《A Test of Knives》 Last Rites
Russo¡¯s eyes were beginning to swell by the time they took him to see the Lord Captain.
A bell tolled. The deacon wore cloth-of-gold robes, finely embroidered. Heavy boots thudded against the corrugated metal floor as he made his way to the front. He passed through crooked rows of hastily arranged folding chairs that squealed unpleasantly whenever they were dragged or bumped. Black-clad men and women stood uneasily in their rows, still with uncomfortable hesitance. They¡¯d gone about this too fast. This wasn¡¯t the way. The incense was lit but the smell dissipated quickly in the vast upper reaches of the cargo bay. A bell tolled.
The brutes yanked him by the arms, tied behind his back, and his shoulder wrenched as they shoved him to his knees. Through puffy lids he could barely make out the face of a skull staring down at him. ¡°Captain Salieri,¡± he said weakly.
Lord Captain Scipio Salieri wore as his face a helmet set with the skull of his father. He did not often remove it. It was done in bone-grey ceramite and lacquered glossy black. He wore, too, a full set of black-lacquered carapace trimmed in gold and polished till it shone like a mirror. The sign of his family was embossed on his chest in shining gold, the heavy S inset in a gear. His knuckles were spiked, his sword at his hip. Here, he stood at the frontmost left aisle seat, his attention fully on the memorial iconographs. The deceased wore a carefree smile, set among smaller depictions of the saints. The body itself rested in the personnel airlock, prepared with hyssop and myrrh for its destination in deep space.
Black-gauntleted hands grabbed him by the lapels and slammed him painfully against the bulkhead. The silvery skull grinned a toothy grin inches away. ¡°Sir, I-¡° He was slammed again against the bulkhead. ¡°I don¡¯t need¡± the skull growled, ¡°to hear any mewling explanation. I know why you¡¯ve done what you did.¡± Out of the hazy corners of his vision, Russo could see one of the two brutes grin nastily. Vinnius, he realized. He knew these men. He tried to send a significant look. ¡°Controlling an operation as massive as this requires an amount of care and secrecy that you lack the capability to conceive of. Every move we make is observed by the law, by the Families, by a million watching eyes.¡± Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Vinnius caught his look and smirked all the more. ¡°An undertaking like ours cannot withstand the rot of treachery within; the rot takes hold and the watching eyes become biting fangs, tearing us apart until we live in a cell or a crumpled heap beneath a sewer. Everyone in the Family must do their part, or everyone will pay the cost.¡±
A bell tolled. The deacon sprinkled fragrant on the iconographs. ¡°You shall sprinkle me with hyssop and I shall be clean¡±, he intoned. ¡°You shall wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.¡± All eyes were on him, Salieri knew. He could feel them boring into his back. But he was shielded by the armor. His face inside the helmet was just as unmoved as the skull on the outside. He knelt as was right and necessary at this part of the ceremony, and at a pause, he heard the Family behind him kneel as well. ¡°The universe is God''s, and the fullness thereof; the world and all that dwell therein¡±, the deacon continued. ¡°You are dust and to dust you shall return.¡±
The Lord Captain dropped him suddenly. Russo went hard to the ground with a whimper of pain. The Captain¡¯s boot set down in front of Russo¡¯s nose, startling him with its closeness, its heaviness. Distantly above he could see the pale skull grinning its frozen grin. ¡°But you didn''t see any of this, I know. You saw some criminal enterprise and determined you could be clever, and skim money off the top. You''re a mouse, looking up at giants and wondering how you can take the crumbs from their plate. I have many loyal subordinates who do their part without complaint and who reap the harvest that their seeds of diligence and dedication have sown.¡± ¡°Please¡± screeched Russo. ¡°Give me a chance!¡± ¡°I do not need any mice like you.¡± The Captain¡¯s voice was icy, contemptuous. ¡°You do not see the grand picture. This is not a gang of thieves. Our operation is the blast furnace of a new world, starting on this ship. The Salieri family''s wealth will drive this machine as we build something better than the disarray beneath us.¡±
It was not part of the standard ceremony, but Salieri¡¯s subordinates were practiced at meeting unconventional orders. The deacon lifted an incense censer from its hook and led a small precession to the nearby personnel airlock. Salieri himself fell into step with the deacon. He tilted his head slightly and the shorter man nodded to his unasked question. ¡°Still think it¡¯s too circus, yeah. Faith is not a spectacle.¡± ¡°This cannot happen again,¡± Salieri growled. The deacon was quiet. ¡°No, of course not,¡± he said eventually. The airlock was already sealed. The space inside was still pressurized, so that the force from opening the outer lock would propel Mr. Russo¡¯s bodily remains far away from the ship. Eventually, the body would burn to ash from the friction of the planetary atmosphere far below. Tonight, Mr. Russo would rain over the planet of his birth. Both the outer and inner locks were steel frames around thick transparent blocks of ultraglass. Salieri began the eulogy, but did not turn to face his men. Instead, he looked down at Russo. ¡°The Salieri family no longer finds any benefit from your continued existence. Perhaps your ashes will fertilize the fields of the new world; then, at least, you will have contributed something useful to humanity. Goodbye, Mr. Russo.¡± He looked on serenely as the deacon drew a holy sign on the glass with his fingertips. ¡°Repent¡±, his old friend whispered. Russo could not hear them, and did not understand the deacon¡¯s sentiment. He screamed behind the soundproof glass, pounded on the inside of the airlock weeping. But none of his strikes made the slightest sound through six inches of airlock. Salieri gave the deacon a look, and the deacon put his hand over the airlock release button, gave a final nod to the man behind the glass, and pressed. Connections
¡°What can you offer the Salieri empire?¡± ¡°I can chiefly offer three things: firstly, my capabilities as a financier. Secondly, my ability to hit a moving target in the dark at six hundred meters. And finally, an absolute lack of moral compunctions.¡± ~Anno DiBattista and DeMoss
Antoinette Violetta de la Mendacia chose her name for the sheer pompous frippery of it. It made her want to get a little fan and a giant wig, and say things like ¡°oh deary me¡± and ¡°frippery¡±. She¡¯d chosen it in a fit of absolute pique when she first got her hands on this opportunity. It had stuck, but she¡¯d made them call her Vio after a while. She passed the background check because they were all criminals. A fake name was practically a qualifier. Salieri¡¯s Shadow was the first proper void-ship she¡¯d ever been on. She¡¯d been on shorter planet-hopping skimmers; the difference was very small, functionally. Cramped corridors, hatchways, pipes everywhere. Salieri seemed very fond of black paneling and gold trim. She leaned forward, studying her face in the mirror. Her interview was in five. Angled electric-green eyes edged in black, sharp and straight as a razor blade. Freckles buried under makeup. Strict black double-breasted suit fitted pencil skirt. Her mechanical right arm was hidden away under the sleeves of her suit, but her hand was still matte plastic black. She tucked it into a pocket. All hint of individuality had been smoothed and tucked and buried away. Perfect. Her mechanical irises spun open just a little further, and a warning appeared on her HUD. Time to go in.
¡°I¡¯m bored with this fucking pony show¡± Vinnius said. Anno DiBattista shrugged. ¡°Dunno. It¡¯s not too bad.¡± The two Caporegimes sat in what Vinnius considered the Shadow¡¯s worst combination caf¨¦/shitty lounge/pub. Malfi Rose. Salieri seemed to like it, so the drinks weren¡¯t the same swill you¡¯d find on the lower decks, but the girls were boring and the music was shit. The pleasant smell of roasting coffee seeds permeated the place, but didn¡¯t quite manage to cover the off-sweet of antiseptic. Vinnius sort of preferred the cafes that didn¡¯t pressure-hose their internals every weekend. Smelled like people. But it was the closest caf¨¦ to the candidates. ¡°They¡¯re all so desperate or some shit,¡± Vinnius sighed. DiBattista sipped at his ''caf. ¡°So?¡± ¡°So they¡¯re lying. And it¡¯s always the same lie, and the lie is always whatever they think I wanna hear. I feel like a bar girl. Talking to some of em makes me wanna hike up my fishnets.¡± ¡°It¡¯s an interview,¡± DiBattista shrugged. ¡°Yeah, but used to be Russo would handle this. I¡¯m the shooting-shit guy.¡± DiBattista sipped at his mug of ''caf. It wasn¡¯t the same stuff they gave the Lord Captain and his execs. He happened to know there was a carefully painted icon of each senior crew member in the back, so the staff could pull out the good stuff if any of them showed. But this was an officer¡¯s lounge, so his drink had a little leaf dribbled carefully in cream into the surface. ¡°Anyone that you like so far?¡±
Vinnius sighed. He shuffled the papers in front of him for show. ¡°Tell me about your greatest failure.¡± The dark-haired candidate froze, looked deeply uncomfortable. He¡¯d been pretty smooth up till now. His name was ¡°DeMoss¡±, though Vinnius was pretty sure it was fake, because the candidate wouldn¡¯t respond to the alias unless you were addressing him directly. As the length of the pause grew, so too the candidate¡¯s awkwardness. ¡°I¡­ once¡­ shot my roommate¡¯s pet with a flare gun.¡± Vinnius looked up. ¡°What?¡±
¡°How do you handle pressure?¡± Razer tilted his head. ¡°There is no such thing as pressure. There are expectations, which flow like sand according to the wind. Only actions are real.¡±
¡°You willing to relocate?¡± Reeve looked at DiBattista from across the table. It was a very communicative look: mostly unimpressed, but also with hints of confusion and an invitation to clarify. ¡°Let¡¯s move on,¡± DiBattista conceded.
¡°The kid is pretty funny,¡± Vinnius conceded. ¡°Did he ever tell you how he shot a miniature coatlsnake with a flare gun?¡± ¡°The kid?¡± DiBattista picked up a forkful of cannoli and examined it by the dim golden light of a nearby sconce. ¡°Which one?¡± Vinnius frowned. He wasn''t usually this face-blind. ¡°The tall one, with the,¡± he struggled to describe remarkably generic features, ¡°with the coat.¡± DiBattista licked at the fork, nodded, and set to devouring the rest of his cannoli. ¡°What happened?¡±
¡°Tell me about a time you disagreed with your boss,¡± DiBattista said. ¡°Antonius believed that he could take the EastSide without contest from the Golden Peaches,¡± Hortensia told him evenly. ¡°I disagreed. And when their territory came under our protection, they sent a delegation to discuss, in their words, respect. I was sent to smooth over the relationship.¡± DiBattista chuckled softly. ¡°They sent a nephium bomb and seven swordsmen.¡± ¡°I was on good terms with Hua, of the Peaches. I was not there when the bomb went off.¡± ¡°So you betrayed him.¡± His tone was even, questioning, but not accusatory. ¡°There was no betrayal,¡± she shrugged. ¡°It was my duty to speak for him. This, I had done. What else comes, that was his duty.¡±
¡°You know what annoys me most about this whole goddamn thing?¡± Vinnius asked. ¡°Everything?¡± ¡°Yeah, but on top of that. We should be pulling from in the family.¡± DiBattista nodded slowly. ¡°Charis offered to send Nicola.¡± Vinnius sighed. ¡°You know the boss has never liked him. Besides, we need a lot more than a head for numbers. You know that. We need a talker with his ear to the ground. Half the time Nicola Cavalieri doesn¡¯t know what set of titties is staring him in the face.¡± ¡°Could pick someone else from the homeworld.¡± This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°Yeah, so we can pick another fucking Scurra in disguise,¡± Vinnius spat at the floor. A nearby waitress glared. DiBattista coughed politely. That had been a messy incident, nominally his fault, which is why he ended up being the one to mop the blood off the floors. ¡°Salieri wants an enforcer, too.¡± ¡°How do you know?¡± ¡°Cos he told me.¡± DiBattista drained his recaf. ¡°Fuckin hell, nobody tells me anything¡± Vinnius grumbled. ¡°Least Russo kept everyone in the loop. What¡¯s up for today? More questions?¡± ¡°Thought we¡¯d mix it up.¡±
¡°The ship even. But not the crew, not if they ¨C the crew cooperated, right?¡± Ano DiBattista was bored. ¡°If they surrendered then that¡¯s a loyalty thing. Implicit in the surrender is that Salieri is going to protect them, even from their former master.¡± The candidates were all the same. Shady. Private. And to them all, an undercurrent of fear. ¡°Sure,¡± he said. ¡°They surrendered.¡± DeMoss was better at least than the short green-eyed girl. The one with the hair. There was no violence to her whatsoever. ¡°Then,¡± the candidate said expectantly, ¡°yeah, if you trade a crew that surrendered to you, back to a merciless master they¡¯re probably all getting executed. Crew¡¯s got children in it. Families.¡± DeMoss looked at DiBattista searchingly, trying to read a decision from his bearing. There was none. How the fuck was he supposed to choose? DeMoss was okay, he figured. Unsteady. He¡¯d killed before, DiBattista decided, but from desperation, or some other weakness. ¡°Awright, we¡¯re a bleeding heart,¡± DiBattista murmured. ¡°It¡¯s not mercy,¡± the candidate said, annoyed. ¡°It¡¯s faith. The ship runs on faith in Salieri.¡± DiBattista looked the candidate over carefully. He smelled of luxury. Those smoky Sibelline spices. Good food and gun oil, but the classy kind, all incense and synthetic lubricants and blessed spices. The kind you¡¯d shoot sport animals with. Soft. So many of the candidates were soft. ¡°Next scenario,¡± he decided. ¡°New planet, populated by tribals. Diplomacy has failed. What¡¯s your next move?¡± DeMoss considered. ¡°Why did diplomacy fail?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know, they all just went cold. Maybe they saw yer cat and took superstitious issue to it.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t have a cat.¡± DiBattista stared at the candidate for a bit. ¡°Do I need them for anything?¡± ¡°Nah.¡± DiBattista made a few marks on his notepad. Finishing a sketch of one of the other candidates with blood splattering out of her neck. Clean cut. ¡°Ignore them." DeMoss shrugged. Well that was on him. DiBattista placed a few blood spurts aggressively on his doodle. Boring fucking question, easy fucking answer. ¡°Nah,¡± the Mafia man told the candidate. ¡°Can¡¯t. They¡¯re spreading the word. You¡¯ve arrived. Maybe your rivals¡¯ll hear about a coupla fuckheads making planetfall. Maybe they¡¯ll spread the word and the tribals start making trouble.¡± ¡°So the tribals haven¡¯t told anybody about us yet. How many?¡± ¡°Maybe five hundred or so.¡± DeMoss closed his eyes. He inhaled for a moment. Exhaled. ¡°Kill them.¡± Finally. DiBattista felt a little prickle along his spine at that. ¡°Yeah?¡± The candidate¡¯s eyes were sharp. Steel-hard. ¡°If they have decided Salieri is their enemy, let Salieri be their enemy.¡±
Vio was getting worried. Her mechanical hand had a shock implement to it, and as a bad habit she¡¯d gotten used to charging it and then sparking between her fingers. She made herself stop, clenching both plastic and flesh fists. From the start, she knew she¡¯d spend three days aboard the Shadow interviewing for the role of Seneschal to Scipio Salieri. They were two days in, and she hadn¡¯t had a chance to particularly distinguish herself, because all of the tests and questions had been about money and killing people. Vio was okay at money. Mostly other people¡¯s money. And she didn¡¯t like killing people. But there was one thing she could reliably do. Her room was not large, but to her hiver sensibilities it may well have been a palace. Big luxurious bed with silken sheets and fat pillows. She¡¯d asked for more pillows, and they had been delivered until the bed was an enormous mound of soft for burrowing into. So far, each morning four or five pillows would drop to the carpet below, and Salieri¡¯s housekeeping service would see them picked back up and compiled in her mound for the next night¡¯s sleep. That meant that she would have to replace the piece of wall paneling she¡¯d removed, nuts and bolts strewn across the floor. It hadn¡¯t wanted to come out, so probably some creativity would be employed to put everything back. From there she had wormed her way into the low-security end of the shipwide computational array. Some security cam footage, a couple comms lines. Nothing fancy. She had the shooting range scores, the financial analyses, and a couple sec-cam videos to watch. The deacon had assured her that she¡¯d done a fine job on the pistol range, but compared to the other candidates, she ran dead last on every combat score. Someone called Razer had topped the charts uncontested on all but the high-powered rifle range. She wasn¡¯t doing too poorly on her financial analysis ¨C second place didn¡¯t win any prizes in this kind of game, however. She¡¯d written a quick cogitator script to crunch the numbers. Apparently a ¡°DeMoss¡± had done the whole thing by hand, faster than her script. Despite all this, a candidate named Reeve had had the most follow-up conversations going further and further up the chain. She sighed, tapped at the footage of Conference Room C43 on her dataslate, and sat against the wall to watch the Reeve interviews. ¡°Huh,¡± she said aloud. There was something familiar about the face in the room. She couldn¡¯t quite put her finger on it, but she felt she¡¯d seen him somewhere. The interview itself wasn¡¯t very informative ¨C he was certainly very professional. If it was her, she¡¯d certainly hire him. But she was sure she¡¯d seen him somewhere. Vio swiped at her screen to pull up her security credentials on the Salieri shipboard network. It was time to do some digging.
