Chapter Nine

The Old Port

Newhaven, Edinburgh.

Stan and fake Ann felt that everything had really gone to plan with the assignment. Although, for a few moments, they sweated it out as they were surrounded by the police at the perimeter fence in Piershill, nothing raised suspicions that the two thieves had stolen the identities of two MCIT investigators in order to kidnap Sil Moore's body.

Once they left the scene, they deactivated the vehicle's tracking signal. Then Stan threw a multipurpose stun grenade into the back of the vehicle where the two forensic investigators were traveling. A little further on, in an abandoned part of the old Abbeyhill station, they switched to a vehicle they had already placed at the site. Stan decided to put aside his optical camouflage of his clothes, and his body's metamorphic camouflage, it bothered him to see things from a much lower angle than he was used to. Not to mention that many times the metamorphic camouflage gave him terrible headaches if he kept it on for too long.

They didn't bother to restrain the two forensic scientists, they would wake up later and didn't want to waste any more time. They simply loaded the bag with Sil Moore's body on the luggage rack and joined the cars driving through the streets, heading north.

The destination was the old port city of Newhaven, with its huge abandoned harbors.

The place had served as a ship graveyard after the Great War but, over the years, it had become a sort of abandoned museum for tourists and urban explorers. Although the locals said that the site was cursed, as it had been a quarantine zone for some time, due to the loss of a shipment of altered minerals brought from the war zones. Was a place so huge that it could be considered a city itself.

During the day it was quite common to see a lot of people in the place, although at night it was a place that no one wanted to pass near. The skeletons of the huge structures and cargo cranes of the port contributed to give it an air of ghostly abandonment. The arrangement of the huge, abandoned, rusting machines, side by side, gave the impression that they were the metal ribs of some antediluvian giant. The nighttime haze of the place, and the moon, sneaking through shreds of clouds to the horizon, tinged the place with a heavy salty atmosphere.

The place was so old that there were not even magnetized routes. Even illicit activity groups did not show up here to conduct their business. The fact that the place was associated with the great war and Fractus, was more than enough for anyone to think twice before passing through the place.

Although that was not the case for people who were often linked to activities related to the Dark Events. For those types of people, with interests stronger than any ghost linked to superstitions, it was the ideal place to carry out any illegal transaction.

And such was the case of the two thieves, the excitement provoked by the crime, and the money, was stronger than their fears of any monster from another dimension or ghost from the deep sea.

The thieves' vehicle drove into the bowels of the port city and Stan drove hand-over-hand through the pavement-shattered streets. Ann hoped the pay for the job would be good enough, but she couldn't deny that the location chosen for the transaction gave her the creeps.

"This is it," Stan said, parking the car.

The meeting place was a sort of park on an islet, or at least it had been at one time. The bushes and grasses were high enough for anyone to hide in. Almost two hundred meters ahead, the silhouette of a ruined lighthouse could be seen outlined against the sky. A building of the Ancient Era, which had fallen into disuse three centuries ago and was never repaired. It had fallen fences in some places, twisted in others, and in the moonlight looked like the ruins of an ancient mausoleum.

It was the perfect setting for business, out of sight of onlookers... or an ambush. And such was fake Ann's thinking. The woman reached into her jacket pocket and touched the small dice-like device.

It was her gun. Her old glock32, with variable ammunition, in compressed form. That gave her more security than anything else.

"Calm down Rum. Don't start heating things up too soon," Stan said, giving her a sidelong glance. "By the way, when are you going to drop your camouflage? That hairdo doesn't suit you at all."

The woman looked at him with a blank look on her face and clicked her tongue. She touched one of the buttons on her jacket and almost instantly changed. The hairstyle came undone, revealing a slightly messy black hair.

Her skin was pale, dotted with a few freckles on her cheeks, that contrasted with the black makeup around her light brown eyes, and full lips also painted black. Her clothes had not changed, she still wore her forensic coveralls. Unlike her partner, who had only copied Patel's uniform, Rum considered herself a true con artist and had managed to get her hands on one of the real uniforms for the job. Courtesy of the real Ann's closet.

They waited a few minutes, looking around, but the man who hired them was still not coming. The wait was making Rum nervous. She didn't know why, but there was something strange about the place. Beyond the tetric appearance it had, there was something else that made her shiver.

It could be the silence, broken only by the sound of the water nearby.

"He's taking his time, this guy," she said, grumpily.

Stan didn't say a word, but Rum saw how his eyes were scanning ahead and to the sides of the vehicle.

Beyond about twenty yards on either side the view was lost in the low mist. And to the front the road became a much narrower passageway, only about ten meters wide, leading to another islet where the old lighthouse stood. The security fencing on either side of the road had long since disappeared.

