The Lazarus Particle (3 page)

Yet all animals, human or otherwise, have certain biological imperatives that cannot be explained by logic. For Xenecia, it was the hunt. For Fenton, the need to mark his territory.

More pointedly, the need to mark where he had been
.
The places where he eluded capture.

It was a silly, inexplicably foolish impulse, yet one he apparently found unable to ignore. Call it hubris, call it the human condition—whatever it was, Fenton had bowed to it.

And she had found it.

Anyone who had never been outside the Sovereign Corporate Systems simply would not understand. They would assume the ability to disappear within a given area of space must lie in direct proportion to its size. In fact, unincorporated space and the Sovereign Corporate Systems functioned along a parallel metric: coexistence. Even in unincorporated space, people still had a tendency to gravitate toward one another, to live and work as part of a supportive network that shares resources and provides opportunities to its members. The primary difference, at least for the huntrex, was one of volume.

Simply put, there were far fewer clusters of people to sift through in unincorporated space. Runners rarely made the mistake of retracing their steps, and every waystation eliminated meant one less potential hiding place going forward. As soon as she found the first of Fenton’s marks, Xenecia knew it was only a matter of time.

It was invisible, at least to the naked eye. The barflies verified that a man bearing a striking resemblance to Fenton had recently been seen throwing back the juice. Somewhere, she knew, he had left evidence of his passing in the process.

She checked the place from top to bottom. The tables, the chairs, the glasses, the bar itself. Even the disgusting bathroom. Every visible inch to no avail.

It was only on her way out that she happened upon a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the cracked, filthy sink. That’s when she saw it. A place to look upon oneself. A place to reflect, both literally and figuratively. A place to leave a mark unseen by all but he who made it.

One quick puff of breath was all it took. There, on the bottom right corner of the glass, a familiar set of initials appeared beneath the fog: FJW.

Fenton. James. Wilkes.

A simple hack of the station’s manifest was all it took to confirm no one aboard went by those initials. From there she called in favors across the system, establishing a triangulation pattern that gave her the unique insight she needed to track Fenton to his next most logical hiding place. She still wasn’t sure how Quint had managed to track
her
, but it was a moot point. He was wounded, two of his posse were dead, and she had secured the bounty. All that was left was to collect the payout—including the hefty premium for bringing him in alive.

Or so she thought.

The first clue something was amiss came in the form of a strident knocking against the door of her quarters. Breaking her stride, Xenecia eyed it suspiciously. This did not augur well, she knew. Still, she had little choice in the matter. If she didn’t answer they would invite themselves in eventually, one way or the other. Nothing about her credentials guaranteed her privacy while quartered aboard the station, after all.

“A moment,” she declared in a tone loud enough to be heard through the door. She may not have been able to deny them, but she could at least delay them. Let whoever it was imagine her making herself decent in preparation to receive the unexpected caller.

“Of course, ma’am,” came a reedy voice from the other side of the door.

Ma’am
. How novel.

Suppressing a feral smile, Xenecia counted to ten in her native tongue, then strode to the door. It slid open upon her command, revealing a slender young man clad in the ubiquitous high-collared, hunter green uniform of the M-H corporate fleet. She did not recognize him, yet she had the immediate impression he was anything but another of the several hundred interchangeable young ensigns assigned to work the station and wipe the officers’ asses. That much was evident when she opened the door. Any other wet-behind-the-ears junior officer would have had trouble holding tight their bowels when she all but snarled, “Well?” She towered over him by nearly a full foot, after all. To reach out and twist his head from his spinal column would have required the most minimal of efforts, something he must have known if not from instinct alone.
 

Instead of wavering, however, he stood fast. The young officer even smiled. “Your presence has been requested in the Commander’s quarters.”

Xenecia narrowed her eyes appraisingly. “I believe I shall pass. Be sure to give Commander Orth my regards.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do, ma’am,” he said before she could wave the door closed. “My orders are clear.”

“And your name is?”

“Ensign Daniel Pruitt, ma’am.”

Lifting a brow, Xenecia committed the young ensign’s face to memory. “Very well. You may lead the way, then.”

