The Devil You Know

by Kit Rocha

  Fine. Ava would find a way to make it clear to him that allowing it was in everyone’s best interests. “I still don’t think you should let him wander around. There’s nothing wrong with his biochemical enhancements, and he’s clearly emotionally compromised. He could hurt someone.”

  Nina’s almost-smile vanished. “Would you like to know our reasoning or just continue to tell me what I’m doing wrong?”

  “I’d like to know your reasoning.”

  “Mace has been incarcerated for months. Tortured for months. If we lock him up again, it could trigger a post-traumatic stress response. He’s not well, no. But he’s better now than he was when he got here.” The kettle began to whistle, so Nina pulled it off the eye and shut off the burner. “We are handling this, Ava. Our way, not yours.”

  “I was incarcerated for months,” Ava replied softly. “I was tortured for months. I thought I was getting better, too. But I was still capable of doing terrible things to the person I loved most.” Ava swallowed back the bitter memory of seeing Nina for the first time—happy, laughing with friends, blithely living her life in a world that had no place for Ava. “I don’t want him to hurt you. That’s the only thing I care about.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it.” Nina poured hot water into their mugs, then braced her elbows on the island and tilted her head toward the bag Ava had brought. “What’s that?”

  Ava rested a hand on the heavy fabric. “Last time I was here, I heard Rafael Morales say he was struggling to find effective medications for the young biohacker’s aunt.”

  “Yes, Ivonne has a heart condition…” Nina trailed off. “Ava, you didn’t.”

  “Transplants aren’t nearly as risky with a DNA-customized biomechanical organ. And I know a talented surgeon who owes me a significant favor.”

  Nina dropped her head to the counter with a groan. “Oh, honey. No. This is not a thing people do. You can’t just show up with a heart in a bag.”

  “Most people wouldn’t have the capacity or resources to do this. I do.” Ava frowned, earnestly perplexed by Nina’s unexpected response. “Why should she continue to suffer if I can fix the situation? And I owe the girl a debt.”

  “Luna?” Nina scoffed. “You didn’t borrow fifty credits and forget to pay her back. You kidnapped her.”

  “I caused her emotional suffering. This is the only way I could think of to alleviate emotional suffering.” Ava shrugged and adjusted the strap on the bag, a nervous gesture unworthy of her. But Nina was the only one who could make her nervous. “She doesn’t have to forgive me. I don’t care if she forgives me. But she should have her family. Healthy.”

  “Desperately needed hearts are nice.” Nina met her gaze. “But so is sticking around.”

  The silent challenge lay there between them. A DNA-customized biomechanical organ was simple, easily paid for in credits. Credits meant little to Ava. She had taken plenty from the man who’d thought to cage and use her.

  Sticking around? That, she would have to pay for with her precious time and emotional vulnerability.

  Slowly, Ava straightened. She looped the strap of the bag over her head and squared her shoulders.

  This would be incredibly difficult. “Do you still have those cots in the basement?”

  “We do.”

  Ava exhaled. “Then I guess we’ll have plenty of time to catch up tomorrow.”

  “Ava?”

  “Yes?”

  Nina smiled and held out one of the mugs. “Don’t forget your tea.”

  Ava accepted it with a faint smile and watched Nina retreat back up the stairs, to where Knox was undoubtedly waiting for her. Knox would probably be pleased to find Ava here in the morning—not because he particularly enjoyed her company, but because he had zero patience with her absences hurting Nina.

  Pleasing Knox was almost reason enough to sneak back out the door. But Ava cradled the mug and stubbornly passed her final potential exit, turning instead to the staircase that led down into the basement.

  It was a far cry from her tastefully appointed penthouse on the Hill. Just a clean, carefully swept room, a few worn rugs trying to warm the place up, and a row of cheap but sturdy cots adorned with colorful, heavily patched quilts.

  Ava supposed she had slept in worse places.

  One of the cots had a lopsided little side table next to it. Ava set down her tea and placed her precious bag beside the bed. The soft whir from the box inside was barely audible. The heart would beat with artificial life until a surgeon lifted it from its housing and placed it into a human body. It was a miracle of science. And a damned fortune worth of credits.

