Contractual Obligations: Part Seven

      This is unreal, Reynard thought as he ran for cover in the next sheltered alcove overlooking the Firenza's glass bottom. He, Anlek, and Elise's group had advanced significantly toward the Aztecs, now standing where the entrance to the airship's hotel would be if the blast shield were not covering it. Peering up through the fronds of an ornamental fern, he fired several shots ineffectively at the crew of Aztecs trying to break into the engine service corridor. Anlek crouched beside him, an ascending whine coming from his gamma gun as it slowly powered up. Elise fell in on his opposite side, leaning out from the alcove and firing off a staccato hail of red bolts from her small silver pistol. “Hey, you're new at this, right?” she said, gesturing toward Reynard's pistol. Reynard nodded in affirmation. “Then just lay down suppressive fire and let the professionals do the work, okay?”

     Reynard nodded curtly again, popping up from his place of concealment as he flipped a toggle on the side of his small gun, setting it to auto fire. Suddenly thoughts of Elise being a double agent entered his mind, but after watching her fight he laid them aside, ready now to agree with Luciano that the very idea was preposterous. As if in answer to his thoughts, he spotted a white shape moving up in the air and saw Luciano being roughly shoved aboard one of the Aztec skiffs along with two other dark-suited individuals.

      “Elise!” Reynard yelled as the information broker followed her troop of Mafia men forward to another position. “They've got Luciano on one of their skiffs.”

      Elise swore under her breath, then yelled “Get down!” as one of the Aztecs fired off a rocket-propelled grenade in their direction. Elise's group had been the intended target, but the distracted soldier had overshot. The grenade landed with a concussive thud a few feet away from Reynard. He threw himself backward as the shell exploded, turning the terra cotta planter he'd been hiding behind into so many shards of dust and shattering the semi-circular glass balustrade that had been providing them with cover. “Come on!” Elise yelled.

      Anlek cursed under his breath as he and Reynard crouched down, running as fast as they could for the next alcove and its protection. Without looking up, Reynard laid down a few rounds of suppressive fire into the air near the Aztec soldiers. There was no warning, no real sound or feeling at first, for what happened next. As Reynard dived for cover, Anlek directly behind him, he felt an intensely hot sensation on his left arm, and suddenly couldn't remember where he was or what he was doing. As he dived, he realized that several of the Aztecs had moved forward into one of the opposite alcoves. He saw the flash of their laser carbines as they fired again. The next thing he knew he had hit the ground behind Elise, and two of the Mafia toughs attending her had dragged him into the alcove. He was shaking. He was cold where he had been so hot just a few moments prior. He suddenly realized the smell of burning flesh and ozone was coming from his left shoulder. Unconsciousness threatened to encroach, but a string of Eckoli curse words so foul that they greeted his translator with only hissing static flying from his partner kept him awake, and grinning like an idiot. Which I guess I am. “Anlek,” he said quietly, “don't let those bastards take my baby.” He nearly slipped into unconsciousness at that, until one of Elise's toughs placed a capsule in his mouth and pushed up on his jaw, breaking it and releasing a foul taste. Adrenaline, Reynard thought. That should keep me awake for a few minutes.

      Hell no, this is NOT going happen this way, Anlek thought, unleashing a string of curses the young race of man had no idea how to replicate. He lifted his gamma gun, turning to his partner, friend, and former slave. “I guess you're right. I am going to have to finally use this damn thing. Personally, I think I'll be happy to see these bastards' insides melt.”

      Elise's men were retrieving grenades from their belts to throw at the nearby alcove, now infested with Aztec invaders, when Elise spotted the gray and green carapace of the Eckoli rush by them. “Hold your grenades and follow, boys, the bug's gone berserk!”

Anlek led the charge, leveling his enormous gamma gun on his shoulder and pulling the trigger as he neared the Aztecs, the four Mafia men and Elise in tow.

      The gun stuttered, and one of the Aztecs who should have taken a direct hit from the fearsome weapon looked down at his abdomen in disbelief. “Son of a BITCH!” Anlek screamed, his insectoid chittering nearly drowning out the noise from the voice modulator. It didn't work. All the time he'd spent laboring over whether or not to use the weapon, all the credits he'd spent, all the times he'd used the weapon as an amazing tool of intimidation, meant nothing now as four Aztecs raised their laser carbines at him, looks of confusion on their faces.

