The Nexus Series: Books 1-3 (3 page)

For now.

4

COREY
Stone stepped into the Retro, a seedy café in a less-than-reputable area along
the south rim.  The evening crowd was already gathering, especially around
the bar.  There was a haze of cigarette smoke dimming everything but the
neon beer signs.  This was the second time Corey had met someone here on
business.

But this time it
was for a totally different purpose.

He didn’t like
coming to the same place, but the guy he was meeting—Mr. Love, he had called
himself—had picked the location.  Corey hadn’t argued.  He’d just
asked for a description.  “You’ll know me when you see me,” was all Mr.
Love had said.

Corey started
looking around the place.  Maybe he would know Mr. Love if he saw him, but
you couldn’t see much of anyone through the smoke.  Even the obnoxious
juke box, like the old fashioned ones they used to have back on the Home
Planet, seemed to impair his vision.

Wait, that had to
be him.  It was a big guy sitting by himself in a corner booth.  Mr.
Love had fairly dark skin—must have had some African or African-American
heritage, like Corey’s.  He had no hair.  What he did have was
tattoos.  Lots of tattoos.  All Mr. Love’s tattoos involved hearts,
including a prominent one on his bared right shoulder with the traditional
arrow and “Mom” insignia.

Corey stepped
over to the booth.  “You’re...?”

“You must be
Fredericks,” said the man.  His smile pushed its way up half his face.

“That’s
me.”  Fredericks was an alias Corey had used as an errander.  Corey
wasn’t an errander anymore, but Mr. Love thought he was.

“Pleasure.” 
Mr. Love offered a meaty hand.  There were hearts tattooed on each
knuckle.

Corey sat down
across from him.  “So, you...you know, you can hook me up?”

Mr. Love laughed
a wheezy laugh and threw back a swig from his immense mug of beer. 
“Embarrassed!  They’re always embarrassed when they come to me,
ain’t
they?”  He had another laugh and another swig.

“A little,” Corey
admitted.

“Don’t be, kid.”
 He leaned close.  “Sure, the little business I run is technically
illegal.  But you and I both know it shouldn’t be.”

Mr. Love’s
“business” was selling movies—bootlegged movies from Earth.  They had to
be bootlegged because they’d been banned by the Commission for the Monitoring
of Visual and Literary Arts, one of Anterra’s most despised government
groups.  The list of banned films was about as long as the dictionary, and
growing all the time.  The CMVLA had the legal right to ban “any film
containing messages or agendas threatening to the societal structure of
Anterra,” which could mean just about anything.

“Sad times we
live in,” Mr. Love said, putting on his best distraught face, “when guys like
me
gotta
stay underground.  This town was
supposed to be so great.  Next thing you know the whole place is overrun
with thugs
shootin
’ each other,
robbin
’
people blind, and the cops don’t say boo.  But here’s me,
gotta
keep everything on the down low for
doin
’
somethin
’ that don’t cause
nobody no harm.”

“So why do you do
it?”

Mr. Love
responded with a very well-rehearsed speech about artistic freedom, the right
of self-expression, blah
blah
blah
. 
He sounded like one of the people that were always protesting out in front of
the CMVLA offices.  Mr. Love didn’t strike Corey as a guy who thought much
about artistic expression; he struck him more as a guy who just wanted to make
some dough.  But Corey wasn’t saying so.

Mr. Love drained
his beer and rudely beckoned a waitress for another before he continued his
tirade.  “Anterra’s a weird place, you know, kid?  I mean, it’s not
like we’re known for being the most morally upstanding city.  Drugs that’s
illegal in most Earthside nations is perfectly legal up here.  And we’re
selling alcohol to teenagers now.  So what’s with me
havin
’
to keep out o’ sight
sellin
’ a few Hollywood
classics?”

Corey didn’t
answer.  “So did you bring the goods, or what?”

“Not here,” said
Mr. Love.  “Not now.”  He slid a business card across the table to
Corey.  It said, “Mr. Love’s House of Rare Videos.  Open every night
12 a.m. to 4 a.m.”

There was no
phone number; just an address.

