by Kit Rocha
“And I can find my name like you did?” the kid asked, perking up.
“If you want. We should come up with a nickname, though, just for now. Something we can call you until you pick a name.”
After another solemn moment of considerable thought, the girl braced her entire body as if for a blow. “Rainbow.”
It was almost defiant. She was clearly prepared for laughter or derision. Summoning a warm smile was the easiest thing Maya had ever done. “I think Rainbow is a great name.”
“I saw one once,” Rainbow said excitedly as the tension fled her tiny body. Her words came faster, as if Maya had passed a silent test. “They brought us out for endurance training during a thunderstorm. But there was a break in the rain and the sky…” She trailed off in awe. “Everything in our rooms was always just … gray. But the sky was painted in so many colors. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
The torrent of words faded, and Maya held her smile even with her heart twisted in knots. “I bet. Next time it rains, I’ll take you up on the roof. Sometimes we don’t just get rainbows in the sky, but the light reflects off the big buildings up on the Hill like they’re prisms. Rainbows everywhere.”
“Wow,” Rainbow whispered.
“Wow is right. Come on, grab that drink.” Maya rose and held the tablet in one hand. “This is yours for now, until we get you one of your own. I put some movies on there, too. Let’s get you back upstairs before Tia Ivonne realizes you snuck out.”
Rainbow accepted the tablet, cradling it oh-so-gently against her chest. “Can you show me how to fix her faucet? I want to make it better.”
“Sure.” Maya gave Rainbow’s shoulder a gentle squeeze of encouragement and unlocked the warehouse door. Her tool bag sat near the exit, and she scooped it up and led Rainbow upstairs. Ivonne’s niece Luna answered Maya’s knock with a look of confusion but stepped aside without comment.
The faucet proved to be an easy fix. Maya let Rainbow hold the wrench and showed her how much force to use. Once it was repaired, Maya tucked her into the bed Ivonne had made up for her and left her exploring the books on her new tablet.
The partly open window over the bed answered the question of how the girl had gotten out at least. The thought of her scrambling down the side of the building was enough to make Maya’s stomach lurch, but Dani probably scaled their building sometimes for fun. When the team got back, Maya would put her in charge of all cat burglary–adjacent childcare.
Ivonne was standing in the entryway when Maya returned, her silvering black hair in a long braid and one hand pressed to her chest over her long nightgown. “I’m sorry, Maya. I don’t know how she got past me.”
“She’s apparently a tiny Dani,” Maya replied, shaking her head. “Or a tiny Nina. Either way, I think the easiest way to keep her somewhere is to convince her she wants to be there.”
“The poor thing. Did she finally talk to you?”
“A little.” Maya dug in her back pocket and surfaced with an emergency card loaded with untraceable credits. “Her name is Rainbow. If you have time tomorrow, it would be a huge help if you could help her pick up some clothes.”
“Of course.” Ivonne folded her fingers over the card before leaning in to kiss Maya’s cheek. “You’re a good girl, Maya.”
“I try.” Maya returned the kiss. “Get some sleep.”
Maya waited on the stoop until she heard the older woman engage all the locks, then hurried back down the stairs. Ivonne had come into their lives only a few months ago, but she’d adopted Maya, Dani, and Nina within moments of settling into the upstairs apartment. For the first time in her life, Maya now knew what it was like to be smothered in vaguely parental affection.
She actually didn’t hate it.
Ivonne and Luna were a nice addition to their growing family. They mostly didn’t talk about the fact that they’d met when Nina’s crazy, evil clone sister had kidnapped Luna in an attempt to blackmail Knox and his team, just like they didn’t talk about the fact that Knox and his team had basically lured Nina, Maya, and Dani into a trap in response to that blackmail.
Lies, betrayal, backstabbing—not the best way to kick-start a relationship. But everything had come out okay in the end. They had all bonded over the fact that they hated the TechCorps the most. And all families had drama, didn’t they?
