Mainline (22 page)

The Fixer had his needle gun out, though he stayed out of the killing field near the door. "You alright?" he asked the Holdout.

She dipped her chin, white-faced, and the pair hunkered together while Islanders sniped and 'Jammers returned fire. Reinforcements arrived and provoked an intense firefight a block away. In the confusion, Lish was hustled away in an air car that headed straight for Evriness Highlands, the secure villa community that was her designated retreat in case of personal attack. Captain Levay arrived a short time later to offer her report on the situation.

"Word's out," Levay said. "It's full-blown streetwar with the Islanders. The same time they tried to hit you, they attacked the Comax Shipping office. No significant damage taken," she was quick to reassure, "but that's where most of my troops are located. The Islanders are going after warm bodies." "Streetwar?" The Holdout had heard the term but never lived through the event.

"Yes. I advise you to stay inside this compound for the duration, Domna," she said. "It's not safe to travel, and the warehouse is too exposed. You're best off right here."

Putting a further crimp in her Holdout operations. "How big a danger are the Islanders, really?" she asked.

Levay looked grim. "If you want us to stay strictly defensive, it could go on for weeks. They're out to kill you, and us, and they're good enough to come close to it."

"What alternatives, Captain?"

"Give us the all-clear for offensive action. We could wrap this up in a week or two."

If it went on longer than that, Lish knew, the mercenary derevin wouldn't get paid. Then they would walk out and leave her easy pickings for Karuu's old street gang.

"Make short work of it, then," she agreed. "I don't have time for this nonsense."

Levay pushed herself back from the table. "Let me see to some combat-issue supplies for my 'Jammers. Then I'll be back."

Vask waited until she was gone to clear his throat. "Maybe I should leave," he volunteered.

Lish lifted her chin. "Why? Afraid?"

Vask squared his shoulders. "Thought I might be in the way. There's nothing I can do here for you."

"Come on. You're in and out of my office all the time. Think the Islanders won't toast you as soon as they would me?"

His brows pulled together. "I hadn't considered that."

"Consider it. You're as much a target as I am. You're a friend, Kastlin, or at least you appear to be a damn steady customer to any observers on the street. That makes you a target too. You better stick around where it's safe until this is over. You have a problem with that?"

Problem. Yeah. Like, how to report in? How to call for help if things turned bad? How to use his psionic abilities without detection when living too close to the subject of his investigation ... ?

Then again, there were worse places he could be. Like out of touch with the Holdout completely. He sat back in his chair. "You're right. I'll stay. So what's the plan?"

Lish made a face. "As long as we have communications I'm in business, if that's what you call emptying warehouse stockpiles. I suppose I should work on staying solvent."

"Anything I can do to help?"

She gave a faint smile. "Maybe. Let's see what Levay has to say when she gets back."

He nodded, already deciding on what mix of help or hindrance he could legitimately offer. Meanwhile ...

"Want to play Shaydo?"

"Sure."

It was as good a way as any to wait for Captain Levay's return. Lish got a deck of cards, dealt the first hand. Kastlin studied the table layout, reviewed his hand, and grimaced. It was, as always, an all-or-nothing game.

If he was going to play in this league, he needed to get much better at it.

Vask awoke suddenly.
There was something disturbing about his dreams.

At first he thought it might be the streetwar, that something untoward had happened in the physical world around him. He listened, extending his sleep-heightened psionic sensitivity throughout the villa. Except for the guards, the world slumbered around him.

What was it? he wondered. Something made me tense, forced me awake.

He replayed the last dream fragment that drifted in the back of his mind. A corridor, a bounce tube, the mezzanine level of Reva's hotel. That was it, he thought, I was following her again. Nothing out of the ordinary about that dream. Except right there, at the end.. ..

The image replayed in his mind's eye, his trained recall easily restoring details lost to the ordinary waking mind. A flicker of motion clued him that Reva was on the mezzanine. He followed, stepping out of the bounce tube's gravfield, and looked down the corridor—

—where now, in dreamy slow motion, Reva walked, shimmered, and faded from sight.

The vision galvanized Kastlin and he jerked upright in bed, fully awake. With unfocused eyes he stared into the dark, not-seeing the Now, replaying the image in his head.

A shimmer, and gone from sight. He'd seen it before, though never so fluid or fast, when he had observed other Mutates shift into the unphased state called sideslipping. He did the same thing. A shimmer, a fading away, as he had seen Reva do, yet which had registered on the subconscious level.

With certainty Vask knew this was a memory, replayed by his mind so he could observe what had eluded his physical eye. He had trailed her, and lost her, and this was why. Reva was psionic, and moved unphased and undetected by sight.

She is the one, the agent thought, certain now of his assessment of the assassin's abilities. The one who moved invisibly to commit impossible murders. They had not thought to look for a Mutate, for they were known and accounted for.

Kastlin's hand strayed to his forehead, stroked the bare skin above his brows. All were accounted for, except for those in Imperial service, like himself. Law dictated that psionicists should be marked with the symbol of their special powers, each with a
rus
of various codified designs, laser-scribed in plain sight on the brow, so the unsuspecting would be forewarned of the great and often dangerous powers borne by the extraordinarily gifted.

All but a few, like Vask himself, a valued field agent who worked undercover, passing as a Normal when needed.

Sometimes criminals removed the
rus
with a nanotech fix, but that was an expensive and not widely available incognito. Others, like wild talents, were never detected and marked in the first place.

