Deadly Ghosts, page 17
He slinked into the shop, gave me a miserable little wave, and went straight to his bed.
When he apologized to me the next day, I had wanted so desperately to ask him why he had gone back. Why he had given up everything. But I knew that it was futile. In that moment, I truly understood the monster in his mind.
Or, maybe “understood” is too strong a word. I would never understand it, but in that moment, I came to see how real and irrepressible it was.
Now, looking at the screen filled with all this money that I had earned, I wished he was here to share the moment. I wanted nothing more than to pour some yellow sauce over rice and sit in the repair shop for the rest of the day while we talked about how to spend this vast wealth.
But he was dead, and there was nothing I could do to bring him back, so I simply turned to Lara and said, “Should we go shopping?”
“You go,” she said. “I need to talk to Zen.”
“You need to stop calling me that,” Zenobia corrected.
Lara smiled ever so slightly, the clever little grin she got when she enjoyed annoying somebody. “You go have fun spending some of this money, but not too much, and we’ll catch up with you after and go straight to the consecration ceremony.”
I looked at Zenobia, who waved me toward the door. “Okay,” I said, not having to be asked twice and knowing that I might have more fun spending my money without the female oversight.
I left the office, allowing the two to speak about whatever it was Lara didn’t want to discuss in front of me.
Having slept and eaten on the Buzzard while in the gyre tube, I didn’t need to stop, and instead headed straight for the Via… something? All the streets here had names that I couldn’t quite remember and blended in, so without Lara to guide me, I just started in the direction I thought the armorer was.
Strolling the clean, nearly empty streets as I looked at weapons for sale, shops that sold cool spy gadgets and training academies for every style of combat a person could imagine, I felt at ease.
Everywhere else, I always had to look over my shoulder, but this was the one place in the universe where I was safe. We had pressing matters to attend to, but it was nice to take some time and breathe.
All of the buildings along the wide, cobbled streets were fronted with businesses, and I stopped at a small shop selling soup out of cookpots set into a counter at the front. The bubbling pots smelled delicious, and I ordered the one called the Chef’s Special. When the first taste touched my tongue, it was hard not to moan with delight.
In silence, I slurped the soup and watched the world wake up around me. Bounty hunters and those who served them hurried from place to place, and after a little while, a bunch of young people began to file into one of the combat studios. They trained under a teenage teacher who helped them with their punches and kicks while many got distracted, playing or pratfalling.
It was a small, peaceful moment and a welcome break from the relentless pace of my life. Other than the moments repairing or upgrading the Buzzard, my existence had become one of a man on a mission. A relentless series of events with no end in sight.
This break, however short, was necessary. I would’ve preferred to have a wrench in my hand or be soldering something, but even just sitting and doing nothing for a brief window of time recharged my internal battery to full.
I don’t know how long I had sat there until I stood, making my way to the armor shop, and walking through row after row of crossbeam dummies with every different type of armor from every corner of the universe and every alloy in existence.
My eyes were running over chest plates and pauldrons, but my mind was elsewhere. Or, not elsewhere, but in rest-mode. I was looking but not seeing and just enjoying the moment until a voice that I vaguely recognized but couldn’t place slammed me back.
“Frank Shields,” the voice announced, and I turned to see the irritatingly handsome face of Mane Malik. The famous bounty hunter had some kind of brief relationship with Lara that she was disinclined to discuss.
“Hank Spears,” I corrected, and he grinned.
“Why bother?” Ned asked. “He obviously got your name wrong on purpose. Call him Mace Revan and see how he likes it.”
But Mane spoke before I could retort. “Oh, yes, that’s right, Hank,” he said with a hearty, theatrical guffaw. “I’m sure you remember who I am as there are only five rank fives in all the universe.”
“I remember you,” I said, miserable that he was the person I was seeing at that moment. “I’m surprised to see that you are here again rather than off chasing another bounty.”
“I’m here so often because when I chase a bounty, they don’t last long,” he said, smiling and winking at me in a way that made me want to punch him square in the jaw. “You are rank two, if I’m not mistaken?”
“Three,” I said, pulling out my badge and showing it to him.
For the first time, a nick in his armor of superiority shone through. “A special commendation?” he said, then recovered himself. “How did you earn that?”
“Killed an assassin who had gone on a murder rampage at an enclave on Parm,” I said, acting as cool and casual about it as I could.
His eyes ran over me, and I felt as though the man were seeing me for the first time. “Impressive,” he allowed. “I have several commendations myself, and if I earn another, I don’t even think there would be a place for it on my badge.”
He pulled his vest open with a flourish, showing his emblem sitting in a little display case set into the left side of his chest plate. Despite the ridiculous showing us of it, his badge did have almost no room left on the rim for more commendations.
“Would you like to know how I earned all of them?” he asked.
Ned chuckled. “Pretty sure he’s gonna tell you either way.”