The dataslate slid across the table. ¡°Buy low,¡± Vio said. The clock ticked, the slate beeped. Numbers within parameters. DiBattista made a mark on his notepad. Solves everything with cogitator. She was -
The dataslate slid across the table. ¡°Honestly, is this the best rate you can get?¡± Reeve asked. ¡°I could buy twice as much for half as much in the underhive.¡± ¡°Shady connections?¡± Vinnius asked. Reeve laughed. ¡°Normal connections,¡± he gestured to them, to the ship, to Salieri''s would-be interstellar criminal empire. Vinnius shrugged. ¡°Okay. More math questions up next. Gotta love em.¡± He was scoring-
The dataslate slid across the table. Hortensia frowned. ¡°Is mathematics the base criterion here? What of the skills of a negotiator?¡± Her numbers were slow. DiBattista shrugged. She was good at the talking part, but overall her performance-
The dataslate slid across the table. The answers blended into each other. The response was fast. Correct. Most of em were correct. ¡°Are those real numbers?¡± Vinnius blinked. It had been a long day, and he needed a drink. His head was starting to feel like it had been stuffed full of cotton. ¡°What?¡± DeMoss gestured. ¡°I mean, those are plausible supply numbers for a ship this size.¡± ¡°Yeah they¡¯re real,¡± Vinnius said defensively, and then realized he had probably committed some kinda breach of security with that. Fuck, he wasn¡¯t cut out for this shit. ¡°Awright, next math question.¡± DeMoss held up a hand. ¡°Wait, wait. Something¡¯s wrong with these supply quantities.¡± Vinnius squinted at him. ¡°The fuck you going on about?¡± ¡°Up till about,¡± the candidate considered, ¡°three months ago. Supply high. You¡¯re buying a lot of toilet paper. Selling it off? On inhabited worlds? That¡¯s when the stockroom volume drops, but there¡¯s no money coming back in the budget.¡± Vinnius rubbed his face. He squinted. The numbers were good, the candidate was doing - was doing good. He had three more questions left and then he could go home. ¡°Someone was moving money through your supplies,¡± DeMoss said. Vinnius looked at him blankly. ¡°Embezzling. Someone was embezzling.¡± Vinnius blinked. He turned this over in his head. The candidate pointed to yet another row on the finance table, and Vinnius concentrated enough that the numbers stopped swimming in front of his eyes. ¡°Look,¡± DeMoss said. ¡°It stops about three months ago.¡± He thought about it for a moment. ¡°That¡¯s about the time it takes to get from your homeworld to mine.¡± He paused for a moment. "When did you say the last Seneschal left this organization?"
Russo leaned back in his seat. Stretched his arms over his head, his legs under the table. He rubbed his hands together, cracked his knuckles. Tiny rituals, stacked one on top of another, but he knew them for what they were; an excuse to delay opening his correspondence. She was planetside. The encrypted signals would transfer to his dataslate within moments. Close enough that they could have an actual conversation. He opened the dataslate, and a little blip popped up on the lower corner of his screen. She¡¯d been waiting. He kept her waiting a moment longer. Poured a nice cup of amber whiskey into a cut crystal tumbler. He swirled the liquid, inhaling appreciatively. Russo wasn¡¯t one for drinking. He had few vices. It was what made him such an effective Seneschal. ¡°Russo,¡± the blip told him. ¡°What do you have for me?¡± The screen still had the sinking Salieri fortune on it, a map of revenue and costs, account numbers and passwords. What was left after he¡¯d begun discreetly draining it. ¡°Salieri,¡± he scribed into the device. He didn¡¯t send the data; he wasn¡¯t stupid, or even particularly disloyal. He coldly weighed all options once more, as he had been trained to do. ¡°What do you have for me?¡± he asked. Arbiter Penelope Argos, interstellar Imperial enforcer, smiled triumphantly. "A clean slate,¡± Competition
¡°Let¡¯s talk for a while. Talking makes the world go around.¡± ~Hortensia Hora
¡°Hey there,¡± said DeMoss. ¡°No,¡± Vio muttered, staring intently at her dataslate. She¡¯d decided it would be more comfortable in the nearby lounge to troll through all the data she¡¯d pulled from the Salieri net. It was. The seats were a wonderful soft velvety texture, the tables were clean, and the drinks were pretty good. Pretty golden sconces on the charcoal grey walls gave the whole place a subdued but affluent aura. She glanced up to see a tall man back off and move onto the next table. It took her a moment to recognize the coat - black with iridescent green paneling. ¡°Wait.¡± Too late. He¡¯d already moved onto chatting up a couple Salieri gunnery officers at the next table. ¡°Scouting the competition?¡± Vio glanced away from the giggling gunnery officers. A brown-faced older woman gestured to the seat opposite Vio. ¡°If I may.¡± Vio nodded. ¡°Are you here for the Seneschal position?¡± ¡°I am,¡± the woman nodded. ¡°I¡¯m Hortensia.¡± ¡°Vio,¡± Vio said. Hortensia held her hand out across the table, and Vio gripped it in a weak, horizontal sort of handshake. Hortensia squeezed her once and let go. ¡°So what do you think so far?¡± Her Sibelline had an accent. It leant a strange rhythmic cadence to her speech, certain words were held longer than Vio was used to. Flatter vowels. She couldn¡¯t quite place it. The woman¡¯s clothes, too, were vibrant and ornate, adorned with little flowers of embroidery and small seed pearls sewn into the pattern. ¡°What? About him?¡± Hortensia shrugged. ¡°Maybe. Or not. You seem as if this is a new experience. This is a new experience for all of us I imagine.¡± Vio shrugged, half of her attention still on the footage playing on her dataslate. One earphone hung out of her ear, the other dangled just below the level of the table. Hortensia tilted her head toward the other table. ¡°He is also here for the Seneschal job. I don¡¯t think he is going to get it.¡± ¡°Mm,¡± said Vio. ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°I could say it is because he does not seem to have a good grasp of how to speak to other people,¡± she said. ¡°Or perhaps, he is young and this is a dangerous job. But really it is because before you arrived, those had not yet arrived,¡± she waved a ring and bangle-laden hand at the gunnery officers, ¡°and I was the only woman here. So what do you know, he come here, to me, ask if he can buy me the pretty lady a drink.¡± She smiled, already-wrinkled eyes crinkling with amusement. Vio looked up from her dataslate. ¡°Wait, what?¡± Her eyes widened. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean like¡­¡± But Hortensia was laughing. ¡°So I suppose it is that men like that, I have a lower thought about them.¡± Vio started laughing too. ¡°He came onto you?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Hortensia chuckled. ¡°I think there is not a one woman he would not approach. But I wonder, he did the same thing to you and I wonder why you asked after him. Because clearly, you are not impressed.¡± Vio snickered. ¡°I didn¡¯t notice he was another candidate until he¡¯d left.¡± ¡°This place is full of them.¡± She gestured to a woman with sharp brown eyes sitting two tables over. ¡°This is Arabel. She is the favorite for the position.¡± Vio looked. She got the sense Arabel knew she was being talked about. They locked eyes for a moment. ¡°How do you know?¡± Vio asked. ¡°The Deacon,¡± she said. ¡°He is an important man. I spoke with him.¡± ¡°You got him to tell you his favorite?¡± Hortensia nodded. ¡°It was an effort.¡± ¡°How?¡± Hortensia looked surprised at the question. ¡°It took a while. I spoke with him and the conversation turned to the people. It is a skill to know how to ask, to know what the answers mean.¡± ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re doing with me?¡± They looked at each other. ¡°That¡¯s why you approached me, right?¡± Vio asked again. ¡°Scouting the competition.¡± Hortensia thought for a moment. ¡°I will do a trade. Neither of us is Arabel. I will show you who the other candidates for the position are, and tell you what I think of them. You will do the same for me.¡± Vio nodded. ¡°It won¡¯t be everything you know, will it?¡± A wide, genuine smile split the other woman¡¯s face. Little crinkles around the eyes. ¡°Of course not.¡± ¡°We¡¯re in competition, after all,¡± said Vio. Hortensia nodded. ¡°But neither in first place.¡± She gestured discreetly at a nondescript man nursing a mug of something frothy by the entryway. ¡°Reeve. I have a sense I know him from somewhere.¡± ¡°Me too,¡± Vio exclaimed. ¡°He is the second favorite. His manner, I think, impressed. I believe that he has come here to escape something from Sibellus. He does not speak about himself if he can help it.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t really had much contact with him,¡± Vio said. ¡°What do the others say about him?¡± If Hortensia was disappointed with the level of analysis, she hid it well. ¡°The man DeMoss is convinced he owes a great debt. But to whom, I cannot know.¡± ¡°Mm.¡± Vio twisted her quill. ¡°I have already shown you Arabel. The Deacon and Salieri are pleased with her. The man Cicero is not.¡± ¡°He likes being called Vinnius.¡± Hortensia shrugged. ¡°It is much the same.¡± She tilted her head. ¡°Moving on to-¡° ¡°Hey, no fair,¡± said Vio. ¡°Sorry?¡± ¡°Information trade. You didn¡¯t say much about Arabel.¡± ¡°She will not speak to me,¡± Hortensia said ruefully. ¡°Probably smart,¡± Vio muttered. ¡°I don¡¯t have much a read on her either.¡± ¡°Let us move on then. You have already met DeMoss. He is certainly afraid of something on the planet for him to be here so young. His bearing reminds me of young lords, used to having everything.¡± Vio looked at him. He¡¯d progressed to putting his arm around one of the officers. ¡°You know, we have a word for people like that. Mark.¡± She blinked and looked back at Hortensia. ¡°Do not worry,¡± said Hortensia. ¡°We are all of us criminals here. Nothing new.¡± She shrugged. ¡°If he draped himself over me like that, I would have stolen his wallet by now.¡± Hortensia chuckled. ¡°There is no need. Razer has already done so.¡± Razer was a thin Sibellan dressed all in black. He wore a leather jacket studded with little silver buttons, and there was something Vio recognized in his bearing. ¡°He¡¯s from the street,¡± she mused. ¡°Used to hire that type all the time. Combat monkey of some sort. Explains his combat scores,¡± she added absently. She caught the glance that Hortensia took at her dataslate when she looked back. Damn it. She was giving all kinds of information away for free. They looked at each other for a moment, and there was not a trace of embarrassment or guilt in Hortensia¡¯s eyes. This is how she worked ¨C people told her things. She got them talking for a while and people told her things. Vio had been warned that it would work and it worked anyway. Time to salvage this for what it was worth. ¡°What¡¯s your thing then?¡± ¡°Sorry?¡± ¡°Street kid? Lady House? Running from something?¡± Hortensia looked at her for another long moment. ¡°I do know that Arabel knows who Reeve is.¡± ¡°Who?¡± ¡°I was not able to find out.¡± Vio glared, but Hortensia looked at her evenly. ¡°It is the truth. It is also the truth that she knows myself, and DeMoss, and even you. But I do not know what it is she knows. This is something that has bothered the man Cicero.¡± Vio thought about this. ¡°Perhaps I will speak with you later,¡± Hortensia nodded to her as she stood. ¡°Yeah, bye,¡± Vio said, charging her hand. She picked listlessly at her dataslate for a moment, but she couldn¡¯t focus. Her hand was sparkling again, sending off small fzzt sounds. She sighed and packed her things. She felt tense and exposed here, she needed something to get her head back in the game. Stealing DeMoss¡¯ wallet from Razer on her way out did a little to lighten her mood.
