Aphrodites tears, p.14
Aphrodite's Tears, page 14
“I’ll do my best,” Roland said affably.
“Right.” The man did not sound convinced of this. “You go ahead and just keep your fucking head down while you are here. This ain’t your precious Dockside, pal. Venus can be real dangerous for uppity pricks who think they are hot shit.”
“I know it,” Roland said with mock severity. “Just look at what happened to these two punks.” He pointed to the silent Stahlkorpers. “I bet they woke up this morning thinking they were pretty hot shit, themselves.”
“There are worse things than armatures on Venus, fixer. I’m trying to warn you nicely, here. Accidents happen in The Colander all the time. We got huge vats of acid, big crucibles of molten metal, heavy industrial shit. It’s a dangerous place for tourists. Even big cyborg tourists. It could take a month for anyone to even notice you’re gone. They may never find your body.”
The big man was impressed with the temerity of his adversary. Despite being completely outclassed, the grouchy terrorist was still trying to intimidate him. Roland spared a moment’s reflection for all the places he had been that had been as dangerous or more than Venus, and laughed right in Craddock’s sputtering face. “I’ll be careful. You’ve got your one week.”
For a brief moment, Roland considered extending his hand to the man, but then thought better of it. To think a perfunctory handshake could color what had just occurred as a meeting, and not the first exchange of warning shots in what was likely to be a long and bloody battle, was a level of self-delusion in which Roland was not inclined to indulge. Instead, he straightened, nodded to the seething Craddock and his trembling cronies, and turned his back to them all. He would have preferred to sweep out of the room with calm elegance betraying his supreme confidence, but he realized he still had to navigate the tiny hatch. There was no viable method for him to choreograph an artful exit while cramming his bulk through the undersized opening, but he did his best to look regal in the attempt. He assumed he had failed, but it was the thought that counted.
His two guides were waiting for him just outside. If their eyes were any indication, they were as close to panic as one could get without spontaneous defecation. Roland allowed himself a moment of internal approval. His theatrics in the meeting had been over the top and dramatic to a fault, but the effect was exactly what he hoped it would be. These two would be telling tales of what happened here to everybody they met, mixing the most important ingredient of Roland’s recipe for success into the mission.
Fear is contagious, he mused. And in a place like this, it spreads faster than typhoid. In a few hours, everyone in The Colander would be buzzing and talking about one thing and one thing only: the giant fixer from Earth who came in and shook down Alasdair Craddock. Manny and Lucia might never even get noticed as long as he kept his profile high enough. Picking fights and making a lot of noise was very much within Roland’s skill set, and the captive audience of The Colander should make this task rather simple.
He gestured to the trembling flunkies, startling them out of wide-eyed paralysis. “You morons want to lead back up to ground level now? Or should I find my own way?”
The taller man stammered an unintelligible reply, but Roland got the gist of it and followed the retreating man down the hall. In their haste to be rid of their terrifying charge the guides forgot to meander the route and took what appeared to be a direct path to the surface. With far more speed than it took to get down, Roland was back and standing outside the reception zone again. His minders vanished like so much vapor as soon as he was back in front of the stall, and the big man could not help but surrender to a wave of smug satisfaction at his afternoon’s work.
“Don’t you just look like the cat that ate the canary, Ironsides.” Mindy sidled up beside him.
“Won’t lie. That was fun. Felt like the old days.”
“As far as negotiations go, that was pretty shitty work.”
Roland started to walk toward a food vendor. The stall smelled of burned meat and some kind of salty-sweet sauce. He could not identify it, but it smelled good enough and he was hungry. He ordered four of the stuffed pastry being sold there and crammed the first into his mouth. He offered one to Mindy, who declined with an expression that was rather unambiguous about her opinion of Venusian street-meat. He shrugged and swallowed his mouthful of food, pleasantly surprised at how good it was. “Wasn’t really trying to negotiate. Wanted him mad, and I wanted people to talk. So I pissed him off and gave everybody something to talk about.” He switched gears on her. “How was recon? You find anything interesting?”
