ARNO HAD THE watch at the Salon’s back stairs, lounging half-asleep on the stool by the stairwell door. Morya was past him before he realized the clatter of feet on the stairs was not a dream.
He leapt to his feet. “Hey!” He recognized her instantly, even from the rear. She hadn’t been gone from the Salon all that long. Then he registered other bodies moving past and stupidly saw Kes in multiples.
Sisters? Did she even have any? Shit.
He pulled his gun. “Hold it right there.”
The tall man turned back when he spoke. Arno’s eyes went wide at the sight of the woman he carried.
“You don’t recognize me, do you, ’Chromer.” The man made it a statement.
“No.” Arno’s brows drew together. Should I? he wondered.
“I’m your boss’s boss. I want this house locked down right now, no one in or out. Put armed guards on all entrances, suited up and ready to keep Grinds out with force.”
Arno gaped, com band halfway to his mouth.
“I’ll tell Gistano myself,” the man barked. “Now move!”
He didn’t wait for compliance, but turned back down the hall. Arno took the better part of valor and let them go, then put his com-banded wrist to his mouth and did as ordered.
KESI’S FINGERS CLENCHED so hard that Kesada winced. “Gistano’s boss?” Kesi whispered angrily to her twin, outraged at the revelation. “Janus bosses the Ice-fucking-chromers? That means—”
“Yes.” Kesada was terse. Their thoughts raced along the same line, to the same conclusion: Janus was responsible for Gistano’s entrapment of Hinano Kesada. Kesi wanted to stop dead in her tracks and have a screaming fit.
Kesada brought her to her senses. “Not now. Let’s get safe first.”
“But—”
“But nothing. We’ll wait until we can deal with him properly.”
“It’s too much of a coincidence!” Hysterical anger drove Kesi’s voice louder. “What if he’s playing us here, now—”
Kesada dug hard fingers into her sister’s shoulder. “Priorities, Kesi. We’ll deal later.” She turned an icy stare on her twin that stilled the protests in her mouth. Kesi nodded unhappily and kept silent as they continued in Janus’s wake.
GISTANO WAS ON his feet and fuming when they burst into his office.
“House lock-down?” he said for greeting. “Why?”
Janus spoke while he moved to the float couch and laid Kes gently down. “The Grinds are in the Shelieno in force.”
“And why do we care? Or do I already know the answer to that?” He studied the women with Janus, then fixed on the twins, who were staring defiantly at him. In spite of his anger, the calculating part of his brain took in the evidence from his eyes.
There’s more than one of them. How? Why? And involved with the boss? Fuck me.
Janus went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Grinds probably don’t know we’re here yet, so we have some time. Get the house doctor in here now. We have people to attend to.”
Gistano’s temper got away from him. “Not on my premises, you don’t. The hells with them. If this brings the heat down on us, we’ll lose our Enclave license. We’re not shigasue; we’re just here on a lease. You’re screwing our business, Boss.”
A muscle twitched in Janus’s jaw. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that from the man I made in the first place. Is the house locked down?”
Gistano gritted his teeth. “Yes.” An alert flash on his desktop drew his eye to a holomap of the house and its environs. “And there are intruders on the rooftops in this block. Must be your friends.” He couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice, but it masked the thoughts racing through his head. Could he refuse to help without causing a breach in their relationship? Could he get Janus out of here? Could they buy time without butting heads with security? Once things came to open conflict, all bets were off.
“Doctor.” Janus turned the demand into an order.
Gistano was about to say something imprudent when a voice surprised them both.
“No.”
It was the wounded one, the ringer for Kes when she’d worked in his house. She stepped forward. Blood was drying on her clothes, crusting brown in some places, still red where she pressed a hand to her side and held wadded cloth to an oozing wound there. Gistano registered the razor-thin slices of a vibroblade artfully wielded to hurt, not kill, and understood better now why Franc had looked battered when he’d returned a short while before.
“No, what?” Gistano challenged her.
“No, we’re not staying in this hellhole, and your doctor’s not looking at us. Not her, either.” She jerked a chin to the supine form of the Winter Goddess. She spoke to Janus. “We need to get out of here, out of the district, right now. They’re closing in.”
“She needs medical attention. So do you.”
“No one’ll be helped if we’re caught first.”
“We can stand them off,” Janus said. “’Chromers in combat-grade coolsuits aren’t your ordinary line of house defense—”
“At the cost of ruining this business, sure,” Gistano snapped.
“—and I have a secret way out of here when we need it.”
“No one’s supposed to know about that,” Gistano growled.
His superior fixed him with a look. “If it will make things easier for you,” Janus said, “I can remove you from leadership of the ’Chromers here and now. Your call.”
