Grave Matters reminded Juliet a lot of Thicker than Water back in Tucson. The exterior was very different, a sleek plasteel tower housing a hundred businesses. The interior, though, had the same kind of vibe—lots of purple and violet carpeting and upholstery, dim lighting with neon highlights near the bar and dance floor, and all sorts of patrons that might as well have been wearing name placards that said, “Operator.” When she and Leo arrived, only the bar and private rooms were open—the dance floor was roped off, and the only dancers were holographs of scantily-clad men and women flickering in the occasional vape cloud expelled by the mingling patrons.
The chromed-out bouncer tried to disarm them but relented when they both sent him a copy of their up-to-date operator IDs. Knowing that, Juliet figured half the patrons in the bar were operators or something similar because she saw a lot of guns and blades. Leo didn’t pause to mingle or give Juliet much of a chance to people-watch; he walked straight through the bar area, up a short flight of carpeted stairs, around a corner, and then to a heavy plasteel door with a biometric security panel instead of a handle. Juliet frowned and nudged his shoulder. “Frida told you what room?”
“Yep. Not you?”
“I guess she just assumed I’d follow you.”
He shrugged, but his smug expression was back in full force when he pressed his thumb to the little panel, and the door slid open. “Yo!” he said when he saw the group of serious-looking individuals sitting around the table. Juliet hadn’t been nervous on the way to the club, hadn’t even thought about what these guys would be like or how they’d respond to her, but when she saw the scowls and frowns, she suddenly felt the flutter of butterflies in her stomach. When she spied Frida’s friendly face, she focused on her and tried to return her smile.
Applebaum immediately started chatting with the team member closest to the door, and Juliet moved around him, out of the doorway, to better look at the mercenaries. The room was well-lit but had a definite club vibe with black upholstered chairs around a sleek faux-mahogany table. Vid screens lined three walls displaying false “window” views showing Luna’s night-time downtown as though they were in a corner suite at the top of the tower rather than halfway up, buried in the depths.
She knew from Angel’s snooping that the guy Leo was speaking to was Hawkins. He was a lean man, not very tall, but everything about him was sharp, from his buzz-cut hair to his eyes to his thin, frowning lips to the brace of knives over his chest. He wore a black, skin-tight, long-sleeved shirt, and Juliet could see his hands were both matte-black cybernetic prosthetics. He glanced at her while Leo spoke and narrowed those hawkish, bright, natural-looking eyes for half a second before looking away.
Juliet let her eyes drift to the woman across the table from Hawkins. It had to be Dora Lee, and she openly scowled when Juliet’s eyes fell on her. Like Hawkins, she wore her black hair short—maybe a centimeter long all over her head, exposing the white scars of many injuries to her scalp. She was just as lean as Hawkins, though she looked like a bundle of wiry muscles. Her eyes were glossy black, with no irises, and when she put a toothpick between her lips, Juliet saw matching glossy black teeth. Something about her short hair, wiry frame, and choice of dentition reminded Juliet of Ghoul. Despite herself, she quickly looked away, focusing on the other member new to her, Barns.
He was a big man, leaning back in his seat across from Frida, his arms folded over his black, well-worn tactical vest. He had a dozen tattoos on his exposed forearms, and Juliet spied the grips of two pistols worn in a harness meant for cross-body drawing. He was deeply tanned, and his hands and face made him look like someone who did construction work for a living—ruddy, weathered, and well-calloused. His ocular implants were hardcore, military tech, nothing natural about them. They looked like metal balls with a dozen lenses and LEDs where a person’s irises should be. If Dora had a few scars on her head, this guy had ten times as many, peppering nearly every inch of his exposed flesh.
Her quick perusal took all of two seconds, and then Frida said, “This is Lucky, everyone.” None of them said anything, but Hawkins nodded at Juliet while Leo moved around him to sit beside Frida. Dora and Barns both looked at her, quietly waiting for her to speak, she supposed.
“Ahem,” Juliet cleared her throat and nodded, stepping up behind the chair at the near end of the table. She figured they’d saved it for her, seeing as she was, technically, putting the operation together. Before she sat down, though, she stood behind the chair, hands on the top, and said, “I really appreciate you all dropping whatever you were doing and coming here today.”
