Aphrodites tears, p.3
Aphrodite's Tears, page 3
They had failed abysmally in bringing down the faithless traitor’s bodyguard, and that alone was as dismal a thought as the man had ever had. Even worse than that, the loss of an entire squad of Balisongs and his own capture served to compound the disaster into a true catastrophe. He was not concerned for himself, such as it was. Despite the undeniable certainty that he would be tortured for information, the man was not so inclined to dread it. This had always been a risk of his profession, and his calling to the cause would keep his resolve as firm and focused as it needed to be. He would give them nothing willingly, and what little they eventually wrenched from him would be nigh unto useless to them anyway. He took a moment to assess his surroundings. He was lying on the floor of a dark room. There was carpeting beneath him, and the sound of rain tapping a determined staccato rhythm on a window could be heard. He did not know if it was day or night, as the window in question had obviously been dialed opaque. He was unbound, which surprised him. Then again, he was currently broken in enough places that restraints would be superfluous. He found himself alert and not at all groggy, which was also bizarre considering the nature of his evening’s calamities. He did not have time to sort out the reasons for this. Escape was more important.
Carefully, he shifted and writhed to a sitting position. His injuries reminded him with each movement of all the places he was broken. It was a depressingly large number, but the pain was merely a distraction. His relationship with pain went deeper than many marriages, and it would take much more than some broken bones to stop him from attempting escape.
“Comfortable?” a voice inquired politely.
The assassin’s eyes darted around the darkened room in search of the speaker. His eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light, and all he could make out were a few shifting shadows in the oppressive gloom of his prison. He squinted at a dark silhouette, configured in a vaguely manlike shape as it rose from a chair and moved toward him. The assassin showed no fear. This was a simple thing to achieve since he felt no fear. Apprehension, perhaps, and a sadness that his mission was a failure and his life was at its end. Neither of those amounted to fear, though. With a resolve born in the grueling crucible of fanaticism, the Balisong prepared to meet death with a snarl of defiance.
He was robbed of his chance for such theatrics when the figure calmly reached over and turned up the lights. Illumination filled the room, making the injured killer wince and squint. When his eyes at last adjusted, he could see two people sharing the room with him. One was an obscenely dressed blond woman and the other, he realized, was the feckless traitor he had been sent to kill. The boy’s tan face was set in a featureless mask. He was hiding something. It was obvious the boy was crushing an expression that was trying to make itself plain on his face. He had hunted dozens of men across dozens of planets, and he knew when a mark was legitimately stoic and when a young terrified boy was putting on a brave face. The urge to taunt the little turncoat was strong, but something about the expression on the woman’s face told him to forbear. He could recognize his own species and that person was not to be trifled with under the best of circumstances. Instead, he cut to the chase and preempted the boy’s attempt at interrogation.
“You already know that you won’t get anything from me. Why are you bothering with all this, boy?”
The young man’s jaw flexed, tightening the tendons in his neck in an involuntary reaction to the assassin’s voice. The Balisong relaxed, knowing he was already in the boy’s head. “Just kill me. It won’t matter. More will come. Have you told your friends that? Have you told them that the Red Hats have marked them all? Have you explained that our blades are sharp and unrelenting?” He shifted his injured body and sighed, “Oh, little boy. How many more will die for your betrayal? How many good and faithful soldiers of the cause will it take? You should turn yourself in and return to face the judgment of your brothers and sisters.” He pointed to the woman in the room. “You will have her blood on your soul as well if you do not.”
Manuel Richardson scowled at that comment as if he did not understand it. He looked over at the woman and clarified, “You know what? I don’t think he knows who you are, Mindy.” He turned back to the injured assassin and explained this oversight. “The Balisongs are very into an ascetic lifestyle. Lots of isolation and meditation and stuff.”
The woman stood up from where she was sitting and walked over to look more closely at the wounded man. She leaned over and scowled into his face. The Balisong met her gaze without flinching, a smug smirk twisting his lips ever so slightly. Mindy smiled right back.
When she spoke, it was to Manny and not their captive. “That explains why their hit was so sloppy. They always this unprepared or is this a special thing?”
The Balisong frowned at the affront to his professional pride, and Manny did not let him retort.
“They don’t operate outside of Venus too often. I figure these guys were just so damn successful back home they assumed that New Boston would be no different.” The boy cocked an eyebrow at his prisoner, “That sound about right?”
The Balisong ignored the question. “We always get our man, traitor. You will be no different.”
“That’s sort of the thing,” Manny said with a rueful shake of the head. “You do always get your man. I explained that to Mindy, here,” he jerked a thumb at the top-heavy woman, “and she kind of pointed out that she is not, in fact, a man.”
“Definitely feels like a loophole,” Mindy agreed.
The Balisong scowled. He knew Richardson was scared, and he knew the boy was a runner at heart. He could see the urge to flee written all over the little traitor’s face. However, instead of backing down Manuel was trading barbs with him as if he was in total control. Something was keeping him from bolting now, and the assassin began to suspect what it was.
“And so it is behind the skirts of this...” the Balisong sneered, “...tramp you’re hiding, then?”
