Alice experiences a certain relief in no longer having to pretend she doesn’t know just how corrupt Nikki Freeman is, but it doesn’t make the ugliness of it all any easier to swallow. She feels the bile rising in her throat listening to Nikki so blithely describe the function and dynamics of this venal, fetid morass of self-gratification and indulgence.
Her shirt is clinging to her, the material weighed down by the damp and sticky weight of the slashed woman’s blood. Every so often she catches the smell of it and threatens to gag. She wishes she could tear it off, wring it out over Freeman’s head, rub it on her face. This is the world you’ve created, she wants to tell her, the world your on-going greed and amorality sustains.
But she has a job to do, so instead she simply listens, the anger turning toxic inside her like the blood on her clothes is surely putrefying.
“I spoke to Sol Freitas. He was one of Korlakian’s work colleagues from NutriGen.”
“I remember. Him and Alex Dade. Presumably your inquiries were not restricted to food processing.”
“They all work for Julio Martinez, who runs one of Seedee’s rival bootlegging organisations. Omega was involved in the theft of a shipment intended for Yoram Ben Haim. They paid a manifest administrator to divert Yoram’s people to another dock so that they could make off with the shipment when it came off the shuttle. Freitas thinks Yoram killed Omega as payback for that.”
“It seems highly disproportionate payback.”
Nikki pauses, clearly evaluating how much to disclose, which serves only to tell Alice that there’s plenty she’s keeping back.
“Yoram’s people were diverted to Dock Nine, which was in lockdown. They snuck in and there was an altercation with these high-level mercenary types. I don’t know who they were.”
Nikki breaks her gaze for a moment. It’s enough to tell Alice what she’s hiding: she was there.
“And what is Yoram saying about it?”
Nikki pauses too long once again.
“I know you work for him, so let’s skip the games. How is his demeanour? Could it have been him?”
Nikki frowns, busted.
“He’s on edge, feeling besieged, looking for conspiracies. He even thinks you might be part of it: that the incident at the Ver Eterna was a set-up and you took a dart so that there could be a crackdown.”
Alice glances at her forearm, Nikki tracking her gaze. There is still a bump beneath her sleeve where the bandage sits.
“And is that what you think? That I’m at the heart of some grand conspiracy?”
“I think Yoram is pretty paranoid, but he’s probably not wrong that Julio is planning something. Freitas was boasting about some move Julio hasn’t made yet. That’s why he thinks Omega’s death and what happened to his body was a pre-emptive strike in the war that’s coming.”
Alice recalls the words of Helen Petitjean, who gave her such invaluable information, not least the heads-up regarding Nikki.
There is tension in this place. You can feel it. And it’s building up to something bad, something explosive.
Alice becomes aware of Nikki glancing to her left, from where she sees one of the surgeons approaching, wiping sweat and a smear of blood across her forehead. Behind her Liza is being moved gently on to a collapsible gurney, a medic holding up a clear bag full of fluid.
“Hey, Lupe,” Nikki hails her. “How’s Liza? She still gonna be able to count past six on her fingers?”
“My team are going to get her prepped over at ERU where I can work my magic. I’ve seen worse lately. Good thing is it was a cut with a laser scalpel, so the severing was clean. Nothing ripped and ragged.”
“And what about the girl José’s working on? She gonna be okay?”
“Think so. He was able to stop the bleeding quite quickly. Irony is, if she’d been cut up like that anyplace else, it might not have worked out so well for her.”
“How come?” Alice asks.
“Because José was here on the spot waiting to deal with his specialty: fight injuries,” the surgeon explains. “He had the equipment and the know-how.”
“I’m not sure I see his contribution as ‘ironic’ given that she was injured with one of his implements,” Alice replies. “By implication she wouldn’t have sustained such injuries anywhere else.”
The surgeon gives Nikki a quizzical look, seeking an explanation for Alice’s attitude and possibly her very presence.
“Oh, sorry, allow me to make some introductions. This is Dr. Guadalupe Hermosillos, trauma surgeon at Enfermería Rueda Uno. Lupe, this is—Ah … Wendy Goodfellow. She’s new here, so I’m tutoring her in the ways of Seedee.”
Alice and Lupe size each other up warily.
