Cagebird Read online

  “Why did you never write to your family?” he asks, tilting the slate off the edge of the table, peering down at it as if the questions are all in there. But he doesn’t need to look for them. He’s got them behind his eyes.

  My family.

  “Yuri?” he says, eyes still on the slate. “Why did you never write to your family?”

  “I’m not interested in answering any questions, Andreas. Didn’t your colleague tell you?”

  Now he looks up. “Oh, come on. Retreating already? I expected more from Falcone’s second.”

  “I wasn’t Falcone’s second.”

  “Protégé, then.”

  He knows. He knows exactly what I am. But he pretends he doesn’t, and, unlike the woman, he doesn’t try to hide it. Showing your hand is a part of this play.

  So I don’t bother to smile. “You’re baiting me. My silence is the only answer you’re gonna get.”

  “No, your silence means that your family is still a raw subject.”

  Is it. “Did your wife take your last name when you married?”

  One eyebrow lifts. “My wife?”

  “Or husband. Whichever. That ring.”

  “What difference does it make if she did?”

  Now I smile. I rest my chin on one hand, graze the tabletop with a finger. “I want to know her name so I can arrange a hit.”

  He laughs. Surprised, but not nonplussed. “And you think you could, now that you’ve told me?”

  He thinks he could stop me?

  More than a crooked govie, then.

  “Maybe you oughtta consult your slate.” I point at it. “To see if I could.”

  I know my own file. I stroke the table again.

  That should’ve scored something. Instead he keeps smiling. “How do you know I’m even married?”

  I look at the ring.

  “Appearances,” he says, “can be deceiving. I thought you’d know that, geisha. Maybe I want you to think I’m married, so in your head you build a profile of a personal life that doesn’t truly exist.”

  I feel my finger stop its movement.

  “Now,” he says, as if he doesn’t notice, “tell me, why did you never write to your family?”

  I’m on his field, and if I want to know what the game is I have to make him play. And I have to play along.

  “I don’t like to write,” I tell him.

  He gives me a big brotherly look. He pokes his slate again, then turns it around so I see the heading.

  9.17.2185 EHSD.

  This man visited the Camp, he says he’s a captain.

  Careful. Very careful. I look at him. “Where did you get that?”

  “They’re your journals, aren’t they, Yuri? Quite extensive. All the way back to when you were nine years old. Took a long time to break into, but there they are. And yet you say you don’t like to write.”

  This whore is Intel. Worse, as I stare at him, I recognize his sense of invulnerability.

  Black Ops.

  No other way he’d get that info unless he does this shit for a living. Unless this is his life.

  My face is my instrument in this duet. I play it cold.

  “I don’t write to other people, Andreas.”

  “Not even family?”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “Surely a young man of your talents could get to know them.”

  “If he wanted to. I don’t.”

  He tilts the slate away from me again. “Pity.”

  I shrug.

  I need a cigret, but damned if I’ll ask.

  “Your father died five years ago in the Camp. On Colonial Grace. You know where the rest of your family is.” Not a question.

  “Tell me anyway if it’ll get you off.”

  “What is important to you, Yuri, if not your family?”

  “Eating, sleeping, screwing. I lead a simple life.”

  This amuses him. I amuse him. “Snappy. Still on the retreat?”

  “You’re the one sitting on the opposite side of this table, Andreas, when it’s much more intimate on my side. What’re you afraid of?”

  He grins. “A young man of your talents.”

  Half-truth, maybe. That lick on his hand had put him off. But not enough to send him walking.

  No, instead he dug in his heels.

  “Let’s talk about something else, then.” He pokes his slate again, then slides it toward me. Not a skittering push, but a purposeful one, only releasing his hand once it sits dead center in front of me. “Your cellmate Stefano Finch.”

  My face is blank. I feel it. Geisha training.

  The door opens behind Lukacs. He doesn’t turn to look. A medium-height blond man walks in, a polar opposite image to dark and well-tailored Lukacs. This one wears gray manufiber pants, faintly reflective, and a rumpled black sweater. He drags a chair in with him, sets it at the short end of the table just at my periphery, sits, and loosely folds his arms.