The men stared at each other. Gistano dropped his eyes first. Janus turned back to the blonde. “Enough now with this running away. Let’s have you seen to.”
The woman drew herself up and took a step towards Janus, one finger jabbing at him. “You can lose that condescending tone with me. You haven’t a clue what’s going on here. I’ll tell you this: if we’re caught, we’re dead, no questions asked, and I don’t think they’ll hesitate to do the same to anyone helping us. Just being with us probably puts you all in danger.” She pointed to the unconscious Winter Goddess. “And that goes for her, too. If you want to keep her safe, you’ll get us all out of here before worrying about medical care. And when it comes to that, we have someone who’s far better than an ordinary doctor. We have a bioempath who’ll help us.”
Janus locked eyes with the woman who confronted him. At the same moment, a ping came over Gistano’s desk com. “Boss,” a stressed ’Chromer’s voice said, “we have company at the front door. Armed security squad, doing a house-to-house search. They want in. What response do you want? We’re locked and loaded.”
Gistano growled in frustration. “Stall ’em. Wait for my word.”
The blonde took a step closer to Janus. When she spoke, her voice was low and urgent, the caress of silk on steel. The derevin boss barely caught her words. “She’s part of this, too. You want a chance to continue on with her? Get us all out of here now.”
Janus’s lips thinned, then he did what Gistano had never seen him do before: he bowed his head to the woman. Then he spun on his heel, catching Gistano staring at him, startling the ’Chromer boss with his own curt order. “Bolt hole. Now.”
The derevin chief didn’t trust himself to speak. He tapped a code sequence into his desk comp and a wall panel behind his desk popped open. He bowed with a semi-flourish, motioning the way clear to Janus and his motley crew. The triumvir took up the unconscious woman into his arms once again and led the way to the concealed staircase.
“Boss?” came the door guard again. “They’re fixing a charge to blow our door open. Can we fire on them?”
Gistano sighed. “Stand down. Let ’em in. They have a beef, send ’em to see me.” He cut the connection as the last of his unwanted visitors left, sealing the panel behind them.
He stabbed another com tab on his desk. “Franc. Get your ass in here, on the double.” He cut off without waiting for a response, then faced the wall panel as calculations clicked over in his mind.
Was Janus merely caught up in a crisis, or was he actually losing control of a situation? If he was losing control, was this a chance for Gistano to advance his own interests?
He didn’t have enough info and he didn’t know the odds. That mattered to a man who’d come up on the backstreet gambling circuits. But one thing he did recognize was the scent of blood in the water. And if the odds were good, he was always willing to roll the dice.
Franc rushed into the room. Gistano took him in at a glance: grass stains on inert stealth suit, synthflesh patch on throat, the sheen of an antihemorrhagic spray over a bruised temple.
“Head all right?”
“Yes.”
“Rib healed?”
Franc nodded. The house doc had a bone knitter for minor fractures, although forced regen left a tender spot for a while, and the ’Chromer favored his side right now.
“You sorry sack of shit. I’m gonna make your day.” Gistano opened a desk drawer, fished inside.
“Boss?”
Gistano pulled out a needlegun with one hand, while the other tapped the wall access code into the comp again. Franc’s eyes widened as the panel swung open. Gistano jerked his head in that direction.
“The girlfriend you were trying to dance with earlier ran off that way. Clones are with her—must be, since we know for a fact she doesn’t have siblings. Morya and Janus, too. He’s in some shit. Tag along quietly, see where they go, figure out what’s up.”
“Clones, huh?” He took the needlegun from Gistano’s hand. “That explains who blindsided me.”
“No killing until you check in with me. I want to know what the story is before any parts get rearranged. Clear?”
Franc nodded and started for the portal.
“Wait.” Gistano shrugged out of his coat, tossed it to Franc. “In case you need streetwear. It’ll help a little. You stand out too much like that.”
His lieutenant nodded. A moment later he was gone.
THE SUB-LEVELS OF the Salon opened into tunnels built long before an Enclave stood on Lyndir, forgotten as newer layers of city infrastructure were constructed. There were few entrances into the built-over tunnels, for not many realized that many of the old passageways deep beneath the surface streets were usable.
Janus knew it, though, and some of his businesses had entrances or exits that took advantage of the hidden warrens. When the Icechromers leased the joyhouse, one of their first tasks when renovating was to secretly excavate down to the abandoned power mains and disused sewer lines.
The moldering service tunnels contained little that functioned. At this level it was a network of derelict switching stations, corroding valves, and musty dark pipe runs lit at too-long intervals by dim, ancient glow-tabs. The one thing the tunnels did effectively, though, was to connect the Shelieno with neighboring domes through hidden byways.
