by Ginn Hale
The speed lifts rumbled and hissed from nearly three kilometers away. Lake felt their vibrations shivering through the air and walls around him. He willed himself to move faster. Nearly there, just a little farther, he silently coaxed his exhausted cramping muscles.
Then he felt the feathery tips of antennae brush against the back of his neck. At once he realized that two of the attendants raced along the walls, nearly on top of him. The third down on the floor caught his trouser leg in a firm grasp. Lake jerked himself free, stumbled, and barely managed to keep upright. One of the attendants on the wall slammed its body into his right shoulder. Agony burst through Lake’s chest. He fell to his knees and spilled across the rough floor.
Pain enveloped his senses. He hardly noted the tight grips clamping around his chest. The attendants, taking hold of him, Lake thought. Something hauled him up to his feet and held him. As the awareness of smooth high-grav armor seeped into Lake’s mind, his breath caught on the comforting aroma of popping corn pumping through the air.
All at once Lake realized that someone in a high-grav suit held him against a wall and leaned over him, sheltering him from the snapping mandibles of the three attendants. On the floor, fat little canisters spun like pinwheels as they sprayed out clouds of roach-sedating pheromones. In the midst of the soothing clouds of pheromone, the three attendants relaxed; the senior of them groomed the other two, stroking and tapping them. Then all three wandered back towards the cathedral.
Belatedly Lake noticed the wail of security sirens emanating from the same direction. Security had been alerted to the attack. Likely most of the attendants and guards were absorbing concentrated doses of calming pheromones and turning lazy and affectionate in response.
“So, everything’s going exactly to your plan, I see.” Aguilar’s voice drifted from the audio membranes of the high-grav suit.
“Oh yes, perfectly.” Lake laughed at himself despite the pain. He was just so relieved to be alive. Then he added, “Thanks for coming.”
The security-grade high-grav suit nodded in response to Aguilar’s movements from deep inside its thick armor. The buffers in the suit were far too powerful for Lake to pull any mass reading from, but he still recognized Aguilar’s careful motions in the hulking machinery. Aguilar initiated the smaller set of mechanical arms housed in the suit’s chest to apply pressure foam to Lake’s wounds and slow his bleeding. The tiny fingers tickled across Lake’s skin like curious spiders. Lake didn’t fight the cool numb that followed the first hit of spray.
Scans passed over his chest in soft slow waves.
“How did you get here so fast?” Lake wondered aloud. He’d only messaged Aguilar minutes ago. Even taking an extraordinary time dilation into account, it didn’t seem possible for Aguilar to have made the entire journey in less than an hour.
“Nothing fast about it.” Aguilar bowed the opaque faceplate of his suit over Lake’s shoulder. “The bullets passed through clean and I’ve stopped the bleeding, but if you want I can turn you over to Dr. Gim for a real patch-up. He’ll have to report your presence and the injury. Or we can hijack one of the speed lifts and get the hell out of here.”
“Why would I need Dr Gim when I’ve got you?” Right now escape sounded good. The last thing Lake wanted was to go a couple of rounds with the local police. The Arc would be a safer place to make a statement. He felt like he’d just sprinted an entire marathon and collapsed on his coach. Sure he’d probably done it all wrong, but he’d gotten through. He’d survived and Forest Joki had been ripped into bloody hunks.
Lake nearly lapsed into unconsciousness but something gnawed at him. “What do you mean when you said there was nothing fast about you getting here?”
“I and three other Arc detectives were already on our way down when we got the call to back up the local security.” Aguilar sounded all at once terse and uneasy. Even if he hadn’t known Aguilar well, that tone would have made Lake suspicious.
“What is it you’re not telling me?” Lake asked.
“Cullen got Holly Ryan’s comm records opened up…” Aguilar paused like he expected Lake to fill in the rest for himself.
“And?” Lake prompted.
“You really don’t know?” Aguilar asked.
“I really don’t,” Lake replied. If he hadn’t been shot twice he might have pretended that he did so as not to seem like an idiot, but he was too done in to posture. Anyway he made it a policy never to lie to Aguilar. “You want me to guess?”
