Deja Ortega: Oddsbreaker Read online

  Noting the direction of her gaze, Geoff shook his head. “Ah, the aftermath of culinary battle. I suppose you’ll be ordering me to stay and clean up,” he pouted, still in character. In sign language, he said, Say yes. Go rest. Later, we learn our ranking. Then talk about Famous.

  It was getting tiresome, this constant, in-character parlance just so Famous Foodie wouldn’t get suspicious. She followed Geoff’s lead. After all, if the man wanted clean-up duty, she sure wouldn’t object.

  “Hey, what are sous chefs for, anyhow?” she mused. Silently, she signed, Good plan. Thanks.

  “I’m off,” she announced. Geoff held out a pale, tattooed hand to her. He helped haul her to her feet. Today, he had once again earned the right to call himself her partner, though she was too nervous to tell him so. Before he could speak again, she let the door swing shut behind her.

  Staff members and competitors aplenty swarmed in the main corridors. Heading to her quarters on tired legs, Deja moved without difficulty amidst the throng even so. Once she reached the high-rise lodging building, she bore right, entering the Sea Wing. Walls and ceilings featured a continuous bas-relief of simulated fish, crustaceans, marine mammals, and corals. The sea-like hallway awakened memories of rare beach days with her parents.

  Sand and sun and laughter. Or yelling. Those days could go either way.

  Once, on Gessire Prime, there hadn’t been much laughter that time. Esmira had stepped on some sort of razor crab. Rather typical luck for such family outings. At least Deja had gotten her first taste of candied phrum flowers while waiting for her mamá to get patched up. And her papá had served up a delicious razor crab gumbo back on the ship.

  Pushing the past back where it belonged, Deja walked faster to the Jungle Wing, where her room and Geoff’s room were located. She walked on, not paying much attention to the fanciful murals of plants, trees, fruits, and forest life. Stepping into the elevator, she punched the button for her floor. Arriving at her door, she keyed the code into the digital lock.

  Whoosh. The door slid aside. “Lights, full.” On instinct, she entered with her senses alert. But the room held no unexpected guests. Nothing had been disturbed either. After a steamy shower of indeterminate length, Deja dressed for sleep in a loose, thigh-length shirt. But despite her soothed muscles and tingling skin, she felt ill at ease. Odds were good that she and Geoff were still in the game. But try as she might, she struggled to believe the Coalition would hold up its end of the bargain with her.

  Pausing by the bedroom doorway, she glanced over to the door that led to Geoff’s adjoining suite. Inside, the lieutenant had hidden his GJC rucksack. Maybe she should take a peek. Find something to keep herself ahead of the Coalition’s endgame. Guilt flamed to life in her chest, yet she entertained the idea anyway. After all, Geoff had charged into her dare uninvited. Maybe he couldn’t tell her all that he knew. Before she could reconsider, Deja dashed into the bedroom to grab her gear.

  Setting up her decrypter took little time. But she knew how hard it was to crack a genuine Coalition field-op unit or a “Fooper” as criminal-minded folk so endearingly called it. Minutes rolled by and her decrypter had unlocked just two of the six letters. Or characters, rather. The passcode wasn’t in Common but in a logographic language. While the decrypter kept at it, she researched the two known symbols that seemed familiar somehow. In moments, she knew why, and her heart stuttered in surprise.

  The characters were native to Be’Voya. The planet where she first met Geoff.

  Sitting on the floor, Deja confirmed the meaning of the two characters: “exciting dare.” Numb, she turned off the decrypter and sat back on her haunches. Could her chest burn more than it did now? If she still wanted to, she could unlock Geoff’s personal comm device right now.

  Biting her lip, she put Geoff’s Fooper back where she’d found it. She didn’t need to see what he’d been writing to his superiors. She touched her cheeks. They were warm. Odd. She put the rucksack back and retreated to her room, where she found solace in some rubarlo nectar with two shots of gehut.

  “Plating! Plating right now,” Deja bellowed. “Where are my last empanadas?” The serving bots waited just outside the service window, ready to test the food for poisons and whisk it off to the judging circle.

