by Posey, Jay
Whatever was wrong with the connection wasn’t permanent. It was being repaired. The other Weir turned its head to look at her. Cass’s jittergun was a few feet away. She crawled to it, scooped it up off the floor. The Weir that was moving towards her was having trouble staying on course. She dropped it before it ever posed a serious threat. But the other was still tracking her with its head.
Cass looked over at the stairs. She’d come down them knowing full well she was going to have to climb them to get back out. The idea of trying to run up them was almost enough to keep her from getting off the floor. But whatever she’d done had hurt Asher. Better. It had scared him. He had fled her mind when he realized what she was up to, fled the machine. She wasn’t ready to give up yet. Not by a long shot. Cass called up her last reserves of strength and got herself up and moving towards the stairwell. She cycled through the small chamber, and when she got into the stairs proper, she turned around and gave the controls on the door a half-second burst from the jittergun. Maybe that’d slow them down a little bit.
Then, with arms and legs of lead and a heart full of fire, Cass climbed.
* * *
To Wren’s surprise, Foe had given him the rest of the day off from training. Wren had gone to his room and washed the grime off himself, excited about the prospect of getting long hours of sleep. Instead, he was still awake in his room. He’d turned off the overhead light, which cast his room in near total darkness. The bathroom light was on, though the door was drawn all the way shut. Just barely enough light for him to make out his coat hanging on the back of the door to his room. Wren stood against the opposite wall, practicing drawing Three’s pistol from its holster. Not for speed. Just for familiarity. Hand to grip, smooth draw from hip to firing position, front sight on target. Finger to trigger. Steady pressure. Click.
He returned the pistol to its holster, which he’d fixed to his belt. The weapon was heavy and felt like it might make his pants come down on the side, even though his belt was as tight as he could get it. Again; smooth draw, on target, finger to trigger. Click.
Wren had tried to sleep. He certainly needed it. But every time he’d started to drift off, he’d had terrible nightmares. Nightmares of unspeakable and bizarre things, things his mind couldn’t even properly reconstruct now, leaving him with broken fragments of images and a haunting fear. Practicing his draw and shot all as one movement was focusing, the repetition calming. He’d done it so many times now that even in the low light he was developing a feel for how the weapon should feel when it was on target, and whether or not he’d executed a proper trigger break.
For all he was facing, it was Painter that was causing his turmoil. There were too many emotions surrounding the circumstances for Wren to identify exactly how he felt. Maybe he was feeling everything, or all the bad feelings anyway, all at once. Fear, anger, grief. And maybe even a sense of vengeance. He had saved Painter, after all. He’d done everything he knew to do to help him. And Painter had repaid him in the cruelest way possible.
Wren didn’t want to kill anyone. He could barely imagine what it would be like, to have someone on the other side of that pistol when he was pulling the trigger. It was one of the reasons he was practicing borderline obsessively. When it came time, he just wanted his body to do it.
But the thing that scared him most was that with Painter... well, with Painter, he could imagine it. And though he tried to ignore it, he found that the longer he waited, the more difficult it was to resist the urge to reach out and find Painter. He would have to do it eventually. And though his inclination was to wait until he could ask Foe for permission, he felt like maybe he was beyond that now. After all, Foe had fully restored his own connection. Maybe this was one of his final tests. Maybe Foe was waiting for him to see the opportunity and to take it. Then again, maybe he was just trying to justify it to himself.
In the end, he decided to compromise.
Wren sat down on his bed, laid Three’s pistol beside him. Laid his hands in his lap, took a deep settling breath and let himself relax. And then he stretched out. Eastward, towards Morningside. The last time he had done so, he’d been in Greenstone, on the roof of the Samurai McGann. How young he’d been then, he thought. Just a kid. And for a moment, a sad thought crept in. He was still just a kid, technically.
