On Impact, page 11
“Iko?”
It was Wright who answered. “Yes. He contacted my office with a holo of Officer Sinclair taken from a security camera and a date and location of where she would be. I wouldn’t have found her without that information.”
“I spotted Agent Wright before reaching the ship and tried to evade him,” I continued. “Iko followed me and shoved me off the viewing platform right in front of him.”
Rizpah’s blaster was back in her hands and aimed at Iko’s head. “Traitor,” she hissed.
“Wait! I can explain.” Iko’s wide eyes darted from me to Rizpah to Lady Ilymechina. His voice held a note of uncertainty. “I was the one who convinced Shug to give her a chance ten years ago. I didn’t know she was an undercover officer. It’s my fault you got arrested and put on trial back then. She does nothing but lie. Don’t you see? She can’t be trusted. I was protecting you.”
Rizpah clocked him across the side of the head with her blaster. “Your job is not to question the Lady’s orders. It is to follow them. By turning Reliance in, you broke the Lady’s word.”
Iko staggered, dazed. She raised her hand to deliver another blow, but Lady Ilymechina stopped her. Rizpah lowered the blaster.
“We will discuss Iko’s transgressions later. In private.”
“Yes, Lady,” Rizpah made a slight bowing motion, then used her cuff to summon two bouncers.
At that, Iko shrunk against the wall. Gone was any semblance of his cocky attitude. Fear shone in his eyes. There was a reason Seven Serpents would go to prison for Lady Ilymechina. She’d earned that respect through hard work—and dirty work.
When the bouncers appeared, Iko made one last attempt to plead for her mercy, but the Lady was having none of it. “Take him away while I think of an appropriate punishment for the rat.”
I was about to protest. Iko wasn’t a friend by any means, but as DECA officers, we couldn’t just stand by and let them murder him. The Lady cut me off with a sharp look.
“I won’t kill him,” she said, and I let out a sigh of relief. “But he may prefer that I did.”
The bouncers dragged Iko from the room. He still hobbled awkwardly from his encounter with Rizpah’s boot.
“Back to the business at hand,” Lady Ilymechina said. “It is apparent that I did not uphold my end of our bargain for safe passage. To clear the slate, I will tell you what I know of Ophidian. My predecessor is not dead, or at least, not by my hand. We had already lost too many young lives under his failed leadership. Rather than endure more bloodshed, we exiled Ophidian and his four closest allies. They left understanding they could never return to Brione-5.”
Wright launched a holoscreen, showing the booking photo of the assassin. “Do you know this man?”
She glanced at the holo. “He’s older than the last time I saw him, but that’s Sidewinder. He was banished with Ophidian.”
“Does Sidewinder have a legal name?”
Lady Ilymechina shrugged. “Thomas, I believe. I never knew his last name. Everyone used street names back then, and we weren’t that close.”
“Do you know where they are now?” Wright asked.
Lady Ilymechina leaned over and whispered something into Dominique’s ear. The younger woman nodded and left the room.
The second-in-command returned carrying a handful of mood bracelets. Unlike the normal blue bracelets handed out at the club, these glowed bright orange in the dimly lit room. She dropped them in the middle of the table. There must have been half a dozen.
“First, I have a few questions of my own. Put on these mood bracelets.” Lady Ilymechina pointed at the glowing stack. “Dominique will program them to release a dose of Rhap. We’ll continue this conversation once the drug takes effect, and I am assured that your answers are honest.”
My jaw clenched as I looked down at the bracelets. Rhap—short for Rhapsody—was an illegal party drug imported from the Avignon system. It had the effect of putting the user at ease, lowering inhibitions, and making them say and do things they normally wouldn’t.
“If we’re taking you at your word, then you can take us at ours,” I bit out.
