Not for someone in witness protection. “Well, in any case. Maybe I can make it back here sometime. And maybe you’ll still be here.”
She took away her hand and his arm felt cold from its absence. “Listen, Stanley. We don’t have long, so I’m going to talk to you about something.”
“Are you sure—”
“Just listen.” She stood, partially turning away from him. “You’re being used.”
“Mother,” he said weakly.
“To some, there are many pieces on the board, and you are just one of them. You’re not a person, you’re a piece. You’re useful, but you’re disposable.”
“What do you mean by that? Disposable?”
“I don’t mean they’ll kill you. They aren’t killers. They’re always working the long game. Always the long game. And their game never stops changing, never stops evolving.”
“Are you talking about ModPol? Defense?”
“Defense, Justice, all of ModPol, all the rest,” she said. “Anyone who is securing their position in this galaxy. Because it’s not as safe a place as the domers would like to believe.”
“Yeah, no shit.” Runstom’s head was still thick, but it had lightened enough for him to stand, using the wall to brace himself.
She turned to him. “X is different.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “X. I don’t want to hear about X. He should be in prison for life.”
“Mark Xavier Phonson is good at the game, but only out of necessity. He runs on survival instinct. Through raw coldness and manipulation – and pure luck – he is still out there. Doing what it takes to stay alive.”
“He’s a real scumbag,” Runstom said, feeling his lip curl up as he said it.
“He’s probably afraid of you.”
“That’s good.”
“No, it’s not good.” He opened his eyes as he felt her touch again on his arm. She drew close. “Fear breeds desperation. And when men like X become desperate, blood spills. That cop – McManus? You knew him?”
“Jared McManus. We used to work together. He was on B-4 with me. First day on the murder scene.”
She nodded. “He was probably supposed to kill you both. That’s how X would want it done. But he’s still a cop, that McManus. He’s no killer.”
“So he’ll drag Jax to some ModPol outpost.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and looking down. Like she was disappointed something wasn’t getting through to Runstom. “He’s under X’s thumb, that’s why he came all the way out here. He’ll take Jax directly to X, most likely. Someplace secret.”
“Damn it.” With a groan, he pushed himself away from the wall. “I need to move.”
She walked him to the bridge, which was an arduous journey since they had to go up the stairs. He cursed the over-fashionable ship for the millionth time. They could have put a lift down the middle of the thing, but no doubt the designers thought a lift would have sullied their vision or some goddamn thing. The twisting stairwell wound around an open space through the middle large enough to float through easily when there was no gravity. But when there was gravity, the winding of the stairs made the trip up them four times longer than it needed to be.
After she’d deposited him into a chair in front of terminal, she reached over him and tapped at the interface. “This is the tracking protocol. The drone is small and low power, but the radio waves will travel through space easily. But only at the speed of light, mind you. It won’t do you much good until you get close enough.”
“And he won’t notice his ship is sending out a beacon?”
“It’ll blend in with engine noise. The beacon is randomized to further obscure it. It’ll pulse only once every few minutes.”
He frowned. “That doesn’t sound easy.”
“Just use the protocol and your sensors will pick it up.” She reached over again and tapped some more. “Here, I’m making you a copy of it in case you need it.”
She ejected a tiny disk from some unseen port when she was done and gave it to him. “Alright,” he said. “If he’s got an intersystem ship, he’s going to Xarp off as soon as he breaks gravity.”
“I suppose that means you want me off your ship.”
He looked up at her to see a wry smile. He tried to return it, but her words from earlier resurfaced. He was being used. A disposable piece in a game.
“I don’t want to be used,” he said.
“And what do you want?”
He turned the question around in his head. “I guess I want to be useful.”
Her smile faded and she put a hand on his shoulder. “Useful people get used, Stanley.” She squeezed him briefly, then turned quickly and headed for the door to the main hatch. “I know I don’t show it, but you’re everything to me, Stanley.” She spoke without turning back to look at him. “So be careful out there.”
He mumbled assent, and then she was gone. He watched one of the terminal screens that showed the hatch opening and then closing. The dock’s magnetic locks had released.
He flexed his fingers trying to worry away the numbing residual effects of the stunner. A hollow emptiness burned through his stomach.
He could only do what he needed to do.
*
Jax had tried to reason with the cop on the shuttle ride up, but even when using the autopilot, he was so skittish that Jax figured he’d better not distract him or they’d be smashed to pieces on their way to the main ModPol ship. He remembered hearing McManus say that he had a pilot with him, but that pilot was busy keeping the ship in orbit, leaving McManus to handle the shuttle himself. Finally, they managed to dock with only minor bumps accompanied by a groaning crack, and then Jax was being hauled out of the shuttle with dizzying alacrity. As always, the transition to a nearly null gravity environment disoriented the hell out of him. He’d never get used to it.
“I don’t know why you people just can’t let me be,” he said finally as his captor closed up the shuttle and jabbed at a console. “You know I’m not a criminal.”
“Oh, I know.” The response came with a mirthless chuckle. “I’ve heard this song before.”
“Sergeant McManus, right?” Jax said as the cop came back from his bout with the wall-mounted computer system. “What is this, like some kind of career move for you? To be the cop that brings in a wrongfully accused citizen? For the crime of being afraid and running for his life?”
McManus grabbed Jax by the arm and tugged him across the tiny shuttle hangar. “I wish.”
“What does that mean?”
He ignored Jax and slid open a door that led to a narrow chamber. Jax could see sleeping tubes beyond it, similar to the one he’d been locked inside the first time McManus captured him.
“What does that mean?” he repeated, doing his best to pull back. The small resistance was equaled by a small tightening of the bonds around his wrists.
McManus shot him a glare and then pulled him toward the door. “Just shut up so I can get you into a stasis pod.”
“What’s going to happen?” Jax said. “They’re going to give me a trial and find me innocent. They’re going to just let me go, right?”
“If you believe that, then why do you keep running?”