Melissa la Cruz - Frozen

Wes had been an errand boy for several bookies before he was ten. He understood New Vegas was a cockroach; it would endure through greed and lust. It had shrugged its sequined shoulder at the Big Freeze. Wes respected the city that had shaped him into a survivor.

He had to make a decision. Kaboom! was about to climax with a massive explosion, and the noise would be loud enough to drown out their assault. Wes looked down at the floor that was rigged with bombs, enough to create a hole in the floor and drop them through the ceiling below, where they could snatch her, haul her in for the reward, and take whatever she had on her. It was getting harder and harder to disappear someone these days; the city had cameras on every corner, every bridge; otherwise he’d have just taken her off the street.

The team looked at him for orders. He had to decide.

Farouk knelt by the complicated mess of red and green wires. It would be easy enough to patch up the hole and leave no trace of their operation. When they were done, she’d be just another missing person, a flyer on the wall of a bus stop, a photo on the back of a Nutri carton. And they would be five hundred credits richer, more if they believed Shakes.

“’Rouk?” Wes asked.

“Say the word and we can blow the joint and be inside in fifteen seconds.”

“Think she knows we’re right above her?” Wes asked. Nat had crossed the street to enter the same building they were in; she lived in the apartment unit located directly below them.

Shakes grunted and spoke in a low tone so only Wes could hear him. “Don’t take the blood money. Snitching on border jumpers is for cowards. We’re no thieves. C’mon, boss, let’s do the job. Think of what we could get with twenty thousand watts. A warm bath, and not just at the hostel either, but at a real hotel. The Bellagio even. The Sweet Suite.”

“It’s too risky,” Wes argued. “We can’t all die because she wants out.” It wasn’t just about the credits. He couldn’t put their lives on the line. He knew what awaited them in the black waters, and he had no desire to see if Bradley had found someone else to do that job. If he took her out there, they would be targets, vulnerable to scavengers and opportunists, if they even made it that far, if the food didn’t run out . . . “She seems like a nice kid, but . . .” He understood Shakes’s desire to help out, he really did, but the journey was too uncertain, no matter how badly they needed the watts. “Farouk, on my count—”

“Wait! Boss, hold on, hold on, hear me out!” Shakes protested.

Farouk looked up at Wes questioningly. Wes waved off the assault for now. “What is it?”

“I heard she might have the map,” Shakes whispered urgently.

Wes stared hard at Shakes. “And you’re just telling me this now ?”

His friend looked chagrined. “I know it sounds crazy, so I didn’t want to mention it earlier, but . . .” He looked around to make sure the rest of the team couldn’t hear him.

“Did she show it to you?” Wes asked. “Was it like some kind of stone or something? An opal or an emerald?”

“No. She didn’t even mention it. I was talking to Manny the other day, and he asked me if I knew what the police were looking for in Old Joe’s place when they took him. Seemed real important since they tore the place apart. Whatever it was, Manny thinks maybe she has it. He saw Joe hand her something at the casino, right before he disappeared.”

That got his attention. Like Shakes, Wes had heard that Josephus Chang had won Anaximander’s Map in a legendary card game.

The map the whole world was looking for. But there is no map, because there’s no such thing as the Blue, Wes thought. It was wishful thinking on everyone’s part. Escape to another world. Anaximander’s Map was the biggest scam in New Vegas if Wes had ever heard of one.

But Joe had insisted the map was real. The old shark was one of the best poker players in Vegas, and supposedly he’d won it from a guy who had given him a bushel of apples as proof. The genetic code for the fruit had been lost for years; there were no more apples since the Big Freeze. Wes always wondered why Joe had stuck around, why he didn’t just up and leave immediately if he had it in his possession.

So they’d gotten to Old Joe but hadn’t been able to retrieve the treasure he’d held. Now, that was something to think about. If Nat had it, she was worth much more than mere bounty money.

“How much do you think we’d get for it?” Shakes asked.

“Who knows,” said Wes.

“What do they want it for anyway?”

“Isn’t it obvious? This world is dead. If there is another world out there—with blue skies, fresh water, food— they’re going to take it. They wouldn’t even let Texas leave the union, and there’s nothing there but frozen cow dung.”

“Let’s take the map,” Shakes said. “Could solve all our problems. Keep the crew happy, keep the military off our backs.”

“I thought we weren’t thieves,” Wes said with a crafty smile.

Shakes returned it with one of his own.

“So we play the long game,” said Wes, nodding. He saw the truth in it. If he took the map, handed it to Bradley, they would have work, credits; he’d be able to run an even bigger crew, maybe set themselves up as a private security force, have a real future in Vegas. Enough begging for scraps, enough humiliation, enough of the food lines forever.

But he wasn’t a thief. If he took the map, and if the Blue was real . . . it was Santonio all over again.

Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe he was damned either way already.

And even if this blackjack dealer did have the map, Wes didn’t think she would simply hand it over. She was too smart for that . . .

The team looked to their leader.

Wes clasped his hands. Map or not, she was still asking a lot of his men. When they joined his team, he’d promised to keep them alive as best as he could. “All right. Let’s put it to a vote. We get in and take her out, collect the bounty, or we do what she wants, do the work, and get paid.”

“Heard they’ve upped it to eight hundred a head for a jumper these days,” Daran sniffed.

Zedric nodded. That made two votes for bounty.

“How d’you plan on getting across the ocean anyway?” Daran asked.

“I’ll figure it out when we get there.” Wes shrugged. He’d never been one to plan ahead. “Shakes?”

“You know what I think.”

“Two for blood, one for life. ’Rouk?” Wes asked.

“Screw it. I wanna see the black water, why not.” Farouk shrugged.

Kaboom! This was it. Sparks flew from the Acropolis stage. The sound was deafening; even the air vibrated from the force of the explosion.

“Your orders, sir,” Farouk yelled.

“We do the deal,” he said finally. “We take her where she wants to go and we all come back rich and alive.” When it came down to it, Shakes was right, trading her in for bounty money was a coward’s move. The trip would be dangerous, sure, but in the end, they needed to work, and she had the credits. And if she had the map . . . well . . . he would keep his cards close to the vest for now.

He stared Daran in the eye. “You in? Get out now if you’re not.”

Daran held his gaze, then looked away, shrugging.

Wes nodded. Daran would follow orders like a soldier. Wes had taken the brothers on his team when no one else would—he’d heard of their reputations as burnouts but he thought he could rehabilitate them into better stuff—and so far, as surly as they were, they hadn’t failed him.

The team exhaled. Shakes smiled. Farouk began dismantling the bombs.

Wes took a comb from his back pocket and smoothed his hair. “Let’s go knock on her door.”