Reintegration

by Eden S. French

  “Did you use it on me?” Riva’s strained, shaking voice was shot through with panic. “Lexi, did you?”

  “Of course not. I haven’t read you, Riva. I’d never do that.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” said Kade, his throat tight. Something very bad was happening here. “You can trust her.”

  “You should have told me.” Riva had begun to cry, and her words came with difficulty. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Lexi reached for Riva’s arm. “Babe, I swear, I never—”

  Riva took a hasty step backward, and Lexi touched nothing but air. “I need to be alone. Don’t follow me.” With the clumsy haste of somebody overwhelmed, she ran from the room.

  Lexi remained where she was, her hand still extended. “What did I do?” It had been a long time since Kade had heard her sound so plaintive. “Kade, what did I do?”

  It had been even longer since she’d turned to him for support. “She’s scared,” he said. “You would be too.”

  “We need to go talk to her,” said Callie, whose eyes had already welled with sympathetic tears. “Come on, Zeke.” She rushed from the room, and Zeke—after a guilty glance at Lexi—hurried after her.

  “Shit.” Lexi slouched against a bench and sighed. “I know she’s hiding something, but I’d never invade her privacy. Never.” She glared at Isaac, who had resumed his muttering. “Can you shut the fuck up?”

  Looking terrified, Isaac shambled up the stairs. Now it was just the two of them.

  “Do her feelings matter that much to you?” said Kade.

  “Of course not.” The bitterness in Lexi’s voice suggested otherwise. “Yeah, I’ve used the chip on her. I can’t help it, can’t switch it off. Every time I look at her, it hits me straightaway how fucking unhappy she’s been. When she smiles, Kade, you have no idea. I’d forgotten what it feels like to do that for somebody. It’s like it was with you and me.”

  So she did remember. That fact alone was enough to keep any words from escaping Kade’s throat.

  “I’m fucked now. I had a job. A reputation. It’s all gone.” Lexi stared at her reflection in the polished bench top. “And now you’re all getting hunted because of me. But it’s not my fault, okay? Fuck all of you. It’s not my fault.” She fled up the stairwell, while Kade watched her leave, helpless and aching.

  * * *

  He found Riva in her quarters. She was cross-legged at the foot of her bunk, her cheeks smeared with tears and eyeliner. “Can I come in?”

  Her subdued nod seemed acknowledgement enough. After considering his options, Kade crouched by the bed. It gave Riva the advantage of looking down at him, and when someone was this upset, every little thing helped.

  “Callie and Zeke came to visit me too,” said Riva, her voice thick. “But I sent them away.”

  “But you don’t mind me being here?”

  “I’ve wanted to talk to you since you arrived. Lexi treats you differently to everyone else. Every time she looks at you, she seems older. Tired.”

  “Yes.” Kade touched Riva’s wrist. “But we’ll talk about me and her another day. For now, try to understand. For better or worse, the implant is part of her. She can’t turn it off, and she can’t help reading people. Right now, she’s grieving for the pain she’s caused you.”

  “I know. But I feel naked. You can’t imagine what it’s like to be this vulnerable.”

  If only she knew. But now wasn’t the time. “Well, you can’t imagine how much I envy you.”

  Riva blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t know how much I’ve missed…” Kade’s voice cracked. Damn, this was hard. “Don’t push Lexi away. She’ll respect your secrets.”

  “This isn’t just any secret. I don’t want to hide it or be ashamed, but I also don’t want her to look at me differently. If she finds out, she will.” Riva wiped away a fresh tear. “I wanted this to be something good. It’s been so long since I had anything good.”

  Even with her stained, glistening face, Riva remained beautiful. A defiant misfit who refused to be broken, even though this world so often seemed purely a tool for breaking. Little wonder Lexi was protective of her.

  “You’re probably confused why she had that augmentation installed,” Kade said. “Given it should almost certainly have killed her.”

  “No. I’ve already guessed. She wanted to die.”

