“Technician-11, you're needed on-site,” the night-shift Scythe said without moving from their terminal. They were lucky Kal was still in his cubicle to receive the request. Kal could've claimed he hadn't heard them, but Officer-3, Macaw, was the petty type and would check the feeds later to be certain.
Instead of complaining, Kal angled for benefit. “Am I allowed to get food on the way back, or should I take my hour here…?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“You're needed on-site now. You may be allowed itinerary deviations only after the workorder is closed out.”
Fuck yeah, he was getting curry on the way back. “Send me the pin. I'll get a bag. Details?”
Scythe-Bravo turned their head toward his voice, face and hair obscured by a dozen umbilicals sticking out of their cranial interface. Their voice was projected directly into his workplace comm bead, the kind that vibrated against the back of his ear, leaving his canals clear for other gear depending on the circumstances and his load out. The Scythe's unnerving, unnecessary movement lent weight to their words: “Two drones have been hard-remanded. ME-0999 is enroute to assist. Patching you into the enforcer array… Officer-3 would prefer it if you didn't disable them like you did last cycle.”
Last cycle, he may have emergency detonated a couple flyers to prevent them from falling into privatized hands—or at least, that's what his excuse had been on paper. In reality, he'd done it to “disable” the gangsters who had been giving him a hard time. He was pretty sure the two snakes were still in the ICU.
Kal ignored the latter half of the Scythe's warning, too distracted by the former. “Wait. You're already sending a metal unit? What do you need me for then?”
The Scythe said, “ME-0999 has… quirks.”
Ah. He was on babysitting duty, that was all. He just had to make sure the bot did what it was programmed to do and then report back. Fine. That was better than sneaking pills behind his terminal and napping in the sanitizer stall. And it also meant he could be the good guy for a change instead of the cop that told people to get inside, up against walls, or on the ground.
He did enough of that dominance bullshit in his free time. While he was at work, he just wanted to coast; live and let live. It was part of the reason he was a Medji robotics technician and not a Medji enforcer. Robots didn't have freewill. Code, even errant, malicious code, was more consistent than human nature.
“Anything to worry about?” He asked. “Quirky… like…?”
“His matrix is proprietary.”
“Oh, no updates, so he's glitchy.”
The Scythe shrugged.
“You're always so helpful, S-B.”
“Good luck, ‘Leven.”
A chime sounded in Kal's ear as his comms switched over to their field arrays. With a gesture, his HUD came up and he had his heading, and a waiting text message from ME-0999. The bot sure doesn't waste time, he remarked internally. He sat on the message and gestured again to bring up his local map. Duat Station was a beehive of a maze even to someone who had been a drone within her combs for almost ten years.
But he knew the place he was being directed like a second home.
The Pack's coffee shop. Lang's.
Shit.
After grabbing an equipment bag from the stock, he popped out of his work center, hopped onto a one-by transport and as the thing puttered toward Blue Side, he swiped at the personal computer embedded in his left forearm and brought up Coyote's contact. He messaged his best friend: “Tell Husky to let the drones go, otherwise there's gonna be an enforcer up your ass in about thirty seconds. I'm on my way now. Five minutes.”
Coyote sent back laughing emoticons before a message came through: “You're gonna love this, Kal. Your tin man has an Edgelander accent.”
“Photony.” Bullshit, he'd considered sending, but Coyote didn't know what a bull was. Photony was a close-enough approximation that the Amunite would understand.
“Truth!” Coyote insisted. Then, a second later a follow-up came through: “Didn't you say you had a thing for Edgelanders?”
Kal tittered under his breath. He really hated how selective Oddie's memory could be sometimes. He texted, “Remind me to never get that starched around you ever again.”
“I see your trail. I've been keeping the gun busy. He's a chatty thing. It'd be cute if he wasn't cold fuzz.”
Kal swiped his PC dark and braced himself for the slow-down. As soon as the rail let him disembark, he was out the door and down the service ladder in a shot, forgoing the normal toll station. His boss could bug him about that later, when he gave a shit. For now, he had to protect his beat.
