Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2) (24 page)

Chapter 27

“Third rate romance, low rent rendezvous.”
— Sammy Kershaw

When I got in my van I was pleasantly surprised. The two missing octovacs were on the floor in front of the rear bench seat, bouncing up and down on their tentacles, eager to see me and collect dome rubs. My backpack tool bag was between the two front seats. Clean clothes were neatly piled on the passenger-side captain’s chair, along with a pair of sensible shoes. Poly had even included a box of wipes I’d had in the kitchen so I could get the grease from the crane hoist cables off my hands and face. The wipes would also help remove stray bits of
Dauushan Strata
from my ankles.

I put the bundle of power pack cylinders I’d snagged on my way out of the Teleport Inn next to my backpack tool bag and took off my thoroughly trashed tuxedo. I smiled when I saw that Poly had thoughtfully provided a plastic garbage bag where I could put it so I didn’t get grease all over my van’s clean interior.

It was a positive pleasure to take off the polished patent leather shoes—now not so shiny—and lose the uncomfortably thin formal socks. I used the wipes to clean myself off and checked my Orishen pupa silk shirt where the bullet had struck. It was undamaged, without even a smear of lead. Lucky me. Taking things off hadn’t helped my bruised ribs, but it beat having my tux cut away by doctors in the emergency room.

Once I’d parted with my formal duds, I changed into the outfit Poly had picked out for me, putting on the black jeans, black long-sleeved GALTEX 2029 souvenir t-shirt a client had picked up for me in Las Vegas, fluffy black socks, and black Chuck Taylor All-Stars. My ensemble’s monochromatic look suited my mood and the hour.

I double-checked to make sure my light shifting Blend Into The Scenery coverall was still stowed in my backpack. It had been designed by the team at Morphicouture to make stage hands nearly invisible when moving sets. I smiled when I remembered how it had kept Poly safely hidden at Zwilniki’s hangar six weeks ago. It had been fun hugging and kissing her while she was wearing it. Poly wearing the coverall was something you didn’t see every day. I didn’t know what I’d find when I got to the rendezvous point near Hartsfield port and figured I’d need all the help I could get to remain undiscovered.

While my backpack tool bag was open, I removed a couple of power pack cylinders from the bundle and dropped them inside. Then I noticed Chit’s bottle, pulled it out, and opened it.

“Hey Chit,” I said, but didn’t hear an answer.

“Hey
Chit,
” I repeated, louder this time.

“Wha…?”

She’d been sleeping on my shoulder.

“Back in your bottle, little buddy,” I said. “Time to get some sleep in your own bed.”

Chit yawned.

“How d’ya know Murms use beds?”

“I don’t,” I said, “So hop in your bottle and get back in your pod or your crypt or hang from the lid for all I know. Eat bon bons, take a bubble bath, watch your shows—just unwind and get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

“Yeah, I guess I have, haven’t I?”

Chit yawned again and lazily flew off my shoulder and into her bottle. I put the lid back on and stowed it, wishing I could get some rest, too. I buckled my seat belt and leaned back in my seat.

“Art thou ready?” said my van.

“Verily,” I responded. “Remember, we want to scout around first, not pull right up in front of the place.”

“Of course, my lord.”

The white knight, his trusty steed, his hounds, and his faithful companions set forth to scope out the villain’s stronghold, or something like that. Then I yawned, a victim of Chit’s contagious magic. It had been a long day, and wasn’t over yet. The adrenaline from the Macerator’s attack had worn off hours ago and I was running on fumes.

“Stop at the Flying Biscuit Caf
é
on Northside Drive on the way,” I said. “Don Quixote needs sustenance.”

We were headed down I-75, the fastest route to the airport from the Teleport Inn, and the restaurant was only two exits away. My van didn’t reply to my request, but its stereo started playing the soundtrack from
Man of La Mancha,
so I guess it had gotten the message. We still had a few minutes before we got off the interstate.

“What can you tell me about the rendezvous point?” I asked my phone.

“It’s a hangar about the same size as Zwilniki’s,” it said, “only older construction and another five minutes farther south.”

“Who owns it?”

“San Simeon Realty.”

“San Simeon?” I said “Where Hearst Castle is located?”

“Yes,” said my phone, tentatively.

“And didn’t Hearst push the United States into war with Spain back in 1898?”

“Remember the
Maine
,” said my phone.

“Right,” I said, “Just like James K. Polk expanded the U.S. by war with Mexico, Hearst’s war got us the Philippines and Cuba.”

