And it was troubling that even now, with his implant’s full function connected again, he could not quite remember what he’d been doing when he was taken, how that had happened. He added a few more things to his fixit list, then put his implant back into safety mode and restored covert status.
It felt like being stuck in the aftermath of concussion. Everything he had just been thinking about, had done, disappeared into a fog. Where was he? What had happened? He wasn’t comfortable; he didn’t recognize anything; he did not know the two men who came in to him some interminable time later.
“She’s not going to call.” Teague, ambling along the street with his briefcase and his list of criteria for instructional space, heard that from the hidden spike-mic. Aha. The range of a spike-mic varied with the material of the walls it read through. All the walls around him were brick. He knew the speakers were just inside the brick wall on the same side of the street. A warehouse-looking building, Malines & Company. Ahead of him, a couple of burly men lounged at the entrance. Without breaking stride, he used his skullphone to ping Rafe and walked up to them.
“If it is possible to speak to the building manager?” he said. His accent wasn’t quite Cascadian, but it certainly was not local.
“What are you doin’ around here? Where you from? What’s those papers?”
Teague blinked, squinting a little at them. “It is my job. It is my assignment. To find space to start instructional program for technicians to do advanced maintenance on system ansibles and their boosters.”
One of the men snatched the papers from his hand.
“Excuse me, that is not correct,” Teague said. “Those are my papers.”
“They were. Let’s see—” The man looked at them. “Wait—ISC? You work for ISC?”
“Yes, yes.” Teague nodded several times. “It is my assignment to find space to start instructional program—”
“We heard that already.” The man who held his papers looked at the other one, the one who had moved slightly to block Teague if he tried to grab the papers back. “Cole, this might interest Dugmund. Give him a call.” To Teague he said, “Why are you in this part of town? Didn’t anyone tell you the dock district is dangerous for strangers?”
“It is the daytime,” Teague said, as if nothing could be dangerous by day. “And docks have warehouses and warehouses have empty spaces sometimes. On my world temporary rental of warehouse space costs less than the same in office buildings. It is not… not intending any insult, but it is not as comfortable or fancy as the office space, but for instructional space it can be made useful cheaply as it is not for long-term use. Eventually local educational institutions take over the job of training new technicians, but initially, and to ensure compatibility with all aspects of ISC equipment, only ISC can train.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” Cole said. “Our boss would like to speak with you. Our warehouse is usually full, but merchandise does move in and out. An opening might arise at some time; he wouldn’t want to miss out on a deal.” He nodded to the other man without saying his name. “Give him back his papers; he can show the boss.”
Teague considered the advantages of dispatching both of them, but other pedestrians were in view. Instead he went inside when Cole beckoned, into a wide passage with doors open to offices on either side. “All the way back,” Cole said from behind him. Teague’s instruments reported that the offices were fake-fronts, empty, open at the back to the larger space, and that Cole was coming closer behind him. Handy.
Still holding the papers, he let the pick slide into his hand from his sleeve and slowed, closing the distance, turning to his left. “Say—maybe you should give these to your boss yourself—” He held out his hand, offering them.
Cole, startled, stopped off balance, grabbed for the papers, and Teague thrust the pick through Cole’s hand. Its thin sheath shattered; the powerful paralytic drug took hold even as Teague moved in, his right arm around Cole’s shoulder, pushing the pick, now protruding from Cole’s hand, into his chest. He squeezed the handle, injecting more of the drug. Cole shuddered; eyes wide. He could not breathe; he could not speak; he could not do anything but die as the drug reached his heart and then his brain.
Teague swung the now-sagging, inert body over to the nearest fake office door, opened it, and let Cole fall inside. One down. He glanced back. The other man was still outside, had not come to the door to watch. He activated another of the instruments, giving him a view in his implant of the building’s plan. On the ground floor, behind the fake offices, there were ten enclosures, seven of them full of dense material. Merchandise, most likely. Two of the other enclosures were small, only a few meters wide and long. One was larger.
MacRobert, he was sure, would be in one of the smaller ones. But which? He changed the adjustment, added in the spike-mic tuned to human voices.
“We should probably give him another dose. If she doesn’t call soon, he’ll be wide awake.” Voice one, no ID.
“We could just let him stew. It might loosen him up. Nobody can hear him, anyway.” Voice two, no ID.
“You saw the implant scan. Heart condition, brain deteriorating. Probably anything he tells us will be useless.”
“It might influence her when she does call.”
“What if she’s got people looking for him? What if she’s contacted—what was that base you said?—and knows he was never there.”
“She’ll think he was taken there, or en route. Or, if in the city, by someone Spaceforce-related.”
Teague knew where the speakers were now, just outside one of the small rooms. A sound-baffled room. Two voices outside. He changed settings again and wriggled the stunner in his sleeve down to his hand, concealed by the papers. On this level, only two more figures moved around, at the back of the building, isolated by a solid wall up to the next level. Above were a dozen at least, arrayed in rows—the real offices, he suspected.
The passage he was in ended at a door with a window. He went to it, tapped very lightly, then opened it and went in. Nothing, as he suspected; instead of a back wall, a gap to either side and a shoulder-high blank wall beyond it. He hesitated, aware of the camera above this space, and looked back and forth as if confused.
“Hello?”
No answer. He moved to the right, beyond the line of fake offices on the side of the passage he’d come from, into another, its right wall outlining the larger empty room. Ahead of him, two men standing in the passage turned to look at him then moved toward him quickly.
“Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?”
Teague flapped the papers he held. “Ser… Cole? One of the men by the door… he called somebody… you? He said I should meet the boss? He said this way and he was behind me, but then he wasn’t?”
“He must’ve called Dugmund,” the taller man said. “He should have taken him upstairs all the way.” The men exchanged looks. “I’ll go. Won’t be long. You—what’s your name?”
“Edvard Teague,” Teague said. “You can see on my papers—” He offered them, taking a step closer. “It is about seeking rental space for a training facility for—”
“Let’s see, then.” The man reached out. He was in balance, and clearly very fit. The second man, alert and equally dangerous looking, made his earlier kill move too risky. Teague shifted his grip on the briefcase, touching a button on the handle with the inside of his ring finger. As the taller man took the papers, Teague thumbed the stunner control; the second stunner, extruded from the side of the briefcase, caught the second man. Both went down, twitching. Teague stunned them again. The door to the sound-baffled room opened easily; the man on the narrow cot, bound to it, stared at him wide-eyed, frightened. It was MacRobert, but he did not seem to recognize Teague. That must be the drugs they’d used.