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    Maze-Born Trouble
    Maze-Born Trouble
    Maze-Born Trouble
    Ebook112 pages1 hour

    Maze-Born Trouble

    By Ginn Hale

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    A dead girl, a cop he can’t forget, and a price on his head.
    All on a space station at the edge of a black hole.
    Just another day’s work for P.I. Lake Harmaa.

    P.I. Lake Harmaa escaped the darkness and intense gravity of Sisu Space Station’s Maze Sector by turning traitor and spying for the Feds during the war.

    He has no intention of risking his neck by going back down into those depths, where there’s a price on his head and more than a few souls who wouldn’t mind him turning up dead.

    But when he’s framed for a brutal murder, Lake realizes he must return to the Maze and settle old scores.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlind Eye Books
    Release dateNov 15, 2016
    ISBN9781935560500
    Maze-Born Trouble

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    • 5/5
      Interesting world building, and a satisfying romance, wrapped up in a twisty mystery.

    Book preview

    Maze-Born Trouble - Ginn Hale

    Maze-Born Trouble

    Ginn Hale

    Published by:

    Blind Eye Books

    1141 Grant Street

    Bellingham WA 98225

    blindeyebooks.com

    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except for the purpose of reviews.

    Edited by Nicole Kimberling and Anne Scott

    Cover by Dawn Kimberling

    This book is a work of fiction and as such all characters and situations are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual people, places or events is coincidental.

    Copyright© 2016 Ginn Hale

    Maze-Born Trouble

    1.

    Lake Harmaa listened as the office vents coughed out a last breath of warm, clean air before falling quiet. The high-pitched hum of the lights continued for five seconds before dulling to a dim buzz. Utility bills went perpetually late and unpaid all across the old sectors. So no real surprise that the most recent nobody put in charge of Power & Life Support had decided to stage a shakedown. Though it gave away how little this new boy knew about the old sectors if he thought a couple of power-downs would scare anyone. Still, Lake couldn’t fault the first-timer for trying. He’d learn soon enough.

    Although now that he considered it, two power-downs in two days struck Lake as odd. Too much paperwork and too many explanations to far-flung superiors to merit shaking loose such small change.

    Maybe there was something more to this. A security test? Or maybe someone had put the new boy up to it.

    None of it was Lake’s business—not unless someone paid him to make it his.

    He leaned back in his chair pondering what remained of his office hours. Slim chance anybody would make anything his business during a power-down.

    Out in the waiting room, the incessant murmur of the satellite scanner choked to silence. Lake’s office manager, Willow Jänis, swore at the scanner in that fond tone of hers—the same way she called her husband worthless like it was a rare attribute. Then she raised her voice to carry through the walls and over the wheeze of the emergency-floor lights. You want me to stay on the clock or can I start drinking?

    The question both surprised and relieved Lake. Normally Jänis wanted all the hours she could get. Supporting an idealistic physician from one of Yuanxi’s biospheres didn’t come cheap. She’d just leased a new high-grav surgical suite for him. Lake gave her as much work as he could afford, but he wasn’t running a charity—not like Jänis’s man.

    Give it ten minutes, Lake replied. Then bottoms up.

    On other stations—particularly the sleek Yuanxi biospheres that orbited Jag-eun sin’s A-class synthetic star like a strings of pearls—power-downs incited panic. But here aboard Sisu Station, darkness and stale air didn’t alarm most of the populace any more than the roaches or milk spiders skittering through the ducts. At least not the people living in the Maze or Arc sections—the old sectors. Up on the immense ribbons of the Drift, people expected better. Most likely, Power & Life Support’s comm lines already scorched with complaints delivered automatically from state-of-the-art homes and corporate office buildings.

    Lake heard the soft gulp of liquid pouring from a bottle.

    That was a fast ten minutes, he called, teasing.

    Nah, it’s a slow drink. I won’t be to the bottom too soon, Jänis replied. I need to get started before the cold creeps in too deep, don’t I?

    That’s what the doctor orders, is it?

    My worthless man? Sure he does. He hands out little gin bottles with all those charity inoculations he gives the Maze babies— Jänis cut herself off as a loud knock sounded from the outer door. Damn it, she muttered.

