by Jett Lang
Queen stared at the foot of her bed. Took a deep breath. “He said that we should kill Syntheia.”
If Ellie was surprised she didn’t show it. No hint of anything in those muddy eyes except the eventuality of death. “That’s when you called me.”
“Yes.”
“Wanted to start with you?”
“I wouldn’t be here if he wanted me dead.” Cold calm had settled over her. There was unexpected peace in her betrayal. She refolded the microcloth napkin, offered it to Ellie. “He told me there were trackers in our heads.”
Ellie considered the cloth for a fraction of a second, then pocketed it. “Who told him that?”
“A doctor at Grey Wolf Point.”
“Jack’s a generous liar.”
He’s not the only one.
She forced a smile. “You’re right. Of course he was lying, trying to get under my skin.”
“What he’s trained to do,” Ellie said, and rested a cool hand on Queen’s unwounded arm. “He made the wrong move. You didn’t. Showed your loyalty to us.”
She nodded. Ellie’s cold fingers squeezed above her wrist.
“Syntheia will be pleased.”
“Absolutely, who doesn’t like hearing someone wants them dead?”
“More powerful people want Syntheia dead. Wanted Wayne dead. Isn’t new; just the nature of the hierarchy. Boss lady is in alliance with the big boys now.”
Her hand slipped away and she got up. She had an average height with average features that Queen, in some ways, envied. Forgettable people made good killers. It was thanks to her uniqueness that people remembered her so easily during her final mission in New Paradise. That mission was a failure that she wanted erased from her brain as much as from her record, but a perverse voice within wanted to keep telling her about it. Ellie pushed the stool back under the bed.
“Syntheia’s not invulnerable,” Queen said. “I think he could kill her, if that’s what he really wants.”
“Does he?”
“I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Ellie plucked an invisible hair from her jacket’s forearm, examined the leather, and smoothed it out with the back of her hand. “Sending some guys over to guard your room. In case he decides to visit.”
“Outside?”
“Outside,” Ellie confirmed. “Resting is your top priority, after all.”
“Not for too much longer.”
Ellie was already opening the door leading out into the white hallway. She was halfway outside when she said, “We don’t find him in the next four days, you realize what needs to happen.”
She did. But she didn’t reply. She was exhausted emotionally and physically. When the door clicked shut behind Ellie, Queen was already blinking out of consciousness.
※
Queen’s next four days were almost identical. The new television arrived on the second day, but she didn’t watch it once. Instead she forced herself into equilibrium, and her exercise was regular and grueling. After the petite, redheaded nurse checked up on her in the morning, she would strip from her hospital gown, shower, walk, rest, then go right back to walking the corners and edges of her square confines. Over and over. Two full days of this regime and the nanobots in her seemed to become open to the idea of letting her strain herself. Instead of working at keeping her in an energetic but bedridden state, the “little guys” settled on an energy boost only. No more sickness.
Jogging short laps about the room were not out of the question by day three. By the fourth she could painfully but safely return to push-ups and stomach crunches. Though she was panting and dog tired at the end of her late afternoon workout, she knew by the morning the old, professional Queen would emerge, groggy and begrudgingly ready.
Even if Jack is your target?
“Yes, even then,” she said aloud.
She wiped her long legs down as she sat on a perforated plastic chair between the shower and the sink. She watched the droplets from the showerhead form, fall, and splash, almost mutely, into the drain surrounded by perfectly square and perfectly white tiles.
Don’t you care?
“I care about me.” Drip. Drop.
You care about more than that, you bad little liar.
Drip.
“I don’t.”
Drop.
You believe Jack, little liar. As soon as he told you about that chip, you bought it hook, line, and sinker.
It was something that had been kicking around in the back of her mind, but she couldn’t talk about it with anyone else. What he said had only confirmed her suspicions, and the evidence agreed. Syntheia had known where they were. Their former employer had known where they were. Jack might have crossed her, but he had no reason to lie about it. He had been in a rage, too far gone to concoct such an elaborate story.
A tiny droplet fell right through the drain without crushing itself on the metal. No drop.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” she whispered.
She finished drying herself off and draped her towel over the chair. She filled the sink up to the brim with cold water, splashed her face with handful after handful until the echoes of doubts faded. She didn’t need that noise. Because that’s all it was. Noise. Useless, useless noise.
She drained the sink. Snapped off the lights, and went to bed without her gown.
※
Once the digital numbers hovering green about her nightstand switched from ‘05:59’ to ‘06:00,’ Ellie came strolling in. She shut the door behind her, balanced a bundle of folded dark grey clothes and a pair of running shoes in the crook of her arm. She laid the pile at the foot of Queen’s bed and scowled at it with her arms folded.
“Problem?” Queen said, performing her last set of finger-to-toe stretches upon the cold linoleum floor.
Ellie’s scowl diminished to a straight line. “Been going through a lot of clothing. Hard to find in your size.”
“What can I say? I’m a tall girl.”
“See that.”
