Zero Rogue Read online

  “Don’t mean it right you just walk inta my place and stake a claim.”

  “It’s not your place. It’s no one’s place.” Aaron smiled. “Besides, it looked empty.”

  “The fuck you think the point of hidin’ in the side room was? I don’t want no wrong people getting’ no wrong ideas ’bout takin’ what ain’t theirs.”

  “Christ.” Aaron waved a hand past his watering eyes. “How can you even eat that? Did they spray it with violence inhibitor?”

  “A what?”

  “Chemical pacification agent.” He waved a hand around his face. “Gets in your eyes and throat, burns like bloody hell.”

  Darwin shrugged. “Whatever it is, it’s perfect. Tuna man ain’t got no room bitchin’ on my wings.”

  “You know, contrary to popular belief, people from London do eat things other than fish and chips.”

  “Then why you always whinin’ about ’em?”

  “This”―Aaron gestured at his half-eaten meal―“is about as far from it as one can get. Besides, I’m grumbling about good chips. These sad things are fries, mate. I’d have been happy with a decent steak. Just because I happen to fancy a stereotypical dish does not make me a stereotype.”

  “Uh huh,” said Darwin. “You keep on tellin’ yourself that.”

  Aaron rolled his eyes and took another bite.

  “Oh, right.” Darwin wiped sauce from his lips, sauce Aaron figured would blister his skin on contact. “Next time we run out to a dive for food, I’ll make reservations at the Crystal Swan.”

  “Now you’re just being patronizing.” Aaron poked the holo-emitter in the table, calling for another beer.

  “Didn’t you just drink yourself stupid last night?”

  “Aye, but this is witch piss.” Aaron plucked the canister from a passing hover tray. “It helps.”

  “So about that whole rent thing―”

  “There is no ‘rent thing’ as far as I can tell, mate.” Aaron took a huge bite, hoping to get it over with as soon as possible. The spongy consistency of the not-fish would only get worse the longer it sat.

  Darwin leaned back in his seat. “All right, but I want the master bedroom.”

  “You chose the small room months before I moved in.” He popped the seal on the canister. Frost spread over the can from bottom to top. “It’s a bit late for that. There’s a dozen apartments on that floor with no one to argue with. You’d have moved out weeks ago if it was an issue.”

  “That’s beside the point.” Darwin pointed another bare bone at him. “It was my place before you showed up. Just because you’re a cop doesn’t―”

  “Ex.”

  “Ex-cop; what-the-fuck-ever, man.” Darwin laughed. “You’re right about the food. I know this place just past the sector border. Great burritos.”

  “You’ve been on me to go there for months.” Aaron stared at the roiling froth in his beer. A moment later, he sighed. “Pass.”

  “Somethin’ wrong with Spanish food?”

  “No.” He took a long swig, trying to force thoughts of his wife away. “Just bad memories.”

  Darwin gave him a knowing look, one hand on his stomach. “Yeah, man. I hear that. Got a bad batch once myself. Took me awhile to risk it again. Trust me, Sammy’s place is clean.”

  Aaron smirked but said nothing. Explosive diarrhea was as apt a metaphor as anything for what fate had done to his life. His gaze settled on an Asian woman sitting alone at the bar in a short business skirt-suit, gloss white high heels hooked on the lowest ring of her stool. Her expression and body language dared anyone to approach. A small black datapad with a security cover rested on the bar in front of her, bearing a stylized M in a red circle.

  “You won’t have to worry about rent if things work out.”

  “Say what?” Darwin looked up from his capsaicin ecstasy.

  “If that girl of yours makes good, you can ’ave the lot of it.”

  “A lot of what?”

  “About six hundred grand, give or take whatever I have to spend. It’s all I could siphon off the main account when everything went to fuck. Least I can do, mate.”

  Darwin stared at him long enough for half a wing to fall out of his lips and hit the plate. “You got six hundred grand to throw at me and you’re squattin’ in the grey? I call bullshit.”

  Aaron chuckled. “I got a touch more than that, but it’s mired up in contracts back in Holloway, not to mention has the government all over it. The six hundred represents the last of my worldly wealth that I can realistically access without anyone noticing.”

