Chapter 5
"And do you see now why it was imperative that we place Hilyer under protective custody?"
NG nodded reluctantly. "I would never have predicted the animosity that a situation like this could create within our community." It was the one thing that had affected him the most in all this and it was the hardest to admit. "I should have known. I don't find it easy to see the worst in people."
The Man smiled. "Why should you? You can read their minds. You see their hearts. You are a unique individual amongst your race, NG, with an extraordinary talent. You choose the best people and put them in the most appropriate positions for the good of the guild. For anyone to turn against us? that cuts deep. When one section of our guild finds satisfaction in the distress of another, we cannot help but feel anguish at the betrayal. Yet?"
He picked up his goblet and drank deeply. "Yet we place each and every individual under immense strain to perform and we set them against each other in competition that is bound to create stresses and weaknesses. Why then should we be surprised when cracks appear? Losing Mendhel and Anderton in such circumstances was bound to create tension, a catalyst for action against the arrogance that had been growing. Admit it, an arrogance that we had been nurturing."
"Every section in the guild has a degree of arrogance. They deserve to," NG said. "We do bring in the best. And we push them to become better. Maybe we push too hard."
-
Back in the barracks, Hil left his escort keeping guard at his door, showered and fell into his bunk. He slept fitfully for a time and woke up in a cold sweat with no memory of the nightmare that had left him feeling on edge. It didn't feel worth the effort to try to get back to sleep so he got up and made his way to the Maze, acknowledging a few friendly faces on the way but not lingering long enough to get caught up in any debates. He was thankful no one tried to waylay him into the mess.
His two security shadows stopped at the entrance and nodded respectfully as he went in. Only field-ops ever entered the Maze.
He logged in and got changed into the black work-out kit that he kept in his locker. Fliss was in there already he noticed from the log. She was the only one and it would be company he didn't mind.
He checked the environmental control settings. Fliss had a habit of screwing with the norms and the last time he'd followed her through, she'd wound the temperature up, the gravity down and set a sprinkling of electrobes lose, to 'give her a buzz' she'd protested. The last thing he needed right now was a breath-full of those damned things. Someone had said once that the microscopic organisms that were the by-product of AI thought processes were going to take over the universe and wipe out all other life forms. He hated them and hit the reset, purging the system of any traces. Felicity would have to get her buzz another time.
He pulled his belt tighter, realising for the first time how much weight he'd lost, and took his time warming up, feeling the strain more than usual which was a real bitch because he'd been getting faster before that last tab. He shrugged it off and went for the Straight.
The Maze was a training ground for the field-ops and there were various routes through it, the toughest being the Straight - the most direct, difficult, treacherous, fastest route. LC was the only one who'd ever finished it faster than him and the two of them were the only ones who could complete it.
It was irritating to struggle and damned frustrating every time he lost his grip and fell, or lost his balance and tumbled, or most embarrassing just couldn't catch his breath as he climbed and clambered. He ended up sitting atop a beam across the vast space that was known as the Void.
Skye was quiet, but then she didn't usually disturb when he was in the Maze.
The dark stretched in every direction.
He almost fell off when a figure landed next to him and threw her arms around him in a hug that he hadn't realised he needed.
"God, Hil! What the hell happened out there?" Fliss was small and slight and desperate to make her way up the standings. She was about fifteenth last time he looked and probably didn't have a chance of getting higher. Except of course that was before one and two had just tumbled out of the picture.
"I don't know," he said simply, not even trying to dig into his memory. He was tired of trying to think about it.
She stood up and pulled on his arm. "C'mon, come with me." She winked and dragged him forward.
Precarious as his balance was he almost pulled them both down into the hole but her forward momentum kept them on the beam and she led him out and up the shaft towards the Sphere.
"Hang on," he protested when he saw where they were going, not sure he could stomach zero-g.
She glared at him with a piercing stare and gestured to the opening, flashing that sweet smile she liked to turn on and off when it suited her. The grunts fought over that smile. How could he refuse?
The Sphere was a massive dark chamber of artificially controlled gravity that hung in the centre of the Maze, directly in the path of the straightest route through. Hil paused at the entrance, holding onto the cold metal of the doorframe. It was the fastest way to get from one side of the Maze to the other, if you could handle the inertia and not break an arm. Usually they'd fly across it in one trajectory and tumble out of the far doorway in a roll. This time he eased himself in and kicked off gently into the zero-g.
Fliss floated up to the centre of the Sphere and twisted around to look at him. He floated up and enjoyed the moment for a change, turning head over heels and just letting go. Fliss caught his arm and pulled them both together.
