Each day he doesn't spread the word about ConCare is another day Alnam and Palpatine and the Dangors fill their bellies with people's blood.
Krev lets the bloody bloodsuckers feast.
It's more than he can handle — to fight them alone. He's always thought he was self-sufficient — well, at least since the time he could get some money on his own — that would be as soon as kids smaller than him started getting allowance. Turns out, he's anything but: Sorval's quitting hit him harder than he expected. He tries to use the HB as little as he can now: if something goes wrong, it's not going to be fixable.
They've talked over the comlink after their last meeting. Those were some awkward-ass conversations — Krev stayed away from the topic of the Holonet, and Sorval made no attempts to rectify that.
Not a lot of other topics to discuss. That's the problem with combat friends — if you stop talking about combat, you don't have much to talk about.
Krev only turns the transmitter on once a day — to check the Shadowfeed for Alnam's activity. The old man is suspiciously silent. Krev mulls over Sorval's words: if Alnam doesn't do anything, it's because he expects you to.
Let him wait, Krev thinks every time he sees no new results for ConCare. Maybe he'll kick the bucket before I get to doing business.
Two weeks — three, if Krev's being honest, but he doesn't want to be honest — are taken by preparations. How is he going to approach Vad? Does he offer him to have a beer together first? Do you have to make small talk before convincing someone to betray his father and his head of the state? Krev asks himself a question or two like these, has a sad laugh, and returns to watching holoshows.
It's a comfortable life, you know. He's found a pusher that isn't so fucking full of shit. With the money Mr. Kossar got on his accounts, he can expect a few years of this life — unless the pusher or Mr. Kossar is taken down. Krev spends more time calculating how many days he's got left before the money runs out. Deducting them from the current date — what was he doing equally as far back? The answer doesn't change as days go by: hiding on Telos.
It dulls his worries better than spice.
He finally gets to doing things by the middle of the second month. Looks up Vad Alnam on the Holonet. Vad isn't public — the only mentions are from the time when his father came out. The mentions: Vad refuses to give a comment.
Krev's gotta respect that. Vad clearly disagrees with his dad on this one, but he doesn't parade it for the world to see.
Or: he won't go against his father no matter their disagreements.
Banthashit, Krev tells himself. Vad is a decent guy. He'll need some convincing — exactly since he's a decent guy. You don't do something that can land your father in jail without some inner conflict.
A question remains: how do you contact Vad?
Nobody's gonna tell you a special agent's address. The government wants you to enter your ID details when you register on a Holonet site, but special agents are off-limits.
Then you catch him at his work.
They aren't letting you into the RDS building — obviously. But you can waylay him at the exit.
Krev looks at the map. The RDS quarters half a planet away — you'll need to book a room around there; you aren't getting there and back again in under a day.
That's bad. That's expenses. You can't count them yet — who knows how long it'll take you to find Vad? Can be a day, can be ten. He can be off-world — then it can take more than even ten days. What if he's got something to settle down back on Telos? That's at least four weeks away from Coruscant.
But what can you do? Maybe — maaaaybe — you can banthashit your way into getting Vad's work holo number, but that shit is gonna be recorded.
Better find a cheap room in that district.
Check this out: Krev Devin being a miser. Choosing between spice and business ain't easy.
Okay. Those are room-for-a-day type services. Regular apartments must be cheaper, right? You can move to the RDS vicinity — so no need to keep paying rent for this flat.
They are cheaper, the regular apartments. It's still a much better district — thanks to or despite the RDS being stationed there. Every other ad goes to great lengths to count the cost of renovation — down to the last decicred. Krev knows a few ways to spend that money better.
The cheapest apartment he finds in a few hours still costs almost four times as much as his.
Luckily, Coruscant isn't two-dimensional: it's not called Three Zeroes for nothing.
Ads from the lower levels don't reach respectable notice boards. Given that Krev discovered his current apartment on a relatively respectable one, lower levels are really lower.
Good luck even finding ads from there. If Krev remembers his Coruscant, the underpeople don't like outsiders — to the point where they set up their own LANs for each building. That's where they make their deals. There — or in person.
The trip takes him more than a day. He doesn't plan it like he did the Gabokla one — maybe some optimization could be done, but Krev doubts it would've helped much.
He looks down at the RDS HQ from a bus stop. It's a nondescript glass tower. It doesn't have any parking or recreational platforms — you get inside on your speeder and enter from there.
A sane thing to do would be to call the endeavor off. You can't hunt Vad down in this environment. There's no way.
But aloofness takes Krev. He sees there's no way — but he keeps going. That there's no way doesn't make him desperate. Doesn't even sadden him. Spice probably adds to it — but the last portion he took was three days ago, so it's at least part Krev himself.
He descends. The Galaxy got a wrong idea about how Coruscant works. They think there are high, mid, and low levels — that all hate each other. A perfect image of the class pyramid.
