Her blush deepened, but there was a spark of anger in her eyes, too. She was seriously resistant to taking a compliment. “Is it even possible for a girl to look sexy to you?”
Reminding Nate once again of just how many ways he had mistreated her during their brief unofficial engagement. He had been fully prepared to let her sign the marriage agreement without revealing the truth about his sexual preferences. He’d been protecting himself from the horrors of being sent to “reprogramming” to correct what his father termed his “sexual deviance,” but that hadn’t made his silence any more fair to Agnes.
“You know when a girl looks sexy even if you’re not attracted to girls, don’t you?” he asked.
She looked like she wanted to argue, then sighed and nodded. “Yeah. I guess I do. But I still think you’re full of it.”
Thinking about the marriage arrangement made Nate suddenly remember something. “My father planned for you to sign the marriage agreement today,” he said. Nate had already been coerced into signing it, and Agnes was meant to sign it at 12:01 on the day of her eighteenth birthday, making the agreement legally binding for all involved. “Happy birthday.”
Agnes looked around the squalid little room and shook her head. “This isn’t quite what I had planned for the big one-eight,” she said quietly. There was a haunted look in her eyes that made Nate squirm on the inside. He was responsible for all the crazy changes in her life, and he wished he could do something to cheer her up. Unfortunately, he didn’t see any birthday cake or big parties in her near future.
“I’m not complaining,” Agnes said. “Ask me how much I love big, formal birthday parties where I’m supposed to be the star of the show.” She shuddered delicately.
No, Nate was sure she wasn’t a big fan of those parties; however, he doubted she found hiding out in the Basement under threat of death to be a great improvement. Maybe when Kurt and Nadia came back, they could whip up some small improvised imitation of a party. Or at least sing “Happy Birthday.”
It was too soon to expect Nadia and Kurt back yet, but that didn’t stop him from scanning the growing crowd outside in search of two familiar figures.
He didn’t see them. But what he did see made him go cold all over.
“I think we may have a big problem,” he said, gesturing Dante and Agnes over and pointing.
A group of five uniformed security officers were making their way down the street with purposeful strides. All the laws of Paxco officially applied to the Basement as well as to the rest of society, but there was no such thing as enforcement here, and security officers didn’t set foot in the place unless they were on the hunt for a fugitive.
“Damn it,” Dante said as he followed Nate’s pointing finger. “What are the chances they’re here for someone else?”
Nate snorted. “What are the chances something would actually go right for us for once?”
“They couldn’t possibly know where we are,” Agnes said. “Could they?”
“Until we all went on the lam,” Dante said, “Bishop wasn’t in hiding. I’m sure there are Basement-dwellers who know where he lives and that security can find a way to convince them to talk.”
Nate uttered a curse that would have done Bishop proud. The officers did look like they had a specific destination in mind, and that destination did seem to be this apartment building. “We need to get out of here. Fast.” The officers were already too close for comfort, and Nate didn’t think they had much chance of getting out without being seen.
“And go where?” Agnes asked in a small voice.
“Angel’s,” Nate responded instantly. “We have to meet up with Bishop and Nadia anyway.”
He tore himself away from the window and began pawing through his meager pile of belongings to find the gun he’d had hidden on his person when he and Nadia had confronted Dorothy. Dorothy had confiscated their other weapons, but she’d never known about the extra gun. Hardly an expert with guns, Nate had no idea how many bullets were in this one, but he doubted it was enough to get them through a shootout with a security squad. Didn’t mean he was going to leave it behind, though.
“They’re definitely coming here,” Dante announced, backing away from the window. “Let’s move it.” He saw what Nate was doing and wordlessly reached out his hand.
Nate swallowed his ego and handed the gun over to someone who knew how to use it. Agnes let go of her evening gown/security blanket with obvious reluctance as the three of them rushed to the door.
“How are we going to get past the security squad without being seen?” Nate asked, hoping Dante, as a professional spy, might have some clever tactic in mind. But it was Agnes who answered.
“We walk right past them as if we have nothing to hide.”
Nate stared at her in astonishment.
“Our disguises are good,” Agnes said, “and they’re expecting us to be holed up in the apartment. They certainly won’t be expecting us to come right out in the open like that. I’ll bet they barely give us a passing glance if we pass them on the stairs.”
“She has a point,” Dante agreed as they darted out into the hallway and closed the door behind them. Kurt had the keys, so they weren’t able to lock the door, but the security squad was probably going to bash it down anyway. “They’d expect us to run or sneak away, not walk right by them. Besides, I don’t know if we have any other choice. If there’s a back way out of here, I don’t know about it, and they probably have a couple of men watching it anyway.”
“For the record,” Nate said as they hurried down the hallway to the stairs, “I hate this plan.” Unfortunately, he didn’t have an alternative suggestion.
“Just act cool and natural,” Dante said. He put his hand on the door to the stairwell. “Walk at a normal pace, don’t act like you’re trying to hide your face, and ignore them like they’re no business of yours whatsoever.”
