Holloway turned and started toward the door, trying not to let a grin ruin the completely artificial badass act he’d been trying to pull off since he’d entered the bar. Assaulting a security officer was not something one could usually get away with. Holloway had weighed the odds and figured as long as he had witnesses watching and a secure video feed recording, he could make it stick. DeLise had too much to lose by retaliating now. Even if he saved it up for later, the video of Holloway accusing him of attempted murder would always be in the ZaraCorp security files, unerasable.

It was actually better than officially accusing DeLise of trying to kill him. This way Holloway didn’t have to prove anything. This was as close as Holloway was going to come to having an insurance policy against future murder attempts. It was smartly done. Very smartly done. Holloway glanced up in the direction of the security camera with the intention of saluting jauntily as he left the bar.

The socket for the camera was empty.

Holloway stopped and turned to the bartender.

“Damn thing broke a week ago,” the bartender said. “Haven’t had time to replace it.”

Any other thoughts Holloway might have had on the matter were disrupted by the pool cue DeLise applied to the back of his head. Holloway dropped and was out before he hit the floor.

*

“I don’t see why you didn’t cave in his head in the alley,” Holloway heard a voice say.

“Too many witnesses,” said another voice, this one belonging to Joe DeLise. “The asshole got that part right. So I had to drag him here.”

“You’re still going to cave in his head,” said the other voice.

“Yes, but now it’ll be for resisting,” DeLise said. “You’ll back me up on that, right?”

The other voice laughed.

Holloway risked opening his eyes and immediately regretted it. The light stabbed at his retinas. He forced himself to keep them open and to focus on his surroundings. Eventually they came clear: He was in the ZaraCorp security holding cell. He’d been there before, on a drunk and disorderly, a couple nights after Isabel left him.

“Your friend is up,” a form said, in the distance. Another form walked over to the holding cell and resolved itself into DeLise. DeLise, still in his civilian clothes, smiled at Holloway.

“Hello, Jack,” DeLise said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like some jackass hit me when I wasn’t looking,” Holloway said.

“That happens to you a lot, doesn’t it?” DeLise said. “You know, for someone who thinks they’re smart, you do some very stupid things. Like not looking up to see if a security camera is actually there.”

Holloway closed his eyes. “I’m going to have to give you that one, Joe.”

“It’s a classic,” DeLise said. “I’ll be telling my friends about it for years.”

“You’re not really still planning to cave in my head, are you,” Holloway said. “After tonight, too many people know you have motive.”

DeLise snorted. “Christ,” he said. “People in that bar are so scared of me, they don’t even sit on my stool when I’m not there. Warren tells me that while I was out working at the camp, the place would fill up and my stool would still be open. Shit, Jack. No one there is going to remember anything but that you hit me and I arrested you. Everything else is going to get fuzzy, real fast.”

“So why did you do it, Joe?” Holloway asked. He cracked open his eyes again to look at DeLise. “Screw with my skimmer, I mean. You didn’t answer that question in the bar. I didn’t know you hated me that much.”

“Not a lot of people like you, Jack,” DeLise said. “Even the people who like you don’t like you. And I never liked you.”

“That sounds like an admission to me,” Holloway said.

“I keep telling you, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” DeLise said, mildly. “All I know is that you assaulted me, and then I brought you here, and then you got out of hand and I had to put you down. It’s not that complicated a story.”

“Good,” Holloway said. “It means you might be able to keep it straight.”

DeLise smiled. “I’m sure going to miss you, Jack,” he said.

“You’ve said that to me before,” Holloway said.

“I meant it both times,” DeLise said. “Now, you get your rest. We have to make it look good when you resist and I have to drop you.”

“Of course,” Holloway said.

“Don’t worry, Jack,” DeLise. “I won’t make it hurt too much.”

“I appreciate that, Joe,” Holloway said. “I really do.”

DeLise smiled and walked off. Holloway tried to focus on the fact that he likely had only a few hours of life left, but eventually decided his head hurt too much to think and slipped back into unconsciousness.

Some indefinite time later, Holloway was nudged awake. “Holloway,” said a voice he didn’t recognize. “Time to get up.”

“So I can get beat to death?” Holloway mumbled. “Call me unmotivated.”

“You have a concussion, Holloway,” the voice said. “It’s a bad idea to sleep with one of those.”

Holloway lifted an eyelid. The voice he didn’t recognize was attached to a man he didn’t recognize either. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Well, if everything goes well, I’m the guy who’s going to keep you from getting beat to death in a holding cell,” the man said. “Now get up, please.”

Holloway grimaced and attempted to lift himself off the floor. The man reached down to help him up. “Steady,” he said.

“Easy for you to say,” Holloway said.

The man smiled, and then turned to the trio of security officers outside the holding cell, one of whom was Joe DeLise, now in uniform.

“I’m taking Mr. Holloway with me,” he said. His voice had shifted from friendly to something else entirely. “He needs medical attention.”

“He’s not going anywhere, Mark,” one of the security guards said. Holloway recognized him as Luther Milner, who ran the graveyard shift. “This asshole assaulted a security officer. We have witnesses.”

“Uh-huh,” the man now known as Mark said. “These would be witnesses at the same bar where the allegedly assaulted officer beats the shit out of anyone who sits on his favorite stool, right? Because anyone in that bar is going to make a credible witness.”

“Hey, he hit me, Counselor,” DeLise said. “Don’t be trying to make it the other way around. That’s not the way it played out.”

“Of course not,” Mark the now apparently a lawyer said. “Just like if I hadn’t managed to get here in time, Mr. Holloway’s neck would have been broken because he was resisting. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that how this was going to play out?”

“I don’t like your tone, Sullivan,” DeLise said.

“And I don’t like that you think it’s jolly good fun to beat someone to death in a ZaraCorp holding cell, Mr. DeLise,” Mark Sullivan the lawyer said. “I have a problem with it personally, but more to the point I have a problem with it as ZaraCorp’s lawyer. I realize you’re under the impression you don’t have to answer to anyone here, but Zara Twenty-three is still technically Colonial Authority land, and murder is murder. And if a ZaraCorp employee murders someone on ZaraCorp property, well, that doesn’t look very good for the company, now, does it? Are you stupid, Mr. DeLise?”

“What?” DeLise said.

“I said, ‘Are you stupid?’” Sullivan said. “It’s a simple question. But if you like I can make it simpler. Are you dumb? There.”

“Watch it,” DeLise said.

“Or what, DeLise?” Sullivan asked, dropping the honorific. He let go of Holloway and got right into DeLise’s face. “You thinking of beating me to death, too? Because no one would miss the associate general counsel for an entire goddamned planet, would they? Threaten me ever again, DeLise, and I’ll make sure the rest of your life is spent guarding bat shit in a ZaraCorp guano mine. If you don’t think I can do it, piss in my direction one more time. Do it.”

DeLise said nothing. Sullivan stepped back to Holloway.