Chapter Twenty-Two

It wasn’t that simple of course, as much as I’d have loved to jump on her right there in the chop-shop, we had witnesses, and the first time, well. It should be special.

Well over ninety percent of those ‘first times’ for me had been drunk, with very little memory of them, so yeah, maybe as we were both adults, we could put in a little effort.

Also, she was laid in a chop-shop, having just had her brain operated on, so me trying to cut off her airway with ‘Mr Happy’ probably wasn’t the best thing for her right then anyway.

I helped her to her feet, then pulled her in close and held her for long seconds before finally kissing her deeply.

It was the best goddamn kiss I’d ever had, and that included the one she’d given me while seeing ‘eye-to-ball’ after I’d been seriously fucked up raiding the corpo pleasure tower.

I was eventually peeled off her as Luna and Gessh forced their way in, and then, surprisingly, Lion gave her a hug as well, telling her he was pleased she was alright.

“Is she?” I asked him as she spoke to Luna and Gessh excitedly about something.

“Her alpha and beta waves are good.” He nodded, apparently seeing something that I couldn’t, before jerking his head in the direction of the director, who was sidling towards the door. “Want to take care of that?” he suggested, and I nodded, sighing.

“So. Want to change how this comes out?” I asked the director, striding over to him.

“What do you mean?” he asked, slowly backing up, clearly ready to run.

“This is against my better judgement, but fuck it, it’s for her, not me,” I said, knocking on his ident, and offering fifty thousand credits.

“Why…” he whispered, his tongue darting out to lick dry lips as he waited.

“This way you get something out of this, far more than you fucking deserve,” I growled, “But otherwise you end up walking away, then you start thinking that you deserved more from this, you end up drinking, and no doubt that’s when the wonderful plan for revenge comes about. This way you get something, and we all go our separate ways. Mark my words though, if someone comes after us? The last sight you’ll ever see will be me.”

“So this is to keep quiet?” he asked, tongue darting nervously again.

“Call it what you will,” I growled, already regretting it. “Last chance offered.”

“Fine.” He accepted it, then backed away a little, before turning and running.

I watched him go, feeling dirty for paying the little bastard, but also feeling like sort of shooting him in the face—which I really, really wanted to do, but shouldn’t—he’d not actually broken the laws, he’d just weaseled his way around them. If that was illegal, all lawyers would be fair game.

As I walked back towards the others, I indulged in a few seconds of that fantasy, of being able to get bounties on lawyers and going round hunting them, then I dismissed it, and instead took Reign in my arms again.

This time the kiss was wonderful, but over too soon.

“How you feeling?” I asked her and she winced.

“You’re not going to believe me, but… I have a headache?” she said, to the rising sound of laughter, and I snorted.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll dip my dick in some painkillers… do you want it orally or as a suppository?”

Everyone laughed, and she grinned, then kissed me again and whispered in my ear for me to pick. I squeezed her tight and shook my head, before cursing as a connection request came up.

“Yes?” I asked, frowning as I approved it.

“Delivery?” a bored voice said, the image flickering into place of a smiling and professional greeter, sitting in a clean office, and supposedly controlling the various delivery drones that the company used.

In reality we both knew he was half slumped across his desk, probably in his own home using the net to direct things and sat there in his underwear eating chips… but that wasn’t the point here.

The point was that I’d totally forgotten about the electronics set and bench that was being delivered, and that memory sparked another… and another.

“Fuck!” I snarled, then shook my head again, holding a hand up to stall the others as I stepped back from the embrace with Reign. “Okay, just give me a minute. I’ll get someone to open the door, alright?”

“As per section twenty-seven, sub paragraph three, you have seven minutes from the connection time of this call before an additional delay fee will be added to your account sir. Please—”

“Yeah, yeah! Just wait!” I snarled at the bored operator, before blinking one eye free and focusing on Luna who was standing to one side. “Luna, call Dondo, I know that fucker or Oshbob will have access to the warehouse still, you know what they’re like, we’ve got a delivery drone with the electronics gear hovering in the parking area…”

“I’ll sort,” she said, nodding quickly, eyes glazing over as she made a call. “Hey big…” She started and I cut back to the comm link, not needing to hear any more.

