VT didn't relax again until the Bebop was in orbit high above Mars. Out beyond the low-lying stations, out beyond the gaudy holographic signs that surrounded the Earth- and Jupiter-ward gates in a flickering neon swarm, way out towards where the Martian communication satellites channelled their continuous feeds of fact, fiction and nonsense to hungry eyes and ears on the planet below. And that was if you could even call it relaxing, hunched over the TV screen in the lounge as she was, trying to make sense of the intel Andy and Lo had brought back from what had, it seemed, been a successful - if unconventionally executed - mission.
Coffee, dressed and primped and sleek as ever, was draped across the single seat. Andy stood at the door, grim faced, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. Lo was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up beneath his chin, looking unhappy. He had borrowed a pair of magnetic boots from one of the ship's EVA suits, and the over-sized red and white footwear made it look as though he had begun preparing for a skiing trip but was now having second thoughts.
The three crewmates - four, if you counted Zeros, swimming about contentedly in micro gravity - waited in silence as VT pored over the new information.
"So," said Coffee, after a long while. "What have we got?"
VT grunted irritably, indicating that she was still reading, and moreover that she didn't much like what she was reading. Shipping manifests. Reams and reams of shipping manifests, listing boxes and crates and containers of every variety VT had ever heard of, and a few that she hadn't. Taken on its own, that wasn't unusual. Von De Oniyate was a businessman, and a wildly successful one at that. His logistical needs would be on a scale most people could never grasp.
The destination too seemed innocent enough, and certainly not at all surprising. Everything on the list had been or was to be shipped down to Pangboche crater, the site of Von de Oniyate senior's kooky pet project. Most of the entries came with a brief summary of the cargo, though VT understood precious little of what she was reading. There was a lot of talk of consoles and keyboards, transducers and transformers, and any number of other doodads and doohickies. All of it looked to be more Lo's area of expertise. In any case, it wasn't what was listed in the registers that was suspicious, but rather what wasn't. Dotted here and there were blank entries, or entries containing information about quantity or mass, but little else. What could be so sensitive that Von De Oniyate, blasé as he was about cybersecurity, would deliberately omit details from his own files?
But what troubled VT most of all were the companies involved, and the people making the deliveries. People she knew. Almost certainly they had no idea what they were mixed up in. The very fact that there were no details of the items being delivered suggested that even Von De Oniyate himself might not know. But he did know who was driving the trucks. There was a meticulous register of every driver, complete with details of callsigns, truck decals and commonly driven routes. No matter which way she cut it, no matter how she tried to sugar coat it for herself, two words kept coming to mind over and over again.
Loose ends.
"Hey, VT," said Coffee. She leaned forward and looked the trucker straight in the eye. "You gonna share with the group?"
VT stared back belligerently, then sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Shipping manifests. Lots of 'em."
"Anything we should be worried about?" Coffee asked.
VT scratched under the rim of her cap. "Not sure. A lot of it looks harmless enough, though I might ask Lo to take a look at it when he's looking a little less green around the gills."
"A lot of it?" Coffee hadn't missed the implication.
"Blank entries, or mostly blank. Could be something, could be nothing."
"Could be nothing? Seriously?"
VT gave a mirthless smile. "Fair enough. Still, can't exactly build a case against a guy based on a swiss-cheese shipping manifest and a weird file name."
Coffee considered this, then asked, "Where's all this stuff going?"
"Pangboche crater. Remember it?"
"I do. Daddy Vo De Oniyate's little hobby horse," said Coffee. "So, what are we waiting for? Why not head down there right now and set this Tiamat character straight, if you know what I mean?"
"How about the fact that we have no idea what we'll find down there, or that we're down to our last few Woolongs and we don't have the fuel left to waste on a potential wild goose chase. Oh yeah, and there's the little matter of the hitmen that are after us."
Coffee folded her arms and sat back. Her face was a picture of frustration, but her silence suggested that she accepted VT's point.
VT glanced over at Andy, standing quietly in the doorway, listening to the discussion. She felt a sudden pang of guilt at having forgotten that the bounty hunter was facing the reality of his father's shady dealings. "Hey, Andy," she said. She took her hat off and began to run the brim between her fingers. "I'm, uh… sorry. Y'know about-"
"Your dad being a crook." Coffee finished, callously.
VT winced inwardly, but Andy appeared unmoved. In fact, he seemed to be channelling the stoicism of the samurai, for once.
He shrugged. "Like I said, my father was never all that fussy about who he did business with."
"You did say that," VT conceded. She wiped a hand down her face, then put her hat back on. She was exhausted, and it was only early afternoon. "Well, we need to decide what to do next. And no," VT said, glancing at Coffee. "We are not going on the offensive."
"Fine," said Coffee. "I assume you have a better idea."
The bounty hunter had her there.
"What about the DA," there came a quiet voice.
Bounty hunters and trucker alike looked across to where Lo sat huddled at the side of the room. He was pale - more so even than usual - and stared into the middle distance with the haunted look of a traumatised child.
"What's that Lo?" asked VT. She'd heard him the first time but was so surprised to hear him speak that she couldn't resist the impulse to make sure.
