-1-

Luce

I sometimes forget the Sprawl can look like this.

More than the light and noise polluted streets of the Inner Sprawl. More than the West Strip with its crumbling pre-war casinos.

Every block in this section of the city are boxy glass high rises with names like 22 On Red, Dime Club and The High Stake. High speed buses run so quietly on the mag-lev tracks they have to emit a pinging noise so pedestrians can hear them coming.  

This neighborhood was nice. Quaint. Quiet.

It was a bad place to pick up a mark.

Isla Haley lived in Royal Flush Gardens, a row of luxury brick townhomes. There is a parking space right in front of her door but I park on the corner so she doesn’t see me coming. The Mercedes was nicer than most of the cars on the street but blended in well enough.

I get out of the Mercedes and start walking. a man walking his dog tips his head at me in greeting and I return it. If only that guy knew what I was about to do and how much I didn’t belong in this neighborhood.

I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to be doing this. But this was the job. This was the test and I was going to pass.

My brother, Rias Washington, told me Alex was with a private client so at least I knew he wasn’t going to be here to witness me taking his sister away. It would give me a chance to come up with an explanation.

The front door of Isla’s townhouse is covered with flower boxes filled with dead marigolds. The flies are having a field day.

The smell of something cooking is coming through the door—something rich and savory.

I knock loudly.

“Who is it ?,” Isla shouts through the door.

“Open up.”

Isla opens the door in silk robe over a tank top and floral pajama pants. She’s not wearing a bra. Her feet are bare and she looks so normal. So harmless.

“Awww, are you that lovesick ?,” she smiles, her voice syrupy.

“I’m—I--W-what the fuck does that mean ?” I'm suddenly angry that she said something I didn’t have a response ready for.

I’m about to get back on script when I glimpse Alex sitting at Isla’s kitchen table in a loose  lavender sweatshirt that went to his wrist and long cargo pants. His hair is twisted back and he looks so different from how I see him when we’re in the Sprawl. So innocent.

I’m surprised to see him here.

And then I’m pissed.

Rias fucking lied to me.

Everyone who owed the cartel a debt was heavily monitored. Rias knew Alex would be here to witness me do this.

Rias always did shit like this to me.  He’d come up with little things that he knew would piss me off and then feign innocence when I couldn’t take it anymore and went off on him. It made me look temperamental.  Like I was too emotional to be in the cartel.

But I wouldn’t break.

Alex pads to the door. “Luce, what are you doing here ?”

He’s smiling at me. He’s happy to see me. He must have no fucking clue.

I hadn’t seen him in a few weeks, I’d been busy and this was not how I wanted our reunion to go.

I ignore him, I have to.

“Isla, the Shy Cartel would like to take you in for questioning. Put some shoes on. Maybe bring something to do…you may be gone awhile.”

“What ? Luce, no,” Alex frowns. He’s heard my stories and knows what I’m really telling her. He knows that “taking you in for questioning” is a euphemism for holding you without consent for as long as the cartel wants.

“What is going on ?,” Isla demands.

“He’s kidnapping you.” Alex turns to me. “Why, Luce ?”

“What ? Fuck you!,” Isla shouts. “I’m not going anywhere--”

I keep my voice still. I don't want to make a scene in this neighborhood. I can’t deal with blueboys right now. “Please.” 

She goes to close the door in my face but I put my hand on the door, using my cybernetics to disengage the nano locking mechanisms.

Isla’s too heavy for me to carry so I put her in a hold, locking her arms behind her back.

Alex starts towards us. “Luce, you can’t--”

“Isla, you’re being questioned for your involvement in the murder of Linz Sharpe."

“Are you fucking kidding me ? You can’t just take me ! You’re not the police! You think I killed Linz ?” She struggles against my hold as I guide her out the door.

Normally when people tell me I’m not the police I tell them that by the time the cartel is done with them they’ll wish I was the police. 

But I don’t this time.

“Luce, have you lost your mind ?,” Alex says, following close behind. “Isla would never kill anyone, let her go!”

“Tell that to the family of Ella Giovanni. Her other victim.”

At the mention of that name Isla goes slack and stops fighting me.

Alex only looks more pissed. “Other victim ? What are you talking about--.”

“Whatever,” Isla snaps. “Just take me. It’s fine. I’ll go with him and clear this up.”

“No,” Alex counters. I open the  Mercedes door and Isla robotically gets inside. “This is crazy. I’m coming too.”

“You can’t come where I’m taking her.” I slide into the car and lock the doors.

“Luce, you can’t do this,” he begs his fingers in the window. “Isla’s not in the cartel! Stop treating her like your mark. She didn’t do anything, you know that.”

“I’m just taking her in for questioning.”

“No you aren’t.” He locks eyes with his sister. “People who get taken in for questioning  by the cartel always seem to mysteriously disappear.”

Isla doesn’t say anything, she just looks down and I can tell her brain is spinning.

“I’m sorry-,” I offer.

“Luce, tell me what’s going on--”

I didn’t like seeing him unhappy. I want to reassure him.