Salieri¡¯s Shadow had been built for war. As a firestorm-class frigate, it stood 1.8 km from prow to stern, weighing just over 6 megatonnes. As a variant of the Sword class escort, the ship class was designed to defend capital ships during naval engagements. It sported a plasma lance, orbital bombardment capability, and secondary weapons designed to fall into the signal-shadow of the forward battery. As a civilian vessel, however, it was more than enough to serve as the seat of a burgeoning empire. An ambitious Salieri in days long gone had retrofitted it extensively to serve as capital ship for a small mercantile fleet. It was fitted with a command antenna and flag bridge, cargo space easily convertible to hangar bays, and an executive staff room placed just starboard of the bridge. It was here that Salieri sat in his traditional spot at the head of the table. The scintillating sun shone through the windows, in that far-but-intense manner that sunlight took from orbit. The Jewel of Calyx was not visible at this time; the planet was not due to drift far enough to starboard for another few hours. The pale light shone over an angular black table. Across from him, a monocolor display on the far wall also stood silent and waiting to reveal data, analyses, maps, or any other necessary piece of information. And close at hand, Salieri had a small dataslate facing him, ready to upload or download whatever was required. Currently a harried team of logistical personnel were giving him a status report on the resupply effort. It was going slowly. Salieri was displeased with ¡°slowly¡±. The supply management team knew this. ¡°I have yet to see an explanation, or even an ETA for the food stocks,¡± he growled, tired of the run-around. ¡°Sir,¡± a wide-eyed woman told him. ¡°A failure in the planetary grain crop this year has slowed our search for a new supplier.¡± He glanced instinctively to his left, but the seat was empty, the small array of screens built into the table ¨C financial, logistical, budgetary ¨C were dark. Salieri clenched his fists, fingers crushing against palm. ¡°Why didn¡¯t we know about this?¡± The wide-eyed woman grew even more wide-eyed. She floundered. Another member of the presentation team opened his mouth, closed it. ¡°We could try butchers,¡± an elderly psychic with wrapped eyes suggested dryly. ¡°Reclaimed corpses are a long well-documented staple in times of need.¡± ¡°Nowadays it¡¯s mostly vat-grown and mixed with grains as everyone knows,¡± the navigator said disdainfully. He rarely bothered to speak up in staff meetings, unless it was to sneer at those he didn¡¯t consider voidborn enough. ¡°I don¡¯t see why that is,¡± Psyker Summanus said. His voice had a wavering, papery quality, and his tone went from dry to positively arid. ¡°If there¡¯s one thing you people are good at, it¡¯s dying.¡± ¡°Not much meat on your bones for the fire old man.¡± ¡°Maybe there are imports we could look into,¡± the tinny voice of 27-¦µ drifted from the far end of the table. The ancient Salieri who had designed this room had had some foresight ¨C the cyborg''s station was nearest the display on the far wall, where he could readily assist if anyone had trouble setting the input of the screen. Salieri caught himself glancing again to his left. He focused instead on the logistics and supply team. ¡°Factorum Tethys, is that enough for you to start?¡± Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. He got an enthusiastic nod bordering on the violent. ¡°Then you are dismissed.¡± The relief on the Factorum¡¯s face was sudden and all-encompassing. The team packed their presentation materials with a minimum of murmuring; the Lord Captain¡¯s senior staffroom was no place for idle chatter. At his right, the deacon leaned in and said, ¡°given the situation with the Seneschal candidates, it¡¯s no great loss of time.¡± Though this was true, Salieri pressed his lips tightly together. ¡°I am eager to make for our next destination.¡± ¡°We should have the supplies to go directly there,¡± 27-¦µ said, wiping a slick of machine oil from his beard with his arm. ¡°Epimethius?¡± the psychic prompted. The Navigator blinked bleary red-rimmed eyes and tore his gaze from the window for a moment. ¡°Two months, if the Currents favor us,¡± he said after a short time. ¡°What if they have a crop failure too?¡± Salieri closed his eyes. ¡°Can someone please look into that?¡± ¡°I can tell the logistics team to check it out,¡± said the deacon. ¡°It seems our real problem,¡± Salieri said, ¡°is that we don¡¯t have essential senior personnel. Vinnius?¡± The capo snapped upright from his position leaning languidly against the wall to the left. ¡°Alright, boss. Here¡¯s the latest and greatest on the Seneschal hunt. We got a best boy,¡± he grimaced, ¡°sorry, a best girl. Having a little disagreement about whether she¡¯s really our best shot. And we gotta put some of em in front of you, I figure.¡± ¡°Hire her,¡± Salieri snapped. He paused. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with her?¡± ¡°Honestly? I¡¯m still tryin to work out whether she¡¯s going to run to the law right soon as we let her off the ship. If she doesn¡¯t get the gig, she knows enough that I¡¯m gonna space her myself. That woman can cold-read anyone.¡± Salieri sighed. ¡°Your team has latitude to do whatever necessary to pick the best, most efficient, most effective, most loyal Seneschal.¡± ¡°Everybody else checks out,¡± Vinnius continued. ¡°We got a couple from the local version of a mafia. Couple freelancers. They been around the block a while, got a history here. Names check out. Old friend-of-friend for the Family. But there¡¯s two, the lady and the guy with the face, you know, everyone thinks they seen him somewhere or whatever. They¡¯re good but I dunno if they¡¯re safe.¡± ¡°Pick someone,¡± Salieri told him. ¡°Someone good.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the boss.¡± Vinnius took that as a dismissal, kicked himself off of the wall, and headed for the door. ¡°Now,¡± Salieri turned to the rest of the team, ¡°what else do we have?¡± ¡°Two of the gunnery crews are at war again,¡± 27-¦µ told him. ¡°Hawk Forward and Comet Blue. Wee bastards shot m¡¯ mediator again.¡± The deacon sighed deeply. ¡°How bad does she look?¡±
Salieri¡¯s Shadow upper decks were spacious, filled with statues of saints and illuminated manuscripts set open to the scriptures for the day. High arches drew the eye ever upwards, to the disapproving figures set in stained glass and lit with floodlight or voidlight from behind. The lower decks smelled odd. Savory, perhaps, like thousands of bodies and unscrubbed mold. Like machine oil and plasma arcs and old tinned protein. In the lower decks, the ceiling was low enough that spindly voiders had to duck through the hatchways and under the different-colored pipes threading just under the ceiling. Vio was short enough that she didn¡¯t need to bend her head, inheritance of a high-grav childhood. She rounded her corner and flicked a wrist discreetly. A metallic chip-bug flung through the air, magnetizing quickly to the nearest sec cam with an almost undetectable thunk. Her slate beeped connectivity ¨C so far she had access to most of the feeds on this section. She turned briskly ¨C the next section was just past the cathedral, and she¡¯d have eyes on all the competition. Hortensia, who could make you tell her whatever she wanted. Who traded secrets like coin, except her own. DeMoss, good at math but otherwise unremarkable. Arabel, current first-place for the position. Reeve, second favorite for the position. Reportedly in serious debt, probably running from his responsibilities. Razer, freelancer with a probable combat specialty. All of them signing their lives away from home. Likely forever. Above them all Lord Captain Salieri, the distant authority. What was he looking for? She could hear High Gothic chanting getting louder; service was in session and she was getting close. Vio considered the Deacon and the Capos. Absently she shouldered aside a paper-bristled door; prayers affixed to the worn and engraved metal with wax. The space beyond was large for the underdecks, and roughly hexagonal. A sainted conqueror frowned grimly down upon the chapel, shimmering in stained glass and multicolored light. His sword was done in hues of light and fire, the devastation of his enemies. He shone down upon the altar on the central dais, where a green and gold robed acolyte led the congregation in sung chant. ¡°Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus¡± She glanced around furtively. Was this slight sacrilege? Probably. Each of the six corners of the room was a great pillar carved with a likeness of some holy ancient. Carved cherubim adorned the walls, in frozen swoops between various holy icons glittering with gold and with embedded LEDs. Most seemed strategically placed to hide the shipboard air ventilation. They glowered down upon her, God''s disdain evident. But just behind a towering feminine winged figure was the sec-cam that would grant her access to the next sector. Sacrilege forgotten, Vio walked casually over and flicked a bug onto the camera. ¡°Dominus Imperator Sabaoth¡± As she checked her dataslate for proper connection, Vio found herself more guilty about checking her devices in church than using a service to cover her data theft. Old habits. A trickle of dust tickled her ear suddenly. Vio scratched absently and glanced upwards. Oh that was definitely sacrilegious. A figure hid behind the flared wings of Saint Serafina. She could dimly make out the faint glow of some sort of electronic screen underlighting a face. Eyes shining a faint grey under the dim light. ¡°Pleni sunt Coeli et Terra¡± The figure blinked first. It glanced furtively from side to side, and then beckoned her up. Finger over lips in shh gesture. Vio glanced back at the chanting congregation. The figure beckoned furiously. ¡°Gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis.¡± What the hell. Vio scrambled up, planting a boot irreverently on a beleaguered cherub, and the figure hoisted her up with strong, warm hands. ¡°Who the fuck are you?¡± she hissed. He shushed her. ¡°It¡¯s starting.¡± ¡°What¡¯s starting?¡± Now that she had a better look at him, something about him was really familiar, but the underlighting was giving him oversharp features. He was in a plain black collared shirt, too plain for her to work out his job or his rank; it was clean and of decent make, but otherwise generic. He slouched easily, almost liquid in a little nook between the wall and the leftmost wing, lounging on a luxurious lump of coat. But the boyish grin he flashed her put her in mind of old candy thefts when she first started on the streets. Of waiting, hidden, where she knew that Enforcers wouldn¡¯t check. With a quiet, beaming joy, he gestured. ¡°The show.¡± With a small flourish, he tapped a dataslate once. He had it set up comfortably within reach, along with a small bowl of crunchseed and a couple cans of ale. Condensation beaded on the surface of the cans. Vio glanced back down at the chanting acolyte. ¡°Um. What show?¡± The other man popped a tab on one of the grapeseed-ale cans. ¡°Give it a minute. Want one?¡± ¡°Um. No thanks.¡± The man took a hefty draught and shrugged. ¡°Suit yourself. Only I wouldn¡¯t go down there.¡± He tossed some of the crunchseed into his mouth, munching with a satisfied air. ¡°Why not?¡± The other man gestured, eyebrows popping upwards. Vio turned. There was a bit of a commotion in the crowd. One of the congregation fell to her knees. ¡°The Holy!¡± she cried. ¡°He comes! He walks among us!¡± The acolyte leading the ceremony paused. ¡°Ah,¡± he said uncertainly. ¡°Praise be,¡± another man cried out. ¡°The saints!¡± ¡°Oh, blessings upon us all, that I live to see this day,¡± yet a third wiped tears from her eyes. Soon the murmur of the crowd grew too loud, too exultant and too indistinct. People stood, arms raised high. Others knelt, weeping with rapturous joy. Laymen hugged their neighbors. The acolyte raised his arms, thudding his staff of office against the ground. ¡°Rejoice,¡± he cried. ¡°That God has blessed us so!¡± Vio held out her hand without tearing her eyes away. A can was pressed into it. She popped the tab. ¡°What¡¯d you do?¡± He giggled. ¡°Check the vents,¡± the other man snickered. Vio peered over the rim of a great feathered wing cast in plasteel. The ventilation to this room was all open, fans running at full. And there was a faint pinkish haze, an odd tint to the air. She took a sip of the ale, pleasantly surprised by the bitterness and the depth. Good stuff. ¡°Come on, what¡¯d you do?¡± Grinning, the man showed her a fist-sized cylindrical object. ¡°Fuck,¡± Vio jerked back. ¡°You¡¯re gonna grenade them?¡± ¡°No,¡± he said, mock-exasperated. ¡°What would be the fun in that?¡± ¡°You¡¯d be surprised,¡± Vio grimaced darkly. He grimaced for a moment, and then grinned. He tapped the grenade, indicating the symbol on the side. ¡°Hallucinogen gas. High doses, you get terror and imaginary monsters.¡± A minor theological debate had begun in murmured tones and escalated to stiffened fingers thudding into books. What to do if a saint returned. The many Scriptures did not hold a satisfactory answer. Vio peered over the edge of the wing. ¡°Low doses you get saints?¡± He shrugged. ¡°Little euphoria, little sense of transcendence, and yeah maybe some saints.¡± Oh this was such total sacrilege. The funny kind, which somehow made it even less okay. Vio snickered, appalled. ¡°What¡¯d you do, shove a bundle up the ventilation shaft?¡± The other man looked hurt. ¡°Not just that. Little bit of tech-working, getting the vents all lined up. Keeping the effects confined to here. Making sure the inflow and outflow are aligned properly. Doing the math on what dosage for the space. Don¡¯t wanna hurt anyone.¡± ¡°And shoving a bundle up the ventilation shaft.¡± ¡°And that.¡± She leaned back, taking another sip, watching the acolytes scurry to find what scriptures to read in case of a Second Coming. Watching the tears of joy at the Great Angel''s return. One woman had gotten into an intensive philosophical debate with a nearby icon, something about the sons proceeding from the father. A runner was sent for the Missionary¡¯s guidance, but quickly lost his sense of direction and returned singing some of the more aggressive hymns. ¡°So what¡¯s your name?¡± the other man asked. ¡°Are you a maintenance crewman?¡± ¡°Vio,¡± she said. ¡°Actually I¡¯m here about a job.¡± He didn¡¯t say anything for a moment. She turned away from the show below. He was looking at her, surprised. ¡°Ah,¡± he said. He shifted, pulling his coat out from under him, shrugging into it. ¡°What?¡± She looked at him as he came to some internal decision. Below, the runner was sent back, with strict instructions and directions for the bridge. He responded by singing louder. The debate with iconography had gotten heated. The woman slapped at the painted icon, and then stumbled backwards to her knees, begging forgiveness. ¡°I think we¡¯re here about the same job,¡± he said, pulling an arm into a black, green-paneled sleeve. Suddenly, she knew where she''d seen the face. The green-paneled coat. She hissed between her teeth. ¡°DeMoss.¡±
