Silence (16 page)

If he came smelling like the sewer,
Indigo would probably shoot him.

Part II: A Council of Criminals

Chapter 8 - The Renegade
Celestial

His cellpad said it was 7:31, which meant there were two and
a half hours between now and when Sheikoh was supposed to meet
Indigo by the gate. First things first, he called Dorothi in sick.
Then he went back to the Wrays’ house, technically Dorothi’s, to
pick up some supplies. However, as soon as he was in sight of it,
he twitched back behind a trash barrel, gripping the handle of his
pistol. A white-cloaked Century stood at his doorstep.

After a few, deep breathes, Sheikoh's
heart stopped racing. He knew this was a message from Cylium Vest.
A reminder about what was in store if he didn’t play by the Arch
Centaurai’s rules. But there was nothing to worry about; Vest
thought he needed him. For now.

Sheikoh began edging around the back
of a street, making for a back way to his place. He didn’t plan on
interacting with the haunting Century on his doorstep. Luckily, it
wasn’t like he needed to use the door or anything. He was still
Silence, the criminal prodigy.

Nonetheless, Sheikoh couldn’t help but
shiver. He knew that if the Arch Centaurai had made catching him a
priority, he would have had his very own Solitarium cell a long
time ago. He doubted even the legendary Ghost could stand Vest's
attentions for long. Cylium Vest didn't fear either of them,
Sheikoh knew. What the Centaurai had erected the wall for, it
hadn’t been about Legacy. On to the empire, Legacy was like a
little itch.

For someone who'd spent a lifetime
hiding from the gang, it was a sobering thought.

Sheikoh slipped through a window and
gathered everything he might need. Lock picks, matches, gasoline...
smoke bombs, a flashlight…

He also select another gun
out of his sizable arsenal, one Indigo hadn’t touched. Last night,
Sheikoh had triple checked his ML5 for any signs that Indigo had
messed with it. Everything
seemed
aboveboard, but just in case... Sheikoh bent and
hid the spare somewhere even the most thorough pat-down wouldn’t
wander.

Sheikoh wrapped a coil of
industrial-strength magnet ribbon around his ankle, shoved a
handful of band aids and some beef jerky in his pocket, and glanced
down at his foot. His electroblade was exactly where it always was,
sheathed in his boot.

Sheikoh never went out
without it.
He knew it was strange, that
most people would feel uncomfortable carrying around a knife that'd
slashed their insides, but he was too pragmatic to let it bother
him. And he couldn't help but feel connected to it.

His electroblade had been the first
and last weapon he’d held as the hero. It was the beginning and the
end of his childhood. When he looked at its caressing gleam, it
always seemed wise in an unspoken, elemental way. His knife had
watched him grow into who he was.

By this blade, he’d earned the name
Silence, and with it, the reputation that had fed him, Emili, and
Dorothi. It was a part of him. And it’d paid its dudes, the same
knife that’d almost killed Sheikoh in Chain’s hand had killed Chain
in his. The cloudy night he’d become a killer, its leather-dressed
handle had been the only thing to hold his hand. Sheikoh’s
electroblade was an extension of his darkest self.

His thoughts drifted over a less
confusing time. A time when right and wrong had still been black
and white. When he had swung his clumsy metal legs off of the cold
operating table for the very first time, it’d been the only thing
to hold his hand. He had been young, but not so
innocent.

Not after what Chain had
done.

He’d sat there, surrounded by surgical
instruments, bits of machinery and metal. And the knife that had
been pulled from his chest. Sheikoh’s muscles burned with hatred,
and pain coursed through his chest. Raw loss edged his blood, and,
as he stared at the electroblade, it promised retribution, revenge
in the name of everything he had lost. It was all he had had
left.

Sheikoh had wrapped his
hand around the knife and crept out of the Wrays’ household,
making for Chain's hangout on the renamed
Temptation Street. He snuck behind her and the man that she was
laughing with.

Sheikoh’s lip curled. How
could she
laugh,
like she hadn't murdered him in cold blood? How could she
enjoy herself while he
suffered
?

