Eko (NINE Series, #1)

  * * *

  The pub was half-sunken into the street, with a splintered doorframe that patrons had to duck under to enter. Inside, rows of dusty bottles lined the wall, reflecting the dull red lights. The circular booths were patched over, but their design curved into themselves so the table within was hidden: ideal for private conversations. There were no monitoring devices in this privately owned business, a favorite meeting place for local hit men. Plus, the place played great music, old songs with a rhythm and ache to every lyric.

  Phaira took a sip of the SunFlare she’d prepared: burnt orange with yellow wisps, cayenne pepper around the rim. Pungent and familiar. She peered into her Lissome screen, waiting.

  “Sticking with the blue, I see,” a voice floated through. Aeden Nox appeared in the live video feed, his spiky red hair showing at the edge of his hood. By the look of his pale, shiny and annoyed face, he had been soaked by cold rain on his way. “I thought it was just some CHROMA fun.”

  “Says you,” Phaira retorted as she stroked her chin, mocking his neat beard. “Is that thing supposed to make you look older?”

  Nox slid into the booth and adjusted the screen with a twist of his hand. Then they both leaned back: Nox into the torn cushions, Phaira against the metal wall of her bedroom.

  Phaira gestured. “I ordered you a SunFlare.”

  The glass sat to Nox’s right hand. Nox didn’t smile or touch it. “I have twenty minutes left on my break.”

  “All I need. I just had some questions.”

  “You haven’t even told me where you’ve been all this time.”

  Phaira looked away. She ran her finger over the glass’s rim to collect some of the red spice. “East,” she offered. “And North.”

  Nox sighed. “What do you need?”

  “Have there been any more of those public bombings?”

  “No,” Nox said, swirling the ice in his drink. “Not since we last spoke. Has your brother calmed down yet?”

  Phaira’s temper flared. “Don’t joke about Cohen, you have no idea.”

  “I would if you told me,” Nox said pointedly. “I lend out my parents’ old Volante, which you’re still running around in, by the way, and I barely get a thank you.”

  “Sorry,” Phaira admitted. “You’re right. Thanks for helping them out.”

  Nox shrugged. “The most interesting thing I’ve done in months.”

  Phaira felt a sting of pity. Then again, if she had remained in the military and retired from active duty at the age of thirty, as she would have been entitled to, Phaira would have ended up where Nox did: working with database management or some other entry-level deskwork. There were no special favors, even with their history; if anything, the government wanted to enforce the idea that one civilian was never above another.

  Still, Phaira knew Nox. She could see how he vibrated with stagnant energy. It wasn’t a shame, exactly, that he was out of harm’s way. But it seemed so in that moment.

  Nox took a sip of his drink and winced a little. “Wow, that’s strong.”

  “Lightweight.”

  “Shut it. What do you want? I’m down to fifteen before I’m due back.”

  “Ever heard of the term ‘Hitodama’”?

  “Sure, it’s a hacktivist group,” Nox nodded, taking another sip. “They wear a lot of black and that scares people. You’d fit in well.”

  “Ha ha,” Phaira mocked. “Anything else?”

  “Funny you mention them,” Nox mused. “A couple of Hitodama were killed last night in the Mac. Another one has been reported missing. My desk mate thinks the lack of response is due to prejudice: he’s been ranting about it all day. I just figure they made the wrong person angry.”

  Phaira thought about it. Macni, or “The Mac“ as it was better known as, was one of two major cities on the East Coast. When she’d toured it with the fighting circuit, so many weeks ago, she’d stayed clear of the shadows.

  “Gang retaliation?” she asked. “Do hackers have gangs? Or gang wars?”

  Nox shrugged. “Maybe.” He took another long swallow of his drink. “Surprised you haven’t seen all their campaigning. There’s Hitodama protests all over the Mac; they even started info-bombing all the stations, demanding action.” His green eyes flicked to hers. “Why are you asking? Have they come after you?”

  “No,” Phaira said. “That’s one group that hasn’t tried. Not yet, anyways.”

  “You know, you shouldn’t be doing this.” Nox glanced around the booth. “I’m glad you called, but I don’t want to be the reason that you’re tracked down.”

  Phaira studied her friend through the screen. Almost ten years of each other’s company in service: raiding together, travelling together, and on a couple of occasions, sleeping together.

  She flashed back to the first day they met. Eighteen and just off the bus, Phaira made her way to her registered hanger, snapping her helmet into place. An automated voice counted down the time, alarms going off in every corner of the hanger. The freighter opened at the rear, with rows of men and women inside, strapped into their seats, on their way to the frontlines.

  Phaira joined the military when she was fourteen, the minimum age for recruitment. From the start, she graded high, and advanced quickly. She’d done tests with various weapons, including new prototypes such as the Avenger and the Calis pistol, gone through extensive physical training, and tested well in combat, range weaponry, infiltration and language.

  Flight, and her fear of heights, were concerns she hadn’t quite conquered.

  “Nervous?”

  Phaira’s face flushed. “No,” she snapped at the young man beside her. She clicked her seatbelt into place, checking twice.

  “Well, I am,” the man said. His eyes darted nervously around the interior of the freighter.

