Stealing Light s-1, page 21
part #1 of Shoal Series
The pressure increased. She imagined the wickedly sharp blade cutting through her flesh. Udo’s other hand gripped her shoulder like a steel vice.
‘And in return, you don’t talk? Is that your deal? Let’s sit down then,’ Udo hissed, guiding her towards an empty alcove. Corso followed, looking bewildered.
Severn was close, very close. As she sat down, she could sense him somewhere nearby. She glanced around and spotted him standing behind the bar counter, only a few metres away. He stood with his muscled arms folded, an amused expression on his face. He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows as if asking a question: Dakota responded by shaking her head. Not yet.
Severn had acquired more tattoos since the last time she’d seen him, a few years after the incident at Port Gabriel. They now spread up his shoulders, across his chest where they were clearly visible beneath his shirt, and then curled around his neck.
Unlike many others, he chose not to hide the fact he was a machine-head. His scalp was still shaven, the skin on the back of his head tattooed with diagrams that mirrored the machinery that lay hidden underneath the flesh and bone.
Looking at his skull and face, only an expert would have been able to recognize the reconstructive work done after he’d shot himself, long ago, as Dakota had watched.
Yet despite being one of the most easily recognizable human beings alive, almost no one outside of a very exclusive clientele had even heard of him.
Corso sat down facing the pair of them in the alcove, his hands tightly gripping the edge of the table. ‘Please tell me what’s going on here,’ he urged quietly.
Dakota ignored him. ‘Udo, listen to me. I know the man who runs this place. He’s a machine-head, same as me. We look out for each other. Anything happens to me now, I can guarantee you won’t walk out of here alive.’
Udo glanced over and caught Severn’s eye. The bar owner held Udo’s gaze and moved his head slowly from side to side.
Dakota wondered if she’d pushed the Freeholder too far. ‘Udo, I don’t give a damn what you do in your private life. But you and the rest of the people on that ship sure as fuck don’t do a great job of securing private data.’
‘You have no right looking into those files-’
‘Udo, it’s hard not to look at the files. You’ve been caught before. There was nearly a scandal back on Redstone. We both know just how nasty it’d get for you back home if the truth ever got out.’
Udo pulled his knife back a little, but kept it angled towards her thigh. She was entirely aware that if he cut her the right way, she’d be dead in seconds from blood loss.
‘The only reason you’re still alive,’ he growled, ‘is because it’s my job to keep you alive for as long as we need you.’ The knife twitched against her thigh and Dakota suppressed a gasp. ‘But accidents happen.’ He laughed, the sound not entirely sane. ‘What the fuck made you think you could blackmail me?’
‘Udo.’ It was Corso. He’d seen what Mansell hadn’t. ‘Udo, put the knife away.’
‘Stay out of this,’ Udo snapped back. ‘Or I’ll skewer you where you sit.’
‘Udo, look behind you.’ Corso nodded over Mansell’s left shoulder.
Udo turned his head slightly and stiffened at the sight of the rifle barrel aimed at a spot just below his left ear. One of Severn’s men was standing diagonally right behind him.
‘Evening,’ murmured the guard.
Udo turned back around and gave Dakota a look of baleful hatred.
‘I’m sorry, Lucas,’ said Dakota. ‘But I’m going to have to ask you if there’s anything concerning your expedition I might not already be familiar with.’
Corso sighed as if a burden had settled on his shoulders. ‘Planetary exploration.’
‘And?’
‘And that’s it.’
She turned to Udo, who shook his head. ‘I’ve been threatened by people a lot more dangerous than you,’ he said slowly.
Dakota turned back to Corso with a smile. ‘Did you know your friend here likes to fuck mogs?’
Corso looked between the two of them, as if not quite sure what he’d just heard. ‘Excuse me, what are…?’ he shrugged without finishing, clearly baffled.
‘Udo here has a thing for mogs,’ Dakota repeated, nodding towards the lupine shapes writhing in cages at the far end of the bar.
Corso flipped his gaze between the cages, Dakota and Udo, opening and closing his mouth several times. ‘What… are those things mogs?’
‘It’s a nasty little fetish,’ Dakota added. ‘Not quite bestiality, but close enough.’
‘Not quite? They’re animals, right?’ Corso demanded, his voice rising. ‘Or… what else are they?’
Beside Dakota, Udo sat stock-still. The knife now lay on the table before him, and both his hands were placed palms-down on the tabletop.
‘They’re illegal half-human gene-jobs,’ she explained. ‘Low intelligence, vicious, dumber than an ape but smarter than a dog. There’re a lot of cross-species hacks out there, but that’s the most popular by a long shot. Some are made for fighting, some for sex. In a place like this it’s mostly sex.’
Corso studied Udo with a distinctly different expression from that of a moment before. Dakota was no expert on Freehold culture, but she knew they were deeply conservative in most respects. On Redstone, homosexuality was punishable by a violent death, and the vast majority of art created by the human race throughout its long history was considered part of the corruption the Freehold had set out to escape.
