Episode 4 - Cold Fusion

  Chapter 36 - Useful, Not Dead

  I climb over the row of chairs in front of me where the crowd has already cleared out to the aisles, and trot down the steps to where Rhett is still waiting against the back wall under the syn-screen. His eyes lift as I approach, arms folding.

  “Thought you’d want to talk?”

  “Did you know anything about this?” I hiss in accusation.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Didn’t?”

  “Until I spent a day in Adrian’s head. I only learnt the overarching details of our contract with Apex then. Figured the whole thing was canned just as much as Adrian did.”

  I look back up the room, Adrian sits in his chair, passing remarks to the bodies that stream past him out the door.

  “She used me? She turned my” - my throat tightens on the words - ”improvisation into success?” I mutter.

  “You should be damn thankful she did,” replies Rhett with a grimace. “It’s what she does. I wish I could spin victory out of defeat the way Mum can.”

  I pause, sniffing and touching my bottom lip, still marinating on my thoughts. “Yeah, maybe. Better useful than dead at least.”

  “You’re not that useful, you and Pooka are literally trouble. Like a bottle of cleaning alcohol that someone keeps on throwing on an open flame.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Fuck off.”

  Rhett coughs, almost letting himself laugh at my dismissive oath, and his face softens slightly as he looks up at Adrian waiting for the crowd to dissipate. “You’d settle in a bit better if you just did what was asked of you.”

  I fold my arms, mimicking his posture and lean against the wall. I can’t help myself a sigh. “I know. Aster basically chewed my head off about that. I liked working for my Dad. I didn’t mind spending time in the lab, helping with everyone’s research and drawing. I don’t mind working in the workshop with Junk, and helping Rishi out in Control. I just…”

  “There’s a little bit of your brain that makes your fingers itchy,” replies Rhett flatly, filling in my thoughts.

  “Something like that. I just want to feel something real. I don’t like some of the things Aquila does.”

  “You’re the one pick-pocketing people who have nothing to do with our contracts?” reprimands Rhett, lowering his voice even though we are almost alone in the presentation room now.

  I look at my fingers, once they were always stained with ink and graphite. Now they are clean, but littered instead with tiny cuts where I've nicked my skin on the sharp edges of wires and plastic casing. “I didn’t say I was perfect.”

  Like Pooka, we all have an animal inside us driven by impulses, that moves and feels and rattles the bars before our rational mind can hold it back. I feel stupid and guilty, I hate myself that I will never know if the people around me tolerate me because they fear me now, or because they covet Pooka. It wasn’t like I was easy to get along with before all of this, but I did try, in my own ways. And at the same time I do still feel impish joy at my imagined superiority over everyone going along with the system. I can feel both. Unlike Pooka, I can be aware that life is full of contradictions.

  We can be trees on the edge of the cliff, finding beauty and meaning and joy at our desperate survival. And it doesn’t diminish the pain of it all, but it makes it bearable.

  Rhett grunts, then pushes forwards away from me and begins walking up the stairs between the seats. “Yeah sure, I get it. You free after the party?”

  I raise an eyebrow, trailing after him. “I wasn’t planning on doing anything. Why?”

  “Adrian wants to talk, if you’ll find him.”

  Ah. “Yeah, I can meet with him.” I watch Adrian drive out of the room ahead of us, talking with the last of the employees still lingering back from the party as everyone moves through to the open lounge and kitchen we all share for meals on the same level.

  “I’ve got a peace offering as well.”

  “Oh, what kind?”

  “It’s a secret.” Rhett pauses, holding the door for me to exit back into the commons ahead of him.

  I stop in the doorway, leaving him holding the door open as he waits for me. “Tell me what it is?” I demand.

  “No, I gotta keep my leverage so you’ll show up. Meet me on the roof?”

  I tighten my lower lip, giving him an unimpressed look. “My biometrics won’t get me on the roof.”

  “Ah, I’ll take you up when Adrian is done with you then.”

  He gestures out the door with his hand, urging me onwards.

  “I told her I only do one night stands when we hooked up, and she keeps on messaging me on the blacknet-”

  “You want another?” I ask, taking Nessa’s empty flute glass from her hands.

  “Oh yes please!” she replies, bending round the side of one of the armory technicians I never interact much with to look at the drinks table. “Get me one of the bubbles again?”

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  I push through the small crowd to the drinks table and leave our empty glasses where the rest are collecting. Someone has to clean up after all, so we all do our best to try and keep things neat. I pause as I watch a Vespa crawl around the rim on one empty glass, buzzing its wings while its abdomen pulsates. I pick up the two fresh glasses, trying not to let my gaze linger.

  As I return, I land the flute in Nessa’s waiting hand while she continues her complaints. “-so I blocked her after that. But I swear she keeps on spinning up new alt-IDs. She might work in Apex intranet systems infrastructure, or her symbiont does?”

  “You could report her?” suggests the armory technician.

  “Ew, no. I just want her to stop messaging me, she was shit in bed. Way too greedy.”

  “How’d you get her into Aquila?” I ask curiously.

  “No one here cares, the cameras are only on the public floors. What, is Rishi gonna come tell me off?”

  I take a sip of my glass. “Isn’t it a security risk, if you bought the wrong person in one day?” The wine is mild and sweet, with a metallic sharpness from the bubbles.

  Nessa sighs, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, I guess? I just met her at a bar. I approached her. Bad idea in retrospect. Girls with shaved heads are always trouble.”

  “Your head is shaved,” I tease with a laugh.

  “Yeah, but not all of it!” counters Nessa.