To all intents and purposes, Sheikoh
had died at Chain’s hand. Now she would die by his.

He would tear her to
pieces.

Sheikoh grasped the electroblade and
pushed it into Chain’s back. It slid in the women like it had found
its place in the world. Chain had screamed and writhed while the
other gangster had looked on in confusion. Sheikoh had pulled a
scalpel out of his leg compartment, intending to kill the other
man, but the gangster had stumbled away.  

Sheikoh had turned then, intending to
leave the knife inside of Chain in payment for her treatment of
him, but, she had thrashed one last time and disgorged the burning
knife from the creeping, black hole it'd never stopped burning into
her body. The electroblade had flipped through the air and glancing
sharply against the pitted concrete, spinning like a top and
skidding his way. It had clanked against the heel of his brand-new
blacksteel leg. To Sheikoh’s dark, thoughtful eyes they’d seemed a
perfect match. He had picked up the knife that'd offered Chain the
death she’d been so worthy of with peaceful emptiness in his
chest.

That was the purpose of revenge. It
was the force of retribution. If somebody was worth vengeance, then
they deserved to die. That was the primal law of life.

The knife seemed to nod in
agreement.

He looked down at his Trinity and realized how much time he’d
wasted; it was somehow 9:48. His breath caught in his throat. And
he had to get all the way over to the wall by 10:00. Sheikoh
thought about the distance for a second. Then he thought about what
might happen if he was late. Dorothi’s face rose in his thoughts,
and his face twitched.

Sheikoh shot forward, running for all
he was worth.

Speed whistled in his ears, and wind
twisted fingers into hair as he dodged his way down backstreets and
alleyways he knew by heart. A few startled pedestrians glanced up
surprised at his inhuman pace. Sheikoh weaved through them, his
eyes narrowed against the wind’s thrash. He bit his lip in intense
concentration, even as his chest floated at the sense of absolute
freedom.

Running was one of the few times
Sheikoh felt at home in his cyborgic Frankenstein of a body. He
never felt tired, or lost his breath. His adroit prosthetics
maintained a bounding, antelope grace that could easily surpass a
normal person’s sprint. A cyborg could spend all day in back to
back races with the best runners of the world and beat every single
one of them, every single time.

Then in times of danger, Sheikoh could
go even further. His cyborg limbs could be forced into overdrive
mode when a certain amount of adrenaline crept into his blood.
Overdrive mode intentionally surpassed specified limits, letting
Sheikoh react from behind a superhuman blur of motion.

There were downsides, of course.
Overdrive mode left his overworked autonomic limbs vibrating and
useless for a while, depending on how much he overused them. Pretty
big deal in the middle of a fire fight. More ominously though,
overdrive mode degraded the synaptic wires intimately winding all
throughout his body. If he overused his secret weapon too
consistently, he chanced damaging one of the irreplaceable,
essential wires that regulated half of the organs in his chest.
When Chain had messed him up, she’d done a good job of it. Sheikoh
couldn’t survive without perpetual, internal
stimulation.

In short, if he snapped the wrong
wire, he was as good as dead.

A man carrying a
heavy-looking ceramic pot stumbled into his way. The dude’s eyes
widened, and Sheikoh cursed to himself. At the last second, he
leapt, twisting his legs to the side so he wouldn’t kick the guy.
Sheikoh landed more or less the same time as the pot judging by the
shatter behind him.

Sheikoh shot an apologetic look behind
him and quickly left the alley behind. And then another. And a
street. And another alley, another, a few more, and he was suddenly
walking distance from the gate.

Sheikoh slowed to a jog, shaking his
wild, wind-swept hair. Then he stopped and combed the tangles out
with his fingers. He didn’t want Indigo to think that he was
excited to be here or whatever. As he power-walked, he flipped open
his Trinity. The digital clock read 9:57. Right on time.

Sheikoh dropped the
cellpad back into his pocket, suddenly nervous. The wall grew in
his vision, and after a minute, he could make out the form of a
massive, ebony man leaning against its grey concrete. Indigo didn’t
even glance his way.

