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  But New Kowloon was different, Solomon had told himself. He felt like an athlete, not a criminal. It was the place where he could find out just how good he really could be. It was the place where legends could be born.

  “A bold statement, Mr. Cready,” the man said in measured tones as he looked out at the vista in front of him. There was a moment of silence between the two men that seemed to stretch on forever, but eventually, the man seemed to make up his mind. “Luckily for you, the people whom I represent have also left me instructions for this eventuality. It is up to my discretion to offer you your first contract, and I personally appreciate a bit of confidence.” The man finally turned around to look at Solomon fully in the face.

  He was a middle-aged Japanese man, his brow and around his eyes slightly lined. Solomon got the impression that he might be a lot older than he looked, though, as a very wealthy life could stave off the worst of time’s depredations. But when it came to his dark eyes, it was clear that there was no comfort or sense of laughter and relaxation in the man’s life. He looked at Solomon with as much sympathy as a shark would look at a floundering swimmer.

  “You have a passing fair record, Mr. Cready. But you may find that the rules of the game are somewhat different out here than what you are used to,” the man said, his voice strengthening as he grew sure of his position. Every ounce of his stance and his voice told Solomon that he was in charge, and Solomon was there to take orders.

  Solomon had forgotten how much he hated traditional crime gangs, with all of their talk of honor and loyalty and oaths…

  “But you have shown yourself wise to approach us first. If you had started operating…independently, shall we say? Then you would have found out that either Triads, the Mob, or us would have been aware of it very, very soon. And we would have had to make sure you understood the dangers of freelance work in New Kowloon…

  “And you have been perceptive to approach us, rather than either of our main business rivals because, of course, if we were to find you working for either the Triads or the Mob, then, well…” The man opened and closed his hands in a gesture that said that the results would have been unavoidable.

  “But the people I represent, unlike the others, reward such loyalty, and such confidence. So…” The man extended his hand towards Solomon’s. “It is with great pleasure that I welcome you into the family.”

  “The pleasure is all mine.” Solomon grinned and shook the man’s hand.

  Yes. He had done it. Now all he had to do was to find a way to infiltrate their New Kowloon infrastructure, find out where some of their best hide-outs and safe-houses and equipment stashes were…

  And Solomon was certain that either the American Mob or the Triads—or both even—would pay him VERY handsomely indeed for that information.

  You see, Solomon Cready was one of the best at what he did, and he wasn’t about to start taking orders from anyone. Not for long, anyway. He worked for himself, and always for himself. Who had ever even dreamed of ripping off the Yakuza? It might take years of careful work, of blood, sweat, and preparation, but he could do it. If he pulled this off, then it would prove to the entire world that he really was the best at what he did.

  Solomon opened his eyes and lay still for a moment in the darkness. He could hear the soft, whistling snores of the other Outcasts around him. What’s left of them, anyway, he thought. To his right, there was a very slight electric hum, which he knew to be Malady sitting in his charging bay in a similar state of unconsciousness as everyone else.

  Solomon counted to fifty in his head, and then counted to fifty once more. Past experience had told him that unless you were in the thick of it and bullets were flying everywhere, it was always better to be cautious. As cautious as possible, in fact. A good thief had to be patient, but able to be reckless, he reminded himself.

  When he was sure that the sounds he was listening to were regular and, for the most part, expected, he made his move. He moved carefully, remembering to pick up the half-block of protein gunk that he had eaten the night before—meaning to dispose of it, somewhere. The young man was sure that was how they were dosing them every night, and, as his nights were usually uninterrupted until morning, he rather thought that they had laced their evening ‘meals’ with sedatives or hypnotics, as well.

  Moving with a cat-like grace, his bare feet padded onto the cold metal floor and he stood up, wearing his light-weight undermesh thermals just the same as everyone else would be. He could have slipped to his locker to put on a warmer lightweight work suit, but he didn’t want to risk waking anyone else up, and neither did he want to risk looking out of place if he got caught.

  This way, I can pretend that I just couldn’t sleep, he reasoned as he moved quickly and directly to the door, lightly jogging on the balls of his feet. Although he could have ghosted from each shadow of the bunkbeds, he knew that it was almost always better just to move quickly and confidently. Any hanging around or attempting to hide and to look surreptitious was generally a sign of an amateur.

  If you look like you know what you’re doing, and that you’ve got somewhere to go, most people just believe you, he reaffirmed to himself. It was when you were ducking and hiding and pretending to hang around places looking suspicious that you got caught.

  Whisk! The door out to the food hall opened and closed behind him with a slight thump, making Solomon wince. But he was in the brightly-lit corridor now, and he started walking, not jogging. Look like you belong, he reminded himself, as his hand curled over the small rectangle of white card in his hand—the ID card of Doctor S. Palinov.

  Solomon was very good at what he did, but perhaps he was a little out of practice, or perhaps he should have spent a little longer than a hundred breaths before he had made his move, as, behind him in the darks of the Outcast bunkroom, there was a movement.