He and Lang's Pack had an understanding. He looked the other way and kept other enforcers off their turf, and for his service, they made sure nobody fucked with his places of refuge and recreation. Here they thought they were blackmailing him. Realistically, they were making sure no one else blackmailed him. Controllable chaos.
Fuel was currency and could get you on and off-station. But within the red bands of Duat, promises were the real power that passed between hands. Favors paid and owed were the exchanges that made and unmade lives.
Oddly enough, for as predictable as they were, it was the robotic element within the city that often gummed up that beautiful liar's machine.
The security with the station had been established two hundred years ago and was completely automated. Due to restrictions and politics outside the station's control, very few people had access and knowledge of the security protocol's workings. Kal considered himself privileged in that respect.
Officers and enforcers within their ranks were legally allowed to carry bolters within the station. But technicians were the only ones allowed to wear and use the wetware interface that talked to every bit of security tech on the flotilla. Even Scythes, hardwired with wetware into Duat's logistics network and intranet, weren't allowed to exert any authority over the drones, droids, and servants that made up the Medji's robotic forces. A conflict of interest, Kal had been told.
He put all that aside as he came upon the scene. One of Lang's gang was hurling bricks out the front door of their coffee shop. The gray block bonked a hovering recon drone, but the drone wasn't knocked out of the air, merely displaced. The drone said, “Desist. You will not be told a third time.”
“Fuck you!” Another brick flew but fell short. Someone was getting tired.
Kal put up his hands and with a gesture tied to the kinetic interfacing within his suit, ordered the drone to stand down and begin a perimeter circuit. A four-legged suppression droid was still standing by, standing on the curb, but turned toward Kal expectantly. A wordless query appeared on his HUD, coming from the Suppressor: “Task?”
He returned: “Directive?”
“Apprehend suspect of violent crime.” The suppressor sent a mug shot of Coyote's twin brother, Wolf, and Kal swallowed a groan. Of course, Wolf was at the heart of this shit storm.
He asked aloud, “Where's the ME?”
The suppressor gave him the electronic equivalent of a shrug, then followed that up with camera snapshots. The ME was already inside the coffee shop.
Kal cursed under his breath. This was going to get messy. He opened their communications array and read the message that had been waiting for him: “G'day. I'll be at the site ahead of you. Got a warrant. I'll soften them up if you want to play good cop. Cheers.”
Oh great. When the Scythe had told him the bot was quirky, they'd failed to mention that they had a personality module too.
“Hey!” Kal called out and the guy with the bricks paused. Now that he was close enough to identify him, he saw it was Dingo, their second in command. “Hold fire! It's me!”
“Jackal? Thank the mother fucking Darkness,” Dingo said with feeling. He opened the door and beckoned him inside where Kal doffed his helmet and tucked it under his arm. Dingo pointed to their stairwell door. “Fucking tin man's upstairs trying to strongarm Lang. Black chassis. Military lookin’ mother fucker. The fuck's the need for so much shock?”
Kal laughed. “Well, he'd need to be mil-grade to strongarm Lang.” Dingo huffed in amusement. Kal asked in a low voice, “Wolf here?”
“Nah. We've already tipped ‘im.”
“I won't ask,” Kal said with a wink.
“Get him gone, Techie. Otherwise, you're gonna hafta pay for all your Americanos from here on.”
“Darkness forbid. Back soon.” He took the steps two at a time. He could hear Lang's raised voice even before he hit the landing, cussing up a storm.
Then he heard a more mellow voice answer him and Lang practically roared over him. Kal got the gist. The ME wanted Wolf's last known location, and his biometric readouts were claiming Lang was a liar. Kal sighed. He'd told Lang before that if he couldn't lie by omission to a bot, it was better to say nothing at all. The warrant was for custody. There was nothing in its verbiage that forced Lang to say shit about Wolf's la-lo-co.
Kal knocked on the doorframe. It was Coyote that opened up, audibly sighing with relief.
Lang saw him but quickly returned his attention to the ME as he growled, “Jackal, get your goddamn calculator off my fucking property.”
“Not mine, Citizen,” Kal said cheerily. “However, I will remind ME-0999 that our warrant doesn't extend to questioning anyone within Wolf's place of employment unless they agree to answer questions. And if they do agree, under no duress, then by law, the only readouts we're legally allowed to obtain and utilize in a court of law are audio recordings. Everything else is circumstantial.”
