The Last Contract of Isako

One

ONE

Fuck Earth.

Two names remain on Isthmus Isako’s list of wagemen to dismiss from the Company.

Only two, thank all the gods of old Earth that Isako doesn’t believe in.

She’s sick of handing out notices, of being the bad guy, even though it’s part of her job, the part that people know and hate her for.

At this stage in her career, she ought to be settling into some sort of comfortable wise-elder role, one that affords undisputed respect yet pleasant anonymity.

Things didn’t work out that way.

She finds both men drinking in quiet dread together in a dive bar at the north end of Tenacity Cityhab, where none of their former colleagues in Astrocommunications might recognize them.

The stench of stale beer and leafsmoke assaults her nostrils as soon as she walks through the doors of the Oxygn Bar.

She does a quick, instinctive threat assessment, but there’s no ambush lying in wait.

Just a couple dozen wagefolk huddled in small groups over muted conversation and mugs of heated ale.

They lift faces bland with disinterest until they catch sight of the triggersheath strapped to her thigh.

Contractor.

Isako doesn’t need to hear the word on their lips to sense the nervous hostility.

If these were better times, she’d be met with nods of respect.

If she were in an Astrocom neighborhood, if this were a year of peace and expansion, she’d be greeted by name and they’d make room for her at the bar and someone would offer to buy her a drink, angling to get on her good side, maybe have her put in a word for them with the boss.

Now they turn their eyes away. War’s over. They know why she’s here.

Dew Loren and Wolf Wyatt are at a small round table in the back. She recognizes them from the photographs in their personnel files but also because they’re old-timers in the division. Isako pulls a chair over to the table, not too close, and sits down on the edge of it, both feet firm on the floor.

“Would you rather do this here, or go somewhere more private?”

She keeps her voice professional but considerate. Lowered, but firm. What’s happening to them isn’t personal, but they need to understand it’s nonnegotiable.

Loren, the curly-haired older man, raises eyes that’re weary and bloodshot but unsurprised.

He shrugs. “Might as well do it here. What does it matter?” He doesn’t bother to keep his voice down.

Nearby bar patrons look over at their table in pity, but he ignores them.

Loren’s always been like that. Straightforward.

Unflinching. Not afraid to point shit out for what it is. Isako likes that about him, always has.

She doesn’t know much about Wolf Wyatt. Thirty-six years old, unmarried, no kids.

Short but muscular, lifts weights and takes protein supplements and wears tight shirts to show it.

Reputedly the best futsal player in the division, even used to play on the Astrocom Stars, back when they still had a team worth watching.

She’s heard he’s a great guy to work with if you get along with him and an asshole if you don’t.

Wyatt’s leaning around the table, the glare he’s fixing on her as fierce as his kith namesake.

Don’t do it, Isako thinks at him. Don’t try. We all knew this was coming. There’s nothing any of us can do about it except keep our dignity.

She can tell when a wageman’s reached a breaking point and is about to do something stupid. It’s a feeling she gets, the way some people who work beyond the airshield say they can feel in their bones the coming of a drystorm.

Isako takes off her hat and gloves and lays them on the table.

She doesn’t see steam as she exhales. Springtime, a new year after seven months of winter, finally warm enough for her to feel all her fingers and toes, even in the low-heat-ration areas of the cityhab.

She pulls a screen from the inside pocket of her jacket, begins to unfold it on the table.

She brings up Loren’s dismissal notice first. “Dew Loren,” she says, keeping her voice the same, her expression unchanged. “I regret to inform you that your position as senior—”

Wyatt lunges.

He chooses the moment when her hands are busy, her attention on the screen and the other man. Figures she won’t be able to react quickly, not before he gets to her with the shiv he pulls from his sleeve.

Isako’s chair flies backward as she explodes out of it.

Muscle memory takes her from a still, seated position directly into dynamic Fourth Stance— Meeting the Storm —back heel planted, weight low and forward, angled away from the path of her attacker.

She has plenty of time to get there, relatively speaking—a whole second, with the curve of the table between them.

