So Vincent and Michelangelo were here to steal it. And if they couldn’t steal it–
There were always fallback options.
Vincent glanced at his partner. Michelangelo sat passive, inward‑turned, as if he were reading something on his heads‑up. He wasn’t; he was aware, observing, thinking, albeit in that state where he seemed to have become just another fixture. Vincent nudged him–not physically, exactly, more a pressure of his attention–and Michelangelo turned and cleared his throat.
Vincent gestured to the window. “Change your clothes. It’s time to go to work.”
Michelangelo ran fingers across his watch without looking, and stilled for a moment as the foglets in his wardrobe arranged themselves into a mandarin‑collared suit of more conservative cut than Vincent’s, ivory and ghost‑silver, a staid complement to Vincent’s eye‑catching colors. “Kill or be killed,” he murmured, his mouth barely shaping the words so neither the pilot nor the limousine would hear them.
Vincent smiled. That’s what I’m afraid of.
Michelangelo nodded, curtly, as though he had spoken.
The first thing Kusanagi‑Jones noticed as he stepped down from the limousine was that the pavement wasn’t exactly pavement. The second thing was that there were no plants, no flowers except the freshly dead garlands twined with ribbon or contack that hung from every facade. No landscaping, no songbirds–or the New Amazonian equivalent–just the seemingly wind‑sculpted architecture, buildings like pueblos and weathered sandstone spires and wind‑pocked cliff faces. He stood, tropical humidity prickling sweat across his brow, and arched his neck back to look up at the legendary Haunted City of New Amazonia.
He didn’t see any ghosts.
He’d done his threat assessment before the door of the limousine ever glided open, and he reconsidered it now, as his wardrobe wicked sweat off his skin so quickly he barely felt damp and his toiletries combated the frizz springing up in his hair. He blocked the door of the limousine, covering Vincent with his body, and turned like a shadow across a sundial to scan roofs and the assembled women with his naked eyes and an assortment of augments.
The Penthesilean security forces stood about where he would have stationed them, and that was good. It was good also that the women in the greeting party stayed back and let him make sure of the surroundings rather than rushing in. He hated crowds.
Especially when he was with Vincent.
He moved away, and a moment later Vincent stood beside him. Kusanagi‑Jones’s skin prickled, but there was nothing but the dark opalescent somethingunder his feet, the punishing equatorial sun, and the three women who detached themselves from the dignitaries and started forward. The one in the middle was the important one; older, with what Kusanagi‑Jones identified–with a bit of wonder–as sun‑creases decorating the edges of long black eyes distinguished by epicanthic folds. Her hair was straight and shoulder length, undercut, the top layer dyed in stained‑glass colors, shifting to reveal glossy black. She wore dark vibrant red, what Kusanagi‑Jones thought was a real cloth suit–a blatant display of consumption.
The two behind her were security, he thought; broad‑shouldered young women in dark plain wardrobes or clothing, with the glow of animal health and stern expressions calculated to give nothing away. All three of them were openly armed.
Kusanagi‑Jones knew how to use a sidearm. He’d received training in allthe illegal arts, although he’d never been a soldier. And he’d been on planets raw enough that citizens were still issued permits for long weapons. But he’d never been in the presence of people–especially women–who wore their warcraft on their sleeves.
He wondered if they could shoot.
It made him unhappy, but he stepped to one side and allowed Vincent to take point. The older woman stepped forward, too. “I’m Lesa Pretoria,” she said in accented com‑pat, tendering a hand.
Vincent reached to take it as if touching strangers were something he did every day. He shook it while Kusanagi‑Jones hurried to adjust his filters so he could follow suit. “Vincent Katherinessen.”
“That’s not a Coalition name,” Miss Pretoria said.
“I was born on Ur, a repatriated world. This is my partner, Michelangelo Osiris Leary Kusanagi‑Jones. He isfrom Old Earth.”
“Ah.” A world of complexity in that syllable. Vincent had answered in nearly flawless New Amazonian argot, which owed less to Spanish and Arabic and more to Afrikaans than com‑pat did. She extended her hand to Kusanagi‑Jones. “I’ll be your guide and interpreter.”
Warden,Kusanagi‑Jones translated, taking her hand and bowing over it, painfully aware of her consideration as his wardrobe considered her and let them touch. “The fox.”
She blinked at him, reclaiming her appendage. “Beg pardon?”
“Lesa,” he said. “Means the fox.”
Her lips quirked. “What’s a fox, Miss Kusanagi‑Jones?”
The Amazonian patois had no honorific for unmarried men, and his status here was at least diplomatically speaking better than that of a Mister. So being called Missrelaxed him, although he caught Vincent’s sharp amusement, an undertone flavored with mockery.
Just another mission, just another foreign land. Just another alien culture to be navigated with tact. He smiled at Vincent past Miss Pretoria’s shoulder and bowed deeper before he straightened. “An Old Earth animal. Beautiful. Very clever.”
“Like what we call a fexa,then? A hunting omnivore?” she continued as he nodded. “All gone now, I suppose?”
“Not at all. Seven hundred and fourteen genotypes preserved, of four species or subspecies. Breeding nicely on reintroduction.” He gave her a substandard copy of Vincent’s smile number seven, charming but not sexually threatening. “Featured in legends of Asia, Europe, and North America.”
“Fascinating,” she said, but she obviously had absolutely no idea where those places were, and less interest in their history. “Those are nations?”
“Continents,” he said, and left it at that, before Vincent’s mirth could bubble the hide off his bones like lye. He stepped back, and Miss Pretoria moved to fill the space as smoothly as if he’d gestured her into it–no hesitation, no double‑checking. They fell into step, Vincent flanking Pretoria and himself flanking Vincent, her security detail a weighty absence on either side: alert, dangerous, and imperturbable. Pretoria ignored them like her breath.
Kusanagi‑Jones caught Vincent’s eye as they headed for the reception line. Your reputation precedes you, Vincent. She’s like you.Neither an empath nor a telepath; nothing so esoteric. Just somebody born with a greater than usual gift for interpreting body language, spotting a lie, a misdirection, an unexpected truth.
A superperceiver: that was the technical term used in the programs they’d been selected for as students, where Michelangelo was classified as controlled kinesthetic,but the few with the clearance to know his gift called him a Liar.