I wrapped my hand around the terrified merc’s throat before he could jerk away.

“Ack!” He flailed at my arm, even managed to hit me pretty hard, but it wasn’t enough. I squeezed at the blood vessels in his neck with my thumb until he fell unconscious.

“What are we going to do with that?” Arc holstered her gun and came over, looking at the guy with an eyebrow raised.

I tried to get his web gear and vest off, but with his limbs all floppy it just wasn’t happening so I gave up. I did toss the pistol he had in a thigh holster- gene-locked, of course- then heaved him onto my shoulder with a groan. Despite the way he acted his weight was dense. Guy was in shape, physically at least.

“Figure we’ll ask him what’s going on- but fuck! He’s probably chipped. He’ll lead a search party right to us.”

Arc twiddled her fingers, perhaps wishing she had a smoke. “Where would they put it, do you think?” Her weird inky eyes stayed on the merc, thoughtful like he was a tricky logic problem. I supposed he sort of was. “The forearm? The nape of the neck?”

“If they really wanted to be dicks it would be in his brain, but it’s worth a look I guess.” I dropped him down and rolled up his left sleeve. Nothing. On the right, though, there was a tiny bulge under the skin on the inside of his forearm. It was about the size of a grain of rice. “Maybe that’s it?”

“Hold him still.” I quickly laid the guy back on the ground, one hand holding his arm steady and the other over his mouth in case he woke up. His breath stayed slow and regular through his nose. Hopefully Arc knew what she was doing.

I shouldn’t have been worried. She drew one of her daggers and with a quick, precise motion made a shallow cut at one end of the chip. The blade parted skin like water but the incision was only a few millimeters long. He barely twitched under my hands. Right after pulling the knife away she pushed a thumbnail against the chip and it popped right out. The cut hardly even bled.

“Shall I destroy it?” She held it up between two fingers

“Toss it that way.” I pointed towards where we’d come from. “It might know we took it out of him, but it might not. May as well send them on a rat chase if we can.”

“I concur.” The tiny device disappeared as she flicked it away. “We really ought to move, though.”

“I concur,” I chuckled, heaving the guy back up onto my shoulder- then winced at the ache in my chest. It was improving, but every movement still tugged at the bullet wound as well. “Anything on the back of his neck?”

“Not that I can see,” she answered after peering at it. “Somewhere that way, perhaps?” She waved at where the mask had come from, a more open space that looked to have been a garage or truck shop once.

“Nowhere else to go, is there?”

“There’s always somewhere else to go.”

“For you, maybe.” I answered her look with a wry grin and got moving. The next room had definitely been some kind of workshop. Toppled toolboxes spilled rusty wrenches onto the floor like metallic vomit. In places the cracked cement was gummy with long-evaporated oil spilled from the bulk tanks along one wall. At the far end an overhead crane had come off one of its tracks, leaving its crumpled hulk resting diagonally across the back wall. The place reminded me of Dag’s shop, actually. If somebody told me on that last morning there where I’d be now I’d have asked what the fuck they were smoking- so I could avoid it in the future.

I thought quickly, hearing shouts from across the way outside. The most direct route to the factory was through the far wall, but I wanted to ask our new friend some questions first. I noticed it wasn’t entirely dark in here. A few dull orange flickers lit up the cracked and filthy floor. Glancing up I saw light through some holes in the ceiling, which while high didn’t go all the way to the roof.

Arc’s suggestion came at the same time. “Perhaps we could use the second floor?”

“Worth a shot. If there’s a fire up there it might keep us off thermals.” Or it might mean the loft was full of suffocating smoke and was about to fall on us. Only one way to find out.

There were no stairs that I could see, but the toppled crane might work as a ramp. We marched over, every breath still sharp in my ribcage, and Arc went first. She climbed like a monkey, limbs wiry and nimble. She helped me up onto the crane’s kinked traversing frame. It creaked with our weight but didn’t move. Clambering up the steeply inclined girders, Arc kept going until she could put a hand on the ceiling. Her pointy-toed dress boots found good purchase on the smooth, yellow-painted metal. Maybe her outfit was more practical than I gave it credit for.

She held out a hand. “Your saw, please?”

“Be real fuckin’ careful,” I said as I carefully passed it to her. “Keep the blade straight in the cut. Both ways, I mean. And sometimes if it feels like it’s catching just a little it’s better to stay on it ‘cause letting go’ll make it kick back into your hand.”

