Something was definitely wrong with his hands. Striker kept flexing them, trying to get the blood to circulate, but each time he tried, it got harder to curl his fingers. He took off his glove and examined his fingertips. They looked normal enough, except perhaps they were paler than usual. Once the glove was back on, he paced around the small room.
That’s when he noticed his knees were stiff, too.
“How long did you say it took for this stuff to go into effect?” Striker asked.
Phantom looked up from the arm of the couch where he was perched beside Evie, changing a bandage on her leg.
He raised one eyebrow. “The bio-metal?”
“Yes. How long until it starts to… you know… kill me?”
“Weeks. Maybe months, even, since you won’t die until your internal organs are no longer functional. Why?”
“I don’t know, it just feels like it’s moving faster than that…” Striker muttered.
He resumed pacing, doing his best not to let his creaking knees affect his speed. The Martell girl was watching him, and he didn’t want her to see any physical effects of weakness. If anything, bio-metal should make him more powerful. He wanted her to see that.
“You could always ask Miss DiVazzo,” Phantom piped up. “She did mention she worked with the developers. Perhaps she’s smarter than you implied when you talked down to her.”
“I apologized,” Striker shot back.
“Still, you didn’t have to act so angry in front of an employer.”
“Act? That was no act. We lost men, Phantom. Yellowjacket and Zealot are both dead. Venom’s lucky he got away when he did, and Klick just ran. If we had been given the correct information in the first place, we wouldn’t have lost anyone.”
A moment of silence. Striker continued to pace, although the longer he went, the more tingling pain moved down his shins. He internally cursed at everything and everyone he could think of.
Phantom spoke again. “It’s no different than when we lost the others.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. This is… completely different. Jackknife and Asp made a stupid mistake. They acted on their own decision, and then suffered the consequences. That’s what happens when people try to be heroic.”
“Caesar and Saturn didn’t think it was a mistake,” Phantom said.
“And look what happened to them.”
“Dagger didn’t think it was a mistake.”
“What does that matter? They’ve all been gone for years. Why bring it up now?”
“You weren’t angry then.”
Striker glared. “There wasn’t time to be angry. Not like now, when we’re waiting for Lance Martell, the best detective and bounty hunter in the sector, to barge in here with guns blazing to reclaim his daughter.”
“And they’ll fall right into DiVazzo’s trap,” Phantom said. “That’s not the point. You were the one who told me I needed to keep moving when it seemed like everything had been destroyed. You and Dagger both… she stood up for us. But now that you’re the one in charge, you’re falling apart.”
“I am not falling apart,” Striker said. “I’m just pissed off. We weren’t supposed to lose people. We haven’t lost anyone since that day. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“I know. Just calm down and save it for later. We can deal with it when we’re off this ship and we can disappear again.”
Striker rubbed his forehead. “It won’t make a difference how long we wait. And besides, if we ever do make it off this ship, I still have to get this blasted bio-metal out of me before I turn into a robot. DiVazzo doesn’t seem interested in anything except her revenge. If I have a chance to stay alive, I’m sure it won’t be from her.”
Phantom sighed. “You won’t die, and she will help you once Martell is out of the picture. If I hadn’t thought we could make it work, I wouldn’t have injected you in the first place.”
Striker growled something indistinct and resumed pacing. Phantom worked in silence. It lasted for a few, golden moments.
“Why do you two do this if you hate it so much?” Evie asked.
Striker and Phantom both looked up.
“What?” Phantom asked.
“Assassin work,” Evie said. “Why do it if you hate it?”
“We’re not assassins,” Phantom said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Striker said. “Now shut up. I liked it better when you weren’t talking.”
“And we don’t hate it,” Phantom continued. “Well… not most of the time. It’s just another way of life that keeps food on the table.”
“That’s... twisted,” Evie said. “You shot my mother just to keep food on the table?”
Phantom glanced at Striker. “That wasn’t necessarily supposed to happen.”
Evie pushed herself up on her elbows. “You killed the men who tried to save us. You’re killers.”
“Yes, we are,” Striker said, stomping over. “So’s your old man, so’s the girl who runs this company, so’s everybody if you shove them far enough into the corner. Given the chance, you would kill us in a heartbeat to get out of here. That’s how humans work. We are the most important thing to ourselves, which is the only reason we’ve survived this long.”
“I wouldn’t kill you,” Evie said between her teeth.
“Let me put a gun in your hands and test that.”
“Calm down, both of you,” Phantom said. “It’s no use gambling with each other’s lives. DiVazzo’s men are expecting Martell to show up at any moment, and the last thing we need is to be off guard when they get here. Evie, you need to rest before you hurt yourself even more, so be quiet. And Striker, your blood pressure is so high I can hear it pounding from here. Sit down somewhere and shut up, too.”
Striker glowered. “This is important stuff, Phantom. If she doesn’t learn it now, when will she? When the man who killed our squad gets killed himself?”
“Stop,” Phantom said quietly.
Striker stalked to the door. He stood there while he waited for his blood to stop boiling and his hands to stop shaking. Arguing with Phantom wasn’t something he ever enjoyed, usually because he lost, but this time he knew beyond a doubt that Phantom was wrong. The little brat didn’t know a single thing about life. She was only a kid, and a normal one, at that. When he had been her age, things had been a lot different. She couldn’t even begin to understand.
But he wasn’t going to say that. Arguing with kids was even worse than arguing with Phantom, so he let it drop and just took Phantom’s advice and shut up. It was better to conserve energy anyway. On the other side of the door, DiVazzo’s men were poised and waiting. Behind him, Phantom and Evie fell into troubled silence, broken only by the rustle of cloth bandages.
Phantom’s words echoed in his brain. Striker had always been the gambler. That’s what he did. And trusting DiVazzo was one of the times that cost him. Striker rubbed his eyes. His fingers were cold.
For the first time in a long time, he wished he had a different life.
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