Page 24 of Coldwire
I underestimate his reaction speed. Nik’s elbow twitches lightning fast, tossing the weapon away. The flash of metal spirits into the corner of the passenger area. When I go for it, releasing one knee and weakening my hold, Nik flips us both over, trapping me by my leg. His mouth hardens into a line.
I recalibrate my options. He has me pinned now. My wrists are still bound together and I’m on my back. I don’t want to squirm and show weakness.
With great reluctance, I splay my palms to indicate surrender. The sequence occurred so quickly that Miz has only just finished unbuckling her seat belt to hurry over.
“There is no need for any of this,” she hisses.
“She attacked me,” Nik says. His voice is pitched low, like he’s barely restraining himself. I suspect he’d much rather knock me out entirely than show leniency and lock me in place.
“You’re kidnapping me,” I say. “What else should I be doing?”
Nik lessens the pressure on my leg an infinitesimal amount. Perhaps he doesn’t intend to, but I feel it.
“You’re not being kidnapped,” he grumbles. “Far from it.”
“I’m being held at gunpoint to work for you.”
“Is that what you want?” In a flash, Nik pulls a handgun from a holster hidden in his trousers. The metal is piercing cold when it touches my chin. He presses hard, lets the imprint of the muzzle dig its mark. “Will this help?”
I don’t move. Nik Grant is one person. One boy, really, wreaking havoc against a world power and its forces… but it’s becoming apparent to me why we’ve struggled to capture him. His eyes, bright and gray before, have turned entirely flat. If I provoke him once more, he may just shoot, my usefulness be damned.
“No need.” Wright claims I have a tendency to slip into a monotone. That I should cut it out when superiors are speaking to me.Lacks deference,he insists. “You’ve got me,” I say through my teeth. “I’m not going anywhere until you give me that footage.”
This plan they have put together is clearly effective. All these attempts I’m making to get free are acts of childish insubordination. If I’ve been framed, I won’t go crawling back to my country without proof that I’m innocent. Clearly no one from federal was taking my word for anything.
Nik tilts his head. The gun stays where it is.
“I convinced my team that you were the one we needed,” he says. “But to be honest, if you’re too much of a NileCorp bootlicker, I might be wrong. Maybe I got the wrong person.”
“Maybe you did.” My jaw is starting to cramp in my effort to remain still. “Between NileCorp and certain death, I made my choice a long time ago. Throw me into the water now if that’s a problem.”
Atahua may not love me, but I am Atahuan all the same. If I had somewhere better to go, I would have gone, but I don’t. The paltry existence I’ve been granted in Atahua is a life that I have worked for, bled for, no matter how corrupt NileCorp is. Being a corporate soldier sucks, but it’ssomething. It’s not as bad as government military. It’s not as bad as being another body slumped on the streets downcountry staring at a handheld all day and scrolling the feed, because most Medan orphans shoved into military school sure aren’t afforded anything more than that if they can’t serve their purpose in this cold war. The better jobs don’t want us. The service jobs want robots.
Working for NileCorp issomething.What else do Ihave?
Nik draws the gun away abruptly. My chin throbs with relief, the threat of steel removed. He pulls his knee off my leg too, allowing me to stand.
“Thanks,” I mutter.
Bootlicker.I wonder how Nik Grant was raised, where he was born. NileCorp didn’t offer any of that information for the capture mission. Even if its data scraping capabilities probably know what Nik Grant ate for breakfast on his seventh birthday, we operate on a need-to-know basis.
Still, some backgrounds don’t need a declassified write-up. I see his pearly white teeth. I watched each careful fold he made on his sleeves while he gazed out the viewing window. If I am NileCorp’s bootlicker, what cushy childhood did Nik Grant climb out of to afford him the resources as NileCorp’s anarchist?
The aircraft shudders, then stills. A faint“woohoo!”sounds from the cockpit, signaling the presence of a third member of their team.
We’ve landed.
“Perfect timing.” With another sleight of hand, the gun disappears somewhere within Nik’s clothes. Even Miz looks a little shaken, her eyes flicking to confirm the weapon’s disappearance. She starts toward me in an effort to help, but I’m back on my feet before she can make contact. She sighs, then gestures that she has picked up Nik’s pocketknife and means to cut me free. When I offer my wrists, the ropes fall to the floor easily, freeing my movement once more.
Nik shoves open the aircraft door. Night waits outside, cool and violet.
“After you, soldier.”
6LIA
Before Nile Military Academy, I was a huge stickler about my grades too.
The private elementary school that Dad put me in didn’t rank its students, so at least it was less obvious how intense I was about it, short of the perfect 100s on my tests. I haven’t landed anything below a 95 in my life. If I scored a 98 on an off day, I cried in the bathroom and then mopped up my tears by the time Tamera was coming to pick me up and take me home. Back then, home was the upcountry Melnova apartment.
