That wasn’t what he’d said to her the second day, when he’d asked her if she knew there were ways to use a genemod machine without stripping the customer’s muscle to do so.
“You look old right now,” Snow continued. “But that’s because you’ve lost so much weight.” He threw an accusing look at Nika. “Once you get some muscle tone back you’ll be fine.”
The guard assigned to watch them opened a link. “Prisoner’s awake, Mr. Benedict.”
Roystan looked down at his hands, skeletal on the machine bed. Despite what Snow claimed, he didn’t look old, just pared down, and intense. With a healthy glow.
“How long have I been out?” His movements were shaky as he obediently ate the garfungi Nika gave him. Benedict had been surprisingly obliging there.
“Seven days.”
“Seven!” He looked at his hands again, at the machine he was sitting up in. There were no other patients today. He, Snow, Nika, and the guard were the only inhabitants of the hospital. The doctor had taken the day off. Even Pol had stopped dropping by for updates. “Did I . . . did you?”
“Yes. We did.” He had to know how dangerous it had been. Euphoria was starting to set in, overlaying the exhaustion. A mod like that. Snow didn’t realize what they’d done. And to do it under the masterpiece that had come before.
Roystan looked around. “Where are we?”
“No idea.” They’d been too busy to find out. “We were captured. Eaglehawk’s in charge. A man named Benedict. And Pol’s here. They want to interrogate you.”
Roystan pushed his plate away. “My crew?”
Nika pushed it back. “Eat everything in front of you, even if you don’t want to.” She guided his hand back to the spoon. “So far, no one’s dead, or on a cattle ship, because no one knows what you told your crew.” She hoped Roystan understood her subliminal message.
They’d all been interrogated. Nika had been grateful for the doctor’s insistence that Roystan would die if they took Snow or her away for the same treatment.
“What was Gino Giwari like?”
Roystan stopped, spoon to his mouth, while he considered. “Confident. Very sure in what he could do.” He smiled. “You remind me of him. Obsessed.”
She wasn’t sure it was a compliment. “Eat your protein.”
“Gino Giwari has been dead eighty years,” Snow said.
When Roystan regained his weight, he’d look much as he’d looked before. A man in his late thirties, except for the salt-and-pepper hair. He’d look as if he’d never been near a genemod machine. Not even to fix his nose. Her old boss had been right. Giwari had been more than a technician.
“Tell me, when did your hair start to go gray?”
“I . . . that might have been part of it, actually.”
Naturally graying hair was a trend that came and went. It was used to show maturity, to show that the person who went gray at the temples was less concerned about themselves than they were about managing their business. It was popular with high-end executives, and had last been fashionable ten years ago. The style was difficult to maintain, because the silver tended to proliferate on its own. If Roystan had retained the same percentage of gray over that many years, Giwari had been very, very good. Nika tried to hide how impressed she was. “And your nose?” Noses grew over time.
He rubbed it reflexively. “I’m not sure.”
Benedict arrived, the doctor not far behind.
Nika nearly asked that they move Roystan somewhere more comfortable, but who knew what they would do to him, so she made sure he was sitting up properly, crooked a finger at Snow, and moved over to the doctor’s station to get some hot, sweet tea for Roystan.
“Shouldn’t we stay close to protect him?” Snow asked quietly as he joined her there.
She shook her head. It was better if Benedict forgot all about them for the moment. Otherwise he’d lock them back up with the others.
“Where are my crew?”
“They’re safe,” Benedict said. “And they’ll stay safe while you cooperate with us.”
“No thanks to him,” Snow muttered quietly. It had taken a lot of talking to ensure that the others were all right.
“Will they still be safe once I tell you what you want to know?” Roystan looked around the hospital. “I want to see them. All of them.” And he lay back and closed his eyes.
Snow rolled his eyes. “We told them so,” he said quietly. Benedict couldn’t have heard, but he glanced their way.
“It’s time you took your patient back, Doctor. These two modders have taken enough of your resources.”
“Be sure I’ll be billing Eaglehawk for it.”
Sometimes the doctor didn’t know when to shut up.
“He’s weak,” Nika said. “Don’t push him too hard or he’ll collapse.” If that gave Roystan ideas, then good. “Feed him garfungi.”
Benedict waved two guards in to take them away.
“And don’t put him in a machine without one of us there.”
“Oh my god,” Benedict said, and she knew she was meant to hear the parting remark. “I pity anyone having to work with her.”
36
JOSUNE ARRIOLA
Day lighting. Night lighting. Day lighting. Night lighting.
Josune lost count after day four.
Each morning, when the day lights came on, Josune worked through a set of exercises. Lethargy could destroy escape plans as easily as anything else.
Benedict hadn’t killed them. Nor had he sold them off to a cattle ship, as the doctor must be pressing for. She took that as good news. Roystan must still be alive. Otherwise they’d be on their way to the nearest war by now, ready to give their life in service. Nika and Snow too, neither of whom they’d seen for days.
That they hadn’t meant Benedict was keeping Roystan’s crew to pressure him when he was well enough to talk.
