Nine #2
The first time they met, she read the undeserved arrogance of youthful masculinity in every bit of his manicured look.
Clean-shaven jaw, hair gelled into place as tidily as an ikebana flower arrangement, expensive designer clothes—pressed trousers, polished shoes, tailored shirt made of true cotton, double-breasted nuwool overcoat that made him look far more seasoned and distinguished than his tender twenty-five years.
Even his use of old-faith profanities, which might’ve been quaint in someone else, came off as faux cultured and pretentious.
She almost didn’t take him on. In her experience, young men could be terrible at taking direction from an older woman.
But even after she humiliated him in training exercises, questioned his potential, and tried to brush him off, he refused to be dissuaded.
He was desperate to learn, vowed to work hard, admitted he didn’t care for the longknife but would do anything to become an atier.
His cocky manners and appearance, she realized, were shields he wore over his artless earnestness, a counterweight to the insecurity that spawns at the three-way intersection of intelligence, ambition, and cynicism.
Isako’s trained several apprentices, but considering how he started out, Martim’s the one she’s most proud of.
When, to everyone’s shock except hers, he snagged as his first Principal contract the most coveted and difficult atier position in Tenacity, she wasn’t sure whether to congratulate or pity him.
Some contractors refuse to work in SoCon GasPro no matter how good the status and pay because of Sandbar Uchi’s reputation for being a demanding, capricious client; he dismissed two previous atiers within a year of hiring them.
Dragonfly Martim accepted the challenge.
That was more than three years ago. By all accounts, he’s overcome all the odds and become Sandbar Uchi’s most trusted aide. And the one who’s likely to know him best.
That’s reason enough for Martim to avoid Isako altogether.
They haven’t kept in close touch; that’s her fault more than his.
When she shows up in SoCon GasPro, he’s sure to suspect she’s on assignment.
If he thinks she might jeopardize his client’s interests, he’ll be duty bound to block her at every turn, and if necessary, eliminate her as a threat.
Which is why she hopes to catch him unexpectedly and under false pretense.
She doesn’t mean him harm, but she’s going to have to lie to his face and milk him for as much information and access as she can get before he wises up.
She has a story ready: She’s a ronin now—believable, since it’s what she believed herself when she and everyone else saw Greves walk into the Vastness—so she’s calling in every favor, reaching out to her old colleagues and all her former apprentices to see if there’s a chance any of their divisions would want to hire her, even as a washed-up subcontractor.
She’ll offer to do any sort of job, on or off the record, for far less pay than her usual Agency rates.
A division as rapidly growing and prosperous as SoCon GasPro will have work that needs to be done as well as the funds to pay for it.
Even though it’s been a few years, she hopes Martim will feel an uncomfortable sense of obligation toward his mentor during her time of need.
It’s galling that she’s going to have to pretend to be pathetic and desperate in front of her former apprentice, but it’ll be the cover under which she can ask him all sorts of questions about his client and how SoCon GasPro is run.
Martim is her way into the division and her best chance to get close to Sandbar Uchi.
Whatever guilt she has about this plan is alleviated by the knowledge that he would do the same if their positions were reversed.
All contractors know that personal loyalty extends only so far.
The apartment’s lobby is quiet. A generic piece of abstract art hangs on the wall over the security desk between two planters of aloe vera.
Isako approaches the desk and announces that she’s here to visit Dragonfly Martim in #2031.
She recalls that he keeps late hours, so there’s a good chance he was working or entertaining himself well into the night and she’ll catch him still asleep.
The bellman hesitates. “I’m sorry, you must be mistaken. No one by that name lives here.”
“You can cut the bullshit,” she says. “I’m sure that’s what he told you to say if any strangers came looking for him, but I got this address straight from the Agency directory.”
The man blinks rapidly. His eyes flick down to her triggersheath. “Is he expecting you?”
“No,” she admits, “but we’re old friends. He was my apprentice. Call him up and ask him.” When the bellman continues to look at her suspiciously, she lets a little exasperation into her voice. “If I was lying, do you think I’d come through the front door and announce myself at the desk?”
“Wait here. I’ll fetch the manager.” The bellman leaves.
He doesn’t seem hostile, but Isako puts a hand under her coat near her triggersheath and evaluates the lobby’s layout while she waits.
Could it be possible that Minto’s scheme has already been compromised and Uchi’s people were somehow warned of her arrival?
No, impossible. She arrived in SoCon GasPro only yesterday, was at the Agency less than eighteen hours ago. Too early for there to be a trap. She forces herself to take a steady breath and relax. The years of warfare have made her paranoid.
The bellman returns with an older, hassled-looking man wearing a rumpled suit.
“If you’re here to see Mr. Martim, I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” the manager informs her.
“He hasn’t been back to his apartment for weeks.
We’ve tried calling and leaving messages but haven’t received a response. Perhaps you know where he’s gone?”
Constance said that Martim appeared to be unreachable as of late. But not coming home at all? That’s very strange. “When was the last time anyone saw him?”
The manager pulls out a screen and checks the security records. “Thirty-three days ago.”
“He didn’t mention going away or leave any notice of when he’d be back?”
“No, nothing. He travels for work frequently, but he would usually notify us if he was going to be gone for an extended amount of time.”
“Did anything unusual happen on the last day he was here?”
The manager reviews his records again, but shakes his head. “The security system registered him as leaving via the upper skybridge at six forty-five, which was his typical route to division headquarters. He kept irregular hours.”