  Beautiful and perceptive. “We grew up together. Her, me, and her cousin, Ash. I was the runt, always getting in their way. Lexi was the brave one, the schemer, getting us into and out of trouble. Ash was our leader. She kept us on the straight and narrow. Planned for the future. Found ways for us to be clothed and fed. If it weren’t for her, Lexi would’ve disappeared into some gang or other, and I’d be…God knows.”

  “What happened to Ash?” Riva spoke gently, as if she were the one who’d come here to give consolation. “Is she dead?”

  “Yes, but I can’t talk much about that right now. I’m raw enough as it is. What I can say is that Ash and I became lovers, and Lexi ended up on the outside. She became jealous, I suppose. Alienated. And when Ash was killed, she blamed it on me. I share her view.”

  “Was it really your fault, or are you just punishing yourself?”

  “The way she died, how could I not want to punish—” Kade ran a hand across his face. The knot in his throat was suffocating. “Lexi couldn’t cope. But true to form, instead of putting a gun in her mouth, she flipped a coin.”

  “Project Sky.”

  “She can see into my thoughts. That means she knows how heartbroken I am. How much I still love her. All my repentance, my grief, my loneliness, she can feel that with me. And she still won’t forgive me.” Kade exhaled in an attempt to break the knot, but it only cost him more precious air.

  “Kade…”

  “She never expected to live, understand? When the implant succeeded, she came back and lived like a ghost. You know how there are spirits in mythology who can’t forgive the living because they envy them the warmth of their blood, the beating of their hearts? That’s how Lexi sees me. She hates that I kept my faith, that I’m still fighting for the cause that Ash and I believed in. The cause that took both of us from her. And like every angry ghost, she can’t roam far from the place she died.”

  “But she seems so confident.”

  “That’s her glamor, her shield. She’s always had it. As kids, we’d see her prowling the streets like she owned them, only to find her crying herself to sleep the very same night. Now we’re not there to comfort her, I suspect she doesn’t let herself cry that way anymore.”

  Riva closed her eyes. “What do I do?”

  “Trust her. She’ll help you bear this, no matter how heavy the burden. I know that to be true.” Kade rose to his feet, a little unsteady. “Just because she’s leaving for Port Venn, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy what time with her you can. If I could have just one more day with Ash…”

  It was suddenly too much, and he left while he could still see through the coming blur.

  CHAPTER 16

  A rush of cold air met Lexi outside, and she zipped up her jacket. The sun had sunk low. At night, Foundation’s club districts were bathed in neon radiance and the enclaves glowed like beacons, but this far out on the fringe, there was nothing to stop the streets being enfolded by gloom: a kind of darkness Lexi hadn’t really seen since her childhood.

  Fortunately, her vision aug had kicked in, and she could see the street in shades of silver and gray. The trade-off was the pale white light that would now be shimmering across her irises. It tended to scare the shit out of people.

  Isaac Landon Hill proved no exception.

  “Fuck!” He fumbled for his pocket, apparently forgetting he’d handed his knife over to Amity, and pressed himself against Callie’s van.

  “Relax, Hill. It’s just me and my sexy cybernetic eyes. What are you doing? I thought you were scared to be outside.”

  “You was all fighting.”
Isaac remained flattened against the van. “Didn’t want to be around trouble.”

  Poor guy—his life had trained him to see danger in everything. Even two kittens quarreling in the street would probably have spooked him. “Don’t worry. This won’t affect you.”

  “Did you break up with your girl? Riva?”

  For some reason, the question left Lexi unutterably sad. “Maybe.”

  “She looks at you all the time. Even when you don’t notice.”

  No way to respond to that. Lexi joined Isaac beside the van, standing as near to him as his body odor permitted. “What’s your next step?” she said. “Score another hit?”

  Isaac stared at his feet. “Didn’t think about that yet.”

  “You want my advice, don’t skip out. They’re good people.”

  “Skipping out is what you’re doing now, though.”

  Perceptive for a junkie. “That’s different. I don’t need the help. Now get inside. If you’re not quick, Amity might not let you back in.”

  “Which one’s Amity?”

  “The blonde who looks like she’s digesting glass.”

  “Oh.” Isaac shuffled to the door and looked back, his face half-concealed behind a lank curtain of hair. “She’s looking at you all the time too.”

