Jan grimaced at the street, at his knife glistening there, and then found something else missing. “Where’s Bharat?”
Rafe looked around. “Thought he was with you.”
“Does it look like he’s with me, Rafe?”
“Well, I figured ... maybe you had him stashed nearby? Watching? Like, as backup.”
Over the past five years, Jan had forgotten just how difficult it was to deal with a man who had been concussed so often it was practically a hobby. Jan found it helped to say his name repeatedly. “When did you last see him, Rafe?”
“Oh, like ... three hours ago? We found a place, nice one too, total steal. I went to make an illicit offer, and Bharat left to meet you at the stripper mall.”
And Bharat had never arrived. Bharat had taken a stroll through the Luxury District, as an Advanced alone on Ceto, and never arrived. Many bad things might have happened to Bharat, and without ground to which he was accustomed or the human resources he generally used, Jan was going to have a really hard time tracking Bharat down. In less than twenty-one hours, Senator Tarack’s torture nanos would burn him alive.
Jan felt his heartbeat accelerate like a runaway maglev. He didn’t think he could survive the hell he’d experienced on Tarack’s vessel. Still ... one problem at a time.
Jan took a breath to calm himself. His knife was sitting in the street still. He went into the street to retrieve his knife.
“So you saw Fatima, mate?” Rafe asked. “How’d she look?”
Jan tucked the knife into the brace hidden beneath the back of his shirt. “Holographic.”
“Right.” Rafe shifted his weight, one boot tip sliding around like a compass needle. “But it’s good she knows we’re here, yeah? Think she’ll be up for this job?”
“She will certainly be up for something.”
Jan needed to find Bharat, and given his current timetable and circumstances, he knew of only one plausible way to do that. It was the last route he wanted to take, given how it would complicate his plans for Fatima, but he saw no other choice.
“Come,” Jan said. “We’re going to the maglev terminal.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going back to Duskdale.”
“Right.” Rafe paused. “Why?”
“I need support to find Bharat.”
“Oh, fuck me with a hot poker.” Rafe apparently caught on faster than he used to. “Her?”
Jan allowed himself a small smile. “Yes.”
“We don’t need her, mate. I can find Bharat if you get me access to a secure terminal.”
“I know you can,” Jan said, more to placate Rafe’s fragile ego than out of genuine confidence. “But it’s been five years. I’d like to know what she’s been up to.”
“Well,” Rafe said, “probably nothing.”
THE OLD, LONG-ABANDONED BUNKER in Duskdale’s abandoned old town didn’t have an official name, since signage was bad for secrecy. Those low-rent mercenaries who knew it existed called it “the Hole.” What had been one of the first storm bunkers on Ceto featured eight underground rooms that formed a ring, all with individual airlock seals.
Yet most rooms held only tattered chairs, battered tables, and old-fashioned flat monitors. Those monitors displayed everything from illicitly obtained entertainment channels to live feeds from people’s apartments. The Hole wasn’t a place where anyone lingered — except for one. Kinsley Baker. Kinsley could find anyone on Ceto with less effort than it took to yawn.
Assuming she wasn’t as high as the drones she hacked.
“How do you know Kinsley’s even down there?” Rafe sounded unusually nervous, even by Rafe standards. “You’ve been in orbit for five years, yeah?”
“Kinsley is in the Hole,” Jan said as they approached. “She is comfortable nowhere else, and given how Ceto has deteriorated in the years I was away, she must be swimming in odd jobs.” Those were Kinsley’s favorite kind.
“Right,” Rafe said. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, mate, I’ll just wait outside. I don’t like being underground, or trapped in close quarters in the dark, or, you know, surrounded by jacked-up bros with guns.”
“Let us not stereotype.” Jan casually increased his pace toward the armored woman standing by the door of the Hole, a woman who was now very obviously watching him. “The Hole also contains plenty of jacked-up ladies with guns.”
Jan sensed rather than saw Rafe scurrying into an alley. He wasn’t worried about Rafe getting hurt or lost in old town. Rafe probably knew every bolt-hole down here.
The amiable and entirely celibate Kinsley Baker — the woman Jan hoped was waiting at the Hole, guarded by a bunch of jacked-up dudes and ladies with guns — was the best mechanic Jan had ever known. She could work miracles with guns, vehicles, and powered armor. She also knew the guts of every drone model ever produced, which had, on a dare, allowed her to make the CSD’s entire surveillance fleet play “Flight of the Bumblebee.”
As Jan closed with the short-haired brunette guarding the door, he noticed her pockmarked armor looked well used and cared for. A professional, then. She stood in front of a person-sized crack in a very big wall, with one hand on her holstered gun, watching Jan and saying nothing at all.
The Hole was where people came when they wanted to hire a professional killer or kill professionally, for money. Today’s door guard was waiting to see which Jan was. She had no reason to threaten him or chase him away ... yet.
“Greetings, traveler,” Jan said, as was the custom when visiting the Hole. “I’ve been walking too long in the sun. May I share your water?”
“No,” the woman said. Her nose had obviously been broken more than once, but that somehow made her more attractive.
Someone other than
