Marik reached for Miriam, but just before his pedipalp fingers locked on her braids, a blur of white shot in and blindsided him, knocking him hard to the ground, where he slid across the black turf. The crowd ooohed in delight.
Marik stayed down. The white blur got up — it was Ciudad Juarez, the To Pirates’ lethal Sklorno defensive back.
Yolanda started to stammer out a thanks, but Ciudad’s four eyestalks swiveled toward Miriam.
“Hello again, Miriamconnor Miriamconnor,” the Sklorno said. “Whoever would chase a player as good as you is unworthy to be on this field, he should be killed, he should be eaten.”
Miriam stared. “You … you thought I was good?”
Ciudad started bouncing in place. “Oh, yes-yes-yes, Miriamconnor. The taking of your arm was my greatest achievement.”
“But you’ve killed seven players,” Miriam said. “And I’m the greatest achievement?”
“Those other players weren’t as strong as you,” Ciudad said. “You I will thank when they put me in the Hall of Fame.”
Bizarrely, Miriam actually smiled.
Yolanda grabbed her arm. “This isn’t the time for a reunion, come on!”
The tiny, blue-skinned woman yanked and dragged the hulking, black-skinned one. Whykor grabbed Miriam’s arm and helped pull her into the camera tent.
Ciudad Juarez — one of the deadliest sentients to ever play the game — waved a tentacle with the energy of a small Human child waving at a friend.
“Goodbye, Miriamconnor! Goodbye!”
Yolanda and Whykor pulled the stunned Miriam into the tent. It was nothing more than an eight-foot-high red tent erected over a camera mounted on a black metal platform. It was the kind of rig where a sentient would stand on the platform to work the camera. There was no cameraperson — the small tent was empty. There was barely enough room for the three of them to stand next to the camera, so Whykor climbed up onto the platform.
Yolanda held her hand palm-up.
“Tarat! Why did you send us here? We’re out of time!”
“All of you, get on the camera platform,” he said. “Move quickly.”
Yolanda didn’t argue — if this didn’t work, there was no time left and nowhere to run. She squeezed in behind Whykor. Miriam stood on the platform’s back and had to wrap her one arm around both Yolanda and Whykor to keep from falling off.
“Okay,” Yolanda said. “We’re on!”
“Hit the record button twice, then pause once, then record again three times.”
Yolanda searched for the record button. She saw it, pressed it twice, pressed pause, then hit record again three times, and the world dropped out from under her.
• • •
Yolanda looked above her as the camera platform dropped down. She saw a thick trap door swinging into place, the top of which was covered in the same black plant material that made up the field above. Once the trap door slammed home, four thick girders slid beneath it, locking it in place.
The camera platform dropped quickly for thirty seconds, then stopped with a shudder. They found themselves in a carved-stone room barely larger than the platform itself, but with a tunnel leading out. Yolanda scrambled off the platform into the tunnel. Whykor and Miriam followed. As soon as Miriam stepped off, the camera platform shot back up again.
Her palm buzzed. She opened her hand to once again see the face of Tarat the Smasher.
“Yolanda, are you safe?”
She looked around the dimly lit tunnel. How far below were they? “I think so. What is this place?”
“There are many hidden routes out of the stadium,” he said. “If there is a terrorist attack, or any danger to the star players, there are ways out of the stadium to make sure they survive. No one wants to rebuild an entire team, Yolanda, but if everyone tried to use these secret passages, the attackers would be more likely to see them in use, defeating the purpose.”
Miriam shook her head. “So the purpose is to let your teammates, like me, get killed so stars like you have time to get away?”
“That is correct,” Tarat said. “I am glad that did not happen to you, Miriam, but from the perspective of the franchise, it is the most logical plan.”
Miriam rolled her eyes. She’d been a professional football player at the second-highest level of competition, she’d been a starter, and even then it turned out that when it came to the perspective of the franchise, she was little better than cannon fodder.