Vio sipped at her ''caf. It was decent stuff. Made the city stuff taste like what it was ¨C sawdust and paper soaked in water, loaded in sufficient sugar and plasticream to make it taste palatable. Once she¡¯d sugared this stuff to a degree that had nearby patrons¡¯ lips curling in disgust, it tasted rich. Complex flavors, aromas, aftertaste. Vibrant sensations flowing past tongue and nose. It was an experience. She sat curled catlike on a bench in the lounging area of the shipboard caf¨¦ Malfi Rose. For some reason their logo was not a rose; it was a skyline. Weird. ¡°Hi,¡± said Razer. He looked apprehensive; it didn¡¯t fit his face. The cut of it wasn¡¯t suited to unease. Vio uncoiled her legs. ¡°You wanted to meet?¡± ¡°Meetings are proximity and words, at the heart of it.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°I, yeah, uh, I wanted to meet.¡± It was the right time for it. Hortensia had beaten her without her even knowing they were fighting. DeMoss was confusing. Razer¡­ She looked at him for a moment. Razer felt out an armchair without looking, sat down in it stiffly. For a moment he looked surprised as he sank more deeply into the cushions. ¡°Yeah, I wanted to meet because I think you¡¯re a freelancer. Like me.¡± Razer was familiar. Vio knew how to deal with the Razers of the world. He continued, somewhat awkwardly. ¡°Um. And we¡¯re not on the shortlist, and we both know that. So I was wondering if you wanted to team up.¡± Vio took a long sip of her ''caf. It really was incredible. The bitterness had been chased into a low richness by the cream and sugar. It was smooth, first nutty and then a little fruity, something like raspberries. The smell was evenly chocolate throughout. ¡°Like a runner team?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± A two person team. It could work. Vio had been on a lot of runner teams, and the fundamental unit was always intel and muscle. Demo, heavies, psyop, hacker, or face could join to bolster the team, widen the net of intel that could be gathered or the plans that were available, but if you couldn¡¯t think and you couldn¡¯t fight then you weren¡¯t a balanced team. ¡°Let¡¯s play this out,¡± Vio said. ¡°What happens if we get on the shortlist then?¡± ¡°What would you like?¡± She took another sip. ¡°Dunno, you came to me. So how¡¯s this gonna work?¡± Razer floundered once more. Uncertainty did well on him, Vio decided. The sharpness of his eyes, the angles of his cheeks leant him a lean lethality. But those lines had broken into curves, the persona stuttered, and it was actually totally adorable. From an objective standpoint. She did what she could not to snicker. ¡°My,¡± Razer said slowly, ¡°preference, uh, is that we not interfere with each others¡¯ candidacy. At that point we should be hired on merit, I guess.¡± ¡°But not everyone else.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± ¡°Nobody else gets hired on merit, because we¡¯re gonna screw with all of them,¡± Vio said happily. Razer thought about this. ¡°Yes,¡± he said eventually. ¡°Arguably if they suck enough for us to mess with them, then they didn¡¯t have any merit to begin with.¡± Razer nodded a little. ¡°Yeeees,¡± he said. ¡°How do I know you won¡¯t screw me?¡± His eyes darted up a little too quickly, looked surprised for just an absolute instant before understanding her intent. Aww, Vio thought. You absolute cutie pie. She wasn¡¯t yet totally sure, but if he did have a bit of a crush, if she played this right, she totally had him. ¡°My preference is not to, but preference is but dust to action. Whatever you are, you¡¯re not muscle, so that makes you intel. Between the two of us, you¡¯re more capable of screwing me than I am of screwing you.¡± Vio couldn¡¯t help herself. She smirked. Razer looked intently at the floor for a bit, which was a shame because what she could see of his face was deeply uncomfortable. ¡°Maybe I¡¯m demo.¡± Demolitions was more muscle than intel. Razer looked like he hadn¡¯t thought of that. ¡°Uh¡­¡± ¡°Just kidding. Code.¡± ¡°Oh. Right. That¡¯s good.¡± She took another sip of ''caf, finding it cool enough drained the entire cup. All the sugar she¡¯d dumped in had settled to the bottom, producing a sweet, slightly chocolatey sludge at the bottom of her cup. She darted her tongue in and licked up what she could reach, then popped the ceramic onto the bench beside her. Hortensia wasn¡¯t even the favorite of the candidates. She sighed. ¡°You know what? Fuck it. Welcome to the team, Razer.¡± Vizier
¡°Life is much simpler than people think. Words are water, ideas, thoughts. All things that affect the flow of action. The truest reality is the edge of a blade.¡± ~Razer
The deacon was a very barrel-shaped man. It was almost a fractal thing. His chest was a big barrel-shaped chest, probably adaptive to the bellowing sermons that missionaries were known for. His biceps swelled and curved like two smaller barrels. Even his fingers were fat barrely fingers, thick and powerful. He had warm green eyes under thick cat-whisker eyebrows of black and white. His beard was the same shoebrush of black and white bristles, and when he thought nobody was looking, sometimes he would chew on the longer ends of his moustache. Usually he wore a black shirt that was clearly not intended to pull across his chest muscles the way that it did. Today, he had exchanged it for a tactical vest studded with pockets and ammo pouches and all sorts of things. A massive sword hung loosely at his side, second only to the massive arms that hung loosely from his shoulders. His feet were bare on the practice mat, toes almost hidden by the loose black pants. Good for moving around in. ¡°Sword,¡± Razer said. With a flick of his wrists a set of knives appeared in his hands. ¡°Is it your intent to maim the candidates who do not measure to your standards?¡± ¡°Certainly not,¡± the deacon told him. His stance shifted ¨C he was still comfortable with the appearance of Razer¡¯s weapons, but his knees bent and he placed his feet carefully. ¡°You shoulda seen the last batch,¡± Vinnius told him. ¡°Limbs everywhere.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t listen to him,¡± the deacon said. He drew the sword and held it out for Razer to examine. The serrated teeth had been modified, replaced with little felt tips soaked in fluorescence. ¡°Paint. It¡¯s good to spar without dismembering your sparring partners.¡± He offered a smile, which Razer did not return. He examined the sword, noting that the shaft of it was still plasteel and ferrimesh. With enough force, the impact would be enough to bruise or break bone. He spared a glance around the sparring gym. Punching bags lined the starboard wall, and the freeweights were aft. To port, the shooting range. Many of the walls were mirrored, and the floor was lined with a rubbery padding. The padding was unusually thick against his bare feet, and he could feel himself sinking into the surface with every step. ¡°Is it also your intent to be maimed by successful candidates?¡± he asked, offering his knives to the Capo. Vinnius took the knives snickering. He was given in return blunted plastic knives with painted edges. ¡°This was the best we could manage on such short notice,¡± the deacon told him. ¡°I¡¯ve been hearing good things about your melee ability, and wanted to see for myself. Think of this as just a way of getting to know each other.¡± ¡°Okay kids let¡¯s get stabbing,¡± Vinnius said, backing toward the stern wall. ¡°A cut counts as a pause. If you hear me yell stop then take a pause and reset. Otherwise you¡¯re still tryna kill each other. Eye gouging is legal and nuts shots are not.¡± ¡°Eye gouging is not legal,¡± the deacon said. ¡°Go.¡± They circled each other warily. The deacon stepped in suddenly for a moment, to judge his reactions. Razer slid to the side, ready to counterstrike, but there were no good openings. ¡°What are you thinking?¡± the deacon asked softly. That this, too, is a test, Razer thought to himself. ¡°You report directly to the Lord-Captain,¡± he said. ¡°Yes.¡± The deacon lunged with the sword, but the rhythm of the fight had been set by the speaking. Razer dodged ¨C it was unreasonable to expect blocks to be useful against a man with arms that large around. He swiped twice with his knife hand, right then left. Both times the edge met air, and the deacon grabbed at him, to yank him off balance. Razer went to the ground. He rolled and half-jumped to his feet, knives held out warily. ¡°He values your judgment,¡± Razer panted. ¡°One day he may value yours.¡± Razer threw two of the plastic knives, more to see what would happen than any serious hope that they would connect. The first was aimed straight at the deacon¡¯s forehead. The second, at where his shoulder would be if he rolled right. He had rolled right last time Razer swiped at him. Instead, the deacon caught the first knife, hand carefully avoiding the paint around the edge. He threw it back. Razer ducked and turned the momentum into a spin, and the spin into a kick. He let the angular momentum carry him as he turned, as his foot smashed into the deacon¡¯s knee. The second knife clattered against a mirror, splattering fluorescent yellow everywhere. The deacon went down to one knee, bringing his sword down with him. Razer went for the arm, guiding it left as he twisted right. He continued the turn, throwing a vicious donkey kick, which caught his opponent in the chest. The deacon went sprawling backwards. In a flash Razer had a knife in each hand, one ready to throw between the index and middle fingers of his left hand. One he held edge toward the fallen deacon. ¡°So what¡¯s your judgment here?¡± the deacon asked. ¡°That you are dead.¡± ¡°Tactical assessment,¡± the deacon barked. ¡°Of me, as a melee opponent.¡± Razer didn¡¯t move his knives, didn¡¯t relax his stance. ¡°You¡¯re strong and take hits well. But not as well as you should.¡± ¡°You can give me more than that.¡± Razer narrowed his eyes. ¡°You are used to the blade. A strong melee combatant, especially at close range. Probably a combat cleric.¡± ¡°With the Panhominae,¡± the deacon nodded. Razer recognized the name. ¡°Then you have been trained in tactics as well as combat. If Salieri has a combat cleric, he surely does not need a Seneschal specialized in combat.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a good idea to have people effective on the battlefield.¡± The deacon shifted, but Razer shifted his stance to match, until the deacon had stopped moving. This was a test, and Vinnius had not said to stop. ¡°There is more to the role of Seneschal than mercenary,¡± Razer mused. ¡°You are testing me to see if I have these qualities as well.¡± The deacon started to hike himself to his elbows, but Razer¡¯s left-hand knife bounced off the padded floor an inch to the left of the deacon¡¯s throat. Keeping his eye on the downed cleric, Razer drew another knife from inside his jacket. ¡°How do you think you¡¯re doing?¡± ¡°There is a rumor Arabel is the favorite,¡± Razer said, noting the pleased glint in Vinnius¡¯ eye when he said this. ¡°And if you¡¯re a former Panhominae combat cleric, that means you¡¯ve been going easy on me.¡± There was a beat as they looked at each other. And on the second beat, the deacon was standing. Razer threw his knife, but the deacon was already moving, blindingly fast for how they¡¯d been before. The rhythm was all off, before he knew it a foot smashed into his remaining knife hand, sending the weapon flying across the room. He went into a defensive stance, trying to pull another knife from his jacket while his left hand held his guard, but the deacon bull-rushed him, smashing into him at chest level and charging across the room until they slammed into the big mirrors on the wall. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Stunned, all Razer could think was to notice that they weren¡¯t glass. This made sense. He was picked up by the lapels and smashed into the wall again and thrown to the ground. He prepared to fling himself to his feet, to use the momentum to strike, but found the sword edge at his throat. Vinnius started clapping from somewhere out of Razer¡¯s field of view. ¡°Fuck yes. That was awesome. Oh god it¡¯s always worth it to see Manny toss people on their asses.¡± The deacon¡¯s eyes were still on Razer, but he smiled. ¡°Thank you, Vinnius, for volunteering to be my demonstration partner for tomorrow¡¯s training.¡± ¡°Fuck you.¡± The tone was light, the banter familiar. Razer took a moment to breathe, brought fresh calm from outside his body, and exhaled the adrenaline of the last half minute. ¡°I see I¡¯m not doing well in the combat assessment. But how is my judgment?¡± ¡°Call a stop,¡± the deacon said. He made to sheathe the sword. ¡°You¡¯re pretty good as a combatant. Your judgment is very tactical, and you pick up on things that you need to.¡± ¡°All surrounds me, but only some is useful,¡± Razer quipped. ¡°You think a step ahead, which is good. But you look for too many targets, weaknesses, and it makes you slow.¡± As the deacon finished sheathing the sword, he glanced at his left thigh. ¡°Huh.¡± There was the smeared, imprecise fluorescent yellow stain of a glancing knife blow. The deacon nodded in sudden respect. He offered his hand to Razer. Razer took it. The grip was warm, firm, and when the deacon pulled, it seemed he could hoist Razer¡¯s entire weight one-handed. The grip turned into a handshake once he was on his feet. ¡°Very impressive,¡± the deacon told him, looking him with warm green eyes. ¡°I don¡¯t think anyone in your group has managed to lay a paint streak on me.¡± ¡°Would not have stopped you,¡± Razer conceded, because it¡¯s a good idea to butter up the man who reports directly to the Captain. ¡°Do you even remember making the strike?¡± ¡°Let your strikes be intentional,¡± Razer quoted. ¡°Let them flow out from the heart of you, because the heart is strong and strength flows to weakness.¡± The deacon tilted his head. ¡°But no,¡± Razer admitted. ¡°Not as such.¡± ¡°As I thought, you have good instincts,¡± the deacon nodded.
