“The smart kind,” Duke says. “Lyme ain’t one to be trifled with.”
Archibald stops short. “I am someone to be trifled with?”
“If the boot fits,” Duke says.
Archibald makes a fist and lightly punches the window. Don’t get angry, he tells himself, and still, he feels anger rising. He feels it all slipping away. “Duke, you’re dismissed,” he says.
Duke says, “Mr. Lyme ain’t going to like this.”
“Out! I don’t give a damn what Lyme likes!” After Duke stomps out, undoubtedly to find a multivid where he can contact the boss, Archibald pulls up his chair next to Vienne and throws an arm around her. “How about you, Vienne? Shoot him in front of you or let you do the dirty deed?”
He takes her by the chin and shakes her head no. “Neither option appeals to you? I know! Let’s give him a weapon, then turn Vienne loose. Can you shoot her before she kills you?” He nods her head yes. “Ding! Ding! We have answer! Regulator, give Stringfellow—excuse me, Mr. Stringfellow—your armalite.”
The Regulator hesitates. “All armalites are wired to explode if—”
“If someone with a different biorhythmic signature tries to fire them . . . Blah-blah-blah.” Archibald flaps his arms wildly. “Yes, I know that. Just give him the carking weapon!”
Shaking his head, the Regulator pulls the holster from his shoulder and offers the armalite to Stringfellow, while Archibald tucks the loose strands of Vienne’s hair behind her ear. He whispers to her, his lips grazing her lobe, “Such a natural beauty. If you had been born to the right family, what a wonderful consort you would have made.” Then he shouts, “Regulator! Why haven’t I heard an explosion yet?”
“You really want to see me blow my arm off?” Stringfellow says quietly. He eyes the weapon but makes no effort to take it. “I’ve only got the one good one left.”
“Would you mind terribly? I know it’s a sacrifice, but I would so enjoy it.” Archibald laughs and places his hands on his own cheeks, patting them. “But before you do, I have a little confession to make. All these years, I’ve sort of been following your career, stalking you, really. Mother had her enemy in your father, and I had mine in you. Don’t you love the arc of it? Then your father’s fall from grace paved the way for my mother’s career, but your fall from grace left me with no one to compete with, no mirror image of myself. I drifted after that.”
He pulls Vienne’s chair away and parks her behind a control panel. “Mother says that I lacked ambition, but that’s not true. I always had ambition. It just had no outlet. Then Mr. Lyme found me, and all of that changed, especially when your face appeared on all of those wanted postings. Mr. Lyme needs you, so I can’t really kill you, as much as I’d like to. So I’ll have to settle for the next best thing—blowing pieces off of your body. Now take the gun like an obedient little dalit.”
“It’s not a gun,” Stringfellow says. “It’s an armalite.”
“Spare me the distinction. Just. Take. It.”
Archibald pokes Stringfellow’s right temple, his fingers gouging into damaged flesh. With a knife, he cuts the flexicuffs holding Stringfellow’s hands together.
Stringfellow grunts, as if fighting through agonizing pain. He pulls the armalite from the holster, careful to hold it by the grip.
Archibald backs away to the control panel. He draws his cloak around himself and Vienne. “Now put your little piggies on the trigger like a good boy.”
“Before I do,” Stringfellow whispers, “I have a little secret of my own.”
“What’s that?” Archibald asks.
Stringfellow leans forward. “This armalite has my name on it.”
When Father was sent to the Norilsk Gulag for his litany of crimes against the CorpCom, Lyme’s agents were the first people to approach me, my finger still oozing blood from the bandage. At first I thought they were offering sympathy to a young man who’d lost his father and had been forced to humiliate himself on national multinets. One look into their stony faces, and I knew I’d be getting an offer, not sympathy. For a certain sum paid on an as-needed basis, the Collectors explained, they could make Father’s stay in the gulag more comfortable. By comfortable, they meant not dead. What was a son to do? I agreed to their offer and for years paid out almost every bit of my share of the coin my davos earned.
Lyme bled me dry. Probably in the same way that he bled the families who had loved ones in the gulags. It wouldn’t hurt my feelings to get back a little of my own if the chance presented itself. I love it when the stars align. It’s almost like poetry.