      Anlek had never been so angry in his long life. Transferring the gun to his lower, stronger appendages, he forged on through a hail of fire, barreled forward toward his targets as he heard one of the men following him in hit the ground. Crouching down, he brought the weapon down in a wide arc, sweeping two of the Aztecs off of their feet as another of the invaders fell to Mafia fire. With another hard strike he smashed out the glass balustrade the Aztecs had been backing up against. One, a grizzled warrior holding a grenade launcher, teetered on the edge, struggling to maintain his balance as the metal railing broke and went whipping out over the empty air. Anlek roared again, slamming the broken gamma gun down onto the head of one of the men he had tripped, a smear of bright red blood blossoming against the weapon's lens, then whipping the gun around and slamming its butt end into the teetering soldier, sending him flying out over the abyss and falling with a scream onto a bed of smoldering parts from the destroyed tilt-rotor craft.

      Elise took cover behind what was left of the balustrade, shooting Anlek a look of incredulity.   “Something wrong with your gun?” she asked.

      “No,” Anlek said, hoisting the blood-stained gun. “Works just fine.”

      Reynard lay on his side in the alcove, watching Anlek's charge with fear and excitement, trying to cheer when his friend and the others finished all four of their enemies in a few seconds' time. His exuberance, however, changed to panic when he saw one of the skiffs—the one containing Luciano and the others—angle down toward Anlek and Elise's position. He tried to cry out, but was met with only a weak cough as the large gun mounted on the front of the skiff reported, slicing down another of Elise's men and knocking most of the rest of the group off of their feet. Anlek stood like a sitting duck on the edge of the balcony, and Reynard held his breath as the skiff's gunner swiveled the repeater toward his partner.

      Suddenly Reynard's vision was blocked. He was disoriented for a moment, trying to look around it, until he realized that every holoprojector in the Firenza seemed to have come to life, obstructing the view of combatants on both side.

      On every one of them was the face of a black cat, cheerful and blue-eyed.

      The Firenza suddenly lurched, diving sharply downward. Reynard was thrown painfully onto his injured side and pressed against the balcony's glass balustrade. Across the way, he could see that two of the remaining Mafia men were trying to help Anlek regain his balance. The skiffs, however, were unable to maintain their equilibrium, their lift drives too slow and too powerful to hold their altitude. One skiff went smashing into the airship's ceiling, pieces of chandelier and fresco raining down onto the combatants below. The one holding Luciano veered sharply. Reynard, trying to roll onto his back, saw Luciano jump from the side, his beleaguered captors unable to respond. Elise caught him and threw him just as her two men brought Anlek down, and the six of them fell into a tumbled heap.

       A look back toward the service corridor entrance made Reynard groan. Despite being forced to keep their balance with the ship's sudden change of pitch, they had finally sawed through the door's expensive lock. They were about to enter when they glanced back, stricken. The cat's heads had suddenly blinked out, and light flared through the cloud of black dust now filling the air as every projector in the ship swung around to project a message, written in red, onto the blast shield protecting the passengers.

      Now what does that mean? thought Reynard. El asisino de sus hijos y padres ha llegado? Anlek taught me some Spanish. When it hit him, he jumped up, speaking aloud. “The murderer of your sons and fathers has arrived!” he screamed, the adrenaline in his system overriding his pain. He took a moment to glance below as he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. There, below the Firenza, a ship came rising out of the cloud bank. It was painted crimson, and some definite modifications had been made, but there was no mistaking its shape as it came up level with the Firenza. Reynard thought he could see the steely glint of goggles through the Wayfarer's forward canopy as the ship's top turret came around, firing in through the massive hole in the Firenza's side to impale one of the Aztecs' skiffs in a blinding explosion. He almost thought he could see the delighted prance of a small black kitten on the ship's dashboard as the Aztecs began to rout. He wasn't sure though—his wound sent him sprawling into the floor and into blackness, overriding his adrenaline high, robbing him of his chance to be absolutely certain that Frankie had turned and smiled down at Reynard.

