by Sean Platt
“How many people have you killed, Kai?”
They hadn’t quite gone down this road, despite their new full-disclosure policy. The idea that Kai was an occasional assassin bothered Nicolai less than he felt it should have. It may have been rationalization, or it may have been that he’d left bodies in his own wake, but Nicolai somehow got the impression that they’d all had it coming. He thought he knew Kai well enough to know what she was and wasn’t capable of…but then, all of her clients probably thought the same thing.
“Do you really want to discuss my work?”
He rolled his eyes. No, he really didn’t. Discussions about neither aspect of her business could lead to anything good.
“Look,” she said, “it sounds to me like Micah already told you all of what you need to know. You brought hovertech to the NAU. Little old you, all by yourself. So what?”
“So what?”
“Yes, so what?” Kai stared at him, her brown eyes meeting his.
He’d been killing himself trying to reason out the ramifications of what Micah had told him — not to mention becoming paranoid enough to go off-grid while remaining in the city — but for the moment, he stopped to see it how Kai seemed to. In a way, she had a point: So what? There was very little that any new knowledge about hovertech’s history was going to change Nicolai’s (or anyone’s) life. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about the mechanics of his unknown delivery since that first call with Micah and could only figure that some of his father’s prototype hoverbots must have attached to him when he opened the arsenal following the break-in. He’d changed and occasionally washed his clothes throughout his European wanderings, so they either hovered around him in a cloud or attached to his body rather than figuratively slipping into his pockets. There were dozens of questions about even that much of the story — “why?” most prominent among them, followed by “Did the bots know what they were doing?” — but answers to those questions would change nothing. No matter what Nicolai learned about the Ryan family and their manipulative, snooping, technology-stealing ways, he would just be satisfying his own curiosity, not changing anybody’s actions or existences. It was hardly a prime concern when he, Kai, and the woman formerly known as Doc had their own conspiracy to hide.
“It just feels like my whole life has been orchestrated,” said Nicolai, shaking his head. “There are so many unknowns. My father’s research, everything it’s become without his name, without even Allegro Andante’s name, and without my knowledge — just snatched and then exploited. And if it’s sat for so long, why did Micah tell me — why now, after more than fifty years? What’s his game? What does it mean? Did you know I was in the last group of people to enter the NAU before the borders closed? At the time, it felt lucky, but that’s one hell of a stroke. Looking back, it makes me wonder if they knew I was coming, and were keeping a foot in the door.”
“So what if they did?” said Kai, her hands on her hips. She was much shorter than Nicolai, but right now her presence was large while his was small.
“Is that why I ended up with Isaac? He basically recruited me the minute I stepped off the boat: Another stroke of good fortune for the wanderer from the East. And if they needed the nanobots, why did they keep me around? Or was it the other way around? Did they know about the nanobots, or did they just know I was Salvatore Costa’s son, and wanted to see if I had any of the old man’s secrets…and then got lucky themselves?”
Kai took her hands from her hips and rested them on Nicolai’s shoulders. She pitched her voice low when she spoke next, and Nicolai caught himself wondering if she had a vocal attenuator in her throat like Isaac, meant to soothe those she spoke to.
“Nicolai,” she said. “Why does it matter?”
His head hung. She wrapped her arms around him. A long moment later, she let him go.
“I told you the story about my family,” he said, “but nobody knows that story. You’re the only one other than me.”
“I’m honored.”
“Just you and me…and Micah Ryan, and probably the rest of Micah’s family, including Isaac. Hell, maybe Natasha even knows. All the years I spent with them, had dinners with them, worked side by side with them, and they pretended to believe what I said about my past. What Micah told me puts everything during my years in the NAU with those I thought were my closest friends and colleagues into question, Kai. Everything. If Micah knows about my father and his inventions and was in with ‘powerful friends’ in Italy, then is it possible the Ryans were behind his murder?”
“You said your family was killed by a Rake Squad.”
“That’s sure what it looked like. But that’s what I’m saying; I feel like I can barely trust the floor beneath me. What if everything I’ve ever taken for granted is a lie? I keep thinking about what we did with Whitlock, making him believe he saw you kill Doc. We planted a false memory in his head that, so far, his mind seems to have accepted as real. But think about it: If the immersion in those rigs is good enough to do something like that, we could have left him inside the simulation forever. He could still be hooked up right now, plugged into The Beam, oblivious. How would he ever know he was still walking around in a sim rather than real life?” Nicolai sighed. “That’s what I feel like right now. So many things, looking back, turned out coincidentally perfect for me. I alone escaped the squad. I made my way across the ocean. I was in the final group to cross the NAU border before it closed to non-certified traffic. I ended up working with Isaac Ryan — right beside the man whose family, it seems, was waiting for me to show up and bring them what they wanted.”
“Mmm,” said Kai.
“I feel like I could be in a simulator like Whitlock. Because if I were in a simulation, then someone else could control what happened. Then I’d shrug at all those convenient things and say, ‘Oh well, it is what it is.’”