    Lake picked out the creak of manual hinges scraping open under the weight of dead hydraulics as Jänis pried the door open.

    He’s in, Jänis said, then she called back to Lake, And I’m heading out. I got a doctor’s appointment.

    Sure. You gotta keep warm somehow. Lake might have said more—pretended offense at her bothering to ask if she should stay when she never intended to—but the man coming through his door put a lid on his amusement.

    Lake recognized the smell of him first. Strong and dry like old-world cedar and a couple of shots of vodka. It was the antiseptic scent of the police morgue. Lake listened to the man stride across the small office and heard the chair across from his desk creak as the man dropped his long frame onto the cheap seat. Fine variations in the gravity field rippled across Lake’s skin, caressing him with the other man’s unique mass signature.

    Lake basked very briefly in the solid feel of DI Mateo Espina-Aguilar before recalling his manners and switching on his optics. A gentle tug on the lobe of his right ear and the dark shadow of the room resolved into sharp gray forms. At the same time Lake’s steady heartbeat quickened to feed the demand of the hungry silver implants.

    Glinting details like the shine on Aguilar’s cheap suit, the tousled lines of his black hair, and the gleam of his dark, narrow eyes flitted through Lake’s awareness like chimes sounding in a storm. But the bulk of visual information came in big dull blocks. A closed security door, run-down room with recycled rubber nubs for a carpet, bare walls, a squat desk and a drink cabinet, which supported a fat little potted cactus.

    And directly in front of Lake, a muscular man in his late thirties wearing a grim expression.

    Smiling, Aguilar’s hard face could turn sort of charming. His heavy brows lifted, and the long scar that ran from his cheek to his chin, clipping through the left side of his mouth didn’t seem so deep or wide. But he wasn’t smiling today. Aguilar drew an old-fashioned quick-pad from his breast pocket and flicked it open to record.

    An official visit, then. Lake didn’t let himself get disappointed about it.

    Four months back you were hunting for a runaway named Holly Ryan, Aguilar stated in a flat official tone. Eighteen-year-old female. 1.85 meters, well-fed, brown hair, green eyes and all natural teeth.

    Yeah, Lake agreed. He didn’t mind spilling the details of his private investigation to Aguilar. But that quick-pad meant Police Chief Cullen was likely to hear what he had to say, so Lake decided to keep his answers simple.

    How’d that work out? Aguilar asked, then he gave Lake a knowing nod. You found her, right?

    She wasn’t doing much to hide, Lake replied. She’d changed her identity to H. Ryan, planted herself up on the Drift, and gotten straight to burning through her mommy’s credit. Her other hobby was making real bad choices for her new best friends.

    Any names you recall in particular? Aguilar asked.

    Not off the top of my head, Lake lied. I’ll have to go back through my notes when the power’s back up.

    Sure, Aguilar agreed. But she was alive and well when you last saw her?

    Now there was a telling question.

    Lake kept from cracking any jokes that might have landed his ass in the middle of a possible homicide investigation.

    Yeah, she was, he said. That would have been months back—January, just after New Years—at Nam Yune’s place. The Ryan kid was sucking down noodles and losing a heap on the fighting beetles. I introduced myself and told her that her father was worried about her. She threw her tea at me while it was still in the pot. I didn’t bother to hang around for the cream and sugar.

    Aguilar cracked a quick smile then asked, Did you hear from or see her again after that?

    No. Lake shrugged. I left my contact-chip on her table, but I don’t think she took it. She never messaged me, and I closed out the job with her dad the first of February. Like I said, I’ll forward my notes as soon as the power’s back up.

    Alright. That sounds good for now. I might have more questions later. Aguilar snapped the quick-pad shut and took the extra precaution of powering it completely off before he tucked it away in his pocket.

    One of Nam Yune’s servers says you gave the Ryan girl a good shake and advised her to go home before she got herself killed. Now that the recording was over, amusement crept into Aguilar’s voice, lending it familiar warmth.

    I may have, Lake admitted. The teakettle rocketing through the air, spitting scalding water across the crowded room had roused a bit of indignation in him. Though that alone hadn’t inspired him

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