Tens said, as I watched Mack’s face go carefully blank, and Delight move up to stand beside him.
“How about you cut that tight-beam you just put up?”
Mack’s eyebrows raised a notch higher, before he half-turned to glance at her.
“I thought we decided we were going to share all the information,” he said, and I smirked as I watched Delight hasten to reassure him.
“Oh, we will... we do,” she hastened to correct herself, and Tens gave me a silent thumbs up from behind her back. “It’s just that the, uh, the beam isn’t as secure as it could be.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “It’s so secure even your people are going to have trouble hacking it.”
Mack looked over at Tens, and caught his nod of confirmation. He looked back at me.
“Nicely done,” he said. “Leave it up.”
Delight’s mouth dropped open in unvoiced protest, and then she narrowed her eyes at me, and closed it again.
“You are an Odyssey agent,” she said, and I shrugged.
“If you say so.”
“We’ve just spent the last two years training you.”
“While not letting me leave, something I asked to do at the beginning. Your choice. Your expense.”
“You owe us.”
“I owe you a darn good—” but I never got to finish that sentence because Mack covered my mouth with one hand, while he pushed me back against the door, and held me there, with the other.
“She’s clearly very unhappy with your company,” he said, and Delight scowled at me.
Mack didn’t give her a chance to continue, however.
“Don’t tell me Odyssey, scourge of human traffickers and corporate slavers alike, actually has its own line in enforced recruitment?”
Delight continued to glower, and Mack smirked, right up to the point that Delight brushed his comment aside.
“Whatever. Under the terms of our agreement with you, she’s an Odyssey employee, and you are her training providers. That should give us priority in her loyalty.”
This last statement was delivered with a pointed glare at me.
Mack took his hand away, and I managed a grimace that might have passed for a smile, and then I shrugged. From Odyssey’s point of view, my attitude was appalling. Too bad; they’d earned it.
“You have Bendigo’s ship?” I asked, and Delight blushed, but she nodded, so I continued, “Then you’ll find a duplicate of the data backed up there. I’m just squirting a copy of it here so I have access in case you need any follow-up work done. It also gives me an opportunity to study the inner workings of a criminal network in the raw, so to speak.”
I blinked and tried to look innocently concerned, as I poked her, again.
“I wasn’t aware there was a problem with sending a direct feed to your training team. That won’t cause too much trouble, will it?”
I watched her eyes widen, and then she looked from me to Mack and back again, throwing Tens an inclusive glance as she did so.
“You three deserve each other,” she said, and started moving toward the door.
I stopped her with a single sentence.
“I need to be paid.”
“Since when...” she began, but I had made a hasty connection to my Odyssey account and noted it was sorely lacking in funds.
“Since just now,” I said. “And you haven’t paid me the completion bonus for the graduation assignment, or anything extra for delivering the scientist to you in addition to his formula.”
Delight turned back to me, and then covered the ground between us in a few quick strides. She ignored the fact that Mack’s hand was still holding me against the san door, and put her face close in to mine.
“I was under the impression you’d died on that mission,” she said. “If you hadn’t, you’d owe us a considerable amount to cover the fine for one destroyed police car, and repairs to the sewerage plant, not to mention the visa restrictions they’ve slapped on our employees.”
“I doubt that,” Tens broke in. “You see, I’ve checked the records. Not only did she cover the cost of her own extraction, but the authorities never made the connection between the scientist’s disappearance, and the theft of the Canton 82 or its associated files, with the car that was pulled over for speeding on Route 37, or the female driver wanted in relation to assaulting a police officer. And they certainly made no connection between her and Odyssey. None, and therefore, there are no fines, reparations or visa restrictions that need to be repaid, or compensated for.”
He stopped when he realized we were all staring at him.
“What? I checked her files and her history, before I let her on board. And I made sure there was nothing else she’d done that we needed to worry about” He turned his attention directly to me. “I also found one Kaylin Rozarro, on her way to a wonderful backwater that had just lost its only colony to pirates.”
He glared at me over that one, and I paled.