Once she was inside and had the warehouse locked up again, Maya paused by the scanner. The stack of cookbooks waited for her but so did her precious paperback. The main character stared up at her from the top of the pile with those wise, determined brown eyes.
Marjorie Chevalier was officially dead. Nina had arranged for the TechCorps to find skeletal remains with bone marrow that matched her DNA, the My First Fake Murder version of the way she’d helped Knox and his men stage their own deaths a few months ago. After Marjorie’s remains had been verified, the two-million-credit reward on her head had been canceled. The TechCorps wasn’t looking for her anymore.
Maya had picked a new name. It didn’t have the power or magic of that first one she’d chosen for herself, but it didn’t have the danger and pain, either. Maya had never watched a bullet tear through the face of the woman who had raised her. Maya hadn’t sat for weeks, strapped to a chair, watching the VP of Security carve pieces off the man she loved in an attempt to force her to reveal the names of Birgitte’s coconspirators.
That pain was Marjorie’s. That life was Marjorie’s. Maya was trying to build a new one. Yet here she was, obsessing over Gray, another man about to die because of the TechCorps.
She might actually be an emotional masochist.
Maya grabbed the book and carried it up to her room, where she curled up in her bed. She turned the real paper pages with reverent fingers and tried to remember what it had felt like to know she could fix anything. Save anyone.
Maybe she could save him.
TECHCORPS PROPRIETARY DATA, L1 SECURITY CLEARANCE
It was a barracks fight, Birgitte. If we ordered additional observation for every Protectorate soldier who punched a squadmate, you wouldn’t have time to do anything else.
Your obsession with 66–221 is damaging your objectivity. Stop harassing my men, or I’ll have you stopped.
Internal Memo, June 2064
FIVE
Gray managed to sleep through what was left of the day and night, but not even sheer physical exhaustion could keep him there after six the next morning. His internal alarm clock had been set by years of disciplined training, and his body wasn’t about to let little things like being drugged or slowly dying screw it up.
It had absolutely nothing—not a thing—to do with how his dreams were filled with warm lips, soft sighs, and the lingering peach scent of Maya’s hair.
He rose and stripped his bed, folding the bedclothes neatly at the foot of his cot. It was another habit he’d picked up over the years of breaking camp. If he was still there when night fell, he’d remake the bed and start all over.
The warehouse that Nina’s sister, Ava, had helped them acquire through a shell corporation had a deep, narrow footprint and had been fully divided into two floors. They’d barely touched the top so far, except to clear out the animal skeletons and old mattresses, detritus left behind by squatters, both human and otherwise. On the ground floor, they were still sleeping in barracks-style cots while they put up walls.
Gray dressed and headed toward the front of the building. They were nearly finished framing up a dividing wall to separate Knox’s clinic from the rest of the warehouse. It would provide a safe space for the neighborhood doctor to see patients. Later, when the remaining Silver Devils had finished renovating the second floor into their living space, the rooms downstairs could be repurposed to expand the clinic.
It felt good to have a goal for once instead of a mission.
He picked up a hammer and got to work, letting the repetitive physical labor lull him into that narrow space between single-minded focus and zoning out. He’d spent many hours in that p
lace, set up and waiting for the perfect moment to take a shot. It wasn’t a circumstance that allowed for distraction or active engagement, so Gray turned inward, letting his mind drift between the two in a soothingly hypnotic rhythm.
He finished the framing quickly, then frowned at the skeletal wall in front of him. Conall had special wiring to do for the security system he wanted to set up, and any further work Gray did might interfere with that.
Time to find another piece of busywork.
He headed to clean up. They might not have bedrooms yet, but the Silver Devils had spent enough years out in the field that they had all agreed on the first thing they wanted: a bathroom with proper showers. That was already finished, a beautiful tiled set of rooms with three separate showers and enough space to accommodate four men living under the same roof.
Gray lingered longer under the steaming water than he normally would have, but when he finished and dressed again, the digital clock Conall had set up to project high on one wall still only read 9:38.
With a sigh, he brewed two cups of coffee and headed across the street.
“Morning, Sam,” he greeted the old man sitting on his front stoop.
