Tag: #FlashFiction

The Red Light District. Flesh, pleasures, drugs, weapons. Danger, in a quarter that is all shadows and strident lights. Fantastic.

Maren, of all the places, you had to get in here. Why?

“Hello, sailor lady. See something you like?”

“I’m looking for a woman,” I say. For an occult detective, I’m not specially brilliant today.  I’m going to blame it on how worried I am. Maren has not been using her body for that long.

“Oh, we can arrange that,” he drones on. “Or you could have us both perhaps? We’ll offer you a special price for it…”

Contact.

We’re both in a blank space. He looks surprised, at least for a moment. Funny, his avatar looks exactly the way he looked outside. His AI looks like a plain sphere floating beside him.

“Whoa, lady! You have a private neuralink?” he says. His AI is spinning madly.

“I have more than that. I’m not just looking for a woman, I’m looking for this woman,” I say. I let him see Maren. “I’ve been told you’re the most knowledgeable person around.”

He stares at Maren. There’s something in his eye, in the way he looks. Does he recognize her?

I decide to be cautious. Something tells me that’s the best avenue.

“I need to find her. She fled from home last night.” I send him my ID. “I think she’s unwell.”

“Rebecca September?” My name rings a bell, I can see. Or two.

“Yes.”

“Hm. You see, I think I might have something for you, but it’s a pity… You’re not the kind of person I can be traced to having had business with, you know? Or at least, business that is not… of the flesh.”

“I can make it untraceable,” I lie. Not without Maren, no I cannot. “Or… I could owe you a favour?”

The guy’s clever. I can see it. I hope I didn’t sound as desperate as I thought.

“Now that is indeed interesting. I’ve dealt in money, flesh and info. You’re asking me to deal in favours?”

Damn, I’ve busted it.

“I’ll tell you what. I want my own private neuralink. Can you get me that?”

“Yes,” I say. I try not to sound too anxious. Mignon will kill me for promising it, but she’ll make it. After all, it’s for Maren, and Maren is her daughter. So to speak.

“And you will still owe me one,” he adds.

I have a brief flash forward, and I don’t like it. This damned oracle training of mine. How can they live with this lack of control is something I’ll never understand. Trouble ahead if I cut this deal. Big trouble. Futures whirling in my mind.

“Agreed,” I say. The futures coalesce. I see pain and spilled blood and darkness, and then it’s gone.

Nothing new.

He grabs my arm, my real one. How can he be so warm? I detect no magic in him. Is it cyber enhanced then?

“Come with me, sailor lady,” he says in a sultry and wet tone that anyone can hear. “I think we can find what you want… inside. You have Tristan’s word on that.”

And thus he sealed the deal.

“Leave the bottle,” Jeena said.

“You’ve already had…” the wench said.

“Leave it I say!”

Harkee nodded to the young woman, and pulled the bottle closer to Jeena. The wench shrugged, shifting her attention to the next nearly drunk customer.

“You were saying…?” Harkee said, and poured another glass. It was obvious that Jeena no longer noticed it was only her glass being refilled each time.

“We had everything planned, was what I was saying. E-ve-ry-thing. Down to the tiniest detail.”

“But it went wrong.”

A gulp, a knock on the table. A refill.

“The energy crystals, you know them? It was the perfect opportunity, what with the bloody things being auctioned. We had a buyer, we had a window. It was going to be fast and subtle.”

“And yet.”

“And yet.”

Slosh. Bang. Refill.

“The guards. At first we thought they were going to use automatons, but no. Automatons would have been easier. But those brute trolls are special, they don’t even flinch. But you know what? They’re curious.”

“That’s a racial…”

“That’s true. A fact. We just had to create a distraction. Two steamcarts crashed by the corner. We knew they wouldn’t move, but half their mind would be attracted to the din. They cannot help it. And that’s what we wanted, because right when the clash took place we broke in.”

“Through the kitchen floor.”

“Yes. From the sewers. Timed to the second, bless Nikaia. After that, the hiss from a pierced boiler hid any noise we made.”

“How did you know a boiler would… Ah.”

Swig. Crack. Refill.

“Next, the magical defenses. Nina took care of them. You should have seen her. She shone. Literally. She stood there, weaving her threads, picking locks and choosing paths. She took her own sweet time, and I was just about to call it off when she almost collapsed and said it was done.”

“Did you leave her there?”

“Who do you think we are?”

Harkee didn’t answer. It was obvious Jeena was alone at the inn.

“We ran upstairs. I’m no sorceress, but I’m experienced enough. I saw the traces of Nina’s work everywhere. The building had been a maze of magic traps. But they were all disabled.”

Guzzle. Smash. Refill.

“And then we faced the puzzle. An automated panel for the last door.”

“Your job.”

“Ha! No. Nikaia has built a… a can opener, though she’d kill me if she heard me call it that. She’s the most skilled artificer, though I’ll deny I ever said that. Anyway… anyway, she rested her device on the panel, and fried it from the inside. A click, and we were inside.”

“Now it was your turn.”

“Yes. The safe was, can you believe it, behind a picture of the auction house. Like in a cheap novel. And the bastard gave us a surprise. He had changed the safe.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. It should have been a Hacker Safeguard 3234, it was an Ironforge GY. Tough beasts. But I’m tougher. It took me exactly forty-two seconds longer to open it. And there it was, the carved wooden case with its own clockwork lock. But I knew the combination. It had… It cost me.”

Chug. Clap. Refill.

Harkee waited.

“The bloody crystals should have been inside. But they weren’t! There was a note. A note! ‘Better luck next time, ladies. The Ghost.’ And it burned up right there, in front of me, and dissolved in the air leaving no trace, as an alarm went off.”

Harkee didn’t wait for her to demand the next refill.

“We bolted away. Barely. And split, because that is what our contingency plans require, don’t you think I didn’t notice you questioning our loyalty to each other. And don’t even dare to deny it.”

Harkee picked up his own glass. He drank and remained silent.

“I’ll kill him,” Jeena said.

“Who?”

“That bloody Ghost. I’m gonna kill him. It’s the last time he crosses our path.”

“But you don’t even know who he is. Hell, you don’t know if he’s a man.”

“I’m sure he is a man. And I’ll kill him.”

Jeena quaffed yet another shot. She didn’t catch Harkee’s smirk.