Her tone went very businesslike. “This place is crawling with cyborgs, Roland. I’ve never seen so many armatures in one place before.”
“Get out to Enceladus sometime,” he replied with an unimpressed toss of his shoulders. “Dangerous work out here means lots of walking wounded. Good clients for armature companies. Looks to me like the Erberhaus marketing department has an office on site. They specialize in low-cost hostile-environment armatures. Craddock didn’t mind bringing two Stahlkorpers to a meeting, so I’m guessing they’re thick on the ground here.”
“Yeah, well I saw a couple of those big quadropod things, too. You know the ones that look like big green centaurs?”
“Erberhaus?”
“Yeah.”
“How big?”
“Bigger than you, not as big as the bastard you smashed in Quinzy.”
“EisinStier mediums. Cheap but tough.” He winced as he recalled the specifics of that model. “Small power plant, but great heat shielding and redundant actuators. They aren’t the strongest or fastest rigs for the money, but they are designed to get the shit kicked out of them and keep running.”
“Whatever, they had two of them just moving tanks of stuff around down there. I also counted about thirty lights of various types. Lots of those ugly-ass Erberhaus tin men, a bunch of little AutoCat BobCats, too.” Her face twisted. “But get this. I saw at least three Shikomi Kanos down there.” Those she knew well. Her former partner and best friend had worn a Kano.
“Kanos, huh?” Roland looked impressed. “Those will bear watching. A Kano is a damned expensive rig for Venus. What do you bet those are plants for Hardesty?”
“My thoughts exactly. You could get three BobCats for the cost of a single Kano.”
“And five Stahlkorpers.” Roland agreed. “Somebody paid for a bunch of pricey rigs, anyway. You spot any heavies?”
She shook her head. “Not live, but I found cradles for four. Two AutoCat and two Erberhaus stations with all the tools.”
“At least no Shikomi heavies, then. That’s a relief. They are all probably outside. With supplemental helium tanks, those things will have enough cooling to ride out the heat for a few hours.”
Mindy looked very concerned. “If these guys are all in the union, we could be in serious shit, Roland. That is a lot of heavy metal walking around. I ain’t saying you can’t whup a lot of ass, but...” Her voice trailed off and her eyebrow rose. “It’s a lot of very big bad guys.”
“I get you. But the mediums and heavies won’t fit on the upper levels. And the lights can’t keep up with me, not even the Kanos. As long as we play a nice, careful, strategic game we will be fine.”
Her expression did not broadcast hope. “Well that’s just a huge relief, buddy.”
Roland bit down on another pasty and ignored her sarcasm. “We need to regroup with Lucia and Manny. You figured out how to get to the rendezvous without being followed?”
“We’re being followed now, Ironsides,” she drawled. “It’s more of a matter of losing the tail than it is of avoiding it.”
“That’s your angle, lady. I only know one way of dealing with nosy hoods who want to follow me around, and Lucia says I’m not supposed to kill people over that stuff anymore.”
“Just start walking that way,” she sighed, pointing down the concourse to a network of corridors. “I’ll handle the tail.”
Chapter Sixteen
Walking through The Quad was one of the most stressful experiences of Lucia Ribiero’s life, and she had raided a pirate ship once. Manny hustled through the masses of people as if they were not even there. Lucia was bumped and jostled constantly as she tried to keep up with the darting scout. Hands brushed her body, strange feet tangled with hers, and the dull roar of voices and music pressed on her skull with an unrelenting wall of sound. She forced her sense of time to dilate so she could steal a breath between steps and hopefully dodge the next invasion of her personal space.
