2

Luna connected MDs with Liz and created a Cloud Call. In it, they could both see Mackley Shopping Centre’s live camera feed. The only issue was Luna had to constantly redirect the window to stop the porn ads from covering it up. Yeah, that would cause a real headache.

For Vanderman: Liz gave him a small ear-piece which he linked with his phone so he could join the call.

After that, Luna and Vanderman exited the Paladin, popped open the trunk, and pulled out the chrome-yellow invis-suit containers. They climbed the gate and hopped into the front yard. Luna brushed dust from her trousers and recoiled at the terrible stench; it smelt not of vinegar and dust and corpses, but of wet garbage and smoke, the sort she had experienced in the alley between DANGER ZONE and the arms dealer. It made her want to puke. And, to make things worse, the AI in her arachonfibre gas mask wasn’t able to filter out the odours like a real one could. So that sucked, really sucked actually.

The dilapidated cars were stuffed with trash bags and beer bottles while cigarette butts spotted the boardwalk all the way up to the front entrance, and perhaps even farther around the right corner, where they needed to go. According to the camera system, two guards were waiting there, sitting on a dark-green dumpster, machine guns in hand, a general sense of darkness lingering about them.

She and Vanderman followed the cigarettes around the corner, where they would find a blockage of vehicles. Once they hopped over that, she saw the two men waiting at the red-brick passageway at the very end. They made it less than a quarter of the way across when the guards took aim. Luna stood ass-clenchingly still.

“Who’s it?” one of the men shouted, his voice rough, orotund, crackly. He was wearing a brass visor punched with wide X’s at the eyeholes. A lanyard hung from his neck, and at the bottom of it was a black-and-green keycard. He hopped off the dumpster and started approaching them. The other guard did the same, only he moved with a limp.

Luna and Vanderman raised their hands.

Static from her ear-piece. “Your name’s Freya,” Liz said. “Vanderman’s is Scratch.”

“Freya!” she said, putting on a deep voice. She pointed at Vanderman and added, “This is Scratch. Don’t recognise us?”

The man sneered, hawked up a glob of phlegm, and spat on the ground. “This a joke? Where are you two comin’ from?”

“Zemon,” she said. “Got a package of Afterburner for Boss.”

“Afterburner?” the man said, drawing his weapon away. He took Vanderman’s box with one hand and shook it. The inside rattled noisily. “What you doin’ in Betoda with Afterburner? You get this from the site or what?”

She nodded. “That’s right,” she said, hoping to God he wouldn’t question further on what the site actually was. She hadn’t the slightest idea.

“Two packages?” the other guard said, laughing a little. “That’s it? Two packages out of the hundreds you make a week? What’s so special about these two?”

She shrugged. “Just followin’ orders. They don’t tell me the specifics.”

The guard with the X-shaped eyeholes straightened his posture, looking first at her, then at Vanderman with suspicion. “The fuck are you so quiet for?”

“’Cause you’re wastin’ our damn time,” Vanderman said sulkily, his arms folded. “Let us in already.”

“You crazy?” the man said. “Never seen you a day in my life, and I been here two years. Two years, buddy. ’Splain that.”

“Guess you got terrible memory,” Vanderman said. “I’m Scratch, Freya told you already. Now let us through ’fore you get in trouble with Big Man. He even told us that.”

“Rick Steel?” he said. “You talkin’ ’bout Ricky, he told you we would get in trouble?”

A chuckle, and then Vanderman took a step closer. “Let us in, little man.”

The man surveyed them both, once again with absolutely no recognition at all, and Luna thought for a brief moment that the jig was up. There was no chance this guy was going to let two outsiders wander in without at least checking with Rick Steel. Whoever that was.

“Marty.” The man handed the case over to the funny-walking guard. Then he grabbed the other from Luna’s arms and gave him that one, too. “Check ’em. Make sure they’re legit.”

Vanderman sighed. “You’re wastin’ our time.”

“Shut it, Scratch!” The man pressed the barrel against Vanderman’s chest. “There’s somethin’ off ’bout this, and you sure as hell ain’t gettin’ in without a check. You got that, big man?”

“You don’t get that gun off me in the next five seconds and there’ll be trouble,” said Vanderman. “Starting now: five, four…”

The man laughed, snapping the weapon away. “You got balls, cunt.”

“You have no idea,” said Luna, even more anxious. He better not fuck this up.

“Well,” said the man, itching his head. “This is how it works. I get you punks might be new to the area, but that’s how we do things ’round here. No one gets in without a check. Ya dig?”

“Go on,” said Luna, staring at the other guard, still maintaining that deep voice. It was starting to hurt. She cleared her throat. “We don’t got nothing to hide.”

“Don’t got nothing to hide,” said the man with X-shaped eyeholes. He jerked his weapon at Marty, as if to say, Get a move on!

Marty got down on his knees and began unclicking the first invis-case, almost dramatically slow, as if he was defusing a bomb and any wrong jitter would result in an atomic boom. Eventually, the case steamed open with hydrogen coolant. He waved the smog away with a cough. “Hey!” he shouted. “It’s a dud – ”

Vanderman stepped forward and elbowed the standing guard clean in the jaw. The man tipped back and Vanderman clutched the machine gun before he could fire. At the same time, Luna spun around Vanderman’s back, jumped, and landed a full-force punch to Marty’s crown. His head caved in under the bullish force of her cybernetic fist. She slid onto her knees, wrapped him in a rear-naked chokehold, and with a single tug, snapped his neck.