  “Haven’t you flown before?” Phaira hollered over the sound of engines, holding onto her chest strap, trying to will her heart not to explode.

  “Bit different than the commercial flight over here!” he called back. She could see his pale face, how it made the freckles on his face stand out. It was almost cute.

  “I’m Byrne!” she yelled. Instinctively, she pushed her shoulder against his. “It’ll be fine!”

  “I’m Nox!” As the freighter lifted off the ground, he hollered back: “And I don’t believe you!”

  Phaira snapped back to the present and her cold Volante cabin. There was a sharp ache in her chest. It didn’t much matter anymore, what they had been through.

  Stop being nostalgic, she told herself. The military life was far different from the civilian world. And it was even more divergent when he was a patrol officer and she was a disgraced soldier with a contract on her head.

  “Go back to work,” Phaira said. “Sorry if I got you into trouble.”

  “Phair, come on - ”

  She didn’t let him finish. With a flick of her finger, the screen blinked and disappeared.

  Phaira downed the rest of the SunFlare, coughing from the rush of cayenne.

  Then she threw the tumbler across the room.

  III.

  That night, Phaira read everything she could find about the Hitodama. The organized group of hacktivists, with bases in both the North and the East, advocated the procurement of information at any cost. In their few years of existence, the group had exposed government documents, war reports, a few pictures from the very secretive West War, ten years ago. And yes, from the few pictures of those prosecuted, the members did look dark and sinister, sometimes comically so.

  But the murders were real enough. Just as Nox had said, two members of the Hitodama were found in the Mac, with the same crushed larynxes and same close-range wound to the thigh. The entry angle had severed the artery and they had bled out.

  Oddly precise, was her first thought.

  And, as Nox said, one member missing in action: a hacker known only as Emiyo. Hitodama were furious about it, overwhelming law patrol and broadcast stations with aler
ts, demands and threats. But by all accounts, the public merely shrugged in response.

  Why would Sydel lead us in this direction? Phaira puzzled. It’s probably a gang war. I would probably think the same as the law in this case: no good can come of getting involved.

  But the message was clear on the door: Find the missing Hitodama.

  So Phaira put a message into the public network, written carefully, the cc encrypted as best she knew how. “Locate and recover missing HD. Inquire.”

  She knew it was an enormous risk. Putting any part of herself into the outside meant that a bounty hunter could track her down. But her guilt over Sydel wouldn’t subside. And that message was the only thing to hold onto: not only for her, but for Cohen, too.

  Within minutes, a call came in. Phaira listened for any indication that her brothers stirred from sleep. Then she made the connection, both audio and visual, through her Lissome, and moved out of range so her face would remain hidden; the viewer would only see a faint glimmer of metal wall. The caller had the same idea; when the translucent screen unzipped, there was no visual. But the crackle of static told her that the connection was active. She waited.

  “Identity yourself,” came a male voice.

  “You called me,” Phaira retorted.

  Another crackle of static, and a flurry of tapping noises. Lines of code scrolled down the screen: firewall protection, encrypting at a level she’d never seen before. Then a face slid into view: ghostly white skin, black hair, black clothing, large nose and pinched blue eyes. “This channel is secure now,” the man declared. “All can be revealed.”

  Phaira held back a snort of laughter. When composed, she moved into frame, but at an angle so her profile was half in shadow. Nox said that she looked like one of these Hitodama; the man seemed to agree, giving her a nod of approval.

  “I go by Lander,” the man said. “And you?”

  Phaira’s mind swam. Couldn’t use her last name. Should she come up with some nickname? Her middle name was Lora, and she’d used it on the circuit. Better than nothing, and he was waiting.

  “Lora. That is - Phaira Lora – Phaira Lore.”

  As soon as she made the switch, she longed to correct it. It was so pretentious, but she couldn’t backtrack now. “I hear your group’s had some trouble,” she said brusquely, trying to cover her flub.

  “We are being persecuted because of our beliefs.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have wanted them dead?”

  “No.”

  “But you want me to find the one who is missing.”

  “Isn’t that what you do?” His tone was suspicious. “You’re not registered anywhere as a LRP.”

  Locate – Retrieve – Protect, Phaira remembered. No, she wasn’t registered as a specialist. She thought fast. “Because I only work with select individuals,” she countered. “Who prefer privacy above all else.”

  That seemed to satisfy him. “This is a time-sensitive situation. Emiyo has a medical condition - ”

  “Here’s what I don’t understand,” Phaira interrupted. “Most hackers are very good at keeping their position secret. So how were your members tracked down in the first place?”

  Lander huffed, looking over his nose at Phaira. “Come to the next gathering in the skerries. If you figure out who’s doing this, you’ll be compensated.”

  The mention of the skerries made Phaira pause. “In the Mac?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “You’re talking about me mingling with your crowd?” she asked, keeping her voice even.

  “You’re insinuating that the killer is one of our own. Come and see for yourself.”

  Phaira grinned. “Caught that, did you?”

  Then her smile dropped. “If you turn me the wrong way, Lander, you won’t be an underground group anymore.”

  “You have my word.”

  Hacker’s word, Phaira thought with contempt as she broke the connection. The screen zipped into nothing.

  The sun broke over the horizon. Her brothers would be up soon. And she had to tell them something.