  

Contractual Obligations: Part Six

Contractual Obligations: Part Six

“Attention all passengers and crew, we are approaching the Alexandria Mountains,” a pleasant voice blared over the loudspeaker. “This marks the halfway point of our journey, as we will be crossing over to the dark side in just a few moments.”
Anlek chuckled from his position above the electronics pit, his insectoid legs dangling down into the service shaft. “That sounds a little ominous. You wanna go take a look?”
Reynard looked up from his work, visibly distracted. “Um . . . Sure. I’m nearly done, and I could use a little break anyway.”
Elise arrived as the two of them left the service shaft, tucking her Com3 device into her pocket. She seemed startled at their presence, but smiled deprecatingly when she realized who was approaching. “Going to watch the changeover?” she asked. They nodded in response. “All right. Take care of yourselves--I’m going to be busy for the next few hours. If you get done with your project there, feel free to spend the rest of the trip relaxing.”
Elise walked off, her hips swaying behind too-tight jeans. “Thank you for the permission, Elise,” Reynard muttered under his breath. The two found their way to the lift at the end of the service tunnel, and spent the next half hour or so watching the changeover and enjoying the spectacle of the mountains. The Firenza had dived down between the highest peaks and was shining her brightest spotlights, making for quite a view.
“So,” Anlek said, “From what I can tell you’ve only got a little bit of work ahead of you. Should we let Luciano know we’ll be ready for the demonstration in the morning?”
Reynard shook his head. “No, I want to be absolutely certain of it first, and I’ll need a little time away from it to judge it properly. Give me about an hour to finish up, then we’ll hit the casino. I couldn’t sleep tonight if I tried.”
Anlek shrugged, chitinous plates screeching against one another. “Suit yourself. I’ve been napping on and off all day, so I’m good for an all-nighter. Have you heard anything from Frankie about getting together when you get back to Arcadia?”
Reynard frowned. “No, I haven’t. I really thought things were going well, but . . . I guess she’s always going to be hard to pin down, Anlek.”
“Well who says she’s yours to pin down?”
The boy shook his head, a strand of blonde hair falling over his glasses. “It’s not really like that. But how hard is it to make yourself available? I’m building illegal electronics on a flying cruise ship and I’ve got my phone on, you know? I’m not bitter, I guess it just seems like such a mixed signal to me.” Reynard brushed the hair out of his eyes, noticed that his glasses were a mass of sticky dust. He removed them and began rubbing vigorously at them with the hem of his favorite green shirt. “Anyway, let’s go back and get this over with. They’re gonna like this one, Anlek. It’s downright elegant.”
Anlek chuckled. “I believe you, kid, but I still want to see it in action.”

