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Grimes was learning to dislike the cold. Inured by training to most forms of discomfort, he could endure virtually anything in pursuit of his goals. Cold, however, he had the least experience with. Without exception, everywhere on Venus boiled with heat. This never proved an issue for the killer. Cold, he soon discovered, possessed its own unique flavor. If not managed, a minor chill would creep into the very bones and settle into a dull ache, eventually rendering joints into stiff immobility and turning muscles into useless knots. The pain itself meant nothing to Grimes. But he soon learned that there existed a particular sort of excruciation in the novelty of new pain. All the sensations being cold brought to his paradigm were new, and without the comfort of familiarity, he was left to wonder what fresh inconveniences the damp chill of the Underworld might bring him.
He could have rented a sleeping unit and rested in relative comfort. The temptation to do precisely that tiptoed across the goosebumps dotting the bare skin of his face and neck. This, of course, was folly. Any such transaction would leave a trail for his pursuers to follow. Better to simply disappear into the many convenient shadows and stay there. The Underworld offered no paucity of dark holes to hide in, making this the easy choice.
Grimes found a maintenance scuttle that connected two levels of air purification equipment and secreted himself into an alcove barely large enough for his supine body. He could wait there for days, if necessary. He would have to venture out for water and food and the occasional bathroom break, but not often and not for much else. Soon, the Fratre Militae would scrub those fixers from his path, and he would transfer his package before catching a transport to somewhere with a spaceport.
He spent the first day searching for mushin. Grimes longed for clarity, and the state of having no ego, no emotion, no mind, was where clarity lived. He never found it. He could remember it, of course. He remembered how easy it used to be too. When he possessed only a singular purpose, wiping all thoughts and feelings away had been a simple exercise. He imagined a lone candle in an otherwise dark room. The single flickering point of light dominated attention at first. If you looked into that tiny flame, your eyes lost the ability to see anything else. Once one could neither see nor think of anything but the flame, all that remained was to erase it from your perceptions as well. No candle. No room. No light or dark.
No mind.
Perfect clarity.
Losing mushin had been like losing a limb. He had felt it go too. It had crumbled like a sandcastle before the rising tide, washed away by something inexorable and larger than his limited imagination could understand. The Balisongs and the cause had been his candle in that dark room. A candle snuffed out by the greed of a few evil men and the weakness of inadequate resolve. Without that purpose, without the comfort of his absolute faith in the righteousness of his path, the shadows of doubt and hurt swallowed all attempts to relight it. How does one focus on something that does not exist? Grimes had no purpose. Worse, he never did. He was born of nothing, lived for nothing, and he was probably going to die for nothing.
His eyes snapped open. He could not tell from fear or anger, but the surge of emotion shattered his focus like crystal. Another failed attempt. The heat of anger bathed his cheeks, and he molded the emotion into a singular focus on his goals. At least he had zanshin. Zanshin did not require emptiness or calm. Zanshin lived in the instant between thought and action. A single unbreakable channel of pure distilled concentration that brooked no distractions. An old warrior, Grimes could not remember which one it was, had once written that a soldier’s purpose must be so strong that he would take three steps toward his goal after being decapitated. That was zanshin. Mushin was an archer, blocking out the entire universe to make a perfect shot. Zanshin was the arrow, an unthinking instrument hurtling across the chaos of the battlefield to complete a discrete task. Grimes had lost his ability to be the archer, but no matter what fate had in store for the assassin, he knew he could always be the arrow.
With as much of his mental state decided as he could manage in the moment, he decided to venture out for food and to reconnoiter his surroundings. In truth, he just wanted to stretch his limbs and warm his blood a little. Dropping the twelve feet from his hiding spot to the maintenance catwalk below made no sound, despite his almost 275 pounds striking the loose decking at considerable speed. His thighs and calves flexed in perfect time to soften the impact and leave no audible trace of his descent. The case with the memory core thumped softly against his back, reminding him that the real prize remained in play. Even so, this special attention to stealth was probably unnecessary. No human had been down this particular path in months, judging by the dust and darkness. Nevertheless, Grimes refused to be sloppy or complacent. It would be just his luck for a random maintenance person to hear him land and report the noise. He stayed in his crouch for a second, cocking his head to listen with bionic ears for signs of life. His eyes pierced the darkness with infrared and ultraviolet filters both. He heard nothing and saw nothing. Satisfied, he began to pick his way among the machines toward the hatch separating the mechanical room from the main walkways.