“She contacted you four times.” Aguilar said it firmly as a fact that he wasn’t open to disputing. “The most recent communication was the night of her murder. Just under two minutes—”
“That’s bullshit!” Alarm spiked through Lake—Aguilar had to believe him. “She never spoke to me after I left my contact-chip—”
“I didn’t say she talked to you,” Aguilar cut him off quickly. “I’m telling you what Cullen found and what he did, which was to issue a warrant for your arrest. That’s why I and the other officers were already on our way down here to look for you. Lucky for you, we landed in the middle of an emergency situation. I was separated from the others when my suit’s comm and tracking ID were knocked out.”
Lake nodded. He had no doubt that it wasn’t by chance that Aguilar’s suit had dropped out of synch with his fellow officers’. He was taking a hell of a chance, getting himself this tangled up in Lake’s trouble.
“You shouldn’t come with me,” Lake told him. “This could cost you your job or get you charged as an accessory if Cullen has his way.”
“Yeah, obviously,” Aguilar agreed. He carried Lake into the gaping maw of a speed lift and lowered him to the dusty floor. Lake leaned back against a battered wall. The lift smelled of carbon and rusting iron. He needed to get to work overriding the fill operation of the lift, but the mere thought of standing, much less ripping open the control case exhausted him.
Aguilar stood. For a moment neither of them said anything or moved, then Aguilar straightened and strode to the humming bundle of electronics that coiled behind the inset control case. Aguilar reached out and placed an armored hand over the case. He could have torn the thing open in an instant, but that wasn’t how Aguilar worked. Lake sensed the flicker and tickle of codes bouncing through the box. Then a delighted melody pinged, and Wind Vanhanen’s prerecorded voice announced that an engine test would begin in five seconds.
As Wind Vanhanen counted down, Aguilar returned to Lake’s side and knelt next to him.
“This is going to be a rough ride. I’m sorry, but it should be over fast and if anyone can handle the g-forces, it’s you. Once we’re up top, I’ll patch you up better at my place.”
“You can’t do this,” Lake told him. “Cullen will have your head.”
“Yeah, maybe. But maybe I should’ve left years ago when Cullen cut you loose.” Aguilar shrugged as the lift doors slammed shut and locked down. Wind Vanhanen murmured, “…two, one. Engines go.”
The floor and walls surrounding them began to tremble, and any further words Aguilar might have offered were drowned out in the roar of engines igniting. The lift rocketed up, tearing through the powerful pull of the Maze’s gravity and soaring upward. G-forces shoved Lake against the floor, and he felt the oxygen thinning as he gulped in breaths. Next to him Aguilar’s high-grav suit sang in resonance with the rushing air. Tiny auroras of magnetic fire danced around Aguilar as the EM shields in the suit scraped and sparked against the electromagnetic fields of the Maze.
You’re like Ukko right now. Lake tapped the words against Aguilar’s armored palm and felt electricity buzz through his knuckles.
Who?
The blazing god of thunder and lightning. My first love.
Lake thought he heard Aguilar laugh.
You’re delirious, Aguilar responded.
Lake suspected he was right. Maybe that was what gave him the foolish courage to keep holding Aguilar’s hand even as consciousness slipped from him.
6.
/> Lake woke, naked on a bed with graft bandages fusing into the tender muscles of his shoulder and chest. A deep breath of the rich verdant-scented atmosphere assured him that he’d returned to Aguilar’s home. His arms ached, and his ribs felt scraped and bruised down to the marrow. The odd frigid taste that transfusion fluids produced made his mouth seem like a disused meat locker.
He sensed Aguilar’s mass in the adjoining living room. Lake’s own voice sounded from a distance.
“…I just want you to know that it means a lot to me—everything—to know you and to be your…friend.”
The distorted comm lent Lake’s rough voice a stutter and rasp. Then the statement played again more cleanly. The third run through, Lake’s words came out with raw, painful clarity. All his yearning and longing seemed to ring out, and Lake felt humiliated by his own obviousness. He sounded as awkward and halting as a twelve-year-old—albeit a twelve-year-old who drank more than most and shaved twice a day.
