Spinning around, I didn’t have much time to think about anything, but I managed to recognize the guy anyway. He was the homeless fellow I’d met some minutes ago, perched on a barrel. The one that had called me a freak and run off. He must have been playing lookout or something.
The only other things I noticed were the objects in his hands: He had a neural paralyzer in his right, and a pair of gravity cuffs in his left.
When I reached for him, he startled and began to back up. That was a bad move. If he’d touched me with the paralyzer, things might not have gone fairly for old McGill.
As it was, he lifted the weapon up between us, like it was some kind of deterrent. Ignoring it, I moved in on him.
I didn’t bother to ask what he was doing, or why he was armed with nonlethal toys, I just grabbed his skinny ass and tossed him into the air. On his way over the rail, I heard the neural paralyzer buzz and snap. He must have slapped himself with it, as I didn’t feel anything.
Before he even had time to hit the cold black water, I whirled back around toward the lady who’d been chatting me up. She now had a big pistol in my face.
Her expression had transformed—and not in a good way. She was all out of smiles today.
“You vicious bastard,” she said in a breathless voice. She glanced down over the railing, down to where the man was thrashing weakly in the water. “He’s paralyzed… He’ll drown down there.”
I tried to work up some fake sympathy, but it just wasn’t in me, so I shrugged. “You can’t go around sneaking up on a Varus man. Any idiot should know that.”
“I’m going to shoot you down where you stand. Turov was an idiot to send me a mindless gorilla like you.”
“Uh…” I said, slowly putting two and two together. “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Dross, would it?”
She made a sound of disgust. “Hopeless. No subtlety, just brute force. I can’t use you. You won’t investigate anything, you’ll just lash out at random.”
I smiled and stood tall. “You’re right about all that, ma’am. I guess you should contact Turov and reject me straight-away. Let her know how wrong I am for this assignment.”
Without giving her a chance to change her tune, I began to amble off the way I’d come.
Behind me, I heard Dross work her tapper. Was she actually going to do it? I dared to hope. My heart soared, imagining I’d gotten out of an irritating duty I had little interest in.
“McGill! Come back here!”
Sighing, I turned back around. Dross had her hands on her hips, and her tail was lashing—or would have been if she’d had one to lash.
“Turov says you’re all I’m going to get. Come on.”
Dejected, I followed Dross into the nearest of the big warehouses. A few workers glanced at us, but they only shook their heads. No one called the cops—the cops probably didn’t like coming down here for trivial things like murder.
As I walked past the railing, I glanced down at the skinny dude in the hoodie—he didn’t look his best. He was floating face down in the sea. Each swell that hit the docks pushed the body against the pylons and made him flop around grotesquely.
It seemed clear to me that I’d made some new friends today, in my usual manner.
-3-
“So… uh… Dross,” I said, following the angry woman through the warehouse. “Are you some kind of hog, or something?”
She stopped and fixed me with a glare. “Didn’t Turov tell you anything? She’s technically in charge of this op, for god-knows-why reasons.”
“Nope.”
“Great… That’s just great. Come on.”
Dross led me to the back of the warehouse, to some shack-like office with windows so grimy you could hardly see through them. Everything on the far side was a blur.
Opening the door, she led me into a chamber with three desks and four chairs. She pointed to the chair without a desk.
“That’s yours. Billington sits over there.”
“What about the fourth spot? The one with the desk?”
“That belonged to Katrina. She’s missing.”
I nodded. “What’s your title again, sir?”
“Section Chief. That’s the official term. But to you, I’m god.”
“Got it. What do you want me to do?”
“Here.” She dug out a neural paralyzer and a pair of gravity cuffs. They were just like the ones poor Billington had been carrying before I’d drowned him. “You’re not armed, are you?”
“No ma’am,” I lied with authority.
“Good. You’re not allowed to use lethal force.”
“Not even… you know, like gravity and seawater and such-like?”
Dross glared at me. “Your job is to board each of these ships when they dock. You’ll be given a computer scroll describing the contents of every container aboard each ship. Your task is to perform an inspection, looking around for an hour or two unescorted. Open containers at random and inspect the contents. If they match the manifest, clear the ship and leave.”
Blinking, I turned and gazed out of the cleanest of the windows. At various docks were several looming, monstrously oversized vessels.
“Let me get this straight. I’m supposed to inspect a ship the size of a mountain in a few hours? It will be sheer luck if I find anything illegal.”
Dross shrugged. “We’re understaffed and underfunded. Do what you can. But—that’s not your most important duty, McGill.”
“There’s more, huh?”
“Yes. We’re all trying to figure out what’s been happening to my inspectors. We’ve lost seven in the last month. They board a ship, search it… but sometimes they never return here to the office. We’ve called in