  He was gone before Lexi could think up a retort. She oriented herself, choosing as her landmark the fractured finger of a distant tower, and began walking. The pavement passed beneath her wandering feet as she fell into her stride.

  Project Sky. It was nice to finally have a name. Calling it a suicide chip had always been too morbid, especially as touching another mind could often be an experience of overwhelming beauty. Those first few weeks, probing every person she met… God, what a trip it had been.

  But it had become a burden too. Respect for privacy had been ingrained in her from childhood, and Lexi had soon decided not to abuse the chip. Outside of emergencies, she used it only against gangsters, who manipulated other people daily and fully deserved to be exploited in turn.

  Still, sometimes people spilled, and she couldn’t help but read them. Riva was right to be afraid. Yet Lexi wanted nothing more than to make her feel safe. To be a comforting presence.

  The contradiction hurt.

  Fuck, it was dark. And freezing. What was she doing out here? This city was dead, and she was just another insect scuttling through its guts…

  As a teenager, she’d listened to Kade and Ash discussing history, politics, and philosophy. Only one topic had interested Lexi: the queer movement, a rights crusade brutally crushed in the twilight of the twenty-first century. Ash and Kade had shown her videos and articles. She’d watched footage of marches, riots, speeches. Camps. Purges.

  Queer. A word with tarnished origins as a slur, but unlike so many slurs, it had a meaning that a victim might wear with pride. Different. Strange. In this fucked-up world, who wouldn’t be proud to be either?

  Ash had been obsessed with poverty, and Kade with eco-socialism, whatever the fuck that was. But as far as Lexi was concerned, the planet was already fucked, and its occupants had always been fucked. Humanity was taking its final ride on the blasted ball of rock it had screwed and wasted. What was there left to save?

  Still, it would be better not to plunge into that abyss alone…

  The shadows moved, and Lexi took a frantic swing. A hand caught her wrist. “Calm down,” said Amity. “I’ve broken enough arms for one day.”

  “How did you know I was gone?”

  With her imposing stance and physique, Amity was as intimidating on this abandoned road as any nocturnal thug might have been. “Isaac pointed me in the direction you’d fled. If he hadn’t, I suppose I might not have caught you in time.”

  “The bastard sold me out.”

  “More likely he saved your life.”

  Their words, even spoken in murmurs, seemed far too loud in the hush of this shadowed street. Amity waited, her green eyes patient, while Lexi tried to regain control of her startled body. She took a deep breath. “Did he tell you what happened?”

  “I know you’re running from Riva. Maybe you think it’s easier on her, but you’re wrong. She feels safer with you there. We all do. Even me.”

  “You? I find that hard to believe.”

  “I take comfort knowing I’m not watching over them alone.”

  It suddenly seemed absurd to be standing enveloped in cold shadow, surrounded by streets as bleak and final as open graves. More absurd still to be away from their company. She missed Zeke’s carefree crudity, Riva’s shy demeanor and husky voice. She even missed Callie Roux, that frustrating creature of contradictions—sometimes a lively, dimpled imp, more often a pouting thing with dark, sorrowful eyes.

  And Kade. That patient, articulate, forgiving son of a bitch.

  “Take me back,” said Lexi. “I’m not sure where I’ve wandered to.”

  “I can see that.” Amity took Lexi’s hand and squeezed it for a startling instant. “Don’t let me lose you again.”

  * * *

  Callie was sitting on her bunk, a pair of earbuds plugged into her head, a pillow held between her knees and chest. She looked up and plucked out an earbud, leaving it hanging. “You okay? I was wondering where you’d gotten to.”

  “Just went for a piss.” Lexi kicked off her boots, flopped on her bunk and stared at the blotched ceiling. “Go back to your music.”

  “I’d like to talk about it, though. About you and Riva.”

  “You said it yourself. I don’t give a shit about her.”

  “I was wrong then, and you’re lying now. I saw the look on your face when she ran out. It was all I could do to keep from crying.”

  “Why do you care?” Lexi didn’t mean the remark with any cruelty—it genuinely made no sense. “All I’ve ever done is make you miserable.”

