Bring It On

by Laura Anne Gilman

  Possibly as a result, the first rule of the lonejack creedo was “Don’t get involved.” What it really meant was “Don’t get overinvolved.” Don’t let emotions overrule common sense. Stay on the current’s edge: balanced, not bleeding.

  Wren looked at the remains of her modem, shorted to death by Ohso’s emotional outburst and resulting loss of control, and wondered, for the first time, what damage the Council might have done to its own people, as well.

  “Focus, Valere.” Key words, especially now. “Gotta deal with your own backyard before you start looking into anyone else’s.”

  With a sigh, she unhooked the modem and balanced it in her hand. If she’d gotten an internal modem, it would have fried her entire system, probably. Sometimes, old was better.

  Dropping the modem into the trash, she shut down the computer, and went back to bed. Sliding in between now-cooled sheets, Wren stared at her partner’s naked back, and thought very hard about just running away.

  “Woman, your shower was built for dwarves and demon-folk.” Sergei bent forward to rinse the last of the shampoo out of his hair, feeling his back muscles complain as he stretched. Once upon a time he’d been limber enough to adapt to undersized showerheads. He was pretty sure he remembered that.

  It wasn’t just that the shower was too short; it was also too narrow. He wasn’t exactly oversized, but the enclosure was several inches too narrow for his comfort, leaving at least one bruise forming on his elbow where he’d knocked into the wall while trying to lather.

  “I fit in there fine.” Her voice came from the other side of the curtain, raised to be heard over the water.

  “Because you’re the size of a vest pocket.”

  “Fufffofff.”

  He translated the toothbrushingese, and grinned, letting the now-clear water run down his back. Thankfully the water pressure in this building wasn’t amenable to that time-honored volley of apartment warfare—flushing the toilet while someone was taking a shower. His Wren was not above reaching over and jiggling the handle just for petty payback.

  When Sergei finally got out of the shower, Wren had left the bathroom, the only sign of her passing the fact that the towel, which had originally been folded on the counter was now draped within easy reach.

  He grabbed it, drying himself off, and went in search of his partner. She was already at work in her office, papers spread out on the floor in front of her.

  “What’re you working on?”

  “Yahhuh.”

  He knew that sound. She hadn’t actually heard anything he’d said. The lonejack ability to focus was fascinating—if he could bottle it and peddle it to grad students, he’d never have to sell another sculpture again.

  He watched her for a few moments, then wrapped the towel more securely around his waist and went into the kitchenette to pick up the tea he knew that she would have left steeping on the counter for him. It was slightly bitter—he’d taken longer under the hot water than usual, trying to wash all the shampoo out of his hair—but there was sugar in the canister behind the pasta, and a scoop of that made it drinkable.

  Thus fortified, he went back down the hallway, clunky white mug with a local supermarket’s logo on it cupped in his hands. He should check messages, see if any crisis had occurred at the gallery while he was out dealing with Andre, and then with Wren. He should be thinking about the installation they had coming in next month, worrying over the bills, the customer load, the daily to-do lists…

  Lowell is a pain, and a snoop, but you trained him well. Let him prove it already. That had been the point of hiring the boy, after all: to train him to do the daily running of the gallery, so he, Sergei, could give more time to the Retrieval side of business. Sergei still wasn’t sure he trusted Lowell entirely; there had been someone poking around his office over the summer, and Lowell had never warmed to Wren. If someone were to try to get to the Retriever through Sergei’s assistant; well, that might be a weakness Sergei would have to take care of.

  For now, though, the gallery was closed, and Wren was his only concern.

  Wren half-heard the shower stop running, but the simple act of sitting down among the now familiar piles of paperwork had dropped her into a modified fugue state, where Sergei’s normal morning routine became so much soothing white noise. It wasn’t enough to make up for lost sleep, but it helped.

  She did sense him standing in the doorway, even through the fugue, and by the time he came back down the hallway she had shifted half of her attention from the research to conversation-mode. “Morning.”

  “Morning. You were up and at it early today.” Again, he didn’t say but she heard it anyway. She could work in the early morning hours, but it wasn’t her favorite thing. Evening, when the shadows concealed, or afternoons, when there were crowds to lose herself in, those were when The Wren came alive. Mornings were for lazing about, sleeping late and doing the more mundane paperwork of daily life. Which reminded her, she needed to update her credit card balance. She tried not to carry her cards with her—the magnetic strips went kaflooey if she had them on her person too long—but they were damned convenient for automatic payments and phone orders.

  No, normally mornings were for being lazy or, if Sergei were there, cuddling, talking things over, or not talking at all. She could have stayed in bed, faked sleeping when he woke up, let things progress from there.

  Except after the recent downtime of no work coming in at all, not working when there was a job seemed…wrong. Only, as far as Sergei knew, there was no job.

  He stood in the doorway, sipped his tea, and watched her until she started to squirm.

  “What’s that?” he asked, gesturing with the mug of tea at a pile of newspaper clippings and printouts

  “Um. Project.” She felt a moment of totally unfamiliar panic. Keeping secrets from Sergei—wrong, wrong, and wrong! Damn it, how do I skate on this one? “The psi-bomb.”

