Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel

by Amie Kaufman

  We spin around a corner, coming to a halt beside the back entrance to a designer boutique, chests heaving. She grabs my good arm, spinning me around to take a look at my bloodied sleeve. “How bad is it? Can you make it another few minutes?”

  “No longer than that,” I reply, pressing my hand down over the wound once more, buzzing with a heady mix of relief at our escape, and the gut-twisting knowledge that whatever I saw today in that holosuite, it was a bad, bad thing. Merciful mother of fried circuits, my arm hurts. “Got somewhere I can seal it?”

  The girl goes silent a long moment, then nods. “I’ve got a place.”

  She leads me along another alleyway and between a couple of showrooms, then past the gated entrance to Regency Towers, the place she named for the driver, and through the garden next door to it. I can tell she’s mapped out her routes around this neighborhood, and I respect that. From there, we cut through a maintenance gate, so that when we approach the entrance of Camelot Heights—please, our actual destination, damn this hurts—nobody from the street has seen us go in. She pauses to pull a thin, close-fitting felt hat from her purse and uses it to conceal her blue hair as she keys in the security code and we slip inside. My stomach’s growing uneasier by the second; a girl who lives in a place like this isn’t a criminal, at least not the same kind I am. Was she sneaking into the holosuite today just for kicks? An image of the metal rift flashes before me once again, and the fear in her eyes. If she thought she was in this for fun, she sure knows now that it’s more than that.

  “Kristina!” It takes me a moment to realize the smiling doorman is talking to us—or rather, to Dimples. “Who’s your friend?”

  “That’s for me to know, Alfie.” She laughs, leading me into the elevator. Her game is flawless, like her laugh. The fear I saw back at LaRoux Industries is gone, and she’s not missing a beat. She hits the top button—penthouse, of course—and with a barely audible hum, we’re moving. It’s not until we’ve passed the penultimate floor without anybody else joining us that she starts digging through her purse. She produces a pair of dainty lace gloves and slips on the right one. When we reach the top floor, she presses the gloved hand against a square panel that glows with an ivory-colored light. It crackles briefly, as though the whole thing’s bristling with static.

  I only have a moment to size up the security system, and then the doors are rushing open, confronting me with the sort of luxury I haven’t seen in years. Dimples tosses her purse down on the couch and vanishes behind a wall of frosted glass, calling instructions as she goes. “Sit down before you fall and crack your head open.”

  With the slightly guilty feeling I’m making the whole place dirty—ridiculous, under the circumstances—I peel off my shirt and sink down onto the edge of the couch. Her apartment is insane. I haven’t been anywhere like it in years, and if this kind of place felt like home once upon a time, it sure doesn’t now. The floors look like real marble, and I can’t be sure, but I think that could be actual wood by the fireplace. The far wall is top-of-the-line smartglass, with that faint, iridescent sheen that tells me it’s compensating for the smog outside to render the view of the Corinth sunset clean and sparkling. Ha.

  “Nice place you got here,” I call out, using my wadded-up shirt—it’s beyond ruined anyway—to stanch the bleeding from my arm. I need a moment to catch my breath, to work out how to play this. “Is this the moment you admit you’re secretly a LaRoux, and loaded with cash?”

  “Hey, I’d look good as a redhead.” The way her voice is echoing, she must be in a bathroom. One redheaded LaRoux in the galaxy is more than I’d like. She’s keeping her tone casual, just like I am, though I’m sure we both know we have to talk about what happened. I hear a cabinet open and close, and then she’s walking out with a sleek little black box.

  Judging by the contents of her med kit, this girl comes from an altogether different background than the celebrated Lilac LaRoux. There’s all kinds of stuff in there you don’t see in a standard first-aid kit, from hospital-grade burn treatment to stomach purges. She pulls out a handheld cauterizer and eases the shirt away, getting to work. And despite the flawless manicure she’s sporting, this clearly isn’t the first time she’s come across a gunshot wound.

  “Well,” I say, reaching for distraction from the pain I know is coming. “I don’t know about you, but that wasn’t the day I was hoping for.”

