CHAPTER SIXTEEN
For what seemed like hours, Jaime knew only darkness and terror.
He tried to focus on sounds, figure out the direction he was being taken. He’d been hefted like a sack of goods into the back of a noisy transport. Among the mostly mechanical components of the bio-fuelled truck, he could detect the faint spark of electronics, but he didn’t know if he could cause any real damage by messing around with them — and he expected the people holding him wouldn’t hesitate to damage him if they figured out he’d done anything.
Instead, Jaime tried to hold onto the steady pulse of the tracker Xin had put under the coat’s collar. It was the only hope he had right now.
Tales of the Purists and other anti-tech groups had been nightmare fuel for years now. Jaime and his friends would read reports of bombings, murders and sabotage — and that was just what they did to regular humans seen as being too fond of tech. To people like Jaime — well, they didn’t see them as people at all. He was something they could make an example of.
The vehicle stopped, and Jaime yelped as rough hands grabbed him and dragged him out. He was pulled over uneven ground and into what he thought was a building, but mostly he had to concentrate on keeping his feet beneath him. With his head covered and his hands tied, it was already hard enough to keep his balance, but it seemed like at least three people were yanking him along, sometimes in completely different directions.
He was slammed down into a chair, and after some muffled debate, the hood was pulled off, taking some strands of Jaime’s hair with it. He squinted up at the people around him, inhaling the scents of cut wood, unwashed bodies, and his own fear.
A woman leaned in. “He doesn’t look like much.”
“There were pictures from out of the Sprawl. It’s him.”
“The Sprawl,” someone else scoffed. “A damned space station! Everything coming from that cell should be considered tainted—”
“Now is not the time,” the bearded man snapped. “This is a rare prize, disgusting though it may be. The question is, what to with it.”
A man, with what appeared to be corrective glasses over his eyes, made a considering sound. “There are some that’ll pay a lot of credits for organs, ’specially from a wizard.”
Jaime shivered. There were stories about people keeping to occasional cannibalism, even post-Dark Age, thinking it would give them strength or luck, but Jaime had always thought those were just gruesome rumors.
The bearded man frowned. “Profiting from this abomination?”
“To fund our cause,” the one with the glasses insisted. “We could buy better weapons—”
“Better accommodations!” someone else called out.
They started arguing, and Jaime chanced a look around. It seemed like they were in a small lumber factory, narrow but with a high roof and open second story lost in the gloom of the encroaching night. Boards were stacked all around, and there were a distressing number of hanging chains and machinery equipped with saws. Jaime also saw, with growing despair, that there were at least a dozen people around — four or five arguing around him and the rest patrolling the edges of the space with rifles in their hands.
He couldn’t see a way out. He couldn’t think of what to do, was only able to listen as his fate was debated.
“Enough,” the bearded man thundered. “This thing needs to die. Its head should be left in the center of town, so the people there can repent of associating with such a creature. We need to cleanse this place for the leader’s arrival.”
“But what about his body?” the man with the glasses asked.
“Hold on,” one of the women said. “If it is true that the leader is coming here—” There was a general muttering and she raised her voice. “If the coded messages are correct, what better way to welcome the leader than with a gift?” She gestured at Jaime.
The bearded man seemed to consider.
“This could really put us on the map,” she pressed. “What else do we have to show for this cycle? A failed attempt to poison a cuttlefish shipment and a bunch of pamphlets left all over town. But if we present the leader with a live wizard…”
“I doubt the leader has time to meet with us,” the bearded man said, frowning.
“It’s a good reason to insist on a meeting,” she replied.
He stared at Jaime, or rather through him, and then nodded sharply. “The leader will decide what to do with it.”
There seemed to be a general acceptance of the decision and Jaime wasn’t sure if he should be relieved he might have more time to live.
The man with the glasses lifted up a large, dirty knife. “How about a finger? There’s a ship leaving for one of the gambling worlds tomorrow and wizard fingers are supposed to be lucky.”
The bearded man turned away with a bored shrug. “Take all the fingers. Just don’t let the thing bleed to death.”