The great digital fog was still out there, still roving just as it had been before. But now Wren feared it less. It wasn’t a single mass of darkness to him anymore. It was a deeply complex pattern of signals, crisscrossing one another. But there were gaps, holes that he could see now. Paths through.
Wren extended himself through it, even as he knew he was playing a dangerous game. Once he had penetrated the perimeter he realized that the signals weren’t stable; they constantly fluctuated around him, dropped and reformed. He didn’t know what would happen if his signal interrupted one of the filaments, but he assumed it wouldn’t be anything good. To be safe, he initiated a protocol Foe had taught him to minimize his signal’s profile. For a fleeting moment, he thought of how easy it would be to look for Mama. Just to see if there was any way that she might still be alive. Any way to confirm the hope that his heart still clung to. But no, he turned himself away from that line of thinking. In part, because he knew it might jeopardize her safety, if she did happen to still be out there. But in even greater part, because he knew that was not his purpose. Painter was integral to his objective, to his plan. Risking anything at all just to soothe his emotions would be inexcusable. And whether she was alive or dead, the knowledge of either would wreck his focus. He had grown comfortable living in that in-between state. Now was not the time to upset it.
He didn’t have to search for Painter, not really. He knew all of Painter’s credentials, assuming they hadn’t been modified by his new state. So Wren followed the simple steps of a basic connection, almost like sending a pim, except rather than allowing it to attach, he observed where it went, followed it to its destination and then killed it before it could finish. All of this took only a few milliseconds, but it gave Wren a clear sense of Painter’s location. Not his exact position, Wren hadn’t attached long enough to do that, though it would not have been hard for him now. But a reasonable estimate. He was a long way from where Wren had expected him to be. Further north and west. Not too far from the border of the Strand, in fact.
Asher was keeping him busy.
Wren withdrew his signal, and then settled back on his bed after the brief foray. A few seconds at most, but it was enough to scratch the itch. His restlessness subsided. He’d taken a step towards carrying out the plan. Maybe that would be enough to convince his racing mind that he had done something useful, and it would let him sleep now. He couldn’t quite bring himself to sleep with the pistol next to him; it seemed foolish after all of Haiku’s safety warnings, even though it was unloaded. He dragged his pack over next to the head of his bed, and laid the pistol inside, on top. Close enough to reach out and touch if he really needed to.
He rolled over on his back, hands behind his head. Took a few deep breaths. Closed his eyes.
He had reached out and touched the storm across the Strand. And a few seconds after he’d closed his eyes, he got a response.
* * *
By the time Cass got to the top of the stairs, she literally couldn’t go any further. She dropped to her knees, and then fell forward to her hands, and then rolled to her side. She lay on the concrete under the afternoon sun like a dead woman in all ways except her heaving for breath. By her estimate, it’d taken her just under fifteen minutes to run those steps. The last five, she’d been almost blind with tunnel vision. For a time, she genuinely wondered if she would ever be able to use her legs again.
“Gamble,” she pimmed, as soon as she had recovered enough to do so. “I’m up. I’m alive.”
The message went out after a brief hitch. A moment later, Gamble responded.
“Cass! What’s your status?” There was still fuzz and static, and some distance as if Gamble had said som
ething from inside a well, but it came through clear. Whatever she’d done to connectivity, it was being restored, and quickly. She wondered what would be coming up those stairs behind her. And how soon.
“Alive,” Cass said. “For the moment.”
“What happened?”
“I found something, Gamble. Something big. I need you to pass a message to Wren.”
Her response didn’t come back as quickly as Cass expected.
“Gamble?” she pimmed.
“Yeah, yeah I read you, Cass. It’s just... uh, Cass, Wren’s not here.”
“It’s fine, just tell him when you see him.”
“No,” Gamble said. “He isn’t here, Cass. In Greenstone. He left the town.”
Cass knew she hadn’t heard that right. She sat up, ignoring the raging protest of her muscles.