“Frida called,” Barns rumbled as though that explained everything.
“Right.” Juliet nodded and licked her lips. “Right. I know you’re all on call for Tanaka, but you should know this isn’t his job.”
“The fuck?” Barns sighed and started pushing his chair out. “I got shit I can be doing today . . .”
Frida reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Pierce, chill. You need to hear this out.”
“I’m not too interested, to be honest, Frida, and if Tanaka ain’t calling this action, I don’t need to be here.”
“C’mon, you grumpy asshole,” Leo laughed. “Sit down and listen; you’re already here.”
“Quit wasting time, Barns,” Dora said, her voice surprisingly smooth and musical, with a faint Irish lilt.
Barns scowled and sat back down then, perhaps to save some face, turned to Juliet and said, “Make it good, Legs.”
Juliet couldn’t stop the surprised lift of her eyebrow as she backed away from the chair and looked down at her legs, clad in their slim, but not overly tight, dark blue jeans. “Legs, huh?” She snorted. “Okay, Scarface. Sit still, and I’ll try to make it good.” Some laughter broke out around the table, and Juliet narrowed her eyes at Barns until he, too, started to chuckle. He folded his arms over his chest but seemed to be giving her his attention. “Thank you. As I said, this isn’t a Tanaka job, but I’m willing to make things worth your while, and I don’t think your boss will be upset if we handle this operation this weekend.”
“Weekend? That quick?” Frida asked.
“Yeah, I have some intel to share, and I think, if we play our cards right, we can shut this business down pretty quickly.”
“Business?” Hawkins prompted, his voice low and quiet.
Juliet glanced at him and nodded. “Yeah. Let me share some things.” She switched to subvocalization, “Everything ready, Angel?”
“All set. Just jack into the table there.” Angel highlighted the port for her, and Juliet pulled out her data cable and plugged it in. As soon as she did, Angel took control of the lighting and the vid screens. She dimmed the overhead lights and blanked out the screens while Juliet set the stage.
“So, a while back, I stopped some bangers from robbing me and my friends in one of the industrial domes. I reported the guys to a corpo-sec officer I’ve been trying to sort of groom, I guess, as a contact. He’s on the outs with the dirty cops in the Luna City Security Corp, so you can guess he doesn’t have many friends.” She smiled, and Leo and Barns chuckled. “He said he’d look into it for me, and he found out the gang running the robberies in that dome have a pretty wide-open fencing operation, and he reasoned someone at LCS was protecting them. That’s when he heard from a CI that there was a hit out on him.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Everyone knows LCS is dirty. What are we gonna do about it, and how’s this piggie gonna pay us?” Dora asked, her musical voice turning hard by the end of her question.
“I’m getting to it. Just setting the stage, all right? Another minute. So, Hines—that’s the corpo-sec officer I was working with—calls me and tells me about the hit. Gives me a name to investigate, another corpo-sec grunt. That was the last I heard from him.”
Dora brushed her hands together like she was wiping off some dirt. “So job’s over then.”
“Before I lost contact with him, I scoped out the target,” Juliet said, locking eyes with Dora and trying to channel some Lacy Blake into her gaze. Something must have worked because the hard-looking woman turned away first. “While I was there, I found this.” Juliet pointed to the vid screen behind her, and then Angel played the footage of her unlocking the secret room, fighting the synth, and searching the organ harvesting room. Everyone leaned forward watching, especially during the fight, and she heard Leo whispering to Hawkins, “She’s goddamn fast, isn’t she?” Angel cut out all of their conversations, so it was silent except for the sounds of the environment, but still, everyone was riveted, and she heard some cussing when her POV footage showed the organs in the pouches she cut open.
The playback ended, and Juliet turned back to the table. “So, the dirty LCS business goes much further than stolen industrial equipment.”
Frida cleared her throat and leaned forward. “That’s some bad stuff, Lucky, but Dora’s comment earlier still stands. We know LCS is dirty. What do we do about it, and who’s paying?”