“No,” I said, holding up my hands. “I’m just checking out this armor.”
I pointed at the matte black, medium armor in front of me.
“This?” he asked, even just the word sounding like a mocking laugh. “Not sure this is in the budget of a rank three.”
I knew he was trying to rile me up, and logically, I also knew that I shouldn’t let it bother me. But I was human, and it did bother me.
Letting my eyes drift down, I looked at the price tag and saw that it would take a sizable chunk of my new earnings to purchase, but I couldn’t help myself.
“I’ve got the money for it,” I said, once again affecting a casual demeanor.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on why the man got under my skin or why I cared to show him up, but I did.
“Really?” he asked, raising an eyebrow and smirking.
Unable to help myself, I waved to the shopkeeper who rose from his desk in an instant and hurried over to me.
“I want this,” I said, pointing to the armor.
The old man’s eyes lit up with enthusiasm.
“Wonder how often he gets suckers like you impulse buying stuff this expensive just to impress some idiot?” Ned mocked.
“You know, Vekranain Cobon is one of the most precious materials in the universe, and armor like this is only sold here and one other shop on all the known planets,” the shopkeeper said. “You have a very fine discerning eye.”
“He does,” Mane agreed. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t be constantly in the company of Kilara Vex. How is she, come to think of it?”
“Come to think of it,” Ned parroted. “That is the only reason this man wants anything to do with you.”
“Actually,” I said, letting a shit-eating grin cross my face. “She wanted me to tell you she said hi!”
“Really?” he asked, smiling at that.
“No.”
His face contorted in annoyance. “Do we have some kind of problem, friend?”
I reached out and gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. “We sure don’t,” I said. “Just busting your balls… friend…”
“Classic,” he said, maintaining his friendly affect but obviously annoyed and done with me. “Anyway, I must be going. Real bounty work to do and all that.”
“Great to see you,” I said in aggressive pleasantness like the missionaries who would come to the orphanage and try to convince children to join them.
Mane said nothing else but spun and stomped away so quickly that I wanted to laugh. But I didn’t have time as the shopkeeper said, “Do you want me to box it up, or will you be wearing it out of the store?”
21
“Whoa,” Lara said when she found me back at my spot on the stool. Her eyes ran over me. “You look like a… bounty hunter…”
I smirked and shifted, the new armor sliding and socketing perfectly as I moved. Though I had bought it out of some sense of threatened pride that I was still trying to understand myself, it was great protection. “That’s what I was going for.”
“Well, it’s working for you,” she assessed. “Though I have to think that it cost quite a lot.”
“It did,” I admitted, not too interested in keeping on the subject. “You have a good talk with Zenobia?”
She nodded but didn’t say any more.
“You know you can talk to me about anything,” I reminded her.
She nodded again. “Knowing I have someone to talk to and wanting to talk are not the same.”
“She should put that on her business cards,” Ned joked.
“Just saying that I’m here,” I offered, and she let a hint of a smile cross her lips.
“I know it,” she said with a soft tone in her voice. “When it comes to stuff in my life between when you knew me and now, I struggle to want to talk about it. To not talk about it. Not think about it.
“You know that I … run a little hot sometimes and Syn worried about that with me and his solution was to teach me not to have emotions. But that’s unrealistic. Instead, I just learned how to mask them, and I think that’s part of why I’m so quick to anger sometimes now.
“For better or worse, Hank, being with you is when I am at my most comfortable. My most safe. So I’m free to be exactly who I am. Or, as close to it as I can get while still living in the shadow of all my training.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” I told her honestly. I took a quick sip of a cinnamon milk drink and continued. “Since Lutch died, I had been a bit rudderless and was neither the person he had hoped me to be or the person I thought I had been previously. Honestly, I was more just Scrapper Twenty-Seven than I was Hank Spears. Now, with you and everyone else, I really feel like myself for the first time. This feels like the thing I am supposed to be doing… Even if I am just muddling my way through it.”
She snorted a laugh and put a hand on my shoulder. “You are doing more than that. You must realize that?”
“Sure, part of me does,” I admitted. “But the other part just feels like I’m hurtling forward and making choices as I go. Ned told me that I need to start thinking more critically about what I’m doing before I do it.”
“He’s right,” Lara affirmed. “But he also has to understand that this is a race against time.”
This time, when Ned spoke, it was to both of us. “I appreciate that better than anyone. I’ve been on this mission for over two hundred years, and I know more than you will ever understand what we’re up against.
“But a clock doesn’t mean you have to rush into every situation. There are ways to take the time to get things right and make sure we keep all our people alive. We are up against several foes who outnumber and outgun us by a wide margin, so we need to be really smart moving forward.”
He was right, of course, but I didn’t want to tell him that.
Clearly, Lara didn’t either. “To be fair, every time we take a moment to try and breathe, our old friend John shows up and tries to kill us.”
“To say nothing of pirates,” I added.
