Harder than Steel

by Jane Galaxy

  The Steel Knight stood and watched thoughtfully as they moved in and counterattacked in perfect unison.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “UH, I DON’T know that I would characterize her as ‘slippery,’ necessarily,” Lily Tran was saying. “She’s certainly complex, and very much a real person inside the jumpsuit. Clever, filled with regret, numbed by her time spent working inside the government—absolutely. Slippery, to me, tends to imply something else altogether.”

  “Slippery in terms of her spy abilities, anyway,” said the reporter. “Red Rogue has a unique set of skills that allow her to evade or escape capture and trick the enemy, kind of the classic M.O. for a spy of her type, I believe.”

  Tran opened her mouth to answer and Vanessa let loose another quiet burst of camera shutter noise. The men around her were in a constant feedback loop between checking their phones and putting their attention back on the cluster of cameras that the actors seated at the table were contractually obliged to face.

  Patriot’s Duty, the second film in the Card One franchise, was officially on a PR blitz, and this was opening day.

  Press junkets were a magical time in an actor’s life, and never more so than when nobody gave two shits about the movie or character arcs that some committee had decided would sell the most toys come Thanksgiving.

  The real reason anyone was here was to see how far apart the organizers had decided to seat Jax Butler and Holland Matthews. And whether they’d get into a fistfight on stage. The questions so far had been polite formalities, but time was beginning to run out, and the audience wanted an answer to just how much control the Card One execs had over their livestock.

  And Vanessa just couldn’t get out of the Steel Knight’s grip.

  She had played a gambit with Trevor, and this was the result. Not exactly a loss, but a qualified win, a win with an asterisk next to it. A win on a technicality. Vanessa could join the FB2 staff roster and gain access to events instead of simply doorstepping duties. This included press junkets and cast panels, so her success with exposing Jax Butler meant . . . more coverage of Jax Butler.

  Of course it had all backfired on her. If she were a calculating person, she would have seen that coming. Or at least have out-maneuvered Trevor in some kind of contract stipulation.

  It had been some time since she’d seen Jax. In real life, anyway. Professional context was a different story—they’d crossed paths here and there when she happened to take jobs that involved following the wolf pack, vying for a spot on the curb. Jax getting in and out of cars, two dozen men in safari vests blurting out his name every few seconds, stepping and crouching and subtly shoving each other further to the back of the group. They never looked at each other while this went on, mostly because Jax wore dark sunglasses and Vanessa always had a viewfinder between them. Always professional.

  And busy. She’d been partnered with Dave to follow Dominic Thompson around. Card One’s stable had become hers outright, but there was still a bit of a guard-change as Dave was allowed the chance to gracefully turn over his beats before retirement. Both Dave and Dom were a good change of pace: Dave was quiet and didn’t run his mouth about girls he’d loved and lost through art school the way Sam had, and Dom seemed to be a genuinely good person.

  “He’s different, all right,” Dave had told her before their first joint tail. “Something about the younger generation coming up, I guess.”

  “Big partier?”

  “Sure.” Dave wrenched a zipper shut on his backpack. “If your definition of ‘party’ includes speaking at Black Lives Matter protests.”

  The photos of Thompson wouldn’t go blockbuster right now—tabloids didn’t like to get politically uncomfortable or reflective in a way that actually asked readers to do some self-examination. She knew they would eventually, though, after Dom’s character Gideon had gotten his own film and the magazines needed some context for the actor before he went on a big publicity tour. It would depend on how successfully the media could shape and manipulate the image of a civil rights activist who tended to disrupt the usual pablum. Vanessa saved the photographs she took of the activist crowds to a separate memory card that she kept in a back pocket of her backpack.

  “So there have been some rumors,” a reporter was saying now to the assembled cast and panel members, and Vanessa snapped back in. A low chuckle was going through the room, and one of the producers at the table sat up, on high alert. “Tensions while working on The Protectorate—is that film in trouble? Is the franchise in trouble?”

  Whoever the reporter was, she was off with a bang—anyone trying to be nice would have ended with a weak-willed Care to comment? But this put the whole group at the front on the defensive. Their only option would be—

  “We’ve wondered the same thing many times over the last few years,” said one of the producers, leaning in to the microphone and receiving scattered laughter around the room. “But ultimately, the passion of our actors and our crew are what sustains us and brings out that greatness in storytelling, which is our main goal, and we consider that to be a strong success.”

  “But as far as having your two leads at odds, that does seem like it could take down a whole series, let alone a project.”

  “Well—”

  “It was a fundamental misunderstanding,” said Jax finally in an even voice, and he paused to let every camera in the room adjust its focus and chatter at him for a few seconds. The videographers for some bro-y news blog next to her looked delighted at this development, letting the phrase “fundamental misunderstanding” autocorrect on their phones. Jax went on.

  “I think a huge part of the media’s job is to report on us as they see us, and that is what you all do. But so much can go missing when you aren’t there and aren’t a direct part of the process, which is how facts are distorted.” Vanessa glanced at Holland Matthews, who had his arms crossed over his chest and was looking down at the table in front of him.