Since last they spoke, Ellie appeared to have aged ten years. Dark rings dug under her eyes, crow’s feet more visible thanks to the tired skin. Queen read the stressed complexion, wondered how old Ellie actually was. Early to mid-thirties, by her estimate. Though, if things did not slow down soon, the late-forties were not out of the question. Ellie looked like she could use an injection of nanobots herself. Queen almost said so, too.
She collected the clothing, unfolded each article and identified them as exact copies of what she had worn prior to being hospitalized: grey jacket, faded white shirt, and grey jeans. The shoes were a crisscross of brown string, black mesh and rubber. She got the feeling there would be much movement from here on. She took one more wistful look at her bed before taking the clothing into the bathroom.
“What’s our plan?”
Ellie followed her to the doorway, spoke the moment it whined shut. “Can’t explain much here.”
“Syntheia can’t trust the people that work for her?”
Silence on the other side of the door. Then, Ellie’s muffled voice: “Especially not them. Recognizes the pitfalls of trusting those without a great deal to lose, should they find themselves unemployed.”
“You saying she can’t blacklist medical staff?”
“Employee rights groups have a firmer hold in Prosperity.”
The waist on the jeans was a little tighter than she would have liked, but Queen slipped into them without complaint. Otherwise, the rest of her street garb fit fine. It was lighter than she remembered, and that meant wherever they were going would either be warm or climate-controlled.
They must have found Jack. Isolated his location to a pinprick on the map.
If she asked, Ellie would tell her little. Queen was on the thinnest of ice. One too many inquiries on the wrong subject might send her into freezing waters she could not climb out from. She left the jacket unzipped, opened the door.
Ellie had her back against the opposite wall, seams in the paintjob describing a close
t that was now covered over. The plain, expressionless woman gave her a once-over with eye movement alone.
“How’s it fit?”
“Pants are a bit tight.”
“Lack of exercise,” Ellie jibed.
Queen smiled without knowing why. It wasn’t terribly funny. Nothing about Ellie was, actually. Grave and serious, no humor underlying it. Since the Wayne operation she was less human; more a pantomime of human expressions that maintained functionality in a working environment. And if this was the affect it had on a veteran of the killing arts, what could Queen expect in her future?
“I’ll have to get back into shape.”
Ellie propped up off the wall. “There’ll be plenty of chances.”
Her superior strode out into the sterile hallway, bound on the linoleum path the young male nurse Gregory had rolled her along days ago. Queen shut the door behind her with a click.
※
There was city stretching out in all directions. Progress under a domed sky of sunless grey, hover traffic swarming about the central nexuses of trade and production. Out the rear window of the luxury hovercraft was a mansion that had seen far brighter days. Paint flaked off the twin pillars at its broad main entrance. Three stories tall, with additional wings, all dark red brick. The compound had many windows, but each was shuttered by a corrugated metal slider.
“Syntheia’s family home.” Ellie said, sitting beside her on the black leather.
The home shrunk fast as they rose to the roof of the mansion’s private dome, inactive and translucent. Beyond, the frenetic rhythm of the city’s winter steel, glass, and holographics. Through the moon roof, Queen saw a circular glass hatch in the dome slide open, swirls of snow perorating down to the estate.
The rising hovercraft cut the flurry in two.
The grey light was cold on her face, and she sank into the leather. That was cold, too. She zipped up her coat, but it didn’t help to subdue the chill.
“Never been to these grounds before. Not until the boss lady hired me,” Ellie said, small white hands in the outer pockets of her jacket. Her head was canted toward the partition between passengers and pilots. “Seen pictures in its heyday, so imagine my surprise.”
Queen found it odd that the small talk was continuing here, where it was just the two of them. Well, the four of them, accounting for the pilot and his co-pilot, and they were sealed behind a soundproof wall, half frosted glass, half leather. The two pilots were chattering about something, but none of what they were saying was coming through. Despite this, Ellie proceeded to talk exclusively on the trivial matters of her employment – co-worker-speak which blended dangerously with friendliness.
Queen didn’t do more than nod her head in the right places and give cordial replies, here and there tossing in her experience working for Syntheia thus far. It wasn’t until they were well out of Prosperity airspace that Queen realized she had fallen into a genuinely engaging conversation about the nature of their business and their employer.
Part of her was frightened, and it wasn’t because she was warming to Ellie’s guarded and bleak personality so readily. She recognized aspects of herself in the woman’s words and mannerisms. Minute gestures of her hands, the way the edges of her mouth creased whenever she smirked. A litany of other tiny details that described an older version of herself.
Her plain-faced future.
The world below transformed from desolated city-sprawl to mist-covered pine forest.
Love Nest
The skies had cleared over Angel Bay, and the waters along the private shores and docks were the calmest she’d ever seen. When they landed on a steel platform extending out to the ocean, Five-Nine was there, standing at a ramp that led out to lines of metal benches and glassed-in kiosks. Its, or rather, his trench coat lashed violently about his black pants and elevator shoes. Holding his black fedora, he looked like a child molester in an exoskeleton. The jig was up; the cops were finally onto him. She laughed quietly, and Ellie gave her a warning look without having to ask where the humor lay. She beckoned Queen toward the unfolding passenger door.
Crisp, cool air welcomed her as she quit the vehicle, the lightest heat of real sun on her cheeks. She inhaled. Studied the barbed-wire fence encompassing the docked vehicles. Exhaled.
