by Jett Lang
“Ah.” The overlarge teeth gleamed. “You sure?”
“Sure you want the money?” she said. “Cheaper and better hotels around.”
“They don’t have the person you want,” the weasel-clerk said, but his smile dipped. Ellie let the silence hang until the clerk unfolded his arms and streaked his fingers over his notepad, leaving smeared prints in his wake.
“Ten’s on the table. Cops won’t offer you that. They’ll walk in and take him. Give you a pat on the back on the way out.”
“Another group of bounty hunters will come.” Queen picked up on a tremble in his voice, a breakdown of the measured calm that was the clerk’s buffer.
“As fast as the police?”
Hesitation from the weasel-man. “You’d lose the bounty.”
“Don’t care.”
“But–”
“Ten,” Ellie said. “Not a credit over.”
The clerk straightened out the glossy folds of his black suit jacket, abandoned the pencil on the notepad. “You’re worse than my manager.”
“I’m sure.”
She produced a rubber-banded bundle of credits, set the money upon the counter with deliberate gentleness. The weasel-man quickly replaced it with a pink card. She took it and put it in her pocket.
“Elevator’s to your right.” He tilted his head in that direction. “Good doing business with you.”
His large white teeth shone with saliva. He assumed his default position again, pencil tapping the crook between forefinger and thumb. He stared past the three of them, the sliding glass doorway they had come through his only concern now that their exchange was concluded.
Queen got the impression she would never see the clerk again. Not that it was a cause for concern: She was used to forgetting the many faces of the world, especially those whose purpose was limited to bribery. Five-Nine led the two women to the elevators at the end of a long hall. Light pink wallpaper. Like the keycard in Ellie’s jacket. Queen glimpsed a sidearm peeking out from inside.
She’ll finish the job if you can’t. She’ll finish you if you can’t.
The elevator dinged open and they stepped into its mirrored interior. A dozen versions of herself and her co-workers closed in on her. Floor by floor the proximity of all that reflected matter neared a point of singularity. She barely kept from crying out. She stuck a hand out slowly, her trembling fingers meeting the smudged glass. It was cold and warm all at once. The elevator whirred under her feet, above her head.
“You’re sweating.” Ellie said, a vague disgust on her face.
Queen swallowed. Offered a shaky smile. “Understandable, right?”
Then the elevator spoke in a sultry voice: “Floor twenty.”
Ellie rested a firm hand on Queen’s shoulder. They crossed the threshold into another empty pink hallway. Five-Nine and Ellie trailed behind her, the wide expanse of the corridor allowing them to spread out to either side of the closed doors. A whispering shag carpet and an air-conditioned hum under the sounds of too-loud televisions and rampant lovers.
She didn’t have to go far to find the room where Jack was holed up. They stopped, and she ran her hand over the LED numbers above the door’s peephole. Beside the frame, there was a white card reader with one red and one green circle – both unlit – near the slot. Ellie fished out the key and offered it to Queen, who took it and, after a moment, slid it through the reader. The tiny green circle blinked once, twice, and then the door unbolted.
Queen turned to face her colleagues. The software of the robot and the learned behavior of Ellie were of no real difference. Murderous intent dwelled beneath the indifferent surface, the cold calm of practiced killers. Liquidationists. Had she ever been so anxious about meeting a target? Even on her first mission, her stomach hadn’t knotted like this. She couldn’t taste bile like this.
Yet it was irrational. He’d beaten her and left her. He’d chased her in the generator room, jeopardized the mission. He’d thwarted every one of her efforts to secure a future for them both. She was being crippled by an emotion that, based upon Jack’s actions, was not requited. The sooner he was dead, the sooner she could move on.
The precious seconds ticked away. Five-Nine and Ellie stared their impassive stares. The final test would prove her worthy of pure professionalism, unmitigated by petty concepts of matchmaking or happenstance. An end to the child she was and the beginning of the adult that society demanded.