  “Actors have to take a deep dive into their characters to be able to direct that emotion outward in an effective and believable way. That’s why we rehearse, and sometimes why we rehearse under unusual circumstances. Joanna and I are not seeing each other or involved in any way.” Jax laughed in a way that did not sound funny at all. “We were preparing for our parts. It’s tough to get to know each other on a tight shooting schedule, which is part of the Card One model. Moving that quickly makes us unique, and we were compensating for that by meeting in what we thought”—he paused for a fraction of a second— “was a private space.”

  Absolutely no one in the room was buying this. Vanessa rolled her eyes despite her skin growing oddly warm. Convenient, convenient, convenient. Even Holland was looking distinctly uncomfortable now.

  There was an aural scuffle at the front, and Vanessa finally looked up to see Jax with his hand against the microphone, talking to the producer, who managed to look only mildly skeptical. The producer leaned back and glanced over to a handler standing nearby, apparently willing to let whatever was about to happen, happen.

  “I just want to address the . . . I guess it’s the elephant in the room.”

  Holland Matthews, Lily Tran, and Taran Pope all turned to look at Jax in several degrees of surprise: Holland’s expression was something close to exasperation, Lily looked mortified given that she was sitting between them, and Taran—well, it was hard to tell with him. When asked the first question of the panel, which had been—

  How do you contrast yourself from other actors in the business today?

  He had answered: “I make sure to ask for a darker shade when it comes time for all the superhero actors in the business to get their annual coat of Pantone.”

  Which set off a long pause among the press but caused Holland Matthews to start a coughing fit. Taran Pope was kind of an enigma that way. Vanessa suspected he might be funnier than most people were giving him credit for. Playing the Phantom didn’t give him a lot of room for being anything other than cynical, world-weary, and generally bea
ten down by the system that had wrenched one too many morally compromising missions out of him.

  The entire press corps waited while Jax looked around at the reporters at the front. Vanessa shifted her weight so that she was slightly behind a tall bearded man in a shirt that said ARE YOU A REAL PATRIOT? above a picture of The Patriot looking serious and pointing at the viewer.

  “Look, I’m aware that I have made a huge mess of all this,” he said, and everyone waited. Even the camera shutters had stopped, although Vanessa could hear a faint haptic clicking somewhere nearby and strained her head to try to glare at whoever it was. “That I haven’t just screwed up, but that it’s an ongoing thing to the extent that it’s pretty much turned me into a one-note character. It defines me, by this point.

  “I can do the politician’s apology routine and say that I’ve let people down, that I’m sorry for the offense I’ve caused, but none of that would sound remotely plausible, and then it would just be back to whatever we can call normal.

  “Being Dirk Masterson has been one of the best experiences I’ve ever been privileged enough to have. I’ve got no plans to not be him anytime soon.” There was a pause, and Vanessa peered around the guy in front of her to catch Jax’s gaze sweeping in an arc over the reporters and photographers. She couldn’t tell if he’d seen her or looked at her. He breathed in and measured his next words carefully.

  “Because let’s face it, if I promise to behave, part of Dirk Masterson dims a little, right?” The crowd chuckled a little in agreement. “It’s fun to watch people make stupid decisions, I get it—it’s easy to judge me while you’re making money off my idiocy. But . . . it’s harder to be willing to set that aside. For me and for everyone else.

  “I will say this: I’m a mess, but that’s not going to change anytime soon. And I don’t say that to try to get off scot-free. There’s some work to be done there. What I mean is that I will continue to be a royal mess, but I will strive to be the right kind—not perfect, not well-behaved, but not stomping around on other people’s lives and relationships.

  “And I just want to add, Vanessa, I’d like to apologize if you’ll let me explain, sometime. I hate that we left things on such a low note, but I can understand your reasons.” There was a pause, and Jax looked around at everyone, a bit embarrassed. “That’s all.”

  “Was that fucking weird to anyone else?” someone was saying while they were all breaking the video equipment setup and putting the cameras away. “That whole thing felt like a performance piece, or like he was trying to go viral.”

  “Do you think it was deep-level promotion for the movie?”

  The guy in a vest and bow tie patterned with the Protectorate symbol looked thoughtful before answering.

  “Maybe there’s a new character called Vanessa.”

  Vanessa didn’t look at them but kept pretending like the zipper on her bag was fascinating. The junket had wrapped up quickly, with the actors and producers disappearing down a transit hallway blocked by a beefy man with interest in nothing except staring right in front of himself. Press, and more specifically paps, didn’t stick around long after one of these things—there was a chance the talent might be seen outside and no one would want to miss out on pictures of Jax Butler after . . . whatever that was.

  It was baffling, she could say that much. They’d never talked about a relationship, or anything adjacent to it—it had been fun and exciting sex. That was all to really expect from someone like Jax Butler. Or she’d thought so. Hearing him talk about it out loud was surreal, and a little embarrassing, but . . . where had this come from? She stopped packing her stuff and looked at the empty panel stage.

