Closer than touch, p.1
Closer Than Touch, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Read Next
Chapter One
About The Author
Copyright
Closer Than Touch
By Tami Veldura
To Sarah and Kate.
Chapter One
Deia melded the angles of his body into a dark corner of the warehouse, a joint of crates beyond the limp reach of a single dangling fluorescent. He took a slow breath through his nose, letting sensations from the Gemini suit untangle in his brain.
He could feel the sharp weight of metal in Mordekai's hands as if he held the gun himself, despite the distance of half a building and countless crates between them. The other man's breath was unsteady and his heart was simply racing. Deia let himself take another calm breath, unwilling to follow into that panicky state of mind. Mordekai wasn't cut out for this. He was able enough in workouts or drills, but in the field? Deia should have pressed harder for reassignment. Again.
Deia let the stillness of the crates seep into him, slid his broad shoulders with less than a whisper to the edge of the box, and glanced around. The Gemini suit pushed data around the edges of his vision, a head-up-display that Deia filtered with simple contact signals against his hip. The HUD offered no more sign of anyone than there had been a moment before. He padded across the smooth cement floor, carefully balancing speed and stealth. It wouldn't do to announce himself early, but time was moving with or without him. He felt the distance between him and Mordekai grow with each step like a physical pull around his midsection. The suit's ridged feet gave him perfect traction. Its smooth latex-silk, embedded with tech, hugged his angles as no lover could. The Gemini within the Zodiac Forces were an elevated breed. The civilians they protected compared as though blind and deaf at once.
He circled closer to the light, a distant point at the far end of the warehouse. So far things were going nicely according to plan, but no amount of preparation ever survived first contact with the enemy. It was simply a matter of time.
Deia flowed forward like the inexorable tide. He felt Mordekai take a hand off his gun to shape a signal with his fingers.
The space around him echoed suddenly. Deia flashed out of the aisle and between a turn of crates. He pressed two fingers of his right hand together.
Deia refused to allow Mordekai's sudden tension into his muscles. He flexed his fingers and dropped from the crate. He landed precisely with a muffled thump. Deia wrapped his arm tightly around the guard’s neck and squeezed arteries shut. Blood pressure and heart rate displays popped up on his HUD. The guard wasted precious seconds scrambling at Deia’s solid arm. The man may be well armed, but he was not well trained. It was a simple matter of seconds until unconsciousness slumped the body.
Deia kept his arm locked for an additional count of three. He had no desire to kill but the guard needed to be out of the picture. Satisfied, Deia stripped both rifle and pistol from the man, stowed them in the closest crate he could pry open, and left him strewn in the aisle of boxes.
Jittery touch passed from Mordekai,
Shit. They were early. Deia sprinted toward the light. The catsuit kept his footfalls muffled by design; hopefully the incoming truck would cover the rest of his noise.
Deia's intel was falling apart at the seams. Typical. He touched to Mordekai,
The negative came back quickly, then,
Deia vaulted up a crate and ran along the top of the row. He could see his target, a low crate under the florescent. A man sat on it, facing away from Deia in low conversation on a walky. Deia's HUD offered distance and depth measurements. He lunged into open space, feet first. The guard never saw him coming. The walky squawked as it bounced away, Deia rolled to his feet, drew the gun from his back in the same motion, and shot twice.
Yeah, no kidding he was made. Deia wrenched the top of the crate away and threw piles of packing fluff on the floor. He dug out a sealed box and blew the front panel clean. It was blank. Touchtech, not a turn dial. Fuck.
Deia took the whole firebox and hauled his ass up the closest tower of crates away from the bay where his silhouette was least likely to show. Footsteps crowded the air. He set the box down quietly and stretched out flat on his stomach. The florescent projected its light mostly downward; he was in shadow but only just.
The footsteps resolved themselves into four men armed to the teeth. They scrambled through the open crate, cursing at one another. Mordekai touched to him,
A partial touch, like the start of a message, then through the Gemini suit Deia felt Mordekai's gun leap up and the surprise made them both react. A fifth man. Deia's tension released to prep for a fight but Mordekai pulled the trigger. The shots echoed in the space and his hands tensed at the recoil. Screams. Deia let his breath slowly trickle out his nose. The four men at the crate whirled at the sounds.
The sounds of pursuit trailed toward the bay. Deia rolled himself and the firebox off the other side of his crate tower. He landed hard, the extra weight of the box pulling him weirdly out of balance. He made for the back of the warehouse patiently, quietly. Mordekai's distraction was useful, if idiotic.