"The DA," the electronics salesman said again. "Maybe she can help."
Tatopoulos. Of course. VT couldn't believe she'd forgotten about one of the key players in all of this. She really was tired.
"Perfect," said Coffee, suddenly enthusiastic. "We can call Kathy and get her to scrape together a few of her boys in blue. We storm the castle, rescue the princess, everyone lives richly ever after."
"Princess, eh?" said Andy. "Sounds like my kind of plan." It seemed that stoical hero Andy had abandoned ship, leaving blithering idiot Andy as captain.
"First things first," said VT. "I gotta give Tatopoulos a call. She could be in every bit as much danger as we are." It was only as she said the words that their truth hit home. She should have called the DA already, warned her that there were hit teams crawling about Alva City. If she was planning a move against Tiamat and the resurgent syndicate had got wind of it, she might find herself taking receipt of her own little green cannister.
Coffee must have noticed some change in VT's expression. "What is it?" She asked, leaning forwards.
VT didn't answer. She dismissed the shipping manifests and pulled up a newsfeed instead, a sick feeling building in her gut with each click and swipe. The feed took a small eon to load before displaying the headline:
District Attorney Cancels Public Address
VT didn't realise until that moment that she had been holding her breath. She let it out and proceeded to read the first few lines of the story.
"Hey, VT. Anything we should know?" Coffee asked, irritably.
"Nothing much," VT said. "Seems Tatopoulos called off come kind of speech this morning. No reason given."
"No reason, huh?" Coffee scoffed. "Guessing it wasn't the weather."
VT switched off the display and stood up. "I gotta go make that call," she said, and headed for the bridge. No one followed.
On the bridge, VT fished in her jacket and pulled out the contact details the DA had given her at the end of their last call. She keyed the number into the comm unit and waited for Tatopoulos to pick up.
"Hello?" The response was almost immediate, the voice firm but low.
"Tatopoulos? This is VT."
There was a pause. "VT," said Tatopoulos, her voice carrying a note of surprise. "I'm sorry, but you've caught me at a bad time."
"Let me guess. A couple of well-dressed visitors bearing gifts?"
Tatoupolos didn't answer straight away. For a moment only the unintelligible whisper of the universe emanated from the speaker. "I take it you've had such a visit?" she said at last.
"Yeah," replied VT. "I told 'em we didn't want any."
There was a sound through the speaker that VT thought might have been a truncated laugh. "I see," said Tatopoulos. If she had found VT's remark funny, there was no hint of it in her tone.
"And you?" Asked VT. She was curious to know how Tatopoulos had evaded her own would-be killers.
"Easy enough," replied the DA. "It was just a matter of being where they weren't."
"The cancelled speech," said VT, smiling.
"You've seen the newsfeeds, then."
"Yeah. I guess you can kiss any chance of good publicity goodbye."
"Better than kissing my ass goodbye, if you'll excuse my language."
VT laughed, both at the remark and with surprise at hearing such profanity from a public figure. "Listen," she said. "I gotta ask. How did you…"
"How did I know?" said Tatopoulos. "Syndicate hitters have always lacked subtly. One can see a hit coming from an AU away. But I suppose you found that out for yourself."
VT recalled how the assassins had been able to park two large cars outside her ship and proceed to tamper with the hangar doors while their boss took a smoking break on the side lines. She'd probably be dead now were it not for her cat. "Yeah," she said. "From an AU away. So, what now?"
There was a long pause, followed by the words VT had been dreading, words delivered in that weary tone VT remembered from their last conversation: "I don't know." Another pause, then, "We really could have used some intel. We can't expect to fight Tiamat in the dark like this. I was sure Kolarov would have…" Tatopoulos stopped talking, and VT could hear the cleansing breath the DA took. When she spoke again the agitation that had been building in her voice was gone. "Well, it seems there's nothing we can do for now."
For a moment, VT was tempted to confess her lie. To spill the beans about everything that she'd learned from Kolarov and the events that had followed, anything to put the stern energy back into Tatopoulos' voice, even if it meant getting chewed out by that same voice for keeping secrets.
But that old instinct was not so easily overcome. "Guess not," was all VT said.
A brief silence fell between the two women, and the muttering of the void filled the bridge of the Bebop once again.
"For what it's worth," said Tatopoulos. "I am sorry. This was never meant to be your battle."
VT shrugged, though she knew the DA couldn't see it. "It is what it is," she said.
"You know, I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to get away from Mars for a while. Head for a gate and wait it out on Earth or out near Jupiter."
"Sorry, Kathy, but ditching halfway through a run isn't my style. Besides, they'll be watching the gates."
"Of course," said Tatopoulos. "So, what will you do?"
VT scratched under the brim her hat and puffed out her cheeks. "Don't know yet," she said. That much at least was true. "Kind of making it up on the fly at the moment."
"I understand," said Tatopoulos. "Well, if you need anything, or if you learn anything at all-"
"I know where to find you."
"Yes." There was an awkward pause. "Well, good luck VT."
"Same to you, Ms. Tatopoulos. Heavy Metal Queen, out." VT cut the connection.
