“Half,” Delagarza said, trying his best to keep his knees steady.
“You’ve always been a joker, Sammie, sweetie,” Lotti said.
“Fine,” he said, “three quarters. You know you’re making a killing.”
“That I do,” Lotti laughed. “Alright. If you can pay, right now, we’ll have ourselves a deal.”
Delagarza’s fingers flew across his keyboard before she could change her mind. A ganger’s word over money paid was as good as steel. After all, if they went around betraying their business partners, no one would work with them. They had a reputation to uphold.
Lotti’s eyes widened when her wristband dinged and a holo showed her her increased bank account.
“Sweet fuck, you really did have the credits,” she said.
In fact, Delagarza could’ve tanked any price she named. The enforcers may be many things, but forensic accountants they were not. Krieger had been smart enough to send killers after him, but she hadn’t even thought of cutting off his contract—and his credit line.
The only reason Delagarza had rejected Lotti’s first offer was to protect her pride. Had he accepted, the gangers would’ve seen it as a failure of their boss, who surely could’ve asked for more. Now, it looked like she’d scored them a juicy gig.
Delagarza saw the ganger boss realize this. She eyed her crew, saw their hungry smiles, then walked to Delagarza. “Sold to our handsome friend, Sammie. Walk with me, and we’ll talk shop. Guys, give a lady and her friend some space?”
The gangers spread away. Delagarza and Lotti headed for a nearby bench. They didn’t sit. Benches in Alwinter were cold enough to damage reg-suits.
“What mess have you gotten into?” Lotti asked him. “I know how much you make cracking ‘ware, you shouldn’t have enough to handle my price.”
“Lucky me, right? Look, don’t worry about it, Lotti,” said Delagarza.
“Delagarza, in my experience, random wage-slaves that come across a sudden influx of money always carry trouble on their backs. Big trouble. The kind of trouble that spills onto anyone nearby. I want to know if my boys will get splashed.”
Delagarza noted how she dropped the ganger-speech the instant she was alone with him. “Wage-slave” was inner-system slang, straight from Earth, outdated long before the space age. Nowadays youths had stumbled upon the word and adopted it.
So, you’re a tourist that settled in, just like I am. It was funny how the world worked.
“I had a deal that went awry. With the enforcers. They’re trying to mop up the loose ends. I’m trying to buy my way out by giving them what they want.”
Lotti sighed and passed a gloved hand across her neon hair, which appeared on fire under the glow of the reg-suit hood. “You’re trying to get out by diving deeper than you were? Shit, Delagarza, I thought you were smart.”
“And I thought you were a violent sociopath,” he said. “What else am I supposed to do?”
“Walk away,” she told him, “go hide in a friend’s house and wait until they forget about you.”
He considered it. It wasn’t a bad suggestion. Enforcers had a lot on their plate already. Keeping an entire star system under the control of the SA was a tough task. If he waited long enough, there was a chance Krieger would forget about him, when the next fool in need of mopping-up came along.
Kayoko’s grim visage flashed across his mind. If she was right, the enforcers were looking for Isabella Reiner, and racing against time to do so.
If Delagarza had been in their shoes, there was nothing he would’ve allowed to get in his way. If Kayoko’s group found Reiner first…it could mean the destruction of Tal-Kader. But demolishing a giant, evil tower usually meant rocks would rain on the populace below.
Was the Edge ready to survive the upheaval?
“I don’t think they’ll be forgetting about this one,” he told her.
The ganger considered this. “Well then,” she said, “you paid for a Lotti-level quality gig, and that’s what you’ll get.”
THE GANGERS HIDEOUT had been a homeless shelter, once, before life-support upkeep had run too high on the expense chart of Alwinter’s governor. The gangers had reworked it using poly-plastic sheets and cardboard and furnished it with stolen items and sofas dragged straight out of a dumpster. The industrial life-support system ran on God-knew-what, but it smelled of spaceship fuel. Delagarza hoped it was his imagination.
Lotti made good on her word. It wasn’t the end of the sleep cycle when she and her gangers were back at their hideout, carrying a black garbage bag in a mechanized service kart. At first, Delagarza almost had a heart attack when he saw the bag, but relaxed once he saw it move, quite forcefully, while whoever was inside struggled to get free.
“Express delivery service coming through,” Lotti’s second-in-command cheerfully announced. He smacked the bag, hard, and pushed it to the grated floor. There was a metallic clunk accompanied by a muffled scream.
“Thanks, Nerd,” Lotti said. Delagarza caught a glimpse of her bloodied knuckles while she labored over the garbage bag with a knife. A slashing motion later, and Bruno Choffard came out, gasping for air.
The gangers grabbed Choffard by his arms and shoulders and forced him upright, eye-level with Lotti, who was staring at him with a playful grin.
“Are you insane?” he roared, sending specks of spit in a shotgun spread out of his mouth. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
Delagarza had. Bruno Choffard worked tech, mainly for other tech companies who couldn’t be bothered to make the sub-routines Choffard sold. Compared to Delagarza, or even Charleton, Choffard was rich and powerful. No doubt, he had friends in powerful places, and contacts with Alwinter’s government.
He didn’t look the part. Someone had smashed his lower lip to a pulp, and both his eyes sported purple bruises that would become black pretty soon. His executive reg-suit was ruffled, torn in some places, and hydrogen and coolant leaked out in a stream, like green blood.
Lotti cleaned specks of spit from her face. “Do you have any idea who I am?” she asked.
“No, you bitch!”
“Good.” She punched him in the kidneys. Choffard folded over his belly. Delagarza could almost see the bravado abandon his body.
To add insult to injury, Lotti took out Choffard reg-suit’s battery pack and handed it to Delagarza, who exchanged it for his own. Lotti returned to Choffard, who was still retching, and calmly installed Delagarza’s old battery pack.
“My friend here was running low. I’m sure you don’t mind,” Lotti said. “If we don’t take long here, you can go and buy another.”
“Where are my bodyguards?” Choffard asked, after he recovered from the hit.
“Enjoying some well-earned sleep,” Nerd said. He was the one holding Choffard’s arms. “If you answer Boss’ questions, you’ll nap too, like a good boy, and wake up all refreshed tomorrow.”
The ganger left the “if you don’t…” unsaid, but the message was crystal clear.
Choffard’s eyes flickered around, trying to get a hold of his surroundings. Delagarza finished his cheap protein bar and walked over.
“What do you want from me?” Choffard asked.
“My friend here, the regular and all-around top-notch guy, Mr. Johnson,” said Lotti, gesturing at Delagarza, “is wondering about your recent string of meetings with a not-so-regular crowd. Ring any bells, Bunnie Brunie?”
“Don’t know what you’re—”
Delagarza sighed and looked away while the gangers hit the man again. When they were done, Choffard’s face was a mess. Broken nose, blood sprouting as if from a leaky pipe, a couple missing teeth. He struggled weakly against Nerd’s hold on him.
“Please,” he begged, “I can pay you.”
“Your company had two visitors, didn’t it?” asked Delagarza. “The second one was enforcers. The first one was a certain revolutionary group that operates in Taiga Town.”