“Getting to it, Frida.” Juliet’s nervous energy had faded, and she was feeling more in charge. She was almost grateful to Barns for his comment about her legs. It had stiffened her spine, and now she was showcasing what she’d found, and these guys had barely seen the surface. “So, of course, I was worried that synth got a call for help out before I put him down. I got out of there, and then, later, when I’d seen nobody had come to the apartment and the kid living there, Evan Lopez, was sound asleep in his dream-rig, I decided to go back and get into his head a little. Here’s what happened.”
Another vid began to play, this time showing Juliet’s perspective as she crouched by the commuter car with the two assassins inside. When Dora Lee saw the silhouettes of the passengers, she muttered, “Nice tech.” Then, she got quiet because Juliet sprang into action, smoothly gliding up to the door, pulling it open, and firing her needler into the two dirty operators.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t a couple more synths,” Leo said.
Dora shook her head. “Nope, her scan would’ve picked that up. Those are some damn good optics.”
Juliet folded her arms and nodded to the vid. “Listen.” Angel had spliced the footage, making her interrogation of the two operators much quicker. As it played out, she heard muttered comments, and she turned to see that some of the team’s faces were looking much more interested.
When the screen went blank, Barns said, “They found bit vaults on the dirty corpo they iced, huh? And you got a list of ‘em from that locker?”
“Not yet, but that’s on the agenda. I know what you’re thinking. More offline bit-chips, yeah?” She smiled and nodded. “I’m sure there will be, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. We need to get our hands on this Rolland Devers, AKA Walter Channing, who happens to be a lieutenant for LCS. That will crack everything wide open. He’ll make the connections to Life-Ultra Pharmaceuticals and the other operations going on, like the one that got me started on all this, the robberies in the industrial domes.”
“So, we squeeze him?” Leo asked.
“You mean for his money?” Juliet lifted an eyebrow and shook her head. “I mean, sure, if we can liberate him of some dirty bits, I won’t bat an eye, but I think the big payday will come when we snatch up the dirty actors from Life-Ultra. You know what kind of pockets a pharma corp that size has? When we expose the operation, their corporate office will dump a fat payday our way to get ahead of this story.” Juliet waved her hand and shook her head, a look of chagrin on her face. “Look, I know that’s not solving anything long-term. We’re cutting off an infected finger, but the truth is that the patient’s heart is corrupted. Still, we’ll get Life-Ultra to flip on the criminals in their corporation here on Luna and the dirty LCS officers we’ve identified. They’ll want to spin this as them cleaning house, excising a corrupt department.”
Frida nodded. “And we’ll get a payday while we’re at it.”
“Good enough for me,” Leo said, chuckling.
“It’s not great,” Juliet said, sighing and shaking her head. “You guys know how these things work, though. This corp has enough money to slow-walk this for years, decades, maybe, if we try to take the whole company down. If we were Earth-side, I’d say we could go to one of the independent territories to break the story and see if we couldn’t get some competing corps to cannibalize Life-Ultra.”
“They’re all dirty, though,” Dora sighed, and she said it like a fact, which Juliet was sure they all agreed it was.
“Look,” Leo said, “we’ve all done work for corps we knew were dirty. How do we know? ‘Cause, like Dora said, they’re all fucking dirty. So? Forget the corp and focus on the assholes Lucky found out. Focus on the pharma creeps we can dig out of this dirty lieutenant’s head. We’ll take those wins, get some money, and maybe do something good with it.” His words took Juliet by surprise; the way he’d spoken in the car, he hadn’t seemed too enthused about working without a guaranteed payday. Now, he sounded like he wanted to champion her cause. He must have seen the puzzlement in her eyes when she looked at him because he grinned and winked, destroying any notion that he wasn’t messing with her.
“I’m in,” Frida said.
“What’s the split?” Barns asked.
“There are six of us. We’ll split anything we get six ways.” That caught Leo by surprise; she’d only offered five percent when they spoke in the car. It was her turn to wink at him when his mouth fell open.
“You really think we can do all this before Monday?” Hawkins asked, his voice so low that Angel had to increase the gain on Juliet’s implants to make it clear.
“Frida can grab the data from the locker in the airport. I’ll send her Asia’s biometrics. The rest of us snatch Channing, and then, once we get the info we need out of him, we’ll put the squeeze on Life-Ultra. They’ll want to put this to bed before Monday when our ‘information time-bomb’ releases everything to all the public nets.” Juliet made air quotes while she spoke, smiling at Dora while she said it.