  One of the adjunct-Marines behind him wasn’t asleep at all. They, too, hadn’t eaten their nighttime protein pack but for entirely different reasons. Worry and self-hate had been gnawing at Specialist Combat Wen’s stomach for the past two days since she had received her orders from Boss Mihashi.

  She had been awake in her bunk, looking up at the metal gridwork above her and running through her mindfulness breathing practices. Ironically enough, it had been the very same Yakuza bosses she had come to hate who had taught them to her.

  But a movement had interrupted her attempt to calm her mind and see through the dilemma she was in. She couldn’t do what the Boss wanted, could she? He was a few hundred thousand miles away. More, in fact! And she liked Solomon, in a way. He was arrogant and brash and cocky, but he was also smart, and he could be funny. And there had even been times in the last few training exercises that he had seemed almost, what… Loyal? Honorable?

  But the Boss had people up here on Ganymede, the specialist knew. Where there was one Yakuza operative, there could always be more. There was no escape from him. And if she refused, then she probably would have some sort of fatal accident one day as an airlock mysteriously depressurized at the wrong moment, or she would have a catastrophic equipment failure, or…

  Jezebel wasn’t so much worried about her own death, no more so than anyone else was. She had a very healthy respect for her own life of course, you don’t manage to survive as a Yakuza Enforcer without earning that, after all…

  But what Jezebel Wen was far more worried about was what the Boss Mihashi might do if she refused. She still had family back on Earth. An estranged family, admittedly, and one that she hadn’t seen for the last ten years even before she came up here to Ganymede. They were still people that the Boss wouldn’t think twice about punishing for her crimes.

  Jezebel Wen made up her mind in the dark. She slipped from her thin covers in a moment and ghosted toward the food hall, after Specialist Commander Cready.

  Idiots. Solomon could have laughed if he had dared to make a sound. He should have known that Ganymede would have been like this—easy.

  He had emerged from one end of th
e food hall, first hanging back from the glassed automatic door so he didn’t trigger it to open. He could see the much larger front atrium outside, with doors leading to the study lounges, the audience chambers, and deeper into the service, mechanical bays, and gymnasiums of the Ganymede Marine Training station. And the wide corridor with its reinforced glass doors that led to his destination: the medical lounges.

  The place was brightly lit, so it should have been easy for any passing staffer or security drone to spot him, the only person up in his dark gray and blue undermesh suit. The light from the overhead wall lights were a little different though, he saw—not as ‘clean’ and bright as they were in the daytime, and with a slight reddish tinge to the spectrum. He imagined that it had something to do with what Malady had called the ‘metabolic regulation’ of this place. Every aspect from the length of the ‘day’ shifts to the light to the food that they ate was all carefully calibrated to get the most results out of their bodies.

  But for all of their technology, it seemed to Solomon that the Confederate Marine Corps were still a bunch of idiots.

  It was always the same in a place like this—a top-notch, top-of-its-game institution. They believed so much in themselves that they couldn’t imagine that any possible threat would come from inside their organization. Solomon had encountered companies like that before—usually academic or scientific institutions—back in New Kowloon.

  Kinda naïve, really.

  There were no internal security measures, apart from certain identity-locked doors. The Confederate Marine Corps were so passionate about their mission that they just couldn’t believe that they might need to have a watchful eye inside their own corridors, Solomon thought.

  At least, that was what he hoped, anyway, as he stepped up to the doors for them to hiss open and for him to cross the front atrium and approach the medical lounge.

  Inevitably, the small torrent of anxieties rose in him.

  What if Doctor Palinov had noticed her ID card was missing?

  Of course she had.

  What had she done then? Had she figured that Cready had stolen it?

  What if she had changed the security features on the doors?

  Solomon paused, counted to five this time, and breathed. These sorts of anxieties and fears were natural for a guy in his position, and he had long since learned how to let them be. The trick was knowing that these thoughts would rise anyway, and that there was nothing that he could do about it now in any case. It was one of the reasons why he made a very good adjunct-Marine—his ability to parcel out his worries, to recognize them, and then get the job done anyway.

  Now or never… He walked forward to the glass doors, raising his hand and as he did so—

  Whisk!

  The door hummed open just as normal, and Solomon almost did a doubletake. The Confederate Marine Corps really are idiots! He could have laughed as he strode forward…

  Only to see that there were people in some of the rooms.

  Frack!

  Jezebel Wen waited for the shape of her Gold Squad Specialist Commander to move out from the food hall before she followed. She was no thief or burglar, but the skills of a Yakuza executioner had a lot of crossover. She knew how to move silently, and she knew how to listen to her body in a way that kept her calm and focused. Little did either Jezebel or Solomon know that their aptitudes in this regard were very similar. Both man and woman had settled into a self-awareness of their own breathing, the push and pull of their muscles, as well as a heightened sense of any possible threat. Would a piece of their suit snag as they walked past that wall? Where were the blindside entrances and exits around them?

  But whereas Solomon’s mind had been washed with the anxieties of a thief, Jezebel Wen’s mind was clean. That was where her previous training had been far, far different than Solomon’s.

