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To say that Alasdair Craddock was furious would have been an unforgivable understatement. The beefy man stood shivering with barely constrained rage before his office terminal. The long lined face of Lincoln Hardesty stared back at him from the screen, wearing a look of bland irritation.
“You didn’t see him, Lincoln!” Craddock blustered. “Something fucked up is going on for them to send...” he waved his hands in frustration, “...whatever the fuck he is here.”
“What, is he some kind of augmented guy, maybe an armature or something? You must have a hundred armatures down there. So what’s the big deal?”
Craddock wiped his face with a sweaty palm. “You aren’t getting me. Yeah, I got lots of mounted metal heads down here. I got armatures coming out my ass, Link. I know armatures as well as you know underage whores. I figured that Dwarf clown was going to send some sort of hitter, sure. So I bring two of the lads with me, right?”
“We covered this, Al.”
“Yeah, but you ain’t hearing me. This big bald fuck scraps two of my boys in Stahlies with one hand a piece, and he doesn’t even rip his jacket doing it.”
“So? Bring three guys next time.”
“Goddamn it, Link! Pay the fuck attention! Taking two Stahlkorpers ain’t impossible. A Kano could do it. That ain’t the point. What you should be as pissed off as me about is that this guy bent them into pretzels and he wasn’t mounted to shit.” Craddock held a palm up to the screen to stop Hardesty’s dismissive retort. “Yeah, yeah. Maybe a guy can throw a suit over some of that high-end exotic voodoo the military likes and still look all right. That kind of shit don’t fool me, Link. I know the look, I know the walk, I know the feel of it. This was something else, and it all stinks like shit to me. I’ve lost two teams of Balisongs, and I get reports that some big augmented bastard and a couple of broads are the ones who put them down. Then I get this giant cyborg of seriously fishy origins thumping Stahlkorpers two at a time in my goddamn office. This shit don’t sound like coincidence to me, and nobody wants to tell me nothing about it!” Craddock leaned into the monitor. “So I ask again, Link: exactly what the fuck have you brought down on us?”
“I never figured you for a man who would turn belly up and whimper over some dirtside muscle just because things got a little scary.”
Craddock made an eloquent and emphatic gesture at the man on his screen. “Oh fuck off, Link. That macho bullshit might work on the other guys, but I know you too well to fall for it. I asked a question and I’m still waiting for the answer. What the hell are you into that we gotta throw Balisongs at a runaway, and causes Earth bosses to send high-end mystery hitters at us?”
On the screen, Hardesty’s face twisted into a placating mask of beneficence. “I’m into all the same things you are, Al. Just more of them and bigger. I figure some of my smuggling operations have probably pissed off the Dockside crews. With their whole new trade system going on, we got to figure they are looking to flex a little on us. If only to make a damn point.”
“Yeah, well it looks like they are flexing more than a little. And that still doesn’t explain why I’m bleeding assassins over a damn runaway.”
Hardesty’s smile faltered for a moment, and then fell away completely when he saw that Craddock was watching intently. “That little runner of yours was our best scout, Al. He has seen a lot of very sensitive information. How long before he gets desperate and starts to sell that information?”
“Link, we’ve had all kinds of runners over the years. You and I both know how the Red Hat life breaks people. We like to make examples of ‘em to keep everyone in line, but we have never chased one this hard before.” Craddock leaned back, eyes narrowed. “I’ve never seen one get you this rattled, neither. I don’t get spooked just because something don’t smell right, but I get irritated when my partners hold out on me. I’ve known Manuel since he was five goddamn years old. He ain’t selling shit to no one. He left because he got squeamish, not because he stopped believing in the cause.”
“He left because you tried to kill him, Al.”
“No, Link, you tried to kill him. That was your call, and I was never on board with it. I’d have worked him a little longer before going that route, personally. Losing a guy like him was wasteful. I figured he has some shit on you, and you not wanting to tell me what it is means it’s probably shit I ain’t gonna like.”
“He has shit on all of us,” Hardesty sounded like a man beginning to lose his temper. “He broke into the RUC garrison and walked out with all their personnel files. He stole the hard copies from the Material Sciences Corporation main offices. He had his fingers in every major operation we’ve done for the last fifteen years. You will find yourself mining ice in an Enceladus work camp for the rest of your life if that boy starts talking. You should be as keen as I am to bring him down.” What he left out of this list was the damning OmniCorp files Manny had seen. Craddock did not ever need to know what was in those.
“Yeah, yeah. I get that part. What has me sweating and cranky is the stink of bullshit coming off you over this kid. Now, it’s obvious you aren’t going to level with me. You never have on anything else, so why should this be different?” That last part was almost an aside, but Hardesty took his meaning all too well. Theirs was not a relationship built upon trust or respect. The narrow-faced man let it slide as Craddock continued. “I’m all the way in on this one because you say you can get me the nav pylons. But I’m warning you, Link. If this starts to stink too much...” His head shook side to side, teeth clenched. “Like maybe I’m being offered as a sacrificial lamb or some shit? Then you and I are gonna have a serious problem.”
