CHAPTER 5
Temple District, New Eden
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 7. 08:48
Returning the hostages takes us the better part of the morning. Because of the pharmies, they sleep all the way to the temple quadrant on the edge of New Eden, where we reach the Bramimonde estate.
The main house is a cruciform of metal and concrete with high windows. A bank of terraces juts out over the gardens. I grew up in a house like this. Until the CorpComs burned it to the ground as punishment for my father’s crimes.
We meet three servants at the rear entrance. Two of them sweep the children away, while the third servant—a silver-haired man in a brown, plain tunic—leads us to Dame Bramimonde’s inner sanctum.
“I’ll collect our fee,” I tell Vienne.
“Affirmative,” she says. “We will rendezvous at Ares’s pub afterward, no?”
“See you soon. And Vienne?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks. I couldn’t have done—”
“No, chief, I failed you. I should’ve grabbed the girl before she fell.”
“No. I missed the switch.”
She raises a hand, then puts it down. Awkward movement. Awkward silence. Didn’t know she had an awkward bone in her body. She moves with the kind of grace that takes your breath away if you let it. Me, I never let it, because I’m the chief, and the way a soldier in your command moves isn’t something you get to notice. Our relationship is purely professional. Not that we have a relationship relationship. Just a professional one. That’s purely professional.
“It is never the chief’s fault,” Vienne says.
It’s always the chief’s fault. Mimi taught me that. But arguing will only embarrass her more.
“Meet you at the pub.”
“Are you sure, chief?” she asks. “Would you like backup?”
“I think I can handle an aged Orthocrat,” I say, and wink.
“You incompetent idiot!” Dame Bramimonde screeches as I enter. The air in here is stuffy, and it smells of silk flowers and dust. Same for the Dame. On both counts. “How could you have made such a mess of a simple mission?”
“Nice to see you again, too, Dame,” I say. Then ask Mimi to scan the room. Dame Bramimonde isn’t the most trustworthy client we’ve had.
The Dame sits in a high-backed chair. Her face is a white mask of powder, azurite lips, eyebrows a thin line of indigo, straightened and dyed cobalt bangs, and dozens of strings of cerulean beads woven into her hair. She is Orthocracy aristocracy, meaning that she’s fluent in several languages, has exquisite taste in art, and will slit your throat if given half a chance.
“Scan is copacetic,” Mimi says. “Unlike this woman’s manners.”
I answer the Dame’s question. “The mission wasn’t that simple. You left out a few facts that complicated the whole operation.”
“Complicated? Ridiculous.” Dame Bramimonde strokes a flat-faced cat in her lap. Its purr sounds like a series of hic-cups. “I sent you to rescue my daughter and return with the ransom. Instead, you bring me that…that boy. I suppose it’s my own fault, hiring dalit instead of professionals.”
Bile rises in my throat. Right now the Dame’s children are getting scrubbed clean, every nook and cranny hosed with water—real water, not the ChemAqua we commoners use. Meanwhile, I’m still covered in dried sewage. My body a walking pile of stink. Having to beg for a contracted commission. I despise Orthocrats.
“What’s wrong, Regulator?” She pinches the animal on her lap. It cries out but doesn’t dare move. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Nothing has my tongue.”
“Then why are you still here? The stench from your person is destroying the olfactory feng shui of my home. Oh, forgive me—you don’t know the definition of olfactory.”
“You do so!” Mimi pipes in before I shush her.
“I’m waiting for the commission,” I say flatly.
“We established,” the Dame says, “that you didn’t complete the job as directed.”
“We brought back your daughter. Who, by the way, is not a kid. Why didn’t you tell me she was a Regulator?”
She curls her lip. “You lost the ransom and you did not kill Postule. To think he once was my trustee.”
“Postule was protected by shock troops—another minor detail you left out. He got the ransom, but we returned your son. That makes us even.”
“I don’t want the boy!” Her voice pitches an octave higher. “If you had returned instead with a sack full of the excrement you’ve wallowed in, I would be more pleased with the result.”
I smile through clenched teeth. “You know, CorpCom military would be interested in a Dame who hires Regulators to do her dirty work.”
“Sharing that information would be stupid.”
“I’ve done lots of stupid things.”
“That is painfully obvious.” She sniffs. “What would CorpCom think of a dalit who does mercenary work?”
“Unattached Regulators are outside CorpCom military authority.”
“Unattached? Is that what you call working for handouts? Better you had performed self-immolation when your father was disgraced.”
“He wasn’t disgraced—he—” I say, and instantly regret it.
Dame Bramimonde’s smirk twists into a macabre grin. “Failure is its own disgrace.”
“Pay me.”
“Half. Or nothing.”
“You’re a thief.”
“I’m a businesswoman.” She removes a small metal case from a drawer on her console. Tosses it to me. “Here is your coin.”
I feel the weight of the coin. It’s not enough. She’s shorted me, and I’m not going quietly. “Why just the girl? Why save her?”
“She’s my heir, of course. The woman who will take over as CEO when I retire.”
“She’s also a battle school–trained Regulator. Why would your heiress become a Regulator?”
“A necessary evil, I assure you. The clichéd warrior CEO is en vogue. My daughter will make that sacrifice for the good of her family. Surely you know that as well as anyone, don’t you, Durango? Or should I use your real name, Jacob Stringfellow?”
I turn my back on her. Head for the door.
“How dare you insult me in my own home! Better men have seen the gallows for less!”
In the before days, you could be put to death for disrespecting an Orthocrat. “Times have changed, Dame. Deal with it.”
“Come back here!” Her screamed is followed a second later by the crash of pottery smashing against the wall. “Dalit!”
I’m slamming the door behind me, ready escape this mausoleum, when the Dame’s servant blocks my path, darting from behind a silk azalea bush. He gestures for me to follow him to the main entry lock.
He places a finger to his lips and peeks around the corner. Crooks a finger, calling someone to join us.
“Mimi? Scan please.”
“One other heartbeat, cowboy. It’s Ebi.”
“Ebi?” I say.
The girl we rescued is gone. In her place stands a regal young woman. Freshly scrubbed, her broad cheekbones emit a warm, cosmetic glow. She dismisses the servant and pulls me into an alcove.
“I wanted to thank you,” she says. “Your davos risked your life to save us.”
“All in a day’s work.”
She takes my hand. “If you had only rescued me, I might believe that. However, you saved my brother as well, and I know—I know that his life was not part of the contract.”
I rub my head. “Any Regulator would’ve done the same thing in my place.”
“But Mother would not have. You saved my brother’s life,” Ebi says, bowing. “The House of Bramimonde owes you, Regulator. I swear to repay you one day—in full measure.”