by Ren Warom
“You really think that, at this point, I’m going to be appeased by an apology?” She’s livid, has no idea what to do with this anger, this hurt, but throw it at him with all her might. “That De Lyon bastard has been blaming me for your absence. He’s been tap dancing on my nerves all damned day with his ever-loving sniping, and I’m about ready to commit violence, Bone. Violence. Me!”
He pales. “Oh, fuck, Ni. Fuck. No, I don’t think an apology is enough,” he says. “It’s inadequate and it’s cowardly, and I owe you way more. I want to make it up to you, I do. I want to let you chew me out as hard as I deserve, but—” He touches the bag, and his fingers are trembling. Not alcohol this time, he’s scary sober. Something else. “We have to do this. Stark needs to witness it, and he needs to be at his office. Someone is missing. With Rope.”
“Missing?” She spits the word out, still unable to hold her fury.
“One of his team. Taken whilst we were looking in the sewers.”
Now she understands the stench. The state of them. “You went into the sewer? Are you nuts!”
“We had reason.”
She regards him with vicious intensity for a moment. This is not a Bone she knows, this reckless, sober creature who goes running after danger. Her Bone only ever leaves the lab to drink or sleep or work. What the hell is going on with him? Whatever it is, someone is missing, and they have a body to autopsy.
She points to the door. “Go scrub up, you’re fucking filthy.”
And without a word, he does as she says. She points to the middle of the room, then.
“Stark, push the gurney to the table, there. Let’s set up, shall we?” Her tone brooks no argument and offers no welcome.
“You don’t much like me, sister,” Stark notes as, between them, they lift the heavy weight of the body bag onto the autopsy table.
“Perceptive,” she says, barely containing her scorn. Pulling the table of equipment to the proper position, Nia chucks a mask and some gloves at Stark. “This is the first time he’s ever forgotten to call in and let me know he’s out on a scene or a case,” she snaps. “It’s out of character. I blame this case, and I blame you for getting him involved in it.”
To her surprise, he inclines his head. “Sounds fair enough.”
“No, it’s not,” she replies, flaring up again, her eyes flashing. “It’s not fair at all.” She struggles for calm, and says to him candidly, “I can handle that twat De Lyon just fine. It’s Bone being gone without a word of explanation I find hard to deal with. He’s a mess lately, okay? I’ve been worried sick all day because I thought the stupid fucker might have finally drank himself to death.”
Stark pulls on his gloves and hangs the mask loosely about his neck. “Not much I can do about his current state,” he says, clearly choosing his words. “But if he’s out with me, I’ll make damn sure that he calls in from now on.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“To what?” asks Bone as he comes in, snapping on his gloves.
“Never mind. Let’s get this over and done with.” Nia grasps the zip on the bag, but Bone’s hand falls on her wrist. Her gaze flies to his. Encounters a look of pity, apprehension, and more than that, an unmistakeable border of distress. Anxiety curls hard into her belly.
“Brace yourself,” he says, and the curl tightens to a knot.
As the zip peels open, the stench hits. Between them, they part the edges, pulling them open until the bag lies flat, its sides dangling off the table, the bodies fully exposed. Two women. So young. By the looks of it, younger even than Ballerina Girl was, barely into their early twenties. At this stage of their decay, they’re beginning to resemble crones. Faces shrunken to skulls, teeth bared in lipless mouths, stained brown with a slime of purge fluid. The skin of their torsos is no longer taut and trim; it sags, gaping in places, beaten by its own weight. It’s just the outcome of death, but it’s cruel, too cruel to ones as young as this. Nia’s stomach squeezes in sympathy. Then she sees the arms and rears back, colliding with the equipment trolley hard enough to hurt. She barely notices the pain.
“What is that?” she asks them, unable to control the pitch of her voice, unable to quit staring. “What the hell is that!”
Bone clears his throat. “It’s transmog, Ni.”
Nia clutches the equipment table at her back, the steel edge digging into her palms. “No. It’s not.” She stares and stares at the arms, battling nausea, hysteria, gut-deep distress. “That’s not possible.”
