Maze-Born Trouble Read online

  “Dead?” Lake asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Lake didn’t miss the edge of disappointment in Aguilar’s voice, and he knew it wasn’t just because they’d lost the opportunity to question the heavy. Human lives meant something to Aguilar—even the lives of killers who crept up from the Maze. Having crawled up from there himself, Lake didn’t indulge in that sort of regret much.

  Aguilar’s shoes creaked as he rose. Lake sensed the other man’s indecision in the momentary quiet that followed.

  “You all right?” Aguilar asked.

  “All good here. Go on after the runner,” Lake replied.

  “I’ll be back,” Aguilar said softly.

  Lake just laughed in reply. It sounded like the sort of reassurance Aguilar ought to offer a weepy young widow, rather than his former partner. Aguilar made an annoyed sound and left the office.

  Once he was alone, Lake ran his hand over his shoulder, making sure that he hadn’t lied to Aguilar. Several hunks of metal had pelted his back and left arm, but he felt certain that few had cut through his jacket and the lightweight flex-armor he wore under it. A trickle of his own blood moistened his fingers as he traced a tender spot just above his elbow. He pulled the shard of plastic out of his flesh and tossed it aside. It hadn’t cut too deep, and adrenaline kept Lake from feeling the extent of it. In a couple of minutes, it would start to sting.

  He went to his desk and pulled out a packet of liquid stitches. He shrugged out of his jacket and started to open his shirt when he heard Aguilar’s tread behind him.

  “I thought you said you were fine.” Aguilar closed the distance between them and then said, “Let me put that on. You’re cut in an awkward spot.”

  Lake realized belatedly that the lights must have come back on if Aguilar could see him so well. He hadn’t noticed and felt annoyed. It wasn’t like him to let a little pain distract him. He wasn’t some soft frail from the Drift. Now that he was paying attention, he noticed that the vents were once more pumping out warm, perfumed air and the overhead lights hummed with a cheery glow.

  Lake allowed Aguilar to take the packet of liquid stitches from his hand. Then Lake pulled off his shirt and rolled back his flex-armor. His entire arm was beginning to hurt, and the blood seeping down his forearm felt thick and hot. It stank of the acrid, metallic serum augments that all Maze babies received to support their organs and bones against the harsh gravity down in the tunnels.

  The dead gunman’s blood reeked the same way. Lake wondered if that could be a coincidence or if it meant that his old pal Forest Joki, the New Loviatar strongman currently running the Maze, had put another bounty out for his head.

  “The other one got away?” Lake asked.

  “No.” Aguilar said it quietly, but he sounded angry. “I found him about forty meters outside the office, near a drop shaft. Someone put a bolt through his forehead.”

  Lake considered that silently while Aguilar applied the liquid stitches into the gash in his arm. The stitches felt icy cold and numbed him from his wrist to shoulder.

  “Bolt gun again. You think this has to do with Holly Ryan?” Lake asked.

  “Hard to be certain, what with you having so many friends, but it could be.” Aguilar sighed. “The question is. Are you being targeted because someone thinks you were involved in her murder or because they think you know who was?”

  “Yeah,” Lake agreed. “That would be worth finding out… Among other things.”

  Other things like: Who’d killed the second heavy? That had to have been someone who’d known where the man would be and when, which indicated a conspirator. Lake recalled thinking that there might have been three people out in the hall. It would have been a cold son-of-a-bitch who hung back just to murder one of his own.

  Lake scowled and rolled down his flex-armor. He left the shirt and jacket where they were on his desk. He wondered if any more surprises were waiting for him at his apartment. Not that the police were likely to cut him loose anytime soon after he called in to report two corpses at his office. They’d be interrogating him all night, most likely.

  “You want to clear out and save yourself a load of paperwork?” Lake offered Aguilar.

  “Of course not,” Aguilar replied. “I haven’t even finished my drink yet.”

  2.