It's kind of true — but the reality is more complex than that. People from the middle levels don't come into contact with the upper ones that often — and those of them who do can be said to live in the low upper levels as much as in the high middle ones. Same with the low-levelers. In the absence of class enemies to hate on the everyday basis, they erect all sorts of other barriers within their supposed strata. You live two floors above me? You are a rich dickhead. Two levels below? You're a gangbanging dope fiend. Ten levels under that? That's where serial killers hang out. Doesn't matter if ten levels down is still considered mid-middle levels arithmetically.
Barriers, yeah. Krev collects them as he goes down: elevators that require codes to get to every level. Locked stair accesses. Elevator shafts just ending randomly — go search for another one that maybe will get you one or two floors down. Groceries and pharmacies are a blessing: they often take two floors — easy descent.
What they don't lie about on holoshows is that the lower you go, the seedier the environment gets. Check level 329 out: tagged up corridors. Empty bottles everywhere. (Syringes start lower down). Busted up windows and doors. A neighbor doesn't like you, he paints a dick on your door — cracking your skull open might attract the police; these levels are not that low. Those who live eight hundred floors above this life and see the sun for the whole duration of a solar day can't imagine what's going on here. Just two, three kilometers away — they probably commute farther. And in the same building, no less. Krev would've been scared shitless by the prospect — if he wasn't himself an underworld creature.
Krev can feel eyes watching him. Just can tell which apartments are empty and beyond which door there's an old bag glued to the door cam. Could stop and put his ear to each door to listen if he's right. Doesn't need to — knows he is.
Nobody comes out to challenge his right to be here. He meets a few groups smoking by broken vending machines — no opposition from them, either. Good to have some bulk.
At level 299, his progress is halted: the high two-hundredths don't fuck around with territoriality. The door to the stairs down is welded shut. The elevator: hacked. Won't go lower. Message:
WANT TO GO DOWN? THERE'S A QUICKER WAY!
Animation loops on the screen: a toon throws himself out of a window.
The window panes are also welded to the frames.
299 is as good as any other floor. Krev goes two levels up and buys a bottle of cheap whiskey — local favorite, no doubt.
Back to 299: buzz the first door that has a working buzzer. Nobody's watching from beyond it, but Krev hears low mumble of the viewscreen.
An old man opens up. His eyes immediately find the bottle.
"Whatcha need?"
"A place to live. I'm paying."
The old man steps back. Krev enters.
The apartment is bigger than Mr. Kossar's. The toilet is separate from the bathroom. Two rooms. Darker, though: the windows face the inner well-like yard.
"Them faggots installed their fucking mirrors," the old man notices what Krev's looking at. "And they cover half of my fucking view! Just so that some faggot down below can see the sun. What's the point, I say? They don't have eyes down there, they don't! Gone!" He snaps his fingers in front of his eyes. "Gone! Fuck they need eyes for? There's no sun! And fuck they need sun for if they don't have no eyes?"
Krev walks into the kitchen. A holopicture on the toilet door: Avi the Aryx gives a thumbs-up. His thumb is as big as Avi himself. Krev remembers watching Avi's show as a kid.
"Children?" he asks the old man.
The old man makes an ambiguous gesture, transfixed by the bottle.
Krev snaps its neck. "How much?"
"A thousand," the old man says.
"You kidding me? I pay that much for a flat a hundred floors higher."
The old man laughs. Krev can tell how hard this laugh comes to the tenant in the presence of the bottle. "A thousand a day! You pay me a thousand, you live as long as you need. Or until I die!"
This time, laughter comes easier to the old man.
"What's your name?" Krev makes a sip and offers him a bottle.
The Adam's apple runs up and down the gaunt, poorly shaven neck like an overclocked turbolift. When the old man lets go of the bottle, the whiskey is half-gone.
"Fucktwerp Bannison," he introduces himself.
Krev smiles. "Why do they call you Fucktwerp?"
"They don't! I do."
Krev considers moving out of Mr. Kossar's apartment in D-156, but decides against it: Fucktwerp Bannison has no reason to see his HB transmitter.
And Krev has no reason to make Sorval any more involved in this mess than he already is. It was a mistake to get him to Coruscant, honestly. He is an adult demonman — it's on him. Krev still feels guilty.
He memorizes the routes up over the next week. Bannison shares an elevator code with him — now he can ride fifteen floors up. Down here, it's hell of a distance — and hell of a favor for a grand. Krev finds some better ways of traversing the building on his own: you can exit the lift on 340 instead of 342 and find a cargo elevator that goes to 346. No need to wait for the lift on 514: it takes too long to arrive and carries you just three floors up — you can walk those faster nine times out of ten.
The building is an old one. It's been built upon itself many times — hence the many elevators and stairs. A holoplaque here and there, commemorating one architect or another for keeping the initial style alive in his continuation of the work of architects past. Each did a shit job, Krev thinks. Maybe apart from how convenient it is to put up hindrances for go-uppers and go-downers.
A week later, he gets his result consistently under two hours. Two-thirds of it is levels 299 through 478 — after that, it's almost all turbolifts, and most are actually capable of travelling more than ten levels.