  “Ah. Good, good. Tell me if you manage to find out anything more.” He was clearly preoccupied with his own thoughts, turning away without further curiosity and heading back down the hallway. If she weren’t so relieved at not having to explain, she’d be annoyed. How dare he not be curious about what she was doing? What was going on, there? What was her partner up to?

  You’re an idiot, Valere, she thought, not without some amusement. Or she had a guilty conscience. When you’re pulling a con, however gentle or harmless, then everyone else started to look like a con, too. If she was hiding something, then he must be, too?

  She stared at the research she’d been trying to do, shoving a strand of hair out of her face in exasperation. It seemed pointless to even worry about this job—if the Seer was right, she had way more serious problems to worry about than Retrieving a gaudy little trinket from the middle of a family spit-war. But the mantra had always, but always been “Finish the job.” Even if the world’s going to hell. Maybe especially then. She had to focus on the job. Focus was the key. Focus was what made her a Talent, made her The Wren. Made her strong.

  But for some reason, she wasn’t able to concentrate.

  Pushing the papers away from her in disgust, she sat upright, arms overhead, forcing her spine back into alignment. A slow relaxing of the arms, timed with a long, even exhalation of breath, and she reached for the fugue state. Ground and center, ground and center…

  It wasn’t coming. Instead of the calm quietness in her limbs that was the ideal working stage, she felt twitchy, irritable. Jumpy, on the molecular level.

  Ground and center, damn it! Neezer’s voice, angry at her in a way he’d rarely ever been in life. His voice—the actual memory, rather than the idealized teacher-voice—was starting to fade in her head, finally, and the realization added to the unbearable weight growing between her shoulder blades.

  Too many years. Too long since she had seen the man who taught her what she was, what she could become. Too many loved ones lost, along the road.

  Neezer. Lee. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save either
one of you.

  She could hear Sergei rummaging in the bedroom next door—he kept a couple of shirts and suits here even before they started sleeping together, just for convenience sake, but now that had expanded to fill half her wardrobe. Maybe at some point she should just give in and tell him to use the closet in the spare bedroom/research library (the closet in the office being filled with filing cabinets). But that always seemed like the step to be taken further down the road, not right now. It was too soon. Too…permanent-feeling. This was her space, her refuge, the place where the nodes of current made her feel soothed. Except, recently, it wasn’t so much soothed as spooked.

  The jittery feeling in her bones persisted. Wren sighed, giving in to the unavoidable. What time was it? The computer was shut down, as it always was when she wasn’t actively using it, but a small wind-up clock on the desk told her that it was almost seven-thirty. If she couldn’t focus enough to work, then it was time for another cup of coffee.

  She closed the door of the office behind her—to put the papers away might make them seem too important, raising additional curiosity in Sergei’s mind, but closing the door wouldn’t—and went into the kitchen to raise her caffeine blood level.

  The coffee had been sitting too long, so she dumped it and started a new pot. How anyone could drink stale coffee baffled her. You might not drink it for the taste, but that didn’t mean you had to suffer for it, either.

  “I’ve got a client meeting at lunch.” Sergei stood in the hallway, knotting an elegantly subdued silk tie around his neck. She took a moment to pause and just look at him. Even as a know-it-all eighteen-year-old, she had thought he was a seriously sharp-looking guy, with that squared-off chin, high forehead, and sharp cheekbones offset by surprisingly soft, pale brown eyes. The years had added creases around the mouth and eyes—all right, maybe less the years and more her, specifically, causing some of those lines—but she still thought he was, hands down, decidedly yummy.

  It was the nose, she decided. Not quite hawklike, but not a gentle slope, either. The nose was what turned her on. And that mouth, and…

  “Client for you, or client for me?” she asked.

  “Maybe both.” It happened that way, sometimes. He’d get a new artist in, or maybe an artist’s agent, and they’d get to talking, and suddenly the client would start talking about this problem they had, a problem maybe with a work that a deadbeat collector won’t pay for, or a museum was holding too long, or even just happened to be “stuck” in the house of an old lover, said lover refusing to give it up when it’s needed for a showing…

  It was a skill Sergei had: putting needs and people together to solve the need and enrich the people, in all cases Wren and himself. That skill that had made him first see, all those years ago, what a very good team they could be.

  If he’d decided to go into politics, or used cars, the world would have been a much more dangerous place. And Wren would be flipping burgers in some joint somewhere, like her mother used to do.

  “You okay?” He stopped fiddling with his tie and looked more closely at her, the way he hadn’t at the paperwork.

  Damn. That was the downside of Sergei actually seeing her. He noticed things.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.” She wasn’t flipping burgers. Between Neezer teaching her what she was, and Sergei helping her to fine-tune it, she would never have to flip burgers. So long as she finished the damn jobs. “Go. Sweet-talk the client. Make us some money.”

  “Right.” He smiled briefly, reaching out with one hand to touch her chin in a way she hated from anyone but him. “I’ll see you tonight?”

  “Maybe. I’ll check in later, okay?” Job first. Job last. And, truthfully, she was still feeling just a little too much togetherness right now. It was nice, but it was…too much. Together.