“What do you mean he left? Did you see jCharles? At the Samurai McGann?”
“Yes, I’m with him now,” Gamble said. And then Gamble broke the news to her, quickly. About Wren, and a man named Haiku. Three’s brother. How Finn had tried to find him and couldn’t. It was all too much to take in, too much to process.
“Maybe you should try,” Gamble said. “Maybe you can reach him.”
“No,” Cass said. “No I definitely can’t now. Asher’s seen me. He’s after me. I don’t know how much longer I can stay ahead of him. But I don’t think he knows Wren’s not with me. Not yet.”
The line was quiet again for several seconds before Gamble’s reply came in.
“Lead them here,” she said.
Cass shook her head, even though there was no one there to see it. “No, Gamble...”
“Bring them here, Cass,” Gamble said, and her voice had that authoritarian edge to it. “We’re expecting it.”
* * *
Again, what had once been a single process revealed itself in its smallest components to Wren. Before his training, the first step to receiving a pim had been a notification of its sender and, unless set to autoaccept like he did with Mama’s, a permission request to accept the connection and message. But now, even before receiving the indication of who the pim was from, Wren felt the formation of the signal, trapped it before it could develop, held it, and analyzed it. And all of this he did with deliberate control, with understanding. No longer by feeling alone.
Wren unwrapped the datastream, identified it as a pim, and identified its source.
Painter.
There was danger in that simple process; an active connection was far more obvious, and much more vulnerable to tracking to its location. It was obvious there was no coincidence here. Somehow Painter knew Wren had found him. Was this Asher’s way of uncovering Wren’s location? It seemed the likely answer. Maybe the only answer.
The safest thing to do was to redirect the signal, to cast it off into some faraway place to die. But if Wren’s ultimate goal was to confront Painter anyway, why would he give up such an opportunity? Accepting the message would only expose him for a tiny window, and he was watchful. He decided to risk it.
He accepted the message, allowed the connection, though he diffused it. If Asher were watching for him, he’d get an idea of the region that Wren was in, but not his exact position; similar to what he knew about Painter’s location. Equal footing, at best.
Painter’s voice came through. “Hey, Wren.”
Two words, from a familiar voice. It was like Wren had found a recording from months before, when he and Painter had been friends. Hey, Wren. Same voice. Same cadence. Same Painter. The wave of emotion that broke over him was disorienting. Maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe he should just ignore it, pretend it didn’t happen.
But no. He’d started everything in motion, whether he’d meant to or not.
When you decide to kill the king, Foe had said, kill the king.
“Hi, Painter,” Wren replied. Two seconds. Three. Five.
“Didn’t expect to be talking to you again,” came Painter’s response.
“No,” Wren said.
“I’m glad you’re alive.”
Wren didn’t know how to respond to that, so he didn’t. The dead air hung between them for several seconds. What else was there to say? The anger started to boil up in Wren.
“I was wondering why you were looking for me,” Painter finally said.
“How did you know I was?”
“I felt it. And I recognized you.” Wren didn’t say anything, but Painter seemed to know what he was thinking. “I’m different now.”
Curiosity layered atop the seething anger that Wren was trying so hard to suppress. Together, the combination was more than he could stand.
“Why, Painter?” Wren asked. “What happened to you? We did so much for you. And we would have done more, anything, if you’d only said something.”
The words came out fast, heated. Wren expected a response in kind. Instead, Painter’s answer was soft, chastised.
“I know,” he said. “I lived in your world, Wren. I tried. I really did. But apart from you and your mom, and Mr Sun... I was garbage there, Wren. Less than. And Asher gave me purpose.”
“Purpose?” Wren said. “Destroying a city was your purpose?”
“He gave me my sister back.”
