With Guns Blazing (Aeon 14: Machete System Bounty Hunter Book 3) Page 4
Trey gave a rueful laugh.
Reece most certainly did.
She heard him sigh.
Trey grunted.
She could hear him laughing, and wondered what Tommy thought about it.
“Okay,” Tommy said. “That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Trey repeated.
“Yep. I don’t know what you two were talking about, but she was so relaxed, it went easy. No hangups or problems. Your Link is officially free of any Rexcare tampering.”
Reece wanted to let out a breath of relief, but her face was still frozen.
“I’ll give you the antidote to the paralytic. It’ll take a while to wear off completely, though, and you need to wait until it’s all gone before you try to get up.”
“I’ll make sure she waits,” Trey said.
He looked down at her with a stern glare, but she knew it was a fake.
She flapped her eyelids at him, since it was the only movement she could make.
Trey groaned.
Her lips twitched.
Apparently facial movement was coming back, too.
SAFE AS HOUSES
DATE: 05.24.8948 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Tommy’s Gun Shop, Ohiyo, Akonwara
REGION: Machete System, PED 4B, Orion Freedom Alliance
“Ugh!” Reece put a hand to her back. “Ow! Why did you two let me sleep on a metal table? I feel like I’ve been worked over by a pair of drummers using me for the bass drum. Ow! Dammit!”
Tommy looked apologetic. “That’s the aftereffect of the paralytic. You’re going to be stiff and in pain for the next day or so. Nothing to do for it. Sorry.”
She decided not to give him a stern talking-to about failing to warn her about that bit, since he’d really helped her out of a jam.
Besides, all things considered, things could have ended up a whole lot worse.
“Do you two need a place to stay?” Tommy asked.
“Uh.” She hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“I guess we do,” Trey said. “We can’t exactly just go back home if Rexcare’s looking for us.”
“Right.” Reece considered their options.
“I have a safehouse you can use,” Tommy offered. “Off the grid, no mainline connections, no cameras. It’s out in an agricultural zone, but just barely, and I keep it stocked with food and everything you’ll need. Even some good painkillers.”
Reece didn’t want to admit it, but as she stood hunched over, one hand on the edge of the table and trying not to move, she could really use some good painkillers.
“You don’t mind getting mixed up in all this?” Trey asked.
Tommy shrugged. “I’ve been mixed up in just about everything at one point or another. The trick is not getting caught—and I never have. Good track record, right?”
“Yeah. You’ve got me sold.” Trey sent Reece a questioning look.
“Yeah. Me too. Thanks, Tommy.”
“No worries,” Tommy said. “You’ll get me back later. You always do. Besides, I think I owed you one or two.”
More like three, since Reece liked to keep Tommy well in her debt, considering his usefulness. It had been an excellent strategy, and she was glad to be able to cash in on it now. “Can you get a message to someone for me? Off the grid.”
“Sure.” Tommy bent, rummaged in a bin, and pulled out a device. “Enter it and tell me where it needs to go.”
She wrote a message to Kippy, telling him they had to go underground for a little while, and asking him to look after Aunt Ruth and Dex.
She hoped he wouldn’t worry. But she often disappeared like this, so he should just assume this is like any other time she suddenly got pulled into something for work.
Handing the device back to Tommy, she realized she had nothing with her but the outfit she wore and her weapons. “I guess we’ll need to stop off for some toothbrushes and some clothes and stuff.”
Tommy waved her suggestion away. “What kind of cheapo safehouse do you think I have? Everything you’ll need is there. The clothes might not be awesome, but they’ll be fine. Go. Be safe. Let me know if you need anything from me. I’ll check in each day.”
“Thanks, Tommy.” She let out a breath. Just that morning, she’d been employed by Rexcare as a bounty hunter, and her life had been going well. How quickly everything could change.
“No problem. This is kind of my thing. Just let me lock up and I’ll drive you to the autotaxi. You shouldn’t use your accounts to buy things, so I’ll give you access to one of my burner accounts and you can pay me back later.”
“Thanks, but I have my own backup accounts. We’ll be fine.”
Tommy nodded. “Planning ahead. I like it. Let’s go.”
* * * * *
Reece wanted to get right to finding Schramm. She really did, but the trouble was that her whole body hurt so damn much she was operating at peak efficiency just to get herself into the nondescript little house on a nondescript little road that looked like all the other little houses and roads they’d passed for twenty minutes.
Which was a pretty good area setup for a safehouse.
