Page 69 of Spark Transform

“You don’t get it,” said Minan. “None of us has anyone else here to protect but each other. This” — she circled a finger to mean all of them — “is our family. You are our family. We’re scattering with you.”

Arco gave them each a hard, questioning look, but they met her gaze with stubborn determination.

Even Nilsson nodded. “My closest relatives are on the other side of the galaxy. This is the job we signed up for.”

Arco’s eyes stung. “Ah, frelling hell. I will be deeply and forever peeved if any of you get hurt because of me.” She wiped at the tears with her sleeve. “I’m… we’re going to the studio for Brenner. After that, the spaceport.”

She’d stomped out with bad grace, headed for the lockers where she knew her team kept their gear. They’d followed closely like they were afraid she’d bolt if they didn’t keep an eye on her.

Guilt plagued her then and still did for having left Brenner at all, though she’d made the best decision she could at the time. Now all she wanted was to get back to him and make it right.

Of course, there had been no simple jetting out the door.

Owing to the storm, the Ridderth traffic control system had already begun grounding non-essential traffic. Novo G Security used every trick they knew to get several loaded flitters and autocabs off the roof before the TCS flatly refused to allow any air traffic that wasn’t a registered first responder.

Since she and her team had bad-weather outerwear with them, ground transportation was their best bet for getting out of the media district. Novo G Security controlled their departures so they wouldn’t flood the public systems and make themselves easier to track.

When it was finally her group’s turn to leave, they headed straight for the sky trains, the only public transportation that reliably served the Canals.

It worried her that the studio was offline and that neither Soleil nor Haseem had responded to multiple callback requests. She kicked herself for not making a point to get ping refs for Josh or some of the other students. And it would be unwise to leave cryptic messages about the anonymously posted raid maps without explanation.

For the first leg of the trip, her team paired her with Nilsson and Minan as a trio. N’Dwama and Tōn Ko followed as seemingly unrelated passengers. They switched it up for subsequent connections, swapping scarves, hoods, bags, and even coats to mislead surveillance subroutines.

Record snowfall slowed even the sky trains to a crawl. She and Minan both monitored the net. By thirty minutes after midday, raw vids of spectacular building boom-downs began to surface. So much for hoping the weather would delay the CPS and the police for a day, or at least a few hours.

Then a short message from Brenner had changed everything. “Don’t take off without me.”

Her heart leaped. Gaia’s sweet breath, but would it have killed the man to say more than five words?

The rational part of her brain pointed out that he’d been smart not to give anything away with his answer. The same reason she’d used circumspect language in her offer of a partnership, and why she’d left coordinates only in the local memory of his percomp.

Taking a couple of deep, countdown breaths helped her deal with unexpected emotional flurries. She needed to see his face. Needed to take him up on that hug he’d once offered. Needed to apologize. Shoving all that aside, she replied with a short message of her own about fireworks and where to meet, then tapped her security earwire to subvocalize to her team.

“Change of plan. We’re going straight to the spaceport to meet Brenner.” Or so she profoundly hoped.

After that, Minan cajoled the skytrain’s AI into recommending the fastest path and rerouting their group around congestion.

Arco followed her team’s instructions, grateful for their expertise. Whenever she could, she took window seats and focused two of her tiniest cameras on the passing scenery. Mostly, they recorded wind-driven snow squalls, but occasionally, views of recent ruins where buildings once stood. Once she got to the spaceport, she’d edit out all her watermarks and donate them to Novo G’s baseline dataset for the cause.

The closer they got to their destination, the more she worried they’d be walking into chaos. The skytrains weren’t clogged with people yet, but once the vids and reports started trending, they would be. The spaceport would be an order of magnitude worse. Her way off the planet was passage on a freighter owned by an independent trader she trusted, but her exit plans hadn’t accounted for natural catastrophes or human calamities. Or having a whole team, for that matter. She sent a quick ping asking for a couple of extra spillover party rooms.

Her earwire alerted to an incoming message from Soleil’s studio, timestamped two hours ago. The bad weather apparently blocked satellite access and made the city’s comms infrastructure as balky as the traffic control system.

“Your injured-reserve left early on foot without saying goodbye. We’re all leaving soon for a long vacation. Our boat’s big enough for you and the rest of your entourage. Ping us if you want to join the fun.”

Arco pulled the scarf up over her nose. She wasn’t good at keeping her emotions off her face when she’d had zero sleep in thirty-six hours. Entourage? What vacation? Whose boat? And how was Brenner even awake, much less walking, and where the fuck was he going?

Another incoming message pinged, this one from only twenty minutes ago.

“Sorry, bad news. A little fish just saw your reservist forcibly picked up by five of Wutala’s crew, including their security chief, Tycall. They knew just how to package him. They’re airborne for the spaceport.”

Arco barely had time to drag in a breath before the name Wutala set her finder sense ablaze. She’d already pegged the crew for their business relationship with the CPS. A surprising number of ex-CPS contractors had last been seen with Wutala crew right before they unexpectedly died in seemingly unrelated ways.

If the CPS had seen vids of Brenner’s takedown of the spider mech, they’d want a long private talk with him. And if the CPS wanted plausible deniability, what better crew than Wutala to send after a dangerously powerful minder?

Arco touched her earwire to speak to her team. “Brenner’s caught in a barbed net. I’m going to do a deep dive, but I can’t stay in stealth mode. You’ll have to watch my back.”

“Copy,” replied Minan, who was sitting across the long aisle from Arco. “Tōn Ko, come talk to Nilsson like you know her from work. Shield Arco first, Nilsson if you can.”