Ambasadora (Book 1 of Ambasadora) (34 page)

A woman with bobbed lavender hair
waited for them at the end of the passageway. It smelled antiseptic compared to
the street outside.

Sean called out, “I need a
stretcher now.”

The woman crossed her arms over
her chest.

“Did you hear me? She needs
help.”

“Who’s
she
?”

“My prime.” The moment
he brought Sara through the grate, the scanners had alerted those inside that
she didn’t have idents.

“She’s not authorized. You
can’t bring her here even with your node status.” The fragger’s gaze took
in the blood trailing Sean down the passageway, but it didn’t change her mind.

Sean pushed forward. She blocked
the way and let her fingers slip to a cender strapped on her thigh.

“She needs help.”
Sean’s voice amplified his desperation. “Yul knows me. He took care of my
initiation, and I’ve been in his service before.”

The woman’s delicate features
were offset by her aggressive stance. She looked from Sean to Sara.

“Just ask him!” Sean
forced himself to remain calm. He knew his attitude wouldn’t help here.

A man said,
“Let him
in.”

For a moment Sean thought the
voice had come from behind him, and half-turned before realizing it was the
cocom Ephemerata had forced on him at the Tredificio. It took another moment to
realize he was actually eavesdropping on this fragger’s subvocal conversation.

The woman stepped aside and
motioned Sean through a sliding metal door.

Three men rushed at him with a
stretcher and equipment. He didn’t want to let Sara go. He believed as long as
he could hang onto her he could protect her. Relinquishing her to the others
left him shivering and cold.

One of the men snagged her
sleeve, exposing her right hand. Sean’s muscles tightened as he prepared for an
argument, or a fight. When the men failed to respond, his stomach fell. Sara’s
bio-lights had faded so badly he had to concentrate on her skin to find their
patterns.

Another sliding door opened to a
blinding white light. Sean pushed after the stretcher bearers, but a large man
stopped him with a hand to his chest. “You have to wait.”

Sean’s frustration level ratcheted
up by a factor of ten. Uncontrollable anger made his face hot, pushed away his
ability to see reason. He gave the fragger an upper cut to the jaw. The bigger
man staggered backward, due to surprise more than the pain. Sean tried to push
past, but got tackled from behind. The big fragger threw Sean to the ground,
knocking the wind from him. Sean struggled and landed a damaging kick to the
man’s shin, but couldn’t break free.

“Zak!”

Sean twisted his head up to see
Yul hovering over Sara.

“You’re not helping. I’ll
let you in if you promise to behave.”

Sean nodded.

Yul motioned to the man perched
on Sean, who let him stand after bouncing his shoulder off the floor to make a
point.

Sean flew to Sara’s side. Once it
was just he and Yul, he asked, “Will she be okay?”

“She’s an ambasadora.”
Yul ran a sterilizing irradiator over Sean. “What were you thinking
bringing her here?”

“I was thinking she needs
help. You’re still a doctor, aren’t you? Now, is she going to be okay? She lost
a lot of blood.” Sean felt panic welling inside of him, an emotion he
hadn’t felt full-blown in years.

“If that lot out there finds
out who she is, they’ll tear you both to bits. Maybe me, too.”

“She’s worth the risk,”
Sean said.

“What is she to you? Not
your prime. You were never the type to take an amour.”

“She’s more than that to me.”
Speaking the sentiment out loud made Sean face the idea that at some point
since first meeting Sara Mendoza he decided he wanted to spend the rest of his
life with her. And just her. It must have been his Lower Caste monogamy genes
kicking in. Maybe he had just bypassed the emotional fallacy stage and was
full-blown delusional, but so far the delusion of Sara outshined his dark reality.

Yul cut her clothing away from
the wound. “I’ll do what I can for her.”

“I need you to do more than
that. Please.” Sean wondered if he should mention the irradicae. Yul would
notice them before he tripped them anyway, and he might be reluctant to help
her at all if he knew there was greater medical risk involved.

“I can trust you to keep her
safe and locked away until I get back?” Sean studied Yul’s face.

“You’re leaving?”