  “Coming to the pass,” Geoff bawled out. “Behind,” he shouted as he raced around several other chefs. The rich, charred scent of the meat and crisp pastry reached her before he did. She turned, snatching up one empanada after another and arranging them on beds of rice and hixote peppers that rested, in turn, on spicy flatbread rounds.

  Chub began to count down. “Three, two, one. Hands up!”

  Deja and Geoff raised their hands, the plates looking immaculate and stunning.

  “Wonderful, Chef Dubois. Now, please load the bots.”

  Geoff helped load the completed plates followed by glasses brimming with deep-green icewine. That done, she and her partner breathed in relief. He placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, then retreated off camera. Some moments later, the viewing screen powered up, and Deja stood ready to present her dish.

  Greeted by the presenter, Deja watched while the bots approached their destinations. As the camera panned over to Judge Inciardi, Deja felt her breath catch in her throat. For there, in the middle of it all, Inciardi staggered upright and then collapsed on his dinner table, dark blood spewing from his mouth and nose. Gravgummit! Famous must be making his move!

  As support staff and fellow judges clamored to assist the ailing man, Deja stepped forward in shock. But she was at the mercy of her location. The camera caught a few close-ups of the melee before the screen went dark. Geoff rushed to her side and leaned in to talk into her ear.

  “I’ll get over to the infirmary and find out what’s happened,” he whispered. “Stay put.”

  Before the lieutenant could move away, she caught his wrist. His blue eyes found hers as she spoke, “Like comet dust, I will.” The grim yet somehow unsurprised look on his albino face made Deja glare at him.

  “Right,” he said. “Forgot who I was talking to.”

  “I’ll say,” she muttered. Turning back to the other contestants—all of them yammering to each other—Deja excused herself and her sous chef. It wasn’t difficult, given the departure of other contestants and the general ruckus. Everyone knew a replacement judge would have to be selected from the reserve. That could take days.

  After following Geoff into the hall, Deja flashed a sign that meant “play along,” knowing that Famous would still be listening in using the bug in Deja’s chef coat. Aloud, she said, “Gravgummit, I didn’t sign up for this. How can we win a contest if one of the judges keels over?” Meanwhile, she had tapped out a message for him on her PalmStar: Geoff, find out what’s eating that judge, just like you wanted.

  He nodded, accepting her written instructions. Out loud, he said, “Maybe they’ll choose a backup judge in time for tomorrow.”

  “They better. I’m this close to winning that dough. Go find out, then pack our stuff in case we have to jump outta here.” She tilted the PalmStar towards him with another note: I’ll sneak into his quarters before it’s swarming with investigators. Try to find the cause. Gotta be related to FF.

  His eyes thinned. “But—”

  “Oh, uncork yourself. I won’t leave without you. Besides, I can scare up a no-questions-asked flight better than you ever could”—by which she meant him to understand that she was quite good at sneaking in and out of places, so he’d better deal.

  “True,” he said nonchalantly, though his eyes told her he felt anything but nonchalant about her plans.

  His disapproval didn’t matter. Her nerve endings already tingled with the thought of some real action. She still wore her vest beneath her chef’s jacket. Stowed inside it, she had all the equipment she needed to do some top-notch snooping. “Good. Message me when you know if we’ll get another shot at this cook off. Either way, pack our gear.”

  “Right, boss,” he said,
reaching out to squeeze her lower arm. She felt a small prick.

  “Ow,” she said. “What do you have in your hand?”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. “Must have a hangnail.” Meanwhile, he signed, Be careful.

  You, too, she signed.

  Aloud, he said, “Sounds good. I don’t wanna hang around anymore than you do if things go supernova.”

  “Agreed.” Then they separated.

  PalmStar in hand, she pulled up the blueprints for the Ultimate Chef of the Galaxy complex. Geoff’s superiors had proven useful in that regard. First, she found the building where Inciardi was lodged and went in that direction. Without much trouble, she located a service closet with a narrow, underground power duct that, through many twists and turns, connected to Inciardi’s quarters. Clearly, the passageway hadn’t been built with the Vinadroan stature in mind but rather for maintenance bots.

  Crap. Why is it always a duct of some sort?

