Humming random notes, Lapis picked up the square device; it had a black screen and no discernable buttons or switches. How might it turn on?
Her brother reached over and swiped down the surface. A white dot flared in the center and formed a white box; she did not understand the language, but it begged for a code. A smug, snarly Cile snorted in melodramatic disdain, and she glanced at the shivering man before returning to the object in her hand. Little clothes in the cool atmosphere of the room provided scant warmth. At least he did not show off skimpy blue underwear.
The Minq took his uniform because they had marching shirt enhancements. They offered him regular clothing, which he refused, so they plopped him in a seat in his short-style skivvies, cuffed him in a way that strained the bruises forming on his shoulders, and left him for interrogation. The other men joined their merc brothers in a separate conference room, waiting and pacing while the Jiy group decided what to do with them. No one trusted them enough to put a weapon in their hands, so enlisting them to help against the khentauree was a solid NO.
Too bad his buddies did not know the orders given to their fellow mercs. The handoff occurred at that second building, and the only thing the claimed to know beyond that was the man in charge, a native Jilvaynan named Liwren, hated Gredy’s scheme to kidnap Tovi, but followed orders anyway.
A native, eh? How dearly did Gredy pay for his loyalty? Or perhaps his hate ran as shallow as the typical soldier-for-hire’s morality.
Lapis tapped a few numbers into the box that they discovered on folded papers stuffed into his pockets and his pack, but none of them opened the device. It eventually flashed red, and the screen disappeared.
Cile gloated.
She forced herself to remain nonchalant. Strangling the information out of him would not work; her fingers would kill him before he could utter a word. That was why Faelan, rather than Cassa, sat next to her.
Cile leered, in the way guttershanks did when they considered themselves lady’s men. He thought his physic so attractive she would fall to lust and, what, uncuff him? The thought sickened her, and she wished Patch sat with her. Faelan was many things, but intimidating to manly men was not one of them.
One of the Minq standing stolidly outside the door moved, and Cile’s façade of confidence broke briefly as his gaze lingered on the firepower now protecting the place. The conscripted guards carried long, thick weapons, and his eyes bulged as he studied them. Of course, they bore what they hoped would defeat the khentauree, and any overconfident merc might have a teensy problem remaining alive if they made a smart-ass remark and garnered the wrath of the person holding it.
Lapis grabbed another device, using the act to tamp down on the swirling disgust and terror that fought in her chest. If the khentauree had disappeared. Rodas flew over the area the lookouts last noticed them, but not a single shiny metal body made its way through the ruins. Gaping black holes left by building collapse littered the place, so they probably took one of those routes underground.
Did they plan an assault from below? Kathandra said that the architects built the workstation on land with no tunnels snaking below, but the subsurface passages surrounded the structure. They could pop up near enough, the guards would not have time to properly react before they struck.
A disc atop the random items pile, with thin sides, a thick middle, and a small hole at the top and bottom, crackled.
Cile frowned as Faelan tapped the screen of another tech object, one Kathandra gave him and that Caitria had modified before returning to her study of the khentauree. He then reached over and grabbed the noisy device.
“Lieutenant, it’s Liwren.” The man said more words, lost to noise.
“I can’t hear you, Liwren,” Faelan said.
“ . . . ark khen . . . delve down here.” Static for a moment.
“Repeat.”
“Working . . . says from Jiy . . .”
Very loud static. “Repeat,” Faelan said.
Lapis thought the man said lieutenant again, but nothing else came through the fuzz before the signal died.
Her brother glanced at the other device. A readout of coordinates trailed down the screen. He smiled and replaced the disc before grabbing it and rising.
“What is that?” Cile demanded, agitated.
“This?” He held up the tech. “Oh, something that traces signals.”
“What?” the merc asked flatly.
“Underestimating us seems quite the pastime for you,” he said as he smartly turned on his heel and headed for the door. Panic flew through the man’s eyes.
“You have no idea what’s down there!”
