A powerful, musky scent filled the elevator, but I was too distracted to pay much attention to the sudden warnings from my nanowarfare suite. There was a skull dangling from a wide leather belt right in front of my face. A real human skull, that had belonged to someone who only died a few weeks ago.
The pistol hanging next to it was a giant 16mm model that would probably blow holes in a breaching bot, and the guy had an axe that weighed more than I did strapped to his back. My sensors picked up synthetic muscles, diamondoid bones, layers of subdermal armor and a massive nuke pack hidden deep inside that barrel chest. Crude stuff, sure, but massively powerful.
The orc grinned down at me. “Hey, little girl. You like my trophy, or you just checking out the merchandise?”
I squashed the terrified squeak that wanted to come out. Don’t show weakness, Alice. Being afraid is just asking for something bad to happen.
“I’ve never seen anyone pull off wearing a real skull like that,” I managed. “I think it’s the axe that makes it work.”
One of the other orcs groaned. “Aw, shit. Don’t get him started on the damned axe.”
Skull Guy puffed out his chest. “Toldja, Thag. Chicks dig the axe. They see this shit, they come running for kloms.”
Thag just snorted. “Yeah, Garkin, cuz they wanna see what kinda dumbass hauls around a melee weapon on a fuckin’ spaceship.”
“You never know when a problem might get up close and personal. ‘Sides, you seen it work.”
“You make this shit too complicated, Garkin,” another orc complained. “Doing all this babe magnet crap like some lame-ass human. You wanna slip some chick the big green D, you just gotta show her what she’s gettin’. Like this.”
His hand went to the front of his leather pants. The other orcs all groaned, but no one stopped him from turning my way and whipping out…
Good Gaia, that thing was huge.
“Eeeewwww! Gross!” Emla exclaimed.
I boosted to fast time, and spent a really embarrassing couple of milliseconds getting my expression back under control. Gaia, there was enough biowarfare stuff in the air now to fry a normal person’s brain. Eight different drugs and a whole bunch of nanotech, all of it trying to make me react the same way. I was supposed to just kind of melt into a whimpering puddle, wasn’t I?
You’re checking it out, Emla commed.
Hey, I’ve never seen one before. Goodness, it’s as big as my arm.
Yeah, and he’s waving it right in your face. What are we going to do, Alice? I don’t know if we can fight these guys. They’ve got so much armor I can’t tell if our guns will penetrate it, and their spaceproofing might be good enough to stop Ash’s tricks.
Considering that Ash was sitting on my shoulder just a few cems from the guy’s junk, having him take a bite out of it would probably be pretty darned effective. But Captain Sokol had warned me to stay out of trouble if I could possibly avoid it, and he usually knew what he was talking about.
I’m worried too, I admitted. But maybe we don’t have to fight them. Let me try something.
I dropped into normal time, and did my best teenage eyeroll.
“Put that thing away before you accidentally brain someone with it,” I said. “Honestly, you must be pretty hard up if you’re hitting on little kids.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then they all started laughing.
“She’s got you there, Wugh. Now put that shit away. You get yourself mobbed by hookers, you’re payin’ for’em.”
Wugh stuffed his thing back in his pants with a grumble, and threw a confused look my way.
“Da fuck are you, bitch?” He muttered. “Some kinda full body job, or just a fake?”
“Milspec everything, plus you’re a year too early for me,” I said casually.
The doors opened, and they all started filing out of the elevator. Garkin grinned down at me.
“You’re pretty stout for a little girl, Alice. That age header for real, or are you some kinda secret Masu-kai ninja supersoldier?”
“Who, me? I’m just a little girl out running some errands, honest.” I blinked up at him innocently.
“Yeah, suuure you are. What kinda errand takes a couple of kids to the Lower Tier at night, anyway?”
“I’m getting ready for a meeting with one of the Masu-kai bosses tomorrow,” I told him. “I can’t say any more, because I’m supposed to kill people who know too much and I don’t have any nukes on me. You?”
“Aw, we’re just checkin’ out the auctions at Foka’s. Word is he’s got some good shit up on the block tonight.”
He nodded to the plaza right across from the elevator bank, where a crowd was gathered around a raised dais. A group of terrified-looking women were lined up there, wearing nothing but the collars on their necks and the shackles that held their wrists behind their backs. The auctioneer was taking bids, while a big virtual billboard hovered above the crowd announcing the night’s upcoming auctions. Passengers kidnapped from a liner in the Corporate Worlds cluster, including some managers. Prisoners of war from a battle on some colony I didn’t recognize. Experimental androids stolen from a secret lab in Greater Victoria, and the former leaders of a fallen pirate clan.
I wasn’t sure which of them was supposed to be the ‘good shit’, but I couldn’t really bring myself to care. The sign that read ‘authentic human prisoners - untouched and unbroken’ held my attention for a moment, before my eyes went to the asking prices. The bidding started at five thousand just for those poor maids who were on the block now, and it went way up from there. Thirty thousand credits for a corporate middle manager. Sixty for the deposed pirate boss, and eighty apiece for his son and daughters.
Once again, I had to use fast time to control my expression. But I didn’t let anything show.
“Huh. Well, good luck with your shopping,” I said.
“You too, ninja girl,” he said easily. “Or good hunting, if that was just a cover story. Be seein’ you.”
I watched them go, and turned in the opposite direction.
Let’s get this done, Emla, I said silently. I want to get back to the palace, and take a bath.
I’d rather nuke this place into radioactive dust, she replied. But I guess a bath will have to do.
Chapter 23
The residence wing of the palace looked a lot like the rest of the complex, only with even more security. The obvious part was the horde of inugami in crisp uniforms, standing at checkpoints and patrolling the halls in pairs. But there were a lot of other measures a normal person wouldn’t have seen. Hidden rooms full of warbots, ready to pour out and deal with troublemakers. Concealed weapon emplacements in the walls and ceilings, and traps in the corridors. Sensors everywhere, and not just passive ones. They had active sonar and manipulator field sensors, swarms of microbots drifting through the air and even patrols of little insect-sized bots searching for intruders of their own size.