“Relax, Al. Nobody is getting sacrificed. There is really, really, big stuff going down, and when it’s all shaken out you are going to have your crack at the nav pylons. But a whole bunch of other shit is going to be shaking out at the same time, and you can’t know about all of it. The stupid kid can hurt this. He probably doesn’t realize it, but he has seen things that are a big problem for us all. My other partners really want him handled. They got deep pockets, Al, and so I’m going to deliver on that.”
Craddock was not satisfied with this answer, this much was obvious. Irritation was written across his features in strokes of conflicting anger and suspicion. In a few tense seconds, expedience proved victorious over trepidation. Though not pleased, he resigned himself to being placated. Such was his desire to secure the nav pylons.
“Fine. Keep it to yourself, then. But that still doesn’t solve the problem with this fixer freak. He says Manuel is to be left alone because we broke some of their rules, and they need to make an example of it. I know you and your buddies need him dead, but is it worth going to war with Dockside? We unload shit there too, you know.”
Hardesty seemed happy for the change of subject, and his response was dismissive. “I’ll contact this Dwarf character and see what can be done. In the meantime, just keep an eye on Richardson and don’t move on him until we know what we are dealing with. Where is the boy now?”
Craddock’s eyes flicked, a subtle show of chagrin. “Nobody fucking knows, Link. You knew him in the old days, too. If this kid wants to be invisible, he’s fucking invisible. We only see him when he moves or fucks up. After the last run, he went silent again. So now we are stuck waiting for him to pop up on the radar. He might still be on Earth, or he might be halfway to Galapagos by now.”
Hardesty shook his head. “Dammit. But you are right about that kid. No one will find him unless he wants to be found. At least running silent is almost as good as dead as far as our plans are concerned.” His eyes darted back to Craddock’s. “But dead is still the preferred outcome.”
“What do I do with the fixer? He ain’t gonna sit on his hands and wait for us.”
“Is Grimes awake yet?”
The stocky man sighed. “Not yet. He rode in that crate for almost sixty hours. He was pretty messed up. Docs say he’ll be up and running in a day or two though.”
“Have Grimes take a look at this fixer. See if he recognizes him from the Dockside operation.”
Bushy eyebrows rose. “You think it’s the same guy?”
“Like you said, Al, it doesn’t feel like coincidence.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Craddock admitted. “If Manny is hooked up with this fucker...”
“His message was very clear,” Hardesty prompted. “Richardson did say he would come after us if we did not back off.”
“That little piece of shit,” Craddock fumed. “He’s here, isn’t he?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Al. We don’t know any of that for sure.”
“Link,” Craddock’s voice had a hint of warning to it. “That would mean the Dockside crews are in on this, too. The big bastard wasn’t lying. They really are trying to make an example out of us.”
Hardesty nodded. “That sure seems likely. Their whole Trade Association is a brand new thing. They have no reputation and no history. If they can back us down, they are going to look a lot stronger than before.”
“Fuck!” A meaty fist struck the desk, causing a worn DataPad to jump and clatter. “We really don’t need this hassle right now! Now we can’t back off Manny even if we wanted to. Shit! If he really is here, right now? Do you realize how bad that is?”
This seemed to confuse Hardesty. “We’re trying to kill the little shit. I figure that makes things easier, not harder, Al.”
“Link.” Craddock sounded tired. “Why is it so important to kill him?”
“Because he knows things that can upset lots of people’s plans. We covered this already.”
“And how does a twenty-four-year-old punk know all these dangerous things?”
Hardesty frowned. “Because he is a kickass scout and infiltrator, and we used him to steal information from important people. I fail to see how...”
Craddock interrupted, “And if he is here, wondering why we want him so badly, what do you suppose he will be doing with his time?”
There was a long, pregnant pause as the older man processed this line of questioning. “Aw, crap,” was his final, eloquent response.
“Yeah,” Craddock agreed with a curt nod. “You better lock all your shit down as tight as you can, because it ain't Alasdair Craddock he’ll be looking to expose. He already has enough to burn me anytime he wants to. He hasn’t done it because he already figured out that you are the problem, not me. Whatever your game is, Link, this kid will want to know the details so he can use them to fuck you over. And when Manuel Richardson wants to know something?” The stocky man held his palms up in a gesture of futility. “Ain’t nobody figured out how to stop him from finding it out.”
“Well now, Alasdair,” Hardesty sighed. “Now you know why we need him dead so urgently.”