Krev takes certain pride in his quickness. Jack all but it to be proud of, really: no matter what roof or platform he looks from, the RDS building stays equally impenetrable. Worse: it stays impenetrable no matter how hard Krev thinks about it.
Agents don't really show up outside of the HQ on foot. That fact shits Krev's entire plan.
Out of all the official buildings on Coruscant, this one had to not have a plaza.
He questions Fucktwerp Bannison about it. The old man's alcohol-addled brain doesn't keep anything not pertaining to alcohol or alien hate.
"They're gonna send them all to the camps," he answers. "That's what they're doing there. They're preparing, son. The day is coming, and it's gonna be a great day!"
Krev finds some sad solace in being called "son" instead of "brother".
He goes on a tour of the local upper level snack bars. Not much hope — they probably have canteens in the HQ. Still better than ogling the building for the hundredth time. He tries to figure out if any of the customers may be RDS. It's harder than expected — Krev blames it on his gut recognizing only cops, not other government agents. He tries watching where some of the more suspicious patrons go after finishing their meals. He gets one ninety-percent confirmed RDS dude before he gives up — it's not like he can be at every establishment all the time anyway. Maybe Vad doesn't go to any. There's gotta be another way.
Bannison has visitors sometimes. They sit in the kitchen and drink. Krev was too generous with his assumption of the locals' beverage of choice — these people drink something called Bri-O. It's sold in cans made of dark glass, but the glow it emits still feels like sand in the eyes. Krev refuses every offer to partake in imbibing.
One evening — the third month is growing old already — he stands smoking in Bannison's room together with Sked Verbado. Sked radiates superiority over the other riffraff like their drink radiates its sickly glow. He used to be a lecturer at a music academy — or so he says. He plays some mad quetarra, that's true, but Krev hasn't heard him perform anything but songs about doing time or doing things that get you doing time.
"Your supply's good?" Sked asks him. He introduced Krev to his dealer a few weeks back.
"Yeah."
"Good." Sked takes a faltering, as if he's about to cry, puff. He holds his cigarette near the knuckles, and his hand covers his mouth when he draws. His fingers are long and knobby, with black fingers. "You tell me if you run low."
"Will do."
"You're doing good not wasting it all in one go. Four doses? I know a ton of people who'd burn right through them in a week."
Krev's a little bothered by how well Sked remembers how much he bought. Maybe it's just 'cause he had a cut from that deal.
"You and me both," Krev says. "I've been to Kessel, you know."
"Ahh, the fucking holy site."
"It's anything but."
"Depends on what capacity you're there in! Huh! If you a miner, you're shit out of luck, that's true. Huh! Huh!"
"Not much to do there other than to mine. I mean, I can name two dozen places where it's better to take some funny G than Kessel."
"You know a lot about Kessel. Me, I never got to visit it, you know, back in my band days."
Sked picks his quetarra up. Plucks a few strings: "That would be something to tell about. You know, it's something that would have potential to be remembered as a dream — when you're not sure if it happened. How it could happen. Huh! Vierni Collenbau and The Troglodytes played a gig in Kessendra back in 924 Reformation style — that's 41 before the ReSynch for you young'un..."
"Yeah, I know what the Reformation is."
"A huge event, a huge fucking event. The whole city was there. Now that's what call isotopic rock!"
Sked looks up the fretboard — as if aiming. Krev wonders if he is going to play therhythms that swung Kessel so hard Krev's felt them in his youth. Then Sked sighs and starts:
"Stop you trumping up my case, you fucking copper,
Let me tell you I'm a trump myself..."
Ymon, another of Fucktwerp Bannison's associates, walks into the room.
"With so much noise, I expected a fight!" he says.
He's a bothersome cunt, this one. Krev doesn't like him one bit: from his COMPOR badge to his golden tooth.
"What's up, fags?" Ymon says.
"What the fuck," Sked complains, strings ringing abortively, "who do you think you are calling us names like this?"
"Well, the big guy don't seem to mind. I guess he might be a fag, after—"
The punch is messy — Krev can tell five or seven mistakes about it before it lands. Ymon's face crumples, though, and Ymon falls over, hitting the doorframe with his head.
Krev ain't done yet. If he's reminiscing about Kessel tonight, he needs to go the whole way.
The second punch is much, much better.
Someone's hands on his chest. Someone's breath on his neck. He shrugs them off.
Third punch. Improvised dentistry at its finest: spot the golden tooth on the floor among the yellow ones!
"Enough," someone says. The voice is persuasive enough to make Krev look at its source.
A short but wide man stands in the corridor. His posture is almost funny: he balances on one foot and leans on the closed door with his shoulder. His other foot got entangled in some cables on the floor.
But in his hand he holds a blaster, and the blaster is looking between Krev's eyes. A jury-rigged thing — this one won't do stuns. This one will do an explosion that maims everyone in the five-meter radius.
"Get the fuck off him," the blaster says.
