Page 27 of Redstone
Oh, cheeky bastard. “I don’t deal in bad product.”
“Just checking, darling.” Pence shrugged, then continued. “There’s a little wolf pack waiting to try your mettle up ahead, and I do meanup. Two on the lintel and one enterprising little bugger clinging to the wall above them.Someonegot a rather interesting set of mods past security,” he added with a little whistle. “No weapons that I could see, but that doesn’t mean much.”
“True.” Three of Rory’s guys. Not terrible, and a good show would certainly make the other independents more likely to give them the time of day. “Accepted.” He handed the battery over, and Pence caught the very edges of his hand and held it lightly as he bowed low, blowing a kiss across Isidore’s palm before tipping the battery into his own.
“You are wise beyond your tender years, dear heart.” Pence scooted away, and Isidore turned back to Kyle.
“We don’t have to stop them for long, just long enough for the guards to come and get you,” he said quietly. “It’s a test, not a real attack. Rory’s checking to see how committed I am to you. I’ll go in first, try to take at least two. Save the taser for yours. If you get into trouble”—please don’t get into trouble— “run toward me. I’ll handle it.”
“Got it.” Kyle looked nervous and grim, which was completely appropriate, but Isidore hated to see that expression on his face. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice to a whisper.
“Remember, Robbie is here. He’s probably going to be watching, and as soon as he sees you, he’ll move to get you, I’m sure of it. You’ll be alright.”
“As long as you are too.”
“Don’t worry about me.” Isidore turned away before Kyle could protest again and led the way toward the Pit.
Ten more steps … five … Kyle hung back a bit, smart boy, and Isidore stepped through the door. The conversation nearest to him slowed, and he could almost feel the wave of sudden attention flow over him. His proximity sense kicked into overdrive, detecting the electrical fields of the men above him, letting him turn and catch the first one as he leapt down from above the entryway.
It was Lightning Ray, a long, skinny guy whose mods had added an extra foot of length to each limb. If he could keep you back, he was hard to fight, but Isidore was already inside of his range and grabbed the man by the throat as they both tumbled toward the floor. He turned his hand into a claw and dug inward, his nails puncturing flesh and gristle with ease. Blood began to bubble out of Ray’s gasping mouth, and Isidore kicked him away just in time to sit up and lunge for the second man, who’djumped down and headed back toward the hallway to run down Kyle.
The second man—Nathaniel, Isidore thought—was unfortunately a much better grappler than Lightning Ray. He turned into Isidore and charged, putting him flat on his back again. Isidore struck out with his hands, but Nathaniel just leaned in and wrapped Isidore’s arms up as high as the shoulders, immobilizing them. He did the same with his legs, twining his own around them like vines. Nathaniel was incredibly flexible, and it didn’t take Isidore long to realize that if he didn’t do something fast,he’dbe incredibly stuck.
“I hope you like being on the bottom like this,” Nathaniel whispered in Isidore’s ear as he leaned in close. Isidore didn’t say anything, just stretched his neck as far as he could and then bit Nathaniel hard on the cheek.
Nathaniel reared back but didn’t let go immediately. “You fucking little shit, what the fuck was that? I’ll take that … take it out of … out … of …” His grip loosened, and Isidore fought free immediately, already looking for Kyle, where was he, what had happened—
Kyle’s attacker, a bald man that Isidore didn’t recognize, was laid out at his feet. Kyle’s one-shot taser sent a tendril of smoke up from where it was still embedded in the guy’s gut. Kyle himself looked stunned, staring wide-eyed at Isidore. After a moment, Isidore realized he had Nathaniel’s blood smeared across his mouth. He licked his lips. It tasted foul.
“Back up, people.”
Isidore could have melted at the sound of Robbie’s voice, but he just took a step back from the carnage instead. Robbie led four bots, one of whom snatched up Nathaniel, who was beginning to foam at the mouth, and another who went after Lightning Ray, noisily choking on his own blood. Another bot went for Kyle’s attacker, and the final one? Straight for Kyle. Itreached for his hand with its gripping appendage, and Kyle let it take hold.
“You need an intake number,” Robbie grunted. “And these idiots apparently need the infirmary. Andyou…” He turned gimlet eyes on Isidore, who met them in total silence. “You need to learn to finish the job, punk. Save me some fucking time, why don’t you?” He turned around, and the bots went with him, leaving nothing but stains across the floor.
Isidore spat his mouthful of another man’s blood out onto the rest of the filth, then turned to the watching crowd. “If Rory has something to say to me, he should just say it,” he said quietly. “No need to waste people.”
“Come on, then.” The man in the very front stood up from a table: Sylvester, one of Rory’s lieutenants. “Let’s take you to speak to him.”
Rory was shaped so strangely that it was hard for Isidore’s brain to register him as human at first, and coming from a man who’d spend the last decade on Solaydor, that was saying a lot. Rory looked like a human who’d been crushed in a gravity field, compacted down and out. He was a foot shorter than Isidore and maybe four times wider, so thick through the shoulders and chest it would have been impossible for Isidore to reach all the way around him. His muscles were hard slabs of sculpted meat, and his enormous hands could have doubled for mining picks.
Rory sat at a table at the back of the Pit, alone, using a sharpened sliver of metal to clean beneath his fingernails. When Sylvester brought Isidore through the crowd to him and motioned him to sit down, Isidore immediately began to calculate all the ways that Rory could take him apart with that tiny metal toothpick. According to rumor, there were dozens of possibilities.
It didn’t matter. Isidore sat and waited, but he didn’t have to wait long.
“You,” Rory said, his voice surprisingly smooth, “aren’t much of a fighter.”
“No,” Isidore agreed.
Rory glanced up at him. “You admit that rather readily.”
“I know my own weaknesses. Combat is certainly one of them.”
“But you also have a good handle on your strengths, of which deception seems to be at the top. What did you do to Nathaniel, anyway?”
Might as well tell the truth. It wouldn’t do to lay false expectations about the man’s recovery. “I poisoned him.”
Rory nodded. “I thought so. He won’t be coming back, will he?”