I want to put my hand on the back of his neck, kiss him gently and tell him it’s going to be okay and to trust me.

But I’m not that guy.

All I can do is roll up the car window and get the fuck out of there. The look on his face in the rear view mirror is one of pure betrayal.

***

 

Halfway to our destination Isla starts bawling.

I put up the soundproof separator.

She must know where we are going the minute we leave the Sprawl and enter the small desert city of Mojave. When we get to the Hydra building, the cartel's unofficial headquarters, I blindfold her, drive around the block a few times and then escort her down to the basement of the Hydra where some Washington back in the day had thought to build a small prison.

The Shy Cartel prison population currently contained a few political prisoners and cartel members who’d been caught leaking to the Federation. For all his bolster, Zacharias wasn’t the killing type and the basement prison had gotten quite crowded this year.

I leave Isla in one of the cells, a windowless bedroom that locks from the outside. I try to apologize for all this but she is defiantly quiet.

I'm keyed up and need to burn some energy so I run up the 41 flights to Hydra's penthouse.

The penthouse  has two entranced—one  leads to the living room of the loft I share with Rias and our mother and the other is a secure door that leads directly to Rias’s home office. 

I hack into the door that leads directly into Rias’s office.

It’s been a year since Rias's father died and left all this cartel shit to 19-year-old Rias. Despite all  his efforts he still looks uncomfortable behind the desk. Minnow Dory hovers over Rias in a dress that looks like it’s cutting off circulation to her thighs.

 Rias jumps when I open the door but Minnow just glares at me. Her hand moves up her dress, reaching for the pistol holstered to her inner thigh.

“God, Luce, you know you are not supposed to use that door!,” Minnow snaps.

I project the live feed of Isla Haley in  the cell for them to see. Isla is sitting in the armchair in the corner of the cell, crying with her head in her hands. Most people I brought in were pissed or silently plotting for the first day or so. She looked genuinely upset.

“Happy ?,” I ask them.

“Happy ?," Minnow spits. Rias may be the leader of the cartel but Minnow pulled all the strings. She'd been Rayne's assistant for almost 20 years and had her hands in everything. "That crazy bitch stabbed one of Jean's escorts to death.”

“And you,” I say slamming my hands on Rias’s desk. He jumps again. “You lied to me. You knew Alex would be there when I went to bring Isla in.”

The armed guard in the corner of the room steps closer with his hand on his rifle. I step back because I know Rias' guards are trigger happy motherfuckers.

“So what if Alex was there?,” Minnow says and then switches to the high pitched voice that makes me want to punch her in the face. “You did your job and got to see your little crush--”

“Shut the fuck up,” I spit at Minnow.

Her eyes narrow. “Watch it--”

“Or what ?” 

She’d been threatening to kick me out of the cartel since Rayne dropped dead and she got her claws in Rias. But she couldn’t do it. They needed me. I was the only enforcer they could trust. A few others had been caught defecting or switching allegiances once the regime changed. Last month a one had tried an assassination attempt.

“How long are you keeping Isla in there ?,” I ask. “She said she didn’t do it. Are you going to let her plead her case ?”

“Thank you, Luce.” Rias finally speaks up. He sounds as bored with me as he always does.

Minnow stomps over to the office door in her hideous purple shoes and opens it for me. “Bye-bye, now. Your transfer is in your account--”

“Answer my question. You owe it to Alex to let him know what is going to happen to his sister--”

Minnow gives a sharp laugh. “Yeah, we don’t owe your little boyfriend anything until he pays back the $10 million dollars he owes the cartel.” 

A soft chime sounds from Rias’s syndicate and I turn to see him projecting an image of Linz Sharpe’s body the night she was discovered in the brothel. The shapely brunette is lying on the floor at a grotesque angle in a pool of dark blood. She’s in bright pink lingerie  that shows most of the rough stab wounds on her body.

The walls are smeared with blood  and pieces of her guts. 

Rias fixes me with a look I can't decipher. “Isla Haley was the last person to visit Linz. She was seen wearing Linz's clothes. What exactly do you think we should do to someone who does something like this ?”

***

-2-

Haley

Alex Haley promised himself he wasn’t going to cry. He was going to keep it under control.

He was going to turn this frustration into anger.

Luce Grace was probably the only untraceable person in the Sprawl. All Haley knew for sure was that Luce must have taken Isla somewhere in Mojave and they were likely still in Mojave.

So that’s where he went.

Two buses and a train later he’d arrived in Mojave nearly four hours  after Isla had been abducted by Luce. He considered starting his search at The Hydra but he could see the office lights in Rias Washington’s penthouse office were on. He’d made a point to keep a distance with cartel leadership. 

He'd gotten a little behind on the payments he owed.

He changes course and goes for the convenience shop around the corner from The Hydra and takes the elevator down to Luce’s private underground garage. Luce rarely drove the same car all day. He’d come down here to change cars eventually.

Haley picks out a car with a flat hood and eases himself up on to it. He lies down against the cool metal, prepared to wait as long as it took for Luce to show up, and imagining what he’d say to him. How he’d talk Luce into letting Isla go so they could talk like adults.

