How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.
-Robert A. Heinlein
Day 4 (Afternoon): Paradise Station
"I can't believe that she actually did that to us." Fred was saying as we left the conference room. "Can she do that?"
"You know she can," I replied. "It is in the contract." Darwin padded silently beside me, still on alert. Something was bothering him, but I couldn't quite tell yet.
Fred chuckled. "I have to admit, it was pretty slick. She can't kill you for Gregson, but she can get you to deliver yourselves to him voluntarily."
"That's not it, precisely. She is just holding us to our contracts. We are still employed to find Leena. She believes that Gregson is just the most likely person Leena will be with."
"You know what else is in the contract?" he said, pulling out his mobile. He keyed in a few things, then held it up to me.
--I quit. Contract canceled. (Keep your damn money).--
I smiled. "So you are out. That leaves four of us then."
"You're getting senile, old friend. By my count it's three. Unless you are counting your employer, which I wouldn't. I doubt she is doing much more than trying to figure out how to escape the three planets. Maybe she could start another colony."
The phrase 'go start a colony' had come to mean about the equivalent of 'go to hell' but with the added wish that you be implicated in your own destruction. It also meant that efforts to escape the fate you wove for yourself would redouble the severity of your defeat. It was not a nice phrase, and rarely used in polite company.
"Bobak," I said in mock offense, "I am shocked to hear such vulgarity pass your lips."
"I doubt very much that you are." He indicated that we should sit at one of the restaurant's tables. "I guess Station life has corrupted me." He signaled a waiter.
"I doubt very much that it has," I returned. "The opposite is more likely to be true... I say four of us, because I have reason to believe that Gregson does not have Leena, not yet. If he did, he wouldn't have bothered with the leverage against our employer. He would have delivered the package to her bosses directly, beating us and shaming her. Destruction is always his method."
The waiter arrived. She was a thirtyish red-head with a sure air about her. Bobak introduced her as Sam and ordered two coffees. "What are you having?" he asked.
"Nothing," I replied. "I have to get back to work. I came down here for a meeting before all this happened."
Sam nodded and left to get the order.
"Oh? Meeting with who?" Fred asked.
"I am not sure, though I have my suspicions. It is someone who sent a mutual friend to greet me." I paused and considered my next statement for a moment.
"Actually, Fred, there is something I need to bring up to you, in your official capacity. I was attacked in my room last night."
He blinked. "You seem to have come out unscathed."
I pulled the collar down from my shirt. "Not exactly. It was with a little fellow name Singer."
"Bornam Singer? That weasly little bastard. He has been suspected in a number of thefts and a couple of murders in the station hotels. We haven't been able to catch him at it though. A true locked room mystery. No idea how he is doing it."
"By crawling through the mechanical access panels."
"Impossible, it was the first thing we checked. It is too narrow and too dangerous. He would have been shredded by the equipment in there."
"He was. He had scars all over his back and chest and his arms."
Bobak paused a second. "Was? Had? I take it there is more to this story."
"He had snuck into my room but theft wasn't his goal. He had been hired to kill me. He very nearly did as well, if not for this guy." I reached down and scratched Darwin's head.
"Long story short, I had passed out from asphyxiation. Darwin dispatched him. I cleaned up. Maximum decontamination and dump."
Bobak considered his next move. "Ok. I usually don't approve of deaths in my hotel, but that little rat has been a thorn in my side since I got here. I also have a newfound respect for your furry friend. This is going to be trouble though. I have to report it, and without witnesses it is going to get very messy. You might have to stay here for a while to clear it up."
"I am afraid that is impossible. I have to be able to move around in case I pick up Leena's trail. That is why I recorded it."
"You did what?"
"I set up remote cameras in all my rooms. I can't be awake all the time, and I need information to operate. So I have 'eyes open' and review the footage in the mornings."
I grabbed my mobile from my pack, which was becoming distressingly empty. After keying up the recording of last night's festivities, I swiped them over to him. He looked at his mobile in turn.
"I would wait to watch it on an empty stomach," I warned him. "It isn't pleasant."
"I bet. Nevertheless, I am asking you to stay on the station until I have had time to review this. I will message you and let you know if I need you. Can you at least promise me that?"
I looked at my old friend. We had changed so much in the intervening years. Nothing was same. I don't think he really knew me anymore. I am not sure I did, either. I reached down to Darwin again.
"No."
"No? Seriously Josh? Don't make me arrest you. It would be embarrassing for you. And it might be dangerous for Darwin. If his desire to protect you is as fierce as you say, we might have to use lethal force. Oh, I know that some of my guys might get hurt, but that is what I pay them for. Please don't make this hard."
I was surprised. Where did this steel come from? Fred was always an easy going guy. This reasonable but immovable force was Fereydoon Bobak, head of security. It would seem that I really didn't know him anymore either.
"Very well. How about a compromise? I will remain on the Station for as long as my search keeps me here. Before I leave, I will contact you. If you have not, by then, found answers to your satisfaction, then you can have me arrested."