Jaime shrank back in his chair, trying to think of something to say or do to stop what was happening. The man took a step towards him and then, suddenly, a crack appeared in one of his lenses. As Jaime stared, blood poured out from the man’s eye. He toppled over, face-first, revealing a large and bloody hole in the back of his head.
Two more people fell abruptly, with silent holes appearing in their heads.
“Sniper!” someone screamed. “Upper level!”
Jaime looked up, along with everyone else, to see a gray-haired head ducking down behind the railing that ran along the open second story of the factory. The Purists raised their weapons and started firing, but then another person cried out and fell, holding his leg, shot from the opposite direction.
“How many?”
“Where are they coming from?”
Jaime rolled off his chair and struggled to a crouch. He looked to the half-open double doors at one end of the space. Two guards were there, holding their positions even as they fired upwards.
From the other end of the factory there was a billowing of smoke. Jaime had a moment of pure frozen panic, flashing back to the smoke-filled room in the aftermath of the explosion that had killed his friends. But he forced himself to breathe, to realize that this smoke smelled nothing like burning and that it was, in fact, purple.
It spread quickly, blurring the already dim light from the oil lamps and causing everyone near it to cough. From out of the smoke, a large figure came running. Cloth covered his nose and mouth, and goggles his eyes, but there was no mistaking him.
Jaime stood up. “Rylan!”
“Abomination!” The bearded man appeared near Jaime from out of the smoke. He raised a gun, aiming it at Rylan as he ran towards them.
Jaime grabbed the chair he’d been sitting in and swung it into the man’s arm, knocking the gun away. Rylan never slowed. He shoved the bearded man with his right arm, sending him flying through the air to be lost in the smoke, and then scooped up Jaime.
Being flung over someone’s shoulder sounded better in the adventure books. In reality it knocked the wind out of Jaime, and each running step jostled painfully as he bounced upside down against Rylan’s hard back. But within a few seconds they were outside in the fresh night air, and Rylan was setting him on his feet.
“Everybody clear?” Rylan asked Bo, who was standing at the entrance.
Bo nodded as he kicked and pushed two half-conscious guards inside the building. “All out of the building.”
He tossed what looked to be a small black ball inside and then slid the doors shut. A waft of purple smoke seeped from around the door. “Another smoke bomb,” Bo said. Jaime coughed, and Bo looked at him. “Mostly non-toxic,” he said, which wasn’t entirely reassuring. “It’s to disorient.”
Rylan stripped off his goggles and mouth covering, a hand tight on Jaime’s shoulder. “You all right?”
Jaime nodded, not sure he could manage much else. Rylan’s mouth was grim, but he didn’t ask any other questions. He took a piece of metal and fitted it through the handles of the doors, twisting it together with his right hand. Both his hands were shaking, but he still secured the door. Jaime thought of the bodies on the factory floor and shuddered a little, too.
Bo lifted a comm device. “Simi’s on the ATV. She’s getting Mags and Garcia now, then she’ll swing around the building for us.”
Jaime remembered the truck he’d been brought in, and swiftly shorted out its electronics with a thought.
“What about the bounty hunter?” Rylan asked gruffly.
“He helped me deal with the guards and then took off,” Bo said. “Said he needed to get to his ship before the local police caught wind of this. Something we should do, too.”
Simi came roaring up in a small open vehicle, the captain and Mags with her.
“He also said you could keep the coat,” Bo added to Jaime.
“Asshole,” Rylan muttered, but Jaime smiled in relief and gratitude.
Garcia insisted Lydia look Jaime over, even though he kept insisting he was fine. At most he had a few bruises from the cuffs. He was fussed over gently and then promptly led to a small storage room they were calling the brig.
“What?”
The captain smiled without apology. “Our large friend is some kind of spy, and you’ve been sharing quarters with him.”
“Sharing quarters was your idea!”
“I didn’t tell you to have sex with him. But perhaps you have more reason to feel betrayed than any of us. Or, just maybe, you had some inkling Rylan Slate wasn’t exactly who he said he was? And never shared that with me or anyone else?”
Jaime looked away.
Garcia’s mouth twisted unpleasantly. “So you see, I have every reason to be suspicious. When the job is done, we can sort all of this out, but right now I don’t have the time.” He gestured grandly at the open door, and Jaime sighed and went in.
