The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (18 page)

Flint put his hand on her shoulder and eased her off the elevator.

His gaze met Deshin’s.

“Quiet around here, isn’t it,” Deshin said. “I’ve got business down the hall. Excuse me.”

He figured Flint would need a moment with his daughter, and need a place to stash her.

Deshin pushed open the door to the conference room. No alarms went off, thanks to his staff chip. Nothing mentioned that he was unauthorized. He kept the lights off, and made sure the recording systems had been deactivated.

Then he settled at the head of the table, and waited.

TWENTY-ONE

TORKILD ZHU SAT in an upscale bar in one of the ritziest sections of Armstrong. He preferred ritzy these days. He had had enough of death and destruction. He also liked bars better than any other place in the Universe, upscale in particular.

First, none of his friends came here—or would come here, if he had actual friends.

Second, his ex-fiancée disapproved of bars now that she had become an angel of mercy.

And third, his nearly ex-father-in-law didn’t own upscale bars. He owned some downscale bars that catered to the working class, although he would never admit it. Torkild Zhu had discovered all of that years ago, when he was looking for reasons not to marry Bernard Magalhães’ beloved only daughter, the daughter Zhu had finally dumped on Anniversary Day, maybe fifteen minutes before the attacks.

His timing—on everything—stank. He even became an idealist in his very ritzy law firm about fifteen minutes before that hypocritical supporter of idealism Rafael Salehi decided to give up idealism forever.

They were going to fire Zhu, and at the moment, he didn’t care. In fact, he didn’t care enough to tender his resignation, although he was certain they expected him to do so.

Instead, he leaned on the highly polished bar, made of real marble imported from some famous building on Earth. Said famous building no longer existed (obviously) and some idiot with too much money decided to ship its various parts to the Moon where things like ancient marble from Earth were exotic and so extravagant that everyone cooed over it.

He was nursing rum of all things, something he’d only had at Magalhães family gatherings, and then only on special occasions. Rum was imported from Earth, and extremely dear. He’d learned, since he decided rum was his drink of choice—just a few days ago, in fact—that it came in a wide variety of expensive types, and he was determined to try them all until his money ran out.

The bartender was helping. The bartender, some guy with shoulders wider than Zhu’s car, had to wear a historic costume with a blousy shirt unbuttoned to his naval, wide black breeches, and boots. The cocktail servers wore a variation, only with wide-brimmed hats and feathers.

Pirate costumes, someone had told him, but they looked nothing like the pirates he was familiar with. These costumes had something to do with Earth history, which he wasn’t that familiar with—outside of its legal history, and then only the stuff that pertained to the Earth Alliance.

Not that he wanted to think about any of it. He liked the rum. It had a smoothness, a richness with a bit of cinnamon that appealed to him. It wasn’t heavy like most beers made with Moon hops. And the rum gave him a good buzz, stronger than he expected the few times he’d gotten off the bar stool to get rid of some liquid.

Of course, like any good human bartender in an expensive place, this one also plied him with alcohol clearers, drinks and gases that made all of the effects of the alcohol disappear. Dive bars without human servers cut off the patrons after a certain amount of money or a certain number of drinks. Androids and bots were very literal about how much humans could drink.

But in high-end bars, they didn’t care how much a man drank. They’d sober you up, feed you some food, maybe even give you a cot if needed, then ply you with liquor again.

And they’d do it until the money ran out.

Zhu wasn’t sure when his money would run out. He was still getting paid by S
3
, even though he knew that wouldn’t last forever. He’d already given up his apartment on Athena Base, sold his furniture and his expensive toys, and had been thinking of donating his suits and evening clothes until he discovered the secrets of upscale bars.

He had a hotel room three blocks down from this bar, and he was still charging it to his S
3
expense account. Eventually that would catch up to him too. Eventually S
3
would ask him to reimburse them, and if he was feeling as surly then as he was feeling now, he’d sue them, claiming he’d still been on the payroll and so he was entitled to expenses.

His internal S
3
links chirruped. He waved a hand over his face, as if he could shut them off with his fingers, realized he was drunker than he thought, and grinned at himself.

The bartender, whose name Zhu had already forgotten (and his eyes were too blurry to read the little name tag that floated by the bartender’s head), must have recognized the look. He handed Zhu a clearer.

Zhu tried to wave him off, but the bartender insisted.

“If you want more rum…” he said, letting his voice trail off. Or maybe Zhu had already stopped listening.

Because his links chirruped again. Oh, great. S
3
picked this moment to fire him. His life was such a joy.

He was going to ignore them.

He sipped the clearer, which was stronger than any clearer he’d gotten before—or maybe he’d just forgotten. The fog around his brain cleared as the liquid bit the back of his throat. It tasted like cleaning fluid and smelled like menthol mixed with gasoline. His eyes watered, and he sneezed.

An alarm sounded in his head. At first, he thought it the clearer, and then he realized it was his S
3
link. He’d never heard it do that before, but then, he’d never decided to ignore it before either.

He ran a hand over his face, decided to shut off the visual, and answered.
Yeah?

Who cared about respect, anyway? They had none for him.

A tiny image of Rafael Salehi stood on Zhu’s cocktail napkin. So much for shutting off the visual. Then Zhu realized that Salehi was wearing a suit.

Zhu frowned. Were there ghost links? Had something in all the chemicals he’d been consuming activated the archives? Because he didn’t think he’d seen Salehi in a suit since the first day he went to the man’s office over a decade ago.

Zhu wondered if he could ignore a ghost image.

