The big brute switched his head, looking from me to Pritchard.
“Looks like it’s time for me to pay up.”
Cascade’s tail waved briefly from side to side, and Pritchard handed me a pie similar to the ones the dog had stolen from my plate.
“I was following that conversation,” he said, as I let Cascade vacuum the treat out of my hand. “It seemed a foolhardy promise to me, given you didn’t know where the caf was.”
I shared a look with the dog, and he shared me a brief schematic showing me the way to the Wanderer’s mess hall.
“I’d have found it,” I said, and Pritchard gave me a look of disgust.
“You are banned from having one of these,” he said, pointing at the dog. “You get into enough trouble as it is.”
I scratched Cascade behind the ears.
“It’s okay, boy. We’ll talk to Mack, won’t we?”
The dog licked my hand, his tail wagging happily.
Beckett cleared his throat.
“I’d like a copy of those files, too, Abby. If I may… I have investigations to conduct.”
“Certainly, Agent Beckett. You may come aboard my shell to study them uninterrupted.”
“I… Thank you, Abeona.”
I turned to Delight.
“Has Abby sent you Costoganzi’s location, yet?”
“She has,” Delight confirmed. “We are under way.”
19—Cascade’s Gift
Costoganzi’s location was not all we had unearthed. Cascade was a lot more tenacious than we’d thought—and he was excited to have new places to play. One minute, he was trying to steal tidbits from the table, and the next minute he was crashed out on the floor…except he was no more crashed out than any other dog that had ever jumped a fence—and he had the same sense of etiquette.
Which was, none at all.
He licked the pilot—from inside her implant, which gave us all a bumpy ride, until Delight chased him out of the woman’s skull, and dragged him back to his body. Wanderer compensated, and laid down a few doggy anti-intrusion measures, but I think she was more amused than annoyed, since most of those measures looked like animated chew toys.
That didn’t solve the problem of what the beast did when he discovered a new implant to explore. Delight was seriously unimpressed.
“Cutter! Control this mutt or I’m putting him in Isolation.”
Isolation? As in the cell they’d kept me in the last time they’d brought me back and made me work for them? Well, at least she wasn’t threatening to walk him out an airlock.
“That’s something special we keep aside just for you,” she said, and I’d reached across and pulled Pritchard’s pistol and aimed before any of us had time to think.
Delight watched me, and if she had any real fear I’d fire, she didn’t show it. Pritchard was already beside me, wrapping his hand over the Glazer and pushing it down before taking it out of my hands.
“Easy, Cutter. We’re all friends, here.”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and I cast him a sideways glance.
Uh huh. Odyssey, right?
Cascade stood up and shook, and came over to wedge himself between us. I knelt beside him and draped an arm over his back, looking into his grey-brown eyes when he turned his head towards me.
“Cas, you have to stay out of the ship’s systems, and out of other people’s heads. It’s not polite.”
He whined, bumping his head against my thigh, his mental paws scratching at my implant and begging permission to enter. His digital image looked for all the world like he was carrying something in his mouth. I glanced over at Delight.
“You wanta check this out in one of the isolation cells?”
She nodded, and led the way.
Cascade whined, again, puzzled that I wouldn’t accept his gift.
“Give it a minute, Cas. We need to take that somewhere safe.”
Oh. Safe. He understood that.
He trotted along beside me, and waited until we were all sitting on the floor in one of the sparse, but shielded isolation cells. I sure as shit hoped Delight would let me out of it, again.
Cascade didn’t give me time to dwell on it, but came and sat next to me, leaning into my side. I’d no sooner tucked an arm around him and leant my head back against a wall, than he was inside my implant and dropping his peace offering on the floor. It wriggled and curled, spreading several long, spiny tendrils out around it, and bringing Cascade snarling to his feet.
He darted in, snapping and pouncing, and the tendrils withdrew. They wrapped themselves around the tiny file, threatening to crush it, and Cascade lifted his leg.
“Oh! No! Cas! Cas!” but my protests were in vain, and whatever was in his digital urine had the desired effect.
The strands melted away, and the file opened.
“Well, well, well,” Delight told him. “I ought to put you on the pay roll.”
Cascade wagged his tail—both digitally and in the real—but I glared at her. We both remembered what had happened the last time she’d tried to put me on the payroll. She sighed.
“Really, Cutter? You can’t just let bygones be bygones?”
And I shook my head. Bygones, my ass! Once Odyssey got its hooks into you, it weren’t never letting go. We both knew that.
“Keep your grubby mitts off the dog.”
“Live free, right? Make your own decisions, and all that rot?” Delight snarked, and she sounded so bitter, I wondered when she’d had this conversation before…and with whom.
“None of your goddamn business.”
She reached over and scratched Cascade’s head.
“You are one hell of a dog!”
He wagged his tail, again, and looked hopeful.
“Sure, boy. Once we get through this, Uncle Pritchard will find you a treat.”
Uncle Pritchard?
I opened my eyes to see just how her keeper was taking that designation.
Yup. Raised eyebrows and a faint look of disbelief.
I giggled. Uncle Pritch.
“Shut it, Cutter,” but his reprimand was mild, and he seemed more flattered than upset.
“Don’t make me come over there.”
The man was sitting against the wall opposite.
Whatever.
I laid a hand around Cascade’s shoulders and pulled him tight against me.
“You are a good boy,” I said, pushing all thought of digital pee right
