Aura Overload

52 – What Comes Next

Britt looked past Hector into the motel room, but shook her head. “Can we get something to eat? I’m starved.”

Hector looked past her, out into the silent parking lot and the city streets beyond. Only a single delivery van stirred, breaking up the still image. “What was it like coming over here? Any noise? PKs going nuts?”

“You mean about…”

Hector nodded.

“Nothing. Logan said it would be quiet—that our friend was keeping things quiet for as long as possible to create confusion.”

“Good.” Just give me time to get out of this damn town, Janus. He glanced at his clock again, even though he knew it wasn’t even six-thirty yet, and he nodded. “Yeah, let’s get breakfast.”

“I have my car.”

Hector grabbed his bag, then followed her down to the parking lot where her little car sat waiting. As they climbed in, Britt said, “Logan dropped me off at my car this morning. Prick hardly said a word as we drove up to Tent Town. I was asking him about you—what happened, if you were okay, all that stuff. It wasn’t until I got out of his cruiser that he said to come here—that you were waiting.”

“Power trip.” Hector shrugged.

“Well, I guess I owe him.” She shrugged. “Even if his ego is as big as that pit out there.” She nodded toward the distant mine tailings.

When she turned back to him, he asked, “Where were you? His place?”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t hardly there. Dropped me off and then went straight back out—said he had to keep up appearances while ‘things were going down.’ I assumed he meant whatever you were doing.” As she put the car into motion, she added, “Can you tell me about it? I mean, like, did you get hurt or anything? Did he suffer? How about his mercs?”

Hector closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. He didn’t like how she was talking about what he’d done so openly, but then, they’d been through a lot and she didn’t have any reason to think there was anyone listening—not anymore. His paranoia about Janus apparently wasn’t something she shared. He wasn’t a verbose person in general, which added to his reticence; still, he wanted her to feel like she and Paul had gotten their justice. “He died terrified.”

Britt nodded, clenching her fist and bouncing it on her knee as she looked out the window. “I wanted this. I pushed you into it. Why don’t I feel better?”

“Because Paul’s still dead.”

She looked at him sharply, but she wasn’t upset—not at him. She nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

Her car drove to a little diner not far from his motel, and they went inside. Hector led the way to a booth and sat down so he could see the door—and the windows facing the lot. It wasn’t that he thought Britt was leading him into a trap, but he wasn’t sure she’d know it if she was being used as bait. After they selected their order on the little terminal, Britt looked at him and said, “I know I owe you. After we eat, I can take you to where I think Paul stashed…whatever it is that caused all this trouble.”

“He made a mess.” Hector instantly regretted the words and added, “I hope it wasn’t just greed.”

“It wasn’t. Well, it wasn’t, and it was…” She trailed off, like she wasn’t sure what more to say, but then she added, “I don’t know what he had. That much was true, but he told me it was life-changing. That it would mean more than just wealth—it was power and freedom and everything everyone in our family ever dreamed about while we let the Empire and the consortiums grind us into dust.”

Hector only narrowed his eyes, trying not to be cynical—trying, but failing. “Sounds pretty much like a fancy description of greed.”

Britt scowled so deeply she nearly bared her teeth as she leaned across the table. “You know how it is! You’ve seen how the powerful stay powerful and the rest of us get used up! Why? Why? Because some ancestor of theirs grabbed ahold of something while it was in reach. That’s why! Paul said this was it—this was our chance to break out of the…” Again she trailed off, and her scowl faded as she leaned back and shrugged. “Out of the cycle of meaningless lives. Out of the dust…”

Hector arched an eyebrow, still not willing to let up. “So he stole something that could do all that, huh?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. He talked like he did. You didn’t get any answers from—” Maybe Hector’s paranoia was finally catching on because she shook her head and finished with, “—you know who?”

“Nope.” He decided not to mention that Tacitianus killed Paul over an unknown—a mystery box as far as the magistrate knew.

An older woman with a permanently stooped back shuffled over to pour coffee into their cups. She was slow and her apron was stained, but she smiled pleasantly as she said, “Your orders will be right up.”

