Black Hole Sun Read online

  “Answer me!” he bellows.

  Above us, a tone sounds. A guard appears behind Father. I stand. Make the fist in palm sign of the Regulator and bow low to show my respect.

  My father is a fallen angel, I tell myself, but when I rise, he’s gone.

  When I leave the prison, I see two shadows on either side of the catwalk, and I know something’s amiss.

  “Mimi,” I say after tapping my temple. “Don’t even bother with a scan. I recognize the stink of collectors when I smell it.”

  “Too late,” she says. “I pinpointed them while you were still at the guardhouse.”

  “Thanks, by the way,” I say. “For giving a few minutes alone with Father.”

  “Believe me when I say, cowboy, it was my pleasure.”

  Mimi hates Father. Can’t blame her. He’s the one, after all, who caused her death.

  It takes a few seconds for the collectors to appear. Two males. Age-tens. When I head for the traffic signal, they sidle up. Both wear light gray suits with high, black tab collars. Pretending to be men of the cloth. The disguise is a good one, and most citizens of New Eden keep their distance. During the Orthocracy, priests were dangerous men. No one has forgotten that.

  “Oy, Durango,” the taller one says. “Heard you pulled a job. Impressive. Except the kidnapper you hit has connections. Unhappy connections, if you know what I mean.”

  “Mimi?” I say as we reach the far side of the street. I turn for the entrance to the Tube. “They’re packing, right?”

  “Service revolvers,” she says. “CorpCom shock trooper standard issue. Be careful.”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  “No.”

  “Oy!” the tall man says. Punches me in the back, and the armor absorbs the blow. Hope he skinned his knuckles.

  I turn on him. Grab his fist, which is ready for another punch. Give it a squeeze, which he feels through his glove. “Save the chitchat, messenger boy. What does Mr. Lyme want?”

  The second jack—the standover man—moves to step in. I draw the armalite with my free hand. Aim at his nether regions. “Don’t think. Don’t blink.”

  He freezes.

  “Good man,” I say. “Now back up, messenger boy. Tell me—Mr. Lyme sent you because?”

  He squints. Tries to pretend the bones I’m grinding together don’t hurt. “Your last payment wasn’t enough. It’s costing Mr. Lyme more and more to give your poor papa the same level of protection, no?”

  “I hold up my end of the bargain,” I tell the collector, and let go the fist. The armalite I keep aimed. It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to worry about. “Mr. Lyme gets half my take of every job in return for keeping the predators and the recidivists off my father. Your boss made a righteous bargain.”

  “That means what to me?” He flexes his fist. Grins. Takes my act of kindness as weakness. Smug rooter.

  “It doesn’t mean much to you,” I say. “But when I cut this deal with Mr. Lyme, I made him a promise.”

  “What kind of promise, Durango?”

  “That I’d put a hole through his head if he broke our deal.”

  Collector laughs. So does his associate. “That’s a good one. You’re one funny kid.”

  “Not when my father’s concerned.”

  “You’re a bit slow on the uptake, though,” he says. “I told you, the deal’s changed. The price of protection’s tripled.”

  “Tripled?” I say. “You’re out of your skull.”

  “Can’t afford the hay?” Collector picks his teeth with a flint match. “Mr. Lyme says he can cut you in on a side trade. There’s good money in it for a fine strapping lad like yourself. A bloke of your abilities and looks who can transport merchandise.”

  “Like what?”

  He leans in, tries to whisper over the ferocious winds. “Rapture.”

  “You want a Regulator chief to run contraband?”

  “Not contraband! Don’t call it that.” He winks conspiratorially. “Think of it as freelance pharmaceuticals.”

  “Not happening.” I drop low. Sweep their legs with a quick roundhouse. Cut them off at the knees.

  Collector falls hard on his tailbone. The standover man follows suit. They roll backward, moaning onto the icy asphalt, dust staining their light gray robes with streaks of rust. It looks like blood. Part of me wishes it were.

  In an instant the barrel of my gun is lodged in one of Collector’s flaring nostrils.