  I stare at him, he stares back with flint blue eyes. We get nowhere. So I smirk and look at Lukacs. “Your prom date? Or mine?”

  He completely ignores the blond man and my question. “Finch. Twenty-five years old. EarthHub Naval, but a wrench monkey, nothing glamorous, nothing intelligent. Born and bred at Hephaestus Shipyard. Was a lifesystems mechanic.” He gestures to the slate where Finch’s dark-eyed image glows. “Killed his commanding officer.”

  “And yet they put him in prison.” I can ignore the obvious too. “They shoulda given him a medal.”

  He rolls on like he doesn’t hear, with Finch’s file in front of me. He’s got it memorized. “Father was also a lifesystems mechanic. Died ten years ago when a coolant pipe burst.” Faint smile. “I suppose he wasn’t very good, then, yeah? Mother had a slow decline after developing Kestral’s disease. Too many hours spent around drive arrays in the early years.”

  His voice is about as warm as an Arctic handshake.

  “He’s led a rough life,” Lukacs concludes. “But not as rough as yours, yeah?”

  Your point being…

  “Do you know why he killed his CO?” Lukacs says like this is normal conversation.

  I shrug. In fact, no. You don’t really ask those things in prison. And if you do, you don’t expect a straight or truthful answer.

  “I think you care,” Lukacs says. “I think you care so much you screwed him.”

  There isn’t any response to give this man but stillness. And even that might be saying too much.

  “Suddenly quiet,” Lukacs says.

  “I’m waiting for you to quit self-gratifying. I don’t like to interrupt intimate moments.”

  He smiles. It’s as flat as this table and the other man’s expression. Lukacs leans over and touches the face of the slate. The images start to cycle and I recognize the scenes. Me and Finch in our cell talking. Me, sleepwalking at lights-out like an insane person, around and around the cell. The both of us yelling at each other on different days. Snatches of sound before the image bleeds to yet another. To a shadowy frame and the sounds of sex.

  I don’t look at it. Instead I stare at Lukacs. Training makes my voice steady, when I want to reach across the table and beat him to death. “All your porn got a point, manito?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t need to watch it, I can get it anytime.”

  “Yet you only did it once,” he says, with a prurient tone.

  “He wasn’t all that good.”

  This makes Lukacs smile. He’s heard all my arguments with Finch, my words now just get him off. “You really ought to ask the lad why he killed his CO. But of course that would require your release back to the general population. Would you like to see what went on when you weren’t there?”

  I don’t answer. The blond man at the end of the table yawns, briefly covering his mouth.

  “You’ve stopped talking?” Lukacs says.

  He’s bright.

  “All right then.” The slate still scrolls in front of him. In front of me. Cycling my bu
siness. Finch’s business. Us. Lukacs completely ignores it, even the volume. “I’ll talk—about the fact I’ve been in your life since you landed on this planet; you just had no idea. I made sure the court closed your trial from the meedees; I watched you inside the system so you weren’t prematurely killed; and now I’ve set you in solitary for two weeks so I can make my point.”

  “Then make it.”

  “Work with me to bring down the pirate organization. Or I might just get your lily Finch permanently transferred from your cell and in with someone else. And maybe he can add another murder to his sheet. Or maybe he won’t last a night.”

  I have to push it. “Do what you want.”

  The blond man gets up without any signal that I can see from Lukacs, actually takes his chair and walks out.

  The door shuts, heavy.

  Now I hear my breath, a single intake. Likely Lukacs hears it too. “Where did he go?”

  Lukacs shrugs.

  “Where did he go?” Is he your boss, or are you his?

  “Is that your answer?” Lukacs says. And waits. He’s got nothing more to say until I drop the mask.

  Here are all of my mistakes, encapsulated by dark eyes on a slate. I remember the night when I screwed him. When he asked. When I thought I was doing him a favor, but instead I caged myself. These feelings are iron bars.

  I can’t hide when they’ve mapped all the corners with optics. Not in that cell. And not in here, with this man and his game.

  “Lay a hand on Finch, and you can forget any deal. I want him safe in our pod. Understand?” Even though there is no safety.

  This is what Lukacs has wanted to hear from the moment he walked in. The bastard smiles.

  “Perfectly,” he says.

