Bring It On

by Laura Anne Gilman

  “Why?” he asked as reasonably as he could, mainly just to see the steam rise from her ears. It was bad form, to pick a fight with your partner, but sometimes it was also needful. She’d been chewing on this all through dinner; better to let her get it out of her system now, rather than let it build any more. He’d never seen her so upset over such a little thing—she’d even forgotten to open her fortune cookie, and she usually just had to know what was coming, claiming that putting off one of Jimmy’s fortunes just made whatever was coming down the road at you hit that much harder.

  Impossible, even if you did believe in predetermined fates, but she was usually stubborn enough about it that he didn’t disagree.

  Reminding her of that fortune now, though, would be very, very bad poker.

  She kicked at something invisible on the street. “Because I’m not supposed to take on jobs without you!”

  “No, you’re not.” He was, vocally, calmly agreeable. Guaranteed to piss her off. “But you did anyway. Were you looking to cut me out of the commission?” He hoped not. That would be tacky.

  “No! I was going to tell you.” She reached up to pull at her braid, then let her hand fall. “Eventually. When…”

  “When what? When you had proven something to yourself? To me?”

  “It wasn’t like that.” But he could hear in her voice that it was, at least a little bit.

  “Oh, for…” Sometimes, she drove him insane. “Do you remember why we both agreed on how we do business? Jobs matched to strengths, not weaknesses? We each have our specializations, Wrenlet, and negotiating contracts? Not yours, to say the least.”

  As he spoke, he felt a coal-hot heat rising up from somewhere in his chest. He was angry, after all, although clearly nowhere near what she expected from him. And that thought made him even angrier, that she had thought he’d be—

  “What, did you think I was going to take you over my knee?”

  Wren turned a sullen expression up to him. “I thought you were going to yell at me, yeah. Which is exactly what you’re doing!”

  “I am not—!” He stopped, realizing that he, in fact, was yelling. He took a deep breath, then another. They didn’t help.

  “Jesus, Valere, you’d drive a saint to psychedelics. Yes, I’m angry, damn it! We’re in the middle of some sort of gang warfare, Council against lonejacks, and you’ve put yourself not only in the middle of it, but leading the damn charge! And don’t give me that bullshit about not being a leader, because everyone except you knows you’re the one they’re looking to for answers. Not to mention the fact that you hang around with nonhumans who have damned targets painted on every inch of their bodies for this damned vigilante group, and then you go and take a damned job without clearing it with me and then go do this damned job without telling me, and what makes you think I want a partner with a damned death wish?”

  “I do not have a death wish!”

  “Then you’re an idiot.”

  Wren was, literally, spitting mad. Sparks rose from her skin, looking iron-red and painful. Current wasn’t a tamed thing; as far as he’d been able to understand, the best you could work for was to stay in control and convince it that you were the one leading the dance. Most days, it worked. That was what mentorship was all about, apparently, convincing you that it worked.

  “If you didn’t hover so damn much—”

  “Me? Hover? I do my damned job.”

  “Is that what I am now? A job?” Wren stopped dead in the street, staring incredulously at her partner.

  “Ah, for the love of…Genevieve. You know that’s not true.” He stopped as well, but refused to look at her, staring instead out into the street, at the evening traffic passing by.

  “You didn’t even notice I had a job, did you? I wasn’t even registering on whatever’s important in your life right now…”

  She hit a nerve with that one, and he knew she knew it, had seen the way his body jerked upright, just the littlest bit, but she was ready for it; she was looking for it. A damned good poker player, her partner, but even he had his tells.

  “All right, now you’re just being insane,” he said, stung equally by the fact that she thought it, and that it was, at least a little bit, true.

  The moment the words came out of his mouth, Sergei knew he’d made a terrible mistake, even before the current-sparks hit him.

  “Na huy…?” He’d been hit by a taser once, part of his training with the Silence, and he’d always thought that was what it might be like to be on the receiving end of a pissed-off Talent.