She groaned as she sat down in a padded chair in the front room, holding her arms to her chest.
“I’ll go find the painkillers.” Trey looked concerned.
Reece didn’t say anything. She simply sat, upright except for hunching over slightly at the corners. She didn’t want anything touching her. Not the chair or her clothes or anything else. Even her skin had begun to h
urt.
She breathed through the silence in the room, surviving in four-second intervals that she counted as she exhaled.
“I have pills and an injection.” Trey returned holding a surprisingly professional looking medical kit. “Which do you want?”
“Injection. Two injections. Stick it in my eyeball, I don’t care. Whatever will work fastest.” She ground her teeth together.
Trey administered the injection, then sat on the coffee table in front of her. He didn’t ask if she was doing okay, or bother her with any other words, which would only have ripped away the little bit of perseverance she had left. He just sat, watchful and serious.
Thank the ancient gods for him. She’d leave an offering or something if she believed in that stuff. But she did believe in him.
The pain lessened in tiny increments, like a knot being pried loose with great effort. When she was able to relax her arms and lean against the back of the chair, she sighed with relief. She still hurt, but she no longer felt like she wanted to crawl out of her own skin.
“Thanks,” she said, without elaborating on what she was thankful for. They both knew and there was no reason to belabor it. “I’m going to stay here for a few minutes, then use the san unit. Why don’t you look around and take inventory?”
“Sure. Yell if you need anything.” He stood and went to the kitchenette to begin his survey.
She needed to pee, take a hot shower, eat a bowl of Aunt Ruth’s chicken soup, and down a glass of whiskey. She was only going to get a couple of those things, and even those would have to wait until the painkiller was working a little better.
Finally, Reece heaved herself to her feet and shuffled off to the bathroom.
She hoped tomorrow would be a better day.
Much better.
* * * * *
Reece woke up to a darkened room, a pillow under her head, and a really ripping hangover.
The pillow she hadn’t had, last she knew, so Trey must have provided that. Nice of him. And since he hadn’t let her have any whiskey last night, the hangover wasn’t from that, but rather a result of the aftereffects of the medication.
She steeled herself before undertaking the effort of moving her body into a sitting position.
Okay. She could do this.
She dragged herself upright, and it actually wasn’t too bad. A little tired and discombobulated, but only a few minor aches. Not much worse than she’d expect from sleeping on the couch.
After a shower and a change into some baggy shorts and a soft shirt, she felt almost human again. A cup of coffee should get her the rest of the way there. And then she could get to work.
She had a lot to do.
Tiptoeing to the kitchen to avoid waking Trey, she brewed a pot of coffee and made some toast while she waited for the black joy. She didn’t have an appetite, but she needed to eat to get back to her regular self.
By the time Trey got up an hour later, Reece had coffee, eaten toast, and felt like at least seventy percent of her normal self.
Which was more than enough to kick a whole lot of ass.
“How are you?” Trey asked, his voice rough with sleep.
She got up and poured him a cup of coffee. To repay him for looking after her, she’d kept some brewed and warm for him. “Like someone who was recently brought back from the dead, but doing better.”
“I guess that’s encouraging, then?” He accepted the cup of coffee from her and took a long drink from it.
Reece shrugged. “It’s something. At least, it’s enough for us to get back to work.”
He gave her a crooked, sleepy smile. “For the people who just cut us loose and are probably trying to hunt us down for who knows what purpose?”
“Hah. Not that kind of work. Similar concept, but in this case, it’s more about survival than a paycheck. Same basic tactics, though.”
“Well, there we go. Job’s half done already, then.”
She arched an eyebrow at him. “How do you figure that?”
“Because you’re the best at your job, and I’m currently second best.”
“Currently?”
He looked smug. “I don’t do anything that I don’t plan to become the best at.”
She rolled her eyes, smiling. “Great. If you’re so smart, and so close to eclipsing me, what’s our next move?”
“I didn’t say I was close. Just that it’s inevitable. But since you asked…” he pursed his lips thoughtfully. “First priority is finding Schramm, obviously. But since he’s been unseen for a while, we’ll probably have to go at it in a roundabout way. Figuring out what happened to Erving would probably lead us in the right direction.”
“Is that what you’re going with?”
He frowned. “Should I change my answer?”
“Only if you think you should.”
After a moment, he shook his head. “No, that’s the direction I’d go. But I’m sure, with all your experience and wisdom and yadda-yadda, you have a much more ingenious idea.”