I do like Archie commands and put my finger on the trigger. I open fire, my bullets chasing Archibald as he runs for cover, bouncing off his cape, until one of the slugs finds his ankle and the force knocks him off his feet.
“Mimi,” I subvocalize, “tell me the poxer is dead.”
“No such luck, cowboy. Keep shooting.”
I find the coward hiding in a back corner, curled up in his cloak and holding his foot. I grab him by the collar. “Serves you right.”
“Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpers as I pull him stumbling back to the window. “Watch the exit,” I tell Stain as I shove Archibald to the floor.
But the door slams open again, and the flunky, Duke, charges in with a pistol. “Don’t move!” He fires two rounds into my chest before Stain kicks the door back into his face.
Duke staggers forward, hand cupped to his bleeding mouth. Stain lands a roundhouse kick that flips Duke backward over the railing. He hits the concrete floor with a wet thud and lies there, unmoving.
“Are you injured?” Stain asks me.
“I’ve been better,” I say. “Feels like a hornet stung me.”
Stain gives me the stink eye, and I say, “I said hornet, not bees.” Then I yell, “Riki-Tiki! Bring the gear!”
“Coming!” With a clanging sound on the steps, Riki-Tiki bounds through the doorway, a duffel bag on her shoulder. “That was so fun! I love playing soldier! What’s next?”
“Next, we get rid of the garbage.” I shove Archibald through the open doorway and slam the door behind him.
Riki-Tiki jams a blaster between the handle and the metal landing, wedging the door shut.
“Crafty work,” I say as I yank a C-42 explosives kit out of the duffel and double-check that Vienne is still okay. “Keep an eye on her while I finish this.”
I slap four coin-sized blobs of explosive in the corners of the window, then stick a blasting cap in each one before stepping aside. “Take cover!” I shout, then hit the detonator.
The plastic wads pop, and the glass cracks into tiny shards before the pressure sucks it right out of the window. A rush of air leaves the room, and then the spray from the spill gates washes in, flooding the floors.
Alarms light up the control panel.
“Does that mean what I think it means?” I ask Mimi while I slosh through the water to Vienne’s chair. Her hands are bound with plastic cuffs, her wrists covered with sores.
“If you think it means that all the emergency systems have activated and the whole of the Sturmnacht will be descending on you in a few minutes, then yes, it means what you think it means.”
“Oh. I just thought it meant the turbines are shutting down.” I wave Riki-Tiki forward. “Cavalry’s coming! Let’s move!”
Riki-Tiki hefts the soaked gear bags on a table and pulls out rappelling tackle as Stain ties four ropes to the steel rails surrounding the control boards. After tossing two spare harnesses to me, he straps his own harness on, and Riki-Tiki clips herself to a rope.
“Ready to rappel!” Riki-Tiki shouts over the howl of the sluice falls.
Not yet.
“Vienne!” I prod her shoulder, wary of what could happen if she wakes too quickly.
Her head lolls to the side.
“Let’s go, Vienne! That’s a direct order!” I shake her hard. “Mimi, check her vitals again.”
“Stable,” Mimi says, “but still asymmetrical and off
the charts. But these are not her normal—”
“Regulator!” I cut the flexicuffs and haul Vienne out of the chair. I throw her limp body over my shoulder and slosh over to the rappelling ropes.
Stain steps in front of me. Blocks my path. “You can’t rappel with her dead weight, too.”
“Watch me.” I go around him. “Unless you’re volunteering for the job.”
“Your plan isn’t going to work!” His face screws up. “It was predicated on Vienne rappelling out of here herself. Look at her! She can’t even walk. If you try to rappel with her, both of you will die!”
“I’m willing to take that chance!” I shout.
“No!” He pushes me. “Don’t be so blind! Look at her!”
Vienne’s cheeks are swollen, and her eyes are like half-open, glossy, clouded marbles with a glowing pink dot in the middle. Brown water streams from her hair, and her clothes hang like rags as I place her on the floor.
“If I knew what Archibald had turned her into,” Stain screams, “I never would have come. The Vienne we knew is dead! All that’s left is a mindless animal! Better we should put her out of her misery than prolong the agony.”