He stopped at the hatch, listening through the metal to ensure that no random passer-by stood on the other side. When all was quiet, he opened the door and slipped into a dim corridor. He made his way down the hall without stopping. Hood pulled low over his face and posture bent just enough to mask his height and build, the killer stepped from the dim path and onto a large concourse. Here he found ambling masses of people traveling to and from their points of interest in dense clumps. He had not chosen to move at this time by chance. Crowds were camouflage, and Grimes needed it. He attached himself to a group of what looked and smelled like food service workers as they moved to his right. They chatted amicably about the quality of synthetic poultry in the Underworld and exchanged terse gossip about a secret chicken coop with actual live birds somewhere below. Grimes stayed close enough to look like part of their group, but not so close as to draw their ire. When they reached an intersection with another corridor, Grimes broke away to move off to the left branch. Signs indicated that further along this path he would find an automated food vendor and a public restroom. He went to the restroom first and relieved himself before moving on to gather supplies for another long, cold night wedged in between two machines.
He did not recognize the man waiting for him at the kiosk. Tall, spare, with a towering shock of lime green hair atop his pale head, the man wore a long sleeveless coat in some sort of shiny black synthetic material. Normally, Grimes would merely wait his turn and secure his food. He locked eyes with the stranger right away and knew in a moment he would be missing this meal. The green-haired man smirked and waved at the killer’s approach. Grimes let his eyes flash orange while they scanned the stranger. As he suspected, the gaudy coat hid a dozen weapons and other devices meant for spying. The scan revealed no bionics, though. No body modifications were apparent either. That narrowed down the potential affiliations to only one possibility.
He stopped four feet away and tilted his head. “Can I help you, Inquisitor?”
Green-hair’s smile widened. “That is what I love about you foreign operatives. You are perceptive. The worms down here could not find their own asses with both hands and a map, but you are the second off-worlder to decipher my profession in the last day.”
“I have no business with the Inquisition.”
“Of course you don’t, Mr. Grimes. The Inquisition, however, has some business with you.”
Grimes took a step forward. “I’m hungry. Get out of my way.”
Green-hair stepped to the side and gestured to the food kiosk with a flourish. “By all means, be my guest.” Grimes stepped up and began to make selections. Green-hair hissed at the options presented. “But if you would like something more palatable, I believe I could be convinced to spot you a nicer meal somewhere more private.”
Grimes let his hand fall from the order screen. He turned his head without turning his body to address the man. “You are not going to leave me to my business, are you?”
“Afraid not.”
“Fine. Do you have a name?”
“The people down here call me Slag.” Green-hair bobbed his head from side to side. “But that’s more like my character. My friends call me Raphael.”
“Slag suits you better.”
The man called Raphael laughed. “Hah! You pick, then. Come on. Follow me.”
Grimes did not want to follow Raphael. But he did not want to go back to the maintenance tunnel and this Inquisitor likely represented his best chance of getting back to somewhere with a spaceport. He fell in behind the man, leaving a generous gap between them. If Raphael noticed his caution, he said nothing about it. Grimes noticed the other Inquisitors slotting in around him at respectful distances as they walked. He acknowledged each with a curt nod. They may as well know that he was not fooled. It would save time and misunderstandings later if these Inquisitors did not overestimate their own prowess. They walked in silence, Grimes mapping the route with his internal bionics for later repetition. He need not have bothered, for the destination was not a secret room or clandestine hideaway. Raphael pointed to an otherwise uninteresting door with holographic letters floating above. They read, “The Comfy Chair,” and rotated in a jaunty wobbling circle around a smiling recliner.
“Man,” Raphael stated with a smile, “no one can resist this place. Rumors say they have real chicken.”
Grimes saw the facade for what it was. “This is a front for the Inquisition? A restaurant?”
“You’d be amazed what you hear in a place like this,” Raphael replied. “Gimme a sec, I gotta get into character.”
Raphael sagged his shoulders, pasted am arrogant sneer on his lips, and stuck his hands into the pockets of his coat. His cohort adopted similar postures, transforming into what most people would be fooled into thinking was another burned-out clump of Underworld lowlifes. Grimes, with his hood still up and his drab attire, matched well enough to not seem too out of place.