¡°There you are.¡± Vio glanced up from her dataslate, nestled in a small throne of pillows. ¡°Where have you been?¡± Razer let himself feel a moment¡¯s irritation as he carefully smoothed his hair back into place. ¡°Combat victory is based on perception. Do I lose if I am injured? Delayed? Dead?¡± Vio looked at him, chewing on her lip. ¡°Well someone kicked your ass.¡± She patted the bed beside her, so he removed his boots and crawled into her makeshift nest. ¡°The deacon.¡± ¡°The deacon?¡± ¡°He¡¯s a Panhominae.¡± At her blank look, Razer continued. ¡°An order of combat clerics trained in ground operations, tactics and strategy, and a variety of weapons.¡± ¡°An inquisitor?¡± ¡°No. Freelance, I guess.¡± Vio breathed, sighing through her teeth. ¡°Okay. The deacon is a spec ops priest guy. Got it.¡± Razer nodded. ¡°Powerful. I don¡¯t believe Salieri needs another knife when he already has a cannon.¡± Vio thought about this. ¡°Good news for me, bad for you.¡± She tilted her head. ¡°Eh, sucks to suck.¡± Razer scooted closer. ¡°So that¡¯s what I¡¯ve got for the groundwork. What do you have?¡± She snatched her dataslate out of his view. ¡°Hey. No looking.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± Razer nodded. ¡°But if we¡¯re going to work together, we need to share what we find. Full disclosure.¡± ¡°Alright then.¡± Vio looked at him for a moment, made a rolling gesture with her hand. ¡°Disclose.¡± ¡°I told you about the deacon.¡± She narrowed her eyes. ¡°Not him. You. Spill.¡± Razer sighed. ¡°Okay. I¡¯ve been a freelancer for about twenty years, part time when I was apprenticed.¡± ¡°To what?¡± ¡°Corporate security. Probably would have ended up espionage but I dropped out.¡± ¡°Makes sense.¡± ¡°So, odd jobs here and there, had a couple teams I ran with for a while until the work dried up. Ended up earning a favor from a man distantly connected to Salieri, so here I am.¡± ¡°Okay. And your thing is¡­¡± ¡°Knives,¡± Razer grinned. He produced one with a flick of the wrist and twirled it between his fingers. She laughed. ¡°Duh.¡± ¡°Also quiet operations, plants and pickpockets, and so on. I can do entry, but I¡¯m not great at it. Same goes for playing face.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± Vio leaned back. ¡°Okay that sounds right. So why do you wanna be Salieri¡¯s numbers guy?¡± ¡°Hm?¡± ¡°We both know Seneschal means a lot of things. You¡¯ve got the sneaky spy thing, and the knifey thing, but uh, there¡¯s the whole mafia accountant thing.¡± Technically Vio was breaking a lot of freelancer etiquette by asking, but usually teams weren¡¯t made up of overt rivals banding together. ¡°Uh, I have a part time running the books for an arcade in Cliffside, and a spiced wings factory.¡± ¡°Seriously.¡± Razer nodded seriously. ¡°What kind of wings?¡± ¡°Buffalo Eight.¡± ¡°No kidding.¡± Vio loved that shit. ¡°Mm.¡± Razer looked at Vio expectantly. She sighed. ¡°Okay fine. I¡¯m a technical wageslave turned technical freelancer and I figure that I can script my way through most problems, including money stuff. And I¡¯m here because I¡¯m tired of being poor.¡± Razer smirked. ¡°What else?¡± ¡°What do you mean what else?¡± ¡°Spill.¡± She looked at him blankly. ¡°Ground work. Whatever bad thing you¡¯re doing to that wall,¡± he gestured. ¡°What have you got?¡± He slouched back in an approximation of the way Vio was lying on the pillows. ¡°Disclose,¡± he falsetto¡¯d. Vio laughed. ¡°Oh, that kind of spill. What do you want first? I got footage of all the other candidates¡¯ interviews, some stuff about the predecessor Seneschal, bathroom pictures of the ladies¡¯¡­¡± He didn¡¯t react. ¡°Start with the predecessor, and then let¡¯s watch the interviews.¡±
Neither of them had anything going on for the next few hours. Cicero sent out an alert that all appointments for the rest of the day were canceled. ¡°Perhaps they are making their decision,¡± Razer said. ¡°Let¡¯s hope not.¡± Vio started with her data on the old Seneschal, High Factorum Russo. ¡°Pretty clearly a career criminal, decent at money, generally boring guy. Except for the mafia thing.¡± ¡°Betrayer,¡± Razer noted. He did not seem to condemn the man, nor approve. It was a mere statement of fact. ¡°At least this tells us some things about what Salieri is searching for.¡± Vio shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t see how it helps us very much for right now.¡± ¡°Knowledge is power,¡± Razer shrugged. ¡°Where are you getting all these sayings?¡± Razer seemed embarrassed. ¡°I, I don¡¯t know, they fit the situation. Do they not?¡± Vio laughed. ¡°I dunno man. I guess.¡± She swiped at her slate. ¡°Okay, so the other candidates. Let¡¯s focus on Arabel and Reeve for now.¡± She felt something on her shoulder. Razer¡¯s hand. She gave him a look. ¡°Your posture is terrible,¡± he commented, adjusting the set of her back. ¡°That¡¯s pretty common with coders,¡± she allowed. There was a pause. She continued looking at him. He awkwardly pulled the arm back. Vio paused for a moment, unsure. ¡°I have to ask. I¡¯m doing a lot of the legwork here.¡± ¡°You¡¯re intel,¡± he looked away. ¡°This is the intel part of the operation. You would prefer I stabbed someone?¡± ¡°At the end of this, that¡¯s when we¡¯re most in competition,¡± she said. ¡°And it might not be in your interests to, uh, stab anyone on my behalf. But I¡¯m sharing all my info.¡± Razer finally glanced back. ¡°I will not stab you,¡± he said solemnly, ¡°and I will stab people who are trying to stab you.¡± ¡°Like, metaphorically?¡± Vio hoped. She had never particularly cared for kill missions. To her own financial detriment, it turned out. ¡°I will stab the metaphorical backstabbers for you too." Vio thought about this. There was something in angled brown eyes, a fumbling earnestness in his face. Razer was lonely. Vio decided sharply that she wanted to move on. ¡°Uh, okay. Good enough.¡± She decided to move on. ¡°So we have Reeve, Arabel, Hortensia, DeMoss, and the two of us.¡± ¡°And Salieri,¡± Razer pointed out. ¡°Salieri¡¯s not a Seneschal.¡± ¡°No,¡± Razer leaned back. ¡°Yet his presence shapes the battlefield.¡± Vio grunted. ¡°I don¡¯t know much about him.¡± ¡°A distant leader,¡± Razer agreed. ¡°There are six candidates. Why has he not come to greet us?¡± ¡°That¡¯s not how they do this on his world,¡± Vio protested, but it was a weak protest. Hospitality culture was not why the Salieri patriarch had remained distant. ¡°A child of military men. Not a frontline general - or he would be here, would he not? But one who delegates.¡± Vio pretended she¡¯d done enough homework to know that Salieri was a military brat of some description. ¡°So what he¡¯s looking for is - what - someone he trusts enough to delegate things to?¡± ¡°That would follow,¡± Razer mused. ¡°Nah,¡± she decided. ¡°At that point you¡¯d want to meet ¡®em either way. Someone you¡¯d be trusting to make decisions for you in the field n stuff.¡± ¡°Perhaps that is not how he sees himself. Perhaps Salieri is a xiangqi player,¡± Razer traced the traditional game board into the folds of the blanket. ¡°And he is deciding which of us is a common soldier tile, and which would make a grand advisor. But all of us the same, pieces for the players to move.¡± Vio laughed. ¡°If you see it like that, why would you ever want the job?¡± Razer cracked a small smile. ¡°Show me where things are any different and I will go at once.¡± Reft
¡°I can tell by your shoes you were married, and by your wrists that you are no longer.¡± ¡°My shoes.¡± ~Arabel and Vinnius Cicero
¡°Hooooly pubic feathers,¡± Vinnius said between clenched teeth. ¡°What the fuck is wrong with these people?¡± DiBattista shrugged. ¡°Yeah, I dunno. I guess sometimes shit happens.¡± Vinnius slammed his fist against the table, causing his ''caf to jump from the cup and splatter around the saucer. He ignored it. ¡°The fuck am I supposed to tell Scip about this?¡± ¡°The truth?¡± ¡°The boss wants a genius superspy economist yesterday, and I¡¯ve got a herd of whiny children throwing tantrums or something. How the fuck am I supposed to pick from this buncha assholes?¡± ¡°So pick Arabel and toss the rest.¡± Vinnius stabbed a finger into the ''caf puddle. ¡°That woman is going to fuck us one day.¡± ¡°Vinnius-¡° ¡°She is! She is going to fuck us. And not nicely after a bottle of wine and thirty minutes of foreplay. I¡¯m talking raw. In the ass.¡± He drew a few disgusted looks from nearby patrons. A glaring waitress mopped up his spilled ''caf, then slipped away as quickly as she could. ¡°Vinni, calm down.¡± ¡°Ano, that woman is a snake.¡± ¡°Vin.¡± DiBattista held up his hands. ¡°Vinnius. It¡¯s fine. Don¡¯t pick Arabel. I¡¯ll take another crack at her this afternoon. But look. We¡¯ve been going about this in the singular. You were complaining that they¡¯re all just saying what we wanna hear. This is a chance to see how much of that measures up.¡± ¡°What,¡± Vinnius grimaced, ¡°are you talking about?¡± ¡°Hear me out.¡± DiBattista paused. ¡°Group exercise.¡± ¡°Oh come on.¡± ¡°Listen. Hear me out.¡± DiBattista waited till Vinnius¡¯ protests had died down. ¡°Okay look. If we had Russo, he¡¯d head up the investigation team. That¡¯s what he does. We¡¯re looking for replacement Russo. So,¡± he shrugged, ¡°we let them take a crack at it. See how they work on a team.¡± ¡°I swear to god I am this close to throwing them in a room with one handgun and telling them to sort it out,¡± Vinnius hissed. ¡°That¡¯s as good as picking Razer,¡± DiBattista mused. At Vinnius¡¯ glare he shrugged. ¡°What do you think? We¡¯ve got a good problem for them to pick apart.¡± Vinnius sighed. ¡°Fine. I¡¯m done pulling my hair out over this group.¡±
¡°Tell me something about yourself few people know,¡± DiBattista said. Arabel sighed. She looked at the mafia man. Caporegime, they called them. Skillful grasp of the Sibelline language, though his alveolar consonants were off. That suggested foundational language classes rather than organic exposure ¨C he¡¯d clearly had plenty of both. ¡°No,¡± she sighed. ¡°No?¡± Interrogative. Puzzled tone with a hint of warbled offense. Not offense. Other word ¨C resignation-uncertain-on-your-own-head-be-it. She¡¯d just lost points for the candidateship. He didn¡¯t particularly care. No ¨C he was neutral. The tone suggested an attempt at impartiality. DiBattista had been primed to accept or reject her, and was attempting to throw off the priming and retain a neutral standpoint. Someone else had wanted her in, or wanted her out. DiBattista was attempting to formulate his own opinion to add to a consensus. Probably, that consensus contained the deacon, the other capo, perhaps Salieri. Or perhaps Salieri was uninterested in the minutia of the proceedings. Likely, he would be presented with the strongest candidate for token approval before the paperwork was signed. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. ¡°No,¡± Arabel told him flatly. ¡°I tell other people¡¯s secrets. Not mine.¡± DiBattista gave her a long look from across the table. (Wood, she noticed. Older than three centuries by the construction style, M. magna by the ringing pattern, probably manufactured on Solomon). She looked him evenly in the eyes, glimpsing the true neutrality of apathy. There was not a thing in the world that DiBattista truly cared about. DiBattista was the first to look away. It wasn¡¯t discomfort. He¡¯d gotten bored of the staring contest. His attention couldn¡¯t be gotten with dominance contests. It was very frustrating. ¡°So you don¡¯t want to come back to the question,¡± DiBattista said, making marks on the notepad. By the wobble of the back of his quill, he was writing ¡°cagey, ifulse w/nohosty¡±, which Arabel deciphered cautiously on her notepad. Something about honesty. ¡°I don¡¯t see how that¡¯s important to my candidacy. You know what I am capable of.¡± He feigned mild surprise. Everyone went for the slightly tilted eyebrow, it was more of a signal ¡°this is the point in the conversation where I¡¯m surprised¡±, than actual surprise. ¡°Do I?¡± ¡°This is all because Vinnius Cicero doesn¡¯t like what I know about this ship, this operation, about him. It¡¯s not my fault nobody else has done their homework.¡± ¡°And you, you do your homework.¡± ¡°I know things.¡± DiBattista looked at his notepad. ¡°What did you know about Vinnius?¡± A test of her ability to keep secrets. The glance at the notebook implied a question prepared beforehand. Another check in her candidacy. Cicero feared what she knew; for her to stay on the ship, he would need to not fear what she would say. ¡°Ask him.¡± Slight disappointment ¨C personal curiosity, then, had motivated the question. Arabel was surprised. She had read that wrong. It didn¡¯t happen frequently. ¡°What about Salieri?¡± ¡°The man or the organization?¡± It was her private little joke. They both knew she was going to answer both questions. ¡°Whatever you prefer.¡± ¡°There are five main families in the Malfi underworld, alliances shifting over the last few hundred years. Currently, the Salieri-Cavalieri power bloc has an incomplete dominance, cemented by political marriage. Scipio Salieri inherited a ship and a warrant and has spent the last two years in the uncharted expanse working with what was probably the Inquisition.¡± DiBattista was writing something on his pad, from the movements of the back of the quill it was a summary what she¡¯d stated. ¡°Hm. How did you do that?¡± ¡°I already knew the name Salieri because I keep tabs on major players in the local underworld. I did a little extra research before coming here. The Warrant is registered at Solomon in their Hall of Records. And the Inquisition was a guess ¨C but there were signs. News of alien activity always accompanies government operation in the uncharted territories. Edited stock footage made every major news channel just at the same time the Salieri head of household vanishes for a few years, and dies down just as he returns. But powerful merchant captains often are brought into government naval operations, and they tout this for all it is worth. Salieri did no such thing, despite that it would have helped his position among the Families and his interstellar reputation. And besides, this is not a stealth ship, nor is it a powerful battlecruiser. The Navy has many escorts. There has been no propaganda of his exploits as there would be if it had been a non-covert military operation. Therefore, I guess Inquisition.¡± DiBattista finished dotting an I, or crossing a t. Hard to tell at this distance. His eyes moved across the notepad; not rereading what he¡¯d written, the positioning was wrong for that. She was about to be asked another pre-prepared question. ¡°Tell me what you know about the other candidates. Strengths, skills, aliases, anything¡± Arabel brought the appropriate information to mind, flicking through the enormous file system that was her brain. ¡°Hortensia Hora and the man calling himself Reeve are both social experts; Hortensia specializes in information gather, Reeve in managing the behavior of his targets. Antoniette Violette is the most assumed name I¡¯ve ever come across, worse even than Reeve, and she achieves results through hardware manipulation and computation. Both she and Razer are freelance criminals of a sort found uniquely in the Sibelline underworld. DeMoss is an amateur mathematician but otherwise a generalist.¡± ¡°Tell me about Reeve.¡± ¡°His real name is Claudius Glycon Jr, a professional actor of minor repute. Notable filmography includes The Emperor¡¯s Wrath as Clovis, The Wytch of Blaire as Odysseus, and the cult classic Reaver as the Reaver himself. Has connections to organized crime through fulfilment of his excessive vices. Gambling, drinking, noted addiction to spook, and he likes to participate in the bloodsport nobles call ¡®hunting for rats¡¯.¡± She looked at DiBattista. ¡°I would consider him an unreliable Seneschal.¡± ¡°So he¡¯s a man with enemies.¡± Something about this brought Arabel up short. She had emphasized many elements that would have led to questions about Glycon¡¯s habits or his reliability. This was not the natural question to ask. ¡°Yes,¡± she said cautiously. ¡°Probably.¡± ¡°Do you know anything about those enemies?¡± ¡°There are several underworld gangs. Rival actors. Former actors who feel themselves more deserving of any particular role. People who do not appreciate his personality; I hear there are many.¡± Arabel felt her ears going red, as they frequently did when the world didn¡¯t match up to her predictions. Enemies of Glycon. Had they contacted Salieri¡¯s Shadow? Was Salieri himself one of the enemies? None of it made sense. She felt a stupid question bubbling up her throat. DiBattista saved her. He made a few notes; she was far too flustered to try to read the movements of his quill. Then he looked up. ¡°Do you know why, four hours ago, Reeve was killed in cargo bay 6?¡± Accusation
