VT yawned wide and stretched her arms above her head.
"Job well done," she said to the empty bridge. The job was that of docking the Bebop with a small space station, whose pale grey hull was now all that showed through the window ahead. It had been a tricky manoeuvre. The trucker's brief experience of piloting the Bebop had proved it to be an unwieldy beast at the best of times but now, with two personal craft magnetically locked to its landing deck, the old trawler had the inertia of a fuel tanker.
In the end it had been nothing VT couldn't handle. She only regretted that there had been no one there to brag to about her prowess as a pilot. Even Zeros, who had been happily air-swimming about the bridge in his preferred zero-G, had eventually tired of how little attention he was getting and drifted away into depths of the ship. He was probably off tormenting Lo, whom VT had left wallowing in self-pity back on the gravity deck.
Of Coffee there had been no sign. The humbled bounty hunter hadn't shown her face since being guided to the washroom. She too was probably feeling sorry for herself, though her prolonged absence might also have been due to the delicacy of the operations involved in zero-gravity personal hygiene. It was a knack not everyone had. Even Zeros went into an accidental tailspin during a grooming session every now and again. VT was chuckling to herself at that thought when the low growl of the door sounded from behind her. The rhythmic thump of magnetised soles followed.
"Your ship's even uglier inside than out," said Coffee as she approached the pilot's chair.
The bounty hunter cut a very different figure from the bedraggled space-farer VT had picked up earlier, sporting a glossy brown number belted tight at the midriff and short enough to show just enough thigh to remain on right side of decency. VT could only assume it was taped down to prevent embarrassment. The odour that trailed Coffee across the room was no longer that of a musty old space suit, but of a shampoo whose fragrance mimicked that of some exotic fruit that probably smelled a lot better than it tasted.
"Welcome to the bridge," said VT dryly.
Coffee stepped up and peered over VT's shoulder at the display in front of her. The trucker had to lean some way to the side to avoid getting a face-full of the bounty hunter's out-sized hairdo.
"Hey, hey! Personal space," VT protested.
Coffee backed off and began to pace about the bridge, running a critical eye over this and that. Apparently that little chink of humility she'd shown earlier had buffed right out. "Hey," she said at length. "You know you've got some weird little guy sitting on the floor of your gravity deck?"
"I guess you've met Lo, then," VT said with a smirk.
"Lo, huh? Guy gave me the creeps. Just kept starin' at me."
"Probably because you're the only girl who's gone near him recently besides me 'n' his mom."
"Well, you got strange taste in boyfriends, sister," said Coffee.
"Hey, he's just my repair guy!"
Coffee smiled knowingly. "That's how it always starts."
VT growled under her breath. She was way too tired for this. "Listen, can we just get this over with?" she said irritably. "I've got an antenna to replace and a bed to get to."
"Whatever you say," said Coffee with a shrug.
VT clambered from the pilot's seat and marched from the bridge, the tattoo of Coffee's magnetic heels sounding behind her.
ooo
The Bebop was connected to the station by a twenty-metre-long umbilical - a concertinaing tube of translucent plastic that VT couldn't help but worry might be punctured by Coffee's needlessly showy heels. The pair made the transfer without incident however, drifting the length of the tube before reaching a dizzyingly long freight passage that led to the central hub of the station's gravity ring.
The trucker and the bounty hunter traversed the passage in silence, gliding along its drab, iron-grey walls by way of the rungs that were set into long indentations in the bulkheads at ninety-degree intervals around the cylindrical space. At the end of their quasi-climb they reach a small, circular hatch that slid aside with a wheeze of poorly maintained hydraulics.