“All right, that’s the final touch, my friend. Ready to hit the casino?”
Anlek huffed a sigh of relief. “Yes, definitely. Twenty-four consecutive hours of being your tool-jockey is enough for me.”
Reynard cocked his head at his partner. “Yeah, I suppose it must be boring for you. But hey, at least we’re making money, right?”
“Yeah, that’s good anyway. It’ll definitely be a nice change.”
The two boarded the elevator and headed for the third level up, the sprawling casino that made up the core of the Firenza. No longer dazzled by the ship, they talked about their time on Anu, trading stories about some of their more unhinged customers and the enjoyment Anlek had gotten out of intimidating them. They were both surprised to see Luciano, now dressed in a fine white tuxedo, approach them as they walked down the red carpeted staircase that marked the entrance to the casino itself, the balcony overlooking the ship’s atrium behind them.
“Good evening boys,” he said. “How are things going?”
Reynard smiled, pushing his glasses up and realizing he was a little underdressed compared to the rest of the clientele. “Quite good, sir. We’ve finished the initial production. I’m taking a little break to give myself some objectivity before I go back in and make a few tweaks.”
“Excellent!” Luciano said, his hand landing on Reynard’s shoulder again. “What do you say I treat the two of you to a round of drinks?”
Reynard and Anlek exchanged glances. “That sounds excellent,” Reynard said, “but there’s something we thought we should mention to you.”
Luciano beckoned them forward on to the busy central floor of the casino, then gestured over to a secluded booth along the far side of the enormous room. The three walked for what seemed like a kilometer between automatic blackjack tables, holographic fighting games, and an ornately reconstructed roulette table, finally finding their seat. A cocktail waitress--young, attractive, and unbelievably nervous to be serving a dignitary like Luciano--stepped up and smilingly took their order. After studiously watching her leave, Luciano snapped his head around to look at Anlek and Reynard. “So, what is it that’s concerning you?”
Reynard fiddled with his glasses. “Well, I know this may sound ridiculous, but we’ve had some strange encounters with Elise the last day or so. She’s been acting . . . Suspicious.”
Luciano pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. At first Reynard thought he was upset, but then, to his dismay, realized the older man was trying not to laugh. “Son,” he said, “I have a few things to say about Elise that aren’t entirely complimentary. But I will tell you that’s she’s absolutely a professional. She’s loyal to the Don, for one thing, and for another if she was doing something she didn’t want you to see, you wouldn’t see it.”
Anlek and Reynard both shifted uncomfortably in their seats. “Sorry for the assumption then, Luciano,” Anlek said. No one at the table had any illusions that he meant what he was saying. The three shared a drink, somewhat tersely, and then Luciano excused himself.
Reynard shook his head as Luciano left. “Maybe we’re wrong, Anlek. Probably best not to worry about it.
Anlek nodded. “Probably so. But it still seemed pretty off to me. I guess it’s on them if she’s selling their secrets.”
Reynard scowled. “Nobody takes my secrets, damn it. I’ll . . . Hire Frankie to go after her or something if she fucks with my new suite.”
Anlek laughed. “You’re like a proud moth--”
Anlek’s sentence was abruptly cut off as the entire ship was wrenched by a sickening thud. Red lights began flashing along the casino’s walls. Patrons and employees alike jumped up from their seats, sending glasses and fifty-credit plates of food flying into the air. Reynard launched himself from the booth he and Anlek were sitting in. His eyes were focused on the opposite end of the casino, toward the balcony that overlooked the forward atrium. The distance was incredible, and a crowd of people, tables and machines stood in his way, but he could just see the shadow of a blast door beginning to quietly seal the passenger section of the ship.
Reynard broke into a sprint. “We can NOT get shut in here. I have to get back to the engine sector.”
“What the HELL is going on?” Anlek yelled, his voice modulator crackling with the volume.
The two weaved through a stampede of frightened patrons as a calm voice repeated instructions about a state of emergency. Over the din of screams and blaring sirens, it advised passengers to immediately head for one of the designated shelters, marked on holomaps that began appearing in midair every few feet. Reynard ignored the warnings completely, pushing his way to the front of the throng and eventually jumping up the shallow red stairs to the balcony two at a time. The blast door was coming inexorably down, and he was forced to dive through the narrowing gap, throwing himself against the railing to stop his momentum. Anlek fared worse, his bulky carapace preventing him from moving nimbly. As the door came down, he was forced to throw himself to the ground and roll through. The edge of the door screeched against his exoskeleton, leaving a long scratch across his back.
At the railing, Reynard was crouching down, pointing out into the atrium.
“That’s what’s going on,” he whispered.
Below them, what had recently been a beautiful sight had turned to madness. All along the port side of the ship, Nemoan drill-rockets were grinding their way into the transparent side of the Firenza. Just outside the ship lurked at least five skiffs, the Aztec emblem clearly burned into their prows. Each ship was full to the brim with heavily armed Aztec soldiers and a smattering of mercenaries, every one of them armed to the teeth and brandishing their weapons, waiting for the first drill to complete its incision. On the inside of the ship, running across the walkways like furious ants, darkly-dress Mafia men and women readied their arms. Some were busy setting up heavy weaponry, while others were calibrating EMP guns and aiming them at the approaching drills, waiting for their first and last shot at halting their progress. Below the ship, clouds were scudding. The Firenza had left its tour of the mountain range and returned to high altitude. There was no escape from their assailants.
“Well shit,” Anlek said, succinctly. The cruise had suddenly become a battle.
The first drill finally met its mark. Four EMP guns shot out at it, halting its progress. In the meantime, two other drills pushed through the heavily-shielded transparent material, falling with a resounding clang to the bottom of the ship. The firestorm began as Aztec soldiers began firing potshots through the breaches, several of them lobbing grenades into the Firenza. The Mafia members fired back, but their shots were ineffective. Finally a very large tilt-rotor craft hovered down to the level of the other craft. “Stand back!” a familiar voice bellowed from below as the craft slammed into the weakened side of the ship, sending smoke and shards of the hull everywhere. Several Mafia members were thrown off their walkways.
Reynard had become transfixed watching the fight unfold, until Anlek prodded him roughly in the side. “This is pretty fun to watch, but don’t you think we ought to get downstairs?”
Reynard nodded, breaking into a run, headed for the starboard lift that would take them down into the engine sector of the ship. When he arrived, his skidded to a halt, Anlek nearly slamming into him from behind. The lift was closed. “Dammit!” Reynard screamed, and ran for the service corridor that led to a long staircase. Anlek followed, puffing with exertion as his young partner ran with a frenzy and determination he’d never witnessed.
Reynard threw himself down the stairs two at a time, having to catch himself on the railing to keep from tumbling down the stairwell several times. The stairs seemed eternal to Reynard. Outside the service corridor, sounds of battle raged. What if they’ve already gotten to it? he thought. This had all seemed a little too good to be true.
When Anlek and Reynard finally arrived at engine level, they burst out of the stairwell door onto the viewing platform overlooking the atrium at the closest level. Reynard turned left, headed for the access corridor which was, of course, on the port side of the ship. As he did, he saw a far more chaotic scene that they had witnessed at the top of the stairs.
There was a gaping hole in the side of the ship, and despite the fact that the Firenza seemed to be hovering, a whipping wind ripped through the atrium, stealing Reynard’s breath. The tilt-rotor craft which had rammed the airship had been shot down, presumably by the heavy laser cannons that lined several of the walkways, and was smoking and flaming at the bottom of the ship, obscuring a section of the view. Worse yet, three of the five skiffs had made their way into the ship through the breach. Two were busy flying back and forth across the port side, their heavily-armed inhabitants engaging in an open and brutal fire fight with the Mafia fighters. The third skiff had landed just shy of the engine service corridor, divulging at least ten Aztec fighters and a team of demolitions experts who were doing their best to blow the blast shield on the service door open.
“What the hell do we do now?” Anlek asked, ducking back behind a decorative plant on the viewing platform.
The answer came from above, as a lance of red light struck the nearest Aztec. Behind Anlek and Reynard there was a thud as Elise landed in a crouch, one high-heeled shoe clacking against the deck. Five of the most muscular Mafia men Reynard had seen to date followed suit, jumping down about ten feet from a walkway positioned above the platform, each one brandishing a heavy laser carbine. Elise pushed Reynard behind the plant as her men took cover and began firing over the two thousand foot distance between their position and the engine access door. “Hey chumps,” she said, a smile of glee on her face. “So, Reynard, you want to help us take that door back from these Aztec bastards?”
Reynard glared back at her, retrieving the large pistol from his pants waistband. In response, Anlek un-slung the enormous gamma gun from his back, nothing but silence emitting from his modulator.
Reynard looked up at his partner. “Looks like you might have to use the thing after all.”