As always, her transit through the station commanded its fair share of gasps and whispers. Clutches of uniformed personnel parted before Xenecia and her escort as if separated by magnetic force. More than a few were reduced to slack-jawed stares at the mere sight of her. Striking though her features were, however, this was not the cause of the wonderment Xenecia left in her wake. These humans were of a generation weaned on tales of the peerless savagery of Shih’rahi resistance to the attempted occupation of their homeworld by the Tyroshi Menace.

Of course, she was but a youngling when all that transpired. Not that she had any intention of reminding them of that fact. In their eyes she was as fearsome as she was exotic.

She found the combination quite agreeable.

Yet her reputation, imagined or otherwise, preceded her only so far. Namely, to the foot of the Commander’s quarters.

Ensign Pruitt thumbed the intercom beside the door. “Commander? I have the huntrex for you, as ordered.”

“Very good, Ensign. Send her in. You may return to your duties.”

The door opened. Pruitt lifted his hand, gesturing her forward. Studying his features one last time, she nodded. He turned and strode down the corridor, his cadence crisp and smart as he rounded the corner.

Entering the Commander’s quarters, she found Knolan Orth seated at his desk. Like the man himself, it was simple and standard issue, lacking the ostentatious affect so prevalent among the higher echelons of the Morgenthau-Hale corporate hierarchy. At sixty-four, he was lean and spry, with bright chestnut eyes set above a slightly crooked nose—evidence of a break dating back many years—and a well managed silver goatee. He was not known to suffer fools gladly, yet bore a reputation for being among the more paternalistic ranking officers in the corporate fleet. He preferred to write in longhand rather than rely on the ubiquitous (and notoriously temperamental) flexpads. True to form, he was busily drafting an executive summary of Fenton’s capture. One of his subordinates would no doubt be required to digitally transcribe the report before it could be distributed to his superiors at Morgenthau-Hale corporate headquarters. “Greetings, Xenecia of Shih’ra,” he said without lifting his head as she approached the desk. “Have a seat.”

“Commander Orth.” She clasped her hands behind her back in deference to the formal greeting but remained upright despite the invitation. “I would prefer to stand.”

Commander Orth’s pen went still. He lifted his head to regard the huntrex. Clearly he was as unaccustomed to having his will denied as she was to taking orders. “Very well,” he said after a short beat. He laid the pen down to retrieve a seldom-used flexpad from the corner of his desk. “I’ve been going over the incident report regarding the capture of Fenton Wilkes, and I must say, I have some concerns regarding your methods.”

Xenecia’s jaw tightened imperceptibly. “Those are not words I am fond of hearing, Commander.”

“Believe me, I am no more fond of saying them. Yet the fact remains Mr. Wilkes sustained significant cranial damage during the course of your apprehending him.”

“He was in possession of a weapon.”

“Ah, yes…” He scrolled his finger down the screen of the flexpad. “A weapon I understand he came into possession of when you lost control of the subject during a confrontation with one Quint Samuels and his associates.”

“A regrettable turn of events, but unavoidable. I had already taken the subject into custody when Quint initiated the confrontation. He was trying to poach my bounty.”

“Regrettable?” Commander Orth fixed her with what, even for him, was a disturbingly acute stare. “Three men are dead—an innocent civilian and two men bearing security credentials issued under the auspices of Morgenthau-Hale—and you call that regrettable?”

Xenecia stopped just short of a visible double-take. “Commander?”

“Oh yes,” he said in answer of the unasked question hanging between them. “Quint Samuels and his men were all credentialed security personnel, just as you yourself are.” He returned the flexpad to its small corner of the desk, tenting his fingers before him. “Did he or his men announce themselves as such?”

“No, Commander.”

“Did
you
?”

She suspected he already knew the answer. “No, Commander,” she said flatly. “I did not see the need.”

Commander Orth pursed his lips, exhaling deeply through his slightly crooked nose.

“I stand by my assessment of the situation. As I perceived it at the time, Quint and his men were trying to poach my bounty. It would not have been the first time, and I had no intention of allowing it to happen again.”