A hand closed over her wrist, and she looked up to see Manny yanking her into a gray building. It was one of the larger structures in The Quad, and she could see it had been made from the sturdy metal panels that delineated the industrial spaces. Despite the recycled nature of its materials, the structure had been assembled carefully and by skilled workers. Lines were straight, walls were plumb, and floors were level. The whole façade managed to be both neat and ramshackle at the same time. Lucia realized that this juxtaposition was a key component to the jarring personality of The Quad. Obviously, everything down here was either a hand-me-down or scrap. While most slums wore this shame on their sleeves, it appeared that Venusian laborers were committed to doing the best work they could with the skills of their hands and the materials available. She could respect that.
“Come on,” Manny called. “We need to find someone. It’s going to be a little weird in here. Just keep your head down and let me do the talking, okay?”
Stepping through the door, Lucia observed what appeared to be a tavern of some sort. Growing up in Uptown, Lucia had few opportunities to experience seedy dive bars. Even after relocating to Dockside, she avoided the rough pubs that catered to the longshoremen and spacers. The Smoking Wreck was about as bad as she could handle and places like Hideaway actively turned her stomach. This establishment was easily the strangest she had ever been in. Tables in varying sizes and configurations littered the wide-open floor, and what was ostensibly a bar lined the back wall. Tubes of light in obnoxious colors crisscrossed the ceiling, most pulsing in patterns that accompanied the thrumming of terrible music. The music, omnipresent and indistinct, thumped from hidden speakers. It was a talentless and tuneless heartbeat that was more felt in the guts than it was heard with the ears.
On a raised platform, a woman danced provocatively wearing little more than a fake smile and twisted tubes of neon light. She was young and reasonably attractive, but her eyes were tired and heavy. Her dancing was competent, yet uninspired and unconvincing. All the elements were present, but off just ever so slightly. Feet stepped and hands waved, hips gyrated and shoulders swayed, all accomplished in a manner superficially sexual. It still looked listless, though. It was as if the dancer was only pantomiming the steps, moving in a pattern repeated so often it had burned a track into her brain and worn grooves into the stage floor. In front of the lethargic woman, a row of unkempt men howled and slid cred chits into tip slots as she worked each one with a feigned smile poorly concealing a bored expression of professional disinterest. Lucia thought it odd that the men were so enthusiastic about a woman so obviously not invested. It’s all such a bland fiction, and who would pay for that? She answered her own question a moment later. Lonely people would. It was one of the strangest and saddest things Lucia had ever seen. A perverted music box ornament twirling in mechanical rote to a song played with neither skill nor joy.
Manny, oblivious to Lucia’s distraction, walked straight to the bar and sat down on a rough plastic stool. Lucia was surprised at how relieved she was to sit next to him. Put off by the spectacle on stage and slick with her own sweat, the frazzled woman was more than ready for the temporary relief of a cold beverage. The bartender, a hard-looking older woman who had probably been beautiful once, walked over and placed stained menus in front of them.
“Thirsty?” she droned. Her blue eyes were narrow and lined, and her lips were thin. She was tall and lean in a manner oddly athletic. Despite her humble surroundings, the woman held her chin with an almost imperious tilt.
Manny looked directly in her face and grinned. “I’ll have the special, Ellie.”
“We don’t do specials here,” the woman said, sounding annoyed. But then she stopped and squinted at the younger man. The eyes widened in recognition for the briefest second, then returned to their normal width before anyone could notice. “Two specials,” she said loud enough for anyone to hear and then walked away from the bar to disappear into the kitchen.
“Come on,” Manny said to Lucia. He slid from the stool and shrugged his satchel on. He looked at his confused partner and gestured for her to follow.
Lucia spared herself a moment of regret for the unpurchased drink, but then chided herself for the weakness. She was on-mission right now, and she supposed she could at least pretend to be a professional. With a sigh she stood and followed Manny back outside and around to an alley. The space between the tavern and the structure next to it was barely thirty inches wide, yet somehow it was clogged with trash and hid at least one intoxicated man. The rumpled figure lay face down in a pile of discarded food containers and old crates, snoring without shame into his arm. Manny and Lucia stepped over the unconscious man and slipped further into the alleyway.