Contractual Obligations: Part Five

     “Anlek, I need the tenser. No, the blue one.”

      Anlek rummaged around in Reynard's toolkit, producing a small blue tool. He leaned over the pit Reynard was working in, handing him the tenser. “Here you go. How's it coming along?”

Reynard looked up at Anlek, smiling as he pushed his glasses up on his face. “I feel like I've fallen down the best well ever.” Reynard was positioned at the bottom of a ten-foot shaft, filled from top to bottom with some of the most expensive electronic equipment he had ever seen. The shaft was the sum total of the Firenza's electronics suite, carefully hidden within the engine maintenance corridor below and aft of the ship's atrium, and directly underneath the hotel that made up the ship's lowest commercial tier.

      Anlek looked around suspiciously, then leaned down toward his partner. “So what did you think of Elise and the Don?”

      Reynard shook his head. “I can't tell whether he thinks of her as a daughter or a lover, but I never thought she could act so sugary sweet.” Reynard shivered at the thought of the act she had put on. “Luciano was right, though, that does explain why they're stuck with her even though she's not 'Family', so to speak.” Reynard tweaked several wires, then reverently pulled a piece of paper from a plastic envelope. Pencil in hand, he began sketching out a circuit diagram, his brow knitted with concentration.

      “Look sharp, chump,” was the only warning Reynard received before he felt the bottle of soda flying toward his head. He barely managed to catch the drink before it hit him full on the nose, throwing his body protectively over his paper.

      “Shit!” he said. “I don't have a lot of these, you know,” he said, waving the diagram at her.

Elise shrugged indifferently, handing Anlek an unopened drink, a cup, and a device Eckoli used as straws. “Well don't expect much help from me if you can't be grateful,” she said, walking away with a smirk on her face.

      Reynard followed her with his eyes, a dark glare on his face. “Must be nice to be untouchable,” he muttered under his breath. Meanwhile Anlek fiddled with the drink container, designed for human hands, and was eventually able to pour himself a drink. “Man, whoever this Ennis was, I guarantee you she'd have been a better concierge.”

      Reynard ignored his partner, absorbed in his work again. “So,” Anlek said, “how many days do you really think this is gonna take to install?”