They emerged into the central hub; a spherical space dominated by the vast, cylindrical motor at its heart. The motor, its throbbing nuclear heart locked away behind a thick alloy casing, whirred ceaselessly as it toiled to keep the stations inhabitants firmly rooted to the inner surface of the stations outermost hull. VT and Coffee didn't linger, following yet another ladder to a wide trackway that slid around a groove in the hub's wall like huge bearing. This too housed a series of handholds, which the pair used to match their trajectories to that of the habitat ring's rotation. They crawl-climbed a few meters to another circular hatch, this one marking the entrance to one of the station's many spokes. VT entered first, gracefully swinging her body round so that she could move along the passage feet first. Coffee followed and the two descended.
And descend they did, for as they travelled along the spoke the phantom gravity brought on by the stations steady tumble tugged at them more and more until, finally, they emerged from the roof of a corridor under approximately one G of pull.
VT hopped from the ladder and stood aside to let Coffee descend to the floor. The bounty hunter tottered slightly in her flashy footwear, much to VT's silent amusement, her face betraying a measure of queasiness. The inverted horizon of a large gravity ring could be disorienting at the best of times, let alone when trying to maintain one's balance on a pair of stilettos. Clearly this was a cowboy accustomed to doing her hunting on Terra Firma, for all her skill at the controls of a zip craft.
"What the hell are you staring at?" Coffee growled.
"Just checking you've got your space legs," said VT affably. "Wouldn't want you throwing up on those nice shoes of yours."
Coffee worked her jaw as if searching for a retort, but in the end settled for, "Shut up." VT guessed that space sickness must be impairing the comeback centre of Coffee's brain.
VT walked to the opposite side of the corridor where a map of the station was fixed to the bulkhead between two portholes. The portholes glowered black, dominated as they were by the night-time hemisphere of the planet below. The map showed the floor of the gravity ring as a single, long corridor, as if the station had been unfurled and pinned down as part of some gigantic child's bug collection. The modest facility consisted of just one ring on one level, and was populated by a variety of shops, fast food restaurants and service booths. Segments of the ring were colour-coded by function and numbered so that each segment could be identified from an enumerated list at the bottom of the map.
As luck would have it, VT and Coffee had emerged on a ladder near the centre of the map and were only a few minutes' walk from the police station - marked blue and numbered 23. The two began their march around the ring, VT leading and listening with obscene enjoyment to the occasional grunt of discomfort that sounded from behind her. They passed a variety of closed and shuttered businesses, whose owners and staff would have vacated the station for the night via the shuttle services that ran to and from the station during the planet-side rush hour. In the harsh, day-like illumination of the ceiling lights the station felt eerily dead - a far cry from the big, 24/7 jobs that operated in higher orbits near to the hyperspace gates.
The police station looked to be the only unit that was open in this segment of the station. Outwardly it consisted of a single automatic door and a wide window reaching from knee to ceiling height. The scene within was mostly obscured by a large decal sporting the logo and motto the orbital police.
Below Us Only Sky
"Cute," VT muttered to herself.
She approached the door, stepping around what at first glance appeared to be a mound of discarded laundry resting against the wall. A second glance revealed it to be a man lying asleep on his side, his face hidden behind a curtain of greasy-looking blond hair. The sleeper clutched something long and narrow to his chest, but it was difficult to make out what it was amid the folds of his odd garment - a long, blue gown, streaked with dirt and wrapped around its owner like an undersized sleeping bag.
"Ugh, that's nasty," came a low rasp from behind; Coffee must have noticed the smell as well. VT chose not to point out that the bounty hunter hadn't been much more fragrant when she'd emerged from her space suit a few short hours earlier. The vagrant stirred restlessly as the door slid aside for VT and her companion, but he did not wake.
The police station was modest, in keeping with the station that housed it. It comprised a waiting area - bland and rectangular and lined with uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs - and a long desk, the far side of which was shielded behind a bulletproof screen. A narrow passage led to a doorway beside the desk, through which VT guessed officers could access the office and holding cells.
A young police officer, clad in peaked helmet and stab vest, leaned against the desk behind the screen, watching a small television that protruded from the wall of the waiting area on a jointed arm. He noticed the visitors, gave them an absent nod of greeting, and went back to watching TV.