The ME turned around. They were certainly something: a unique, Unity made piece of tech glowing red through the cracks. Proprietary? Oh yeah, Kal could see it. Compared to the box-like, utilitarian Disso robots found throughout Duat, this one was two vanity upgrades away from silicon tits. The Medji was shaped like a person, save for the knife-like feet, embedded bolters, and ocular cluster where a face would normally be. They were beetle-black and buffed to a mirror shine, looking like a himbo knapped out of obsidian.
ME-0999 sounded bemused as they said, “Coulda sworn I told you to play good cop, Mate. Didju not get my reference?”
“My humor module's installed backwards,” Kal answered sardonically.
The Medji laughed. Kal blinked. He'd never heard a bot, even a bot with a social module, laugh before. The canned cop said, “Oh, but your sarcasm module's in perfect workin’ order.”
That caught Kal on his back foot. When he woke up that evening, he hadn't envisioned himself bantering with what was basically a chat bot with a license to carry.
Lang asked from behind his desk, “Are we fucking done here?”
Me-0999 stared at Kal.
Kal didn't understand what the bot's scrutiny was meant to communicate, so he turned his attention to Lang and said, “We'll conduct our search elsewhere. Thank you for your time, Mister Lang.”
Lang made a shooing gesture.
Kal gestured for ME-0999 to precede him down the stairs. After the bot left, leaving tiny triangular divots in the half-rotted rubbery flooring, Kal turned to look meaningfully at Coyote. His best friend mouthed silently, “Trench?”
Kal smirked and nodded. A drink at The Trenches was just the thing after this ridiculousness. Then he asked for form's sake, “Husky let the drones go?”
Coyote nodded, giving him an exasperated look as if to say, Who do you take me for? “Blue Side Precinct got their toys back about two minutes before you got here.”
Kal patted his shoulder. “Good boy.” Then he saluted the Dog behind the desk. “Lang.”
“Jackal,” the old man growled.
Kal headed down the stairs and met ME-0999 on the curb outside. The metal Medji was silently conversing with the suppressor. After a second, the four-legged bot trundled away, looking a little dejected. Then three aerial drones converged on their position and the Medji gestured with their left hand, a dismissal to head back to their charging stations at the precinct.
Only then did they turn to regard Kal.
The technician put his helmet back on and depressed the pressure valve with a hiss as he debated between approaches.
He was hungry.
Civil disinterest it is. Kal said, “Technician-11. He-him-his. Sorry to jab your tank back there, but we didn't have probable cause, and I'd rather keep my good relations in the pos’ than ruin it over some small-time gangbanger.” Internally, he chuckled to himself. If only Wolf could hear him refer to the nastiest piece of work in Blue as small-time. Wolf would combust.
“No harm, Mate. Call me Nines. Everyone else does. He-him-his.” He held out his right hand and Kal was a bit surprised by the gesture, doubly so that the bot had a nickname and a pronoun. Were bots even allowed to have casual designations? Even though Nines couldn't read his biometrics while he was in uniform, he noted Kal's physical hesitation. The bot said, “Ah. Got a public relations module installed a ways back. If it's too personable, I can dial it back. I know it bothers some people. Uncanny Valley an’ all that. Not much I can do about the vocal modulator though, so if it's the accent that bothers ya, we can just text… but then you'd miss out on all my charming colloquialisms!”
Kal shook his hand. “No, it's fine. Uh, thanks for the considerations.” Then, before he could think better of it, because he really didn't care, he asked, “People are really bothered by the accent?”
“And the genderization. And the niceties. And the nickname. You don't seem too ick-ed out though. Y'like being a robotics technician?”
He'd never been asked before, so his answer came out stilted, unsure. “I… guess. Better than unemployment. Do you like being an enforcer?”
He didn't expect the bot to answer, but Nines was full of surprises. He chuckled and said, “You know, you're the first to actually humor me at that. I dunno if I like it. Doesn't seem I’ve a choice either way, does it? Not like I'd be good f'much else.”
“So, you don't like it?”
“I'm programmed for it.”
