Canon in Crimson

by Rachel Kastin

Vidrai grinned, an incredibly unsettling expression.

  “Now, this intrigues me. What do you seek that you would make such a generous bid?”

  Alger nodded, and I felt the steel wire stringing my shoulder blades together start to loosen. Negotiations were under way.

  “It’s a box,” he said. “A puzzle box that’s missing a key, and no one’s quite sure of its contents. You’ve heard of it, I’m sure?”

  Suddenly everything changed. Vidrai’s eyes betrayed a glint of wildness, and he tensed as if someone had sent an electric current through him. He licked his thin lips and looked at me again. He wasn’t just excited—something was wrong.

  “Yes. This has recently been brought to my attention, and I can discuss it with you,” he said, lowering his voice. “But not where there are other ears. We absolutely must be alone.”

  But Alger shook his head; there was no going back.

  “Miss Crimson is already here. She’ll assist me in providing your price, whatever it might be. The arrangement is with both of us or neither of us.”

  The fever spiked in Vidrai’s eyes.

  “I disagree,” he said. And then he did something neither of us expected.

  He pulled a pistol out of his pocket and shot me right in the chest.

  §

  “I’m going with you,” I announced, standing in Alger’s doorway with defiant hands planted on my hips. Peace be damned.

  “No, you’re not,” he said flatly, without even looking up from the desk in his hotel room.

  “You can’t stop me from coming.”

  He stopped writing and looked up to meet my eyes with a gaze like a siege wall.

  “Actually, I can.”

  I crossed my arms, then uncrossed them, trying not to look too defensive. Come on, Vic. You can do better.

  “Okay, I know,” I said. “But I think I should go. You know I can help.”

  “Victoria, I said no,” he said. “I’m not sure what led you to believe that was an invitation to negotiate.”

  “But why?” I pressed. “If I hadn’t been there yesterday—”

  “Yesterday, you were very fortunate that your little ruse was so effective,” he said. “It could just have easily have gotten you killed instead. I don’t intend to give you that opportunity again.”

  Well, what had I expected? Maybe there were really no cracks in his armor after all. But if I could just make him see it my way…

  I changed my approach, shrugging as if accepting his answer and easing myself into the room to perch on the armchair across from his desk.

  “So, did he tell you why he wanted to meet alone?” I asked.

  “The subject never arose,” he answered, clearly trying to decide whether he’d won.

  I nodded agreeably.

  “Well, he’s supposed to be weird. Maybe it’s just his standard policy.”

  “Likely,” he said, still wary.

  “On the other hand,” I continued delicately, appealing to his well-earned paranoia, “you never know. It could be a trap.” He narrowed his eyes at me, but I went on before he could interrupt. “Someone might’ve paid him to tell them where you are. Or he could be working with that Third Party who tried to poison Kingston,” I suggested, taking a wild stab.

  Alger raised an eyebrow. Was I imagining it, or was that a hint of amusement in his eyes?

  “Your point?” he asked.

  “Well,” I said, closing in, “if it is a trap, wouldn’t it be helpful to have someone there who could watch your back? Or maybe hear it coming?”

  Alger sat back in his chair and laced his fingers in front of him, his expression unreadable, and I held my breath.

  “There’s absolutely no chance of your exercising a bit of common sense and giving up, is there?” he finally asked.

  I shrugged again, this time biting back a smile. Alger sighed.

  “Fine,” he said. “You can accompany me. But Vidrai won’t appreciate it, so you’ll have to be extremely cautious. You’re not to say a word unless it’s absolutely necessary, and under no circumstances should you try any of your brilliant ideas.”

  “You won’t regret it!” I promised as I hopped off the chair and waltzed out the door.

  “I’d better not,” I heard him mutter from halfway down the hall.

  §

  Getting shot hurt. I felt like someone had jammed a burning poker into my ribs and twisted. I stumbled backwards and crashed into the shelves, and books and priceless artifacts avalanched down onto me as I slid to the floor.

  Everything happened in seconds after that. Alger’s light stance compressed in coiled tension, and he threw a kick in a whipping arc. His foot smacked into Vidrai’s wrist, sending the gun flying. Sliding forward, he peppered Vidrai’s torso with a whirlwind of fluid strikes, ending with an open-handed slamming hit to the chin. The Collector’s head snapped back with a stomach-turning crunch. And then he went limp and clattered to the ground in a motionless heap.

  For a few seconds, Alger was suspended in time, standing with one hand frozen outstretched, his shoulder extended behind it, his entire body so taut I thought it would snap. Then his arms fell to his sides, and he turned towards me.

  At first, his face was as I’d never seen it before, distorted with the anguish of someone who’d just lost something irreplaceable. Seconds ago, I would never have believed he could look so distraught.

  But then he realized I was alive. His features transformed, and he stood staring at me in bewilderment. Letting my tears of shock and relief flow freely, I touched the reddened spot on my skin through a hole in the singed fabric of my dress. Then I picked the misshapen bullet up from the ground and held it out for him to see.

  “It…bounced,” I explained.

