A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (28 page)

Janette.
What would she think of you killing a friend?

He's not a friend!

He's all you've got left.

They were here.

Michael and the other came through the bulkhead door right behind his seat. With effort, he pushed the voices away. He noted with satisfaction that the two men failed to see him. Arm stuck out, he snapped his fingers once. The kid was alert enough to notice that. He caught Marc's arm and pointed to Diomedes with a subtle angle of his jaw. No one else around seemed to notice. So far, so good. They'd better have the sense to stay that discreet.

The kid edged over, peering at him unsurely.
The disguise was that good, at least. Diomedes turned slightly to look him in the eye. "Sit," he ordered.

The two sat on either side of him in seats that faced each other, closer to the window.
Michael chose the one with the better view of the room. "Nice beard."

Diomedes ignored th
e comment. "Anyone following you?"

"I don't think so. Everything's still a go, I guess?"

Diomedes nodded. "Five or six hours' wait before we leave here."

Marc
blinked. "Five or six
hours
?"

"That's what I said.
Keep your voice down."

Michael was keeping a careful watch on the section.
"There's somewhere more private we can wait at least, isn't there?"

"No."

"Can't we at least go to the shuttle and wait?"

Diomedes glared. "
No.
And shut up about the shuttle until we're on it. Don't talk about that stuff out here."

It would be better if they could wait on the shuttle.
Fagles had warned him just before he left Earth: He'd set the whole thing up with forged authorization: a RavenTech black op that even RavenTech wasn't supposed to know about. Arriving at the shuttle too soon would cause "problems." Diomedes didn't know what those problems were, but he didn't want to risk it. He took Fagles at his word for the simple fact that the man wouldn't try to screw him until after Diomedes did what he needed.

"So we just sit here, then?"

Diomedes glared at Marc. "You don't like it, wait somewhere else."

"You didn't know about the wait before we left, huh?" Michael asked.

"No
.
Anything else you want to bitch about? Suck it up, kid. No one's looking for
you.
"

Diomedes kept watch on the window reflection
s as a lone security guard passed through. Probably standard patrol. Some sort of thermal mini-rifle Diomedes would love to get his hands on. Superheated energy, no bullets. The guard traversed the area without stopping.

"You know, maybe we will wait somewhere else," Michael announced.
"Safer if we're split up, anyway." He stood, and Marc followed suit. "We'll be across the room, in the other corner."

"Fine," he growled.
The kid would abandon him as much as he could. Not surprising. He watched the reflections of the two men make their way across the room. Five more hours of waiting. Twisting in the wind.

Damn Fagles.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Each felt like twice that. He counted the faces in the window. Reflections in the empty space between the stars. No one seemed threatening. None he recognized. Michael and Marc got up and went into the restroom along the inner wall.

That was when he saw t
he other man across the chamber. His face was disguised, but still familiar. A piercing pain hit his neck before he could react. His muscles locked up, and Diomedes was out.

It was stupid, but following Marc into the restroom had Michael feeling something less than masculine. It was a mandatory precaution on this leg of the trip; to protect him, he couldn't leave the man alone, especially as Michael was the only one even armed at this point.

As a precaution against putting all their eggs in one basket, the sidearm Marc brought was currently stashed in a locker on the flight deck for them to grab as they left. Any sort of confrontation on Sunrise that used firepower over muscle was likely to end in disaster anyway.

So he shook off the
feeling of foolishness, glanced at Marc as they left the restroom, and paused a moment beside the potted fern outside. "So, nearly five hours."

"You hungry?" the other asked.

Michael surveyed the room again, just to stay on top of things. "I guess I could go for something. I wish this place had more private spots to wait that weren't just—" He stopped, noticing Diomedes.

"
—one step up from a coffin?" Marc finished for him. "Something up?"

"Maybe," Michael answered after a beat.
Diomedes's head had fallen back enough for Michael to tell that his eyes were closed. He appeared to be sleeping, but the idea that he would let his guard down that much felt wrong. "Stay alert."

