Stormblood, стр. 9
We’d saved the Common. And this is how we were being repaid.
A marrow-deep rage I hadn’t known I was still capable of built up in my chest. The white-hot anger at whoever was doing this eclipsing my distrust and dislike of Harmony and their manipulative games.
‘You want me to hunt down the people doing this?’ I asked levelly.
‘You’re the best candidate for the job.’ I followed Kindosh’s line of sight out the viewport towards the alien dreadnought as she spoke. ‘And timing couldn’t be worse. The Kaiji always insisted tampering with stormtech was too dangerous. Their entire species, their entire civilization, joining the Common depends on us killing this at the source. Their Ambassadors come here regularly to inquire about our progress. I intend to show evidence of it.’
I had to ask. ‘Why me?’
‘Two reasons: because you’re a Reaper who has their stormtech under control. You were even captured by Harvest and escaped.’
I shouldn’t have been surprised she had that knowledge tucked away. Harmony knew my muscles’ density, my blood pressure, the pH of my saliva, so she’d clearly pulled my records.
‘And because we already have a suspect.’
My fingers went bone-white around the armrests. ‘Who? Who’s killing Reapers?’
‘We have some swarmbot footage. It’s inconclusive from the break-in’ – the flexiscreen brought up a hazy shot of two men, faces averted – ‘but we’ve got something much clearer from a stormtech theft down near Limefields.’
‘Don’t know where that is.’
Kindosh took a slow sip of coffee and meticulously savoured the taste. ‘Of course. I forget you’re not a local. It’s on the eighty-second floor of Compass.’ Another still image grew on-screen to show the same figure hunched over the stormtech canisters. It focused with crystalline clearness on a young man with the same black hair, tilted dark eyes and bulky, muscular build as mine.
It was my brother.
Artyom.
All the staring, the guards and weapons, suddenly made sense. A tsunami of stormtech rolled down my chest, crashing down into my stomach and washing away the rage working up inside, leaving me with sour, hollow dread.
‘Artyom could have stumbled across it. He might not have known—’ The words became ash in my throat and I knew she had me.
Kindosh held my gaze long enough for me to feel uncomfortable. ‘Artyom Fukasawa works at an alehouse in Limefields and leaves each night at around the same time this image was taken. We need someone to poke around, find out the details.’
‘We’ve barely spoken in years,’ I managed. I was grasping for anything but the obvious explanation. I thought back to our last happy evening together. Sitting by a campfire on the mountain, the logs in our makeshift fire crackling and spitting scintillating orange sparks as we traded stories over a bottle of vodka. What was my brother doing with a stolen canister of the universe’s most dangerous drug?
Kindosh shrugged. ‘Saving Reaper lives matters to you. I suspect keeping your little brother out of prison does, too. If there’s anyone who can navigate both sides and help deliver a solution, it’s you.’
The rage began trickling back, but this time it was channelled in a very different direction. Beneath this veneer of sincerity and smiles, Harmony was just as manipulative as ever. Using Alcatraz against me. Using my brother against me.
It was clever. And it was Harmony to the core.
Except, Kindosh had made one tiny, crucial mistake.
She didn’t know me. And I don’t play ball with people like this. I’ve got zero patience for Harmony’s crap. I wasn’t about to be another cog in their meat machine. I desperately needed to talk to my brother, unravel whatever he’d got tangled up in. I’d try to protect my fellow Reapers. But not on Harmony’s terms. I’d find my own.
‘Allow me to put this as delicately as I can. I’d rather eat a bucket of razorwire than do anything for you.’ I held Kindosh’s gaze as I stood. I spread my arms, displaying the writhing electric blue. ‘Harmony has done enough damage to the universe. I’m done taking orders.’
I expected disappointment. Perhaps anger. Instead, Kindosh’s lips twitched into a smile colder than a New Vladi winter. ‘Well. We’ll have to find a way to convince you, won’t we?’
That sounded unpleasant. ‘I don’t do charity,’ I said, as haunting images of Blued-Out Reapers tumbled away on the flexiscreen. So many good men and women, all wasted flesh.
‘There are many alternative provisions we can make for our allies.’ There was subtle emphasis on the last two words. ‘Nothing so … trite as money.’
It was good to see Harmony hadn’t lost their inability to take no for an answer. I don’t think Kindosh understood the notion. ‘You’ve got nothing I want. Nothing of value.’
‘Really, Fukasawa? What if we can offer information? Answers. Solutions. Things you cannot find on your own. Surely, when it comes to your brother, those become of value.’ She traced my gaze as the images swapped back to the shots of my brother, caught in the moment of his crime, again and again on a loop. She set her coffee down with a final, deliberate tap. ‘Or perhaps that Harvester friend of yours. What’s his name?’ She continued without waiting for an answer. ‘I believe he’s lacking in a Compass residency card. That can be easily remedied. As can all those charges of smuggling. I don’t imagine you’d want to him see him arrested or deported.’
My face split in a humourless, dour grin. This was the Harmony I knew. Nothing so low it was beneath them, no act of extortion too undignified. I opened my mouth and prepared to say something I’d later regret when Kindosh talked over me. ‘Think on it, Fukasawa. In the meantime, I think it’s best if Kowalski acts as your liaison. With