17.1

  I’m not sure how long the surgery goes on for, but it’s at least a couple hours. I’m on the floor for most of it, knees drawn into my chest, arm wrapped around them as if I’m sulking through a bad dream. I’m not crying anymore, though I do feel entirely empty; the chances of Fingers surviving this, even with Riven donating her blood, are next to zero.

  Dance eventually comes over to me, puts a hand on my shoulder, and says I need some fresh air, that looking at this for too long will make me sick. The tech surgeon tells me that might be a good idea. He says Fingers’ vitals are currently stable, which is about the closest thing to good news that I’ll get. She’s in a coma and looks pale and horrid and two steps away from becoming a corpse.

  So I take his advice and head outside.

  Luck of the Draw is sitting on the jeep’s hood and smoking a cigarette. He has one foot set on the power core and the other lying over his knee. No cowboy hat this time, because maybe he sees it as disrespectful in front of a church, or maybe he’s trying to respect me. I don’t know, and I frankly don’t care. This whole situation has been one chaotic mess.

  “I reckon it’s not good news,” he starts in his country drawl.

  “She’s in a coma,” I say, wiping my nose with a tissue. “But yeah—it doesn’t look good at all.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” he says. “You two seem very close.”

  “Riven is in there giving her blood,” I say, getting down next to the power core and inspecting it. It has a subtle blue shimmer through its translucent centre. “She’s not dead yet.”

  “Did you catch the fucker that shot her?” he asks, taking a puff of his cigarette. “You were in there quite a while. My mind’s thinkin’ you made him suffer.”

  That I’m not sure how to answer. On the one hand, he’s a childhood friend. On the other hand, he’s also a cop, and Luck of the Draw hates cops, especially when they’re working under Calyx Ward’s wing.

  “Something like that.” I toss the tissue on the ground and grab the power core by the top handle. It’s heavy even for someone like me, or maybe I’m just weak after narrowly escaping death for the umpteenth time. I carry it over to the back seat of the jeep. A couple seconds later, Dance and Vander come outside, looking about as empty as I do.

  “We should get a move on,” says Dance. “After an attack like that, Ward’s likely gonna up the ante.” He doesn’t speak with that thick Aussie accent anymore. Like before, there’s a bit of seriousness to him.

  “She always does,” says Luck of the Draw. “And you said you were wanted. Ain’t that right, Rhea?”

  “At this point I’m sure all of us are,” I rasp, sniffling.

  “Hm,” he says, stepping up off the hood. “I hope you know this ain’t gonna be easy. Even once we’re inside, there’s gonna be someone waitin’ for us.”

  “Adam Smoke,” I say. “Yeah, and he’s not the only one.”

  “Well, aside from Ward.”

  “No,” I say. “Isolde Crane’s gonna be there too.”

  “I have no idea who that is,” he says.

  Dance steps into the passenger seat of the jeep. “Trust me, mate,” he says. “You don’t wanna know. All you have to worry about is aiming those cards and prayin’ to God you strike gold. And controlling that chimera.”

  He nods. “Should we get this show on the road then?”

  I look at him a little contemplatively, cogitate for only a second, and then say, “Not now. I need to—well, I need to get over what happened first. Drop me off at the underground?”

  Another nod. “What’s that sayin’? Some ghosts need to finish talkin’.”

  “Ghosts, huh?”

  “It’s somethin’ the older folk like to say,” Luck of the Draw replies. “But hey, take your time. Just let me know when you’re ready to attack the dragon. I still have to get everything set up, and plan things out a little more.”

  “Thanks, Luck.”

  As promised, Luck of the Draw drops me off at Divine Guidance while the others travel to the old rail station farther east. It takes me longer than usual to walk to the Inn. I sort of just drag myself along, eyes low, hand stuffed in my jacket pocket. The world down here feels much emptier than it had over the past few days, though I’m sure that’s just a figment of my imagination. The Inn, however, is empty, because the bar isn’t quite open yet.

  Lucian isn’t there, of course, and it’s at that point that I realise he hadn’t given me any time frame as to when I could expect him. I mean, cops tend to work weird shifts, and given that he survived a gang attack on a train, it’ll probably take him quite a long time to show up.

  All I can do is head to my room and try to sleep things out. So, that’s what I do.

  It doesn’t work, of course, because the thought of Fingers’ deathly pale face is still fresh in my mind.

  So, I try showering instead, because showers have a way of calming me down even in the worst of situations, but that doesn’t work either.

  The closest I get to having any sort of peace at all is when I sit on my bed, listen to the clock tick away to hell, and stare at the wall. I don’t know why I do it, why I’m so quiet or why I can’t seem to muster the strength to move on.

  After all, I’ve lost a lot of people in the past.

  But this feels different.

  So very different.

  And I start crying again.

  In my bed.

  Wailing this time, even.

  It comes so unexpectedly.

  It comes so explosively.

  It comes so loudly that I think everyone else in this entire building can hear it.

  But it goes on anyway.

  And I’m alone, where no one can comfort me or tell me things will get better.