She planted both hands against the console and lowered her head. While it was true that she didn't know what she would do next, it wasn't the uncertainty frightened her. What frightened her was that of the moves she was considering, not one involved withdrawing from the fray. This was her battle now; that list of names in Von De Oniyate's manifests had seen to that.
VT looked up at the sound of the bridge door rolling aside. Coffee stepped into the room.
"So, you get a hold of Kathy?" the bounty hunter asked.
"Yeah," said VT.
"And?"
VT stood up and sighed deeply. "She's had a little trouble of her own," she said.
"Cat's outta the bag, huh?" said Coffee. She shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, that suits me just fine. At least now maybe we can cut to the chase and ice this Tiamat joker."
VT rubbed at her eyes. She was in no mood for Coffee's bravado. "You're getting ahead of the game, Coffee," she said. "All we have is a bunch of incomplete shipping manifests and a price on our heads. We still don't know for sure where Tiamat is or what kind of strength the Reds have at their disposal. We're blind and deaf, and we've got suits with bazookas taking pot shots at us. Hardly a position of strategic strength."
"Whatever," Coffee grunted. "I suppose Lil' Miss DA had some suggestions?"
"As a matter of fact, she did." VT wasn't sure where the words were coming from, but they came regardless, and she made no attempt to stop them. "Kolarov. We need to find him and shake him down. Harder, this time."
"Kolarov?" Coffee's eyes narrowed. "Why Kolarov?"
"Because Tiamat has to know we've talked to him, and if they've sent men after us and the DA, chances are they've gone after him too."
"Makes sense, I guess," said Coffee. Her tone was still cautious. "But if the Reds really do have it out for Kolarov, chances are the scumbag's dead already. What makes you so sure he's still alive, or that we'll even be able to find him?"
Wasn't that just the Billion Woolong Question. If there was one thing that VT remembered of Kolarov's reputation as an informant, it was that the man was like a cockroach. He could lie and bribe and cheat his way out of certain death like few men in the system. But with those options off the table, VT felt sure Kolarov would have scurried into the shadows to try and wait out the danger. And VT had a good idea of where he'd be, too. She and Ural had dealt with the information peddler enough to learn of one or two of his favourite hidey-holes. One in particular VT knew of was not far at all from the bar where she and Coffee had met him last.
"I'm willing to bet a man like Kolarov doesn't do the business he does without having an escape plan," she said. "That roach is alive, I'm sure of it."
"And just say you're right," said Coffee. "Where do we even start to look for him?"
"He won't have gone far," said VT. "Let me ask around. One or two of my trucker buddies dabbled in bounty hunting a ways back. One of 'em might know where he goes to lie low in Alva."
Coffee folded her arms and stared intently at the trucker. "Sounds like a long shot," she said.
"I never said it was a sure thing," said VT.
"And how do we even get down there without attracting Tiamat's attention?" She stamped a foot on the deck. "This big ol' hunk o' crap ain't exactly inconspicuous."
"We use your ship," said VT. She raised a hand to check Coffee's protest. "There's supplies in the hangar to patch it up, and we can siphon a little fuel from the Bebop, enough to get us there and back."
Coffee shook her head in disbelief. "That is some crazy, crazy shit right there," she said. "Alright, fine. Let's just say we can patch up my ship, and that it can make the trip back to Alva and that somehow, we do find Kolarov where-ever he's holed up. Assuming he's even still alive, which I doubt. What makes you think he'll be any happier to talk to us now than before, or that he even knows anything more than what he already told us?"
"Oh, he knows more," said VT. "It's his business to know more. And as for motivation to spill, I'd say safe passage off of Mars should just about do it."
Coffee looked at VT for a long moment, then shook her head again. "Crazy, crazy shit," she muttered. Then she spread her hands. "Alright. If this is what it'll take get the job done, then I guess there's no other choice."
"Alright then," said VT, working carefully to hide her relief. "You and Andy get to work on your ship. I'll make some calls and come help when I can."
"Aye aye, cap'n," said Coffee sardonically. She gave a lax salute, then turned and disappeared back the way she came.
VT listened to the beat of Coffee's receding footsteps. She rested her backside against the console and tipped her head back until she was staring at the ceiling. In the space of a few hours, she had disseminated misinformation to two allies. Lied to two women whom she respected, despite the occasional personality clash. It had been a long time since she'd pulled any of that Art of War crap with anyone, and it disturbed her just how easily it had come back to her.
She turned around and looked at the console. Of course, she had no real need to make any calls for information. She knew exactly what dark crannies to search for Kolarov. For a moment she considered using the time to call a couple of buddies and warn them off taking jobs to Pangboche crater, but she dismissed the idea quickly. The airwaves weren't secure, and it would only serve to draw attention both to herself and to anyone she tried to contact.
