Traitor (Rebel Stars Book 2) (10 page)

He found a staircase, took it up to the roof. The people below looked like bugs, harmless and silly. The dome above looked close enough to touch. It was night, and as he gazed up at the stars outside, all sense of guilt left him.

Instead, he thought about how he could have won.

* * *

They brought him back to South Street a week later. Inside, things looked different. Smaller. In the halls, people glanced at him from the corner of their eyes. In the cafeteria, heads turned. Ced saw the blond boy who'd tackled him in the study room. The boy looked away.

Ced continued to scan the room. People turned back to their dinners. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled, fists bunching.

"Did you learn nothing?" Kansas looked him up and down. "If they bring fists, you bring something that will break fists."

"What happened?" he said. "After I fell?"

She shrugged her lean shoulders. "I taught them how little they are. Dapp's gone. They had to dump his contract on another crew."

"His friends are still here."

"Who gives a shit?" She jerked her thumb at the lines. "Go eat. I want to show you something."

He got in line, got his food, and wolfed it down. As soon as he finished, Kansas stood. "So. You want to join my team?"

Ced gawked. "You're like nine years old! You have a
team
?"

"No," she scowled. "But I will someday. Come on. Let's meet your new captain."

On the way out the door, he tossed his trash in the recycler. Kansas went to the elevators and punched up the 12th floor. Ced's head swam. People usually spent months in general education before being chosen for a team. For younger kids, it could be years. Had his fight with Dapp been a test? Or was he a problem they were trying to keep away from the other kids?

Kansas elbowed open a door into a wide room that kind of reminded him of the dojo, except instead of punching bags and dummies, it had desks and monitors. A half dozen kids tapped on pads, absorbed in the screens. None of them looked older than Kansas.

Benson strolled over to him, nodding at his arm. "Lookin' good."

"What is this place?" Ced said. "Who's captain?"

"Here's a hint: his name starts with B, and ends with -enson."

"
You?
"

"You were right," Benson said to Kansas. "He catches on fast." He stuck out his hand. "Welcome to the Fightin' Iguanas."

* * *

In a lot of ways, crewing for Benson wasn't much different from when he'd been in general education. Ced still got up at the same time. Still ate with all the other kids. Still went to fight class.

In every other way, though, it was another world. The very next day, Benson took them outside, strolling through the streets, eyes lingering on the colored jackets of other crews. For half an hour, he meandered this way and that, leading them like eager rats. The station had the heat turned down, and on that morning, it was so cold Ced's breath swirled like the clouds on Earth.

"Mr. Benson?" A boy named Gene glanced up at their captain. "What are we doing here?"

Benson swung to face them, walking backwards. "We're learning, kid."

"Wouldn't we learn more in studies?"

"You might learn more facts. But what good are facts if you don't have anywhere to use them?" Benson gave Gene a long look, then gestured to the street. "From here, it looks like the Locker's got two dimensions. East-west, north-south. But you're wrong, dummy. It has three. The first is space. Realm of the pirates. The flyboys."

"And flygirls," Kansas said.

"All right, correction: the fly-
people
. They bring in fresh goods from anyone stupid enough to fly outside the Lanes. The Locker's lifeblood. And they keep all the govs and corps off our back." Benson stepped over a pile of greenish goo that Ced hoped was just puke. "The second dimension is the boardrooms and back rooms. That's where things get
done
. Where the bosses decide where to send their ships. Where to focus their teams. How a new market gets divvied up. People like us tend to think the people in the suits are soft. Well, I'll tell you this: if there was a dollar in it, those guys would sell your soft parts to that hot dog-slinger over there."

Gene swerved around the legs of a panhandler seated against the wall of a pawn shop. "So what's the third dimension?"

Benson grinned. "You're standing in it. The
street
. This is the frontline. Know what the frontline is? It's the place where most of us suckers wind up. To make it on the front, you have to know it. And the only way to know the street is to be in it."

A few of the others shivered against the cold, wary of the brightly-dressed young men and women cruising through the civilians. Ced, though, was happy to see the urban sharks out on their routes.

