Epilogue
Zephyr
T he camouflage netting that hid my cyber implants itched over the left side of my face and the scars on my right cheek. Since this trash heap of a moon didn’t allow any cyborgs on the surface, I had to be careful not to reveal what I was. Being here, outside of the safety that an official GIB operation would’ve provided was bad enough, but getting arrested for being an unsanctioned species? That would be even worse.
My cybernetic left arm was also covered in the netting, making it match my flesh and blood arm as I swayed through the room. The place was a knock off of early Earth twentieth century bars, complete with a stage where a curvy woman in a clingy silver dress crooned about a lost love. A beautiful baby grand piano sat to her left and a string quartet sat behind her.
The room glinted and gleamed; the white floor was so polished I could see my face in it if I looked down. The walls were draped in silver and black fabrics, while the booths and tables were a stark black with silver flowers in bowls at the center.
The whole place was a nightmare for surveillance, every surface reflective and security at short intervals along the few hallways and the kitchen. I hadn’t wanted to be here, but there wasn’t a choice.
I’d been hunting for Cypher nonstop since I left Jax a month ago, hitting one dead end after another until I finally got lucky last week.
An informant of mine told me that there was an uproar at the GIB in the last few days. A Mishvaian hacker, no one had ever heard of, had acquired the identities of all deep cover agents. Every low life, pirate, cartel member and government that the Galactic Union of Planets had pissed off would be salivating for the info. Shockingly, Cypher hadn’t done it. But I had good intel that he’d be after this hacker just like everyone else. If I found the hacker, I’d find Cypher too. Problem was, the hacker was in the wind. No one could find him.
Until now.
After paying a hefty sum and torturing more than a few low-lifes, I’d gotten the name of the one person in the galaxy who knew where the hacker was hiding. And he was selling his info tonight at this bar.
I didn’t have the credits for his exorbitant starting bid, but that wouldn’t stop me from stealing the data stick he was supposed to be delivering to his buyer tonight. All I had to do was get my hands on the location of the hacker and beat Cypher there. Then, when the asshole showed up to kidnap the Mishvaian, I’d finally have justice for all the bodies Cypher had left in his wake.
Not to mention, stopping anyone else from getting their hands on the list of agents, that was a bonus too.
The person selling the data stick with the location of the hacker was a Valtoshan male by the name of Rixam. Earlier today I’d tried to steal it from the hotel where the Rixam was staying, but I’d almost gotten caught.
I knew that he liked females in slinky dresses, and usually appreciated generous cleavage. I had little cleavage to speak of, but I figured the clingy red dress I wore in a sea of gray, black and white should make me stand out enough to grab his attention. He was on the older side, with gold rings on his tendrils, a distinct scar on his face and was known to drink too much. All I had to do was catch his eye and get a little up close and personal so I could steal the data stick before he sold it.
My black heels clicked on the floor, and I was grateful for the spaghetti straps and thin silk of the gown considering how warm it was in here. The singer on the stage started another song, this one more upbeat, and couples started to gather on the dance floor, giving me a little bit of cover as I wove through the gathering crowd.
I passed a table of Magrims, bulbous orange Aliens that had sprouts of yellow hair-like substances on their heads and beady eyes that made my skin crawl. They were a misogynistic society, locking their women away in breeding colonies and subjugating nearby planets. I heard their snorting, wet breathing pick up as I passed by and I pretended not to notice them. I’d had dealings with Magrims before and it always ended the same: with a bunch of dead ones surrounding me after I’d stopped them from assaulting me.
The only time they were of any use to me was when I needed good intel on smugglers in the gamma quadrant of the outer rim. Their skin was thin and they weren’t exactly known for being courageous, so interrogating them was messy, but relatively easy.
Tonight, however, I needed to get in and out without causing a scene, so I tried to give the gross orange blobs a wide berth.
I slid onto a silver and black stool and caught the eye of the Human male bartender. He was tall, lean and broad with light brown hair and deep brown eyes. A slight shimmer on the right side of his face told me that he was also wearing a mesh netting. I usually concealed my shimmer with makeup, and it looked like the bartender had the same idea. His eyes were accented with dark liner and a golden swath of bronzer highlighted his sharp cheekbones.
“What can I get for you?” his voice a raspy lilt.
“I’ll take a Talosian Sunrise please.”
“Don’t get an order for many of those around here,” he said.
“Oh? Am I the only one drinking that tonight then?”
His eyebrows slanted down even as his smile held.
“As it happens, no. That Valtoshan down there ordered one too.”
He gestured to the exact male I needed to speak to.
“Interesting,” I crooned.