Kai put her palm flat to Nicolai’s cheek, cupping it. She turned him to look into her eyes. “That’s how life is, Nicolai. Things happen.”
“As if by plan.”
“Maybe there is a plan.”
“You don’t believe that.” She couldn’t possibly. Kai was a hooker assassin, not a philosopher. She had the heart of gold, all right, but her edges were plenty sharp. She was wealthy and in a position of power today but had lived a life that no one could envy. But then again, maybe the ends justified the means, and perhaps even jaded Kai sometimes saw it that way.
“You can’t tell me what I believe.”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t be so needy. I’m sorry I’m not being a rock.”
She reached down and cupped an erection he didn’t realize he had.
“You’re rocklike enough.”
Nicolai laughed then stepped away.
Kai looked disappointed. After a moment, her expression changed to irritation. “Look,” she said, “I don’t want to tell you your business, but you’re missing a really obvious way to feel better here.”
“Kai…”
“Why did you invite me over, Nicolai?”
“You’re the only person who knows it all. And you’re the only person who might be able to relate.”
“I can’t relate at all,” she said. “Your father was pushed around by the Italian Mob and the Ryan family, and it seems like Micah has been pulling your strings since he met you. At the very least.”
“I meant to any of this. Who am I supposed to talk to about the Doc situation?”
“Kate. The Kate situation.”
“Whatever. I’m going to end up working for him now, you know. Not Doc; Micah. You already do. And if he knew what we…”
“He doesn’t.”
“But if he did…”
Kai shook her head. Everything she’d said since her last glance into the bedroom had been clipped and frustrated. She sounded like she was answering him because she had to, but she was being perfunctory and not really paying attention. Now she looked like her patience had finally worn through. She might joke about Nicolai not needing to b
e a rock, but she’d always admired his strength, and right now he didn’t have much of it.
“What, Nicolai? You think Micah is going to kill you after bringing you carefully along, after orchestrating your whole life and all? Don’t flatter yourself. Or rather, maybe do flatter yourself. Maybe you’re too important to kill. You were the first one released when we were in with Alix Kane. Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t remember Kane. I keep forgetting.”
They’d been through everything that had happened during the hole in Nicolai’s memory. “You’ve told me about him,” said Nicolai.
“And I’ve told you about how after you were gone, he gave the order to have me evaporated then resumed torturing Doc out of his mind.”
“That’s not fair. I can’t control what…”
“And I told you how they never put you on the Orion. Just me and Doc, who got the full treatment.”
Nicolai was about to reply, but he stopped himself. He wasn’t sure where this brewing argument was going, but he already seemed to be losing. He’d earned his spot as a top speechwriter thanks to his smooth articulation and his ability to get what he wanted using his words, but Kai was running laps around him. He wondered at the situations she’d had to talk her way into and out of over the years.
He said nothing, waiting to see what Kai would do next. Her eyes had sharpened, but when he didn’t return fire, they softened. Again, she stepped forward. This time, she put her small hand on his chest. She looked at the hand then turned her beautiful, strangely vulnerable face up to his.
“Look,” she said. “Of course we need to talk. But Doc has already had his reassignment — burning through not only his stashed savings, but also the entirety of my new position’s advance credit bonus, that asshole — and he’s safe. Nobody is asking about Thomas Stahl anymore because he’s dead. He’s off the grid, off The Beam. I assume his entire apartment has been scrubbed, someone got his stuff or it was liquidated, and his files are rubbed from existence. It’s handled.”
“I feel uncomfortable even discussing this out loud,” said Nicolai, looking around his dead apartment with its unresponsive canvas.
Kai leaned closer and kissed his neck. “So don’t say it out loud. Let it go.”
“Kai…”
“What?” Her hands circled him. It was kind of like a hug, but with obvious ulterior motives. It was the kind of embrace she could almost play off as friendly, except that the right parts of her body were coincidentally pressing against the right parts of his.
“This is a dangerous game we’re playing,” he said.
“Mmm-hmm.” Mouth at his collarbone. Breath warm and moist.
“I invited you over so that we could compare notes,” he added.
Kai’s hand slid down Nicolai’s front, the tips of her fingers settling an inch under the top of his belt. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”
Under her fingers, Nicolai continued to respond. Apparently, he did need the release. Apparently, only his top half was concerned about Doc and conspiracies. His lower half was pointing in the direction it wanted to go like the needle of a compass. Then, as if following its instructions, Kai looked over her shoulder. At the bed.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Your canvas is off. Let’s pretend to be cave people.”
Nicolai swallowed.
A small smile lit her lips. She began to saunter backward, holding his hands until his arms were stretched straight between them. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She paused then pouted. “Yes?”
“You didn’t lock the door,” said Nicolai, nearing surrender.
“Only cave people lock doors.” Another two steps backward into the bedroom. “Come over here, and drag me around by my hair. Then we can marvel at fire.”
Nicolai walked the other way, toward the apartment’s front door, to lock it. The canvas normally handled it for him, but he could also turn it manually, just as he could turn the knob.
“Be quick,” she purred.