“Be that as it may, a review board has been empaneled to sit the case. The fact that you apprehended Fenton Wilkes alive will augur in your favor; the circumstances, less so.”

Xenecia received the news impassively, at least outwardly. Inside she was seething. Having had a moment to process the information, she saw it for what it truly was—a ruse. More specifically, an attempt by Morgenthau-Hale’s top brass to avoid paying out the bounty she had rightfully earned. Quint and his whelps weren’t credentialed security personnel. They never had been, at least not until after the firefight. No doubt someone very high up the corporate food chain thought themselves quite clever. Swoop in after the fact, slap security credentials on Quint and his corpse pals, then call the whole thing a wash. Corporate chicanery at its finest.

The real question was whether Commander Orth was in on the ruse or merely its mouthpiece. She suspected the latter. By all accounts he was an honest broker, and certainly not one to question the corporate line. “And where does that leave me until then?”

“Your quarters, I would expect. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to get back to this report. The review board will be expecting it.”

“Of course, Commander.”

She made her exit to the sound of Commander Orth’s renewed scribbling, though she hardly noticed. Her own mind was racing just as quickly as his pen, if not quicker.

04 • REPRESENTATION

Fenton didn’t so much come to as cold reboot. One by one the critical functions that collectively defined his central nervous system powered up, came back online. He was flooded with sensation almost immediately upon rousing, chief of which was pain.

His whole body, from head to toe, was a seething man-sized mass of pain.

His feet and legs bristled with pins and needles from lack of movement.

His stomach felt on the verge of imploding from hunger.

Worst of all, his head felt… well, rather like someone had taken the butt end of a rifle to it at sixty-odd miles an hour. (Give or take.)

Somehow he summoned the will to open his eyes. Well, eye. One was apparently swollen shut. He tried to focus, to bring clarity to his surroundings. The world presented itself in fuzzy relief and with considerably more pain for the effort.

From what little he could tell he was being held in a small, boxy room. The walls were a paneled matte gray, bare and unadorned. With the exception of the chair he was secured to, what he could see of the room was empty. The chair itself was steel and numbingly uncomfortable. His arms were cuffed behind the chair’s back—he presumed with some sort of plastic tie—and the position was putting an incredible, almost dislocating strain on his shoulders. Try as he might, there was no way he could change position to reduce the strain.

Fenton was on the verge of passing out once again when the door slid open with a pressurized hiss. Against the flood of light spilling in from the hall he registered a small, shapely silhouette. Not knowing what else to do, he feigned unconsciousness.

“Fenton Wilkes?” It was a feminine voice, soft and placid. Its owner spoke in a low, soothing octave, as if she understood that anything more would be problematic for him given the state of his head.

Something about her voice compelled him to respond. There was kindness to it. Sympathy. Swallowing and working his jaw, he found his voice for the first time in what felt like days. His lips were chapped and his mouth tasted like battery acid, but still he managed to form the words. “You found him,” he croaked. His voice sounded strange even to him. Like wet, crunching gravel.

Muttering something he didn’t quite catch, the woman closed the distance with three easy strides. She was close now, practically hovering over him as she inspected his face. He could smell the scent of her shampoo lingering in her hair. It was disarmingly fragrant. Sweet, in a flowery sort of way. Vanilla and cherry blossoms, he decided.

The woman straightened herself and walked around the chair. Fenton braced himself in anticipation of whatever fresh hell was to come.

“My name is Roon McNamara, Mr. Wilkes,” the woman said. He heard a jet of water from an automatic faucet, then water splashing in a bowl or sink. Probably a sink, he decided. “I’m an advocate with Morgenthau-Hale’s Fugitive Reclamation Division. I’ve been assigned to handle your case at the hearing when we reach M-H
Prime
.” Behind him, the flow of water ceased abruptly. “May I call you Fenton?”

Fenton affected as much of a shrug as his current state of confinement allowed. A sharp pain lanced down his back and shoulders and immediately he regretted it. “Whatever suits you.”