Chapter 277: Alliance Talk with Marlon [2]

"So," I said, letting a small smile settle on my face as I looked across the table at Marlon. "Now that you understand the full picture, do you see why I told you that with me involved, your chances of actually taking Callighan down go from possible to probable?"

Marlon stared me for a long moment. Then he chuckled.

"If you are anything close to what that yellow-tentacled monster is," he said, "then yes. I see it."

"I can’t actually summon yellow tentacles, to be clear," I said. "And I’ll be honest with you, Gaspar is probably a stronger Host than I am right now. He’s had longer time with his Symbiote, and whatever he’s been doing with that time, it wasn’t nothing." I paused. "But I’m what you’ve best. And I intend to make it count."

"If you’re confident enough to sit here and say that after everything you just described," Marlon said, "I’ll take it at face value."

I leaned forward, folding my hands on the table.

"So here’s where we are. You want Callighan gone, you’ve wanted that since the moment he showed up on your doorstep and asked you to hand yourself over. I want him gone because he took someone important from my people and I want her back. And neither of us can do this cleanly without the other." I met his eyes. "I don’t have the numbers you have. You don’t have anyone capable of standing in front of Gaspar and not dying for it. Between us, those two problems cancel each other out. So, do we have a deal?"

There was a beat of quiet. Then Marlon’s mouth shifted into something that was almost a smirk, small and brief, like he was letting himself enjoy the moment just slightly.

"You know how to make an argument, boy," he said. He leaned back and glanced sideways down the table, Molly first, then Maribel, then back toward Rico.

"I trust him," Molly said, without any particular drama about it. She gave a single nod, settled and certain, like she’d made that decision somewhere in the middle of the conversation and had just been waiting for the right moment to say it out loud.

"Let’s get this done before they kill more of us," Maribel said, her jaw set. She wasn’t looking at anyone specifically, more at some middle point on the table, like she was already running through logistics in her head.

From his table behind us, Rico leaned forward with a grin that had been clearly building for a while.

"I was just waiting for the word, boss. It’s past time we stopped sitting on our hands and hit back," he said.

Marlon looked at each of them in turn, then nodded once.

"Then we have a deal." He turned back to me. "I’ll assume your community knows what you’ve committed them to here?"

"Not entirely," I admitted. "It’s complicated. There’s a smaller group within the larger one, the people who actually know the full situation, who can fight and who understand what we’re dealing with. Those are the ones coming in with us. They’re good. All of them, talented in different ways, trust me on that." I paused, then added: "And we’ll also have a Starakian on our side."

Marlon’s eyes widened, just slightly. Coming from a man who kept most of his reactions locked down, it was practically a gasp.

"You mean—"

"Kunta, yeah. She agreed to help us. Getting Zakthar back from Callighan’s people lines up exactly with what she wants, so our goals overlap enough that she’s in." I smiled. "Having a Starakian in our corner is not nothing, Marlon."

"And what does she bring to the table beyond the obvious?" Maribel asked, sitting up straighter.

"She has a Matrix," I said.

"A Matrix?" Molly tilted her head.

"Starakian technology. I don’t fully understand what it does yet, she’s been conservative about the details. But she’s made it clear it’ll be relevant when it matters." I shrugged. "And beyond that, she has other capabilities."

"She also has a dog," Cindy added helpfully.

Maribel blinked. "A...dog."

"A Starakian dog," Cindy clarified. "He is extremely fast, extremely strong, and could remove a person’s throat without particularly trying."

"He’s also very cute," Daisy said quietly beside her, with complete sincerity.

"He is cute and terrifying, Daisy, both things are true at the same time," Cindy replied.

Molly let out a genuine laugh. "An alien dog, Marlon. An actual alien dog. What has happened to our planet?"

"I ask myself the same thing approximately every day," Marlon said, and for a moment he was just a tired man laughing at the absurdity of the world that had replaced the one he used to know. Then the laughter settled, and the serious expression came back. "But alien dog or not, we need to be properly prepared before we move. Planning this correctly matters."

"Agreed," I said. "And I think the first target is clear. We hit the Golden Nugget Hotel."

Marlon’s expression shifted into a frown. "How is that your starting point?"

"Because I was inside it yesterday."

The table went quiet in a very specific way.

Maribel stared at me. "You were, inside the Golden Nugget." She said it slowly, like she was hoping the repetition would make it make more sense. "The Golden Nugget that is currently packed wall to wall with Callighan’s armed people."

"I wasn’t alone," I said. "Someone accompanied me."

"Two people does not change that equation in any meaningful way!" She said, her voice pitching upward.

"It was enough," I said simply. "I got inside, got through, and I found out that Zakthar is being held there as a prisoner."

Marlon’s expression hardened at that. Something shifted in the set of his jaw.

"He’s still alive then," he muttered.

"He was yesterday."

"And you want us to attack the Golden Nugget to free him," Rico said from behind, working through it with a slightly disbelieving look. "That’s the opening move."

"There are multiple reasons for the Golden Nugget being the first target," I said, shifting into the cleaner version of the argument now. "Freeing Zakthar is one of themn and it’s not a small one, because a grateful and very capable Starakian who owes us is exactly the kind of asset that changes what we’re able to do going forward. But strategically, the hotel is also our best first move if we want to open up a clean line of approach to the Absecon Inlet and Brigantine on the other side. That’s where Callighan actually is. That’s where his main operation runs. We can’t reach it effectively without first clearing what’s between us and it."