“That's not really an answer,” Kal observed, reminding himself for the third time that he didn't really care. He was supposed to be getting curry now, not bullshitting with a fucking parking meter. Bots didn't have preferences. They didn't like things.
However, Nines didn't appear to have received that memo. In a very human gesture, he rubbed a rubber thumb pad against one of his ocular cameras, like someone might thumb their nose, and put his hands on his hips casually as he said, “I run into you again, I might just tell ya.”
See? Smoke and mirrors, Kal told himself. He snorted. “I'll hold you to that, Medji.”
Nines hummed to himself and turned at that. “I'm off to hunt a wolf. Got a casual nom de plum for yourself?”
“Is our relationship casual, Medji?”
Nines laughed again. “Could be, if ya like.”
“Kal.”
“Short for Kalvin? Kalcium? Kaliwanker? Kalcatrice?”
Charming? Try irritating. “Jackal.”
Nines took that into consideration. Then he decided, “Better call you Jack, Chief. Laters.” He fucking waved before sauntering off.
Kal huffed to himself, incredulous. “What in Light's domain…?” Then he mentally shrugged and physically turned back toward the monorail thoroughfare. He had more important things to worry over than a glitchy bot. “Curry,” he said to himself. “Curry is the answer if there was ever any question.”
He didn't think about Nines again until later that night. By then, he'd decided the bot was a fluke, and he was a sucker for getting pulled into what was probably just a cleverly designed learning algorithm. He stuffed his head, still wet from his sanitizer stall, into his work helmet to send a message to Stock about the bot's behavior.
The mid-shift fellows sent him a reply seconds later: “Unbound service request denied.”
“What do you mean, fucking denied? Did you even read it?” he groused aloud before resubmitting the maintenance request, adding a spot of white-lined code in the body of the remarks. Even if someone denied it again, at least he'd get their reason code sent back to him as a traceless report.
It was denied not even ten seconds after he hit send. The reason code was something he'd never seen before: “ME-0999 - auto denial - authority number withheld. Requestor's query logged for review.”
A warm body never saw his maintenance request. The Stock system itself was automatically shuffling requests and reports associated with Nines into the trash bin and then flagging any usernames that inquired. The question was, who was reviewing the flags?
Authority number withheld? Kal rolled his eyes as he pulled his helmet back off and tossed it onto his couch. This was above his paygrade and out of his lane. He didn't care.
That's what he told himself.
What he felt as he finished getting ready for the night out was the ghost of something unhelpful and irrational flirting with the periphery of his senses: paranoia.
You're not a detective. You're not a bounty hunter. You're not a Knife. Let it fucking go.
Thank the Darkness he had The Trenches to look forward to. There, he could at least find a distraction, a stranger, and put off dealing with that restless ghost for a time. Maybe he'd get lucky and whoever it was would fuel his interest for more than a singular tryst, but he wouldn't get his hopes up.
Coyote met him at the coat check around two in the morning and the two of them beelined for their mob of friends in common. The Pack was in fine form, already deep in their cups, verbally jabbing at Wolf at the head of the table.
Idiot, Kal thought. Why the fuck isn't he off-station laying low?
Wolf only had eyes for Kal when he and Coyote got close and of course everyone else noticed, passing each other smirks, eye rolls, and play-acted looks of longing. Kal internally groaned. He'd been, perhaps naively, hoping Nines had managed to arrest the big, beautiful, bricked battle frigate. Alas.
“Isn't really your scene,” Kal commented after enjoying a round of banter and bullshit with everyone else.
Wolf snorted, but didn't reply.
Coyote elbowed his brother in the ribs. “How'd you shake the Medji?”
“Told it I'd turn myself in.”
“It believed you?” Coyote howled with laughter. “No, really, how—?”
Wolf met Kal's eyes and asked, “That bot your new partner?”
“Bound don't get partnered with unbound,” Kal stated over the rim of his glass. He didn't explain why because he didn't know why. It just wasn't done. Robots were tools, extensions of their masters. Mimicry was just that, no matter how convincing. Maybe the phrase Wolf was looking for was, Is that bot your new primary issue?