Mindy’s eyebrows began to climb at the insult, though her posture remained relaxed as the Venusian guffawed. “Little Manny, you have betrayed your family, left your mother weeping and shamed your father’s house. Hookers from the planet of fascist oppressors will not save you from the death you so richly deserve.”
“Hey!” Manny snapped. “Mind your language, buddy. Mindy may be a tramp, but she is totally not a hooker!”
“I’m not from Earth, either,” she pointed out.
The assassin leaned back against the wall, wincing only slightly as broken bones ground against each other. A disappointed look split his face when he spoke again. “You are brave now because you have friends to protect you. You have that big fixer and this brazen slut to help you and suddenly you are better than your family?”
“I’m an orphan.” It was the first thing Manny had said that rang of true conviction, and the Balisong raised an eyebrow at the proclamation. “You animals were never my family. You tried to kill me as soon as I stopped helping you murder babies and old men.”
“Is it murder to kill those who take what is yours? Those who would steal your very home?” It came out as snarl, twisted by a lifetime of hatred and the lessons taught by fanatics. Manny had heard it before and he recognized it now for what it was.
“Yeah. I knew you’d say that, and I don’t really care.” He rubbed his forehead in a bizarre show of weariness. “Do you know why you are still alive, oh brave Balisong?” Manny sneered the name.
“You think you will interrogate me, of course.” The assassin appeared quite confident and unconcerned with this potentiality.
“Not really,” Mindy shrugged, earning a small smile from Manny.
“She’s right,” the young man concurred. “We already know as much as we are going to at this point. You could tell us where the rest of your squad is holed up, but they’ll have already moved on. You could tell me who sent you, but I already know. You might even have information on the best way to avoid you guys in the future.” His shoulders rose and fell in a big expressive shrug. “Honestly? We don’t fucking care. So, the good news for you is that you get to live. The bad news is that you get to be a message to your masters.”
“You see,” Mindy interrupted, “that big doofus you shot up tonight? He has some history with you guys. It’s old history, but he’s not really the kind of guy who lets stuff go, if you get what I mean.” She winked. “He really wants an excuse to just go hop a ship to Venus and finish up a job he started about thirty damn years ago.”
Manny chuckled, and the Balisong could not help but notice that all signs of fear or apprehension had left the boy’s body language. “You really don’t want that,” the young man admonished his prisoner. “Seriously. If you care for any of your ‘family’ you would be doing everything you could think of to stop Roland from coming to Venus.”
Mindy gave a sad little pout. “But you’re too stupid to realize that, aren’t you? Look at you, with your stupid smug face and your silly fanatic’s confidence.” She looked over to her partner with a defeated eye roll. “Seriously, right now this dipshit is sitting there with a mess of broken bones thinking that we are the ones who don’t get it. Ugh!”
Her hand went to her hip where she rested the palm against the hilt of a black dagger. “We’re wasting our time, Manny. I think I’m just gonna kill him.”
Manny held up a hand to calm her. “Easy, Mindy. The boss wants us to play this one calm.” He turned back to the prisoner. “We were going to toss you back on a ship to Venus. Obviously, that won’t work because you are a stupid zealot who will just try to complete your mission anyway. Then you will be as dead as the rest of your team.” The young man winced, “Man, was I really as bad as you when I was younger? It all sounds so stupid now. Anyway. We need you to deliver a message, and we were kind of struggling with how to get that message back to the Red Hats in a way even a mind-wiped fanatic like you couldn’t screw up.”
The Balisong stiffened. This was not going the way he thought it would. Everything was wrong, and he could not figure out why. There was no way he was going to go back to the domes with his mission incomplete and he would die in this room before he would ever consent to be a messenger for this traitor. His captors had just said as much, so he could not understand why they were even having this conversation.
“So, we decided,” Richardson continued, “to turn you over to the cops. We figure the InfoNet aggregators will lose their minds over a Red Hat death-squad operating this close to Uptown.”
“Gateways is gonna blow a gasket, too,” Mindy added. “You were five blocks from the Guts, man. Twelve docking towers moving billions of creds a day in goods and services, and you dinks ran an unauthorized hit not two miles away from them!” She shook her head again. “Morons! Do you know how many millions of creds have been spent by Gateways to keep the Docks clear of threats over the last two decades? Do you know how many people have died?” She laughed in the man’s face. It was harsh and mean. That laugh rang with pure, undiluted condescension and it stung the assassin’s pride to hear it. “You colossal dipshit, entire criminal empires were crushed over shit like this! Man, if I was a group of reviled terrorists -ah ‘freedom fighters’- I mean, well I’d just hate to have a giant mega-corp breathing down my neck.”
Manny affected an air of mock concern. “You’re totally right, Mindy. I bet the Planetary Council might even get involved. That would really complicate things back under the domes. They might even send the Expeditionary Forces back over there.”
“That’s true. Wow! If I worked for the Red Hats, I’d be really worried about my little operation getting exposed like that, so far from home and all.”