Marlon was quiet for a moment, turning it over. "You’re not wrong about the strategic value. That positioning makes sense. But the Golden Nugget won’t be a soft target, it’ll be well-fortified, and more importantly, it’s currently being managed by someone who knows exactly what she’s doing."

"Lucy," I said.

He looked at me. "You know that woman?"

"I did more than that." I kept my voice even. "She’s in our custody. We took her yesterday."

The silence that followed was a very full one. Every face at the table had gone through the same progression, incomprehension, then the slow realization that I wasn’t joking, then something landing somewhere between impressed and deeply unsettled.

Marlon’s mouth had opened slightly. Coming from him, that was the equivalent of anyone else’s jaw hitting the floor.

"You captured that woman," he said again.

"Yeah," I said.

Another beat of silence.

"The ancient marine," he said. "The one who has been holding that position for three months without losing it once. That Lucy."

"That’s the one."

Marlon looked at me for a long moment. Then he shook his head slowly, something that wasn’t quite a smile but was adjacent to one moving across his face.

"Boy," he said, "you have been considerably busier than you look."

"Someone important to me was taken," I said. "I had to go look for her. That was the only math that mattered."

"You went into a hotel full of armed hostiles," Marlon said, "just to find one person."

"If it was Summer," I said, meeting his eyes, "wouldn’t you have done exactly the same thing?"

The question landed clean. Marlon held my gaze for a moment, and something in his expression shifted, not softened exactly, but recalibrated. Adjusted.

"My daughter, yes," he said slowly. "I suppose if she means that much to you..."

"She does," I said without hesitation.

The words settled into the room and stayed there.

A small silence followed, and I became aware of Maribel looking at me from across the table, not a quick glance, but a long, measuring stare.

Marlon, to his credit, didn’t push on it. He just studied my face for another second and then chuckled quietly to himself.

"You are a genuinely interesting person, boy," he said. "I’ll give you that."

"Interesting is too good for that brat," Rico said from behind me. "I’d have gone with suicidal."

"Think whatever you want," I said, without turning around. "I just want Mei back. And Emily. And I want my people to be able to live in this city without looking over their shoulders every ten minutes. That’s the whole list."

"And who is Emily?" Marlon asked, brow furrowing.

Then he stopped himself. Raised one hand slightly.

"You know what, I’m not going to ask. I don’t have the capacity for another name right now," he said.

I almost smiled at that.

"So we’re agreed then," I said, straightening up. "Full alliance. And I have your word that your people won’t shoot down at any of mine if they see one of us picking through a store or moving through an area your group has been through before? Because that kind of territorial friction is the last thing any of us need right now."

Marlon shot me a look that was somewhere between annoyed and exasperated. "It won’t happen, boy," he said, growling a bit.

Molly laughed.

"Good," I said. "Then the planning side of this, I’m handing that entirely to you. You’re more experienced at this scale than I am and I know it. Coordinating an assault on a fortified, occupied hotel with armed defenders is not something I’m going to pretend I can map out better than a former marine."

"I wouldn’t have given you the pen even if you’d asked for it," Marlon said, though the way he said it wasn’t condescending. More like a statement of practical reality. "You’re capable, boy. But there’s a difference between capable and experienced, and right now you’re heavy on the first and light on the second."

"I know," I agreed simply. "So while you handle the planning, I’ll work on our other angles. I’ll talk to Kunta, figure out exactly how and whatever this Matrix technology is can factor into the attack. And I’ll try to get Lucy talking."

Marlon made a skeptical sound, shifting back slightly in his seat. "That woman cooperating willingly. You’re confident that’s a realistic possibility?"

"She doesn’t seem as locked in as you’d think," I said.

What I didn’t say out loud was the rest of it, the part that actually made me believe it. Her brother was under Callighan’s thumb in Brigantine. Same place as Mei. Same place as Emily. Lucy wasn’t a true believer in Callighan’s cause. She was a person being held in place by something she cared about more than ideology, and that was a very different kind of problem to solve.

I felt my fist close slightly against the table surface without quite meaning to.

Brigantine. They were all sitting in Brigantine and I was here having meetings in a kebab restaurant while every hour that passed was another hour I didn’t know what condition any of them were in.

I unclenched my hand.

"Let me talk to her first," Marlon said, and his voice had gone harder. "I want to understand what drives a former marine to throw everything she was trained to stand for into the bin and fall in behind a man like Callighan." He paused, jaw tight. "Seems to be a trend lately."

The implication sat there without needing to be made explicit.

"I’ll arrange it," I said.

"Good." He nodded once. "And the timeline , realistically, I’d say a week. Maybe a little more. We need solid intelligence on how the hotel and the State Marina are currently being managed in that woman’s absence. Her disappearance will have caused some reshuffling and I want to know what that looks like before we commit to a plan."

"A week works," I said, running it through my head. It was tight in ways that made me uncomfortable, but it was also real, the kind of timeline that actually led somewhere instead of stretching out indefinitely while people sat on their hands. "Then let’s not waste any more of it."

I started to push back from the table and stand.

"Wait."

Marlon’s voice stopped me.

I stopped and looked at him.

He was smiling. It was a small smile and it did not especially reassure me.

"You’re staying here, boy," he said.

The table went quiet. I looked at him. Everyone else looked at him. Then at me.

"I’ll eat back at our place, it’s not a problem," I said carefully.

"I’m not talking about food," he said, and stood up to his full height, which was considerably more height than one person reasonably needed. He looked down at me with that same calm, settled expression, like this decision had already been made some time ago and my input wasn’t strictly part of the process. "You’re staying here. With us. Until we move on the hotel."

"...What?"