Soldier of Fortune

It wasn’t until the tram had entered the city proper that Gideon remembered he had no idea where he was going.

All he knew of Nike was that it was the capital of the colony of Avon, that it housed the Tactical Division, and was home to the Shakespeare Circus.

Dani was, he recalled, very fond of the Circus and had promised to take him if they could get a long enough furlough, but that was long ago, and they’d never made it to Nike.

Which was likely why, when the conductor announced their arrival in the ninth district, touting it as the home of Xanadu’s, Marlowe Street, and the Shakespeare Circus, he chose to follow a number of other passengers off the tram.

The rest of the debarking travelers quickly scattered to parts unknown, though some spared a backward glance for Elvis, who was hunched on Gideon’s shoulder, chittering at the rain. “Sorry,” Gideon murmured to the draco as he looked around, then gave a soft “Yay,” on spying a map tacked to the tram stop’s kiosk.

Blinking away the rain, Gideon noted that, like his home city of Tesla, Nike followed the wheel plan, with all the government offices housed in the center of the wheel and twelve main avenues running from that center like spokes.

These spokes created eleven wedges of real estate which were, themselves, connected by streets which circumnavigated the city like variegated hoops.

“Oy, need a lift?”

Gideon and Elvis both started at the rickshaw driver’s call. “No, thanks,” he said, in part because he was mindful of the need to preserve his small amount of cash, and in part because he was not quite over the thrill of actual water falling from the sky.

The driver shook his hooded head and rode on, the wheels on his bike spraying Gideon’s shins.

Gideon turned back to the kiosk map, where another moment’s study revealed an inn that was not only less than a block from the Circus, it appeared to be operated by keepers. And while it always struck Gideon as odd how the defenders of the the planet’s wilds seemed to always insinuate themselves in human spaces, they could at least be depended upon to provide a clean bed and decent food, without being a drain on the pocket.

At least he now had a direction, so he headed out into the downpour, an unhappy Elvis huddling close as he went.

“That one.” Erasmus Ellison pointed at the man who’d just stepped from the airfield tram, looking somewhat lost.

Mia peered around her fagin’s bulk to see who he meant.

Though Ellison’s chosen mark was only on the other side of Lipton Street, she had to squint through the sheeting rain to see him. “Don’t look rich,” she said. But he did, to her experienced eye, look dangerous, even with that weird hump on his shoulder.

That comment earned her a clap on the side of the head that left her ears ringing. “Don’t question, girl,” Ellison snapped. “You’re in enough of a stew, ain’t ya?”

Mia hunched in on herself, which she’d long ago learned was the only safe response to Ellison when he was in a mood. And since he’d discovered her book cache only a few hours past, he was in a truly smogged mood.

“I told you time and again, readin’ ain’t nothing but a distraction,” he said now, indicating he was still thinking about those books. “And dodgers lookin’ for a distraction ain’t challenged enough t’keep their head inna game, so that,” he jerked his chin toward the tall man’s apparent deformity, “is gonna be your challenge.”

Looking closer, Mia was astonished to see the deformity move, stretching out first a head and then a pair of long, articulated wings.

“Oy!” she said, then before he could thump her again dropped her voice to whisper, “He’s got a draco!”

“Not for long,” Ellison said, glaring down, paying no mind to the rain sluicing from his bald head. “Once you nick it, it’s gonna be my draco.” He laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze she felt down to the bone. “You bring that winged bugger back to me, and it’ll be double rations and a quarter the take once it’s sold. If you don’t bag it,” he continued, leaning down so the rainwater dribbled from his head onto hers, “you’ll be onna streets. You savvy?”

“Yeah—yes, sir,” she amended, wincing as the heavy hand began to squeeze harder.

“Good. Now he’s movin’, so get on with ya’, and remember,” he added, “you don’t bring me that draco, you’ll be out of my hive.”

He didn’t add, because he’d long ago beaten it into every one of his dodgers, how easy it was for a child to disappear in Nike.

What he did add was a slap on the back to start Mia on her way, nearly sending her face first into a muck-filled puddle. “And mind your feet,” he hissed as though it were her clumsiness, and not his abuse, that had caused the misstep.

Gideon picked up the tail two blocks from the tram station.

A quick glance in a grocer’s window told him his shadow was small and clad in the universal urban camouflage of patchwork trousers and hooded tunic he recalled from his own youth on the streets of Tesla.

There was a time he might have given the dodger a shot at his wallet, a sort of paying-it-forward deal, but in those days, he’d possessed more than a handful of starbucks.

Since he didn’t have enough to fill the kid’s pockets, he opted for a detour through a narrow foot lane that bore a series of red crystal lanterns.

