The journey itself, is freedom

by Ainzfern

10

"Here y'go," Riki handed Enif a cold beer as he took a seat next to him on the sofa in his and Iason's apartment, popping the cap off his own before clinking his bottle to Enif's. "Cheers."

With a grin, Enif nodded his thanks and took a draught from his bottle, before setting it down on the coffee table before them. The afternoon sun was warming the room pleasantly, and some very nice smells were drifting out of Dane's kitchen from whatever artistic culinary delight the young Furniture was whipping up in there. Although the coffee table was covered with a series of recent communiqués and E-letters that Enif had brought with him, the mood was surprisingly congenial probably, Riki suspected, because this particular meeting was out of sequence with their usual monthly get-togethers.

"Hey, thanks for coming into Eos, anyway," Riki said, curling one leg up under his body and scooting into the corner of sofa. "Y'know you didn't have to do that, I would have come out to you."

"I know," Enif nodded. "But, I meant what I said. I don't mind coming here, Riki. I just need to give myself a little more time to build some confidence around Elites, that's all."

"Plus," Riki flashed a knowing smirk at him, "you like gunning your hover-bike down the space port exit road as much as I do, right?"

Enif actually had the good grace to look embarrassed. "Caught," he muttered. "It is a nice machine. Did I ever thank you for the advice when I was buying it?"

"You did," Riki raised his beer and nodded. "We got a good deal there that day, too. Low miles, only one owner..."

Enif snorted dryly. "And you, telling the dealer who your Companion was and scaring him into a ten percent mark-down."

Riki shrugged blandly. "Enif, the dealers in Upper Midas all over-price their stock by ten percent anyway. Fair is fair, man." He sat forward, ready to get to business, aware of time passing on towards the moment Iason would arrive home and Enif would want to be gone. "Okay, so tell about this idea of yours that has you so wound up that you had to come and see me."

Enif nodded. "Mentors."

Riki blinked at him. "You want to run that past me again?"

Smiling the ex-Pet nodded. "Well, you know that I keep in regular touch with several of the original colonists, right?" he waved a hand towards the papers on the low table before them.

"Yeah?"

"So... things have really settled down well now for the founding citizens." A clear note of pride entered Enif's voice. "The provisional government completed the final transfer of power to the locally elected representatives several months ago."

"I remember Chey telling me that," Riki murmured, sipping his drink.

"They were ready," Enif continued. "Even better, Hepstra law enforcement, public works, and the managerial board of the fuel processing plant now boasts an eighty percent representation of Hepstra colonists in key positions."

"Well, they built it," Riki noted, also feeling oddly proud. "It only makes sense that they get to run it."

"True," Enif took another swallow from his own beer. "And with the numbers of ex-Pets joining the relocation to Hepstra now leveling out... I thought it was probably a good time to implement a mentoring program, for both ex-Pets and Ceres residents who are arriving new to the colony."

"Enif?" Riki set his beer down and met Enif's eyes with a level gaze. "I think that is a great idea."

"You do?" Enif looked exceedingly pleased. "I'm glad. I just wanted to run it past you before I sent it through to Minister Neeson."

"Go for it," Riki urged him seriously. "When you think about it, Hepstra is an established world now, so a program like mentoring, to help the new arrivals assimilate easier, makes perfect sense."

"I thought so. Thanks." Enif nodded and smiled before pulling in a slow breath, his demeanor changing, growing more somber, even a little anxious. "Actually," he ventured, wetting his lips, "there was another reason I wanted to come by and see you."

"Dian?" Riki guessed aloud, his tone very gentle.

"Yes," Enif shrugged helplessly. "Have you been able to find out anything at all?"

Sitting up straight, Riki shook his head. "Not yet, but it's still early days. What I have done, is ask Katze to give me a hand. I mean if you're talking about connections that lead to information, you really can't get better than him. He might not be in the black market anymore, but it still answers his call, believe me."

Enif relaxed again, sighing. "Thank you, Riki. Really."

"Hey, any time, man," Riki winked at him, before reaching over to pick up one of the documents Enif had placed on the coffee table earlier. "So... Tell me a little bit more about your contacts on Hepstra," he said, "they sound like pretty interest—" his words were cut off as his cell phone trilled. Slipping it from his pocket, his peered at the number immediately noting the call was – ironically enough – from Katze. "Uh... ‘Scuse me a sec', Enif. I better take this."