Agnes’s face looked pale and frightened, and though her disguise was good, Nate worried that it wasn’t enough. Her face was almost as famous as his, and her disguise was more superficial, having been cobbled together in a hurry. Nate’s had been built over a period of months, and included details like contact lenses and cheek pouches. He’d be shocked if anyone recognized him, but Agnes … He put his arm around Agnes’s shoulders and tucked her against his side.
“I’ll keep between you and them when we pass,” he said in response to her startled look.
“Don’t try to hide!” Dante reminded them brusquely.
“I’m not talking about hiding her,” Nate snapped. “I’m just going to give her a little extra cover.”
“We don’t have time for arguing,” Agnes said, slipping her arm around Nate’s waist as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Let’s just go.”
They went, but Nate still had an uneasy feeling in his stomach about Agnes’s disguise. They should have put some face paint or something on her to draw attention away from her features. The bright blue gunk that plastered her hair to her scalp certainly drew the eye, but if anyone took a second look …
Since the building’s elevator didn’t work, there was a fair amount of traffic on the stairs, which could work to their advantage. It was still a little early for Debasement’s permanent street fair to be in full swing, but the early birds were already heading out.
With Dante leading the way, they headed down the stairs, quickly catching up with three women who were most likely prostitutes on their way to work. One of the women had enormous boobs that were barely contained by a red lace bra top, and Nate hoped the display would distract a member or two of the security squad. He could hear one of the officers from below barking at people to get out of the way, his voice echoing up the stairwell. He sounded like a hard-ass, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to get his whole squad killed. Basement-dwellers weren’t fond of security officers at the best of times, and despite their training and superior weaponry, the security squad was badly outnumbered.
Dante looked over his s
houlder with a concerned expression. “At the first sign of trouble, we get out of the stairwell immediately.”
Nate wondered if they shouldn’t do that anyway until the squad had passed them by, but they were currently between floors, and by the time they reached the next floor, the squad would be able to see them. Trying not to hold his breath, Nate tightened his arm around Agnes’s shoulders and continued downward.
They reached the third-floor landing just as the security squad did, and Nate saw it was a good thing they hadn’t ducked into a hallway until the squad passed. One of the men stuck some kind of metallic rod into the door mechanism, jamming it shut, keeping the residents of that floor trapped. They were also taking close looks at everyone who passed them on the stairs. The three hookers started strutting their stuff as if they thought the officers were on the hunt for an on-the-job quickie, and Nate hoped that would give him and his friends the distraction they needed to slip by unnoticed, but Captain Tight-ass of the barked orders suggested he might do something unpleasant with his night-stick if the hookers didn’t move along.
There was nothing to do but walk on by as planned.
Dante hit the landing and continued walking at a steady pace. The officers each took a close look as he went by, but the chances of him being recognized were slim. Then it was Nate and Agnes’s turn. They stepped onto the landing, and Nate was painfully aware of all those eyes scanning his face, and, more alarmingly, Agnes’s.
Under normal circumstances, Agnes had approximately zero self-confidence. The kind of girl you’d expect to cower in the corner or hide under the bed at the first sign of trouble. But Nate had already seen what a different person she became when under fire, and he shouldn’t have been surprised that she improvised a new plan in the blink of an eye.
When the officers started looking her over, Agnes affected a sexy pout and stuck out her chest to make the most of her modest assets.
“I gotta date for the next hour,” she said, running her hand seductively over Nate’s chest, “but I’m sure I can fit you boys in afterward if you want.”
She had put an unfamiliar rasp into her voice and lowered it by about an octave. Usually, she sounded like a little girl, but tonight she sounded like a world-weary adult with a serious smoking habit. She made a face that was probably supposed to look like a leer, but looked more like a grimace of fear to Nate’s eyes.
Good thing for them Nate wasn’t the one she had to convince.
Captain Tight-ass gave Agnes an icy glare as he shouted up the stairwell. “Next whore that propositions me or my men is gonna get more than she bargained for!”
And then he dismissed both Nate and Agnes from his attention and ordered his men up the steps.
* * *
Nate was almost giddy with relief over their narrow escape from the security squad, but they were still in deep trouble and they all knew it. Kurt no doubt had money hidden somewhere in that apartment of his, but Nate didn’t know where and hadn’t had time to search for it. Which meant the three of them were completely broke, no dollars, no credits, nothing. Being broke in the Basement was all kinds of dangerous.
After the brave show she’d put on in the stairwell, Agnes had lost some of her starch, and she clung to Nate’s hand as he led the way to Angel’s. The streets were getting progressively more crowded, and he prayed Agnes’s case of nerves didn’t attract any predators. Vulnerability was quite an aphrodisiac to a certain kind of Basement-dweller, and though Nate knew Agnes was trying her best to hide hers, she wasn’t doing a very good job of it. At least they were on the Basement’s outer edges, which were safe and tame in comparison to the neighborhoods at its heart.
By the time they reached Angel’s, they’d been solicited by prostitutes of both sexes, drug dealers, black marketeers, and sundry others who were too stoned to make it clear what they were offering. Nate also had the feeling that they were being followed, though perhaps that was just paranoia. He looked over his shoulder a couple of times, but no one stood out. Or, considering this was the Basement, it might be more accurate to say that everyone stood out equally.