Krev really wants to punch Ymon one more time — just to see what will happen.
"I really want to punch him just once more," he says with a grin.
"Control yourself." The blaster doesn't move. "Get up."
Krev does — with regret.
The blaster stops staring at him. The blaster man doesn't hide it, though — keeps it close to his hip instead.
"Let's have a cigarette, you and me," he says.
Fine by Krev: it blows having his head blown up out of the water.
Krev backs off from Ymon, and the blaster man enters the room. Just steps over Ymon's body — pays him no attention. Krev tracks his blaster — still unholstered.
"Mind putting your piece away?" he asks as the blaster man fights the deposits of stuff on Sked's balcony.
"We'll look at your behavior." The blaster man smiles, and his face becomes wrinkled like the top of a fedora.
Krev follows him to the balcony. Keeps his eye on the blaster — still out.
Only when he lights up a smoke does the blaster man put the blaster into his pocket. "What was your problem with Ymon?"
"His tongue. If he calls me anything like he did now again, I'll kill him even if you unload your whole clip into my head." Krev draws on the cigarette.
The blaster man keeps his silence.
"And I get the feeling he's exactly the type of guy who won't stop no matter how few teeth he has left," Krev continues.
"I'll talk to him. Tell him how it is."
"You do that."
A few more drags.
"You live at Sked's?"
"I rent a room."
"That's how I meant."
"I know it's how you meant."
The blaster man's brow furrows when he takes a hit. "Hiding from someone?"
"Not really."
"Good. It's not the best place to hide."
"I'm looking for someone."
"Here?"
"A block or two away."
Krev expects the blaster man to stop here. People like the blaster man don't press someone who doesn't want to speak.
Unless they carry a blaster, that is.
"Maybe I can help," the blaster man says.
"I doubt it."
"Why? You look like an alright man."
"You help everybody who looks like an alright man?"
"Matter of fact, I do. I'm seldom wrong who's alright and who's not. Don't worry — I'm not going to invoice you."
"Just doing it out of the goodness of your heart?"
Krev doesn't want to overshare with him. Attempts lame jokes to bail himself out of the conversation — although he sees it won't work on the blaster man. A lead uppercut might — but the blaster man's gotta be tougher than Ymon. Takes one pull of the trigger on that thing of his to bring the whole damn balcony down in flames.
"Goodness got nothing to do with it. We do what's right, not what's good." Krev's glance at the apartment at large must be very apparent, as the blaster man adds, "Not them. Us."
Doesn't clear anything up. Krev doesn't press him. Goes for the philosophical angle instead: "What's the difference between what's good and what's right?"
"When you do what's good, nothing comes out of it. It sets nothing in motion, get it? Good is sameness. Right is what changes things. That's how history is made. Well, you shouldn't ask me about it."
"I don't know about that. History... what if I told you I'm looking for an RDS agent?"
The blaster man nods — after some time passes and his face fails to make any expression.
"Then I'll tell you to come to the bread-making plant... the day after tomorrow. Six hundred hours sharp — that's when my shift starts. You know where it is?"
He shows on a map in his datapad where it is: six kilometers to the south from here and two hundred floors up.
"Nullan," he stretches his hand to Krev. He holds it palm-up.
Krev shakes it, noting how narrow but ironly strong it is.
"Krev," he says — Jezidegs won't fly here.
Ymon's gone by the time he goes back to the room.
He spends the next day in two minds. Should he take Nullan up on his offer? It's made in good faith — or maybe right faith — but what can a fucking baker do?
Well, he may have access to the RDS building when delivering pastry, for starters. Sure — sounds too good to be true, but it's either that or another day of RDS-peering.
He's going to ask for something in return, though. You know he is.
If he does, Krev decides, he won't see anything until he gets me inside.
That's some simplicity he's all but forgotten.
The day after: he goes, after all. Gets up at four-thirty: if you stick your head out of the balcony window and look up, you can see the square of the sky above the well pinking. Krev has a cup of cafstim and takes a bus to the bread-making plant.
A bizarre structure: half a dozen white boxes and tubes growing out of the side of a much taller black monad like a mushroom stuck to a tree. It's got its own bus platform, but the only way from it is through a checkpoint. Krev attempts to go through, but a security droid won't let anyone without a pass in.
The day's starting beautifully.
The day's starting beautifully: sunlight sinking in the matted surface of the host building. The bread-making plant softly humming. Krev's shadow on the platform — long but lacking the morning uncertainty.
An old aircar violates the flying regulations and hovers over the platform. Its honk is scratchy as if it's been smoking for forty years.
Krev opens the door. Sun highlights the fine details: heaps of flimsiplast on the passenger seat. The glovebox door held in place by a wire. The seatbelt — once torn and fixed with several strips of artificial leather.
Nullan smiles at him from the driver seat: "Get in, compat!"
"Been waiting long?" he asks once Krev gets in. "Too bad. The traffic is pure piss today."
He flies the aircar two floors down and through the bakery's transport gate.
