Aphrodites tears, p.12
Aphrodite's Tears, page 12
“I know he is. Now are you two PhDs going to stand there all day or take me to him?”
“Yeah. Just ah, let me call it in,” said the second man, finally speaking.
“Please do,” Roland sighed.
A quick comm call was thus engaged, and the taller man looked to Roland when it was completed. “Okay, Craddock is waiting in Refractory Nine.” The man paused, shuffling nervously and looking sideways at his partner. His partner looked back, and his own face betrayed apprehension bordering upon panic. “He wants us to make sure you’re uhm...” The voice trailed off, as if whatever he was trying to say was too terrible to bear.
Roland supplied the answer with a laugh. “Unarmed?”
“Yeah,” the taller one mumbled, unable to meet Roland’s eyes.
“Not going to happen. I’m carrying on a military exemption. If you morons get caught with my piece, we’ll all hang. Tell Craddock I’ll keep my weapons, and he can bring anything he thinks will make him feel safe. I won’t mind.”
Another whispered comm call was made and Roland waited in amused silence. With a subtle series of palm presses and eye movements, he turned his auditory gain up to hear the conversation. The man at the other end, who he presumed was Craddock, was less than thrilled with Roland’s conditions. But, as Roland knew he would, the man acquiesced to the terms with a burst of profanity and an angry click.
With a shrug, the taller man gestured to the fixer and grunted, “Okay. Follow us.”
The three of them moved through a winding series of tunnels. Before too long Roland was completely disoriented. He was savvy enough to understand that their meandering path was specifically constructed to get him lost, and he could not fault the Red Hats for this caution. It did not bother him either way. Mindy would be following and marking the trail somehow, so he did not care. Mindy annoyed him, but he could not deny it was nice to work with competent professionals.
The hallways and concourses got progressively smaller and dimmer as the group descended. Roland’s eyes were not bionic, but they were augmented with gene therapy and he saw in dim light as well as many people could in bright, so the dank yellow illumination and the muddy shadows it created did not bother him. Mindy could see both infrared and ultraviolet, so he did not suspect she would struggle either. His nose found new stimulus as well. The smell of sulfur and hydrocarbons grew stronger, while the air grew cooler and drier once they descended below ground level.
It was as if The Colander had two distinct biomes. The surface levels were cleaner and at least lit as well as possible. The nominally commercial nature of this dome meant that services and amenities, though rustic and intermittent, could be acquired there. However Roland noticed that once the main level was above you, conditions grew ever more squalid. Much of what he saw was abandoned industrial space re-purposed for dormitories and essential worker’s supplies. With a jolt of mixed surprise and sadness, Roland noticed the people below were different as well. The folks he saw were hunched and tired-looking. They squinted into the dark as they walked, and their feet shuffled rather than stepped. A lifetime of living in tight quarters and bad light had made them cautious when they walked, and the shambling gait cast them in the mold of mole-eyed subterranean creatures. Above, the stalls had been reasonably well-lit and clean, serving travelers and businesspeople what supplies and goods they may need to accomplish their on-site business. Engineers, scientists, accountants, and other well-paid professionals filtered through the Venusian industrial dorms constantly after all. Roland began to grasp that there were two distinct classes of people in The Colander. His eyes flicked to the weary faces of the lower-level denizens, and his lip curled in disgust. These hunched masses were not businessmen or travelers. These were the permanent residents of The Colander, banished to the underworld where the nicer things in life were not reserved for them. He was reminded of what he had said to Manny earlier that week; for all their despicable behavior, the Red Hats came by their anger honestly.
That’s how they kept their movement alive over the decades, he mused quietly to himself. Every day they are reminded of how much better other people have it. When they get mad and lash out, the companies retaliate with the RUC. Every day the corporations and the RUC breed new Red Hats down here simply by trying to stop them.