  She had started with the Yakuza at a fairly young age—a not-so-tender nineteen years old. She was already the head of a notorious neo-punk girl gang that ran the Tokyo streets.

  That was how she had come to the attention of the Yakuza, and her choice had been simple—join or be punished.

  It had been no choice, really.

  But of the many perks of her new family, one of them had been the rigorous and vigorous training that she had received both physically and mentally. The Yakuza prided themselves that they not only turned out excellent killers, but that they also taught their family members how to think.

  And so, with the aid of many years of meditation and concentration exercises, Jezebel’s mind was now a calm, still pond as she ghosted through the food hall after Cready. To peer around the door just as he disappeared into the medical lounge.

  Damn. A small disturbance in that clear pond of her mind. Cready must have found a way to fool the restricted area sensors, she thought as the ripples of her agitation settled once more into tranquillity.

  Well, tranquil and deadly, anyway…

  Solomon turned on one heel to swing his body to the side of the nearest window, breathing. He waited first for any signs or sounds of surprise, or any movement from the white-coated scientists inside. None. Then he waited a little more, in case one of the scientists was having second thoughts about whether they really did see a sedated adjunct-Marine out of their bunks.

  No one did.

  The problem was that there were also windows on the other side of the wide corridor. Even though Solomon couldn’t see anyone in them, he could see the ghost-like reflection of himself pressed against the wall in them.

  Solomon’s eyes tracked the reflective glass until he found the blindspot that he had been looking for. That was another thing that he had learned from his criminal activities. Windows and mirrors are a pain, but people get used to looking at them. They get lazy and stop looking at any of the places that aren’t reflected. Solomon lowered himself to the floor and crab-crawled along the very middle of the corridor, underneath the level where the windows met the metal walls, and out of sight.

  It was slow going, but he crawled all of the way to the end of the corridor to Doctor Palinov’s private medical suite, and he eased himself up to peer out of the lower corner, inside.

  She wasn’t there. Good.

  Whisk! Another wave of the good doctor’s ID card, and the door opened. He rolled inside as the door clicked behind him.

  Now, time to get to work…

  It took Solomon a couple of tries before he had mimicked the hand movement that turned Palinov’s window dark. I don’t want any chance staffer peering in and seeing what I’m up to, he thought as a line of darker and darker gray and then eventual black shimmered down through the glass.

  Next, it was to the cabinets that held the ‘unique antibiotic cultures’ that the doctor had injected him with. He took the first few he saw, before hunting for his own, and moving to the desk to fire up the medical scanner.

  Solomon had never used one of these machines before. It looked a little like a three-dimensional printer, crossed with a holographic generator with its bright white bed underneath two arching sensor arms. He had seen various medical staff using one before.

  He set first one test tube on the bright bed and hunted for a ‘scan’ command—which turned out to be just a small green triangle—and hit it.

  The bright underlit bed flashed once, twice, and a third time before the two robotic arms started to whirr and wind lower over the test tube, seeming to detect where it was on the bed. Tiny LED lights flashed on at the tips of the metal pointer-arms, and Solomon saw a haze of golden light flare into the test tube. He leaned back, half-expecting the thing to shatter from the apparent laser beam. This medical scanner, however, was far more sophisticated than a mere point-and-shoot laser, and he watched as the twin beams of laser light diffused into a broad glow, and then recalibrated until he was looking at two thin beams of shimmering reddish-gold light, penetrating the tube.

  The nearest screen suddenly flared to life and started displaying the results.

  COMPOSITION:

/>   Poly-crystallite: 70%

  Organic Rubber: 5%

  Liquid Solution: 25%

  ANALYSIS:

  Poly-Crystallite… Widespread manufacture. Industry standard 4.3mm thick. Medical apparatus. CONCLUSION: Test tube.

  Organic Rubber… Widespread processing. Heat resistant to 200degC. CONCLUSION: Cork.

  Liquid Solution… PROCESSING… PROCESSING…PROCESSING…

  H2O solution (base carrier).

  Antibiotics – Cefitibrole, Valacin.

  Vitamins – Thiamin, Niacin, Arginine.

  Amino Complex – Creatine.

  Minerals – Potassium, Phosphorous, Magnesium.

  DNA Complex-strand variant 21.

  “What?” Solomon frowned at the last element contained within the test tube. “What the frack is a DNA Complex-strand variant 21?” He could almost understand all of the others. Just as the doctor had said, the solutions appeared to be a mixture of minerals and nutrients and antibiotics designed to keep all of the adjuncts at peak physical performance.

  But she didn’t mention anything about that last one, Solomon thought.

  “Hmm…” He flicked through the screen into the medical database so he could run a search for this ‘DNA Complex-strand 21’ while he powered down the machine and ran the next test tube.

  COMPOSITION…

  ANALYSIS…

  PROCESSING… PROCESSSING…

  It turned out that each one was almost exactly the same except for the percentages of nutrients, minerals, and the exact quantities of the antibiotics. Palinov hadn’t been joking, apparently, when she had been talking about how each of these cultures were specifically tailored to each person.