“No!” Something within me is growing hot. I can feel it bubbling up like steel melting in a crucible. A noise like a growl comes from my throat, and I’m dimly aware of a high wind rising.
I want to hit Stain, to rip his tongue from his head so that he can’t say what my guilty conscience has been saying all along: I alone am responsible for Vienne. It’s my fault she was at Tharsis Two. It’s my fault for wanting to play hero. It’s my fault for caring more about my father’s experiments than I cared about being with her.
My fist flies at his chin before I can stop it. Stain blocks the punch with an easy grace. He grabs my wrist and lifts it, trying to lock my elbow in a grapple hold. I twist away and try to leg-whip him. He bunny hops over my foot and plants a hard heel on my hip flexor. My armor absorbs the force, and I bounce back to my feet, poised to fight.
Stain stands with his legs together and his hands near his navel, held like they’re cupping water. “Who are you trying to hit?’ he demands. He seems so smug, standing there, looking half asleep in his tattered clothes and dirty feet.
“You!” I yell, then strike.
He catches my punch between the backs of his hands. “Is that what you really want? To hit me?”
You bet, you carking idiot. I hammer my leg on the ground while throwing a punch. Combined with the strength of my symbiarmor, the blow could shatter rock, and I expect Stain to move or block it.
But he doesn’t.
He stands there, waiting.
Mistuck! I check the punch, stopping millimeters from his nose, and snarl, “I could piru vieköön kill you!”
“No!” Riki-Tiki screams. She jumps between us, a straightened arm in each of our chests. “Stop fighting! It won’t help Vienne. Please, Stain. Please.”
He takes Riki-Tiki by the shoulders. “We aren’t fighting. Durango is only fighting himself. Isn’t that right? You are angry because you blame yourself for Vienne. If you had done things differently, then she would be safe? If you’re blaming yourself, then I have to blame myself, as well. We all played a part in this by our actions and inactions, but the Vienne we loved is gone! Do the only thing possible: Save yourself instead of risking your life for nothing!”
“Vienne isn’t nothing!” I snarl. “She’s your sister!”
“That . . . animal is not my sister.” He picks up a blaster. Points it at her. “You gave me hope that she would be worth rescuing, but now I see that there is nothing left but a dying dog that needs to be put down.”
“Càonĭmā!” I swing Vienne around so that my body is protecting her head and torso. “You’ll have to kill me first.”
He aims the sights at my forehead. “I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”
“No!” Riki-Tiki shouts. With a scissor kick, she knocks the blaster out of Stain’s hand, lands a punch to his throat, and in a move that would make Vienne proud, grabs the blaster before it can land and points it at Stain, who is gasping for breath. “We are the Tengu, and we do not kill.”
“I . . . do,” Stain rasps. “When it’s the only kindness left.”
“We have seen too much of your brand of kindness!” she screams. “I thought I could trust you, but I was wrong. Go!”
Stain cocks his head, considering the situation. Even now, he thinks he’s in control.
I pull my armalite and back away from him, shifting Vienne’s weight on my left shoulder. I feel her begin to stir. Oh no. “We don’t have time for this. Go now.”
“Riki-Tiki won’t shoot me,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “But I will.”
Stain shakes his head. “Idiot. You had your chance. Now I’m done with you.”
He clicks on his harness. He jumps from the sill, belays his rope, and with a zipping sound, disappears into the mist.
“Your turn,” I tell Riki-Tiki.
“No.” She looks to Vienne, then to me. “I’ll go last. You next.”
I’ve had enough arguing. “Together.”
With a nod, she slings her rope out and clicks on her harness, ready to descend. I grab Vienne’s legs as tightly as I can with my left arm, hoping that I can hang on to her long enough to get to the level below. After that, we have to make our way across the spill gate access tunnel to dry land. We’re not out of this yet.
Like Riki-Tiki, I flick my hand to get some slack and take a step backward. I look below to make sure that nothing is going to block my descent.
That is my mistake.
