“If we’re going to my house, I have a right to know why,” Omar insists. His voice sounding stern, like he thinks maybe he can intimidate me. Maybe he thinks I’m soft, because I saved his ass. If he only knew who I am, he wouldn’t think that. He’s just lucky he’s not a dirty cop—notwithstanding the smell of an arak’s ass that’s radiating from him in noxious waves.
“We’re going to pick up your family. If you don’t get them out of Liberty City before Mohinari realizes what just happened, he’s going to feed them to his pet Wraiths.”
Omar grows suddenly still and serious. Nods once. “What about you? You’re the one who killed that guy, not me.”
“Yeah, that was me. But it wasn’t me, because I’m someone else. My name isn’t Roman, and I don’t have wavy black hair or dimples in my cheeks, and I sure as hell don’t have this damned baby face,” I add, sparing a hand from the controls to indicate my hideously-hologenic mug with a thumb.
“Then who are you?”
I spare a second of my attention from the grid lines of air traffic that I’m illegally skirting by flying below the designated altitude of one thousand meters.
“I’m the guy people call when calling guys like you doesn’t work.”
* * *
The air car comes to a gliding stop in front of the docking port that extends from the balcony of Omar’s apartment. He’s up on the fiftieth floor of a modestly appointed-building that glows blue and green in a checkered pattern as the light from within is filtered through its tinted windows. The apartment has no view except of the towers across the street and the criss-crossing snarl of pedestrian tunnels on the commercial floors above and below this one.
“I’ll be right back,” Omar says as the privacy frosting of the glass doors behind the thermal-shielded balcony clears to reveal a pretty young woman with dark hair, and a miniature version of her. The daughter has her face and hands pressed to the glass.
“Make it fast.”
“Can I shower?”
“Fuck no.”
“Okay.”
Omar’s door slides open, and I fold my hands calmly in my lap while I wait. My eyes are everywhere, scanning the skies, and the displays in the dash showing feeds from the external cameras.
Air cars flit around, whirring softly as they go. Dipping down, docking briefly, then jetting off. It reminds me of this documentary I saw once. Weaver birds on Earth. They use grass to build these huge communal nests that hang from the branches of trees in southern Africa. Like apartment buildings for birds. The male weavers can be seen flitting about, hovering briefly outside to leave food for their kids and mates, and then they go flitting off again. Just like these cars.
Of course, we’ve got our women doing it, too. Birds need to catch up. Such a sexist species. A grin parts my lips. Then collapses in a scowl.
Where the hell is Omar?
The glass doors and windows along the balcony are back to frosted. Nothing but a fussy glow leaking out to tell me that they’re still home. Deus, I hope they’re not making a run for it. Not trusting me right now would be the last mistake they’ll ever make.
My eyes dip to check the car’s sensor display for the requisite number of life signs inside.
Three green dots. On the move. Headed toward my location.
Smart man.
The glass door slides open, three people come bustling out, their arms draped with luggage.
That was fast.
Too fast. Must have already had those bags packed. Again, I’m subtly impressed with Omar.
His family hurries across the short docking bridge to the side of the Cavalier. Both doors on the passenger side slide open as Omar triggers them with his implant, and they come sliding in. Another noxious cloud fills my nostrils. This one cloying and sweet.
“You trying to choke me to death with flowers?”
Omar snorts a grim laugh as the doors slide shut. “Let’s go.”
I feed the car with a new destination: The Rikard Spaceport, and it undocks from the apartment with a clunk. A moment later, the car goes drifting up, slotting into the snailing lanes of traffic between two commercial levels. We’re barely doing sixty KPH. Too damn slow. A frown graces my lips. All cars have to be on autopilot inside the city limits, no way around that without bringing every police cruiser on the planet crashing down on us. Maybe even a few FSA Interceptors to boot. Gotta protect those bird nests.
“Where are we going?” a small voice asks.
A glance at the holofeed from the ceiling cam reveals a cherubic face, innocent blue eyes, cheeks pink from the cold.
“Shhh,” her mother says.
I look away. The less the kid knows the better. I can’t guarantee that they’re going to make it. I’ll get them off world, but after that, they’re on their own. I glance at Omar. He’s wearing a fresh set of civilian clothes, not another uniform. Good. That choking flowers smell is coming from him. No time to shower, so he emptied a bottle of his wife’s perfume to mask his filth. His gunbelt is gone, replaced by a civilian belt with a thermal shield built in.
There is a hint of a bulge in the inside right pocket of his creased, brown arak leather jacket.
A gun? Looks big enough to be a compact laser pistol. Omar probably has a permit for concealed carry. Good. He’s going to need it.
Chapter 4
Liberty City’s spaceport swells large and bright beneath us: a giant circular landing deck in the center for container haulers and warships. Concentric rings of smaller pads connected by access tunnels to the central hub. Those are for independent traders, freelancers like me, and wealthy system-jumpers on stim-vacations. The spaceport is on the outskirts of the city, up on one of the glacial shelves that overlooks the rift and the spires of downtown where we were a few minutes ago.
Omar and his family are quiet. Scared. He’s turned his seat back to face his family. I can hear him and his wife trading the occasional word or two. Sometimes they’ll glance at me, then look away just as promptly. They’re scared of me, not just the possibility of reprisals from Mohinari.
They can sense it. The black cloud of death that follows me around. I’ve made my peace with it, but I have my own personal entourage of ghosts, and not all of them are friendly.
Our car folds into a holding pattern of traffic above the spaceport, chugging along at the speed of sloth. I’d bet a thousand credits that no one on Terra Novus even knows what a sloth is. Like most Earth animals, they’re long extinct—except for the cybernetic replicas in Coalition museums. I used to like visiting those museums. Back when I wasn’t an ex-con who flashes an alert on people’s comms and mixed reality displays whenever I’m within a hundred meters. You have to see it to believe it. They say people are mostly water—well, I can part a whole Red Sea of people just by strolling down the street.
Ex-cons are the stuff of legend on Earth: rare, twisted creatures with mythical powers that parents whisper to their children about to keep them in line.
Nobody gives a shit about me out here. Partly, because I have illegal mods to my neuralink that broadcast an innocuous ID code to match whatever biomask I’ve decided to wear today. Out here, in the heart of the Free Systems Alliance, I’m in the land where nobody knows my name.