Awakened Page 9

  She wondered how they’d been traced, though. They took proper counter-measures whenever they went out, and she was pretty sure they hadn’t been followed when she rescued Joel. Of course, it may just have taken his team of assholes this long to be able to crunch through the shit-ton of traffic cam data to track them…but still.

  She made her way down the corridor to the kitchen door.

  Her heart was in her mouth. She was a techie. A lab rat. She wasn’t cut out for hand-to-hand or any other kind of combat, apart from under the supervision of real soldiers like Joel. Or in a controlled environment, like the dojo.

  Her arms and legs went weak with the adrenalin, as they had every time she had to fight in training. Fokk.

  Something toppled. Like a bottle. There was definitely someone moving in there. She rounded the doorframe and scanned the kitchen, expecting to have some dark figure jump her at any second.

  Nothing.

  No movement. No figure. Nothing.

  Then she caught something jumping from the counter onto the floor, and the sound of something scampering.

  Shit. This better not be something out of those archived alien films Grandpa would watch with her. Her heart was beating out of her chest.

  It seemed Joel had heard something and was moving down the corridor to join her.

  She was relieved.

  She was all for the independent female, and the every-nerd-for-herself movement, but there was something comforting about a soldier having her back. She turned back to the door and caught his eye, motioning in the direction of the movement. He had his weapon drawn too, and it followed the line of sight where she was indicating.

  He mouthed “on three”. And then…

  “One. Two. THREE!”

  He slammed the lights on and stormed the kitchen table, expecting to find a Sarkian of one race or another crouched under the table.

  What he found, he took a second to register.

  Molly watched as his expression turned from serious, “I’m going to blow the shit out of you,” to shock and surprise, and then to “I can’t believe we were so stupid.”

  Molly rounded the table and stooped down to see what he was looking at.

  There, staring back up at them, was probably the most adorable and weird-looking kitty on the planet, if not the system.

  Well, “kitty” isn’t exactly the description she could use to any of the Sarkians. A “kitty” was a human’s version of a cat. From the Pan galaxy. This was the feline companion of the Estarian variety. They were furless, with effulgent deep purple skin and bright orange eyes, and long associated with being able to cross over into the next realm with their owners who were destined for the next type of existence.

  Nope, technically this was a sphinx.

  His eerily bright orange eyes almost seemed to query them, “What’s all the fuss about?”

  Molly breathed a sigh of relief. A sigh that, mid-breath, turned into laughter. Joel found himself chuckling along with her.

  All their military training, stacked against…a kitty.

  A sphinx, Oz corrected in her thoughts.

  Molly ignored him.

  “Aww…he’s so sweet,” cooed Molly. She fell to her knees and reached under the table to pick him up. The sphinx didn’t resist. Instead, he let her pull him out from under the table, and then just curled up against her as she cuddled him close and stood up.

  “Yeah. How do you know it’s a boy?” Joel asked, putting the safety back on his weapon and stuffing it in the back of his sweatpants.

  Molly laughed. “I didn’t, but…” she lifted the sphinx a little higher and turned it over. “Yep, definitely a boy kitty.” She grinned at Joel. Joel’s big hands were petting him as Molly held the little guy in her arms. She felt Joel close to her and was still comforted by the presence of her teammate, who had demonstrated how he had her back even in the middle of the night against a very dangerous feline.

  The sphinx turned around and nipped at Joel’s hand.

  He snatched his hand back. “Hey!” he said playfully.

  “It’s okay. They do that. He’s probably hungry. Take him…I’ll fix him some food from our leftovers.” She handed the purring purple creature over to Joel and turned to the fridge.

  Joel looked awkward at first. All his training and muscle and people skills were worth nothing when it came to dealing with something so small, cute and eerily mystical.

  “Always thought these creatures were a little…off. I mean, look at him. It’s like he can read my thoughts.” He still held the sphinx, a little uncomfortably, like he was trying to keep him away from his body.

  Molly had one hand on the fridge door and was rummaging through the contents. She turned and looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

  He shook his head. “Don’t look at me like that! Seriously. It’s like it’s got the body of a sphinx, but the mind of a wise old grownup. It’s creepy.”