  Before approaching the closet, Deja activated the fabulous—and illegal—vidlooper software on her PalmStar. Staying put for a full count of fifteen, she refreshed her PalmStar hack into the system. Yep, the cameras were indeed loopy—and would remain so for almost an hour. Stowing away her handheld device, she went to the closet door and pulled on some gloves. She’d keep her skin cells and DNA to herself, thank you very much. Eyeing the locked door, she withdrew one of her favorite toys. The disk-shaped gizmo adhered to the metal door and whirred away, unscrambling the digital lock. Sadly, the physical lock proved less cooperative. Keeping an eye out for any passersby, Deja jimmied the lock open with a combination of fancy tools and even fancier language.

  Slipping inside the maintenance closet, she startled, coming face to faceplate with a few inactive maintenance bots standing along one wall. Heavy-duty shelves stocked with various janitorial supplies lined another wall. Digital control panels occupied the others. Spotting one labeled Power Access, she stepped over to it. Without tripping any alarms, she managed to open the entrance to the power duct. Deja pulled up the blueprints again, checking her route to the judge’s quarters.

  Now for the annoying part.

  Ow! Another bruise for my collection. Easing herself a few more feet, Deja stopped to listen. She was crawling in the power conduit that connected to the lavatory in the sick judge’s quarters. Wriggling a bit, she retrieved the necessary tools to remove the panel barring her way. Once inside the well-appointed bathroom, Deja crept across the floor and peeked out the door. It opened into a bedroom. A bed masquerading as a lushly blanketed and pillowed slice of bread dominated the room. The bed’s pillows resembled pats of butter large enough to give an ortoo beast a heart attack.

  Rolling her eyes, she turned back to investigate the bathroom. Nothing toxic there. Unless one counted the heinous-smelling bath salts next to the jet tub. On to the kitchen then. Everything checked out fine, and she cursed. Time to look in other places.

  Heading into the sleeping area, she stepped to the bedside table, which resembled a giant, crystal jelly jar capped with a brassy lid. Rapidly, she unpicked the drawers but found nothing suspect. Nothing harmful amidst the judge’s immaculate wardrobe either. The desk proved fruitless, too—except it looked like a melon missing a ninety-degree wedge. The hidden safe in the floor gave her some trouble. But upon cracking it, she found expensive cufflinks, other man-jewelry, and a PalmStar not unlike her own. On a whim, she cloned the data on the pad’s chip then shut the safe. She checked the time. Her mouth went dry. Minutes, she had only minutes left to find what might have caused the judge’s collapse.

  At that moment, her PalmStar rumbled. Fishing it out, she found a message from Geoff.

  Geoff: Inciardi in critical. He has crushed glass of some kind shredding him from the inside out. He’s on bypass and in surgery. No word on how it got into his system. Be safe.

  Deja clutched her stomach in sympathetic reflex. Bits of glass running amuck in one’s body—that was so not a pleasant way to go. No matter what the glass was made of, it would have little trouble destroying Inciardi in any number of ways.

  No matter what it’s made of, Deja repeated to herself. In a flash of clarity, an image of Inciardi’s prized toothpick blazed into her brain. Then she thought about the dare. She swore.

  The dirt! All that clay! By itself, in its native form, it was harmless. But add enough heat, and the clay-based soil could be fired into a glassy substance. Famous must’ve reprogrammed the toothpick’s nanobots to act as miniature kilns. The nanos would go about their business, converting ingested soil into fatal bits of glass. Well, ceramic that is. Most likely, Famous sent Inciardi the slagging thing in the first place. “An ingenious gift from an admirer,” he had said. Hah. Some admirer.

  Deja was no doctor, but she wagered that a few batches of altered nanos would create plenty of glass to doom the average human. Surgeons were nearly magicians these days, but it might take more than magic to save the judge. Could they devise some means of treatment that would work fast enough? Some kind of substance that would seek out and coat the glass particles? Or maybe they could program some nanos to “ingest” the glass and render it safe. But then there was all the damage to repair...

  “Gravgummit!” Deja swore aloud. Famous had played her, making her an accomplice to murder. Without the toothpick, Deja and Geoff would have a hard time proving anything. So far, she hadn’t found it anywhere. But she had noticed that he didn’t have it earlier that day when Chef Gaskón had presented his dish right before hers. That was good. The judge may have forgotten it in his room somewhere. But where?