¡°Didn¡¯t you lose your kiddo in a game of hearts?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to keep bringing that up.¡± ~Vinnius Cicero, Ano DiBattista
Cargo Bay 6 was huge, a maze of crates and shipping vehicles, forklifts, cargo lifts, and so on. The walls and floor were the same dull grey lined with attention-getting fluorescent yellow tape, delineating sections for different types of cargo or lanes for the vehicles. In fact, the walls, ceiling, and floor were all lined with agrav plating, standard practice in cargo bays. It allowed a ship captain more floor space. To access the cargo planted on non-floor surfaces, one simply walked up to the corner and stepped onto the wall. The gravity could be turned off, to assist in easy transport of large cargo elements. The candidates followed Vinnius and DiBattista into a little open area among the crates. Stacked transport containers gave the area a roomlike feeling, big and metal and painted dark red. Smaller boxes haphazardly placed around the ground labeled with stenciled alphanumerics obscured the dead body for the first few moments. Hortensia gasped and looked away. ¡°Oh goodness,¡± she said frowning in surprise. ¡°What¡¯s going on here?¡± Razer asked. ¡°Okay everyone,¡± Vinnius jumped onto a nearby box. ¡°Listen up. Behind me is the body of your old pal Reeve, fellow candidate. Your job today is to find out who killed him here and why.¡± Vio raised her hand. ¡°Do we know why he was here?¡± Vinnius rolled his eyes. ¡°She thinks I don¡¯t know about the hacking,¡± he muttered to himself. ¡°You have access to any shipboard records you need. That means you know as much as I do.¡± He waved his hands. ¡°Get to it.¡± DiBattista cleared his throat. ¡°This is the scene of the crime, so be careful about evidence, but not too careful because we¡¯re not bringing Enforcers on for this one. Ping either of us when you¡¯re done; we will be watching the sec-cam feed in case you need anything.¡± Vinnius hopped off his box and began walking back to the entrance to the bay. ¡°Happy hunting,¡± he lowered his voice, ¡°you teamkilling fucks.¡± ¡°Well that was certainly something,¡± Hortensia said eventually. She sat down delicately on one of the nearby boxes. ¡°So the Reaver is finally dead,¡± DeMoss mused. Vio slammed her face into her hand. ¡°The Reaver. So that¡¯s where I saw him before. I knew it!¡± DeMoss chuckled. After a moment Hortensia joined in. ¡°You knew, didn¡¯t you?¡± Vio asked. ¡°Yes.¡± Hortensia shrugged nonchalantly. ¡°I said to you, didn¡¯t I. I am not going to be giving everything I know.¡± Arabel stood. ¡°Shut up,¡± she told them. ¡°What di-¡° DeMoss began. ¡°Shut up,¡± she screeched, clenching her fists so hard and so suddenly that one of her knuckles popped quietly. She waited a beat for the startled silence to descend. ¡°We have a murder.¡± She looked at them. ¡°The ship is a closed system. It was either a crewman or one of us. And the crewmen are Malfian Mafia, handpicked and controlled by Salieri.¡± She paused to see if any of them would interrupt. Arabel hated interruptions. ¡°We have a cross-functional team.¡± She walked deliberately over to Hortensia. ¡°Interrogator,¡± she said. She moved onto Vio. ¡°Hacker.¡± She moved to Razer, looking him up and down. She frowned. ¡°Capture,¡± she said eventually. ¡°If the suspect resists.¡± She looked at DeMoss for a moment and then back at Vio. ¡°First, we must establish a timeline.¡± ¡°Hey,¡± DeMoss protested. ¡°Wait a minute. Who-¡± She wheeled about to face him. ¡°I know your real name,¡± she blurted. Fury bloomed behind sea-grey eyes, but his mouth snapped shut. ¡°Let us take the deep breaths, everyone,¡± Hortensia held her hands up. ¡°It was not meant the insult.¡± Vio agreed. ¡°Let¡¯s all calm down,¡± she said. ¡°We don¡¯t get anywhere fighting.¡± DeMoss pressed his lips together, and then nodded. Arabel fidgeted. ¡°A timeline, now.¡± ¡°This is not the first step,¡± Hortensia said. ¡°It is necessary to know who this man was, and who wished him to die.¡± ¡°Who didn¡¯t?¡± DeMoss muttered. ¡°You knew him,¡± Razer said. He stood up and walked over to the body. ¡°A thoroughly unpleasant man,¡± DeMoss said quietly. ¡°To know him was to want to strangle him.¡± He straightened. ¡°But more formally, he owes the Golden Peaches a lot of money, and he had a thing for killing Guild whores. Gender irrelevant.¡± ¡°And he recently had a falling out with his voxwave producer,¡± Arabel snapped. ¡°Can we get onto the timeline?¡± Hortensia frowned. ¡°That is correct. I remember that. Something about the contracts.¡± ¡°So the killer may have worked for the Peaches,¡± Razer commented. ¡°Or the Guild,¡± Arabel said. ¡°Or his producer. Or anyone who knew him personally. Let us not rule anything out prematurely.¡± ¡°The Peaches are known to hire assassins. The producer is not,¡± Razer said. ¡°It is not an unreasonable inference.¡± ¡°The Peaches make more money off of him than they do off of the drugs,¡± DeMoss commented. ¡°It doesn¡¯t make sense.¡± ¡°There¡¯s always you,¡± Razer said. He walked slowly in a wide arc, centered on DeMoss. Knees bent. Hands casually at his sides. There was a long moment. Arabel¡¯s hand moved conspicuously inconspicuously to the inside of her jacket below the arm. Hortensia tensed, opened her mouth, and then closed it. ¡°Beg pardon?¡± DeMoss¡¯ voice was low. He did not move for a weapon the way Arabel had, but the fluidity with which he turned, slowly, to keep Razer perfectly within his line of sight was like a tightly wound spring. ¡°You knew him. You didn¡¯t like him.¡± ¡°That doesn¡¯t mean anything,¡± DeMoss said. He glanced around the cargo bay, taking in the layout of shipping crates, the viable exits. ¡°Suggestive,¡± Arabel cut in. ¡°Not conclusive.¡± ¡°Um,¡± said Vio. The weight of their collective attention came to rest on her. Razer and DeMoss had not stopped staring each other down, but Razer paused in his circling. Vio shrunk slightly. ¡°I have your timeline.¡± ¡°Finally,¡± Arabel said quietly. ¡°What is it that you have found?¡± Hortensia asked. ¡°Sec cam footage,¡± Vio said quietly. ¡°Please,¡± Hortensia snapped. ¡°Will you stop hissing at each other like a pair of pit vipers! All are suspects now! We will know nothing if you are too busy to learn!¡± There was a pause. Razer and DeMoss stared each other down. Slowly, slowly, DeMoss put his hands up. ¡°Okay,¡± he said. ¡°Let¡¯s see what the data says before we go for anyone.¡± Razer relaxed, uneasily. He took a step back. ¡°If you are the killer,¡± he said calmly, ¡°you will not be able to escape me. I have hunted lords before.¡± ¡°We¡¯ll wait to find out till then,¡± DeMoss said. Slowly, deliberately, Razer turned toward Vio, keeping his eye on DeMoss until the last possible moment. ¡°What do you have?¡± ¡°Sec cam footage,¡± Vio said again. She swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. ¡°Um. Our boy has a heated argument with Hortensia at 19:12. No audio, I dunno what it¡¯s about. And then he stomps off to the cargo bay, looks like for a smoke. Arrives at 20:09. Smokes for two minutes, and at 20:11 the footage cuts out on all cargo bay cameras for twenty seconds. Then,¡± she gestured at the body. ¡°They didn¡¯t even move him.¡± ¡°Does that narrow it down?¡± Razer asked. He looked at Hortensia. ¡°I made the deal with him that I made with all of you,¡± she said, straight-backed. ¡°He deals in bad faith. Lies and exaggerations. I had told him many valuable things.¡± ¡°Can anyone lip-read?¡± DeMoss asked suddenly. Razer shot him a sidelong glance. There was a pause. ¡°I,¡± Hortensia said. ¡°I can lip read.¡± ¡°You are the suspect in this interaction,¡± Arabel snapped. ¡°Useless testimony.¡± She turned to Vio. ¡°Our killer can destroy camera footage.¡± Razer looked very unhappy. ¡°And kill in twenty seconds. Surely she¡¯s not the only one who can take footage down.¡± ¡°Were they working together?¡± Hortensia asked. ¡°Vio was with me the whole time,¡± Razer said. ¡°Maybe it was you.¡± Arabel wheeled around and stalked over to the body. ¡°Strangled,¡± she commented. ¡°Vio and Hortensia do not have the upper arm strength or the reach.¡± ¡°Arabel,¡± Vio snapped. ¡°You¡¯re not team leader. Sit down.¡± ¡°By scores I am,¡± she said primly. Vio began to retort but Hortensia¡¯s voice cut through the confusion again. ¡°This will serve no purpose,¡± she said loudly. Firmly. ¡°Vio and I are not tall enough to strangle the man Reeve.¡± Arabel grinned a savage grin. ¡°No one here is, but,¡± she looked at DeMoss. He bent his knees. ¡°I said I didn¡¯t do it.¡± Razer flicked his wrist and a knife appeared in his hand. ¡°Don¡¯t run,¡± he said. ¡°This is a criminal organization. Murder need not be the end of your candidacy.¡± ¡°Murder so poorly carried out might be,¡± Arabel snapped. ¡°Do you work for the Golden Peaches?¡± Razer asked. He twirled a knife idly. Hortensia raised her voice again but they all took to arguing. Yelling. Vio swiped through the sec cam footage. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. At 20:11 DeMoss had been doing body shots off a gunnery sergeant on deck 11C. Vio frowned. She looked at the body again. She looked at her dataslate. ¡°Give me,¡± she muttered, thinking, ¡°give me actor Claudius Glycon¡¯s exact height.¡± Her fingers swiped through databases of public knowledge. Her eyes flared green. She looked around. Looked at the crates near Reeve¡¯s final moments. ¡°Give me,¡± she muttered, reorganizing her HUD, ¡°give me a measuring stick. 188 cm from the ground.¡± A hovering green indicator flared to life in her visual field. She hopped on top of a smaller crate, and then clambered around to a larger one, and did a little hop over to the miniature shipping container behind where Reeve had died. She hooked her legs over the side, spread them wide and crossed her ankles midair. The green indicator floated. Yes, it might just be ¨C She realized the others had stopped chattering. ¡°What?¡± she asked. ¡°Um,¡± Razer asked, cheeks flaring red, ¡°what are you doing, Vio?¡± Arabel was the first to get it. ¡°Legs,¡± she said. ¡°He was strangled with someone¡¯s legs. Sitting atop the shipping crate.¡± DeMoss shot her a grateful nod. She nodded back. ¡°What have we gained from this?¡± DeMoss asked. ¡°It could have been any one of us.¡± ¡°You have an alibi,¡± she told him, smirking. Vio hopped down from the crate. He had the grace to look faintly embarrassed. ¡°Who else has one?¡± Razer asked. She checked. ¡°Hortensia is good. Hmm. Arabel is unaccounted for.¡± ¡°What about you,¡± she snapped back. ¡°I was in my quarters at that point,¡± she said. ¡°No alibi,¡± Arabel said. She was annoyingly smug about it. ¡°What about the other one?¡± ¡°I can vouch for her,¡± Razer said. ¡°We were together most of that day.¡± ¡°What were you doing?¡± Arabel asked, at the exact moment that DeMoss¡¯ eyebrows shot up. He waggled them at her and gave her a thumbs up. ¡°No,¡± she protested. ¡°It wasn¡¯t that.¡± Razer suddenly found the floor very interesting. She was going to protest more but Hortensia¡¯s voice cut in. ¡°It isn¡¯t that.¡± Arabel narrowed her eyes, annoyed, but nodded. ¡°They were working together,¡± Hortensia said. ¡°They have formed a team.¡± ¡°Access to the security feed,¡± Arabel snapped. ¡°Capable but no motive. You¡¯re a freelancer. Hired to sneak aboard and kill him? Canvas shoes, finger-tight gloves popular in the cliff districts. Reeve operated out of studios in central-south. Neon hair popular in certain dance scenes. There would have been a go-between.¡± Vio looked desperately at Razer for help, but he was glancing between the other candidates, studying them. ¡°Wait,¡± she said, ¡°if I had cut that footage from the cameras I would have run a loop overtop. Or pulled footage from elsewhere. I wouldn¡¯t have just cut it.¡± ¡°So, you¡¯re more than competent enough to pull this off,¡± DeMoss said thoughtfully. ¡°Hey, how about some gratitude for the height thing?¡± she ground out. ¡°I don¡¯t think she would have done it,¡± Razer said. ¡°Come on, Hortensia, you don¡¯t think she did it do you?¡± ¡°You and she have become a unit,¡± Hortensia scoffed. ¡°This is not admissible.¡± ¡°Let me think,¡± Arabel screeched. This did not silence them sufficiently so she yelled. It was a wordless, raw, short exclamation. ¡°The fuck,¡± Vio said. Arabel hopped up onto a box. ¡°There are more clues here.¡± She pointed. ¡°Watch her. If she¡¯s guilty, she will try to escape. If she is innocent, she will be willing to prove it.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Vio said. ¡°Yes I will.¡± ¡°Of those present, we know for certain that Vio is capable of climbing the crates. That would rule you out, dear Auntie. No offense,¡± Razer did a quarter-bow toward Hortensia. ¡°None taken,¡± she smiled. Vio looked over at Razer. ¡°Gee, help me out a little less, okay?¡± He sat on the crate beside her. ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said quietly. ¡°Ever since Hortensia ID¡¯d our alliance, the more I defend you, the less credibility I have. I¡¯m saving it for when I have something worthwhile.¡± She took a deep breath. ¡°What happens to the person who committed the murder anyway?¡± ¡°Probably Salieri spaces them,¡± Razer shrugged. ¡°That¡¯s terrible!¡± He looked flustered again. ¡°They¡¯re not gonna space you, Vio.¡± ¡°How are you going to stop them.¡± He opened his jacket a little. Just to show her the array of knives waiting inside. ¡°They¡¯re not gonna space you. Vio, did you do it?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Then if you are accused, it¡¯s not going to be because of facts. Just panic. It will be me and you against the rest of them. And I am the one with the knives.¡± ¡°What!?¡± To her surprise he hugged her. ¡°You¡¯ll be okay, alright?¡± She could feel the flat metal blades under his jacket. ¡°Okay.¡±