“Let me take a look inside his room,” Isako says.
“That’s not allowed,” the manager says, but then he reconsiders with a sigh. “I suppose there’s no harm in it at this point. Unless we hear from the occupant, the apartment will be declared vacant after eight weeks. After that, it’ll be cleared out and given to a new tenant.”
He takes her in the elevator up to the top floor, walks her to the door of the unit, and unlocks it.
A whiff of stale air greets her as she steps inside.
She wrinkles her nose. Martim’s apartment is smaller and more sparsely furnished than she expects.
Given his position, he must be extremely well paid, but perhaps he doesn’t see any point in spending scrip on a place where he doesn’t spend much time.
Discarded take-out meal containers sit on the kitchen counter, scraps of food dried and molding within.
The stiff, infrequently used sofa faces a wallscreen that’s silently playing media previews on an endless loop.
On the coffee table is a stained mug, sheets of strawpaper, and a used sleepstim dispenser.
Nothing in the apartment seems out of place.
Admittedly, the view from the floor-to-ceiling windows is stunning—a panoramic south-facing vista of Tenacity Cityhab’s chalky urban grid of concrete, metal, and plastiwood, all the way out to the unbroken Vastness.
Martim’s twenty-story apartment building is one of six that flank the north side of division headquarters.
Isako was impressed by the grand SatOps tower, but SoCon GasPro has three towers, each as large as Minto’s entire command center—enormous black cylindrical columns designed to artfully resemble the emission stacks that are so vital to human progress.
They reach up nearly to the allowable height limits, above which the airshield shimmers protectively.
In the early-morning light, Isako can make out the slight distortion in the sky behind the towers, like the temporary flicker of poor resolution on a holosim, an imperfection in the nature of reality.
The black pillars surround a translucent central dome, symbolizing the airshield-protected cityhab.
A representation of human civilization in miniature: the city grandly flanked by the engines of terraforming.
No disguising the fact that the division views itself as the core of the Company.
Gleaming skybridges connect the apartment complexes with headquarters so that wagemen can travel easily to and from their beds to their workplace at all hours.
Inside the apartment’s single bedroom, the building manager watches, nervous and impatient, as Isako walks around the bed and dresser, not sure what she’s looking for.
She feels intrusive, examining Martim’s personal belongings.
His enormous closet is the most organized and lived-in part of his entire residence, with rows and rows of neatly hung clothes and racks of shoes, boots, and hats.
There’s no sign that he packed to go on an extended trip or that he left in a hurry.
Nor are there any signs of violence or the apartment having been broken into or searched.
She does notice that his personal screen is nowhere to be seen, nor his longknife and triggersheath.
It makes sense that he would’ve taken them with him, but he doesn’t seem to have taken anything else.
His razor and toothbrush are still beside the bathroom sink.
Martim isn’t the sort of person to abandon his apartment and walk away from his job.
At least, she doesn’t think he is. There’s a logical explanation for his odd behavior, though.
He could be following client orders. Uchi might’ve sent him somewhere, for some purpose they don’t want anyone to know about.
She’s about to tell the manager she’s done, that there’s nothing else to see here, when something draws her attention.
On Martim’s bedside table is an empty, single-dose drug injection pen.
It looks different from the generic, commonly available ten-dose sleepstim dispenser she saw on the coffee table in the other room.
This is a thin white plastic cylinder, no bigger than half a screen stylus.
She picks it up and rolls it between her fingers, noticing that the injection tab’s been depressed and the pen is empty.
There’s tiny print on the side: Sudexatrine 02 .
The only other things on the bedside table are a lamp and a framed photo of Martim in graduation robes with his arm around the shoulders of a smiling, middle-aged woman with mousy-brown hair, tired blue eyes, and dimples.
Isako opens the drawer, half expecting to find condoms or porn, but there’s only a pack of chewing gum, and a plastic coaster—a giveaway promotional item from what appears to be a bar or nightclub called Epic Vibe.
Across the printed logo of a sexy, reclining female silhouette holding a martini glass, a name has been scrawled in ink: Vincent , followed by the words Monday 24-26, 2nd floor .
Isako drops the empty injection pen and the plastic coaster into her coat pocket. “Has anyone else come looking for Martim?” she asks the manager over her shoulder. “Anyone else been up here?”
“There’ve been people calling around, asking if he lives here. Reporters, mostly. But no other contractors, if that’s what you mean. Do you know where he’s gone and if he’ll be back?” The man looks hopeful she can give him answers.
She can’t. “Thanks for your help.”
She takes the elevator back down to the ground level. She walks less than a block from Martim’s apartment when a boxy car with tinted windows pulls up beside her and the rear passenger window slides down.
“Isthmus Isako,” drawls a curly-haired man in sunglasses. “I wouldn’t have expected to find you in this part of town. Word on the street is that you’re a ronin.”
“Condor Anand.” She keeps walking. “You know better than to believe rumors.”
The car pulls ahead of her and stops. It’s a shiny new combustion vehicle, grumbling and emitting white steam. The rear door opens.
“Get in. Let’s talk about your future prospects,” Anand says casually, but with enough chilly insistence for his words to hover between invitation and order.
Getting into a vehicle where she can’t draw her weapon puts her entirely at the mercy of someone who might not be letting her back out with a pulse.
It’s a bad idea—but Isako wants to know what she’s up against, and there are few people in the Company better at knowing everyone’s business than the atier they call the Puppetmaster.
She gets inside. The door closes behind her and the car starts moving again.