"They're there," Stan said, squinting. Although Rum had the motion detection functions turned on, Stan's senses were much better in that regard, as he could detect motion without relying so much on the Neurowire. "But I think... but he's not alone," Stan rummaged in his jacket and pulled out a small dice similar to Rum's. "We'd better get ready, just in case."

"What are they doing?"

"I don't know… but there are quite a few people. I detect more than ten near the lighthouse, but on the sides there are also, though I'm not sure how many."

Rum pursed her lips and let out a sibilant sigh. "Is this going to be anything like Turkey?"

Stan felt a bead of sweat remembering what happened last year. "Let's hope not."

The duo waited a few more minutes, until their Neurowires flashed with the incoming call with an unknown number.

[We are coming over there,] said a voice in a dry tone.

"You were stalling," Stan grumbled, his grumpiness undismayed.

[We just wanted to make sure you were alone. That no one is following you.]

"Wait a minute. What do you mean, we are coming?" asked Rum, with a frown.

"The exchange is with one person, those are the terms. I said so in the conversation," added Stan.

[And I seem to remember telling you that I was going with my own people. We need to make sure our merchandise is correct.]

Stan and Rum exchanged nervous glances. There was something about the way he said merchandise that really got on their nerves. Stan sighed, he'd better get the nasty guy off his back as quickly as possible.

"All right, come on. We'll make the exchange," Stan said and cut the call short.

"If it gets ugly we've got water on both sides," Rum pointed out quietly.

"Let's hope we don't get that," Stan sighed, getting out of the vehicle, and his partner followed resignedly.

"Did you hear his accent?"

"No."

"I think he sounded Russian."

Stan hadn't bothered to turn off his Babel system to hear the stranger's accent. Russian, Martian or Titanian, he'd better pay what he promised, he thought.

They both walked to the luggage rack and in the distance they could see a large group of people approaching through the mist. It was the part of the job that could always go wrong, one could never be too careful.

There is no honor among thieves, Rum thought .

In front of the group came two people in black tactical suits and carrying rifles that neither Stan, nor Rum, had ever seen before. Behind them came a man in a dark gray suit. The man was quite a bit taller than the first two companions and quite stocky looking. His hair was tied in a ponytail and his expression did not please the two thieves at all. The man looked normal, like any other muscular man, but dressed in formal attire, although without being able to explain it, there was something about him and his companions that felt different. In his left hand he carried an ironclad industrial briefcase.

Behind the man, there appeared what Rum thought at first was a child, though she immediately dismissed it when she saw his pointed ears. He was dressed in some sort of white tunic and was even paler than Rum. He wore a kind of white visor that blended in with his messy white hair covering his eyes. The ghostly fey walked and stood almost next to the man.

Behind him. Two other armed men. The two thieves did not know if they were bodyguards or if they were mercenaries, but they did not have any badge that would help to know where they were from.

"Where is the body?" the man asked, walking toward them and pushing aside what appeared to be his guards, meanwhile the fey remained behind.

Stan made a theatrical gesture, invitingly to the man and walked to the back of the car. He opened the luggage rack and moved to give the man room. But just as he was about to break the seal on the bag Stan stopped him. "These things have suspended animation systems of their own. If you're going to open it, you'd better have a fridge to put the ice cream in."

"We already came prepared," the man replied, looking at him sternly. "We're not rookies."

"What about our pay?"

The man held up the briefcase at which Stan stepped back and let him do it.

He broke the bag's security seal and carefully unzipped the body bag. A small mist and light came out of it and there was the headless body of Sil Moore. The body bag, besides having its own preservation system, had an internal illumination system that bathed the body in a greenish light. It was the first time the thieves had seen the body, but the same question assaulted them at the same time. Why is she in a swimsuit?

The man saw the headless part and clicked his tongue. "Tsk! Damn it... Nak come here."

The ghostly looking fey walked over to him and the guards moved around him following him as if they were his own shadow. What they were protecting was not the man, it was that fey.

Nak walked slowly to the luggage rack and Rum saw how underneath the tunic two bare feet could be seen, with toes a little longer than normal. What Rum at first judged to be a boy because of his short stature, and slender body, was because the fey's body had the skin on his hands crumpled, almost stuck to his bones. The back of the tunic showed three openings on each side at the level of the shoulder blades.

Who the hell is this? Rum thought.

Now that she could see him in the light cast by the body bag, it gave her the creeps more than the man in the suit. The pallor of his body was almost deathly, with thin, blue lips. The woman felt even more fear when Nak raised his head in her direction. Although she could not see his eyes, she was sure that the mysterious being was watching her through the visor. As if it could hear or see what she was thinking. To her good fortune the strange being refocused on the body in front of him.