  A Vespa flies between our circle. A second lands on the ceiling above us. “You know where Adrian ended up?” I ask, blinking the Vespa out of my vision. Too many people at Aquila are trained to be observant, I can’t be seen glancing around at nothing.

  Nessa hums and the technician is the first to reply. “He might have retired already?”

  “Oh, I didn’t get to say hi to him yet,” moans Nessa.

  “I might go find him,” I mutter, spinning my flute in my hand.

  “I’ll come too?” suggest Nessa.

  “Uh, nah. It’s cool. I gotta ask him some work stuff. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  I weave away from her before she can object or follow. As I walk the hallways deeper into the operational areas, I can smell the moist dirt from several of the largest pot plants. Someone has recently watered them all.

  Unsurprisingly, the door to operational control is ajar when I approach. As I swing it open Adrian is inside, a tablet plugged into one of the syn-screens to magnify the surface as he reads from his central podium, slumped sideways in his chair. I blink to return my vision of the symbionts, I can’t bear looking at his twisted body without it. I shouldn’t call him that, it leaves an odd taste in my mouth, but it’s like I’m not truly looking at him and the weight he carries otherwise.

  The community built on his chest has thinned since I saw him earlier, the Vespa beginning to spread out again as his eyes and ears through the building.

  “Hey,” I start tentatively, “Rhett said you want to see me?”

  Adrian doesn’t turn to face me, scrolling with one finger on his tablet and the screen before him doing so as well. The document appears to be a contract, numbered sections of legalese passing too fast for him to actually be reading it.

  “I wanted to debrief on what happened,” he replies listlessly, straight to business. “Shut the door.”

  I do as bid, and draw a seat out at one of the desks around the room, leaning on my hand slightly as I watch the contract skim by trying to catch any details to guess what he might be looking for.

  “You gonna tell me off too?”

  “I don't have the energy for it. But I'd strongly prefer you think hard about everyone else doing that for me. Especially when you risk compromising me as well. You need to learn subtlety, and quickly.”

  I sigh, turning my hand under my chin and leaning forward on the desk. Adrian scratches at his side as he spins his chair on the spot to face me, discarding his tablet.

  “Did you know Regina would spin things the way she did?”

  “No. That’s why she’s the executive and not me. You got lucky. You got very lucky. It won’t keep on happening if you can’t control your symbiont. Is it here with us?”

  “No, he’s a he,” I correct brusquely. “He’s out flying.”

  Adrian raises an unamused brow, his hazel eyes appraising me.

  “She tell you I’m grounded?” I continue. “At least for the next few months.”

  “As she should,” replies Adrian, pushing the joystick on his chair to drive it from the center of the control room to come round to me. He levels on me an even gaze, his hazel eyes lidded with heavy eyelids but piercing with their clarity despite his recent sickness. “I’m not going to keep warning you about letting others guess things they shouldn’t. I’m not interested in protecting you. I have my own problems. This ends with me and Rhett. No one else.”

  “I know,” I reply shyly. “We’re working on it.”

  Adrian frowns, drumming his fingers on the joystick on his chair as he thinks.

  “Are you okay now?” I ask to break the silence between us.

  “I can’t exactly say it was pleasant knowing what a stronger bond feels like for myself. Nor a taste of what having someone in my own head feels like. But, I dislike the medical teams more than any part of the experience, for my own reasons,” he clears his throat, chasing a guilty tone from his voice. “I’m going to ask Regina to pair you with me. We’ll keep to operational management for a few months.”

  “Why?” I ask, genuinely curious at the offer.

  “Regina has plans for you. You’re better off being prepared for them. Might help you think a little more strategically as well. And you need to actually train properly for the field, no more of Regina’s usual strategy of throwing newbies into the fire and trusting they will ‘pick it up’. You can’t keep on messing up like this.”

  I lower my eyes, he’s right. I’ve coasted on spite and bravado far too long. I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I was stuck here now. Resigning myself to actually focusing on this lifestyle feels like defeat. But… I’ve killed my first man with my own hands now, and I suspect there will be many more if I don’t clean myself up. I liked school, I liked being good at what I do. And… my choices are limited. Harris was right. I’m going to kick him in the shin if I ever see him again.

  “I get it,” I reply slowly. “I’ll try harder.”

  Adrian seems unconvinced, but before he can speak further, there is a knock on the door. Rhett enters without waiting for a verbal reply.

  “You called me?” he asks, then, "ah," unsurprised to see the two of us here. On his earlobe, he already has a Vespa.

  Adrian’s clawed hands grip his joystick, and he drives away from me with the hum of the electric motor in his chair.

  “I’m going back to the party,” he calls and as he reaches Rhett they pass a look between each other that lingers with meanings I can’t read. How many secrets do they share now?

  “I’ve got it,” replies Rhett, business-like in his manner. Then he hovers in the doorway, blue eyes rising to look at me. “You want to see the roof?”

  I get up quickly. I have to admit that I do.

  "On solitary mountains and among old ruins he lives, “grown monstrous with much solitude,” and is of the race of the nightmare."

  “...we read that ‘out of a certain hill in Leinster, there used to emerge as far as his middle, a plump, sleek, terrible steed, and speak in human voice to each person about November-day, and he was accustomed to give intelligent and proper answers to such as consulted him concerning all that would befall them until the November of next year. ... It being a November spirit, however, tells in favour of the Pooka, for November-day is sacred to the Pooka. It is hard to realise that wild, staring phantom grown sleek and civil."

  "He has many shapes — is now a horse, now an ass, now a bull, now a goat, now an eagle. Like all spirits, he is only half in the world of form."