"What is it a front for?" Krev asks. "The bread plant?"
"A front? That's a fucking affront, compat. We make bread here."
"In a good mood today, I see."
"I issued some proper fuck-upping to one annoying piece of shit yesterday. A feeling sweeter than any cunt."
Nullan parks his speeder. They take the stairs: four floors up. The bakery wears its stairs with pride: they aren't tucked in some maintenance-only shaft but have their own box sticking out of the main building. Check this out: there are windows between each two levels. Some handles are taken off — so that employees don't smoke here, Krev's guess is. There are still empty preserve tins at every sill.
The corridor Nullan leads Krev into is poorly lit — only by two windows on each of its ends. Some more light comes from open doors on the sides.
This must be where the management manages from. Krev feels through his soles that bread is being made not far away either: the place is rich with industrial vibrations.
Nullan walks to one of the open doors. There's life inside — Krev can hear it before he sees it.
"With the shit you're drinking, I'm not surprised," a gruff voice is saying.
Though Nullan stands in the doorframe, Krev can smell bad caf already.
"Now you stop drinking it," the voice continues. "Emphasize dairy instead. Yoghurts. They have this, uhh, stuff called Synergy. It's good for your kind of problem."
"Always getting up my ass with no lube," another voice complains. "I didn't know you were a doctor."
Nullan knocks on the frame. "Light day to you, gentlemen."
"You're eighteen minutes late. You've missed a geopolitical lecture about my ulcer."
Nullan enters, and Krev gets momentarily blinded by the light. Then he blinks it off and finally takes a look at the room.
It's a bog-standard office — for another time and place. Krev's seen offices like this on Kessel — there they were known as "Glory to the Republic." That's how a Kesselian imagines big shots' offices look on Coruscant — and maybe that's how they looked a century ago. It's a surprise to see one here.
Two tables form a T in the middle of the room. A grained wardrobe between them and the entrance. Another in the far corner by the window. Palpatine's holopicture on the wall above the horizontal bar of the T. A calendar with the COMPOR logo below it. A viewscreen on the wall opposite to them. Under it is a fan. Stripes of colored paper billow on its grill. An energetic rhythm coming out of the receiver on the longer table.
Three men sit at the tables.
"And who's that hulk lingering there in the back?" the one looking like a very serious balding ape asks.
He's the gruff voice.
Another man — with the face of a kind fuckbird — turns on his stool to look at Krev and sings in the ulcerman voice: "Linger no longer!"
Krev steps inside the room.
Nullan pats him on the shoulder: "This is my compatriot Krev!"
"Can compatriot Krev speak?" the gruff-voiced man asks.
Felinx gets Krev's tongue. He can only curse in his mind: no witty replies come to it.
Nullan comes to his rescue. "I told you about him. He's got business with the RDS."
"Ahh, the royal dicksuckers," the ulcerman says. "Who doesn't have business with them?"
It gives Krev time to take the offensive. "I see you're a funny bunch. That's nice. I didn't get up so bloody early for nothing, after all."
"Is this early for you?" the apeman chuckles.
The song on the receiver ends. A DJ takes over with her meaningless chinwag.
The third man raises his gaze from the caf cup in his hands. Eyes fail catching hold of anything about his appearance. Krev finds himself unable to remember any detail as soon as he stops looking at it — and to combine any two of these details into an image.
"I know men like him," the featureless man says. "Parasites. They never do anything — in their entire lives."
Krev steps closer to him — as much as the table configuration allows. "Listen here, you asshole: I've been working my ass out since before I turned fourteen. Look at these," he shows his palms to the audience. "Do these look like hands of a parasite to you?"
He doesn't understand himself why he got so riled up and why it matters to him how these three will view him.
"Look like the hands of a soldier to me," the apeman says calmly. "You served?"
Krev catches his breath. "Atnakis."
"Which side?"
"The People's Militia."
The apeman nods.
"Our side, then," the ulcerman says. "The Republic."
Both sides on Atnakis professed their loyalty to the Republic, if truth be told. Krev doesn't argue, though.
"How do you like the current war?" the apeman asks.
"Why would I like it? Tubers' fight."
Though the rememberable baker bosses nod approvingly, Krev feels guilty — as if by saying this, he betrayed Brate somehow.
"Isn't this the truth?" the ulcerman says. "And they call us bigots for standing by it! The fucking balls on them!"
The apeman's smile is tired — a father's smile at his son doing something that would warrant a slap upside the head in a few years.
The man with the ulcer keeps getting himself into rage. "It's a blessing Tarkin didn't live to see how low we've fallen."
"Don't get too carried away, Kad," the apeman says. "Come on, compatriot Krev, have a drink with us," he points at a vacant stool.
"A bit early for that, no?" Krev asks — but takes a sit. He can feel the loose screws straining under his weight.
"Oh look." The bland man stands up. "A healthy lifestyle coach we got here!"
"What's his problem?" Krev makes a point to address the apeman.
"Gab's just likes to break people's balls. Nul, jack us something to drink up, will you."