Instead, VT spent some time alone on the bridge, contemplating just how easily she had fallen back into a life she had worked so hard to escape, and the possibility that perhaps she had never really escaped at all.
ooo
Bloch stood in the anteroom outside Tiamat's throne room, contemplating his misfortune at having to deliver yet more bad news to his enigmatic superiors. Twice inside a week he had been summoned to an audience with the heads of the syndicate, and on both occasions, it had been to report failure. Bloch had been in the game long enough to know that the old cliche of psychotic mob bosses shooting the bearers of bad news was, for the most part, a myth. But he was beginning to wonder just how much longer he could continue to rely on his luck on that score.
The doorman, grim-faced as ever, opened the door and waved him through. At least he'd been spared the pre-flight lecture this time. He stepped forward and passed into the thick, scented air of the throne room. A few paces brought him to his mark.
"Nils Bloch, My Lady," said the doorman, standing at Bloch's shoulder as before.
The forms of the three old women were evident behind the gauzy curtain. There was no motion, only the faint rattle of ancient breath.
Bloch felt a rivulet of sweat run down his spine (stupid coat). He knew he was not to speak until spoken to, so why weren't they speaking?
A small eternity, then: "Child," said the lowest of the voices Bloch remembered from his last visit. "I smell failure on you."
Shit. How did she know? Bloch swallowed and opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. Had that been an invitation to speak? He glanced sideways at the doorman, but his stony-faced shadow was staring straight ahead. No help there.
It was almost a relief when Tiamat spoke again. "Well, child?" she said in a second voice.
"Mistress," said Bloch. He licked his lips. "The hit on the bounty hunters… was a failure." Bloch winced at his own choice of words, but at least 'failure' sounded better than 'disaster'. One senior enforcer dead, two lower-downs in police custody. The goons would be out by tomorrow afternoon, but it was still a lot of noise for very little gain.
"What of the district attorney?" A third voice, barely more than a whisper.
"She changed her plans at the last moment," said Bloch. "Our men were unable even to make the attempt." Again, failure. But at least not quite so spectacular.
A pause, filled with dizzying incense, dry breath and the sound of Bloch's own pulse thudding in his ears.
"This," said the lower voice, "is far from ideal, child."
The old syndicate man took a shuddering breath. "Yes, Mistress."
"Kathryn Tatopoulos must not be allowed to continue to gather allies against our cause," Tiamat went on. "Have your men try again at the earliest opportunity. Subtlety is preferred… but if stealth must be sacrificed to see our ends met, then so be it."
"Yes, My Lady."
The central of the three old women shifted slightly in her seat. For one horrible moment, Bloch thought she would rise to her feet and approach him on withered, cracking legs like some shambling, reanimated corpse. She remained seated.
"And the vermin, Kolarov," said the higher of the voices. "Has he, at least, been neutralised?"
Bloch felt the sting of salt water in his left eye. He hoped it was sweat, but at this point he wouldn't have been surprised if his barren old eyes were to shed a couple of tears. Well, there was no sugar coating it. "No, Mistress," he said. His voice was as firm as he could make it; if he couldn't deliver any good news, he would at least deliver the bad news with dignity.
"Child." The whispering voice was invested with a chilling disappointment. "This is not at all what I had hoped for. Kolarov must take the information he carries to his resting place in Hell. Have I not made this clear?"
"Yes, Mistress. But-"
"Then, why is it not done?"
"Mistress, Constantin Kolarov is a professional informant. He has long experience of going to ground when things aren't going his way. Digging him out is going to-"
"Enough." The word, though it was delivered without venom by the whispering voice, was enough to cut Bloch off dead. "There are only so many holes for a rat such as Kolarov to crawl into. Intensify the search, flush the informant out by any means necessary. Burn Alva City to the ground if you must."
Bloch wondered how literally he was to take that order, and why such a lowly figure as Kolarov was so important. Granted he was an informant, the very lowest variety of scum, but hardly worth the effort that was being expended to eliminate him. Nonetheless, Bloch said simply, "Yes, Mistress."
The old syndicate man stood a while, heels together and shoulders set, hoping against hope that he would be dismissed. He hadn't the stomach to deliver any more bad news today. But the longer the renewed silence lingered, the less likely it seemed he would be able to walk away without divulging his one last bit of unpalatable information.
"There is… something else, child?" asked the high voice.
Bloch worked his jaw. There really was no end to it. "I… yes. Yes, there is, Mistress."
"Well?"
Bloch let his head drop. He took a breath and then raised his chin. Who knew, maybe his luck would hold through one last bombshell. "There has been a report of a break in at the Von De Oniyate residence, Mistress. Von De Oniyate's people say his workstation was accessed, and several files were-"
"Who did this?" asked the lowest voice.
Bloch fumbled for words. He'd hoped he would escape having to impart the details. "It was… that is, reports suggest… it was the TV repair man."
"And this, repair man," Tiamat spat the words out as if bitter, "was able to simply walk into the home of one of Mars's richest men, steal his secrets, and walk out?"
Tiamat's tone was as dangerous as he'd ever heard it. For the first time, it didn't feel as though those weird old ladies already knew what Bloch would say before he said it.
"No, Mistress. That is, the security guard insists that Mr. Von De Oniyate himself ordered him to the let the repair man in, but Von De Oniyate says he did no such thing and… and…"
"Yes?"
