part0026

I didn’t like leaving Bekah alone, but her tech talk reassured me. If she could keep Richter out of the War Room by screening his bio-code, it was hard to beat that for security. And she’d already switched off the emergency lighting protocol. Erkennen’s camouflage program was back in place, running the utilities in the place. Minimal heat. Ahead of me, dark. Behind me, dark. And me lit up in half-light in the corridor I was in. I felt like a target in a shooter simulation set on easy .

Where would Richter go? Masada Station’s ground floor contained a series of labs dedicated to technology development. The hidey-holes he might be in were too many to count. I could spend hours on Level One alone and still never find the bastard.

I reasoned it out. He’d never go to his quarters because he’d assume that’s the first place I’d look. Then he’d think about that and decide I’d never go there looking for him. So that’s where he’d go. That made as much sense as anything, so I headed to the lift.

Lying next to the lift doors was the access panel Bekah kicked out running from Richter. My knee said, Don’t get any ideas , but I got one anyway. Taking the lift like an old man was a good way to get myself ambushed. All Richter had to do was listen for the hydraulics and shoot me when the door opened. The rest of my body overruled my knee.

I climbed into the small maintenance tube wondering how the hell anyone could work in such a tight space. I stared into the shadows above. Was Richter looking down? Doubtful or I’d be dead by now—so Plan B was working so far. I put my .38 in my coat pocket and grabbed two handfuls of ladder. My knee voiced its minority protest all the way up, so I had to go slow.

But that gave me time to think. No matter how Cassandra’s crazy coup turned out, Bruno Richter was out of a Company job—permanently. The trust between an enforcer and his boss is sacrosanct. It’s stronger than man and wife. It’s stronger than man and God. When a faction leader hands someone like me or Richter or Daisy Brace the job of guarding their life, it comes with a nice compensation package—and the ironclad understanding that anything done against the leader’s interests kills the deal. Then, you. Richter had sold out Gregor Erkennen, Tony Taulke, and the whole goddamned Company. And for what? Some vague promises of riches and power from the lead snake in a snake cult? He should know better. Or maybe, once I knew Richter’s fondness for snakes, I should’ve seen it coming.

And that’s a little payback I owe him, too. Oh, I was gonna enjoy killing Bruno Richter for all sorts of reasons.

I’d reached Level Two, and my left leg demanded a rest.

Richter had about twenty years on me. He’d run like a rabbit from the War Room. I hadn’t sprinted like that since … a long time ago. My arms and good leg lodged a class-action complaint demanding to know why Left Knee could get away with shirking like that. I gritted my teeth and climbed.

Something activated the corridor lights above me. I froze and pulled my .38 and waited for Ferret Face to sight down his barrel at me.

I resumed my climb, begrudging every sound. When I reached the top, the corridor was empty. And completely lit. Either Bekah had overridden that part of Erkennen’s program, or someone had just walked through there.

I pulled myself from the maintenance tube and willed blood back into my extremities. The station was still as cold as hell. I surely wished Bekah would fix that heat.

Richter’s quarters weren’t far.

I took a step and stumbled. My knee, taking its revenge for ladder servitude. Once you pass a certain age, the things you took for granted—taking a reliable step, let’s say—have a way of humbling you by their absence. A few seconds of willpower, and I was limping toward Richter’s apartment. I passed the skeleton coder Erkennen had given me over the lock, and the door slid aside. I ducked in quickly.

Nada. Nothing. Zilch.

The place lit up with emptiness. The aquariums were there, and the rest of his stuff. But no Richter. There were a thousand other places on the station he could be, I reminded myself.

Maybe I’d outthought myself after all.

A sound came from his bedroom.

Or maybe I hadn’t.

I grabbed a pillow from the couch and moved swiftly across the room. My knee played ball for once. It knew if I died, it wouldn’t have anybody to bitch to anymore. The bedroom had gone silent. A glance inside made it look deserted. My ears knew better.

“Out, Richter,” I said. “Let’s wrap this two-man play up right now.”

Richter was smarter than he looked. I moved in. When I rounded the bed where the little prick was hiding, I’d shoot first. None of those so-this-is-how-it-ends speeches.