  Lukacs doesn’t smoke, but he came prepared to reward me with them now that I’ve accepted his hand in marriage. I blow white clouds into his face to blur the air between us. Once, twice, and by the third drag I’m jumping. Soaring. Damn near aroused, slouched back with my knees wide under the table. Smoke rolls over my tongue like spring rain or smooth booze. It’s been a while, I ran out in the box, and Morry the Guard who took pity on me couldn’t find my spacer brand. But Andreas Black Ops Lukacs knows it and knows how to get it, clever little puppy that he is.

  The smoke in my lungs warms me a little in this cold, white-lit room. I wonder if that blond one watches through the optics, if he is the one who authorized this deal. He hasn’t come back. I wonder if all the things Falcone said about Black Ops are true. Average people talk about them as if they only exist in vids, and sometimes you hear murmuring about it in the lower echelons of the government. Part myth, part dirty reality. Part dirty secret. Technically the Agency works for EarthHub Command, but you’ll never find them listed on any govie budget reports. Falcone dealt with them when he was a carrier captain. He said never to trust them. He said he’d kill anyone in his crew or his network who waxed linen with Ops without his permission.

  But Falcone’s dead, and here I am.

  “What happens after,” I ask Lukacs.

  “After?” He took his slate back, and now he scrolls it, reading something while I smoke.

  “After I hand you the entire pirate organization in a big silver-beribboned gift box.”

  He still looks at his slate. Maybe reviewing the porn. “We’ll grant you complete exoneration of your crimes. I’ll even put it in writing.”

  Yeah, and it’ll be stamped in my blood. “Say that again with a straight face, thanks.”

  Tiny, mocking smile, eyes down and reading. “Unlike other agencies or that rogue Captain Azarcon and his allies, we can actually make someone like you run clean in the eyes of the law. And we can protect you.”

  Someone like me. As if I’m all that different from an Intel whore like him. He screws people for a living too. “So does this free pass come before or after you eventually kill me?”

  He laughs.

  I don’t. “If you’re gonna wipe my slate, then you don’t have to threaten Finch.”

  He says, “We like to cover the bases just in case you decide your own life isn’t worth the trouble. Or his isn’t.” He pauses so I can figure it. “But I’ll be generous. We’ll protect him from the baser elements in here.”

  “Like you did when I was in the box.” Did you?

  “Oh, but we hadn’t made a deal at that point.” Now he looks up. “I asked you if you wanted to see what happened while you were in solitary. You were absolutely correct. Putting you there was for their safety. It certainly wasn’t for your lily Finch’s.”

  A beat.

  I flick my burning cigret at him. He bats at it, instinctive, and I reach over in a dart and hit him in the face. He grabs at me, but I’m on the table with my hands locked around his throat. The chair makes a metallic clatter as it falls back on the floor.

  Most people would seize my wrists and by then it would be too late. But he clamps a hand between my legs, the universal vulnerability of all men. No thanks. I let go of his neck and grip his hand, thumb in the pressure point to bend back his wrist. His free hand pushes against my face, and I grab that one too.

  Then the door opens and the blond one’s back, with a gun.

  I let go immediately and move to get off the table, get behind it. But Lukacs’s hand shoots out and knocks my head. His other fist grabs me between the legs, a vise. I flinch and lose breath. In a second he flips me onto my back and bangs my head to the table. I’m dazed. He’s got me by the neck and crotch, and the blond agent stands over me with his gun against my temple.

  Lukacs says, “Don’t forget who has you by the balls, Terisov.”

  “Fuck you!” The room begins to dim. I want to throw up.

  “Pirate,” he says, leaning over me. “Remember who the bad guy is.”

  I can’t get a grip on the table, and if I grip him I think that man will shoot. Maybe the gun isn’t set on kill, but a paralysis pulse would not be pleasant.

  Lukacs releases me with a shove. My eyes run. He moves away, then so does the other man.

  “Get back in your seat,” Lukacs says. Still standing and smoothing out his suit, his hair. Watching me.

  I roll and slide off the table. I have to hold on to it for a second and I want to kill him. Both of them. In a messy manner. Instead I right the chair and sit in it, rubbing my mouth with my sleeve, trying not to wince. Swallowing my thoughts. I cup one hand between my legs, but nothing will help. I think he enjoyed it.

