Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (36 page)

The contractor didn’t twitch.

David changed tactics, hoping he
had correctly read the signs of Rainer’s attraction to Sara. “You need
someone who wants to get her back as badly as you do.”

“This all finally makes
sense,” Rainer said. “I saw the vid of you with her from Nanga Ki. Is
that why you want her back?”

The edge in Rainer’s voice put
David on guard.

“You can’t believe
everything you see. I would help anyone in her situation.” He left Sean
out of it this time, wondering if Rainer would be more likely to accept
assistance if it were only for Sara. David had no intention of leaving Sean
behind, but Rainer didn’t need to know that right now.

“Get me there first.”
Rainer said. “Then we’ll discuss it.”

“We agree to it now or we go
nowhere.”

“For all your talk of
helping others, you seem anxious to risk Sara’s life for principle. I suppose
all those rumors Captain Simpra’s been spreading have an edge of truth to
them.”

Rainer played this game better
than David because Rainer Varden would risk many lives just to prove his
authority.

Every kilo of David wanted to
tackle the man to the bridge floor and smash in his smug, perfect face.
Instead, he dropped back into the holo-controls. “We arrive in thirty
minutes.”

And that was exactly how much
time he had to think of something.

“Who are you? Where’s
Sean?” Sara’s speech was mostly sputtering.

She heard pounding, and not just
in her head. Her eye lids drooped as she struggled to wake herself, but she
kept forcing them open. The rhythmic insistence of fists on metal sounded from
the white door behind her.

The man in the room took a silver
flask from the counter and popped its cap under her nose. The metallic smell
invaded her nostrils and her brain. Its familiar tang brought brief panic when
she thought she’d found herself back in a modification cell. She believed she
could feel Faya’s hair tickling her cheek while she administered Sara’s drugs.
She pulled her arm up in defense, but a restraint dug into her wrist.

“Sorry. Occupational
precaution. Seems silly to use on an ambasadora,” the man muttered,
unlocking the padded metal bands. “I’m Yul, by the way.”

Sara took a breath and the
strawberry brush of Faya’s hair became a scratch from Sean’s stubbly cheek.
Remembering their night together calmed her.

The pounding halted.

Yul’s head snapped up.
“They’ll hack my door soon.” He grabbed a fresh blue sheet from a
cupboard and placed it beside her.

“Where’s Sean?” she asked
again.

The frantic alarm from the door
hinted that they didn’t have much time. Yul tapped a finger to his palm. The
alarm died.

“He went to get help, but
he’ll be too late. I’m getting you out of here because I promised him no harm
would come to you.”

“How will Sean know where to
find us?”

“I’m hoping to contact him
on the outside.” Yul’s gaze drifted away from hers as he said this. The
alarm shrilled again. He tapped his reporter, but the alarm wouldn’t respond
this time. “I’m sorry we have to go now. I’ll explain once we’re
safe.”

Sara slid from the table and
nearly toppled to the floor. Yul ran to her side and steadied her.
“Careful. You’ll tear all that newly-mended tissue.”

She wrapped the sheet around her
like a sari, while Yul worked at a wall box beside the door. The alarm bleated
out of existence. “Lucky for us, they underestimate me. I wasn’t always a
doctor, but that was my last trick.”

“Let’s go before they get
savvy.”

“Right.” Yul palmed
open a panel in the wall and ushered Sara into the awaiting darkness. The panel
snapped shut behind them.

“You’re glowing again.”
Yul motioned to Sara’s bio-lights. They were bright enough to make out their
swirly pattern. “That’s a good sign.”

The illuminated floor outshone
her body art, revealing the room’s giant occupants. At least a dozen metal
spheres, measuring half her height and just as wide, rested at the bottom of
matching launch tubes. Sara’s gaze followed the tubes angling high into the
wall.

“Parcel launches?” She
touched her back where the corer had penetrated. “I’m not crazy about
bouncing around in a high-speed metal ball being sucked through a vacuum tube
in my current condition.”

