Jade Dancer by DezoPenguin

Chapter 5

Tane nearly jumped out of his shoes at the sound of Jade's voice; her barefooted entrance had been silent.

"The Hunter's Guild? What would they want with me?"

He wondered how long she'd been there, how much she'd heard, but then he realized something else. The robe she was wrapped in, hem scraping the floor and sleeves ruckled up because of Tane's greater height, was blue—meaning, she'd picked it off the chair, not gotten out the fresh one. He tried to think about what that meant and his heart nearly broke at every conclusion.

He took a deep breath.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"No, and what were you and Master Yoshida talking about? Why the Hunter's Guild?" Her voice trembled a little. She didn't understand what Tane was doing, and probably suspected betrayal.

"I wanted to save this for when I had my ducks all in a row, but we might as well do it now. Have a seat." He gestured to the couch, and she warily went over and sat. Tane leaned forward in his seat.

"You have a big problem when it comes to getting on with your life, Jade. Unless I very much miss my guess, you're not only not registered on board Pioneer 2, but not with any home government either. Normally, a tank-grown Newman is registered by the lab once growth is complete, but from what you told me, I doubt that happened."

She nodded, slowly.

"You're right."

"That means you have no official identity. There's plenty of jobs you could do, but no legitimate business would hire you. There would be too many bureaucratic hoops to jump through. That means your only employers would be people with under-the-table cash to spend. In other words, someone in the underworld. I suspect you already know what that would mean."

Another nod.

"I doubt many of them would be as nice to me as Vanis."

"The Hunter's Guild is a different story, though. It enjoys complete extraterritoriality within the Guild; it's not the arm of any government."

"What does that mean?" Apparently, the Guild was an area she hadn't studied.

"Before the ten-nation-alliance, national governments on Coral would often put restrictions on immigration, on weapons laws, and on other activities that burdened Hunters, especially if times were tense. It gets complicated, and you don't want a history lesson now, but it boils down to the fact that the Guild was treated as if it were an independent nation of its own and its offices as foreign territory within the country. Guild hunters have legal rights even today which other people don't, because of that status."

"How does that help me with my identity?"

"If you become a duly registered Guild hunter—and Yoshida says you have the ability for it—the fact that you didn't officially exist before that is irrelevant. The Administration can't make any inquiries into the background of a hunter. If you get in, it's instant legitimacy—and so long as you keep up your dues and yearly skill review, you wouldn't even have to work as a hunter if you didn't want to."

Tane took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long night.

"I..." Jade began, then broke off and restarted. "Tane, why would you do that? Why go to this kind of trouble for someone you just met?"

"Probably for the same reason Aaron Yoshida taught you how to take care of yourself for real."

"Why? Pity?" He doubted she meant it, but a bitter twist crept through in the word. When all you have is your pride, taking charity could be very hard.

"So we can sleep at night."

Targ glanced around himself at the other four members of his crew.

"You guys ready or what?"

They all nodded eagerly, one after another. They'd run together in the depths of Downtown for over a year now, and they all knew what was at stake. This was their big chance to move up, to put petty street crime, strong-arm jobs, and bag runs behind them and to take a step up. They did this right, and they were in with the big boys, the real power on the street. Gethric, the huge, animal-like Newman with the body hair so thick it looked like fur, Jackknife Johnny with his trademark blades, T-bar with the mechgun she'd scavenged off a dead corporate secman, and Jarl, who'd had steel fangs implanted in place of teeth. There was no tougher crew on the streets, but this was where they proved they were more than just street tough.

"Do it," Targ ordered, and Gethric slammed his boot into the door. Cheap wood veneer couldn't stand up to the blow, and the door flew open. The crew stormed in, blades and guns out. The plan was simple: bust in and take out everyone. They hadn't noticed the minicamera tucked above the doorjamb, its fisheye lens angled to cover the full five feet before the door.

They learned fast that things don't always go according to plan. Gunfire greeted their entrance and Gethric went over, gut-shot. The woman in the fancy, full-length dress waved her hand and a massive ball of flame engulfed Jarl. The fast pam-pam-pam of T-bar's mechgun sounded—once. Its shots didn't even slow the tall, powerful man who moved in and then cut her and Johnny down with the massive sword he carried. In seconds, Targ was the only one left standing.

"Cheap street trash," the swordsman sneered. "Is that what he thinks we're worth these days?"

Targ wanted to protest. In the street, you didn't let yourself get low-rated like that, but he knew it was true. These were professionals, probably hunters. He was out of his league, way out. Yet he wasn't going to go out with a whimper. He swept up his big head-cleaver, a machete-like metal blade three feet long stuck into a wooden handle. He went down an instant later, torched by the FOmarl's Foie technique just as Jarl had been.

Ralin spat on the head thug's corpse.

"Street fighters. He sends street fighters after us. That's a frakking insult."

"Insult or not, they got here fast," Elysse said.

"This safehouse is blown," Ralin agreed. "Grab your gear and get moving."

