Junkyard Cats - Faith Hunter Page 0,27

MS Angels, the OMW, the military, and the Gov. all probably knew where I was. I was so screwed.

Jagger swiped through pics and handed me the Morphon. It felt silky in my palm and instantly matched my much darker tanned skin. On the face of the Morphon was a pic of Harlan and Jagger, their bikes in the background.

I pushed the Morphon back and pulled my Hand-Held. I found the stills of the Tesla and the body of the OMW in the back, then handed it to Jagger.

“This came today, packaged and shipped inside a piece of scrap the owner bought. It’s Harlan, isn’t it?” Harlan, who had been my go-between for the OMW, the black-market network, and the real world. Harlan, who had been hunting for traitors.

Jagger flipped though the stills several times, his face giving nothing away.

But he had already entered the transition. I could feel the way his heartrate sped and his adrenaline spiked.

“I recognized the tats as OMW,” I said. “When you showed up, I thought you might have sent him. Some kind of message to my boss. Then the Crawler situation happened and you were in as much danger as I was, so, I’m now assuming the reason you came had to be for something else, maybe even the kutte sensor you talked about.”

Jagger transferred accusing, angry eyes to me. Any confusion or acceptance or transition uncertainty was gone in the adrenaline rush. He was back to himself for a moment.

“You let me into your inner sanctum? Your shelter?” It was an accusation and also the dawn of the protective instincts created by the transition. “A stranger who showed up on your doorstep the same day a dead man came calling?”

A dart hit the back wall a half centimeter from his head. Jagger went for his weapon.

“Don’t,” Mateo said through the speakers. Jagger went still, eyes burning with rage.

I took back the Hand-Held and tilted my head to the dart.

“I was never in danger.”

“So, you lured me in here. You were never in danger from me,” Jagger stated, “but I’m in danger from Matt and the internal defensive systems.”

“I let you in to keep you safe from the crawlers. But if you sent Harlan to me, dead and covered with bicolors, then yeah.”

“And if I didn’t?”

“Then . . . I have a really bad feeling that the Angels are heading this way. Probably tonight.”

Jagger might wonder why the MS Angels wanted to kill Heather-whatever-her-name-was. My lies were in danger of falling apart. Scrambling, I said something that made sense. “They must want some of the tech here, or the weapons.”

“You have weapons?”

“A few,” I said. “Some of the boss’s scrap is military scrap.”

My mind zinged from one thought to another. If the Angels had gotten their hands on a Chinese Crawler, and on Harlan, maybe they planted the bicolors on Harlan’s body. Figured they’d swarm me, kill me, so they could take the junkyard and its goodies. Two birds with one Tesla. The Angels were crazy enough.

“Matt,” I said, “update.”

“Remote Viewing Aircraft have been aloft for hours. Sending one to the access road and one to reconnoiter the property. Vids to your main screen. Also searching outlying cameras.”

“Nothing,” I said, as the ARVACs’ cameras took up the entire left half of the big screen. The road in both directions was empty. “What about a remote attack? An ARVAC of their own.”

Jagger said, “If your weapons are important enough to warrant all the things you say they’ve done, then they’d want to see the whites of your eyes.”

“Up close and personal,” I said. “Yeah. Okay. Still. Matt?”

“Status quo,” he said. “Wait. At the extreme edge of sensor range, I’m picking up . . . something.”

I nodded, my eyes on the screens. “You can relax, Jagger,” I said, pushing a little through my nanobots that were entering his bloodstream and nervous system. When nothing happened, I pushed harder.

Jagger shook his head, blinking. He lifted the brown glass bottle as if trying to see inside. “I’m . . . feeling weird. I shouldn’ be feeling ’is way.” He tried to stand and didn’t make it. “Wha’ you do to me?” He thought I’d poisoned him. Instead, his temperature was going up and the transition nanos were reaching a critical mass.

Mateo said. “I confirm activity at fifteen klicks. And the Puffers are suddenly all converging on the office.”

Jagger cursed and nearly dropped the bottle.

“Whada fu—?”

His hands clenched hard. His eyes fluttered closed and he slumped over the table.

I leaped