by JC Hay
"I don't get why we're going," she said, lips behind his ear. Her fingers splayed up his back to stroke across his shoulders. He noted the tingle of sensation as she brushed his damaged ribs, more for the absence of real pain than anything else. The pain-blockers were working, even if he tried not to think about the price. "Yashilla said she had decoys set up for us."
Joshi scoffed. "I don't know who you met, but the Yashilla I know doesn't do anything for free. If she set decoys, she had a reason."
"Old times' sake? Did you consider that?" Her mouth replaced her fingertips, kissing along the muscle of his shoulder.
Joshi closed his eyes against the sensation and tried to concentrate on checking the two pistols he'd reclaimed. Just being around her left him distracted, so he focused on keeping his movements quick and economical. Slide. Twist. Clear. He looked at the line of ammunition he'd placed on the table next to the bed, framed by the square of dust that marked where one of Yashilla's machines had been. They had eighteen bullets, six of those marked as nonlethal. Bao had clearly been tweaked to the limits of his humanity; depending on his implants, the ammunition might not be enough to stop him.
It certainly wasn't enough to fight the state, now that they'd been branded terrorists.
She rested her chin on his shoulder, arms loosely draped around him, her breasts pressing into his back. "I should be offended that you find your guns more interesting than me."
His laugh slipped out before he could suppress it, and the thin shell of ice he'd tried to erect in his chest shattered. "Corporate Services' psychologists would have a field day with that, I'm certain."
"I promise to keep it a secret." She walked two fingers down his arm and sighed. "There's no way we can buy this off, right?"
"Unless you have considerably more money than I’ve been led to believe, then no. But we can make catching us expensive enough that they're unwilling to press the issue." He didn't point out that it would have to be damned expensive. If BlueGene was willing to brand someone a bio-threat, then he and Netta would need to move the expense needle significantly before it seemed too far for them. She'd been in the corporate world. She should already know.
Joshi loaded one pistol entirely with lethal rounds and slid it into her knitting bag, beneath the massive scarf or whatever it was. The second pistol had the nonlethal rounds as its opening volley. He checked the safety and laid it on the table again.
"So where do we go?"
There'd be no we. Not in any way that would keep her safe. She'd hate the idea, but he knew enough about her logical mind that she'd see reason. Maybe, once everything with Bao had been resolved...
As though I've got enough time left for any thoughts of tomorrow.
He took a breath. "If we stay in Mumbai, it's a ticking clock until Bao hunts us down. If we get out of the country, then we might have a chance to lay low for a while." He stood up. "We should go. I've got a stop before we leave the Blackout Zone."
Netta dressed silently, replacing her torn shirt with a T-shirt from the change of clothes Yashilla had left for her. And wasn’t that a fascinating development, to see someone who could thaw the ice around Yash’s kindness. He felt a flutter of pleasure, knowing how easily she’d wormed under his own skin.
Once Netta was clothed, he opened the door of the apartment and stepped out into the courtyard. The smells washed over him first, awakening memories of home and safety. Roasting spices, searing meat, and the subtle undertone of sandalwood oil. Joshi scanned the area for the source of the out-of-place smell.
Bao Chu perched on a railing within easy sight of the door. As soon as he'd been spotted he dropped to the ground and walked toward them. His cream-colored suit was immaculate, an anomaly in the Blackout that made him seem more otherworldly than his unnatural grace.
"What's going o—?" Netta fell silent as soon as she spotted Bao and had an answer to her question.
"You're close enough." Joshi pulled the pistol, moving to one side so he could cut off any avenues of fire toward Netta. "It doesn't have to go down like this."
Bao's empty hands came up, palms forward so there was no mistaking his lack of a weapon. "It doesn't have to go down at all. If I'd wanted, I could have taken you both out while you were...occupied with each other."