  Because they probably won't.

  I sleep, eventually. Not sure when, but I do. By the time I wake up, it’s a little past five o’clock in the afternoon, and I feel like absolute shit. I can hear the hustle and the bustle in the bar, and after freshening up a little, I head outside and have some drinks. Just a couple, because I know exactly how easy it is to drink myself to death.

  Vander, Dance, and Riven have already come back by that point, though none of them say anything to me. I’m sure they just want me to be alone with my thoughts, and this awful bottle of Spitz that hasn’t improved for over forty fucking years.

  I wait in the corner booth where Jonas’ brains had been splashed against the wall, not even bothering to wear my visor, looking at the table and listening to the jukebox and beer-bellied laughter.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Someone sits down across from me, and without looking up, I already know who it is. I can tell, just by the smell of oil.

  He came.

  Lucian, the boy who protected me with a broomstick when I was twelve, the boy who helped me take down Priest when I was twenty-one, and the boy who always trusted me.

  I eventually look up at him, and yeah, he looks the same as always, although now he’s not wearing his uniform. Instead, he has a simple brown jacket and jeans.

  “Thanks for waiting,” he says.

  “Don’t mention it,” I say lazily.

  “You alright?” he asks. “You sound down.”

  A part of me contemplates telling him he’d shot my girlfriend’s foot off and put her in a deadly coma, but it’s not really his fault. If anything, it’s mine. “I’m fine,” I say. “It’s nice to see you again, after all these years.”

  “Yeah,” he says, and smiles. “And you still drink Spitz. I always thought you were a bit of a masculine drinker.”

  I let out a single chuckle. “And you still have grey hair.”

  Lucian runs a hand along it. “Permanent now, if you believe it. It’s been that long, though you look like you haven’t aged a day. It’s creepy, really.”

  “You don’t look that old, either,” I say. “Anti-aging medication?”

  “Corporate-issue,” he says. “Keeps us in the cogs longer. Pay never really goes up, though.” Another laugh, and then more seriously, he asks the question: “What happened to you?”

  It’s a damn good question at that, and it’ll probably take another half century to answer. The best I can do is sum it up in points, starting with Calyx Ward’s plan to take over Neo Arcadia, to create Ourovane, to upload my consciousness into it, how she killed my father, how I woke up under a bridge decades later, how I fought through Li Wei, Obadele Kanyama, The Ghost in Satin, Cierus Marlow, snakes the size of buses, an ape the size of a car, Harrow & Carrow…. Yeah, it takes a lot of time to sum up my return to life.

  “But hey,” I finish, “better than being unemployed, right?” The joke is so unfunny that even I don’t laugh.

  His eyes are wide as he leans back in the chair. “Jesus,” he says softly. “I’m really sorry, Rhea. Had I known—”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I say, perhaps too sharply. “It’s not your fault. Ward is a manipulative, evil bitch.”

  Lucian sighs, leaning closer with his fist tucked into his palm. “I know,” he says, eyes downcast. “I’m just—I’m happy you’re alive, really. I was always wonderin’ what happened to you and your dad. There were no reports or death records or anything. And with your drinking episode, I was worried. Thought you…”

  “Killed myself?” I say flatly, fiddling with my empty bottle. “Well, I was thinking about it. Thought about killing myself every day. Felt like such a failure having no job, like I was a disappointment to my dad. But I pushed through it, I guess.” Some silence. “I really miss my dad. I just want him to hold me again. I know: it sounds childish, but the way Adam killed him, the way Ward killed him…” I think about it for a moment, trying to find the best words. “... well, I’m going to really hurt them.”

  “I never saw you as a failure, you know,” he says. “If anything, you’ve always had serious balls. Even when you told off Strannik I was impressed, and when you took down Priest, and everything you just told me. You’re not afraid to jump into the fire, literally. On the train, you were one clever chick too, using a corpse with armour as a shield.”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” I say firmly. “We were both doin’ our jobs. Nothin’ more, nothin’ less. ’Kay?”

  “Of course,” he says. “Sorry, Rhea.”

  I lean back on the seat, glance at the door, only to see Dance cleaning his shades with a tissue. He doesn’t seem to notice me, or maybe he does and he’s just pretending not to.

  “Dance,” I shout across the Inn, and he looks over at me. “Come here.”

  He tucks the shades in his front trench coat pocket, walks to the table, and asks, “Who’s this?”

  “Remember that story I told you about when I was a kid?” I ask. “About the boy that built Scrapboy with me and kicked those rebels asses?”

  He hums. “Vaguely.”

  I point across the table. “That’s him. Lucian.”

  “Oh, shit,” says Dance. “That lady wasn’t jokin’ about Divine Guidance. The cards are comin’ down flat.”

  “He’s working as a high-ranking officer for Calyx Ward,” I say honestly.

  “Always a catch,” says Dance quickly. “Take it that’s gonna create a moral problem along the way, then.”

  Lucian says, “I wouldn’t say so.”