Hector watched her walk away, then said, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Britt narrowed her eyes, and her jaw clenched, the little muscles leading up to her hairline twitching. “You said you didn’t have a choice about—” She paused, staring pointedly at him, or, more precisely, Paul’s body. “—that.”

“I didn’t, but I still feel like a thief.”

“No. What happened to him was before you were around. I mean, that’s obvious, right? You wouldn’t be sitting here in his body if he hadn’t been killed. What you did—the people you went up against—that’ll let him rest. He can move on now. I can move on.”

“I hope so.”

Their food arrived, and Hector got to work on his scramble—lots of eggs, cheese, and some kind of protein that tasted appropriately like breakfast sausage. His body needed the nutrients, and he made quick work of his meal. Britt had ordered pancakes, and she slid one of them onto his plate, smiling in a way that made Hector feel even more sorry for her—for her loss.

The whole time they ate, Hector kept half his attention on the window, watching the parking lot and the sidewalk beyond. Nothing he saw raised any suspicion. Nothing was happening in the streets out there that would indicate one of the more important political figures had been murdered. How long could Janus keep things quiet? Was he just keeping his security synths away from the magistrate’s villa?

Whatever the case, the town remained sleepy outside the window, and when they finished eating and walked out to Britt’s car, he was almost relaxed. She got the vehicle moving and said, “It’s outside of town, past the pit.”

“All right.” He glanced at his clock. “I need to be at the train station in two hours.”

“Won’t be a problem—just a twenty-minute drive.” She sighed, folding her arms as she looked out the window. The town seemed sleepy; he supposed that was because it was—the mine was closed for the day and a lot of the residents had been up late. “What comes next?”

He looked at her, thought about giving her a non-answer, then shrugged and said, “Head back to the city, I guess.”

“Helio?”

It occurred to Hector that she might not know anything about his fights. She surely didn’t know about Sparling’s offer regarding the Tharsis Games. He figured she didn’t need to, either. “Yeah, for now.”

“You know”—she turned away from the window, facing him—“I thought about trying to go with you.” She held up a hand as though she thought he might interrupt, objecting. “There’s nothing much left for me here. I thought, why not? We worked okay together in the rock yard, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer, continuing without pause: “But after a minute of thinking, I knew that wouldn’t work. It’s just too strange. You’re different from Paul, but it still feels like I’m hanging around with his ghost—a ghost that doesn’t remember me, doesn’t remember the life we shared. Paul was with me from my very first memory.”

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“I get it.” Hector didn’t get it—not exactly—but he could understand.

“So, let’s, like, handle this last bit of business and, I dunno, we can send each other a travel vid now and then.”

He nodded. “Sounds smart.”

The little car had been steadily driving away from the city, up into the Martian hills, skirting the extensive tailing mounds as it wound its way westward around them. As it turned off the pavement, rumbling down an old gravel road between two hills, Britt gestured to the countryside and said, “Paul and I spent a lot of time exploring out here. He had a dirt bike, and he’d take me along if I begged him enough.”

Hector didn’t reply; what could he say? He just watched the countryside pass by as the road grew rougher and rougher. After a few minutes, the car pulled to a stop. Looking out the window, he saw why: the road had ended—the gravel had become skull-sized rocks. Britt pushed the door open and stepped out, gesturing to a rough path wending between two hills.

“There’s an old tunnel down here. No idea what it was used for. Paul thought it was for storage, or maybe it was exploratory—like they were digging down, looking for where to mine. It’s just a concrete tube in the hillside now, though, nothing but dust and old barrels.”

Hector followed her up the path, their shoes crunching and slipping on the rough terrain. “A good hiding place?”

“Yep. It was like our secret headquarters. We camped up here a lot—hid out when things got bad at home.” She sighed, hopping over a patch of thorny briars. “We haven’t been here in a couple of years. Well, I haven’t. Still, if Paul had something to hide—something he wanted to keep secret…” She trailed off, letting Hector fill in the gaps.

