Mack 'n' Me: The Wolves of Alpha 9

of view.
Uncooperative? Me?
“Lady, you have no idea,” I told her.
She came back into view, and held the auto-injector up in front of my face.
“You’re afraid of needles,” she said, as my body tried to get away, again.
I hit the floor with an unceremonious thump, and one of my escorts sat on my chest. My head was spinning, and it wasn’t from the rough handling. She stepped forward so I could see her face, but not her hands.
“Why don’t you answer Varian’s questions, okay? That way you and I won’t have to visit.”
It made perfect sense to me. I nodded, fear still curling through my chest, even as rebellion mingled.
The guy, sitting on me, got up and offered my hand. Frowning, just a little, I took it, and let him help me to my feet.
“Sit,” he said, “pointing to the bench.”
“Sure,” I managed. “Why not?
Varian? That was the name of the guy with my blaster? Weird ass!
“So, why don’t you tell us about yourself?”
As an opening to an interrogation, that was not a question I expected.
“Tens?” I asked, keeping it to my comms.
To my surprise, he came back.
“You’ve stuck your head in the lion’s den,” he said. “You might as well tell them who you are and why you’re there. I don’t think they’re going to take anything else.”
Case added her ten-cents’ worth.
“That, and I think they might have hit you with some kind of truth drug. Just tell ‘em why Barangail sent you, kiddo.”
Now, since when did Case ever... And how did she know I’d been hit with whatever it was. Truth drug? As in I couldn’t lie, would have trouble lying, or what? I closed my eyes and tilted my head back.
Great. I leant forward, putting my elbows on my knees as I covered my face with my palms. No one made a sound, so I sighed, rubbed my face with my hands, and looked up at Varian.
“My name is Jocelyn Cutter, and I am a retrieval specialist. I’m down here on commission from Lord Barangail the Asshole”—oops, that was a little more candid than I’d intended to be—“to find a bracelet that he said was stolen by a maid, the lying bastard.”
I stopped. It was hard. Whatever they’d given me made my mouth want to keep going, and I thought I’d shared quite enough. It was time to turn the tables.
“So, who were you waiting for upstairs?”
Varian looked momentarily surprised, and then ignored the question.
“Who are you looking for?” he asked, and I answered before my brain could censor anything.
“Not a who, a what. I just want the bracelet.”
“Do you know where it is?”
“It is being worn by Celia the concubine.”
“So, you’ll be taking Celia back to Barangail.”
“No. Just the bracelet. Not the person.” I shuddered, remembering Barangail ordering Mack’s legs be broken, the beating.... “Never the person.”
“Will you kill Barangail?”
“Not the mission.”
“I could make it the mission.”
“No, you couldn’t. I’m not the assassin—”
“Don’t go there, sweetheart,” Case said, and pain spiked through my skull.
I screamed, vaguely aware that Tens was shouting, and he wasn’t very impressed. Not at me, though. He was mad at someone else. Oh...good.
I let my head clear, and then realized I’d grabbed hold of it with my hands and was doubled over and rocking. I froze, before slowly straightening up. Varian waited until I was sitting upright.
“Who is the assassin?”
And my head rang with more pain. This time, I kept the reaction down to a gasp, but it was enough to cue him in. He handed off the blaster and came and knelt before me, resting a hand on my shoulder. Looking carefully into my eyes, he spoke—and he wasn’t speaking to me.
“Riders,” he said, and I wondered what the fuck they were, but what I wondered was nothing. “This is Varian of the Alpha Nine resistance. We have a commission for an assassin. Terms are as follows...”
I listened as he rattled off the terms for a darn fine contract, not trying to break the eye contact he seemed to find so important. Tens stopped shouting, and Case was silent. Stepyan surprised me by being the one to answer.
“Tell him Arc and Hammer agree to his terms, and will carry out the termination, once your contract has been honored.”
I blinked, and Varian stopped looking into my eyes, and drew back a little. This time his attention was completely on my face.
“What did they say?” he asked.
I licked my lips and met his gaze.
“They said to tell you that Arc and Hammer agreed to your terms, and would carry out the termination, once my contract has been honored.”
He snorted and patted my shoulder.
“Arc and Hammer,” he said, pushing to his feet and taking my blaster back. “Even I have heard of them. The Shady Marie carries an interesting crew.”
He resumed his position, and aimed the blaster at my head, while I sat and stared at him. Part of me was horrified that he’d rumbled the name of the ship, but another part of me was too busy agreeing with him to care.
“Yes,” my mouth was saying. “Yes, she does.”
Which was rapidly followed by, “Fuck it! When does this shit wear off?”
Even he found that funny.
Inside my head, though, Case, Stepyan and Tens were far from amused—and I didn’t have anything I could say to make it any better. I didn’t even have time to try and work something out, because Varian wasn’t finished with me.
“So, how do you intend to fulfil the mission without delivering Celia to Barangail?”
I shrugged, figuring there was no point in concealing the folk roaming about in my implant, seeing as he’d worked them out already, and seeing as my mouth was racing to give him the answer...
“Link to the ship. Tens will see what he can do.”
“Tens?”
“Comms guy,” said my mouth, while my brain was screaming ‘shutupshutup. Shut. The. Fuck. Up!’
“More...”
“Oh, Hell to the Hells, no! No. No. Nononono!”
“Stars, girl. You keep that up, you’re gonna break something. I can see why Mack likes you.”
I gasped. That was not