It was a pattern he understood very well. He had seen it in a dozen operations on a dozen worlds. Once the two sides start hurting each other, the cycle of retaliation becomes self-sustaining. The RUC was mandated to stop the terrorism, but every terrorist they killed or imprisoned bred three more of them, even thirstier for vengeance. It would have been bad enough if the RUC had been a disciplined, professional force that never exceeded their mandate. Simple observation of his surroundings confirmed that no quantity of mental contortion could believably make this case. Making things even worse was the deep partisan divide amongst the Venusians themselves. The Red Hats were not universally loved or supported, even within the industrial domes. Many Venusian laborers were perfectly happy to not be part of Free Venus, and were content with corporate employment and council governance. Corporate work could be very high-paying and offered a lot of advancement opportunities for the right kind of person. It was not hard to see how a lot of Venusian laborers would not want the higher taxes and lower social mobility living in a free dome would bring.
Roland gave up on trying to sort it all out. In the Army, his officers would refer to this as a ‘quagmire’ and his sergeant would have called it a ‘cluster-fuck.’ Both assessments seemed far too weak a description for the pure unmitigated maelstrom that was Venusian partisan politics. Roland was not here to solve the troubles, and so he put it out of his mind.
Eventually, his guides brought him to a hatch barely large enough for a man to pass through. One of the men tapped a code into the panel and the door swung open, revealing a large open chamber. Roland peered through the narrow opening and saw that a table and chairs had been set up, and that a barrel-chested man sat there. The man was flanked by two armatures, hulking gray mechanical anthropoids with tiny human heads. Both models were identical Erberhaus Incorporated Stahlkorpers, light-framed industrial models modified for Venus. Each cyborg had a pair of cylindrical tanks mounted to their backs for the large supplemental liquid-helium cooling systems that would enable the men to work outside the domes for several hours before having to come back inside. These two had not been modified for combat, he noted with relief. While not a high-end model, the Stahlkorper was designed for harsh environments and that meant they would be tenacious and durable all the same.
Craddock, who Roland assumed was the man at the table, probably felt this pair of metal guardians constituted a very impressive show of force. It was an understandable position for him to take. Stahlkorpers had multiple redundant systems to keep them running in bad situations and would be immune to virtually any form of side-arm or smaller rifle. In a place where most weapons were smuggled in or home-made, the two looming guards would be as close to invulnerable as made no difference. Roland, however, was not impressed. A couple of laborers in light armatures presented little more than the opportunity for some exercise to him, and he let this conceit show as he wormed his not-inconsiderable bulk through the narrow opening.
After sliding his shoulders through sideways, he stepped over the sill and uncoiled to his full height. Craddock’s eyes widened, and his guards shifted with a whir of motors and the metallic clank of steel feet on decking. Roland had a sneaking suspicion that the guards had never met anyone taller than they were outside of another cyborg. Roland’s stature and nominally human appearance was putting them at a loss, and he liked that.
“Mr. Craddock, I presume?” Roland kept his tone even and polite. Craddock, to his credit, recovered from his surprise quickly and waved to chair across from the table himself. “Ah, you must the fixer. Please, have a seat.”
Roland looked at the flimsy metal seat and shook his head. “Roland Tankowicz, and I think I’ll stand, just the same.”
“Suit yourself, pal. Straight to business, then? I understand one of our internal problems has wandered into your boss’s territory. I want to apologize or—”
Roland interrupted him, “I do not have a boss, Mr. Craddock. I have a client.”
Craddock’s heavy brows furrowed, “Right. Okay. Whatever. Your client is mad because we ran a hit in Dockside. Right?”
Roland nodded and said nothing. It was an old trick. The less he spoke, the more Craddock would.
“Right. We didn’t mean to cause no trouble with that. It’s totally an internal thing that spilled over the lip, you get me?”
Roland nodded again. Craddock furrowed even more. “So- uh, I guess I just need to know what’s going to make your client happy again.”