The hike only took a few minutes, but Hector still checked the time nervously. It wasn’t like there was only one train back to Helio, but he wanted to be on the first one; he couldn’t stop worrying about Lemon. The entrance to the old mine—or bunker, whatever it had once been—was sealed by a plasteel door wrapped in chain and padlock. Britt knew the combo on the lock, and when she slid the chain out, Hector noted the lack of dust on the lock; someone had been there recently.

She pulled the door wide, throwing a long rectangle of light into a dim, low-ceilinged space. Just as she’d promised, it was nothing but a concrete tube leading about fifty meters into the hillside. No lights worked inside, but Hector’s eye implants made it easy enough to see. Piles of empty wooden pallets lined one wall, and barrels full of scrap metal the other. Britt walked past those, aiming straight for an empty barrel near the rear wall.

She didn’t look left or right, eyes fixed on the barrel as she approached. Hector followed, though he stooped to pick up the padlock first. The idea of someone locking him in there didn’t appeal to him. “You weren’t just guessing,” he said, tossing the lock into a barrel of scrap metal as he walked. “You knew it was here.”

Halfway to the barrel, she glanced over her shoulder at him. He thought he saw a guilty look in her eyes, but he didn’t know her well enough to be sure. “He never said exactly, but he dropped me a hint. ‘Remember when Drifter got lost?’ It was something he said in his last message. Drifter was the name I gave my favorite kite. The thing is, it never got lost; he hid it from me in this barrel because I was teasing him about a girl he liked.”

Hector nodded, glancing back at the door. Nothing was there; nothing stirred. Still, he was tense. He felt like a trap was being sprung, and with Britt the only other person around, he shifted his suspicions to her. She approached the barrel, reaching into it almost before she could look at the contents. He imagined a shotgun in there. She wouldn’t, would she?

His nerves got to him so much that he blurted, “Don’t!”

She looked back at him over her shoulder, and the confusion in her eyes said it all: she had no intention of any sort of double-cross. “What?”

Hector took a few more steps toward her, shaking his head. “Just be careful. Would he set a trap?”

Britt snorted, turning back to the barrel. “He would never do something that might hurt me.” She pulled out a soiled drop cloth and tossed it on the ground. Then, as Hector came to stand just behind her, she lifted out a black alloy case. It was about thirty centimeters square with rounded corners and a single handle. She turned to face him, pointing to a green LED near the latch. “I think it’s unlocked.”

Hector nodded, squinting at the case. It looked like it could be the cargo casket Tacitianus had mentioned, though Hector had imagined something bigger. “Is it powered? Vacuum-stasis?”

Britt frowned, turning the box this way and that. “Maybe? It’s heavy. Feels kinda warm.”

“Yeah, I bet it is.” Hector reached for it. “Can I—”

A faint scuffing sound on the concrete behind them killed the words on his tongue, and he spun, ready to dive for cover or to fight, depending on what he saw. He was surprised, but only a little, when a shadow blotted out the light coming through the doorway and the looming, armor-clad figure of a peacekeeper stooped to pass through. When he straightened, significantly taller than the doorway, it was hard to miss the massive blaster gripped in his fist.

“Logan?” Britt said from beside him.

Hector glanced at her. Of course she was right; it had to be Logan. He’d been the one involved in this whole affair, and he wouldn’t send one of his coworkers on this job. Suddenly, a bunch of pieces started falling into place in Hector’s mind, and he scoffed, irritated that he hadn’t seen it coming.

As the PK stomped closer, the blaster barrel firmly on Hector, Britt continued in her incredulous tone. “Did you follow me?”

“Traced you,” Hector said.

Logan’s voice came through the grille of his helmet with a mechanical, slightly amplified edge: “Sorry, Britt. Never wanted it all to work out this way.”

“What are you talking about?” She held up the case. “You wanted this? Money?”

The visor of Logan’s helmet, glowing softly red in the dim light, shifted left to right. “It’s more than that, and you know it. What’s in that box could elevate me—my family. We could become one of the houses.”

“Career aspirations.” Hector spat to the side. “There’s a magistrate position that just opened up.”

“Smarter than you look, fighter, but that magistrate job will be just a stepping stone when I have that.” Logan took a step toward them, jerking his blaster barrel toward Britt and the object she held.