“I have no desire for Ophidian to slither out from whatever rock he’s been hiding under for the past twelve years. If you’re lying, and your real motivation is to bring him back to Clava to stand trial for his past crimes, then his resurrection could prove problematic for me. However, if you are telling the truth, and he’s involved in some ludicrous scheme involving bionic weapons, I will tell you what you want to know. Iko wasn’t wrong. You swore I would never see you again, and yet, here you are.” Her voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Your word means nothing to me.”
“Fine,” I said and reached for a bracelet.
Wright put his hand on my arm. “I’ll do it. You’ve had enough people mucking around your head without your permission.”
He let go and snapped one of the orange bracelets onto his wrist.
“Now the rest of them,” said Lady Ilymechina.
“He’ll be high out of his fucking mind!”
Dominique made a splayed motion with her fingers, activating her holoscreen. I saw the controls for each bracelet flash on. She slid all six control toggles to the maximum settings. “That’s the point.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I told Wright. “We’ll find another way.”
“Not soon enough. This is our best lead. Now stand down. That’s an order.”
I had no choice but to watch while Wright fastened the other five mood bracelets around his wrist. He nodded to Dominique. She pointed her finger to a button on her cuff’s holoscreen, and all six bracelets pulsed bright orange.
The muscles across Wright’s chest and back flexed and bunched, pulling the stiff fabric of his jacket taut. Rhap wasn’t cheap, and a dose this substantial was something most junkies only dreamed about. But Wright wasn’t a junkie. No, he was the exact opposite. A my-body-is-a-temple kind of guy. A control freak.
It only took seconds for the Rhap to hit his system. His pupils dilated, blown out until his hazel eyes looked nearly black. The tension in his muscles relaxed. He listed to one side, then jerked back, shaking his head.
“Ask your void-damned questions,” he ground out, but his eyes drifted off to the side, unable to remain focused.
Dominique studied the readings on her holoscreen projection. “He’s ready.”
Lady Ilymechina stood. The supple black fabric of her suit shimmered in the subdued lighting. It was made of ov-ex material—an expensive, high-tech, and illegal cloth that reflected light to such a degree that it overexposed any images taken of it with a camera, hiding the wearer from law enforcement. Her heels clicked on the floor as she circled around the table behind us.
“Who do you work for, Grayson Wright?” she asked.
He swayed side to side, his eyes half-lidded as he tried to keep her in his sight. “I’m the lead agent of the bionic weapons task force for the Andaress-4 DECA office.”
“No one else?”
“No.”
“The Clava DECA office?”
“No.”
“Have you ever accepted a bribe?”
“Never.”
“Has a competitor of mine hired you to put me out of business?”
I twisted in my chair to follow her movements. “He’s not dirty.”
She flicked her wrist, and a stiletto dagger slipped out from under her sleeve and into her hand. She trailed the tip across the surface of her palm as she continued circling the table. “Forgive me if I don’t rely on your judgment. You don’t have the best track record for identifying dirty agents, now do you?”
My mouth snapped shut because she was right. Being fooled by my former partner was how all of this started.
“Sinclair, I’m good,” Wright said, but I could see him fighting the effects of the drugs.
“Why are you interested in Ophidian?”
“We are tracking an assassin known to have used a bionic weapon. Ophidian’s name was found attached to an intercepted communication.”
Lady Ilymechina paused beside Wright’s chair. She bent until her face was level with his and cupped his chin in her hand, studying his eyes. The golden stiletto flashed as she brought it up between them.
Wright jerked back, his movements slow but sure.
I tried to stand, but Rizpah closed the distance between us and shoved me back down onto the chair.
“Don’t move,” she said, and I felt the muzzle of her blaster poke me between my shoulder blades.
Wright’s gaze sharpened. His right hand went to his hip, where his blaster normally sat. Only it wasn’t there, because we’d left our weapons on the hoverbike.
“Nuh-uh-uh.” Lady Ilymechina twisted the dagger until the tip pricked the hollow point between his clavicles.
“I’m good,” I said, holding up my hands, both to signal Wright not to struggle and to show Rizpah I intended to behave.