  “Give Mr. Lyme a message,” I say calmly, although my heart is racing. “Tell him if anything happens to my father, I’ll take my business to his competitor. After I’ve kept my promise.”

  “Yeah,” Collector says. “Got that.”

  His partner lifts him to his feet after I step away.

  “This isn’t over, kid. Mr. Lyme? You’ll never even see him coming, but he’ll come all right.”

  “Go on, messenger boy.” I wave the armalite at him. “Walk fast.”

  Collector makes an obscene gesture as they stumble away. “If you didn’t have that weapon.”

  “But I do. And it’s legal for me to use it. Remember that next time, before the thought of me trafficking pharmies even enters that microbe you call a brain.”

  A second later I’m bounding down the stairs, headed for the Tube. My train is arriving, and I’m just in time to catch it.

  CHAPTER 12

  East End, New Eden

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 8. 08:13

  The TransPort monorail station at the east end of New Eden reminds me of a toilet. It’s the miasmatic, pent-up odor of thousands of humans passing through every day, with only a creaking ventilation system to move the air around. In the surface cities near the equator like Valles Martis, the air is clean and breathable. Once or twice Vienne and I tried to find work there, but dalit are shunned in those cities, like our presence is a form of pollution.

  “Stupid damned miners. Stupid damned South Pole,” Jenkins curses as he throws his bags into the luggage berth above our seats. Packed away in a duffle, his fifty-caliber machine gun clanks as it lands on the rack.

  “Excuse me? There are children present,” says a pucker-faced woman a few rows ahead. Her daughter is seated beside her, earbuds on, bouncing to music. The woman covers the girl’s ears anyway. “Watch your language, sir!”

  “Who you calling sir?” he says. “I work for a living, you lemon-faced fingringhoe.”

  “Well, I never!” she says, horrified.

  “You did at least once!” He makes a rude hand gesture. “Unless that’s somebody else’s kid sitting in the next seat.”

  Seeing Jenkins’s amputated pinkie, the woman puckers up so much, her mouth almost flips inside out. She presses the call button. Now he’s done it. A conductor will be coming soon.

  “Sit down!” I hiss at him. “Stop being a jackass and act like a Regulator for once.”

  “Me? She’s the one got all huffy.” Jenkins plops down beside the porthole, pulls his armalite from its holster, and lays it on his lap.

  “That is not safe,” Vienne says as we slide into the row behind him. “Follow travel protocol.”

  Jenkins growls, “Mind your own business.”

  “He’s just compensating,” Fuse turns to tell Vienne.

  “You’re the one with the short fuse, Fuse,” Jenkins says. “Get it? Short fuse. ’Cause you’re short.”

  Vienne elbows me in the ribs, then mouths, Told you so.

  I throw up my hands, as if to say, Like I had any other choice. “Okay, pipe down, you two.” I push my own bag into the overhead compartment. “You know the rules, Jenks. Holster your weapon or pack it away.”

  “Aw.”

  “You heard me.”

  He jams it into the holster. Stows it. “Nobody ever lets me have any fun.”

  After he’s finished, I call the three of them together. “We need to establish a comm link for the duration of the job.”

  The boys start pulling the earbuds from their suits—the old-fashioned way o
f synching. I shake my head. “Not that way. My telemetry functions can do it automatically. Just spin your seats around.” They unlock their section and turn it so that we’re facing one another. “Now, join hands.”

  “Yes, sir!” Fuse grins. He takes hold of Vienne’s hand and interlaces his fingers with hers. “Your methods are unorthodox, chief, but I like them. How about you, suzy? Doesn’t sharing flesh with the Fuse make your blood turn all ho—ow!”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Vienne, don’t break his fingers. He’ll need them later.”

  “Why?” she says as she complies. “Like I said, he’s just going to blow them off.”

  Fuse sticks his freed fingers in his mouth. “That’s was harsh, lo—I mean, Vienne. Vienne!”

  “Hands, Regulators,” I say.

  “You take hers this time, Jenks,” Fuse says, grimacing.