  Her gaze flicks up to me, and she shows me that lopsided, one-dimpled smile again, just for a moment. And like that, I know. That’s the real smile. One dimple, real deal. Two, she’s faking it. And damn, do I like that lopsided one.

  Yeah, smarter definitely ain’t showing up anytime soon.

  “Could have been worse,” she says, only the top of her blue-streaked head visible now as she finishes cleaning the wound. “A few inches over and I’d have had to do something far more drastic to convince the cab driver to carry me and a dead guy home.”

  “Hey, if I’m ever actually dead, you have my blessing to leave me wherever I am. You can even chop off any bits of me sporting incriminating evidence. I won’t need them anymore.” I’m talking too fast, partly because I know the cauterizer’s going to sting far worse than a tattoo needle.

  What I should do right now is see what she knows, then go to ground and keep my head down until I’m sure it’s safe. I can reach out to my contacts—I’ll start with Mae—and work out how to fort up, then go after more information. After what we saw, they’re going to be looking everywhere for us, and it won’t be to congratulate us on excellent teamwork in a tight spot.

  She’s quick about it, at least, and with the blood gone I can see the scar shouldn’t mess up my ink too much—that’s the one I got after the Avon job. I concentrate on that, rather than the nerve-jangling pain where she’s working, or her hand braced against my chest, holding me still. Once she’s done, she slathers on burn ointment, and the pain fades into blessed numbness.

  “There,” she says, inspecting her handiwork while I inspect her. “Good as new by tomorrow.” She leans down to pack up the med kit and snaps it closed. “I’ve got to go wash this stuff out of my hair or it’ll stain.”

  “I could use a shower, if you’ve got room in there for two,” I shoot back immediately, and she simply gazes at me, one brow lifted, all Really? Is that the best you can do? “Hey, I just had minor surgery over here,” I point out. “You’d be disappointed if I didn’t try, but I’m not in my best shape.”

  “The elevator will go down without my glove,” she says, catching me off guard. I can’t go, not yet. But before I can answer, she adds, “Or if you’d like to stay, the SmartWaiter makes a pretty mean screwdriver.”

  She doesn’t wait to see what I decide—she simply turns away to disappear into the bathroom, and a moment later I hear the water start up.

  So I do the only thing I possibly can: start snooping through her stuff. I mean, never pass up a chance to learn more about someone who interests you, right? And I can’t go anywhere until we’ve talked about what happened, so this is something to do while I wait.

  There are framed pictures along the table of her and an older couple who could be her parents—one shows them on a ski trip on a super-expensive holovacation—I think I recognize the Alps on Paradisa—the other in front of the Theta Sector skyline right here on Corinth, the sea in the background. They’re almost perfect—whoever made these for her did a very good job indeed—but there are tiny signs they’re faked, if you know where to look. I’m positive now that this place isn’t hers. It certainly belongs to a Kristina McDowell—I can see parcels with her name on them by the door, and when I coax the console in the little office to life there’s a hypernet history, mostly mail and online shopping. But “Kristina” isn’t this girl’s name any more than “Alexis” was.

  So whoever Dimples is, all I really know is that she’s seen some kind of situation requiring serious first aid before, she knows more about LaRoux Industries than she’s letting on, she could sell rocks t
o asteroid miners, and she’s definitely not rich girl Kristina McDowell. I shut down her console and head back out of the office to the SmartWaiter, ordering up a screwdriver for her and a mineral water for me. I don’t drink—I need every brain cell I’ve got in working order, often on short notice.

  She emerges just as I’m thinking about checking out what else she keeps in her purse besides circuit-breaking gloves and illicit security passes. Her hair’s back to platinum blond, curly and light around her face, and she’s clad in an expensive-looking black sweater and a pair of jeans. I briefly mourn the loss of the tiny dress, but I find I like this more casual version of her, too. Not that I should be thinking about something like that at a time like this.

  “I like your hair like that.” Oh God, did I just say that out loud? Smooth, buddy.