But Yolanda couldn’t really be concerned for Miriam’s ego at the moment. They still needed to get out of there.
“Tarat, thanks for helping us,” Yolanda said. “I owe you one.”
“Two,” Tarat said. “You owe me two. We did agree that I would do the accounting for such things. Just follow the tunnel out. You will come to a ladder, take that up and you will find yourselves four blocks away from the stadium. Our halftime report is over. I will have to abandon my post-game-coverage responsibilities and meet you there.”
They walked. After the craziness of a fight in the Commissioner’s box, a chase through the stadium and then onto a field with thousands of fans screaming at the spectacle, then a secret door down to a secret tunnel, the walk felt oddly surreal. Yolanda’s body still buzzed with adrenaline, and she found herself looking for the next threat even though it was a long, narrow tunnel and danger could only come from the front.
They had escaped — they were safe. Now it was time to get to the bottom of some things.
“Miriam, you held information from me,” she said. “You hadn’t given up the bodyguard business after all, had you?”
They kept walking, but Miriam hung her head. “I should have known you’d find that out. You seem to find out everything.”
“It’s my job,” Yolanda said. “Why did you lie? What else are you hiding from me? Do you have a connection with this murder?”
“I figured if you knew I worked for Grace, you’d think I did it. I mean, come on, you accused me of killing her without even knowing that.”
“I didn’t accuse, I asked. It’s part of being fair and objective, Miriam.”
“You still thought I was capable of doing it.”
“People are capable of all kinds of things,” Yolanda said. “You and I are friends, I like you a lot, but I don’t know what you might do if things get desperate enough and you don’t know what kind of things I’d do.”
Miriam laughed. “Right, like anyone would ever ask you if you’ve killed a sentient.”
Now it was Yolanda’s turn to look at the ground — memories of the crawler fight flooded back into her head.
“You’d be surprised,” Yolanda said quietly.
Miriam stopped walking. She turned and stared. “You’re kidding. You?”
Yolanda thought of telling Miriam to mind her own business, but she nodded. “It was self-defense. Whykor and I were being attacked. But yeah, I did what I had to do, and it resulted in a death. I feel horrible about it.”
“I feel as horrible about mine,” Whykor said.
Now Miriam stared at the Worker. “What? You also killed a sentient?”
“I did,” Whykor said. “It was when Miss Davenport and I were being attacked. Hers might be construed as an unfortunate accident, whereas mine … I threw a Worker off a cliff.”
Miriam stared at Whykor, then again at Yolanda. “Are you guys telling me that even though I was a bodyguard and did dangerous work, I’ve never taken a life — but I’m now in a dark tunnel with two killers?”
Yolanda shrugged. “So it seems.”
Miriam scratched the back of her head. “Huh. Well, I guess you’re right, Yo — you can never tell what a person is capable of. I guess it’s okay that you asked if I killed Grace.”
Without anyone saying anything, they started walking again.
“The rest of my story is true, though,” Miriam said. “I was hired to redecorate the hallway. And everything Anna told me to say, all that’s true as well.”
Yolanda heard the to
ne in Miriam’s voice: she sounded sincere, sounded truthful. Yolanda looked at Whykor — he nodded.
“Okay, I believe you,” Yolanda said. “But, there’s one thing you did not tell the truth about. What were you doing when you were bent over the body, Miriam? Because it wasn’t checking for a pulse.”
Miriam rubbed her face and sighed. “You’re right. It was force of habit, really. Since I was going to be near Grace’s apartment, I just took her LifeLok with me. I made her implant one, just like I had made you, Yolanda. I knew if I told you about Grace’s LifeLok and that I had a monitor, you’d know she’d hired me as a bodyguard, and … well, you’d think I involved far more than just an architect.”
Yolanda’s stomach fluttered, not with fear this time, but with that familiar sense of excitement.
“But Grace was clearly dead, Miriam. So what were you checking?”