The garish photonic cacophony that was lighting in the main thoroughfare disappeared within ten feet of the alley’s entrance. Shadows swallowed everything as the dull gray of walls refused to reflect light any deeper into the gap. Lucia strained her eyes, and could still make out most major obstacles when they finally stopped at a nondescript service door. Manny punched a code into a panel and frowned when nothing happened. His frown deepened into a scowl, then he passed his left hand over the buttons and repeated his rapid-fire code entry trick from earlier. In eight seconds the latch finally yielded with an audible click and Manny nodded in satisfaction.
With a shove, the door swung inward, completely silent on well-oiled hinges. Manny stepped through and beckoned for Lucia to follow. She did, and found herself in a dim foyer. From there, Manny led her into a larger room with a table and chairs set up at the center. A narrow counter ran along one side, and a decrepit coffee station stood defiant at one end of it.
“Have a seat, Boss.” Manny waved dismissively to the table. “I’ll make some coffee.”
“Exactly where the hell are we?” Lucia asked.
“Somewhere Manuel should be very far away from,” a voice answered from the doorway.
Lucia looked up to see the woman from the bar scowling at them, hands on hips and face locked in a glare both disapproving and scared.
Manny’s face was more serene, and his answer had iron in it. “I can’t run forever, Ellie. It’s time to end this.” He turned to Lucia. “Lucia, this is Ellie Connelly, the best smuggler, trader, madame, fence, and coin-changer in all of Venus.”
Lucia stood and offered her hand to the woman, who stared at it for a moment before giving it a perfunctory shake. She then turned away from Lucia without a word and started in on Manny with a scolding tone.
“You should have gone to the frontier. You could have gotten away from them.”
“No I couldn’t. I know things. Things they can’t ever let get out. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it’s a lot bigger than Craddock’s ego or the glory of the Cause.”
“So you came back?” The woman was becoming shrill. “To do what? Fight them? You stupid child! You are not a fighter, Manuel! You are a sneaker, a planner, a tinkerer! You are one lost little boy all alone against those... those... animals! They will kill you and laugh about it when they are done!”
“I’ve changed, Ellie.” Manny punctuated this by yanking the sleeve from his left arm and holding the smooth white prosthetic up for her to see. “And I’m not alone anymore.”
The woman, who Lucia had deduced was an old acquaintance of Manny’s, looked wide-eyed at the exotic technology of the limb and then to Lucia in her expensive armor. “Oh you poor stupid boy,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
“I’ve come back to make this right, Ellie. Craddock needs to know he can’t hound me anymore, and I am not the child who ran away five years ago.”
Ellie shook her head, a sad rueful motion, then turned to Lucia. “And who is this Lucia to you, that she is so eager to die helping?”
Lucia’s eyebrows rose at the woman’s dismissive tone, yet she held her tongue. This was Manny’s play and she was content to let him have it.
“Lucia is a fixer, and my employer.”
“So she is this fixer from Dockside everyone is talking about?” Then Ellie frowned and dismissed that notion. “No, the word is that one is a big bald male. Apparently big enough to put down two of Craddock’s metal men bare-handed, from what the lads are all-flutter about it.”
Manny winced, “That would be Lucia’s partner. He’s... special. Two of those jerks wouldn’t give him much trouble.”
Lucia spoke up for the first time, a deep uncomfortable groan in her voice. “Please tell me he didn’t kill anyone?”
“Your partner walks into a meeting with Alasdair Craddock, fights with two cyborg thugs, and your concern is how many of them he may have killed?”
“If you ever meet him, you will understand,” Lucia responded dryly.
Dark hair bounced as the older woman threw her hands up in defeat. “He did not kill anyone, but the lads on the decks are suitably terrified, all the same.”
“That was probably his goal all along,” Lucia sighed. “His negotiation tactics are not particularly sophisticated.”
“Ellie,” Manny interrupted. “I had to come back. There’s so much I wish I could tell you, so many reasons I have to do this. But I don’t want you to know all the things I know.”