Five-Nine passed Queen her old micro halo knife, a suppressed pistol. She didn’t ask where he’d found the knife, just slid it into her back pocket. Then she clicked off the gun’s safety and pressed in the handle of room ’20-09 B.’
※
Even with the black bag over his head, she knew it was Jack.
He was kneeling with his wrists bound together in the small of his back. To his right, there was a red, heart-shaped bed. To his left, several translucence drawers built into the wall that held a variety of blurred objects of suggestive lengths. Overhead, a purple and red light streamed from two central semi-circles joined together, casting a soft light. There was no sign of struggle or occupancy in the room. The bed had been made, closet and bathroom doors were closed, his luggage nowhere in evidence. The pink shag here was pristine. Some renovation within the very recent past.
They didn’t find him here at all. They brought him here.
Jack didn’t make a sound. His white exercise shirt had blood stains along the collar. Recent ones. She put her hand on the bag. His close-cropped hair prickled her skin through the thin material. Whether this was a remnant of affection or a simple tactile assurance that he was there, she wasn’t sure.
That Ellie had bent the truth to get her down here didn’t surprise her. The whole clerk routine downstairs was undoubtedly part of the act. Would she have come along so passively if they’d have done it any other way? She didn’t think so. As for Jack, they had found him by tracking the device imbedded deep in his brain. They must have. What a joke, to think he could have run. She shook her head.
“Can I take it off?” she said.
Ellie and the robot remained near the exit to the hallway. The bathroom entrance was beside them, but the light was off and the purplish-red glow of the main bedroom didn’t extend halfway into the slim corridor where they stood, Ellie in the sultry light, and Five-Nine in the shade.
It was Ellie who permitted the removal with a nod. Queen peeled back the adhesive tape around Jack’s neck and unmasked him.
Underneath was another mask onto itself. One of a vacant, money-minded killer. The mask he had worn for the death of Wayne, and for their farewell in the forests outside Angel Bay. One part of her respected him for keeping to it, even now, when all hope of freedom was gone. And the other part of her wanted to scream at him, to slap him or beat him until he was bleeding, awake to the danger.
His career had beaten the fear out of him. She couldn’t alter that with any amount of violence or sex or words.
She whispered, “You’re the only thing breathing I care about.”
“Well you can’t have that.” Monotone. “Can’t have me ruinin’ your future.”
She dropped the bag. Wanted to say something and couldn’t. He laughed. Low, quiet. A few of his teeth were missing.
“They tried to convince me to come back, you know. I wasn’t too hot on the idea.”
“You could have stopped all of this. I tried to help you. I wanted us to have a second chance, together.”
He wheezed out another humorless laugh.
She could hear the tremble in her voice and hated it. “I tried, Jack.”
“Whatever you gotta do to ease yourself, sister.”
She took to one knee, tried to engage him on whatever physically significant level was left. “You’ve done this. You’d rather die in this shitty hotel than admit you were wrong. Think about me.”
“You’re still alive because I thought about you.” Jack looked right into her, as if the dialogue he had prepared was being proj
ected on her face. “But that isn’t enough. I know that now. I should have realized earlier, should have ignored the profile. There’re other women, right? Just like there’re other men.”
He was trying to push her buttons, to build her into a rage and spur her into action. He’d done it in the clearing, when he was supposed to liquidate her. And he was doing it now. Even as she knew it was happening, she felt it working. A satisfied smile crossed his face.
“Come on, Queen,” he cooed. “They didn’t bring you in here to talk sense into me. They brought you in here to do a job, and isn’t that all you ever wanted? A job?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll be out of your system before the barrel is cold.”
She’d almost forgotten about the gun she held in her hand. Sweat had broken out across her skin. The weapon felt foreign; heavy, and wrong. She gripped it, forced her leaden arm to lift the tremendous weight of it.
Jack’s smug smile remained. “Your green is showing, sister.”