With an oddly certain suspicion rising in him, Riki rose and walked into Iason's office, accepting the call as he went. "Katze," he greeted his friend without preamble as soon as he was out of earshot of Enif. "What's up?"

"I'm on my way up to your apartment right now," Katze replied.

Riki felt his brow crease into a frown. "If I asked if this was about Enif's friend, would I be right?"

"Yeah. You would be."

"Okay," Riki nodded gravely, even as he lowered his voice a touch. "Okay, but you should know – Enif is here right now."

"Damn," Katze muttered softly. "All right, listen... I'm right outside. Can you let me in?"

"I'm there," Riki cut the call and pocketed his phone. Quickly, he made his way to the front door of the apartment, nodding to Enif as he passed, before opening it and welcoming his grim-faced friend with a quiet word. Then, bracing himself, he turned back to the ex-Pet, ready to explain that Katze had some news.

He really needn't have bothered, Riki could see. Enif had stood, his dark eyes solemn, his hands clasped in front of him as he looked directly at Katze. "You found out what happened to him, didn't you?"

One glance, that was all it took. Riki just had to look once at Katze to see the answer. He'd known Katze for a very long time, and he knew that when it came to the things that cut to the heart, to the things that could really hurt a man inside, the ex-Furniture had always been a master of emotional masking. Riki felt his full mouth thin into a hard grim line. Right now, if Katze's face were any more devoid of emotion, he would be at risk of being mistaken for a mannequin.

"Yes," Katze answered Enif's question softly, his tone gentle, a marked contrast to the pinched and pale look of the man.

A trickle of real disquiet slid up Riki's spine. Whatever the redhead had discovered it was clearly worse than Riki could have imagined. Which was bad, because in his earlier years Riki had seen enough of the kind of cruel shit the Lower Midas red light district was capable of doing to people, especially helpless abandoned Pets, thus he could envisage quite a lot, none of it pretty.

Fuck it. And only few moments ago he and Enif had been laughing over a beer, discussing the finer points of hover-bike ownership and making the world, well – at least the world called 'Hepstra' – a better place. And Enif had been enjoying himself.

Sometimes, Riki thought fervently, life and all its shitty timing could really suck.

Enif nodded slowly, his hopeless expression indicating louder than words that he, too, had read Katze's appearance well enough. "He's dead, isn't he?"

Katze nodded tersely. "Yes. I'm sorry, Enif. I really am."

"Where did Maxx send him?"

Riki waited, stilled and silent, wondering just how Katze would answer, just what he would be willing to say.

Katze's broad shoulders dropped under a heavy sigh. "According to the factory records, Maxx sold him to a local Lower Midas fence that used to supply some of the whore pits along the greater industrial areas. Dian was taken to one of them."

"How long was he kept there?" Enif's voice, filled with pain, had begun to shake, and Riki could see very clearly that the ex-Pet was keeping himself contained only by sheer tenuous willpower. "How long did he have to live like that?"

"Not even one night," Katze raked one agitated hand through his hair, briefly pushing it back from his face before the soft strands fell back into their usual style. "The whore pit that Dian was sent to was closed down by Iason's security forces during the original conscription of Pets for Hepstra, so I was able to track the records through the Syndicate legal archives." His golden eyes, strangely sorrowful, flicked over and met Riki's gaze for a moment.

Riki nodded, silently urging his friend to continue, to have it over and done with so that Enif could start to heal. Yes it was a kind of brutally logical way of looking at it, Riki knew, but it was also true. Riki was an old hand at facing up and moving on, understanding it was required if a future was to be gained. He knew the steps that needed to be taken.

Turning back to Enif, Katze continued, "The first client he was rented to..." Katze paused and grimaced, "that client killed him."

"How?" Enif whispered as he sat back down heavily, his eyes widening, filling with anguish. "How, Katze? Please, tell me."

The silence descended within the Penthouse, filling the air between them, seeping into the cracks and the corners of the room. Riki even imagined for a second that he could feel it, the weight of it, pressing down on his shoulders. Quietly, Riki shifted his position, moving to sit beside Enif. He was careful not to touch him, knowing on some level that Enif wouldn't appreciate it right now, knowing that if he even offered something as simple as an arm around the shoulders, Enif would shatter and break, and Riki sure as hell didn't want that.