  The blond one stands behind me. “Cuff him again.”

  “No,” Lukacs says. “I think he’s learned.”

  So Lukacs doesn’t give the orders, or the blond one wouldn’t have opened his mouth. But Lukacs doesn’t listen to him, so maybe they’re partners, not boss and stooge. After a moment the blond agent walks around me with a sidelong look down at my face, not a tilt of a smile. He keeps going out the door. Monitoring my reactions in this dealmaking, I know that now. He came in here quick enough.

  Lukacs stays standing and rests his fingertips on the table, looking down at me. He carries on as if none of it happened.

  “This is how it will work: you’ll go back to your comrades with a cover and infiltrate.”

  So easy, sure. Wrapped up in nice unequivocal statements. I leave my sneer unchecked. “What cover could you possibly concoct that anyone’s gonna believe?”

  He says it like a smooth pickup. “Say some of your pirate comrades got you out. They’re all factionalized now since Falcone died, the left hand ignorant of the right in most cases. Correct? Blaming your allies serves our purpose in three ways: one, when it breaks that you are actually alive and free, we can point the finger at the actual criminals. Two, since not all of your fellow pirates agree on your status, they’ll spend more time watching one another and not our agenda. And three”—with that humorless smile—“the ones that do respect you will think you’re still worthy enough to save and likely do business with. Which will open the doors for me.” And this is the real point he wants me
to get, the rest was telegraphing. “You’ll say eventually that Black Ops helped you escape because a faction of the Agency wants a cut in with the pirates.”

  I can’t help it. I stare. “That true?”

  He doesn’t blink. “That’s what you can tell them. Eventually. After they trust you again.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Of course not. EarthHub wants the pirates dismantled. Hence our deal for all the skills and info you have, Mr. Kirov.”

  Using my blood name, not the dead one. But I look at his wedding band.

  “Believe me or not, it doesn’t change the deal.”

  He keeps saying that word. It has the same sort of tone as Offer.

  “You forget one thing, Lukacs—I was caught. By Azarcon.” Evident by the fact I’m even here talking to you bastards. “There’s no way in hell I can get back with my crew after being on his ship. They won’t care that I didn’t go willingly. Not to mention the fact I didn’t manage to kill his kid. I got people kinda pissed at me for that.”

  He waves his hand in dismissal. “You’ll explain to them that while you were inside you were approached by an agent who wishes to open communications between your contacts and his company.”

  I light another cigret from the pack he gave me and watch it burn for a second, an orange mouth eating its way up a stiff white stick. “That agent would be you.”

  “Yes. And when you’ve regained their trust and introduced me, we’ll both have access to your friends.”

  And what a pretty picture that will make.

  The cig deadens my nerves, smoothes me out like a soft thumb on metal foil. “Why would they even bother with you?” How much do you know?

  He hasn’t sat. He likes to look down at me when he sermonizes. “It seems Kublai Khan’s been struggling with your business contacts since you got caught. Your contacts”—he says it like it’s a euphemism for sexual favors “much—prefer to deal with Caligtiera than with your ship, what with Caligtiera running Falcone’s operation now. You knew that, yeah?” It’s rhetorical, and he knows Cal’s name might irk me. Falcone’s lieutenant and a man who never much liked me or the protégé concept Falcone had pushed. “So an alliance with a—how should I say?—ambivalent faction of the Agency would be gold for your ship. We have access to a lot of information about the illegal activity in the Hub, I dare say more than even you could get. And let’s also say this fictitious ambivalent faction of the Agency would really rather the aliens stay enemies. There’s nothing good for Earth if we ally with those strits; they’ll only weaken the Hub in the end. Fundamental Centralist views run rampant even in the Agency. Not so hard to believe, is it. And your hatred for Azarcon and his peace overtures do help in that, yeah?” Your. Pirates in general, yeah. Hate Azarcon. “Since you never testified against your former comrades, they won’t, I believe, be hunting your head as ardently as you claim. And with you back on Kublai Khan, you might be able to wrest those contacts away from Caligtiera. Surely your captain would see all of this as an opportunity.”