Undercity (10 page)

Searching.

Well?

I can’t find it.

It might be in—

Found it.

Good. Bring it here.

Max paused for what felt like forever, though it was only seconds.
I’m having trouble connecting to its controls. It needs to be closer. When it is, I can link your optics to its cameras so that you can see with its eyes.

Good idea. That would let me see real-time through the bot’s eyes, rather than having the view digitized and sent to my spinal node, with the associated delays.

Do it,
I thought.
But be careful. If it gets too close to Scorch or Oxil, they’ll detect it.

Another pause.
The bot is here. I’m linking your vision.

My view of the cavern blurred. The scene refocused, still dim and red, but seen from higher up. I was a beetle flying near the jagged ceiling. Across the path from my hiding place below, a brighter patch of red glowed behind two stalagmites.

Take me lower,
I thought.

That will increase the chance that Oxil will detect you.

I’ll risk it. Circle back over those last few meters.

The beetle drifted down in a spiral, and the splotch of red resolved into Oxil crouched behind the pyramids of stone.

Hah! Got her.

Got how? You can’t shoot her through those stalagmites.

Yeah, but I know her location.
I hoped Scorch wasn’t trying to spy on me with her own bots, if she had any.
Take the beetle up the path.

Moving.

I floated under the ceiling through an inverted landscape of small stone icicles. Scorch had shrouded herself well; nothing showed below except for the eerie rock formations.

A splintering crash came from the storeroom.

I snapped open my real eyes and whipped up my gun.

Bhaaj, don’t shoot!
Max thought.
Dayj is in there.

Oxil jumped to her feet and fired her pulse rifle at the storeroom. In that same instant, a laser shot came from Scorch’s direction and seared the canvas door, setting it aflame. I was already firing at Oxil, knowing exactly where to aim. With the canvas in flames, light filled the cavern. Oxil stared at me as my shots tore through her body, her face lit by the crackling fire. Then she collapsed behind the stalagmites.

“Bhaaj!” a man shouted. “JUMP!”

What the bloody hell?
I threw myself backward and slammed into a column. In that instant, a laser shot stabbed across my hiding place, barely missing me. Even as I returned Scorch’s fire, I looked the other way, up the path, where the yell had come from. I knew that voice. Jak had arrived.

He was shrouded, but in the lurid firelight from the burning canvas, the outline of his body showed. He had a weapon, either a pulse rifle or a laser carbine. I spun to look in the other direction and finally located Scorch, a human-shaped ripple against the stalagmites.

Jak had his gun pointed straight at Scorch and—

Scorch had her carbine pointed straight at me.

“You shoot me, Jak,” Scorch called, “and I shoot her.”

“You’ll be dead before you fire,” Jak said.

“I’m faster,” she told him. “You got no biomech.”

“I got biomech,” Jak told her.

“Lying,” Scorch said.

I knew Scorch well enough to recognize that she wasn’t sure. If she thought she could move faster than Jak, I’d already be dead. Both Scorch and I had augmented speed, but she had her gun aimed and mine was down at my side. She only had to press the firing stud. I’d be dead before I got off a shot. Unfortunately I knew another truth. Jak was bluffing. He hated the thought of tech-mech inside his body. He had no biomech.

The burning canvas fell to the ground, its flames dying, the light dimming. It left the entrance to the cave open, but at first I wasn’t sure if what I saw there was real or a shadow. Then the shadow solidified into a man.

Dayj.

He stood framed in the entrance between two stalagmites with the canvas burning into ashes at his feet. Gods almighty, he had a neural tangler clenched in his hand. The splintering we heard must have been him cracking open one of the crates. I had come closer to breaking them than I realized.

“Dayj.” Scorch stood a few steps away from him, her outline fading as the fire died. “You can’t shoot. You don’t know how to use a tangler.” She had an odd tone, as if she were talking to a child.

I hated her tone, but she was right. A tangler targeted the neural system. It took experience to prime the gun, determine the dose, and decide where to shoot.

“You don’t think I know how?” Dayj rasped, his Iotic accent a jarring contrast to the lurid scene, with dying flames and glittering rocks. “I watched, Scorch. I listened to you tell that drifter how to kill Captain Krestone, and I watched you get ready to kill your hired assassin.”

