Mack 'n' Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9

past the tunnel mouth, I stopped. There was another alcove here, similar to the ones the workers had used as duck-ins to let us pass in the mines proper. It would give me shelter enough to check the map.
“Of all the self-licking, auto-gyrating, fuck-twisted, love-nutted, ass-wiping paranoid fucktards in a universe of paranoid self-licking fucktards!” I muttered, keeping my voice down to an outraged whisper—and even then it felt too loud in the tunnel’s confines.
“What,” but Tens wasn’t asking a question, and I couldn’t hear his voice echoing through the dark around me.
“The map doesn’t match.”
“What?” Now, the man sounded upset—but at least he was upset for me, and not at me.
“The map doesn’t match,” I repeated, glad I could keep the realization in my head, and the outrage I felt firmly behind my teeth and out of the dark. “The fucking map doesn’t fucking match the fucking tunnels. The fardnardling fuck knuckle gave me shit, and now I’m fucked six ways to stardust and haven’t got a fucking clue as to where the fuck I am!”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Tens spoke.
“That was rather uninspired.”
“So, shoot me. I’m having a bad day.”
“Honey, you don’t know the half of it,” and there was a phrase I didn’t need to hear.
“What is it, Case?”
“I can barely get a scan off the level you’re on—and even then it’s dirty with the levels above it, so I can’t be sure of what I’m seeing. Tens is doing his best to calibrate it, but it’s still going to be a bit dodgy round the edges...”
“And...” I couldn’t help it; I was drumming my fingers on my arm, again.
“I know from his lordship’s maps that the mines go down at least another twenty levels, but the next level’s a complete blank. We’re trying to hack a path through one of the satellites that passes over the Carafakt, but, unless we get the right angle, you’re going to be running blind as soon as you go down.”
“Who says I need to do that?” I asked, pushing aside the double meaning that layered her words. I was pretty darn sure she hadn’t meant to add it in—and if she caught that thought, Case didn’t try to enlighten me.
I took a moment, closing my eyes to block out the tunnel’s darkness, and taking in a long, deep breath. Letting the breath out just as slowly, I thought about what I had to do next. ‘Down’ was pretty obvious, since that was the way the servant woman had taken, and it was sure as shit the way the tracker pointed.
“Well,” I said, out loud and quiet, as I opened my eyes, “sucks to be me, then, doesn’t it?”
Neither of them had an answer for that, so I kept talking.
“Just tell me if the teleport lock gets wobbly.”
This time, I didn’t wait for a response. I pushed off the wall, and checked the tunnel for company. It stayed as empty as it had been, before, so I stepped out and followed the trail Barangail had given me, all the while, trying not to think of exactly how much he’d lied to me. If the trail he’d laid was false, if the tracer he’d tagged the maid with wasn’t working, then I was just as much in the dark as she was.
Maybe even more so, since she had seemed to have half a clue as to where she might be going. Which reminded me... I stopped, again. This time, I didn’t bother finding a duck-in, since it wasn’t like I’d have to get out of anything’s way. I tapped Tens and Case, again, sending them the image of the woman in the image Barangail had supplied.
“This is the woman who stole the bracelet,” I said, and then passed them up the image of the bracelet, “and this is the bracelet. Why don’t you see what you can pull on both of them, since our patron doesn’t seem to have a good relationship with the truth.”
Turns out it was a good question to ask.
I’d been trotting through the tunnel, towards the slant-wise cutting that would take me down a level, when Tens and Case called me back.
“That wasn’t the maid,” Tens said. “It was the concubine.”
“Figures.”
I slowed to a walk, found an alcove, checked it for creepy crawlies, and stepped inside.
“Go on.”
“And it’s a slave bracelet.”
“A what?”
“You heard the man,” Case told me. “A slave bracelet. You know, the kind of thing that stops folk from running away, or lets their masters track them.”
“Uh huh. So why does he need me, then?”
“That would be the thing to ask.”
I huffed out a sigh.
“No point. He probably wouldn’t tell the truth, anyway. What I want to know is why he hasn’t sent a squad after her, and why he needs someone from off-world. And it would be good to know I wasn’t’ going to be retrieving a person, because you know the contract’s breached nine ways to Hell, if he expects that. I’m not taking anyone back to slavery under that asshole.”
“Literally,” Case said, and I rolled my eyes.
Not what I needed to hear.
She snickered.
“That was not intentional.”
Uh huh, sure it wasn’t.
“It wasn’t, but whatever,” Case grumbled. “The thing is, if we want to take the bracelet back to his lordship, we’re going to have to work out a way to remove it, because I think it might still be attached.”
The thought had already crossed my mind, but I didn’t need to point it out. We had to find the bracelet, first.
“I’ll keep looking. Let’s hope the tracker he gave me is actually what we need.”
“Nope,” Tens said. “That’s the real deal. I’ve checked the bracelet model. It looks pretty, but the tracking waves are unique, and the trace you’re following is the right kind. Now, I just have to hack his lordship’s database to match the waves on record to the waves your tracking—make sure you’re following the concubine, and not someone else. If they don’t match, he’s in breach.”
I was