New Amazonia had specified that the negotiators come unarmed, all security to be provided by Penthesilean forces. And so Vincent and Kusanagi‑Jones had carried no obvious weapons. But a utility fog was, by its very nature, adaptable technology, and they carried data under diplomatic seal. And among those data were licenses for weapons banned on every Coalition world.
The cutting wire that formed between Kusanagi‑Jones’s hands as he raised them wasn’t actually a monofilament. It was composed of a single chain of hand‑linked foglets, and it was neither as strong nor as sharp as a monomolecular wire.
It didn’t need to be.
He formed his arms into an interrupted loop, as if to capture her in a surprise embrace, and brought the wire down.
It caught the target below the elbows. Slight resistance shivered up the invisibly thin wire as it made contact, and Michelangelo jerked down.
The target made no sound. For a hopelessly long time–a third of a second, longer–she stared in shock at the abrupt termination of her arms. Both her hands fell, and Michelangelo had just enough time to hope the pistol didn’t discharge from the shock when they hit.
And then the target’s heart beat and blood sprayed from her stumps, soaking Katya and spattering Lesa, Walter, and the wall. A thin moan filtered through her teeth, cut off abruptly as Michelangelo slit her throat, passing the wire through flesh with a quick, sliding tug that didn’t sever her spine because he snapped the filament off before it pulled completely through.
He stepped clear as she fell. Shock would buy him split seconds, but there were five more enemies to account for. With any luck, Katya would reclaim her weapon and help even the odds.
Michelangelo surrendered to the mercy of trained reflexes. He spun, moved to the next target, slipping in blood. Its pewter stink and the reek of urine rose as he took a second woman down, striking nerve clusters in the neck and solar plexus. A bullet sank into his wardrobe, the sting unbalancing, but he recovered as she fell. Lesa’s gun spoke; the fair‑haired man grunted as Walter plowed into his chest.
It would be good to have at least two for questioning. Michelangelo used feet and fists and elbows, gouged and kicked. A tangler splashed against a wall, shunted aside by his wardrobe. He heard a second one discharge, but it wasn’t close. He didn’t see where; it was a blur of motion in his fisheye, and he was distracted by the passage of blows with a gap‑toothed woman whose hair lay in flat braids behind each ear.
She couldn’t see him, but she could fight. Air compression or instinct, she parried six blows, each one flowering blue sparks as his wardrobe shocked her. She gave ground as he advanced. She would have caught the seventh on the cross of her arms if she hadn’t slipped in blood.
The grin was a rictus as she raised her hands, seared patches showing on her forearms, one foot coming up, bracing to roll her over and aside. Too slow. Michelangelo stepped forward between her knees and kicked her hard, in the crotch.
Her expression as she coiled around the pain was almost worth three very long New Amazonian days of being treated like a child‑eating monster, and a not very bright one at that.
Lesa’s gun was silent, and as Michelangelo kicked his latest target in the temple to keep her quiet, he saw her snared in webbing, writhing against the strands in an effort to free her weapon hand. Walter was down, too, sprawled on his side with a gash through feathers and scales across his ribs. Katya pushed herself to her feet, so drenched in blood as to be barely recognizable, but with her sidearm clutched in one sticky hand. The last two assailants left standing were casting left and right for any sign of their invisible attacker.
Katya lifted clotted hair from her eyes left‑handed as she brought her weapon up. “Stand down,” she said.
The women stepped forward. Michelangelo kicked the one on the left under the chin; they ducked sideways as the other woman discharged a chemical firearm. The three‑shot burst stuttered against his wardrobe, transferred shock emptying his lungs.
“Stand down!” Katya yelled, before he regained his balance, but the other woman didn’t lower her weapon. He turned, moved toward her–
–and Katya shot her through the heart. Michelangelo didn’t even see an impact. Flechette rounds, maybe. She went down anyway, looking shocked, and hit with a liquid thud.
“Shit,” Katya said, wiping her bloody mouth on a hand that wasn’t any better. “Shit.”
Kusanagi‑Jones spared a glance around the battlefield. “Nice shooting for a girl who doesn’t duel.”
Katya put a hand down and pushed herself to her feet, then planted both hands on her knees and stood doubled over, panting, for a moment. “Mom made sure I knew what I was doing with weapons. It isn’t her fault I think shooting people for points of honor is stupid. Michelangelo?”
“It’s me,” he said, snapping off his wardrobe’s filters as she came upright.
She blinked, looked down at the weapon in her hands, and back up at him. “Wow.”
“Good trick, huh?”
She swallowed and didn’t nod. Instead she came toward him, pistol hanging from half‑curled fingers, shaking so hard her shoulders trembled. He looked down, frowned, checked one more time for enemies in a position to do damage, and uncomfortably dialed his wardrobe down to offer the girl a hug.
Not even shaking, shuddering,from the nape of her neck to the soles of her feet, and the only reason her teeth weren’t clacking was because her jaw was clenched so tightly the muscles stood out under her ears. “Never killed anybody before?”
She shook her head.
He squeezed her roughly and backed away, pushing her in the direction of the downed khir. “Gets easier. I’ll untangle Miss Pretoria.”
She went, silently. He checked the casualties one more time while picking his way between them to get to Miss Pretoria. It never hurt to be sure.
And Katya was a good kid, for a girl. He was even more impressed if this was her first fight.
He left the wardrobe dialed down. He’d need to touch Lesa to get the tangler off. “This won’t take long,” he said, picking through licenses as he crouched beside her, looking for the right antiadhesive formula.
He was loading it when Katya shot him in the back.
18
AT DINNERTIME, THE HOUSEHOLD DISCOVERED MICHELANGELO was missing, and Vincent was subjected to a brief, cursorily polite interview with Elena on a wicker‑furnished sun porch overlooking the central courtyard.
“He left with Lesa,” Vincent said, shading the truth.
Elena, seated with her back to the courtyard, the evening’s balmy air blowing the scents of fireworks and wilted flowers around her, frowned over her datapad.
“Lesa’s not answering her com,” she said with the air of one bestowing state secrets. “And Walter, one of the household khir, is missing.”
“Let me guess,” Vincent said, unable to keep the dryness out of his voice. “Lesa’s especial pet.”
“It would be a mistake to think of khir as pets, exactly.”
She had kept him standing, and he consciously arranged himself at parade rest, weight on his heels, body relaxed, spine hanging from his skull like a string of beads straightened by gravity. “Though you collar them?”
“We identify who the responsible humans are. But the khir are perfectly capable of resettling if conditions don’t suit them. They have their own packs and family arrangements. It’s considered unwise to intervene.” She pushed idly at the iced drink resting on the low table before her, tracing fingertips down the glass‑beaded side. “This was their city first. In any case, in the light of yesterday, we must consider foul play.”