Breakaway Read online

  Since Rach had died, she still harbored the dream of escaping, but not with the aim of prodding the Verdant String to see if it had a conscience. She just wanted to get away.

  She drew in a deep breath, caught the smell of rotting lake weed at the back of her throat and coughed. It motivated her to start walking to the way station.

  Some of the children's parents might be like her, brought here as children themselves, with no choice in the matter. It had been fifteen years since she and Rach arrived with their parents, after all. Some of her contemporaries would have children of their own.

  But some of these children's parents had come recently as adults. They knew what they were doing, knew the Cores would let you in but would never let you leave, and even so, still had brought their children into the hellhole that was Tether Town.

  She had nothing but contempt for them.

  And this anger wasn't helping her get in the zone.

  Ugh!

  She shook her shoulders out, started going through the mental exercises she did every morning as she made her way to Felicitos.

  To get in the mood, she shook her arm to hear the crystal charms on her bracelet tinkle against each other.

  She thought about time spent with Rach, running up and down the scaffolding of Felicitos as it was being built. The thrill and fear as they ran across the thin metal walkways over the open core of the growing column. The times they'd run out onto the escarpment, picking the tiny purple flowers that grew everywhere, and then splashing in the stream that fed Lake Felicitos.

  They helped her find peace, so she had the reserves to deal with security at the entrance, the push and shove onto the hovers that ran up and down the center of the way station's core, the aura of entitlement that seemed to surround the top Cores employees.

  The only reason she could do this at all was the knowledge that she was tearing them down from the inside. But for the visualization, she'd have given herself away by now. Would have snapped.

  A year could feel like forever.

  The stream of people coming toward her suddenly swelled to a flood, as the night shift came off duty.

  The road, which the Cores only bothered to seal because it was a main route in for trade goods, was so much better than the muddy lanes everywhere else, that most people kept on it as long as they could before they had to turn off to their homes.

  She caught the eye of someone she knew from her street, gave a friendly nod, then reared back as the woman grabbed her arm, gripping just below her bracelet and causing the two of them to be jostled and bumped as commuters tried to get around them.

  “Got some ports?” The woman pulled her closer, eyes a little wild. “I'll pay you back.” The woman, she didn't even know her name, tightened her grip, her voice husky.

  Sofie stared, momentarily at a loss for words.

  She pulled her arm up and back, charms tinkling, and as she did, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man jerk forward, as if he planned to intervene.

  She ripped her arm back with even more force, and the woman let go, mouth slack.

  Before she carried on her way, Sofie pulled the one port she had left in her coat pocket from the handful Leo had given her and held it out.

  The woman took it, more subdued than she'd been before, and stammered a thank you as Sofie turned away, head down, and stepped back into the stream of workers, all headed for the way station.

  The rain started up again as she neared the main entrance, a light, steady fall. She pulled up her hood.

  So, they were still following her.

  Whoever they were.

  She was starting to doubt it was the Cores. For one, they were being more discrete than she thought the Cores were capable of. Secondly, they also seemed interested in her well being.

  The oppos who'd attacked her yesterday had been taken down. And they'd thought her neighbor was a threat for a moment there, and shown their hand.

  So it was either someone from the resistance, or it was Leo.

  She didn't know what to think of either of those options.

  If it was Zyr, he might have found out about her relationship with Leo, and decided to watch her, see if he could still trust her. If it was Leo . . .

  Well, he had said he was concerned for her safety.

  Either way, things had gotten out of hand.

  She would have to track both men down. Find out what was going on.

  She realized, as she stepped up to the two guards at the entrance and raised her arms to shoulder level for the security check, that life had suddenly become a lot more interesting.

  She knew getting involved with Leo would change things, but she was only just realizing it was going to change things irrevocably.

  Chapter 6

  As the line for the exec hovers moved forward, and Leo stepped closer to the front of the boarding platform, he nodded to a few of the high-flyers, either Cores or independents like himself.

  To his right, on a different platform altogether, the gen-pop queue shuffled and ground its way forward, too.

  The third platform, which only had two stops, ground level and the Deck, was for the transport hovers, and they had priority over everyone.

  Even if the hovers used for the executive option were as filthy, poorly maintained, and crowded as the gen-pop ones--and they were not--he'd still pay the hefty monthly fee to use them.

  The line for gen-pop snaked back to the entrance in a tightly-wound skein, and anyone getting in line at the back was looking at an hour's wait, at least.

  Water fell down the hoverway in glittering droplets, vented from the hovers' outlet pipes. It mirrored the rainfall outside, and he caught the whiff of liquid ammonia, the liquid fuel for the hydrogen fuel cells that powered the hovers.

  It was ancient tech.

  And yet, by going old school and cheap, by luck more than design, the Cores had solved two problems in one.

  They didn't need to vent exhaust fumes from the hoverway because hydrogen fuel cells didn't emit dangerous gases, they produced water; and they didn't need to bring in water--it fell from the hovers down into the massive water tank that sat just below the first floor platforms, and was then drawn back up through filtration systems, to be delivered to the apartments, restaurants and businesses in the way station in a pure, drinkable state.