Bloch shook his head. He wondered what the penalty would be for playing an out-of-season April Fools prank on the new head of the Red Dragon syndicate. After all, if he didn't even believe what he was about to say, then why should Tiamat?
"My Lady," said Bloch. He raised his head. "Witnesses working on the grounds claim that the thief left on horseback… along with a… samurai."
In his peripheral vision, Bloch thought he could see the doorman glance his way.
There was another heavy silence. Bloch's head swirled with the heat, the incense, the adrenaline that was soaking through his system, the sickening sound of Tiamat's breathing mingled with his own. He wanted to speak again, if only to fill the air with something other than that dreadful wheezing. What did it matter? Surely, he was dead now anyway.
The old woman in the centre, her outline vague behind the great veil that fell before her and her fellows, squared her shoulders. It was a motion so subtle Bloch might not have noticed it had his senses not been augmented by an almost feral panic. Here it came…
"Go," said the lowest voice. Simple, short, devoid of emotion.
A moment later, Bloch felt the doorman's hand on his shoulder. Then he was turning. And then he was leaving. He barely noticed as he was guided from the room and placed back in the car from which he had come. Only once he was alone, sealed in the airtight car with only the hum of the motor for company, did he gradually come to his senses. He had survived another audience with Tiamat. But he suspected that, if he was to survive another, he would need to return with better tidings. Or perhaps just not come back at all.
The old syndicate man chuckled to himself. A bitter sound that reverberated from the metal walls of the car.
"Who am I kidding," he muttered.
Men like him always came back.
ooo
VT had never thrown up on a space flight. Not even once. And she'd been through the ringer where space travel was concerned. Big ships and small; take offs, landings and re-entries; every kind of atmospheric turbulence and systematic malfunction. She'd flown through them all and never once surrendered a meal.
But despite all of that, the trucker felt just a touch queasy as she stepped out of Coffee's ship onto the roof of a rotting tenement on the South side of Alva City. Flying in that thing had been like taking a spin in a poorly balanced washer-dryer. It had rattled, it had rolled, it had pitched and jumped and shuddered and performed all manner of other unrequested manoeuvrers as it had plunged through the Martian atmosphere towards its destination.
And the smell hadn't helped. VT had almost forgotten about the state that the bounty hunter had been in when she'd first climbed aboard the Bebop. The inside of Coffee's ship had been an unwelcome reminder. It was rank with body odour and discarded food - a sweet, persistent smell that seemed to find its way into VT's nose no matter how hard she tried to breathe through her mouth.
VT placed a steadying hand on the side of the ship and drew in a long breath of the relatively fresh, city air. A steady footing and the bitter tang of the urban atmosphere came as a relief after fifteen minutes of what felt like being locked inside a full dumpster and rolled down a hill.
"Sorry about the bumpy ride," said Coffee, somehow managing not to sound sorry at all.
VT hastily straightened up as the bounty hunter walked around the front of her craft. The trucker hoped she didn't look as green as she felt.
"Guess you get what you pay for where repairs are concerned, huh?" Coffee slipped her shades out of a pocket and sank the open arms into her hair so that the lenses were suspended several inches above her forehead.
"I've been through worse," said VT, which was true. It was just that, in each of those instances, the craft she'd been on hadn't smelled like the inside of a garbageman's laundry hamper.
She looked out across the rooftop. Before her was an expanse of mouldering tar paper, peeling in a dozen places and dotted with bird droppings. The grey plane extended away in all directions and was interrupted by a couple of dented chimney pipes and a single maintenance door that protruded from the roof like a rusty, flaking zit. The hum of the city was audible on the languid breeze.
Coffee gestured towards the door. "Lead the way," she said.
VT picked her way across the roof, taking care not to trip over any of the many creases in its covering. Curled up sheets of tar paper revealed a base of crumbling concrete and, here and there, even a glimpse of a rusting rebar. She glanced back at the ship, half expecting it to vanish in a cloud of dust as its weight drove it through the rotting surface. But the ship stayed where it was. Either the roof was a lot sturdier than it looked, or Coffee had fortuitously set down directly atop some load-bearing part of the structure. Hopefully it would still be there when they returned and wouldn't come crashing down on their heads as they attempted to pry Kolarov from his hiding place.
Naturally, the maintenance door was unlocked, or so it seemed at first. As the door swung open it was revealed that the door did not in fact have a lock. A square of coarse brown metal surrounded by crumbly green paint marked where the lock had once been. Daylight spilled around VT and down a damp-looking flight of concrete stairs, which vanished into shadow at its foot. The stairwell smelled of urine.
"Mmm, penthouse living," said Coffee, sardonically.
VT said nothing, concentrating hard on controlling her resurgent nausea. She planted a boot on the first step and immediately a set of utility lamps buzzed to life down the left wall, throwing a dirty yellow light through discoloured plastic covers.
The pair sank into the stairway, Coffee allowing the door to swing shut noisily behind them. At the bottom of the stairs a short hallway, bare but for its own row of lights, led to a plain wooden door. Its only adornment was the residue of an adhesive sign that had long since peeled away. It too was unlocked.