Anger clenched Joshi's jaw. Not that their guard had been down for a moment, but that Bao had somehow known about them together. Might even have been watching. His hand tightened on the pistol until the grip cut into his palm. Between gritted teeth, he managed to grind out a sentence. "What do you want?"
"The girl. Surely your old associate told you that much." Bao took a step forward, daring Joshi to shoot. "Corporate Services burned your contract, but we both know you're at the end of your usefulness anyway. How many months do you have left, really? How long before you can't even hold that pistol, let alone point it at anyone in a meaningful fashion?"
Netta’s hand rested on his back, tender as it pressed along his spine. Her voice was strong, if soft in the open courtyard. "They've been lying to him. He's not as far along as they're saying."
Bao stepped over to the trash midden that drifted against the wall and picked up a mongrel dog that had been rummaging in search of food. Pity dragged his features down as he ruffled the matted fur over the ragged remnants of the dog’s left ear. "Is that what she's telling you? It's different? You're special? That the experts are wrong?" He nuzzled the feral's head, before digging into one pocket and pulling out some kind of dried meat stick and offering it to the dog.
As the dog ate in his arms, Bao looked up. Joshi could see himself reflected in the twin mirrors of the assassin's cybernetic eyes. When he spoke, the sadness in his voice surprised Joshi.
"You're like this dog, you know? You've been kicked around, done what you had to. In the end you survived, and you'll do whatever you think will let you keep on surviving." Bao ruffled the dog's throat, and it leaned into the touch with the same gusto it showed for the meal. "Most importantly, once you've got what you think is a chance, you don't care what the person offering it to you has done. Ask your angel about her sister, what really happened to her. Ask her why BlueGene gave her an opportunity, when she was a fugitive."
Joshi eased his grip on the pistol but refused to lower it. He knew from experience how fast Bao could move. Bao's words were gnats, buzzing against the guilt that curled inside him. Corporate Services had never told him what she'd done to become a fugitive. He hadn't cared.
He’d taken the job because that was his specialty—forcing people to stay on the run until their will gave out. All he had to do was keep her unsettled and on her toes until she accepted BlueGene's offer. As the job stretched on, she had impressed him with her resourcefulness, made him almost regret each time he found her and put her on the run again.
That regret had made him ask for the job to help her settle into Mumbai, and Corporate Services had accepted. They likely saw it as a cruel joke, since she'd never known who'd been responsible for hunting her in the first place.
The shame of it burned in his throat with acidic sourness. Whatever she’d done, it wouldn’t be as bad as the lurking sins he’d committed against her.
"Twenty-four hours," Bao said. "Turn her over before then and you're free to go. After that, the deal's off the table. I'll come for her and collect you along the way. We both know that you won't be much of a challenge for me." He set the dog down and started to walk out of the courtyard, the mongrel trotting along at his heels. "Once you learn the truth about her, though, I think you'll be eager to give her to me. Frankly, it'd be a mercy. For both of you."
The assassin tipped an irreverent salute, then trotted off down one of the alleys that led deeper into the Blackout Zone. Once he'd left, Joshi realized that at no point had Netta said something to counter his accusations.
Netta kept her eyes on Joshi's back as he picked his way through the warren of alleys and tunnels that made up the Blackout Zone. She could see how the area had developed organically as a
dditional people contributed to the internal structure. As more bodies moved into the perceived safety, new structures were built on top of old. The space divided into smaller sections until it became a collection of highly specialized compartments.
The parallels to cancer didn't escape her.
And just like cancer, she understood that the city would lose more trying to fight the growth than by keeping it contained. Which explained why it hadn't been eliminated.
Joshi paused, studying another haphazard collection of scrap wood and corrugated plastic that grew from the side of a brick wall. Whatever he wanted, he didn't find it, as he sighed and moved on a moment later.
"It would be easier if we both knew what you were looking for," she offered.