Inland, beyond a pair of guard booths, the neighborhood was a series of modular residential blocks stacked atop one another for one hundred stories. The pastel blues, greens, reds, and yellows never touched a matching color. They were windowless and unmarked; low-end rentals for the coastally-inclined who couldn’t afford a space farther up the shore.
Why someone would want to rent a place on the water without windows was anyone’s guess, though there were droves of company men that needed an escape from their offices or spouses. The rates were usually low and daily; they had plenty of rentals like that around the University and Business Districts of New Paradise.
Good places to hide in. Good places to kill in.
Five-Nine had pep in his step. His programs had him in good spirits, which came through loud and clear when he spoke. The usual monotone liquidity had blended to his new, chipper persona.
“Good day, ladies. My, you arrived swifter than I would have anticipated. Then again . . .” He swept a polished hand toward the luxury hovercraft behind them.
“Install went smoothly?” Ellie said.
“Oh yes.” Five-Nine’s radar green eyes pulsated with every word. “I dare say I have never felt this not-alive.” He furled his fingers into a fist, and then unfurled them in a blossoming of alloy.
“Personalities are expensive.”
“And I am forever thankful to our esteemed honcho for this upgrade.”
Queen snorted. “Honcho?”
“Part of my new personality software.” There was a smile in the machine’s tone. “I have access to a veritable compendium, updated four to six times per hour. Flabbergasting.”
He took off his fedora and inspected it for a second, placed it snugly back on his head. He must have caught her look because he shrugged.
“I am still working out the kinks.”
“Motor function?” Ellie said.
Above, a gull swooped precariously over a gaggle of business-dressed visitors at the central information kiosk, and they watched the bird and their hovercrafts’ warily. But the gull glided across the blue sky without any trouble. The relief on their faces was palpable.
“Working perfectly, ma’am.”
“No mistakes,” she said. “Want this finished today.”
“That is why I am here,” Five-Nine said. “I tracked him to this complex. The clerk says he is registered here.”
He made a point to turn toward Queen when he said it, as if the coffin needed another nail. His shiny new personality software hadn’t done anything to remove his vindictiveness, it seemed.
“We’re wasting time.”
Ellie started walking at a brisk pace, and while Queen kept up, Five-Nine was forced to jog for a short time to reach them. They passed the kiosks, the metal benches, the silver planters of sago palms. The chatter of business people.
Queen caught glimpses of their lapels. Sewn on each was the Wayne insignia of a crossed rifle and sword below a glinting gold crown. These were executives, richly threaded. Their white teeth flashed beneath the temperate sun.
Ellie turned to Five-Nine. “Scout the place?”
The robot feigned injury to his chest. “You wound–”
“Yes or no?” Cold voice. Distant.
She stopped in front of the gate, showed her ID to the middle-aged uniform manning one of the booths. He nodded, and the heavy, gunmetal gate shuttered open. Out on the street, the Angel Bay denizens puttered about on their scooters and bicycles. The sidewalks were cluttered with shoppers clasping bags from a dozen varied stores, all of them colorized in primaries and psychedelics. “Bright colors, dim people” was how one of her bunkmates had put it.
Five-Nine answered Ellie with a single pulsation.
“Yes.”
A strong smell of ozone was in the air – the aroma before a storm. Sleek blue and white police hovercraft sped over their heads. The ground-crowd idled, shook their plastic bags and cellophane containers.
Normalcy. Queen drank it in like she’d never see it again. She didn’t know who she’d be once she left the windowless building. Would it bring her peace, having Jack’s blood on her hands?
Clusters of people were talking around her, and she lost herself in the noise. She was staring at the striped pavement when dizziness hit her. There was a sour, acidic taste in her mouth.
The sign across the way changed from DON’T WALK to WALK. The bare, tanned legs of the crowd started to move. She was forced forward with the masses. Wafts of cologne and perfume samples, of fried vendor foods. She clung to their uncomplicated sameness tighter with every step closer to the pastel apartments.
※
As far as love hotels went, the lobby was not as bad as she expected. There was no sign of electronic equipment on the high beech counter, behind which stood a well-groomed and balding clerk. He wore a form-fitting black business suit two years out of style, and in spite of his weasel-like features, he regarded all three of them with a friendly gleam in his over-wet eyes. He folded his arms over his notepad, tapped a yellow pencil mutely at the skin between forefinger and thumb. In the low light, the clerk appeared as jaundiced as the pencil.
“You’ve come for the one in 20-09 B.”
Ellie observed him long enough to make him uncomfortable. Hands in her jacket pockets. Two feet from the counter.
“What do you want for him?”
“No trouble, for one.”
“What else?”
The weasel-man showed teeth that were too big for his mouth, too white. Ellie only blinked at him.
“How much?” she said.
“Twenty. He’s important.” He ceased tapping his pencil. “Very important.”
Queen glanced edgewise at Ellie. The usual unreadable slate.
“This place . . .”
“Yes?”
“. . . doesn’t have any cameras.” Ellie considered her boots for a moment, then looked at the clerk with her muddy eyes.