Wren heard it now in Painter’s voice. The sorrow, the remorse. But he heard, too, Painter’s true sense of purpose. He’d done what he thought he had to, to get his sister back. To protect her. To keep his promise to her. And something cracked in Wren then. Not enough to take away his anger, not enough to forgive Painter. But just enough to give him perspective on how someone could make such a choice. Wren couldn’t accept it, couldn’t justify all that Painter had done, but he saw a sliver of something hidden within; how it was born of love, however misguided and twisted.
“You can stop,” Wren said. “Why don’t you stop now? Refuse Asher? Turn against him?”
“It’s too late for me, Wren. I made my choice. Whatever happens to me now, I deserve.”
“You don’t have to serve him, Painter. You’re not his slave.”
“No, I’m not,” Painter answered. “I’m his voice. That’s how it is now. But...” He trailed off, as if he was afraid to continue. When he did, Wren understood his hesitance. “Wren, not for me, I would never ask you for anything for me. But when all of this is over, if you can... would you please free my sister?”
Painter sounded so fragile, so broken. Wren’s heart defied his own anger and was moved.
“I’ll try, Painter,” he said, and he meant it. “If there’s anything I can do for her, I’ll do it. I promise.”
“Thank you.” The connection rippled, and a few seconds later, Painter pimmed. “I should go. Asher’s coming.”
“Wait,” Wren said. “Painter. What is Asher doing? What does he want?”
“I can’t keep it out for long–”
“Painter, please.”
“It’s your mother. He’s tracking her now.”
Wren’s heart leapt with joy and dread.
“She’s alive?”
There was a long pause, even though the connection was still active.
“For now,” Painter responded finally, “but I don’t think she will be for long. I’m sorry, Wren, Asher’s coming. If he finds you, he’ll come for you next, I’m sorry.”
And with those words, Painter severed the connection. Wren could have prevented it, could have held on and forced Painter to tell him more, but the risk was too great. He may have already risked too much.
Was it a trap? Had Painter told him that Mama was alive to try to get him to reach out to her? To trick him into giving them what they needed to track her?
It was only as he was thinking these things that Wren realized his mistake. Possibly a catastrophic one. He’d responded with surprise. She’s alive? Painter hadn’t known Wren wasn’t with his mother. That explained the pause. He had been warning Wren that Asher knew where she was, that Asher was tracking her, assuming that it meant Asher was after both of them. The message wa
s meant to explain how the Weir were finding them. Now Painter knew they weren’t together. And whatever Painter knew, Wren had to assume Asher knew as well.
He sat on his bed for maybe an hour, sweating, on the verge of panic, wondering if he had doomed everything in that one, simple mistake. He would have to tell Foe, there was no doubt. And something else was certain.
He would have to leave.
* * *
Cass had wrestled herself up to her feet, forced herself to move again. She still had a few hours of daylight left, and she needed every last drop of it to get distance. None of the Weir had exited the stairwell while she was in front of it. She’d never even heard any on the stairs. But she wasn’t waiting around to see if they might show up.
Her mind was racing, and as much as she wanted to focus on her current predicament, she couldn’t control the swirling thoughts. Where was Wren? Who was this man Haiku, and what did he want with her son? Why had jCharles and Mol let him go?
Back in Greenstone, Wick was busy trying to find her and work up a route for her back to them. She’d agreed to it, even though in her heart she didn’t believe she’d be able to make it that far. It was a long way back, and she’d have to make a run across the Strand.
While she was still getting her pace settled, a pim came in; since she was expecting Gamble she didn’t even notice the source.
“Mama?”
The voice drove Cass to her knees, stole her own words from her. Her son. Her baby boy.
“Mama, are you OK? Are you there?”
She found her voice.
“Wren! Wren, baby, I’m here! Where are you, are you OK?”
“I’m fine, Mama. Where are you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m OK, baby! I’m OK right now. Where are you?”
“Mama, you have to run,” he said, insistent. His voice had changed somehow. It was stronger, more confident. “Asher knows where you are. He’s tracking you.”
“I know, Wren. I know. Wren, where are you?”