Chapter 19
Arco stood next to Brenner beneath a roof overhang, out of the icy drizzle.
Ten meters in front of them, the walkway and street dead-ended at a three-story-tall, dark road-glass wall with no discernible purpose, at least not from this side of it.
Based on the clouding and pockmarks visible under the night-time street lights, it had been there for decades.
She blew out a loud breath that fogged in the cold. “I bet Ridderth hasn’t updated its pedestrian maps since before the fall of the Central League.”
It had been a long, busy day. Her joints ached again, as if she had a fever, except she didn’t.
She’d decided it was blowback from overusing her minder talent.
More specifically, her new shields. The pain appeared to be a side-effect of keeping the shields up at all times.
She hoped it would get better with time.
Brenner shrugged. “No profit.”
“Of course.” They turned and walked back toward the intersection.
She was grateful for her warm, hooded coat. The flexin armor tunic wasn’t as warm as she’d expected.
At close to midnight, air traffic was light. The street level was nearly deserted except for automated security bots and roving camera eyes.
For reasons she couldn’t guess, this neighborhood’s streets and buildings were as brightly lit as any entertainment district.
But with no restaurants or pubs to draw people in, it felt like walking through a ghost town or after-hours in a poorly designed immersive-experience park.
Even the quiescent construction sites had all-hours lighting. Yet another Ridderth mystery.
She wouldn’t be out walking at all, except that exercise helped with the joint pain. Plus, inviting herself on Brenner’s nighttime rounds seemed like a safe way to get to know the new neighborhood. He’d be doing it anyway, with or without her.
While she, Brenner, and the team had been off planet for three standard weeks, Novo G’s security department discovered that someone had published her home address on the public net.
She canceled the townhouse lease while still in the hotel on Concordance Prime.
Novo-G saved her tech and abandoned the rest.
Once she and Brenner returned to Ridderth, it had been easy enough to move into the new six-room flat. They’d both been traveling with all their personal gear.
Her imagination balked at organizing a lifetime’s collection of belongings, plus children and pets.
Mostly because she couldn’t imagine having them in the first place.
The fundamental beliefs from her upbringing were long gone, but little ones, like the insidious price of being owned by possessions, had stuck with her.
Traveling with Tapio had been like joining a frontier colonization caravan.
Between his group marriage’s multiple spouses and three generations of offspring, plus their spouses and offspring, endless gravcarts of luggage, and the small army that comprised their combined security and personal staffs, they’d occupied half a stellar cruise liner deck.
In Spires, they’d rented an entire tower of a fortress-like entertainment palace.
Tapio had invited her to travel in luxury free of charge as thanks for her string of top-trend stories that helped Novo G rake in record quarterly profits. She should have felt flattered and rewarded.
Instead, she’d chafed at the constant company and conversation and had to fend off well-meaning offers of wardrobe and appearance improvements.
More than once, she’d had to tell Tapio’s security teams to stop ordering hers around.
Brenner’s irritation meter had constantly hot-zoned, and hers wasn’t far behind.
Training herself to keep up her shields hadn’t helped her temper.
Once in the gleaming showcase city of Spires, though, the trip had proved worth the trouble.
Even from the upper back row of the stadium-sized High Court presentation hall, gargantuan holo displays showed them everything. Watching the greedy, unscrupulous settlement company called RSI brought to final justice had been deeply satisfying.
Her first galactic top-trend story had exposed how the company had vengefully destroyed a frontier planet’s entire ecology. The settlers had committed the outrageous sin of costing the company decades of profit by paying off their settlement debt early.
However, despite the damning evidence the settlers presented in court at the time, the only consequence to RSI at the time had been a fine that equaled two days’ profits. The settlers had never received their new planet. In an industry known for minimal ethics to begin with, RSI was notorious.
The case that eventually nailed them was forty years old. Thousands of legal analyses chronicled the twists and turns that finally forced the company into the Concordance High Court for judgment. Betting brokers had the verdict at even odds.
For once, justice prevailed. The court ordered RSI to be dismantled and sold off for parts. The proceeds would pay restitution to four billion people in recompense for the planet it had outright stolen from them. Any remaining balance would go to other adjudicated but unpaid claims.
