Stormblood, стр. 10
‘What?’ Kowalski spluttered as a sinking frustration plummeted through my gut. It wasn’t enough for Kindosh to corner me into doing her work; she had to lock me out of any other options, too. ‘We never discussed this.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kindosh said in the least apologetic of voices, ‘that wasn’t a request.’ Behind me Kowalski’s men shifted in their suits, but none of them said anything. Kindosh turned back to me, all business. ‘We reward cooperation, we always have. But don’t take too long to think about it. It’d be quite unfortunate if your brother found himself in deeper trouble in the meantime.’
I swallowed back two dozen venomous replies and looked between the image of my dead friend, killed by poisoned stormtech suppressors, and that of my long-lost brother, caught in the act of poisoning the stormtech.
3
Hand Covers Bruise
We rode the clatterlift alone in silence.
Built along the spine of Compass, the lift is the quickest method of accessing each floor and subsector of the asteroid. Kowalski was to escort me to my apartment in Starklands and accompany me wherever I went. Supposedly for my protection, but no doubt meant to encourage some co-operation through her mere presence. I know how these people work.
The awkward silence stretched on as we plummeted down through kilometres of space. To my credit, I held out. She broke it. ‘Please, make both our lives easier and stay out of trouble.’ She took out her vaper and sucked deeply. Tendrils of sweetened smoke curled around her like ghostly fingers. ‘I’ve got dozens of unidentified skinnie deaths on my plate without dealing with this, too.’
‘Got it.’
I didn’t intend to make trouble, but the stormtech frequently had other plans. On the one hand, it didn’t have a strong enough hold on me to be overpowering, and if I clamped down on the urges hard enough, they faded. On the other, I could be triggered by something as simple as getting looked at the wrong way on the street. Reapers’ bodies demanded a continuous release of adrenaline, which was almost impossible to stop once we got going. I’d seen a Reaper get his arm blown off in the heat of battle, still roaring as he slaughtered two dozen Harvester infantry in a rampage. It was hours later that he camedown and realised his arm ended at the elbow joint.
I held my hands behind my back, the vambrace plates grinding. I’d expected Kindosh to take the Hendrix, but it must have slipped her mind and I was still smuggling the genome in my suit. I’d shot Grim a message the moment we’d left Kindosh’s office and he’d responded that he was okay and would be swinging around later to talk shop. A small victory, but you’ve got to celebrate them where you can.
I’d shrugged back into my armour before we left, but the plates weren’t connecting. My left side was exposed, revealing blue strands flickering around my ribs like seaweed in an ocean current. Kowalski watched it with something between fascination and unease.
‘What does it feel like?’ She stared, but didn’t try to touch it, like so many people thought they had the right to do.
‘It tickles,’ I said quietly as the plates finally slid into place, covering me up. She nodded slowly and I felt the stormtech strumming through my muscles. Tonight’s excitement had riled it up, and now it was eagerly awaiting the next adventure.
On the clatterlift’s panel was a layout of floors, subsectors and docking levels positioned around the asteroid superstructure like a nervous system. Several nodes were blocked out with a bruise-coloured label. ‘They’re Void Zones,’ Katherine Kowalski explained when I asked. ‘Floors damaged in the Reaper War, some still exposed to vacuum, too unstable to enter.’
I found I was making a mental note of them as she spoke. I’ve had boots on enough alien planets in far-flung galactic regions of space to know you should never be a stranger to your surroundings. Especially not when your enemies know it better. I began snapping images of floors, levels, subsectors closed to the public, zones that led out to the asteroid’s surface for EVA work, floors wired with life-support systems conditioned for certain species. A minute later, our clatterlift coasted to a smooth stop on Starklands.
We spilled out into the sprawling streets. The rocky ceiling had been covered with pixelsheeting, the display set to the black canvas of a night sky, scattered with blue stars and the steely reds and greys of planets and moons. But if I zoomed in, I could see some of the sheeting flickering, superconductor cables and loose wiring dangling through holes in the fabric.
‘Look.’ She nodded to a trio of figures making their way to the Harmony Station. It was the Kaiji. Just over two metres tall, barrel-chested with slender, ash-coloured bodies. Heavy, hooded clothing obscured the aliens’ features. These had to be the Ambassadors that Kindosh had mentioned. I remembered sitting in a cozy little New Vladi noodlehouse one evening, hunched over a bowl of steaming ramen, listening to their interstellar broadcast urging humans not to use stormtech.
We turned into the main boulevard. Overhead lights painted the streets a constellation of gentle blue-whites and neon purples. The sharp minerals of petrichor scented the air. Bustling restaurants, lively bars, film theatres, glass libraries, multilevel arcades and shops crowded every cubic metre of the street as close as breath and heartbeat. Streams of aerial traffic navigated between opulent penthouses, rooftops and blinking skyscrapers. Buildings loomed over us, done up with layered glass and angular edges, wide as small mountains. Side streets led down towards sweeping hotel lobbies, galleries and showrooms displaying the latest tech or artwork. Silver-flecked ivy crawled up latticework walls and lush green gardens spilled down from balconies. New Vladi had never been this open, this loud, this extreme. I stood and breathed