¡°Vio¡¯s alibis are no longer trustworthy,¡± Arabel said. ¡°She is our prime suspect at the moment. And she admitted earlier that she is capable of producing forged footage.¡± ¡°Why didn¡¯t I just give an alibi to myself then, dumbass?¡± Vio was getting annoyed. ¡°I will vouch for her,¡± Razer said again. ¡°We were together pretty much the whole day.¡± ¡°Pretty much?¡± Hortensia asked. ¡°Obviously there were bathroom breaks,¡± Vio glared. ¡°Food. Interviews.¡± ¡°The whole thing only took twenty seconds,¡± DeMoss mused. He looked at her carefully. ¡°According to her,¡± Arabel pointed out. They fell to arguing again. Hortensia came and sat by Vio, put her arm around the smaller girl¡¯s shoulder and squeezed. ¡°I know it was not you,¡± she murmured. ¡°How?¡± Vio squeezed her arms around her torso. Hortensia just shook her head. ¡°You are, kindhearted. This may be not the place for you, Seneschal on a ship of murderers.¡± ¡°At this rate I¡¯m just trying to get out of this alive.¡± ¡°Your friend,¡± Hortensia said. ¡°He is, he is careful. When there was news of alibis, he was trying to conceal that he was,¡± she searched for the word, ¡°was stressed. And it is strange, for one with his, his many skills in killing to try to become Seneschal of a void-ship.¡± She looked Vio intently in the eyes. ¡°He has been kind for you. He has defended you when he could. But I must ask. Were you truly together at 20:11 shiptime?¡± Vio took a deep breath. ¡°Don¡¯t exactly remember. But we can check the hallway sec cam to see when he entered and left.¡± She found the requisite camera and set viewing speed to 6x. ¡°Okay there, it¡¯s 18:24 and he leaves.¡± Razer fast-walked back to the room, and tapped the doorbell. The door opened. ¡°18:56,¡± she commented. ¡°See, he¡¯s back.¡± ¡°Mm,¡± Hortensia said. ¡°No, there is he is gone. What time was that?¡± Vio checked. ¡°19:24.¡± She slowed the footage down to 2x. They waited. Around them, the sounds of heated argument. Razer defended her passionately, but Arabel was either convinced, or very contrarian ¨C she wasn¡¯t sure which, at this point. The footage speed clicked forward. ¡°He¡¯ll be back,¡± she said. ¡°I remember he was there.¡± 20:05 passed. Vio¡¯s jaw dropped. She looked at Hortensia. ¡°Watch,¡± the older woman nudged her. ¡°Your friend, he may come back just before.¡± 20:09 came and went, and he was not back. Arabel had evidently insulted DeMoss again, and he managed to get enough words into her stream-of-consciousness to constitute a valid response. At 20:10 DeMoss¡¯ comments had needled Arabel enough that she had started screeching wordlessly again. Razer was still not back from his trip. 20:11 came and went. Vio let out a long breath. She looked at Hortensia. Hortensia looked back at her. ¡°Excuse me,¡± Hortensia addressed the group. ¡°Excuse me. We have something.¡± ¡°What?¡± Razer asked. ¡°We have, we have investigated the alibi claim of Razer and Vio.¡± She looked shakily at DeMoss, Arabel. Razer walked up to Hortensia and stuck a knife into her neck. ¡°Razer,¡± Vio screamed. Arabel screamed wordlessly and roughly jerked a handgun from her side. She pointed it, shaking, at Razer. Hortensia clawed at her neck, gasping, making throaty sounds. Razer swiped the blade cleanly through, and the older woman crumpled to the floor with a dull thud. ¡°Hortensia deals in convincing lies and half-truths,¡± Razer said calmly. ¡°The killer was working on behalf of the Golden Peaches. Hortensia worked for the Peaches, she said so in an interview. We can pull up the relevant clips.¡± ¡°That is not conclusive,¡± Arabel shrieked. The intercom bleeped. Razer wiped his knife clean using a little handkerchief already stained with blood. ¡°By the Emperor¡¯s testicles,¡± Vinnius growled through the speakers. ¡°I just don¡¯t fucking know anymore. I just don¡¯t. Whatever¡¯s wrong with you people, just sort it out yourselves. Goddamn it. You have two hours before I space all of you and start over with a new group¡± There was some small off-mic conversation, and then Vinnius returned. ¡°Okay look, my associate has advised me that we still need a Seneschal. So I¡¯m popping a couple guns in at the entrance. You guys figure out who it¡¯s gonna be. McDaniels? Get your fat ass over here-¡± and then the mic cut. DeMoss glanced up at this, but there was no more. The intercom was silent. Razer began to move, but Arabel hissed at him. ¡°Stop.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s put the gun down,¡± Vio said. ¡°What are we supposed to do now?¡± DeMoss asked, backing up. Arabel whirled and pointed the gun at him. ¡°Me? What did I do?¡± ¡°One Seneschal. We¡¯re supposed to kill each other,¡± Razer said. The gun snapped back to him, but he seemed unconcerned. ¡°Nobody goes for the guns,¡± Arabel growled. ¡°Wait. Let me think.¡± DeMoss took a slow big step back from her, and then another. ¡°Let me think,¡± she shrieked, whirling and pulling the trigger. DeMoss dove out of the way, rolling behind a nearby crate. Two other shots took out chunks of the crate, revealing a shipment of assorted dishware. Vio accessed the light controls for the cargo bay and brought them down to zero. Then she ran for it. Two more shots sounded behind her, and some frustrated screaming. The bay was now dimly lit, but not pitch black. The emergency channels, she couldn¡¯t access those. A sickly green glow shone around the edges of the bay. Random lanterns, access hallways to other parts of the ship still let the light shine in freely. Vio hit her microbead. ¡°Razer,¡± she whispered, flipping channels. ¡°Razer?¡± ¡°You sound like you are running,¡± his voice, soft in her ear. ¡°Why¡¯d you kill her,¡± she hissed. ¡°Her association with the Peaches was damning. If she had time to retaliate she would have.¡± There was a pause as she tried to get her bearings. The entrance should be to her left, and there were guns there. Not that she knew what she¡¯d do with them. Vio wasn¡¯t sure if she wanted to kill her way through this. ¡°Where are you, Vio? I can hear your footsteps on the line.¡± She was running loud, stomped footsteps echoing against the metal floors of the cargo bay. She stopped, panting. ¡°What? What are you going to do?¡± ¡°We can team up. Take down the rest of them.¡± ¡°Why? I¡¯m useless.¡± ¡°You have control of the lights.¡± Vio moved to the left, but quietly. She was abandoning any hope of making it to the weapons first. ¡°You don¡¯t need me to take them down. Are you going to kill me?¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t do that.¡± She bit her lip. ¡°You killed Hortensia.¡± She saw the light first and then heard the ear-shattering bang, felt the impact of a bullet slamming into a crate past her right shoulder. Vio screamed a little, diving for the opposite wall. ¡°There you are,¡± Razer whispered in her ear. ¡°Antionette,¡± Arabel moved forward, a shadowy figure in the dimness. ¡°Canvas shoes and finger-tight gloves characteristic of the cliffs districts. The manner of a native lower Sibellan and a westside accent.¡± Another gunshot, another bullet slamming into the ground. Vio scooted away as quietly as she could, but her sneakers squeaked against the ground. ¡°Neon green hair characteristic of certain dance scenes, but high quality implants. Ocular, and in your right hand little dots characteristic of a defensive shock weapon. Much higher quality than westside freelancers.¡± The problem with the hand-taser was that you had to get pretty close to deliver it. Vio curled up between two crates, trying to place where Arabel was by her voice. ¡°But take away the eyes, the hair, the tattoos and your face is reminiscent of a young aristocrat who''s been in the uncharted territories for the last ten years.¡± Three gunshots, three flares of light. ¡°You don¡¯t make any sense.¡± Vio lunged. Her hand flared with electricity, ready to discharge but she misjudged in the darkness, clawing at nothing. The gun went off. In the end it was her mechanical arm that saved her. The bullet lodged in the edge of her palm, blowing her thumb clean off. Vio swung again. Arabel gave her that look she always gave things, like she was subjecting them not so much to a careful look but an optical scan. She twisted to Vio¡¯s left, and Vio flailed out with her flesh arm. Arabel grabbed it, yanked. Vio went down, conveniently bashing her head against a nearby crate. She saw the muzzle of the gun, saw the spark catch somewhere down the barrel, threw her hands up instinctively. It went into her mechanical elbow. A foot came crashing down, sweeping the arm aside and stepping down, hard, hard enough to crack the plastic. The electric contacts on her fingers sparked impotently against the rubber of Arabel¡¯s sole. The gun pointed down again. ¡°Last words,¡± Arabel barked. ¡°They matter to some people.¡± Vio blinked, still trying to clear her pounding headache. ¡°Aargh,¡± she tried. Arabel nodded. ¡°Grlgrh,¡± she said. Vio shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut and then open. ¡°What?¡± Warm liquid dribbled lightly down onto Vio, her face, her hair, her arms. Arabel swayed for a moment, then fell down backwards. Vio scooted away. ¡°What?¡± She squinted. Razer could barely be seen in the dimness. She was pretty sure it was him because of the shape, and because of the glint of light between his fingers, shaped long and thin and edged and lethal. ¡°Shit,¡± she snarled, scooting backwards. ¡°Vio,¡± he tried. ¡°Stay away from me,¡± she swapped to coms, whispering as quietly as she dared. Another gunshot. Vio whipped her head around, thinking that maybe Arabel had returned from the dead. Razer dove for cover. But Arabel was still on the ground, glinting with pooling wetness. This was the work of a marksman. The only one left was DeMoss, and apparently, he was more dangerous than he¡¯d seemed. As quietly as she could, Vio ran for it, hoping no further shots would take her as she went. In all probability, if she was hit she wouldn¡¯t even know it. Kobayashi
¡°Intent matters. Death on its own is death. Annihilation of the soul. Death for Mankind is a reach towards perfection. All we have is each other.¡± ~Deacon Manuellus Panhominae
Vio was lost. She didn¡¯t dare bring up the lights, but she was turned around. The front and the back of the cargo bay were mysterious to her. She couldn¡¯t tell where the capos'' gun drop was. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe Razer and the other guy, DeMoss, would kill each other and she¡¯d win this dumb little game. ¡°Vio.¡± Razer again. Vio clenched her teeth. ¡°I¡¯m sorry about earlier.¡± She got behind a smaller crate and shoved as hard as she could, shoved until it moved across the ground. ¡°Rrrgh.¡± ¡°You okay?¡± She tried to slow the crate before it hit the cargo container, the massive wall-sized box of corrugated metal big enough to build a lower-hive house into. But she failed, and there was a low pong. She paused, listening with all her strength for approaching footsteps. Silence. Semi-satisfied, she hopped up on the crate. ¡°I mean it,¡± he continued. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I scared you. I know we said that when it was down to just the two of us, we¡¯d get hired on merit. I honestly didn¡¯t think the final test was one I¡¯d do so much better at than you.¡± She jumped, hiking her arms over the top of the cargo container. The bare skin of her armpit was pinched badly as she began to slide back down, but she ignored it, struggling to pull herself up. The remaining four fingers of her mechanical arm scrabbled at the corrugated metal, hoisting her up, inexorably up. Her left wasn¡¯t doing as well. Mechanical arms were a bit stronger than fleshy ones. ¡°It¡¯s the final test, where alliances are nothing, promises are nothing. That¡¯s true. But I also said I preferred we wouldn¡¯t betray each other.¡± Her shoes squeaked against the metal below her. Her mechanical arm was failing, bringing her up to about a 50-degree angle and then grinding against something, dropping her back a few inches. Vio got her chest above the corner of the wall and flopped forward, straining to pull her hips up. The servos in her elbow squeaked. ¡°Then,¡± she grunted, ¡°stop killing people.¡± With a final grunt of pain and exertion, she hoisted her hips up over the upper corner of the box, rolling onto the top panting. ¡°What do you mean?¡± She didn¡¯t answer. She just took a moment to catch her breath. ¡°Vio, this is a test of knives and bullets. And I have these. I¡¯m not going to lose for you. Arabel shot at me. She shot at you.¡± ¡°You¡¯re killing everyone over a job,¡± she panted. ¡°What are you doing?¡± he asked curiously. She scooted forward as quietly as she could, looking over the maze of stacked cargo containers, crates, boxes, everything. Vio withdrew her dataslate. She forgot that her right-hand thumb was gone and nearly dropped it, fumbling for a moment, the twitching servos making her arm react not quite as it should. Finally, she caught the slate in her left, steadying her right into a cupped position and placing the slate carefully into it. Satisfied that it wasn¡¯t going to slide out, she pulled up its connection to her ocular implants. She coded them to flag movement, to raise the brightness of the surrounding area. She didn¡¯t raise it too high. Didn¡¯t want to blind herself if the lights came back suddenly. Just enough to take the grey two shades higher. ¡°This has gone absolutely sideways¡± a second voice in her earbead. Deep, soft. Unexpected. Vio startled. ¡°Fuck,¡± she breathed, nearly dropping the slate. ¡°Sorry, sorry, didn¡¯t mean to startle you. I just noticed a lot of comms traffic in the twenty-six megahertz range.¡± ¡°DeMoss,¡± Razer breathed. ¡°I¡¯m not talking to your knifey friend,¡± DeMoss said. ¡°You, on the other hand, seem like the last reasonable person left.¡± There was a small blip as he left the channel. A small vibration from her dataslate told her she was getting a ping. She considered it for a moment. A beat passed. A second. The slate showed an invitation to an encrypted channel; something she probably should have done to secure her feed with Razer. They¡¯d never needed it before. Nobody else could do what she could do. ¡°Vio, listen to me,¡± Razer said, but she cut the connection. Somewhat clumsily, she accepted. Then she stowed her dataslate. ¡°What do you want?¡± she asked cautiously. ¡°I¡¯ll make you a deal,¡± he said. ¡°Small, Dark, and Edgy is unstable, and I still want the job. We take him down, and you just tell Vinnius you¡¯re giving up your claim to the Seneschal position. You in?¡± ¡°You shot at me,¡± she snapped. ¡°I shot,¡± some light grunting, some vaguely metallic noises transferred over the signal, ¡°between you and Homicidal Blade Boy. Didn¡¯t seem fair to get his brains all over you after you¡¯d got a drink of Arabel¡¯s carotid.¡± ¡°Oh god,¡± she jerked, rolled onto her back and felt at her shirt. Drying liquid in hard little patches littered her front. ¡°Oh god.¡± She squeezed her eyes shut. ¡°Fuck. Okay.¡± ¡°You in?¡± ¡°No,¡± she rasped. ¡°What do you mean, ¡®take him out¡¯.¡± There was a silence. ¡°Well, I was going to kill him. If that¡¯s not you, we can get a little more elaborate.¡± He paused. ¡°Also, I¡¯ve got a really big gun, and that tends to streamline your thinking. I¡¯m open to ideas.¡± ¡°What if I-¡° ¡°Wait,¡± he hissed. ¡°Shh.¡± She waited, scanning the darkness. Her motion program was flagging lots of random pixels and video artefact, but she thought she saw something moving ahead and to the left. Maybe. ¡°Are you walking?¡± he breathed. ¡°Ground. Left of the entrance.¡± ¡°No,¡± she whispered. ¡°Just checking. I don¡¯t¡­ want to¡­ shoot you on accident.¡± She waited. And then startled. Muzzle flare, shining from somewhere between crates, somewhere to her four. Vio dropped her dataslate. It clattered down to the ground between crates. A couple more distant gunshots, some heavy breathing through the microbead. A few flares of light ¨C there, near the motion earlier. More motion, running, someone running. She caught him between crates and the motion disappeared, reappearing from behind some other cargo boxes. Slowly ¨C fast movement made her motion-flag turn the cargo bay into a psychedelic hellscape ¨C Vio shimmied down the side of the shipping crate, hanging by the mechanical arm. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. It seized for a moment and she dropped. It was a surprisingly long way down. Not long. Just¡­ surprising. She expected to hit the floor and when she didn¡¯t, her stomach jumped into her throat. Slap! Her shoes hit the thick metal ground with a horribly loud sound. Vio dropped down, feeling around like some kind of blinded children¡¯s storybook character, searching for a flat tiny slate on a flat, dark expanse. ¡°Every time I fire,¡± DeMoss grunted raggedly, ¡°he knows where I am.¡± Vio scooted out from between the two crates, praying that Razer wasn¡¯t waiting around the corner. Her fingers scrabbled at metal and thick rivets and weldlines. ¡°I think,¡± DeMoss breathed, ¡°I think I may have lost him.¡± But that meant that Razer would be searching. Vio felt her way along the bottom of the crate. There was a tiny gap between this nearest one and the ground. On a hunch, she slid her fingers under it, feeling along the edge. Motion flared briefly, somewhere in her peripheral vision. She jerked instinctively to look, and the world swam in shades of blue and red. By the time it cleared there was nothing there. ¡°Okay, we¡¯re good,¡± DeMoss panted. Another bloom of motion. Vio ducked back between the crates, fighting the nausea and the red/blue blur. ¡°Did you get him?¡± she breathed. She blinked a few times; this was starting to make her head hurt. ¡°That man is very hard to hit. Okay. About what I was saying earlier. You in?¡± ¡°What if I still want to be the Seneschal,¡± Vio asked. She tucked her fingers under the gap between the crate and the floor. ¡°Knowing what you know about Salieri and his team and everything. How they treated us. You really want to work here?¡± ¡°What else is there?¡± she murmured. Riches and glory and the stars. Or home, a steel-toothed trap. ¡°It¡¯s always like this, isn¡¯t it? Powerful men come with their money and their appetites. And we tear each other apart for the privilege of living and dying for them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s just how it is.¡± ¡°All this violence at his whim, and where is he? It¡¯ll never change. This will be your life. What does he really have for you?¡± Vio thought about this. ¡°I need to get off the planet.¡± ¡°Anywhere in particular?¡± ¡°Hm?¡± ¡°Anywhere in particular? Or are you okay with making it to, say, the nearest big spaceport and getting a shuttle from there?¡± Movement flared nearby, off to the right. Vio stared at the darkness warily. ¡°What do you mean?¡± ¡°If I end up Seneschal, I¡¯ll get you a lift to wherever Salieri is stopping next. Swear.¡± ¡°Gonna need something in writing, boyo.¡± ¡°Here? Who¡¯s even going to enforce ugh okay fine.¡± Vio gave up on the slate. She was too exposed here, and this kind of environment was Razer¡¯s. She made her way to a box that came up to about chest-height, moving slowly so as not to hit her visual motion flare. Obviously, she couldn¡¯t turn it off now. Her HUD blipped. Incoming richtext. She pulled it into an overlay. This Exchange of Services agreement (henceforth to be known as the ¡°Agreement¡±)¡­ Motherfucker had made a contract. If she wasn¡¯t trying to be quiet, Vio would have whistled through her teeth. ¡°Whaaaa¡­?¡± ¡°Scroll down to ¡®description of services¡¯,¡± DeMoss said. There was a bit of a smirk in his voice. Beginning on this day 0644780.M40 Vio checked her chrono. That was about five minutes ago. the Hacker will provide the following services (collectively known as the ¡°Service¡±):
