Bitter Angels (29 page)

I was Vijay Kochinski and I was setting out to announce my reputation as a bad guy among a group of people known locally as “saints” as quickly as possible.

What followed was more or less a highlights version of Vijay’s time on Dazzle. They were short clips, just setting the scene, giving me some faces, a few names, letting me know whom he was making contact with and how. I watched through Vijay’s eyes as he stood watch over pallets of supplies. I stood sullenly through a chewing-out by the aid foreman on the first shift of the first day. That night, I cruised through the city on my off-shift, scoping out the bars and the dives, mostly on the base streets. I avoided one fight and failed to avoid another and was rattled and shaken and knocked to the ground while the man I’d been drinking with just a minute before watched with a slick grin on his face.

Then the scene shifted again. I lounged against a wall, or maybe a stack of crates (there were plenty of those around), watching two men approach. Both of them were well dressed in ways that spoke of pride in their wealth rather than comfort with it. Their stride was purposeful and Vijay straightened up slowly.

“Pardon-pardon,” Vijay said as they stopped in front of him. “I can’t let you past here unless you’ve got a business warrant.”

“And here we were such friends just a day ago,” he said, his face becoming a picture of regret.

Vijay squinted at him. “Is that you, Meek? Sorry, didn’t recognize you in the good light.”

“Meek’s” smile was not amused. “It’s me. And this is my
patri
, Papa Dare. You remember we talked about him?”

“That I do remember.” Vijay’s eyes flickered up and down, sizing up Papa Dare carefully. Dare was not an imposing man. He was on the small side, and he was fat. The heat brought out perspiration on his pale, slab-cheeked, full-bearded face. He wore a rich purple coat, sewn over with silver scales, that was probably hot as the very hinges, but would turn a knife like the pair he wore openly on his gold chain-link belt, and might at least slow down a projectile from a weapon similar to the handgun holstered over his shoulder.

“And what has you gentlemen out to our transit depot so late?” Vijay asked warily.

There are some things that do not change. Where there are valuable goods, there will be thieves. Where there are thieves, there will be people who organize them—and take most of the profits.

Sometimes, if you’re careful, you can make good use of this facet of human nature. But you must be
exceedingly
careful.

Papa Dare’s smile was even less amused than Meek’s had been. “I think we need to talk, you and me, Edison.”

Getting ready to fight.

“Now, now,” chided Meek. “I’d be very polite if I were you. Not a lot of places to run away to in our city.”

Vijay considered this, especially the emphasis on “our.” “And I’m going to need to run, why?”

“Because maybe you’re not very smart.”

“Uh-huh.” Vijay’s eyes narrowed. “I’m smart enough to know I don’t like the way this is going.”

“Ah. Good.” Meek flashed a wide white smile. “I told you we could talk to Edison, didn’t I, Papa Dare? Maybe he just doesn’t know. He’s a visitor after all. Maybe nobody told him that if he wants to do business here, it’s our family he talks to.”

“Your family?”

Dare’s smile grew sharp. “You don’t think the Blood is the only family in the Vault? You do not even know how many I got in my particular family.”

As threats went, it was not subtle, nor was it original. But it was one of those things that had stayed around because it tended to work.

You’d certainly have thought it did this time from the loud swallow Vijay gave, and the weak-water sound to his voice. “Silly me.”

“That’s right.” Dare reached out and patted Vijay on the arm. “That’s very good, Eddy. Silly you. And what are you going to do about being so silly?”

Vijay sighed. “I’d say I’m going to give you this.” He reached inside his shirt and brought out a flex screen. He unfolded it, an odd gesture, but it was to give me, or whoever experienced this XP, a look at it.

Dare received the manifest with a nod and handed it to Meek. Meek looked it over carefully before slipping it into his own jacket pocket. “There. Didn’t I say, Papa? Reasonable, civilized people, the Solarans. Positively refreshing to deal with.”

Papa Dare nodded. “You keep yourself clean, Eddy,” he said to Vijay. “I don’t like having to make second trips.”

“I will,” said Vijay. “Unless.”

Meek went very still. “Unless?” he repeated.

“Unless you and I can maybe do a deal.”

Dare looked down his pug nose at Vijay, which, considering the height difference was a good trick. “What kind of deal would a reasonable, civilized Solaran want to do with us?”

Vijay shrugged. “So, I’m this reasonable, civilized Solaran, and I’m stuck in this shit job working off my time for unsociable behavior because I don’t like my own face or anybody else’s very much. Maybe I’d like to find a way out of it, except jumping ship without any exchange is a really dumb idea.”

Dare’s eyebrows lifted, creating deep wrinkles in his brow. “You surprise me, Edison. I thought your kind all got your balls cut off at birth.”

Vijay snickered. I had never heard him produce such a nasty sound. “A lot of us do, yeah.”

“Thanks.”

“Nice and quiet, Eddy.” Dare shook a finger at him. “No more business.”

Vijay bowed, hands folded, the picture of dignified submission. “No more, Seño Dare, unless you clear it.”