Sheikoh unconsciously changed his
course to bring him over to the ganglord. He noted Indigo’s
discomfort with a tiny smile. Then Sheikoh quickly scanned the
crowd of wallside people, and there was no sign of Indigo’s men. He
smiled and made his way over to Indigo who was awkwardly leaning
against the wall. It looked like Indigo had taken his conditions
seriously. Good for him.

“
Hey, Gorgeous,” Sheikoh
greeted Indigo.

Indigo grunted back without sparing
him a glance.

Sheikoh smirked up at the
towering ganglord, taking in his puffy, bloodshot eyes. This was
probably the first time the ganglord had ever had to set his alarm
clock. Sheikoh mirrored Indigo’s stiff pose for the slightest,
mocking instant. Then he let his body slide down the coarse
concrete and slump onto the grass at its edge.

“
You look tired. Party too
hard last night?” Sheikoh asked conversationally.

“
Shut up,” muttered Indigo,
covering up a yawn.

“
It’s cool, mate. I’m
pretty tired too,” Sheikoh confessed.

“
Shut up,” muttered Indigo
again.

“
Maybe the two of us should
just sleep together,” Sheikoh went on with an impish smirk up at
the bigger man. Indigo closed his eyes in exasperation.
  

“
Shut up
,” Indigo
muttered.

Sheikoh looked at the ganglord, a
little disappointed. That’d been good.

“
See, what I did
was-

A speed-blurred fist cut off his
explanation.

Instinctively, Sheikoh rolled away,
leaving a blur of his own. He felt the breath of Indigo’s strike on
his cheek. There was a loud crack, as Indigo’s knuckles slammed
into the Coral Grey wall. For a moment, the seemed to
shake.

One of the Century guarding the gate
twisted an alien visor in his and Indigo’s direction. After a few
seconds, he apparently decided things were cool and glanced away.
Sheikoh looked up at the ganglord, shocked. Memories of the
pounding received at Indigo’s hands rose into his
thoughts.

Maybe he
should
shut up.
Sheikoh’s face formed an uneasy smile. It was just so
fun
to piss Indigo
off.

The two of them waited
together in silence. Sheikoh played with a blade of grass. He kept
imagining Indigo punching him in the face and the fractured
cheekbone he’d have gotten if he hadn’t dodged. He shook himself
and thought, ‘I bet he broke a knuckle and is too embarrassed to
admit it.' He appraised the ganglord out of the corner of his
eye.
A moment later, Indigo shook a
massive hand.

A giggle escaped the hand Sheikoh
clapped over his mouth. Indigo looked at him, so Sheikoh turned and
opened his mouth to make a comment like; ‘How about you save your
punches for the job.’

Indigo raised an eyebrow as
if to answer something like;
‘You must
really wanna get hit.’

Sheikoh decided to leave the thought
unspoken. He turned to face forward. Out of the corner of his eye,
Sheikoh noticed that Indigo was grinning.

Oh well. After all,
they
were
co-workers now. That is, if he ended up taking this job.
Sheikoh remembered the Arch Centaurai with a shiver.

Then Indigo’s face flickered. Sheikoh
followed the man’s gaze over to the narrow, factory-lined street
branching off the side of the square.

A man was obviously coming their way.
A man dressed in the rattier end of west side clothing, with lanky,
greasy hair, a voluptuous beard and a dirty face. Over it was a
pair of fuzzy eyes and a confused-looking expression. Sheikoh was
surprised; he had been expecting another Dekla-type east side
messenger. This man’s out-of-focus gaze unnerved him a
little.

“
Follow me,” rasped the
vagrant when they were within earshot. Then he turned and rapidly
tripped back the way he’d come.

Sheikoh and Indigo exchanged bemused
looks. For once the two were of exactly the same mind; ‘Is this guy
for real?’ The way the man shambled along, it looked like he was
glowed out. But it wasn’t Four, his eyes weren’t scarred with
yellow.