ONE
“I SHOULD KILL you and collect.”
Franco breathed on me with two-day-old cigarette breath. The creature standing next to him didn’t smell much better. The odor from the ogre was a mix between vomit and garbage with a sprinkle of old cigars. It was all scars and muscle, towering over most men by a good two feet. Not incredibly intelligent, but efficient as a killing machine.
I looked out the window and saw only trees. We were in the middle of Nowhere, New Jersey, if my mental compass was right, and it was always right. Luca and her crazy plans. Why do I have to be the bait? Especially with an ogre?
“Take a number,” I managed through the stench and tried holding my breath against the onslaught of odor surrounding me. The rope cut into my wrists as the mountain of monster buried a fist into my side, playing a melody of pain on my ribs, and ending my feeble attempt at olfactory resistance.
Franco stood to the side. A small man with big plans, he came up on our radar because he was sloppy. A human dealing with non-humans is a criminal offense depending on the extent of the transaction. A human trafficking humans to monsters and you get our violent attention.
Franco shook his head, narrowed his beady eyes, and tapped the meatgrinder on the shoulder. He crouched down to look me in the face. His greasy, slicked-back hair reflected the light from the bulbs overhead.
“I told you not to take the job, Ronin. I warned you.”
“I don’t take direction well.” I turned my head from the smoke he released into my face.
“That much we can agree on. Now you have to be an example. Why didn’t you listen?”
“You were selling women and children to ogres,” I said, my voice hard. “If you tell me who you sold them to, I promise it’ll be fast.”
“So self-righteous,” he scoffed. “The Division is just as corrupt. Your hands are just as dirty. You should have listened.”
“What can I say? I’m hardheaded.”
Franco nodded, stepped back, and motioned to the ogre. The brute proceeded to test just how hard my head was by driving his fist into my face—repeatedly.
When the pummeling stopped, and the room stopped spinning, Franco was in my face again.
“I like you,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you brought this on yourself.”
The sadists’ mantra—a variation of the same speech every battered wife has heard. I spit blood on the floor and felt the swelling rise on my face. My left eye was closing rapidly as the blood and liquids rushed in to deal with the damage.
“I’m flattered, really, but I would appreciate it if you liked me less—hate me, even.”
“Your Division 13 has abandoned you.”
“Division 13 doesn’t exist.”
“Of course it doesn’t. And this is all a bad dream,” he said, stretching his arms to the side.
Director Sauveur’s voice, the head of Division 13, droned in my memory.
Division 13 Standard Protocol Subsection 4.1 Section 2 Apprehension and Exfiltration.
An operative captured or otherwise apprehended during the course of a mission will be disavowed and neutralized wherever possible to prevent the dissemination of classified information.
“I wasn’t abandoned.”
“Perhaps I should give them a call? How much do you think a technomancer is worth?”
“Franco.” I stared at him hard. “That would be unwise. Five minutes after you make that call, there’s going to be a large violent knock on your door. This building will be dust, along with all of us.
“Bullshit,” he sneered. “There’s a five-million-dollar bounty on your head.”
He was greedy and stupid. Bounties did the heavy lifting for us. The idiots fell for the bait and we would rain down death from a distance. There was an elegance in its simplicity. He picked up the phone and I shook my head.
“Last call you make.” He pressed the code and I knew we were on borrowed time. Five minutes. I set the counter in my head. The call was on speakerphone.
“You have something for me, Franco?” Luca’s voice, a sultry blade too sharp to hold. She would cut you with a glance. God, I missed that voice.
“I have Ronin.”
“I need proof of life.” He looked at the ogre, who lumbered next to me. I let my breathing say what I couldn’t. Franco nodded and the ogre delicately crushed another rib, forcing me to grunt in pain.
“Hello, Ronin,” I heard her say through the haze of pain.
“Luca,” I growled when I caught my breath. “It’s really been too long.”
“Not long enough, my love. Cinco respiraciones, cinco muertes, una vida.”
Five breaths, five deaths, one life. It was a kill order. Shit, she was going to erase Franco, the ogre and probably everything in a two-hundred-yard radius of the house. I had less than five minutes to evacuate.
“He’s alive, for now,” Franco said. I could practically see the dollar signs in his eyes.
“Make sure he stays that way.” Her voice was smooth, a blade sliding between my ribs. “We’ll be there shortly for ex-fil.”
“And the bounty?”
“The bounty will be deposited once we have possession of Ronin. Await for ex-fil.”
Franco hung up.
Ex-fil my ass. She would drop an Omnidirectional Repercussive Blast device and obliterate everything at my position to facilitate my extraction via explosion.
Four minutes thirty seconds until I was a memory along with this idiot. Being bait was one thing, being atomized would seriously ruin my day.
I looked from Franco to the ogre. I needed them angry, irrational, and I didn’t have much time in which to do it. The ogre would be easy. Their default was simmering rage at the best of times. I just needed to nudge Franco a bit.
“Franco, you are truly too stupid to live. Do you really think they’re going to pay the bounty?” I turned to the ogre. “What did he promise you? Whatever it was, he lied.”
Ogres weren’t highly intelligent, although I’d run into some who could hold a conversation and even wield weapons. This one was on the denser side of the ogre bell curve, but he understood what I implied.
“Don’t listen to him,” Franco said. “You work for me. Once I get the money—”
“No money,” I said, raising my voice. “He has no money.”
“Shut the hell up. Do you want to get him pissed?” He turned to the ogre. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The money is coming and then you get as many girls as you want.”
“You piece of filth, scum,” I said and spat on the floor. “That goes for the ogre too.”
Franco laughed. I was down to three minutes.
There was one language every non-human understood. We only knew it as the Old Tongue and every operative had to learn it or be retired from the Division.
I spoke the low guttural language and the ogre cocked its head at me, widening its grotesque eyes. My Old Tongue was a little rusty, but I assured the ogre that Franco was planning to steal all the money and take the girls for himself.
It was either that or I had just proposed on Franco’s behalf. The ogre whirled on Franco and swung a massive arm, connecting with his head and sending Franco soaring across the room. In a few seconds, the ogre would turn those hate-filled eyes in my direction. I pulled on the rope and pushed off my feet. I flew back several feet and shattered the wooden chair I was strapped to.
I rolled to my feet as the ogre turned to face me. I needed my techbrace. I saw it sitting on the table, right behind the angry ogre who wanted to smash me.
Two minutes, and I needed a name.
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