Thankfully Aguilar didn’t play the comm message again. A few minutes later his mass strode from the living room to Lake’s bedside. He stood oddly silent, then turned and started back towards the door. As embarrassed as Lake felt, he didn’t want Aguilar to leave him.
“What time is it?” Lake asked.
“A little past 16:00,” Aguilar replied. “How do you feel?”
“Like I need to reassess the grade of flex-armor I wear when I go calling on old acquaintances.”
Aguilar laughed but he sounded tired.
“How about you?” Lake asked. “You managed to return your high-grav suit and get out of the police department without being cuffed or charged?”
“Yeah, mostly because Cullen decided to go in hard to search Nam Yune’s place for you.”
“Is she all right?” Despite the discomfort Lake sat up. He wouldn’t let Nam Yune get hurt on his account. Aguilar stilled him by simply placing his hand on Lake’s naked thigh. His skin felt so hot against Lake’s.
“The Queen Beetle can take care of herself and then some, trust me,” Aguilar assured him. “M6 Security & Intelligence agents shut down our search warrants immediately, and a fleet of their lawyers basically sieged Cullen’s office. All of which seems to have convinced him that you’re holed up in the Drift in Nam Yune’s care. So for the moment he’s not looking around here or thinking about your connection to me.”
Even retired, Nam Yune could still put up one hell of a smokescreen, Lake guessed. That was assuming she had really retired.
“Relax, for a little while, all right,” Aguilar told him. “If you need to do something, then tell me what you found out down in the Maze.”
Lake lay back down against the cool synth-linen sheets. He described his conversations with Wind and his daughter as exactly as he could. Aguilar sat beside him on the bed and listened, nodding now and then.
“You mentioned that you thought Holly sent the blackmail to her father as a comm attachment,” Aguilar commented.
“Right but Wind said he never received anything. The Maze is hell on comms,” Lake replied, but even as he answered he realized what Aguilar was thinking. “Though—”
“The Arc relay might still contain a ghost in its backup files,” Aguilar finished with a grin.
“Those only get wiped clean every six months?” Lake asked. That had been the case when he’d worked homicide, and he hoped no one had upgraded the system.
“Right. I’ve already dropped a snoop into the relay. I’m pulling anything stored there for Wind. So, it looks like we’re in for a little wait. Though you could damn well use the rest.” Aguilar stood. “Can I bring you anything while I’m trying to be of use?”
The only things Lake wanted sounded too sad or too pornographic for words so he shook his head.
“All right then. Get some sleep.” Aguilar started to turn away but stopped. “I never told you this but I should have. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I just…I want you to know that I’m sorry I let you go.”
“You warned me not to take on the Maze alone,” Lake replied. “You couldn’t have done more.”
Aguilar shook his head.
“I don’t just mean today. Four years ago when Cullen forced you out. I should have fought for you.”
“You did.” Lake remembered that Aguilar and Gonzales both had filed objections.
“Not hard enough,” Aguilar said.
“It wouldn’t have mattered what anyone said or did.” Lake wasn’t certain why they were having this conversation now, but it seemed genuinely important to Aguilar. “You couldn’t have changed Cullen’s mind. You just would have ended up getting fired along with me.”
“But I would have been with you,” Aguilar said. “As it was, I spent four years feeling guilty and regretting that I didn’t have the courage to go after what I really wanted. I was just so focused on maintaining the stable life that I’d been leading. A house, a marriage, a job. And you threw all that for me. You were so wild and tough and funny…”
“I was a pain in the ass as well as I recall,” Lake reminded him.
“Yeah.” Aguilar sounded amused and sad at the same time. “More than you probably even knew. But after you were gone, I missed you so damn much. Out of all proportion…”
Lake resisted his desire to make too much of Aguilar’s words. He’d wanted Aguilar so long and so badly that now he didn’t quite believe what he thought Aguilar was saying to him.
“Are you just talking about the job or…” Lake couldn’t seem to find the words to ask the rest. Aguilar stood motionless for a moment. He carefully settled his long body on the edge of the bed.