  “Anyone ever told you that you have an overactive imagination?” Molly remarked, gently mocking him with her signature straight face.

  The sphinx had settled into his arms and was purring again. Joel seemed to relax a little, and let him lean against his chest. Molly pulled a dish of food out of the fridge, and set about separating out a small portion.

  “So, we feed him and then what? Can we keep him?” He wondered if he sounded more like a boyfriend than an operations manager at that moment.

  Molly seemed to miss that, though.

  “Well, sphinxes are really rare, from what I’ve read. I can’t imagine he hasn’t got an owner. I’ll bet they’re pretty expensive, too. We should check with the landlady, see if she knows who he belongs to.”

  “Okay, I’ll handle that in the morning.” Yup, that sounded more like an operations manager, he reassured himself.

  Molly put the bowl of food on the floor for the sphinx and indicated to Joel to let him down. Joel seemed reluctant for a second, and then awkwardly tried to put him down on the tiles. Halfway down the sphinx leapt from his arms and deftly plunked down on all fours, heading straight for the food.

  “Damn, he must be hungry,” murmured Joel, now under the natural spell that small, cute creatures put their people under.

  Molly, having fed the creature and neutralized the threat of the “intruder,” had now lost interest. She started back towards the door. “I’m heading back to bed, then.”

  “What about a name?” Joel asked.

  “Huh?” She took a beat, and then realized he was talking about the sphinx. “Well, he might already have a name…”

  Joel nodded. “Right. Okay. I’ll find out. Night.”

  “Night,” Molly casually waved backwards through a yawn, as she disappeared up the short corridor to her room.

  Joel stood and watched the sphinx eat for a few moments, then checked the doors and windows before retiring himself.

  Wonder how he got in? he thought idly to himself, turning to check the doors and windows of the kitchen another time. Having examined all possible entrances and exits and confirmed the house was secure, he gave up.

  Must have come in when we had the doors open during the day, he concluded.

  Switching off the kitchen light, he headed back to bed. Molly’s light was still on. He shook his head.

  That girl kept bizarre hours…

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Spire, Capital of Estaria. Two hundred kilometers north of Uptarlung

  “Rassgat! Pick up the holo, Dewitt.” Garet was in trouble. His only chance at survival was to convince Dewitt he was faithful.

  He flagged down a cab and forced his way into the backseat, looking over his shoulder and struggling with his brown leather briefcase.

  “The Mandeli Hotel. Fast.” He barked his order at the cabbie. The cabbie didn’t acknowledge him verbally. He just pulled quietly out into the traffic, lifted off two seconds later when it was safe to pull out into a faster lane to get across town.

  The traffic below was intense. Garet craned his neck to
look down through the window to see if he was being followed.

  If he couldn’t convince Dewitt he had no intention of using the files, he was going to need a Plan B which involved disappearing. And for that, he needed a pro.

  Just then he saw another car pull up and out of the traffic below. It was black, with blacked out windows. They’d found him.

  Shit!

  “I’ll pay you a hundred credits if you can get me to the hotel before that black vehicle catches us.”

  The cabbie spoke for the first time. “You got it.” He stepped on the accelerator, and the car heaved forward.

  After so much bad luck in the last few days, Garet had finally, if ignorantly, struck gold by jumping into Sean Royal’s cab.

  Not only had Sean been with the service for forty years, but he was discharged after being awarded the Seal. No one outside his unit would have known what that meant, but for the men, women, and others he’d worked with, it was the highest commendation one could earn.

  And he had been itching for a bit of action ever since he retired two years, four months and fifteen days ago.

  Not that he was counting.

  The cab pulled away at near warp speed. Damn, this cab has been kitted out, Garet realized. He scrambled in his bag for the hundred credits and put them in a pile on the seat next to him.

  He was going to need an extraction plan. He pulled up another contact on his holo and dialed.

  “Hi, yes, its Garet Beaufort. I need your help. I hear you’re still in the business?”

  There was a pause while he listened. He saw the cabbie watching him in his rearview mirror.

  “It’s okay, I can pay. I need an extraction. I’m heading to the Mandeli Hotel, but I’m being pursued by two of Dewitt’s goons. Yeah, the guy I work for. I’ve got sensitive intel. He suspects I’m going to use it.”