Enif very obviously wanted to take the news as stoically as possible. Riki wasn't about to take that away from the man, no matter how genuine his concern. But he could, at least, offer a more subtle support. The shoulder within reach – so to speak – should Enif decide that he did want to weep against it.

Katze's expression was very grave, as he sat in the armchair opposite to answer Enif's question. "The client slipped him a lethal cocktail of recreational drugs, possibly in an attempt to 'enhance' the experience. According to the incident report in the archives, Dian almost immediately passed out, fell into a coma and died."

Riki winced, watching as Enif closed his eyes for a moment, swaying ever so slightly as Katze's words sank in on him. "So," the ex-Pet wet his lips and swallowed hard, before speaking again with almost desperate hope in his voice, "...so, he died quietly, then? He didn't--," Enif broke off again for a moment, pulling a deep breath and composing himself before continuing, "...there wasn't any pain?"

Katze held those pleading dark eyes with a steady gaze. "He wouldn't have felt a thing, Enif. Not a thing."

Enif stared at the floor in front of him for a long time. He was utterly still, his face devoid of all expression. And Riki and Katze simply waited silently while the ex-Pet before them struggled to accept, to assimilate just one more painful reality in a life that had become filled with such things.

At length, Enif blinked rapidly a couple of times, before pulling his shoulders back and lifting his sad eyes to Katze's drawn and pale face. "Well, that's something," he said softly, his voice tight. "I mean, he didn't suffer, you said, so that... that's something at least."

Riki vented a deep slow breath as he turned a little more towards the ex-Pet, noting his dreadful pallor, the sudden dark shadows under his eyes – clear evidence of deep distress. Enif's hands were trembling; his shoulders clenched up and pulled in tightly. For all that he was keeping a hold of himself, for all that he had made it clear that he had expected the news to be bad, Riki knew that Enif had still hoped. To have it all crushed so finally... well it had to hurt to like hell. Riki knew he would have to be blind not to see that the man was in agony. "Listen, Enif—"

Enif raised one hand, shaking his head. "No," he set his jaw and met Riki's eyes. "It's... I'm – I'm all right. I mean, I knew anyway," he chuckled softly, a bitter and pained little sound. "Deep inside, I knew."

"But you had dreams, man," Riki murmured sadly.

"Doesn't matter," Enif whispered, closing his eyes. For an instant his composure left him, his face creasing with pain. But then he shook his head again and looked up once more at Katze, his fragile control returning to him. "It doesn't matter," he said more clearly. "Thank you, Katze, for finding out for me. At least now, I know what happened." He smiled fleetingly, once again a weak and tenuous attempt, as he rose to his feet. "Did the records, the papers you looked at... did they mention what happened to Dian's body? If he was buried somewhere?"

Riki watched as Katze's jaw clenched for a moment. "No," the ex-Furniture replied at length. "No, no mention."

"Okay. Okay, well..." Enif glanced at Riki once more. "Listen, Riki, would it be all right if we finished our meeting some other time? I'm uhm... Y'know, I really just want to go and... just be alone for a while."

"God man, are you sure that's a good idea?" Riki got to his feet as well, concern rising in him. "Look, why don't you just stay for a couple of hours, huh? Just hang out for a while. No work, no pressure, we can just talk about this."

Enif's face grew even more tense and unhappy. "No. No it's okay. Really. I'm not good company right now... I just – I need to think about things, okay?"

"Well, can we run you home?" Riki glanced at Katze who immediately nodded.

"I've got my work car in the basement lot," the redhead added. "Seriously, Enif, it'd be no problem."

"No," Enif grimaced again, shaking his head and backing away from their offers, from them, as if he feared they might grab him or try to stop him from leaving. "I've got my own bike downstairs and I," he swallowed hard, "I just want to go now, okay? Okay?"

Riki gave in. Obviously, Enif didn't want them, or probably anyone, to see him break down. Riki could empathize with the guy. There had been days, early on in his life, when all he had really had was his fucking pride, and dammed if he had been going to let anyone take it away from him. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, he now realized what an empty thing that had been. To be able to need help, to accept it and grow from it... that was where real strength of character was formed.