“There’s a… there’s someone coming to let you in, there’s a cleared space inside on the right and…”

“As per the contract we are only permitted to…” He spoke over me boredom clear.

“Oh fuck it whatever,” I snapped, ending the call and blinking as the real world settled back in for me. “We’ve got a problem.”

“When don’t we have a problem?” Reign snorted, but the smile was still clear on her face. “Seriously, Kabutt, I know it’s been a while for you but a delivery? Is it really the electronics gear, or did you buy so much lube it needed a drone to deliver it?”

“Yeah, you keep laughing…” I growled in mock threat. “Just you wait till I forget the lube entirely!”

“Oh gods, seriously you two, get a room!” Lion groaned. “Look, is this a you lot problem, or a me as well problem?”

“Uh… us lot?” I said.

“That’s great then! I like you all, but you’re standing around in my workplace, and I’ve got another client, so how about you all fuck off?”

We all turned and saw a pair of young girls standing nervously in the door and Reign shook her head, snorting.

“Ah, I remember sneaking out to get my first mod as well. Right, come on you fuckers, let’s give the man some room, then Kabutt can explain why we’re fucked, and why I’m not going to be for a while.”

We waved our goodbyes to Lion, even as we started heading out the door and past the two girls, the pair of them seemingly tiny and delicate in comparison to the merc sisters that towered over them in all their armor and loadout.

“So…” Reign prompted when we got away from any listeners. “How bad is it?”

“Fucking bad,” I growled. “Remember Anthos Black?”

“Yeah?”

“Turns out that a site of his was hit, and his merchandise was lost, so he’s taking a load of ‘fresh’ merchandise to a secondary site according to Stinger. Either we hit him today, or we miss our chance for at least a month.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Merchandise?”

“We know he’s a slaver and flesh trader,” I said. “What do we think the odds are that the site we accidentally raided for specters was his?”

“The tower?” Gessh asked, frowning.

“No, you idiot!” Luna groaned, shaking her head and smacking her sister across the back of the head with an open palm. “The underground one! The water storage place that hadn’t seen water in centuries!”

“Crap.”

“Yeah exactly,” I agreed, before shaking my head. “And that’s not the worst of it.”

“What is?”

“He’s not the only job that we need to get done today.”

“What?”

“You remember that banshee that dragged me into the box at the bottom of the tower?”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got a meeting with it tonight, to hand over the tech we grabbed.”

“Wait, what?” Luna growled, even as Reign spoke up quickly.

“No, we need that!” she said. “You said you could get it working. You said you needed it to harvest nanites to get us all into APS!”

“And we do,” I said holding my hands up as all of them started complaining and arguing. “What we need though, is to not be at war with a fucking banshee as well…”

“Could we capture it?” Gessh asked, slowly smiling. “Sell that fucker, and split it four ways…?”

“Five,” Reign interjected. “Either Todds is one of the team or he isn’t, and he did well.”

“Okay, five,” Luna agreed, nodding her agreement to her sister.

“No,” I said firmly.

“No we don’t share?” Luna asked, shrugging. “Well if you’re sure…”

“Right, fuck this. Shut it, all of you,” I snapped. “This is how it’s going to be!” I glared round at them all. “Right. We need to be able to harvest nanites, we fucking need that. Thing is? I’ve already canned the shit outta the invention. I need a full schematic download, but once that’s done? Yeah. I can make a new one. I told the banshee I’d trade the kit back to it, for a tier FOUR spinal mod. If it can get that? We clean the fuck outta the mod and hey, maybe we sell it, maybe we use it, but either way its decent credits. With the schematic for the harvesting tool? I can make another. Once we’ve got the software download done? I can literally make it work, or at least we’ve got as good a chance as we ever had of getting that one working, alright?”

“So what, you meet it and hand it over? What’s to stop it from killing you?” Reign asked.

“I’ll be holding an EMP and you’ll have my back,” I pointed out. “Look, I don’t like it much, but that fucker would have killed me. It tracked us across the city and was waiting in there for us. It didn’t go after the gear, it went after us. Stop and think about that for a while. The banshee we handed over? It could use a keystone. It comm’d me directly.