  He’d underestimated.

  Talent didn’t go insane. They wizzed. Wren’s mentor had wizzed, leaving her the lonejack equivalent of an orphan at sixteen. He couldn’t have hit a more open wound if he’d studied for years. Which, he supposed, he had.

  “Ohmygod.” Wren, on her knees next to him. Funny, he didn’t remember going down to the pavement. Pedestrians looked at them curiously, one or two of them looking as though they meant to come forward to help, but giving it second thought at the sight of Wren, still sparking. Now, the sparks were—he squinted, not sure if it was her, or his sight being wonky, but it was as though she was surrounded by an entire kaleidoscope of colors, popping and hissing at him.

  “You’re all sparkly,” he said, half in awe, half in warning.

  “Are you burned? Did I burn you anywhere?”

  She fumbled with his shirt, unbuttoning the cuffs to check his arms, then moving on to his chest.

  “Dizzy. Wanna go home.”

  “Right.” She helped him up, and with his arm slung over her shoulders, taking a portion of his weight, he could feel her shaking. A cab stopped—did she call it? How long had they been waiting?—and he felt himself fall forward into the seat. She climbed in after, and gave the cabbie his address.

  By the time they got to his building, Sergei was feeling a little more himself, but the ziiizing of the current-slap still resonated under his skin in strange ways. Not like it did when they had sex, although there were similarities. And he was absolutely, positively hard as a rock.

  Probably not the time to mention that to Wren, though.

  The high-speed elevator made him woozy all over again, but he leaned against the wall and concentrated on the nausea going away, and it did.

  Now, if he could only will away the soreness on his skin and in his muscles, everything would be just peachy. As far as ending fights went, this was effective, but probably not practical on a regular application.

  “I think…we need to save this for extra-special arguments,” he said, his voice sounding huskier than usual, even to his own ears.

  “We’re not doing that ever again.”

  “What, arguing?”

  That got a snort out of her, at least. “We never used to argue.”

  “I like it when we argue,” Sergei said, skidding off his shoes and leaving them by the foot of the stairs before beginning the slow climb up the spiral staircase to his loft bedroom. Wren was right behind him, in case he couldn’t make it. “It means you’re standing up to me, not just taking every damn thing I say as gospel. Nothin’ worse than that. Nothin’ more boring than that.” He was starting to slur his words, something he normally did only after multiple shots of something much harder, and wetter, than current.

  His partner laughed, a shaky, not-quite-certain laugh, but a laugh nonetheless, and he could feel the tension in her begin to ebb. What he had intended to do, before he lost his temper, but not quite in such an…extreme way. For all that getting slammed by current was a rush—all right, he admitted it, probably a kink—it was also damned dangerous, and more than a little stupid. Fortunately it seemed to be very specific to current with Wren’s touch in it, not just any Joe or Jane Talent.

  She sat him down on the bed and carefully stripped off his shirt, checking more thoroughly for current-burns. There was a tube of ointment in the table by the bed, and she uncapped it and started spreading the cool gel on his skin without comment.

 
She had a soothingly light touch, none of her anger at herself translating to him. If he hadn’t known her so well, he’d have thought that she was perfectly calm. There seemed to be an awful lot of skin she was covering—he didn’t think she had hit him that hard.

  Then again, he was having a difficult time thinking at all.

  “Need somethin’ t’ drink.”

  “Yeah. Hang on.”

  She went back down the stairs, and he heard her rummaging in the kitchen, below. When she returned, she had a glass of ginger ale in one hand, and a pitcher of something in the other.

  “Soda first, then water. Drink as much as you can handle. I should have thought of this right away.”

  “Ne’ time, we’ll know.”

  “There’s not going to be a next time.” Her voice was tight, brittle as old leaves.

  Control, he remembered. Control was the almighty thing with lonejacks. She had lost control, and that was what she was angry at. Not him.