  Aguilar called in the mess at Lake’s office and then decided to escort Lake to the station personally. Neither of them felt keen about riding along in the back of the Security Emergency Vehicle with the bags of human remains. They left Lake’s office building on foot and walked to the nearest transit station, where Aguilar’s badge meant Lake got a free ride. Lake left his optics off, relaxing automatically in his old partner’s company.

  He felt the weight of battered old structures give way to new towering construction as they traveled towards the center of the Arc.

  Before the Feds arrived, the second section of Sisu Station had been abandoned for nearly a century. But now the disk-shaped biome measured more than 1000 kilometers across. All of it built up over an immense series of supports and drop shafts that reached 1800 kilometers down to the Maze—far enough away from the mass generator to approximate Earth gravity. On the Arc, single-G adapted humans like Aguilar and most the rest of humanity could easily survive outside of high-grav suits. Maze-born, like Lake, required a few surgical augmentations to function in far less than their native gravity.

  Not that Lake resented that. He would have bought any number of augmentations to get clear of Forest Joki. As a kid, he’d endured more than enough of the sadistic shit kicking him in the teeth and pissing in his drinking water. That had been back before the war, when Forest’s father, Mountain Joki, had still been alive to keep Forest on a leash. Now Forest had the Maze to himself and Lake kept to the Arc.

  As alien as the place felt to Lake’s body, its lights, noise and crowds offered him a place to disappear. He was just one of a couple of million inhabitants. Average height, short haired and deceptively heavy for his slim build, which made him a largely unremarkable man amongst the diaspora of Maze-born and off-station immigrants, even given his steely optics.

  No one took much note of him most days. Though today was proving something of an exception. More than a few officers, coming and going from the police station, apparently remembered him well enough to offer him a familiar nod as they passed.

  The boxy central police station stood near the Arc’s core transit hub, making it easy to dispatch officers to multiple districts quickly and to shut down transportation all across the Arc in a matter of minutes. The transit core hummed like a beehive while the police station remained reassuringly quiet.

  Aguilar led Lake up to the third floor and offered him a cup of coffee, but before Lake could accept, much less make a formal statement, he was escorted off by a couple of the boys in uniform.

  It turned out Chief Cullen decided to do Lake the dubious honor of putting the screws to him in person. Though being Chief Cullen, he couldn’t be bothered to do it right, on record, sitting down in an interview room. Instead he summoned Lake up into his private office where grinding rhythms squeaked out from a discarded pair of sound-buds lying on a side table. Cullen himself sweated and grunted from his SolidBod 600 workout desk. Air filters whined, struggling to scrub the odor of Cullen’s perspiration from the humid room. Lake could taste the man in every breath—jock itch hosed down with expensive cologne.

  At fifty-five, Cullen presented the figure of a man half his age. If Lake had wasted the energy to switch on his optics, he’d have been treated to a view of the latest augmentations—reductions, lifts, tucks and grafts—that kept Cullen at the obsessive peak of health. His teeth always flared with florescent whitening, which made them seem to nearly glow in the dark, and his skin glistened like it had just been stripped off an eel.

  Cullen’s mass signature rubbed against Lake’s senses, as swollen and irritating as a blister.

  “I want to be clear about this.” Cullen’s voice bounced as he jogg
ed. “If you have any information concerning Holly Ryan, you better give it up right now. Hold out on me, and I will put you out an airlock. Is that understood?”

  “Yeah.” Lake didn’t laugh at Cullen’s panting attempt to come across like a cartel hitman. In his own officious, bigoted way, Cullen could do plenty of damage. He’d cost Lake and nine other Maze-born officers their jobs when he’d taken over Sisu Station’s Arc-level Police Department four years ago. If he wanted to he could cost Lake his private investigator’s license or even his freedom.

  “I’m not playing around with this case.” Cullen grunted as he punched into the depth screen that hung between the two of them like a veil of white noise. Then he went on, “Holly Ryan came from important people—my people. I won’t tolerate you or any other trash blundering into my investigation. If you think you have information, I want it turned over now. Otherwise I want you as far away from this as possible.”