"We need to talk," she said. "Hil, how much do you remember? Because there are some scary ass rumours floating about."
He didn't feel like talking and just drifted there in the centre of the sphere.
She whispered in his ear, "They've taken you and LC off the standings board."
"What?" The cold knot in his stomach clenched uneasily. No one was ever taken out of the standings - unless they died. "They can't do that. The Chief said I was off the list, but off the board? Who the hell is top?"
"Hil, it doesn't matter. What happened out there?"
He tried to pull away but she squeezed his wrist.
"Who said we're off the board?" he demanded.
Fliss glared at him and narrowed her eyes. "Hil," she said, "they can do whatever they want. But if you must know, Sorensen is top and he's being a pain in the ass. Everyone else is saying what the hell do the standings mean any more if they can ditch you and LC so easily." Her gaze softened. "What happened?"
He put aside the gut-wrenching ache from being dropped - she was right, it didn't matter any more - and tried to sift through the mess of memory that was left rattling about in his head.
"I got the tab, picked up the package and crashed," he said eventually. "Dropped out of jump and got shot down. We crash landed on some planet. Someone was after the package. I thought maybe they were just upset to lose it or set someone on my tail to get it back."
"The package was switched," Felicity said.
"I know, Kase told me. I didn't know. I don't know how it could have been. It was a clean grab, Fliss, honestly, the acquisition was as simple as they go."
"You remember that?"
It was surprising to realise that he couldn't recall any details, just a clear notion that it had been simple.
"Do you know what they're saying?" she asked and squeezed his wrist again to emphasise the question.
He shook his head.
"They're saying that LC has screwed the guild over. They sent out Kase and Martha, for god's sake, with six other teams. No one ever gets seven teams sent after them, no matter what they're caught up in. We couldn't believe it. We all thought you'd just had an accident or something, but for Kase and Martha to be sent out, good grief Hil, they've not pulled a run-of-the-mill extraction in years, not since they were bumped up to spec-ops. I knew something was wrong when they were sent out after you. There's some crazy talk going around about who the client was and what the package was."
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"Like what?" he said, feeling cold again at the thought that it had taken Kase and Martha to pull him out of whatever it was he'd been caught up in.
"Like, you don't want to know because if it's true, you're going to wish you'd never been found."
He couldn't help pulling away then and the motion sent them off at different tangents. Fliss caught hold of him and they tumbled together.
She glared at him. "Hey, I'm a friend here. And if things go the way I think they are heading, you're going to need a friend, Hil. Mendhel was murdered. Did they tell you that? Someone even said it was LC that killed him, Hil. How mad is that? That's the kind of rumour doing the rounds. We're the Thieves' Guild, Hil. We look after our own. And we're the ones doing the taking, no one takes from us. No one messes with the Thieves' Guild. No one."
She pulled him close and kissed his forehead gently.
He pushed her away. "What about LC? Does anyone know what happened to him?"
She traced a finger along the bruises on his cheek. "There's no sign of him. He's vanished, no tags or entry docs anywhere with any of his codes. They've been checking airfields and orbitals all the way to Earth. People are saying that you left together on the same tab. Do you remember that?"
"No," he said, honestly. If he'd hooked up with LC on the same tab, it must have been one helluva job. They'd always joked they'd be invincible if they worked together. He had a pang of regret that he didn't remember it if that was what had happened. It would have been awesome.
"Something could have happened to him, have they thought about that?" he said. "Why is he being tagged as the bad guy here? This is LC we're talking about."
Fliss shrugged. "He's dropped off the radar - that's never going to look good whichever way you look at it. I'm really sorry, Hil."
And she did look it. The cold spot deep inside flared up again.
Fliss hugged him tight. "I know, it's a mess," she said. "I've heard that there's a price out on him."
She paused and his heart sank further. If bounty hunters were after him, LC wouldn't have a chance.
"And it gets worse," she said, hesitating.
He wanted to throttle her. Worse? How could it get any worse?
"We've been assigned a new handler," she said. "It's Quinn."
Quinn? That wasn't going to happen in a million years. No way would he work with Quinn. Why hadn't the Chief mentioned that? He began to shake his head but Fliss shushed him.
"Fight me," she whispered. "We have to move around or they'll start to wonder what we're doing in here." And she spun backwards using his body for leverage and aimed a vicious high kick at his shoulder.