“Because, like you said, they’ll want to make a big PR splash. Cleaning up their company and all that BS,” Frida said, nodding.
“You don’t think we should get the boss in on this?” Dora asked softly, looking at Frida.
“I . . .” She sighed, shook her head, and shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You guys want me to talk to him?” Juliet offered. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re going behind his back.”
“Uh,” Frida made a pained expression. “Better let me call him first. He’s already pissed at you.”
“What?” Juliet’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Why?”
“He called a little while ago, wondering if I knew where you were. He said your sword hasn’t moved since Friday morning. You’re supposed to have it with you all the time . . .”
“What the hell?” Juliet switched to subvocalizations, “Angel, I thought you said that sword wasn’t transmitting!”
“It’s not! At least . . . not regularly. Perhaps he has it sending a tiny signal at irregular intervals. I’m sorry, Juliet. I should have warned you of that possibility.”
“He’s pissed?” Juliet asked aloud, eyes on Frida. “He expects me to drag a practice sword around on a live mission? You saw the shit I got into!” She jerked her thumb at the screen.
Barns snorted, choking back a laugh. “Seriously? That shit was real?” He was looking at Applebaum. “I thought you were jerking my chain about her doing sword lessons with the boss.”
“Better be quiet, Pierce,” Dora said in a too-sweet singsong. “You saw what she did to that synth. Never saw you move that fast.”
“Speed’s overrated!” he growled. “I would’ve dumped a flashbang into that room and popped that thing’s dome before it knew I was there.”
“You always go too loud,” Leo laughed. Juliet sighed, looking around the table, noting that Hawkins didn’t ever take part in the shit-talking.
“Anyway,” Juliet said, gently thumping the knuckles of her cybernetic fist against the table. She realized the meeting was almost over, and she’d never sat down. “Frida, will you call him for me? Tell him whatever you need to, and if he wants more information from me, he can reach out. I guess I should explain why I’m not lugging around that dull piece of metal.” Barns started to say something, but Juliet held up her hand. “Uh-uh, no, no, Pierce,” something about using his first name made her feel like she had some power over him. “No more shit-talking about sword training, ‘cause if you keep it up, I’ll tell Tanaka you think monoblades are stupid.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t test her, brother,” Leo chuckled. “She’d do it, and Boss has been working out again. I think he’d like to cut something . . .”
“Has he?” Dora sounded hopeful.
“Yeah, he’s back among the living.” Leo nodded. “You can thank her.” He nodded at Juliet.
Barns groaned. “For what? Almost killing the guy?”
“You don’t know what you're talking about, chum. Trust me, all right?” Something in Leo’s voice shut Barns down, and, for the second time in that meeting, Juliet was feeling uncomfortably grateful to Leo Applebaum.
Frida broke the awkward silence by scooting back her chair and standing. “Send me those biometrics. I’ll get the stuff out of that locker and message you guys.”
Dora nodded, stood, and walked to the door. “I’ll get eyes on Lieutenant Asshole.”
Hawkins was already up, and he followed Dora. “I’m with you.”
“Lucky,” Leo said, coming around the table, “Barns and I will get geared up. You need anything?”
“Nah, my stuff’s in my hangar. I’ll take a cab.”
“You got a bird?” Hawkins said, halfway out the door. It was the first time he’d spoken at a normal volume.
Juliet looked at him and smiled. “Sure do. Got an interceptor, and I’m helping some friends rebuild a gunship. I own part of it.”
“Shit. Nice, nice!” He looked her up and down, apparently reappraising her. He nodded and slipped out, following Dora Lee, who’d left without another word to anyone.
“C’mon, ladies,” Leo said, gesturing for Frida to move ahead of him. “Pierce and I will escort you out of this den of villainy.” He winked at Juliet, and she rolled her eyes so hard it hurt.
Barns pushed his way around the table and gestured to the door. “Yeah. Let’s go, Legs.”
“Scarface,” Juliet growled, “you and I are gonna need some time on the mats, I think.”
“That a threat or a promise?”
“Oof,” Leo chuckled. “You’re gonna regret that, my man.”