“My point remains valid,” Ned stated. Then, somehow, I could hear the grin in his words as he said, “Hank, you didn’t mention that we ran into Lara’s friend, Mane.”
Her mouth pulled tight, and her cheeks grew red. “How was that?” she asked in as casual a tone as she could muster.
I took another pull of my drink. “I have to admit that the guy rubs me wrong.”
“Well, we all know that he used to rub Lara right,” Ned said, obviously amused by himself. “If you know what I mean.”
Lara closed her eyes and took in a slow, calming breath. “You just listen in on a whole conversation where I expressed how little I like to talk about certain aspects of my life and then you make a comment like that.”
“I’m easily amused by my own antics,” Ned said, and Lara opened her eyes to look in the direction of the training studio, then at me.
“We’re in no rush to get your weapon consecrated, and I know you could use a few pointers, so shall we?”
“I think that sounds like a great idea,” I said, and finished my drink. The man behind the counter cleared away the glass before we had even crossed the street, and we rented a sparring room where we spent the next several hours practicing.
I was exhausted and drenched in sweat by the end, but Lara looked serene. Where my happy place was under the belly of a starship, Lara’s seemed to be practicing her fighting. She also obviously relished the opportunity to teach me.
And I was an eager student. I could throw a punch and fire a weapon, but it had largely been on the job training: the kind of learning by doing that came with being a scrapper. This was something different and very important. Lara and I had carved out time here and there, but it was nice to take a concentrated period and really focus on teaching me.
It was also important for me to learn how to handle the spear that was about to become mine. The eternal flame was deadly and every time I activated the weapon, I felt as if I was more likely to injure myself than my opponent. Taking the time to handle it, activate and deactivate it, and spar with it would be invaluable.
I ran a hand down my soaked face and watched as Lara slid her blade back into the sheath. She was flushed and tired, and, I had to admit to myself, beautiful. My heart was already racing, but if it hadn’t been, I knew that it would have been in that moment.
When she looked at me and caught me staring, she smiled for the briefest of moments, picking up a hand towel off the bench beside her and chucking it at me. “You look like you’ve been in a rainstorm.”
“You were the one who told me that I had to work out in my full gear,” I reminded her.
She chuckled at that. “It’s important for you to train in the same gear you wear in combat.”
“Well, I’m starting to see the appeal of a stealth suit,” I said, gesturing at her single light layer.
“Sadly, you’re as stealthy as a Tyrannosaurus rex, so you should probably stick with the armor,” she said with a laugh. “Or do you forget how you got caught breaking into Lutch’s?”
“That’s the one thing I’ll never forget,” I told her honestly. “That, and when we grew that plant together.”
Immediately, she stopped what she was doing and stared at me in wide-eyed wonder. “Little Guy?” she asked, obviously remembering the name of our little project.
“Little Guy,” I affirmed. “Mr. Fidler spent the whole week trying to show us that there were more options in life than growing up to be street toughs on Bussel and assigned you and me that one little plant to keep alive. For as long as I live, I’ll never forget that afternoon we spent behind the building tending to it and giving it a name and then a little back story.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and I wondered if perhaps she didn’t remember, but before I was able to speak, her head bobbed one time. “I think that was the first time I realized that I loved something… the plant, I mean.”
“Little Guy didn’t last long, but he certainly left a lasting impression,” I said. “I have so few detailed memories of my early childhood, but that afternoon and the sun is burned into my brain.”
“I hadn’t thought about it for so long, but it’s crystal clear for me now, too,” Lara agreed. “I think we both held onto it because it was such a happy memory.”
“I think you’re right,” I said. One of the employees popped her head in the room to let us know that our time was up and disappeared as soon as she saw we were winding down.
We headed back out onto the street and began walking in the direction of the Hephaestus. When we reached the building where I had been first given the emblem that served as my badge, I asked, “Why did Zenobia swap out my badge rather than having me go through the process of having my rank emblem added like she did with you?”
“Were you content with just having it switched out?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, it was easier that way.”
“That’s why,” Lara explained. “When I reached rank three, it had been years in the making, and Zenobia knew that I would want to relish that moment. With you, I suppose she gathered that you didn’t care as much or that you’re not sentimental about that kind of thing.”
“Hard to argue with that,” I said. “Guess I’m not the most sentimental person in the world. Though, I was happy to get that box of stuff Alek rescued from the shop before it was destroyed.”
Lara looked over her shoulder at me as we ascended the stairs to the Hephaestus building. “You love the Buzzard just as much as you did Little Guy, and I know it. You might be more sentimental than you think.”
She was probably right, but I didn’t have too long to dwell on it as we entered the building full of weapons and armaments. Rather than heading toward the insectoid at the back of the room, Lara cut diagonally to an unmarked door beside the large brazier.
She knocked in what was obviously a little pattern and the door cracked just enough to indicate that we should enter. She swept her hand in front of it and said, “This is all you.”