Shit.
Did Dayj realize he had just signed his death warrant? He had told her, in front of witnesses, that he could testify against her. She had to kill him. Letting him live would go against every tenet she lived by—but from what I had seen, she had lost all rationality over the prince.

“Can’t learn a tangler that way.” Scorch’s brusque voice gave me chills. “Even if you knew, you could never shoot. Not you. Drop the gun, Dayj.”

I held my breath. If Scorch wavered even a moment, it would give me the opening I needed.

Dayj stared at Scorch, his gun aimed at her. The blaze of the canvas had died to embers and she was almost invisible. She was seconds away from winning. As soon as we could no longer see her, Jak’s advantage disappeared. I glanced at Jak, moving only my eyes, not my head. His outline was also fading, which meant Scorch was losing one of her advantages, too, but it also acted as a flag, letting her know how little we could see her.

Dayj stood frozen, gripping the stalagmite next to him, the chain hanging from the manacle on his wrist. He held the tangler in his other hand. Watching him, I knew she was right. He couldn’t commit murder. It wasn’t in him.

Dayj fired.

Everything happened at once. I threw myself to the ground, blasting Scorch’s location with bullets even while her laser exploded a stalactite above my head. Melted debris showered me. Jak fired a fraction of a second later, but Scorch had already ducked to the side. Dayj’s shot hadn’t hit her. And now Scorch knew; Jak had bluffed about his speed.

Dayj lunged away from the storeroom. I could no longer see Scorch, but he had to be next to her. I couldn’t believe it. He was gambling that one of the most hardened undercity killers on the planet wouldn’t immediately end his life. And he was right. She hesitated only an instant, but it was long enough for him to yank the pack off her back, smashing it against a stalagmite. Although her shroud didn’t fail completely, her disguise faded enough to let me see her blurred outline.

I was already jumping to my feet. Although I moved much faster than normal, everything seemed to slow down. In the instant it took Scorch to recover, I fired. My bullets ripped through her, hammering into her body, riveting her to the rock wall like a drill.

The roar from my gun abruptly stopped. The remains of Scorch’s body slid down the wall and crumpled on the ground, leaving a smear of red.

“Ah, gods.” Dayj stumbled back and dropped to his knees. Leaning forward with his arms around his stomach, he vomited on the ground.

I stood with both hands clenched in a death grip on my gun, my arms extended out from my body, my thumb pressing the firing stud of my empty pulse gun.

“Bhaaj.” Jak’s calm voice came at my side. “It’s done.”

I turned slowly, my gun still up and aimed, now at him. He put his hand on the barrel and carefully pushed the gun aside. “Stand down, Major,” he said softly.

I stared at the empty gun. Taking a deep breath, I nodded to him and lowered my weapon.

We went to Dayj then. He had his arms around his stomach and his head down. The remains of Scorch’s body lay crumpled only paces away, but I couldn’t look. Later, I’d have to face what I’d done here today. Right now, Dayj needed us more.

I knelt next to him. “Are you all right?”

He lifted his head. “Who are you?”

Even in the waning light of the embers from the fire, I could see the haggard lines of his face. “My name is Bhaajan,” I said. “I used to be an army officer. Now I’m a PI.”

Dayj was still gripping the tangler. I pried open his clenched fingers and took the gun. A quick check and the blood drained from my face.

“These darts are loaded with water,” I said.
Water.
That was it. Plain, ordinary H
₂
O.

“I have no idea how to use this weapon,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t even know what it is.”

“It’s a tangler,” I said. “Properly loaded, it’s the deadliest neural disruptor ever made.”

He met my gaze. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do that would give you a chance.”

I set the gun on the ground. “You have guts.” What an incredible understatement. He had just bluffed one of the most brutal criminals on the entire planet with a water pistol.

“Gods,” Jak muttered. “Remind me never to let you into the Black Mark.” He glanced around. “We should get moving. I’m surprised no automated system has shot at us.”

“It is probably because you are with me,” Dayj said. “Her systems won’t harm me. She reprogrammed them after a laser nearly killed me when I tried to escape.”

“We’re also shrouded,” I said. “From most sensors.”

“I can see you,” Dayj said. “Your skin shimmers.”