  “Shhh…” He put the glass down on the table and reached for her. She resisted a moment, then gave way, sliding onto the bed with him, so he could enclose her in his arms. “It’s okay, Wrenlet. It’s okay to be angry.”

  “No, it’s not. It’s…”

  He silenced her with a hand across her mouth, gently enough that she could have broken his hold without effort. She nipped at his palm, but without real vigor, then reached up and moved the offending palm, just enough to speak clearly.

  “Go to sleep, Sergei.”

  Wise advice. He could barely keep his eyes open, no matter how important it was that they get this dealt with.

  His eyes closed, and his hand slid from her mouth down to her shoulder, adjusting his hold on her.

  A thought roused him, sleepily, long enough to ask, “Did you get a percentage up-front?”

  She sighed. “Yes. Already deposited and cleared. Rest should be coming as soon as I inform the client that the job’s completed.”

  “Goo’girl”

  She whapped him halfheartedly with a pillow, and he went back to sleep, content.

  As his breathing evened out, Wren settled next to him, one hand stroking his hair.

  She hadn’t gotten a fortune cookie. That was unheard of, from Jimmy’s. It worried her.

  Sergei had gotten one, but tucked it into his pocket without sharing it with her. That was also unusual. And worrying.

  Across the city, two beings were settled in for the night as well, although it involved two ceramic cups of chilled sake and a pair of comfortable leather hassocks.

  “So. What did your fortune say?”

  “What?” Shig had been inspecting the bottom or his cup, as though expecting more sake to suddenly appear.

  “Your fortune. The thing that came in the cookie, after dinner. What did it say?”

  “It’s important?”

  “Absolutely.

  The amphibian fatae closed his internal eyelids and recalled a memory. “‘You will dance on edge of disaster, but learn many new steps.’”

  “Huh. Interesting, but nothing too horribly dramatic. Be thankful. Mine was actually boring. That always worries me. A lot.”

  “And The Wren’s? I saw you sneak her cookie, after they left.”

  “You think it works that way? If I take it, it’s mine, even though it was put on her plate?

  “If this Seer is as good as you think he is, then he might have known you would do so. Or he cannot focus on such small, short-term moments, and did not know, in which case it is hers. In either situation, she is not here to read it, and you are.”

  Tough logic to argue with, even from a gecko sitting on a hassock, chewing thoughtfully on a bamboo stalk.

  “Right.” He reached into his pocket and broke open the cookie.

  “What does it say?”

  “‘This fortune not for you.’”

  “You are making fun of me.” P.B. wordlessly handed his friend the slip of paper.

  “I would take this Seer quite seriously,” Shig said, thoughtfully.

  “Yeah. Yeah, we do,” P.B. said, collapsing back onto his bed and staring up at the ceiling. “We do.”

  14

  The next morning was a quiet one. Sergei woke up first, but came out of the shower to find Wren already sitting at the kitchen table, poking absently at a bowl of cold cereal with her spoon.

  He finished toweling off, then draped the towel over his shoulder and leaned against the wall, watching her. His apartment was on an open plan, so there was no real wall dividing the spaces. It made for good paranoid planning, or ballroom dancing, but lousy for leaning indolently in a doorway, since there weren’t actually any to lean in.

  “You want me to make you some eggs?”

  “Nah. Thanks. Not really very hungry, anyway.” Her voice was even, noncommittal.

  “Suit yourself.” He went to the refrigerator and started pulling out supplies. Time to face the music, as it were. He was many things, of variable social acceptability, but his mother had raised neither a coward nor a hypocrite. If he was going to be angry at her for trying to go out on her own, locking him out—and it amused him again, briefly, that he was angry about that, and not the keeping secrets thing—well, it meant that he had to own up to a few side ventures of his own, too.

  In his pants pocket, a tiny scrap of paper had a short, succinct message: “Bring it on.” Jimmy’s Seer, the mysterious figure who wrote all his fortune cookie messages, never made sense; but always gave good advice. Assuming you could figure it out.