“I mean everything.” Aguilar offered him a brief smile but shook his head. “Only I didn’t realize it at first. I just knew I was so damn happy when we were working together. Even on those shit days when we were down in the sewage. Then you propositioned me and all at once everything just…”
Lake wanted to hear the rest but he didn’t push, he’d learned that from Aguilar. He gave the other man time to say what he would—though Lake felt like his heart was about to rip in two, it pounded so hard in his chest.
“You have no idea how tempted I was.” Aguilar whispered the words as if they were a murder confession. “That should have told me something, you know. I loved working with you, talked about you nonstop to Jun-Sang, and thought about you half the time that he was blowing me. I sound like a hypocritical piece of shit, don’t I?”
“No. You weren’t the one who screwed around,” Lake said, because it seemed like Aguilar needed reminding. No matter how tempted he’d been—and Lake never would have guessed he had been at all—Aguilar had remained faithful to Jun-Sang. “You did the right thing by your husband. You turned me down flat and that was the end of it there. You’d made a promise and you wouldn’t break it.”
“Yeah, I kept my promise, but I’m not so sure that I did right by Jun-Sang or myself.” Aguilar bowed his head, and Lake wondered if he contemplated the absence of that dense metal wedding ring on his left hand. “I might have saved us both a lot of hurt and hardship if I’d just admitted to myself… But I kept thinking that it would pass. I’d get over missing you and wanting you. I wasted four years before I realized that no matter what happened or how much time passed, I wasn’t going to stop feeling the way I did. But four years is a long time. I don’t know now if I have the right to ask you…”
“Ask me?” Lake repeated, but Aguilar didn’t say anything.
Aguilar lifted his head. He seemed so still, as if some mysterious internal conflict absorbed even the small energy required to take a breath. He bent over Lake and kissed his lips.
For an instant Lake felt too stunned to respond.
Then he leaned in, meeting Aguilar’s careful, strong mouth with his desire. Aguilar responded at once, cradling the back of Lake’s neck and drawing him closer. Aguilar’s skin smelled of tomato leaves, and he tasted as hot and sweet as a red pepper. His teeth were hard, his tongue slick and wonderfully supple. Arousa
l rushed through Lake’s battered body like a shot of liquor. A spark of pleasure in the midst of too much ache and exhaustion. He tried to put his arms around Aguilar, and a shock of pain lanced through his shoulders and chest.
“Don’t hurt yourself.” Aguilar drew away a little and allowed Lake to settle back into the support of the bed. Aguilar stroked the nape of Lake’s neck but lifted his hand away before he touched Lake’s bandaged right shoulder. He gave a soft laugh. “There’s something seriously wrong with my timing, isn’t there?”
Lake laughed too and gripped Aguilar’s hand in his own. His thumb traced the ropey scar that ran across the back of Aguilar’s hand. An excited thrill coiled up his arm as he felt Aguilar’s callused fingers holding him so fast and firm.
“We can work on it together,” Lake assured him.
“Yeah. Maybe sometime when you haven’t just been shot and we aren’t both about to be arrested,” Aguilar said.
Lake nodded, relaxing into the edge of sleep. He felt Aguilar’s weight lift off the bed, but the warmth of his hand seemed to linger against Lake’s fingers.
“Yes,” Lake called, and Aguilar’s mass halted in the doorway.
“What?” Aguilar asked.
“My answer, if you ever want to ask me.” Lake’s words sounded soft and half-asleep even to himself. “It’s yes.”
• • •
Lake woke to the distant sound of a comm playing an alert melody.
Not mine, Lake thought groggily. But the tune wasn’t unfamiliar to him. Six years back he’d learned the absurd lyrics about a five-legged cockroach from Aguilar.
“La cucaracha…” Lake muttered to himself, feeling a wry sympathy for the exhausted, crippled insect in the song. He wasn’t doing much better himself. Pain flared through his chest each time he took in a deep breath, and both his arms felt so stiff that it seemed like the bones would splinter apart if he moved them.
“Lake? You awake?” Aguilar asked very softly from the doorway.