There was an order to maintain, after all. Autonomy was something you could barely give humans, let alone an automated street sweeper. Oh, the Capitals would love to tax another income bracket of low-born individuals, but the Tribals would get upset if new standards of living were going to be enforced. Standards of living. Funny.
Artificial intelligence platforms were a can of spaghettified wires on a good day. As property, bots at least had some legal protections. If any of the more robust learning systems were acknowledged as sentient, it could upend the “natural” order—the one where humans were at the top of the social hierarchy.
Darkness forbid that happen, Kal thought. Things might get interesting.
Wolf narrowed his blue eyes at Kal skeptically. “It told me it'd let me walk for another twenty-four if I answered a simple question.”
That was news to Kal. He hadn't thought it was possible for a metal enforcer to deviate from a directive so drastically. Nines was proving more anomalous by the second. And, besides that, how would Nines know Wolf had any personal ties to him?
“What'd he want?” He finished off his drink before waving for another.
Wolf seemed just as confused, but a hint of something like jealousy entered his voice as he said, “It wanted to know if you were single.”
Kal giggled. “Hilarious!”
“Jackal.”
Kal frowned. “Oh. You're serious.”
Wolf held up a pinky. “Light strike.”
Coyote looked between them with raised eyebrows. “A steel pig with a humor module and a suicide drive. Now I've heard it all. What was it busting your chops for anyway?”
Kal answered for Wolf, drawing another of the Amunite's token icy glares, “Warrant was for assault. I wanna keep my plausible deniability, but I gotta know how you got caught, Ookami.”
Wolf made a tch sound. “Street cam.”
“Sloppy.”
“Fuck you.”
Kal grinned and then, on impulse, asked, “Why the fuck did the Medji wanna know if I was single?”
“Didn't ask. Plausible deniability,” Wolf deadpanned.
“So, what'd you tell him then?”
“I told it that if it was really that curious, it could look you up at Saturnalia on leisure cycles.”
Coyote cackled.
“You prick,” Kal said without heat. Then he barked a laugh of his own. “You imagine? Some fucking smart toaster showing up at a sex club asking for me by name? I'll take pictures. That's hilarious.”
To be fair, with six shots of liquor in his system, riding behind a pick-me-up tablet and a stay-asleep pill, everything was hilarious to Kal.
Wolf did not look amused, which made Kal want to milk the fantasy further. However, before he could needle the on-worlder anymore, one of the pack boys whisper-shouted at Kal from the other end of the table, drawing his attention.
They were all unsubtly gesturing at some chick who had taken up a place at the bar across the room. Coyote's mouth hung half open as his eyes raked over her, from raven's wing hair to the charcoal suit jacket draped over her shoulders to the razor-sharp red stilettos popping shapely calves.
Wolf groaned, glancing between Coyote's slack-jawed look and Kal's predatory smirk. “Don't,” he begged. “Can we not go one fucking night without you two betting over—”
“First goes. Five drinks,” Kal called out and the table roared their approval over Coyote's sputtered protests and Wolf's hissed curses.
Kal bit his tongue as he winked at Wolf. The broad, blond Amunite glared at him and mouthed, “Don't.”
“Make me,” he mouthed back before hopping up.
Of course, Wolf didn't stop him, because Wolf was a chicken shit when it came to curtailing Kal's impulses. It was part of the reason they didn't work, and couldn't work, outside purely professional parameters and group settings. Kal needed someone with more backbone. Wolf was usually all competence and carbon steel… right up until Kal breathed in his general vicinity and turned the Dog into a competent, carbon steel doormat. Kal needed a submissive with more self-respect than that. He was a service top, not a fucking master.
He approached tall, dark, and gorgeous and she eyed him warily as he did so. He hailed the bartender for another round and paid for it with a swipe of his chip. After taking a sip, he said, “Hi.”
“I don't fuck boys,” she said. Her voice was all smoke and leather, heady with rich disinterest.
The blunt declaration caught him off guard. Boy? He was twenty-six, thanks. Instead of countering with any kind of charm that would bely his “maturity”, he squinted at her and snapped incredulously, “What?”
“I said, I don't fuck boys.” She finished her own drink and motioned at one of the bartenders to close out her tab. The domestic, headless robot slowly marched over.