“Don’t forget Puerto Rico and Guam,” said my phone.

“How could I
ever
forget Guam.”

I had a brochure for a romantic getaway resort there.

“Checking corporate ownership databases now,” said my phone. “San Simeon Realty is a subsidiary of the Gran Palo Group.”

“Big Stick?” I asked. “Like Teddy Roosevelt’s phrase, ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick?’”

“Probably,” said my phone, “since Gran Palo is owned by the EUA Corporation.”

It always came back to the EUA Corporation.

My van slowed and pulled to a gentle stop in front of the Flying Biscuit Caf
é’
s drive-thru electronic menu board.

“Sustenance, O Knight of the Noble Countenance.”

“Thanks,” I said.

My phone sniffed.

“What?”

“You could have at least played along and said ‘Thank you, loyal steed.’”

“Just be glad I’m not nicknaming the van
Rocinante
,” I said.

“Waddwudjaliekt’nite,”
said a tinny, hard to decipher voice from the speaker in the middle of the menu board.

“A chicken sausage biscuit, an apple butter biscuit, and a Diet Starbuzz, please.”

“Chikbisk-buttrbisk-diebuzz?”
said the voice.

“Yes,” I said. What else could I say?

“Nineosevn. Nexwindda.”

I pulled to the next window and my phone hopped up on my left shoulder and tendered nine U.S. dollars and seven cents in a near-field ecommerce transaction. A minute later a warm bag and a cold bottle were handed to me. I looked in the bag. The order seemed correct.

“Forward, loyal steed!” I said.

My van slowly accelerated out of the restaurant and resumed its route to our rendezvous.

My phone made three quick, happy chirps.

“What?”

“You’re a nice guy.”

“Thanks. Let’s hope I don’t finish last.”

I put the Diet Starbuzz bottle in a convenient cup holder and opened the bag, pulling out the savory smelling wrapped biscuit first. The Flying Biscuit Caf
é
was another Atlanta area institution. They’d been around for thirty-five years and had eighteen locations. I’d been pleased when they’d added 24-hour drive through service in 2028 and loved their tall, light biscuits and delicious chicken sausage. I always ordered a second biscuit with just apple butter and treated it as dessert. It was that good.

We were close to our destination. I had finished my sausage biscuit and was spreading apple butter on the second half of my dessert biscuit when my phone interrupted my meal.

“Hartsfield space traffic control just cleared a starship for departure from the pad outside the rendezvous hangar.”

I looked up from apple buttering and saw a pillar of congruency generated fire ascending into the sky ahead of us. Starship launches are beautiful whether they’re carrying friends or foes.

“Crap,” I said. “We’re too late.”

“It’s not like Sherrhi and Terrhi were on board,” said my phone.

“But we might have caught someone higher up in the organization that’s threatening Dauush,” I said. “Sherrhi and Tom
á
so would have wanted us to.”

“You can still search the hangar for clues,” said my phone.

“Yeah,” I said. “We can try, but I bet we don’t find anything.”

I have never been happier to be wrong.

Since the starship had departed, I skipped trying to be subtle and asked my van to pull up in front of the small door to the left of the huge main hangar door. The building was enormous, four or five stories tall, steel framed and painted a dull enamel gray. There weren’t any lights on outside, so I put my backpack tool bag over my shoulder and walked to the small door. I had my phone run a few scans to make sure the place wasn’t filled with explosives or toxins or poisonous snakes. I also checked for security systems, dead fall traps and other sneaky things paranoid people might devise. From what my rudimentary scans could determine, the place was empty and its security system could be circumvented by a bright third grader with a paper clip.

My phone, in mutakey mode, opened the door. I pushed it open and stuck my head inside. Unlike in Zwilniki’s hangar, ceiling lights didn’t come on automatically. The echoes in the place made it sound large and empty, but I couldn’t confirm the accuracy of that impression because I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me. The only reason I could see
anything
was because photons from my van’s headlights filtered in.

I shifted my backpack tool bag around to where I could reach it and pulled a congruency-powered flashlight from a long, narrow, zippered side pouch. I set it to throw a wide beam and waved the arm holding it in a wide arc. The trusses in the ceiling fifty feet above me showed as ghostly webs of struts. My flashlight’s beam wouldn’t reach all the way across the space, so I moved further inside to explore.

