Chapter 29:
Wrong Address
While Nameless and his people were well on their way out of Garland, all the way in Algrade Rebecca was literally running way behind schedule; her delay in the sorting center to find Carol’s parcel had set her back when she already had a full bag of deliveries to make.
As such she wasn’t as careful as she should have been when she arrived at Renaldo’s bakery to deliver Cordelia a parcel from her family in Kettering.
Another innocuous mistake.
“Becks wait! This isn’t the right parcel!” Cordelia called after the bunny’s heels.
She had opened the box without thinking, the weight was close enough to what she had come to expect.
Rebecca turned back, already halfway out the door.
“Oh, whoops, I guess I mixed them up in the sorting center, that one is for Carol! Sorry Cordy!” She giggled.
But the young baker didn’t answer, her attention locked on the metal pieces wrapped in a worn rag that she had pulled out of the box.
A cold weight had settled into her gut as she realized what she was holding.
“Rebecca, you know that Christine studies lost technology?” Cordelia asked slowly, cautiously.
“Yup!”
The bunny nodded blithely, not really paying attention as she rooted through her bag looking for the correct package.
“I’ve seen her text books and I recognize some of these parts.”
“Pieces of a coffee machine?” The bunny joked.
She was still flying high from her success at the sorting center that morning, and was looking forwards to delivering the package.
Though it would have been funny to see her face if she opened the artisanal flour that Cordelia’s father had sent her!
But the brunette was silent for several seconds as she turned one of the pieces over in her hands. Her continued silence caused the Lapine’s smile to falter until the baker slowly shook her head.
“I can’t be certain…” She gnawed on her lip anxiously as she spread the rag out and separated the pieces on the table; “Rebecca, I think this is the trigger assembly for a caster.”
“A what?”
“A caster- a pistol, Becks. These parts are illegal.”
The Lapine gave a short laugh and waved her hand dismissively.
“Don’t be silly! Carol told me ages ago that she ordered the package herself! That’s why she wanted to make sure it didn’t get lost!”
Cordelia took a long time to answer; her face was grey as she considered the lost-tech parts on the counter before her.
The more she examined them, the more certain she became; she believed that she could even identify the specific components.
“Look, see this? This is the spring array. See how the coils meet here? This is the trigger junction. That’s what resets the trigger after the weapon is fired. And this-” She pointed at the two largest pieces of metal that fit together like a clamshell; “This is the trigger housing, everything here fits between these two plates before attaching to the receiver assembly, which I guess is being shipped separately.”
Rebecca slowly shook her head in disbelief.
“No, you’re wrong.”
“Becks-”
“You’re wrong Cordy! Why are you saying all of this? I thought we were friends!”
“We are Becks! But I swear I’m not lying! Look, you know Oldeera works with the Aegis, I’ll have her come take a look at it and she can-”
“NO! I’m not leaving this with you! There has to be an explanation, there just has to be! I need to talk to Carol about all of this, she runs a machine shop so she’ll… she’ll know what this is.”
Cordelia’s eyes widened in concern.
“Becks, no, what if I’m right? This woman, she isn’t who she says. She might…” Her voice trailed off at the uncertain thought.
Rebecca leveled an angry glare at her concerned friend.
“Might what? Might, hurt me? We’ve been dating for months! I trust her and you don’t even know her!”
The baker stretched one hand out, but Rebecca was done talking, she scooped up the components and wrapped them back in their cloth before dropping the bundle back into the box with shaky hands.
“You should never have opened this! Mind your own business!”
The Lapine all but threw the correct package at Cordelia before whirling in place and storming out of the bakery, the alarmed brunette calling after her.
She’s wrong! She has to be! Carol... Carol can explain everything.
The image of Carol’s face smiling at her was all she could see.
She couldn’t see the calculating gleam in her eyes.
__________
Rebecca arrived at the warehouse late in the day, well past the time the courier service usually made their deliveries.
She had all but sprinted through the rest of her deliveries after arguing with Cordelia so she was more than a bit out of breath, she pressed on though as she had to talk to her lover, had to have her make this okay.
The large doors were slightly ajar when she arrived, but before she could knock, she heard the sounds of an argument from inside.
Anxiety bloomed in her gut and she chewed on her lip as her long ears turned towards the building.
The words were faint, but with her superior hearing, she could make them out.
“-that’s two operations blown in less than a year! And now you’re telling me that the retrieval team is overdue?”
It was a woman’s voice, an older woman she didn’t recognize.
“Calm down, you’re making it out to be worse than it is.”
Rebecca’s heart fluttered as it always had at hearing Carol speak.
“Worse than it- are you being thick Bethany?! How many thousands of coins have you lost so far this year?”
Bethany? Who’s Bethany?
“My name is Carol. Keep it straight in that old brain of yours.”
Rebecca wanted to knock on the door, to be greeted by Carol or even the night manager Gregory just as normal, but now…
The anxiety in her gut tightened its grip and she swallowed.