  It was a good thing, too, given they'd polluted the lake.

  An executive hover rose up in front of the platform. He'd seen it going down on the other side of the hoverway earlier. It would have docked below, been given a quick interior clean, and then would have crossed over into the upstream.

  It was an efficient system, except at rush hour, like now, where there were too many people coming in for the hovers to handle.

  The gen-pop hovers didn't get a clean. They simply crossed from downside to upside, waited their turn if an executive hover was just in front or behind them, and then trembled and shuddered their way up to load up to the max, and sometimes over the max, if the pushing was vicious enough.

  He didn't miss those days.

  A concierge stepped out of the exec hover and held up a massive umbrella for him so he didn't get wet.

  He nodded his thanks, stepping inside with Finkle and Dee flanking him.

  The deal in exec was there were never more than five VIPs plus their entourage of two at any one time.

  This being rush hour, the full five execs stepped in.

  No one spoke to each other. Everyone went to a point as far from the others as they could, and Leo was no exception.

  “Sofie's just entered Felicitos,” Finkle said quietly.

  Leo couldn't help turning to the door, but it had closed already, and they were rising up.

  He wouldn't be able to see her, anyway, not if she was joining the back of the line.

  He would throw Finkle or Dee off in a heartbeat to get her in with him, save her the push and shove of gen-pop, but that would defeat the whole purpose of staying away.

  Nothing would co
me to the Core's attention faster.

  “Any problems? Carver notice anyone watching her?”

  Finkle shook his head, and Leo forced himself to drop the topic, pulling out his screen and firing off a list of instructions to his office manager.

  “You sure you want to be here?” Finkle asked.

  He raised his head. “If we don't make money, we get kicked out of Felicitos. We get kicked out of Felicitos, we die.”

  He shrugged as he spoke.

  Finkle knew the rules. They all did.

  Money made Garmen go around. If you didn't make a certain level of profit, you were out. The upside was the Cores couldn't touch you, by their own rules, as long as the tax you paid on that profit was over a certain amount.

  The reason some took their chances here, gambled with their future on Garmen or Lassa, the other Breakaway, was because that tax was minute compared to the tax a company paid on the Verdant String. But unlike a Verdant String Coalition planet, not a cent of it went toward education, housing, defense or law and order. It landed directly into the pockets of the Core Companies who'd claimed Garmen.

  Independent companies who operated with the Cores' permission made more profit, but they lived with a lot more uncertainty.

  And Leo knew the time of reckoning was coming. The lack of a stable, healthy, well-educated workforce who didn't live in fear of crime and violence was beginning to take its toll.

  The lack of good roads and good infrastructure was also a sticking point.

  Fifteen years after Garmen had been settled, the utter lack of social structure was starting to be felt.

  He knew how bad it was out beyond the escarpment, at the mine sites, as well. That's where he'd made his start. Where most of his wealth still came from.

  There were problems everywhere on Garmen, and Felicitos was just as dangerous as shadow prowler infested mountains, but as long as he paid his money to the Cores, they couldn't touch him openly.

  Covertly, of course, they had tried to kill him a number of times.

  They had to be getting desperate, because the attack in The High Flyer was in Felicitos itself. They'd never been so bold before. And they had to know they risked breaking the understanding everyone doing business in Felicitos lived by.

  If you made money, you were safe.

  Blaming his death on the wild crime on the streets was one thing, trying to assassinate him in the tethered way station had stepped over a line.

  “If they thought they could get away with it once inside Felicitos, there's nothing stopping them thinking they can get away with it again.” Finkle couldn't let it go.

  “I can't let them scare me away from the business. Then they've won anyway.”

  Finkle inclined his head, acknowledging the truth of that.

  The hover stopped at the first platform on the Upper Reaches, where most of the businesses on Garmen had their offices.

  Two execs got out, one a woman he recognized as one of the few corporate heads who sponsored a school in Tether Town. The hover slid up again, in cocooned silence.

  Two stories later, they stepped out, and he took a moment to enjoy the hush and the scent of well-made jah in the air.

  His office manager, Eunice, was behind her desk, and given the queues for gen-pop below, he could only imagine how early she'd had to come in to be settled in already.

  He regarded her for a moment, gray-streaked head bent over her screen, and wondered if she, too, had been bribed like Zan.

  He had to wonder that about everyone, now.

  “Leo.” She looked up and smiled. “Call just came in from that Core Company you were trying to do a deal with last month. They're finally ready to talk.”

  He exchanged a look with Finkle.

  It was true, the Core Company he'd approached had said they needed a few weeks to consider his offer. That they were reaching out now, two days after what he was sure was a Core-sponsored kidnap attempt, might or might not be significant.

  He shrugged. Business was business. He would go.

  Finkle was shaking his head. “It could be a trap.”

  “It could be a test to see if I'm too scared to go out and about.” Leo kept his gaze level.