“You’re a mess, Torkild,” tiny-suited Salehi said. Zhu couldn’t remember Salehi ever saying that to him, not in all the years he’d known the man. “At least you’re wearing a suit.”

Zhu looked down at himself. He
had
shut off the visual, hadn’t he?

“Yes, I can see you,” Salehi said. “Your agreement with our firm allows us to override your link settings. Nice bar. Have you just discovered it or did you move in weeks ago?”

Zhu didn’t know how to answer him. Zhu didn’t want to seem obsequious, but that had been the basis of their relationship for years, and it was a hard habit to break. Zhu also didn’t want to be rude to the man, since S
3
was funding not just his bender, but his lifestyle.

“You’re in Armstrong, right?” Salehi asked.

“Yes,” Zhu said.

The bartender looked at him sharply, and that was when Zhu realized that the bartender couldn’t see Salehi.

Zhu asked the bartender, “Is there somewhere private I can go for a business conversation?”

The bartender pointed at a bunch of overgrown ferns. Zhu squinted at them. They were in a box shape, which clearly meant something to someone.

He stood, realized the clearer hadn’t fixed whatever the rum had done to his balance, and put a hand on the marble bar. No one else sat in the stools—when did the other customers leave? The place had been unbelievably busy when he arrived. He didn’t have to worry about losing his grip as he made his way to the stand of ferns.

He pushed inside them, found a glass booth, complete with a self-serve glass table and an uncomfortable glass stool. He sat down.

Salehi had traveled with him—of course, since Salehi was on his links, not here in person—and now the bastard stood in the middle of the glass table, looking weirdly adult and in control.

“Just fire me already,” Zhu said tiredly.

To his surprise, Salehi smiled. “You should be so lucky. I need you on a case.”

“Me?” Zhu laughed. “I embarrassed the firm. I lost us our best transport captain. I killed a friend of yours, however inadvertently. And now you want me to handle a case? I suppose it’s here on the Moon and you can’t get to the venue quickly enough.”

“You got it in one, Torkild,” Salehi said. “Whatever you think of yourself, you’re still a damn good attorney, and one of the smartest men I know.”

“You don’t flatter people,” Zhu said. “So stop playing with me and tell me what’s up.”

“I need you to make sure a series of injunctions we just sent to all of the authorities on the Moon remain in place,” Salehi said.

All that rum Zhu had in his empty stomach sloshed, then rolled. He burped some of it, along with the clearer, and was glad that Salehi wasn’t here in person. No one else needed to smell that.

“Injunctions against what?” Zhu asked.

Salehi held up his hands. Zhu recognized the gesture. It meant,
Give me a minute. I’m going to tell you something difficult
.

“I’m ahead of myself,” Salehi said. “You’re back in the game, Torkild. I need you to open an office in Armstrong. I need some associates, some of the best attorneys you can find—human of course.”

“Of course,” Zhu said, even though he didn’t exactly understand why. S
3
hired attorneys from all species, even though the firm preferred cases involving humans. “What the hell’s this about?”

“You’ll have a large budget. Make sure these folks are people you can trust.”

“You assume I know people here,” Zhu said.

“You have connections,” Salehi said. “I seem to recall that you know the Magalhães family?”

“I had a messy break-up with the Magalhães family,” he said. “They don’t like me much.”

“Change that,” Salehi said. “I’m going to be in Armstrong as soon as I can get there. That’ll take—what?—a week? I want the offices up and running by then.”

Zhu felt lightheaded. “What’s the case?”

“Cases, most likely,” Salehi said.

Zhu’s stomach sloshed again. The clearer wasn’t mixing well with the rum, or maybe his gut knew something his brain hadn’t yet figured out.

“What are they?” he asked.

“We’re working for Peyla.”

It took him a moment to make the connection. Peyla. The Peyti home world. Peyti. S
3
was a firm of defense attorneys.

“Oh, no,” he said. “You want me to handle the clones?”

“Injunctions,” Salehi said. “They need someone to make sure they’re enforced.”

“I’m not representing mass murderers,” Zhu said.

“Innocent until proven—”

“Oh, hell,” Zhu said. “I was
here
for that. All of these guys are guilty. They were all caught with their bomb masks on. Some of the bastards even used them outside the dome. You’re far away from this crap, but here, it’s a pretty big deal, and I don’t have to represent any of them ever. I’ll save you the trouble of firing me. I’m quitting.”

Salehi smiled, and it was not a nice smile, even tiny. “I had a hunch you’d say that.”

Zhu wished he had even more clearer, because if Salehi had already thought of his response, then Salehi had an answer, and even though Salehi liked to present himself as the nice senior partner, he was actually the smartest senior partner, and in legal terms, that also meant the most ruthless when he needed to be.

“Reputation still matters to you, I take it,” Salehi said.

Zhu shook his head. “If that were true, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”

“Then what are you objecting to? You’re a
defense
attorney. I glanced over your case files. From a human perspective, you seem very humane. If I take a Disty or a Wygnin point of view, you’re one nasty SOB. All nonhumans you went up against would consider you to be as bad as your clients—which, from some of those nonhuman points of view—makes you a mass murderer.”

Zhu had heard this argument before, and he had an answer for it. It helped that the answer was even true. “I don’t care what nonhumans think.”

“Just humans matter, eh?” Salehi asked, and his voice had an edge that Zhu did not like.

“I’m not helping you,” Zhu said. “So lay off.”

“You’re helping,” Salehi said. “Enthusiastically. I could threaten you with bankruptcy, with lifelong lawsuits initiated by this firm, breach of contract and anything else that our most creative minds can think of—”

“Have at it,” Zhu said tiredly. He’d half expected that anyway after his last case.