Keepers

by Brenda Cooper

  “Just a few hours ago.” He was still grinning. “I might have come back early to watch you win your race if I’d known. You should communicate better.”

  She laughed. He knew she was forbidden from talking with him outside of the boundary. He had a new scar on his cheek. The thin undissolved edges of the medi-tape that held the wound closed were still visible. She reached up and touched it. “How did you do this?”

  He smiled. “I’ll tell you after. We’re still meeting.”

  “Oh!”

  “You can stay,” Julianna said. “What we’ve done so far is learn more about how the Returners get weapons around. It’s all on horseback, and these two learned of five routes. We assume there are more.” She paused, her expression grave. “There may be a bigger arsenal out there than we thought.”

  She remembered the meeting. “Isn’t hacking supposed to be the main attack vector?”

  Julianna smiled. “Good girl. That’s what we were told. Always question assumptions, even if they’ve been put into a presentation and delivered. We think that’s still true. If so, if nukes are a distraction, can you imagine what kind of cyberattacks might be leveled at us?”

  Coryn shivered. “Is it just us?”

  “And Portland, at least.” Julianna let go of Jake’s hand and started pacing. “Adam thinks Calgary, too. I don’t know about anything else for sure.”

  Blessing said, “We heard about a route that goes further south. So there might be attacks on cities that are farther away. This could be bigger than we thought, although I can’t imagine there’s enough army or arms out there to bother more than a few cities.”

  Coryn thought of Imke. “Chicago?”

  “We don’t know,” Day said. “That’s so far away we couldn’t verify anything. There are many rumors. Misinformation may be part of the attack, or part of how they are shielding the attack.”

  Coryn leaned forward. “So there’s no way to know what we’re facing?”

  Jake held a hand up, and when the room quieted, he whispered, “Misinformation was common in the old days. It’s coming back. Getting around the old controls we created.” He collapsed back down into his covers, his eyes closing, and for a moment she thought he’d simply fallen asleep. But then he said, “Write down all the rumors. Coryn and I will look at them tomorrow.”

  “Did you see Pablo?” she asked Blessing, but Day answered.

  “Yes.” As usual, Day sounded calm, shading toward unconnected. “He gave us messages from you. Did he get to Lou’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Is Aspen okay?”

  Blessing offered a slow, slightly teasing smile. “He’s good. He’s losing some of his city fat.”

  “Hey!” Coryn swatted at Blessing, who dodged, and then glanced at Julianna. “Did you tell them everything we learned? At the meeting?”

  Julianna smiled. “It wasn’t the only meeting in the world. You can fill them in after we’re done. I’m sure you need a celebratory drink, and that they need one as well. I’ll buy you all a bottle of wine to share.”

  Wow. That wasn’t on her training diet. “Thanks!”

  The door swung open and Adam came in, weaving a little. “Did you see we both won?”

  Julianna stood up and went to him, her face suddenly sad. “Yes, and we have guests. Can you sit down?”

  For the first time, Coryn felt sure Julianna knew Adam drank too much. She resolved to ask her why she allowed it, but for now she just wanted him gone. She didn’t want him out for her wine with Blessing, and she could tell Julianna didn’t consider him welcome either.

  She crossed to Adam. “I’ll walk you to your room. We’re about done here. Jake should rest.”

  He looked at Jake, lying still and white but wide-eyed in the bed, and then took in Blessing and Day. He waved. “Hi, guys. Hi. Glad you’re safe.”

  Julianna gave Coryn a grateful look, and then looked over at Adam. “Yes, we saw you win. You won by a lot, at least a hundred yards. That might have been your best win yet. Congratulations.”

  Adam looked a tiny bit mollified.

  Jake waved a finger.

  Adam nodded. “I see how it is. After you win enough nobody cares.” He turned to Coryn. “Let’s go.”

  Coryn glanced back at Blessing, trying to pin him into staying there with her look. “I’ll be back.”

