Mainline (57 page)

By time they lost pursuit in city traffic, Reva had passed out against Devin's shoulder.

The cleanup operation
at Harric's occupied several days. Security agents confiscated mechos, arrested hired help, shut down the princeling's estate. The ripple effect was quickly felt throughout Bekavra. The remaining tribunes of the Red Hand cartel left the planet on urgent offworld business the first day of the Security action.

A few days later, thorough scanning revealed a network of secret tunnels deep beneath the residence. None showed up on security plans. It took the blush off the raid's success. By time the secret complex was secured, Janus, Karuu, and a number of

MazeRats were long gone, along with some critical computer cores and data storage units.

Obray had to shrug and let it go. The remnants of Adahn's organization could do very little compared to the empire the crime boss had headed. An empire in ruins now, with strings of related arrests on this world and links to crooked operations on other planets. The grist would keep the justice mill grinding happily for weeks and months to come. It was a coup, by any standard, even with some rough spots along the way.

The first of those had come with Nomad getting blown out of the Net. At least FlashMan had come through the ICE attack unscathed; as he had once done when piloting the
Delos Varte,
he split himself into two sims, then bailed out of the attacked figure and moved to his second simulacrum elsewhere in the command Net. He'd kept estate defenses offline and enemy deckers occupied while Security wrapped up their raid on the place.

The independent was too good to waste in permanent lockup. Obray made him an offer he couldn't refuse. He dropped criminal charges and FlashMan agreed to work off punitive time in the ranks of IntSec's own netrunners. Not that he'd had much choice.

The worse confrontation had been the one with Vask two days after the Harric raid. There was a fine line between working undercover and actively helping the other side, and he'd pushed the limits on this one. Knew it, too, by his conduct, by his guilt-tinged debriefing. Kastlin's obsessive interest in the assassin seemed to be affecting his judgment. Obray had nearly taken him from this case. Nearly.

It was that threat, to pull Kastlin out of the field, that had led to a compromise. Vask told Obray why he was so interested in the assassin, why it was worth leaving her at large for now. When Obray pressed for more, the Mutate had claimed professional privilege, meaning his Academy oaths held precedence, that if he talked more he would violate some imperially chartered trust.... It was a balking point Obray had no way around. The claim of privilege rankled, but in view of the potential, here, he'd decided to go along with Kastlin's proposal. For now.

Things weren't all resolved, yet, in this matter. But Obray now understood that Reva moved through space differently than a Mutate normally did. Maybe Kastlin was right about the tactics to use with her, about the futility of trying to arrest the woman. After debriefing his field agent, the Commander had come to regard the assassin with the cautious respect one gives a boxed laircat. He'd seen Yavobo's body, and knew he'd rather have Reva on his team than with the opposition.

Maybe with time, Vask would succeed in wooing Reva to their side. He would live with their working arrangements for a while, and see where it all might lead.

It's not a hard thing to do, Reva told herself. Come on. You've done this a hundred times.

She contemplated the boarding gate at Peshtano starport from her vantage between the Lines. The rampway led to a crowded spaceliner; once on board, she could blend in with other travelers to Qual.

For some reason she loitered, unable to join the throng of passengers. Yet where else was there to go? There was nothing for her on Bekavra. Devin talked of running freight, and Vask had disappeared as soon as he was out of the autodoc. She hadn't seen him for a day and a half, since her own resurrection and return to fitness.

She could stay between the Lines longer now, she noticed, as if riding that point of balance had become a better-honed reflex. But she couldn't spend all her time between the Nows, uncommitted to a Mainline, as much as she might like to.

There, her thoughts had strayed again. Not that she minded. It was easier than planning where to go. She had two refuges, her bolt-holes meant as emergency retreats. Now seemed the time to pay one a visit. One near, one far; both uninviting. Both places to be alone in.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot, edging slowly away from the gate. Since when do you mind being alone? she queried herself, and admitted reluctantly that she had grown accustomed to the closeness of humanity on board Devin's ship, people she'd known in the Lairdome and had grown to like.

Yeah, right. She halted that line of thought. They had only worked with her, for her skills, for what she could do.

She grimaced. What she could do was kill, but she wasn't so sure she had that in her anymore. Yes, if her life depended on it; she'd proved that at Harric's. But not like before. Coldly, routinely. As executions done for hire.

She felt a ghost-like pressure on her shoulder, then, an electrical tingle that made her jump. She whipped around, keeping herself between Lines with an effort, startled as she was.

It was Vask. She stood at the juncture of four or five Nows; four or five ghost-solid Fixers were overlaid in differing poses, all looking at her with a translucent, quizzical gaze. Rumpled brown hair, local high-button tunic.
Back to base,
he signaled her in waterspeak. Come back to Mainline, he meant.

She shook her head ruefully. He'd had the wit to find her, not only to reason where she would go, but to look for her in the one place that only Vask could spot her. She was surprised he even cared to do so.

She gave in to his persistence, and joined him in a private meeting alcove at one side of the terminal. Shifting into Mainline, as he'd asked.

"Don't do this, Reva," he said, as soon as they shared enough solid atmosphere to talk in.

