“I’ll keep the offer in mind,” I said. If I could direct the psycho girl to the proper targets, she could be invaluable, but no way was I letting her live here. I’d have to transition her, and then I’d have a fawning thrall who’d likely kill anyone who came near me.
“What are we riding after as yoursupport?”
“Remnants of MSA in bed with the Hand of the Law and the military and the Gov. We’re going to take them down for a hundred-kilometer radius, starting with the January delivery of your lovely tequila. To sweeten the deal, I have a list of three people in your upper echelon who are taking payments for intel from outside sources.”
“You do not. Ain’t possible.”
I hadn’t taken off my gloves after the riders left, so I slid a small piece of folded paper across the bar. “Names and who they’re reporting to. I’d like to see the people receiving info disappear. It’s possible they have leverage over your people, so I also want you to handle this quietly and save your people if possible. We got a deal?”
He stared at the small slip of paper. “Deal.” He put out his hand and wrapped his fingers around the names of his traitors. He dropped it in a pocket and rubbed his fingers along his jeans as if to rub off my cooties.
I lifted my eyebrows, amused. I liked being a minor source of fear to Whip. A big source would have been a threat he’d get rid of. A small one could manipulate him.
???
The place was empty. The silence was amazing. One single day and night surrounded by voices, bikes, music, and the noise of humans, and I was already tired of it. I sat at the corner table in the empty bar and dug into my lunch. No one talked, just the way I liked it.
Lunch for Amos, Cupcake, and me consisted of salads from the greenhouse and some grilled pre-war SPAM someone had traded for drinks, with water and beer. When I was satisfied, I sat back in the wooden chair and looked around. Cats were everywhere, some asleep, some playing.
Jolene’s bot was nowhere to be seen, but her cameras in the UC were suddenly displayed on the screen. “Shining. The kid’s awake.” The vid showed he was moving under the clear lid, talking. Amos took off for the UC like his tail was on fire. Cupcake followed more slowly. I waited, watching as Amos entered the UC and opened the med-bay’s clear cover. The kid was talking as Amos covered his privates with a sterile pad to give the kid some dignity. That was one reason I liked Amos so much.
“He’s calling for Shining Smith,” Jolene said through the speakers.
“On my way,” I said. I left the dishes. Cats leaped to the table to lick the plates. Spy and Tuffs followed me. Curious as cats.
In the urgent care unit, I shoved my hands into my pockets. The kid was coughing as the unit beeped and informed him it was giving him more meds.
Cupcake pressed a button on the med-bay’s surface to halt the pain meds.
The kid looked up at us, his body emaciated, his eyes dilated. Shock zinged through me. He was bandaged, tubes poked in everywhere. Up close, the kid looked worse than expected. Way worse. He looked like death.
Rage followed shock. Pop’s words and accent came through my mouth. “Bloody damn, kid. Who’s the sodding arsehole what buggered you up?”
“Shining!” Cupcake said.
“Sorry,” I said absently, my eyes not leaving the kid.
“You talk like he said you would,” the kid said. “You her? Shining Smith?”
“I’m Shining.”
“Prove it. Take off your glasses,” the kid ordered.
If he hadn’t looked like he’d die at any moment I’d have told him what to do with his command, but I pulled off my 2-Gen sunglasses to reveal my weird orange eyes, the remnants of the infection with wartime nanobots that had left me a contaminated infector.
With a pale hand, the kid pointed to his things, which the med-bay had piled in a corner. Amos pulled a bag from a bloody pocket and yanked over a rolling bedside table.
The kid watched. “You’un got to help us,” he said. “We’ens ain’t got nobody else.”
You’ns. We’ens. The dialect marked him as a Tennessee kid. Before he could say anything else, the med-bay beeped to indicate an emergency and the cover came down again.
The triage med-bay filled with gas to immobilize and sedate a wounded warrior. The see-through lid darkened, and the boy was lost to sight as the device went to back to work.
On the table was a blood-smeared envelope and a piece of metal.
“Amos,” I said softly.
The big man opened the envelope and unfolded the single piece of paper inside, pressing it flat on the table, but not reading it. Even Cupcake didn’t crowd close.
