Long Dark Dusk

by J. P. Smythe

  “Scan her,” Hoyle says. She raises her hand and he notices her arm, where the other is missing. He raises an eyebrow then looks past her and sees me.

  “Hi,” I say. I wave.

  “You’re alive,” he says. His men swarm me as well, ready to take me down. They could, I’m sure. I’m not quite equipped to win this fight.

  “They’re prisoners,” one of his men says. “Escaped from—”

  “From Pine City,” I say. “We broke out. Or did you mean Australia? We were prisoners there as well.” Hoyle smiles from the corner of his mouth, the scar making it seem more subtle than maybe it is. “You thought I was working for Alala.”

  “You were,” he tells me. He makes eye contact with his soldiers. There’s something going on that Rex and I can’t see, something under the skin—probably ESP augs. He’s probably telling them what to do, preparing them for what could happen.

  He’s probably telling them how dangerous we are.

  “It wasn’t my choice,” I say. “You know what that’s like.” I’m sure it’s a smile. “But you helped me. It was for the best. I wasn’t on a good path.”

  “I hear that,” he says. “So now you’re here to hand yourself in?”

  “No,” I say. “The opposite.” I nod toward Alala’s computer. “May I?”

  “Be my guest,” he says. I move slowly. I don’t want to spook his people and they look like they’ll be pretty easily spooked. They’ve read my file by now, and Rex’s. I spent the first six months here desperate for nobody to know who I was or where I came from. Now? Those stories about me are all I’ve got.

  That and this computer. I open it and I reach for the keyboard. The soldiers react, panicked.

  “I need to type the password,” I say. The soldiers relax. He’s told them to stand down. Must be ESP augs. Must be.

  “You’ve given it a password. Old school.”

  “Harder to crack,” I say, “can’t just cut off a finger and use the DNA.” AgathaJonahMae, I type, and the first folder unlocks.

  “So what’s on this?” he asks.

  “Information,” I say. “I think it’ll be useful. If it is, there’s more where this came from.” I push the computer toward him. Rex’s eyes dart left and right, looking for the best way out; the soldiers prime themselves to take me down, almost desperate to catch somebody as wanted as I am; I feel my fingers shaking as I let go of the computer, as Hoyle takes it from me. I’m terrified that this might not be as useful to them as I’ve been hoping it is and scared at the thought that finally—finally—I’m maybe getting close to finding out where Mae is. Getting her back. Hoyle peers at the screen and I grit my teeth. Hand into fist—ready to fight if I have to, if this is nothing and if this hasn’t paid off.

  But Hoyle’s smile doesn’t break. He scans the files, flicking through them.

  This is something.

  “Where did you get this?” he asks. He opens documents, reads them, his augmented right eye flickering as it takes in whole pages at a time. “There are more of these files?”

  “There are,” I say. “And they’re yours. But I’ve got conditions. I want a pardon for me and Rex. No more prisons.”

  He nods. “That’s it?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “Remember before? How you promised that you’d find out where Mae was?”

  “When we got past this, sure. When Alala was taken care of.”

  “Well,” I tell him, “she won’t be a problem anymore.”

  And that really makes him smile.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks first and foremost to my editor, Anne Perry. She’s superb, with a really great eye for what makes characters tick. I think that both Chan and Rex are a hell of a lot more complete because of her.

  Thank you also to the rest of the Hodder crew in the UK and the US, and everybody else who has helped to get the books shipshape, onto shelves, and into people’s hands.

  Thanks to Sam Copeland and all at RCW for their hard work.

  And lastly, massive gratitude to Cath, Will, and Amy for listening to me witter about the plot of this thing almost endlessly for the past few months.