Corey took the
card.  “I used to have a guy in the West Rim that I went to.  He got
caught.  The next guy I found got caught before we could even do any
business.  How do I know you won’t get caught too?”

Mr. Love raised
an eyebrow.  “You’ll just have to trust me, right?”  He drained his
second beer and stood to leave.  “We’re done here, Fredericks.  Got
three other potential clients to see before I open up shop tonight.  Come
by if you
wanna
.”

“I’ll be there,”
said Corey.

He smiled to
himself after Mr. Love had walked away.

A
few minutes later Corey was driving a sleek black
groundcar
along the eastern shore of Lake Anterra.  The massive power plant
dominated the scenery here.  The rest of the district was lined with
blocky warehouses.  The night was calm.  The mirror-smooth water
reflected the towers of downtown on the other side of the lake to his left. 
To his right, the glow of Earth shone in the sky between the buildings. 
It had been two hours since the sun set below Anterra’s western edge.  But
it still shone on most of the Home Planet visible from MS9.

Corey turned down
a side street, then into an alcove behind an abandoned warehouse.  Over a
high garage door the words PETE’S FISH CANNERY were fading on the concrete
wall.  A button on the car’s console opened the garage.  He drove
into the warehouse.

It was a vast
room, empty except for piles of ancient forgotten crates and pallets.  A
few faintly glowing lights hung from long wires in the ceiling, automatically
switched on via motion sensors.

Corey drove to
the corner behind a stack of crates and parked on a particular square of
stained cement floor.  He punched a code on a keypad on his car’s
dashboard.

The square
started lowering.

When he’d dropped
twenty feet or so, a black opening gaped in front of the car.  He hit the
accelerator and roared into the tunnel beneath Lake Anterra.

WHEN
he stepped into HQ a few minutes later, he smiled.  Corey always smiled
whenever he got back to HQ.  This past year was the first in his eighteen
years of life that he’d had much to smile about, and this place was the
reason.  He looked down the stairs at the rows of cubicles, the bluish
glow of computer consoles, the bustle of his superiors and coworkers.

Instead of going
downstairs he circled the cement balcony overlooking the vast room.  He
kept his eyes open for the director, but Giles Holiday was nowhere to be seen.

“Corey! 
Hey, Cor!”  A girl with short, wild hair and more piercings than ten
average people was running up the nearest stairway to where he stood on the
balcony.

“What’s up,
Dizzie?”

She
frowned.  That was bad news.  Dizzie didn’t frown much.  It took
a lot to even slow her smile down to a relative smirk.  “Did you see the
mission roster for tonight?”

Corey shook his
head.  “Don’t tell me—”

She told
him.  “Park is going with you.”

Great.
 Bradley Park—exactly who he didn’t want her to say but figured she
would.  “Okay,” he said levelly.

Dizzie’s frown
lengthened.  “Learn to show your emotions, Cor.  You bottle them up
like that, one day they’ll bust out of you like Mount Vesuvius or something.”

“What am I
supposed to do, throw a hissy fit right here in HQ?”

“No.”  She
wrinkled her nose.  “You could at least, you know, sigh exasperatedly or
something.”

He sighed
exasperatedly.  “How was that?”

“Weak, but you’ll
get there.  I don’t see why you’re not more upset.”

“Your goal was to
upset me?”

“No, I
just...Well, don’t you hate that guy?”

“Bradley? 
We don’t get along very well.”

“Ah.  Don’t
get along very well.  I see.”

“Look, if there
was no one else available, there was no one else available.”

Dizzie cleared
her throat.  “Um, I don’t think it’s because there was no one else
available.”

Corey
grimaced.  “So the director is testing how well we’ll work together, is
he?”

“Guess so.”

This time Corey’s
exasperated sigh was sincere.  “But this is an important mission!” 
Then again, the director always seemed interested in much more than just the
mission.

“I know. 
Talk to him about it if you want.  He’s up in his office.  You got
the location, right?”

Corey patted his
pocket where he’d tucked Mr. Love’s business card.  “Got it.”  He
didn’t need to look at it again.  He had the address memorized.  But
the card itself would be an important piece of evidence.  “See you,
Diz.  You’re running com tonight?”