“We have a tail,” Dante said, and Nate kind of wished he’d voiced his own suspicion. Then he mentally rolled his eyes at himself for his constant need to play games of one-upmanship with Dante. Especially since he always came out the loser. He resisted the urge to take another look back over his shoulder.
“Is it security?” Agnes asked, biting her lip.
Dante shook his head. “Don’t think so. There are undercover agents in the Basement, but if this guy were one of them he’d have sicced the squad on us.”
“Maybe he couldn’t,” Nate suggested. “No phone service, remember?”
“They’ll have walkies. Everyone knows phone service is unreliable here.”
Nate didn’t know what a “walkie” was, but he wasn’t going to reveal his ignorance by asking. The security department wasn’t the military, but it was pretty clear Dante had had some kind of military training before he’d joined up as a spy, and he liked to lord it over Nate in this sneaky kind of way.
Nate took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to let his irritation with Dante seep out with it. He should have been grateful for Dante’s skills and competence. Especially when his physique advertised them so plainly—Nate was sure some of the people who’d solicited them would have been more aggressive about it if Dante weren’t imposing enough to make them back off.
“As long as it’s not security, I don’t think it matters right now,” Nate said. He jerked his chin in the direction of Angel’s club, which was just opening for the night as indicated by the pair of bouncers who exited and then stationed themselves by the door. “We’re here.”
His heart was thumping in his chest, and a cold sweat broke out over his body as he eyed the bouncers and wondered if they had been among the goons Angel had ordered to beat the crap out of him. The goons had been wearing masks, so he didn’t know who they were, except that they were the kind of big, burly men Angel liked to use as bouncers.
Maybe coming here hadn’t been such a great idea. While the beating hadn’t caused any serious injury, Nate’s body remembered the ordeal and was telling him in no uncertain terms that he was not setting foot in that club. Even if they did have some Basement predator on their tail, waiting for the first sign of weakness.
A dense, jostling crowd converged on the entrance to Angel’s in the Basement-dweller version of queuing up. Elbows were thrown and curses uttered as the would-be club-goers waited impatiently for their turn to be felt up by the bouncers. And then the problem with Nate’s plan to meet up with Kurt and Nadia here slapped him in the face.
“We don’t have money to pay the cover charge,” he said, cursing himself for not thinking of it sooner. Not that thinking of it sooner would have done them any good. It wasn’t like there was any chance of them getting hold of any money, not unless and until Nadia had managed to squeeze it out of Angel.
Embarrassingly, there was a part of him that was relieved at the idea that he couldn’t go in. He kept trying to shake off the memory of that horrible night, but he wasn’t having a lot of success, and nerves were making his gut churn.
“I guess we just have to wait until they come out,” Dante said, his face set in grim lines. He might not be a Basement-dweller himself, but he obviously knew how bad an idea it was to stand around in the street, especially when they knew someone was following them. His Basement costume included a flamboyant ankle-length duster, and he slipped his hand into its front pocket, no doubt fingering the gun.
“Can’t we just ask one of the bouncers to tell Angel we’re here?” Agnes asked.
Nate shook his head. “Those guys are not the helpful type. And if we tried to cut ahead in line, it would get real ugly.”
“So let’s get in the back of the line,” she suggested. “We’re going to draw attention if we just stand around here with no purpose.”
It was as good a plan as any, and their tail didn’t
seem inclined to emerge from the crowd and confront them—not yet, at least—so they shuffled their way to the back of the line, and all three of them stared at the door, willing Nadia and Kurt to make a swift appearance.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nadia could hardly say she was surprised by the increasingly skeptical expression on Angel’s face as she recounted what happened on the day she and Nate confronted Chairman Hayes at the Paxco Headquarters Building. It did sound pretty ridiculous when you came right down to it.
“So what you’re telling me,” Angel said slowly, her eyes narrowed in a glare that was probably supposed to intimidate the “real” truth out of Nadia, “is that our new Chairman isn’t really a human being at all. Do I have that right?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Nadia said. “I think Dorothy probably technically qualifies as human, it’s just that her mind isn’t human. Think of her as a kind of robot housed in human flesh.”
Angel glanced over at Bishop. “She been dipping into the happy pills lately? ’Cause this all sounds more like a bad trip than reality.”
“I’ll vouch for Ghost and Honey both,” he said. “If they say that’s what’s going on, I believe ’em.”
“But you haven’t confirmed any of this bullshit story.”
“I can confirm that Ghost and I overheard the Chairman talking to Mosely about Thea and that when the Chairman found out we had heard him he ordered Mosely to stab his own son to death. Saw that part with my own two eyes. The story isn’t bullshit.”
Nadia had the suspicion it wasn’t so much that Angel didn’t believe the story, it was that she wanted to get out of paying for it. If the upper echelons of the official resistance consisted of people like Angel, then Nadia was just as glad they weren’t interested in joining forces. Just because they were opposed to Paxco’s current oppressive regime didn’t mean they were the good guys.