Dare beamed. “Reasonable. Civilized. This is what I like about you saints. No fuss. No bragging and wasting time or pardon-pardon. Just get it done.”

Dare and Meek strode away through the twists and turns of the transit depot, unhesitating and unafraid. Behind them, Vijay let out a long, long breath and slumped back against the wall.

Amerand still hadn’t shown up. I looked toward the door. I looked at my glasses. I bit my lip and slid them back into place and opened the connection again.

The room darkened, then brightened and I was home. I was in David’s study with the tarnished November sunlight
streaming in through the window, lighting up his angled desk and his shelves full of antique books and ledgers, and David himself.

A sweet pain flooded me and my hand lifted to reach for him before I could stop it.

“Hello, Terese,” he said softly.

“Hello,” I whispered to the recording, which could not hear me.

“I wasn’t going to do this. Not until…until I knew for certain what to say. But now I don’t think I ever am…going to know for certain that is…” He stopped and looked away toward the window. Snow clung to the rocks by the shoreline and the grey water shifted sluggishly.

I could barely breathe.
You’re going to leave me. You’re going to leave me and I can’t blame you because I’ve already left
.

“I haven’t made any grand decisions, if that’s what you’re worrying about right now,” David went on. “I keep trying, and nothing comes. One day I think I’ll just cut it off, do a Turnover, and let you get on with…with whatever it is you need to do out there. The next I think I’m going to come charging out after you.”

He chuckled softly but didn’t smile. “Stupid, isn’t it? Going through all this to get you a message just to say I don’t yet know what I want.” He faced the camera again. “But I do miss you, Terese.”

He touched the edge of his desk and faded away.

Because I gave no other command, my view brightened, signaling the start of the second message.

David sitting in his study again. It was night, and he had only one light on. Behind him the windows were solid, glimmering sheets of black.

I winced and closed my eyes, but I couldn’t shut out his voice.

“I’m taking leave and going out to Berlin. Spend some time with the kids. You might look for me there first when you do get back.” There came a pause that stretched out so long I almost thought the message was over. I almost opened my eyes.

“Was it even real to you, Terese?” David whispered. “Was any of our life together real to you?”

There was a click, and silence. If I opened my eyes, I’d be alone in the dark.

I tore my glasses off.
What the hell were you
thinking,
sending that?
I demanded, not sure if I wanted an answer from myself, or from David wherever he was. I knew I wanted to be angry at him for sending these asinine, spineless messages—for making me cry, for making me afraid, in the middle of a mission. I never thought about home when I was active. I never thought about anything but the job.

I’d never had anything but the job before. I’d never really wanted anything else. But I’d had Dylan then, and Bianca, and the knowledge I was good at what I did.

Now…now I had an empty room and a heartful of dust, and Bianca was a traitor and I didn’t know whom to trust, and David didn’t even know if he was leaving me or not.

All at once, I couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t think about this, I couldn’t be this other person. I had to be the Field Commander.
I had to get out of here, to find Amerand Jireu and work out who he was, what he was doing. I had to find Emiliya Varus. I had to find my way from what had happened here to what was happening on Fortress and
why
it was all happening.

I crammed my glasses back into their pocket, kicked my makeshift bed back against the wall so hard it bounced, and headed downstairs to the lobby.

Locals and aid workers performed triage in the middle of the babble of voices and the smell of humans who didn’t have access to adequate water and sanitation. Feeling petty, I moved over to the man stationed at the door as a sort of receptionist and asked if Captain Jireu had been by and left me a message.

He blinked up at me, as if trying to understand, but before he could say anything, we were interrupted.

“Pardon-pardon, Seña?” An old man with leathery skin and hollow cheeks stepped up to me. He was bald and pale, but the muscles that showed in his forearms beneath his neatly mended blue coat were still wiry. “You are looking for Captain Jireu? I think I am looking for you.”

I bowed. “Pardon-pardon, Seño,” I answered. “I do not think I know you.”

“I am Finn Amerand Jireu. Captain Jireu is my son.”

I confess I stared at the wizened man. The years had been hard on him, but I could see the family resemblance in the shape of his face and the intensity deep behind his eyes.

I dug around in my memory for class-appropriate formality and found it. “I am grateful to meet the father of my friend.”

He bowed. “I am sent to find you.”

“Do you have a message?” Why would Amerand be
sending his father to run such an errand? Well, it was pretty clear trust was not something they had a lot of in the Erasmus Security.

“No, pardon-pardon. But news.” Finn Jireu straightened up. “My son is being questioned. His Clerk is dead.”

The second thing I did was look to see who had come to meet us.

I almost had to jump back from the crowd of saints who swarmed up to surround Terese and Coordinator Baijahn. At first glance, it looked like Liang had brought half his staff with him—and all the doctors. I heard Captain Baijahn first protest, then swear as they sat her down on the nearest crate for a good going-over.

Terese rolled her eyes at me, then turned her back. I didn’t even allow myself to nod. I had to face Commander Barclay, and with him, a half dozen Clerks, none of whom was Hamahd. Fear settled into my empty stomach.