Chapter 282: A Very Quiet Performance Review

Cora unlocked the door because the gun was pointed at her, and I refused to make her life depend on guessing how brave I felt. I drifted out slowly with my fins folded, giving the guard the obedient delivery he appeared to have ordered.

"If your employer wanted a meeting, mate, there were cheaper ways to book one than threatening a woman who charges by the minute," I told him. He pressed the gun against my head and ordered Cora to drive away without looking back.

She obeyed the part about leaving, which was the only outcome I wanted from her. Once the taxi cleared the narrow entrance, the guard shoved me towards the drainage shed beside the road, keeping his body between me and the nearest traffic camera.

He had planned that much, then. The thought made my temper settle into something colder than the urge to bite the pistol, because I had spent enough time around improvised cruelty to recognise somebody who preferred preparation.

Inside the shed, he demanded the freight tag and any copies I had made. I told him the information was already with the authorities, which earned me a hard strike across the side of my head and the cheerful assurance that people could still forget things.

[System: He booked the murder shed and brought a backup knife, mate. I’d cancel the guided tour before this dickhead starts explaining where the last visitor ended up.]

Keep track of that second hand, because I’m fairly sure he didn’t bring me here for a bloody handshake. Galaxy Brain tracked both wrists while I loosened into smoke around the pistol, slipped beneath it and became solid against his forearm before he could follow.

His next shot struck the shed wall, throwing fragments across my fins. I drove him backwards against the empty tool rack and took the gun away with a tendril, but he reached for a second blade instead of taking the opportunity to stop.

I remembered Orin bent beneath the depot guard’s raised baton, trying to protect papers the man intended to burn. The memory did not make what I did next necessary, but it made it something I wanted badly enough not to pretend otherwise.

When he lunged, I caught his knife arm and struck beneath his ribs with a solid edge. He fell against the rack with a shocked little breath, and I stayed close until he stopped reaching for the weapon lying between us.

There was no reward panel for making him dead. I searched only for the information that had brought him here, finding a payment slip with the same harbour dock number and a message telling him to collect the freight tag before its owner reached the water.

Two men who won’t hurt anybody else, and somehow I still don’t feel like the person who should give speeches about it. Old Mate let the thought sit for a moment before replying, which I appreciated more than another joke would have deserved.

[System: Then don’t give the speech, champ. Help who you’re helping, remember what you chose, and stop expecting every ugly decision to come with a clean little sticker saying good bloke.]

I left the shed through its rear vent and came out beside the service channel, away from the road. Nobody watched me leave, but I did not confuse being unseen with erasing a body or making the choice belong to somebody else.

Cora answered when I called. She had reached the public checkpoint and reported the gunman, so I told her I was clear of him and asked whether she needed anything before I worried about my interrupted travel plans.

"Pay the fare, Matt, and next time try a fucking helicopter," she said, with the steady voice of somebody saving the shaking for later. I paid both the fare and the cleaning reserve she had quoted, then told her I was glad she was safe without adding a joke she would have to pretend to enjoy.

I sent Rook the shed location and the payment slip, saying the guard had attacked me. The rest would become a statement when I returned, and I knew exactly which parts I would be tempted to leave out before anybody asked for them.

Lyra received my check-in at the promised time. I told her the follower had tried an ambush, that the driver was safe and that I was continuing by the service channel, giving her enough truth to make her own decision about how worried to be.

She asked whether I needed to come home. "Not yet, love, but hearing you ask helps more than I’d like the next bastard to know," I told her, and she made me repeat the location before letting me end the call.

I washed the blood from my scales at a public service tap and checked the dressing before moving on. The knife scrape had opened a little, enough to sting but not enough to justify inventing a miraculous recovery later. I replaced the loose tape with what Bridget had packed and felt worse about how useful her care had become.

Pike confirmed the service channel avoided the militia checkpoints. I thanked him and opened Cherry’s lunch on a warm maintenance housing, finding enough vegetables to suggest she’d mistaken me for a rabbit with a criminal record. I ate them anyway and sent her a picture of the empty container.

Below the escarpment, a small cargo shuttle moved through the water with its glass passenger section partly submerged. I almost ignored it until the rear hatch opened and several aquatic passengers crowded towards the front, their movements sharp with panic.

A second boat had locked a tow cable to the shuttle and was pulling it towards a dry service ramp. One of the passengers pressed both hands against the glass while the water level inside began dropping, leaving the gills along her neck exposed.

I could breathe underwater, fly and complain about interruptions with unusual commitment. None of those abilities gave me an excuse to watch people drown in air, so I dropped towards the shuttle as the tow boat’s crew started hauling it out of the channel.