The City of Stars, just across the new arched bridge that resembled one from Old Earth, centuries past. He could almost make outhisapartment building, far across the bridge, amid the stacked slums.
“What’s going on?” Cade asked. He ripped a needle from his arm, hissing through his teeth at the pain. “What do you want from me? I’ll… go to the authorities, if you don’t explain.”
Geisinger smiled a wolf’s smile. “You’re a criminal, Mr. Kingston. I wouldn’t suggest you do that.”
Pure silence, thick and uncomfortable, as the man simply sat and watched Cade fumble for reality.
“If you hurt my brother…”
“Your brother is the least of my concerns,” Geisinger said. “I understand he is the greatest of yours, though. I also understand that you are not in the position, judging by the joyful little conversation you shared with Jeb Montforth last night in the West Sector, to truly protect your brother right now. Your ship is locked away in an ITC storage bay, and there is no hope of it ever getting out.” He looked at a golden watch on his wrist. A strange, ancient thing. “Right about now, there’s a team of men about to uncover a thousand kilos of Stardust in the walls of your ship. You’ll be locked away for life, and your brother… well, he’s only eighteen, and with twenty being the new age of adulthood on Beta Earth, it means he’ll be sent back into the system. And with his record, I can assure you, it won’t bode well for him. He’ll probably spend a lifetime melting trash on Old Earth. A few days there, and it’s likely he’ll contract the Reaper’s Disease.” He sighed. “I believe these are all problems you must solve, Mr. Kingston. And I can help you solve them.”
Cade’s pulse raced, beeping as some hidden scanner in the room kept track of his vitals.
What in the hell was going on? He crossed his arms, wincing as he saw all the bruises, and glared at the polished monster across from him. “What do you want from me?”
Friedrich leaned further back in his chair, as if he were prepared to take a nap in the sunlight that was now streaming through the wall of glass.A warm chuckle came from him, so out of place in this strange, stark moment. “Confusion is a funny thing, Cade. Shall I call you Cade?”
Cade nodded.
“Very good.” He leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as much as his tightened skin would allow. “I’m not one to waste time, because it requires much of me. I’ll get straight to the point. You and I have a common enemy, Cade. The Reaper’s Disease has plagued Old Earth for centuries. It’s since stretched past the borders, carried to other planets across the stars. A silent killer. Your parents, I believe, spent their entire adult lives searching for the cure?”
Cade nodded.
“I’ve spent a lifetime searching for the cure, as they once did. And I believe, Cade, that I may have finally found it.”
Cade’s mouth fell open. “You…” He almost laughed… but then he stopped himself. Because here, for the very first time, he saw an opportunity. A glimmer of hope.
“I’ve recently acquired a dwarf planet on the edge of the galaxy. It’s not one commonly known—a newly discovered one, I might add. To most, it’s useless. A poisonous atmosphere, and too small to bother wasting precious resources to send colonizers too. But it belongs to me now. And it holds a secret, Cade. A secret I intend to be the first to uncover.”
Cade’s head spun.
Geisinger Corp was a pharmaceutical kingdom that spread its wings across the stars, and the man before him, who’d put Cade up in this shimmering room and saved his life, despite the fact that Cade stillfelthe was in danger… Friedrich Geisinger was the leader of it all.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” Cade asked.
Geisinger leaned forward. “Geisinger Corp is a burgeoning business. And as soon as your ship is cleared, I plan to send you on a job to retrieve, quite possibly, the greatest substance in the history of medical advancement. The Reaper’s Disease will be eradicated. And Old Earth… perhaps she may yet stand a chance of recovery.”
The door suddenly opened beyond the silver curtain, and the red-lipped nurse shuffled in.
“Sir? There’s someone here to see you.” Her tone was perfectly even, her smile and her lush curls so motionless it was like they were sculpted out of clay. The red light in her eye flashed twice.
Geisinger nodded. “I’ll be right with you.” He turned back to Cade as the nurse scurried away. “If you accept my offer, and agree to my terms in silence, I will reshape your very existence. You and your brother will become men worthy of your last name. You will be as rich as kings.”
Kings.
Cade churned the word around in his mind, and with it, Jeb’s face appeared, that snarl and sneer, that jagged scar and his words last night,notforgotten even with all the alcohol.
To accept this job would be to double-cross Jeb. It would be to put Karr’s life in certain danger.
But this was Friedrich Geisinger, seated before him, a man so powerful he made Jeb look like a slug.
Cade leaned his head on his fist and looked casually at Friedrich Geisinger, as if he were only mildly interested. “What exactly do you want me to recover?”
“That’s the only stipulation I have, Cade,” Friedrich said. He removed a small disc from his pocket,set it on the bedside, and tapped it once.
Light beamed from it, casting a hologram in the air just above.
There was nothing but a single solid line that snaked to life, a black X criss-crossing just beside it.