Kal kept his bearing open when what he really wanted to do was cross his arms and pout. “And I just said, Hi.”
She still didn't look at him. But she hadn't lost her aloof bearing either. “If I have to repeat myself a third—”
“I heard what you said,” he protested, then caught himself and plastered a smile back on his face. She flicked a black, plastic pay card out to the bartender instead of swiping her wrist. From where she'd produced it, he didn't see. The sleight-of-hand made him reevaluate her.
Too much trouble, he decided.
To explain away his physical hesitation, he leveled with her. “To be honest, the guys just wanted to see if you'd even talk to me. The longer I'm over here, the longer they'll believe you didn't just burn me down to my soles.” Then he squinted at her. “I'm getting dom, but not lesbian off you.”
She finally looked at him askance. Her skin was Spacer pale. Her lips were stained red. Thick, black kohl enunciated naturally dark shadows lining deep-set eyes. She was a classic beauty, but Kal was more interested in the numb look, the vague curiosity. He wondered if he could turn that look into real intent or annoyance.
She got her card back from the bartender bot who bowed politely at the waist. With deft, metal fingers, she tapped away on the bartop's embedded glass tablet. No chip for certain. Old-school.
She gave him another assessing look out of the corner of her eyes. After confirming payment, she looked up from the glass and asked him point-blank, “You gay?”
“Gay?” What did gay look like?
“Are you gay?” she over-enunciated.
“Pan,” he stated, his tone edged with dubiousness, as if he suspected some kind of social or verbal trap.
She made an ambiguous thinking sound and looked beyond him to the darker part of the club. “The hyenas pointing at us are your guys?”
He didn't dare look behind him. He could hear them shouting suggestions over the distant dim of music. He rubbed the back of his neck, abashed, but bemused more than anything. “Help me out?”
She rested a hip against the bar top and clasped her hands over her stomach. “Got a name?”
“Kal.”
“Kal,” she repeated blandly. When he only nodded, she sniffed and looked toward the foyer. “What's in it for me?”
“Usually a drink. But I see you're headed out.”
“How about a favor?”
“Only if you're planning on cashing it right now.”
Her face didn't emote, but she crossed her arms, making defined muscles stand out under her forearm bones and along her sharp elbows. “A favor.”
He held back a sigh. So like a Duat Station native to want for power rather than affects. He let out a breath. “Fine… A favor.”
She deftly fanned her metal fingers out toward him, revealing an ivory business card. She had style in spades, he really had to give her that. It was smooth, the way she'd palmed it from her jacket pocket to the inner side of her bare wrist. It was how he knew, if he said all the right things, she'd probably give it to him.
When he reached out, she pulled the card back and met his eyes. Her irises were matte gray, flat and lifeless. As The Trenches’ environmental lighting changed from pink to blue, he could better see the sleepless creases under her lined eyes. She flicked the card back at him and this time he carefully took it from her without haste.
When she left without another word, she'd turned her head and exposed the knife tattooed behind the shell of her right ear.
He physically shuddered at the sight. He received a ping from his PC, remarking on his elevated heartrate.
He didn't thank her, couldn't find anything more adequate to say to her back, and he certainly didn't ask for her name.
He already knew what she was, which was more than what most probably knew about her, and something he really, really didn’t want to think about.
Perhaps she sensed his unease, perhaps she was indifferent to it. In either case, she stopped three steps away from him, but then continued on.
Kal slowly made the card disappear into his own shirt cuff while her back was to him. Just below the thump of the music, he could hear the razor points of her stilettos striking the floor like pitons driving into his head.
He self-consciously reached up and rubbed the shiny, callus-like skin behind his own right ear; flesh that was always carefully covered by styled chocolate tresses or intricate ear cuffs. Today was no different, and he’d had his left side facing her. There was no way she could have known what he was… unless she’d recognized him.
He waited until she passed the coat check, the bouncer, the threshold. It was enough time for him to gather himself and form a mischievous smirk on his lips.