She listened carefully and gave a solemn nod when I was done. Then she whickered a triangular panel out of the ceiling almost as fast as I would have, leaving one corner slightly attached so it didn’t fall.

“Guess I don’t need to give you any advice,” I muttered as she handed the Wiken back.

“No. I listened to you, so it went well. Why draw the opposite conclusion?” She gave me one of those looks that made it impossible to tell if she was serious, then levered herself up through the hole. She reached down and beckoned rather than immediately jumping back out, so I assumed it wasn’t a flaming hellscape up there. I carefully shuffled up the crane and shoved our prisoner up into her dangling arms.

“Make sure he doesn’t wake up,” I warned as she took him. I probably should have choked him again to make sure he wasn’t playing dead, but if he was he decided to keep playing. Feeling creaky as an old man, I muscled myself up through the hole in the ceiling, threw a knee over the edge and shoved myself into the loft. Rust flakes pattered to the floor below. Before I did anything else I reached down and pulled the hanging bit of ceiling back up. With a bit of twisting I got it to hang on the edges of the hole. Hopefully someone below wouldn’t notice it.

The loft was more of an attic than a real second floor. There was barely enough space beneath the roof beams for our six-foot prisoner to stand up, let alone me and Arc. The floor was scattered with boxes of parts and drums of oil and coolant, all utterly coated in dust. At the other end of the room was a door that had likely once opened on to exterior stairs but now revealed only craggy black rock. Between it and us was a greasy orange blaze, black smoke pouring off of it and up through a hole in the roof. One of the missiles from that VTOL must have hit here and set some of the oil drums alight. Perfect. I had no idea how good the bad guys’ light-amp and thermal optics were, but I hoped staying out of sight would defeat the former and hiding in the heat ‘shadow’ of the fire would confuse the latter.

Arc and I dragged the still-out merc to a spot nearer the fire but under an intact section of roof, then sat him up against the wall. I sat back on my haunches and just tried to catch my breath for a few seconds. Between the flames and the humidity I started sweating even more. My mouth was dry and I wished I’d checked the bodies for a canteen or hydration sac or something.

Arc stayed standing, her head on a swivel- but I’d seen the way she looked at me. “Sit for a sec, Arc. Take a break.” I waved her down and she acceded, crouching beside me. “You doing alright?”

Her answer was arch. “You’re the one who keeps getting shot and cut up and so on.”

“Yeah, yeah. You oughta thank me for drawing fire.” She scoffed and I gave her a playful little shove. “Seriously, though. This has to be a lot all at once. You’re sure you’re okay?”

She watched me for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I understand what you mean…but yes.” She allowed herself a small smile. “Thank you for asking, though.”

I clapped her on the back. “And thank you for bailing my dumb ass out at least three times by now. I’ll make it up to you. Take you out to dinner once we’re done here, maybe.”

“You will?” She seemed surprised.

“Sure. Not like I’m short of deng. But speaking of fodder…” Arc rolled her eyes at my marvelous wordplay as I turned toward the merc. He was still out. I didn’t think I’d killed him on accident, and indeed he breathed. Maybe he was faking.

“Wakey-wakey, man.” I poked his shoulder a few times. Nothing. “Come on, get up!” A harder jostle didn’t do anything either. He had to be acting. I pulled out the coilgun and very loudly snapped the selector onto full spread. “Okay, blindie, well played. But if you like having kneecaps you better-“

Arc reached out and gently pushed the muzzle up and away. I was about to tell her I wouldn’t actually blow his legs off when she slapped him a good one across the face, hard enough his head bounced off his shoulder. Green eyes shot open behind the balaclava and he heaved in a huge breath- then started babbling right where he’d left off.

“Wait! Wait! Please don’t- I’ll do anything you want just don’t fucking kill memmph.” I put my hand across his face. Not his mouth, his whole face, like I was palming a kickball. His eyes were wide and wet as they looked out between my fingers, but he got the idea and clammed up.

“So what do you think?” I asked Arc. I gave her a little sidelong glance to try and tell her to play this up. Really ought to have worked up a plan before slapping the poor deek awake. “Easy way or hard way? He’s a soldier, probably trained for this shit. I’m thinking the hard way.” I was still holding his head, but the prisoner’s eyes somehow got wider.