Careful to make sure Marc kept up, Michael
moved casually in the unconscious freelancer's general direction, watching the room as he went. A man crossed in front of them a short distance ahead and took a seat in the chair that Michael himself had occupied minutes earlier. The man's face struck a vaguely familiar chord. Michael slowed his pace and struggled to place him.

"There's like a dart—
something in his neck," Marc whispered. "Di—Malcolm's neck."

The familiar man locked eyes with Michael before he cou
ld see the dart Marc had mentioned. The man stood back up. Recognition stopped Michael in his tracks.

"
Damn it."

Behind a long wig and glasses, Jer, one of the freelancers they'd clashed with back in Northgate, watched him coolly.

Reassuring himself that Jer wasn't likely to try anything violent in such a public place, Michael took a moment to search, in vain, for Jer's sister.

"Don't panic," Michael whispered to Marc.
"He tries anything here and security'll be all over him." Even so, he didn't see any guards currently.

"We still need him to get us on that shuttle."

"I know."

"Have a plan?"

"Working on it. Stay between me and the window. And keep me between you and him." He closed the rest of the distance to speak with Jer, careful to keep Marc as shielded as possible, just in case.

Jer spoke first.
"Fancy meeting you here."

"Where's your sister?" Michael asked.

The man shrugged with a chuckle. "Oh, she's around here somewhere. She likes to pop in unexpectedly. But hey, you know what that's like, don't you?"

Michael suppressed a frown.
Maybe it was a bluff, maybe not. He gave Diomedes a punctuated glance. "He's ours. We found him first."

Jer laughed.
"Oh, come on. Fool me once, shame on you. Split my skull, leave me for dead and try to fool me twice—well, shame on you again, really. I never much liked taking blame."

"I guess you hadn't considered that we needed to get something out of him before we claimed the bounty, huh?"

"Doesn't much matter now, I figure. He's ours. Which makes you, ah, shit out of luck?"

Stall.
It was all he had until he could think of something better. "Out of luck or not, we're still standing here, and we're not going anywhere. And he's not going anywhere without us." To his left, Marc looked about while Michael's mind raced.

"We're not going anywhere without him, either.
I'm willing to take the full price of his bounty instead, if you've got it on you. As it is I don't think you've got a single way to stop me that won't make security cranky. And you don't want to see these guys cranky, let me tell you."

Michael seized on an idea.
"You want security here? Why don't we just call them right now. They'll figure out who he is and my friend and I'll tell them he's our capture. I guess they might believe you that he's one-third yours, too, but it'll be our story against yours.

"Might get sticky," Marc added.
He'd stopped looking around and gone quite rigid.

Jer
gave a quick laugh. "Oh, now that's a bluff if I ever heard one."

"Think so?"

"You don't want the bounty. You're with him. Now I don't know who you are and as far as I know, no one's paying for either of you, so I'm willing to let you go. But you have to leave right now."

"So
either we let you have him, or we try to claim the bounty instead of you. Given the choice I guess I'll take losing him and getting the money. Even if we do have to split it between the three of us."

"Oh, I see," Jer answered with mock appraisal. "So then you've got a bounty
hunter's license like mine to show the security guys, too? Or are you just expecting your story to hold water on its own?"

Marc was keeping quiet but Michael didn't miss a beat.
"Yours international?" Jer said nothing to that but Michael caught a trace of hesitation in his face. "Oh, it's not, is it? Anything less than that and it's a hassle for you, too."

"Better than none at all.
And now it's
our
word against yours."

Michael had just enough time to catch the reflection of Jer's sister in the window and see she didn't have a weapon drawn before her whisper sounded in his ear. "I ought'a put my boot so far up your ass I'll have to open your mouth to paint my toenails."

Fantastic. "I guess there's no point in saying it wasn't me who jumped either of you."

Jer chuckled.
"I don't think she cares."

"I don't think so, either
." Michael sighed. "We're still nowhere close to resolving this, you know. Not here. And he's gonna wake up eventually." Unless maybe she had a way to knock him and Marc out, too.

Whatever Jer was about to say got interrupted by the blare of an alarm that sounded throughout the
room. "
Warning: Explosive decompression danger. Evacuate this section immediately.
" Alarm lights flashed across the walls as the warning repeated in multiple languages and the emergency bulkhead doors began to slowly close.

