24 – Tacitianus

  The bouncer with the chrome head-butting ridge was on duty when Hector walked up to the Velvet Strip a couple of hours later. Not that the guy was actively watching for customers; the club wasn’t open. He was just sitting in a chair inside the door, guarding it because it was unlocked.

  Like many successful businesses, Grando and his boys got to work early. Hector, in a far better mood than the day before, nodded to the thug, and the man nodded back. He seemed less hostile—maybe it was Hector’s confident stride, maybe it was his body starting to show the improvements of two levels’ worth of potentia.

  He’d gotten in a good workout back at the gym, and the funny thing was, he hadn’t been the only guy lifting weights in jeans. He’d spared his shirt and jacket by removing them, and, again, he hadn’t been the only shirtless guy in the place, either. Nobody had challenged him. Nobody had asked for his membership card. He hadn’t even seen Pete, so he had no idea who had opened the place up. Regardless, he’d had one of the best lifting sessions of his life—not because of the amount of weight, obviously, but just because of how damn good it felt.

  Two of the dancers on one of the stages, working through a routine, stopped what they were doing and watched him walk by. It took a minute, but Hector realized he knew one of them—Sadie. He looked at her, met her eyes with his, and maybe it was the endorphins left over from his workout, but for some damn reason he smiled and nodded.

  “Hey, Hector,” she said, her voice a little tremulous, like she wasn’t sure she’d made the right decision to speak to him.

  He paused and, careful to keep his eyes above her shoulders, replied, “Sadie.”

  “Um, this is Lexa.”

  The other girl waved, still looking to the side shyly. “Hey.”

  “Right.” Hector shrugged and gestured toward the back of the club. “I should—”

  Sadie hurriedly spoke, talking over him. “Just wanted to say thanks. I mean, for, you know…”

  Again, Hector’s damn tongue started moving on its own accord. “Wasn’t anything. I was in a bad mood, so—”

  “I get it! It’s okay.” Sadie smiled, then nudged Lexa. “Let’s go. Back to one.”

  Dismissed, Hector turned and, with the sound of their music accompanying his steps, walked toward the storage room. He wasn’t surprised to see Orin sitting at a table nearby, and when the enforcer looked up, Hector slowed and pointed to the door. “He in?”

  “Man, am I glad you’re an early riser!” Orin chuckled, pushing aside the sack of food before him. Hector smelled fried potatoes and eggs, and his mouth watered. “Yeah, he’s in there. How long you think you’ll be?”

  Hector shrugged. “Five minutes or an hour, depending.”

  “Okay. I’ll be out here. Cool if we take care of…that business we discussed?”

  Hector nodded, but stepped closer to the bruiser’s table. “How’d you gain levels?”

  “With my system, you mean? You know—used a scraper.” He shrugged.

  Hector held out his hand. “Let me see it.”

  Orin frowned, but he reached around to the back of his belt and pulled out a bronze-colored plasteel device that reminded Hector of the kind of brush you’d use on a dog, only the teeth were tiny diamond-glass probes with rounded tips. He took it and turned it in his hands, examining the maker’s mark: Brondak T-11. Careful not to grip the handle, he touched the trigger, and a set of micro needles snapped forth, right where someone’s palm would be if they were holding it properly. The probes would pull aura, and then the device would send it into the user’s bloodstream. “What grade?”

  “Grade?”

  “Yeah.” To Evie, he mused, Bronze, I’m guessing, because of the color. What do you think, Evie?

  //According to their local net page, that’s a “D-Grade” scraper and would actually be equivalent to what you consider “copper.”//

  Hector tried to keep his face neutral, hiding his disgust as he passed the device back to Orin. “You’re losing a lot of potentia by using that.”

  The enforcer frowned, doing nothing for his already frightening countenance. “Yeah? I know there are more expensive ones, but they aren’t exactly easy to come by down here.”

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  “How are we splitting?” Hector asked. He wanted to demand all scraping rights, especially considering Orin was wasting about eighty percent of the potentia by using that device, but he didn’t feel he had that kind of clout—yet.

  “Well, since you’re helping me out, how about two for you and one for me? You know, assuming we drop at least three guys.”

  Hector nodded.

  “Uh, Grando told me you could’ve scraped me. Thanks for holding back.”

  Hector turned back to the storeroom door. “Don’t thank me.” With that, he turned the handle and stepped into Grando’s “office.”

  The boss was sitting at his rickety little desk, as usual. He looked up, a burgeoning scowl fading as he saw it was Hector standing there. “There he is! Come on, Hector; I’ve got news.”

  Hector walked over and sat in the little chair before the desk. He was comfortable; the cold walk from the gym had stopped his sweating from his workout. Even so, he figured he probably smelled—if anyone got close enough to check. “I’m listening.”

