Flight (23 page)

Then Selia explains how Charlie's family ended up being MR military and didn't see my description of Charlie's death as the closure I meant it to be. Luckily the pilot who flew her out of the RR went with her to deliver the package because she refused to give him his half of the bribe until that part of the deal was completed.

Charlie's family tried to kill them, but the pilot was an ex-operative in the Polar Friendly. He flew them up there and that's how she got involved with all this Subjack stuff. Her life since I left earth sounds like the twisted plot of some espionage book.

Junco?

Yeah.

Where are you?

Where are
you
?

Uh, west entrance.

I shake Gideon to get his attention. "Hey, where is this place relative to the west entrance? Isten wants to know?"

Gideon answers me without turning his head. "Straight back on the left, red tent, sign's in German."

I repeat the directions to Isten and Aren is suddenly interested in me. "You have an internal com or something, Junco?" Aren asks with a skewed frown.

I don't have a chance to answer because I hear my team outside and crane my neck with anticipation. They are boisterous and loud as they enter the tent and then get louder when they see me.

Isten, Braun, Moju, and Ashur walk over to the table.

"What the fuck happened–?"

Ashur and Braun look like they've beaten the shit out of each other.

Braun picks me up to steal my seat and then sets me back down on his lap. "We put that shit to rest, Juncs. That's all. Not the first time Ash and I have scrapped. And it definitely won't be the last, he's such a straight-backed fucking piker."

I look over to Ashur and while his serious eyes say nothing, his mouth sure does. "You stay away from his stupid ideas, Junco. I'm not fucking around, either. I'll punish you somehow if you ever take his advice again, you got it?"

This is a sore spot for Ashur, so I nod. Braun pinches me on the stomach and I twist away and stand until Isten grabs me my own chair and we talk privately.

Are they really OK?

Yeah, sure. They really do fight all the time.

So, you get the 50 cals?

Yeah, and the suits just in case. These guys giving you trouble?

Nah.

"Junco!"

"Yeah?" I look over at Ashur. "What?"

"If you two have something to say, say it out loud, goddammit. I told you, that shit pisses me off."

"I was just asking about our weapons. Jasus, why are you so angry?"

Ashur brushes me off and calls the rest of the team to give them directions. They straggle in over the next several minutes. Tier is the last to enter and he smiles at me as he walks in but takes a seat between Gideon and me.

Their food arrives and the 039 and Moju settle down to eat. I watch my team carefully to log how they react to the human food, but it's a non-issue. They converse easily with the humans, even Selia. Arel bothers her for whole stretches of time about the reports we saw back in the Band. It's clear that the 039 is just as at home on this planet as they are on Amelia. I guess that's what happens when you spend most of your life living between two worlds.

"Junco?"

I look over to Aren. "Yeah?"

"Wanna go for a walk with me?"

Both Gideon and Tier begin to object but I put up my hand. "Sure, Aren. Lead the way."

We walk out into the bustle of the marketplace and turn left and enter an adjacent tunnel that is far less busy.

"What's this part?"

Aren grabs my hand and smiles down at me when I look up, a little startled. "The cheap seats, that's all. But it's quiet so we can talk a little. Are you happy, Junco?"

I let out a long sigh. "Happy? I'm not sure what that means. I have moments, ya know? But happy. No. I don't think so. I don't understand what's happening, Aren. I have memories that I can't trust. Like earlier you said we were best friends for three years, but it was four and in my memory we were a lot more than friends."

He stops and lets go of my hand. "What?"

I shake my head and smile. "See, this is what I'm talking about. In my reality you came back after your graduation, Aren. We had a pretty serious relationship going. Am I crazy? Did I make that up?" He looks away for a few seconds and when his dark blue eyes meet mine again they confirm my worst suspicions. "He was a clone, wasn't he? That Aren?"

He nods. "I left the RR after graduation, Juncs. Came up here with your father."

I turn away and start to go back and Aren trots a little to catch up with me. We turn the corner and I see all the guys waiting outside the tent. Tier's eyes find mine and I stop short. "That Aren that went looking for me after my father's funeral. That was my real Aren, wasn't it?"

"I'm not sure, Junco. I'm really not."

"And Tier really did kill my Aren." I look up at Aren now. "I loved him, ya know. I thought he was you."

"He wasn't real, Junco. He was a copy of me, for fuck's sake. Just a copy. And whatever information you told him, he sold it back to the MR. He
sold
you."

A memory comes back to me. Not a deep one, just a few moments of my Aren and I out on the scrub, when we were running from Tier.
I figure I had all that field experience, so I took my skills to the highest bidder. And frankly, Junco, I'm having a hard time swallowing this fucking holier-than-thou attitude you suddenly seem to have about it. You and I are no different.

I shake my head. "No, Aren, you're wrong. He didn't. I told him something the very first day back to school. That very night we slept together for the first time and I told him something that I know for a fact he never repeated."

When I look back up he's angry. "I cannot fucking believe the words coming out of your mouth. He was my fucking clone! I was your friend, Junco. For years! We did everything together."

"My father paid you, Aren. He set us up to be friends and he paid you."

He hisses out a breath. "I never took the money, you know that! I told you I never took the money!"

"But you never loved me either. The other one did, Aren. And Tier killed him."

He laughs now. "You know what, you
are
fucked up. He was the traitor, Junco. Not me. How can you possibly–"

"I told you, dammit. He did not tell them what I told him. And he reminded me out on the scrub that day when we were running from Tier. You remember when the Mayor of Peak City was assassinated a few years back, Aren?"

