CHAPTER 3
“Here’s the south wall of the Pioneer Museum, see? Nice window and a little balcony there.”
“I see it,” Cherry said, looking at the pictures as they sat in Warren’s hotel room in companionable darkness. “Even such a weary old pile as this will have sensors on that wall, and a detector for drones of any great size.”
“I figured that,” Warren said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t need someone with your special skills.”
“Show me the pictures from the inside.”
Warren obediently brought up the selection of shots he’d obtained. Cherry scrolled through them, her professional eye sweeping each image, pausing on one shot of the museum’s interior. “I see that one’s an antique, but it isn’t one of your cars, old fellow. What is it?”
Warren leaned to look, seeing the ancient two-wheeled vehicle in a dusty corner of the Pioneer Museum. “Oh yeah, that’s a pretty special piece. It is a motorcycle. I’ve operated some Old Earth machines like this one, too. You’ve got to balance it yourself. No internal gyro or anything. They must have died in droves on those things back in the day, but it gives you a thrill you wouldn’t believe . . . right until the moment you die.”
Cherry liked the look of the vehicle, but she only nodded, continuing on, sifting the evidence of security systems within the Pioneer Museum. “I don’t see how we’re going to get this car of yours out of the museum, Mister Stowe.”
“Through . . . here.” He showed her a picture of the glass-encased front entrance. “I think I’ve got a way figured to clear this, but you get us in, and I can get us out, car and all. Trust me for that at least.”
“I’m not a trusting soul, love,” Cherry said. “But since your neck is on the line with me . . .” She turned her attention back to the images. “I don’t suppose you have a shot of the roof, hmm?”
“Let’s see . . . how about that?” He brought the image up and Cherry carefully studied each bit of it.
She nodded. “Okay. I will need to check a thing or two at the site, but this shouldn’t be too difficult.” She focused her gaze on Warren, measuring, and he grinned under the scrutiny. “You realize the local authorities may be watching you even now?”
Warren shrugged, laughing. “So they watch. These people have no imagination, no genius. And they’ve never tangled with someone like me before.”
“Hmm, isn’t that pretty much what everyone says just before everything goes wrong?”
“I’m not everyone,” Warren said, winking at her. “You haven’t had a chance to learn that about me yet, but you will.”
“I suppose we will see about that,” Cherry said dryly. “But speaking of learning about someone . . . how did you ever track me here, to Bethune?”
Warren leaned back smiling mysteriously at the abrupt change of subject. “I asked around.”
Cherry didn’t share his smile, thinking of who could be asked . . . who still lived. “Asked around. You are very brave, Stowe. What made you so sure I wouldn’t value my privacy enough to keep your head as souvenir?”
“I don’t buy all the horror and hype about the Blue Light Brigade . . . and I heard good things about you specifically.”
“The horror and hype,” Cherry repeated. She looked straight in Warren’s eyes. “The worst things you heard were probably true and you took quite a risk.” Warren just smiled. “And aside from my location, and my charming disposition, what did you hear?”
“Only that you were the best of the bunch from Blue Light.”
Cherry snorted indelicately. “Whoever told you that was a fool or a liar.” She thought back to all the candidates who had entered the induction to Blue Light, attempting to absorb the symbiote. There had been extreme athletes, elite warriors, and martial artists who had mostly failed to accept the symbiote, dying horribly as they failed. Those who had survived reflected no recognizable pattern. The ranks of the Blue Light Brigade eventually populated with a strangely diverse swath of human subjects, Cherry among them. Despite backgrounds that were often unimpressive, as hosts for the symbiote they became the most lethal fighting force in the galaxy, and among that force there had been shining stars, demigods. Cherry remembered their faces and names . . . and she remembered their fates, the most powerful among them yielding to the psychosis, the madness. “Perhaps I am the best of Blue Light still living,” she said, her gaze focusing on Warren again. “But that isn’t saying much. How many of us still live?”
“Not many,” Warren said, standing up and fetching a flask. “Drink?”
Cherry looked from the flask to Warren’s warm expression. “If you like, love. It’s a waste, though. Alcohol has almost no effect on me anymore.”
Warren shrugged, pouring a measure into a glass, handing it to her. He smiled a different sort of smile. “Care to spend the evening?” His eyebrows raised. “See just where this partnership can go?”
Cherry held his gaze as she sipped from the glass, feeling the liquor’s heat on her tongue. She set the glass aside and smiled at Warren. “I must say, you are the first gentleman who has made such an offer knowing what I really am.” She saw the flicker of dawning awareness in Warren’s eyes. He clearly hadn’t thought through the implications. “But I think not. Wise old souls have had a few things to say about mixing business with pleasure.” The hint of relief in his eyes still hurt, after all this time.
He shrugged. “Ah well. Strictly business, then.”