The door let out at the centre of a dim corridor, illuminated by grubby windows at either end. The whole space appeared to have been rendered in various disgusting shades of brown. A handful of numbered doors broke up the walls at regular intervals.
VT beckoned Coffee to follow her, deliberately eschewing speech in the name of stealth. It was ridiculous really; the only way Kolarov could have missed the sound of their landing would have been if he were dead already. But as the last few days had proved, old habits die hard. With any luck, Kolarov would be paranoid enough to believe that the racket of the engine was a ploy intended to flush him out into the street where he could be picked off by a sniper or abducted by aliens or something.
VT led Coffee down the corridor to the right, all the way up to the last door on the left. It was placed conveniently near to the end window, from which a grimy fire escape plunged down into an even grimier alley. The trucker made a show of checking the door number - 22 - and nodding to her partner, as if to say, this is the place my contact told me to go, and not, this is the place I remember from by former career as a bounty hunter.
Coffee nodded back, and quietly moved to the window side of the door. Both women pressed a shoulder to the wall and listened.
Not a sound.
Coffee had already drawn her sidearm. VT reached into the depths of her jacket and hauled out her old hand cannon, the one that usually lived under the seat of her cab in case of emergencies. It had been a bastard of a job to dig it out of her baggage container, but it had seemed prudent to be properly equipped for this little outing. Especially after the last one.
Coffee looked at VT, then tipped her head towards the door. VT acknowledged the signal.
"Kolarov," she said. She raised her voice enough so that she was sure to be heard but was careful to keep her tone neutral. "Kolarov, you in there? We need to talk."
Nothing.
"Kolarov, you know who we are. We're not here to cause trouble. If we wanted you dead we could have seen to it back at the bar. We just want to talk, maybe we can even get you off of Mars, if that's what you want."
Still no response. Maybe he wasn't there after all, or maybe VT had been wrong and Kolarov hadn't been able to stay ahead of the hitters.
She looked across at Coffee, who just shrugged. VT should have known better than to look for inspiration there. She sighed and lowered her gun, which she had been holding at shoulder height.
"Kolarov," she called again, more insistently this time. "Come on, open up." She raised a fist to knock.
And then the door exploded.
VT got the impression of a cloud of pirouetting wood chips before instinct had her shut her eyes and turn away from the blast. The boom that accompanied the splintering of the door bounced back and forth across the corridor, like an ocean wave washing through an inlet. Once again that old tinnitus ring filled VT's ears.
Across the shattered door, Coffee was reeling off a list of obscenities, peppered with incongruous religious references. Then, as VT's hearing cleared, a second voice became audible.
"…me the fuck alone! I don't know anything! Why won't you just leave me the fuck alone!" Kolarov sounded hysterical. As well he might; the typical fate of an outed syndicate informant would send a medieval inquisitor running for the men's room.
VT edged back towards the door. The saw dust had settled, revealing a ragged hole in the wood at about thigh height.
"Damn it, Kolarov," she shouted, all pretence of calm dropped. "Listen to me! We're not here to-" VT stopped dead at the crunch of a round being chambered. She and Coffee glanced wide-eyed at each other, then scrambled back from the door.
Another deafening discharge and accompanying burst of wood chips. The corridor rang with the sound of the second shot and the tang of gunpowder and wood smoke filled the air. Not that the building's ancient sprinkler system seemed to care.
"Leave me alone!" Kolarov cried out.
"For God's sake, Kolarov, you idiot!" VT shouted as she got back onto one knee. "We're here to-"
"Oh, to hell with this!" said Coffee. The bounty stood up to her full height.
VT watched what happen next with detached incredulity; no one could possibly be this suicidally stupid, ergo this couldn't possibly be happening. She only came to her senses as Coffee shoulder charged her way through the critically weakened door. "Coffee, no! What the hell are you doing?" She reached out a hand, but the bounty hunter had already vanished into the apartment.
"Drop it, asshole!" came the shrill command from just out of sight.
This was it. Any moment now there would be third skull-rattling boom and it would be bits of bounty hunter that were sprayed into the corridor to settle among those of Kolarov's front door.
But the shot never came. After several of the longest seconds VT had experienced in a long, long time, there came the clatter of a weapon hitting the floor.
"Shit," VT breathed. She levered herself to her feet. "Shit," she said again.
Inside the apartment VT found Coffee standing at the centre of a square room, one hand on her hip, the other pointing her sidearm squarely at Kolarov's head. Kolarov was slumped beneath a window opposite the door, his back against the brown felt wallpaper. His chin rested against his chest and his twelve-gauge lay on the floor next to his limp right hand.
Fragments of compressed wood crunched between VT's boots and the bare floorboards as she shambled into the room. The smell of the place suggested that Kolarov hadn't had time to change his pants since his run in with Coffee's flashbang.
"What the hell was that?" VT asked.
"That was me putting an end to his bullshit," said Coffee, twitching the muzzle of her gun in the direction of her captive.
"You could've been killed," said VT. "Christ, you should've been killed."
Coffee just shrugged. "Occupational hazard, baby," she said.