I watch his face as the words come out. He remembers, but he's too busy fitting the pieces together to answer me.

"I killed that motherfucker on a freelance job. You understand what that means, Aren? Freelance job. I was not under orders from my father, or that clone, or whoever was supposed to be handling me that year. That first day back to senior-year cadets I killed the fucking Peak City mayor in the river as he was kayaking down some pansy-ass stretch of whitewater. I cut his fucking biometrics out of the palm of his left hand and sold it to buy some illegal weapons I picked up that same night."

My jaw clenches with anger as I remember back to that day. To how fucking horrible it felt to learn that I was one hundred percent alone in the world. And how fucking good it felt when I went back to school that night and Aren was waiting for me. Concerned about me. Wanting to love me.

I look back over to Tier and Gid has his arm and he's physically restraining him from coming over here.

My eyes dart around as I complete the thoughts running through my mind. "You're the real Aren. Fine. That's you. But there was another Aren in my life, OK? And to me, he was real as well. You don't get to decide what he meant to me. Got it?"

Gid and Tier are arguing now, pushing each other. Any minute the fists will fly so I start walking towards them. Aren hangs back and doesn't follow me. Gid lets go of Tier as I approach.

"Junco, I think we should go back to our room now. Come on, you look tired."

"I am tired, Tier. But I'm not going back to the room with you guys. I'm gonna sleep in my parents' house tonight."

Gideon's eyebrows go up and he smiles.

Tier frowns. "Why, Junco?"

I shake my head. "I don't even have the energy to explain it, Tier. I just want some space."

I pivot and look around to try and get my bearings and find my way back to the guarded door. I feel a hand on my back and Gideon is next to me.

"I'll take you there."

Chapter Twenty-One

We're silent as we walk back to the room and I'm not in the mood to keep up a forced conversation, so I let it go.

When we get there Gideon follows me inside and closes the door. "I'll stay until you ask me to leave, OK?" He turns on the screen and slumps in a chair as I lie on the couch.

"You guys have all the comforts of home down here, huh?"

He lets out a little laugh. "Yeah, well, gotta keep the masses happy, right?" He flips through the channels and finds a horror screen.

I watch the familiar plotline for several minutes. "You wanna hear something funny?"

He looks at me sideways, not quite taking his eyes off the screen. "What?"

"My first night out of the tank on Amelia, I had Ashur as my guard and he was watching horror screens too."

The smile creeps up on his face until it's genuine. "Same shit, different world?"

I laugh. "You have no idea, Gideon."

He looks away but I catch his words. "I have an idea." He concentrates on the screen for a few seconds, then turns to look at me. "I've been plenty of places, Junco."

"Tell me where."

He turns back to the screen without saying anything so I take the initiative. "The First Fledge Fight was nothing but a thousand people in an arena. They lined us up in a pattern, like a ziggurat."

His head snaps around to look at me.

"It only lasted five minutes and hundreds of people were dead at the end."

He looks away, his jaw clenching, and I'm sure I'll have to continue in order to keep the momentum going. But then he talks. "I'm not avian or human. I'm both. Just like you, Junco, I'm a Seven too." He stops and for a second I think he's done, but then he continues. "I'm just not
the
Seven. My clutch is gone." He looks over at me and shrugs.

"How is that possible? You don't have wings and you're older than me, so you have to have wings."

"I'm different, that's all." He looks away. "Your turn."

"Does it bother you? Being different?"

He doesn't look over. "If you wanna play, then it's your turn."

I count my own breaths. "A really cool guy named Kush saved me at the end of Fight One. And he's the one I killed by accident at the end of Deliverance. I killed myself – not to save Tier – but because I just wanted to die."

This gets his attention. His eyebrows go up and he looks over at me. "Shit."

"No one else knows that. Not even Lucan."

"So why tell me?" His face is calm, but his eyes are searching.

"It feels good to tell someone secrets. Someone other than Sera. Or Isten, because he steals them anyway. But he never wanted to find this one."

"What's up with you and that guy?"

"We're twined."

"No idea what that is, Junco."

I shrug. "Me either, but we're connected now. That's all I know."

He's silent for a few seconds so I prod. "Your turn."

"I'm not a bodyguard, Junco. I'm just a hired killer who got sidetracked." He looks away after this confession, like he's done now.

My heart thumps for a fraction before I lock it down and take a deep breath. "Must be nice to get paid for doing something you're good at."

His interest is not renewed.

"Subjack made me kill people every time he took me to an aerialist competition overseas. And since you obviously read a file on me, I'm sure you already know that. So how do you justify helping me with the truth, when all they ever did was lie to me?"

The silence between us creates a gulf and again, just when I think he's not gonna cross it, he surprises me and makes the effort. "Another government hired me to kill you once, Junco." His stoic face gives me chills for some reason. "But I don't kill kids, and I certainly don't bother with killing girls unless I have to. So I refused and took the info to your mother. She offered me a place here, to help you if you ever needed it. And for your information, they're all lying to you. Not just the Subs and not just the MR. The avians invented the lies and if you want my opinion, they're more guilty than all of the others – because right now you trust them."

"I know they're keeping things from me, but it's not like they didn't ask if I wanted the truth, ya know. I just don't want it right now."

"That's the most pathetic thing I've ever heard." His eyes can't stop the slow gradual migration over to my face and I watch him struggle not to show his revulsion to my words.