  §

  When we finally got to the Collector’s house after driving in circles for hours to lose any possible tails, the Driver let us out and took off. Alger knocked on the door, and a doorman told us politely to wait outside. So we waited, standing on the porch in damp, chilly silence while Alger’s eyes took an inventory of everything on the porch other than me.

  When half an hour had passed, though, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something. But what can you use to break a silence that thick? I didn’t want to bother to make small talk; not with him. I considered telling him about the man on the train…but now that more time had passed, I didn’t feel nearly so sure that he was as important as I’d thought. In the end, I knew that I’d have to say what was really on my mind. Taking a deep breath, I spoke first.

  “Alger?”

  “Yes?” he answered distractedly.

  “I—well. I’ve been thinking, and…” I shifted my weight back and forth uncomfortably and finally just took the plunge. “After tonight, should I go?”

  He turned and looked at me sharply, his attention captured at last.

  “Go?” he said. “Where would you go?”

  As if this wasn’t hard enough.

  “I mean, do you want me to leave the Gang?”

  “Why would I want you to leave?” he asked, genuinely confused. Clearly, for once, this was something he hadn’t anticipated.

  “Alger, I haven’t…really done anything, since Paris,” I said. “You haven’t even talked to me in months, and after I…” I shrugged, still too ashamed to really talk about stealing the key. “I don’t know. I thought, maybe you didn’t want me around anymore.”

  Alger shook his head.

  “No, that’s not the case.” He obviously wanted to stop there, but I wasn’t going to accept that, and he knew it. “I haven’t meant to punish you by taking you out of play,” he said, a little more gently. “But after the Intelligence Service took you, I concluded that I’d been lax in my own rules yet again. Additional precautions were necessary to ensure your safety.”

  He was still protecting me, I understood, my throat tightening. Everything that had made me miserable had only been to keep me safe.

  “I…guess that makes sense,” I sa
id. “But…it doesn’t explain why you’ve been avoiding me.”

  He paused for a long few seconds, and finally, he sighed in resignation and turned toward me.

  “I haven’t been avoiding you, Victoria,” he said. “The problem is just that I—”

  But before he could tell me what the problem was, the door creaked open.

  §

  In two steps, Alger was kneeling in front of me, his hands on my cheeks, his eyes fixed on my face as if I might disappear at any moment. He looked at the bullet in my hand, then back at me, and he shook his head in wonder.

  “Thank God,” he whispered.

  And then he kissed me. He kissed me the way I’d imagined over and over since the day we’d met, with a force that flooded out from behind months, maybe years of restraint. Swept away in the current, I kissed him back with all the passion I’d tried desperately to keep in check for so long, clutching him until my arms ached. The silence and the rejection, the terror and violence evaporated like wine, and at last, everything made sense. The problem was never that he didn’t want me—it was that he did.

  I don’t know how long it was before we both anchored ourselves in the present again, and I let him help me to my feet. Remembering where we were and what had happened, I glanced at Vidrai’s immobile form.

  “Is he—”

  “Shh,” he answered, gathering me into his arms and leading me out of the room. “It doesn’t matter.”

  So we left. Once we were a few blocks away, we caught a taxi and made a much shorter version of the trip back to the hotel. We were silent again, but now it was alright, because the entire way, he never let go of me. He didn’t let go of me when we got back, either, and I led the way to my room. A heartbeat after the door was closed behind us, he kissed me again, and I made it clear that I still didn’t want him to let go of me. So for a long, wonderful time after that, he didn’t.

  The last thing I thought as I drifted off to sleep beside him in the warm, safe darkness was how glad I was that I’d survived.

  Chapter 28—With A Little Help From My Friends

  “I thought you said you had it figured out,” R7 complained, perched on a lab stool while she watched Percival Gregory fiddling with a device made from part of the disabled robot.

  “I do!” the professor protested indignantly. “But I have to put the final touches on it. Science takes time, you know.”

  R7 sighed, hopped off the stool, and started to prowl the length of the rectangular lab tables strewn with beakers, test tubes, pipets, Bunsen burners, a microscope, screwdrivers, hammers, and other instruments she didn’t recognize. The surprisingly well-equipped lab adjoining the professor’s office, with its scattered experiments and paraphernalia, had the odd effect of calming her a little, but every minute that passed still felt like an opportunity slipping through her fingers.

  “But you can find Von Krauss once you’re done, right?” she asked.

  “Of course!” Professor Gregory scoffed. “As soon as I have a third data point.”

  R7 crossed the room a little faster than humanly possible to stand next to him.

  “A third what?”

  Professor Gregory glanced up at her, frowning and nudging her away from him with his cane, and turned back to adjusting couple of wires.

  “The operator can be located through the antenna signals,” he said, “and I’ve constructed this device to decrypt the signals. But even when the device is completed momentarily, I’ll actually be required to triangulate the operator’s location with three different signals.”

  R7 paused for a moment while she sorted out what he was saying, and then she groaned.

  “We have to wait for another attack?”

  “Not necessarily,” the professor answered, finishing whatever he was doing with the wires and turning to face her. “The third robot doesn’t need to be active for me to use its antenna as a third point. I just need to be within...approximately three miles of it.”