“Let me see how your mending
is holding up.” Yul unfolded the sheet to expose her lower back. “The
synthskin patch doesn’t show signs of corruption, and my reporter verifies the
mender beneath it is healing the tissue already. Even with some jostling in
there, you won’t have scarring. Most fraggers don’t care, but a woman in your
position relies on her image.” He lowered his eyes as though she were the
Sovereign herself.

His response unnerved her,
embarrassed her. There was nothing special about her, except for some purple
bugs living in her arm.

“I’m just a Socialite who
got captured and tortured and modified and forced to do Simon Prollixer’s
bidding.”

The shock in his face made her
regret having said anything.

“Then you are more
remarkable than I could have known. I understand why Sean’s taken with
you.”

“He’s more remarkable than I
am,” she said, worry creeping into her voice.

Yul popped the seal on one of the
grey spheres. “I’m not the only one who knows about these abandoned
launches, so they’ll figure it out eventually.” Taking her by the elbow,
he helped her inside.

Sara stopped him from closing the
lid. “Where am I going to end up?”

“Shiraz Dock by Carrey Bay.
See you there in ninety seconds. And if anything should happen before then, it
was nice to have met you, ambasadora.”

That was encouraging.

Yul pulled his arm away and
slammed the lid closed. The sudden darkness startled her. Sara braced herself,
hoping the thin foam padding would be enough to keep from being knocked out.
She held her breath.

The tube launched.

Sara’s stomach fell from the
force of acceleration. She had the slight sensation of spinning, but was unable
to tell up from down at this speed. It was like blasting off in a starship
without the reassurance of restraints.

The coffin-like claustrophobia of
the parcel sphere squeezed her mind. Images of Sean rushed with her through the
vacuum. His crooked smile. The stare of his brown eyes. His kiss.

A sudden jig to the left shoved
her shoulder into the concave wall. She felt a tear at the tender synthetic
skin over her wound. Her mind grabbed for calming images again: His kiss, not
Sean’s. Chen’s. At Palomin. Before he left her. Had he kissed her good-bye?
Rainer never did.

A spin to the right knocked her
head.

Rainer. His dark hair. Hands that
barely touched her. Stopping the pain. Not quite pleasure. Pleasure was Sean.
Not an emotional fallacy. But, Sean was gone.

Sara’s body became heavier. The
sphere decelerated. When it rolled to a gentle stop, she suddenly felt very
alone.

The sunset spread onto Carrey Bay
from the West, leaving the brightly lit shops of Latulip to their purples and
blues.

Rainer tossed a few blocks to a
street vendor, then left the kiosk’s hot pink glow to offer David a bottle of
water. He needed an excuse to stay topside in Latulip until he grabbed another
read from Lyra’s network of voyeurs and mind minstrels. Once they hit the Underground,
there would be no outside communications.

He’d like a better read on David,
too. He brought the Armadan along to watch his back, especially with the
Sovereign passing out Writs at Faya’s every whim. Rainer only hoped he wouldn’t
regret arming David with a pair of cenders.

The big man may have suspected
his role as shield for now, but his nonchalant posture masked all but the most
subtle cues. David’s apprehension only showed in his wide stance and crossed
arms. And though he’d flipped the cap off the water bottle several minutes ago,
he hadn’t taken a drink.

“What are we waiting
for?” David asked.

Rainer took a draw from his
bottle. A melody carried on the slight breeze as the synth spiders began
spinning their electric webs on Carrey Bay. “I want an update before we
storm in there.” Rainer could manipulate the situation with half-truths
and outright deception, but wanted to observe David’s reaction to the truth.
“About Cryer.”

“I thought you said there
was no mention of Sean. Something change?”

“Nothing that concerns
you.”

David’s body language remained
neutral and gave no hints to his intentions. Rainer stayed alert.

“He’s part of my crew. It
concerns me,” David said.

“You have no crew. Just
passengers.”

David uncrossed his arms.

Rainer put a hand to his cender.
His other wrist vibrated, indicating an incoming message on his reporter. It
scrolled across his palm. David stepped closer.