Deia was nearly at the back door when he felt Mordekai's mayday through his fingers. It drew him up short, one hand on the door. He looked back across the crates toward the spot he knew the other man to be: as if he could see through the masses of wood and stuffing and watch the chase with his own eyes. Mordekai rounded a corner of crates, Deia could feel it in the angle of pressure on his feet, and came up short. Gunshots.
Deia collapsed against the door. An explosion unfolded in his chest like a fatal flower. He scratched the gaping hole in his ribcage and tried to breathe. He coughed blood. Too much blood, it made his hands slippery. Someone stood over him and yanked his left arm. Nails dug into the meat of his forearm and tore out his entire nervous system. He screamed.
Deia snapped back to himself with the force of a crashing freight train. He lay on the ground. He felt his throat locked around a sound his training refused to allow out. There was no hole in his chest. Deia gasped his lungs full of air. Something bit into the flesh of his right hand. He hauled himself upright through sheer force of will. There was a small round bit of tech in his hand. He stared at it trying to remember why it was important.
His eyes wandered around, landed on the firebox some feet away. Memories crashed together. The Gemini suit. He had torn off the trigger for his Gemini suit. Deia winced at the damage to his left arm. Veins stood out in blue relief. There was a quarter-sized hole in the flesh, deep enough to see muscle. Blood everywhere. Deia shoved the trigger into a fold on his belt, wrapped gauze around his arm that he tied off with his teeth, and scrambled for the firebox.
He found the rendezvous spot half an hour early. And then he realized: he needed to be reassigned. Again.
--//--
"You ripped it out?" Vaughn coughed to cover a laugh and set down his beer, "What on earth were you thinking?"
"I wasn't thinking much at that point. I was dying." Deia ran his thumb over his left arm where the new trigger blinked faintly blue. Unassigned. The flesh was still tender but he was off the pain meds.
Vaughn flicked his head to the side, clearing hair from his eyes. "You mean Mordekai was dying."
"That's really not what it felt like."
"So, what—you got up and walked away?"
"More or less."
"Jesus, Deia, do you even feel pain?"
"I had to get that box out. I'm lucky they didn't find me while I was freaking out on the floor."
"Freaking out." Vaughn snorted. "The Black Widow doesn't freak out."
“What? I kinda like it. Makes you sound deadly.”
“First, I’m not female.”
“Details. Besides, it’s better than ‘The Killer D’ someone was kicking around earlier.”
“Second,” Deia ignored him entirely, “Death of partners is not exactly the kind of thing I want to be known for.”
"All right, look." Vaughn drained his beer and leaned forward to drop it in the bin behind the bar. "When do they reassign you?"
"Tomorrow, oh-six-hundred."
"Great. Since I know you won't get shithoused with me, I'm going to talk to a man about a horse."
"Think they'll finally pull you up to Gemini?"
"You kidding? I'm the best Taurus they've ever had, they're never going to let me out. I can build a bomb from scrap before you ever get your shoes on. Besides, feeling someone else all around you like that is the kind of kink I don't go for." Vaughn flashed white teeth like he was baring fangs. "I'm no match for you Deia, not physically."
"You'd follow direction."
"Only 'cause I know your ass is better than mine and I'm totally green with that."
Deia swirled the dregs of his cranberry juice and didn't reply.
"They'll find someone who can take you on, D. They're never going to let you escape Gemini, either."
"I am way too overqualified for this."
"Fucking tell me about it! Not everyone around here has the privilege of private tutor from age four."
“I can hardly control to whom I was born. I've killed two people now. Isn't that enough?"
Vaughn turned and pushed his hand against Deia's shoulder, forcing the bar stool to turn.
Deia twitched under the pressure before he could bring the reaction under control. Vaughn just gripped his shoulder through it and stared at him. Vaughn was the only one he knew willing to brave right through their reaction training. He probably considered it bone-headed stupidity, though, not bravery. Deia raised his shuttered expression to meet Vaughn's slate grey stare. There was no humor there.
"You did not kill Guene and you did not kill Mordekai."
"I could have gone back—"
"And gotten your fool-ass killed yourself. Or lost the package. Either way you're fucked. This is not your fault."
Deia nodded, packed the feeling down and hid it away. Vaughn saw the process. Nodded to himself. "I do have to talk to a guy but I'll come by right after. We can brain drain on video games or something." He clapped Deia's solid shoulder and tossed a large bill on the bar.
Chapter Two
"Deia, come in. Sit." Commander Cameron Johnson, balding and bright-eyed, waved him into the long, familiar office from behind his diminutive desk. The Zodiac Forces Gemini crest dominated the face in brass and red relief. Cam was proud of his service to the country’s security, even if most civilians never saw a Gemini in operational uniform. Being a hidden facet of support had never dampened Cam’s spirit. Gemini’s special operations were as important to national security as Taurus’s more public ground-based mob missions and Cam never let anyone forget it.