  If his speech had been carefully calculated and designed to make her want to track him down, Jax had definitely picked the right words. Now Vanessa wasn’t sure what was going on—while he had the reputation for being a screwup, especially with relationships, there was the smallest possibility that she’d blown up a good thing for no reason and just hadn’t realized it.

  The rapidly growing possibility, come to think of it. Now she felt cold all over. Maybe she’d wanted some vague and unreasonable suspicion in the back of her mind to be true, to prove to herself that everything always fell apart anyway.

  And that was a question she had to have answered.

  She casually made her way over to security near the hallway and peered past him. The man shifted slightly and moved into her line of sight, eyeing her a little and obviously not considering her a threat. Vanessa moved her weight onto one heel and slouched defiantly in the other direction. The man moved again. So did she.

  “Hey, you don’t need to be doing that,” he said, in a perfectly reasonable way.

  “Hmm?”

  “They’ve already left the building. You’re not going down there.” He started glancing around like he was looking for someone with a higher level of authority.

  Vanessa ran her fingers over the nape of her neck and pretended to consider this.

  “Hey! Hey, you listening to me?”

  “Not really,” she said, ducking and looking through the hole in the crook of his bent elbow.

  “I can ask you to leave. Do you want me to ask you to leave?”

  She ignored him.

  “Hey, Henry!” she shouted down the hallway. “Henry!”

  Security raised one hand and began murmuring into his earpiece. Vanessa shouted the name again and decided to give it one more chance before she’d cut and run. The posted bodyguard twisted his upper body around to look over his shoulder down the hallway.

  “Henry!” Vanessa cried.

  Jax’s head appeared around a corner, frowning, and then bewildered. They stared at each other over the man’s arm.

  “Fire escape,” she said, and didn’t stick around to hear what security had to say about that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WHERE ARE YOU? said the text from his publicist. Reminder that I was going to remind you that you have a flight to LA. Trending on twitter, btw, but you knew that, didn’t you?

  Yeah, definitely, was his reply. I’ll be there on time.

  There had been ten minutes of radio silence while he’d been in the town car moving through hellish traffic before he got another text, this one from Natalie.

  What are you doing.

  I am getting actual phone calls from people yelling at me that you are under contractual obligation to be on this press tour and also demanding to know what the fuck is going on

  Jax stared at the blank space at the end of that sentence.

  “I am distressed,” said Natalie when she picked up halfway through the first ring. “Thank you for that observation.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, is it bad? How bad is it?”

  “Hashtag JaxCrazy has risen from the fifth to the third highest trending topic, and there is a punny headline at the top of Buzzfeed. I am not going to read it out loud to you.”

  Jax let out the amused breath he’d suddenly sucked in. “Is it good? At least? I mean, seriously. No, I don’t care,” he said when she didn’t answer. “I am—where am I? Headed back to my apartment.”

  “Your luggage is already at JFK,” his assistant noted drily. Natalie had the ability to sound annoyed, he realized. He owed her the biggest vacation just for existing in her life. Maybe she’d enjoy going to Iceland. Jax made a mental note to figure out how to book plane tickets.

  “No, I’m meeting someone there.”

  There was a long silence, and Jax held the phone away from his head to see if she’d disconnected.

  He’d been looking at his phone screen in the hallway after the panel had wrapped up—the marketing staff, producers, and talent wranglers around him had all started making electronic marimba noises from the second they’d left the stage, a nonstop barrage of texts and communications surging from the moment he’d opened his mouth. Jax’s phone had stayed dark, though, and he willed it to flash on, for one contact name to come up.

  Instead, she’d been standing arou
nd the corner near the security entrance, down the hall, shouting his name.

  “You still there?” Jax said into the phone.

  “Yeah, I’m just . . . I dunno, I didn’t know you were sentimental.” Now Natalie sounded real—not playing the role of the dry, sarcastic assistant with clever banter. God, everyone was changing suddenly.

  “Just . . . can you get them to hold the plane for a little while, Nat? I promise I’ll be there. I promise.”

  “I’ll book you on the morning redeye,” she replied with a sigh.

  Jax let the front door of his apartment slam behind him and dropped the scarf he’d been unwinding onto the floor, then his jacket on the couch, followed by his phone and wallet. He walked slowly, quietly, over to the window that Vanessa had come through a lifetime before and slid it open to the dusk and evening breeze.

  She was sitting with her back against the building and her knees to her chest, holding a paper cup of something that was still venting off little bursts of steam. It was windy all the way up here, and her hair kept blowing into her face. But she was here, she was actually here, and hadn’t quite noticed him yet. But she wasn’t worried, just sipping at her drink and watching the cars below. He hoped she’d never stop climbing around on his fire escape. His throat ached, and his heart hurt, and everything was wonderful.

  “Hey,” said Jax as he climbed out to sit next to her.

  “Hey,” said Vanessa, turning to give him a lazy smile.

  “I’ve always thought this was a nice view,” he said.

  “With the alley below, and the new building blocking your view,” she said sardonically, nodding.