      Reynard shrugged. “I dunno. Four or five?” He adjusted himself until he sat cross-legged at the bottom of the shaft, materials set around him. “Dammit. Anlek, I think I'm out of ceramic binder. I didn't think I'd need it, but this is a pretty classy setup. Can you go ask that maintenance guy if he has any?”

     Anlek, having just managed the first sip of his drink, sighed. “Sure thing, buddy. Need anything else while I'm up? These guys just love letting an Eckoli borrow their shit.”

Reynard shook his head, absorbed again in his circuit map, his pencil scratching on the fine, creamy paper. Anlek muttered to himself, then left the small, cramped compartment and headed down the small, cramped hallway that traversed between the engine room and the maintenance complex. It wasn't long before he realized he'd gone the wrong way. As he turned to go the other way, he heard a familiar muffled voice coming from one of the side passages that led toward the emergency exit. It wasn't until he'd crept closer, moving very stealthily for a creature his size that happened to be covered in a jointed exoskeleton, that he realized it was Elise's voice.

      “Yes,” she said, exasperation in her voice, “I told you, you have the coordinates. There's not much else I can give you right now. Just make sure you're there, or things could get interesting.” There was a long pause on the end of the line. “Good,” Elise said, softly. “I'll try to make sure the device is ready. Goodbye.” Anlek heard the click of a closing Com3 device, then quickly shoved his way into another service passage farther down the hall until he heard Elise's high-heeled shoes click their way down the hall and past the electronics room.

      “Here's your whatever it is glue,” Anlek said, chucking the tube down the shaft. Reynard grunted his appreciation, catching the powerful adhesive and unscrewing the cap, a pencil between his teeth. “So,” Reynard said, “I think Elise might be a spy.”

      Reynard spit the pencil out, a strangling noise rising from his throat. “Why don't you say that a little louder?” he whispered.

      “Because, Reynard, whispering is so obvious. Seriously though, I heard a very interesting phone call a minute ago.” Anlek began to fill Reynard in on the suspicious conversation, until he heard, and smelled Luciano coming down the hallway.

      “Good afternoon, boys,” the older man said. In stark contrast to their original meeting with him, the mafioso was dressed in his finest suit. “I thought you might want to come out for a minute. The ship's about to take off.”

      Reynard looked profoundly disinterested at the thought, but nodded to Luciano. “Sure thing, Sir. I've never seen this part of the city from the air.”

      Luciano chuckled. “Oh, you'll get a chance to see more than just the light side of Arcadia from the air. The Firenza is headed out on a four-day trip across the moon. A convenient period of time for a certain installation, wouldn't you agree?”

      Reynard smiled. “Definitely, sir.”

      The three headed out of the service-way and into the large engine complex. Several massive thrust engines throbbed and hummed in a large depression below. Running on idle, they were only a little deafening, but as they began to whirr more and more loudly, preparing for takeoff, Luciano hustled the others out of the room and shut the soundproof door behind him. Outside the door was a large bank of elevators, which led them up into the passenger areas of the ship. Luciano stopped the lift at the next level up, then ushered Anlek and Reynard out into a massive crowd of passengers, peppered with the occasional mafioso or guard. Most of the clear walkways looking over the expansive glass bottom of the ship were full to bursting with passengers, but Luciano led them directly toward a roped-off walkway inhabited solely by finely-dressed men of a Sicilian persuasion.

      Just as they found a place to stand, the ship began to rise, slowly at first, then with unimaginable speed for something bigger than many military spacecraft. Arcadia expanded and shrank below them, hotel after casino after garish holograph until they could see the night-line clearly. Reynard thought again about Frankie, resisting the urge to crane his neck around and try to find her apartment building from the airship. It had been incredible to actually see her in person, and he hoped he'd be able to find her again when his tour on the Firenza was over. After last night, I actually feel pretty confident she'll stick around just to see me. It was a comfortable feeling, but somehow it made Reynard even more nervous than not knowing if she was truly interested.

      Anlek tapped Reynard on the arm, breaking his reverie. He pointed gently up into the air, over toward one of the other suspended walkways. It took Reynard a moment to see what he was trying to point out, until he saw the familiar shape of Elise's denim jacket swaying as she settled herself forward over the railing. She seemed to be looking out onto the city, until he noticed her face turned slightly to the side. She was standing next to a man in a long gray coat, wearing a distinctly nondescript hat. Reynard could make out little else about the man, but turned to stare at Anlek, a look of surprise on his face. What is Elise up to . . . . He recalled her sudden departure from Luciano's office the day before, her impatience when transporting them, the conversation Anlek had overheard. He leaned in toward Anlek. “If she's planning something . . . “ he whispered, “how the hell are we supposed to convince Luciano she's a traitor?”