“Not really,” she said with the hint of a smile. “Tracking Erving was my first thought, too. Wherever he went, whether we actually find Erving or not, we’ll get some answers.”
Trey slapped the table, making her blink. “Look there, I got one right.”
He was humoring her again. She was sure of it.
She pretended not to notice. “Presumably, Erving would have been at his apartment before coming to meet us. We can figure his most-likely route from his place to the Debtor’s Haven, then check security cameras and whatnot to see what we can find. If he never even attempted to get there, we’ll know he either fled or was grabbed beforehand.”
“That sounds like a big job,” Trey said. “How do we get access to those cameras?”
“Corporate ones, we can’t. But private ones are fair game. Most businesses employ someone to handle the cameras and the security monitoring for them. It’s a pretty regional system because it makes sense to use the same surveillance company that your neighbors do, to provide overlap. So, once we get Erving’s home address, we can figure out who works that area, and pay that person a visit.”
Trey sat and set his cup on the table. “I like it. But, uh…” He looked away, not meeting Reece’s gaze.
“What?”
“I mean…is that what you’re going to wear? Because…” Trey’s face revealed a special mix of discomfort and disapproval.
She threw her napkin at him and got up. “My clothes are in the wash. They’ll be done in a few minutes, probably.”
He caught the napkin. “Well, then we’re all set.”
It wasn’t like he was dressed up and looking cool. He wore a pair of shorts that were too tight and that was it. Tommy clearly hadn’t equipped the safehouse with someone of Trey’s size in mind.
But had she said anything? Made remarks about his hairy chest or how his shorts made his…ugh. No. She didn’t even want to think about what she hadn’t said. She wanted to go on pretending she hadn’t seen what she hadn’t talked about.
* * * * *
“Got it.” Reece hadn’t needed much time to figure out who handled the security footage of Erving’s neighborhood. “We need to go see Apolla.”
“Is this someone you know?” Trey, thankfully, had dressed in his usual clothes, which left a great deal more to the imagination.
“Eh.”
“Eh?” he repeated. “I find this an insufficient response. Try again.”
“We’re acquainted. We move in circles that overlap a bit. She’s not corporate.”
“Is that good, or bad?”
“Neither. It just is what it is. If she were corporate, I might be able to pull some strings via mutual acquaintances—you know, the old friend-of-a-friend deal. But she’s like Tommy, entirely private. That means we’ll have to find what she cares about and bargain with that. Let’s do some research on her before we drop in.”
“We’re not going to make an appointment, I take it?” he asked.
“If
we ask beforehand, she could say no, or disappear. That won’t happen if we just show up.”
He nodded, but his attention had shifted. Reece could see from the tiny, sharp movements of his eyes that he’d already begun running queries via his Link.
Sometimes she wondered what his interface looked like. Was it more sophisticated than hers, due to the technological difference between her people and his? She’d never know because it was literally all inside his head.
An hour later they were in an autotaxi, headed for the metro station. From there they’d go straight to Apolla’s place of work, which was also her place of residence, located just outside the downtown commercial area.
The location alone told Reece something about Apolla. If she were flush with cash or eager to appear as if she were, she’d live right in the downtown district. The fact that she lived just outside it said that she either couldn’t afford it or didn’t care what people thought.
Reece wondered which one of those two options it was.
Rather than sleeping during the trip, she made use of every minute, tracking down every single mention of Apolla she could find, just in case it shed further light on the security tech’s character.
When they pulled up outside the building, Reece took a moment to close her eyes for a bit before exiting the taxi.
They took the stairs up to avoid the camera in the building’s elevator. Not all buildings had one, but of course this one did. The stairwell, like most, didn’t have them though, due to the fact that it would take a lot of them to adequately monitor the area, and good security equipment wasn’t cheap. Besides, nobody used stairwells in tall buildings when there were perfectly good elevators available. Monitoring stairwells in a residence just wasn’t worth the cost.
Trey put a hand on Reece’s elbow, causing her to stop before she began climbing up. “Something keeps bothering me. Are you sure this is the right course of action? I mean, I see that you’re loyal to Schramm, but is he loyal to you? What if he’s in on whatever’s going on? I need to know that you’re really sure we aren’t better off just getting outsystem, at least for now.”
Reece paused. “I get what you’re saying. And you might be right. The thing about loyalty is that you can’t be truly, completely certain about it until it’s stressed in a tough situation. As far as I’m concerned, this is my big test, and I’m going to pass it. I won’t know about Schramm until we see how it all turns out.”