Shit. ‘I didn’t know,’ she stammered. Somehow she found the strength of will to keep moving, despite a sudden weakness in her legs. ‘I swear, I didn’t know.’
But then, she reminded herself, she hadn’t wanted to know. She’d deliberately and carefully avoided so much as speculating what might be contained within the Piri’s cargo hold. Which was exactly why she’d spent the long days and nights of transit between Sant’Arcangelo and Bourdain’s Rock in a state of sustained borderline panic.
Dakota enjoyed a moment of personal re-evaluation, as if she could step outside herself and witness the events of the past several months for the very first time. And in that instant, she knew she was back where she’d started, that all her efforts had come to nothing, and she would never receive the rest of her much-needed money, ever, from Bourdain.
She balled her hands into fists, forcing the nails hard into the flesh of her palms, finding some kind of solace in the sudden flash of pain it brought to her.
Piri? What’s happening?
‹I have initiated further emergency defensive software protocols. I am awaiting further instructions.›
‘Shoal-member has suggestion.’
Dakota stared at the huge, fish-like creature floating in its ball of brine and wondered again if she could read amusement in its bulging black eyes.
‘Suggest away.’
‘Safety in numbers.’
‘You said that already,’ she snapped.
‘We will move as a shoal, towards the shelter of caves. In meantime, would like to suggest acceptance of gift.’
‘Gift?’
‘Precisely.’
Dakota glanced around the side of the Shoal’s bubble and saw, with a start, that Moss and Bourdain were staring straight towards her from nearby, but were still keeping their distance. After all, the alien was one of Bourdain’s clients, one of his primary sources of income.
The alien floated closer to the archway, and Dakota hurried to keep up with it. She understood that the longer she stayed beside it, the longer she was likely to stay alive. She noticed it now held something in its tentacles. A box.
The tentacles holding the box flicked outwards to the rim of its encompassing briny bubble. Dakota watched as the water first swirled around its restraining fields, then began to pitter-patter down onto the marble tiles as a small puncture appeared in one side of the bubble, just wide enough for the alien to push the box through. As it clattered to the ground, the restraining field healed itself immediately.
Dakota stared at the box stupidly for a moment before realizing she was meant to pick it up. She snatched it up and turned back towards the exit.
Bourdain stared towards her balefully and she turned away from him, feeling more naked and alone and frightened than she had since the ordeal in Port Gabriel. She clutched the alien’s gift in one hand as, breathing hard, they arrived at the archway.
‘OK, what is this thing?’ she asked the alien.
‘A gift. Accepting this, yes?’
‘I’m not sure. Why should I?’ she replied, with a stab of alarm. ‘What’s inside?’
‘If Miss Merrick accepts gift, Shoal-member will endeavour to restrain Mr Bourdain from eating Miss Merrick. Shoal-member will also instigate legal reparations against Mr Bourdain for suspected illegal acquisition of non-leased technology, most specifically aforementioned GiantKiller. This in turn will allow Miss Merrick opportunity to sail for safer shores, facilitating hopefully rapid escape.’
Dakota opened her mouth, closed it again, opened it again. ‘Why?’
‘Beneficence of Shoal-member,’ the creature replied. ‘Much of existence is mysterious. Accept fate as fickle -or determined by whim. To gift Miss Merrick is pleasing.’
Dakota felt the cool texture of the gift wrapping against her hand, slick and waterproof. ‘And in return-you’re going to help me to escape?’
‘Affirmation with pleasure.’
As soon as she passed through the archway the alien halted, placing itself between Dakota and her pursuers.
‘I don’t understand any of this,’ she said. ‘What’s in this box?’
‘A gift,’ the alien replied obtusely.
She heard shouts from somewhere beyond the antechamber, echoing in the complex of tunnels and caverns that threaded their way through the immensity of Bourdain’s Rock. The alien was clearly going no further.
Run. Run now. She stuffed the box in a convenient pocket and fled, soon leaving the Shoal-member in its containment field far behind her.
A minute or two later Dakota found herself in a crystal-roofed forest, under a starry night. Winding paths cut lazily through dense green foliage and between vast tree trunks with a too-regular mottled bark that indicated high-speed vat growth. Her Ghost circuits guided her back along the exact route she’d followed on her way to meet Bourdain, and she jogged down a lane that snaked between tall trunks looming on either side.
It didn’t take long for her to sense that someone was coming after her. She could hear the twigs snapping underfoot as an unseen pursuer moved towards her at an angle through swaying grasses, but avoiding the path itself and staying out of sight.
Birds suddenly scattered in an explosion of wings, vanishing far above Dakota’s head as they sought new perches higher up. She pushed between a couple of benches and darted aside, behind the cover of some high bushes, crouching there in the grass and peering through dense foliage back the way she had come.
Moss emerged a moment later from the depths of a copse, and began looking around wildly. Blue flashes flickered around his lightning gloves, starkly visible in the artificial night of the surrounding forest. It lent him the appearance of some primeval nightmare god of electricity.
By the faint glow of his eyes, Dakota could tell his sight had been artificially enhanced. She watched as he scanned the trail just a few metres away from her, and when his eyes locked on the bushes that concealed her, it was as if nothing stood between them.
‘Come out, Miss Merrick,’ he ordered calmly.
She was so distracted she almost didn’t hear someone else sneaking up on her from behind.
She stood, turned and kicked hard, catching the side of a helmet as one of Bourdain’s security men moved towards her in a crouch. Burning pain flashed up her leg and she yelled out loud. The guard leapt forward and made a grab for Dakota. Ghost-boosted instinct caused her to let herself fall backwards as he slammed into her, his own forward momentum sending the guard sailing over her head.
She rolled back on to her feet by the edge of the path, almost colliding with one of the benches. She watched the guard as he crashed into his superior. Moss clutched at the tumbling man in surprise, and lightning snapped from his steel-meshed fingers. The guard screamed hideously, and Dakota caught the unmistakable stench of burning flesh.