  And Nina valued it less than Ava’s presence. Utterly irrational.

  Honestly, Ava couldn’t imagine that her mere presence could possibly live up to such lofty expectations. She’d likely disappoint Nina before the end. But tomorrow, one way or another, she’d fully assess the threat James Mason presented.

  Disappointment or not, Ava would protect her sister.

  TECHCORPS INTERNAL COMMUNICATION

  From: RICHTER, T

  To: SKOVGAARD, B

  Date: 2078–07–01

  Is there a pressing reason DC-035 hasn’t completed her Year 16 benchmark tests? I can understand a certain degree of preferential treatment, but you, of all people, should understand how important regular testing is.

  EIGHTEEN

  Ava would not stop staring at her.

  Maya tried to ignore her as she sliced another lemon and handed half to Rainbow. The girl’s face was fixed in an expression torn between fierce concentration and outright wonder as she gently pushed down the lever on the citrus press. The tart smell of lemon juice filled the room, and Rainbow solemnly removed the rind and deposited it in a bowl slowly filling with them.

  “You know, there are machines that do that,” Ava pointed out as Maya passed over the next lemon half. “There have been for at least a century.”

  Rainbow froze, gaze darting from Maya to Ava and back. Maya barely bit back an exasperated sigh. No one other than Nina ever responded well to Ava’s sudden appearances, but Rainbow was reacting with heartbreaking awe to the sudden tangible proof that Nina and Ava were like her—clones, genetically enhanced and ruthlessly trained. Maya supposed she might feel the same confronted with a data courier in their sixties who’d somehow mastered the seemingly impossible task of thriving in a world that would never understand you.

  Nina knew how to handle the girl’s hero worship. Ava, on the other hand …

  Maya wasn’t sure Ava knew how to handle anyone she wasn’t planning to kill.

  “We don’t need a machine,” Maya said firmly, giving Rainbow’s shoulder an encouraging squeeze. “We make lemonade for ourselves, for fun. If we decide to go into business, we’ll discuss streamlining the system for mass production.”

  Ava lifted one shoulder in a barely visible shrug, and Maya knew that she was already trying to decide where to obtain a top-of-the-line citrus juicer. She’d leave it behind, the same way she’d left Maya’s fancy ear cuffs, or the 3D scanner, or the set of perfectly balanced prototype throwing knives that wouldn’t set off metal detectors. Because she couldn’t seem to help herself.

  “We don’t need a machine,” she repeated, a little more firmly.

  “Don’t bother, Maya,” Rafe drawled, flipping around the chair at the head of the table so he could straddle it. “Ava doesn’t know how to express herself with words, so she’s just going to keep buying us presents until we like her.”

  Ava turned her cool gaze on Rafe. Her face might have been identical to Nina’s, but Nina had never managed to pack that much absolute disdain into a single look. “Don’t flatter yourself. I neither need nor desire your approval.”

  “Yeah, you say that. You say it all the time.” Rafe leaned closer to Maya and stage-whispered, “Do you know what she had in that huge-ass bag she hauled in here?”

  “I don’t know, gold bars?”

  “A heart.”

  Ma
ya blinked at him, her imagination immediately supplying the grisly visual. “What, like ripped with her bare hands from the chest of a man who’d wronged her?”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Ava retorted, her voice bland. “Why would I get my hands dirty for such an inefficient kill? There are much better ways to kill someone.”

  “See, now she’s just trying to look like an asshole.” Rafe propped his chin on his hand and grinned. “She grew the heart. From Ivonne’s DNA. And paid a surgeon to be on standby.”

  Maya’s own heart skipped a beat. Ivonne couldn’t afford the artificial organs created by the TechCorps, and even the best treatment Luna and Rafe could buy had only been a stopgap measure. “Ivonne is getting her transplant?”

  “Don’t make something of this that it’s not,” Ava snapped. “I inconvenienced Luna—”

  “Kidnapped,” Maya interjected. “You kidnapped Luna.”

  “—and she deserves compensation for her trouble. That’s all it is.”

  “Uh-huh.” Rafe dragged the cutting board away from Maya and started slicing the lemons in half with effortless strokes. “You will work harder than anyone on this whole damned planet to avoid apologizing. It’s honestly impressive. I have deep respect for your dedication to never saying you’re sorry.”