  “I’ve got nothing on Holly Ryan or her death. I located her for her father and then closed out her file months ago.” Lake shifted in the chair. The thing felt like it was made of planks and rods—all of them in the wrong places for wiry muscles and dense bones. “I’m not here on her account. I just dropped by because of the corpses back at my office.”

  “You shot them in self-defense. What’s there for us to discuss?” Cullen slapped his wristband, and the SolidBod 600 whirred as it lowered the angle of the low-impact treadmill. “Two pieces of Maze trash killed while attempting a break-in. Probably junkies. I can’t believe you’re wasting my time with them.”

  Lake didn’t know if Cullen was actually so distracted that he’d forgotten he’d been the one who called Lake into the office, or if he simply felt confident that Lake wouldn’t dare to contradict him. More than that, Lake didn’t like Cullen’s loose grasp on the details of the fatalities.

  “I only shot one of the two—” Lake began.

  “But they’re both dead, aren’t they?” Cullen stumbled slightly.

  “Yeah,” Lake said, and he could almost smell Cullen’s relief. The police chief reclaimed the steady rhythm of his footsteps.

  “Case closed,” Cullen stated. “Sign a statement saying that you shot them and we’re done here.”

  “I didn’t shoot them both. Someone else put a bolt through the second man’s skull.”

  “Someone else? Do you think we have the time or staff to go hunting down every drop shaft and shit hole for a every possible person who could have made some piece of trash dead?” Cullen snapped. “This is exactly the kind of bullshit that got you canned. You’re lucky I’m not dragging you up before the licensing board for reckless discharge of a weapon. But I don’t have time to fuck around with Maze trash. Just sign off on the statement.”

  Lake nodded and kept his trap shut. No way would he take the blame for a killing he didn’t do, but he knew better than to say as much. Though he guessed some of his disdain must have shown.

  “Are you even looking at me?” Cullen demanded suddenly.

  “Sure I am.” Lake pretended to scratch his head and tugged his optics on. After four years, he’d forgotten how it enraged Cullen when he didn’t have admiring eyes on him. Sometimes Lake thought that half of why Cullen despised the Loviatars was because they’d eschewed the visual world as superficial and weak.

  But among people raised in the Federation, it was rude not to ogle all the effort they put into their appearances. Lake lifted his gaze to Cullen.

  His gray form sprang up, wearing tight white shorts, a glossy smart-watch, and sport shoes festooned with sensors. Lake amused himself comparing the work ethic of the AI in Cullen’s shoes to that of the police chief. The responsive AI certainly grasped its job better. Lake couldn’t bring himself to look at Cullen’s blandly handsome face. Instead he studied the tattoo on the man’s shoulder blade: a blocky eagle surrounded by the three stars of the Federal Government. It looked like a cheap knockoff of a military seal.

  Cullen stilled the treadmill.

  “Why did she have your contact-chip?” He stared hard at Lake like he was sizing him up to fit in a frame. “Why would she keep it if she wasn’t in contact with you?”

  And they were back to Holly Ryan, as if the murder of the second gunman hadn’t happened. Even after four years, it still galled Lake that Chief Cullen only mustered half-assed service for anyone not living up in the Drift. The working class who populated the central Arc section of Sisu Station were drones in Cullen’s estimation, while the Maze was filled only with trash.

  “I don’t know why she kept the contact-chip.” Lake gave a shrug. “Maybe she couldn’t make up her mind about whether she wanted to talk with me. Maybe she hung on to it in case she got in too deep and needed a quick way back to her mommy and daddy. Maybe she just liked my company logo. I didn’t know her, so I can’t say I have much insight there. All I know is that she didn’t talk to me.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yeah. I’m certain.” Lake’s arm ached, and it occurred to him that he needed to contact Jänis to warn her off coming back in to work until he knew who was gunning for him. The last thing he wanted was her getting caught up in this mess.

  Cullen scowled down his thin nose then snatched up his sound-buds and clipped them to his ears.

  “Get out of here,” Cullen shouted over a blare of music only he heard.

  Lake tapped off his tiring optics and obliged.

