Finally, Myka plopped to her butt beside me and huffed. “That was the stupidest thing…”
I tested my limbs for any serious damage while panting. I was gonna be bruised to hell, and I might have messed up my leg. No spine or head injuries though.
After my diligent self-check, I looked at Myka. Her hair and clothes were mussed in a strangely enticing way, her impractical skirt shuffled up her thigh a few centimeters. I had an uncomfortable moment of attraction to her before I put that to the side. Not the time or the person.
The abandoned booth advertised some sort of “revolutionary” bedding company. ‘Cause bedding was notably at the forefront of technological innovation. A gunfight provided a steady background track, but it was distant from us. We had a moment of safety, and I was gonna use it.
“Okay,” I said. “Now take a second and explain what the fuck just happened.”
“We don’t have time.” Emotions were so strange on her face.
I rested my chin on my non-handcuffed hand. “I can hold a shit for a long time.”
It was fun to see the unflappable Myka be completely flapped.
She huffed. “Yujab—the ‘tech dweeb’—and Erly both got paid off by Cadinoff.”
Right. So they were providing a distraction in case Myka was discovered. Then Myka would sprint up here, jump on the gondola, unite with the Cadinoff mercs, and sail off to hand my engine plans to Glezos. At the end she’d probably get a medal.
“What’s gonna happen to them now? Sev Tech won’t be happy with them.”
“They’ll be taken care of.”
That was a wiggly phrase. “‘Taken care of’ in a nice way or like, whacked over the head taken care of?”
“We’ll make sure they aren’t hurt.” It looked like it pained her to say.
Good enough. “Add Jagcoop to that list.”
Her look of exasperation was delicious. I rattled our cuffed hands.
“You’re gonna have to work with me, here.”
She didn’t look happy about it. To be fair, I wasn’t happy either. Working with Myka was far down on my to-do list.
“Fine. We’ll protect Jagcoop. Assuming he can keep himself together tonight.” She raised her eyebrows. “Can we go now?”
I tugged at the cuffs. “Go where?”
“Cadinoff —”
I made a buzzer sound. Her mouth snapped shut. “Try again.”
“You understand who I work for, right? I’m taking you to a Cad—”
Buzzer again.
“You shouldn’t even be here! This was supposed to be a simple in-and-out.”
“And now it’s not.” I used my cuffed hand to push back some bangs, forcing her to follow along. “Listen, your first choice of destination is Cadinoff. Mine is my garage. We’re literally stuck together, so let’s say we’re both not getting our first choice, okay?”
“Then where do you suggest we go?”
Good question. We needed a place we could detach ourselves. Someplace neutral. That wouldn’t have a preference for either Cadinoff or me.
We both thought it at the same time.
“Halcyore’s.” Our voices joined.
Halcyore’s was an odd duck. A mechanical dreamworld. Not a corporation, either. No, it was privately owned by a filthy rich motherfucker. He offered deep discounts and all sorts of special goodies like it was his kink. In any case, he had a few rules in his physical store. No weapons, no grudges, no agendas, no corporate squabbles. You went to Halcyore’s for the mech shit, not to settle scores. Companies had tried to win him over, persuade him to show them some favoritism, but he’d refused. Everybody on equal footing.
Halcyore’s was a few stops down on the public rail. Longer by foot. But it was the best option to get us de-cuffed.
I nodded. “So we get out of here and find a rail station?”
“One more thing.” Her voice was smoother now. Less annoyed. She’d managed to compose herself. “Cadinoff will need the data tab that you swallowed.”
I leaned close. Even sitting I had a bit of height over her, and I used it to back her against the booth table. She looked at me strangely. Not like she was frightened or annoyed. No, she looked cautious. Like she wanted to keep me at arm’s-length. Which I supposed was as far away as either of us could keep the other right now.
She looked away first, which meant I won.
“You’ll have to spend the travel time thinking of some way to get that data tab, then.” If she wanted it, she’d have to steal it from my fucking intestines. I tugged at her hand. “So, neutral exit?”
Myka grimaced, but her attention shifted away from the gunfire and in the opposite direction of where the gondola was heading. “Fire exit. That way.”
I lifted myself to a crouch. Yeah, my left leg was janky. I could manage well enough, but there’d be pain. Myka matched my position. I smiled. “Let’s get out of here.”
* * * *
La Diyor was a megacity, so we couldn’t even notice the combat after walking a couple blocks. Buildings on top of buildings crammed with tiny buildings in between, with buildings perilously teetering on top, and maybe another building bridging two bigger buildings. Buildings meant a crush of people and vehicles and other assorted urban clutter.
The Outer Core colonies tended to only have one megacity. Most of the planets were still “developing”—the business term for being quickly covered by a sprawl of urban areas. The Core was basically all urban, so they had to get their agri-food from us. And from the Outer Reaches, supposedly, but I’d never believed people actually lived out on those just-terraformed planets.
Ri’s megacity was La Diyor. I would love to say that La Diyor and Ri were highly