Her satisfaction that Polaris-G settlers would get reparations was tempered by doubts about the original story she’d published.
Seen through the clarifying lens of hindsight and years of experience, she suspected she and everyone else had missed the much bigger story of the Citizen Protection Service as puppet master.
The frontier Pol-G planetary government had been in no hurry to accept the standard invitation to become a full member of the Central Galactic Concordance. They’d also refused to sell the bulk of their planet’s unexpectedly valuable resources to the government at a steep discount.
Arco now believed the CPS, with its self-righteous and Machiavellian definition of keeping the galactic peace, lured the planetary government into noisy public defiance, then goaded RSI into vicious retaliation.
She loved being a journalist. Loved discovering hidden facts, laying bare the good and bad, finding the connections, and sharing the stories. Feel-good and fluff stories were a delight, but true justice fluxed her drives the most.
It now seemed that every significant story she’d ever published involved the CPS, sooner or later. She hadn’t seen that coming.
Getting the mental shields had forced her to take a hard look at her past and future choices. Careless missteps had caused trouble and pain for people who’d gone out of their way to protect her. Including the man walking with her at midnight in the rain.
She nearly ran into Brenner when he stopped under another overhang.
“Arco.” He gave her an acerbic look. “If you aren’t paying attention, we’re wasting time.” His usually stoic expression settled into a frown.
Internally, she winced at his disapproval. At least she’d finally convinced him to call her by her first name like the rest of the team did.
A trio of flying camera eyes hovered above them for a moment. Annoyance crossed his face as he flicked a glance at them. The cameras wobbled a bit, then flew away.
“I’ll remember everything.” Guilt overrode her defensiveness. He probably wanted to be home, warm and dry. “You should quit.” His eyes widened, and she regretted the words instantly. “I’m sorry. I don’t want you to. But I don’t want you to feel obligated, either.”
Exasperation crossed his face. “Is this about me telling Devanesh to launch herself ass-first into the fusion furnace?”
“Hell, no.” She smiled at the memory. “That was glorious.”
While Arco had been in a meeting, Novo Granica’s security chief had cornered Brenner to accuse him of selling Arco’s home address. She’d tried to terminate him on the spot. When he’d pinged Arco with the news, Tapio overheard it and marched down to Devanesh’s office.
Tapio’s genial-great-uncle veneer hid a volcanic temper and razor-sharp vocabulary.
She would treasure forever the memory of seeing Devanesh forced to meekly apologize to Brenner and pledge to cease all investigation of him.
Not that she would, of course, but she’d be more careful about accusations.
Arco looked down at her muddy boots. “I just… don’t want anyone else hurt because of me.
” She blew out a forceful breath, creating clouds of steam.
“I took unfair advantage when I recruited you. I’m no better than the crew you rescued Pavari Haseem from.
I should have left you alone. Or used my finder talent to locate and transfer one of Davidro’s myriad hidden funds accounts.
You deserve better options than having to do security work for me to get out of the Canals, or off this planet. ”
His expression froze. She’d surprised him again. Several long moments passed. Finally, he met her gaze. “Why are you still on the planet?”
He deserved an explanation, even if she herself wasn’t sure of all the reasons. “It’s... tangled.”
The drizzle strengthened into a steady downpour as she organized her thoughts.
“I’ve never believed in fate or destiny, but lately, it’s been hard to hold that line.
The Charisma story started it. Then Davidro’s journals, finding you, losing my first security team.
I’ve gone off planet several times, but Ridderth keeps reeling me back in.
” A gust of wind chilled her face with a light mist from the rain.
“The new shields changed everything. Now I’m not just an observer, I’m a player. ”
His face gave nothing away, but his shoulders hunched slightly. Like she blamed him.
“That’s on me.” She was usually better with words than this. Better at not hurting people’s feelings. The need to comfort him with a touch rocked her. “You delivered the choice.” She caught his gaze. “I took it. I’d do it again, too.”
He looked away, then back. “If I quit, would you leave?” His remote tone matched his wooden expression.