MY ASSOCIATES STARE AT the Queen’s Kiss on my glass coffee table. They have not moved since I set it down. I examine the drooping clock in the painting on the wall. One of my favorite Dalís. With the original lost or destroyed, even a forgery of La persistencia de la memoria is a treasure. This one I stole from a robber-baron Silver in the Mass. Time stands as still in the room as in the painting.
“This is a lark, isn’t it? Another one of your games, Eph,” Cyra finally says, waving her hands in her animated way.
Dano chuckles to himself from his place on the formofabric couch next to me. He’s sprawled on it like a drunk cat, leg over the armrest. Overcompensating his slickness like we all don’t know how insecure he is about being fifty kilos soaking wet. He smothers his spent burner in the coffee-cup-turned-ashtray on his stomach and lights another. The smoke slithers into the air, stained green and purple by the AI lover advertisements that writhe out the window on the building adjacent mine.
Cyra sneers at him. “Is this a joke to you too?”
“Lass, life’s a joke,” Dano whispers as smoke comes out his nostrils.
“Wonderful. It’s all a joke. And we’re the damn punchline.” Cyra stares at the untouched vodka lemon I poured her, trying to come to grips with the tale of my night with the Duke. I want her to drink it. Shit, drink four of them, woman. She’s a damn stress when she’s sober, and only mildly tolerable when inebriated.
It’s the late hours of the evening, dark cycle. A sluggish late summer rain falls on Hyperion. And I’m stuck between a madman with a buzzsaw and a job that will certainly kill me. I feel a sense of resignation. This is the end of the line. What the Syndicate asks is impossible. This business is so far past their paygrade I thought the Duke was joking.
We’re going to die. But dying pure and quick on a job is better than dying slow at their hands. Now, just have to convince my crew. If I don’t, anyone who doesn’t play along will have an octopus in their mouth and their body in a gutter by morning.
“This is your shit, Eph,” Cyra says. “They came to you. So, fine. You take the contract. I’m not interested. Never wanted to tangle with those psychos. If you’re smart, you’ll realize you shouldn’t get involved in this shit either. This is big. Too big.”
“You are not out,” Volga says without any malice. “Ephraim needs our help. He helped us. You are in.”
“Slag that.”
“Yeah, I’m with the grass ass for once,” drawls Dano, burner dangling from the corner of his mouth. “This is manic, and not in a sexy way.”
Volga leans forward. Cyra involuntarily flinches. “Dano, you would be in Whitehold or dead if it weren’t for this man. Cyra, where would you be if Ephraim did not pay your debt to that data shark? I would still be on Earth, loading boxes and collecting loans from sad men so I could eat.” I watch her with an unfamiliar warmth going through me. I hurt her outside the bar, but still she has nothing but love for me. Why? “We will help him because he helped us.”
Dano claps his hands. “Bloodydamn fine speech.”
“Cut the yapping, you mutant,” Cyra sneers at Volga. “No one owes anyone anything here.”
“They know who you are, Cyra. They know who we all are,” I say into my Pernod. It’s a drink from the days back when I used to care, emerald green with the taste of licorice. Trigg loved them. I knocked back a pair while waiting for my team to arrive, watching the news recycle clips from the Reaper’s dismantlement at the hands of the Vox Populi. Lionheart couldn’t do anything to stop it. Made me feel warm and fuzzy, seeing the king and queen get caught with their pants down.
“They want my team. It wasn’t a request.”
“What if we refuse it?”
“We refuse the Queen’s Kiss, we’re dead,” I say.
Cyra has a burst of inspiration. “We can leave town. Set up farside in Endymion. There’s plenty of work there.”
“I’m not going to Endymion,” I say sharply.
“Eph…”
“No, actually it’s a grand idea. Their Endymion outfit will be waiting to welcome us to the city. Show us the sites. The Crescent Orb, the Tridian Palazzo, the Ephor Spires.” I put a finger gun to my head and pull the trigger. “Then they kill us.”
“We can go off-planet.”
I sigh. “The Duke of Legs has men in the docks. They’ll kill us in transit.”
“Then we don’t fly commercial. We charter a ship farside out of Eridan Interplanetary. I can wipe the transit records. Or get us documents for Earth or Mars.”
“Cyra, you might have enough money to charter a ship. But to buy vintage Solar Republic passports with hologram veracity and magnetic coding on this timetable?” I ask, knowing how dearly she fancies her sparkling new condo in the Sordo District. One of the new Redache glass buildings. Gaudy shit. “After the down payment on your haunt, how much do you have left?”
“It’s none of your….”
“Your mortgage has a bigger appetite than Volga, love. And those diamonds you’re wearing aren’t exactly sale items. From Gustave’s?” Her face pinches. “Don’t get tight, I’m not going through your receipts. But new money all shops the same.” She looks embarrassed, but I keep punishing, because I need her to know there’s only one way out. “So…after the diamonds, the mortgage, the server farm in your spare room, I’d say you have maybe fifty thousand in your account.” By her expession I know it’s less. Lady loves to spend. “Gods. You don’t even pay taxes and you’re broke!”
She’s not done trying. “We could combine our money. Dano. How much do you have?”
“Me?” Dano looks up from his datapad, where he’s texting one of his warm bodies. “Rooting in the wrong mine, lass. I like fliers and Pinks too much to gather commas in the old account. Sin’s a hungry slag. What about you, tinman?”
“I’m dry,” I say.
“Tables leech you?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re a mess of degenerates,” Cyra mumbles.
“I have money,” Volga says from the window.
Cyra wheels on Volga. “How much?”
