Mindee Arnett - Proxy

“I could make one up for you, if you’d like,” Jeth offered. “I think ‘Trouble’ would fit nicely.”

“My name is Aileen.”

Jeth grinned. It suited her. He supposed if things were to go wrong on this job, at least trouble came with a pretty face.

“And what’s yours?”

Jeth cocked his head to the side. “You can call me whatever you like.”

“Hmmm, very well. I’ll go with ‘Peacock.’”

Jeth made a choking noise and was about to argue, when Danforth’s voice intruded, “I hate to bust up the romantic tension, but you really ought to focus on the task at hand. The elevator’s almost there.”

“Right,” Jeth said. “Where’s Little Hawk?”

“Stepped into the back for a minute. More trouble with that relay.”

“Oh,” Jeth said, ignoring Aileen’s curious look about his conversation with a person she couldn’t see or hear.

Seconds later they reached the top floor and the door swished open. Jeth motioned for Aileen to go first.

She smiled and walked past him, as unconcerned as ever. He stepped out after her and surveyed the suite, momentarily overwhelmed by the decadence. There was a wraparound sofa as big as a bed, a fireplace as big as a bathroom, and an in-floor water feature big enough to swim in.

And this was just the first room.

“That way.” Jeth pointed to a set of double doors in the distance. Aileen headed for them without a second glance. Jeth followed her into the bedroom. The same level of decadence continued on in here, but the glass vault across from the bed drew all his attention. It was big enough to enclose a dozen men, and at its center, set atop a wooden pedestal engraved in the likeness of two rearing dragons, was the Grakkian Ruby, the so-called Heart of the Universe. It glowed red beneath the display lights. The sight of that glow jogged Jeth’s memory. He needed something to cover his hands before he picked it up.

He turned to Aileen and then motioned to the bed. “Sit down and stay there. And don’t bother trying to escape. My crew has the elevators locked down. There’s nowhere to go.”

This wasn’t even close to true, but Aileen couldn’t know it. Besides, as she sat down on the bed, she gave no indication that running was on her mind. Instead, she seemed enthralled by the situation unfolding before her.

Jeth grabbed one of the half dozen pillows lying across the top of the bed. He yanked off the pillowcase and then turned back to the vault, stopping before the door.

The only indication that there was a door in that seamless glass facade came from the small control panel on the right. It was similar to the one on the elevator, and for a moment Jeth marveled at how stupid the emperor was to keep something so important in such a relatively unprotected place. True, the glass was shatterproof, but the lack of physical monitoring was a serious weakness. Nobody was guarding the door, and there wasn’t a single security camera in the bedchamber or even the elevators. The emperor insisted on his complete privacy, disregarding any risks.

Then again, Jeth supposed a man in his position was probably arrogant enough to believe there were no risks, that he was so well insulated from the outside that he was perfectly safe in here. If so, he was a fool. Someone inside the emperor’s inner circle was also firmly in Hammer’s pocket.

Of course, Jeth thought as he entered the passcode, the ruby wasn’t exceptionally valuable in a monetary sense. He had no idea why Hammer wanted it. Most of its worth stemmed from its religious importance to the people of this planet. They believed the ruby was some sort of holy relic that would bestow wisdom and good fortune on anyone exposed to it—hence the reason for the glass vault in the emperor’s bedchamber. All nonsense, Jeth knew; religious propaganda designed to control an uneducated and superstitious populace.

The retinal scanner began to flash, and he stood in front of it, holding still once more.

“I’m through,” Jeth said when the door opened. He glanced behind him to make sure Aileen was still behaving herself. She watched him with a bemused expression from where she sat perched on the end of the emperor’s ridiculous bed.

“Excellent,” Danforth said. “We’re in the homestretch.”

Jeth didn’t reply as he stepped inside, a shiver running over his skin at the drop in temperature. The air had a sharp taste and smell, the kind he associated with hospitals and science laboratories. Plush carpet shifted against his feet like deep sand.

Jeth stopped before the pedestal and covered his right hand with the pillowcase. The ruby was coated with a chemical agent that would make the stone and anything that had touched it, skin or clothing, light up like a fireworks show on the infrared display of the security cameras.

He hesitated. “You sure I can just take this? There’s not some kind of pressure alarm waiting to sound?”

“I’m sure,” Danforth said. “All the security is on the door.”

Jeth frowned. Not because he didn’t believe Danforth but because he’d noticed something odd about the ruby.

It wasn’t a ruby.

He’d seen enough rubies in his life to know it. The fist-sized stone was more or less the right color, and it had been cut to look like a ruby, its surface faceted and shape diamond, but the insides gave it away. If Jeth hadn’t known any better, he would’ve thought it was some kind of red-hued amber. Small, branchlike things hung suspended inside it like insects caught in fossilized sap he remembered from the pictures in his old science textbook.

“What the—” Jeth broke off as something far more troubling than a counterfeit ruby grabbed his attention—a voice screaming over the comm.

“Help, Jeth! Help. Hel—”

The sound abruptly cut off as the comm link went dead. But Jeth had recognized the voice easily. Lizzie . Panic rose up inside him like a flood, drowning him in fear.

“Liz—Little Hawk? What is it? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

For several long, terrible moments no one answered.

Then finally, Danforth’s voice came over the line. “Nothing’s wrong, Longshot. We’re fine. Everything’s fine here.”

“Where’s Little Hawk?”

“She’s fine.”

“Bullshit,” Jeth said, panting from fear and frustration. “Put her on the line.”

Danforth let out a long, heavy sigh. “I’m really sorry about this. I really am. But I can’t let you talk to her right now. Somehow she found out what I’ve been doing and was making such a fuss, I had to shut her up.”

Bile climbed Jeth’s throat as his brain provided an interpretation of Danforth’s words— shut her up . A vision of his baby sister lying sprawled in the passenger’s seat of the truck with half her face blown off and blood and brain matter spattered on the window beside her swam before the eye of his imagination. There were plenty of weapons in the truck, after all.

Why had he let her come down to the planet? Why had he left her alone?

Jeth cleared his throat and his voice came out breathless. “What have you been doing?”

“Well, let’s just say I have no intention of letting you hand that ruby over to Hammer. It’s priceless, worth far more than he would ever pay any of us.”

“You’re going to double-cross Hammer?” It didn’t make sense. No one betrayed Hammer. The price for getting caught was too high. It wasn’t death that Hammer would inflict on Danforth but a kind of living death, one that would last as many years as his body had left to it. Danforth knew the consequences as well as Jeth. And while money was a strong motivator, he didn’t think it would be enough for Danforth to risk becoming one of Hammer’s Guard. There had to be more to it.