He grunted. Since the confrontation with Bao, he'd barely said a dozen words to her. Netta wondered what conclusions he'd jumped to. Wondered where Bao had gotten his information in the first place. BlueGene had assured her that her past had been very much hidden. And as bad as he thought it might be, what would Joshi think of the truth?
He'd leave. Again. And he'd be right to. The sudden pain that dug its nails into her heart made her gasp. Not over fear for herself; she refused to believe he'd turn her over to Bao. He'd simply leave her to fend for herself. More painful was the idea that in doing so, he'd be condemned to die alone. It wasn't love. Just sympathy. And hormones. There was no need to assign lofty words to a purely biological reaction.
Which didn't make the way she'd responded to him, the way she still wanted him, any more logical. It's concern, she told herself. Knowing you can save him.
But that required her to tell him the truth first. Before he decided that what his imagination had concocted was bad enough and left anyway.
Joshi moved to the next shelter, which seemed to have been built to protect a bird's nest of wiring, connected together for God alone knew what purpose. He pressed close to the wall and, after a moment's effort, slid out part of a broken brick. As soon as the brick had cleared its socket, Joshi shot his hand inside and gave a sigh of relief.
He held a grenade in his hand when he pulled it back out, and very carefully returned the pin from the back of the brick he had removed. Once it had been disarmed, he looked at her. "Low yield incendiary. In a brick and steel tunnel. The fire would have destroyed everything I'd hidden in there, but it wouldn't have spread. I wouldn't endanger the Zone like that."
It still sounded an awful lot like a risk to her, but she refused to argue with him. He was talking to her again, and she didn’t want to take the chance that he might stop. "What's inside?"
He set the grenade down, then reached back in to the hole. This time he pulled out a plastic-wrapped stack of actual, paper rupees. She spotted the distinctive green of the 500 rupee note and did a quick calculation. Three bundles, at one hundred notes each. Not a huge sum, but in cash it would be plenty to bribe people and grease their way out of Mumbai.
"About my sister," she started. "I want to clear the air between us."
"Your secrets are your own. You're not paying me to carry them." Joshi removed an identification chip nestled in a sheet of artificial flesh stretched across an aluminum frame.
She was, technically, not paying him at all—something he'd no doubt figured out by now. She tried to ignore the fact that he only had a single identity card. "I don't want you to get the wrong impression from what Bao said. Don't want you to be curious and find out something that will disappoint you later."
"Value judgments, like a conscience, are a hindrance in my line of work." He pulled out an antistatic bag, which no doubt held a touch tablet.
"That's bullshit," she spat. Her frustration boiled past her concern. "If you were the heartless automaton you claim to be, you'd have done the job you were asked to do. You'd have turned me over to Bao, when that didn't work, because at the end of the day it's about doing the job and getting paid." She stomped forward and slammed her mouth against his, thankful that she was tall enough to leave little distance between their heights.
His lips melted against hers, reacting immediately as molten honey rolled through her blood. His fingers dug into her ass, pulling her tight against the unyielding muscle of his chest.
It was all Netta could do not to strip his shirt open in the alley. It had been less than four hours since they'd made love the last time, and she wanted more already. Like a drug, she only wanted more of him.
Before she got further distracted, she pulled herself away. "If you didn't give a shit, you wouldn’t have kissed me back. You wouldn't be watching me now, wondering when I'd kiss you again." She hoped she’d read his signals correctly. Honestly, it'd been so long since she'd spent time with another person, she could just be imagining it. Reading what she wanted into ambiguous data was, after all, an occupational hazard.
He stepped back from her, and sorrow rushed in to fill the place where his warmth had been a moment before. "You underestimate your effect on the opposite sex." He coughed quietly and stretched his neck to each side. "And you are a damn sight more than tempting to me. Happy to hear me say it out loud? But I also know what keeps people alive. Trust isn't one of those things. Trust isn't rewarded in my line of work. It's exploited. It's just putting blood in the water."
"You trusted Yashilla once."
"And numbness was better than being with a monster that did the things I did." He chuckled and slipped the brick back into place on the wall.