Roland was committed to one good-faith attempt to actually negotiate. “There is to be no Red Hat activity in Dockside, Mr. Craddock. The territory is in a very transitional state right now, and having your kind of trouble there is inviting the Council and Gateways to interfere. It’s unacceptable to my client.”
One side of Craddock’s mouth turned in a small snicker. “That’s kind of an issue, then. We have an... asset... in Dockside we need to retrieve, if you understand my meaning.”
“Is this asset a defector from the cause?”
Craddock’s face went blank, then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked at Roland through narrowed eyes. “You have a very good intelligence network, buddy.”
“You have no idea, Craddock. Can I assume that is a ‘yes?’”
“And if it is?”
“You are going to have to let this one go. We have rules in Dockside. If this asset had broken any of those rules, he’d be yours for the taking. He did not, and Dockside is a free trade zone now. As long as he follows the rules, you will need to leave him alone or go through channels to get him.”
Craddock’s expression did not change. “I’d heard about that. We got rules in the Red Hats too, buddy. He broke them. What about those?”
“Outside of Dockside and Big Woo, the Guilds don’t much care,” he said with shrug. “But the free trade zone is to be respected. I’m here to shut this down so I’ll be truthful, Craddock. Nobody in the Dockside rackets really cares about your asset, but the Trade Association is very keen for an opportunity to demonstrate to the whole system what happens to folks that don’t respect the free trade zone.”
“And they sent a single guy onto my turf to make that point?” He hissed, “Feels risky to me.”
Roland cracked his favorite smile. It was an ugly and terrifying sneer. “A few thousand years ago, the leader of a besieged city-state sent to Sparta, a place of great soldiers, to ask for help. The Spartans obliged him by sending a single warrior.”
“Feels like pretty shitty help to me.”
Craddock was not warming to the tale, Roland noted.
“It was sufficient.”
Craddock leaned forward again, eyes beginning to show the first hints of anger. “Are you here to fix this or pick a fight, Tankowicz? Because you don’t look like no Spartan to me, and unless my math is shit, you are one oversized prick against two cyborg armatures right now. Maybe you should watch your tone a little?”
“I was sent here to either resolve the issue or make an example of your organization. My clients are equally happy with either outcome, so it’s really up to you and me. Personally? I don’t really want to fight.”
Craddock must have misunderstood this for back-pedaling, because his retort was smug to the point of brash. “And what if I do? I like my odds pretty good right now, Mister Spartan. Maybe the Hats want to send a message, too. How about that?”
“One of the rules we have on Earth is ‘safe passage.’ It means when folks like us agree to a sit-down, we promise not to try and kill each other. I am extending that courtesy to you so we can talk frankly. I’d advise you to return the favor and abstain from threats against my person.”
“I think I see your problem, Tankowicz. You’ve lost track of where you are. We ain’t on Earth right now, pal. You are playing by my rules, asshole, so listen up.” The thick man stood, as if the extra height made any difference when compared to Roland. “We need to round up that traitor, and we intend to do exactly that. If your fucked up little Trade Association wants me to jump through some hoops first, fine. But one way or another, the piece of shit is mine. If that doesn’t work for you, I can have the boys here drop you outside to think about it for a while.”
The two cyborg guards stepped forward on this remark, lending the looming presence of their mechanical might to the threat. Roland, who would later admit that perhaps his good-faith attempt at negotiation had not been as sincere as it should have been, lunged for them. The Stahlkorpers had no chance of matching Roland’s speed, and even before their eyes had registered his movements, the towering Dockside fixer had each by the forearm.