  He grinned. But then Blessing grinned at almost everything. It might mean he was glad she was handling Adam, or that he was looking forward to the wine, or it might mean he remembered their kiss. Or it might mean nothing at all.

  Coryn led Adam back to the room she used to sleep in. He managed to keep his feet without weaving too much, and mostly stayed silent. When they got there, he stood in the doorway. “Come in.”

  “I need to get back.” She frowned, and then said, “I left my trophy there.” She felt a little disingenuous, but she needed to get away.

  “Just for a moment.”

  She hesitated without meaning to, and she saw him see her hesitate, and then she nodded. “Just for a minute. To make sure you drink a glass of water.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ll be just fine. I think you like Blessing more than me. And I want to tell you I like you more than Blessing.”

  What did that even mean? Maybe he had been drinking more than she thought. “I like you fine,” she said. “But I don’t like drinking.”

  “Then I’ll stop.”

  Not likely. “I have to go.”

  “Hey.” He put a hand on her arm. “I can use a friend. Someone who knows me. Someone else who knows what it’s like to be one of Julianna’s pets. You’re one, too.”

  “No. I thought that once, but I don’t think so now.”

  “What do you think? Come sit by me and tell me?”

  “No.” She turned around and separated herself from him by an arm. “I like you. I like running with you. But I am not you, or like you. I am not owned. I am not beholden to you.”

  “Wow,” he said, his words only a little slurred. “I didn’t think you had guts.”

  “There was a time when I didn’t think so either. Goodnight, Adam.”

  “Goodnight, Coryn.”

  He was saying it again as she closed the door. “Goodnight Coryn. Goodnight Coryn.” Like a chant.

  Maybe she should go have water while Blessing had wine.

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  “I’m heading home to sleep.” Day lifted his small glass of champagne. “To being home, to good friends, and to safety.” He took a sip and left the rest of the glass on the bar. Even though he’d hardly drunk a thing, he seemed more loquacious than usual. “Have a good night,” he said. “Dance a little. It looks like we’ll have some hard times ahead.”

  He left abruptly, sliding easily through the crowd on the rooftop bar with no looseness in his gait. “Is he worried?” Coryn asked. “I’ve never seen him worried.”

  Blessing leaned down and whispered in her ear. “We’re all worried. But dancing helps.”

  He left her to the far corner of the bar and took her in his arms. Out here at the edge of the roof, the space heaters couldn’t keep up, and one side of her grew cold, so she snuggled a little tighter into Blessing’s rangy form.

  This felt very different than dancing with Imke, warmer and more sensual without being as hot or driving. She pushed back a little from him. “I’ve been seeing someone.”

  He looked down at her, his grin still in place, and not an ounce of concern or even surprise of his face. “Of course you have. You are breathtakingly beautiful.”

  Breathtakingly beautiful? Her? She almost stumbled.

  “Anyone I know?” Blessing asked, with no more than friendly curiosity.

  “I doubt it. A person from Chicago.”

  He immediately slid into the right pronoun. “Are they kind?”

  She laughed. “And smart.” She hesitated. “But it still feels good to dance with you.”

  “Did you and they make any agreements?”
r />   “Oh no. No. Not . . .” She didn’t even know what she wanted. Just to not hide things from him. Blessing had saved her life, had ridden beside her, had taught her to act like she might die every day. Blessing had given her the courage to see Imke in the first place.

  “Then you can kiss me?”

  Startled, she looked up at him, hesitated.

  “I will not ask for more until you return.” He smiled down at her, nothing but warmth and happiness on his face. Not one little grain of jealousy. “Love can build on love, and love can multiply love. The human heart is huge unless you make it small.” He ran his finger along her chin, and his touch created a line of heat.

  “You know I’m going to Chicago?”

  “I do. And I expect to be here when you get back. We’ll winter here and go east again as soon as the thaw begins. There’s mountains to go over, or a long trip if we go to Portland first and follow the gorge. Nothing will happen out there for a few months except cold and down time, and things your sister will have to handle.”

  Coryn smiled. “She can handle a lot.”