Because it meant he was back where he belonged.

* * *

For two weeks, they split their time between tramping around the streets listening to Benson's lectures, playing games of tag and squares in the office, and reading about something called supply and demand. That was so boring it made Ced want to volunteer to scrub the kitchen's dishes, but everything else was fun, so he didn't mind.

"Right!" Benson clapped his hands, ambling to the middle of the wide, open room. "Wondering why I've had you reading this dense old rich-man talk? Because you're about to put it into action for yourselves. First, you're going to select a leader."

"For what?" Ced said.

Kansas rolled her eyes. "Who cares? A good leader can lead anything."

"I might choose you for a squares captain. But if I was picking the captain of a pirate ship, I'd choose Benson."

"I'm not eligible for this one," Benson said. "You're starting a business. Here's the kicker: you get a cut of the money you make. Most will go against your debt, but you'll get some walking-around money, too. So choose your new CEO wisely."

He told them to put their vote on their devices. Ced typed in Kansas' name. He was sure she'd get chosen—she wasn't afraid of anyone, and she had this draw to her, like she might do something amazing at any moment, and you couldn't look away or you might miss it.

"Congratulations," Benson said after everyone had voted. "The CEO of your new business is…Heddy!"

Heddy glanced between the other kids, smiling, blushing a little. She was good at math and made sure everyone knew it, but Ced didn't know why they'd chosen her except she was popular.

"As CEO," Benson continued, "it's your job to assign the other jobs. Logistics. Distribution. Marketing. Protection. Whatever you think you need. As for your product…"

He moved to a table set to the side and picked up a foot-square thinbox from its surface. The box was empty. Where it had rested sat a fleet of tiny spaceships.

"What you see before you is the action figure line of
Swimmer Attack!
, a show canceled before most of you were toilet trained. A few months back, our parent company picked up several thousand of these babies. Not on purpose, mind—it was extra cargo on a grab job. They tried to move them retail, but the show only got five episodes deep. Nobody gives a damn about its figurines; the sales force's efforts barely made a dent in our supply. They were about to sell them to the recyclers for a few bucks, but I convinced them to let me take a whack at it."

He strode across the line of kids, index finger upraised. "They took their shot and now they're cutting their losses. As the Dragons, they can afford to do that, because they've got a hundred different irons in the fire. Doesn't matter if you have to toss one out. But the Iguanas?
You?
This is all you've got. You make it count, or you die trying."

Niki's mouth fell open. "We have to die?"

"Kidding about the dying. But everything else is true." He got down on one knee to look them in the eyes. "One last thing. Don't screw this up, okay? This Junior Gangster Legitimate Business League, the Fightin' Iguanas, this was my idea. If we crash, it'll be me who goes down with the ship. So go out there and get rich!"

After an inspection of the toy ships, Heddy assigned them their jobs. Donner and Marly were on marketing. Ced didn't know what a COO was, but that's what Heddy named Jole. She assigned others to keeping track of money and inventory and stuff like that.

Heddy came to Ced and tapped her lips with the tip of her finger. "You beat Dapp up until he had to leave, right? So I guess you're in the streets."

He pointed at Kansas. "She helped."

"Then she goes with you. Okay, team. Let's go to work!"

They spent the whole rest of the day talking, mostly about which of their friends they could sell some of the toys to. Heddy came up with a distribution plan to set up stands outside the nearby places kids hung out—the gaming stadiums, the shooter rinks, that sort of thing. Ced put in a few ideas, but nobody really listened to him. He got the impression it was because they'd assigned him to protection, and all protection was good for was eyes and muscle.

The next morning, while Heddy had the others working on stands and signs and stuff, she sent Ced and Kansas out to find the exact spots to set up in. They hit the streets, weaving through pedestrians on their way to Killscreen, a local gamer hangout.

"This is dumb," Kansas said. "We'd make more money dumping this crap in the recyclers and spending our time begging instead."

"Why's that?"

"We're not going to make any money selling toys."