Shit.

"What the hell?" Jer shouted.

"Vacuum breach!" Marc shouted after.
"God, if there's a vacuum breach we're all dead!"

Michael looked about in vain for some sign of the breach.
Diomedes lay motionless in his seat. He couldn't carry him alone, and Marc was panicking!

"Discussion's over! Pick him up!" Jer ordered.

The sister moved to do so but Marc cut her off, throwing himself across Diomedes's body. "He's gonna die, we're all gonna die! No!" Jer tried to pull him off, but Marc was hysterical, thrashing about in panic.

Fighting against his own shock at the display, Michael realized
—or hoped—that Marc was trying to keep the bounty hunters from taking the body before they fled to safety. Behind them, people were running toward the closing bulkheads.

"
You have forty seconds to evacuate.
"

"Don't touch him!" Michael shouted. "Let him go!"
He pulled at Jer's arm in an effort to help Marc, wondering even then if there would be time to get Diomedes to safety once the other two fled. The section might burst and hurl them all out into space at any second.

Marc screamed in wordless hysteria
. The bulkhead door nearest to them sounded a new alert of its own and suddenly plunged toward the floor, sealing off that exit in moments. Across the concourse, the last exit was still open but closing steadily, if slower.

"Goddammit get out of the way you little prick!" Jer's sister grabbed for Marc again
. Michael couldn't stop her. Marc kicked out in crazed panic.

"Susan, there's no time!" Jer ceased his struggle with Michael and grabbed for his sister.

"We can carry him!" Susan shouted back. "I'm not going to— Jesus, get
off!
"

Marc was
nearly wailing now and clinging to Diomedes like a crazed toddler. He thrashed against any attempt to remove him or lift the man up.

"The door's closing!" Michael yelled.
"Marc, get up!" They were the only ones left in the section. If they didn't leave
now
. . .

Jer grabbed his sister and jerked her back. "He's not worth it!
We're going!" The bounty hunter didn't wait for her to answer and dashed past Michael for the far bulkhead. Susan turned to follow.

Hoping Marc was more lucid than he see
med, Michael went to get him up. Would there even be any time left to—

In a flash Susan whirled, a knife appearing in her hand like magic as she stabbed at Marc with a
cry of rage. Michael lunged to wrench her arm out of its path and fling her to the ground. She landed on her back with a curse and the knife spilled from her grip, yet before Michael could do more she drove her boot into his groin with a scream.

Agony staggered him.
Moments later Susan was back on her feet and racing after Jer. With a parting yell of "All yours, assholes!" she dove and slid through the gap just before the bulkhead sealed shut.

They were trapped.

"She's really not very nice," Marc said. "You okay?" The alarms continued and the doors remained closed, but the man was dramatically calmer.

"I'll live.
I think." Michael winced at the far-too-slowly receding pain and pointed about the place. "You did this?" Either Marc didn't think they were going to explode into space or he'd become remarkably accepting of the idea.

Marc nodded with a grin and tapped his visor.
"One of the reasons I like this thing. Computer access without anyone noticing." He motioned to Diomedes's unconscious body. "We'd better move fast, though."

With some effort, the two lifted
the man's weight between them. "Omph. I'll remember that next time you zone out in conversation. I'm amazed you could hack in and cause all this so easily."

Marc laughed off the compliment.
"Getting doors
open
is hard. Getting alarms to go off that make doors close? That's substantially less difficult. How about we leave the way those two didn't go?"

They brought Diomedes to the
door nearest them—the one that Marc got to close first, Michael realized—and set him down while Marc went to work on the door panel. "How long?"

"Like I said
—" Marc plugged his hip rig directly into a port beneath the panel "—getting them to close is substantially less difficult."

Michael wondered how long they had before the bulkheads opened automatically on both sides and Jer and his sister found they weren't sucked out into space.
Before he could ask, the door in front of them—and only the door in front of them—lifted open.

Marc unplugged
with a chuckle. "On the other hand, I'm also very smart."

Before it even finished opening, they'd carried Diomedes through.