“I still don’t know shit, Link. But you gotta help me here. I need passenger logs for the last week. I need security logs, too. Fuck it, I got to have cargo manifests on top of it all, because the little prick likes to hide as cargo when he sneaks around.”
“Do you have any idea how much cargo moves between the domes every day?”
It was a stupid question. Craddock knew exactly how enormous a task he had just put on Hardesty. His response conveyed exactly how much sympathy he had in reserve for the older man. “This is your fuck-up, Link. Sorry if it means you’ll have to do some actual work to fix it.”
“Richardson won’t be on any logs, you know that.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t working alone. The Balisongs talked about a couple of women with the fixer back in Dockside. If this really is the same guy, then I want to know who they are and if they are here, too. This fixer also said he had a military exemption, so somebody’s got to get that information from the RUC. I don’t have that kind of juice. So you gotta do that too, Link.”
“Fine,” Hardesty sounded tired and irritated at having to get his hands dirty, but Craddock did not care. “I will run this mess to the ground for you, Link, but you and I are due for a reckoning soon.”
“I’ll read you in on everything as soon as I can, Al. Trust me. We’ve known each other for a long time. I would not expose you to anything that could harm our relationship.”
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Get me that intel and get your house in order before Manny breaks in. And believe me, he’ll get in. So just make sure there is nothing for him to find when he does.
“Of course.” Hardesty nodded his agreement. “Alasdair?”
“Yeah, Link?”
“Big things are coming. Things that will secure the future for Free Venus. I need you to know that no matter what happens, I am loyal to the cause and we will live to see a Free Venus. Together.”
“That’s real nice to hear, Link. Get me that intel and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”
Craddock cut the connection, leaving Lincoln Hardesty staring at a blank screen. Gnarled fingers sporting neatly manicured nails wiped a face lined with age and stress. With a deep sigh he looked out through his penthouse window, overlooking the capital city of Free Venus. It was well into the city’s night cycle, and the dome lights had been lowered to minimum to help with sleep patterns. But Caelestus never really slept, and a sprawling metropolis of steel and light spread out below him. Ten thousand blinking dots pulsed like the synapses of an overworked brain, streaks of light darting across the blackness to disappear like the fleeting thoughts of a child’s fancy. There was a beauty in it all, but Lincoln Hardesty had lost the taste for it.
He sighed again, and swung his gaze back to his terminal. Fingers tapped against the controls, coding instructions to underlings and sending missives to allies. Craddock would get his information, though the harder items would be costly to acquire. More difficult would be managing the surly terrorist’s suspicions. Craddock did not rise to his current position by being stupid or reckless. The man had a devilish cunning and preternatural instincts for trouble. He was a useful and powerful ally. Though like any well-trained-yet-vicious animal, he could be very dangerous to work with all the same. The situation was far too precarious for his liking. The boy was unaware of what it was he was holding, that much was obvious. As long as he never figured it out, things would be fine.
However, if the spineless little turncoat put the pieces together, it would spell disaster for Hardesty and the Red Hats alike. The lie to Craddock had been more painful than he thought it would be, but Hardesty had long ago outgrown his zeal for a Free Venus. If Venus truly wanted to be free, it would be. Too many of the rank and file were satisfied with Council leadership, and without unity, the industrial domes would never be free of that yoke. The Troubles had been very profitable for Lincoln Hardesty, however. Thus his participation in the conflict had increased even as his convictions weakened over the years. The irony was not lost on him.
Sometimes, when he was deep into his drinks or caught in a rare moment of reflection, Lincoln Hardesty would feel a great pang of guilt and sadness over this. There was something comforting and cleansing about the absolute unwavering dedication to an ideal. It kept things like guilt and responsibility from weighing a man down, and allowed him to become a creature of pure purpose. Great things could be accomplished when a person spared no thought or effort for anything but the goal. Tantalizing as it was, it was a conceit restricted to the underdeveloped mind. Nothing that simplistic could survive scrutiny or logic. When Hardesty could no longer hold back the encroaching doubts of a maturing worldview, he was forced to abandon those ideals for more practical goals. Still, he envied those who could hold onto the singular drive of a pure zealot. He missed the simplicity of it all. But then he would sober up and realize that he had no desire to trade his current situation for that of a Red Hat.
To emphasize this point to himself, Hardesty pinged the concierge for a nice steak dinner that cost more than a Venusian laborer made in a week, then scheduled his favorite prostitute for an after-dinner appointment. Craddock would handle Manuel Richardson and the fixer, so there was no need to get too upset about it. Despite his own greed, that man still had more than a little fanatic left in him. An honest opportunity to take the nav pylons would keep him focused for a while yet, so Hardesty would let him have as much rope as he asked for.
It was a very calm and detached Lincoln Hardesty who answered the gentle chime of his door. Dinner had arrived and there was no sense in letting an expensive meal get cold, after all.