“You break the chair, you pay for the chair,” I said.
“Noted,” Jagger said.
Jacopo leaned onto one armrest of his own chair and draped his other arm across the back of it, an amused expression on his face.
Yeah. We were posturing. Even a teenager knew it.
Jagger let himself down to all four legs and his business face fell over his features, the one that said he’d kill at a whim, and not to push him too far. “The Prez of the top five clubs, and McQuestion, have uncovered the name of a high level Gov. official who’s potentially working with the Dark Riders. They plan to acquire him and want to keep him at the roadhouse.”
I busted out laughing.Bluster and pretension over. Bring out the guns. Got it.
“Acquire?” I asked, my tone a challenge rather than asking for clarification. “As in akidnapof a Gov. official?” I waved away his answer before he could begin. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter. No can do, Enforcer, even if I wanted to go up against the Gov. I already have a full house.”
I tapped my morphon, as I said, “Jolene, put up the Urgent Care pics and adjust the medbay lids so the faces, and only the faces, of the patients can be seen.” Because that sounded too much like an order to a thrall, I added, “Also, please be so kind and put the pics up on the screen over the bar.”
“Sure, Sugar. Hey Jagger, Jacopo,” she said, though her bot-body was nowhere in sight.
“Jolene,” they said, together.
A moment later, Marconi’s son sucked in a breath and he started to rise.
“Before you get all pissed off,” I said, “your father has been informed. Jolene, run the vid from Mina’s arrival this morning.”
“Up and running,”
To give the kid credit, he sat down, pretended to relax, and didn’t look away from the screen. He didn’t seem to react at all, which meant he had been learning from Jagger. Jacopo watched the vid play through and then replay. Jolene, watching on cams, shut off the screens and the music after the third replay, without me asking. Her understanding of humanpsychology was becoming as ESP-ish as the cats, which worried me, but there was nothing I could do about that either.
“What’s she on?” Jacopo asked.
Adult question. I decided to give him an adult answer. I hoped I didn’t wound him. “After she considered killing you in the battle at Logan, your parents put her on DM. They’ve tried to control the dose, but that results in a constant, slow state of withdrawal. She came here thinking I had some. She’s sedated while your parents decide what to do.”
“And the cat in the medbay with her?”
“No idea,” I said. Total lie. I had too many ideas, some of them scary, but Jacopo didn’t need to know that.
I shifted my gaze to Jagger, who was watching me with a weird expression on his face. It was gone before I could analyze it, so I said, “So. No room at the inn.”
“Literally,” he said. “And I didn’t know you were religious.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. We’ll find a place to store him. Her. Whatever.”
Over my private comms, Jolene said, “Shining, Sugar, we have distant activity.”
I stood up and returned my chair to its place. Placed my empty glass in the tub of water where all dirties went, especially anything I had touched with bare skin. Water and AntiGrav were the only things that killed nanobots, and while a prez shouldn’t wash her own dishes, I made certain exceptions. “On my way,” I said aloud. Jagger looked at me in question but I didn’t respond.Distant activityhad to be from the new images she was stealing from an EU satellite. “Enjoy your meal,” I said to the two men.
Four new customers walked in. I scanned the customers as they deposited their weapons in one of the lock boxes at the door. Biker wannabees by the look of their clothes and gear—all newish, all clean, no grease stains, no patches. The two men looked over the roadhouse, a little too eager, a lot too nonchalant. The way they walked, the way their eyes moved, said they had paramilitary training and curiosity but no intent to hit the place, no immediate objective. This didn’t look like a recce with intent to rob or kill.
Still. My nanobots flared with interest. I glanced at Jagger who took them in with a single glance and then looked away. He had reached the same conclusion. No danger. But my nanobots fluctuated higher, racing.Damn it.
I took my eyes off Jagger and back to the four. Something out of place. Or not. When Asshole was near I couldn’t trust my nano-intuition.
The four chose a table in the front corner, away from the windows. Smart under ordinary circumstances, but in this case, it told me they didn’t know the windows were armored and protected against all outside surveillance. They didn’t have biker connections and they hadn’t done any research into the roadhouse.
They were just customers showing off for their dates. The women were gigglers with braided hair, vintage jean jackets, and scuffed cowboy boots. I glanced at the screen over the bar, one showing the front lot. They had ridden in on two old Kow bikes from forty years ago. I checked the screen that showed their weapons in the weapon bin. Pre-war six-shooters.
No self-respecting biker would carry anything but a semiautomatic, a blaster, or both. My first appraisal had been right. Wannabees, not a danger.