“Follow me,” Raphael said as he slapped the door control. It slid open with a hiss and a squeal, and the Inquisitor stomped through as if he owned the place. Grimes followed. Inside, the smell of cooking meat assailed his nostrils. Several people looked up from their tables to fix them with a glare, though Raphael meet each without slowing his pace. They crossed the floor, weaving through metal tables and heading for the kitchen. Grimes saw a waitress reach up to fix her hair and caught the glint of a carefully concealed communicator beneath her auburn tresses. Grimes could not say if these Inquisitors were sloppy or if he was just very good. None had been difficult to spot up to this point, though. Then he remembered that bionics were outlawed here, and that he was capable of seeing and hearing things others could not.
The kitchen smelled worse than the dining room, and Grimes needed to turn down his olfactory systems to avoid retching. Based on the aroma, he suspected they really were processing actual animal flesh here. These Inquisitors ate well, at the very least. Past the kitchen, Raphael took the group through another door and into a small office. He went to the lone desk and tapped on the terminal a few times. The far wall shuddered and slid away to reveal a tight hallway. Grimes smiled. “Ahhhhh,” he commented. “Very nice.”
“Sometimes the old ways are the best ways,” Raphael replied. “Most folks think we fence stolen goods out of this place, so no one gets suspicious when scumbags like me come and go from the back office. Come on.” He trotted off down the dim hall. It proceeded for more than fifty feet before terminating at a simple metal door where Raphael entered a code. He made no attempt to hide it, and Grimes assumed that the code had nothing to do with unlocking the door. His eyes had already confirmed that a suite of high-end devices scanned them while they waited. Bio-recognition would be what allowed them access, not whatever combination of letters and numbers Raphael had tapped out. The code, Grimes surmised, warned others on the other side as to the situation in the hall. If Grimes abducted Raphael and tried to use him to get that door open, Raphael could simply enter a code that warned his team of the danger. Balisongs had many such tricks themselves. These were mostly hand signals and verbal cues that a brother under duress could employ to warn the others of foul play. Raphael had not been wrong. Sometimes the old ways were the best ways.
Once through the door, Grimes found exactly what he suspected he would find. A thoroughly modern and technologically advanced command center spread out before the knot of Inquisitors and their guest. Monitors lined every inch of wall space, and each glowed with moving images from all over the Underworld. Facing these were rows of desk terminals, and more screens dotted these like the offspring of their larger brethren on the walls. Men hunched over the workstations, talking into comms and swiping instructions to what Grimes assumed were teams of Inquisitors secreted all over the facility. In the center of the room a large oval table sat, surrounded by chairs and sprouting its own robust garden of terminal screens. Grimes pressed his lips together and exhaled through his nose. There was much more than a token intelligence gathering operation going on here. No wonder he had been found so easily. Sensing his irritation, Raphael spread his arms wide and turned to face Grimes. “Welcome to Inquisition Post 171 Bravo, Mr. Grimes.”
“I’m still hungry,” he replied.
“Donatello,” said Raphael to one of his team members, “get our guest some tenders, would you?”
“Sir,” the man said with a curt nod before shuffling off down the hall.
Raphael went over to the table in the middle. He dropped his coat onto a chair and gestured for Grimes to sit at an identical version across from him. “Real chicken, man, fried in real fat. You’re gonna love it.”
“And our business?”
“We have one more guest arriving. Then we’ll talk business.”
“Do I get to know who that is?”
“In a minute. This guy loves to make an entrance.”
“Well, that is certainly cryptic.”
Raphael shrugged. “I’m a spy.”
It took six minutes for the mystery to resolve itself. Grimes had just bitten into an honest-to-goodness real chicken tender when he felt the floor vibrate beneath his feet. He looked up in time to see the wide double doors at the back of the room slide open. Beyond the threshold stood a man in brilliant blue power armor. He paused in the entrance, if only to let everyone get a good look at him before he strode into the room. The armor gleamed, its ornate flourishes and intricate gilding catching every stray bit of light and reflecting it forward like the facets of a well-cut gem. His right hand was encased in an enormous gauntlet, and the scanners in his eyes told Grimes that the big fist hid technologies like nothing he had ever seen before.
“Captain Jericho!” Raphael called from his own seat. “Good to see you! Please, come sit!”
“You know I cannot,” Jericho replied. His helmet speakers lent an ominous electronic timbre to his voice. Grimes scoffed audibly at the gross theatricality of it all. Perhaps the pious rabble found the act impressive. Grimes did not.