“Yep.”  She
rolled her eyes.  “I get to spend all night listening to you and Park
bickering at each other.”

She went back
down to her cubicle, and Corey kept circling the balcony toward the director’s
office.  It had a wall of windows overlooking HQ, but they were shuttered
at the moment.  Corey knocked and got invited inside the rear door of the
office.  Director Holiday was at his desk.  His computer was on, and
papers were strewn in front of him.  But he looked as if he hadn’t been
paying attention to anything but his thoughts.

“Ah, Corey. 
How did you get on?”

“Got the
address.”

“Right. 
Afraid I have some bad news.  At least, you’ll think it’s bad.”

“Dizzie already
told me.  Bradley is going with me tonight.”

“And I’ll be
keeping a very close eye on you both.”

“Good.  Then
you’ll see how obnoxious he is.”

“He?  What
about you?”

Corey
blinked.  “Sir, I follow your orders to the letter.  I always have.”

“And you’ve
always tried to make sure others do the same.”

Corey’s
expression tightened.  “Is that a bad thing?  We have orders for a
reason.  If we’re not interested in following them, our department may as
well not exist.”

The director
softened.  “I admire your loyalty, Corey.  We’re very dependent on
your devotion to doing your job and doing it well.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’ve learned
the importance of following orders.  But in time you’ll have to realize
something else as well.”

“Sir?”

The director’s
steel-gray eyes took Corey in an intense stare as he answered:  “People
are more important than orders.  Now, I know Bradley Park can be a bit
cavalier—”

“Cavalier? 
Last time he was on a mission he changed the entire plan on the fly.”

“And it worked.”

Corey shuffled
his feet.  “Well, yeah...”

“We’re a team,
Corey.  Different parts of the team have different strengths.  Your
strength is your loyalty.  Bradley’s strength is innovation.”

“You call direct
disobedience ‘innovation’?”

“Calm yourself,
Corey.  Bradley was disciplined for his actions as you well know. 
His one-month suspension from participating in any mission is over as of
tonight.”

Corey
sighed.  “Figures his first mission back would be with me.”

“It’s no
accident, as I’m sure you’re aware.  He will be a permanent part of the
new team I’m assembling around you.  You see, there’s another strength of
yours that we’d like to cultivate: your leadership ability.”

Corey tried to
shrug modestly.  He wasn’t much at taking criticism, but he may have been
even worse at taking credit.

“People follow
you, Corey,” the director went on.  “Even when you don’t try to lead them,
they follow you.  It’s in your blood to help others become the best they
can be—even others who seem like they’ll never reach their potential.  I
realize Bradley Park is something of a loose cannon at times.  That’s why
I want him with you.  You can help curb those impetuous notions of his.”

“I’ll try to,
sir.”

“But,” Director
Holiday added, “we can’t have you overreacting.  I want you channeling his
energies, not suppressing them.  Understood?”

Corey tried to
push away his reluctance.  “Yes, sir.  If this is the assignment
you’ve chosen for me, I accept it.”

“Try to remember
Bradley is a person, not an assignment.  Besides, you’re going to have to
get used to this sort of thing, you know.”

“What do you
mean?”

“We’re looking
for more recruits like Bradley.  Our department has shown itself to be a
little soft.  Effective, but soft.  We need more—how shall I put
it?—more of a free spirit on this team.  More daring. 
More...recklessness, if I may say so.  It’s a risky element to bring to
the department, I’ll admit.  Risky, but necessary.  We’re working on
it right now.”

“You found Jill
Branch,” Corey concluded.

“We did.”

“And...?”

“She’s thinking
things over.”

“I see.  I
hope she’ll make the right choice, sir.”

“Yes,” said
Holiday, eyes drifting thoughtfully into the distance.  “I hope so too.”

WHEN
he left the director’s office, Corey’s plan was to visit Bradley Park’s
room.  It couldn’t hurt to talk things over before the mission and try to
get on the same page.  He went down the stairs from the front of Holiday’s
office to the elevator lobby, and crossed the blue carpet.

He paused in
front of the hallway to the dorms.

So they were
looking for more of a free spirit, were they?  They liked Bradley’s
innovation, did they?