“Neither do you,” he replied.
And now they knew the mercs were underground—as if they could not guess.
“It’ll piss Gredy off if you go anywhere near them.”
“Gredy is already furious with us. Adding a bit more rage will make no difference.”
“You think he won’t kill you.”
“No, he won’t kill me. You, on the other hand? A failure sidelined by the same woman who attacked him, who allowed us to pinpoint his location?” Faelan meandered out the door, unconcerned, and Tearlach replaced him at her side.
She nonchalantly snagged a small book with black binding and opened it while Cile attempted to glare imaginary daggers into their skulls. They did as little good as Gredy pounding on the Swift’s door, and the result would be the same.
A nude woman stared provocatively back. A black book with pictures instead of addresses? She flipped through the pages, tabbing the layouts with notes scribbled in the margins. Cassa could translate the Meergeven for them.
Tearlach squinted at one. “That doesn’t look physically possible.”
“There’s a hoop act at the Shank, and the aerialist can bend over far enough to put her torso between her legs.”
“Sounds painful.”
“I’ve been told acrobats can do all sorts of things with enough training.” She shrugged and smiled at the lieutenant. “They just need to be flexible.”
He did not enjoy the conversation, though he did not express the annoyance she expected at their perusal of his special book. The scribbles might not have much of import, then.
She inspected the rest of the items, hoping that her rising restlessness did not interfere with the nonchalant play. She inwardly screamed at herself for not rushing back and hiking to the second building, searching for any trail left by the kidnap group. If they had vehicles like the other merc units, some trace would remain in the soft dirt. She could follow them to Rin and Tovi.
She told her uncle they had to go back. She told her brother that. They reminded her a fight between the terrons and the khentauree raged, and traces of tire tracks might no longer exist.
They also assumed Cile would cooperate, sooner or later. Why? Did they think stripping him to his skivvies would embarrass him to the point he divulged?
She gathered everything she thought might prove insightful into a pile, then shoved the rest of the stuff into his pack. He winced at her lack of carefulness, which she ignored. The Minq would decide if he left with those things or not, and she did not care if they shoved him out the front door to face the khentauree in nothing more than thin boxers. He could waggle his eyebrows at them and see how far flirting got him.
“Bored?” the merc mocked. “I can help with that.”
“We’ve gotten what we needed, so there doesn’t seem any point in staying.”
“Gotten? I’ve not said a word.”
“Come now. You’ve said plenty of insults. Surely you count those as words.” Tearlach grabbed the pack, shaking his head at her, while she took the more important things. “Anyway, have a pleasant time shriveling. I doubt the Minq are going to offer another shirt anytime soon.”
Fury glinted in his eyes. “One day that mouth of yours is going to kill you.”
“At least I’m amusing. Considering your lack of entertainment value, maybe they’ll just dump you outside as you are. I’m certain Gredy will understand when you wander into your base without your clothing or equipment.”
The briefest expression of panic, replaced by snarls, intrigued her. Cile feared his leader. She hardly blamed him on that one; she feared Gredy, too. Never seeing him again would be too soon.
The Minq guards nodded at them as they left. If Lapis had met them in a Jiy tunnel, she would have turned around and fled. They had muscle and did not need tech to hurt their target. They sat far above the common undershank, in status and training, which, she supposed, expressed the deep distrust of the man cuffed to the chair.
“Gredy’s men fear him,” Tearlach commented as they walked down bright white hallways with unadorned doors, a few awkward oil paintings, and random, knee-high tables holding well-watered plants. “I don’t understand why they want to work for someone so . . .”
“Insane?”
He chuckled. “He’s someone who values brute force and violence. You ripped that away from him and exposed him. His threats prove he’s floundering to get fearful respect back.”
“I think Cile’s like him.”
“Depantsed and everything.”
At least he had no access to his tech. He seemed the type to contact his buddies and demand they harm Rin and Tovi for his humiliation, satisfied at his revengeful cruelty.
