Mindee Arnett - Proxy

He walked back to his sister and put an arm around her, squeezing. “I mean it, Liz. The blood is from the Odyssey, not your stunner shot.”

She swallowed. “I know that.”

Jeth sighed, knowing that she would need time to get over it. He shouldn’t expect her to bounce back right away. Hell, he would need time to get over it—the memory of Danforth’s face with his teeth bared and so close to his was enough fodder for a dozen nightmares.

Jeth hugged her once more, then stepped through the doorway to the cab. Ahead, the trees on the path they were following gave way to the clearing where they’d parked the Debonair hours before. Celeste pulled the truck to a stop and powered down the engines.

Mark Hilty greeted them with palpable relief as they climbed out.

“Thanks for alerting Hammer for us,” Jeth said as they began to clean out the truck of all evidence of their presence.

“Sure. If you’d gotten caught, it would’ve been my ass as much as yours.”

Jeth snorted. Not hardly . But he was too tired for a needless argument.

“What are you going to do about him?” Hilty asked, pointing at Danforth, still lying in the cargo hold. They’d been working around him, a problem no one wanted to face.

Jeth stared at Danforth, dread pulsing in his temples. It was up to him. He was the leader, and that meant making the hard decisions.

The rest of the Shades gathered around him.

“We could just leave him here,” Celeste said when Jeth hesitated.

Yes, they could.

“Or we could kill him,” Shady said, sounding only half-serious.

Jeth considered it. Killing him might be humane, merciful. But who was Jeth to make that choice? In that moment he’d never felt more like his age. Gone was the swagger of his position as leader of the Malleus Shades. In that moment he wanted to be someone else, somewhere else, more desperately than ever before. He wished he were on Avalon , traveling carefree through space, the tether of such responsibilities broken.

But that was just a fantasy. And it would remain one forever unless he continued to play this role and earn the money he needed.

Kill him .

Jeth tried to imagine if he even could. He was relieved to discover that he couldn’t. Not in cold blood. For once that dark, calculating part of him was silent.

Please don’t tell him , Danforth had said. Even in his crazed, drug-ravaged state he’d understood what was in store for him.

Jeth had known it, too. But he’d already given Danforth a chance to do the right thing. He couldn’t do it again. Hardening himself against the doubt already creeping into his mind and heart, Jeth made his decision. “We turn him over to Hammer.”

Nobody spoke, not to agree or argue. Jeth turned and headed for the Debonair , relieved to have the decision made. He pushed the doubt away, thinking about how Danforth had nearly gotten them captured. And he’d hurt Lizzie, both physically and emotionally. That alone was enough for Jeth to make his peace with it.

And he would. Sooner or later.

WHEN JETH AND HIS CREW ARRIVED BACK AT THE SPACEPORT they called home, Hammer’s soldiers were waiting for them. There were two orders of soldiers, higher and lower—the Malleus Brethren and the Malleus Guards. The Brethren wore black brain implants fixed to the backs of their skulls, a technology that gave them extraordinary strength, intelligence, and—according to rumor—the ability to communicate mind to mind.

The Guard, the lower order, wore clear-colored implants. These lent them strength too, but it also imprisoned their minds, erasing them forever. The Guard were little more than shells of human flesh, mindless slaves, alive but not alive. Living dead men.

“Where is the traitor?” one of the Brethren asked Jeth as he descended the ramp onto the flight deck. Lizzie and the others followed after him.

“In the brig. It’s unlocked.” There hadn’t been a reason to lock Danforth in. He hadn’t stirred once on the journey home. Jeth had a feeling the Odyssey might’ve permanently damaged his brain. Not that it mattered, given the fate that awaited him.

The Brethren who had spoken motioned to the Guard, and they stepped forward in eerie unison and marched into the cargo bay, their faces expressionless and their eyes vacuous. Jeth shivered. They might as well be robots or reanimated corpses. They did not speak.

They carried Danforth out a moment later, holding his body up over their heads like a sacrificial lamb on the way to the slaughter.

“Where are you taking him?” Jeth asked the Brethren, even though he already knew. But he couldn’t ignore the tremor of hope that he might be wrong.

“Surgery,” the Brethren answered.

Jeth exhaled. He hated being right this time. He tried to picture what Danforth would look like afterward—his greasy hair shaved short and his face a mask of nothingness from the implant inserted into the back of his skull, a clear one, same as the rest of the Guard. He would be Danforth no more, and he would never betray Hammer again.

“Hammer wants to see you right away,” the other Brethren said. “We’re to take you to him.”

Jeth had guessed as much. He touched the pocket of his flight jacket, which he’d put on after he’d showered and changed back into his own clothes. The ruby, or whatever it was, lay inside it. He was anxious to turn it over.

Some fifteen minutes later, they arrived at Hammer’s estate, located at the center of the spaceport. To Jeth’s surprise, the Brethren didn’t take him to one of Hammer’s offices or meeting rooms but rather into the private gardens. The heavy perfume from the flowers and the dark smell of earth and plants filled Jeth’s nose and made him momentarily dizzy.

“He’s through there,” one of the Brethren said, pointing at a vine-covered trellis.

Jeth walked through it alone and spotted Hammer sitting on a veranda. Once upon a time, it might’ve seemed odd to Jeth to find such a place on a spaceport—a real-life garden with simulated sunshine overhead, enough to warrant the covering on the veranda—but he knew that the appearance of wealth and power mattered more to Hammer than anything else. And a garden like this in the middle of space was decadent in the extreme.

“Hello, Jethro,” Hammer said from the lawn chair he was reclining in. He raised a glass, cloudy with condensation and full of some brown liquid over ice, and took a long drink. He was a big man, both in muscle and fat, his shoulders wide and arms thick, his belly prodigious. Like his soldiers, he wore a brain implant, a red one fixed to his skull like a parasitic spider. Hammer set the glass on the table next to him. “Do you have the ruby?”

Jeth pulled the stone from his pocket and handed it to Hammer, who accepted it with one meaty hand. He examined the so-called ruby, a pleased expression rising to his face.

“Excellent. Congratulations on another successful job.”

Normally, Jeth didn’t engage Hammer in conversation unless he absolutely had to, but curiosity got the better of him. “What is it? I know it’s not ruby.”

“No, it’s not.” Hammer examined Jeth, his eyes like small black stones on his broad face. “To be honest, I’m not exactly sure what it is. Nor do I care.”

Of course not, Jeth thought. All Hammer cared about was the monetary value. “Who wanted it then?”

An amused smile spread over Hammer’s lips. The question had been impertinent, but Hammer was in a good mood. Jeth wondered why, a sinking feeling in his gut that it might be satisfaction over Danforth’s punishment. For a second, Jeth pictured Danforth on an operating table, the long spike of the brain implant being pressed against the back of his skull.