“It’s holographic powder. The effect breaks down up close.” I rose to my feet and offered him a hand.

Dayj stood up and tried to take a step. As his leg gave out, both Jak and I grabbed him. We each slid an arm around his waist, and he put his arms over our shoulders. We headed up the path where Jak had come down, Dayj limping between us.

“We can go out a back door I know,” I said.

“Got a closer one,” Jak said. “I’ve a jeeper waiting there.”

“A closer one?” I demanded. “You knew about another entrance?”

Jak cleared his throat. “Uh. Well. Yah.”

“You, who supposedly didn’t know a way in here?” Now that I thought about it, he hadn’t had time to get a shroud, go back to the café, and then come here. He must have gone straight to the cavern after we split up.

“Bhaaj—”

“You bastard,” I said. “You ditched me.”

Jak stared at me across Dayj, his gaze dark. “Of course
you
would never ditch
me.
And never mind that I just helped save your stubborn ass.”

“My stubborn ass was fine,” I growled.

“Excuse me,” Dayj said, “but if the two of you continue this, you will break my spine.”

Ho! I hadn’t realized I was gripping him so hard. As I spluttered an embarrassed, “My apologies, Your Highness,” Jak turned red and said, “Sorry about that.” We both loosened our hold.

We soon reached an exit that let us out into a decrepit canal. A jeeper waited, stocky and squat by the rubble of a fallen wall. Holo-paint sheened the armored surfaces of the vehicle, creating a mottled rust and blue exterior that matched the surroundings.

As I helped Dayj into the jeeper, Jak surveyed the area. “No one has come after us yet.”

Dayj paused in the doorway. “Scorch didn’t want people to know she had me prisoner.” In a dull voice, he added, “Anyone who knew, she killed.”

I spoke in a low voice. “It’s not your fault.”

Jak swung up into the driver’s seat. “Her behavior makes no sense.”

I helped Dayj into the back, where he could lie down if he needed, then closed the door and slid into the front passenger seat. “Why not?”

Jak powered up the jeeper. After it rose into the air and headed down the canal, he looked back at Dayj. “She threw her reason to the wind over you.”

It made sense to me. I’d thrown my reason to the wind over Jak more than once.

“Who are you?” Dayj asked him.

“Jak.”

“I thank you for your help.”

Jak nodded awkwardly. “I set a course for the palace.”

“No,” I said. “Wait.” I turned to Dayj. “Is that what you want?”

He went very still. “I have a choice?”

I took a breath and plunged over the proverbial cliff. “I told your family you went offworld. The port lists a ticket bought by someone with the ID Scorch sold you. It says you went to Metropoli. This jeeper and the caverns are protected from surveillance.” I felt as if the world were spinning. If the Majdas ever found out what I was doing, my life would be worth less than spit. “You can’t leave Raylicon now, but if the search moves to Metropoli, it will ease up here. Eventually you can go wherever you want.”

Jak stared at me in disbelief. “I am not hearing this.”

“Why?” Dayj asked me. “Why would you do this for me? Do you realize what my family would do to you if they found out? Or the reward they will give you for bringing me back?”

“This isn’t about a reward,” I said. “Or their revenge. Some things are more important. Like freedom. You shouldn’t have to live that way.”

“What way?” He sounded tired. “As one of the richest people in an interstellar empire? There is a real hardship.”

“You’re a prisoner in your own home.”

“The Houses have a rationale that goes back millennia.” He rubbed his eyes, then dropped his arm. “It is a rich tradition, Major, not one to discard lightly.”

“Then why did you run away?” I asked.

Softly he said, “Because I was starving.”

I gentled my voice the best I knew how. “Skolians have settled hundreds of worlds. If you want a well-populated place with many seas, it doesn’t have to be Metropoli. You can go somewhere no one would ever know.”

His look said it all, the longing, the loneliness, the frustrated dreams. It was there in his dark eyes. He spoke with difficulty. “When I was lying in my cell in the caverns, I remembered a gift my parents had given me when I was little, a globe of Raylicon with deserts in gold, the dead seas in crystal, the clouds in diamond. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But they wouldn’t let me play with it. I might have broken the globe, you see.” In a low voice be said, “That is my life, Major. I can only look at it, never touch it.”