Krev looks right — mostly to study Kad closer — and sees a flimsiplast poster of a naked woman pinned up to the inner surface of a wardrobe door while Nullan is scavenging inside.
Malt hits the bottoms of five glasses.
"To you, Uncle Genlav!" Nullan proclaims.
The apeman furrows his brows, but doesn't say anything.
They drink.
Kad exhales: "Strong is the Republic!"
"Tell us what your problem is, Krev," Uncle Genlav says.
Krev fidgets with his glass before putting it back on the table. Notices a multitude of round marks matching the glass' bottom on the fake wood of the table top. "I'm looking for a person. Said person is an RDS agent. I need to get inside their HQ somehow."
Perhaps they do have some connections, he thinks, if they're ex-military.
"No-no-no," Uncle Genlav says, "which is it? Do you need to find him or to get inside the RDS headquarters?"
"I need to talk to him."
"Then we can help you. Am I right, men?"
Kad shrugs: why not? Gab doesn't react.
Uncle Genlav looks back at Krev. "We'll help you."
"No disrespect, but two questions: how and why?"
"'Why' is a good question, actually," Gab says.
"Because Krev is an okay old guy," Kad says, stretching his back.
"You know him for five minutes, and you got this impression already?"
"Fucking malt and fucking grain, don't fuck up my fucking brain! Nul here vouches for him, right, Nul?"
Nullan is slow to agree.
Doesn't dissuade Kad from supporting Krev.
"You see? Krev's an okay old guy, and we gotta help okay old guys, okay?"
"Yeah. And what if he's a plant?"
"Oh, and what if you had three arms, Gabryl? You'd jerk off while driving!"
Uncle Genlav coughs. It's a good, powerful cough — none of that please-notice-me shit.
"Do you even listen to yourself, Gab?" he says. "A plant, my ass. If you can't discern an honest man from a plant, what use are you to me? How am I supposed to do the K-11 business with you if your judgment is this poor? Or maybe you're questioning my judgment?"
Gab lowers his eyes. "I'm not. I'm just being careful."
"My questions still stand," Krev says. "I'm a swell guy, alright. Most people in the Galaxy will take it as a sign they should fuck me over."
"We're not most people, Krev. We — I'd like to believe — still remember what decency means."
"Well, I'd like to believe it too. Forgive me if I don't — at least immediately. I don't even understand who you are and what you do here."
"We're a bread-maker union. Simple as that. And yes, we help people — sometimes."
"What a galaxy we live in," Kad says, "where this is so hard to believe!"
Uncle Genlav nods slightly. "What a galaxy indeed. I know you're wondering now if we're going to turn the meter on. We're not. We aren't bandits. I mean, I can only hope you aren't either and you aren't planning on tearing that RDS guy's throat out."
"No. Just want to talk to him. In private."
"That's good to hear. Do you believe him, Gabryl?"
Gabryl mumbles something.
"Great. We'll do what we can to help you, Krev."
"And then ask me for a counterfavor?"
"Let's put it this way: we'll accept a favor from you if you ever feel like making us one. After all, you didn't ask us about this, right? It's something we — represented by Nul here — offered you."
Krev can see Nul sticking his chest out when Uncle Genlav mentions him.
"Consider our favor a payment for inconveniencing you by imposing it on you," Kad says. "Huh-huh!"
Why can't Krev distrust these people? Is it the office? Did their faces remind him of the few good men on Kessel?
Is it the vague but sharp sense of longing somewhere deep in his chest?
"I'll be very grateful if you help me," he says.
Uncle Genlav leans back on his stool. "Then tell me who you want to meet."
Krev doesn't go home when the security droid buzzes him out: too excited to return to Fucktwerp Bannison's sad abode. He takes a bus and rides it to the end of the line, takes another one from there, and travels until after midday.
It's the sort of excitement that keeps bad thoughts at bay. Restlessness is a side effect — not an unpleasant one, Krev admits.
He eats at a café a block away from Bannison's place. Does some RDS-watching. Jokes: now I'm gonna spot an obvious way in.
Nothing of the sort happens.
And even if it did, he feels like he wouldn't have regretted his visit to the plant.
He tries to get horrified by how reckless he's become.
For the next three weeks, he keeps Bannison company at talking to the viewscreen show hosts. Learns to differentiate the wig-wearing faggot and the happy idiot. Bannison's favorite is the titcow, of course. Colonel Gitterin is a close second. "Colonel Glitterstim," Krev calls him once and earns Fucktwerp Bannison's eternal respect.
Fucktwerp Bannison isn't so bad. He doesn't spout philosophy like so many of the low-level pariahs do. He accepts his limited range of interest, and Krev respects that. Krev buys him a bottle of malt every other day. Bannison thanks him — even though Krev always just leaves it in the kitchen without mentioning it — and puts it away in a drawer. "My rainy-day supply," he says and keeps drinking the incandescent Bri-O.