“Mm…I don’t know.” I had no idea if Arc understood what I was doing or not. Her eyes remained on the captured grunt as she twirled a dagger in her hand. The way she looked at him reminded me of how the Montesquieu had looked at me and Walker. Like he was a thing, not a person.

“Torture is worthless when it comes to getting accurate answers,” she continued. “The subject will merely say what he thinks his interrogator wants to hear, whether it’s true or not. A better method is to establish a rapport, to be friendly with the subject and make him want to please you by answering your queries.” The merc nodded frantically against my hand. “Then you torture him, and see if the answers change.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Mmph! Mmmph!” Muffled noises and frantic head-shaking came from under my hand. I moved it away before any more spit leaked through his balaclava.

“Get that fucking mask off before you hyperventilate, man. Why wear it anyway?” I reached for his throat and yanked the balaclava up to his forehead. The face beneath was early twenties, olive-skinned, clean-shaven, and utterly normal- except for the wild fear in his expression.

“I-I-I thought it looked cool! Please don’t fucking torture me, please!” His Standard had an accent, at least to my ear. K-block, maybe? R? B? Pressing himself back against the wall like that, he really did look like a kid who lost his mom in the Old Ved market crowd, that same mix of terror and desperation. The metallic trace for a radio implant shone ahead of one ear but he didn’t seem to have retinal enhancements like the first mercs we’d killed. Snot ran down to his upper lip and moisture beaded in the corners of his eyes.

“He’s actually crying,” Arc murmured with real astonishment.

I nearly laughed, and against all odds felt bad for wanting to. Even so I chuckled a little with my next words. “Dude. You are not cut out for this. What the fuck are you doing here?”

“S-scholarship!” he sobbed. “I hit top of the leaderboards on Secfor 3, and Macomb Security g-gave me a scholarship!” I didn’t know Macomb, but Secfor was one of those hyper-tactical VR shooters that had gotten popular a few years ago. I guess now I knew why. “I do t-two years on contract and they’ll put me through school, I thought I’d just be standing around guarding a factory or something please don’t hurt me I don’t wanna f-fucking dieeeee…” He dissolved into another sob.

By Arc’s impassive expression all that had gone in one ear and out the other, but I had a good picture of what was going on. No wonder he hadn’t shot at us- hell, he probably hadn’t shot anyone before. Maybe I could work out that rapport Arc had talked about. Besides, if we kept scaring him he’d keep on being useless. This problem was the exact opposite of the one I’d expected to have.

“Alright, man. Don’t give us a reason to hurt you and we won’t,” I said a little more gently.

“We don’t have the right equipment, anyway,” Arc muttered. “It would be breaking fingers and knives under nails- positively medieval.” Somewhat worryingly, I couldn’t tell if she was still just trying to scare him or not.

I quickly moved on. “What’s your name?”

“Alvar A’Hern.” He reached down, maybe to get an ID or something out of a pocket, but when me and Arc both tensed he figured out that was a bad idea and stopped.

“Alvar. Sure. Listen, Alvar. We’re just gonna have a nice conversation here. Hell, think of it like a date. Two jo-sans at once, even. And on a date-”

“I’m into guys,” he sniffled.

“Oh. Well, that’s cool too.” Arc gave me a sidelong look which I pointedly did not return. He’d said something without begging for his life, which was progress. “But still- a conversation, right? Both people have to hold up their end. If one of them doesn’t, things get awkward. And if things get awkward…you get the idea. Right? So let’s talk. Your company, Macomb Sec- what are you doing down here?”

He blinked quickly, took a deep breath. He looked to have mostly quit crying. “We, um, we’re working for the Cromwells. We’re s-some kind of subsidiary of one of their holding corps, I think, so we get priority when they need bodies. It’s part of why I took the fucking job, I’m so stupid-“

“Good, good,” I tried to soothe him. “You’re doing good. We’ve all had a dench- a job, I mean- that didn’t turn out like we thought.”

“I haven’t,” Arc helpfully added.

“What do you call this, then?” I shot back. “Anyway, Alvar. What exactly are you doing for the Crommies? Especially way the fuck down here.”

“I-I don’t know exactly, I’m just a guard-“

“Alvar…” The coilgun was still in my hand and his eyes went right to it.