“I need to find us a ride
out of here. Can I trust you?” Sean asked.

“You wouldn’t have brought
her here if you didn’t already know the answer to that question,” Yul
said. “Besides, I owe you.”

The sincerity of Yul’s words alleviated
some of Sean’s guilt.

“I’ll keep this room locked
down. My codes for entrance only,” Yul said. “But secure a way out of
here fast. Not everyone here can be trusted.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back soon. If
I don’t, make sure she gets in touch with David Anlow, the pilot from my ship.
And, tell her….” He couldn’t imagine saying good-bye to her.

“I’ll tell her you saved
her. That she was worth the risk,” Yul said.

Sean stroked the skin on her arm one
last time. He wanted to kiss her, but feared it would be too much like a
good-bye, so he left, promising himself he’d kiss her again, soon, or die
trying.

Chen stood over Tennor’s writhing
body. The freezers’ black light highlighted the white thread of his clothing
and the foam spattered on the floor around him.

“What happened?”

Tennor clasped his stomach and
continued to roll back and forth. “Kill me.”

“Looks like someone stuck
you with a preserving agent. That’s some tough stuff. You’ll writhe for an hour
maybe. If the pain doesn’t kill you, the convulsions will. Snap your neck right
off your spine.”

Tennor whimpered and shook.

“Where’s Sara?”

“Fragger doctor.”

“Where?” Chen asked.

“Please kill me.”
Tennor’s blued lips spat out the plea.

“Tell me where.”

“Lindenn Street. First
gate.” Tennor’s head snapped back and his body spasmed so violently he
almost came off the floor. He reached for Chen’s cender, but Chen held it just
out of his reach. Tennor’s knees jerked. He kicked the concrete floor so hard
the bones in his feet and ankles splintered. He pounded the floor with his
fists, breaking the bones in his wrists and hands with muffled little pops. His
body straightened with a series of escalating cracks, then just as suddenly was
still.

Chen tapped his reporter and
spoke into the empty air, hoping the signal Tennor had boosted for him earlier
would reach Faya a few streets down. “Ariel’s dead. Sara and the fragger
are still here in the Underground. They went to see a fragger doctor. I’m
heading there now.”

“Are you insane?”
Faya’s gravelly voice mocked him.

“What’s the problem?”

“A contractor walking into
fragger territory by himself. They’ll slice you then fry you.”

“We can’t let them disappear
again.” Chen noticed a strip of light on the floor behind a freezer case
and walked toward it.

“Stay where you are. I’m
coming to you,” Faya said. “There may be a way to flush out Sara and
Cryer.”

“Fine. I’m on Lindenn
Street. Near the first gate.” Or he would be soon. Chen ended the communication
and stepped into the bright lights of the street.

Ear-shattering wails and
electronic screeches blasted from a raucous group of street musicians further
down Lindenn.

Sean made a left and slipped into
an alley. He glanced around for spying eyes before pulling himself up onto a
low-hanging roof. The rusting metal groaned under his weight in places, but
held him. When he reached a circular exhaust chimney, he stooped down and
removed the pale green plastic cap that kept pests out.

His hand slid down the narrow
tube. The inside was smooth ceramic. Once he pushed in up to his elbow, he
rubbed his fingers along the side in all directions until he found his prize.
He pinched a small bit of metal like a builder’s nail between his thumb and forefinger
and carefully lifted it to the surface.

The jack’s sharp point glinted in
the streetlights. Jacking was standard practice a decade ago, until fraggers
invented jackless reporters. The Embassy killed a few operatives and stole the
design for their contractors. So, the fraggers released the tech into the
general population as revenge. The Embassy still took credit, however, citing
it as an example of how the Sovereign’s scientists had found a way to improve
personal communication.

But, there was only one way to
communicate with the outside world here in the Latulip Underground, with an
old-fashioned jack.

Taking a deep breath, then
releasing it slowly, Sean pushed the jack into the soft skin on the inside of
his wrist. With a little effort he threaded it into the nerve cluster which
held the brain of his reporter. His mouth twitched at the insertion. He
clenched his teeth. The sting brought tears to his eyes, even with the extra
stims in his system. He’d forgotten how much it hurt.