  I cock an eyebrow at him. “You don’t need to help us, you know. You’ve been working in the force for, what, forty years? Maybe fifty?”

  “Yeah, but I’ve also always wanted to be an engineer,” he says. “Ran a workshop about seventeen years ago in the north side of Neo Arcadia. Didn’t end up doin’ so well. Business went bust, and I was back to square one.”

  Dance lets out a low whistle. “Little clients?”

  “Nah,” says Lucian. “Androids took over. I made the moral decision to keep people employed. Turns out I faced the consequences when other production lines could pump things out quicker. I was never really that big to compete anyway. Funny actually. A girl was supposed to work as a cleaner at my company. Turns out she made the magic sauce that would eventually keep powerful androids from going insane.”

  Now I really lean in. “Wait,” I say, raising a questioning hand. “Are you talking about Isolde Crane?”

  “Name rings a bell,” he says, and then adds with more confirmation: “Actually, yeah. Now that I think of it, that was her name. A buddy of mine named Silas said she needed a job desperately, and because that guy helped me get started with some materials, I felt I owed him one. Nice guy. Really nice guy, actually. Nicest guy I’ve met. But I believe, if I remember correctly, Isolde’s daughter—”

  “Died in a fire,” I finish, mouth hanging open slightly.

  “Yeah,” he says. “There was an attack from a guy named Rhyce, who was hopped up on Ghostfire, the same shit Priest was pumped with. Really tragic story, actually.”

  “Small world,” says Dance, laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Lucian asks.

  I say, “Isolde is a part of all of this. She’s working with Ward, or—there’s some complexity with a rogue AI. Ourovane, the same one Ward tried to upload my consciousness into. And she’s creating these deadly machines.” I pull out my phone and show him the picture of the rabbit robot, Lapis-9.

  Lucian inspects the image closely. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “I know those.”

  “You do?” both Dance and I say at the same time.

  He nods, cracking his knuckles nonchalantly. “Heard they were for a parade, not to take down Neo Arcadia, though now that you mention it, your story’s starting to make a whole lot more sense.”

  “It makes no sense at all, mate,” says Dance. “Humans gettin’ emotional and greedy. Her autistic daughter died, and I’m not tryin’ to play that down, believe me. But she’s willin’ to kill a whole lot more just to take down N.A. She’s clearly fucked in the head mate. Killed one of our crew too, Cormac. Psycho bitch needs to be put in the ground before she hurts anyone else.”

  “Christ,” Lucian says. “This is a lot to take in.”

  I sigh loudly and rub the back of my head. “Yeah, it really is. I’m sorry to have to unload this much into you right after our reunion.”

  Lucian sits there for a long moment, eyes on the table, thumb rubbing at a stain in the wood that will never come out. The noise of the Inn rolls on around us like a river that does not care who drowns in it. Someone laughs too loudly near the bar. The jukebox clicks and whirs, searching for another old song to bleed out.

  “You don’t have to say yes,” I tell him quietly. “I won’t think any less of you. Hell, I probably shouldn’t even be asking.”

  He exhales through his nose, a tired sound, the kind that comes from someone who has made too many compromises and remembers every single one of them. “That’s the thing, Rhea. You didn’t ask.” He looks up at me then. Really looks. “You just showed up alive when you were supposed to be dead, told me the world’s about to end, and reminded me who I used to be.”

  Dance shifts beside me but says nothing.

  Lucian leans back in his chair, eyes flicking towards the door, towards the street beyond it, towards a city that has owned him for decades. “I’ve been tellin’ myself I was makin’ things better from the inside. That if I stayed long enough, played along long enough, I could nudge it in the right direction.” A humorless smile tugs at his mouth. “Funny thing is, it never really moves.”

  I stay quiet. I have learned when silence is the kinder option.

  “My badge doesn’t mean what it used to,” he continues. “Most days it feels like a leash. And Ward…” He shakes his head. “She’s not savin’ this city. She’s stranglin’ it slow enough that people thank her for the air.” He looks at me again, and for a second I see the kid with the broomstick, knuckles white, standing between me and a gang twice our size. “If there’s even a chance you can stop this,” he says, “then I’m not gonna be the guy who looked the other way again.”

  Dance purses his lips. “You understand what that means, yeah?”

  Lucian nods. “I know.” Then, softer, to me. “And since I gave you the power core, I guess I’m involved whether I like it or not. Might as well send this the whole way.”

  I do feel bad in a way, that he’s putting his job, his livelihood, on the line. This isn’t just handing off an object and calling it a day; this is directly going against the force that he’s been serving for decades.

  “Alright,” I say. My voice cracks anyway. “Alright.”

  Lucian reaches across the table and places his hand over mine, firm and steady. “I’m in, Rhea. Tell me what you need. Tools, access, blind spots in Ward’s shiny little system. I can’t promise miracles, but I can promise I won’t run.”

  I look into his eyes, feeling that heavy sense of déjà vu.

  You’re gonna blow something up one day, I once told him.

  And he had looked at me, so seriously, yet so childishly, and said with all the confidence in the world:

  Only if you help.