I’d planted clawed at my throat. The air recirculators only worked intermittently in this neighborhood, and in the alley, the smell almost forced me to my knees.
That the miner walked by without flinching, I could understand. I’d heard too much time in an environmental suit would have you smelling nothing but rubber. But the silver-haired doxy must have been high on something to not notice something was wrong.
No time to linger in the alley. Microcams swept every ninety seconds, watching, waiting for anything out of the ordinary.
I dashed to the hiding space I’d carved out of the fallen wall that backed up to Sary’s, and held my breath, trying to hear over the drumming of my heartbeat. The rushing in my ears slowed, and I poked my head out. Still all clear.
Nobody in their right mind would take on Sary, he ran half the games in town, and word in the pits said he wanted to take control of the city over from Xavis. Unlikely, but still, not someone I really wanted after me. But if the choice was Sary or Xavis himself….well, it was a sucky choice.
I counted, waiting for the next clear moment to check on the results of the clustered acid bombs, then ran back around the corner.
Ninety seconds is a long time.
Ninety seconds is long enough to make one chip in the wall a day until a section can be lifted away and replaced seamlessly.
Ninety seconds is long enough to plant one small acid bomb at a time, then wait for a few days for the smell to dissipate, for the interior wall that led to the vault to weaken, bit by bit, day by day.
Ninety seconds is long enough to die in the Waste, outside of the protection of the domes.
And if I didn’t get my tithe to Xavis by tonight, that’s where I’d end up.
Davien
Really, everything would be so much easier if I just snapped the fat fool’s neck. Only the endless lessons in control back on the ship kept my hands still at my sides, fingers barely flexing. The tips of my claws ran across my palms, bringing me back to focus.
“Davien, are you even listening to me?” Xavis rumbled.
And he wasn’t a fool, even if I despised him. Xavis had clawed his way to the top of the dirtiest pile to run Ghelfi. The trip to the top had been over the broken bodies of plenty of enemies. He’d stayed on his perch for over twenty Imperial years. I didn’t have to do much research to know his methods hadn’t changed.
Prime example: he’d hired me.
I focused on Xavis, only too aware I’d started to slip away into the hunt. Every moment here, stuck on this rock, was a delay I couldn’t afford. Xavis, bastard though he might be, was my fastest way out of here. Well, the fastest way without an unacceptably high casualty count.
Xavis lounged in his hover chair, fingers tapping in annoyance well away from the control pad. The chair was as much affectation as convenience - he could walk just fine. Just liked to be able to loom over people.
“She’s late,” he growled. “She’s never late.”
I didn’t need to ask who he meant. He’d been on a tear about his precious Kara for hours, first calling her his brightest find, then cursing her ingratitude.
The large room I’d come to think of as the receiving hall was mostly empty now, just the regular workers at their terminals around the edges, cleaning credits, shifting funds until they could be transferred into the most secure banks in the Empire. Repetitive, mind-numbing, but crucial to any modern criminal enterprise. The low drone as they worked filled the otherwise quiet room.
The last traces of the dark festivities of the last day had almost been erased. All day and night long, denizens of Ghelfi’s underworld had streamed in, bringing their tribute to the acknowledged boss of the city, doing their best, or worst, to please a capricious overlord. The whole affair had been boring, and stupidly inefficient.
But the archaic ritual soothed his ego and had been an opening to a job. At the last tithing, some idiot with more guts than brains had tried to take Xavis out. He’d failed to account for the force shield over the hover chair, but his explosives did thin out Xavis’ bodyguards considerably.
Bad luck for them, perfect timing for me. When Doc had commanded we all enter the escape pods, she’d made it clear we were to jump as