VT shook her head in disbelief and scratched beneath the rim of her hat. By all rights, Coffee should have had a smouldering hole in her the size of a baked bean can. Yet what disturbed VT most was the memory of some of her own exploits, brought back by the sight of Coffee's charge into the breach. Having watched it unfold from the outside this time, the trucker began to realise that her companion wasn't the only one who should be letting in daylight right now.
"Shit," she said, again.
Coffee walked over to Kolarov. She flicked aside one of his spent casings with a pointed toe, then knelt down in a spot that put her just beyond his reach should the informant choose to lunge for her.
"Well, well, well," she purred. "What are we gonna do with you, big guy?"
Kolarov smiled bitterly at his shirt buttons. "Do me a favour," he said. "Kill me."
Coffee's swagger wavered. "What's that?"
"I said, kill me." Kolarov looked up at her. His eyes were red, and his face pale and drawn. He seemed to have aged visibly in the short time since VT had seen him last. "Better you should end it now than hand me over to my old employers."
Coffee stood and looked at VT questioningly. VT wasn't sure what to make of it either. Between Kolarov's desperate last stand and willingness to face death, she wasn't sure if the man had suddenly grown a backbone, or if he'd just found an entirely new way to express his cowardice.
Kolarov looked up at VT, and she feared to see the spark of recognition in his eyes. But the eyes that met hers were tired and haunted and empty of anything but abject despair. "So, how did you find me anyway?" he asked. "This is one of my oldest hiding spots. No one still in the game today should know about it."
"Not important," VT said.
Kolarov didn't press. His gaze fell to VT's boots as he said, "Perhaps not. So, let's get this over with, shall we?"
"For the last time Kolarov, we're not here to kill you," said VT.
Coffee sniffed. "But if you really insist-"
"We're just here to talk," VT said over the bounty hunter. "Maybe get you off world, if that's what you want."
Kolarov looked up, eyes narrow with suspicion. "Off world?" He said, as if testing out the words.
"I'm sure we can work something out. If you cooperate, that is."
Kolarov seemed to consider this, but then shook his head decisively. "No, I already told you, I know nothing."
"C'mon, Kolarov," said VT, her patience wearing thin. "It's not as if you could get into any more trouble."
Kolarov laughed again. "You'd be surprised," he said. "There is quite the range of ways in which the syndicates can punish a man, a broad continuum of suffering. Say what you like about my old bosses, they were nothing if not imaginative." The smile slipped from his face. "No. I have nothing else to tell you."
"That's not what the DA said," Coffee butted in.
By some miracle, VT managed to keep the wince off her face.
"The DA?" said Kolarov. "What, you mean Tatopoulos?"
"Mmm hmm, the one and only," said Coffee. "Kathy is a close, personal friend, and she seems to think you're a real treasure trove of information. It's the reason she sent us here for you in the first place."
VT just stood and listened as Coffee unwittingly propagated her lie. Intervening would only make it worse.
"Tatopoulos sent you?" Kolarov seemed genuinely perplexed, as if he'd just taken receipt of a bouquet and a box of chocolates from his old syndicate buddies.
"Yes," said Coffee impatiently. "For an informant you sure do have a hard time processing information."
"You'll have to excuse me, but the last time Kathy and I spoke, we weren't exactly on good terms."
"Wait," said VT. She took a step closer to Kolarov. "You know Kathryn Tatopoulos?"
"I did, once upon a time," said the informant. He frowned. "You mean she didn't tell you?"
Coffee cocked her head. "Tell us what?"
Kolarov gave a bark of laughter. "Kathryn always did play her cards close to her chest." He continued to chuckle to himself, then stopped as he became aware of the glowering women standing over him. "Tatopoulos was an undercover cop in a past life," he explained. "She worked within the Red Dragons for a couple of years, with a little help from yours truly. Dangerous work." He shrugged, "But lucrative."
"I find it hard to believe Kathy would trust a rat like you," Coffee sneered.
If Kolarov took offense, then he hid it well. "Who better to watch your back than a well-informed paranoid?" he said.
VT had to admit there was a perverse logic to that. "So, what happened?" she asked.
"The coup happened," said Kolarov. "Tatopoulos mission was aborted. She barely came out of it alive. Most of her contacts didn't."
"But you did," said Coffee, a note of accusation in her voice. "Wonder how you managed that."
Kolarov gave a yellowish smile. "By being a well-informed paranoid."
So, Kathryn Tatopoulos had gone undercover within the Red Dragon syndicate. It explained a lot, chiefly how she knew Kolarov might be of use, and why she was so intent of preventing the return of the powerful old syndicate - she must have seen some pretty nasty stuff while she was rubbing shoulders with the system's most savage criminals. It also explained how she knew the habits of syndicate hitters well enough to avoid an attack.
"So, now what?" asked Kolarov.
Coffee looked at VT. "We've got all we're gonna get out of this loser," she said. "I say we ditch him."
Kolarov didn't protest. He just sat there watching the conversation with a look of weary resignation.