For all he had studied Reva's face, Vask had never noticed the faint blemish left by laser-scribe removal. He knew, or sensed, that she must be a wild talent, with a skill untrained and hitherto undetected. Or a few skills, for that would explain why the assassin left no psionic signature, no detectable trace of broadcast mental energy as most all living creatures did. A natural psi shield? How very rare. .. .

He rubbed a hand over his face. Reva the mystery assassin, and elusive wild talent; Reva, who had saved his life and might never return to the scene of recriminations and ruined hopes.

At least now I know what to be alert to, he told himself. If I ever find her again, I'm following, wherever it is that she goes.

"You're late."

The synthesized words cut into Lish's conversation with Captain Levay, grating through the earlink and disconnecting the Skiffjammer in a fuzz of white noise. Lish knew the voice immediately, raw from direct cybernet transmission.

She lowered the volume with trembling fingers and took a deep breath.

"You don't want to owe me money,"
the netrunner said. There was no threat in his tone, just confidence.

"I'm sorry. I..." This was the conversation Lish had been dreading. There was no telling what havoc FlashMan could wreak on her and her operations if he wanted malicious revenge for a short paycheck.

"Don't tell me you underbudgeted. Tsk, tsk.''

She had a strategy in mind about how to deal with him. Would he go for it? It was time to find out.

"Look." Lish leaned forward as if she were talking to the cyberjock across her desk. "My buyer stiffed me. They don't want to pay for the goods you helped deliver."

"Too bad. Not my problem.''

"I'll be honest with you, Flash." She had to be; he could verify many of her records himself. "That was the major source of income I had on the line. The Bugs have tight security upstairs and I'm not making cargo runs. My regular customers have all gone to ground while Security finishes its rampage. This isn't business as usual: this is no business at all, anywhere, until the heat's off. The only way I have to pay you is to collect from the buyer."

"So collect.''

"I've tried that." She braced herself and plunged in. "I have an offer for you."

"With bonus pay? No thanks."

"No. For a share of the profits."

''I don't work on speculation.''

"With your help, this wouldn't be speculation." She plunged on before he could interrupt. "The buyer is hiding out, very effectively. He's using com links, though, and could be traced that way, by a good netrunner. A very good netrunner." That was obvious bait; she hoped it wasn't too obvious. "Muscle isn't going to turn the trick with this man. I have to convince him that it makes good business sense to pay up. With an exceptional decker on our side, we can pressure him in ways he won't be expecting."

"You haven't tried to squeeze this buyer yet, have you?"

"No." She had been on the verge of ordering 'Jammers after Edesz several times, but the streetwar kept heating up, and uncertainty about how to pin down the terrorist's location had held her back.

"How do you know it's going to be this simple?"

"I'm not saying it's simple. It'll be challenging. And worth your while."

Challenging. Lish had said the magic word. She finally had his attention.

FlashMan let her languish an uncomfortably long time. He came back online as she was beginning to think he had disconnected.

"Difficult thing you contemplate. It would have to be worth my while.''

"Double your usual fees."

"Triple the fees, and I want a cut of your payment. Ten percent. ''

Automatically, Lish counteroffered. "Double your fees, plus five percent." Only as she spoke did she have second thoughts, hesitant to antagonize the netrunner.

She needn't have worried.
"Triple and ten,"
he came back.

"Triple and five."

"Eight percent.''

Lish knew when enough was enough. "Done," she agreed, and let out a relieved breath. "What we need to do, is—"

''—is put the screws to Edesz and the Gambru League. I watch the news, babe.''

She gritted her teeth.

"I have some things to look into. I'll get back to you soon. And that hundred?"

The hundred thousand credits, his belated bonus. "Yes?"

"I want that added to the bill.''

White noise flared and faded from the earlink, and the channel went dead. Lish leaned back weakly in her chair.

If the goddess of luck really exists, she thought shakily, Lak-shan is smiling on me today. I just hope FlashMan sticks to his word, and things go right.

And if they didn't...

She punched another comcode, marshaling her escort of Skiffjammers for a quick trip to Akatnu Field.

The
Kestren
did
not look like the speedy raptor her name implied. There was nothing swift-seeming about her boxy hull configuration, and the blasted hold unit gaped like an open wound, tortured plating and burn scoring mute testimony to a ship caught unawares or overtaken by pirates.

Lish's car pulled up near the Mershon-class trader at Akatnu Field. 'Jammers flanked the ship as she stepped out of the vehicle, picking her way through spare parts and loose plating, walking up the ramp into Cargo One, the primary hold unit.

Her clanmate barely acknowledged her presence. "These things are worthless," Devin grumbled over the charred link module in his hand. "Half of them fried when the shields overloaded and collapsed. We have to replace them."

"That's what I'm here to talk about. Status, and update."

That nudged the spacer out of his preoccupation with the damaged module. "So let's talk." He led the way into the crew unit, collecting Vask as they went. The trio sat around the galley table, lit by glowstrips.

"Power's out?" Lish asked.

"Just offline. The drive and power system is the best thing about this junker. Dual Calyx-Primes, full warp rated, 5.5 acceleration for impulse maneuvers."

Lish whistled in admiration. Vask looked lost.

"Very fast for the class," Devin explained. "And they used every bit of it running away from the firefight that holed them. How much did you pay for this heap, Lish? Besides the obvious, there's a lot of systems damage."

"Got it in trade for moneys owed," she explained.

"Well, I can fix her for you," Devin looked at her thoughtfully, "but this isn't going to be cheap."

The Holdout forced a smile. "I have the credit line, and that's just as good for now. How long will it take to get her flightwor-tby?"