“How’d you know what that is?” Hector nodded to the case as the PK took another step. He was trying to stall, trying to think of the right move. The PK’s armor was going to be a problem…

Logan’s voice grated from the grille on his helmet, loud and inhuman. “Maybe your interrogation techniques aren’t as good as you think. He knew very damn well what’s in that box.”

“So?” Britt glanced desperately from Logan to Hector, then back again. “I don’t care. We can share, we can—”

Hector sighed. “We’re loose ends. We know—”

Logan continued to advance, halfway to them by then. “You know I helped set up a magistrate’s assassination—not exactly in the Peacekeeper Code. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Where I’m going, there’s no room for someone like you—someone like who I was. Like the fighter says: loose ends.”

Britt stepped forward, past Hector, as though she could make the PK be reasonable if she were just a little closer. “Logan, you did all this to save me! I wouldn’t turn you in, no matter where you end up!”

“Sorry, Britt, but you don’t know how these things work.” As Logan spoke, Hector caught the amber glow of the blaster’s priming coil flickering balefully from the depths of the barrel. If he hadn’t seen it, he would have heard the soft whine—it needed a tune. Still, he knew it was time to move; he reached for Britt’s jacket collar, meaning to yank her with him as he leaped to his right, but she stepped forward, still pleading with the PK.

“What are you doing? Just put the—” Logan’s blaster erupted with a crackling zwang, and the concrete storage bunker lit up with the brilliant yellow-blue glow of the plasma.

Hector heard the clang of the metal case Britt had been holding; he heard her gasp. He knew something terrible had happened even without those clues; he could smell the burned flesh. When he hit the ground, his feet skidding on the concrete, his head was already turning to Britt. He saw her lying there, torso smoldering half a meter from her legs. The PK’s blaster had ripped her in two.

He jerked his gaze away from Britt’s wide-open, dead eyes, focusing on the PK. Cold fury coursed through him, and he felt the Berserker waking up. “You son of a bitch!”

“Just die already,” Logan replied, his voice monotone, grating from the speaker on his helmet. Then his blaster flared again. Hector dove to the side, but the PK chased him with the plasma arc. He felt its heat burn through his pants, scorching his left thigh, then the blast faded and the coils whined as the weapon primed itself again. Hector charged Logan, knowing his life could be measured in fragments of a second.

His wounded leg throbbed, flaring waves of pain through his body with each step. His vision tinted toward red as murder stole the focus of his mind; his body bloomed crimson flames that flowed into his fist, forming a deadly blade; and then he was flying through the air, committed, aiming to sever the PK’s helmeted head from his shoulders.

Logan brought his blaster to bear. He squeezed the trigger, and the weapon made its sizzling zwapping sound, but Hector twisted, and the beam only scorched the flesh off his left shoulder. He drove his Aura Blade with his right arm as he twisted, using the momentum of his dive, but Logan was quick—his speed and agility amplified by his armor just as his strength was. The blade ripped through his armor, cut deeply into his shoulder, and then the PK smashed Hector with a powered punch, sending him flying to crash into several barrels of scrap metal.

Hector’s flesh ripped in a dozen places, torn by the jagged metal cuttings. He felt his right arm snap at the wrist when he hit the concrete, and saw stars and encroaching darkness as his body followed it down, ribs fracturing as the air was driven from his lungs. Maybe the barrels and scrap saved him from an immediate follow-up arc of plasma from the PK’s blaster. He wasn’t sure it mattered, though; he could barely breathe, let alone fight.

Heavy steps, maybe ten meters distant, told him Logan was moving in the wrong direction—away. He heard the whir of the PK’s actuated armor as he stooped, heard the scrape as he picked something off the ground. In his dazed state, Hector thought Logan was looking at Britt, maybe remorseful. When he heard the scrape, though, he thought maybe he was picking something up to throw. Then his head cleared a little, and it clicked. The son of a bitch had picked up the storage case. He was inspecting his loot.

Hector had been dismissed. Britt had been forgotten.

The dark tunnel closing in shifted in hue, flaring red as Hector opened his aura pathways and channeled his Berserk ability.