The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) (14 page)

“No,” he said again.

“Then you can understand why I won’t work that way,” she said.

He shrugged. “It’s pretty simple, Ms. Iban. You are peddling a product. I am representing a buyer who is going to spend more money than you have probably seen in your lifetime. Of course, my buyer will get to inspect the merchandise, speak to previous buyers, and look at the operation. My buyer would be foolhardy not to.”

“But—”

“And for obvious reasons,” he said, “I will inspect first. My buyer does not want to be known, and if I deem you or your operation untrustworthy, then my buyer will not come out of the shadows. If this doesn’t work for you, I’m sure I can find someone else to do business with.”

She swallowed hard, then her eyes glazed. Something was happening on her links again.

Deshin had to work to keep his own gaze on her, so that he wouldn’t look at the men. He didn’t want them to know he had caught on to what they were doing.

“I’ll be back in touch with you,” she said.

“That’s the best you can do?” he asked.

“I need to check—”

“All right,” he said. “But be clear on this: while you’re checking, I will be looking for someone else to do the job.”

“Mr. Deshin, I’m sure—”

“That’s all,” he said. “I’m sure you can find your own way out.”

She frowned ever so slightly, as if she wasn’t sure what to make of this conversation. Then she nodded.

“I do,” she said. She gestured with her fingers at the men who had accompanied her. “Let’s go.”

She walked slowly, as if she expected Deshin to stop her. He wasn’t going to. His stomach flip-flopped as she walked, and it took all of his strength not to delete the image of those assassins before she even left the room.

She glanced over her shoulder as she stepped through the door, almost as if she expected Deshin to stop her. He sat down in the chair, as if he had forgotten her already.

The men followed, then the doors closed behind them.

Make sure you track where they go through the building,
Deshin sent to his security staff.
And have someone follow them—discretely—through the city
.

Yes, sir
, his head of security sent.

Deshin raised his head, his gaze meeting that of his two guards.
Check for any tracking that they might have set up. I didn’t see anything, but it means nothing
.

The guards nodded.

Deshin darkened the screen. He didn’t take down the image immediately even though he wanted to.

He was going to find the creators of those sons of bitches. And he was going to stop them, whatever they were doing. And along the way, he was going to exact some revenge.

Just like the people of Armstrong would expect from criminal mastermind Luc Deshin.

Only this time, he knew that the people of Armstrong wouldn’t object to anything he did.

SIXTEEN

THE TRAIN PULLED up at Armstrong Department of Correction & Rehabilitation Reception Facility. The building was long and wide; a series of buildings, really, the kind of sprawl that had become common outside the domes on the Moon.

The Reception Facility was only one of many Armstrong prisons. This one housed the dangerous prisoners who were being bound over for trial in one of Armstrong’s local courts. The facility was, in theory, as heavily guarded as Armstrong’s super maximum security prison was.

The tracks ended inside Facility One, a grayish building made worse with its layer of Moon dust. Leckie knew the prison officials tried to clean the place, but buildings outside the city with their own private domes to maintain usually didn’t have the filtration systems that city domes had.

At least, not the government buildings outside the dome, and certainly not government buildings housing prisoners and undesirables. Leckie wiped a hand over her forehead, adjusted her helmet downward. It was riot gear, just like her outfit was, although she’d never been part of a prison riot.

She doubted she would be part of one now.

She looked at the rows and rows of Peyti clones that she guarded. They still stared out the window, as if they had a hive mind and they’d received a uniform command to look in the same direction. Although the clones on the other side of the train car were looking out the windows on that side.

The clones’ posture disturbed her. She wanted them to do something. She
needed
them to do something.

But the android guards watched her as well. She realized, halfway from Glenn Station, that the androids weren’t there as much for the clone prisoners as they were for guards like her.

Her hand had been on her laser pistol for damn near the entire ride. She’d been on alert, just waiting—hoping—for a moment to use the weapon.

Hell, if there hadn’t been android guards with their little see-everything, record-everything eyes, she would have started something herself. She knew she wasn’t alone.

Half the guards on this train—half the
human
guards on this train—would have loved an excuse to toss those creatures into the Moon dust alongside the tracks.
Oh, sorry, sir
, she would have said to some investigator upon arrival.
They were trying to flee. Honestly, sir, we didn’t do as much as we probably should have to pull them back.

Fantasies. It was all fantasies now.

She activated her own environmental part of the riot suit, just in case. She felt the temperature around her cool slightly—it had been stuffy on the train. The helmet for her riot gear had lowered, putting a thin barrier between her and everything around her.

That action calmed her a little.

Since she’d brought prisoners here half a dozen times before, turning on the environment and letting the helmet down had become part of her routine. It felt normal to activate the settings, while nothing about this trip had been normal.

She made herself take a deep breath, tasting the stale air in her suit. That too was familiar. She’d learned after her first visit here to turn on the environment before she got off the train.

The authorities at the Reception Center kept the temperatures at the bottom end of human comfort, warm enough that an unsuited human could survive, but cold enough that the survival would be uncomfortable.

Between the chill and the dust-coated air, she preferred to smell the sour stench of a rarely used suit.