  “Right, right. Well, first of all, the broker who sold me that skin—he bought it from a morgue in Redwick Station. Says the body was unclaimed and scheduled for recycling. The doc was crooked, of course, and reported the organs as damaged; that way he could sell the body to my broker friend.”

  “How’d he die?”

  “Right, right. Severed abdominal aorta. He was stabbed by something very damn sharp. Doc fixed up the damage, injected some nanites to condition the necrotic tissue, and then whatever technical mumbo jumbo they do to make a body into a, uh, skin.” He shrugged.

  “Okay, we know where the body came from. What about Chevalier? What about the magistrate?”

  Grando nodded, picking up a large coffee mug to take a sip. “Right! My connection in Redwick had plenty to say on those topics.” He set the mug down, then shook his head. “Long-story-short, if you get your ID straightened out, you won’t need to worry. Maybe avoid that town, but that’s no big deal. Plenty of towns in the system.”

  Hector shook his head, staring.

  Grando scowled, but thumped a heavy fist on his desk and said, “Fine! You want the details? I’ll give you the damn details!” He glowered for a minute, then, grumbling and muttering to himself, he opened his desk drawer and pulled out a fresh cigar. “Was saving this, but you stress me out, Hector.”

  Hector watched as he unwrapped the cigar and then, with a tiny blade that slid out of his forefinger with a snick, he sliced the tip off. Monoblade? Hector made a note of the wicked little weapon; Grando could slice someone’s carotid and they wouldn’t know it until their blood pressure dropped and the world tilted.

  “Okay,” the boss said, flicking away the blade and replacing it with a tiny, hissing torch. After sucking on the cigar and bringing it to life, he continued, “That skin you’re wearing belonged to a guy who was an aide to this magistrate asshole—Tacitianus or whatever. My boys in Redwick, they think he stole something from his boss.” He sucked on the stogie again, sighing as he exhaled. “I’m sure you can guess that whatever it was, it was important enough to kill for—maybe to die for.”

  “And you don’t want to touch it?”

  “Touch what? The situation?” Grando shook his head. “There’s more. If you hadn’t already guessed from his foppy-ass name, Tacitianus is connected; he’s a Royal.”

  “What family?”

  “Tacitus—you couldn’t guess?”

  “Ah.” Hector put the pieces together. Tacitus was a major house; Tacitianus was probably an off-shoot of distant cousins. “So he’s not a name-name.”

  “Well, not in the sense that someone really important might be at his beck and call, but he’s a hell of a lot more connected than you or me.”

  “He’ll have a decent aura system…”

  “Hector, you’re killing me. Can you please let this one go? There’s more to the story, okay? Listen: that skin you’re wearing had a sister, and she’s been looking for her brother. More importantly, my guys say Tacitianus is watching her. They haven’t taken her—probably because they don’t think she knows where Paul—your body—stashed the stolen goods, or maybe they think she won’t talk to anyone but him. Whatever the reason, they’re just watching, waiting. We’re talking skilled mercs—not bums like those rusters you rolled.”

  Hector nodded—not to agree with Grando about anything, but to calm him down. A lot of questions were running through his mind at that moment. What had Paul stolen that got him killed? It had to have been something good for him to screw up a cozy job as a magistrate’s aide, especially a connected one. Did the sister know something? Would she talk if she saw Paul’s body walking around with a different soul inside it, or would she freak out and make Hector her number one enemy? Not that it was his fault that he wound up with his current skin.

  Underlying those basic questions was a hunger that he hadn’t expected to be there; a desire to punish someone connected to the Empire. Tacitianus might not have had anything to do with the Contis’ slaughter or Hector’s betrayal, but he was part of the same machine, and hadn’t he already proven he was dirty? Those charges he’d slapped on Paul’s ID weren’t legitimate, and—

  “Hector? You there, man?”

  Hector blinked, rewinding the noise he’d heard while he was deep in thought—Grando babbling about bigger, better opportunities with a lot less risk. “I’m here. Listen, you want me to earn before we try that rift, right?”

  “Yeah, I do, but—”

  “You want me to be able to survive in there, right? Otherwise you’re out a hundred K for nothing.”

  Grando scowled, stuffed his cigar between his teeth and angrily huffed, sending plumes of smoke out of his nostrils a few seconds later.

  “I’ve got good instincts, Grando, and right now, they’re telling me to look into this thing.”

  “Son of a bitch,” the crime boss said around his cigar, “I’ve never heard you say so many damn words. I was wondering if you might be simple.” Hector glowered, and Grando shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “I’m just messing around, Hector. Listen, I have a feeling that it doesn’t matter if I agree. All I’m saying is I dropped a pretty penny on that skin, and you aren’t close to paying that debt off yet. You want—”

  “I want into that rift. I need you for that. Have a little faith, Grando.”

  “A little faith? You gonna split the haul with me—whatever you find out there in Redwick Station?”

  Hector grinned. “We’re partners, aren’t we?”