A Perfect Day, With Explosions, page 12
“You know, most back alleys don’t have to have a tasteful wooden sign explaining that this was once an actual alleyway.” He walked her clear of the building entrance, and kept moving so the few vendors not busy with set-up wouldn’t hail them. The products ran heavily to tourist trinkets, entertainment holo chips and cubes, and the like. He did appreciate two stalls dedicated to educational holos, one focused on schooling and its companion offering the canned courses for workplace training. Having spent many long cold hours watching those on his implants while unable to move a muscle, he was tempted to see what new ones had come out in the great courses. It was a very strange back alley that was too clean and shiny to have the usual third stall with all the sensie flicks in their many kinks, but this place was all tourist charm.
“The Fair’s been around since we had kings instead of emperors.” Jenna shrugged, entirely unfazed as they walked past a tree easily a foot and a half in diameter, ringed with a sculpture of broken plascrete to imitate the street that once might have been here. AJ looked at it and shook his head. “At some point, if you’re not under city taxes and regs like inside the main building, the nod to being temporary is more an aesthetic than an actual fact.”
AJ nodded, noting that the awnings were built into the buildings, but clearly showed that the actual fabric could be rolled up. Some, in fact, still were, as the vendor wasn’t there yet. The stalls themselves were plumbed for power and water, running hot and cold in some places, and with misters to cool the crowds on a hot day. The front tables on the ones already set up, though, were all the temporary folding kind.
There were actual alleys ahead, between buildings showing the rough and ready prefab assembly after the last surface war’s bombing. The buildings themselves were full of law offices, surveyors and assessors, realtors and specialized professions that benefited not from the things available for sale, but the people flowing through. A woman with a gym bag bigger than both her two small female children ushered them into one of the buildings, and the profession listing by the door proudly proclaimed a ballet studio. He kept walking with Jenna, exploring the fresh-scrubbed streets.
The further from the main market building they got, the more shopkeepers stopped paying attention to Jenna and looking at him. Two and a half blocks from the supposed back alley plaza, they were into actual alleys, with dumpsters and stalls full of tangles of electronics and machined parts. This felt far more familiar, and closer to the world he knew. The wares for sale now had a heavy sprinkling of off-world items mixed in with Fed imports and replacement parts for local bits. Unlike the spools of feedstock for fabricators, some of the electronics, pumps, and other parts looked old enough to date back to the last war in the mining habs. He stepped up to the table, and started reading the papers each part lay on, or the tags attached. A chill crept up AJ’s neck as he looked up and down the alley, really looking now at the parts and seeing just how much of the salvage came from the wrecks he’d worked, the fireships he’d defused, the slaughtered habitats he’d searched for survivors, and the pirated ships he’d cleared. Given their resource-poor planet, everything worthless upstairs had been cut off and parted out to be traded away down here for what little value remained. Just like him.
AJ walked the tables, tallying up the ships he’d known. He picked up an environmental controller, a lump of plastic and metal with wires trailing away, with a tag saying it was salvaged from the ship Integral Tree, level five of the crew section, station 253. He knew the spot; he could suddenly see the corpses tumbling in null-g, the way their blood had smeared across his faceplate as he’d tried to avoid colliding with them, in case of booby traps. He blinked, and blinked again, trying to clear his sight. Someone was highly upset in his left ear, and it wasn’t ship’s channel. Feeling a thousand years old, he turned his head to realize he was in a stall in a street fair, and the shopkeeper was pointing at his hand, where he’d crushed the controller into fragments. When he saw AJ’s face, the smaller man went pale, and the unhappy noises stumbled to silence.
After he’d paid for what he had broken and departed with embarrassment and anger mixing uneasily in his stomach, AJ realized what else was wrong: he’d lost track of Jenna. Fear was metallic in his mouth as he strode down the street. If he’d lost her while he’d been ambushed by memory, and she’d gotten snatched… Fortunately, her hair was bright as a signal beacon, and he found her only two stalls away, completely unaware of what had happened. Her smile was as bright as her hair, as she babbled with innocent delight about the various pieces of equipment set up for display to prove they were still in working order. She caught his hand, and dragged him along to look at another stall, filling his silence with a running commentary on the joys of lights and tubes full of colored water with bubbles. “And there’s a something with rotating lights and spiky bits that reminds me of the Fearga Collection heels. You remember when we saw those?”
AJ did not bite her head off at the inane question. It wouldn’t be fair to her, and she couldn’t understand that he needed to get the hell away from this place, from his memories, from people. The counselor would no doubt be disappointed that he really wanted a drink, and was planning on having a lot more than one as soon as he had Jenna somewhere clear of here and safe. For now, he needed her to act normally, so he had to play along as much as it killed him. “The which what now?”
“Here, over here.” She dragged him into the stall, behind the colored water display, and he stopped in shock. He knew what was powered up on the table before him, and it shouldn’t be here. No amount of lights stuck on for decoration or useless crap attached could camouflage that it was a homing beacon, of a kind he’d planted on no few enemy ships before departing as silent and cold as he’d come, so they had no idea where the missile had come from, or who’d found them. It shouldn’t be down the gravity well, and it definitely shouldn’t be out of military hands, and it most certainly shouldn’t be live and powered up, providing directional guidance. The palace was less than five miles away, and if it was able to guide a missile in despite all the jamming up at orbital levels, or one fired below the aerial defense levels… Or guide something else in, like a Fed strike team, to take out the Emperor as they’d tried so many times before.
