Under Dark Sky Law (14 page)

“Yeah, we’re real particular like that.
Breathing the outside air for too long will make you real surly,”
she said.

“So. What I do know is that these skeletons
are involved, but they’re not working with the gang they’re
associated with—Las Calacas. I believe you know their leader,
Calavera?” he said.

She let out a long stream of air. “Don’t get
me started on that. Yes, I know her. She trains really good
enforcers, but she’s an idiot. She started a turf war with me when
she moved into the Nogales territory after she abandoned Juarez. We
had tenuous business relations when she was the leader of Juarez,
but she decided my piece of the pie was just too tempting to leave
alone. She never really made a dent in any of our forces, but it
was taking too much energy to deal with, and it was difficult to
really get at the heart of her organization down in the Mexican
pits, so I decided to work out a truce with her just for the sake
of convenience. That goes down, and then all of the sudden there’s
skeleton attacks going on all over the place, and according to my
guys, Calavera doesn’t know what in the fuck is going on,” she
said, her hands balling into fists. Incompetence made her so
mad.

“That fits with the information I have. As
far as I know, Calavera has lost control of a big slice of her
organization. They’re working with someone else launching these
terrorist attacks, but I don’t know who those might be. Any of the
known entities in these parts are denying any knowledge. I have a
pretty good bead on what’s going on in the flats and domes, at
least in the western half of the country, and I haven’t figured out
who might behind everything. I’ve had some limited interactions
with Calavera, and I have to say that I formed the same
impression—good at battle training, but totally worthless in
strategy. This is the most successful any terrorist cells have been
waging an attack on the domes in the last ten years, and I don’t
think she’d be capable of something like this,” he said.

“My assessment exactly. Her skeletons are a
pain in the ass to deal with, but Calavera’s far from being a
master tactician,” she said. True to her initial appraisal, this
guy was no fool himself, and that was something she really valued
in a potential business partner. Depending on what he was asking,
she might very well accept his offer.

“So, at some point, we need to get a handle
on what the fuck is going on in that respect. You’ve already
experienced some significant upsets from their intervention, and I
don’t want them to affect my organization either,” he said.

“You want me to help you take down whoever is
in charge of this splinter cell?” she said.

“That may be part of the equation, but I’ll
get to that later. Tell me what else you want,” he said.

It was an interesting negotiation
strategy—figuring out what she wanted so he would have more
leverage to work with during the bargaining phase. However, in this
case she would let it stand, because there were some things that
she really wanted, and there was a possibility that she would get
the things she needed from him without giving anything up in
return.

She cleared her throat. “I’m not especially
proud of this, but one of my colleagues has gone missing. I don’t
think he’s dead, because none of my associates have turned up any
bodies, and they’re quite thorough, but he’s definitely MIA,
possibly kidnapped. I want him back,” she said and gave him a
description of Argon.

He cocked his head from side to side and
clucked his tongue. “I can’t think of anything that rings a bell.
Of course I can’t promise anything on that front, but I can put my
feelers out into the domes in the off chance that your people
missed something,” he said, pausing. “No offense--not that your
guys are sloppy or anything, but I’m assuming I have better access
to things afoot in the dome underground world.”

“None taken. I’ll admit that being based in
the pits, we have some blind spots where the domes are concerned.
So yeah, that’s one of the most important things that I want right
now. The last thing I really need, I actually already sort of asked
you for. I need antibiotics,” she said.

“I’ll ask you the same question I asked you
earlier—what kind of antibiotics are we talking about here,” he
said.

“I need Ketocillin, specifically. It has to
be Ketocillin,” she said.

He sighed and wiped a hand down his face.
“Ketocillin, even I don’t have access to any of that. At least not
readily on hand. It would take some doing,” he said.

