He must’ve read some of that on her face, because he stepped to one side, clearing her path to the door. “I’d ask you to stay on the station, but you’re not really a traveler, are you?”

  Not anymore, she wasn’t. Ku strode past Fulton, down the bright hallway and into the cool night sunsim of JJ-2. Somewhere, maybe even in her mod, six people were imprisoned, confused, running out of time and maybe atmo. If Titan’s colony was too scary for them, a syndicate hideout would be terrifying.

  * * *

  When Ku got out of the police station and checked her messages, neither Cedar nor Fuse had learned anything new. She updated the boss, mentioned Max’s suspicion that the witness was in his own entourage, and asked for support with the new dusters. In the morning, a recorded message from the boss woke Ku: “This is your task. Complete it yourself. Now that Fulton has directly opposed you, you can’t ignore him. And if NEU citizens turn up dead, there will be an investigation.”

  Ku groaned into her pillow and rolled out of bed. The bare floor vibrated to the beat of music playing in the first floor bar. The boss was staying out of this mess, in case Max’s idiocy caused an international incident. Maybe that distance showed the higher ups how much control she had over her mod, too. If that was what the boss wanted, then Max could just sit in his cell until Ku found his kidnapped colonists.

  None of Max’s people had replied to Ku’s messages, so she met Fuse and Cedar and walked to where the grav acclimation tunnel let out. The tunnel brought people from the port on Ceres’s surface up to speed with the spinning construct of Ceres Station. This was one of only four level-two tunnel exits in all the residential mods.

  Fancier people could pay to get out on a level-one exit in a different mod. People like Ku did what she and her shadows were doing: walked from the tunnel down the street, dodging pedestrians and delivery bots when they ran on tracks that couldn’t be built into the walls. Ku and Fuse asked every adult on their way to the elevators whether they’d seen disguised colonists, while Cedar made sure no ambitious up-and-comers snuck up on them. The JJ-2 residents who’d seen anything had seen the colonists walk the same path Ku just had.

  A hairdresser with a home business at the end of the mod said she’d seen Max take the colonists into an elevator, and they hadn’t come out. When Ku and her shadows returned to the street, Fuse's shoulders slumped. “So they're not here.”

  Ku punched his arm. “That’s good. We don’t want that shit in JJ-2.”

  “I just want to find them soon, is all,” said Fuse. “Those poor people.”

  Where could Max have hidden them? An empty apartment? Some business’s back room? Six people wouldn't fit in a bot hutch, thank all the gods, and more than one hutch blocked off would draw complaints from station admins. Wherever the colonists were, they’d be thirsty and starving. And if they were all lucky, the colonists still had something to breathe. Solving Max’s problem was becoming less fun by the minute.

  “Now what?” asked Cedar.

  “Now we find Max’s entourage,” said Ku. “They should know where the colonists are. Max doesn’t do anything alone.”

  Cedar raised an eyebrow, and Fuse looked aghast as he said, “We’re going into JJ-4?”

  Ku hit the elevator icon. “It’s not that bad. Just keep your eyes open.”

  * * *

  It should've been illegal for people to live in grav so low it took a dropped can half a second to fall into the recycler, but that hadn't stopped whoever designed Ceres Station from giving JJ four levels. Ku walked slow while she got her low-grav legs back. A lot of bad memories came back with them. She didn’t have to like this level. She just had to find those colonists before something went wrong enough to bring the touchy new dusters and the syndicate higher-ups down on the boss, and then her.

  Added-on ventilation piping jutted out of buildings at odd angles, releasing foul-smelling drug lab atmo that stung Ku’s nose and throat. Beneath the added-on ventilation, JJ-4 residents watched from porches and balconies. They all wore similar clothes, printed from default patterns that the level’s textile printer made for free. They talked among themselves without looking away from the syndicate strangers walking along the bot tracks.

  Fuse puffed himself up a little, which made him even bigger than usual, and put on a convincing scowl. Places like this even made Cedar stand up straight. Ku moved like she always did on the street. Every time she went out in public she was putting on a one-woman show titled “The Syndicate is Too Tough to Mess With.”