Kai’s footfalls vanished behind him as Nicolai crossed the front room, suddenly aware of his hurry. But a step from the deadbolt, there was a knock at the door.
Nicolai froze.
After a respectful pause, the knock repeated.
Nicolai felt paralyzed. No visitor would knock on a door. Not like that. It was the kind of knock he remembered from childhood, back when the doors across society’s upper tiers weren’t all ID-responsive.
“Hello?” he said.
“Good afternoon, Nicolai,” said a somewhat muted voice on the other side of the door. “Can I come in?”
It was Micah Ryan.
Leo looked down and watched his tapping foot with fascination. He was wearing sandals like a good hippie, and the rug on the floor had been hand-woven just a few prehistoric houses away. His foot’s tapping made a sound on it like a beater against a hanging rug, only faster. Part of him wanted to draw a comparison between big and small things (rapid foot on small rug versus slow beater on large rug), noting how everything in the universe really did repeat itself across different scales. But as far as existential thoughts went, it was rather disappointing, and Leo was forced to remember that his toe was tapping because he was jonesing.
Your body doesn’t need dust, he mentally whispered to his toe.
With effort, the tapping stilled. It was easy enough to stop once Leo’s mind remembered that the foot was within its control. The problem was that as with most drugs, Lunis was as psychologically addictive as it was physically addictive, and that while Leo was finding most of the physical symptoms of withdrawal to be controllable (despite the widespread belief that they should be killing him), the psychological ones were harder to wrestle. And still, the worst was yet to come.
Leo had been slowly weaning himself for a week, but seven days with less dust than his body wanted was just getting started. For now, his strategy was to wait a bit longer each time he got jittery then give himself less. He’d also experimented with taking small, regularly timed doses that kept him just below the edge of comfortable — never having enough in his blood for a true high, but never going cold enough to panic. In the end, the two approaches had worked out the same, so he’d avoided the approach requiring small regular doses because it was a pain in the ass. Leo was an old man. He had better things to do than be his own pharmacist.
His toe tapped back into movement. Leo made it stop. He had five minutes left, and then he could dose. In five minutes, he could relax. His willpower was growing stronger each day as his physical need steadily dimmed — progressing painfully, but progressing nonetheless. He had no idea how long it would take until he was totally clean, but he was determined to find out. He’d had a series of epiphanies and setbacks lately that had moved his sometimes-doubt about Lunis to the top of his to-do list. The Organa, he’d been forced to admit, were as dependent on the larger society as anyone as long as they nursed their unending need for dust. The problems and delays with Dominic and Omar had proved just how imprisoned the group was by the drug. The emergency shipment (delivered by a man Leo felt sure was an undercover NAU Protective Service agent) had put that particular statement in bold type. Then Dominic’s arrest had added capital letters, underlined it twice, surrounded it with a big red circle, and drawn a bunch of exclamation points. Despite pretending to live as isolationists, it turned out that Organa was like an appliance with a cord that could be unplugged at any moment. No matter how far outside of society they tried to remain, they would always be at someone else’s mercy as long as they needed a drug they couldn’t grow themselves.
There was a knock at the door.
Leo didn’t answer immediately. His foot had become far too interesting. On the table across from him was a wind-up clock, equally awe-inspiring. It had a magic hand that circled one time each minute. Leo was eagerly anticipating another three loops. When that happened, he’d get to dose, and would finally feel so much better.
The knock repeated.
“Leo?”
“Hang on.�
� The clock’s magic hand circled. Watching required intense concentration. Whoever was at the door would have to wait.
“Let me in, Leo.”
Who was that? Scooter?
Leo didn’t care enough to spend much thought on it. He held a tiny bag of moon rocks in his right hand and kept rolling the ball of his thumb across the plastic’s tiny protrusions. Soon, he’d get to set them under his tongue, and that simple ritual had become much more fascinating and less mundane than it had been two weeks ago. Now it was an event to be anticipated.
As he watched the clock and grew excited about his upcoming fix, part of Leo’s mind wondered if he was making things worse — if he was training himself to look forward to his highs as rewards for hard work. During his childhood, McDonald’s restaurants had done the same thing with their food, training parents to reward their children with a trip to their favorite fast food depot. Happy Meals became a reward for doing a good thing and became linked to good feelings. Who didn’t want more good feelings, and hence more McDonald’s? And wasn’t that what Leo was doing now, exercising discipline so he could reward himself with the very thing he was using his discipline to resist? But then again, what the hell was he supposed to do? Lunis withdrawal had a history of being violent or deadly. Almost nobody got off of it without medical help, and those who did were usually drawn back into using by their social circles or habit.
The door opened. Leo wouldn’t have believed in locked doors even if any of the homes in the compound had locks. The Organa were peaceful addicts. A town of friendly derelicts.
Dominic Long entered. Leo’s eyes flicked up for long enough to register the police chief’s presence, but his head didn’t bother with surprise. He had to watch this clock. And he had to keep an eye on his tapping foot.
“Leo,” said Dominic.
Was that magic hand ever going to get where Leo needed it to go?