“I think Agent Wright requires a second dose.”
“Yes, my lady.” Dominique pointed her finger at the button on the holoscreen again. The six mood bracelets pulsed once, and Wright’s entire body heaved.
Rizpah called for an employee out in the hall. “Get a bucket.” When the employee didn’t move fast enough, she shouted. “Get a bucket now, or you’ll be the one cleaning up vomit.”
That did the trick, because the employee double-timed it out the door and returned with a grimy, yellow cleaning bucket. He tossed it down just as Wright doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach into it. When Wright straightened, his face was clammy, with beads of sweat on his forehead.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said. “We’re being honest with you.”
Lady Ilymechina ignored my comment. She ran her fingers through Wright’s hair, fisted the blond strands, and yanked his head to face her. “What do you plan to do with Ophidian?”
Wright’s eyes blinked as he struggled to focus through the haze of narcotics. “Don’t know. Have to … find him … first.”
“You will bring him back here to testify against me, won’t you?”
“Lady … I don’t give a … shit … about you.”
“Hit him again.”
Wright couldn’t handle a third dose—not at those levels. I closed my eyes to minimize distractions and used the smallest movements possible to aerial scribe commands to my Intell. It only took a second to open the screen connected to Dominique’s cuff. As always, my Intell’s hacking program set to work breaking down her firewalls. A spike of pain at the base of my neck told me my implant was working hard, but I was in before Dominique turned back to her holoscreen.
“Give him any more Rhap, and I will lock you out of every system connected to this cuff.”
To prove my sincerity, I got into her cuff’s system controls and changed her passcode. Immediately, her holoscreen blanked.
Dominique’s eyes flared. She tried reopening it, but it wouldn’t accept her code. “What did you do?”
It was a temporary measure. She’d be able to get around it with some effort, but I only needed to show them I was serious about my threat.
“Finish your questions, and I’ll return control.”
Dominique looked at her boss, her shoulders lifted in a subtle shrug.
“I can make her cooperate,” Rizpah offered.
Lady Ilymechina’s ruby-stained lips drew into a tight line. “That won’t be necessary. I only have one question left for Agent Wright.” She circled back to her chair and sat down, crossing her legs with deliberate slowness. “If Ophidian is involved in the unspeakable development of bionic weapons, will you do what the legal system of this planet never did? Will you hold him accountable for his actions?”
“If Ophi … Ophi-ie …” Wright sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “If he’s involved … I will see jus … justi … justice served. I swear.”
He punctuated his statement with a wobbly head bob that threatened to tip him out of his chair.
Satisfied, Lady Ilymechina directed the rest of the conversation at me. “The last I heard, Ophidian was on Valla in the city, Newtown. An old acquaintance of ours passes through there now and again. Apparently, Ophidian fancies himself a bit of a pirate these days.”
“How long ago was that?” I asked.
“Four months. Maybe Five.”
“That’s pretty dated information.”
“You’re searching for a man who has been dead for twelve years. Four months is the least of your problems.”
A lot could change in four months on Valla. It was a known criminal sanctuary. The population was largely transitory and there was no governing system to speak of. Those who lived there permanently were self-sufficient or bartered for what they needed. It didn’t even have a proper spacedock anymore, as criminals didn’t want to be tracked coming and going and thieves kept stealing the sinnafuel, anyway.
I ripped off the mood bracelets from Wright’s arm and tossed them into the cleaning bucket before resetting the passcode on Dominique’s cuff. She let out an audible sigh of relief as her holoscreen projection flickered back to her starting screen.
Wright’s eyes were half-lidded. He was struggling to stay alert, but we needed to get out of here before the amount of Rhap in his system pulled him fully under.
“Thank you,” I said, and tapped Wright on the shoulder. “Sir, we need to go.”
Wright’s eyes opened enough to meet mine, and he leaned heavily onto the table as he pushed himself to his feet. His arm rested across my shoulders for balance.