"Evening officer," said VT, though she guessed it must be early morning by now.
The officer looked back to VT, then to Coffee where his eyes lingered for a moment before hurriedly darting back to the trucker. "Uh, good evening. Can I, uh, help you?"
VT looked to Coffee. "All yours," she said.
Coffee stepped up to the desk, any discomfort she felt no longer evident in her long, languid stride. VT backed towards the door, just in case Coffee decided to make a break for it with the money. Sure, she'd get no further than the Bebop, but the trucker preferred not to have to run all that way if she could avoid it.
"Hey, handsome," Coffee purred. She placed an elbow on the desk and leaned towards the officer behind the desk.
The officer's eyes, wide above reddening cheeks, dropped and rose. Dropped and rose.
VT rolled her eyes.
"I've got a bounty head I need to collect on." Coffee placed a piece of paper on the desk, and gently slid it through a slot at the base of the screen. "Y'think you could help me out?"
Coffee's sultry affectation was starting to make VT feel a little space sick. There didn't seem to be any need for it. It wasn't as if the kid at the desk had the authority to pay a bigger bounty than the one offered. The trucker could only guess that Coffee enjoyed messing with guys that way. Wouldn't have been the first time she'd seen it, from either sex.
"Um, uh, sure," the officer mumbled. He unfolded the paper and read the information written upon it. "Okay, uh. You have the bounty head in custody?"
"Sure do," said Coffee. "He's safely locked away on his ship. Got it parked just outside."
"Okay," said the officer. He began to type away at a console just out of sight behind the desk. "Can I, uh, take the bounty head's name?"
"Cho. Min. Soo." Coffee drew out each syllable.
The officer swallowed hard. "Right. And, um, what condition is he in?"
Coffee tensed, though her voice remained even. "He's little banged up," she said with a nonchalant shrug.
The officer looked up. "A little banged up?"
"She means he's a little dead," VT weighed in. Coffee shot the trucker an angry look. "Well, he is," said VT.
"Dead, huh?" said the officer. He went back to typing. "Well, let's see how that affects the price… oh." He typed a little more. "Oh." He looked up at the bounty hunter apprehensively. "Erm, the bounty on Cho Min-Soo…"
"Yeah," said Coffee dangerously.
"Erm, the bounty on Cho Min-Soo was, uh… it was downgraded this morning."
Coffee pulled herself upright. VT hadn't noticed before, but in her heels the bounty hunter must have been round about six feet in height.
"What do you mean 'downgraded'?" Coffee said in a low voice.
"Well, erm." The officer glanced at VT, but finding no help there, looked back at Coffee. "I'm afraid that, uh, the price for bringing him in alive is half what it was yesterday. And if he's dead… if he's dead, then there's no bounty at all."
"No bounty?" said Coffee, her voice simmering with disbelieving rage. "No goddamn bounty?!" VT was suddenly glad of the presence of that bullet proof screen. So too appeared the young police officer, who had taken a step back from his desk. "You mean to tell me I got my ship half shot to pieces just to be told by some snot-nosed greenhorn that I ain't getting any bounty?"
"Hey, I'm sorry lady," said the officer, his hands raised defensively. "It's not my decision."
"Not your decision," said Coffee. "Well, whose Goddamn decision it then?"
The officer looked around as if searching for an escape, and then seemed to brighten as his eyes found the TV screen. "You wanna know about the cutbacks, ask her." He gestured at the screen.
VT and Coffee looked up to find rolling news footage of a harried looking woman descending a long set of granite stairs towards a waiting throng of reporters. The caption labelled her as Kathryn Tatopoulos, District Attorney for Alva City and Satellite Colonies.
Coffee fumed silently, but already her anger seemed to be wilting in the face the utter futility of it all.
The officer, perhaps sensing that the pressure level in the room was approaching a safe level, said lightly, "It could be worse."