“The time of death,” Miriam said. “I wanted to give the cops as much information as I could.”
Yolanda’s innards changed from a flutter to a flip-flop. “Are you telling me you know the exact time of death of Grace McDermot?”
Miriam nodded. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m telling you. And it’s exactly what I told Joey Clark and Regat the Smooth.”
• • •
Yolanda, Miriam and Whykor stood just inside an abandoned alley. They knew it was abandoned because of the dense mass of sharp, curving crystals that grew out of the street and the walls of the buildings on either side.
“Secret tunnels,” Yolanda said. “Crazy stuff.”
Miriam nodded. “So secret they didn’t even tell most of the players.”
Miriam was clearly still bitter about that, but she also seemed to have a different, more positive air about her. That really wasn’t surprising — the player who had ended her career had just paid her a major compliment. It didn’t come close to getting her arm back or putting her back on the field, but it seemed to restore some honor.
A large black hovering vehicle pulled up to the curb. A window lowered — Tarat was the driver.
“Get in, all of you. Quickly.”
Yolanda got in the front, Miriam and Whykor in the back. They shut the doors, and Tarat pulled back into the insane traffic of Madderch.
Tarat turned to Yolanda. “This is three.”
She’d had just about enough of that. “No, this is a continuation of two. Don’t push it, you big lummox. Can you take us back to the Peking Hotel?”
Tarat thought for a moment. “Perhaps it is best for now if you come to my home. The Peking should be safe, but I know for certain that my home is impenetrable.”
He turned right onto a side street. Up ahead, a dented garage door rolled up. Tarat pulled into a space barely bigger than the car itself. The door shut behind them. The car stopped hovering and slowly lowered to the concrete floor, then they rose — floor and car both.
“I travel much and played for many teams, but OS1 is still my home,” Tarat said. “This home I have had since my rookie season when Sikka the Death signed me. I have made many improvements over the years.”
The platform slowed, then stopped. Yolanda opened the door to find herself in a large, well-appointed apartment. Tarat the Smasher had been one of the league’s highest-paid players, and it showed.
Miriam let out a low whistle. “Damn, son, this is nice. Mind if I sit down?”
“Please,” Tarat said. “Sit in the living room. Whykor, the kitchen is that way — make us beverages.”
Yolanda started to object, but Whykor scurried off; he didn’t seem to mind. Miriam shuffled into the living room. She fell more than sat on a couch and didn’t move.
“Yolanda,” Tarat said. “If you would like to see my study, I can show you my broadcasting awards.”
He didn’t have any awards — he wanted to speak privately.
“Sure, Tarat, lead the way.”
• • •
Yolanda was wrong — Tarat did have awards. Several of them. They were obscure things, like Quyth Warrior Reporter of the Year and GFL Player’s Association Journalism Appreciation, but they were still awards. Tarat probably thought those actually meant something.
His living room was expensive yet tasteful. The study, on the other hand, could only be described as “a shrine.” A shrine to himself. Everywhere she looked in the spacious room, she saw holos of him in the uniforms of the Hittoni Hullwalkers, the Mars Planets and the Orbiting Death. There were two distinctly different sets of that last team, the first a young Tarat from his first two seasons in the GFL, the second a much older Tarat eight years later, when he finished his career with the same team he’d begun it with. There were also awards so important Yolanda would never seek to diminish them: two Defensive Player of the Year awards on either side of the 2673 League MVP trophy — Tarat was the only defensive player to have ever won that high honor. And, of course, the holy grail of professional football, replicas of the three Galaxy Bowl trophies he’d won with the Hittoni Hullwalkers.
“Nice place,” Yolanda said.
“Thank you,” Tarat said. ”Are you any closer to finding the killer?”
Yolanda gave a bitter laugh. “No. All I know is Anna is trying to kill us and was trying to frame Gredok for it.”
“Are you sure Gredok is not involved?”