  Finkle hesitated, then agreed with a nod. “We take a contingent. Meet in the open.”

  They both looked at Eunice, who was eyeing them with interest.

  “They want to meet outside the hover platform on this floor at the end of the day. Then go to an Upper Reaches bar for drinks.”

  That was standard. No alarm bells rang.

  Leo nodded. “You can confirm.”

  His screen buzzed in his hand, his comm set buzzed in his pocket, and Eunice's comm set on her desk tinkled a little tune.

  Looked like they didn't need to worry about making a profit this month, at any rate.

  Chapter 7

  Sofie had been jumpy all day.

  She'd kept her head down, worked hard in her cubicle, and made sure she was one step ahead on every problem, every request, so there was no need for face time with her manager or anyone else.

  No one seemed to notice her lack of engagement, and it left her profoundly relieved.

  She had convinced herself the Cores weren't the ones following her, but she still had room for a tiny sliver of doubt.

  She worked for Firnam Metals Trading, one of the biggest of the Core Companies, after all. Stepping inside this morning had felt a little like delivering herself into the hands of her enemies.

  The picture she was slowly building of the deals Firnam was doing, not just with the other Breakaway planet, Lassa, but also the planet Caruso, was starting to worry her.

  It had taken time for the full scope to become clear.

  Her job in Firnam was mid-level now, but she'd started at the bottom. In just a year, she'd worked her way up as those above her had either been promoted, fallen ill or been killed or maimed in street violence. There was a lot of turnover in a place where there was no deterrent to crime.

  Now she had a better salary, and a cubicle to herself, running on-planet logistics. Getting the ore from the mines to the furnaces, the metal from the furnaces to the way station.

  She only caught glimpses, now and then, of where the metal was going after it was traded on the Deck.

  That was usually the province of her manager, but he liked to drink a little too much on his night off, and was starting to make a habit of dragging his ass in late the next day.

  Twice he'd had to give her one-time codes to access his documents from her screen, and she'd been careful to write down what she'd seen in the only untraceable way there was. With pencil and paper.

  The information was sitting in plain sight on her desk, rolled up inside the printed list of company rules every employee received, tied with a silver bow that matched the company's logo.

  She studied it as she cleared her desk of paperwork and slid her screen into a drawer and locked it away.

  No one with any sense took their screen home if they lived in Tether Town.

  It would be stolen, and the Cores did not take kindly to their employees losing company equipment.

  If she were lucky, they'd dock her for the screen. Most likely, she'd lose her job.

  She reached out and picked up the tightly rolled paper tube.

  She needed to speak to Zyr.

  She should have contacted him with what she'd learned earlier, especially regarding Firnam's dealings with Caruso; the dark, vicious planet ruled by a dictator and his thugs that had the Verdant String and all other sentient life in the galaxy worried.

  The secretive race that inhabited Caruso were its planet's natural inhabitants, unlike the people of the Verdant String, who were interlopers who'd traveled to the eight planets--seven, now that Halatia was uninhabitable--from some mysterious other place.

  They hadn't taken their planets from other indigenous occupiers though. The planets they'd settled hadn't yet produced intelligent life. And by the time the other sentient races had encountere
d the Verdant String, the eight planets had already found each other again after centuries apart, and had formed a coalition based on their shared common heritage, even if the alliance sometimes had its ups and downs.

  They were a force to be reckoned with, though. One every other intelligent being who'd come across them had decided to leave alone.

  Well, except the rebels of the Faldine War. But they had learned their lesson.

  The Breakaways were another story.

  Although they were populated by former Verdant String citizens, they couldn't rely on the VSC to have their backs. Not when they'd turned their backs on the VSC.

  The greed planets, the Breakaways were called.

  Unlike the Verdant String, with its economic equality, its insistence on everyone taking a turn at public office in some form, no exceptions, and its citizen's dividend, the two Breakaways were all about profit only for those who could control the means of making it. Where might was right and only those who could pay could play.

  And the Cores made sure very few were paid enough to play.

  The Verdant String didn't like the formation of the Breakaways. They thought everything about the two planets was an affront, but they'd been unwilling to fight a war over the matter, so they'd reluctantly let them be.

  If they knew Garmen, at least, was getting into bed with Caruso . . . Sofie didn't think that hands-off state of affairs would continue.

  Caruso was too aggressive. Too dangerous.

  Forget the trampled rights of the children of those who'd moved to Garmen that Rach had been focused on, Sofie bet the VSC would act if they thought Garmen and its fellow breakaway, Lassa, were taking a military turn.

  She pushed the roll of paper down into her inner jacket pocket, made sure everything else on her desk was secure, and walked out.

  She needed to find Zyr, but if she hurried, she might just be in time to catch Leo first.

  She knew he worked at home most nights, that he kept normal shift hours in Felicitos.

  She should be able to find him before he left.

  As she stepped out into the general walkway, she checked the queues for the hover--not as bad as the morning run, but still significant--and made her way to the stairwell.