She aimed the gun. Delagarza retreated into his mind.
A fountain, red and black fish swimming in canals connected to the main body. Koi, they were called. A sunset in the distance set over a beach with golden sand, people swimming in the sea.
There was a banner by the reception, with the name of the hotel in golden lettering.
Quail Hotel. A chain belonging to Newgen Psychodynamics Hospitality. For all your prolonged stays. We offer permanent housing.
Hirsen, you there? Delagarza thought. No answer. I’m tired, man. This spy shit isn’t for me.
It’s because you care too much, said Hirsen. He sat next to him. Makes you vulnerable.
And you don’t care at all? Is that how you are, just another Krieger?
I’m worse than her, Hirsen said. She’s a trained animal. Textbook sociopath. Predictable. Me? I get to choose. Cooke, Charleton, that pain you’re feeling now, I can make it go away with a snap of my fingers if it slows me down.
The hotel was warm in a way the reg-suit and the life support of Alwinter couldn’t replicate. This air was fresh, new, it hadn’t been in anyone’s lungs before his. He smelled seaweed. Kayoko’s tea.
He touched the surface of the fountain’s water. It was fresh.
I found you an escape plan, Delagarza said.
You did?
Delagarza told him. Hirsen’s eyes widened, then he smirked. I like it.
I’m glad.
To be honest, Hirsen went on, I’m surprised I didn’t think of that myself.
Delagarza wasn’t. Hirsen thought they were the same person, that the Quail meditation had worked perfectly. But Delagarza recalled how Hirsen himself had told Delagarza the Quail allowed Hirsen to retake his mind at any time.
But Hirsen had tried, back then, and failed.
Delagarza saw the agent’s confident smile, completely unaware that he couldn’t read Delagarza’s thoughts anymore.
Do me a favor, Hirsen. Live a long fucking life, will you?
That’s the plan.
That’s my regular. Live long enough to be unhappy, Hirsen. See if you dare play with Quail Hotel again.
Delagarza stood and walked away from Hirsen and the fountain. To the sea.
KRIEGER AIMED his gun at Samuel Delagarza’s forehead. This time, she’d do it properly. She hadn’t cared that the roach survived, but she cared after her career suffered because of him.
Captain Fucking Erickson, coming here, to her planet, with his stupid rules and regulations. She and Strauze had had such a good run, so far, being atop the food chain.
Maybe, once Vortex got what it wanted, it’d leave, and the enforcers would be back on top where they belonged.
That thought made her happy.
The roach blinked, and in that blink, something was different.
Krieger would’ve missed it had she not been looking straight at him.
It was the funniest thing. His eyes. Troubled gray, like Dione’s sky, looked just a tad different. Same shade, same tint, same everything. But now, when she thought about it, troubled gray looked just like the edge of a knife when light struck it.
The roach’s hand sprang like a snake and coiled around her gun. She pulled the trigger, but somehow, one of his fingers had managed to lodge between the trigger and the guard.
Troubled gray smirked. Not a single wince of pain. He jerked her arm down, breaking that finger in the process. Her head snapped down, and his healthy hand shot to meet her in a blur of speed.
She saw two fingers closing on her right eye. Then light, a veiny red, then a wet, bursting noise.
And pain.
26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
HIRSEN
Animals were predictable. They’d react to threats to the short-term survival and ignore threats against the long-term until later.
Krieger pushed against him to get away from the finger that dug into the meaty canal of her eye socket. As she did so, she let go of the gun. Hirsen tossed it away; he couldn’t use it with his ruined hand.
Cords of pain threatened to cloud his vision, but Newgen’s mantras drowned the pain, isolated it, allowed him to work through it like it was happening to somebody else. His pituitary gland released a blend of hormones and drugs that boosted his reflexes and his muscle strength.
He pushed at Krieger from the leg she had used to stomp on him. She collapsed like a house of cards, spilling blood all over his reg-suit.
The enforcers had trained her well. She recovered quickly. She focused her remaining eye, injected with hate, on his face, and lunged for him. Delagarza kicked at the scaffolding to add weight to his punch and connected his knuckles to her eye socket.
Her scream of hate became a whimper as kill instinct vacated her body like a ship’s atmosphere through an open airlock. Delagarza used his knee to propel himself up and kicked her torso, hard enough to send her sliding half-out of the passageway.
Krieger held on in the last second to the safety bars, her legs kicking uselessly at the air, with the waste flowing fifty meters underneath her.
“I was telling the truth, Krieger. I’m actually an agent,” Hirsen said as he calmly grabbed her gun. It was a nice piece, exported from Earth, probably a gift from Strauze. Nine millimeters, compatible with smart bullets. From a European company that tried hard to follow in Colt’s footsteps. Close, but not quite like the real thing.
“Please—” Krieger panted. Hirsen wasn’t in the mood.
“By the way, when you shoot somebody in the stomach, it’s customary you finish the job with a shot to the head. Like so.” Hirsen showed her.
He kicked her off the scaffolding. The splash she made on her way down filled him with joy. That was unusual.
That was for Cooke, motherfucker.
Hirsen scratched his head. Strange. A loose thought?
The Quail meditation probably needed another hour or so to clear the personality-channels. The construct proved to be quite solid, after all, and it had used Hirsen’s body for a long time.
“I’m not doing a Quail ever again,” Hirsen decided.
His broken hand was useless, so when he found the transmitter by a corner of the scaffolding, halfway out, he picked it up and carried it under his arm, careful not to disturb the broken bones. He estimated he’d need to replace the hand anyway, but a shard of bone could sever a vein at any moment if he wasn’t careful.
On his way out, he killed the three security officers that had come to check out the noise from the shootout.
AN HOUR LATER, after reaching the safety of Alwinter, Hirsen put in motion the construct’s plan.
He opened the transmitter, connected it to his wristband, fiddled with the settings. The antenna unfolded when he turned the transmitter on, extended to search the sky, chose a location after receiving Hirsen’s new instructions.
He opened a holo.
“Captain Clarke, this is Daneel Hirsen. The plan went without a hitch. Isabella Reiner is still alive, repeat, still alive. The enforcers messed up, big time. I bet Tal-Kader’s going to be real happy with them. I don’t have access to an encryption code or a surface-to-ship transmitter, I’m rerouting this message through my allies in Outlander’s NavComm. Confirm my identity, NADF-176D-B7FQ-RANQ. That’s the encryption code I gave the EIF. Repeat, NADF-176D-B7FQ-RANQ. ETA for extraction is eighteen hours. There’s a landing pad outside Alwinter that the enforcers use for their personal travel. I’ll be coming from there, be on the lookout. The rebels procured me a ship, got it hidden outside the city. Remote controlled. The coordinates are…”