“Barring having any on hand, I need the next
best thing. I need you to pass my psych exam and help me get
through some of the political snafus so that I can go on my
regularly scheduled run to Yuma. I can get to it on the
backchannel, but it’ll be a hell of a lot easier if I’m out on an
authorized run to get ahold of that,” she said.

“You have a sick crew member?” he asked.

Exposing vulnerabilities was not something
that she liked doing with anyone, even potential future teammates,
but in this case, there wasn’t a lot to lose and a hell of a lot to
gain. “Yeah. Lung zaps. Real bad. Drug resistant—our resident medic
says Ketocillin’s the only real hope to resolve it at this point,
and that shit is hard as fuck to get your hands on nowadays. We
can’t transport her anywhere else because of all the official and
unofficial quarantine mandates. Yuma’s got a supply because of its
position on the border of two states—California and Arizona both
wanted easy access to that shit. I’ve got good connections to Yuma,
so it’s an ideal spot for me to score some,” she said.

“That’s a tough situation. Well, I can
certainly help with almost all of that part of the equation. I can
pass your psych eval and grease a few palms to get the supply
mission cleared again. That part shouldn’t be too difficult
considering they are already probably desperate to get that back on
the road again. The rebel attacks have really messed up some of the
shipments, so that shouldn’t take too much to convince someone to
get that back on the docket, despite what happened yesterday. I
should also be able to help smooth over some of the smuggling
process in Yuma. I’m not on close terms with the Yuma officials,
but I have my ways,” he said.

She never would have guessed that one of the
largest dome-based drug distributors in the country was actually a
practicing Phoenix psychiatrist. He was literally almost a male
copy of herself. Trippy. Fucker even just about stole her moniker.
Guess the profession really did attract all sorts. Knowing how
people’s minds worked really was a valuable skill, so it wasn’t so
surprising that they would be drawn to using it for less than
virtuous purposes, especially in that day and age. Playing by the
rules usually meant you were the first to die.

“Sounds too good to be true, to be honest,”
she said. “So, now you know what I want—all my cards are on the
table. I know who you are, you know who I am. Now’s the part where
you make your unreasonable demands, and we dance around making
threats and counter offers.”

She was in something of a vulnerable
position, given that he had managed to keep his dome job despite
being someone that had been relegated to the flats at birth. She
was under his care for passing an essential psych eval to be
cleared for business. She could cook up a fake passing eval, but it
would take weeks or even months for all of that bullshit to get
pushed through the cumbersome system. Same deal for smuggling some
Ketocillin directly from the black market. It was possible, but it
would take way too damned long. He had leverage and he knew it.

He clucked his tongue. “I’m sad that you
think so little of me. I have no intent to manipulate you in that
way. In my opinion, a truly successful relationship is built on
trust, just like they taught us in school, right? And a good
businessman always lets their customer taste the milk before buying
the cow, right? That would be bad faith on my part to take
advantage of you. I will help you do these things that you’ve asked
for. If you’re satisfied with my services, then perhaps we can work
on some longer term business strategies,” he said.

She chuckled and pointed a bruised index
finger at him. “You’re good, I’ll give you that, you’re good,” she
said. And he really was. This was probably the only way that she
would even consider taking him up on any offers—threats and
coercion would have just made her literally punch him in the face
and walk the other way.

“You know as well as I do that forcing
someone to do something involuntarily is no way to form stable
alliances. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar,” he
said.

“So you’re the guy that basically stole my
name, huh? At least you seem to have some good sense about
you—you’re not running around fucking up my reputation or anything,
are you? Why’d you decide to model yourself after me anyway?” she
said.

“With all due respect, I’ve actually been in
business about as long as you have, albeit on a much smaller scale
due to the limitations of working within the domes themselves. It’s
taken me much longer to grow my empire, but it’s come a long way.
As far as I know we actually formed our monikers separately. I
started calling myself Xed a long time before I ever knew about you
and your smuggling ring or your territory down in Tucson. It was a
childhood nickname from the flats, actually. Perhaps it’s fate that
we seem to be so similar, and you’ve come into my sphere of being
in this time of need,” he said.