  “Back at the junkyard, when she saw me trembling, the first thing she did was try to comfort me.” Callie hugged the pillow closer. “She’s so sweet and so lonely, and you were making her happy until now. That’s why I care.”

  There was no way Lexi was going to let this feel-good moment punch through her darkness. “And I don’t make her happy anymore, so it’s up to you. Go visit her room, put on some bad music and grind on her for a while. I bet that’d cheer her right up.”

  “No chance of that. She wouldn’t even let me talk to her. Told me she needed time. I felt so useless.”

  “So? You’re a smuggler, not a therapist.”

  Callie twisted the wire of an earbud around her index finger. Fidgety kid, always playing with something. “You’re really upset, aren’t you?”

  “No. I’m a pitiless cyborg. All I feel is an urge to destroy humans.”

  “She cooked me up some food earlier to test out the grill. It was amazing. The best meal of my life. And while I was eating, I caught her watching me, smiling, like she was so proud and happy to have fed me. It made me get this tight feeling right in the center of my chest. You feel that same way about her, admit it.”

  Lexi sighed. “Here’s a little secret. I don’t take disappointment well, and that’s why I’m a colossal bitch. Not because I don’t care, but because it hurts too much when I do. Now you know.”

  “We can still go talk to her. You and me. We can make it right.”

  There was a soft rap at the door. Both Lexi and Callie sat up. “Come in,” said Lexi, her heartbeat gaining pace.

  The door opened to reveal a subdued Riva. Streaks of mascara under her eyes suggested she’d been crying, and guilt washed over Lexi, leaving her insides unsettled and her mouth dry.

  “Hey, guys,” Riva said. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  Callie’s cheeks dimpled. “Oh, chickadee. There’s nothing to say sorry for.”

  Lexi patted the empty space beside her. “C’mon, get over here. Close that door behind you.”

  As Riva crossed the room, Lexi looked into her eyes. Riva held her gaze. The relief that followed was as overwhelming as it was unexpec
ted. Lexi hadn’t realized how much she’d feared losing that small intimacy. Nor had she anticipated how much it meant to be trusted.

  “Don’t just stand there, Latour,” she said. “There’s plenty of room on this bed for that skinny body of yours.”

  Riva reclined on the mattress. Lexi put an arm around her thin shoulders and drew her closer. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, babe.”

  “I know,” said Riva. “But I was scared.”

  Callie flopped to her belly, still clutching the pillow, and began to kick her legs. “I hope you’re feeling a little better now.”

  Riva’s smile was forced—not even a flash of happiness in her pale eyes. For the second time, Lexi had put this woman through the wringer, and the thought of it sent a sharp pain through her throat and into her chest. “Callie,” she said. “Put some music on.”

  “Music?” said Callie. “You mean the music you hate?”

  “Yeah, put it on.”

  Callie switched on her little portable stereo. Music poured out, an ear-melting deluge of sound.

  “Riva,” said Lexi. “See that tin on the side-table?”

  “Sure.” Riva reached for it. “Candies.”

  “Callie found them down here. They’re a hundred years out of date.”

  Riva laughed and unscrewed the lid. “Really?” She held a pastel-shaded sphere to the light. “Did either of you try one?”

  “We weren’t brave enough,” Callie said. “It could mutate us.”

  “Might be worth it,” said Lexi. “The things I could do with a third hand…”

  Callie rolled to her back, becoming a dreamy sprawl of tanned limbs and auburn hair. “Then go ahead and try one of those nasty candies. Grow all the groping hands you need.”

  Lexi took the candy from Riva’s fingers and placed it on the tip of her tongue. Completely tasteless. She sucked it into her mouth, rolled it over her teeth and spat it out again. “It’s like sucking on wax. Gross.”

  “I can’t believe you did that,” said Riva. “That thing should be in a museum, not in a mouth.”

  Callie grinned. “To be fair, Lexi’s mouth couldn’t get any dirtier.”

  Lexi tossed the spit-soaked candy. Callie shrieked as it bounced against her cheek. “Lexi! That’s disgusting.”