Coffee rounded on him. She slammed her hands on the desk and thrust her face towards the startled public servant. For one terrible moment VT thought the bounty hunter might try to butt her way through the safety glass. "Could be worse? Could be worse?! I've got no money, no car, my ship is full of holes, and I'm stranded on a fish-stinking boat full of weirdos!"
"Hey," VT barked resentfully.
"How," Coffee went on, "could it possibly, possibly be any Goddamn worse?"
"Well," said the officer carefully. "You could be that guy outside."
"What?"
"Yeah, the guy sleeping outside. He's a bounty hunter too, y'know? Brought in a bounty head earlier this evening. Caught him on one of the shuttles on its way to the station. Hauled him here only to find that the bounty had been cancelled all together. Funny thing is that the guy he'd caught had enough money on him to take the last shuttle back down to Mars. The guy out there - the bounty hunter, I mean - doesn't have a penny to his name, so now he's stuck here. Ironic, huh?" The look on Coffee's face suggested she didn't appreciate the irony.
VT sighed. The significance of what had just happened wasn't lost on her. With no bounty money, not only would the Bebop's main antenna remain busted, but Coffee's battered old craft would remain aboard the trawler. As, presumably, would its owner. "C'mon, Coffee," she said. "Let's get outta here."
The bounty hunter, fists clenched, looked back and forth between VT and the police officer. She hissed a profanity between her teeth and stormed out the door.
"Sorry for wasting your time, I guess," VT said to the officer. The shell-shocked young man waved weakly in return. The trucker glanced up at the TV one last time before leaving. The DA was still there, her mouth working silently on the muted set as she answered questions into a thicket of microphones and recorders. VT shook her head and left.
The scene that greeted her out in the corridor was like something from a cheesy video game. Coffee, arms raised in some sort of martial arts stance, was facing off against the vagrant who, as it turned out, was decked out as the crummiest looking samurai VT had ever seen. Not that she'd seen many samurais. The vagrant bounty hunter was also poised for combat, a dull-looking sword held up in guard position.
VT hung her head exhaustedly. "Do I even wanna know?"
"This shit-stinkin' idiot is blocking my path," Coffee said.
"Lies!" the vagrant barked, projecting his voice as if acting out some Edo-era melodrama. "This woman has insulted my house and my honour. Now she will feel the wrath of the Ronin. Also, I do not stink!"
VT looked at the samurai, and then at Coffee. "You kicked him, didnt' you," she said.
Coffee glanced at the trucker. "He was in my way," she said.
"I was not," the samurai protested.
"Were too," said Coffee.
The samurai was opening his mouth to respond but VT got there first. "Coffee, just let it go."
"No way," Coffee said. "I ain't taking any crap from some idiot in a dirty bathrobe."
"You know this place is a ring, right?" VT said, becoming exasperated. "We could just walk the other way and still get back to the station hub."
"Do what you want," said Coffee. "But I'm going back the way I came."
"Yes, you are," the samurai agreed. "In pieces!"
The two jerked towards each other, but neither made a decisive move to attack. VT rolled her eyes again. (She suspected she'd be doing a lot of that in the days to come.)
"Okay, cool off you two," she said, sidling into the narrow space between the rival bounty hunters. She turned to the samurai. "Hey buddy, what's your name?"
The samurai glanced at her, then back at his opponent, and then looked again at VT. "Musashi," he said. "My name is Musashi."
VT reflected that, even for cosmopolitan Mars, Musashi was an awfully strange name for the most Caucasian man she'd ever seen. She said nothing.
Musashi drew himself up and lowered his sword, growing into the performance. "I am a masterless Ronin," he said. "Cursed to roam the space ways in search of my lost honour."
"Well, if your honour is lost," said Coffee, "how could I have insulted it?"
"Be quiet, witch!" said Musashi, pointing his sword straight at the other bounty hunter's nose.
"What did you just call me?!"