  • • •

  After exiting Cullen’s office, Lake checked in with Lt. Gonzales in homicide. She remembered him from his time on the force, and Lake didn’t mind switching on his optics to see her wide, welcoming smile. She indulged him with a little information concerning the two men who’d broken into his office: Leaf Koivu and Clay Torni. They’d both been Maze-born but their most current residence was listed up in the Drift.

  “Not far from Holly Ryan’s suite,” Lake noted.

  “Yes, you’d think that the chief would find that worth paying attention to, instead of shutting down any investigations in that direction.” Gonzales spoke quietly and narrowed her gaze at the back of a young blond detective lounging against a distant desk.

  Lake understood: Cullen cultivated spies in every department and wasn’t hesitant to remove officers who questioned his choices or motives. The blond mope at the desk shifted, and the depth-screen game floating between his hands became obvious. Gonzales sighed.

  A moment later she cut Lake loose assuring him that Aguilar had already filed his witness statement and noted that the second victim had been had killed by persons unknown.

  “Try not to stir up too much trouble out there,” Gonzales told him in lieu of a goodbye.

  Lake tipped his hat to her.

  3.

  Out in the open, on the Arc’s fourth-floor public promenade, an artificial sky hummed with simulated stars. Environmental controls blew out cool, evening breezes perfumed with jasmine. Rain hadn’t been announced but the breeze felt humid and restless.

  Around Lake, hundreds of people surged between work complexes and stations for the A-4 commuter lines that would take them to their homes all across the Arc. Conversations rose like vast waves of sound while the synthetic scents of baking bread and frying bacon floated up from food vendors on the lower floors.

  Lake found a nearby comm booth, paid extra to opaque the transparent walls and cued up his comm messages. A depth screen flared up from his wristband, and microscopic receptors living in Lake’s body sent a rush of sensations through his palm and fingers. While most people set their receptors to display visual information with lesser data streams feeding sound and tactile input, Lake had saved himself the annoyance and metabolic cost of all that light and color. Today he didn’t even bother engaging sound—he didn’t want to risk being overheard. Instead the small depth screen tapped out a flutter of Braille across his fingertips.

  The first rushed messages came from Jänis, and her agitated tone tingled over his palm. The attack on their office during the power-do
wn had made several pirate newscasts, as had a lot of nonsense about the discovery of Holly Ryan’s mutilated corpse.

  The pigs aren’t telling me anything and I can’t even get to the office… I shouldn’t have left early, damn it.

  An inarticulate flutter whispered over Lake’s hand as Jänis struggled not to choke up. Lake felt touched and also embarrassed for Jänis; she was about as tough as a person could be without turning cruel, and she didn’t normally tolerate sentimentality in others or herself.

  You just better be alive and all right. I don’t have the time to go looking for a new job. Contact me as soon as you can.

  Lake didn’t wait for the other five messages to load. He commed Jänis and assured her that he and Aguilar were both fine.

  They’re saying on the feed that this might have something to do with that Ryan girl and maybe even the Loviatars. Jänis’s disbelief pricked at Lake’s palm.

  It’s too early to jump to any conclusions. Lake tapped the words out against his own right palm. It could be related or it could just be that Forest Joki got himself balls enough to move on the Arc and sent some little thugs after me. Either way, you’d better stay away from the office for a few days. Maybe take a second honeymoon with the doctor.

  Paid?

  Lake felt the teasing tone in Jänis’s response, but he also knew funds were tight for her and the good doctor.

  Yeah. Paid, Lake agreed quickly before he could change his mind. It wasn’t like he was rolling in credits, but Jänis had stuck with him through the tough first year of his business and that meant something to him. I gotta get a move on, but I’ll be in touch. I might need you to check on a couple of things for me.

  Sure thing. You take care of yourself.

  The comm flatlined, leaving Lake’s hand feeling cold and empty. He reached out and called up Aguilar’s message.

  It looks like your private quarters got tossed. I’m not sure if you were robbed, since you own fuck-all. There’s still a bed here and the storage under it looks all in order. I’m going to see what I can find out about the timing of the two latest power-downs. I don’t think you should spend the night back in your quarters. Not until we have this settled.