CRACK!

His body fell limp, and his final breath was nothing more than a crowlike squawk. The fact that he went out without so much as a gunshot shocked her, but she wasn’t about to complain.

This entire event reminded her of the maintenance men at Vadchia Plaza – why, Marty even had a keycard, but the only difference was she had killed him. This had been the first time in her life (aside from Grimes Paolini) that she had been forced to go this route, and it wasn’t anything like she had expected it to be. Her heart was pounding, adrenaline surged through her muscles, and her mind was already spiralling with regret.

They’d left her no choice.

Vanderman took the other guard to the ground without an issue; he had wrapped the gunstrap around his neck and was now pulling until the man’s face turned barn red. Vanderman straddled the man’s back, pressed down on his arms, and – CRACK! – snapped his neck.

“Holy shit,” panted Luna.

A crackle of static from her ear-piece. “You two alright? You went off screen for a sec – ”

“We killed ’em,” she said, wide-eyed and struggling to catch her breath. “We had to fucking kill them!”

“Keep your voice down!” said Vanderman, unstrapping the machine gun from the man’s corpse.

“Don’t tell me to keep my fucking voice down,” she snapped. She plugged her opposite ear with her forefinger. “Liz, chances of turning off the camera on Entrance 02? At the dumpster?”

“Why?” she asked.

“We gotta dump these bodies without anyone noticing us,” she said. “And we gotta get in without looking suspicious. Just do it, alright?”

“Okay okay,” Liz said quickly. “Just give me a second.” Typing, typing, typing.

Vanderman strapped the gun around his shoulders, bent down, and snatched the keycard from the man’s neck. “Better get used to this, kid. Won’t be the only time we have to squash a few bugs in the way.”

“I’m aware,” she said, but she didn’t sound as if she was. She stood up and brushed herself off, looking down at Marty’s lifeless body. She took his lanyard and wore it around her neck. Then she grabbed his machine gun and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Just… fuck me…. It all happened so fast….”

Static. “Alright, camera’s off, Luna.”

“Thanks, Liz,” she said. “Appreciate it.”

Together, Luna and Vanderman threw the guards’ bodies over their shoulders in a fireman’s carry, strode over to the dumpster, and tossed them inside. Luna shut the lid and took a deep breath, feeling her body heat up with those stirring hairs. The smell of spoiled food pierced her nostrils. She scrunched her nose.

“You calm down yet?” said Vanderman.

She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. Now was not the time to say that. “You gotta be careful with what you say, Vanderman.” Luna looked at him sternly. Then, explosively, she shouted: “THEY COULD HAVE” – she slammed the lid with her fist – “FUCKING KILLED US!”

Vanderman raised his hands. “Relax – ”

“If you tell me to relax one more time I’m gonna fucking pound you into the ground. This isn’t some fucking regular heist. My sister’s kidnapped, I might die, and you better damn well stop fucking around. I really fucking mean it. Enough of this tough-man shit!”

“Oh for Christ’s sake.” He raised his keycard. “Look! We’re in! Why are you complaining? I only did that to avoid the confrontation. My bad for actually trying, kid.”

“You don’t think I’m trying?” she said.

“No.” He shook his head. “You keep whining, and it’s starting to piss me off.”

“I shouted because we were this close” – she made a tiny, imperceptible gap between her thumb and forefinger – “to dying. This close! And you want me to relax?”

“Not just now,” he said. “Before this. I’m tryna help you kid. I’d much rather not have to kill anyone but hell, we haven’t even stepped foot in the place and you’re already losing your shit. Keep your cool or else we’ll actually get killed.”

Before she could reply – and she wanted to tell him he was the one losing his cool – more static burst from her ear.

“Guys,” said Liz.

Vanderman and Luna responded at the same time: “What?”

“You wanna bring the whole compound on you?” she said. “You’re alive, move on. This isn’t even the hard part.”

“We ought to get you some meds, Luna,” said Vanderman with a deprecatory chuckle. He walked over to the door and slid his keycard through the access slot. The lightstrip above the door blinked twice with green.

“Access granted,” a woman’s voice said.

The door unlocked.

“C’mon.” He pushed it open slightly. “Unless you wanna sulk around a bit longer. Time isn’t really on our side, if you haven’t noticed.”

She sighed angrily. He was right about one thing: there was no use arguing now. Still, the fact that the guards could have opened fire because of his big mouth didn’t sit well with her at all. He had to watch it.

They both did.

“One second,” she said, walking away.

“What is it?”

She went over to the open invis-case. Inside of it were the purple portiere beads from Liz’s apartment.

So much for that idea.

She shut it, stacked it on top of the other, and carried them over to Vanderman. “Anyone asks,” she began, “we have drugs to deliver. I doubt they’re all gonna stop us.”

He took a deep breath, nodded, and took the case by the lug. “Alright,” he said, “but remember what I said.”

“Whatever.”

They walked inside and slipped into the dark, one arm holding the case, the other holding the weapon. The lanyards jiggled across their chests, and Luna knew, with half certainty, that they would fit in for now.