“B-but please, I’ll tell you what I do know! It’s really secret for sure. I wasn’t even supposed to be on this op, really!” he almost wailed in frustration. “But someone got fired for calling in sick too many times so they called me. We’re guarding some kind of- of science lab, I guess. They’re doing experiments.”

“They?” I pressed.

“Scientists, I guess? They work for the Cromwells- direct for the family, I mean, not corporate. There’s three or four of them and some assistants, but the one in charge is a woman. Dr. Hesypha.”

My eyes narrowed. That was the woman I’d seen with the samurai a while back, taking something out of the old temple under the Park. “Okay. What kind of experiments?”

He shook his head nervously. Arc just kept watching him, walleyed like a cat looking out a window. “I told you, I’m not a scientist, I- I just stand where they tell me to-“

“Like I said, Alvar, just tell me anything you remember.”

“Okay, okay. I think…they keep talking about the ‘sample,’ and the ‘armature,’ and ‘reproducing the effect.’ One of them was saying-“

I clapped a hand over his mouth at a sound from below. Voices. “Hey, anyone alive in here?” a man called. More Macomb Security grunts. I looked levelly into Alvar’s eyes, and based on how they darted away he got what I was trying to say. If he called out or revealed our position it would be the last thing he did.

“King shit! The Ennie’s down!” another merc exclaimed downstairs. Must have found the dead Mask. I focused on keeping my breath slow and steady. Again I was a lot calmer than it seemed I should have been. Arc crouched still and impassive beside me, like a day laborer waiting for the Bussomat.

We waited a minute or two longer, hearing hushed conversations and radio chatter below. Alvar twitched. They must have been trying to raise him on the comm, but I just kept looking at him. Maybe there was a silent ‘panic button’ kind of function in his radio implant that he could activate without being obvious, but I wanted him to know that even if he used it he’d be the first to go.

He must not have, for after a couple minutes I heard an authoritative voice from below. “Alright. Bulgakov, Rimini, Iserre- your squads sweep the warehouse. The rest of you, on me. We’re going back to base to keep the sweepers covered. Move!”

Boots shuffled for a little bit and then it grew quiet again. All three of us waited, perfectly still for another minute or so. Alvar’s breath was fast and hot on the side of my hand. Things remained quiet. I glanced at Arc and she shrugged. Well, we couldn’t wait forever. I let go of Alvar’s face and leaned back. “The ‘sample,’ the ‘armature,’ the ‘effect.’ What were you about to say?”

He took a moment to gather himself. “Um…yeah, one of the other scientists- not Doctor Hesypha- was worried about damaging the sample. And she told him something like, ‘If we were capable of that, we wouldn’t be doing this in the first place.’ And then…they keep talking about different armatures, different alloys-“

“The cages,” Arc said.”

“Yeah!” Alvar exclaimed, quickly quieting down when she held a finger to her lips. “Yeah, they look like round metal cages. They had us dump a whole bunch in the warehouse the other day.”

“What about the ‘effect?’” I asked.

“They, um, they’re even cagier about that than they are about everything else. But maybe a week ago, I was eating breakfast when there was…I don’t know. Like a wave of cold, I guess, this kind of prickly feeling that came and went all of a sudden. I wasn’t the only one to feel it, everyone else did too.” He paused to think, eyes darting back and forth. “The scientists were really excited when that happened, but they didn’t say shit about what it was.”

I glanced at Arc. “Our strange signal, you think?”

“It seems likely.”

Alvar watched with nervous confusion, but he wasn’t the one asking questions. “Change of subject, Alvar. What’s the security like in there? How many more grunts like you? How many more Masks? And how hard will it be to get to the elevator?”

“They brought a whole platoon, which is forty people usually. But the heavy weapons team stayed home, so that makes thirty-five. And then Kasspir’s squad went missing…so thirty. Minus the ones you guys, um…” He swallowed. He seemed to be getting more confident, but that wasn’t saying much.

“A squad went missing?” I asked. “What happened?”

He shrugged. “They went on watch near the warehouse and they just…didn’t come back. Transponders gone. We looked for them, but…nothing.”

Well, that was great fucking news. Arc glanced at me but now it was my turn to shrug. This was a bad place they’d picked for their secret lab. “Why do all this shit down here, Alvar? Just guess for me.”

“I mean, they want to keep it secret, right? So why not put it in D-block? Who’d ever want to go there?” His eyes widened. “I mean-“

“Save it, Alvar.” I shook my head.