“Turns out, Rope was a transmog gen-surgeon,” Stark says, and that voice of his weighs her down, holds her steady. She feels like she could hang onto it and it would be more real, more solid, than the steel beneath her palms.
“The Notary would not let this happen,” she says to him, sure of it. Absolutely convinced.
“We found a GyreTech lab today, hidden in the sewers,” Bone tells her. “There was a military adjunct, a Notary adjunct, and there were corpses. Transmogged corpses. It wasn’t an old lab, Ni, not much more than a decade, maybe. There’s little doubt Rope was involved with it.”
“Oh my fucking …” Finally letting go of the equipment table, Nia folds her arms tight across her chest. “I don’t want to know this. I do not need to know this. I’ve just about had enough of this fucking case.” Leaving them no time to argue, she steps forwards. Snaps, “Session, on,” at the recording equipment in the lights, and goes to wait by her trolley, feeling small, vulnerable, too edgy by half.
To her relief, Bone keeps the autopsy brief. A sample run followed by close examination of the transmog. The whole process takes place in awful silence, and when the body bag is zipped up, the scrubs chucked away, Nia’s left fighting a riot of ugly emotion. During the course of this case, Rope’s taken an unquestionable part of who she is and turned it upside down, making her think about mods in a way she hasn’t before. Forcing her to encounter her dependence upon them, her distress at their loss. But this new sculpture is far worse, exposing a dark side to modification Nia doesn’t want to think about, doesn’t want to know. She’s left wondering if they’ve lost any humanity they held claim to. Wondering if it’s too late to turn back the tide Rope came in on, too late to salvage anything worth keeping.
“What do we do?” she murmurs, more to herself than the two men in the room, and jumps when Stark’s voice, low and deep as the grumble of an earthquake, breaks the impasse with a response.
“I’m off to report to Burton,” he says, touching his wrist and wincing as he sees the time.
“I’ll get on those scene photos,” Bone says briskly. “The transmog samples have gone to a trusted contact in the Zone for a little secretive gen deconstruction. That’s all I’ve asked for, because we know what it is. If we can unravel it, we may have a way of helping any victims found alive in this state, and I’m willing to bet there’s more.”
A low snort of disbelief comes from Stark. “No need to bet, reckon it’s a given. Good call there. Let’s hope we can use it.” He makes his way around the table, towards the exit, towards Bone, placing a wide hand on Bone’s arm as he reaches him. “Call me if those scene photos prove useful. I’ll answer even if I’m in with Burton. Tress is a priority, but the case comes first. She’ll tear me a new arsehole, if I put her before pre-existing victims.”
The door swings shut after him without a sound, as if consuming him, and the room shrinks in his absence. Bone looks across at Nia, his eyes wary.
“Tress?” she asks, curious.
“Stark’s right hand officer. She’s the one Rope has.”
She looks to the door again, though Stark is long gone, and feels an ache for this Tress, whoever she is. An ache for Stark that’s quite unexpected, considering how much she blames him for Bone’s current lack of professionalism. “What the hell will he do?”
“Whatever needs doing.”
“This must be killing him. I mean, I’m not fond of him, but he clearly cares way too hard for his health. He looked awful.”
> “Yeah, and he’s the most stubborn fucker I’ve ever met. If there’s any way at all to save her, he’ll find it. You want that explanation now? You can help me check the scene photos as I attempt to ingratiate my way back into your good books.”
“That,” she tells him as they carefully transfer the body bag back to the gurney, “is going to be tough.”
Bone’s mouth curls into a wry grin. “I wouldn’t expect it to be anything else,” he replies, as they set off for their first port of call.
With Share and Share Alike secured in the freezer, Bone and Nia grab coffee and head to the records department, stealing two of the fastest machines from a severely disgruntled techie. It’s an archaic system, here in De Lyon’s Mort, and Nia’s the expert. As she makes her way into the system, and through the pointlessly labyrinthine files for the photos they need, Bone talks, and as he does, her fingers slow and then stop. By the time he’s finished, she’s sitting there with her mouth hanging open, her coffee cold and long since forgotten, thinking that her friend, her colleague, must have tipped over the edge into raving madness. Because there’s no way any of that is real. No way he didn’t dream, or hallucinate, or imagine it all somehow. But then, the curdled connection between Share and Share Alike is real. Unquestionably so. And if that is real, who knows what else might fit into reality?