Janus led the way unerringly, aided by a reference map in a heads-up display pulled from one of his hardwired database systems. His left eye looked quite natural, but it harbored recording and HUD capabilities that cost more than most people earned in a year. It was one of the perks of being a cartel boss, and this was one of the times Janus was grateful he had it. With the help of his nav devices, the group made their way through the labyrinth to emerge in a parking structure in neighboring Jenes Dome.
On the third subfloor of the garage, in a row of reserved VIP parking, Eldin lounged in the sidecar of an antique float bike, reading a book and listening to tunes on an earbud. When he noticed Janus approaching from a service stairwell, he stepped out of the vehicle and moved to help his master with the burden in his arms. Together they laid her down on the sidecar’s bench seat.
Kes remained unconscious, her body shaken now and then by tremors and small spasms of muscle tension. Otherwise, her condition had not changed.
“Wait here,” Janus told the group, and trotted around the corner where more cars were parked. Moments later, he pulled up in a black lift-capable luxury ground sedan with dark windows.
“Sir!” Eldin exclaimed in surprise as the cartel boss stepped out of the idling vehicle.
Janus gave him a look. “It’s hardly the first car I ever hot-keyed. Don’t worry, though—you’ll make sure it gets back to its owner when we’re done.” He moved to collect Kes once more. As he arranged her in the backseat, he spoke over his shoulder to his servant.
“Time for you to go home, Eldin, and take a very long, circuitous route while you do. Put the top up on the sidecar and opaque it—let’s make sure it looks like you have someone riding with you.”
“Have we been made, sir? Should I expect to be followed?”
“It’s a precaution. Let’s hope it’s not necessary—but if you are followed, I want them to stay on you for a long time, to buy us time to get elsewhere.”
“I understand.”
Janus held the door and helped Kesada in. She collapsed next to her unmoving twin. “No fleeing pursuit, either, old friend. If someone tries to run you to ground, I don’t want you in danger trying to avoid arrest. Not for a decoy run. Do I make myself clear?”
Eldin bowed his head.
“Who’s navigating?” Janus asked the others. “In front, with me.”
His servant started work on the sidecar as Kesi got in the front seat and Morya joined the others in back. Janus waved farewell and headed for the exit.
EVA SWORE BITTERLY. “How could we not put a homing device in those clones?”
The question was rhetorical. When she’d defined the implants to use, she’d thought only of fail-safes. She’d given no mind to the discard clones, destined for destruction anyway, and took for granted that the killer clone would be in a location she could monitor. Had monitored, up until the growing debacle that was this afternoon’s raid on Tryst.
The pleasure wire had dropped Kes by overloading her nervous system. It was triggered by a local beamcast sent by IntSec on the wire’s frequency. That alone was not sufficient to triangulate a location with, and if she was moved outside the region covered by the beamcast, the wire would deactivate.
They could always detonate the microcharge—a bomb explosion would be easily marked on a map—but that could just as easily eliminate Janus in the process. Not an option.
“We can’t have lost them.” She said it to Teo as if it were a fact, a not-possibility, while in her own mind those words sounded like plaintive bravado. It seemed impossible for Janus, a handful of clones, and a joygirl to vanish into thin air, but vanish they had. How?
And much more urgently: How would they find them again, before Kes awoke and endangered Janus?
Raem’s staccato interjections of analysis and speculation helped ground Eva and keep her from getting as close as she had ever come to a state of panic. Everything she wanted now was wrapped up with Janus’s survival, and the longer he was off the radar with that killer clone, the less likely his survival became.
When Obray reported the sighting of the floatbike, she bit back an exclamation of triumph. She placed herself square in front of the wall screen, bouncing on toe tips.
“Display,” she ordered, and stood riveted while the pursuit unfolded.
WHEN EVA REALIZED there was just one person on the bike and not the fugitives she sought, she ordered IntSec to tail, not intercept. She still had Lyndir Grinds searching the Enclave, but their failure to secure her quarry had them in her bad graces. For the real work that remained, she would now rely on Internal Security exclusively.
Obray called in his men on a city-wide force scramble, with scattered personnel coming in from other locations around the globe to supplement their team. As far as Eva was concerned, there was no other priority on Lyndir right now.
Her car and strike teams were ready to go on her command. Pacing abandoned, she sat tensely, wired into the surveillance systems for up-to-the-millisecond status info.
There was nothing more to do but see where the floatbike led them, or hope Janus contacted his network soon. IntSec agents tailed discreetly in city traffic, and Eva did more of that thing she hated to do.
She waited.