“All of it.”
“All of your share?” Cyra asks, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“From all our contracts?”
“Yes.” Volga hesitates, embarrassed. “Well…I must eat. And I eat much more than you…smaller people. And I like beer. And I pay my landlord each cycle change. He says I am the best tenant.” She blushes. “And…and sometimes I go to the Cerebian. You know. The zoo? I like the popcorn and the animals. And the people are all so happy. Especially the children. But I go in the middle of the day, so tickets are cheaper,” she adds quickly at the end to mitigate the gross expenditure.
“Volga!” I feign astonishment. “You’re out of control. A regular hedonist.”
“I know,” she mutters, shaking her head at herself. “I know.”
“I’m joking, Volga. You’re as parsimonious as a White.”
“Thank you,” she says, beaming, then squints. “Parsimonious. That is a fine word.”
“That should be more than enough money,” Cyra chirps. “With that much we can get a real starrunner. Maybe even buy a used—”
I toss the last centimeter of my Pernod into her lap.
“What the hell,” she sputters.
“You’re a horrible person,” I say. “That’s Volga’s money.”
“Kinda slagged up, Cyra,” Dano says.
“Because I want to live?”
“I don’t mind,” Volga says. “I will share.”
I know she’s been saving the money from our jobs to buy herself some acreage on Earth. All those dreams of Luna, and now she wants to start a refuge for carved animals that have been discarded by their masters. She told me one night when she was drunk. She wants zebracores and griffins and all other manner of beasties that will probably eat her in her sleep. She doesn’t remember, but I do, and I’ll be damned if I let these other two take her piece.
“Yes, you do mind, Volga. Or I mind for you. It doesn’t matter if we had ten million credits to spend. Wherever we go, they’ll find us and kill us.”
“There’s another option,” Cyra says. “We could take it to Republic Intelligence.”
Dano sniffs the air obnoxiously. “Odd, Eph. A prime spot like this having the smell of rats.”
“I’m not a rat,” Cyra says.
“You smell like a rat. Know what we’d do to rats in Lost City?”
“You little ruster…”
“What did you call me?” he says, sitting up at the word.
“I’m not a rat….I just don’t want to die an old woman at the bottom of the sea. Deepgrave is what’ll happen if we try this.”
Cyra pushes at her temples with shaking hands.
I lower my voice to Cyra. “Headache?”
She nods. “Forgot to bring my stuff.”
“I’ve told you a dozen times. You gotta lay off the cyberplay.” I pull my silver dispenser from my jacket and choose a zoladone. “Earth knockoff, but it should do the trick.” She takes the pill greedily and leans back in her chair.
She snorts and downs her vodka. I pour another for her. “Better?”
“No!” She rubs her eyes. “Why us?” she asks me. “What did you do? I know this is because of something you screwed up. Someone you owe.”
“Not this time.”
Volga could blow all this open if she says I met with a Howler right before getting picked up by the Duke. She saw Holiday’s wolfcloak. But the big girl stays quiet.
“You’re gonna do it?” Dano asks me. “You wanna do it.”
I decidedly do not want to do it.
“It’s the heist of the century,” I say with a smile. “Look on the shiny side. The Syndicate has never broken its own rules. Not once. If we acquire the prize, there’s no reason to believe they won’t pay us the commission. Eighty million credits.” Dano whistles. Volga doesn’t react. Cyra looks numb. “And if we survive to spend it, we don’t have to steal anything ever again. Buy an island. Buy a star cruiser. You’re free. Nothing can touch you. Not even this war.”
That sells them. Cyra leans back to rub her temples and sip her vodka, in the shallow, warm waters of the zoladone high now. She stares at the black rose. No larger than my palm, it feels bigger than the room. Pulsating evil. “What’s the timeline?”
“A month.”
She stares placidly at me and nods, the zoladone cooling her blood. Dano’s more animated. He pauses midway to lighting another burner. “This gets better and better.”
“A month is not long,” Volga says.
“We need four months to plan this,” Dano says. “A year…”
“I know. Apparently that is nonnegotiable. We got a month. Less, actually.” No one interrupts. “We were given three specific locations and times when the prize will be in public. We just have to pick the juiciest.”
“How do we have this information?” Volga asks grimly. “This will not just affect us. It is important to know.”
“They’ve got their tentacles everywhere.” I shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine. Question, Cyra.” I snap my fingers to bring her attention back from her high. “How long would it take for you to don your black hat and pillage some data from Epirus and Leomant?”
“The accounting firm? Depends on their firewalls. That’s some high-grade software. Why?”
“Because I need to know who pays whom. We need an inside man.”
“Bloodyhell…” Dano says, eyes fixed on his own datapad. “The Senate has just issued an arrest warrant for the Reaper.”
We look to each other, sharing the same morbid thought. A game is afoot and we are pieces on the board. I look out the window to Hyperion and wonder what is about to shake my city. But in the back of my mind, I care more about the collar on my neck and who really holds the leash.
I take the holocube that the Duke of Hands gave me and activate it. The pale light washes out the contours of my crew’s faces. The three locations glow in the air. I sit back in my chair, knowing they believe deep down we can pull this off. They’re young enough to have never failed. To never have been captured. But the chance for success is so small, so absurd, that I know we are gallows bound. Yet it seems a dignity to take that chance, to grasp it for all it is worth and not fall under the hacking of the blade of a bonesaw, not off the ledge of some thoroughfare, but on the stage, heart pulsing, feet racing, all the variables falling into place one last time.
The game is afoot. And finally, I begin to smile.