“I wanted to,” muttered Arc very helpfully.

“So. Twenty-three of your people, not counting you,” I said, trying to get us back on track. Alvar cringed at the revised count. “How many Masks?”

“Well, you killed one, so…four left, I think? They’re hard to tell apart.”

“Good enough. And the elevator?”

He frowned. “They have guards around it all the time. Some of us and at least one or two Ennies. And you need an officer’s ID to turn it on. And you need one of our IDs to get through the perimeter anyway.” He jumped and shut his mouth quick, maybe realizing how used to answering questions he’d gotten.

I clapped him hard on the shoulder, making him flinch. “Don’t worry, Alvar. If you let us set off the alarm I’d make sure I killed you before I went down. Honesty’s the best policy here.”

Arc backed me up, solemn as a Solist priest. “She’s right. I would do the same, with the possible exception of dying afterwards.”

“…Okay…” he whispered.

“But really.” I gave his shoulder a little shake and let go. “You’ve done good. You get to live a little longer.” A nebulous plan was coalescing in my head, but it would take Alvar’s continuing to play nice. I felt kind of gross training him to be useful like some kind of animal, but it was what we had to do. “Are those ID cards you’re talking about gene-locked?”

“I don’t think so.” He reached for his pocket, froze, kept going when I nodded. The card he pulled out of his pocket just had his name, his birthdate- twenty-one years ago- a pay number, a rank and unit- ‘TPR 2 SQD 3 PLT G CPY’- and a couple encryption chips. Nothing that looked like it would actively sample his DNA or something.

“Good. C’mere, Arc.” She leaned in and I laid out what I had in mind, speaking too quietly for Alvar to hear. He watched worriedly the whole time.

“It’s a better plan than I’ve come up with,” she said when I finished. “I’ll go get those IDs.” She crept over to our improvised trapdoor and lifted it a hair, peering through the crack. I tried to keep one eye on her and one on Alvar. She nodded and dropped silently down. Barely thirty seconds later she shot up through the trapdoor, going solid again before she dropped back through the floor. Alvar stared. She came over, looking a little wobbly, and handed me an ID belonging to Trooper Evelynn Dega.

“They laid the bodies against the wall, but they hadn’t taken them back yet. I kept the sergeant’s,” she made sure to tell me before sitting down heavily. Her breath was slow but a little ragged, and I noticed sweat beading on her forehead as she brushed a lock of dark hair out of her face.

“You good?”

“Yes,” she huffed out. “Yes…I’m fine. Just give me…a minute or two.”

“You don’t sound fine…” I understood she was just doing her part but I didn’t want her to hurt herself. I had no idea what her ability took out of her, but it seemed like a lot.

“I’ve been worse before, Sharkie. I assure you I can keep going.” She met my eyes and I found I believed her.

“When I’m feeling sick, my mom gets me a big glass of orange juice and some vitamins,” said Alvar hopefully. “That always makes me feel better.”

I barked out a derisive laugh before I could stop myself. I couldn’t kingsdamn believe what I was hearing.“Do I look like I can fucking afford orange juice? Do I look like I’ve ever seen an orange that wasn’t on the holo?” I shook my head, still laughing.

Arc just gave him one of her special looks, the kind that made you feel like you ought to apologize for being smeared on the bottom of her shoe. “And I seem to have left mine at home. More’s the pity.”

“O-oh,” said Alvar, sounding suitably cowed.

“Besides, we aren’t your mother. More’s the pity there, too.” muttered Arc.

“One more thing, Alvar,” I said once I could finish a sentence again. “Who’s Sarevna?”

“Oh. The sarevna, right.” He tapped his chin. “Um…she’s a Cromwell heiress. Ilyes Sant’Ana Carter Cromwell.”

I gave him a shove. “And you weren’t gonna fucking mention that?”

“I-I forgot! She scares me! She’s as far above a B-blocker as we’re above-“ He clammed up.

“Well?” I asked, voice low. “You really want to finish that sentence, where you are now?”

“No! No, I don’t.”

“Right.”

“Sharkie, does this sarevna change our plans?” Arc had one of her knives out again, twirling it around the ring in the end of its handle.

“Hope not. We’ll find out, I guess.”

She made the knife disappear, braced her hands on her knees and slowly stood. “Shall we, then?”