Nullan shows up at two or three gatherings. Each time, he whispers to Krev something to the extent of "wait some more."
And Krev waits. Strange — he's not worried about the result. It's not that he trusts the baker union that much — he'd like to think he's not so naïve — but somehow, he's able not to spend days thinking about how things can go wrong, creating plans B to Z, and thinking about thinking about it. His mind is clear — for once.
Then one day Nullan comes not a part of a party. During the daytime, no less — Bannison has to run up to the gallery Krev's taken a fancy to and look for him.
Krev's heart is pounding when he follows the old man back to his apartment. He's not scared — he's about to face what's coming already, and he wasn't scared of it in the past weeks.
Nullan waits for Bannison to leave the kitchen before he tells Krev: "We know where the Alnam guy lives."
Maybe it's time to get scared now.
"How, if you don't mind—"
"We found a droid that works in the canteen of the school his son is in. I got two addresses. One seems to be the mom's. The other, here, Quadrant W-18, uhhh, Iskaayuma Street... what is it..."
"I don't imagine a canteen droid having this sort of clearance, looking through students' files and everything."
"I mean, absolutely not. That's what friends are for."
"And now I'm one."
"Look, compat, you've heard what the guys said. You don't owe us anything. This guy? The droid technician? Came to us on his own. We just put a word out, that's all."
"Nobody forced him?"
"No. How would we? We didn't even know your guy had a kid. What use would we assume a school droid technician would have?"
Nullan scratches the back of his head. "I know how it looks. It looked the same way for me. Just trust me, it's... We're not trying to get you into a cult, okay? We're just standing up for each other."
"Yet you ended up working for them."
"That's how they helped me. You don't think many people are thrilled to hire an ex-con, do you? Especially one who's been away for seventeen years."
Krev sighs. "I know I sound like an ungrateful scumbag. You've done me a huge favor, and—"
"It's fine. Like I said, I know what it must be like for you. Take it as you will. But the times are changing, Krev. The paradigm is shifting. And we're just doing it how it will be done in the next paradigm."
Shit. Nullan's voice is trembling.
Not a cult, eh?
"Anyway, compat." Nullan regains his composure, but avoids looking into Krev's eyes. "It's Iskaayuma 5562/1182/402. Quadrant W-18. I wish you luck — at the behest of the guys, too."
Nullan leaves.
The idea to use their help seems way worse now than it did before Nullan's visit. Krev wonders if the bakers' union will ever come back to bite him in the ass.
W-18 is much closer to the RDS headquarters than to D-156. Krev still goes visit Mr. Kossar's place before heading there. Checks up what's going on on the Shadowfeed. Alnam still hasn't made a move — at least a move that Krev can recognize.
Doesn't take a lot of arguing to convince himself that monitoring the Feed and the Net for a few days is the best option. But the feeling he had waiting for the baker boys to deliver is gone: he's getting all kinds of thoughts this time. Can't procrastinate for more than a week or so.
He divides his trip to W-18 into two parts — camps at Fucktwerp Bannison's between them. Good to have a transfer point.
Iskaayuma 5562: a current-century monad. Covered in ads. An open-air parking at the top, though — for guests, most likely.
Krev wonders if he could've got away with returning to his Telos building and taking his speeder out of it. If he could, he'd have four or five grand extra. Not worth the risk.
It's 2 PM. Krev waits. At 5.20, he goes in. Nothing stops him: he enters from the upper parking, and the high-floor dwellers don't expect an attack from that direction.
He buzzes the 402. No answer. Fine — he's no stranger to waiting.
Waiting here is different, though. Maybe it's the feeling it'll be over soon.
A protocol droid exits one apartment and asks Krev what reason he's got for loitering here. Krev doesn't even lie to it: says he's waiting for a friend whose comlink number he doesn't have.
The droid doesn't have a problem with that. Perhaps its owners will. Krev retreats to the stairs. Still can see the 402 through the glass doors. Steps closer whenever the elevator dings.
His excitement fades soon.
9.23. Another ding. The excitement's back: it's Vad Alnam.
The excitement's back — in full force. Maybe now is not the best time? You've tried to come up with a good pitch — but be honest, it sucks and you know it. Let's hone it for another day — week — and come back. You know where he lives now-
Krev almost succumbs.
"Hey man," he says stepping out of the stair hall.
Vad whirls in place. Something jingle-jangles in his bag.
"Hey, it's me," Krev says. "You remember me, right? Telos IV?"
He watches Vad's right hand. It's dangerously close to the holster.
He watches it so religiously Vad's voice startles him.
"What the fuck are you doing here?"
"I, listen... I need to talk to you. Can we talk?"
Vad doesn't respond for a long fucking while. It's like he's multiplying large numbers in his head.
"Okay," he finally says. "Hold this for me, will you?"
Krev takes his bag while Vad is unlocking the door. Glances inside: two bottles of whiskey.
The door slides up.
"Come in," Vad says.
Were it somebody Krev hasn't fought along, he'd think twice before leaving his back exposed to him. But come on — it's Vad. He's a decent guy. And he's not entering first — you can see it.