Beside her, Bone stabs at the flat keypad, trying to bull his way into the system. He’s really bad with tech. With an exasperated sigh, she shoves his hands aside, and in three pointed taps, brings up the streams he needs. He flashes her a grateful smile and starts with the Canted corpse, discarding most of the picture files, keeping only two close shots and one taken at a distance. Then he scours the other scene streams, zooming in and out, dismissing those he doesn’t need, until he’s left with a handful of photos centre screen. Sipping at his coffee, he muddles about with enlarging until he can make the pictures the size he needs.
“I don’t trust it,” Nia says suddenly, fiercely, finally finding words for the horror and disbelief and plain old terror boiling about inside her. “This whole fucking case is twisted. I looked at those girls today and I wondered why the fuck I have mods. I’ve never wondered about that, never questioned it before. I don’t like what this Rope bastard is doing. To them, to you, to me.” She stops for a moment, breathing hard, close to tears, and then she says, “I want it to stop. I want you to catch him.”
“Stark and I won’t stop until we’ve caught him. We can’t.”
“You better not. But you’d better be careful.” She raises a hand as he goes to speak. “No, no more. I said it earlier and I meant it, I’ve heard more than I can stand today, seen way more. Let’s just get this crap over and done with so I can go home and get stupid drunk.” Nia turns her attention to the screen. “So, what is it I’m looking for?”
“Tell me what you see,” he asks her simply.
Nia looks over the photos. “It’s the spiral.”
“It’s at every scene.”
“But how?” She blinks, bemused. “We thought this was a new gang. Are you telling me it’s Rope?”
“I’m certain of it. They’re markers. That exact spiral was drawn in Tress’s blood, on the door of the warehouse where we found Share And Share Alike,” he tells her. “It was placed there because the Canted corpse was removed. That corpse was Rope’s initial marker. Look at the photo. See how he’s tilted towards the warehouses? That tattoo’s pointing right at that door, you could draw a straight line directly between the two. It’s so subtle, it’s impossible to see unless you know to look, and it’s the same at every scene. Hell, if he hadn’t left the spiral in Tress’s blood, I wouldn’t have thought twice about there being any connection at all.”
Nia sits back, her brow crumpled with confusion. “But why a spiral?”
“There was a remnant of a spiral on the door of the sewer lab. Could be a project logo, maybe the lab’s designated symbol. Who knows? All I know is that he’s messing with us. This is a game, remember?”
Nia points at the photos. “These were all in different locations across the Spires,” she says and then slaps her hand on the desk, suddenly furious all over again. “My fucking uncle. That’s his lab. GyreTech’s lab. He must have known what was going on. Must see the connections now. What the fuck is he doing, hiding these bodies, preventing us from finding Rope’s victims?” Why is it she forgets what Spaz is? It always happens. He’d do anything to protect gang folk, including letting a bunch of nobodies die, even if one or two of them were gang. That’s how it’s always been with him. Gang above everything. The many over the one.
“I suspect,” Bone says softly, “that he’s trying to duck the Notary’s attention. Because they’ll know this spiral, too. They’ll know what it means. And it will bring nothing but trouble. They’ll blame the gangs, or rather, Yar will, and he’ll go after them like he never has before. And the Notary will let him. There’ll be no argument, if it gets out that a surgeon from those labs is the killer.”
They’re both quiet for a moment, struck by the sheer level of chaos one man may have managed to unleash. Current levels of tension in the Spires wouldn’t take much to ignite, and if the Notary finally acquiesce to the demands of Connaught Yar and allow him to try and take down the gangs, the wave of violence they’d unleash would be unspeakable. Once begun, such a war would bring to the inner city all the devastation wrought upon the Wharf, the Gulley, and the Outskirts and worse because populations towards the middle of the Spires are exponentially larger. The body count would be breathtakingly high.
