Thieves Like Us 01 - Thieves Like Us by Stephen Cole

Author:Stephen Cole [Cole, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2006-08-22T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Tye viewed the washed-out grey morning through the window and wished she’d said goodbye to Jonah in person. She’d spent so much of her childhood saying goodbye. Goodbye to guys who took what they wanted and left. To friends, clawing their way out of the slums on to better things, or as they were lowered into the ground. To chances for change, when she’d jacked in school again or walked out on Dad – or when she’d been bullied, bludgeoned or blackmailed into one more run, one last time.

She didn’t know what to say at goodbyes any more.

But she knew she was hurting somewhere – some soft, half-forgotten part she had little use for these days. As long ago as their exchange in the pool in Cairo, Tye had sensed she would be able to talk to Jonah in a way she couldn’t with the others.

And that of course had been enough to scare her miles away.

She didn’t want to open up. Didn’t want to let in mess, to share anything more than her skill with the people around her. Of course she didn’t.

‘Liar,’ Tye whispered miserably. She turned on her side, her back to the window.

* * *

The summons from Coldhardt came early, as she had expected. She sat beside Motti in the hub. Jonah’s seat was empty, of course. Patch was staring at it morosely, so Tye was glad when Con slumped there with a cup of strong-smelling coffee. Though her make-up had been applied with her usual skill, she still looked tired, like she hadn’t slept well. Tye supposed none of them had.

It wasn’t like any of them even knew Jonah that well. But they’d told him he could be family, and he didn’t want to know – threw the opportunity back in their faces. Tye knew that tapped into stuff for all of them, no matter how cool they acted on the surface.

Motti sniffed. ‘Coulda made me some, Con.’

‘Do I look like your slave, Motti?’

‘Truth is, you look all-out gross. Even Patch would say no this morning, right, Patch?’

‘Leave it, Mot.’

‘Jeez, are we all on tippy-toes today just ’cause the geek cleared out? Does it have to be like someone died –?’

‘That’s enough,’ said Coldhardt, looking up languidly from the head of the table. He was dressed in his habitual black, but somehow his manner this morning seemed a little more funereal. ‘The cipher has been decrypted,’ he announced, with no mention of the boy who’d cracked it. ‘Unfortunately, it is inconclusive. We must locate and retrieve the rest of the lekythos. As Tye and Con have informed us, it was sent to the Serpens Biotech plant in Rome. And it is from there that we must recover it.’

‘Why should the fragments still be there?’ Con asked. ‘Surely it was just another drop point, no? It’s a genetics lab.’

‘Which makes it the perfect place for testing that mysterious organic powder inside the lekythos,’ Coldhardt said heavily.

‘But what about the lekythos itself?’ asked Motti. ‘Y’know, I’m surprised we didn’t find what’s left of it in Samraj’s mansion.

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