It was very quiet. I shuffled my feet noiselessly so that I could be alert for any possible sound that might presage an attack. When I got close to the wall farthest from the door, where the stairs and elevators had been in Zwilniki’s hangar, I heard something. I swung my flashlight in the direction of the sound, but didn’t see anything. Then I heard it again. It was a scrabbling, tapping, moaning sound down near the floor. I walked toward it, scanning ahead of me with my light. Then the edge of my flashlight beam found the source of the sound.

A short-haired black man, about my age and build, in khakis and a white, button-down Oxford shirt was lying on the floor against the back wall of the hangar, between a stairwell and what looked like a freight elevator entrance. He was tied hand and foot with thick rope and gagged with a red silk necktie. I noticed he was wearing dark sunglasses, which seemed an odd choice in the darkened warehouse. When he saw me he struggled harder and moaned louder, tapping the soles of his shoes against the wall. I bent down and removed his gag.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. His voice was hoarse.

I was about to work on the rope around his hands when I saw his eyes go wide. That gave me enough warning to lean forward and take most of a heavy blow from a blunt object on my shoulders, rather than the back of my head. My pupa silk shirt went rigid and absorbed most of the force of the blow. I was pleased to avoid another concussion but expected I’d have sore shoulders to go with my sore ribs. I rolled with the impact, fell to the concrete floor and collapsed, pretending to be out cold.

I heard voices I recognized.

“It’s Buckston,” said Princeton.

“He’s bad news,” said Penn. “Tie him up fast and put ’em both in the elevator.”

I kept my body limp and my eyes closed. One of them tied my arms and legs with the same thick rope and dragged me along a concrete floor, over a metal threshold, and onto a wooden one. It must be the freight elevator. I still had my backpack tool bag over my shoulder. They must have dragged the other prisoner in with me since I felt his back land on my legs when they dropped him. If only Chit wasn’t asleep, she could have followed Penn and Princeton back to Columbia Brown’s headquarters. Then I had something more pressing to worry about.

“How long did you set it for?” said Penn.

“Fifteen minutes,” said Princeton.

“Make it ten. We can go out through one of the loading docks and save time.”

“Works for me.”

Penn and Princeton left and I heard the elevator descend, then stop. I opened my eyes and saw in the dim glow of the elevator’s emergency lights that we were stuck between floors. This was not good.

“A little help here,” I said.

“Just a second,” said my phone, extruding a sharp blade from its case.

I rubbed the rope between my wrists against the blade, then untied the bonds around my feet. My phone had started to help the other man get free. I noticed there was a logo on his Oxford shirt—O’Sullivan Fabrication. Once all his ropes were cut I helped him to his feet and watched him rub his wrists and his ankles to restore circulation. When his limbs were working again, he pushed his sunglasses up on his forehead.

“I’m Jack Buckston,” I said, extending my hand. “I wish we could have met under more pleasant circumstances.”

“Ray Ray Dunwoody,” said the man. “Me, too. My father’s told me about you.”

“We don’t have much time to get acquainted.”

“True,” said Ray Ray. “Where do you think they put the bomb?”

“Odds are good it’s in here with us.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

I held up my phone and hoped it would help me find the device.

“Lumos,” I said. My phone’s screen lit up and in the increased illumination I could see a cantaloupe-sized metal sphere resting in a circular holder screwed into the floor on the far side of the elevator.

“That’s a nova bomb,” said Ray Ray.

I admired the way he could say that without any hint of panic in his voice. Ray Ray had a cool head in a crisis.

“Yep,” I said. “They must want to blow up the entire hangar.”

“And everything for three hundred yards around it,” said Ray Ray, “Given the M.E.R.”

“M.E.R.?” I said.

“Megaton Equivalent Rating,” said Ray Ray. “It’s on the side of the sphere.”

“Nine minutes,” said my phone.

“First, let’s get out of this elevator,” I said. “Then we’ll worry about the bomb.”

“I’m on board with that,” said Ray Ray. “What can I do?”

“Check the ceiling and floor for maintenance panels,” I said. “Maybe we can get out that way?”

“Worth a shot,” said Ray Ray, starting a visual inspection.

The freight elevator was ten feet wide, twenty feet long and eight feet tall. It had a wooden floor, wooden walls covered with thick padded mats, and a steel mesh ceiling. Its door was also steel and made in two parts. One went up and one down, but they weren’t going to budge. The safety interlocks were engaged because we were between floors.

Ray Ray was quickly, but methodically checking the ceiling and floor for possible exits. I dug a congruency-powered penlight out of my backpack tool bag and gave it to him.