  If her partner was hurt by her lack of enthusiasm, he didn’t show it, merely finished polishing his look, smoothing down his hair until it sleeked back from his forehead in a fashionable but not too trendy ’do, and left, suit coat carefully folded over one arm, to keep it from wrinkling on the subway.

  The moment the door closed behind him, Wren took her coffee and went back into the office, picking up where she had left off—with the blueprints for the apartment building she had visited the day before. Joey had delivered blues for the house Worth-Rosen owned out in the ’burbs as well; they had been left outside her kitchen window at some point during the night, wrapped in his usual baby-blue oilskin casing, but Wren was playing a hunch that dear, Talented Melanie wasn’t going to let the contested piece out of her possession. She might even keep it on her at all times, which would make things…more complicated. Not impossible, just complicated.

  Complications were what made the jobs interesting, but she didn’t want an interesting job. She wanted a finished one. Wren wasn’t completely out of touch with her psyche: she needed to get this done, so she could get ground back under her feet, feel confident again.

  Figuring out the psychological underpinnings of your own stupidity was easy. Working them out was where the sweat and pain came in. And what she didn’t have the energy—or concentration—for, not now. Not with the city-storm clouds piling up.

  All right. Focus on what you can deal with. The physical aspects. The job. So, play the odds that it’s still in the uptown apartment, and build a plan of attack from there.

  She already knew that at least one doorman was susceptible to the Push. That would be helpful, if she had to resort to a traditional entrance. If she were prone to worry about such things, she would also count it a plus that her “legitimate” visit had left her DNA all over the place, to confuse the issue, but the sort of people she got involved in tended to not be the types to call in forensic investigators, not even PUPs. The only thing her DNA could be used for would be a Summoning, and she was pretty well protected against that, just like any Talent past first-year training. Tagging someone could be considered friendly, or a nuisance, or an assault, depending on the intent of the tagger and the mood of the tagee. Summoning—dragging someone by their current to where you were—was always perceived as an attack, and treated as such.

  Still. She wasn’t going to take any risks, not when the target was Talented, wealthy, and Council. Three really bad things for a lonejack to tangle with, even before the city got so tense.

  “I need to know her schedule,” Wren muttered. “Schedule, schedule…” She swirled her hand through the papers, as though conjuring just the right sheet of paper to leap into her palm like a trained parakeet. She had seen something, in the first run though Joey’s offerings, on a sheet of paper, a printout…

  There it was. A printout of a day planner, a monthly screen shot. She didn’t want to know how much that little nugget of detail was going to cost her, since it wasn’t in the original negotiations, but bless him for knowing what she’d need.

  If he weren’t so easily blackmailable in return, based on even the little she could prove he’d done over the years, she’d be worried that he knew her so well.

  “Right. Where are you going to be, Melanie? When are you going to have to leave that lovely little apartment you no longer share with anyone…”

  There was the maid, yes, but even the most loyal of help took nights off, or slacked off in the breakroom, or slipped out for a drink, a cigarette, or a bit of nookie.

  And if they didn’t…well, after facing down everything from sentient-spelled alarm systems to slavering hellhounds in the course of her career, Wren thought that maybe she had a handle on improvising around security surprises.

  Don’t get cocky, kid. Not a personal memory, this time, but a much-loved sound byte. Great. Even fictional characters were taking her to task, now. If the voice of Han Solo started in on her, she was going for a full psychic mindwipe of all her damn memories and starting fresh, she swore she would.

  Memories, Valere. Tree-taller, sitting across from her in a coffee shop up in the fifties. His hair was wet from the rain, and his eyes and skin had an unbearabl
y healthy glow to them. Memories are what make us different from the animals.

  That we have them? she had asked. A much younger she, new to the city and still freshly scarred from her first brush with bereavement.

  That we cherish them, Lee had said.

  Wren blinked, coming back to the present with an almost audible snap. The sense of ghosts at her shoulder was very, very strong.

  Loss. Cherishing.

  “Thank you, Tree-taller,” she said under her breath. She didn’t know quite what she had twigged to, here, but it felt important.

  She reached forward to pull a fresh piece of graph paper out of the desk, and retrieved a soft-lead pencil from the floor. As always with her work, the Retrieval was going to rely significantly to how things fell out once the ball was rolling, but planning, planning, and planning were the secrets to good improvisation. She was better at planned stuff. She liked planned things that went according to plan. But she knew better than to count on them.

  7

  “Yeeeoow!” A body went flying across the grassy clearing—literally. Dragonfly wings beat the air madly, trying to right the body they were attached to before it landed, facedown, on the ground.

  There was silence, then—“Medic!” a weak voice called from the motionless body. “Medic!”

  “Get up.” The voice of the man who had sent the body flying was cold, unsympathetic. “You’ll be fine.”

  “I’m dead.” The wings beat once, slowly, then came to rest folded against the bare, narrowly boned back. The voice was weak, pitiful, and in any disinterested observer would have invoked pity, or at least immediate sympathy

  “No, you’re not.” The disinterested observer felt none of those things. Or if he did, he hid them well. “Come on. Get up.”