  Intent on her theory, she stowed her PalmStar but then uttered a curse and pulled it back out. First time with a partner (albeit an uninvited one), and she nearly forgot to clue him in. Genius. Wasting no more time, she messaged him, explaining her suspicions about the toothpick and describing it. To finish, she typed: Don’t know if he had it on him. He collapsed before he could brandish the dang gizmo. He didn’t use it earlier today when Chef Gaskón presented his dish. No luck here so far. About to leave.

  Message sent, she once again pocketed her data pad. If the judge didn’t have the toothpick, where could it be? What if the demented Famous Foodie had stolen the incriminating evidence before Inciardi even reported for judging that day?

  Gritting her teeth, she glanced around Inciardi’s quarters once again. Another thought struck her. What if the toothpick had been programmed to malfunction after a few weeks so that the judge would throw it out? Sure, a few small gems decorated the golden-plated gadget. But the guy was rich. And he had gotten it for free.

  Immediately, her gaze fell on the rubbish hatch near the kitchenette. A crazy hunch swirled to the front of her thoughts as she dashed over to the receptacle. The contents hadn’t been incinerated yet, thank goodness. She dug around in the pungent refuse, thankful she had gloves.

  A bit of gold flashed as she pushed aside a half-eaten pastry. Flushed with triumph, she scooped up the very thing she’d been looking for. Bingo! If the toothpick hadn’t been covered in all manner of goop, she might’ve kissed it. Quickly, she cleaned it with a napkin from the counter. Then she secured it in a special pocket inside the cuff of her right glove. She sighed in relief, thinking of her father. This evidence would help seal the deal with Geoff’s meddlesome superiors. Hopefully, they could connect it to Glass or Boyar. And then her papá could recuperate from his injuries as a free man.

  Heart buoyed, Deja hustled to make her exit. Just in time too. Her keen ears picked up footsteps out in the corridor. Climbing inside the conduit, she put the panel back in place. With all the stealth she could muster, she scuttled away. Sweat glazed her face as she crawled onward. All the while, she considered her game plan. Once she got out of this confounded conduit, where should she go next? Back to her quarters to wait for Geoff? Over to the hospital wing to find him? Or maybe, maybe she’d go hunting for the ultimate prize: Famous Foodie. That last option was tempting. She had a good hunch that Boyar was behind this. He’d readily
confessed that he thought Judge Inciardi was a bad guy. Of course, if Deja went after the activist by herself, Geoff would be furious. Still, she decided she couldn’t pass up the chance to tie up this dare.

  She snaked around the next corner…and Chef Glass blocked the way, a large blaster leveled at Deja’s torso.

  “Too many cooks in the conduit for you, Dubois?” The question echoed with metallic menace in the confined space.

  “One too many blasters is more like,” Deja said in an even voice. True to her training, Deja didn’t let any emotion register on her face. Meanwhile, her thoughts raced. Should she play dumb? After all, the chef hadn’t greeted Deja using her oddsbreaker handle. Maybe Glass wasn’t Famous Foodie; maybe she had other reasons to be in the conduit outside the sick judge’s quarters. Yeah, right, she thought. But Deja decided to play it safe, saying nothing else.

  “Well,” her rival flashed a brittle smile, “perhaps if we come to an agreement, I can dispense with the weapon.” The other woman motioned with the blaster for Deja to place her hands flat against the floor of the duct. The oddsbreaker complied.

  With an inward smile, Deja decided to activate a precautionary measure of her own. “I’m listening.”

  “Good. I dislike repeating myself. It’s akin to eating leftovers.”

  Deja shrugged. “Then perhaps you should choose more tasteful things to say.”

  Her captor remained poised, skewering Deja with an intense gaze. “What business do you have with the judge?”

  “Oh, he once propositioned me.”

  The woman’s fingers tightened just a bit on the weapon’s molded grip. “And,” Deja added, “he really likes my food. Better than yours even, I dare say.” For now, Deja was content to let her captor spin her wheels for a while.