  Deprived of anything to do with her hands now that Rafe had taken over slicing the lemons, Maya nudged Conall. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “Nope,” he replied without looking up from his tablet. “I don’t poke bears or psychotic evil genius clones.”

  Rafe snorted. “You literally poked a bear on that mission in the Carolinas. As I recall, it tried to eat your face.”

  “Exactly. That’s why I don’t poke bears.” Conall tapped his fingers rapidly over the screen of his tablet. “Besides, this whole conversation is irrational. Who wants I’m sorry when you could get latest-gen smart lenses instead?”

  He flashed a grin at Ava, and the light caught his eyes just right, reflecting off his new contacts. Maya’s one attempt to try the things back on the Hill had put her flat on her back for a day with vertigo she couldn’t shake. The last thing she wanted was more shit trying to get her attention. But Conall had clearly missed looking at the world through his customized heads-up display, so she wouldn’t begrudge him the gift.

  Rafe clearly did, though. He exhaled and shook his head. “It’s the principle of the damn thing, y’all. She can’t just kidnap and blackmail everyone and then buy them presents.”

  “Obviously I can,” she told Rafe, baring her teeth at him. Maybe she thought it was a smile. Maya found it mildly terrifying.

  “Ava.”

  Ava’s fearsome smile-grimace disappeared. Her expression went utterly flat as Knox leaned past her to set a stack of salad plates in the center of the table. His voice hadn’t been particularly chiding or serious. It hadn’t been anything. But Knox and Ava circled each other like two scary monsters with one shared vulnerability—Nina.

  Maya was pretty sure they hated each other. And equally sure neither would ever act upon it. Neither of them would risk Nina’s heart.

  It was the main reason Maya had grown fond of Knox and even softened toward Ava. No one who loved Nina as fiercely as Knox and Ava did could be beyond redemption. The urge to make Nina happy made them better people. Maya could see it with Ava already. Her jaw was clenched around whatever undoubtedly caustic thing she wanted to say to Knox …

  But she wasn’t saying it. That was something, anyway.

  Knox eased the large jar from beneath the juice press and held out a hand to Rainbow. “Do you want to see how we turn this into lemonade?”

  After another covert glance at Ava, Rainbow silently slipped her tiny hand into Knox’s huge one and followed him back to the kitchen area.

  “That was a good move,” Rafe said. “We should probably talk less about murder in front of the baby.”

  “She’s not a baby.” Ava narrowed her eyes as she considered Rainbow where she stood at the far side of the room next to Knox. “Depending on what her training protocols were, it’s possible she’s already made her first kill. I doubt it, though. They have a certain look, after that.”

  “I imagine they do.” Rafe’s knife sliced through a lemon and sank into the wooden cutting board. “You sound like you know a lot about this.”

  “Not really.” Ava’s cool gaze swung back to Rafe. “There are groups who help people like her, though, and one in particular that operates in the Southeast. Given my background, our interests often intersect.”

  The words tugged at a memory. Maya braced herself for it, but the swell wasn’t as overwhelming as usual. Maybe relieving the pressure had helped, even if she’d been counting constellations for half the night. She closed her eyes and let the thought she wanted drift gently to the top. “Sydney Winters,” she murmured.

  The scrape of a chair across the floor popped her eyes open. Ava was leaning forward, her brown eyes terrifyingly intent. “How do you know that name?” she demanded.

  “Hey.” Rafe drew the knife out of the cutting board with one swift movement and jabbed it in Ava’s direction. “You don’t talk to her like that.”

  Ava ignored him. “What else does the TechCorps know about Syd?”

  Maya laid a soothing hand on Rafe’s arm—and thanked God that Gray hadn’t shown up yet. “She’s a friend of yours, I take it?”

  “I don’t have friends.” Her voice was icy and calm, but the tension in her eyes told the truth. Ava might not have friends, but she had people she’d protect. “Like I said, our interests intersect.”