Twice Benedict took each of them away to ask them what Feyodor had wanted Roystan for. The second time, Jacques came back in berserker mode. It had taken an hour to calm him. Carlos curled up on the floor and refused to talk to anyone for at least a day after his sessions.
Josune’s sessions had been unpleasant. She’d told the truth—as much as Benedict had asked, anyway. She knew Roystan was hiding something. No, she didn’t know what. Yes, it was Roystan that Feyodor was after. Josune didn’t see any point lying about it, not after Nika had told Benedict that.
It had been a clever move, had kept them all alive and together days after they should have been. She hoped she’d get to tell Nika that face to face.
Pol visited twice.
“I can’t help you if you won’t help me,” Josune told her, the second time. “I need out of here. I need a weapon, I need somewhere to go.” She needed to take everyone with her, too, but she didn’t add that stipulation, for Pol would find a way to prevent it.
Nika and Snow returned not long after Pol’s second visit.
Nika looked terrible.
“What happened to you?” Josune asked, while Carlos and Jacques crowded around sympathetically.
“Nothing a week’s worth of sleep won’t cure.” Nika checked Josune’s arm, the one that hadn’t been damaged by the blaster fire and subsequently repaired by the doctor in preparation for sale to a cattle ship. “A pity. That would have turned out well.”
Josune glanced down. “One side still looks good.” She’d forgotten all about the mod. “How’s Roystan?”
Nika said something that might have been, “Fine,” but it was overlaid with a huge yawn that rendered what she said unintelligible.
“You look really bad,” Carlos said. “Are you sure?”
“The Dietel didn’t help.” Nika grimaced and yawned at the same time.
Snow said, “I wasn’t walking around with a load of priceless transurides inside me to make me look
healthy. She’s fine, Carlos. This is just her as she really is. Unmodded.”
“Unmodded?” Would Nika even remember what her unmodded self had looked like?
“Half modded. And by a Dietel, no less.” Nika shuddered. “It can’t get much worse. At least unmodded you have an excuse.”
“How is Roystan, Nika?” Get to the important bits.
“He’s alive,” Snow said. “Although he shouldn’t be.”
“Roystan will be fine, Josune. He’s weak. Keep him warm. He’ll need Jacques cooking for him. Lots of porridge and flatbread.”
“He’ll get that,” Jacques promised.
Josune hadn’t dared hope. They’d been gone seven days. The longest seven days of her life.
“They’re interrogating him right now.”
“He’s tough.” She hoped he was, anyway. He’d just come out of a machine. He should be healthy and fit. Even if it had taken seven days to get him that way. She looked at Nika’s face. He wasn’t. She could tell.
“He’ll look bad when you see him, Josune. It was . . . tricky.”
Snow said, “You didn’t have to tell him he looked old, though.”
“I didn’t say he looked old. You told him that. When he recovers, he’s going to look exactly like he does now, with more flesh, less skin and bone.” Nika slid down the wall at her back and rested there, eyes closed. “Gino Giwari was an absolute genius.” Her voice filled with reverence. “I was so wrong about him.”
Snow sighed. “I don’t know what got you talking about Giwari, Nika, but he’s mostly discredited nowadays. People don’t use his techniques anymore.” He said to Josune, “She asked Roystan what Giwari was like. He’s been dead eighty years. Nika should know that.”
“Who’s Giwari?”
Nika opened her eyes. “When Tilda died, Snow, did her family, or whoever owned the studio, clean it out?”
“What’s that got to do with—” He stopped at her frown. “Her grandson sold the whole thing sight unseen. Why?”
“Because I’ll bet she’s got transurides there. To treat Roystan.”
“Transurides. In my shop?” Snow brightened, then deflated. “I didn’t even know what they looked like before . . . before—”
“Studio,” Nika corrected.
Jacques laughed. “So you threw the transurides out.”
That would be a costly mistake.
“I haven’t thrown anything out. I didn’t have time. Except some mutrient that was past use-by date. Some old salts. And some—” Snow stopped. “I probably did throw them out.”
“What about the safe?” Nika asked.
“I couldn’t get the safe open.”
“Relax, then. They’re in the safe. No one would leave transurides out. Not even me.”
“You kept yours in your body.” Almost an accusation. “That was a very expensive look.”
“Do you know where I learned that technique, Snow? Gino Giwari.” Nika’s face glowed with wonder. “To think I thought he was just a technician. I was so wrong.”
“What happened up there?” Josune asked. What had changed?
Nika smiled and closed her eyes. “We met a ghost, Josune. We saw a miracle.”
“She needs sleep,” Snow said.
“No miracle?”
Snow chewed his bottom lip. Nika seemed to have taken his advice. If she wasn’t asleep, she wasn’t taking part in the conversation any longer.
She was still smiling.
“There’s no ghost. No Giwari.”
He didn’t say no miracle. “How is Roystan? Really?”
“He’s alive, but he’s weak.”
Which was as frustrating as Nika’s earlier report.
“He nearly died, Josune. She . . . she was amazing.” Snow glanced at Nika. “He shouldn’t be alive.” He slid down the bars and settled on the floor.
“Is he conscious? Can he walk?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if he’s conscious?”
“I don’t know if he can walk. He looks so awful now. She used all his muscle to—”
“To what?”