But Riki could still remember well enough how he'd needed to face things alone at the time. So he backed off now, because in spite of their history he respected the man in front of him and he didn't want to see him crumble, either.

"Yeah, sure it's okay," Riki nodded, stepping back a pace as he lifted his hands in an open gesture. "But, can you do me a favor? Will you just call me when you get home? Just so I know you got there all right?"

The ex-Pet nodded shortly, turning to walk towards the main door of the apartment.

"You are going home, aren't you?" Riki asked as the thought struck him.

Enif stopped at the door, turning back to look at Riki and Katze with eyes that suddenly seemed far too old, far too weary and filled with endless sorrow to belong to such a youthful face, scarred by harsh experience though it might be. "Of course I'm going home," he answered in a dull hurt voice. "There's really nowhere else for me to go, is there?"

Riki winced. "Enif... man..."

Enif turned away quickly, opening the door and slipping through in silence, closing it with clear finality behind him.

In the absolute silence left in the wake of the ex-Pet's departure, Riki turned and looked into Katze eyes, feeling almost appalled. "Well, Katze old buddy," he said with forced jocularity, "I can't even begin to tell you just how much that sucked."

Katze nodded slowly. "Yeah," he replied gruffly.

Taking a closer look at him, Riki felt his eyes narrow. Particular suspicions that had occurred to him when Katze had first delivered Enif's news began to form into certainties. "There's more to this whole thing than you're telling, isn't there?"

Katze's lips thinned unhappily, and the look he gave Riki was grim. "Yeah."

"You did a sanitized version, didn't you? For Enif's sake?"

Katze nodded, sitting down in one of the plush armchairs, gesturing for Riki to seat himself as well. "I did, Riki. I figured it wouldn't do him any good to know what really happened."

Settling back into his place on the sofa, Riki sighed. "I guessed you were up to something like that. I could tell."

"Yeah?" Katze fumbled in his jacket pocket and extracted his packet of cigarettes, lighting up before tossing the packet over to Riki. "Do you think Enif picked it, too?" he asked through a cloud of sweet scented smoke.

"Nah," Riki drew in a deep breath of smoke, the old habit calming him as it always had. "He doesn't know you as well as I do. He didn't see it."

"Good."

Riki looked up sharply at him. "It's that bad?"

"Yeah," Katze rubbed his eyes with one weary hand and heaved a great sigh. "What I told Enif about Maxx selling Dian off to the local fence was true. And, what I said about the whore pit being closed down by Iason's security team was also true. But it was closed down by Mace for a very good reason." He broke off again.

Riki pulled his breath in, nodding for Katze to continue.

"Mace took one look at the kind of shit that had been going there and had the place completely shut down in one night." Katze smiled briefly. "He didn't actually mention this to us at the time, but what we didn't know was that he was using the conscription to Hepstra as an opportunity to enter those 'businesses' and clean out the real filth."

Riki snorted softly, approving of the angle that Iason's security chief had taken; even in retrospect. Mace certainly wasn't the friendliest guy in the world; that much was true. But then Iason hadn't hired him for his ability to be amiable. What Mace was good at was getting things done. Riki respected that. But what he liked even more about the man was that he genuinely seemed to be on the side of the underdog. Especially these days. "Yeah, that sounds like Mace all right. He's got very strong opinions on certain things, doesn't he?"

"He does," Katze sat back. "Dian was rented out the first night he arrived," he murmured, before taking a deep drag of his dwindling cigarette. "But the part about the drugs? The single client? I made it up."

"Right," Riki rubbed one hand over his mouth. Part of him didn't really want to know. The other part, the part that contained his morbid curiosity, his need to delve into the facts, compelled him to ask. "What really happened to him, Katze?"

"Five men," Katze answered bleakly. "Civilians from Lower Midas, I'm guessing, pooled their cash and bought Dian's 'services' for one hour. They all went into the room with him and when they came out... the kid was dead."

"What did they do to him?" Riki breathed.

Katze simply fell silent, looking steadily at Riki before shaking his head.

Riki swallowed hard, a chill trickling up his spine once more. "You're not going to tell me, are you?" It wasn't so much a question as a statement.

"No," Katze said hoarsely.

"I don't really want to know, do I?" yet again, another statement of fact.

Katze pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand. "No man, you don't," he replied softly.