AJ grabbed Jenna, folded her into a hug to hide his face, and whispered in her ear, “Play along.” As she relaxed into him, he opened up the communication links to intelligence he’d just gotten yesterday. He’d planned to test them by uploading the tally sheet, but now he worked through the slightly different menus until he could hit the highest levels of alarm, and contact Crane directly. He uploaded the pictures of the homing beacon, live and providing directional guidance to anyone unfriendly, and their location, so if anything happened the breadcrumb trail had been established.
With the sudden clarity that they’d walked into an enemy action, he could shunt his emotions aside and focus on the mission, putting calm and control on like an old familiar suit. Taking the time to kiss Jenna like that was the reason he’d grabbed her, AJ straightened up. “Yes, like the shoes you claimed you couldn’t wear. I don’t think you could wear that, either.”
She giggled at him, and walked beside him as he hunted down the shopkeeper. “I checked the tag; the phase antenna’s reserved for a customer. So I couldn’t get it anyway.”
“We’ll see about that.” The shopkeeper was uncrating a stack of motors when AJ came up to him. “Pardon me.” AJ said softly, and the man looked up at him.
“How can I help you, sir?” Kneeling before AJ was a weathered old man, of the kind that made a living all across the world and all the habitats and all the stations by buying a bit here, a bit there, and passing them on without questions.
“The phased array antenna you have on display. I understand that one is reserved, but where did you get it, and do you have another? I have an urgent need for one.”
“It came off a consignment shipment yesterday. While it was the only one, I have another shipment coming tomorrow from the same source.” The shopkeeper smiled, and creaked to his feet. “Those entire shipments already have a buyer.” The shopkeeper did not look at the bills AJ was putting on the table, and AJ didn’t either.
“I’m sure we could come to an arrangement for a piece or two. Something always gets lost in transit.” AJ replied, and added a few more bills. “In fact, if you could tell me when your buyer is coming, I’d be most interested to see if he’s willing to negotiate for some… associated pieces he might have.”
Jenna, thankfully, was smart enough to keep her mouth shut, and look decorative and clueless as they carefully negotiated, and he pushed any scrap of information up at top alarm. He couldn’t get the shopkeeper to part with the electronics on display, but he did get another innocuous-looking piece mislabeled as a unilateral phase detractor, and its companion, tagged as a synchronized cardinal grammeter. When they had parted with agreements to meet with the buyer when they came tomorrow from both shipments, AJ carefully slipped the card into a Faraday pocket, and took Jenna’s arm, steering her back toward the main fair building. She waited until they were well away before asking, “What is it?”
“I saw a ballet studio earlier. You mentioned being interested in dance classes?” He smiled at her, and her eyes got a little wide and worried, but she gave him a smile that only someone who knew her could tell was fake.
“Oh, that sounds lovely! I missed it!” She bounced a little despite high heels, and followed him back up the block until they could open the unlocked door and climb the stairs. The hallway at the top of the stairwell had a window looking out over the main street. AJ could hear muffled voices and music behind a closed studio door, but they had a little pocket of privacy that smelled of dust, locker room, and cosmetics. It was as close to perfect as he was going to get for overwatch and comnet reception. Jenna looked confused, but waited as he composed and uploaded a slightly more orderly report. “What’s going on?”
“Our acquaintance, the only other man who’s made you coffee, is about to come take a long, hard look at that, ah, display that reminded you of the shoes. He’s going to be extremely interested in finding out where it came from, and who talked the stall owner into setting it up and running it. And what they planned to do with it.” AJ did not want to mention any specific words, because you never knew who was listening.
Jenna might be so innocent and sweet she made his teeth ache, but she wasn’t stupid. Her eyes narrowed in thought, and then flew wide open as her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. “Oh!” Her lips formed the rest of the curse, but she didn’t voice it. Instead, she looked down at the bag on his arm. “And those?”
“I dare not leave these where other hands could get them first.” Apart, they were highly classified but almost as innocuous as they seemed. Together… a lot of heads were going to roll, tracking who’d lost them and hadn’t reported it. And Imperial Intelligence was about to hit this street fair like the fist of an angry God.
19
But Wait, There’s Worse
Ever since he’d seen the antenna thing, AJ had become almost a stranger before her eyes. Gone was the soft-voiced, uncertain man who hesitated and thought through every word carefully before saying it, and had to be startled into showing his true emotions. In the same skin was a sharp-eyed, gravel voiced man who moved like he owned the entire market, and everyone else had best get out of his way and do whatever he said.
Now he was holding out his hand. “Give me your handbrain.” When she pulled it out, he tapped in her code without bothering to even ask her if it was all right, and thumbed through a menu to call a number.
Before she could ask him what the hell he thought he was up to, she heard Crane’s voice, washed out and tinny with the small speaker. “Connected.”