She had the muzzle against his forehead as the words escaped his lips. Stripes of darkened blood dried on the lower. The more he talked and the longer she looked at him, the harder it was to contain herself. There was something under all that sorrow and grief. Something that hated this man, his weakness.
She looked him in his hard, black eyes. “I’m not the one on my knees.”
“Not physically.”
She pistol-whipped him, and he hit the carpet with a whispering thud. Even as she straddled him and clutched his throat, he didn’t groan in pain or beg for mercy, only breathed raggedly. Blood leaked in a thin streak from where she’d struck him. He was nothing but a toppled statue, all the fight sapped out of him.
“She is taking her time,” Five-Nine said. Ellie hushed him.
Queen barely registered the conversation. Her focus remained on Jack’s battered face. Her arms were shaking, and what little control she had was slipping as she squeezed his throat. He made no sign of even the mildest displeasure. Didn’t fight her at all. He was making it harder by making it easy. She withdrew her knife from her back pocket. Clicked it out.
“You’re a coward,” she spat, flipping him over. Sliced his bindings. Snap. Snap. “Come on! Hit me like before. I know you have it in you. I know you want to!”
But Jack only stared up at her when she rolled him onto his back. She returned the knife to her rear pocket, wrapped her fingers around his windpipe. The more pressure she applied, the more his eyes narrowed, wetter and dimmer all at once. Reddened face, hers and his.
“Say something before I kill you. I want you to say something like you used to.”
It sickened her to recognize her own begging. The pleading tone in her voice that amounted to a mewling animal, hungry and afraid. Hungry for him. Afraid of her craving. Hesitation was not part of her, not like this, and yet his continued breathing said otherwise.
She dropped her pistol, added her other hand to his throat. Both her thumbs pressed down on his Adam’s apple. It refused to move even for an involuntary swallow. His breaths washed over her wrists in weakening puffs. He wanted this to last, wanted to punish her. Penance for what she had been unwilling to do for him.
The bastard. The bastard.
“Why won’t you die, Jack? Why won’t you leave me alone? Just go.” On and on, she chanted, and on and on she pressed down. “Just go, just go, just go.”
He reached over to her backend. Felt the knife there, and she tensed. Ready. But he didn’t take it. No. He patted her. Once. Twice. Three times. Then he smiled.
His guard fell and the full pressure of her grasp crushed down on his windpipe. The veins on her hands bulged blue. A crunch and twist of his neck, and it was done.
Jack’s last breath dissipated on her skin. Gooseflesh spread. Her fingers relaxed. She sat over him and stared at the heart-shaped headboard of the heart-shaped bed. Her vision blurred, and she closed her eyes. Felt realization dangerously close behind them.
A hand fell upon her shoulder. Light, small. Ellie.
Queen wanted to break those fingers. She could. Before Five-Nine could shoot her. She could. But that would do almost nothing for her. And nothing for Jack. It would make everything worthless.
She inhaled slowly. The sensual oil, incense, and lubricant on the shelves filled her senses with none of the eroticism they were designed to foster. She only wanted to end something. To make something pay for the terrible loss she felt. Maybe the robot, maybe Ellie. Maybe both. That would comfort her. More than breathing or balms or currency.
The weight of Ellie’s hand was gone. Queen stood up. She didn’t close his eyes, didn’t let her own linger over his body too long. If she touched him again, she wasn’t sure she could leave his side.
“Your gun,” Five-Nine said.
She said nothing. Stepped over the corpse and straightened her jacket, tensed and relaxed her fingers. Rubbed her wrists.
“Your gun.”
“Have the cleaning crew pick it up.”
“Why?”
Queen turned and regarded the robot’s perfectly oval countenance. “Because I don’t want to touch it.”
“Do you not wish to be open with your new partner, partner?”
Queen took a step forward, stabbed a finger in the robot’s chest. “I’ll fucking scrap you.”
“Do not make promises you cannot keep. It is rude.”
Surge of adrenaline, rage.
Yes. This is how it should feel. How it should have felt all along.
“I promise,” she snarled. “I really, truly promise.”