Rizpah opened the door and stepped clear. “The effects of the Rhapsody will wear off within the hour. It’s pure, not cut like most of the shit sold on the streets. He’ll have a hell of a headache tomorrow, though.”
I propped him against the wall, waited to make sure he wouldn’t fall, then returned to the room. Rizpah’s hand rested on the blaster at her thigh.
“Was there something else?” Lady Ilymechina asked. From her tone, I could tell that was a rhetorical question.
“Yes.” I spared a glance over my shoulder to check that Wright hadn’t wandered in behind me. “This is personal in nature.”
She raised her eyebrows but inclined her head for me to continue.
“I need Blue Lace.”
Anger flashed over her face. “The Serpents don’t deal that shit. Legitimate prescription drugs, maybe a little Stardust, but that never hurt anyone. Blue Lace can kill you if you get a bad batch.”
Never say the universe doesn’t have a sense of humor. “I have my reasons. You may not sell it yourself, but you can find it. Can you get your hands on some? Quickly?”
“Cyril,” Dominique said, naming the leader of one of the other local gangs. Minor compared to the Serpents. “He’s been pushing harder stuff this year. If anyone has it, it would be him.”
Cyril’s territory was closer to the business district, if I remembered correctly. People with high-paying jobs and credits to wipe. I reached into my messenger bag and pulled out two hundred in legal tender, hoping it would be enough to cover at least a week’s worth of Blue Lace.
“We’ll make some inquiries,” Lady Ilymechina said.
“I need it before we leave tonight.” I handed my LTs over to Rizpah.
Lady Ilymechina looked me over with an appraising eye. “You have balls, I’ll give you that. Dominique will see to it.” She leaned back in her chair. “If you find Ophidian, give him my regards.”
The smile she gave me was anything but friendly.
Chapter 13
We staggered through the grocery store parking lot. I hoped the cool night air would help Wright sober up. He had one arm thrown over my shoulder for balance, and my arm around his waist kept us moving in a nominally direct path toward my hoverbike. A hovercart zipped past us on its way to an auto-return station, forcing me to pull Wright up short to avoid getting clipped.
“Whoa! Did you see that?” He tipped to the side as his head followed the cart.
I grabbed his hand and tugged. “Wrong way, big guy. The bike’s over here.”
Wright let me pull him back around. I looked down and realized we still held hands in a way that felt too familiar for him being my boss. When I tried to drop it, he wouldn’t let go. I told myself he needed it for balance.
It took ten minutes to reach my bike. By the time we got there, Wright was walking more or less in a straight line, and he’d stopped slurring his words.
“This is such a cool bike,” he said, letting go of my hand to trail his fingers along the sleek, cherry-red frame. “When I was a teenager, I used to dream about owning a Cymbeline. Did I ever tell you that?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, yeah. I’d watch holovids of races at night when I was supposed to be sleeping. I even saved up credits from my allowance and odd jobs for a year hoping to buy one. Then my mom found out and said absolutely not.”
A light shone from his eyes that wasn’t just a reflection from the overhead streetlamps. For a second, I caught sight of a younger Wright, one who dreamed of fast bikes and adventures—who hadn’t yet joined the military or shouldered the burden that came with being a homicide detective.
“Let me guess—no child of hers would ride one of those death traps? My mother told me something similar.”
The smile wavered from his face. “Mom has a tendency to be overprotective. It hadn’t been long since my brother—well, she had her reasons. It didn’t stop me from dreaming, though. I always thought I’d get one. Just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
Wright rarely talked about his life prior to joining DECA. In fact, that was the most he’d ever shared about his childhood. I didn’t know what to make of a chatty Grayson Wright.
Even though he moved with more assuredness, a closer look confirmed his pupils were still dilated from the Rhap. It hadn’t occurred to me that Wright might be unable to ride in his inebriated state.
“Maybe we should call an auto-LAV,” I suggested.