“Captain,” Raphael said with a weary sigh. “You do not need to be in the armor here. Have a seat so we can eat and talk. I like to see a man’s eyes when I discuss the work of protecting the Church.”
The ornate faceplate at the front of the bascinet helmet lifted to reveal the face of Knight-Captain Jericho. Grimes marked the square jaw, deep angry eyes, and face scored with lines born of age and battle both. Grimes knew that look. This was no swaggering Sword Brother thug. This was a warrior in the old tradition, a true believer armed with a powerful battlesuit and the conviction of total faith. Something about Jericho irritated Grimes. He recognized too much of what he saw in the Knight. He saw shadows of himself. Distant flickers of what he had been lashed his subconscious with stinging recriminations. These passed quickly. Too much time separated those wasted years on Venus from this moment for Grimes to take his self-doubts to heart. In truth, after taking a few seconds to reflect upon it, Grimes realized that he felt nothing but pity for Jericho. The Knight was a fool, and no one had told him yet.
“Can you see my eyes now, Inquisitor?” Jericho sounded haughty. Grimes tried not to roll his eyes.
“Yes, Captain,” Raphael replied, a wry twist to his lips. “To business, then.”
“Please,” urged Jericho.
Raphael’s scowl deepened, and something like irritation at last bent his tone into something far less cordial than it had been. “Let’s start with introductions, then. I am Inquisitor-General Raphael Cantonino, and I have had just about all the disrespect I care to take from you, Captain.”
The way Raphael leaned into the Knight’s rank told Grimes that perhaps Jericho’s arrogance had exceeded his position in the local hierarchy. The way Jericho’s jaw clenched in response to the barb confirmed this. The assassin suspected this might be a common theme with Jericho. Arrogance came naturally to some people, and the Knight oozed condescension from every line and pore on his face. Raphael took note of Jericho’s shift as well, and he flashed white teeth in a mean smile. “And this is Killam Grimes, a registered freelancer in good standing with the Hunter’s Lodge.”
Jericho’s heavy gaze fell on Grimes, who met it with his own level glare. Instant animosity bloomed to fill the space between them. “Grimes,” the Knight said with nod.
“Captain,” Grimes responded, equally brusque.
“Great!” Raphael said. “We’re all friends. Good. Let’s get to the task of doing God’s work, shall we?”
“I’m an atheist,” Grimes said, without taking his eyes off Jericho.
“Nobody’s perfect,” Raphael quipped. “Now, I understand Mr. Grimes here needs to escape our planet with an object of some value to his employer, yes?”
“Essentially,” Grimes said.
“Right. And Sir Harland needs to retrieve a fugitive for Elder Polito.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Grimes asked.
“Well, that fugitive is Melinda Carter.”
Grimes did not recognize the name at first. He took a few seconds to think of why that name should mean anything. “Mindy,” he said at last.
“Correct,” said Raphael.
“You want me to help you abduct Mindy?” Grimes felt his face tighten. “That is not a small thing to ask, Inquisitor. She is not some blushing debutante you can simply stuff into a sack. On her own this would be a challenge. With her friends nearby, the task may be impossible.”
“With God, all things are possible,” Jericho said. “And The Lord is on our side.”
“You will forgive me if that does not reassure much,” Grimes replied. He tried not to be curt, but Jericho’s manner grated on his nerves.
Raphael nodded. “Well, the Lord’s plan often includes worldly help. That is where the good captain comes in. Sir Harland can handle Tankowicz—”
Grimes failed to conceal his sneer this time. Raphael replied with an eyeroll. “Trust me, Grimes. For all his faults, there is no greater warrior in all of explored space than Captain Jericho. He is the First Fist of the Teutons for a reason.”
“I will defeat the abomination.” Jericho said it with a vehemence that reeked of madness to Grimes. The assassin conceded that he was probably a bit sensitive to that sort of thing, though.
“Fine,” Grimes replied. “So who will handle the Ribiero woman, Richardson, and the most famous assassin in the galaxy while you are doing that?” Grimes barked a harsh laugh. “Inquisitors? Hah. I think not, Slag.”
Raphael did not take the insult to heart. “Well, we will have the Sword Brothers to help, and of course, yourself, Mr. Grimes.”
“And what is my role in this farce?”
“You, my dear Killam, are the bait.”