      Below them, the city of Arcadia looked like a small-scale model, and clouds whipped by as the enormous airship flew west, across the light side of Isis. “I don't know,” Anlek said. “Just stay sharp. You know, if you're capable of being sharp in the first place.”

  

Contractual Obligations: Part Four

      Anlek woke with a groan as the alarm clock blared in his ears. Apparently he'd fallen asleep in the floor, though he had no recollection of even entering the hotel. I hope I wasn't an asshole to the front help, he thought to himself. But then, this was Isis, they were probably plenty used to assholes. To his surprise, he saw the pale, pantsless form of Reynard sprawled across his bed, sheets wrapped around him in such a way that it looked like he'd lost a fight with them.

     The Eckoli rose stiffly and shuffled across the hotel room, poking Reynard in the back with his least pointy hand. The boy woke, emitting a string of nonsense words, his glasses wrenched sideways across his face. Finally he sat up, blinked a few times, and rose, finding his clothing.

Anlek laughed. “Well good morning, sunshine. Do you really think you should wear yesterday's clothes to our meeting with the Don?”

      Reynard blinked again, regaining a further measure of consciousness. “Oh yeah, that,” he said, and headed for his suitcase, propped open next to the bathroom door. “You don't look like you slept too great, Anlek.”

      Anlek grunted. “Neither did you. So, did you find Frankie last night?”

      Reynard answered with a sheepish grin. “Yeah. I did. I found her at her apartment, we went out for a few drinks and talked for a while.”

      Anlek met Reynard's gaze, a gesture that always unnerved the human. “So, ah, did you . . . “

      Reynard shook his head a little too vehemently, his glasses threatening to fly away. “No, we didn't.” Reynard was donning a collared shirt at this point, and seemed to be making extra effort to keep the collar smoothed against the left side of his neck. Underneath the pallor of sleep deprivation, he was turning a rosy shade of pink.

      Anlek nodded—a gesture he'd learned purely from being around humans for so many years. “I'm glad to hear it, Reynard.”

      The boy cocked his head at Anlek. “Really? I was kind of counting on you making fun of me for being so timid.” Anlek shook his head at this.

      “No. Frankie's actually worth your time, which means she's worth taking time over. I don't really understand your disgusting mating rituals or anything, but I know when a human being is worth a damn. You get ONE point of respect from me, Reynard. Don't squander it.”

      Reynard smiled. “Yeah. Okay. For the record though, I don't understand your peoples' disgusting mating rituals either--”

      “Hey! That is not disgusting, we have a symbiotic relationship with the varin beasts. They were made for incubation.”

       Reynard turned green. “That . . . I didn't want to know that at all.”

      Anlek passed the now fully dressed Reynard on his way to the door. “Nah, I'm just messin' with you. We pretty much fuck just like you guys.”

      “I'm not sure that makes me any happier,” Reynard muttered under his breath, shouldering his bag of equipment and shutting the hotel door.

      A short cab drive later, the two arrived at the Sunside Airport, a pyramidal structure with a number of airships docked onto terminals all over its surface. The smaller airships of the Mafia's fleet huddled beside commercial ships on the bottom tiers of the shining black ziggurat, more easily able to lift off from a lower position. The farther one went up the structure, the larger the the airships were—from yacht-sized pleasure cruisers to flying shopping malls to airborne casinos and bordellos—until one finally reached the top tier. Moored on a small pedestal was the Firenza, a marvel of engineering and carefully polished titanium. The airship itself was a good quarter larger than the next ship in the fleet, and contained a shopping mall, casino, luxury hotel, botanical gardens, even a menagerie of rare Terran animals that the CA reclamation projects had actually managed to breed. Anlek and Reynard spent what seemed like a half an hour traversing the inside of the Sunside Airport before finally reaching the glass-sided elevator that sped its way up through the center of the building.