"Okay," Riki nodded, disturbed enough by Katze's very demeanor to let it go. "But I know one thing, Katze. Enif can't ever be allowed to know this. Ever."

"Don't worry, he won't," Katze sat back, reaching to the ashtray on the low table by his chair and stubbing out his cigarette. "The files I looked into were classified under Mace's personal security codes. They're not open to access by anyone other than Mace or Iason."

Riki blinked. "So how'd you get into them?"

Katze just shot him a blandly long-suffering look, as if waiting for the proverbial penny to drop.

"Ah," Riki flashed him a brief grin. "Of course. Is it too much to hope for that the sick fuckers who did it were named in the reports you looked at?"

Katze snorted softly. "Yeah it is. 'Anonymous clientele'... that's what this dump of a place used to cater to." He grimaced, shaking his head. "The records of what really went on there were kept by this cesspit as a sick kind of advertising. At the time this kind of stuff was going on, nobody gave a shit, Riki. You know that."

"Yeah," Riki stared at him. "Yeah, I know that all right."

Katze leaned forward a little in his seat, his striking golden eyes intent upon Riki's face. "It could have easily been my doing, y'know," he said almost thoughtfully. "Dian's death, I mean. Only a few years ago, I could have been sending ex-Pets off to some kind of hideous end and... y'know what, Riki? I never even fuckin' thought about it at the time."

"Oh c'mon, Katze," Riki frowned deeply at him, "it's old soup, right? It's not like you really had a choice."

"Didn't I?" Katze's eyes flashed a challenge back at Riki. "I don't think you can put a shine on this one, Riki," the redhead's tone grew flat and angry as he continued. "Maybe that held water while I was still Iason's Furniture, but what about afterwards? What about all those Pets that 'didn't make the grade'? That weren't perfect enough for Elite consumers? Huh? The ones that I conveniently found a market for with the civilians of Lower Midas, or the with distributers to the Whore Pits? I collected van-loads full of them myself from the loading bays in the breeding facilities, Riki. From Raoul's facilities...," He barked a harsh and humorless little laugh. "I made a killing off them. When I looked at them, all I saw was a fuckin' commodity, a means of making money that I could then plow back into the my black market interests. They were just a way for me to get ahead in the game."

"You've done a hell of a lot to make up for it since then, Katze," Riki said softly, uneasy with his friend's obvious upset. "You've got to remember that, too."

Katze passed his hand over his tired face. "Does it make up for it, though? Can it ever make up for it? These were people, Riki. I didn't see that. Why? Why didn't I ever see that?"

Stuck for an answer, oddly shaken by Katze's intensity, Riki just started at him helplessly.

At length, Katze released a slow breath, visibly calming himself. He pulled a wry face at the worried mongrel before him, shrugging weakly. "Sorry, man," he murmured, "I just... today was not a good day." He rose to his feet, straightening his jacket neatly. "Listen, I've got to go. I'll see you for dinner on Friday evening, okay?"

Giving himself a little shake, Riki blinked and also rose, walking his friend to the door. "Yeah. Sure. As always, right?"

"Right."

"Listen," Riki stopped the ex-Furniture with touch to his upper arm. "What you just said to me... I know you're right. I know what you did, I'm not denying that. But that just made you no different to anyone else out there at the time. What sets you apart now is the fact that you did open your eyes, that you did start to care. And I don't give a shit how much self-recrimination you want to come up with, Katze, that fact still counts for something."

Katze stared at him for a long moment before, surprisingly enough, smiling. He closed one warm hand over Riki's shoulder and squeezed gently. "Thanks, Riki." He opened the front door and stepped through. "Look... let me know once Enif calls you, okay? I'd like to know he's safely home, too."

Riki smiled back at him. "Sure. No problem."

With a final nod, Katze headed off down the corridor leaving a very thoughtful mongrel behind him. Closing the door quietly, Riki returned to the main area of the apartment, gathering up and neatly stacking away the papers and reports that Enif had spread out prior to Katze arriving. With a deep sigh, he sat back down and glanced at the time, prepared to wait with uncharacteristic patience for Enif to call through.

As he sat there, he had to appreciate the absolute truthfulness of Katze's earlier words. Today had really not been a good day.

Riki kind of figured that Enif would fervently agree with them both.

The journey itself... – chapter 9 << >> The journey itself... – chapter 11

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