Just one dead traitor.

“Don’t shoot! It’s just me!”

The geek who loved to argue with Bekah crouched on his knees beside Richter’s bed, a pair of very shaky hands over his head. Could his eyes bulge any bigger?

“Tripp? What the hell are you doing here?” I asked, holding my gun on him. It was a damned good question. Richter wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Maybe Daniel Tripp had helped Ole Bruno compromise the station.

“What’s it look like?” he squeaked, squirming out of his hiding place.

I stepped back. “Getting ready to die, maybe.”

“No, please,” he said, “you can’t.”

“Wanna bet? Hard to miss at this range.”

Backing away, Tripp bumped into the wall. “No, you don’t understand. You kill me, you kill the Company.”

My brain took a second to process that. My knee started to whine again. Hold, please. There’s a customer in front of you named Curiosity.

I turned and tossed a command behind me. “Engage lock.” The door to Richter’s bedroom slipped shut. Then, “Explain what you just said.”

He winced. “I—it’s a secret.”

I wagged my head. “Okay, then.” My pistol firmed up its argument. “You and your secret can hug each other in the grave.”

“Wait! Okay, okay!” Tripp deflated a little, like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. “I guess it doesn’t matter now anyway.”

“Clock’s ticking,” I said. Whatever this was, it needed to be over. Richter needed killing.

“I’m working on a secret project for Regent Erkennen. A way to stop Cassandra.”

I blinked. That’s how you know I’m thinking. When I’d arrived at Masada Station, I remembered Erkennen mentioning something about “curing Cassandra.” A tech miracle that would give SynCorp the edge.

Okay. Attention gotten.

“You’re Gregor Erkennen’s secret weapon?” I said. “He left you here to work on the Cassandra killer?”

Tripp nodded like his neck was a spring.

But it seemed too thin by half. Tripp, squatting in Richter’s quarters? And why would Erkennen leave his secret project up here, so exposed?

“I don’t believe you,” I said, taking a step forward. “You argue with Bekah Franklin all the time.”

“Sure!” he said, his hands coming up like they were bulletproof. “That’s to make it look good! Besides, she doesn’t appreciate my specialty, not really.” When Tripp said that, a little professional pride crept in. Ego trumping fear.

“Machine learning. Specifically, the heuristics that define how programming can become sentient. How we bridge the gap between if/then binary thinking and the infinite possibilities of human decision-making.”

I regarded him a moment. “In English.”

Tripp rolled his eyes, and I almost shot him on principle. “I’m figuring out what makes Cassandra tick,” he said.

“Okay. But do you know what makes her stop ticking?”

Tripp drew himself up, his ego inflating again. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

I lowered my gun a whit. If that were true, Daniel Tripp could be the key to popping the mainspring on Cassie Kisaan’s clock. If it were true. For all I knew, this Yahoo was in it to win it with Richter—a butcher with a blade and a techspert. Brawn and brains, the classic combination. But my conversation with Erkennen lent enough truth to his testimony that I elected to let Tripp keep breathing. For now.

“Okay, then. You’re with me.”

“What do you mean?” he said. Worry lines furrowed his forehead.

“I can’t leave you here.”

“He’ll never come here,” Tripp said, reading my mind. “That’s why I hid here.”

“And it was smart. But…”

Tripp waited for my counterargument.

“Tripp … don’t move.”

Then he heard what I’d seen. The slithering hiss from the vent overhead. One of Richter’s pets, its black tongue flicking, tasting Tripp’s heat.

“Stand very still.”

“You’re goddamned right I will…” His eyes tried hard to see through the top of his skull. He didn’t dare turn his head up to look.

The mamba extended unnaturally longer. I brought my revolver up and braced it with my off hand. I warned Left Knee to stand fast.

Tripp’s eyes widened. “Now, what a second—”

The snake dropped straight onto his head.

Tripp screamed, arms flailing.

The door slid open behind me.

“That’s the last fucking one you kill, Fischer!”

Richter charged into the bedroom.

I started to turn. Two quick pops from the ferret’s stunner bounced off the midsection of my coat.

I fell backward, firing in Richter’s direction.

The shots went high. The bitter smell of gunpowder filled the air.