“Very,” the bartender murmured.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up at the words, a warning that I usually didn’t ignore. But time was ticking, and it looked like the Valtoshan was deeply in his cups. I had to do this before the male passed out.
As the bartender made the drink, I casually made my way down to the Valtoshan. He looked up at me through half lidded eyes as I purposely made my heels clack a little louder on the tiled floor.
“Well…hey,” he grinned. “How are ya beautiful?”
“Curious,” I said, arching my spine just a little so my breasts were forward as I sat on the stool beside him. “How are we the only ones who like Talosian Sunrises?”
“You like them too?”
“I do,” I said, taking the frosted glass from the bartender.
“Mmmm…,” his eyes raked down my body, slow and lascivious.
I was surprised he wasn’t drooling on his shoes.
“You know,” I said, my fingers trailed over the loose collar of his shirt, “I have always wondered something.”
“What’s that?”
“These,” I gestured to this tendrils, “are they…sensitive?”
His grin widened and one clammy hand came to my fingers, guiding them to the nearest one. I knew how sensitive they were, I’d been with plenty of Valtoshans to know that. So I applied just a little pressure to the end of the one he wanted me to touch, rolling it between my finger and thumb. He gasped, and from the bulge in his pants I could tell that his cock was starting to extrude.
“Oh, they feel…” I purred at him.
“What?”
“Sensual.”
I took a sip of my drink, making sure to swallow hard enough to make my throat work. His eyes traced the motion and he licked his lips.
The Valtoshan plucked the red flower from his lapel and presented it to me like a favor in a medieval story.
“A pretty bud for a pretty lady.”
“Oh, thank you,” I simpered and made a show of smelling the flower.
Then his hand went to my bare shoulder and slid down to my cleavage, his thick fingers grazing the side of my breast. He leaned in and whispered in my ear.
“I have a hotel not far from here.”
As I took the opportunity to lean in closer to him, my fingers slid into the pocket of his jacket, which hung just a tiny bit lower than the other side indicating that there was something in there. My fingers clasped the cool metal of a data stick and as I pulled my hand out of his pocket, I gripped his jacket as if I were returning the physical attention.
“And if I went there, would I get to play with your tendrils?”
They shivered and he hissed a breath through his teeth.
“Yes, absolutely. But I have some business to attend to in half an hour.”
“Well, I don’t know if I can wait,” I pouted.
He glanced around and brought his lips closer to my ear, his breath wet and hot on my skin. I suppressed a sickened shiver as he spoke.
“There’s a few rooms that the owner of this place lets us use for…special occasions. They’re through the red door at the back. Just tell them Raxim sent you."
“I’ll be there in five minutes.”
He laughed, a nervous, high sound and raised his glass to clink against mine. He downed his, while I miraculously drank about half of the concoction without wincing at the taste.
“See you soon,” he chuckled, stumbling off the stool and up the stairs to the left of the bar that led to the red door at the back.
I left a shiny credit for the bartender who had disappeared, and slid off the stool. The room tilted for a second before righting itself and I frowned. That shouldn’t have happened.
My implants sent signals to my brain regarding all of my internal functions, as well as external data. It was like having a stream of information going constantly in my subconscious. When something was dire, the systems would send an alert and I would become more cognizant of the data. It wasn’t really like having a voice in my head, an AI option I’d sternly declined when I’d received my upgraded unit. It was more like having a secondary brain working behind the scenes. Pretty handy for quickly analyzing and absorbing evidence or for assessing the dangers of an atmosphere. I could even see heat signatures with my optic implant.
This time, however, the internal diagnostics that monitored my body’s health were showing a slightly elevated heart rate and a foreign substance of indeterminate origin in my blood stream.
“Shit,” I murmured.
“That’s putting it mildly,” said a voice behind me.
I turned around, the room tilting again and gripped the edge of the stool to steady myself as I stared into the hardened smile of the bartender.
“I knew this would hard but I didn’t anticipate all the complications I’d have to deal with,” he said.
“Oh, so sorry for being an inconvenience,” I whined with sarcasm.
“No you’re not.”
“Not even a little.”
“That’s alright, you’re going to give me that data stick and save me a boat load of credits, so it’s actually a win-win.”
So, you’re the buyer. Good cover.
“And why would I do that?” I asked with a chuckle.
He leaned in toward me.
“Because I poisoned your drink, Agent Vaughn.”
A stiletto shot out of the compartment in my left arm, the reveal of my implants hidden by his body. But before I could use it, the man gripped my hand and stopped me. The reflexes combined with the strength of his grip told me he also had implants on his hand.