"Okay, okay." VT shifted to better separate the adversaries, gently easing Musashi's sword aside as she did. "Everyone's a little tired and a little tense. Me especially." That last was muttered under her breath. "Coffee, what's say we just go the other way, and leave Mr. Musashi here in peace. Y'know, let sleeping Ghost Dog's lie?"
"But he-"
"Yeah, yeah. I was there, remember? Normally I'd be all about knockin' this idiot on his ass," - there was a sound of protest from Musashi, which VT ignored - "but it's been a long day, and I think we could both do with some rest. Let's just get back to the Bebop, head back to Mars, and-"
"Wait," Musashi butted in. "Did you just say you were going to Mars?"
Too late VT realised her mistake. Lacking the energy to think up an escape from this self-made trap, she groaned, "Yeah, I did, didn't I."
Musashi's sword arm flopped at his side, the tip of his blade striking the deck plate with a clank. "Take me with you," he said, the anger suddenly gone from his voice. "Please, I'm begging you. I can't spend another moment in this stuffy sardine tin."
VT turned to look at Musashi - really look at him - for the first time. The man was a mess. His greasy tangle of corn-yellow hair hung lank about a haggard face. Bloodshot eyes stared pleadingly into VT's from within dark circles. His lips were chapped, his skin clammy and his rancid breath was coming in short, almost frenzied gasps. With slow-dawning dread, VT saw him for what he truly was.
Another damned hard-luck case.
"Oh no," said Coffee. "You are not going anywhere near our ship. Not after the way you talked to me."
VT frowned. "'Our ship'?"
"A misunderstanding," said Musashi. He flipped his sword and dropped it into a scabbard belted to his side, almost taking off VT's nose in the enclosed space. "No hard feelings, okay? Just please, please let me come with you. Don't make me beg."
"What do you mean 'our ship'?" said VT.
Coffee smiled malevolently. "I don't know. I'm thinking maybe you should do a little begging. Might teach you some humility. Samurais are all about that humility stuff, right?"
"There is no 'our ship'," VT protested.
"You want me to beg? Fine." Musashi dropped to his knees and grasped the hem of VT's coat in both hands.
"Hey, what the hell!" VT recoiled, but the dishevelled samurai hung on tight.
"Please," he said. "I'm begging you. Take me down to Mars with you. I'll do anything, pay you whatever you want. Well, as soon as I have something to pay you with. Just please, please get me out of here."
"Alright, alright. Enough already," said VT. "You can come with. Just, get off of me."
"Thank you," said Musashi. "Thank you thank you thank you." He released VT's jacket and climbed to his feet.
"You're actually gonna let this fool on board?" asked Coffee in a low voice.
"Apparently," VT sighed. "Seems to be turning into a bit of a habit."
Coffee propped her fists on her hips. "Excuse me?"
VT ignored her - something she hoped would also become a habit. "Hey buddy," she said, addressing Musashi. "Don't take this the wrong way, but, uh, you don't look much like a Musashi. You got another handle?"
The samurai cuffed away what may or may not have been a tear from the corner of his eye. "Handle?" he said.
VT closed her eyes and pinched at the bridge of her nose. "Name," she said. "Do you have another name?"
"Andy. My real name is Andy."
"Andy, huh? At least it'll be easy to remember." VT yawned. "Well, c'mon. None of us are gonna get any richer hanging around here."
Coffee made a disgusted sound and barged her way past VT and Andy, storming off up the corridor towards the spoke ladder.
"You have done me a great service by allowing me passage aboard your vessel," said Andy, the theatrical projection returning to his voice.
VT scratched beneath the rim of her cap. "Uh, yeah. Don't mention it." She really hoped he'd get bored of talking that way, and soon.
"In return for that honour, I hereby pledge fealty to you and your ship," Andy went on.
"You what now?"
The bounty hunter drew his sword once more, almost giving VT impromptu surgery for the second time. "I am, and shall remain, in your service until such a time as my debt is repaid." He raised the sword up two-handed, the dull steel held vertically in front of his face. "I am a Ronin… no more!"