Here, among those signs of a thriving night trade, Gideon figured his shadow would be tempted by the host of distracted, well-heeled marks seeking an evening’s pleasure.

But even as Gideon wove through the crowds, avoiding umbrellas and propositions in equal measure, the dodger remained stubbornly fixed on him.

Weird, but since the kid was so determined, he decided to play along by winding through a few more detours, eventually beginning to enjoy the game.

Or he was until he stopped smack in the middle of crossing a street. Not because of any oncoming traffic, but because he’d been subconsciously counting every step he’d taken since walking away from the tram station and had reached 9,562, which was the maximum number of steps an inmate could walk away from his work party and expect to get back alive.

So he stood in the wet, fighting the habituated urge to turn back because there was no back to go to.

Which was when a rickshaw’s bell and a harried shout from somewhere behind spurred him forward to the curb, where he caught a hint of motion at the corner of his eye, and the game of dodger vs. mark brought him back to the here and now, and he continued on his way, deliberately not counting his steps.

This time he didn’t stop until he turned onto Carroll Square, which consisted of a quartet of streets surrounding an agri-center. Each street held a mix of small retail businesses, eateries, and pubs. On the agri-center’s west side stood the towering five stories of the Elysium Inn.

“What do you think,” he murmured to Elvis, “do we keep him following in the wet or settle in for the night?”

Elvis snorted and shook his head.

“Settle in it is,” Gideon said and aimed for the inn. “There’s the place,” he said, louder this time so his shadow would be sure to hear, then added, more to himself than his unknown shadow, “Hope they have private baths.”

Elvis flapped his wings and crooned in what Gideon took to be agreement.

“There’s the place.”

As the tall fellow spoke, Mia pulled back into the nearest recessed doorway and waited for him to enter the inn.

She was relieved he’d finally stopped, especially after the disappointment of the district’s red crystal alley, where she had expected him to seek out some company. That would have provided her best chance at the draco, as Mia had long since learned there were none so easy to rob as those in the tangle of negotiated passion.

Then there’d been the point the fellow had stopped dead in the middle of Chaucer, where he came close to being flattened by an oncoming rickshaw.

She hadn’t been able to stop herself calling out a warning, despite the fact that his untimely demise might give her a better shot at the draco.

Still, by the time he moved on, she’d come to conclude the man was a bit off in the head and figured she’d be doing the draco a favor by removing it from the suicidal maniac.

Now, as he at last entered the Elysium Inn, Mia remained in hiding, watching and waiting until, honeycomb! A light went on in a second floor window, street side.

Not as good as one of the alley-facing rooms, but better than those facing the pub on the other side, which would be busy well past fourteen o’clock. But with the agri-center between the inn and the buildings on the opposite side of the square, anyone looking out a window would see nothing but trees, trellises, and rain-towers.

Alley it was, then.

Plan already forming, she began to leave her shelter when movement on the other side of the street had her pulling back to watch another individual, dressed in clothes even darker than hers, moving from shadow to shadow before darting into the very alley Mia had been aiming for.

She eased back into the door’s shadows, wondering at the chances of someone else following the tall soldier.

Even as that thought struck, the someone else stopped in the light of a streetlamp and turned in her direction.

Though she could see no face, she did see, quite clearly, the hand which rose and pointed up to the newly lit room. After a measured pause, the hand dropped down, but the finger remained pointing straight up so Mia could easily see it shake back and forth in a distinct “no, no, no,” fashion.

Then the hand fell, the figure turned and, in seconds, disappeared into the blackness of the alley.

Most people, faced with such specific opposition, would shrug and move on to the next mark. Then again, most people didn’t have to deal with Fagin Ellison.

Oh no, you don’t, Mia thought at her rival, already adjusting her plan of attack. No one’s getting that draco but me.

How she meant to do that, she had no idea, but for starters, she moved from her current hiding space to the base of the agri-center’s water tower, where she hunkered down to await developments.

As it happened, she didn’t need to wait long because she’d barely slid under the shadows of the tower when her competition reappeared from the alley, no longer dressed entirely in black but sporting a wildly colorful new ensemble.

She held her breath as he paused at the alley entrance to scan the street and let that breath out when, showing no signs of spying her, he turned and briskly entered the Elysium Inn.

Once he was safely inside, Mia dashed across the street and into the alley, where luck continued to be on her side as the inn’s compost bin sat directly beneath the fire escape.

In a tick, she’d climbed the bin and was on the escape’s lowest landing.

Another two ticks saw her climbing over the second-floor railing to the narrow ledge, barely half the width of her feet, and edging around to the room her mark had taken.

She could only hope she got to the draco before her quick-changing competitor.