  Ku and her shadows had been asking after Max’s cronies for less than an hour before two of them swaggered out of an apartment building. They were both men, younger and bigger than Ku, wearing expensive casual shirts printed with light armor mesh. Both of them had helped Max herd the colonists through JJ-2 yesterday.

  Ku slapped Fuse’s arm to get his attention, and they stepped apart to give each other more room to maneuver. Through a smile, Ku said, “Igrat chest.” Play nice. Fuse and Cedar nodded.

  “Ku,” one of Max’s men said. “Where’s Max?”

  “Locked up,” said Ku. “Cams?”

  “Nah, not here.” The second one laughed. “Something’s jamming them and nobody can figure out what.”

  The men were still coming nearer, which was fine. Shouting about missing people in the street would scare the JJ-4 residents, maybe enough to call in dusters. “You bring any temps here yesterday?” Ku asked.

  The smiles dropped off the men’s faces. “Shit. Why should we tell you anything about temps, if you didn’t spring Max?”

  Ku kept on smiling. “Because the boss wants this sorted out.”

  “This is Max’s level. Not the boss’s.” The quiet guy was getting too close. Ku shifted her weight, ready to defend herself if she had to. The talker said, “If Max wanted to keep it—”

  “Then the boss would send us three, and the JJ-3 toughs, and a bunch of up-and-comers,” said Ku. “And we’d smear you all over the street. But since it’s just us, how about you tell me where the temps are and—”

  The man on the left reached out like he was about to grab Ku’s arm. Cedar caught his hand and shoved it over his shoulder so fast he hardly had time to cry out. Once Cedar’s fist thudded into his stomach, he didn’t have the breath for it. Cedar kicked the man to the street and spun to face the second one. Fuse’s raised fists were big enough to keep the second man rooted in place, watching Fuse with wariness he should’ve directed at Cedar. Ku’s shadows had started out playing nice, but Max’s crew had forced them to do what she paid them for.

  “Just tell us about the temps,” Ku said.

  “I’ll kill you,” the guy doubled over from Cedar’s punch groaned. Everyone ignored him.

  “Max didn’t tell us where he’s keeping them,” said the guy who was still standing. “His comps are all wiped, so nobody can look it up. That’s what Max asked us to do if he ever got arrested.” Something in there was a lie, but Ku couldn’t tell what.

  A tram hissed past on its track. Ku stood glaring at Max’s cronies until the tram turned itself around and went back down the street in the other direction. “What about the other two of you? Did he tell them?”

  The talkative one shook his head. “Nah, he didn’t have time. And Shor fucking bit it last night, so nobody’s asking him anything.”

  Ku stared. “What the hell happened to Shor?”

  “The boss happened to him.” He said it like he meant the boss, not Max. “The way they found him . . . Yeah. It was her work. We figure he’s the one who told the port authority about the temps.” According to Ku's analysis, he was telling the truth. Neither man looked sorry that their buddy was dead.

  Calling it “the boss’s work” meant that Shor was in frozen pieces in the morgue right now, if they’d found all the parts of him that’d been drifting in stationspace. Ku shuddered. This situation with Max and the colonists had the boss’s full attention, even though she’d made it Ku’s problem to solve. The longer the boss was personally involved, the more bodies would turn up in pieces.

  These two cronies might not know exactly where Max locked up the colonists, but they might know a local hiding places where he could’ve imprisoned six people. She opened her mouth to ask, but the one who was still standing said, “Duster.”

  Ku looked over her shoulder. Sure enough, Fulton was watching them from near the elevator. He must’ve checked the cam feeds for them, and when they didn't show up he came in person. Alone.

  This was ridiculous. She couldn’t even have a private conversation in her own mod. This was what she’d have to deal with every day if she failed to free Max and find the colonists, only it’d be a syndicate flunky following her around, reporting to the boss on her every move.

  Either way, Max’s people would probably think she was stupid, lazy, or oblivious for letting someone follow her. It just hadn’t occurred to her that Fulton would get off his ass and come all the way here, with no partner. Running around alone was asking for trouble. If he hadn’t seen all their faces just now, she’d be tempted to prove that to him.

