“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.”
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