“Oh, no. Is she... Did you...?” and he decided to let me off the hook.
“Yeah, and yeah. She’s fine, and I found her a safer job on a much more established world. You should have at least checked.”
I might have thought he was mad at me, except he was glaring at Delight. She shrugged.
“We leave those tiny details to our agents,” she said. “What do we owe you for the rescue and placement?”
And Tens named a figure that made me quail. Delight looked at me.
“That is coming out of your wage.”
She seemed about to say more, when Tens cut across her, again.
“Nope,” he said. “Odyssey policy is to cover the expenses of training errors, and you have made it very clear that she is one of Odyssey’s trainees.”
He slouched back against the cabin door, and looked smug.
“That makes it your responsibility, I think, and she gets her bonuses, her award wage, and her placement bonus for finding a ship willing to take her, since, I believe, you recommended her spaced.”
I drew a sharp breath, and Mack curled his hand in my shirt, using it to give me a warning shake.
Delight noted the action, and I saw her decide to give ground.
“This is all true. If Mack hadn’t agreed to take her, she had two recommendations for termination.”
“Termination?”
They would have terminated me, rather than settled me somewhere out of harm’s way?
“Why not resettlement?”
“We deemed it too much of a risk. There were other parties interested.”
There were? There had been? Did she mean I could have been employed by someone else if I’d so chosen?
“Other criminal parties,” she added, and I felt the tiny spark of hope die, until she continued. “Folk like Mack, and Marl, and Bendigo.”
“Get off my ship.”
The comment caught us all by surprise. As did the anger in Mack’s voice. I mean, I’d heard him angry—had most often been the cause of it—but I’d never heard him this angry. Delight took one look at his face, and about faced, leaving the cabin in swift retreat.
And I registered the tension thrumming through the fist curled in my shirt-front. I looked at Tens, and then up at Mack, but I didn’t move. After the door closed behind Delight, we all stood there, perfectly still, and perfectly quiet, and then Mack drove his fist into the wall beside the san unit, not once, or twice, but four or five times.
I knew it wasn’t directed at me. I knew he wasn’t punching the wall instead of my face. I knew that—and I was still afraid. I said nothing, but I didn’t take my eyes off him. I didn’t dare. When he’d left a sizeable dent in the wall, and, hopefully, worked off that first wave of anger, Mack turned to me.
“You are one bundle of trouble,” he said, and I swallowed.
He was right. I was one bundle of trouble, but the folk who thought that had usually given me a real good reason to be that way. I was a directed bundle of trouble, dammit!
Tens moved cautiously closer, and raised a hand as though to lay it on Mack’s shoulder.
“Don’t,” and Tens froze, his hand still raised, as Mack lifted me and set me on edge of the bed. “Doc’ll be in to check you out. Be here when he arrives, and report to the ops center straight after.”
I looked down at my night-dress, and decided not to ask. Mack gave me another hard look, and then left the cabin.
“Tens,” he called, from the corridor, “go check on the boy.”
‘The boy’ had to be Rohan, and I knew the business Tens had with him. Mack was serious about discipline on board his ship. Still, Rohan’s trick with locking down my implant had done his standing more good than harm, I suspected, despite his attempt to hack and drive a drunk. The thought made me laugh, as soon as Tens had shut the door behind him, and I slid off the bed to explore the room once he was gone.
The san unit, I now knew about, but I was hoping there was more than that. I was still investigating when the doctor stepped in.
“It’s a treatment room,” he said. “Very spartan.”
He was right. It was a treatment room, and I hadn’t found any other additions beyond the san unit. I also found I’d been locked out of the ship systems, which made no sense, given I’d just been able to access Bendigo’s ship—until I remembered that I’d accessed those systems using the link Bendigo had given me, via my own implant.
Mack must have still been mad enough at me to keep me isolated like this—and then I wondered how he was doing it, and why Rohan hadn’t restored it. The doc didn’t give me time to pursue the thought.
“Now, my dear,” he said. “Let’s check you out.”