Below, the water churns with enough force to crush steel, and the space between it and my feet is so immense that I can hardly comprehend it. In the space of a heartbeat, the top of the world becomes the bottom, and my brain starts churning, too. I lose any grasp of space, my hands moving uncontrollably to grab on to something because even though I know I’m not falling, my mind thinks it is.
Boom!
The door—a battering ram—company’s here.
“Hurry!” Riki-Tiki shouts, her voice barely audible over the falling water.
Boom!
My feet are frozen on the sill. I don’t dare move. That’s when I feel the first jerks of movement in Vienne’s legs and arms. A sound like a moan begins in her chest, then it morphs quickly into a growl.
“Put her down!” Mimi screams into my ear.
But I can’t. I can’t put her down. I don’t know where down is.
Vienne does. Arching her back and bringing her knees up, she breaks from my grasp. My broken arm screams with pain, and I totter on the wet sill as Vienne leaps back into the control room.
She drops into a low crouch, legs spread wide, one hand on the ground, the other clawing the air. Even with a mop of hair in her face, she’s measuring the distance between us, calculating how much force it will take to knock me into the lake below.
“Go!” I yell to Riki-Tiki. “Now!”
“No!” Riki-Tiki remains on the sill beside me. “Not without Vienne!”
I shake my rope at her. “Don’t be so stubborn!”
Boom!
The battering ram hits the door, and Vienne’s head snaps around at the sound.
“Vienne!” I lock my left hand onto the rope and regain my balance. I brace myself in the window, cold water sluicing down my back. “It’s me! Durango! Come on!”
Boom!
“Durango?” Vienne seems to recognize that the loud sound is no danger to her. She stands up, almost nonchalantly, and turns her attention back to me. “I . . . know . . . you.”
Yes! “That’s right, I’m Durango. You know me. This is Riki-Tiki. She’s your friend. She wants to be your acolyte.”
Vienne sloshes toward something unseen, then bends to retrieve it. When she stands, she’s aiming a blaster.
Right at my chest.
Oh no. Not again. “Vienne, I’m really tired of being used for target practice.
Just toss the blaster away, please.”
But she’s having none of it. “I do know you, Durango.” Vienne tugs at the control choker on her neck. Her flesh is charred, and it makes me sick to think of how many times she’s been shocked with it. “I gave up a Beautiful Death for you, Durango.” Her voice rises, taking on an edge like a razor. “And you, Durango, turned me into a monster.”
“No, he didn’t!” Riki-Tiki shouts, her feet slipping on the wet sill. “That was Archibald! We’re trying to save you!”
“Save me?” She laughs and raises her hand. Her pinkie finger? What the tā māde? “You can’t save me when you’re the one who took everything I had away. Mr. Archibald made me whole again.”
“Mimi?” I slowly step down from the window, my eyes locked on the blaster. If I can just reach it. “Any theories on how that finger got there?”
“A couple, both biomedical,” she says. “It is not that difficult to regrow tissue if you have resources and access.”
“Archie lied to you,” I say. “He didn’t make you whole; he tore you apart.”
“Liar!” A blaster round rips past my head, and I slip.
“Vienne!” Riki-Tiki screams. “No!”
Vienne turns the blaster toward Riki-Tiki and as I lunge for the weapon, she fires again.
The blast hits Riki-Tiki’s shoulder, burning straight through her weak body armor. She drops the rope as her body jerks, and she falls backward, her harness hooked to the line, with nothing but friction to slow her descent.
Maybe I scream, “No!” Maybe I don’t.
But I do launch myself after her, the wind and water smacking my face as my greater weight carries me twenty, forty, sixty meters down toward the angry water, Riki-Tiki just meters, then centimeters away from my hand, then—
“Gotcha!”
I do say that as my right hand closes around her ankle, follow by an—
“Oof!”
My left hand snags my rope, and we stop hard, then bounce and dip toward the base of the dam, swinging like two weights on a pendulum. I slam into the concrete, my symbiarmor taking the energy of the blow. Seconds later Riki-Tiki hits the concrete, too. She hangs just out of my reach, her hands pressed against the wound like a too-small patch on a too-big hole. Her pink hair, soaked from the spray from the sluice, is matted flat to her face. She sputters, trying to blow the water out.
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