Manny chuckled in agreement and gave the Balisong a hard look. “We know you are a free-birth Venusian, but after tonight, you will have a record. Obviously, your career as a Balisong is over, and if you don’t want your whole Earthside operation exposed, you will deliver our little message to your handlers.”
The injured assassin was now beginning to understand his predicament. He was in a unique position, and not one he had been trained for. He could handle the pain of torture, and he was not afraid of death or dying. Even though every fiber of his being was screaming at him to resist, the part of him that could still think logically knew that this instinct was more likely to hurt the Red Hats than help. The traitor was not wrong. Being turned over to the New Boston Police would be a disaster. Naturally he would be disavowed, but the research they had done on the big fixer had indicated that he did have the ear of Gateways. That research had failed to prepare them for his physical capabilities, sadly, but his business operations were well-known at least.
He tried to play it tough. “And what, exactly, is this message I am to deliver? That a dead man sends his regards? Perhaps you want me to tell them that little Manny the sackless traitor and his pet stripper want us to go away? It doesn’t work like that, boy, you know as much.”
Manny gave the man a look that was a cross between disbelief and pity. “You really don’t know who she is, do you?”
“She looks like a common whore to me.”
Manuel sighed again. “Wow. Was I this bad, too? Please tell me I wasn’t this bad.” He gestured to the blond woman, “This is Mindy. She is currently the top-ranked assassin with the Hunter’s Lodge for all systems. You’re an assassin, so can I assume you know what that means?”
He did, but he decided not to respond. This did not faze Manny at all.
“She killed the Pirate King with a knife, buddy. She broke Iron Sven Paulsen’s arm, and she has a kill count of...” he looked at her.
“One hundred and sixty-three,” she responded without inflection.
“Thank you,” Manny said, then looked back to the prisoner. “I know you don’t give a shit about that. I know you think that you are the baddest thing alive. I don’t care about any of it, myself. You, on the other hand, need to think about what happens to your leaders. What happens to Craddock and Hardesty if the most successful assassin in all of space decides to target them?”
As Manny had predicted, the Balisong was not impressed. “Please. We have dealt with many assassins. One more will not frighten them.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are all very brave and awesome. Whatever. Don’t care. Here’s the thing. I’m done running.”
The tanned youth leaned in very close to the man who had been sent to kill him. There was iron in his voice, and he spoke slowly and with great conviction. “Your message is this: Stay away from Dockside. Stay off of Earth. The Red Hats are done with Manuel Richardson.”
The injured assassin sneered and opened his mouth to speak. He was cut off by Manny, who grabbed him by the throat with a grip curiously strong and fingers that felt like steel. His injuries screamed in fresh protest and an abbreviated gurgle of pain swept past his lips. With a strength that felt incongruous to the young man’s small frame, the killer was thrust back against the wall with a bone-jarring thud. He nearly passed out as another thunderclap of agony wracked his body.
A snarl that did not sound at all like a confused young boy fleeing the terror of his youth erupted from the chest of Manuel Richardson. “Otherwise, you piece of shit, Manuel Richardson will be done with them.”
Chapter Four
“You all right?”
Mindy fired the question to Manny as they left the interrogation room. Most of the time it was a supply closet in the back of their office. For tonight at least, the small dark space was an interrogation room. The young man, who a moment ago had been the very picture of resolve and conviction in the face of his enemy, did not look so strong now. His brave façade had melted like spring snowfall as soon as the door closed behind him, and this left him looking pale and pained.
“That was... uh...” he faltered, shaking his head, “...harder than I thought it would be.”
“Well, you did great. I think he is going to send just the message we want him to.”
They passed into the main office, which was little more than a converted storefront looking out onto The Drag. The rain still fell in stubborn drips outside, even as they watched through the large front window the purple gloom of encroaching dawn paint the streets in sloppy blue brush strokes. Long shadows were stretching from the parked cars and signs, the inky blue pools of darkness teasing Dockside with the promise of sunlight. Manny stared out the window for a protracted moment, just watching it happen. He had grown up under the artificial light of colony domes and space stations, so the transitions of natural sunrise and sunset still gave him pause. He was fascinated by the cleansing brightness of a dawn, and how the entire spectrum of color could be dragged through a single place while the night surrendered to the inevitability of daytime.
“It was... strange.” Manny moved to a chair in front of a desk and sat down with a heavy sigh. “Talking to him was strange. I thought it would have been more... intense?” He scowled, and a map of deep lines aged his face by decades for a moment. “Is intense the word? I don’t know. I just thought there would be more... argh!”
“Shouting?” Mindy supplied helpfully.
“Yes, shouting.” His head bobbed in agreement. “I figured that he would be more angry. Like he hated me or something. I mean, he was here to kill me and all, yet it seemed like he didn’t give two shits about me either way.”
“He didn’t give two shits about you, Manny.” Mindy sat down at another desk and looked at her hands. “When I left home, part of me was sure that they would all be sorry for pushing me away. I thought that me not being there would show them that they had been wrong. Because if they really cared about me, they would be sad when I left.” She slowly looked up and met Manny’s eyes. “It didn’t feel all that great when I realized that if they didn’t care enough to make me want to stay, they wouldn’t be all that sad to see me go.”