      Had the two been paying closer attention, rather than bickering about whether or not they were late to a meeting with the most powerful man on the planet, they might have noticed a few interesting things. As they made their way past the South point news kiosk, they might have noticed a man in a brown suit dropping his Com3 device, only to thank one of the custodial staff for picking the device up and pocketing it. They might have noticed the same janitor retreating into a side corridor to make a call, or even thought it odd that a man only a few hundred feet away shut off his Com3 at the exact moment that the janitor did. Though his movements were subtle, they might have been vaguely suspicious when a fourth man, this one dressed for business and seemingly in an incredible hurry, thumbed his watch and quickly swiped a scanner across Reynard's briefcase. They would definitely have remarked to one another on why someone in such a great rush should have such a pleased expression on his face.

      “I keep telling you it's fine, Anlek,” Reynard said as the elevator began to rise. “The place was bigger than we expected and we can apologize to this Ennis lady when we get there. Calm down.”

Reynard didn't have to tell Anlek twice. He had been ignoring the boy since the elevator started moving. From up here it was easy to see the intended layout of the Sunside Airport's main atrium. Fountains, mosaic tiles, greenery, and strategically-placed kiosks and cafes had all been expertly arranged to form a pefect picture of the nation of Italy, the Mafia's home island Sicily nearly touching the tip of its southern peninsula. Anlek made the Eckoli approximation of a whistle, then nudged Reynard. “Hey, shut up for three seconds and look at that.”

      Reynard squinted, adjusting his glasses. “Why the hell does the floor plan look like a boot?”

      Anlek sighed. “I'm pretty damn sure I taught you better than that, boy. That's ITALY. You know, like, from Earth? It's where the mafia was born.”

     Reynard smiled impishly. “Yeah, I really couldn't stand Terran history. I overlaid the teaching program you gave me with pictures of naked ladies I swiped off that guy Rennish's hard drive.”

      “Reynard, you got perfect grades in history. It was your best subject.”

      “Yeah, I hacked your computer and stole your test answers.”

      “Fuck you, Reynard. Fuck you.”

      A few minutes later, after taking on passengers at separate levels, the elevator sped up to astronomical speeds, and the two found themselves looking out onto the grand chamber of the Firenza. If the airport had been amazing, the airship was breathtaking. The stern of the ship was filled with attractions and businesses, but the bow was one large chamber crisscrossed with clear walkways. Below that, a crystal-clear glass bottom stretched nearly from port to starboard. Reynard found himself inhaling sharply at the sight of it as the two disembarked from the elevator and, checking holographic maps hanging every hundred feet or so, made their way around the outside of the ship on a moving walkway toward the conference facilities located just aft of the control complex. Anlek adjusted his ubiquitous gun and polished a smudge off of his carapace as the heavy doors to the board room loomed closer. Reynard chose that moment to look down, nearly missing the last step off of the walkway. Currently the view from the airship faced directly down onto the Sunside Airport. From what he'd heard, the Firenza took shorter flights most days, but once a week did a full circuit of the moon, traversing Arcadia City and on across the uninhabited mountains of the dark side, then back across the golf course- and amusement park-strewn countryside of the light side. It would be the perfect time to work on his new masterpiece, and he quietly hoped that the ship was disembarking for its worldwide trip during the next couple of days.

      “Good morning, chumps.” Reynard jumped at least three inches into the air at the sound of the familiar voice, and turned with what must have been a less than polite expression on his face, only to see Elise standing behind him. The woman was without her sunglasses, and Reynard noted with a detached, ill feeling that her eyes were green today when they had been blue the day before.

      Anlek recovered with greater speed than his partner. “Good morning, Elise. Here to see my friend impress the Don?”

Elise smirked. “Not really, no. I'm here to be your concierge for the remainder of your trip.”

“What--” Reynard started, then forced himself to begin again. “What happened to the Ennis woman they told us to meet?”

      Luciano chose this moment to emerge from the polished wood door of the conference room, shrugging apologetically. “Good morning, boys. Sorry, Miss Ennis had some urgent matters to attend to on the nightside, and had to join her partners for a time. Elise here will be happy to assist you. As a matter of fact, she volunteered for the job.”

      Elise laughed. “What Luci means is that Ennis's partners blew more shit up and he had to send her to rein them in. I'll be happy to see to it that you remain productive and at least marginally comfortable during your trip.” She waved toward the conference room. “Shall we?”

       Luciano clapped Anlek and Reynard on their respective shoulders and beckoned them forward, a look of contrition on his face. “I'm sorry about that,” he muttered. “I think you'll see why she has me at her disposal in a moment.” He opened the door to the conference room, and waved them in. “I'd say it's about time the two of you meet Don Carlo.”