The moon hangs over us, bloated, gibbous, and yellow—its beams look tainted as they slide over the corrugated shelters in rivers of oily light. We trudge along until the streets start getting brighter, and we’re greeted with a collage of low-slung buildings, flophouses and speakeasies. Distant, mellifluous notes slink toward us in the dark like melancholy whores.
No structure stands over two stories tall, as if they squat here in fear of giants that tear such hubris down, but an acrid smell hangs heavy in the air, declaring the machinery functional. We’re unlikely to do better at this time of night. So we turn at random into a white building with a sign that proclaims with laconic largesse: rooms.
We transact business with a greasy man wearing a shirt stained with a week’s worth of dinners and armpit sweat. Hair bristles from his face in a porcine fashion, and his grunts as we pay for our rooms reinforce that impression. He handles our rental through a metal grill, densely woven, only a slot large enough to slide a credit stick through at the bottom.
“Twelve, fourteen, and sixteen, down toward the end. There’s a communal san-shower, last door.” He manages to speak without moving his mouth, without making eye contact. Just as well because I’m not supposed look at people until I get some tinted lenses.
This isn’t the sort of place where they ask for names or identification, and I’m glad to go. The office smells of rancid meat and human sweat, loneliness and despair. Back outside, we follow the broken walk, counting the prefab housing units until we find ours. These rooms don’t have palm locks because that would require configuration technology. He’s given us three digits that open the metal tumbler latching the door, and there’s no telling how many others know it.
“Be careful,” I tell Dina and Doc, as they go on to their rooms.
She laughs. “Anything that comes in on me tonight better be prepared to die.”
March pauses at the door, spinning the numerals until I hear a snick. The room revealed barely qualifies for the name, squeaking in by virtue of its four walls and ceiling. No windows, no san facilities, no furniture, there’s just the ragged sleep-mat that appears to be affixed to the floor.
I flash him a wry smile. “No wonder I like you. Since you take me to such nice places, and you do hair, too.”
He has the grace to show chagrin as he runs a hand over my bare scalp. “I really am sorry, Jax. But it was for the best.”
“I know. You want the shower?”
Shaking his head, he drops his bag, then kisses the tip of my nose. “You take the first one. It’s only fair, considering what I’ve put you through. I might sack out, though, if you take more than five minutes.” He gives me a sleepy smile.
There’s the fist again, squeezing at my heart. Shit, I don’t want to feel like this, but sometimes, sometimes the man can be so sweet. It’s getting harder to remember what an asshole he can be. “Thanks.”
I can’t wait to be clean, so I head for the san-shower. It’s black in here, stale, sour air that smells as if it blows upward from sinister, sulfuric places in the earth. I bump the door shut behind me with my hip, and I’m immediately sorry.
“Lights on.”
Standing here in the dark convinces me the facilities must be manual, so I fumble around, hearing my own breathing. My heart resounds in my ears as I find the switch. Sudden illumination. I swallow a shriek as a swarm of chittering insects scuttle across the floor and out of sight. Being dirty seems much less objectionable, but I refuse to concede defeat. So I close my eyes and scrub up, amazed at how fast it goes without hair to wash.
I dress quickly, watching my feet for the return of those creepy things. Crunchy bugs make the inside of my stomach shudder. Shouldering my bag, I step out onto the walk, flick the switch, then shut the door behind me.
My heart gives a wild thump as Doc steps out of the shadows. Right, he’s in room 16, the last before the shower. But I thought I heard the murmur of him talking to someone, although I don’t see anyone else around.
“You scared me.”
Mary, he looks so strange in this light, something about the way the moon shines his eyes, almost blind but feral. I feel the same unease as I did aboard the Folly, after I discovered his deception.
“Did I?”
“Yes.” I back up a step, wrestling with an irrational instinct telling me to run.
“Intuition is an interesting thing,” he says. “Sometimes it gives us cues that cannot be explained by logic. Don’t you find that to be the case, Sirantha?”
“Doc wouldn’t have lied to me.” I take another step back, finding myself flush against the building. “He wouldn’t. Who are you?”
In a movement so fast I can’t track it, the creature whips an arm around my throat. “Excellent. I’m tired of this skin.” His flesh seems to liquefy, then it sloughs away to reveal a bony carapace with black holes where the eyes should be. The creature’s body elongates, no longer short and stocky. “So cramped and limiting.”
“You’re a Slider,” I breathe.
I’ve heard of them, so dubbed because they can slide into someone else’s life seamlessly. They’re the best bounty hunters in the known universe, native to Ithiss-Tor, but who expects ever to meet one? They’re rare like chi-masters and glass-dancers. I should feel flattered that the Corp set one on me. Instead, my stomach knots, and my palms start to sweat.