  After another few seconds of catching up, R7 gaped at him.

  “You asked me to come here because you needed me to drive you around New York City until we’re close enough to detect it?” she demanded.

  “Absolutely not. Don’t be absurd,” he scolded her, picking up the device he’d cobbled together and dropping it into her arms, then piling on the two antennae. “I’ll be driving.”

  §

  If Percival Gregory’s accent hadn’t been a dead giveaway, his car—an original Rolls Royce Silver Ghost—would’ve told R7 that he was English in an instant. Beyond that, the sharp, harrowing turns he made around every corner that often veered onto the left side of the street made it clear that either he hadn’t been driving in the States for very long. That, or he just enjoyed the adrenaline. R7 had been through far worse, of course, and she stood a far better chance than most of walking away from the disaster his driving might cause—but the sudden, violent motions were still distracting as she tried to focus on the device he’d given her, the antennae rolling around and clanging at her feet.

  “So it’ll just start screeching or beeping or something when we’re near another robot?” she asked, turning the mass of wires and metal bits over in her hands in search of anything that resembled a telephone’s earpiece or a radio’s speaker.

  “It’s called feedback,” the professor explained, cheerfully rounding another corner and nearly running head-on into another car. “You’ll have no difficulty recognizing it when it happens, I assure you.”

  “If you say so,” R7 answered with a shrug.

  “Excellent,” said Professor Gregory. “If the repetition of basic instructions is over, I believe it’s my turn to ask you a few questions.”

  Oh, hell. R7 braced herself, glancing over to see Central Park go flying by in a blur.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked, her fingers tightening on the device, then loosening as she remembered that she could break it.

  “Name, rank, and serial number would be an excellent start,” said the professor. “But frankly I’d be more interested in knowing why you’re capable of superhuman strength and speed.”

  She glanced at him sharply, just in time to hit her head on the window frame as the professor swerved to avoid a hole in the pavement, wrenching her back and forth.

  “Ow!” she yelped, rubbing her head. “How did you—”

  “I saw you move, so that was easy enough,” the professor interrupted. “And I saw the state of the disabled robot. You pulled that antenna off by main force. That ought to be physically impossible.”

  She swallowed, suddenly feeling more vulnerable than she had even in Tony’s basement as she tried to judge this man, who she was only meeting for the second time today.

  “If I don’t tell you,” she said carefully, “will you stop helping me?”

  Professor Gregory snorted.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, jerking the steering wheel hard to turn onto Forty-Sixth. “This is by far the most interesting thing that’s happened to me in years. And you might be the first person I’ve met who didn’t immediately strike me as an idiot in at least that long.”

  Against her better judgment, she found herself peering out from behind her defenses yet again and smiling. I’m not making friends, she’d said to G3. Well, to hell with it.

  “So,” she said, “I go by R7. But my name is—”

  But before she could tell him, the device in her hand started shrieking—just as they screamed towards Times Square.

  Chapter 29—The Truth Is Measured

  “Are you certain?”

  “Of course I’m not. This isn’t exactly common.”

  “I understand that, but twelve hours still seems a bit excessive.”

  “There’s no telling what the backlash from something like that would be. Besides, she could just be exhausted.”

  “I suppose. But if we don’t know the effects of—”

  “Look, Boss. You’ve got plenty of things to worry about. The fact that an eig
hteen-year-old girl is sleeping in after taking a bullet to the ribs shouldn’t be one of them. She’ll be fine.”

  Waking up slowly, I heard the end of the conversation filter in through the dense fog in my head. I had the vague sense that I wasn’t where I’d been when I’d fallen asleep. Hotel rooms didn’t roar and rattle that way, did they? Feeling as if I were moving underwater, I sat up and squinted at Alger and the Doc, who were standing in the corner.

  “I do have a headache,” I told them groggily.

  The Doc jumped, but Alger seemed to relax. He crossed the tiny room to sit down beside me, nodding at the Doc to dismiss him.

  “Where are we?” I asked, as the door clicked shut.

  “A train,” he said, which explained the noise and the nauseating movement. “I’m afraid I had to move you in your sleep. It wasn’t safe to stay until you woke up.”

  I rubbed my eyes, blinking out the lingering cobwebs.

  “Why didn’t you just wake me?”

  “That’s not as easy as it sounds,” he teased. “And besides, you’re quite lovely when you’re asleep.”

  “And when I’m awake?” I countered.

  “Then you’re nothing but trouble.”

  Before I could respond to that, he pulled me closer and kissed me, erasing the retort I hadn’t yet come up with from my mind. But just as he was starting to erase everything else from my thoughts as well, there was a knock on the door, and Shifty walked in. He looked at us for a minute, smirking.

  “Was there something in particular that you wanted, or did you just come to stare?” Alger asked, without batting an eye or moving to untangle me from his arms.

  The amusement drained right out of Shifty’s expression.

  “We just crossed the Austrian border,” he said, his voice laced with irritation. “Are you going to tell us where we’re going yet?”

  “Certainly,” Alger answered obligingly. “Africa.”

  Shifty and I both gave him incredulous looks. What the hell could we want in Africa?