  Bring it on. Right. Face it, he supposed the Seer meant. Stop ducking and dancing around what needed to be done.

  It was damned easy to write a fortune. Tougher, always tougher, to deal with it.

  By the time he had finished scrambling the eggs and dicing the leftover grilled salmon, she was salivating like a starveling kitten, as expected.

  As good a time as any, he supposed.

  Time to rinse the skillet, and leave it to dry before turning to face her again. “You’re not the only one keeping secrets, beloved.”

  Wren didn’t even stop shoveling the food into her mouth, the cereal pushed, half-eaten and forgotten, to the side of the table in favor of the savory plate in front of her.

  “You have another woman on the side?” She wasn’t taking him seriously. Not yet.

  “It’s the Silence.”

  That got her attention, fast. She didn’t quite put down the fork, but her rate of consumption slowed noticeably.

  “What now? I’m not taking on another job for them. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

  Not even if she had to give up the damn retainer. She still hadn’t forgiven Andre for showing up at Lee’s wake. He could hear the litany as easily as if she’d spoken it out loud again. The bastard. Oily, overfriendly, condescending cold-blooded bastard. Not that she was bitter, or anything.

  “Genevieve.” That got her full attention; he knew it would. “Andre’s asked me to come back to the Silence.” Before she could splutter anything, he went on. “He thinks that he’s being undermined from within. That someone’s trying to subvert the Silence to a personal agenda. And cutting him out. That’s why we didn’t get enough information on the last situation. None of the Ops with Talent are getting full disclosure.”

  He leaned back against the counter, and waited.

  She stabbed her fork into the salmon and eggs with renewed vigor, carefully not replying until she’d run through a choice few retorts in her head, and discarded them.

  “And I’m supposed to care about this—why?” He was still a bastard. And he was maybe even more of a bastard, for trying to get to Sergei without her. She’d warned him about that, when he tried to get her away from Sergei. They were a pair. A partnership.

  You haven’t been acting that way, recently, a little voice told her. Which he knows, now. Why are you expecting Andre to do any different, when it’s not in his best interest?

  Oh, shut up, she told the voice. I’m not in the mood to be logical. Or f
orgiving.

  “You aren’t,” Sergei said to what she had actually said out loud. But his voice said differently. His voice said he wanted everything in his world to go smoothly, all the bits and pieces of it to play nicely together.

  She would do almost anything for her partner. Especially after the current incident last night. Almost. “Forget about it, Sergei. The bastard wants absolution for screwing us over. I’m not giving it to him.”

  “Wren, think about it.” He took his own plate to the counter, sat down. “If there are factions moving within the Silence…”

  “If? You told me once that everything within the Silence was layers and layers, secrets on secrets.”

  “All right. Point taken. Doesn’t lessen the fact that anything that can make Andre uneasy is something that makes me uneasy, even at a remove. Especially since thanks to that damned contract I drew up, they can still call on you—and we have no guarantee that we’ll get the full dossier then, either. Not if Andre hasn’t tracked down the source and neutralized it.”

  “You say that like it’s an odor. ‘Neutralized’ it.” Her distaste was plain.

  “All right. Taken steps to normalize the situation. Does that sound better?”

  Wren relented. “No. But at least it’s a little more honest.” She didn’t know for certain, but what exposure she’d had to Andre and his henchboy Poul, not to mention the way Sergei reacted to anything Silence-related, suggested that their ways of “normalizing” the situation often had more to do with the handgun her partner still owned than any kind of verbal negotiations. “So why tell me now? Secret for secret? Or did you agree to anything I need to know about?”

  Sergei shrugged helplessly, shoving food around on his own plate. He was sitting across the counter from her, elbows on the marble in a rare show of relaxed manners that was contradicted by the obvious strain in his spine and the set of his shoulders. “I didn’t want you distracted, that’s why I didn’t tell you.” Then, with the air of a can being pried open, “I don’t like working apart from you, not telling you things. Makes me break out in hives.”