  She grins, walking across to take her drink. “It’s easiest to keep it this way. Hard to go blue or pink at a moment’s notice if your hair’s black. Windows, preset five.”

  The smartglass flickers subtly, and the sunset outside begins to darken, the stars coming out one by one, despite the fact that stars haven’t been visible on Corinth for generations. The light from the buildings stretching on forever into the distance doesn’t come close to eclipsing the brightness of the stars overhead. I’ve seen the illusion before, of course; the micro-projectors in the glass track your eye position and shift so that it looks like the stars are far distant in the heavens rather than a trick of the light a few feet away.

  She watches them like they’re something incredible, though, and I stay quiet, watching her instead. Her brows are drawn in, and though her face is calm and still, there’s something about the set of her mouth, a firmness that doesn’t quite mesh with her air of innocence and nonchalance. Perhaps this is what she looks like when she’s simply being her.

  This is getting out of hand. This is not the time to be gazing at her like I’m hypnotized. I’m smarter than this. Time to shove some distance between us, start using that brain of mine. “So,” I drawl, making myself sound casual. “Is this where we talk about what happened today? I’d ask what you were doing there, but you’ve lied to me so many times already, I wouldn’t believe the truth if I heard it now.”

  She’s silent, clutching her drink. Eventually she takes a long swallow, then sets the glass down on the table beside the fake pictures, turning away to walk over to the couch. “I lie because I have to,” she says, sounding more tired than anything else. “Corinth is a cold place. You tell the truth, you end up down there.” Her nod takes in the slums, far below us—my territory, though she doesn’t know that. Perhaps she guesses.

  “It’s a world of opportunities, down there.”

  “But not the ones I want,” she replies. Then, after a slow breath out: “My name really is Alexis. But it’s my middle name, and no, I’m not going to tell you my first name. Especially since you’ve lied just as much as I have today. I was at LaRoux Industries because of my father. He’s dead, and it’s because of them, and I want to know why. And that’s the truth.”

  And I know it is. I might not have her silver tongue, but I know this truth when I hear it. It’s not so far from my own truth—maybe that’s why I can recognize it. A cold sliver of pain runs through me in sympathy—I’m too familiar with the kind of loss that can put you on a trail you don’t know how to abandon. I find myself responding without thinking. “My name’s Gideon. And that’s my real name, and my first name, the one my mama gave me.”

  Tell me I didn’t just say that. It’s one thing to look for a way to bond, it’s another to start sharing things nobody knows. I’m getting twitchy, not being able to get back to my den to unpack what’s happened today. My fingers are itching for a keyboard. My mind keeps wanting to flip across and check info feeds that aren’t there. My latest round of tracker programs is due to report in any minute now. I should check the forums, check in with Mae. This is what happens when I leave my screens too long. Everything goes to hell. Which is an accurate description of this whole day.

  She’s watching me, and I try to skate past the name, hoping she won’t pick up on the zillion clues I must be giving that I wish I hadn’t shared it. “You said you knew something about what we saw today.”

  “I was going to meet with someone who could tell me more, but I guess she backed out, or got scared off.” She shakes her head, arms curling around her middle as though to shield herself as she leans back into the couch. “You don’t want to get mixed up in that.”

  “I already am. We both are, now. We can go our separate ways if you want, but odds are they’ve got us both on camera, and they’ll find at least one of us before long.”

  “I’ve got no real reason to trust you, Gideon,” she points out, raising an eyebrow. “For all I know you could be working for them, trying to find out what I know.” She shakes her head again, the movement tight and restrained, tension singing through her. It’s going to take more than my best charming smile to get her to talk, and watching the way the life’s drained out of her at the mention of what happened today, I know I can’t afford to walk away without understanding what I witnessed.

  “Fine. You want trust?” I set down my own drink and walk across to sink down onto the couch beside her. “I’ll go first. I don’t know what swept through those people, but I’ve seen a metal ring like that before. The one with the blue fire, that was meant to be hidden by the projectors in the holosuite.”

  She swallows hard and I force myself to sit perfectly still as I wait her out. “And I’ve seen eyes like that before,” she whispers eventually. “Eyes like darkness. People whose minds have been stolen, turning them into those…those husks.”