VT muttered the only response that came to mind: "Aw, crap."
ooo
Bloch was nervous. He hated taking bad news to higher-ups; somehow, they always made it seem like it was his fault. They'd rant and rave and threaten, some would even throw things around. Bloch rubbed his temple absently as one particularly bad memory came to mind. Funny thing was, he'd never really worried too much about it in the old days. In the old days, he'd been the lowest of the low - a syndicate journeyman charged with nothing more critical than carrying messages and collecting racket money. He'd been expendable, sure, but at the same time had been too far beneath the notice of the top brass to be held responsible when things went wrong.
But things were different now.
God, it had seemed like such an opportunity! When the Red Dragon Syndicate had collapsed last year, taking so many of the big hitters with it, Bloch had thought it was all over - his career, his prospects, his life. But within a few months, he had been working again. At first, he hadn't known who was calling the shots, hadn't much cared. But it had become apparent pretty quickly that something had changed. The jobs handed to him were getting bigger, the responsibilities greater. And it made sense. The upper ranks of the Dragons' hierarchy had been all but wiped out during the civil war, meaning that there were opportunities now to climb the ladder for anyone willing to take hold of the rungs. And Bloch had been willing. He'd seized the opportunity and begun climbing through ranks that had been closed to him before.
The car was almost at the end of the line. A shudder ran through the floor as it slowed, its brake callipers gripping the cable. Bloch glanced down at the gold clasp that held closed his high-collared dress jacket just below his throat. He straightened it, even though it didn't really need straightening. The old syndicate man had always considered the higher-ups' penchant for snappy suits and flowing coats to be overly showy, pretentious even. But when the time had come to don his own, he hadn't hesitated. What an opportunity! But by that time, he had begun to wonder who he was working for.
The Van were dead. He'd seen the aftermath with his own eyes, arriving with a message for the old guard mere minutes after they'd been slaughtered by their own, most beloved son - a monster of their own making. Only by luck, presence of mind and his own insignificance had Bloch been spared a bloody death that day. And luck alone had saved him once again when the new order, only a few days old, had itself burned while Bloch was stuck in traffic three blocks away. That final conflagration had left nothing behind but rubble and corpses. All that had remained was the question - who pulled the strings now that everything had gone to smoke and ash?
The car shuddered to a halt. There was a gentle whir as the winch carried the bare metal box the last few centimetres, and then a loud clank and a hiss as the doors mated with the airlock of the headquarters building.
The answer to his question, once he had thought to ask it of himself, hadn't been long in coming. Bloch's rapid ascent through a resurgent Red Dragon syndicate had granted him access to esoteric knowledge denied to his former, lowly self. They - or she, as they insisted on being treated as a gestalt whole - had appeared seemingly from nowhere to take possession of the hollowed-out carcass of the slain Dragon, and begin its gradual, secretive resurrection. Were they the brides of the departed Van? Their sisters? A reincarnation? There were those who thought they might even be the mothers of the Van, though how old they would have to be for that to be true didn't even bear thinking about.
Bloch had little time for flights of fancy. A propensity for mysticism and superstition was something else he'd always found a little pretentious about the higher-ups. And in any case, he would have a chance to draw his own conclusions soon enough.
A chime sounded through the undressed steel walls of the car, and the doors before Bloch slid aside to reveal a second set of doors, which themselves retracted into the walls a moment later. The scene on the other side could not have been further removed from the metal box in which the syndicate man stood.
The anteroom was dim and oppressive, its walls and ceiling daubed crudely in a deep hew of red and illuminated by a few low-wattage industrial wall lamps. At Bloch's feet, the steel floor plates were almost completely obscured by a large, threadbare rug depicting the flight of a serpentine dragon as it coiled its way across an angry red sky above a roiling ocean. A sliding door of thin rice paper interrupted the far wall, its panes glowing with a ruddy amber light. And to either side of the door stood great, ornate vases bristling with long sticks of incense, the scent of which made the air sweet and thick, their smoke coiling in sympathy with the with the serpent below. The overall effect was a vision of hell as realised for a high-school stage play.