The ferret barreled into me, and we both went down. Tripp’s screaming bounced off the walls. He was still struggling with the snake.

Richter brought his stunner up again. In that half second, I could feel the cold of its barrel mouth tattooing the underside of my chin. I batted it away with my gun hand, and his shot went wild.

I brought my .38 up into his gut, but Richter countered, hitting a pressure point on my wrist. The revolver flew out of my hand.

His face hovered close to mine.

“Thanks for leading me right to him, dumbass,” he said. Richter’s spit speckled my face. His stunner came around again. I sprung my blade from under my wrist, blocking him like he’d blocked me. The knife sliced deep into his forearm.

He dropped his stunner and rolled away from me. Away from Tripp, who was screaming about blood. I was too busy to tell him it was all from the snake. Its headless body kept jerking.

Richter found a knife of his own somewhere. I had the quick-witted concern that it might be coated with venom.

He spider-crawled toward me, faster than I expected. I couldn’t risk retreating or he’d be in striking distance of Tripp.

I’d barely rolled onto all fours when Richter diverted, springing to his feet and onto the bed. His crawling charge had been a feint. He was flanking me, going for Tripp.

I dropped the knife, grabbed the bedcovers with both hands, and yanked as hard as I could. Richter lost his balance and fell onto the mattress, cursing. Tripp realized the danger and backed against the wall, as far as possible from Richter.

“Enough of this shit,” Richter said. He rolled off the bed and stood on his feet. “You first, Fischer. Then him.”

I grabbed up my knife again and rose to meet him, my breathing hard and ragged. I tried like hell to inhale big gulps of air. My muscles needed the fuel. My knee didn’t say a fucking word.

I showed Richter my teeth. “Bring it, Ferret Face.”

Richter snatched a pillow from the bed and backhanded it at me. I deflected, but he was on me then, sliding the knife into my right side before I could counter. The wound missed the vitals, but if it was poisoned… Richter tensed to rip it upward and through my innards. I thrust my own blade forward, but he blocked me. The effort pushed me away from him, and his knife slid out, leaving a wildfire of pain behind. Blood flowed, red and slick.

I pulled back, trying to get my feet under me, a fighter needing recovery from a bell-ringing blow. My vision clouded with three Richters, then reduced to two, then became the real one again. My free hand went under my coat, but I’d no sooner pulled my stunner than he’d advanced, fast as a serpent himself, and batted it away. It disappeared under the bed.

“Let’s do this old school,” Richter hissed.

His knife came up, and I countered too slow again. But I’d jogged left, and it found my thigh instead of my belly. It slid into me like my flesh was warm butter. This time the pain didn’t wait so long. My vision fogged over with it. Everything around me swam in red seas.

Richter’s other fist came up, then down, cracking my left eye. My head swiveled under the blow, and I fell to my bad knee. He yanked the blade out to stick it somewhere deadlier. I countered without thinking, without seeing really. My instinct was true.

My knife gored his solar plexus.

Richter grunted surprise.

A rage bloomed spotty and red on his face. I jerked the knife up and left, gutting him.

Richter screamed in pain.

Tripp screamed in fear.

I howled like a caveman getting over on a sabretooth.

Richter grabbed my knife hand and pulled me in. His blade thrust out so fast, I felt it in my chest before I saw it move. Now it was me screaming, three wounds bleeding. He faltered, letting go of his knife, and I twisted my blade still opening his intestines. Crying out, Richter brought his bony fist down once, twice, cracking my skull again and again.

My knife hand came to the rescue, twisting my spring blade and ripping a new angle upward.

When Richter screamed his holy ghost wail, my hair stood on end.

Then Tripp was there. He wrapped a belt around the ferret’s neck and pulled up and backward. Richter’s free hand clawed weakly at the belt. Tripp twisted it tighter. I fell away, leaving my knife at the center of a blooming, purple-red gore welling out of Richter’s center. I’d opened his intestines, and it smelled like death from downwind. The whole scene wavered, out of focus and awash in a crimson haze. Richter’s struggles loosened as life and lunch bled out of his belly. Before I blacked out, I realized Tripp hadn’t used a belt at all to kill that traitorous sonofabitch.