Some of her colleagues activated their riot gear as well. Across the car, near the other door, Dunbar Willis adjusted his helmet. The faceplate reflected his eyes. They met hers.

He was just as angry as she was at this assignment—maybe angrier, since his sister had died on Anniversary Day. She had been a first responder. His other sister would have died a week ago, if she hadn’t left a meeting to get some coffee for everyone. She was a legal assistant—or had been—until all of this happened. Her firm lost two senior partners and some important associates that day.

Willis nodded at her. Leckie wondered what that meant, if anything. They hadn’t planned anything, but then, that didn’t always matter. She usually knew how Willis thought.

She made herself look away from him, at the Peyti clones. They continued to stare, as if they had no idea what they were about to experience.

But most of them had been practicing lawyers for years. They knew. They knew they were going to be transferred to this facility, strip searched again, put in some kind of cell with others of their kind, and run through a series of unnecessary procedures in the name of transfer.

They knew it would be rough, and they didn’t seem bothered by it.

Of course, why would they? These assholes had tried to blow themselves up, so they probably welcomed discomfort. It probably added to their martyrdom. Or maybe they saw it as an opportunity to die like they were supposed to.

That thought made her heart rate increase. Maybe they expected the guards to attack them, to hurt them, to kill a few of them. Maybe, if she got violent, she would be playing into their fantasies, not her own.

She wondered if she should let Willis know.

Then, she shook off the thought. She didn’t even know if regular Peyti had fantasies—and these weren’t regular Peyti. They were manufactured creatures. Things.

Dangerous things.

The train came to a complete stop with a whistle of brakes. Whistling brakes happened only in dust-covered areas—in the emptiness of the Moonscape, for example, or in badly maintained domes. She’d never heard it in here.

It made her shudder.

None of the Peyti moved.

She grabbed her rifle, brought it into position, and held it like a lifeline.

“Okay,” she said in Standard. She’d be damned if she spoke Peytin to them, even though she knew enough words to get some recalcitrant Peyti off a transport train. “We’re disembarking as a unit. You will do as ordered. You will be quiet and mannered and move slowly. You will not cause trouble.”

They didn’t look at her, which made her even angrier. They kept looking out the damn windows, as if they could see something important.

“Just so you know,” she added, “we have a do-not-kill order for you assholes. You act up and try to suicide by guard and we won’t be able to kill you. We won’t even try. So if you’re going to try to achieve that suicide you failed to achieve when your little bombs didn’t go off, try to achieve it somewhere else. Got that?”

Where did that speech come from?
Willis sent.
I don’t remember that order.

She looked across those turned Peyti heads at him. His head was tilted slightly, making his eyes impossible to read from this distance. A few of the other guards were looking at her as well.

I’m not feeding into their crazy,
she sent.
They can kill each other for all that I care, but I’m not doing what they tried to do.

He moved his head. She couldn’t tell if that was a nod or if he was shaking his head. Or if he was just thinking about what she had said.

“All right,” she said aloud. “We’re going to disembark by row. We will begin with the row at the opposite end of the car from me.”

You handle the release, okay?
She sent to Willis.
You stand in each row, getting them out.

She did that because she trusted him, and because she wanted to keep an eye on him.

She said to the damn Peyti, who still weren’t looking at her, “When Guard Willis releases your row, you will walk forward and pass me. The android guards will lead you onto the platform where you will be met by the prison’s guards. At that moment, you will be in their custody and you will be their responsibility.”

None of the Peyti moved. None of the guards did as well. They had all heard this speech before—except for that opening part. She was using the standard procedure, just like she was supposed to do.

Start ‘em up,
she sent to Willis.

He took a step forward, clutching his laser rifle almost horizontally. It looked like he wanted to use its grip to slam into the Peyti leaving the row on the left, and then swing it around to club the Peyti leaving the row on the right.

She’d seen him fight like that. She knew he was good at it.

“You,” he said to the group to his left. “Get out.”

The Peyti didn’t move.

She sighed. She had known this would happen.

Willis raised his head toward her.
Now what?

Grab one
, she sent.

He picked up the closest Peyti clone by its arm. She could hear the stick-like bones snap across the car.

A couple of the clones winced, and she smiled. Finally, a reaction.

Willis lifted that Peyti clone up.

“You’re
clones
and lawyers,” he said. “So I really don’t need to remind you that I don’t have to treat you like full members of the Earth Alliance. I can do what I want, as long as you’re still breathing when you get to that prison. Now.
Move
.”

He shoved the Peyti clone forward. The clone staggered toward Leckie, clutching his arm. His wide liquid eyes met hers, and she saw pain in them. His features had turned a pale sickly blue.

“Do what Willis says,” she said. “You know we would all love to see if every one of your arms makes that same noise when they get snapped.”

Now, the Peyti were looking at her.
All
of them. They had been treated like full individuals,
lawyers
, respected members of the community, until now.

They were finally catching a clue that they didn’t control this situation.

The Peyti clone next to the empty seat stood, followed by the rest of the Peyti in the row. The others shifted as well. A few moved their arms forward, as if that would protect them from Willis’s rough hands.

The injured clone passed her. Others watched him go.