She needed to understand what was going on.
With care she eased her face into the crack between the enormous doors; if she could just see Carol’s face she knew everything would make sense.
Through the opening she saw several well-dressed people standing beside the crucible, maybe forty feet away; while to one side of them, the more familiar rough looking men and women who worked there were sitting or standing on the exiting tables for the enormous presses.
She recognized Gregory, as well as a few other faces, many of whom were fidgeting at the argument playing out in front of them.
Amongst the well dressed people was an older woman leaning on a cane who was currently shouting at someone just out of Rebecca’s line of sight.
Where is Carol?
“This isn’t getting us anywhere, you know that the team I sent out to the Sansee-”
“The overdue team. The one that cost me a fortune.” The old woman interjected.
“-will be back soon, and if that haul is half what my intel suggests, we will recoup all of our losses many times over.”
Carol!
Rebecca dared to sneak the door open another few inches, a deafening creaking sound made her flinch, but the humans inside didn’t have her ears and she relaxed, if only slightly.
With the door open more she could now see the confrontation. The elderly woman was wagging her ornate cane at Carol, who was leaning against the press so that all Rebecca could see of her lover was her back and side.
The older woman was all but snarling at her by this point.
“You mean my losses Bethany!” She spat out the name; “I bankrolled all of this and you, my little slum-rat, have so far shown me nothing but failure!”
The muscles of Carol’s jaw tightened.
“Look, your majesty, you have to spend money to make money, and you of all people know there are no guarantees in this business.”
It was her voice, but it was ice cold, not the Carol that Rebecca thought she knew.
She blinked back tears as her eyes watered from the stress. After she wiped away the moisture she saw Carol’s hand slip behind her back, ostensibly scratching at her waist, but the Lapine's angle was such that she saw her grip something stuffed in the back of her pants.
The old woman didn’t catch the movement and continued with the argument.
“Enough! I am tired of these endless excuses! You owe me nearly three hundred thousand coins, and I expect to be paid in full by the end of the month!”
“Or?”
Her voice was colder than ever and the eavesdropping bunny swallowed at the intense exchange.
The old woman’s eyes narrowed as she leaned forwards with both hands on her cane and smirked.
“People disappear in the slums every day. Do I really need to say it?”
Carol drew in a deep breath as the silence widened between them.
“No I suppose you don’t.”
Without flinching, she pulled a lost-tech pistol out of her waistband and shot the old woman between the eyes.
Rebecca’s world ended.
She drew in a sharp gasp, both hands shooting to her mouth to stifle her own scream of horror at the sight of the old lady’s face turned into a bloody crater.
The dead woman fell backwards, her cane clattering to the cold stone floor before she followed it with a thump.
The Lapine’s eyes were fixed on her still form.
The murderer turned and leveled the weapon on the well-dressed men now looking distinctly surrounded standing by the crucible, a few had weapons drawn, though none had them aimed at Carol.
“Looks like it was your boss that got lost in the slums. She thought that money meant power. But I know better. Between money and guns, I pick guns every time. Now, you can either come and work for me, or get lost with her. What’s it going to be?”
Rebecca didn’t catch their response, when Carol had turned to face them, her face was also revealed to her bunny lover.
Already fighting to repress a scream, she couldn’t hold back a sob; this definitely wasn’t the woman she knew.
She had just killed someone, and it meant less than nothing to her.
After the men had apparently agreed to her terms she lowered the weapon and turned to the others, her own rough employees were all standing now, some openly smirking at the dead woman.
“Yes, we lost a fortune when the operation in Oakridge was blown. But the dumbasses used an elemental to get the fire under control, so there was nothing left there that could have lead them to us. Business resumes, and now we can continue without that old bag of bones holding us back. Once Tristan and his people get back from their desert adventure, then we’ll be rolling in the dough.”
Carol tossed the lost-tech weapon off to one of her lackeys and kept talking.
Rebecca was sick, she wanted to flee, but she couldn’t move.
This is the woman who she had considered gifting her heartstone to?
The thought ran through her head over and over as her heart broke into a million pieces.
Her love for Carol was still there, she could feel it, but now it was heavily tainted with fear.
She had no idea who that person was.
“What about the courier?” One of the men asked.
Rebecca flinched at his words, holding her breath for a long moment as she awaited the response.
“Our people say she found the parcel, but she should have been here hours ago, so something might have gone sideways. It’s a minor setback. I still think using the shipping companies can work if we can get a toe in the door.”
“It’s risky.” One of the well-dressed men said cautiously.
“Hence the experiment with my pet Lapine.” She said confidently before turning to Gregory; “I want bodies on the street, find her. But play nice. Bring her to me, I’ll think of some explanation to give her.”
“And if she doesn’t buy it?” The same man crossed his arms over his chest.
Carol shrugged and her response was enough to shatter Rebecca’s heart all over again.
“Then she gets lost in the slums too.”