A tall, thin gentleman with dark hair and dark expression met Bloch as he stepped out of the car. He too was dressed in the traditional style of the syndicate upper echelons. "You're late," he said, simply.
Bloch could think of nothing to say that wouldn't sound like an excuse, so all that came out was, "Sorry."
The doorman looked at him appraisingly. He was younger than Bloch and had that disdainful look of entitlement that was so common among those young men who managed to murder their way into positions of authority within the clan. Probably this guy was a left over from the new guard movement that had tried to seize power last year and had then dissolved almost immediately with the death of their leader. A survivor. A killer. Bloch would have to make sure this guy was stood where he could see him when he delivered his report.
Not that there would be anywhere to run to.
The doorman finished his appraisal. There was nothing in his expression to betray a conclusion. "You've met with her before?" he asked.
"No," said Bloch. "I haven't." His voice was hoarse. He hoped the doorman would take the low register of his voice for reverence, and not the anxiety it truly betrayed.
At this the doorman moved to bar Bloch's path to the paper doors. "Okay, listen carefully," he said. "You speak only when spoken to. You do not make direct eye contact or speak directly to any one individual. You may refer to her only as Mistress, or My Lady. You do not, under any circumstances, use her name while in her presence. Do you understand all of that?"
"Yeah," breathed Bloch. "I understand."
"Good. This way." The doorman led Bloch to the rice paper doors. Now that he was standing next to them, the old syndicate man could hear the faint ping of finger cymbals coming from the other side. It was showy and pretentious, but by God it was intimidating. The doorman slid one door panel aside and waved Bloch in.
The door opened into a space several times the size of the reception chamber. The red motif continued in here, as did the carpeting of intricately woven rugs. None of it registered much with Bloch. His attention was grasped immediately by the scene in front of him. The far side of the room was dominated by a wide dais, shrouded across its whole width by a curtain of fine muslin that rippled gently in the breeze from the air circulation system. Arrayed before the curtain were four syndicate enforcers, dressed much as Bloch and the doorman were, but for the black hoods that hid each face above the top lip. They stood in two pairs, one pair towards either end of the dais, feet apart and hands hidden behind their backs. Though the guards' eyes were covered, Bloch still had the unsettling feeling of being watched.
Beyond the curtain, vague and indistinct in the light of the imitation oil lamps that flickered in sconces around the walls, sat three squat figures. Bloch could only get an impression of their appearance; the doorman's warning kept him from taking a good long look. Oddly shaped hats sat atop circular faces. Blood-red gowns flowed from slumping shoulders over hunched bodies, tumbling to the dais before spilling to the floor below. On the wall behind loomed a mural depicting a sea monster similar to that on the rug outside, rising from a raging sea to sink its teeth into a red moon.
Or was it supposed to be Mars?
In some calm corner of Bloch's mind, it occurred to him that there should be a window. The view from up here must be incredible.
"My Lady," the doorman said deferentially. "Nils Bloch has-"
"Has arrived for his audience," a reedy voice drifted down from the dais. "Yes, I am aware." Bloch couldn't tell which of the figures had spoken. Maybe they all had.
The doorman bowed and stepped back, vanishing out of Bloch's peripheral vision. Not that Bloch was concerned any longer with positioning himself for escape.
"Step forward, child," said the voice.
Bloch did as he was told. He took a couple of steps, keeping his eyes lowered but registering enough of what was ahead of him to observe the reactions of the bodyguards. When one of them shifted his weight the old syndicate man knew he'd moved close enough.
"You have news for us," she spoke again. Her voice, though still an ancient rasp, seemed slightly different this time. "Of our child, Cho Min-Soo."
Bloch hadn't expected her to know what this was about. He foundered for a moment.