  Husks. The word whispers through my mind, a perfect fit. I couldn’t see their eyes, but I saw the way they turned to the rift in the middle of the room, like compass needles pointing north. They were husks, emptied of themselves. I have to bite my tongue to keep from blurting out more questions, my pulse kicking up a notch, pounding in my temple.

  Despite my relentless pursuit of the former Commander Towers—the woman who helped LaRoux hide everything that happened on Avon—so far my best lead has been the conspiracy theory forums, the devoted few on the hypernet trying to figure out what LaRoux’s game is, based on the Avon broadcast. That’s where I found Kumiko, the retired soldier hiding out in the south of the city, leading her network of Fury survivors in her quest for revenge, full of wild secondhand stories. After all the hours I’ve spent trying to make sense of Kumiko’s tall tales, now…this girl, she’s actually witnessed what Lilac’s and Tarver’s whispers can do. I keep my voice calm with an effort. “Where?”

  She opens her mouth, but then her eyes flick toward me and she stops. “It doesn’t matter where. But LaRoux Industries was there too. In secret.”

  My mind is turning over what I’ve gathered since Lilac LaRoux’s request for security assistance first pinged on my radar and put me on the path I’ve been following ever since. I know LaRoux shipped his experiments to three planets: Verona, Avon, and Corinth. Alexis would’ve only been six at the most when the uprisings on Verona happened—but this panic in her gaze, the tension in her frame, they don’t come from something that happened ten years ago. This wound is fresh. Which leaves only one option.

  Avon.

  I reach for her hand, casually letting my eyes sweep across her forearm. No sign of the genetag she would’ve had as an Avon native.

  The documents from the site of the Icarus crash flash up before my eyes—the schematics for the rift at the outstation, the medical reports on the researchers gone mad. Far more than Lilac LaRoux and her major ever knew I dug into. That’s the risk when you take on a pet hacker. “I saw the ring somewhere LaRoux Industries wasn’t meant to be either,” I say quietly. “Well, I didn’t see it—but I found files on it. I know it was there.”

  “Do you know what it’s for?”

  Now it’s my turn to steady myself, the reports flooding back into my mind. Dr. Eddings was found to
have impaled herself on a sharpened length of pipe originally intended for external plumbing.…I can’t tell her the truth. A prison for creatures from another dimension? Perhaps a few Avon Broadcast believers would buy that story, but Alexis will just think I’m dangerously insane. A liability.

  Unless she really is from Avon herself. I settle for a half-truth. “From what I read, I think it’s connected to what we saw today. To those people you called husks, the ones you saw who lost their minds. The fact that there’s one of those rifts here, on Corinth—that scares me. We have to find out more about this.”

  She lifts her hands to scrub at her face, raking her hair back and leaving it disheveled. “Look, I know what you’re trying to say. But I don’t work with a partner. I’m glad you’re okay, and I’m grateful for the information, but that’s it.”

  “But we’re after the same thing. LaRoux Industries. The enemy of my enemy—”

  “Is just another enemy, Gideon.”

  This time I know I’m not hiding the current of disappointment running through me. Alexis is the best lead I’ve found in a year, and I’m losing her. I’ve chased Towers halfway across the galaxy and back, and every time she eludes me. Now, more than ever, I have to find her—it’s the only way I can make sense of what I saw today.

  As for Alexis, I’d kill to access her memory the way I can access data records—if only I could figure out her personal password. “Listen, you didn’t have to bring me up here to patch me up. I owe you. I’m going to leave you with a way to collect, in case you ever need me.” Or in case you change your mind about working with me.

  She’s pulling herself together now, putting the mask back on, and the corners of her mouth lift as she turns to look me over. “You’re really that good?”

  I grin. “Have you ever heard of the Knave of Hearts?”

  She goes perfectly still, her voice dropping. “You work for him?” Whoa. She’s definitely heard of me. I’d be flattered that my online infamy is spreading into the real world, except it’s clearly not good news to her. “Why would he have you hack into LRI?”