  Since he must’ve ID’d them by now, Ku said, “Someplace else we can talk?”

  “Yeah, my cousin lives in here.” The smart one nudged the man on the street with his foot. “Come on, walk it off.”

  “Fuck you,” he wheezed.

  If Fulton found a reason to arrest them, that’d look even worse than Ku’s failure to get Max out of custody. She didn’t want to have to choose between pissing off the boss and letting the colonists starve. And why the hell did Fulton think he could follow her around with no consequences?

  Because she hadn’t gotten the boss’s permission to kick his ass. He thought he was too new or too good to be afraid of the syndicate. While she followed Max's cronies into the apartment building they'd come out of, she tapped out a note to the boss about Fulton. As soon as she got these colonists taken care of, she’d show him he was as vulnerable as anybody else in JJ.

  * * *

  Max’s cronies had racked their brains, but they couldn’t think of anywhere in JJ-4 that Max might’ve stashed six people without them noticing. Shor’s death weighed on all of them, even if they didn’t show it much. Death was the price of betrayal to the dusters, according to the boss.

  Cedar and Fuse would never betray Ku, but if she fucked up badly enough, the boss might take them out the same way she’d done Shor. And if something happened to either one of Ku’s shadows . . . there’d be no forgiveness for anybody involved. She had to find the colonists and free Max before she made a mistake she couldn’t come back from, or the boss ran out of patience.

  Ku stumbled in JJ-4’s lower grav. On a balcony above her, someone laughed, and Ku directed a rude gesture their way. The sunsim was dimming, and she’d only ruled out two levels. The most useful thing that Max’s remaining people had said was that Max had sent them away on JJ-4, then gotten back on the elevator with the colonists.

  Finding those colonists faster was worth the risk that came with walking the streets alone. In the elevator, Ku said, “Fuse, prositna on level one.” She switched to the formal annunciation she’d used at yesterday’s meeting. “They’ll be so happy to see you.”

  Fuse grinned. “Will do.”

  “JJ-3?” Cedar asked.

  “Do you mind?” JJ-3 had as many families as JJ-4, and Cedar hated talking to kids, but ve’d taught the JJ-3 toughs not to mess with ver. Cedar shrugged, which meant ve’d do it.

  “What are you going to do?” Fuse asked Ku.

  “I’ll bail Max out if the lawyer hasn’t done it already. Not as neat as the boss likes it, but if he’s out, he’s out.”

  Cedar waved as ve exited the elevator on JJ-3. Fuse asked, “What if the temps aren’t in One, Two, Three, or Four?”

  “I shiret,” said Ku. “Maybe I can shake something loose in Two on the way to the station. If not . . .” Ku pointed at the elevator ceiling.

  Above JJ-4 lay the origin, the massive enviro management plant that piped water, atmo, and recycled material to the rest of the station. It was designed for drones, which meant it was unpressurized and lit for specialized cams, not eyes. Equipment labels were in abbreviations for techs with enviro certifications, when labels were visible at all. For all she knew, knocking something with her elbow might take out some residential mod’s O2. Worse, grav in the origin was as low as it was on Ceres’s surface. It was easy to hurt yourself or get stuck or lost among the pipes.

  That was why entering the origin was illegal as hell. Catching Ku in there would be the excuse Fulton needed to lock her up in the cell next to Max, and Fulton, new to the mod as he was, might not find the colonists on his own. She almost wished that searching the origin wasn’t an option, but the boss had given Ku a code that’d make the elevator take her to the personnel entrance. Her single visit had been enough. If she were lucky, she’d never have to go back.

  “Oh no,” said Fuse.

  “Dah-ah.” Ku patted Fuse’s arm. “So if you turn up nothing in JJ-1, make sure your suit doesn’t have holes in it.”

  The elevator stopped on JJ-2 and Ku stepped out. “Fuck.” Fuse drew the word out as he executed the full bow he offered when he wouldn’t be seeing Ku again for weeks.