"There's a difference this time."
"What's that, exactly?"
"We have the same stakes—both our lives are at risk. You heard Bao, he's going to come for us." She turned and paced up the narrow alley and almost lost her footing on a piece of broken paving.
"Assuming I don't turn you in," Joshi said, and she waited for the conclusion of his thought. "Which is why you're so excited to tell me your secrets. You want to reassure me that you're not as bad as Bao implied. That or you're counting on your seductive skills to keep me close against my best interests."
Netta's cheeks flared. She hadn't considered herself experienced, let alone skilled. It didn't surprise her that he'd divined her motives. It wasn't especially hidden, she supposed. The clean way he laid it out made it sound almost underhanded. That or he genuinely believed that whatever she'd done couldn't be as terrible as had been implied.
She took a deep breath. "I murdered my sister."
Silence filled the alley, and she couldn't bring herself to turn around. She didn't want to see the disappointment on his face. Or worse, the realization that she was a monster and ridding himself of her would best be done as soon as possible.
"I told you, you didn't have to tell me."
"And I said you deserved the truth." Netta closed her eyes against the flood of memory, but all it did was burn the images into her eyelids. "She had IRS, that much is true. She was in full rejection at that point, stage five. I was working on a gene therapy to treat her symptoms."
"You found a solution." She could hear the moment of hope in his voice, tempered by suspicion and mistrust. As well it should be.
"I thought I had a solution," Netta said. "You don't know what it was like. I could watch her slipping away, as her body destroyed itself from the inside out. They wanted to drag the tests out for months—"
"You went ahead on your own."
"Yes. Because she asked me to try. Because if it had worked, she'd have her life back." She could feel the wet on her cheeks and screwed her eyes shut in an effort to keep the tears locked in. The last thing she wanted was for him to be able to say she'd bribed him with emotions. "It didn't work. Obviously. But it did succeed in breaking down her body's interface with the implants and destroying the fibroid encapsulation, rendering them useless."
"And that’s why BlueGene wanted you, why they kept you on the run until you had no choice but to agree to work for them. So you could make a weapon for them. One that directly attacked the implants a person carried. They wanted a silver bullet to take down enhanced operatives."
There was the disgust she'd been waiting for. Finally. Despite her expectation, part of her was sad that it had surfaced. It didn’t matter that she found what they’d hired her for to be just as repugnant as he did. She'd vainly hoped that somehow he'd see the truth and not be horrified.
She should have known better.
Behind her, the pistol cocked, and a casing clattered musically on the pavement. "Anything else?"
There was more. One more thing that Netta wanted to tell him, but couldn't. Not until she knew for sure. She resisted the idea that he couldn't be trusted and that's why she held back. After taking a moment to wipe her face clear, she turned back to him.
Joshi stood halfway down the alley, a stack of green notes in one hand. He tossed them to her. "Tuck those in your knitting bag. We need to go if we're going to make it out before nightfall." When she didn't follow him, he sighed. "You paid me for a job. Morality is flexible, but the contract is sacrosanct. I finish the job. Always. You could have told me you killed a thousand people, and I'd still be obligated to protect you. The life of one person whom I never met? I understand your sister was important to you, but frankly, people die all the time. Now let's go." He turned and stalked down the alley and deeper into the warrens of the Blackout Zone.
Joshi pushed toward the edge of the Zone, trying to ignore the disorientation that struggled to send him to his knees. Despite the treatment, the pain in his shoulder blurred his vision. Still, assuming his sense of direction hadn't failed him, they should be heading toward the ocean. Unlike other areas, the layout of the Zone shifted from day to day, even at the best of times.
Stay away from the place for six months, as he had, and almost all the nonpermanent markers had changed. The old brick seawall remained, and as long as he moved perpendicular to it, he reasoned, he should be heading toward the ocean. Or back inland, but he trusted himself to not be that lost.