  Another pause.

  “Shit, no. Of course I wasn’t blackmailing him; that would be fucking stupid.”

  He paused.

  “Okay. Hurry. They almost caught up with me in the parking lot after a meeting. I can’t even go home; he knows where I live. I’m toast if you don’t get here in time.”

  There was quiet while he listened in his auditory implant. The cabbie had turned his attention back to driving, but Garet suspected he was still eavesdropping.

  “Okay. I’ll message you my room number once I’m checked in. Hurry!” A hint of his true desperation involuntarily seeped into his voice.

  He poked at the holo, and tried to sit back and catch his breath.

  “Bad day?” the driver looked at him again in his rearview mirror.

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.” Garet was used to being in control. Being respected. He felt exposed; a cabbie knew he was in trouble.

  “Listen, when I drop you, I’ll drop you on the corner and then you can walk into the hotel. I’ll drive another couple of blocks and pretend like I’m letting you off at a different hotel. Whoever is following you will think that you’re staying somewhere else. Might buy you a bit more time.”

  “Wow. Thank you!” Garet felt slightly embarrassed by the kindness of a stranger. And amazed that a cab driver would even think about that…

  “Do you get a lot of people who are being followed in your taxi?” Garet’s curiosity was written across his face as his brow unfurrowed a little.

  “No. But you look like you’re in trouble, and I’ve had a lot of experience dealing with trouble. Ex-military.” Sean nodded at the picture stuck between the vents of his dashboard. “Miss it, y’know?”

  Garet leaned forward, glad of the distraction. The photo he could see was of the driver and a team of other smiling men in full cam gear standing in front of a space bird.

  “Space Marine, right?”

  “That’s right. All my life, from when I was old enough to join up.”

  “Very cool. Well...er… thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Moments later they pulled up on the corner of Rofabaer and Baejarhais.

  “The hotel is just one hundred yards up there,” Sean pointed at where Garet needed to go.

  Garet gathered his gear and started to get out of the cab. He handed the hundred credits, plus the fee, to the cabbie. “I’m sure lucky I hopped into your cab. And I’m grateful. Thank you.”

  “Anytime. In fact, here are my digits.” The cabbie swiped at his holo and bounced it against Garet’s wrist holo, transferring his contact details.

  “Call if you need any further help. Civilian life is peaceful, but when you’ve lived your whole life on the edge, it’s impossible not to crave a bit more adventure now and again.” He winked.

  “Thank you. I will, if I survive this!” Garet smiled sardonically, as he hauled ass onto the street. Leaving the protection of the cab and Sean Royal behind, he suddenly felt very exposed.

  The cab pulled away and disappeared into traffic, followed moments later by the dark car with blacked out windows.

  Garet kept his head down as he watched out of the corner of his eye. They drove right past. It worked!

  He scurried towards the hotel and disappeared inside as quickly as he could.

  Dewitt Residence, Spire

  Senate Official William Dewitt saw the call flash up on his holo. He clocked Garet’s name, and guessed that he was calling to try and make some kind of bargain.

  It was too late for that.

  The betrayal was done. Now the only question was how quickly he could contain it.

  Dewitt swiped to reject the call. It would be taken care of soon enough.

  He turned his attention back to the speech he had been working on. It still wasn’t quite right. Taking out a whole paragraph, he reread that section. Yes, that gave it the kind of philanthropic feel he was after. He was in full preparation mode. Years of hard work and ass-kissing were finally coming together.

  Having a thought, he got up from the desk in his home office and padded through to his bedroom. He went straight to his closet and found his tie rack.

  Blue. Blue. Blue, blue, blue…

  He flicked through numerous blue ties until he found the one he was searching for. There it was. His lucky tie. Blue would also allow him to portray a sense of security and trustworthiness. That’s what the people needed to feel when they supported this bill.

  His holo flashed up with another call. It was Henrik, as he called his two goons Henry and Erik. He accepted the call. It should be good news. He placed the blue tie on the bed and started flicking through his shirts.

  “We’re in pursuit downtown. He’s probably going to try and hole up somewhere. We’re closing in.”

  “Excellent. Let me know when it is done.” He clicked off the call, and refocused his attention on his wardrobe.