“Gray.” Sam had weathered dark skin, snow-white hair, and observant brown eyes framed by smile lines. His gaze sparked with humor, even as he faked a scowl and jerked his chin toward the Devils’ building. “Lot of hammering over there with the sun barely up. Some of us like to sleep.”
“Liar. You were out here before I started.” He handed over one of the mugs. “Extra strong, no sugar.”
Sam grumbled, but he took the coffee and savored a slow sip. “Someday you kids’ll tell me how you’ve always got the real shit.”
“Hell, that’s easy. We grow it out back,” Gray lied, then sat one step down from Sam and stretched out his legs. “Anything interesting happening this morning?”
“My knee’s aching something fierce.” He lifted the cup. “A bad storm’s blowing our way.”
“It’s September in Atlanta, Sam. Tell me something I don’t know.”
“You weren’t the only one up early.” This time he tilted his head toward the building where Nina and her crew lived. “Couple of folk from Little Acadiana were waiting when Maya opened the door this morning. Don’t see them outside their neighborhood that often.”
He didn’t ask how Sam had identified the visitors as displaced Cajuns. If the man had bothered to mention it, it was because he was certain, and Gray wasn’t about to waste his time asking. “Looking for help or trouble?”
“Help, I reckon. The young one, she looked scared. But the older one was plenty pissed off, so…”
“I’ll check in on her,” he promised. “Anything else?”
“Nothing important.” Sam cradled the coffee cup in two gnarled hands. “Tell Maya I wouldn’t mind her taking a look at that air conditioner she rigged up for me, if she gets a chance. It’s rattling.”
“You got it.” Gray rose. “Watch your six, old man.”
“I always do, kid. I always do.”
Dead bolts and other assorted locks edged the front door of the ladies’ warehouse. Only one was engaged at the moment: a state-of-the-art magnetic lock secured by a code. Conall had wanted to beef it up, but Nina had drawn the line at biometrics.
Her paranoia seemed justified to Gray. He barely trusted anything that gathered his identifying biological data. If he’d been grown in a lab full of clones, as Nina had?
No fucking way.
He punched in the eight-digit code, waited for the lock to disengage, and slipped inside.
The ladies’ warehouse was the same size as the one the Devils had taken over, but that was where the similarities ended. Instead of two full floors, this one had been sectioned off. The back third of the building served as their storage and general work area, while the front part had been renovated into their home.
As he walked through the living area toward the kitchen, the ceiling opened up above him. He craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of Maya up in the loft area where the bedrooms and gym were located, but the place was still. Quiet.
He headed for the back, then paused by the open door when he heard another language—Louisiana French. People displaced by the flooding in southern Louisiana had mostly moved west, into Texas territory or Old Mexico, but a handful had settled in a section of Atlanta known as Little Acadiana.
Although Gray recognized the dialect, he couldn’t speak the language. Maya, it seemed, was fluent. Her voice rolled over him, both drawling and rapid-fire, all at once. He caught words here and there—trouble and doctor …
And then pregnant.
He peered into the workroom. Maya was talking to an older, grandmotherly type, and the woman was pissed. She glowered as Maya scribbled something on a piece of paper, and then sighed when she put it in her hand.
Beyond them, a young woman—a girl, really—with red-rimmed, shadowed eyes sat on a stool. She caught sight of Gray with an obvious jolt of shock. He tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace, so he stopped immediately, and she looked away.
Maya turned to her, her words bringing a spark of hope to the girl’s face. “You’ll be okay, Emeline. I promise.”
“Ouais.” The girl nodded jerkily. “I just feel so stupid.”
“Hey, no. Don’t. You did your best.” Maya gave the girl’s shoulder a gentle pat. “Your grandmother has the address. I trust this doctor, okay? He’ll take care of the abortion and replace that shit implant with the real deal. It’s fast and easy, I promise. And no more side effects.”