She pursed her lips and drummed her battered
fingers against the desk. It hurt, but she didn’t give a fuck.
Sometimes a little pain brought clarity, brought you back down to
earth.

“It’s odd that we’ve never run into each
other before. You’re good. I’ve had people look for you, I think
even tried to contact you a time or two, but the message I always
got was that I don’t fuck with you, and you don’t fuck with me, and
everyone stays happy. Why do you want to work with me now?” she
said.

“To be totally honest, I was intimidated by
you. You’re quite famous around here. Everyone knows not to fuck
with the Grease Weasels, and like I said, due to the nature of my
own business in the dome, it took me much longer to grow into a
successful operation of my own. I didn’t want to risk being crushed
or overtaken by your pits enterprise if I revealed too much,” he
said.

She squinted her eyes and continued tapping
her fingers. “And now you’re big and bad enough that you’re not
threatened by us?” she said.

He took off his glasses, laid them on the
desk and grinned, “Not in the slightest. That’s not to say I want
to go picking a fight. I think our organizations are probably equal
in destructive force right now. I don’t know who would win in the
fight, but no one would come out a winner in that battle, and I’m
not eager to destroy everything I’ve worked so hard to build,” he
said, and she believed him again. Everyone knew that purposely
fucking with the Grease Weasels was a fool’s errand.

She sat quiet, thinking, and then broke out
in another ironic laugh. “The Alphamine. That’s what you want,” she
said.

He smiled wrly and rubbed his hand against
his shaved head. “Among other things, yes, that is a piece of
valuable capital that I don’t have direct access to. It is a
product I would like to help get you a larger distribution for,” he
said.

“I must have gotten hit in the head too many
times last night, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before,”
she said.

He put his glasses back on. “Does that change
your mind?” he said.

She shook her head. “No. Now this all makes
more sense. That’s what I’d want in your position too. I can’t
promise you anything about the Alphamine or anything else without
getting more details or discussing it with my team. I’m not a one
man band stand, despite what some people may think about me. But, I
will gladly suck on your milk before buying the cow. So. What do we
do now?” Xero said, laying both her hands on the table and leaning
in towards Xed.

He nodded happily. “Good. Now, I say I put
the paperwork in motion to get you out of this pickle, and we
retire to my place where I can help you with your first demand: a
hot shower,” he said.

“I will not argue with this plan,” she said.
Hey, spending the night at a possible rival’s house was totally
worth finally getting into some literal hot water.

He held out a hand for her to shake. “What a
nice name for a partnership,” he said. “Xed and Xero—X marks the
spot.”

CHAPTER 12

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Xero said.

They had traveled in some ridiculously fancy
car that was two shakes shy of being a limo through the main
stretch of downtown and up to the northern section of the dome.
Before Phoenix had obtained a dome, the area had been filled with
expensive ranch houses and golf courses for wealthy Republicans. It
was still much the same, which was impressive given the limited
occupancy and space of the domed areas. It took some serious cash
to keep that much land.

Xed smiled and motioned her inside the
high-ceilinged parlor. Everything was white marble and sparkly
chandelier crystal. “Thank you,” he said. “And in case you’re
wondering, despite what it looks like, there are a lot of security
features in this place. Even if the skeletons were specifically
tracking you, we should have enough armaments in place to fend them
off. There’s a full doomsday switch for this building.”

Meaning there was a near-flawless security
measure that would keep everything out. It could also keep
everything inside, and the fact that he specifically mentioned the
doomsday switch wasn’t lost on Xero.

She sat on the arm of an all white couch.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to try and run away. It wouldn’t help
my cause in any way. If it turned out you were actually just
planning on raping and killing me in the comfort of your own home,
that’s not a problem either. I’d just kill you first,” she said and
grinned, but they both knew she was serious.