  “I know,” he said. “Especially with such good support. We’ll take over while you’re gone. Julianna told us to take your morning calls.”

  She felt a rush of relief. She’d planned to take her job with her to Chicago, but days off might be heaven.

  The song switched, and Blessing took her in his arms again, and danced with her in silence. He smelled of Outside still, of horse and fresh air and wind. The snow had stopped falling, but the cold had grown slightly sharper, and this warm moment with her friend and the music made her feel safe and soft.

  When Blessing walked her to her door half an hour later, she offered herself for a kiss, and he took her up on it, the kiss as wonderful as the first time he kissed her.

  “You remind me of Walt Whitman,” she said.

  He cocked his head. “How?”

  “You love life that much. Whitman loved life.”

  He gave her a mock-accusatory glance. “You’ve been hanging around with Jake.”

  She laughed. “Guilty as charged. He made me read all of Leaves of Grass.”

  “You’re lucky.”

  “Do you ever write poetry?”

  “I might go write some tonight,” he teased. “And dream of safe places in tall cities full of beautiful runners.”

  Her cheeks grew hot. She didn’t invite him in, and he didn’t ask, but she felt a small pang of regret as he walked away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Coryn bundled up before she headed for the loop. Chicago hadn’t chosen to control the weather as finely as Seacouver, or couldn’t. They used walls for most of their physical protection and had small weather domes here and there, but no city-wide dome. And while they didn’t have as many bridges as Seacouver, they had three buildings that were taller than anything here. She could hardly wait to see it.

  To her surprise, Imke stood outside of the Seacouver station, dressed in a dark blue pantsuit with big lapels and a light blue coat, and wearing silver chains and silver boots. A sly, slightly hungry grin crept across their face when they spotted Coryn.

  Coryn’s reaction matched the grin with a sudden heat. “I thought you’d meet me at the Chicago side!”

  Imke leaned down and kissed her, and Coryn kissed them back, and remembered her conversation with Blessing and his kiss, and kissed them even harder. Heat flared in her center.

  Imke raised a glittering eyebrow.

  Coryn shrugged, her cheeks hot. “Show me how this works?”

  “You’ve never been on a loop?”

  “I’ve been on a plane.”

  Imke looked surprised. “Okay.”

  They climbed into a hyperloop pod with just room for the two of them, and Imke sat behind Coryn, running their hands along her shoulders and scalp. It felt . . . fabulous.

  The ride was over so fast she expected that the door to the little pod would open onto an intermediate stop somewhere. But when the pod door sprang open, Imke gently pushed Coryn out and bounded out of the small car carrying Coryn’s bag. They gave her an enigmatic smile. “There’s so much to show you. I have a dinner planned with two of my best friends. You’ll love it.”

  Even though it hadn’t quite turned to dusk at home, it was full dark in Chicago, the sudden shift jarring. Six inches of snow blanketed the ground, blown into taller piles in the southern corners of buildings. The loop station was a mile from downtown, and the buildings near the station were as tall as the higher buildings in Seattle. With fewer bridges, the streets were more crowded. The green walls had mostly been put away for the winter and lay bare or covered with decorative lattices, although a few well-lit greenhouses illuminated indoor gardens like Seacouver’s. The buildings got taller as they moved toward the lake, towering above them, lit like beacons. Gaudy. “You don’t care much about light pollution, do you?”

  Imke laughed. “We do. This light goes up, and that’s admittedly bad for birds and the like, but it doesn’t go out much, so we don’t throw light for miles like we used to.”

  She and Imke spilled out of the city onto a lakeshore park, the dark water still in the windless night, the seam of the horizon where night sky met night water nearly invisible. In spite of the snow and the cold, the lake hadn’t frozen. Small boats with dull orange and blue lights ran along the edge, taking people for tourist rides. A few people went by on strange contraptions. “Are they riding bicycles on the water?”

  Imke laughed. “Sort of. There’s a track. Can you see how big the tires are?”

  They were big. As tall as Coryn and at least a foot or two wide. “Can we try it?”