Yolanda nodded. “Reasonably sure. Turon the Ugly and Marik the Covetous tried to find out what I know.”
“Marik works for Gredok,” Tarat said. “This is known.”
“It’s because it’s known that Anna used him. She must have hired him away from Gredok. It’s common sense that I do a live upload of everything that happens to me, as a means of protecting myself. Anna sent a known associate of Gredok after me and had him always use Gredok’s name. That way, when I disappear, or my body is found, Gredok gets the blame.”
“Smart,” Tarat said. “If they always use Gredok’s name, how did you figure it out?”
“Turon got a gun into the stadium. You know the security there, the only way he gets a gun in is if—”
“If stadium security is complicit, I see. And we know Ju isn’t the real killer — Gredok would want you to find the actual murderer to help clear his running back’s name.”
Yolanda stared at the Warrior, thinking. “Gredok would want that unless Ju actually was the killer. If that was the case, stopping me from finding out is what would benefit the Krakens. That’s common sense, Tarat — so why didn’t you see that?”
Tarat’s eye, colorless all this time, swirled with dark red; she had caught him off guard.
“You didn’t see it because you know Ju didn’t kill Grace McDermot. Miriam told the police what she knew, but wouldn’t tell anyone else, and her name wasn’t even listed on the police reports. So, Tarat, how did you come to give me her name as a source?”
The Warrior sighed, a very Human response, a surprised Yolanda thought, and closed his eye.
“You are correct, Yolanda — I do know that Ju didn’t kill Grace McDermot. In my own way, I, too, was a witness to the murder.”
• • •
“Off the record,” Tarat said.
Yolanda shook her head. “No way, Smasher. Uh-uh. If you saw that murder and you didn’t come forward, that’s a crime. I don’t have to protect criminals.”
“I didn’t say I saw the murder, Yolanda. I said in my own way, I was a witness. Promise me you will not name me or implicate me in any way, and I will tell you.”
She wanted to know what he knew. She wanted the story. But could she give him what he wanted? It was clear he was more involved than anyone had guessed, and what he wanted now wasn’t for the truth to come out — what he wanted was protection.
“You’re a coward, Tarat.”
His eye flooded black, and he took a step toward her. She took a step back, and he stopped. His armored eyelid blinked quickly, and the black faded away.
“I am a reporter.”
She laughed and immediately regretted it — this 6-foot-5 Warrior, t
he best player in football just a few short years ago, was already on edge.
“I am,” he said.
“You write about who players are dating, Tarat. Who really cares if Quentin Barnes dates Somalia Midori? Who cares if Frank Zimmer and his kicker are an item?”
“Many sentients do,” he said. “If it is something that can affect his play, I will cover it.”
“It’s not news.”
“If it impacts a game, Yolanda, it is news. I have also covered stories that you missed. Who broke the story that the Orbiting Death was making a move on Condor Adrienne? Who broke the story on Quentin Barnes making league minimum? Me. I broke those stories.”
Inside, she seethed with anger. He was right. Those were great stories, and he’d scooped everyone. Her hatred of his knack for turning football into a gossip blog infuriated her, but she had to stop kidding herself — Tarat the Smasher was a reporter. A good one.
He took a step back, giving her more space. “I have given all of my information to one other person, and he gave his word to keep my name out of it.”
What little remained of Yolanda’s smile sank away. “Froese knows that you’re a witness.”
“I have told you, Yolanda, I did not witness the murder. And yes, the Commissioner knows. You can know as well, if you give me your word. I am not some Human male easily distracted by your physical appearance, Yolanda. You give me your word, or you get nothing.”
Her brain raced, trying to put the pieces together before she had to promise him anything. It was all right there, right at the edge of her thoughts, but the connections wouldn’t come. How had Tarat known about Miriam? Other than the cops, no one knew Miriam was involved. Tarat said he was a witness in his own way, so had he been there? Was Joey giving Tarat information as well? Or was Anna feeding Tarat information either true or false?