She kicked his ass and didn't hide the fact she was enjoying it so much. Kick a man when he's down, why don't you. Hand to hand in zero-g was one of the hardest things they trained for. She'd never beaten him before and she'd never do it again once he got back up to speed. He limped the rest of the way out along the easiest route and picked up his two security guys who were waiting patiently. They didn't object when they made their way to the barracks and he didn't resist when Fliss kissed him before leaving him at the door to his quarters.
"Get some rest," she said. "I'll let you know if I hear anything."
It couldn't have been much rest because he was still aching from the work out when he was woken up by Skye.
"Hil, honey, NG wants to see you in his office."
He crawled out of his bunk and fell asleep in the shower.
"NG wants to see you now, Hil," she sent, more forcefully that time as he was enjoying the heat of the water and the oblivion of the moment.
"Skye, have you found out what happened to Mendhel yet?" he asked, drying off and searching around for clean clothes.
"I'm not getting through to anyone on that, hon, sorry but it looks like the ranks have been closed on us."
"I need to talk to Martha then." It was awkward but she'd be the only one who could help. She'd found him and he needed to know where the hell he'd been.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Hil honey."
"Skye, it's old history. She'll talk to me. Where is she?"
"Hil, get your head straight. NG wants to see you in his office, now. Maybe he knows something."
She sounded stressed again.
Hil pulled on a jacket and headed out. The two guards fell in on either side. He took a look at each of them in turn as he walked through the still eerily quiet corridors of Acquisitions. They may or may not have been the same two guys as before but they were both wearing red flashes. The elite of the elite. The Man's own personal guard. Whether they were there to protect him from harm or guard him from escaping still wasn't clear. And it was unlikely they'd speak to him however much he goaded them.
"So does this new status I have come with a pay rise?" he said. They ignored him so he picked up his pace and raced them to the lift. They didn't rise to it and let him get ahead, but watching their reflections in the polished door of the elevator, he could see them both put a hand on their side arms. He punched the call button, tempted to make a run for it, just for the hell of it to see what they'd do. He'd had run-ins before with the Watch, most of them had, tempers and emotions ran hot in Acquisitions, but he'd never been this close to the Man's own guards before. That they were here meant the Man was on board and that he'd assigned two of his guards to babysit Hil for some reason meant that Hil was attracting attention that was unwanted and unlikely to be in his best interest.
The lift doors opened and Hil slipped inside, hitting the button to go down. The two guys were still walking, still some distance away and as the doors closed, Hil couldn't help the cocky smile. It faded as the doors jammed half open and half closed. There were rumours that the Man's guards had complete control over every system on board the Alsatia. They hadn't even twitched.
Hil frowned and stepped aside as they entered the lift, one of them pushing him against the wall and saying, "Don't try that again," the voice deep and throaty through the armour, as the other one hit the over-ride.
"Neat trick," Hil muttered. He needed Skye and all her resources hacked into a system before they could do anything like that. He'd never thought of the cruiser in terms of somewhere he could break into, but now the idea was there, he started running scenarios through his head. And each time he came up against a brick wall. He looked at the two guards as the lift rose up through the ship.
There'd be a way.
NG's domain on twelve wasn't a usual haunt of the field-ops. But it had a welcoming feel that made him relax. It had soft carpet on the floor, not hard metal deck, and pictures on the walls, huge images of places he didn't recognise. It was warm and quiet and the two guards manoeuvred him to a row of chairs. He didn't need the hand on his shoulder to encourage him to sit, his head was still pounding and there was a weakness in his knees that was sapping his energy.
One of NG's staff brought him a cup of something hot and sweet. She winked at him as she handed it over and he smiled as he watched her walk back to her desk, short skirt swinging. The two guards watched as well, he noticed, so they were human after all.
When he turned back, NG was at the door, beckoning him to go inside. NG's office was cool and dimly lit, spotlights shining on key features around the room. Hil had been in there before and knew there were banks of data walls and planning tables off to one side, a massive desk in the centre and a round wooden conference table to the other side. Bookshelves stacked with artefacts from across the galaxy lined each wall. It was an eclectic mix of textures and technology that reflected every section and aspect of the guild's operations.
NG directed him towards the conference table where a soft light was casting shadows over a pile of books and data boards. The woman sitting there stood up as they approached. She was wearing travelling gear, had a gun in a holster strapped to her thigh, and as she reached out her hand to greet him he almost recoiled when he saw the flash of the embossed silver badge attached to her belt that identified her as a bounty hunter
. She held his grip more firmly than she needed to and smiled at him. She might as well have pulled out the gun and held it to his head.
"Hil," NG said, "this is Sean O'Brien. She's going to bring in LC and I want you to help her find him."