  Jenkins tilts his head to the side. “Ain’t held hands with suzies too much. Not sure I’m keen on it.”

  “For the love of—!” I bark. “Take her carking hand! She won’t bite!”

  All their heads turn to me like synchronized artillery.

  “Well,” I say, “maybe she will, but not if I tell her not to. Hands!” Finally we manage the maneuver without anyone else getting hurt. “Mimi, synch them to my aural frequency. On my mark. One. Two.”

  “Done.”

  “Already?”

  “I had,” she says with a lilt to her voice, “plenty of time to prepare.”

  When the synch is finished and we all find our seats, Jenkins says, “Holding hands is fun. It tickles.”

  Fuse shakes his hand. “The pox it does!”

  Jenkins turns back to Vienne. “Now I know why Durango’s the chief and you’re not—he’s got the prettiest suit.”

  I hear Mimi titter in my head. “Out of the mouth of babes…”

  Then Vienne turns to me and fake smiles. “Don’t even think of ordering me to babysit him.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  I start to argue when the conductor enters the car. She goes to the puckered woman, who turns and points at Jenkins, then at me. The conductor nods, and her face puckers up, too.

  Uh-oh. I know what’s coming. Vienne and I’ve been down this road many times before.

  The conductor straightens her hat. Walks purposefully past Jenkins and Fuse. And stops beside me. “Fare card.”

  She forgets to say please. I pass her the card using my bad hand. Let her take a good, long look. She freezes, lip quivering, then pinches the card between thumb and forefinger like it’s covered in pox germs.

  “Party of four traveling to Outpost Fisher Four,” she says after swiping the card through the reader belted to her hip.

  “That’s right,” I say through a forced smile.

  “For what purpose?”

  “Work.”

  “Does your work involve weapons?”

  “Usually. We’re Regulators.”

  “I know what you are,” she says, and keeps the card. “There have been complaints from the other passengers.”

  “About what?”

  She glances at my pinkie. “You’ll have to vacate this car.”

  “What?” Vienne says, her voice rising. “We’ve paid for our seats like—”

  She leans over us, pretending to keep her voice low, but making sure other riders hear her. “Passengers are seated at the discretion of the conductor. And I want you out of these seats now. Dalit aren’t fit to ride in the same car as decent citizens.”

  Fuse turns and starts to argue. I shake my head no. Even if we once risked our lives to defend people like this officious rotter, we have to remember that we’re still Regulators. They think we’re trash, but that doesn’t mean we have to act it. “If you say so. We’ll move. Fuse, Jenkins. Grab your gear. We’re moving out.”

  “Huh?” Jenkins says. “Moving out where?”

  “To the baggage compartment,” the conductor says loudly.

  “But I just got situated,” Jenkins complains.

  Fuse tugs their bags from the rack. “Let it go, Jenks. You know the drill. We’ve been shown the door before, right?”

  A few rows ahead, the puckered-up woman starts to hiss. The other passengers join in, and in a few seconds, the cabin sounds like a bucket of snakes. The conductor flounces to the back door, obviously enjoying the heads turning our way, and opens the hatch. There’s a metallic click, and wind and noise rush inside.

  I stand to the side as first Vienne and then Fuse and Jenkins file out.

  When it’s my turn, I look the conductor hard in the eye. “You don’t happen to speak Chinese, do you?”

  “No, I do not,” the conductor says. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Oh, no reason.” I clap my hands together and bow. “Jiào n shng háizi zhng zhì chung. And have a nice day.”

  After a long walk through a couple dozen cars and a litany of complaints from Jenkins, we reach the baggage car. The few seats are stained and torn, surrounded by stacks of luggage locked behind security doors. The conductor makes sure we know about the security cameras, then hustles away in a rush, like she’s suddenly aware that she’s pissed off a very big man with a very big gun.

  “It’s not first class,” I say as we stow our gear again. “But at least we’ve got it all to ourselves.”

  “Huh,” Jenkins says, which sums up pretty much what all of us are feeling.

  I take my own seat. Settle in for a nap. The trip to Fisher Four will take a full day’s travel. Might as well get some sleep.