“I’m not a monster,” he whispered. “I’ll give you the antidote for the data stick. We both go our merry way.”
“No.”
“I’d hate for a woman as beautiful as you to die over GUP bullshit.”
He thinks this is a sanctioned mission. Maybe I could use that.
“You really want my colleagues up your ass? They’re a lot worse than me.”
His smirk was far too handsome and if we hadn’t been in this situation I’d probably be on my way to fucking him on his break behind the building. I wasn’t really all that worried at the moment. I could feel my cyber systems deploying nanites to take care of the foreign substance. I just had to wait them out.
“And I can make it worth your while,” I continued. “Keep you out of my report, and pay you handsomely so you forget I was here.”
“I can handle your cronies, and I really don’t need the credits. Now, you’ve got about six minutes until the poison incapacitates you. Then another four before your systems start to shut down and yes, I did compensate for the nano units in your blood stream that filter out foreign substances.”
“How the fuck did you…?” I snapped my mouth shut, cursing myself.
He laughed, a deep, raspy sound that was as sexy as it was annoying.
“You know it’s encrypted right?” I asked, mind racing with options. “And if you don’t have the correct code, it will erase everything.”
“And you’ve got it, right?”
“I do.”
He frowned down at me, assessing whether or not I was full of shit. It could have an encryption, if the Valtoshan had half a brain he would’ve definitely done that. Considering how easily I’d gotten my hands on the data stick though, I doubted it. But for some reason, this guy with all his obvious skill at observation and planning believed it was a possibility.
“Look,” I said, my fingers playing with the lapel of his bartender’s jacket, “we can make a deal that’s beneficial to both of us. Why don’t we go to my shuttle, you give me the antidote, I take the encryption off the data and we look at it together?”
“Why would you do that?”
I shrugged.
“You’ve got me over a bit of a barrel. And I’m not above a little friendly competition to get what we’re both after.”
I was testing him to see if he even knew what was on the data stick or if he was just another information broker.
His eyes bored into me, and I could feel them searching mine, trying to read my mind. I kept my expression schooled, revealing nothing.
“Alright,” he agreed finally. “But if you try anything —”
“You’ll let me drown in my own blood as it coagulates in my lungs, I got it.”
“Shit, that’s dark. I was gonna say I’ll maroon you on this shithole of a moon but…okay, sure, let’s go with yours.”
I rolled my eyes and let him lead me toward the exit, which was to the left of the dance floor. I was counting on the slight chaos of the packed area to provide the perfect reason for me to stumble so I could pick the bartenders pocket for the antidote. I was, after all, poisoned. It would be completely normal for me to be a bit wobbly on my feet. Then when we reached the outside, I would incapacitate him and be on my way.
We were just about to step onto the dance floor when I spied a familiar Valtoshan on the stage to the right of the singer. He was standing with the manager of the establishment and they were scanning the room. I ducked my head, but not before the drunkard spied me.
“Shit,” the bartender said. “Let’s move.”
We had to get out of here quick if we didn’t want to get caught, which meant my plan would have to wait until we were on my ship. My internal sensors were telling me that the nanites were having trouble cleansing my system of the poison, and that my heart rate was beginning to accelerate. My palm was also getting sweaty, and my mouth was horribly dry.
The Valtoshan and the manager were moving toward us through the crowd of dancers and two large males, who hadn’t been there before, were standing at the exit. The bartender and I both looked behind us toward the serving exit that would take us past the kitchen. It was on the other side of the room and we’d never get there before the manager did.
“Come on,” the bartender said, yanking on my arm.
“Let me go, it’s not like I’m going to run. And we won’t make it to the back entrance.”
“We’re not going there,” he motioned to the red door, still holding my arm.
“There’s no exit back there.”
I slipped my hand into his pocket and gripped the antidote.
“Yes there is, but we need to get to it before —”
“Stop right there, thief!” someone shouted.
I was sure we were busted until two blaster shots rang out. A Human and Talosian fell to the floor, their friends now starting to draw their blasters and fire. Apparently I wasn’t the only person here to take advantage of someone tonight. But as luck would have it, I managed to get my fingers around the vial in the bartender’s pocket during the distraction.
The result of the fire fight, however, was panic among the patrons of the bar. We’d been on the very outskirts of the dancers and now were caught up in the swell of panicked customers. The bartender’s grip loosened and he was ripped away from me just in time for me to hold up the vial of blue liquid in triumph seconds before someone slammed into me and it fell to the floor, thankfully not shattering. My clutch followed it as someone else pushed me down. I reached to snatch the vial, and noticed that my clutch had fallen open. When I went to grab it, a heeled shoe kicked it, and out went the data stick.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the bartender diving down toward the silver data stickat the same time a glossy black shoe kicked it. By now, there was a fist and blaster fight taking place behind us between the security staff of the bar and the group that had started this whole thing. The manager was trying to calm everyone down and people were running around, screaming as they tried for the exits.