  “What you sayin’ man? Sounds like you wantin’ ta check out. I thought we settled that bullshit already.” Darwin wiped sauce off his hands, unable to suppress a persistent shake of the head. “Nah, man. Feel wrong takin money from a dead man.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Almost.”

  “Oh, I’m not trying to snuff-it. I’m just being a realist.” He stared over a dollop of ketchup at the tip of a fry, looking past it into the man’s eyes. “There’s a noticeable difference between wanting to die and just not giving a fuck what happens.”

  Aaron cracked a faint smile as the Asian woman crossed her legs the other way.

  Darwin exhaled, deciding to order a beer himself. “Who is this bitch you’re after anyway? I saved your ass. You could at least tell me that.”

  “You shoved me headfirst into perhaps the single most ghastly trash compressor in the city,” said Aaron. “I had to burn that suit.”

  “Yeah, an’ those damn cops wanted nothin’ to do with searching it, did they?”

  Aaron flicked his finger on the side of the synthbeer canister, hesitating as it reached his lips. “Someone I intend to kill.” After a long swig, the plain silvery metal dropped out of his vision to reveal Darwin’s incredulous stare, forehead bedecked with glistening beads of moisture. “Those wings look hot.”

  His friend leaned over the table, lowering his voice to a whisper. “This bitch ain’t no cop, right?”

  That made Aaron smile. “Quite not.” Again, he turned his attention to the still-solitary woman. She looked around his age, teasing thirty without making contact with it. Granted, if she had enough money for the Reinventions clinic, she could’ve been twice his grandmother’s age. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “I need to get the particulars in order. Work out some stuff with Shimmer.”

  “You do that then.” Aaron slugged down the last of his second beer and put the empty canister down as he stood.

  “Where the hell are you going?”

  “I’m in the mood for sushi.”

  leep gave way to idle contentment, basking in a swirl of mild incense and the perfume of the woman at his side; the scent of flowers clung to her hair, battling with the smell wafting from the tray that held their sashimi hours before. Aaron stretched, sliding one arm under his cool satin pillow while staring up at drop ceiling tiles either brown or some bizarre shade of red, of its name a secret known only to artists.

  Taking a room at the Alta Pointe Suites had been a risky move. Up until the woman suggested the place, he’d not been inclined to test the skills of Darwin’s hacker. He figured she at least verged on competence since his former buddies hadn’t yet found him.

  Glasses on the nightstand rattled and clinked as a hovercar shot by outside, too close to the building. Aaron tensed at the high-pitched warble of a police siren.

  Her breath puffed warm across his chest. She lay on her side with her cheek on one shoulder, hand on the other, curled around him in a posture that said ‘this is mine’ more than ‘protect me.’ He traced the contours of her back with his left hand while idly scratching at the pillow with the other. The urge to move, to do anything but enjoy the feeling of silk and woman on his skin, was nonexistent.

  Momentary alarm struck him. He glanced left to the nightstand on her side of the bed, and wrapped his mental focus around her sleek, silver NetMini. Telekinesis lofted it airborne; the device glided without a noise until it hovered over
his face. Moving with great care, he extricated his hand from the pillow and keyed in a police override diagnostic sequence. The screen went black and displayed the owner’s name, address, place of employment, and several links to her various accounts. Bands of text, cyan on black, scrolled by in alternating Japanese and English.

  Kimiko Asada. Right, that would’ve been embarrassing to forget.

  Aaron levitated the device back to where he’d found it and let his head flop to the pillow. She reacted to the motion by emitting a soft, alluring noise. He made it a point not to look at her innocent face; asleep, the woman seemed like an altogether different person than the one he’d brought here. Lost to dreaming, she had the face of a person, not a score, not a hard-edged corporate shark in a skirt-suit. Vulnerable, content, feminine―but not Allison.

  He looked away from her to the wall where narrow goldenrod curtains shifted in the downdraft from a ceiling vent. The windows, at maximum tint, turned the sky bronze and kept out much of the light of late morning. A few harsh glints flared wherever the sun caught a reflection on a passing chromed advert bot.

  Kimiko rolled onto her back and stretched her arms over her head, feet straight out. Aaron shifted onto his side and put a hand on her stomach; her muscles rippled until she went lax.