  Chapter Five

  Facing the closed elevator door, Ku let her amusement at Fuse’s reaction fade so she could replace it with a syndicate level boss’s threatening silence. The people in the blocks around the elevator might’ve heard something about where Max had taken the colonists, and it’d now been over a day since they disappeared. That was too short a time for the dusters to call them missing, but it was enough for six people to get really uncomfortable in tight quarters with no supplies.

  According to the messages waiting on Ku’s comp, the lawyer had not bailed Max out yet. At least the boss had granted her request to be as rough with Fulton as she had to be. If Ku laid into him, the boss would get her out of the trouble it got her into, so far as that was possible.

  The sunsim shone at the brightness of late morning. If she wanted to catch families before lunch, she’d have to do that now. Ku let herself into the apartment building nearest the elevators.

  A couple of teens, one a syndicate up-and-comer, stopped making out when Ku walked in to ask about what they’d seen. Both boys were decked out in as high a street style as anybody in JJ-2 could afford. This up-and-comers paid his syndicate dues into Ku’s account on time and didn’t get arrested, only ticketed and fined. In other words, he was a smart one.

  “No we haven’t seen any projected-on faces, but that Fulton guy was here.” The up-and-comer looked like he couldn’t decide how much to posture so that he’d come off as tough but not disrespectful. “He yelled at us for no gods damned reason. We didn’t even do anything. We were just standing there.”

  “Rude,” Ku agreed. The Sundaravej sisters, whom Ku had sent to find out more about the new dusters, had confirmed that assessment. The sisters had also identified the other new duster Ku had met, De la Cruz, as Fulton’s partner. No one ever saw her out in the mod.

  “I heard the new dusters got Max,” said the up-and-comer.

  “You heard right.”

  “What for?”

  “You ever been to JJ-4?” Ku asked. The teenager shook his head. “We’ll go sometime.” The poor kid’s eyes lit up like that’d mean something. This was not his big break. “You can see the shit that goes on in there. They make drugs, they do labor and vote fulfillment . . . It sounds okay, but it’s ugly. They settle scores by breaking bones. They do all the shit I don’t ever want to see in JJ-2. We settle scores the right way here. No blood. Got me?”

  “Yeah, yeah, no blood,” he said. Ku had accidentally popularized that refrain among the JJ-2 up-and-comers. “We’ll go together, though?”

  “When things calm down here, dah-ah, we’ll go.” First she had to get Max back, and tell Fuse to get the teen’s name and contact info.

  The up-and-comer grinned at her, and she repressed a sigh. The poorer kids were, the more they wanted to be Ku, without any idea how terrifying it could be to have the boss and the council of five looking over her shoulder. Sometimes she despaired at how small her existence felt, stuck in JJ-2 most days, making more money than she had time to spend.

  But this kid’s life was even smaller. He’d have visited the port and the entertainment mods, maybe the business district, but he probably hadn’t been anywhere else on the station, or off it. He'd never seen how beautiful the stars looked without all the darting lights and the orbital station in the way. Ku would take him to see some things he’d never would’ve seen without her. The boy he’d been making out with started congratulating him for the accomplishment of talking to her before she’d reached the first apartment.

  By the time she’d asked everyone who lived on street level about the colonists, people on the second floor were standing in their doorways waiting, with kids and pets locked away. Unfortunately, the kids might’ve seen the colonists, or overheard Max talking about where he’d put them. “Look, I’m asking everybody,” Ku said tiredly to a fearful mom in a business jacket and sweatpants, perfect for conferencing in to an office with a cam that only showed her from the chest up. “Kids see things adults don’t. It’s the same questions I asked you. You can stand right here while I ask them.”

  “I . . . fine.” The mom went and got two little kids from the back room. Both kids stared at Ku’s implant. She took a knee on the threadbare carpet and asked them the questions she’d asked everybody else: did they know anything about the colonists, or about Max and his cronies.

  The smallest kid, who held a red tablet displaying a drawing of a four-legged animal, said, “Yes.” The mother hushed her, then looked fearfully at Ku.

 

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