But when it came to a fully fledged Citizen copulating with half-human monsters, Dakota didn’t even want to think what Udo’s own people would do to punish him.
Corso looked like he was turning green. ‘And the Consortium allows this?’
‘Of course not.’ Dakota sighed. ‘But we’re not in Consortium-controlled territory right now. The warlord who rules this district turns a blind eye to certain practices if there’s an advantage to it.’
Corso shook his head. ‘I can’t believe this. It’s… there aren’t words. I can’t even begin to think…’
‘Even if you could prove a word of this,’ Udo snarled, his eyes now drilling into Dakota’s, ‘who would believe you?’
‘I already told you that I know the owner of this place. Severn, right?’
Udo nodded, clearly recognizing the name.
‘Well, he’s a machine-head, you idiot. Our kind stick together, remember? I mean, how do you think he managed to stay alive this long out in the open, if it wasn’t by keeping records on everyone who walks in here?’
Dakota had a strong sense that she could only push Udo so far before his instinct for vengeance would outweigh his sense of self-preservation. His nostrils flared with every breath, and his entire body was trembling with rage.
‘Now here’s the deal,’ she said, glancing at both Freeholders in turn. ‘Tell me the truth, right now, or I walk out of here and neither you nor anyone else on the Hyperion will ever see me again. And I’m prepared to bet you don’t want that.’
They remained mute, so Dakota stood up slowly, making sure Severn’s men could clearly see she was unarmed. ‘Then it’s goodbye, gentlemen.’
‘Wait.’ Udo put up a hand. ‘There’s nowhere you can go, Oorthaus.’
Dakota laughed. ‘Yes there is, Udo. I could jump ship a dozen times and you’d never find me. The Freehold are a spent force, and half the Consortium is going to breathe a sigh of relief when you’re relegated to history. Your own people have got better things to do than come after someone like me.’
‘We found something,’ said Corso, so quietly it took Dakota a moment to register that he’d actually spoken.
Severn stepped across to the alcove, leaning over the table to speak to her, pointedly ignoring the others. ‘You know, whatever favours I owe you-and there’s a lot of them, don’t think I ever forgot-I just paid every one of them back twice over, starting from about five seconds after you walked through that door.’
Udo started to jerk up out of his seat. The guard behind him pulled back his weapon and slammed the stock of it into the back of the Freeholder’s head. Udo’s head twisted around under the impact and he slid over to one side, one hand pressing down against the seat.
Severn stood back and nodded in his direction. ‘What’s your friend’s name?’
‘Udo Mansell. And he isn’t a friend. The other one’s Lucas. I reckon he’s harmless.’
Severn stared down at Udo, who was slowly pushing himself back upright, his eyes focused somewhere far beyond Dakota’s hovering presence. ‘Udo, I want you to stay here for now. Me and…’
He looked at Dakota.
‘Mala,’ she replied.
‘Me and Mala are going to have a little talk. Next time you try something, Grigori here will use the end of his gun that shoots bullets.’
Dakota slid out of the alcove, following Severn as he made his way through a door at the far end of the main bar and into an anteroom beyond. She could hear the sound of mogs yelping and of people yelling beyond another door ahead of them, all mixed up with the loud throb of angry, discordant music. This was where the mog pits lay-and where Severn did his real business.
The instant the door had closed behind them, Severn turned and slammed her against a wall.
‘Whatever the fuck this is all about, Dakota, start from the beginning and don’t leave anything out.’
‘Nice to see you, Chris. How long’s it been?’
‘Not nearly long enough, judging by that little scene. What in the name of all the stars in the sky made you think you could pick my establishment to start a flicking war in?’
‘I didn’t have a choice. The one called Udo-’
‘I know who he is, Dakota!’ Severn bellowed. The rage seemed to go out of him a little then, and he took a step back, rubbing his face with his hands. When he next spoke, he sounded calmer.
‘If people think they can’t come here and be safe, then every machine-head within a couple of hundred light years has a serious fucking problem. You know that, don’t you? I’ve gone to a lot of time and effort to make sure this is one of the few safe places all of us can go-’
‘I’m in trouble,’ Dakota told him baldly.
‘Aren’t we all.’ Severn nodded. ‘Want to tell me how?’
‘You really don’t want to know’
Severn shook his head. ‘Just as much of a fuck-up as you ever were, then.’
‘Look, I got hired by a bunch of Freeholders. They want me to pilot their ship-that frigate that just docked a few hours ago. They told me it’s a standard system evaluation, but I don’t believe them. They won’t tell me where we’re going, and I know they’re hiding something.’
‘Freeholders?’ Severn stared at her disbelievingly. ‘Freeholders hired a machine-head?’