Deia shut the door behind him and approached. He opted to stand with his back to the bookshelves, facing Cam's wide skyline window instead of taking a seat. The view stretched over the city to the coast where a civilian airport kept the skies animated. Though there wasn’t a fence to border Forces property, the stark structure of military buildings beside the more organic civilian homes marked it well enough. There was little need for a soldier to mingle with the public, except on personal leave. Deia hadn’t taken a simple walk off Forces property in years. Cam was the public face of the division, his missions as the elite Gemini agent Gundog years behind him, and Deia was perfectly content to remain in the man’s respectable shadow.
"How are you feeling?"
"Doc cleared me."
"Of course the doctor cleared you. So did the neurologist and the shrink. That wasn't my question."
Deia schooled a frustrated expression into even lines. Cam let the silence stretch between them until Deia took another breath. "If you can't find someone who can match me, I'd like a recommendation for transfer to Scorpio."
"You think you'd do well there?"
"I'm not doing another job here with a lackluster partner."
"Your partners have hardly been lackluster. You're simply elite. You're the best man I've got and you know it."
"I'd do less damage in Scorpio, Sir." Deia hated to suggest it; he’d been sponsored into Gemini from the beginning, nearly 20 years ago. Cam was as much a father as he was a commander.
"Probably."
"You'll recommend me, then? I'd rather not petition." A petition would tarnish Cam’s good name. He didn’t deserve that. This wasn’t his fault.
"I appreciate that but no, not yet." Deia clenched his teeth but Cam steamrolled right on through. "There's someone who's been recommended from Taurus. I'd like you to run the drills with him."
"No." Cam sat back in his chair. "Sir," Deia added belatedly. "I want full simulation. One of the new ones. Hard as they've got."
"My budget—"
"Fuck your budget. If you'd given me sim before, like I asked, Mordekai would still be here."
"You would have reamed him in there."
"Yes, but he'd be alive and I would have known we couldn't be assigned." Deia reined himself in with a breath. "Give me full sim or a recommendation to Scorpio."
This time when the silence stretched Deia didn't fill it. He watched a plane take off from the airport in the distance.
"Ok." Cam said and turned to his computer.
Deia relaxed carefully. Scorpio would be good for him. Solo work. It was more distance and less melee than he liked but he wouldn't be babysitting anyone. He could handle it. He could request to train under Motocross, an elite agent within Scorpio. Deia could stand to learn a trick or two behind a sniper rifle.
Cam printed a sheet and held it out. "You report for simulation in an hour. Show up packing. It's live-fire."
Deia started, grabbing the paper on reflex. "Sim?"
"You're right, Deia, you always are. You deserved a sim with Mordekai. I try not to make my mistakes twice. I'm sorry."
"Your budget—"
"Can handle it if this guy is half as good as his recommendation. Go, you're wasting space."
"Sir." Deia jogged for the door.
--//--
He heard him before he even exited the hall, a boisterous, child-like glee coloring an otherwise cultured tenor. He couldn't make out the words but Deia let his brow wrinkle with doubt. Cam meant well but what on earth had he gotten himself into? Deia checked the items on his belt with automatic light touches—gun, extra magazine, knife, MREs—and unbuttoned his shirt before he hit the outer doors
Blazing morning sun bounced around the glass, blinding most everyone on the other side of those doors. Everyone except a slim man with a rope of black hair down his back and wicked eyes that raked Deia from top to toe and back up in the seconds everyone else was blinking at spots. He let out a low, descending whistle.
Deia didn't acknowledge the look or the sound. He pulled his shirt off and draped it over one shoulder as he came to a halt in front of the small group of three. They stood clustered around a deceptively simple waist-high control panel. Feet beyond was a clear bullet shield that easily stretched two stories high. Another few feet beyond, the ground dropped away into a football field sized pit another two stories underground. The simulation room.
"If I'd known it was that kind of party I would'a worn my fuck'n boots."
"Phade." The woman jabbed him with two fingers.
He laughed, "Chill, Laura, he's so wrapped up in his own self-importance he doesn't give a shit about a word I say."
The third person, a dark middle-aged man with a square jaw and square hands unfolded his thick arms to point at Phade. "Phade." he said, his voice so deep it was almost underfoot. The tree trunk arm swung over. "Deia." He smirked. "Play nice."
Phade flicked his head in a move that neatly settled his braid over one shoulder. Some motions had nothing to do with gender and everything to do with how long your hair was. "I don't play nice." He offered a toothy grin and pealed his t-shirt up.