"Speak, child." A third voice, a little lower in tenor than the previous two.
"Yes, Mistress," said Bloch, "I do." He thought for a moment, searching for a way to soften the delivery. Nothing came to him. He took a breath, and: "He's dead."
There was a long silence. No movement from the dais, none from the bodyguards. Were they - was she - conferring?
The first voice spoke again. "How?" There was no anger there. Barely even an inflection.
"A bounty hunter, Mistress," said Bloch. "We caught that much before communication was lost. He was-"
"A bounty hunter," said one of the higher voices. "Was Cho's bounty not lifted?"
"I don't know," said Bloch. "I mean, yes. Sort of." Bloch drew the back of his hand across his clammy brow. "The DA isn't making it easy. I think the bounty hunter may have screwed up." The old syndicate man winced at his inelegant words.
"Did he deliver his message?" asked one voice.
"Did he convey the response to you?" asked another.
"His message was delivered," Bloch said. He hesitated, then added, "But the response… was lost with Cho's ship."
Another silence. Bloch could feel the sweat trickling down below that damned high collar. God, it was hot in here. He wished they would get on with it. Shoot him, hang him, toss him out an airlock. Just, enough with the waiting!
"I see," came the lowest of the three voices. Again, there was barely any inflection. Nothing to suggest rage or disappointment, or what might be the consequence of this failure. After another pause the voice said, "Was the secrecy of our endeavour compromised?"
"No, My Lady. I, uh… I don't think so."
"You do not think so, my child?"
Bloch swallowed and tried again. "No, Mistress. Our secrecy wasn't compromised. Cho never spoke a word over the radio, and the information on his ship's computer is heavily encrypted." So much security for such a minor operation. All this could have been avoided if she didn't insist on all communication being done face to face, all information exchanged by encrypted data store.
"Then it is of no consequence," came the eerily calm reply. "You will go now and retrieve the data from Cho's ship."
"But, Mistress," Bloch blurted out. "The bounty hunter, he handed the ship over to-" he cut himself off. He'd spoken without being asked a direct question. He cursed his carelessness, felt a prickling at his back at the sound of the doorman shifting behind him.
"The police will not hinder you," she said at length. "Be discrete, speak only to whom you are told, and you will encounter no resistance."
The sweet, clear sound of finger cymbals. Bloch couldn't tell where it came from. A hand on his shoulder. The old syndicate man near jumped out his skin at the doorman's touch.
"The audience is over," came the softly spoken words at his ear.
The doorman gave a shallow bow to the dais, and without indicating whether Bloch should do the same, turned the older man around and guided him towards the door. Bloch didn't resist, allowing the doorman to steer him from the room and into the maw of the waiting car. The paper doors had already closed on the strange throne room scene by the time he turned and face his escort.
"You have your orders. Go to comms for further instruction," said the doorman before unceremoniously thumping the button next to the airlock and sealing the old syndicate man in the bare metal box.
"Fucking kids," Bloch muttered, but even he could hear the lack of conviction in his voice. He hated admitting it to himself, but his meeting with the gestalt leader of the new Red Dragons had scared him shitless. It shamed him somewhat. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen this tactic before. He'd known more than one senior syndicate member who would make themselves appear the very image of mercy and reason, until it suited them not to. It would add an element of uncertainty to one's dealings with them that made them, if anything, even more intimidating than the balls-out nut jobs. At least with the phychos you knew what you were getting, even if it was a screwdriver in the ear.
But this, this was something altogether stranger. Even now, so soon after the meeting, the memory of the low lights, lower voices, and cloying incense seemed unreal, dreamlike. Maybe he could even convince himself that it had never happened, had it not been for the sickly scent that now clung to his clothes, probably his hair as well. By his own admission, Bloch had never been a man of great imagination, but he suspected that his memories of this meeting would disturb his sleep for a few nights to come.
All in all, he'd have preferred it if she'd thrown something at him.