  1. Kill, disable, or otherwise disqualify (or assist to kill, disable, or otherwise disqualify) candidate known as Razer (henceforth to be known as ¡°Crazy Knife Nut¡±) from candidacy as Seneschal High Factorum¡­
Vio gave this some careful thought. ¡°Why do you want to work for these guys?¡± ¡°Reasons.¡± "Do not fuck with me." "The privilege of living and dying for powerful men." He sounded a little sad at this. "Fuck off." "I''m serious," he chuckled. "I''m already in it. It''s just a choice of which man and what death." "Right, who''s out for your head then?" "Surely there''s something you''d rather not talk about. If I was out to win through blood I''d have turned you in for bugging the cameras." Vio thought about this some more. She shimmied up the box and back up the large crate. "''Big gun tends to streamline your thinking''." There was a pause. "You were nice to me," he said quietly. "When?" "Chapel." Vio screwed up her eyes. She thudded her forehead gently against the corrugated metal. No good choices, just which powerful man would kill her. ¡°Do I have to sign your dumb contract?¡± He tried and failed to keep the relief out of his voice. ¡°Whatever you want. I just did it because you asked.¡± Vio took a deep breath. ¡°Fine. Whatever. Fuck Salieri anyway. Guy¡¯s org is a mess.¡± Vio scanned the cargo bay. Something caught her eyes. Another flare of movement, closer this time. Bigger. ¡°I think he¡¯s coming.¡± ¡°Where are you? You on top of a box?¡± Vio weighed this. No safe options. ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Think I see you.¡± There was a little clomp behind her. Vio whirled. Movement. Everywhere. A gunshot clanged off of the crate nearby, almost blinding bright, and the movement flare, it was everywhere and blinding her, blocking off her ability to tell what was going on. ¡°If I can¡¯t shoot him, can I damage him a little?¡± Vio dove off the crate, and the world spun dizzyingly around her, blooms of movement as she rushed toward the ground. She caught it at a bad angle, slamming into her flesh shoulder, cracking her head badly. She clenched her teeth. ¡°Aaargh,¡± she moaned. Stunned, her flesh arm flopped to the side, settling on something hard, rectangular, and plasticky. A flare above her. Vio rolled to one side, grabbed the object. Her slate. Her slate. Moving with speed born of instinct, she swiped at it, trying to disable her visual flare, but dropping brightness instead. All the way to minimum. The sound of soft shoes on metal. She ducked and rolled in a random direction, luck and memory keeping her from slamming into an obstacle. Red and blue bloomed in her visual field, the only things that she could see. Quickly, Vio concentrated on the dataslate, shaking it gently in her mechanical hand so that she could even see it. She removed the movement script, and hit the lights. Gleam. Corrugated metal. Fluorescent strips. Leather jacket. Silver studs. Razer squinted painfully at her. ¡°Vio,¡± he grunted. But she was not blinded, because the brightness on her eyes was at negative forty. She scrambled up a nearby box, swiped back to defaults. With that catlike fluidity, he ran for her and her box, bounded upwards, foot outstretched, ready to land perfectly beside her ¨C At that instant, she turned off the gravity. He lunged up into the air. Looking around in wonder as he floated, his arms flailing wildly trying to swim back to the ground. The angle he went at took him right into a nearby cargo container. He hit it heavily with an ¡°oof.¡± The box shifted backwards an inch or so, drifting as he slid along it, scrabbling against it with fingernails. He finally managed to find purchase on a ridge of metal framing the box, grabbed it with one hand. There was a moment as he looked at Vio, looked at himself floating, smiled at the weird free-grav whimsy of it all. She pushed with her toes until she was rising gently, and he smiled all the more at her. ¡°Hey.¡± Vio touched her right hand to the metal frame and pulsed the electricity. His fingers flexed, holding him tighter to the frame as his body contorted under the effects of the shock. His eyes rolled wildly backwards, and when the pulse ended he stopped moving. Vio took her hand off the frame and put the gravity back on. She landed neatly; the same could not be said for Razer. He was out before he slammed to the ground. ¡°It¡¯s done,¡± she panted. There was a little blip in her HUD as the terms of a contract were fulfilled. How had DeMoss gotten it to sync into her task list? She shook her head sharply. A thought occurred to her. ¡°What about you?¡± ¡°Mm?¡± ¡°This is really what you want? Tearing yourself apart for a powerful man?¡± There was a brush of static. A soft, near-ironic sigh. ¡°What else is there?¡±
¡°What has happened here?¡± Salieri was back in his skull helmet and carapace, glowering at his caporegime. ¡°Long story, boss. We got a lotta bodies to dump.¡± ¡°Explaining it is probably the Seneschal¡¯s job,¡± DiBattista put in. ¡°Very well,¡± Salieri turned to DeMoss. ¡°So you¡¯re the new man.¡± ¡°Yes, Lord Captain,¡± DeMoss said. The Lord Captain studied him for a moment. ¡°Hm.¡± He turned to Vinnius and DiBattista. ¡°And you are satisfied with this choice? I recall hearing about a woman.¡± ¡°She was a bad idea,¡± Vinnius said. DiBattista nodded and they both joined in shaking their heads and waving their hands no. ¡°Nope.¡± ¡°Very bad.¡± ¡°Terrible, in fact.¡± ¡°But this one,¡± Salieri turned back to DeMoss. ¡°Trained at the Academy in accounting, economics, and logistical strategy,¡± DeMoss said. ¡°He hacked an enemy comms channel during a firefight,¡± Vinnius agreed. ¡°Negotiated an alliance during a combat situation,¡± DiBattista put in. ¡°Held his own against a crazy gun lady and a crazy knife guy.¡± ¡°Teamwork, communication, and leadership moments.¡± ¡°Collaborative mindset.¡± ¡°During the beginning of the meeting at least,¡± DiBattista snickered. ¡°This is your guy, boss,¡± Vinnius said. ¡°Your guy,¡± DiBattista agreed. Salieri looked at DeMoss. DeMoss looked back at Salieri. Salieri held out his hand. ¡°Welcome,¡± he said, ¡°to Salieri¡¯s Shadow.¡± Murder Weapon
Because you came here, an outsider, thinking they¡¯d let you just walk into their circles and drink their wine and sully their floors with your honest feet. Hah. This is Scintilla. Everyone lies. ~Lady Iulia Paxton, the Jewel of Sibellus
At the edge of purpose, power. Sibellus was a city. Vast, dark, deep, lit with neon glow and furtive shadow. It was also a puzzle-box, or a game of xiangqi with a million players, faces hidden in the shade above. An interlocking sequence of pieces moved at cross purposes, or cooperatively, depending on the movement of heaven or earth. A shadow, more dynamic than most, slipped fluidly through the back alleys in a district of back alleyways. Another zu tile moved by the whims of another simple gamepiece, moved by a gamepiece above. How far up did it go, before you stopped meeting game tiles and started finding the players? Somewhere above, a voxphone chimed. Razer contemplated this. He was on the wrong streetlevel. How irritating. The shadow reversed direction, and made for the nearest hatch. He pulled his hood down over his face. It was raining. It always rained, in lower Sibellus. The chime continued as he made his way through narrow, water-slick streets. Even this time, the night markets would be still open, sallow-faced hivers shouting their wares. Every so often one of them would get lucky and a rich offworld tourist would be drawn in by hanging synthsilks or badly-stitched fans or cheap ceramic teasets. But this, this was Hua territory. No one smart would be out this time of night. Not here. The water rolled down Razer¡¯s hood, slid down in beads across his leather jacket. The rain was not true rain. None of these sallow-faced people saw true rain, or true sun. Mankind¡¯s birthright had been stolen from him through tower and wealth. Instead, this was an artefact of the incredible size of hive stacked above. Great pumps drew water from the sea nearby, drained the lakes, swallowed the clouds to feed the city. It was distributed by treatment-effort. A broken pipe here, a leak there, dripping down, down, until there were always many broken pipes above you. The rain was tiny failures in plumbing on a mass scale. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. And it usually contained almost undetectable quantities of piss. A few Hua in thick golden chains with facial tattoos flashed knuckle-dusters threateningly at him as he passed, but they knew him and backed away once they saw the silvery knives in his hands. If they did not, they knew the lean lethality he radiated, the type. Runners came here sometimes. And runners usually worked in teams. The voxphone chimed again. Razer checked his wallet. A transfer blip from his side-hustle; two thousand for elimination of Hortensia Hora, for the crime of trying to escape the Peaches. Not bad. But now for his primary role. A couple more turns brought him to it. Razer ducked inside, relishing the reprieve from the storm. ¡°My money?¡± he told the receiver. ¡°You have it.¡± The voice was hazy with interference, high-pitched, almost like the tones of small, silvery bells. Faint Malfian accent. ¡°I do not,¡± Razer said patiently. ¡°Check now.¡± He checked his wallet. A transfer blip popped up. ¡°This is not all that was promised,¡± Razer observed. ¡°It was what we agreed upon. You did not successfully implant the mole.¡± ¡°I eliminated the target,¡± Razer argued. ¡°Five thousand. As promised.¡± ¡°You did not protect the plant. No money.¡± ¡°I am a knife.¡± Razer calmed himself. ¡°I cut who I was bid to cut, as was my duty. I kept your Arabel alive until she turned her tongue on herself. Whatever comes next, is not my duty.¡± ¡°That does not sound like my problem.¡± Razer took a breath. Tile to tile, but even a soldier can threaten a general. It was all a trick of positioning. He tried to remember what Vio¡¯s slate had said. He took the chance. ¡°I know you,¡± he said slowly. Heart pounding. ¡°Penelope Argos, Arbiter.¡± There was a long pause. ¡°I do not know what you are saying.¡± ¡°You know,¡± he said. ¡°And you know that you will not see me coming.¡± There was another pause. His wallet vibrated. Razer checked. Five thousand Scintillan dollars, as promised. Worth about two or three thousand throne gelt. Satisfactory. ¡°We will remember this.¡± ¡°Do you have the operating budget to?¡± The line went dead. Farewell It was surprisingly easy to find work on a spaceship. Word spread of her exploits ¨C actually her survival ¨C and Vio just had to put out the word a little, that she did odd jobs for a living. The crew population of Salieri¡¯s Shadow was ridiculous. Small-city sized. Probably the new seneschal knew. Something big. The gunnery crews all hated each other, and held near-religious worship of their specific weapon. The engine teams were a mess of politics. The acolytes tried and failed to stay above it all. Of course everyone wanted something. That was like, the basic rule of human existence. Or something. So she was lying on her little bunk ¨C DeMoss¡¯ goodwill had secured her a reasonable single-bunk cabin ¨C thumbing through the shipboard currency she¡¯d earned for this, and various possible exchange rates. And that was when the door chimed. ¡°It¡¯s open,¡± Vio yelled, and then thumbed her little lock-script. The door, in defiance of all shipboard security protocols, accepted and swished open. DeMoss looked at the door. He looked at her, lying on her stomach on a heap of clothes piled on her clothes-hamper, formerly known as her bunk. ¡°I am going to have to fix that, aren¡¯t I?¡± ¡°Nah, it¡¯s fine.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t think so,¡± he stepped gingerly over a secondary clothes hamper, formerly known as her floor. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°That sounds like a you problem.¡± Vio palmed her slate, shoved it into her back pocket. ¡°What do you want?¡± DeMoss maneuvered around a little chair set with scattered bits of holocircuit hooked up to the VR headset stacked on the tiny desk. ¡°Thical,¡± he said, cautiously trying not to trip over any wires. ¡°What do you know about it?¡± Vio watched him try and maneuver meter-long legs over her setup. She did not help. ¡°I dunno. Stuffy place, I hear. Boring.¡± ¡°Is that where you¡¯d like to end up?¡± Vio shrugged. ¡°Give me a bit to grind up some contacts. I dunno. Probably not.¡± He pushed some of her dirty clothes to the side and sat on the bed next to her. The chair was also not a viable seating area. Vio scooted to give him room. ¡°We¡¯re approaching. Tomorrow, we translate out of the Warp. So I hear.¡± ¡°Eh, yeah I¡¯ll head down. See if I can drum up some work. Try not to leave without me.¡± ¡°Alright.¡± He looked at her searchingly. For a moment, Vio was reminded of Arabel, the way his eyes flicked over her, her face, her shoulders. Searching for hints. ¡°My man,¡± she said, ¡°don¡¯t just sit there and eyefuck me. Ask, or chill.¡± A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ¡°Alright. Want to?¡± She threw a sock at him. He plucked it out of the air with a surprising agility, and then crinkled his nose. He laughed. He tossed the offending article to the side. ¡°I was actually going to ask something else.¡± ¡°Swear to god it had better be-¡° He held up both hands. ¡°It¡¯s not that.¡± She gave him a skeptical look. He took a breath. He looked her straight in the eye, sea-grey irises tightening around black pupils. ¡°I know you have it.¡± Vio was wary of more sexual propositions. ¡°What?¡± DeMoss¡¯ eyes darkened. He clenched his fists. ¡°Give me my fucking wallet.¡±