I was crawling on the floor after the blue vial when I spied the data stick. My finger grazed it as someone ran and slipped on it. The stick went flying through the air and I caught it with a yelp as someone’s feet became tangled in the skirt of my dress and I was thrown off balance. My hand hit the floor and the stick fell.
“No, damn it!”
I rolled, my skirt ripping and I got to my knees with huff. I tore the skirt the rest of the way off, grateful that I’d designed it to break away easily. Underneath I had a pair of red shorts, and the cool air felt divine on my burning skin. My internal sensors were starting to warn me of impending unconsciousness and my vision was now starting to blur.
I saw the blue vial a foot away and dove for it. Just as my fingers were about to curl around it, the bartender snagged it and he let out a yell of triumph.
“Let me have that!” I yelled above the din.
“Gimme the stick!”
“It’s loose, I don’t have it.”
A flash of silver caught my eye and I rolled once again. Just as my fingers closed around the stick, a heavy body landed on me, trying to pry it loose from my hand.
“Antidote!” I demanded.
“Stick!” he answered.
We both grunted as we wrestled in the middle of now thinning panicked crowd. My heart was racing so fast I could feel it in my throat, my eyes refused to focus and a tiny red light was flashing in my cyber optic circuit.
“Please,” I said, turning over underneath the bartender, “I need…the antidote.”
He was half on top of me, hands on mine above my head, our chests heaving against one another. It would be downright hot if I wasn’t begging him not to let me die.
“The stick,” he panted.
“You’re such a…fucking bastard.”
I head butted him and he slid off me with a yell. He did not, however, drop the vial. I rolled away from him and toward the nearest booth where I opened a compartment on my left arm’s cyber unit and deposited the data stick. I instructed my AI to download the data immediately and store it in my back up drive as well as my main. If anything happened to me, the backup would be sent to Kier, my half Atavarian brother. He’d know what to do with it. I hoped.
I looked down through eyes that were going in and out of focus and spied a black, boxy blaster on the ground by a dead Human male. I grabbed it quickly before I staggered to my feet. The moment I turned around and pointed it, there was that damn bartender, also holding his blaster, pointing directly at me.
“Looks like we’re back to square one,” he said, bloodied lip quirking up into a crooked smile.
“Looks like.”
My AI let me know that the data had been downloaded and I instructed her to delete the stick while leaving a rather nasty virus in place of the information. As that was processing, I stared at the asshole who had caused me so much trouble tonight.
“Deal still stands,” I said.
“I suppose we don’t have a choice.”
“I guess n-not.”
“Except you’re in no condition to make it out of the building, much less to your ship,” he said.
“No thanks…t-to you,” I blinked several times, my hand shaking.
“Trouble seeing?”
“Fuck off. Now let’s...I need that…so…” the compartment on my arm opened once the AI had completed her task and the data stick fell onto the floor.
It looked as if I’d dropped it and I leaned against the booth, only half pretending to be so bad off.
“Oh look at that,” he said, bending to pick it up. “It seems fortune favors the —”
“Asshole?”
“Precisely.”
He tossed the vial at me, which I barely caught, and I popped the top and tossed back the grossly thick antidote. The bastard was about to run when I stopped him.
“Give me your…name, s-so I know who I’m going to kill.”
He stopped, looking back over his shoulder with a chuckle.
“I guess you’ve earned it,” he turned around. “Sherrod Vasquez, nice to meet you Zephyr Vaughn.”
“Likewise…except you’re a dead man.”
“I’ve heard that before and for your own sake, don’t try. I’ve left a long enough trail of bodies.”
“Bet mine’s bigger,” I said with a shiver as the antidote worked.
He let out a longer laugh and shook his head.
“I wish we could’ve been friends.”
“Something tells me you don’t have friends.”
“Touché.”
And with that, he turned and ran for the red door instead of one of the exits.
My AI sent a message that the virus it had coded onto the data stick also had a tracer in it. It wasn’t lethal, but it would fuck with whatever system he plugged into until it ran its course. I hoped it was his cyber unit; that would take him out for a while, and I didn’t want him trying to hunt me down.
Though something tells me I’ll be seeing Sherrod again soon regardless.
And it bothered me that it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant thought.
What is Sherrod after? How is he connected with Cypher? Will she 'get her man' or will Sherrod get in the way? And how will these two put aside their competition and fall in love?