“Wendy, here’s the thing they don’t teach you at the induction courses,” Nikki says. “If you really want to know what’s been happening on CdC, you gotta talk to the surgeons.”
“Why is that?”
“The most common ailment we encounter at ERU is amnesia,” Lupe replies. “When people sustain an injury, they can seldom tell us how it happened. Nobody ever says they were stabbed or slashed or beaten up. They pitch up at the ER, and they can never remember a damn thing.”
“Aren’t there investigations following up on what you witness as a doctor?”
“We can only describe the wounds we’re treating. We’re not in a position to say for sure how they were inflicted, and we need patients to know that, so they aren’t reluctant to seek proper treatment.”
Alice tries and fails to mask her disapproval. This is all so rotten.
“It’s not some epidemic of violence,” Lupe adds. “Simply that people don’t want to get themselves fired on account of their extra-curricular activities.”
“And do you get their, ahem, gratitude, in exchange for this?” Alice asks.
Lupe stares back by way of reply.
“Hey, how’s tricks generally these days, Lupe?” Nikki chimes, driving over Alice’s question and the awkwardness it threatens to precipitate. “I mean, what is the worst thing you’ve seen lately?”
Nikki gives Alice a warning glance, and she gleans from both this and the ensuing question that Lupe is a potential source. More ugliness to be swallowed in pursuit of the bigger agenda.
“Oh, no contest. A few days ago, this guy came in, looked like he had put his right leg through a wood-chipper, foot-first.”
“What happened to him?” Alice asks.
Lupe and Nikki share a look. Alice gets there late.
“He couldn’t remember,” she says.
“Thing is, in this case I think he genuinely couldn’t remember. He was really spooked. He said the last thing he recalled was coming out of the shower. Next thing he’s lying on his bedroom floor and his foot looks like burger meat.”
“Who was he?” Nikki asks. “Was he a player?”
“Actually, he was a pilot. Not the usual type for a mystery injury. That’s what made it all the weirder.”
“What was his name?”
“You know the rules, Nikki.”
“Come on, Lupe. Confidentially we’re investigating a possible gang war here. Nobody will ever know it came from you.”
Lupe considers it for a moment. She looks like she might be about to cough when one of the Klaws staff interrupts.
“Nikki, the medics are getting ready to ship out soon, so if you need to speak to the wits …”
“On it,” she replies.
Two of the staff are lifting the unconscious guy on to a gurney. Alice sees that the slashed woman is also being moved, electrodes attached to multiple points on her face and body. The friends who came with her are getting ready to accompany her to the infirmary.
Nikki steps across and cuts them off. She shows them her ID.
“I’m Nikki Freeman of the Seguridad. Now, any one of you want to score some points by telling me what your buddy took tonight before he went full-on feral?”
Most of them simply look down, wanting to melt. One of them does answer, however.
“Nothing,” the guy says. “Just some drinks from the bar. I swear. Javier doesn’t touch stims or enhancers. He’s a lab-rat, same as the rest of us.”
Nikki takes this in. If she believes him, her face offers him no such reassurance.
“Okay, I’m gonna tell you all what I told everybody who already went upstairs. This didn’t happen. You saw nothing. You weren’t here. You know why? Because this place officially doesn’t exist.”
She paces in front of them. They look tired and frightened. They just want this to be over, and Nikki knows it. But Nikki means a different kind of over.
“If you voluntarily identify yourself as having attended an illegal underground fight club, I can personally guarantee that the FNG and the Quadriga will be informed, the official procedures will be set in train and your contract will be cancelled with no right of appeal. If you have the money, it will be automatically debited to pay for putting you on the first shuttle back to Heinlein. Otherwise you will have to fund some kind of hand-to-mouth existence until the end of your contract period, which means unofficial jobs, none of which you are going to want on your résumé when you get back to Earth. Do you all understand?”
There are wordless nods, tremulous lips.
“You share no grabs. You tell nobody about this. You don’t even talk about it to each other. You wake up dreaming about this shit, I want you to slap yourselves in the face. Do you understand?” she asks, louder.
More nodding, which is not enough.
“I said do you understand?”
She elicits a few yes ma’ams, making eye contact with each of them in turn. No question but that they got the message.
“Okay, get out of here.”