“You need to call Stark right now,” Nia says, reaching over to snag the nearest phone. “I’ll work up a stream so these can be easily distributed amongst the search teams. So they know what to look for. The sort of places to look.”
“Thanks, Ni.” He offers her a grateful smile and asks, “So, am I forgiven?”
She takes a deep breath. “Maybe. But don’t you ever, ever fuck me about like that again. I cannot and will not spend another day working myself into a panic, wondering if the next body they bring in is going to be yours.”
Chapter 31
There’s blood. Too much blood. So much. It’s dried down the length of her body in blackening slicks, making her skin unbearably itchy. The biting reek of her sweat engulfs her. Beneath it, above it, and around it, the too-sweet stench of the urine that’s soaked the seat of her pants cloaks her in a sickening cloud. She can feel it drying stiff against her aching flesh.
If she had energy for shame, it would overwhelm her, but she’s convulsive with the tremors of hunger and exhaustion racking her body. They trap her in the weight of tiring flesh as she waits in the blurred light of a single, dim bulb, blinking away grit and sweat and sinking humiliation, bearing the sharp pull and muscle deep ache of wounds cobbled together with thick black catgut, the type used in mortuaries.
Those thick threads make her feel dead already, but she’s not. Thanks to Burneo, his rescue and his skill with her wounds, she’s still alive. And Stark’s never let her down. He’ll come for her; even if he waits until after he’s caught Rope, he’ll come. The thought keeps her going.
The air’s dry, but filled with the sound of rushing water. Torture. She swallows, the walls of her throat grinding together and peeling apart. How does thirst become like this? So powerful, it’s a thing within itself, within her. She’d kill for a drink, right now. Can see the glass to her left, a small, clear cup-full. It taunts her. So close, but she hasn’t strength to reach it. Doesn’t know where Burneo’s gone, either, which worries her. He’s badly injured, too, from blows he took that were meant for her body.
Her thoughts veer dangerously close to thinking about what happened in the hub, in the tunnel. About what attacked her. Mouth trembling, she resolutely blocks the memory and wills Burneo to be okay. She hopes he’s not lying unconscious, somewhere, because then she’d be entirely alone, and that’s more than she can stand right at this moment.
She flutters out
a long breath, tries to concentrate on saving whatever reserves she has for when she needs them, but she can’t control the swell of tears in her throat and lets out a little moan of frustration. She wants to be angry. Anger is good, anger will hold her when she’s nothing left to hold onto, but pain rips through her body again in unforgiving swells.
Nerves shrieking, muscles bunched into knots, her jaw hangs wide, a scream wheezing out. The pain reaches unbearable proportions, and just as suddenly, begins to ebb away. A helpless sob breaks from her throat. She’s so weak, so cold and tired. She just wants to go home.
Chapter 32
Bone waits outside Lower Mace lab in thick snow, struggling to keep warm in leather and thin cotton. He’s smoking a slender, black cigarette swiped from one of the receptionists. It tastes faintly of aniseed, making his head spin and whirl. He likes the acidic bite of flavour on his tongue, it suits the equally acid pain in his stomach. Takes his mind off the irritating soreness across his back. He showed the tattoo to Nia. She thinks it beautiful, but she’s worried that he’s got wetware. Perhaps she thinks it’s too much for his first mod? He can’t really disagree, not when it’s literally his job to know mods and what they entail, but he doesn’t care. He loves it.
Way above his head, amongst the pinnacles of Lower Mace Mort’s tower blocks, he hears the discordant caws of a team of runners. Their rooftop world must be unbearable this morning, icy and even colder than down here, but they sound cheerful––playful even. Mace is Spine Freak territory. Spine Freaks are extreme, closer, perhaps, to Burneo in terms of mods than any other single group or gang. They’re so altered, he wonders how they recognise themselves anymore. Perhaps they don’t. He envies that. Their calls are distant and sound almost like real crows, laughing at some helpless chick about to be devoured. He hopes they’re not communicating anything about him. The fact so many disparate runners seem to be following him around is bad enough without them gossiping about his movements.