“Well, to fix him. She does that all the time. She needs to learn other techniques.” Snow scrubbed at his face with his hands. “When they pushed us out they were asking him questions.”
She couldn’t do anything about that. What she could do was work on their escape plan. “How many people did you see who worked for Benedict?”
By careful questioning she worked out that Benedict had at least four staff and he was expecting his boss soon. That had been a conversation through the link the previous night. Josune touched her hand to her stomach. No weapon.
“Snow. Do you still have Nika’s pendant? My hairpin?”
Snow stifled a yawn. “I gave Nika her pendant. I thought it better than naolic acid and mutrient.” He handed the hairpin to Josune and closed his eyes. Josune coiled her hair and slipped the sparker into place. Armed again. It felt better.
After Snow fell asleep, Josune settled down to plan. She had her sparker. Nika had her laser. Now they had to wait until Roystan was with them, and only a small number of enemy nearby.
She was dozing when Benedict arrived in the outer doorway of the prison, sans Roystan but accompanied by two men in suits and two guards. One of the suits was the most beautiful man Josune had ever seen. The other was older, with more muscle, and clearly the boss. He wore a black nen-silk suit that Josune couldn’t guess the price of. Obsidian pins gleamed in their lapels.
Josune stood up.
That woke Snow and Nika. They stood as well, Snow knuckling sleep out of his eyes.
Nika glanced at the visitors and froze completely. If her base look hadn’t been white, she would have paled.
Benedict and the boss looked at the handsome man.
He ignored Nika and looked Josune up and down. His eyes rested on the patterning on her arm, then looked up into her eyes. He shook his head. After that he looked at the men, dismissing Jacques and Carlos, spending more time on Snow.
Nika hid a smile under a twist of her mouth and looked down.
The executive looked at Benedict.
“That one,” Benedict said, pointing to Nika. “Body modder who claims she’s been deregistered. But you can’t mistake her when you watch her work.”
The stunningly handsome man turned to look at Nika. He shook his head, lip lifted in a sneer. “Nika would never use a Dietel, not even to save her own life.”
The boss looked at Benedict.
“No mistake, sir.”
“You have wasted my time again, Benedict.”
“I haven’t.”
The boss flicked a hand. “Kill her.”
Nika tilted her chin slightly, defiantly. Josune saw the handsome man’s eyes widen.
“Wait. Nika?” Incredulous. Disbelieving.
Benedict smiled.
The boss turned to Nika. He looked her up and down, as if he didn’t believe it either.
He touched his fingertips together and looked sideways at the handsome man. “That could have been a costly mistake, Alejandro. Don’t get it wrong again.”
Alejandro. Nika’s ex-boyfriend.
He turned back to Nika and bared his teeth in a fake smile. “Nika Rik Terri. We’ve been looking for you.”
It looked, for a moment, as if she was going to deny who she was.
“That’s not Nika Rik Terri,” Snow said. “That’s Nika James.” He looked from the company men to Nika, then looked back at the company men again. “She’s Nika J—?” He shook his head. “She can’t be.”
Nika said nothing.
The boss smiled. He had gleaming white teeth, and looked as if he’d gone to the same modder as Benedict. “Bring her.”
Nika spoke. “First, let’s get
this straight. I have never claimed to be deregistered. Second, we had a deal, Wickmore. You were to keep him away from me. What’s he doing here?”
There was no doubting who he was.
Or the boss. Leonard Wickmore, Nika had named him.
“My dear modder. That deal became void the moment you left Lesser Sirius.”
“I ran from a man who was going to kill me. One of your men, in fact.”
“I kept him away from you. Perhaps you have a short memory.”
“You’ve more thugs than just Alejandro. I wasn’t staying around to die.”
Alejandro’s gaze narrowed.
Nika stepped back involuntarily.
Josune wished she still had Nika’s laser. She had no chance with one weapon, not against Wickmore, Alejandro, Benedict, and two guards.
“We can’t solve your day-to-day problems, Nika. You left. You have nothing to bargain with.”
“Can’t you get anyone else to fix your damaged team?”
Wickmore waved a hand. “We can always get modders. You were convenient, that was all. But Nika, you built an exchanger, and unfortunately, it’s locked. Isn’t that strange, don’t you think?”
Nika shrugged, an unconscious imitation of Wickmore.
“We’re taking you back to your studio, and you will show us how to use it.”
“No.”
Wickmore looked at Alejandro. “The redhead.”
Alejandro was fast. He snatched at Snow through the bars, grabbed his arm, yanked him close. Snow’s head hit the metal. Alejandro twisted the arm he was holding, up, and around.
They all heard the bone crack.
Alejandro punched the arm where the bone had broken.
“Aargh.” It was almost a scream.
“Wait. Stop. Yes.”
Josune pulled Snow away from the bars as Alejandro aimed a punch at Snow’s throat. Not fast enough. Snow went down.
“You bastard. I already capitulated.”
Leonard Wickmore smiled. “So it’s agreed? You’ll come back to your shop and give us access to the body exchanger.”
“Studio. Yes.”
Snow tried to speak but couldn’t.
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