  “Saido?” she purred, narrowing her eyes. “Ima?”

  Aaron cast a helpless glance at his NetMini. Before he could grab it for the translator, she rolled on top of him and raked her nails down his chest.

  “Anata wa akueikyō desu.”

  He chuckled. “Bad influence, right? I’ve heard that before.”

  Her hair fell around his head in an ebon curtain as she bent forward to kiss him. His hands went roaming as she gave his lip a playful bite before thrusting her tongue into his mouth. He cradled the back of her head with one hand and they moaned into each other’s mouths. Kimiko scratched her blood red nails across his pectorals, leaving raised pink lines. Aaron shifted, rolling on top of her. She tolerated it for a moment before threading her leg between his and twisting him over. As soon as he hit the bed, she pounced. He panted, sweating, clutching the silk sheets in both hands as she reached down between her legs and grabbed his cock, lifting it into position. Aaron gasped, arching his back, waiting for her to lower herself.

  The door rattled. Bang, bang, bang.

  “Shite.” He fell flat on the bed. “Forget whoever it is.”

  Kimiko looked at him as if to ask if he planned to ignore it. He grinned. She eased herself onto him. Aaron moaned. She clutched his shoulders, kissing him as she gyrated.

  Bang, bang, bang.

  “Aaron, where the hell did you go?” Darwin yelled through the door.

  “Bit busy!” shouted Aaron.

  Kimiko moved her attention from his lips to the side of his neck.

  “Oh, God!” wailed Aaron. He shuddered as she took his hands and placed them on her breasts.

  For a minute, they rocked in unison.

  A chirp came from security panel by the exit. Kimiko gasped, grabbed the sheet, and spun in an acrobatic whirl that wound up disengaging her from Aaron as well as covering them both up to the neck before the door opened. Darwin, in his tattered glory, stomped in; the door hissed shut behind him. Aaron convulsed, red faced and frozen in mid thrust.

  “Christ, man. You’re unbelievable.” Darwin gestured at them. “Did you forget we have a job to do?”

  Aaron, still panting, held up a hand. He tried to speak, but could only wheeze. Kimiko glared at Darwin.

  “Don’t give me that look.” Darwin pointed at Aaron. “You damn well know we had shit to do today. It’s almost noon.”

  Kimiko went pale. She rolled left, grabbing for her NetMini, dragging the sheet away from Aaron.

  “Aww, man.” Darwin held a hand to his eyes as if exposed to raw sunlight. “I didn’t need to see that. Get a goddamn towel.”

  The moment ruined, Aaron salvaged his dignity and got up. Taking no small delight in Darwin’s discomfort, he walked right past him to the bathroom and got into the autoshower tube. Sporting a mischievous grin, he touched the holographic control panel without using his hands, selecting a basic cycle.

  “Sorry, mate,” he said to his unsatisfied erection. “Couldn’t get ’round the goaltender that time.”

  Hot water, soapy slime, more hot water, and a powerful torrent of warm air left him clean, sober, and disappointed ten minutes later. He plodded into the main room, which seemed much colder than it had before, and recovered the clothes forming a trail from door to bed. Pale light flickered on the walls from the holographic head of an older woman hovering over Kimiko’s NetMini.

  She sat on the side of the Comforgel pad, wrapped from armpit down in the sheet. He couldn’t follow the rapid conversation in Japanese, but her mannerisms seemed deferential. She nodded several times at the ethereal woman. Her apparent superior gave Aaron a sidelong glance as he streaked by and seemed a few degrees less upset with Kimiko. When the call ended, she crept around the room clinging to the sheet while gathering her clothes from the carpet before shuffling into the bathroom.

  Darwin moved to the far wall and slid his finger over a silver panel. The windows changed from near opaque to clear in a second, letting in a flood of sunlight.

  “Gah!” yelled Aaron. “Little bloody warning please.”

  “I brought a clean suit.” Darwin pointed at a case on a chair.

  “You went into my closet?”

  “As you so eloquently pointed out yesterday, if it ain’t my apartment, it ain’t your closet.” Darwin clasped his hands behind his back and pivoted to face him. “You need some sun.”

