Chapter 1
“So that’s it, then,” I said, my mind already three steps ahead even as the call ended, and my gaze swept over the little pickpocket on the sidewalk ahead of us.
A glance at Knife to my right indicated he saw her as well, and I smirked. Jeppsit 5 was a hodgepodge planet full of criminals and thieves, prideful Shinterrans and humans, and two law enforcement entities: the Hostile Recovery Corps of InterGalactic Mining Corporation, and the Shinterran’s elite policing force, Compliance Patrol.
In Vanzee City, HRC had some authority, so Knife and I were within our rights if we decided to teach the little bandit a lesson.
Without breaking pace, we watched as the sly street urchin snaked between pedestrians on the wide thoroughfare ahead of us and slipped her hand into a gaping coat pocket, extracting a slim pocketbook and sliding it into her shirt. The owner of the coat remained oblivious, as did her next two marks.
When Knife elbowed my side, I knew we’d waited long enough. Adopting a brisker pace, we’d almost caught up to the tall Shinterran in a long black coat who the urchin shadowed.
She reached her hand forward two times before drawing it back, second-guessing herself.
I would, too, if the huge Shinterran was my intended target.
Before we could grasp her shoulder, the child darted her hand into the coat’s side pocket, and just as quickly, the Shinterran’s large hand shot out and gripped the child’s wrist.
When they stopped walking, we did as well, and I watched as the entity known as The Enforcer turned to face the child and bent low to stare into her startled eyes.
“You picked the wrong pocket,” he growled, and without thinking, I stepped forward and placed my hand on her thin shoulder, her bones sharp under my palm.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a booming voice, intentionally drawing attention from passersby.
The Enforcer scowled at me but released the child’s wrist.
“I paid her to pull a prank on you,” I said with a wink and wide smile. “But I can see it was in poor taste. Give the nice man his pocketbook,” I said, turning my attention to the waif’s large brown eyes. She’d mastered the look of a hungry, innocent child, but I managed to spy the mischievous twinkle before she suppressed it. When I raised a brow and squeezed her shoulder with slight pressure, she looked down and handed the wallet to the Shinterran, her dirty blonde top knot bobbing as she did so. Was she secretly laughing?
He snatched it up with a grunt and slid it into the inside breast pocket of his coat. Then he turned his full attention to me, casting a glance at Knife before speaking.
“Meet me at the hangar tomorrow when the rains come,” he said, and my surprise elicited a low chuckle from the man I thought was a possible enemy of the HRC. “There is much to learn.”
Then he disappeared into a crowd exiting the Shinterran restaurant ahead, leaving us with the child squirming under my firm grip. Squatting down, I met her flinty stare with one of my own until she settled. “Don’t run.”
“You’re not my guardian,” she said, but she didn’t run, a small miracle.
Unable to resist the compulsion, I licked my thumb and wiped at the smudge of dirt on her cheek, mimicking generations of mom spit baths as my own mother had done to me once upon a time.
“You’re correct,” I said with a solemn nod. “But do you even need one?”
My question surprised her, judging by her wrinkled brow. If I had to guess, she was working out how best to respond. Growing up on the streets, you had to tailor your interactions with others based on risk assessment. How should I respond in order to maximize my chances of survival? It was almost like looking into a mirror.
“I’m only nine,” she said, once again surprising me. She didn’t look away, increasing the likelihood that she spoke the truth. Though even at the tender age of nine, she could have mastered the art of lying without a tell.
“But you take care of someone else,” I said, still in a squat but with my hands clasped together, elbows resting on my knees.
She lifted her chin a millimeter but didn’t respond. I waited.
“How can you tell?” she asked, and then looked up at Knife standing behind me. Her eyes widened a fraction, but she turned her attention back to me.
“Because you’re too skinny,” I said. “You’ve stolen enough wallets in the last five minutes to have gotten enough credits for more than one decent meal. No one noticed a thing until him ,” I said, gesturing with my head. “If you were working for the Jepps, you’d be covered in bruises from head to toe. If you were working for yourself, you’d be better fed.”
Her eyes narrowed, but I saw the instant a tear pooled in one of them.
“You’re giving almost everything to someone else, but they’re not forcing you to,” I said.
I saw her shoulders rise as she took a deep breath, and then she wiped her eye in a blur of motion. The tear was gone, and her rock-steady gaze met mine.
“That’s none of your business, and I’ll thank you to leave me alone,” she said, her quiet voice rising as a crowd of tittering women neared.
“It’s time to go,” Knife said, his deep voice a growl. The girl winced, and I cocked my head at her.
“Give us what you stole,” I said, showing her my HRC tag, the emblem sewn into my sleeve doubling as my official ID for Jeppsit 5 business.
She stood her ground with that stubborn expression until Knife folded his huge arms, the sleeve fabric straining. When she glanced up at him, she untucked her shirt and let the wallets and change purses drop to the ground.
“Fuck you very much,” she said with a small bow and then turned on her heel and ran up the street, slipping between pedestrians until she was out of sight.
Gathering up the stolen items, I stood with a shake of my head.
“You grew up on the streets?” Knife said, and if I wasn’t mistaken, his hard voice had softened at the question.
I grunted and phoned in our report. Compliance would send a unit to collect and distribute the recovered property to the right people.
Knife stared at me with his cold dark eyes until I scoffed.
“Fine, yes,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”
He shrugged and unfolded his arms, looking ahead to where both the Enforcer and the street urchin had ventured.
“What do you make of him?” he asked.
“Boy Scout said he had an update about him the other day, but I was involved in getting the recruits situated,” I said, thinking about our teammate and the wild goose chase he’d led us on last week when our division was called in to hunt him down. He and the woman who’d hired him for some side work, to be accurate. We hadn’t planned to arrest him as had been commanded, but we sure as hell had been going to make it look authentic. But the bastard had gotten the better of us anyway.
“Guess we’ll find out tomorrow when the rains come,” Knife said and started walking.
The Compliance Patrol unit arrived, and I placed the items into the robot’s cargo bin, snapping the lid shut with a click.
“Why’d you let the kid go?” Knife asked when I caught up to him. “Vanzee City takes pretty good care of the juvenile delinquents from what I’ve seen.”
I thought about the care centers I’d had dealings with on this planet, and Knife was right—up to a point. The kids were clean and well-fed. But they were also subjected to a lot of Shinterran religious doctrine masked as morality teachings. A few visits to the place when we’d dropped off the occasional petty thief had shown kids with dead eyes or barely concealed anger.
“There’s a big difference between care and love,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. The door to our chosen lunch spot jingled when I opened it and strode in, the host dipping her head and gesturing to our usual table.