Rylan, who was already in the room, sitting on the floor, jumped up. “Captain, please listen. This mission was never about you or the crew. It’s about catching the buyers. They’re dangerous arms dealers. If you let me complete my duty, you have my word nothing will happen to you.”
Garcia stared at him coldly. “I never thought of you as having a particularly good sense of humor, but I see I was wrong.” He started to close the door, but Simi stopped him. They had a whispered debate, then Simi stepped into the room carrying a small tray. On it was a jug of water, with two glasses and a couple nutrient bars.
“Sorry, Jaime,” she said, setting the tray on the floor. She didn’t look at Rylan. “Bang on the door if you need a fresh bucket, okay?”
“Bucket?” Jaime asked, somewhat alarmed.
But Simi went back out and the captain shut the door, leaving Jaime and Rylan inside. They both heard the bolts closing.
Jaime sat down, his back against a wall, at a spot as far as possible from both Rylan and the bucket in the corner. Rylan sighed and sat against the wall opposite Jaime, bending his knees and putting his clenched fists on top of them.
“Trying to send a signal?” Jaime asked bitterly. “The room’s shielded.”
“No, just…” He relaxed his hands and looked miserably at Jaime. “I didn’t want to lie to you. Everything I told you about myself was true.”
“Except you being a Commonwealth agent.”
“I’m not a real agent or any kind of spy. I’m just a dumb soldier. Not even that anymore. But Jonathan, my brother, he thought I could still — do some good.” His blue eyes were pleading. “You have no idea, Jaime, how lost I was after I was discharged. I didn’t know what to do, or who I was.”
“So you pretended to be somebody else.”
“I needed to be someone else. It was such a relief to have a mission, a purpose, again. Maybe I’d just missed being part of a team. This crew — they’re not what I expected, for all they’re smugglers and thieves. You know, I told the captain when I first signed on that I wasn’t going to kill anyone on his orders. He told me there plenty of people in the galaxy who said yes to everything, but he looked for the people who knew when to say no.” He closed his eyes for a long moment. “I liked who I was here.”
Jaime was exhausted. It was hard to keep the images of the dead bodies and the faces filled with hatred for him from creeping into his mind. He was too weary to hold onto his anger at — “So what name am I supposed to call you now?”
He looked up. “Rylan. That’s — it’s who I want to be.”
Jaime met his gaze steadily. “And who’s that?”
“Someone who can be with you.” Jaime pressed his lips together, but Rylan kept going. “Jaime, I swore I would get you home. That wasn’t a lie. I will do it. I—”
“Stop. Just… enough, okay?”
His limbs felt heavier than stone, but Jaime pushed himself to his feet. Rylan watched him as he crossed the room to Rylan’s side and put his back against the wall to slide down next to him. He lifted Rylan’s arm and settled it around his own shoulders.
Rylan let out a shaky breath. “Jaime…”
“Look, I’m nowhere close to figuring how to trust you again. But it’s been a really awful few hours, so I need you to be quiet and hold me for a while. Can you do that?”
Rylan said nothing, but he put his other arm tight around Jaime, and within that warm circle Jaime was able to close his eyes and drift off to sleep.
Rylan was gently shaking him, and Jaime groaned, wishing he could sleep longer and also wondering why he was sleeping on a hard floor instead of their bunk. Then he remembered everything — almost being murdered, Rylan not being who he’d said he was, and Jaime under suspicion along with him — and he wanted to go back to sleep so he could avoid dealing with all of it for a while longer. But the bolts on the door were unlocking, so he got to his feet with Rylan, rubbing at his face and trying to think of what to say to the captain.
But it wasn’t Garcia who stood in the doorway.
Jaime’s first thought was, “Rylan looks so tired,” but then he realized the man at the door had a face very much like Rylan’s, except it was narrower, the jaw less square, and weathered by seven or eight more years than Rylan had seen. His eyes, too, were different: blue, but even when they’d first met and Rylan had looked at Jaime with nothing but anger, his eyes had never been so cold. He was dressed in the sober black suit of a Commonwealth agent.
“Brian,” the man said to Rylan with a sigh, his accent formal and polished, “it seems I’ve had to bail you out yet again.”