A shirtless white man about a half-head taller than Jan stumbled into view, bleary-eyed and obviously puzzled by the zipper on his pants. Jan froze against the wall, not daring to breathe, as the man burped loudly, scratched himself, and stumbled into a turn that left him staring at Jan and Bharat.
The man’s eyes had only begun to widen before a shadow moved, blink fast, to wrap an arm around his neck from behind. The man gurgled and flailed at the muscular arm, bleary eyes wide and increasingly alarmed, until he shuddered and passed out. Bharat — who had somehow crossed the distance from the wall to choking the man out in half a second — settled his unconscious victim, stood, and frowned at Jan.
“Well?” Bharat whispered. “Where now?”
Jan didn’t want to admit how impressed he was (and honestly, a bit turned on) both because it would give Bharat the satisfaction of knowing he was impressed, and also because he had halfway entertained the idea of jumping Bharat in the darkness and choking him out. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, it seemed like a good way to get his ass kicked.
It wasn’t that he actually disliked Bharat. It was just that knocking Bharat out, tying him up, and driving a few blocks out of PBA range while Tiana and Pollen beat the disarm code out of Bharat was an efficient way to get the torture nanos out of his blood. Yet it wasn’t. Not any longer.
Bharat was one fast and obviously deadly Advanced, so Jan would have to wait for another opportunity to knock Bharat out and tie him up. Perhaps an autocar would hit him. Bharat might actually go down if he got hit by an autocar.
Jan pointed toward the kitchen and moved on, all too aware of Bharat silently falling in behind him. Still, Bharat hadn’t been able to buy a gun either. Jan was glad of that now.
The Bowsprit’s darkened kitchen was blessedly empty. Unwashed glasses and plates filled the grubby sink (Tiana’s kitchen staff didn’t get started until well past noon), but other than a few discarded bottles and a questionably stained pair of overalls heaped on the floor, the kitchen was free of vomit and spilled alcohol. Last night must have been a good night.
Jan reflexively catalogued the two dozen carving knives in sprinting distance (he did love knives) and four big freezers, which were all padlocked from the outside. So no one was waiting to spring out from those and attack him this morning. As he led Bharat through the murky kitchen, he spotted a familiar sight.
A handwoven mural sat in a pristine glass frame on the kitchen’s back wall. It was Tiana’s threadwork, bearing the rather endearing words “You’re Home, Asshole” above a pair of crossed beer bottles mocking the Supremacy’s crossed hammers.
Jan had to admit he’d missed Tiana, too.
The second hallway was also empty, and more snoring was audible from upstairs. Normally, that would be comforting, except for the pressure plates Jan knew waited beneath those stairs. Each was hooked to electrified panels that would shock him into unconsciousness and likely make him piss himself. Fortunately, Jan knew which steps to skip on his way up ... assuming Tiana hadn’t changed them in the last five years.
As for the Bowsprit’s proprietress herself, she would be passed out in her own room, probably with a bed buddy or two, while Pollen and the other people Tiana paid to keep her bar secure would be bunked in the room leading to Tiana’s sleeping quarters, probably with a bed rifle or two.
Now for the risky part. Jan turned on Bharat and motioned him down low. “The woman who may start us on our path to the Golden Widow is upstairs, sleeping. These stairs are booby-trapped. I need you to remain here while I evade the mechanisms, quietly rouse my contact, and reveal that I’ve returned.”
“I see,” Bharat whispered back. “And how do I know you don’t need me to stay here so you can slip out a window?”
“You doubt my sincerity?”
“You let me walk on mines, asshole.”
“Ah,” Jan said, “that was, as you must know, a joke.”
Bharat blinked. “What?”
“There are no mines buried in the pavement outside.”
“Then ...?” Bharat stared. “Why tell me that?”
Jan thumped his shoulder. “I wanted to learn how much you’d swallow.”
Bharat glowered. “Oh, fuck you, Sabato.”
“If you like,” Jan said. “Later.”
He started up the stairs before Bharat could demand he stop. There was always the chance Bharat would just disable him with the torture nanos, but Jan needed to know how long his leash was. Bharat had said he would follow Jan’s lead, but if he wouldn’t, it was better to find out now — in a bar filled with people who really hated Advanced — than in some dark alley, alone.
No magma hell arrived. The stairs creaked, but only the ones without pressure plates. Given she was pushing sixty now, Tiana probably didn’t want to re-memorize her own stairs. Undiscovered and unelectrified, Jan crouched by the door into the security bunker. Mammoth snores greeted him from inside as he tried the door: locked, of course.
The lock was an ancient keylock. Tiana was paranoid about electronic locks getting hacked, since some of the people who frequented her bar did that for a living, so on her own doors, she used old-fashioned keylocks. Picking manual locks was a skill so rarely needed on today’s Ceto that almost no modern thief actually knew how to do it. Fortunately, Jan had also