He goes in. "I'll put it here, alright?" he asks just to say something.
Lights go up when they enter. The entrance room is long and narrow, but promises a larger apartment than Krev has seen in years.
"Yeah, put it wherever," Vad says.
The door slides closed.
"So what the flying fuck are you doing here?"
Krev takes a moment to stand straight and consider his answer.
Something's telling him he'd better consider it well.
Vad doesn't give him the opportunity: "Is it about the... the guys? How did you even find me? Did you follow me?"
"Well," Krev turns to him, half-expecting to be greeted by a blaster, "it's not about the guys, no. I've dealt with them. They aren't gonna be a problem for you."
"That's good to hear. Very good to hear. Well done." Instead of a blaster, Vad is holding his jacket — putting it on a hanger. "You didn't have to come to tell me this, though. That's what I assumed, given your tremendous talents."
Avoids looking in Krev's eyes.
"Yeah, sorry for intruding. I just really need to talk to you. It's an important thing, and I—"
"Okay! Okay. So how did you find me? How did you find where I live?"
"I didn't follow you, no. I learned your address — again, I'm sorry for it—"
"You learned it how?" Vad squirms past Krev into the apartment proper. Still doesn't look in his eyes.
And Krev gets the same feeling he had so many times on Kessel — when one of his friends was still walking, but just a look at him was enough to tell you it won't last.
"Huh, you're not gonna believe it," Krev says.
"Try me," Vad says without turning to him.
Krev picks the bag up again. Follows Vad.
"There are these guys, they're bakers or something. A union. I swear, it's hard to believe. They have this plant near the RDS building, you know. Turns out," he says louder than necessary, "turns out, a lot of people owe favors to them." He regrets saying that as soon as he says it. "Well, not exactly like that, but... The short of it is they helped me find out where you live. Shit, I know it sounds terrible, but it's the only way I could contact you."
The kitchen's to the left. Krev sees no empty bottles or any of that shit, but it has that unmistakable air of hopelessness Krev didn't smell even at Bannison's.
"Some bakers know where I live?"
"I mean, they helped me... Somebody checked your kid's school records... Oh, fuck. Man, I know it's fucked up. I know I fucked up. I'm sorry. I didn't even know you had kids."
Vad meets his gaze — briefly. "Some fucking bakers know where my son's studying?"
"Shit, I'm sorry."
There. It's all finished.
Might as well go back to Telos at this point.
Vad half-leans on the table. "This is the stupidest thing I've heard all day."
"That's how it is."
At least fucking stop. Take your defeat with dignity.
But suddenly, Vad laughs. It's weird and abrupt — but it's a laugh.
"Alright," he says and takes the bag from Krev. "I can look into those bakers of yours later. In the meantime — what brings you to Coruscant?"
"I started a new life like you said I should've. Look," he shows Vad Mr. Kossar's ID while Vad is struggling with the cork.
Vad chuckles seeing it. He's anything but uptight now — but the tension is anything but gone.
"I..." Krev says. "The thing is, I need your help. Can't ask anybody else."
Vad hands him a shot. Points at the table with it before Krev takes it.
Krev takes a sit.
"The thing is," he says, "remember what I told you then? About the clones and the—"
"And about my father. Yeah, I do."
Vad sits down opposite to him.
No nosh.
"It's about your father I wanted to talk to you."
"Uh-huh."
Krev can't shake off the feeling Vad is only waiting for him to down the whiskey. He does so — can barely notice the moment Vad follows.
Two more shots are ready a split second later.
"Look," Krev says, "this is important. I really want to make a change."
"So you didn't actually start your life anew. Or you started it — why? I mean, you're still going into very bad places."
"Why indeed. Why did you enroll into the RDS?"
Vad's smile grows dimmer. "You don't have to write reports about how you waste ammo in the RDS. As a cop, I had to do it whenever I spent even a shot — which, honestly, wasn't that often. But now — no. That's hell of a perk." He drinks. "Let's say that's the big idea."
"Yeah, have a laugh, whatever. A defense mechanism. That's what it is. You know you're a good person. Maybe you see it as a weakness. Maybe it is one. But come on, Vad. This is big. Bigger than both of us. Even bigger than your father."
All the while, Vad's chewing on his lips. Krev really wants to believe the wetness in Vad's eyes is from the whiskey.
No. You have to face it: the shootout fucked him up way worse than you imagined.
They sit in silence.
Then Krev speaks up. "All I need... all I'm gonna ask you is to question your old man. There's this dead Muun, Hego Damask. I think they may've been doing business together."
Vad doesn't react to the name.
Krev continues. "There's jack all on him on the Holonet. Jack all on the Shadowfeed. But he's important. I know he is. To the whole scheme. If you could just ask your father..."
Vad looks at him. "You know what, Krev Devin? You're in luck. I'll be seeing my father in a couple of weeks. Hego Damask? I'll ask him. Why not? No biggie."