  “Tomorrow. Dinner’s in twenty minutes, and the walk is almost that long.”

  “Can I touch the water?”

  Imke cocked their head, looking bemused. “Of course.”

  “We’re bordered by water like this, but it’s hard to touch. There’s the seawall, which is always between me and the water. There’s a place where Julianna and I run where I could touch the Sound, but we never stop there.” Coryn handed Imke her small pack full of toiletries and technology and walked to the edge of the water. She knelt there, took her glove off, and trailed her fingers in the top of the lake. It felt cold and sweet and silky, as if the water were thick with the night.

  When she stood, she found Imke right behind her. They leaned down and kissed her. “You are a delight.”

  “It feels so lovely to be here. It’s an adventure.”

  “Are you ready to eat?”

  “It’s only five my time.”

  “Can you manage?”

  “Of course I can.”

  On the way, Imke told her they’d watched the race, and how they’d screamed so loudly when Coryn won that Mayor Broadbridge jumped, startled. Coryn giggled and told them about Pablo and Aspen, but left off her worries about Jake. She had no idea if they knew or should know.

  Imke took her up the tallest building in Chicago, to a rooftop bar exposed to the cold night but warmed by space heaters in the floor and walls. It reminded her of dancing with Blessing. “Imke?” she asked.

  “Yes?”

  “You know I love to dance with you?”

  “Yes.” Imke grinned and bumped out a hip.

  “And you can dance with others, too.”

  “Of course I can.” Imke leaned over and kissed her in the nose, a glancing wet kiss full of play. “Yes. You can dance with whoever you want. If I want a different deal, I’ll ask.”

  Coryn nodded, hoping she hadn’t taken any magic away for Imke. Or for herself.

  Imke took her hand and led her to a table. Another couple sat there, both of them about Imke’s age, both as gender-indeterminate and as beautiful, and as well-dressed. “This is Rudolf and Russy, part of my Chicago band.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Coryn felt like a token female for about a minute, but then all three of them had her in stitches talking about the city and telling jokes, and she ate chicken skewers and spring rol
ls and drank sake and got as giggly as they were.

  The four of them walked back to Imke’s together, and Rudolf and Russy left them in the vestibule, still giggling.

  Imke lived in a small room on a high floor. As soon as they got inside Imke led her to the window, pulling the drapes to expose a panoramic view of the big sparkling bright downtown clothed in white snow and light. Even though it had been noisy on the walk here, she couldn’t hear the city now. Just her breath and Imke’s. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  “As are you.” Imke touched her on the cheek, and ran their finger along her lips and along the soft edges of her chin. They started at her temples and massaged her scalp and her shoulders, much like on the loop. Then they slid Coryn’s shirt off and moved a warm hand to her belly, tracing a large circle and bringing it in, making a spiral of heat on her skin.

  Coryn quivered.

  Imke pressed themselves against her and touched her nipples, and Coryn’s breath caught in her throat, and her center thrummed with heat, her pulse loud and knocking against her throat.

  Imke spoke softly in her ear. “Do you want me?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “You’re certain?”

  As if she weren’t standing there half naked and exposed, on fire, spreading her legs apart as if on command and leaning into Imke. “I’m certain.”

  ‡ ‡ ‡

  Coryn lay curled up in a small ball, surrounded by Imke, savoring the smell of Imke’s arm where it draped over her waist. She had never slept a whole night with anybody else, and waking up so close to someone was both magical and slightly jarring.

  Imke slept naked except for their wristlet, an artsy device that ran from wrist to halfway up their forearm, the flexible material an amazing color that wasn’t black or gray or dark blue, but all three at once, blending into Imke’s dark skin. Tiny lights flashed bright yellow three times, and then began to emit a series of low beeps.

  Imke turned their wrist so Coryn couldn’t see the screen, and groaned. They sat straight up. They pushed a few buttons and then flopped back down on the bed. “Sorry. Into the shower. There’s a meeting in half an hour. Emergency.”