With a jerk that all but split the seams of his jacket, Roland brought the two together in a thunderclap of colliding metal bodies. Another flick of thickly muscled arms then hurled both wobbling men face-first to the floor. Almost as soon as they struck, hands like vises closed over their helium tank harnesses and the bewildered guards found themselves yanked from the deck. One managed to utter a startled cry of pain and fear before being tossed into a wall hard enough to dent the thick metal. His head, not being encased in any sort of helmet, bounced off the unforgiving surface and the man slumped unmoving to the floor without further incident. The other guard gasped in terror when his opponent’s now-free hand closed like a docking clamp over the left elbow joint of his armature. This slight hesitation cost him dearly, because a moment later that elbow was a twisted shattered mess and the corresponding arm a useless dead weight hanging from his shoulder. Another merciless, savage, contemptuous yank from Roland and the arm was torn free of the chassis completely. The still sparking appendage stayed clutched in a gloved fist while Roland kicked the wounded man’s legs from underneath him. The guard slumped down and stayed there, eyes stretched wide with shock and fear, panic holding him immobile.
“Stay down, boy,” Roland grumbled unnecessarily, and turned to address Craddock. “Now, where were we?”
Chapter Fourteen
The ride was smooth enough, at least. Floating on a cushion of pure magnetic force, the freight car did not bounce or bash its way through the largely unilluminated tunnel leading to The Colander. It did, however, sway and lean quite a bit. Lucia’s augmentations would keep her from suffering the indignity of motion sickness, but at three minutes into the ride Manny was looking very green around the gills.
The young scout saw her look of concern and he gave her thin smile.
“I always hated these things,” he admitted.
“Not exactly a comfortable way to travel, are they?” she agreed.
It was obvious the tunnels and cars had not been built to carry people. The temperature inside was over one hundred degrees and the air reeked of oil and solvents. There was almost no light, with tiny glowing emergency diodes spaced every fifty feet preventing total blackness and doing little else. Lucia felt like she was being boiled alive in her clothes, and the immodest dress of the native Venusians began to make a lot more sense with every passing minute. Her gauntlets were akin to close personal friends at this point, and while she loved them dearly, they were torture to wear right now. She kept them on out of a sense of prudence and no more than that. Their snug fit, armored panels, and sturdy construction felt like liabilities and not assets at the moment.
“It’s only a nine-minute ride to the transfer station, Boss,” Manny assured her. “It will be cooler there.”
Lucia nodded. “Then what?”
“Well...” Manny seemed reluctant to say what that was.
“Manny...” There was a warning in her tone.
“We will need to get out of the car before it docks. An inspector will want to see the cargo I spoofed into the manifest to get the car to run at all. If he finds us, there will be a problem.”
“How do we get out of a moving car, Manny?”
“We’re going to have to jump.”
Lucia peeked over the side of the car. The emergency lights whisked by like orange lasers and Lucia’s heart leapt.
“Manny...” The warning tone was back, and stronger this time.
“It will start braking early enough. It’s not so bad, I promise!” He nodded in manner he hoped was comforting. “I told the system that the payload was very heavy, and since it won’t want to throw a hundred tons of cargo through the terminal at forty miles per hour it will start to slow us down very soon!”
As predicted, the car began to slow with ratcheting lurches well before their destination. Manny’s artful deception about the cargo mass confused the unsophisticated software and the car over-braked to nearly a halt before adjusting to a smoother deceleration. Manny and Lucia leapt from the rocking container when it was barely moving and dropped to the floor of the tunnel without incident.
“Now,” Manny instructed, “we need to sneak into the transfer station and get into The Quad to see an old friend. After that, we go to our camp in Warrentown.”
He read the confusion on her face and explained, “Warrentown is the area under the old main refractory. In the old days it was a bunch of machinery rooms and lab stations and other support areas for it. After the big refractory was abandoned, Venusians started to carve out dorms and businesses in there. It’s just a bunch of re-purposed compartments connected by open spaces, like a rabbit warren.” He sniffed, “Hence the name.”
“Got it. How do we get in?”
“There will be a receiver at the transfer station we will have to get by, and then it’s just a matter of slipping into The Quad. It’s not terribly secure once we get past the transfer station.”
They crept along the tunnel, hugging the walls for safety. In a few hundred yards, Lucia began to notice the oppressive darkness becoming brighter. The dirty glowing emergency lights became more frequent, and soon Lucia could see her path quite easily.