  “Mmm.” Maya let her eyelids droop again, and this time she didn’t try to control the flow of memories. They rose in swift succession, overlapping in an absolute anarchy of sensory recall. For a heartbeat, she thought she’d made a terrible mistake. Instinct screamed for her to exert control, to thumb through the memories in order until she found the necessary one.

  She ignored her rigid training and exhaled, trusting her brain to know what was needed.

  And it did.

  It was just like the mechanic manuals. Like all the other things she’d ever learned for herself, instead of having them shoved into her brain against her will. A few overwhelming moments of uncertainty, and then patterns emerging from the chaos. Everything she knew about Sydney Winters, gathered from a dozen memos and scraps of conversations, fell into neat rows, and she felt like she was reading them from the air in front of her.

  “Sydney Winters,” she recited. No, not recited. This was her own voice, not an echo of a memory. “Exact age unknown, but likely born before the Flares. Suspected product of one of the privatized military initiatives in Virginia. Likely an offshoot of the original Makhai Project, which aimed to produce supersoldiers for the military.”

  “Is that all?”

  “She doesn’t leave much of a trail, and the TechCorps doesn’t know what to make of her. She’s suspected of shutting down at least five illegal operations that the TechCorps had targeted, which they’re fine with. But she killed the scientists, too, which they’re not.”

  “Yes, I imagine so.” Now Ava sounded amused. It figured that mass slaughter would amuse her. “Brilliant scientists with nonexistent morals and a high tolerance for the suffering of children must be a precious commodity for the TechCorps.”

  “Pretty much.” Maya raised an eyebrow. “So what does she do? Run some sort of clone liberation underground?”

  “Something along those lines.” Ava nodded to where Rainbow stood on a stool next to Knox, mixing the lemonade with heartbreaking care. “If nothing else, you should let me reach out to her about the child. There are safe houses. They know how to deal with children who could kill an adult by mistake.”

  Something unexpected twinged in Maya’s chest. She’d never explicitly thought about keeping Rainbow around. She wasn’t exactly an expert on parenting, and she was pretty sure raising a child in between crime sprees and dangerous heists was all sorts of not cool. No
t to mention they were pretty much all wanted by the TechCorps.

  But the idea of letting her go to strangers didn’t feel good, either.

  Dani walked in, a vague smile playing at the corners of her lips. It vanished when she saw Ava. Instead, her head fell back with a groan. “Ugh, you again.”

  Maya picked up the stack of plates and started setting the table, mostly to get out of the line of fire.

  But Ava took Dani’s open disgust with remarkable calm. “You’re as eloquent as always, Dani.”

  “Okay, how do I say this nicely—wait, fuck it, I don’t care.” Dani stopped in front of Ava, bent at the waist to rest her hands on her own knees, and said slowly and loudly, “You—do not—live here.”

  Ava rested her elbow on the table and propped her chin in her hand. “Of course I don’t. I have a penthouse. With a cleaning service. And actual modern amenities.”

  “As if that’s something to be proud of.”

  “Give it up, cupcake.” Rafe sliced through the last lemon and stacked them on his cutting board. “She likes it when you insult her. You want her to run for the hills, give her a big hug.”

  Ava furrowed her brow. “Please don’t.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” She breezed past them to where Rainbow stood and ruffled the child’s brutally short hair. “Whatcha doing, bug?”

  “Mixing lemonade,” came the serious answer, as Rainbow continued her careful work with the wooden spoon. Maya hid a smile and slid a plate in front of Rafe.

  “She’s ignoring me again,” he muttered.

  “Dani does that.” Maya patted his shoulder and slid the last plate into its spot. “Chin up, soldier.”

  Rafe winked at her as he gathered the cutting board and sauntered over to where Dani and Rainbow stood. Maya shook her head and retrieved the jumble of silverware as Nina delivered a stack of bowls to go along with the plates.

  “Stew’s almost ready,” she announced. “Who’s handling the salad?”

  “I’m on it,” Knox replied, and Maya hid another smile. She supposed Knox’s domestic streak shouldn’t have been a surprise. A meal plan wasn’t that different from a battle plan, and Knox was almost as bad as Nina when it came to fussing over people. He’d been downloading the cookbooks as fast as she could digitize them and strategizing ways to feed their sprawling—and growing—little family.