Ellie pulled Queen away by her shoulder. “Save it for the paid assignments.”
Queen kept her gaze on Five-Nine. His green eyes darkened, pulsed once.
Ellie flicked her chin. “Down here.”
She fought the urge to punch the woman in the mouth.
“Don’t need more dead teammates,” Ellie said, and looked over at the corpse. “He killed one of mine in the struggle. Offered him an olive branch. Stuck my neck out for him because I felt sorry for you.”
Queen looked from the brunette to Five-Nine, but Ellie read the thought.
“Don’t worry about him. He’s not telling Syntheia anything after the modifications I ordered. My men are out of the loop, too.”
“She is correct. I am programmed to report to her alone. This does, happily, reduce redundancy. One boss, infinite joy.”
Back to cold professionalism. As if nothing had happened.
“What if Syntheia wants him to report something and he doesn’t? She’ll know.”
Ellie shook her head. “Wants no part after the incident with Mr. Chamber. Best for the team to splinter. For now.”
“And our payment?”
“Generous. Have to find our own transport and housing. Staying in Angel Bay’s a safe bet. It’ll be her new headquarter city.”
She fought a desire to look at Jack’s remains. Pointless, and in poor taste. The memory of him was soiled anyway. She could almost hear him asking if it was worth it. Congratulating her on her new position. She didn’t need to add her own weakness. Not in front of co-workers. Your new friends.
“Can count on you, can’t I?” Ellie’s tone was firm. “Deserve that after what I did for you.”
If Ellie was telling any bit of truth, that might have been the case.
“Yes. You can count on me.”
Her superior drew to an intimate distance. “He didn’t want it. Offered him more than I should have. Even with all that, he wasn’t satisfied. There was something broken in him that no one could fix. Whatever he was means nothing. Doesn’t matter anymore. We leave this room, we leave the man. So do you. Say it.”
“I leave the room. I leave the man.”
She cleared her throat. A deep-rooted strain burned with each sound.
Ellie nodded once. “Wayne, Jack, Chamber. Living or dead, people are the same to us.”
All weightless impediments to ou
r paychecks.
“Are you telling me this, or are you telling yourself?”
Nothing except neutrality registered on the other woman’s features. “Don’t make me have to remind you who’s running this group of ours.”
Queen left the unit. Her legs carried her on the path to the elevator, the whisper of pink shag familiar underfoot. It was the material she and Jack had walked upon. In the hotel they had shared in Angel Bay. And she thought, perhaps, that was the memory she would be able to keep.
Or maybe he wouldn’t want to be remembered at all. Not by her.
The illuminated room numbers decreased on each side of her. Step after step, her thoughts were muddied. She wasn’t sure about what Ellie said. Wasn’t sure Jack would disappear so simply from her mind. The profiles that matched them together were a precise aggregate. Though he had been the only one to know the exactness of the pairing, she didn’t doubt the truth of it. That very truth was inside her, clamoring.
It was with a trembling finger she summoned the elevator. Behind her, she heard the soft, assured footsteps of her fellow assassins. She stared at herself in the metal of the elevator door. Distorted, dented. Unfocused. She took a sharp breath.
Just go.
A Girl and Her Robot
Her apartment was on the sixty-fifth floor on the east side, in the business sector of Angel Bay. The rent was high, but she could afford it now. She could afford anything now, within reason. The money drops came in every two weeks and covered expenses for the next two months. She used the first batch on rent and the down payment on a jetbike she spotted on a weekend exploration of the city’s high-rise malls. Her needs were all within walking distance, and her targets were often only a short train ride away, but there was an overriding urge in her to take to the skies.
Statistically, jetbike collisions did not end well for the occupant, but she wasn’t concerned with the consumer average. Up in the air, thousands of feet above the structures and citizens, her thoughts honed in on piloting the slender craft. A black bullet against a blue sky. After weeks of practice, the complexities of the bike became an extension of her, a secondary home where memories were cast off into the clouds.