She raised an eyebrow, a light brown one to complement her platinum blond hair, to go with the red slash-cut dress, the touristy traveling clothes that would let her mix into the starport crowd—

"You know what I mean." He frowned. "You don't need to run off like this. Fade away, like you were never here."

Anger surged through her, unexpected, violent. She felt herself flush. "You talk about running off? Where in the Deep did you go these last two days? I didn't hear any good-byes. I didn't think it was worth sticking around for any, either."

That last a barb, hoping to hit home. It did. Vask looked guilty. "I was taking care of something that wouldn't wait."

"Get back to it then," she snapped. "I won't keep you."

"And where do you think you're going?" he retorted, prodded by her anger.

"Wherever I damn well please. Away from here, for one thing. Too many Bugs around, now that Adahn's folded up. You'd be smart to leave, too."

Kastlin opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. He raised his hands in a calming gesture, or one of surrender. "We're getting off on the wrong foot here. Can we try again?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, leaned back in a casual pose. "Talk away."

"You know I've got connections."

"That's what being a Fixer's all about."

He pushed a finger across the sleek top of the pull-down table "I've been making deals. You know about Devin's problem?"

She nodded. The Bugs, intent on securing the crime lord's estate, hadn't chased them very hard, but they'd left rented vehicles behind at Harric's estate, and those could be traced. Devin knew he must be a marked man already, that if he tried to lift from Bekavra, he'd be stopped or arrested.

"Well, no one's asking too closely about Devin anymore," Kastlin explained. "He can leave as anonymously as he came onworld. We can leave with him."

She took that in. "How'd you swing that?"

"I called in favors. A blind eye will be turned, if we're out of here soon."

"We?"

Vask shrugged. "I thought you'd like to come along." He looked at her with a challenge in his eyes. She was the first to look away.

"Come on, Fixer. You know better than that. ..."

"Know what? That you're used to running away? That it's easier to duck out, or cross Lines, than to stay among friends?"

She glared at him. "I don't have any friends," she wanted to tell him—but couldn't. He was one of those friends she wasn't used to accounting for.

"Why are you so anxious to leave?" he continued. "You asked me not to leave you, when I wasn't so sure I should stick around. Now I'm asking you."

It was an unexpected appeal. He had hit her where she was vulnerable, and tears came to her eyes. "Dammit, Fixer," she breathed. "Don't do this to me."

He looked injured. "Do what?"

She closed her eyes. Don't let me think it matters, she answered in her head. Where I am, what I do ...

It did matter, though. These people mattered, here, in Mainline. The consequences of their actions, of the choices they'd all made. The Line where she had wanted to stay, until Vask had disappeared and she'd felt abandoned.

It's time to quit running, she told herself. Put things in perspective, and stick Mainline out for a change. If you could face Yavobo, you can face this.

She opened her eyes again, blinked moisture away. "You make it tough to walk away, Vask. I'll come with you, for a time."

His face lit with a warm smile. "Good." "Don't know for how long," she warned, "and I'm not making promises. You got that?"

"Yes."

"I can't work, and I..." Won't work. Couldn't, not that kind of work. "I need to get away."

"Understood."

"I need time, before I know . .. where to go from here, what to do. You can't push me on this."

"I won't. No one will."

She looked at him and believed he meant it. Tears threatened to come. This wasn't just a commitment to one Line, an agreement to travel with friends. This was the beginning of a search for herself. The doors that loomed open before her were frightening.

"I've never been ... I don't know how ..." she faltered.

Vask reached out, touched her hand. "It's alright," he spoke quietly. "I understand."

She laced her fingers into his, a friendly anchor that kept her from toppling into an abyss of unknown territory. "If I'm not an assassin," she breathed, "what am I?"

He put his other hand on hers, but had no answer for her question. It was something she would have to discover for herself.

She returned his grasp, and held on.

Maybe it wouldn't be so hard to walk through those doors after all.

Reva left aboard
the
Fortune,
with Devin and Vask and a crew of 'Jammers. She had a destination in mind. Not her personal bolt-holes, but an isolated place where they could relax and regroup, where there was leisure and amusement and the space
to
be alone and reflect.

Like captain and crew, she was unaware of the beacon transmitter concealed in an external sensor array. When they entered their destination system, the beacon fired a tachyon burst oriented away from ship's com systems. The intelligence satellite it found understood the signal readily, and passed automated word on to appropriate channels.

Commander Obray nodded when he got the update. It was good to keep a remote eye on the strayed sheep. Especially after reading the report from the genetic analysis they'd run on Reva's blood j samples.

The woman had mutated DNA, and something nearly alien about her chromosome structure. It was quite a puzzler. The bloodstains where she had fought held a trove of genetic information, proof enough to give Kastlin's story weight. So Obray could live with their understanding for now.

Let Vask try to bring Reva around, get her to work for Security, If he failed—well, they would still be interested in the assassin for different reasons. Maybe the Academy of Applied Psychnetics would share that interest as well. Maybe contract another Mutate or two in exchange for this wilder.

Of course, that was only a contingency plan. Obray would much rather have the woman on his team. It was nice to have special projects lined up on the side, though. Just in case you needed them.

He smiled to himself, and returned to the genelab report on his screen.