Sean searched his mind for the
transmission signature he needed.

An androgynous voice filled his
head.
“This is a scientific vessel owned by the Embassy. Your
communication is illegal.”

“City girls.” Sean
spoke the password he’d programmed a while ago. He held his breath until it
cleared him.

“Please specify which
passenger you would like to communicate with.”
The androgynous voice
was the same, but this time it was interactive.

“Navigational Leader David
Anlow.”

“Connecting to
Bard
secure
line.”

While Sean waited, he scanned the
area from his rooftop vantage point. Even the scant light up here seemed harsh
compared to the darkness below. His heart felt just as dark thinking about
Sara.

“Who is this?”

Though Sean couldn’t see David’s
face, he could hear tension in the man’s voice.

“David, it’s Sean.”

“Sean? What th—? Where
are you?”
The tone changed slightly, but not necessarily for the
better.

“I’m…” He hesitated,
second-guessing his decision to trust David.

There were few alternatives at
this point. Deep down Sean knew the Armadan was honorable. Besides, anyone who
walked out on the military couldn’t be all bad. “I’m in the Underground
with Sara. She’s been hurt.”

“Injuries from the
Tredificio?”

“No.”

There was a pause on both ends.

“We need a discrete pick up,
David.”

“No good.”

“What do you mean ‘no good’?
I know we’ve had some problems, but Sara doesn’t have time—”

“Sovereign Prollixer’s
Head Contractor is on board, guy by the name of Rainer Varden.”

Sean’s heart stuttered.
“What’s he doing there?”

“He says he’s Sara’s
bodyguard, but there’s an awful lot going on behind the scenes. You know all
about that, though, don’t you? It’s why you two left.”

“Sara never mentioned a
bodyguard.” If that euphemism was the contractor’s idea of a joke, Sean
would cut the smile right off his face when he finally met him.

Then again, what if Sara hadn’t
told Sean the truth. He snapped a piece of metal from the rusted roof and
rolled it back and forth between his fingers. He shook the thought off. That
was his stim-induced paranoia talking. After all they shared, he would trust
her with his life.

“Kenon’s dead,
Sean.”

The news stunned him.

“What happened? Did he make
it out of the Tredificio?” He had known Kenon for six years; though not
the best of friends, they had some good times.

“It wasn’t the eruption.
He died protecting Geir from a female contractor at Soli’s estate.”

“What were they doing there?
Is Soli okay?”

“She’s alive, at least in
body. Trala was killed, too.”

“Trala?” Sean squeezed
his eyes shut. He had been closer to Soli than anyone else on the ship, mainly
because of her refusal to leave him to his own misery. He couldn’t imagine the
pain she must be feeling. “What happened?”

“My guess is the
contractors were after Sara and her fragger operative.”

Sean couldn’t say anything, and David’s
sudden silence made his point clearer than his accusatory tone.

“Why involve Soli?”
Sean asked.

“We may never know the
truth. Rainer had her committed to the psych ward at Embassy Hospital.”

“You just let all this
happen?” He didn’t mean for it to come out that way, but frustration and
guilt got the better of him.

“I didn’t just let this
happen, Sean. You did. You and Sara and whatever games you’re playing.”

Silence.

“I’ll come for you and
Sara somehow, but I can’t promise the others will welcome you back,”
David said.

“All of this is wrong. A
misunderstanding.” He wanted to explain what had happened to Sara, to him,
but there wasn’t time.

“I don’t care what your
excuses are. Two of our crew are dead, people who meant something to me, and
who knows what will happen to Soli. I’ll come for you, not because you mean
anything to me. I’m coming because I don’t leave people behind, even if they
deserve it.”

Sean drew in a breath.
“Understood. As soon as Sara stabilizes I’ll transmit again.”

He cut the transmission and sat
very still. Things were completely out of control. The cacophony of sound
floating up from the street mirrored the chaos in his life right now. If it
weren’t for saving Sara, he might do exactly what Ephemerata had warned him
about—stare into the abyss and jump. And, if Sara didn’t make it, that jump
would be far too easy for him.