When he returned to the pack, the table exploded into callouts and jeers. His promised drinks came around and braver souls in the pack pounded his back, but still didn’t dare ruffle his perfectly quaffed hair. Kal pasted a victorious grin onto his face, holding out his hands as he basked in the adoration of his peers. He got questions and suggestive gestures and, before long, he was encased in that easy, bawdy, protective familiarity of shallow expectation. It all served to distract him from his racing thoughts, his internal disquiet.
Only the twins seemed to notice his underlying unease. He treated Wolf to a dismissive wink (since it was none of his fucking business) but Coyote got a nod (because now wasn’t the time, but he’d spill it later).
Wolf tried to corner him in the bathroom, not for the first time, and just like the other times before, Kal rebuffed him. “You know,” Kal said as he washed his hands, “you could just ask for privacy instead of accosting me when I’ve got my fly open.”
“How else am I going to catch you off-guard?” Wolf asked as he leaned against the bathroom door and hooked his thumbs into his jeans’ pockets.
“I’m never off-guard,” Kal snorted.
“You knew her.”
“Who?”
“The briar rose at the bar. You didn’t whisper against her neck. You always do that when you encounter a hard nut to crack.”
“I mixed it up tonight. Still got her number. Why? Looking for pointers?”
“You know I’m not.”
Kal stepped up to him. “Get outta the way. I left my last glass on the table. What if I get slipped something? You wanna hold my hair again, Big Bad?” He breathed the last two words against Wolf’s neck and the Amunite leaned away, but he could see a muscle jump in his jaw.
“You don’t let anybody touch your hair,” Wolf stated.
“Move.”
“Tell me how you know her.”
“Tell me why you care.”
“She’s bad business, Jackal.”
Kal grinned. “So am I.” He jerked his knee up in a feint and Wolf side-stepped with his hands out. Laughing, Kal pushed by him, throwing over his shoulder, “Next time, it’ll connect.”
Wolf rolled his eyes and followed him back to the pack.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIhZOSO6mBW
Kal and Coyote snuck out after Wolf was pulled away by a couple Dogs trying to introduce him to some blue-haired twink on the dance floor. Something about comparing piercings.
They were on their way to the shuttle pool. They didn’t have to walk, could have climbed to a tram line, but they two of them liked to use the walk to gossip. Passing the last half of a cheap spliff between them, they caught up in earnest, riding the high of their late night spirits mixed with pick-me-ups and Dusk dust.
Kal slurred at him, “She was fucking bladed, Oddie.” And I recognized her, he didn’t add. Komodo, he thought to himself. She was called Komodo.
Coyote frowned, but didn’t say anything at first, giving Kal the breathing room he needed to put together his words. Kal said, “I… I recognized her from a, uh, blotter.” That wasn’t true. No Knife worth their price would ever be caught on record, and no client would ever let their Knife be processed after any accidental arrest. And no precinct would be stupid enough to pick one up, even if they had probable cause. Duat’s leading body, Septet, would have made that precinct dissolve overnight; all her employees suddenly reassigned or indentured to a mining facility on some distant moon.
But Coyote didn’t know all that. Coyote knew what everyone knew about Knives, that they were untouchable contract killers with tattoos on their necks. Often used by corporations and free states to wage silent wars on one another, Knives were considered by many to be the nuclear option. If you had a Knife hanging over you, it was compliment and threat in one: your disappearance was worth more than the sale of your organs.
Kal, gaining a little momentum after exhaling a cloud of smoke, said confidently, “She’s older. Longer hair. But the eyes… I know it’s her.” New 'netics too, he noted internally. She's lost at least four fingers... Lamplighter, how hasn’t she been shredded? Four fingers equaled four screw-ups; mistakes or missed marks that cost a digit apiece. Most Knives didn't lose more than a finger before also losing their heads.
Coyote ran a hand through his loose blond hair and asked softly, “And you’re worried because you think she’ll find out you’re a Medji?”
No, I’m worried she’ll recognize me from fucking assassin school. “Yeah,” he said, passing him the nub.
The air was warm and balmy throughout Blue Side. The dehumidifiers that were sent out to service the area often didn’t make it back to their charging ports before being snatched and sold for scrap. Despite that and the jacket draped over his shoulders, Kal was shivering.
Kal clarified. “Well, I don't think she could pick me out of the crowd. My tech’s been scrubbed. And usually I’m… wearing a helmet, y’know?"