“If we can do a deal and strike a balance with the banshee? There’s nothing we can’t do. You want to harvest the specters? They don’t seem to give a shit. Maybe it can direct us to more concentrations. Maybe it’ll trade with us, bring us tier four and five gear in exchange for whatever it needs. We’ve got an opportunity here, that’s all I’m saying.”

“And Anthos Black?” Reign asked after a few seconds of silence as they all looked at each other.

“We hit him as well. He’ll be leaving the city tonight Stinger said. No way he’ll be leaving while the sun is up, and his hidden way out of the city was captured, right? He lost it when we raided?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, we need to put some feelers out and find out what happened to that secret door don’t we,” I said grinning. “Because I’m betting that he’s going to try and use it tonight. We find out if the wall guard have had it reported to them and it’s been sealed up? We go looking elsewhere, but if it hasn’t…”

“We go looking for the ACE team that are now selling a smuggling route in and out of the city,” Reign groaned. “Fuck’s sake is there anything those corrupt fucks won’t do?”

“Right now I’m hoping I’m right,” I admitted. “I might be totally wrong, and we’ll have to go back to Stinger and ask for a handout for the location, or chase down Bowdoin and see if that sneaky fuck can find this guy, but honestly? It fits too neatly. If he’s leaving the city tonight, it can’t be by normal means, not with a fuck load of slaves and prisoners. Even the gate guards wouldn’t let that happen.”

“So it has to be a smugglers route,” Luna agreed. “Why not use another?”

“He probably knows of one at least, and if the door was sealed? Then yeah, that’ll be his play, but if some ACE team decided to make a little fun money on the side? I’m betting they’d turn a blind eye to him.”

“I don’t know,” Reign said after a second. “Stealing anything not nailed down? Sure. Letting a bunch of people be carted off as slaves? That’s not a striking off offense, that’s a shooting offence. I don’t know if they’d go that far.”

“They might, they might not. Most likely though, I’m betting the dodgy fuckers won’t ask nor care though. They won’t have stationed someone by the door to stand and check people in and out. I bet they changed the door code and that’s it, they’ll be selling that.”

“And there’s less risk to them as well, as they’re not there, so can’t be fingered for a crime.” Reign sighed. “Yeah, that fits.”

“We need to make sure though, and for that we need to find out if the door was reported and sealed,” I said. “I need to be downloading the settings and details for the harvester, then building our own, right? So…”

“So you need some wonderful, amazing people that are gifted with stealth and skill to do the dirty work.” Luna sighed. “What do you think, Gessh?”

“I think that’s exactly what he means,” she agreed.

“You’re right,” Reign said. “Someone that’s stealthy, trustworthy, skilled and able to blend in…”

Luna nodded, winking at her sister.

“I’ll call Todds,” Reign finished with an evil grin.

“Yeah, we can… what!” Gessh snarled.

“He’s stealthier than any of us, he fought well, and he’s in the team now I guess, might as well make use of him,” Reign pointed out.

“You fucker,” Luna grumped, before grinning. “Well I suppose I could call Dond—”

“No fucking chance,” I growled. “I’m going to be making schematics and ordering parts from companies. I have to try and remake in hours what should take weeks! I don’t need the worry he’s going to fuck you through the wall while I work! You can give Todds backup!”

“So sad…” Gessh started.

“BOTH of you,” I cut her off. “I’m going back to the warehouse, and I need to get the damn gear into place. We’ve got a day, literally, that’s it. Don’t waste it, and get to work.”

“So much for fun…” Reign whispered in my ear as I called an air-cab to get us back as quickly as possible.

“You’re going to bed,” I told her, then raised my voice. “Yes, I know, and no I’m not playing favorites, or setting up so I can have some fun later. We’re going to need Reign later, and she’s literally just had her brain poked around with. She’s going to bed TO SLEEP.”

“I’ll lock my door.” Reign sighed, then smiled round. “Sorry girls, he’s right. I need to rest.”

“It’s alright,” Gessh said, putting one hand on Reign’s shoulder. “I was only joking, and yeah, he’s right as well. We’ve only got so long, we can make it all work, but only if we don’t fuck about.”

“Tomorrow,” Luna said firmly, looking from one of us to the next. “Tomorrow we get a goddamn day off!”

“Deal!” we echoed.

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