‘The one who’s been here before, I mean Udo, if it came out he likes mogs, he’s a dead man back on Redstone. I needed to get some leverage on him to find out what they’re really up to.’
‘And so you thought it’d be a really good idea to bring him here, because then he’d crumble and confess everything. So tell me, how’s that little plan working out?’
‘Not so well, because neither of them will talk,’ Dakota admitted. ‘I drink my only real option is to disappear.’
Severn looked at her with pity. ‘You’ve sunk a long way, Dak.’
‘I know.’ She grimaced. ‘You don’t need to tell me.’
‘But you’re still not telling me something.’ He stepped closer to her, almost trapping her against the wall. She put one hand on his chest as if in warning, the blood thrumming in her veins.
He continued: ‘The last I heard you were running illegal shipments in the home system. Now you’re here, trying to ditch the Freehold. Were you there on Bourdain’s Rock when it blew up?’
‘I…’ Dakota felt the blood rise to her face and knew she’d given herself away.
‘Shit.’ Severn stepped back and stared at her like he’d never seen her before. ‘Jesus, Dak, I heard they were out looking for a machine-head. They’re going to kill you, you know that?’
‘I had nothing to do with what happened to Bourdain’s Rock, I swear,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘but I don’t think Bourdain’s the type that goes for rational argument. The Freehold needed a pilot and for some reason they were desperate enough to use a machine-head. But now I know I’m walking into something bad all over again. I’ve been trying to ignore my instincts, and my instincts tell me they’re up to a lot more than they’re admitting.’
Severn nodded, then glanced off to one side. She could tell from his expression he was receiving a communication.
He raised one hand, palm facing towards her. ‘Wait here,’ he instructed. ‘I need to speak to someone. I’ll be right back, OK?’
‘OK,’ she said miserably.
Severn pushed through the far door leading to the mog pits.
A minute passed, and then another. Then waiting any longer became impossible for Dakota. Her life was at stake here.
She went through the same door to look for Severn. The space beyond was not unlike the bar where they had left Udo and Corso, except that a raised catwalk sliced the room almost in half, and there were more barred cages set into recesses high up on the walls to either side.
Below these were more seating alcoves, full of customers. There were far more mogs evident in this part of the building, and she was mildly shocked to see some being led on leashes along the catwalk by bead zombies. She hadn’t ever thought Severn was the type to use zombies, and wondered just how much he’d changed since the last time she’d encountered him. The sight of those headless monstrosities made her queasy in the pit of her stomach.
The mogs on parade had been trained to walk on their hind legs. Most displayed only a hint of human intelligence in their wide dark eyes set above compact, abbreviated snouts. Harsh spotlights glistened on their polished claws and on the metal studs of their leather collars. Some looked considerably more human than any other mogs Dakota had seen before-which made it all seem so much worse.
Severn’s clientele remained mostly out of plain sight, their faces veiled in shadows within the alcoves they occupied. On the far side of the catwalk various doors led to secure rooms where those same clients could enjoy a few purchased hours with a gene-job-or alternatively go and place a bet in the mog fighting pits beyond.
Then Dakota saw just exactly who Severn was talking to.
Moss.
Dakota stepped back into the shadows, neither of them having yet seen her. They seemed to be arguing, and from the look on Severn’s face she guessed Moss was being threatening in some way.
She had recognized Moss almost immediately despite his changed appearance. A large part of his face looked parboiled, the skin on it blotchy red, stretched and twisted like plastic. All his hair was missing above one ear, and the overall effect was monstrous.
It was the kind of disfigurement that might have been fixed by a week spent inside a medbox, but that was clearly an option Moss had foregone. Perhaps he wanted that hideous face to be the last thing she saw before he killed her.
Finally Moss looked over in her direction and almost did a double take.
Shit. She’d forgotten about his visual augmentations. Hiding here in the shadows wasn’t any use: she might as well be standing face to face with him in broad daylight. His eyes glowed dully, his smile twisting like an open wound.
She slammed back through the door into the anteroom, and then found her way back into the front bar. There was just the chance Severn wouldn’t let anything drastic happen here, in public, or in any place that might hurt his lucrative business.
Udo and Corso were still waiting in their alcove, their faces tense and drawn. Their expressions told her that those few minutes they’d been left alone together had turned into some of the longest in either of their lives.
She heard a commotion from the room behind her, then shots followed by the sound of splintering wood, and something heavy being repeatedly slammed against a wall. Customers looked around wildly, and the murmur of conversation around the bar subsided. Udo started to stand up…
The door Dakota had just come through thudded loudly, and she stepped away from it quickly. She now picked up the alarm and rage that was radiating from Severn’s Ghost, and even caught flashes of what he was actually seeing and hearing. For a moment, it felt like she was in two places at once.
He’s warning me, she realized, but with that warning came the knowledge of just how deeply he’d betrayed her. All in a moment’s mind-to-mind data transfer. It was like hearing his confession just prior to execution.