Coyote tried to lighten the heavy mood. “Anyone could pick you out, Kal. Have you ever looked in the mirror?”
“Don't start,” he said, annoyed. “I shouldn't have taken her card, but I panicked.” He didn't mention the favor to Coyote. He wanted his friend’s advice, not any panic. “What if it has a tracker in it? Did she look like the stalker type to you? I don’t think she did. Classy vibe, dangerous for sure, but not creepy.”
Coyote chuckled, probably in response to his babbling more than anything. He asked, “What're you gonna do? Chuck it?”
Kal scanned the pocket where he’d stashed the card. It didn’t have a fob chip. It was inert. He hummed. “I dunno. Probably nothing.”
Coyote passed him the smoke as he said airily, “Wonder what she was doing in The Trenches... Didju see what rig she left in? Any outfit? Guards? Knives have outfits, right? Or… do they not need guards?”
“None of the above that I saw, but I was pretty toasted even before I approached her... Fuck, she burned me down and still gave me her contact. Does she expect someone like me to actually hit her up?”
Coyote grinned. “Would you, if she wasn't… you know?”
If she wasn’t Komodo? If she wasn’t a knife? “Fuck yes,” he said with feeling. “Did you see her? You did see her. A body like that and that no-fucks-given attitude? Light blind me, I'd let her fucking destroy me.”
Coyote cackled with mirth and bump his hip with his own. “So...?”
“She's still a fucking Knife, Oddie.” Down to her fucking heels, he added internally.
“But—and lemme just say this—if you were normal—”
“Whoa.”
“—had normal friends—”
“Hey now.”
“—and had the usual tastes—”
“Define usual.”
“—you wouldn't even know what Knife means.” He gave Kal a meaningful look. “You just said if she wasn't a contractor, you'd hit her up.”
“Forget playing with fire, that's jumping on top of the pyre after dowsing myself in black gold.”
“Eesh. Grim, JJ. Grim.” He grimaced. But then his expression brightened and he said, “Give me the card.”
Kal stuck his tongue out. “I’m gonna toss it.”
They fought over the ivory rectangle for a few moments, but after Coyote dropped the last puff of their Boldleaf, they both cut their losses and Kal stuffed it back into his jacket. Coyote groused under his breath as he discovered that he didn’t have another joint on his person. But when Kal shook a baggie of Dusk at him, he huffed a laugh and they mutually decided to call it.
They reached the shuttle pool shortly thereafter, but lingered on the curbside to have a cigarette.
Coyote asked, “You even looked at it yet?”
Kal snuffed out his butt with the toe of his boot. “Nope.”
“Pussy.”
“Yep.”
A transport finally arrived and they both hopped in. Nine blocks later, Kal got out first and flicked his part of the fare from his PC to Coyote's. Hovering in the shuttle door, he craned his head back and asked the monorail overhead, “What would you do?”
Coyote asked, “If I were you, or if I were me?”
“If you were you.”
“I’d’ve already sent twenty desperate messages and a dick pic, begging Mommy to step on me and call me a naughty boy.”
Kal cackled and would have lingered to banter a little more, but the automated shuttle minder was giving them what could only be described as a pained look in the rear-view mirror, so he cleared his throat and said, “Get some sleep, Coyote.”
He smiled warmly at him, all red-eyed and blissed-out. It was nights like these that he was grateful to have someone in his corner. “Dar'pro', Jackal,” Coyote told him.
“Yeah, yeah. Darkness protect you too.” Kal blew him a kiss and slid the door shut, slapping the side panel of the cab before turning on his heel to head back up to his Teal Side loft.
In Residential Tower Delta’s lobby, the storefronts were all shuttered, covered in graffiti and PC advert codes. Even though he hadn’t washed his hands, he pulled out his Disso eye and stored it in the contact case from his pocket. He kicked an empty can on the way to the lift. As he waited for the pod to descend from the top floor, he absently shuffled Komodo's card out of his sleeve and turned it over in his hands.
He huffed to himself, then let out a hysterical laugh.
Of course, he thought.
It was blank on both sides.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzgkQS8bNip