  The whirr of the autoshower vibrated in the floor.

  “This is tan for London.” Aaron removed a dark navy suit from the case and laid it out on the bed. “I’m not so sure about this, Dar.”

  “What’s there not to be sure about?” Darwin paced like Napoleon before his troops. “You need information, which you have no other means of obtaining… Shimmer needs our help. She can get your information, we can help her.”

  “It’s illegal.” Aaron, clad only in boxers and one dark sock, felt ridiculous pointing at Darwin as if he had some kind of authority. “It’s just…”

  “You keep remindin’ me you ain’t no cop no more. Ex-cop, right? What are you glitching on? You sure as hell ain’t tryin’ to stay clean so they take you back. They don’t take back motherfuckers who kill four cops. Get over bein’ the man, ’cause you ain’t the man no more.”

  Aaron glared. He leapt to his feet, waving his other sock at Darwin. “I didn’t fuckin’ kill her. It was Talis… and”―he slumped, staring down, sock hanging limp from his hand―“Garber brought it on himself. I had no idea it would happen.” He scrunched his face up in an open-mouthed gawk. “Wait a minnit. I never told―”

  “No, you didn’t. I took the liberty of asking Shimmer―”

  “Son of a…” Aaron fell on the bed.

  Darwin held up his hands. “At least you know she’s capable now. If she can get into the police case records, she’s gonna be able to do what you need. Get dressed. You look ridiculous.”

  Aaron slipped into his suit, standing and pulling on the jacket as Kimiko emerged from the bathroom, wearing everything she came in with except for her shoes. She sat on the opposite side of the bed, back facing Aaron. Darwin grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door. Aaron glanced back at her and pulled his NetMini out.

  “How do you say ‘I’ll call you’ in Japanese?”

  Kimiko looked up with a sardonic grin. “Dono yō ni eigo de ‘detarame’ to iu no desu ka?”

  Aaron’s NetMini chirped, displaying the translation. “How do you say ‘bullshit’ in English?” He tittered a nervous laugh. “You speak English?”

  Kimiko made a face as though he’d asked her if she knew how to breathe. “Of course. It is only the people in this country who think it sufficient to know one language.”

  “Why… what?” Aaron blinke
d. “You’ve not said a bloody word in English the whole time.”

  She slid her feet into her shoes and tapped her heel on the bed. “It was easier to get you to do what I wanted if I acted like a foreigner.”

  “But…” He looked at Darwin. “But, I―”

  Kimiko stood and grabbed her coat. “I know exactly what you were trying to do, but I did it to you first.” She winked. “Thanks for a wonderful night.”

  He feigned a wounded look at Darwin. “I feel so used.”

  Darwin laughed all the way to the lobby.

  Aaron fidgeted in his seat, still not quite rid of the awkwardness of his earlier interruption. He stared off through the haze of Nicohaler vapor hanging in the air, unfocused. Darwin wasted no time attacking his omelet, even the suspiciously symmetrical battered, fried potato nuggets.

  “They grow them square,” mumbled Darwin over a full mouth.

  “What’s that?” Aaron snapped out of his fog. “Square?”

  Darwin gestured with a fork. “The potato things. This place is high end. Hydroponics.” He speared three one-centimeter cubes at the same time and held up his fork. “It’s more efficient. Brick-shaped potatoes. Easier to pack.”

  “Lovely image.” Aaron added more black pepper to his. “I thought you were in some kind of mad hurry?”

  “Can’t pass up an opportunity for real food. Besides, I gotta get you up to speed.”

  Aaron sectioned off a bit of egg and stabbed it. “This couldn’t have waited twenty minutes?”

  Darwin flashed an ivory smile. “Had I known before that breakfast was part of the deal, sure.”

  “Brilliant timing.” Aaron washed down his egg with some hot tea. “Nice suit, by the way.”

  “Rental. Look, you wanna find that bitch, we need Shimmer’s help. You want Shimmer’s help, we gotta do this thing.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Infinity Casino.”

  “I don’t get what’s up your ass about this, man.” Darwin dropped his fork with a clank on the empty plate. “We ain’t stealing or killing. All we gotta do is plant a Horus on their network so’s Shimmer can tap in.”