“An unflattering designation.” Its mandible flexes, a sign of displeasure, undoubtedly. “You were so cooperative, coming to New Terra with me like this.”
Shit.
“M-maybe we could cut a deal—” I try to stall, find out what it wants most. Maybe someone will come out and surprise it. If I scream, will it kill me? Am I worth more dead or alive? I fragging wish I knew.
“How much do you care for them?” it whispers. “If you refuse to accompany me to the rendezvous point, my associates will descend on this place and kill everyone for the inconvenience. But if you cooperate, I will let them go. There is no bounty on them, and I care nothing for this ‘project,’ although the doctor’s research is…interesting. However, I have not been hired to safeguard Farwan’s interests, only to retrieve you.”
I feel its claw tracing a caress across my throat.
CHAPTER 47
My bag slips from my fingers.
When they discover it, they’ll know something is wrong. Whether that will help me in any fashion, I don’t know. It’s clear that I have to go with him, however. I have a better chance of survival if I cooperate. Maybe I can escape from the Corp facility. Maybe I can escape en route, but if I struggle or scream, this Slider will slit my throat. I could rouse the others, but I’d be dead before they could help me. Backed by a long, proud history of not-dying, I know when someone’s serious.
Beyond all that, I won’t let him miss the rendezvous. I won’t permit these bastards to descend on Dina and March. I think this is the only semiselfless thing I’ve ever done in my life.
“Time is money, Sirantha.” The talon on my jugular depresses, and I swallow, feeling my pulse pound like I’m prey.
“Let’s go.”
Can’t wonder what happened to Doc.
“A wise choice.” It snaps something around my wrist. “If you move more than two hundred meters from the control device on my belt, the slave bracelet will detonate. I have never taken a target foolish enough to test it, but I understand it does significant structural damage to the human form. Let us depart. I am sure you are no more eager to linger in my company than I am to have you.”
The broken walk leads us away from rented rooms and silent sleepers. I follow him, docile as a pet. That scrapes against the grain. Now that his claw’s off my throat, I picture myself killing him, removing the belt and taking it with me until I can get the bracelet off, but…that doesn’t solve my immediate problem, even if I could get the best of him, which I doubt, unless I strike while he’s asleep. Regardless, I still have to protect Dina and March, and I can’t see any way to do that except by going to the Slider ship.
March. What if he thinks I ran again? I know I don’t have a rep for being reliable, not like him. Former acquaintances would say, “Sirantha Jax values her own ass above all others.” But I didn’t leave you because I wanted to, baby. Not this time.
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “I don’t imagine you’re any worse than the Corp.”
The thing makes a curious sound in its throat. “You are a strange woman.” I can identify the tone as amusement, so that noise must have been laughter.
“Not the first time I’ve heard that.” Maybe I should be terrified, but so far as I understand, Sliders are pragmatic. If I don’t give it any trouble, it’s going to turn me over to the Corp in one piece. Of course what comes afterward will probably make me wish I was dead. “So what should I call you?”
Beside me, its movements strike me as distinctively mantislike. “Why must you call me anything?”
“You’re a person,” I say, trying to sound reasonable as every moment moves us farther away. “So am I. There’s no reason we shouldn’t keep this civil.”
“You are not a person, you are my captured quarry. But you may call me Velith if it pleases you.”
“Nice to meet you.” I’m determined to be polite. Maybe if I’m nice enough, I can make it feel guilty about turning me over to the Corp. And maybe Mother Mary will descend from heaven to deliver me. If I’m going to hang my fate on an impossible hook, then I may as well dream big. “So what’s it like on Ithiss-Tor? I’ve never been. Your people don’t encourage tourism.”
“No, I suppose they do not,” he agrees, but his pitch disturbs me. I hear dual harmonics that make me feel as though I am listening to more than one entity. “As for the homeworld, I have not returned in many years.”
“Why not?”
“If you believe our relationship is such that I shall confide in you, Sirantha Jax, you are much mistaken. Now keep silent.”
Velith picks a careful path back toward the shantytown. Appears we’re not going deeper into Maha City, which make sense. Nobody notes the comings and goings out here. If nothing else, there’s a certain freedom in abject poverty, I suppose. When we reach a truly impressive junkyard, he pauses and activates one of the devices I didn’t recognize. It glows gold, and then there’s an answering hum from a ship well concealed among the derelicts.
“Seems your associates are punctual,” I observe unnecessarily.
“It is one of their few redeeming qualities.”
“That good, huh? I can’t wait to meet them. Bet you’re a bundle of charm in comparison, the ‘face’ man of the organization.”
He—she?—makes the odd choking noise again. “You are not what I expected, based on the holo-footage and the dossier Farwan provided.”
“No, I’m not really the blow-up-a-space-station type. More likely to kill a carafe of Parnassian red and flash my tits. Or…I used to be. Not much of that, lately.”