Nak solemnly extended long, slender-fingered hands over the corpse, as if through them he could see something the others could not.

"That's her," said the being called Nak, looking at the man. "She's marked and has what we need."

"What about her head?"

"She has portable memory units. The code is incomplete, but it's more than enough to add to blocks 53045 and 2039."

"We don't need it?"

"It would be better if it were complete but, even so, the result is very good."

Rum and Stan exchanged apprehensive glances. They would have liked to know what it was all about, but something told them they weren't going to feel very good if they even knew.

"Did you hear anything about the head? Have the police or the ravens found it?" asked the man, with a baleful look on his face.

So she was killed by someone else... Stan thought. "We didn't hear anything about it, the cops must still be on the scene, gathering evidence, but they have no idea what happened."

The man looked at the corpse and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "So we're not the only ones... someone detected our application."

"Never mind, it's a good specimen," Nak said, zipping up the bag.

"You guys! Take the body to the chamber," the man said addressing the mercenaries and then added. "Nak, go with them."

"Ehem!" Stan had cleared his throat and smiled.

The man opened the briefcase and pulled out some sort of iridescent cube. At the sight of it both Stan and Rum's jaws nearly dropped.

"This is for the service, much more than promised."

The cube was small enough to fit in a fist. But it had a faint glow of its own and the colors moved across the surface of its faces as if they had a life of their own.

"Th-that's..." stuttered Rum.

"Yes, a fractus nucleus, the cubic kind, in pure form. You can sell it and have money for two hundred years," explained the man.

Then he held out his hand offering the strange payment. Stan hesitated to take it for a moment. It didn't make sense. That was two hundred times more than the payment originally agreed upon. A nucleus of the creatures that had nearly wiped out life on the planet was worth a fortune. Rumor had it that there were even rarer cores around the planet. Although seeing what he had at his fingertips he wondered if that was true. The two thieves had seen such cores, so there was no doubt that what the man said about it being worth a fortune was true.

"Why?" Rum asked.

The man smiled. "Where I come from, it has no value. But, to the people here, it seems to have a lot of value. I won't deny that there are a lot of interesting ones, but this type is of no interest to us."

Stan picked up the little cube. It was real. The colors were moving slowly creating a tide of the entire spectrum of colors.

"Where are you from?" Rum asked.

"I'm from a long way from here," replied the man in a muffled voice and handed her the briefcase.

[Don't meddle anymore!]Stan warned her.

No matter how far away he was, those cores were worth a fortune in every part of the Solar System.

They were so stunned by their pay that they hardly detected Nak, who walked away with his retinue of mercenaries, who were carefully carrying the bag with Sil Moore's body.

The man looked at the two thieves and scratched his chin again. "I have something better for you. Come work for me. People like you are useful to me and the pay is good. Although the work is risky."

People like you are useful to me, Stan thought repeating the words. [When someone says that…]

[He forgets to put the word dumb at the end of useful,] Rum finished.

"Thanks, but no," Stan declined, with a somewhat crooked smile.

"No bosses, it's our work policy." Rum said.

Stan put the cube back in the briefcase and closed it.

"Sounds fair enough. Think about it, though, it's not a bad offer. Things on this side are going to get bumpy in a while."

"Thanks, but we decline the offer."

"Sounds fair," the man said, bowing his head. "It was a pleasure Mr. Michael Levin, Miss Rumenia Ruzicka."

Hearing that, the two thieves stopped for a second. Stan smiled at the man in a very bad way. "You're good, really good."

"We didn't hire just anyone. I needed to know who you were first."

"It was a pleasure," Stan said, opening the door to the vehicle. Rum simply smiled as an obligation.

They both got into the car and reversed out of the place slowly. The figure of the man stared at them for a moment until, turning around, he disappeared back the way he had come.

As Stan emerged from the labyrinth of the city's narrow streets, he gave his companion a sideways glance. They both didn't feel safe until they saw the city lights of Newhaven again.

"How did he know?" Rum asked, worriedly.

"I don't know," Stan grunted.

"It's real, isn't it? The cube?"

"Yeah, it's the real thing..." Stan looked at Rum. "How the hell are we going to trade it?"

"We'll find a way, we always do."

"For the moment let's try to get out of the UK for a while. I don't trust having someone behind my back who knows our real identities."

Rum, looked at Stan quizzically. "What did he mean when he said, things on this side were going to get bumpy?"

Stan looked at her and frowned. "I don't want to know."

The car joined the others driving through the streets and disappeared south. The two thieves would later find out how lucky they were that night not to have accepted the mystery man's proposal.