Rainer tapped his palm. Music
played in his head, a snippet from a mind minstrel stationed along the parcel
launch docks on this side of Carrey Bay, filtered to him via Captain Simpra’s
network. The cadence was choppy and fast with breaks into a liquid refrain.

His smile. His eyes. His kiss.
Sean.

His kiss. Chen’s kiss. Before
he left.

Before Rainer.

His touch.

After Rainer.

His pleasure. His kiss.

Not a fallacy.

Sean.

Alone.

Not a fallacy.

So alone.

His smile. His—

The song looped, but Rainer
caught what he needed the first time.

“Sara’s at the docks.”

They caught a water transport.
Rainer crushed his empty bottle and threw it into a disposal unit as Sara’s
song replayed over and over in his head. He wondered what it meant.

“Let me out.” Sara
screamed, panic invading her already too small space.

For several minutes she felt
along the sides of the sphere, looking for the release. She found it near the
bottom, just when she thought for sure her oxygen had run out. With a racing
heart and shallow, labored breaths, she rocked the parcel launch back and forth
until the release was on her left. Jamming a thumb into the depression, she
released the seal with a hiss.

She spilled out into the Tampa
Quad night and onto a heap of spheres; their grey coatings reflected repeating
images of blinking purples and blues. A breeze cooled the perspiration on her
face. She rolled over onto her hands and knees, her head hanging low to control
her deep breathing before she hyperventilated. Her fingers probed the area
where the corer had penetrated. No seepage, but still some pain.

Under and around her were
thousands of parcel spheres. Crawling over the shifting mass, Sara reached the
edge of a large cargo container. The purple and blue reflections took shape as
strands of lights strung between nearby buildings. Just a few meters beneath
those, hundreds of citizens sat at café tables and danced in the cobbled
alleyway. Smells of fried fish and spilled alcohol wafted up from the carnival
atmosphere. Though she hadn’t eaten in a while, the aroma of food turned her
stomach.

Melodies from a pair of synth
spiders and Media commentary from multiple air screens competed with the
raucous crowd.

Sara ducked when a voyeur drifted
up out of the partiers. Once a beacon of safety, the floating transmitters had
now become deadly tattles, promising her capture if they looked her way.

She scanned the crowd, looking
for Sean, but knew she wouldn’t see him. Abandonment never crossed her mind.
Her instincts said he was in more trouble than she was right now.

A metallic clunk nearly sent Sara
out of her skin. Yul emerged from his own sphere and crawled the unstable
gauntlet to her. She waved him down as a voyeur crested the cargo container
from behind. He dropped and lay still. The voyeur kept moving over the spheres
and settled over the front of the container and into the festivities below.

The dock parties, infamous for
their cheap booze and fights, were more interesting than two people crawling
out of a parcel launch.

Yul dragged his body up to hers.
“Hello again.”

Sara eyed his olive shirt, then
peered over the container’s far side, away from the carnival. “Take off
your shirt.”

“Why?”

“Because we need my sheet,
and I’m not walking around that dock in just a pair of panties.”

Yul pulled the shirt over his
head and handed it to Sara. “The sheet will only give us about three
meters.”

“Not if we tear it into
sections.”

“Still a nasty drop.”

“Do you have another way to
get down?” Sara untied the sheet and slipped on Yul’s shirt. It smelled
like talc with a tinge of chemicals from the medical suite.

“I’ve been trying to think
of one ever since I climbed into that parcel sphere.” He grabbed one side
of the sheet and thrust his triton into its center.

Seeing the doctor rip through the
powdery blue fabric with the knife gave her chills. Until that point she had
considered him harmless, but he was still a fragger. She held onto the thought
that he had risked his own life to save her.

“Sean’s in trouble, isn’t
he?” she asked.

“Yes, he sent me a subvocal
transmission just before I woke you. The others in the fragger compound heard
it. That’s why they came running.”

“Where is he?” Sara
felt sick.

“I don’t know, only that
he’s been compromised.”

“What does that mean?”
Panic rose inside her.

“Most likely he’s been
captured. He asked me to get you to a fragger initiate center in Rushow. It’s a
safe house with people we trust, and he told me how to access the data. We can
use that to get him released.”