The first part of that was easy; none of the four took more than fifteen seconds, tops, to get ready to leave. The second part wasn't as simple. The Photon round turning a quarter of Zayora's skull to red mist was pretty clear about that.

"Cover!" Ralin snapped. The street fighters hadn't been meant to take them out, but to flush them so more experienced operatives could take them down at minimal risk. No one wanted to lose valuable people in sending a message.

Ralin hunkered down behind the junked-out remains of an aerocar and got out his lockgun in case he had a return shot. He probably wouldn't get one—a sniper rifle was meant to be used at long range. Elysse had moved nearly as fast and was soon crouching next to him, but Leon, fundamentally a noncombatant, was too slow to react. Two shots punched through his torso and down he went.

Elysse could probably Reverser him, Ralin thought. In this situation, every ally was valuable both to assist him in an escape and to provide alternative targets for the enemy. The trick was to get to him in time, which meant neutralizing the sniper. The shots at Leon had given Ralin a pretty good idea of the sniper's position, and the junked aerocar actually provided adequate cover. The sniper would have to move to open up a shot at them, and that was when the hunters would make their countermove. Surprising, really; a sniper with a skill to make the shots he or she had ought to have had the experience to pick a better overwatch position.

The precise flaw in that reasoning hit Ralin at about the same time as the explosives planted in the junker went off. This time, there was no convenient android to hide behind; he and Elysse were annihilated by the trap's second stage.

From his position on the sixth level of a building two blocks away, the sniper put away the remote detonator and powered down his weapon, then made a PDL call. No image appeared on the screen; it was a message relay only.

"Gekigasky here," he said. "Four for four."

Jade stared at Tane, not quite believing or understanding what she'd heard. Her life hadn't exactly accustomed her to altruism or charity. A small kindness was one thing, but the idea that someone would go well out of their way in terms of time, money, and personal convenience all for someone else's sake, without even ties of friendship, family, or love to motivate them...it just didn't register.

"Look," Tane said, replacing his glasses, "I don't really know how to explain it. If you'd just scurried back into your room after I shot that Force in the hall, I would have gone on without a second thought."

Jade nodded her agreement.

"But it's different now," Tane went on. "I've taken the trouble of learning something about you as a person. What I do now is a choice with known consequences. I point to the door, tell you goodbye, and I know you're going to be dead, imprisoned, or working for some underworld outfit, maybe on your back and maybe by knocking other people onto theirs. I can't do it. Do you see what I mean?"

She sighed, letting out some of the tension, both her own and that building up in the room.

Jade didn't believe in saints, in people who went out of their way to seek out others in trouble without a fee. The closest people came to that was tossing some meseta mindlessly at a charity and letting the charity's paid employees do the real work of actually helping people.

But there were people, basically decent people, who wouldn't screw over an innocent with their own hands. Put the screws to an enemy, sure—and the definition of enemy could slide a lot with some people—but not some random stranger who happened to be there.

Maybe Tane was taking it farther than that, taking on more responsibility for her than he had to, but it was an extension of the same principle.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"So we're all right, then?"

"I think so. But, just so that we're clear, I'm going to pay you back every last meseta you have to lay out to help me."

"I'm glad to hear it. I have to have ammo for the Y2kH custom-made, and Vezner charges me an arm and a leg," he replied easily.

"There's just one thing."

"Oh?"

"I need to know what happened to Vanis."

He studied her face for a moment.

"Don't you mean, who happened to Vanis?" he said, understanding perfectly. "Revenge?"

"I can't walk away from it, Tane. Apart from Master Yoshida, and now you, Vanis was the only person in my life who was ever good to me. Yes, she used me, too, I know," she quickly added, holding up a hand to forestall the response she saw coming, "but she also gave me opportunities to improve myself and showed me kindness, neither of which she had to. That didn't profit her, and so I owe her for that. Maybe if she was alive it would be different, but if she's dead, like we both think she is, then that death bought my freedom. She's paid for her sins with her life."

Tane frowned at her. He didn't get it, not really. "Slaveowner" was, to him, an unforgivable sin, least of all from the slave's perspective. His feelings were obvious to Jade, but hers weren't coming through to him in return. It was no surprise, really. Some things could never be understood by those who hadn't been there. Tane could know intellectually, and he could empathize, but he couldn't step into Jade's shoes.

The tension was back in the room, because this was the acid test. Thus far, Tane had had things his own way, making plans, doing things for Jade the way he wanted to. Now let's see, she thought, if you can take me on my terms, or if you're just a nicer version of Halvas-Black Paper-Vanis.

She'd picked a hard one, too, something that clashed against whatever his moral lines were, but it was probably better that way. Without a genuine obstacle to overcome, what was the point of any kind of test?

"They might not be easy to find."

"I have to try."

Slowly, he nodded.

"We'll do our best, but there's a problem with that."

"What?"

She expected some moral objection, something about revenge not being right or healthy. She was wrong.

"There's someone else out there who's very likely to get there first."