He considered that. "Your word?"
"My word."
"As a Finder, under the code?"
"Always."
"I guess that will have to do. Aleksander will be pissed though. He likes to keep the cells full. It makes it look like he is working. You know," he said, "letting you go might just be worth irritating the hell out of him. I have a better idea though. I will show him your footage. That oughta give him nightmares for weeks." He chuckled quietly.
We sat for a moment, silently considering our futures. A waiter brought us each a coffee, and I just stared at it. Bobak was looking at his own. He was working up his courage. I could sense what was coming next and tried to steel myself for it. The pounding was coming back. The sounds of flames and tears.
"Josh," Bobak said quietly, spinning his coffee cup slowly on its plate, "what happened to Joanie? I could see your face change just before you threw us to the ground. Can you talk about it?"
The roaring in my ears was deafening. I looked for Darwin, but he had disappeared again. Why the hell did he keep doing that? My vision was starting to cloud. I hated that Bobak could see me like this.
"Darwin!" I called desperately, trying to catch my breath. Bobak's look of concern turned to pity. I hated that more. The pressure in my head was mounting. I needed this horror in my life to function, while at the same time loathing the life it left me with. Tears were already streaming down my face, though I maintained a steady gaze. I would not break down, not again.
Then suddenly Darwin was there. He leapt onto my lap and it was like a switch turned. Where the was wailing there was now only purring. Where there was a bitter cold heart, now there was a warm body next to mine. Where there was death and emptiness, Darwin reminded me forcefuly and fiercely that life was to be fought for.
I drew a shuddering breath, straightened myself. "Yes," I said. Perhaps it was time. I had kept this secret for a decade. Who better to share it with that a man I had known for longer than that.
"It happened about 10 years ago. I don't remember the day, exactly. I was... disconnected for a while. She died. I killed her."
Bobak looked at my tear stained face, then down to Darwin. "I doubt that very much, old friend. You don't have the heart of a killer."
I don't have a heart at all, I thought, but said nothing.
"How?" was all he said.
"It was a job gone wrong. I should have shielded her, I should have protected her from the evil in the world. But I failed. Worse, I was responsible for bringing him to our home. I brought my wife's killer to her."
Fred sat and watched me for a moment, apparently trying to figure out what the best response would be. The one he chose was completely unexpected and uniquely him.
"Aren't you being a little melodramatic? And not to mention cliché. I don't mean to be unfeeling here, old boy, but danger is part of the job, always has been. Joanie knew that, probably better than any of us. I can guarantee that even knowing what her future held, she still would have chosen it, she still would have chosen you. And it has been ten years, man. Isn't the natural grieving period a little overextended."
I smiled wryly at his direct analysis. Not a guy to mince words, our Fred. I held my hands apart. "It has made me the man I am today!"
He laughed, then stopped abruptly, the light dawning. "Wait. SHE's your vortex? Are you telling me you HAVE to keep that grief going just to Find? Josh, do you hear how insane that is?"
"Finding is an insane kind of business. But it keeps the lights on." And saves lives, I added to myself, full knowing that he was thinking the same.
"Wow. I don't think I could handle that. Actually, that is a lie. I know that I could not, and I have known it for years." He snapped his fingers "You know what? Since I am in a quittin' mood today, I will go for another." He then raised his right hand and placed his left over his heart. "I, Fereydoon Bobak being of sound mind and sorta sound body, do hereby and forthwith, effective immediately, withdraw my name for the noble and august society of Finders. In brief, I quit." He lowered his hands and winked at me. "Would you mind passing that on to the rest of them for me?"
"Are you sure about this?" I asked, a little incredulous at the sincerity of his declaration.
"Didn't you hear the part of 'sound mind'? It makes me uniquely unfit for the position." He was laughing. So was I. I had forgotten that this is how it felt.
"Oh but the times we had, old friend." he said, raising his quickly cooling coffee to his lips.
Suddenly I said "Stop. Freeze." Which he did, and it saved his life.
From behind him I could see Sam approaching with two coffees. Arriving at our table, she looked confused at the two cups already there. Shrugging her shoulders, she put the two additional coffees in front of Bobak.
I smelled my coffee. It smelled normal to me. I held it down to Darwin, who did that ridiculous little thing that all cats do when the smell something they don't know. Darwin knew the smell of coffee. He did not like it. Instead of turning his head though, his mouth opened and his eyes fixated as he tried to work out this new scent.
"Poisoned." I said.
Fred, for his part, did not panic. Out of the misty past, a hand had reached out and tried to wrap itself around both of our throats. It would appear that Mr. Jones' failure to terminate the competition meant that things would have to get personal. None of us were safe now from even the most innocuous of activities.
Fred just put his cup down slowly back on the saucer. "Our benefactor left you a note." he said, indicating the saucer that my cup had be resting on.
Unfolding it, I read it aloud. "If you are still alive to read this, sorry about Fred. He was a good student, but casualties always are a risk in war. Next time you want to meet, don't bring company."
It was signed G.