Haley had known Linz Sharpe in passing. She’d joined Virtue as an escort last year and they made small talk at events. He didn't work our of Virtue, he worked out of Control--the lesser advertised part of the brothel that serviced a clientele looking for taboo experiences. Clients came to him when they wanted to create boundary pushing non-consensual scenes. They came to Linz when they wanted company and good sex.

 Nothing had ever stuck out about Linz except she’d never been a favorites. Most of the new, young, escorts  received special attention from their boss but he had all but ignored her.

It’s nearly 5 hours later when Haley hears the quiet woosh of the garage's elevator ascending to pick someone up. When it comes back down Luce steps out of the elevator with his favorite gun aimed in his direction.

“It’s me. Don’t shoot.” Haley sits up on the car with his hands in the air,

“What the hell are you doing down here ?,” Luce growls, re-holstering his weapon.

“Where did you take Isla ?”

He wasn’t used to being so direct with Luce. They’d spent the last year working out the power dynamic in their relationship and he could feel that all going out the window. Possibly forever. And it made him sad, but not as sad as losing his last living relative to cartel nonsense.

“Lex--”

“Where is Isla ? You know she didn’t kill anyone.”

“Do I ?,” Luce snaps “She was the last person to see Linz before she was found dead. She ran out of Virtue that night in Linz's clothes...Did you know your sister was convicted of murdering a woman named Ella Giovanni when she was living abroad ?”

Luce projects an image of a short news article from a New Tokyo newspaper that a foreign student pleaded guilty to the murder of her roommate and was sentenced to 30 years to life. The picture below the article was of a younger Isla.

“Are…are they going to kill her? No trial or anything ?”

 “I don’t know,” Luce admits. “Rias is more lenient but Minnie may force his hand.”

“Tell them to call the police and press charges on Isla,” Haley says. “Then Isla can get a trial…a chance to prove her innocence.”

Luce shakes his head. “That is not how the cartel works and you know it.”

“My sister is being imprisoned against her will for something she didn’t do!” he yells. “Why do you seem so okay with this ?”

“I’m not,” Luce shouts back, his voice echoing around the garage. “But that is just how it is. When someone crosses a line within the cartel we take care of it ourselves.”

“That’s not good enough. Tell Minnow and Rias if they don’t set her free I’ll leave Control.” He didn't have many bargaining chips but he was one of the underground brothel's most popular escorts.

 “You owe the cartel over 3 million dollars,” Luce remind him with a laugh.  “If you skip out on them they will kill Isla and then you. Hell, they’ll probably make me do it just to twist the knife. And I will do it.”

“Why are you being like this ? Stop acting like the cartel’s enforcer and like--like a human being.”

“Not human,” Luce snaps. “Cyborg.”

Haley hopes Luce knows the redness creeping into his face is anger and not tears. Luce was closing him off-- giving him  the glib coldness he treated everyone else with. “I don’t accept that.”

“What ?,” Luce snaps.

“Any of this,” Haley says. “I-I’ll just  find out who really killed Linz, they’ll have to let Isla go and you’ll see how wrong you are.”

“Won’t that be kind of hard for you to do with all the come in your mouth ?,”

The anger flooding Haley is suddenly replaced with shame.

And then more anger.

Luce had never shamed him about his job. It was better than Luce's job--where he left people bloodied and broken  with no questions asked. His handsome face is icy and impassive with no hint of regret for what he’d just said. Luce Grace could act like he didn’t care about people all he wanted but Haley knew he cared about things. Especially things that took his time and money.

Haley slides off the hood of the car and pops open the trunk of the car with the manual catch Luce had shown him. Inside each  car in the garage was a standard set of items Luce might need for a job. Most of them are small high tech devices but the gun silencer is a thick silver tube made of weighty metal.

“What are you--” Luce stumbles over his words as Haley smashes the blunt end of the silencer against the Ducati motorcycle Luce had just purchased and modified for his cybernetic leg.

The mirror flies across the garage, denting another car before falling into a thousand pieces of glass on the floor. Looking at the mess Haley instantly regrets it but there is no going back.

“That’s mature,” Luce responds in a calm voice but Haley catches his tell-tale eye twitch.

“I’ll never understand why you’re so loyal to the cartel.” Haley takes his bag and prepares for his exit. “I know Rias is your brother and your mother had to join but even I can see she never wanted you to join. Its pathetic that you try so hard.”

Haley pushes down his desire to apologize for ruining the motorcycle and heads for the elevator. He looks up to get one last look at Luce, who still manages to look unmoved.

“I don’t…I don’t think I ever want to see you anymore,” Haley says pressing the up button.

“I was just doing my job. What don’t you get about that ?,” Luce spits.

“Fuck you, Luce,” Haley says as the elevator doors close behind him.

---

A/N

So, I imagine this as kind of a erotic thriller urban mystery with a splash of cyberpunk.

Also, I know, I know I did the Disposable Sex Worker / Dead Hooker thing....I feel bad about that but I hope I can subvert it a little bit.