It was true that Kolarov hadn't really offered any new information about their enemies, but he had given them insight into an ally, and that had to be worth something. Or maybe it wasn't. All VT really knew was that she was finding it hard to leave another human being, even one as utterly repugnant as Kolarov, to the mercy of a syndicate.
She sighed and slipped the hand cannon back into her jacket. "We ain't leaving him," she said. Naturally Coffee protested, but VT just waved it away. "We can't just leave him here to die, Coffee."
"You mean you can't just leave him here to die," Coffee sneered.
"Ugh, whatever," said VT. "Get up Kolarov, you're coming with us. We'll get you to a station. But you'll have to make your own arrangements from there."
Kolarov looked up at VT, then across at Coffee. The bounty hunter grunted and looked away.
"C'mon," said VT. "We're losing daylight."
Some of the tension slipped from the informant's shoulders. He muttered something, possibly a word of thanks, and then climbed to his feet, all the while being careful not to look as though he might reach for his gun.
And then he was dead.
VT felt the patter of warm blood on her face before she'd fully processed the image of Kolarov's forehead exploding. The hail of bone and grey matter mingled with tumbling shards of glass as Kolarov's body pitched forward, and away from the window in front of which he had so carelessly stood. The jumble of sensations was punctuated by the dull crack of the shot itself as it arrived tardy in the wake of the bullet's carnage.
"Sniper!" Coffee cried out, but both women were already on their way to the ground either side of the window.
VT dropped to one knee, her gun back in her hand though she couldn't remember drawing it. "Out!" she said and took off for the door. They had to go now or get pinned down by a shooter who had a clear shot at the door opposite. With any luck he would need time to chamber another round and get a bead on their escape route.
In seconds they were out the door and round the corner, passing by the ragged hole in the wall of the corridor left by the remnant of the bullet that had killed Kolarov. They bolted up the maintenance stairs, not bothering to shut the door behind them. VT led the way, the breath burning in her chest and her pulse punching her head from the inside as she took the stairs two at a time.
They reached the maintenance door and VT gestured for Coffee to stop. She shucked off her coat, unintentionally turning the right sleeve inside out as she clumsily dragged the hand cannon through. She set her jaw, took a breath and kicked the door open.
Daylight streamed into the corridor and VT immediately tossed her coat out into the open. Something unseen pluck at the leather as the garment cartwheeled through the air, pulling a section of it to the right. VT was already sprinting by the time the crack of the shot arrived. She kept low, scooping up her coat as she went. (There was no way she was leaving that behind) She was aware of Coffee behind her as she closed the gap between herself and ship.
Another crack sounded, and Coffee rasped out a curse. But her footsteps kept coming. A moment later, a trough materialised in a section of tar paper a few feet ahead of VT, throwing up a puff of plaster from beneath. The sniper clearly was not a professional and had probably only been able to tag Kolarov because the man had presented such an easy, stationary target. Later, VT would speculate that the resurgent syndicate was low on talent after the purge of the previous year, but right now all she cared about was reaching the relative safety of Coffee's ship.
It felt like an eternity, the coarse surface of the roof blurring past beneath her feet, the ship stubbornly refusing to get any closer. VT's lungs screamed, and her back complained as she ran half crouched in an effort to present the smallest target possible. At one point she felt certain that a shot had grazed her hunched shoulders, but she felt no pain, and heard no shot over the roaring of the blood in her ears.
And then they were at the ship, the journey of a thousand years ending abruptly at the ugly yellow box of a craft. Both women ducked around the port side out of view of their assailant. VT stood up to her full height, her back singing with relief as she did.
A bullet rang plaintively from the hull on the port side - the hopeful effort of a rookie marksman. He'd need something a lot heavier to strike his target through the hull of a spacecraft. The thought cheered VT momentarily, then chilled her as she remembered that the last attempt on her life had involved something a lot heavier.
The door hadn't fully opened when Coffee squeezed through and began to scoot over to the pilot's seat. VT followed, plunging into the dim cockpit and paying no attention to the stink as she strained to hear the tell-tale sound of an approaching RPG. She was still listening as the door came down again, sealed with a hiss and locked out the sounds of the world beyond. All that remained was the sound of her own ragged breath and that of her partner, and the periodic slap of rifle rounds rebounding from the reinforced window of the pilot-side door.
They were airborne not long after and leaving the atmosphere not too long after that. It was only as the stars began to peek through the thin Martian atmosphere that VT finally felt any semblance of safety. The sky had faded to black by the time VT's muscles had relaxed their grip on her. She released her jacket from the sweaty vice of her fingers, dropping it into the darkness of the foot well. She flicked the safety on her gun and dropped it on top her jacket. Both objects slid under the seat as the ship accelerated towards high orbit.
VT noticed something on her face. She raised a hand and dragged a couple of fingertips across her cheek. They came away marked with specks of Kolarov's clotting blood. She looked over at Coffee. The bounty hunter hadn't escaped the spray of human debris; her jacket was dotted with red-brown specks that looked almost black in the light of the ship's instruments. Coffee herself stared grim-faced out of window, hands clasped tightly around the control sticks.
VT groaned and sank down in her chair. She shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Shit," she said.