  “So,” Fuse says, swinging around in his seat. “You two been together long, davos wise, I mean? Me and Jenks has been best cobbers since the day we became Regulators. We’re both conscripts. My parentals are first-generation immigrants from Earth. Worked as conscript servants before marrying and having seven children—six of us boys, of which I’m the baby—plus taking care of a few of my cousins off and on. Jenks, he comes from miners. His parentals carked it during a cave-in, and he got stuck among the Orphan Workers Program till they conscripted him. Did I tell you how we got decorated at the Battle of Noachis Terra? It’s quite the tale, if I say so myself.”

  And he does say so himself. Rambles on for several more minutes. By the time he takes a breath, my ears feel scorched and Vienne looks like she wants to claw her way through the side of the rail car.

  “Vienne,” I groan, “I take it back. You can shoot him.”

  “How many times?” she says.

  Fuse throws both hands up in a defensive gesture. “Oy! I get the message. What a couple of grumpies you two are.” He slides into his seat. “Oy, Jenks. Got anything choice in that nosh bag of yours?”

  Vienne and I exchange looks. She starts to speak, and I put a finger to her lips to shush her. For a few seconds it’s as if time is frozen. I let out a short breath, and Vienne blinks, then pulls back. Slowly she takes my hand in hers and lowers it. Almost imperceptibly, she shakes her head no, and I’m not sure which of us she’s talking to. I take a deeper breath, my mind a swirl of emotions as she makes a fist and turns her face to the window.

  Damn.

  “Mimi,” I rub my fingers together, thinking about the touch of her lips. “Keep an eye on things.”

  “Which eye?” she says. “Your real one or the synthetic bionic one?”

  “It’s figure of speech.”

  “I was being ironic.”

  “Or sarcastic.”

  Slowly at first, almost as if the platform instead of the train is moving, the station passes by the window. A moment later an air horn blasts as the engine winds over the ribbon of rail, the city growing smaller as the TransPort blows out of New Eden. Soon the biodome of the settlement seems far away and unreal, a shrinking dot on the Mars landscape. The picture in the window melts into a liquid of color and sound so that only the distant peak of Olympus Mons remains. The horizon is gone—not melted, just gone—and the world I know b
ecomes flat and red and dusty.

  I close my eyes, and the dream comes quickly: I’m back in the hospital, the reconstructive surgery ward. Father stands over my bed.

  “This is the third rejection,” the surgeon says. “His brain waves simply are not a match for any donor that we have on record. Alas, the experiment is a failure.”

  A faceless bureaucrat in a lavender CorpCom suit suggests, “Perhaps his mind is too weak to host an artificial intelligence.”

  Father disagrees. “Too strong is more likely. My son’s DNA is of the highest quality. His surrogate was chosen from hundreds of thousands of women, all of them strong, intelligent, brave. No, it must be the donors that are inferior.”

  “Or incompatible,” the surgeon says. “We can keep trying.”

  “No,” Father says, patting my hand with all the affection of a piece of meat. “I cannot risk Operation MUSE. You’ll need to seek more suitable subjects.”

  From the haze of sedation, I grope for his arm and somehow find it. “Mimi,” I say, my voice slurry and sounding very far away. “Use Mimi.”

  “Who is this Mimi?” Father asks.

  “His former chief,” the suit says. “She was KIA in Tunnel Two-E.”

  “Do it,” Father tells the surgeon.

  “But sir,” the suit protests. “We are already in violation of ethic protocol, as well as legal—”

  “Damn your ethics,” Father bellows. “And bugger the law. That didn’t stop our last project, and it won’t stop this one. My son is destined for greatness. This experiment will help him reach it.” He mechanically pats my hand again. “Doctor, you may proceed. And give him a higher dose of anesthesia. I do not want him to remember this conversation.”

  But I do remember it, and the memory jars me awake. I rub my eyes, not knowing how long I’ve been asleep.

  “Only a minute or two,” Mimi says. “But do try to get some shut-eye, cowboy. It’s a long ride to Hell.”

  CHAPTER 13