“We had high hopes that we could reach some sort of an agreement on the matter. But it has been brought to our attention that an obstacle may have arisen between us already.”
There was no further sign of the limping man and as far as Cass could tell the area around the hangar was clear. Or at least, clear enough. jCharles hadn’t told her which entrance to use, so she picked the westernmost. The door was steel, with thick white paint flaking off in strips. It didn’t seem like the kind of place where you’d be expected to knock. Cass raised the bar that served to hold the door closed, and nudged the door open. Inside, the hangar was a dusty orange twilight of artificial light. Smooth concrete floor. A stale odor of mildew and something like kerosene. Same feel as the lab back at the enclave, where Fedor had nearly caught them.
She pushed the door open wider, and slid inside, careful to check both sides as she entered. Clear. From the inside, the hangar seemed impossibly large. The light didn’t stretch high enough to reveal the roof, so looking upward into that looming blackness gave a sense of endlessness that made her dizzy. A small group of people stood in a cluster right in the middle of the hangar, soaked in a bright yellow-white light from the four vertical tubelights that formed a rectangle around them. The lights were a bit of a surprise, given the relative darkness that surrounded them. It seemed like inside that box of light, it would be nearly impossible to keep a clear view of what may be going on beyond its borders. She had to wonder just how experienced these guys were.
From this distance the tallest of the figures gathered in the center was no larger than her thumb. She knew that the eastern entrance was roughly the same span again from the center, which gave the hangar mind-boggling proportions. And she couldn’t help but wonder what had ever been housed here.
Cass drew a breath, steadied herself, then started the long walk, her footfalls echoing mercilessly in the metallic cavern. Floorbox electric lights ran in a haphazard path the full length of the hangar, bathing the floor in dull pools of hot-orange between pockets of dusky hues. The cluster of people broke up slightly as she approached, two of the larger coming forward while the others remained behind. Separated as they were, she got a solid headcount. Six, altogether. Tyke, Jantz, and security. Seemed about right. Not great numbers for her, though, if it went bad.
When she was about twenty yards away, one of the bigger men raised his hand, indicating she should stop. It was tough to see him well, backlit as he was by the tubelights, but she could see enough of his silhouette to get the gist. She held her place.
“Can I help you, miss?”
Cass suddenly wished she’d asked jCharles for a little more info. Every chem scene had its own nuances, its own etiquette. Common greetings, sometimes elaborate introductions, even unspoken rules about distances to be maintained at all times. Play it wrong, and the other guys would know right off the bat you were an out-of-towner. That might just cost you an extra thirty or fifty percent. Worst case would cost you a whole lot more. On a whim, Cass reached up and nonchalantly unfastened her shirt a little lower.
“You boys keep it hot in here, don’t you?”
“Are you looking for someone in particular?”
Dangerous question. In some circles, if you didn’t have the right name, the deal would be off. In other circles, mentioning names was a quick way to get dusted off. She played cool.
“My boy from uptown sent me out for business, said he’d sent word.”
“Why didn’t ‘your boy’ come himself?”
“On account of his unexpected delay with the Bonefolder.”
The mood suddenly shifted.
“Oh, you’re McGann’s little sister? Why didn’t you say that, come on over here!”
Cass just smiled and walked to the group. As she approached, the light shifted enough that she could see the man who’d been talking to her. He was sporting the uniform of a Greenman, but it was ill-fitting. She saw him checking it out, and chuckled.
“Helps with the walk in,” he said with a shrug.
“Long as you don’t meet any greenmen, I guess.”
He nodded, and led her to the others, who largely stood gawking. There was a small collapsible table set up in the middle of the lights. A case sat on the table. Behind it stood two young men she recognized from jCharles’ pictures. Quick scan of the three other guards. One in red, one in black, one wearing a white coat with a backpack.
“This here’s Tyke,” said the guard, pointing to a tall and thin youth with long hair and a hawk-beak of a nose. “And that’s his buddy Jantz.” Jantz was shorter, but just as rail thin, with a shock of orange hair highlighted silver. Neither made eye contact. Both were staring at her chest.
“Boys!” the guard snapped, drawing Tyke’s attention. He glanced up, wild-eyed, looking back and forth between the guard and Cass several times. Jantz lingered.
“Hi, yeah, sorry, sorry, little jumpy out here with all this material out here, you know, out here. We’re big fans of your brother, Mr McGann I mean, big fans, I read all his stuff. Me and Jantz both do, all his stuff. Maybe, you know, maybe if we’re all happy with this arrangement, you know, after we, you know, handle what we have to handle here, maybe sometime down the road we could actually meet him. If you’re cool with that, I mean.”
“I’m sure that’d be great, Tyke,” she cooed, putting on the womanly charm. A little bit of skin seemed to have them all distracted. The sultry voice would probably have them completely mesmerized. Completely off guard. “He had nice things to say about you already.”
Tyke let out something halfway between a giggle and a snort. A thin thread of phlegm flipped itself over his bottom lip and dangled there a moment before he wiped it away. Jantz lowered his head and stared at the table. Then slowly slid his eyes back up to Cass’s cleavage.
“My understanding is that you’ve received the half up front?”
“That’s right, and you can check the case if you want,” he said, as he swiped a fingertip across a chrome strip. A mechanism hissed and the case unsealed itself. “It’s all there, forty-five hundred, cut in stacks. We went ahead and cut ’em in stacks for you so, you know, so when you, you know, when you sell ’em off or whatever, they’re easier for you to move, for when you sell ’em. That’s a little extra service we wanted to provide to you on account of Mr McGann. For when you sell ’em.”
“Well, I appreciate that Tyke. I’m sure Mr McGann will too.”
“And you’ve got the money, right? In Hard?”
“Of course.” She slung the pack onto the table. “Case is mine to take?”
“Sure, that’s fine. Sorry to make you lug it all the way down here, that much Hard. But you know, this was kind of a hurry up kind of thing, and we don’t usually work in this kind of, you know, arrangement, and so we’re sorry, we would’ve rather done it some other way that was better for your brother, you know and you, but this was all we could work out to handle, you know, on such short notice, with that much, you know, that much q.”
“It’s really not a problem, Tyke. I know it’s a lot of pressure on you guys.”
A momentary cube of light flashed at the eastern entrance of hangar, someone entering quickly. Once the door clanged shut again, it was impossible to see who it was approaching, with the light from the tubelighting in her face.
“Don’t worry that’s just our moneyman. Like an accountant, you know, just to make sure we’re all on the square and everything. He’s with us, don’t worry, he’s one of ours. He’s our moneyman.”
A prickle of electricity raced along Cass’s spine. That made seven. No matter how well things were going, seven to one was bad odds.