"Somebody must. Or else they wouldn't make them."

She eyed him. "Are you making fun of me?"

"I'm just saying that kids buy toys."

"Not these ones. Or Benson's bosses would never have given them to him."

Ced laughed. "People will buy anything. You just have to make them want it."

"Okay, then I'll tell them I'll punch them if they don't buy."

He shook his head. "This is why you're muscle, not marketing."

The street outside Killscreen was crowded with stalls, shacks, tables, and people carrying fold-out trays of crud. It looked messy and dirty, but the Locker took pride in its independence and made it easy for bizmen to set up their own operations—Ced had actually looked into going legit back when he and Stefen were in the early phases of their fruit thing.

That was cool, but the plastic pavement was sectioned off into little rectangles marking each in-street shop's space. And every single one of those spaces was occupied.

"Big deal," Kansas said. "So we set up down the street."

Ced swerved around a man in a pea green jacket arguing with a device-carrying bizman. "That's past the tube stop. Half the kids will be gone. It'd be like trying to catch a fish in Drydecker Pond."

"Drydecker Pond? What are you talking about?" She glared up at a man in a long coat who was about to plow into her. The man contorted himself to avoid the collision. "This is where Heddy wants us. Make it work."

Ced moved to the safety of the outer wall of a skate shop where the pedestrian traffic wasn't so bad. Some of the stalls took up their entire designated rectangle, but many had open space around them. The answer was obvious: partner with a vendor with extra room.

The first man laughed. "Get out of here, kid. I don't need you clogging up my lanes."

Ced stepped toward him. "But—"

The man shoved him in the chest. "I said get lost."

He had no better luck with the next two. They were turning him down before he could get to the meat of his proposal. He'd have to fire his bullet before his defenses were down.

He eyeballed a woman selling rows of fighter ships, robots, and dinosaurs. In a lull, he strode right up to her.

"I've got product just like yours," he said. "If you let me sell it with you, I promise I can double your traffic."

She glanced down at him. "Save your breath."

"
And
I'll give you 10% of everything we sell." He wasn't sure Heddy would like that, but he knew enough to know they'd make up for the loss with the right location.

The woman sighed. "I'd spend the next fifteen minutes dickering you up to 18%, but it isn't my call, kid. You want to sell here? Then go talk to the Orcs. They run this whole neighborhood."

Ced trudged back to the wall. "Now what? Do we set up a deal with the Orcs?"

"Screw them," Kansas said. "We're not paying off another crew. We'll use a roamer."

Heddy wasn't happy about that. Going with a roving vendor meant they couldn't use any of the glitzy signs and things Heddy and her marketing department had put together. But Kansas explained the situation on the ground and Ced backed her and Heddy gave them the go-ahead. She was going to put up a stall a few blocks away in Pub Alley, too, but Ced thought that was dumb. Nobody but grownups went there.

In the morning, they hit the streets early. A boy named Parson was doing the actual selling, carrying a case of the action figures and a device for transactions. Ced and Kansas roved the block, keeping an eye out for trouble and also sending the occasional kid to Parson. It looked like they were doing pretty good.

Hours later, the station's lights dimmed. They wrapped up and Ced was shocked to learn the take. That whole day, they'd sold two toys: one to a little girl who Ced was pretty sure had mistaken the
Swimmer Attack!
figures for the ones from
Extinction Games
. And another to a five-year-old boy who got three steps away, stopped to stare down at his dingy fighter ship, and burst into tears. He'd begged Parson for a refund, but Kansas refused.

As they trudged home, Kansas shook her head. "That was awful."

"It could have been worse," Ced said. "At least we tried, right?"

At the 12th floor of the Dragons building, Benson flung out his palms in disbelief. "That was
awful
! It would have been better if you hadn't tried at all. At least that way we could still pretend you're not utterly hopeless!"

For the next half hour, he interrogated them about what they'd done and what they could do better. Most of the kids looked embarrassed or scared. Heddy looked like she might cry. Kansas looked annoyed, then so bored she started to yawn.