Emeline swallowed hard. “We can’t afford—”
“It’s taken care of,” Maya interrupted. “Like I told your grandmother. And don’t think this is charity. I’m trusting you to come back when the harvest is in and put in a day or two doing food prep for the freeze-dryers. I hate chopping vegetables.”
That prompted a small, shaky smile. “It’s not so bad. I don’t mind doing it.”
“Don’t tell me that, or I’ll have you back here all the time.” Maya smiled back, her brown eyes sparking with warmth. “Go on. The doctor will be waiting. T’inquiète. You’ll be fine.”
The girl hurried to where the older woman waited by the back door. Maya said something else in that rolling dialect and waved cheerfully. Her expression held until the door closed behind the pair.
By the time she’d turned to face Gray, there was murder in her eyes. “Wanna help me kill someone?”
“Why not?” He shrugged. “I don’t have any other plans for the day.”
Maya scowled and snatched up a tablet, her fingers flying over the screen. “Apparently, there’s a new quack preying on the more insular communities south of us.”
“I gathered. What does Nina usually do about that shit?”
“Ask them to stop. Then tell them to stop.” She finished her message and tossed the tablet onto the table. “If they don’t listen, she makes them stop.”
There was a bushel of peaches on the long, low table, waiting to be peeled and sliced and readied for the big steel freeze-dryers in the corner. Gray picked up one of the peaches and ran his thumb over the fuzzy surface.
It reminded him of his dream.
He took a big bite, then licked the juice off his hand. “Sounds fair enough.”
She was silent for a beat too long, then jerked her gaze away from his face. “I’m not feeling fair. I’m feeling murdery. All of the snake-oil shit is bad, but the faulty birth control implants…” She hissed in a breath between her teeth.
“Want me to handle it?”
Maya traced one finger along the edge of the peach basket, looking seriously tempted—by the fruit or by the prospect of murder, he couldn’t be sure. Then she sighed. “I don’t know. Neighborhood policing is Nina’s deal. Besides, you’re supposed to be resting, not doing crimes. Even righteous ones.”
“Hmm.” He held out his half-eaten peach. “Want the rest of this?”
She reached out, her fingers
brushing his as she accepted the offer. She lifted the peach to her lips and took a small bite, and her eyes fluttered shut. She savored the fruit, chewing slowly as bliss transformed her expression to something almost ecstatic.
“Like Eve in the Garden of Eden,” he murmured.
“What?”
It was a dangerous path—for the conversation and his thoughts. “Nothing. So.” He turned away. “Do you always do what you’re supposed to do?”
“Depends,” she replied. “Mainly on who’s going to get hurt if I don’t. If I drag you out to beat down some punk-ass fake doctor and you have another seizure, Knox will tear my head off. And I’ll deserve it.”
“That’s fair.” Gray tilted his head to one side, then the other. “But, then again … who’s going to get hurt if we wait?”
Maya tossed the peach into the garbage can hard enough to rock it on its base. “Too many people. Are you sure you’re feeling up to it?”
“What, beating down some punk-ass fake doctor?” He snorted. “I could do that in my sleep. Relax, Maya. I’m fine.”
“Okay. Let me check in with Tai real quick and make sure Rainbow is still settled in upstairs with Ivonne.” She waved a hand at him vaguely. “Do you need to … I don’t know, weapon up or something?”
As if he’d leave the confines of these warehouses empty-handed. “I’m already armed.”
Her gaze broke from his to skim down his body in a slow assessment. “If you say so. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”
She hurried out of the warehouse, leaving Gray to wonder what words, what circumstances could induce Maya’s warm gaze to linger on his body for more than a few seconds.
* * *
Maya could always tell when she crossed over the invisible boundary at the edge of their unofficial territory.
When she’d first come to live with Nina, their relative influence had been small. Neighbors for a few blocks in any direction might come to Nina to ask for help or to access her impressive digital library. When you lived on the fringes and couldn’t afford the strings—and surveillance—that came with TechCorps-approved net access, it was hard to find information. People traded battered how-to manuals and books on home remedies like they were black-market contraband—which they would be, if the TechCorps had their way.