CHAPTER 30
Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00
The face of the queen has hardened since we graduated battle school. Her hair is longer, too. Of course. Cadets keep their hair shorn close to the scalp, male and female alike, and the first thing graduates do is stop cutting it. Cadets. That’s how I remember her.
Younger. Gentler.
Human.
“Cowboy,” Mimi starts to say.
“Let me handle this, Mimi. Off-line mode, please.”
“But—”
“Off-line mode.”
There’s no noise when Mimi goes off-line, but I know when it happens. Like I know when someone’s watching me and then isn’t.
The queen carries herself like royalty. Shoulders square and level. Chin held just so. A quick flick that sends her curly tresses behind her shoulders. When we’re a meter apart, I call her by the name I knew: “Eceni.”
“No one has call me that since—”
“Since you decided you liked the taste of human flesh? Or since you joined a band of murderers?”
She laughs. It sounds different, too. Deeper. Meaner. “I meant to say, since the end of battle school. Of course, you went by a different name then, too. Didn’t you, Jacob?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“Do the rusters think so? I suspect they would find your real name to be very relevant.”
“I am not my father.”
“Obviously not. Else you’d have committed ritual suicide in the New Eden square alongside his other Regulators. Instead, you let them chop off half your little pinkie finger. Ouch. I bet that smarts. Sort of like pulling off a hangnail.”
Unlike the Dr?u, who stink of body odor and rotted cheese, Eceni smells like fruit. Strawberries. My god, that means she bathes. Washes her long black hair. Tries to keep her humanity while living among a pack of savages. But how can you stay human when you live among predators?
“Is that why you wanted a parlay?” I catch myself hiding the mutilated hand behind my back. Forget that, I think and make a fist with it. “To rehash old news?”
“I don’t, you know? Like the taste of flesh. I’m no cannibal.”
“You just enjoy the company of killers.”
She taps her teeth with a painted fingernail. “You have the same taste. How many medals of valor did your sweet Vienne own? One for every soldier she’s killed, no? What does a girl do with over a thousand medals? Keep them in her dowry chest for her future husband?”
Future husband stings in a way that I hadn’t expected. “Regulators kill for a reason,” I say, almost snarling, “and only because we have no other choice.”
“Of course, you do. That’s what the Tenets say, and we must only do what the Tenets tell us. The Dr?u have rules, too, Jacob. They’re just more simple and easier to remember.”
“What rules would that be?”
“Eat, drink, and take whatever you want.” She chews the tip of her fingernail, the same way she did when we were in battle school. “And what I want is treasure.”
“Then you came a long way for nothing. These folk don’t have enough water to drink, much less some treasure.”
“Reckon I’ll have to kill them all to find out.” She runs a hand down my arm. “Your symbiarmor’s looking a little worse for wear. Too bad. You always looked so sharp in a uniform. And not so bad out of it, either.”
She winks. It makes me want to chunder. But she moves closer. Lays a delicate hand on my shoulder. “Know why I stopped wearing symbiarmor, Jake? It makes you lazy. You start thinking that nobody can hurt you, and you stop paying attention to the details.”
“Like what?”
“Like the fact that I just stuck a shiv into your gut.”
I look down. A blade sticks out of my armor.
“Didn’t even feel it, did you, mon cher? You won’t feel it the next time, either, except it will be in the base of your skull, where your symbiarmor can’t protect you.”
I pull out the shiv. Toss it over the side of the bridge into the gorge. “You sicken me.”
“What is it, Jake?” she whispers into my ear. Her breath is warm and moist against my face. “Can’t believe I’m the girl you loved? Is it so hard to believe that people change? Look at you. Once upon a time you were the privileged son of a CorpCom CEO with the makings of a great general. Now you’re leading a dalit davos protecting a group of rusters who would strip your body for coin if they had half the chance.”
I shrug. “It’s true.”
“Glad to see that you’ve come around. Now about that treasure—”
“It’s true,” I say. Take her by the shoulders. Push her away. “That you’re not the girl I knew. She was a damned good soldier and a human being.”
“I’m still a damned good soldier, Jacob.” She smiles. Skips around me. “I married after you dumped me, you know. A CorpCom golden boy with a pretty face and a thick bank account. Guess where he is now.”
I stare straight ahead. “No thanks.”
“I fed him to the Dr?u. It was easier than divorce.” She presses her back against mine and giggles. “You know, I have friends. Powerful friends who can do almost anything. Anything like free a sick old man from the gulag.”
“Impossible.”
“Everything is possible, Jake. You of all people should know that. After all, you’re above average intelligence.” She twirls around me, the hem of her dress rising about her knees. She moves like water, her dress like growing rings. “Far above, from what I read.”
“What have you read?” I steel myself against her. She’s sparring with me, just the same as if we were fighting with knives.
“Just a little information in some old files I found. Isn’t it kind of creepy having another person in your brain? Sure there’s room in that big head of yours?” She leans into my chest and brushes my lips with hers. “Get me the treasure, Jacob Stringfellow, or I’ll feed you to the Dr?u after I bring this mine down around the rusters’ heads.”
I flex my jaw. Turn my lips into a thin, hard line. Push her gently to my side. “I think that’s an empty threat.”
“Try explaining that to the rusters, Jake.” She taps me on the nose, then turns heel. “They know all about the Dr?u and empty threats.” As she walks away, her skirt sways with the rhythm of her hips. I watch until she’s halfway across the bridge.
“Awake up, Mimi,” I say. “Record her biorhythm signature.”
Precisely thirteen point six seconds later, I feel Mimi’s presence. “Done, cowboy.”
I stand on the bridge, arms folded, acting like Janus guarding a toll bridge.
When Eceni reaches the safety of her soldiers, she turns and shrieks, “Cowards! Fools! Know this! You have one day to surrender the treasure to the Dr?u. Or we shall kill you all, starting with your anointed savior, Jacob Stringfellow.”
Laughing, she grabs the launcher and fires a mortar into the ceiling. Behind me, the miners scurry for shelter. Rock rains down on me, bouncing off my suit. It feels like an avalanche.