Chapter 14 #2
As he wrestled the ancient cleaning bot into position in the covered courtyard in the center of the warehouse, he wondered if Kooga would be interested in going to Soleil’s martial arts studio.
The unorthodox training style seemed to help the other ex-Jumpers work around the effects of waster’s disease.
The students worked diligently because they privately believed Soleil had somehow arrested her own disease progression.
Renner’s fractured memories included the evening when Davidro had interrogated Soleil with his fists, then had Renner use his talent to inflict more pain. She’d laughed in Davidro’s face. In return, he’d ordered Renner to deliver her to her death.
So, of course, after he was fully healed and needed to learn to defend himself without using his talent, the unsubtle, malicious universe had sent him to Soleil’s studio.
Instead of killing him, she’d forgiven him. They were even, she’d said, because he’d deceived Davidro and helped her escape. And unlike the annoying red angel, Soleil had willingly filled in blanks in his memory of that evening’s events.
Davidro had resorted to torture because his other pet minders had failed to breach her mental shields. Everyone knew that Jumpers couldn’t be minders, so she shouldn’t have had them at all, much less been able to fend off multiple high-level telepathic assaults.
He carried a full load of discards to the noisy recycler. In the middle of emptying the container, a sudden thought struck him.
Charrascos needed those shields. They’d be with her everywhere, even when he and her team couldn’t.
Did his cred with Soleil extend far enough to even ask? And how much would they cost?
He mulled over the problem while he worked. Running interference for the balky cleaning bot got him a few insults, but mostly people ignored him as if he were just a bigger bot in a rain cloak.
Times like this made him wish he were smarter. The best he could do was ask Soleil and go from there.
Near the wide side entrance installed in a badly repaired wall, a flicker from a holo display caught his attention.
A replay of the day’s most spectacular explosion and the rain-defying flames at an industrial lab.
Thanks to his time with Charrascos, he knew that whoever had first published that feed was making a tidy profit from all the repeated viewings.
“I heard the chems blew the roof into low orbit,” said a woman holding a triggered but unopened mealpack against her chest. Maybe she valued the heat more than the contents.
Her companion waved a spoon through the image. “Heard it true-owned by Gezi Wutala. High-profit reverse drug. Mega-cashflow while it lasted.”
Renner slowed and ducked his head. Of all the major Ridderth crews’ names he’d recently researched, he’d only recognized Wutala’s. Last he knew from twenty years ago, she’d just worked her way into an exclusive gig satisfying the crew chief’s pleasure-pain addiction. She’d moved up in the world.
“Wutala kottindi snaked many.”
“Sharp. Odamon negesi flatline.”
Meaning they admired Wutala for diversifying her lines of business. Crews that hadn’t done so were dead and gone.
She had her tentacles in construction protection rackets, rigged fights, paid violence, and kidnap for hire, and most recently, blackmarket drugs.
In an alternate existence, he might have been working for her.
Presuming he’d survived his own youthful arrogance. Flashy enforcers often met fatal ends.
It was a deeply disturbing thought that being enslaved by Davidro might have saved his life.
The cleaning bot found the trailing hem of someone’s coat. Renner bent over to pull it free.
A thunk reverberated inside his head. The world tilted in pain. He stumbled sideways, half onto the bot.
A scarred, red-faced man clawed at Renner’s cloak, snarling about murdering thieves. Two people grabbed the man’s arms and pulled him back.
Renner grounded the beeping bot, then found his feet and stood. His ears rang like a bell, and his vision doubled.
Kooga arrived a moment later.
“Aksal.” Her voice dripped with disapproval and disappointment as she eyed the attacker’s flushed face and excessive drool. “Zeroed, starting now. Prove you no high-glide pinzai for one hundred days, maybe open doors.” She repeated it in pidgin Mandarin for good measure.
Aksal wilted until he caught sight of Renner. “Feí!” Aksal tried to free himself. “Murderer!”
Kooga roared into his face. “I told you last time!” She picked up the struggling, squealing man and carried him over her head to the wide entrance. “He the frellin’ janitor!”
She kicked the release to open the doors, then threw the man into the street with enough force to send him sliding for twenty meters down the rain-slick glass roadway.
“You’re bleeding.” One of the men who’d intervened pointed to Renner’s head. “You must have high pain tolerance.”
Sudden pressure broke in his mind. A memory flooded him, as clear as if it had happened yesterday.
Charrascos, looking down at him, only centimeters from his face. Freckles dusted across her pale skin. Her astonishingly blue eyes held a mix of compassion and anger. Light from above created a halo around her.
She pushed red hair behind her ear. The other hand held a butcher knife.
“Hope you have high pain tolerance.”
She sliced his neck muscles and pulled the motherfucking ever-tightening collar forward into the wounds.
Pain ratcheted high, but pressure eased. He gasped for precious air.
The collar didn’t kill either of them.
“Take it soft, amigo.” The man put a steadying hand on Renner’s shoulder. “Maybe sit a minute.”
The man helped him down onto the rounded back of the cleaning bot. Hopefully, the man believed he was only concussed, not stunned by a recovered memory.
He’d thought his damaged mind had made up the nightmare images of Charrascos as the knife-wielding red angel of death. Except in that memory, she’d been the angel of life.
The pounding in his head synced with his heartbeat. He’d wanted more memories to surface, but not if it took blows to the head to get them. He had too few working brain cells as it was.
Most of the dizziness was gone by the time Kooga crouched before him. “Drink.” She opened a water pouch and thrust it at him.
“Thanks.” His stiffening neck protested as he took a couple of swallows. He climbed to his feet, aware of her scrutiny. “I’ll finish up now.”
“Go slow.” Kooga rose to look down at him from her two-plus-meter height. “Don’t eat your pain like a Jumper.” She tapped the side of her head with her metal fingertip. “Biometal beats bone.”
She turned and strode away toward her office. The others who’d helped had already drifted off.
Kooga was right about him only having ordinary bone instead of biometal reinforcements like Jumpers. Since he was already seeing Haseem in a few hours to pick up the inhib, maybe he’d ask him for a quick scan and non-neuro pain treatment.
The more important question was, if he told the red angel about his recovered memory, would she ever tell him the rest?