The heel of her left palm pops the top of the triggersheath forward.

Automatic motion, faster than thought. The longknife ejects with lethal silence into her waiting right hand.

Forty-five centimeters of high-carbon Aquilon steel slashes down across the inside of Wyatt’s forearm, severing tendons and spasming the makeshift weapon from his fingers, before reversing and driving upward under his rib cage.

She barely has to push; the wageman’s momentum helps her, impales his heart onto the blade.

She looks into his face—contorted with fear and pain and oddly trusting relief.

His hands come up and paw weakly at her shoulders as she strains against his weight.

He’s not as tall as her, has to raise his chin for them to lock eyes.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

He slumps forward into her. Isako lowers him to the ground gently.

She pulls the longknife free and wipes it on a square of black microfiber cloth she carries in the inside breast pocket of her red peacoat, then sheathes it without looking, drawing the back of the blade across the mouth of the triggersheath, then sliding it in until it clicks back into place.

Every set of eyes in the bar is drilling hatefully into her back.

A man just tried to skewer her with a sharpened iron spike, but she’s the one they see as a murderer.

She’s tempted to turn around and point out what a bunch of fucking hypocrites they are.

As if they aren’t glad it was him and not any of them.

As if Wyatt didn’t choose suicide by trac, the coward’s way out, putting blood on her hands instead of doing the respectable thing and accepting his fate, which is what it is—no one’s fault.

But she’s been around long enough to know berating these wagefolk won’t change anything. Certainly won’t make them despise her any less. She’s just the messenger, but people have a long tradition of shooting messengers.

She lifts her collar and places a call to Cityhab Services.

The Oxygn Bar starts emptying out. Nothing like a dead man on the floor to ruin the vibe.

Dew Loren has gone pale as a summer sky and sweat has broken out on his brow, but he hasn’t moved from his spot. He looks down at his colleague’s body before sorrowfully finishing off the last of the beer in his mug. “I tried to talk him out of it.”

“I appreciate that.” Isako rights the fallen chair and sits back down zanshin in exactly the same way—on the front of the seat, feet planted, spine straight, enough space between her and the table that it won’t be in her way if she needs to move suddenly.

She doesn’t think Loren will try anything, but she’s a longkniveswoman and this is how she always sits in public settings, how she was trained to sit by her kithfather ever since she was a little girl.

“I wish he’d listened to you, but it’s not your fault he didn’t. ”

“Have a lot of folks been taking it badly?”

“Only a few.” Eleven out of two hundred, including Wyatt.

Not so bad. It wasn’t as if anyone was shocked by the dismissals.

That’s what happens when a division loses a war and gets taken over.

Anyone who can transfer out of Astrocom has done so already.

Loren’s like her, though. Been in the same place too long to have anywhere else to go.

He gestures at the screen impatiently. “Get on with it, then.”

Isako reaches back over and pushes it toward him.

She starts again, wanting to do it right.

“Dew Loren, I regret to inform you that your position as senior communications technician is being eliminated. Be assured this decision was made after careful consideration for the long-term health of Starhome Exploration Group and the future of human settlement on Aquilo. Unfortunately, at this time, the Company does not have another open position that fits your experience and qualifications.”

Loren doesn’t respond. Just stares straight at her while she talks, making her feel like shit.

“In recognition of your many years of hard work and service, the Company is pleased to offer you and your family a voluntary resignation package consisting of three years’ worth of wages, along with additional bonuses based on seniority and division performance, as detailed in the provided agreement.

Should you accept the terms, you’ll be granted seventy-eight hours to leave Company premises.

If you choose to decline, your employment will conclude, effective immediately, and all prior legal obligations between you and the Company are deemed null and void.

On behalf of the Executive and the Board of Directors of Starhome Exploration Group, I commend you on your successful career and your longstanding commitment to our shared vision of a more prosperous and secure future for all of humankind. ”

That’s where the speech ends. She’s doled out the formal Companyspeak claptrap so many times she’s sure she knows it better than whoever in Human Resources wrote it.