The Ragged Edges of Torn Photographs

Kienan smiled, despite himself and watched her leave. As he did so he began discreetly moving towards the same exit that his target was going for. He chased him like a shadow through various antechambers to the men's restroom. Kienan, several yards down the hall, bent down to see to his shoe.

He turned the heels to the side, withdrawing small pieces of metal from them before turning them back. He snapped them together as he rose up from the floor, reaching into his cigarette case. Inside he found two more pieces of metal, which he very quickly snapped together as he entered the bathroom.

Kienan discreetly looked under the stalls. He had long ago chosen this place and had made sure to take notice of the man's shoes in advance. This man had double-crossed his employers by shipping their merchandise to a very dangerous sector of space.

And that demanded an example be made of him. There was someone already within his shipping company who was handpicked by his employers to be more . . .amenable to their directives.

Kienan waited for two men to leave and then locked the restroom door and knocked on the man's stall.

"Excuse me," he said, disguising his voice. "Leland Carver? I was told to bring a message to you."

"Yes?" Carver said uncomfortably. Obviously, he was having trouble.

Kienan kicked the stall door open with such force that Carver's head snapped back against the blue-tiled wall, his broken nose issuing blood like a sanguinary waterfall. Kienan waited until Carver was looking at him and then used the device he had assembled.

"No one goes against the Blue Dragons," he said.

Carver's chest jumped three times as the device injected three spikes into his chest. Kienan shut the door to the stall and walked to the sink. He turned on the faucet and dropped the injector inside, fishing a capsule out of the inside of his shirt cuff.

Inside the stall, Carver was dead. The chemical coating on the spikes had turned his blood into hard resin.

He cracked it over the device, and in a froth, the device was consumed. He shut off the faucet, straightened his jacket, unlocked the bathroom door and walked out, fishing Jayla's card from his pocket as he walked out of the building.

Tomorrow, he thought. I think I'll call her.

* * *

The shapely woman hovered over Gao Shu much like others had before him. Those times, of course, had been because had wanted it that way.

This time, it had more to do with him being forced.

Gao had a whip wrapped tightly around his neck and a gun pressed at his temple. The blue-haired woman holding both these implements looked down on him with a combination of disdain and unrestrained rage.

"Where are they?" She demanded.

"I don't . . .I don't know what you're talking about . . .!" Gao said, his head suddenly feeling.

"The hell you don't!" The woman screamed in his ear. "You know what I want. Jayla's things! I know that after she killed herself you had them sent away. I want to know where they are."

"Don't . . .know," Gao said, sweat staining his bald head. His fat-fingered hands clenched and unclenched as he fought to keep breathing,

"All right, god damn it," the woman said. She moved the pistol away from his head and shot him in the shoulder. Then she replaced the pistol at the back of his head.

Gao started to cry despite himself.

"Are you going to tell me?"

He nodded. The whip around his neck slacked up a bit. He gasped and fought the urge to throw up from the pain.

"I . . .had them . . .sent . . .to a . . .depository on the western side colony," Gao gasped. "Same place I'm instructed to . . . send the cut of my take to the Blue Dragons. They were requested."