He nodded, seeing only truth in her eyes. She’d come here with two thugs to… what? Persuade him to stick to the targets she wanted? Or simply to kill him? Had she come because she was the only employee of his nominal patron who had seen his face, and the thugs needed to be sure they’d killed the right man?

It didn’t matter, he realised. If he let her walk away then she would surely come for him again, at some point, and next time she wouldn’t bring just two men with her. She’d sorely underestimated him, and wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

He’d always known that he’d have to go rogue at some point.

He covered her mouth with his hand again, and plunged his knife into the top of her skull. She went limp instantly.

Radimir looked down at himself. There was blood on him again. He’d paid rent up until the end of the local month, which was still some twenty days away. The best-case scenario was that Kell was acting largely independently and had come to deal with her own contractor to avoid losing face with her superior, without telling others of where she was going or how she’d kept track of him, and no one would find her body until the landlord came to chase up the next payment. The worst-case scenario was that this apartment was under surveillance and another, greater force was even now moving in on him, perhaps summoned by the flatlining of a bio-monitor. The middle-case, and probably the most likely, was that Kell’s failure to check in would be noted after a matter of hours, not immediately. If Radimir tried to flee straight away then a cyber-mastiff or sharp-eyed proctor on patrol might well notice the blood on him, and his problems would only increase.

Play the percentages. Don’t panic. Clean himself up the best he could with the facilities here, abandon the apartment, start again. There was no way to move the bodies without being noticed, and dragging them through the darkness with him to dump them somewhere else nearby would exhaust him – he’d had to do that with the third Brobantis Navigator, and the effort had nearly floored him. Besides, he couldn’t spare the time to clean the apartment, and he didn’t have the materials. If they were found, they were found.

His goal wasn’t easy. It had never been easy, and it would only get harder from here. But it was possible, and it was getting closer. He had to hold on to that fact.

He had to have faith.

Applying Pressure

Applying Pressure

‘…and in conclusion, he calls us leaderless, rudderless and spineless!’ Vittariel snarled. He drew back his arm to hurl the data-slate at the wall, but Chetta managed to pluck it out of his hand before he could do so.