“Good. Jenna, stay here. Look out that window, and tell him if you see anything interesting. No matter what you do,” and his voice dropped to pure command, “Do not hang up.”
“Okay?” She took the handbrain back with nerveless fingers, staring at him.
“Do whatever he tells you. I need to go take care of something. Stay safe.” With that, he was headed down the stairs at a near-run, leaping down the last few like it was a little hop.
In the silence of his departure, she was at a complete loss for words, standing there to the distant base thumps and laughter from the dance studio. It felt like being shut in her bed, listening to other people having fun and being unable to join them all over again. “Where’s he going?”
Crane replied, startling her. “Do you have a window nearby?”
“Yes? I’m standing next to one?” She toggled the camera on, and pointed it at the window so he could see. She knew this one; she’d had a sterilized handbrain to communicate with her family when they called. Crane directed her to stand by the window, looking out. “Some of the sellers are packing up, and really fast. Why would they be doing that? It’s barely market open.”
“Jenna. I know AJ told you to stay put, but I want you to go out and down there. Hold your phone up while you’re talking to me, like we’re video chatting, but keep the far camera on. I want to see these vendors who are packing up, and what they’re taking off the tables.” Crane’s voice was soft and gentle as AJ’s hadn’t been. “Please, talk to me about anything you want, as long as it’s not the… things you came for.”
“All right.” She hated being put on the shelf, out of the way. She suddenly remembered Cara spitefully calling their ward the dollhouse, to be taken out and played with when their families cared, then put away and forgotten. Jenna could hear the scorn, smell the antiseptics and feel the chill again almost more real than life. She could see the ashen-gray pallor of what had once been a beautifully dark face, the flick of a dismissive wrist and snap of long fingers as Cara said it, as though it hadn’t been years since she had coded and not come back. Jenna didn’t want to think about that, and didn’t want to be alone with the memory, so she held up the phone like she was one of her self-absorbed roommates and started chattering as she pushed open the door. “You’d never believe it, but I found the perfect dress on Wednesday, in aquamarine. It was on sale, too, even though I’m certain someone mismarked it…”
The streets were tense, with some vendors looking around and quickly grabbing and stacking certain items like women pouncing on the actual deals in a lightning sale. Only these were being pulled off the table instead of bought, and the vendors to each side were looking disturbed. Some were on their handbrains, in hushed and unhappy furtive noises; several were leaving their stalls and wandering too-casually toward the main fair building or toward the edges of the fair and their parking, leaving their stall still set up behind them. They reminded her of kids trying to leave the scene of a practical joke without attracting the nurses’ attention, but the hairs standing up on her neck said this was far less innocent, and she really shouldn’t be out here.
Jenna was about to turn back, no matter the praise and soft requests from Crane, when hands grabbed her, and tried to wrench her handbrain out of her hands. “Hey! Give it back! Get off me!” She was being dragged into a stall despite her attempt to fight back, and a hand slapped over her mouth.
When she tried to bite the hand over her mouth, something slammed into the side of her head. The world exploded in pain, and she crumpled, limp and boneless in and unable to even think. She was being dragged, then slammed into something hard and cold that took a moment to recognize as a wall. The sunlight was gone; she was inside the building behind a stall, and her arms were being wrenched up painfully behind her back until she couldn’t keep from screaming. “Who sent you? Who are you spying for?” She realized her wrists had been bound with tangle when she couldn’t move them out of the excruciating position, and her whimper only got her head pulled back and slammed into the wall again. “You better sing, bitch.”
And then it got worse.
Some time later, when they left her alone for a while, Jenna lay on the cold plascrete floor and watched the little rivulet of blood creep down toward a drain. She knew she was in shock; she’d felt this way enough times before to recognize the floating, disassociated feeling. She hated the whimpering noises. She just wasn’t sure if she was more annoyed because she hated the sound of whimpering, or because she was the one doing it, and she couldn’t make herself stop.
Pain and weakness were old companions; no one hit the terminal wards without being intimately familiar with their body betraying them. She’d never experienced it with malice, though. The nurses might have been frustrated, the doctors annoyed and exhausted, but she could tell now that even the little slights were a world away from someone looking her in the eye and grinning as they broke her fingers. She only had herself to blame; she could have told Crane no, and stayed upstairs. She could have told AJ no, and not gone back here. She could have told Lizzes no to lunch, and left before the bombs went off… She’d spent most of her life just rolling with whatever people threw at her, and now she was going to die for it.
The door was opening, spilling bright light she couldn’t reach, and two men were talking to each other. “…completely useless. The little slut doesn’t know a damn thing, and probably got picked up as useful cover.” The last was said in disgust, and she watched his foot coming, unable to move. The fresh wave of hurt when it landed in her stomach made her body scream.
“Oh, not completely worthless.” The second man crouched down over her. Any hopes she might have felt fled when he ran a hand up her thigh, pulling her dress up to her waist. “She’s pretty enough to fetch a decent price, even after we have our fun.”
The first one swore. “How stupid can you get, with the Dogs out there? That’d take too much time, and is too risky. Just shoot her and dump the body.”
