Episode 4 - Cold Fusion

  Chapter 37 - Peace Offering

  I let out a gasp of excitement as I push open the double doors on the roof and step into the open air.

  In the dark, the whole city is alight with the glow from windows and signs. Apex logos are minimal, shining brightly from all the tallest buildings. The starlight above us is a white smear across the distant dome, the reflective glare of the city below obscuring any real chance of seeing the outline of individual stars. I bend over the railing, grinning as I stare down below us as well. There are walkways and streets between the buildings, the halos of cars and streetlights illuminating the asphalt pathways. The spaces between buildings doesn’t fall as far below me as it did at Murasaki in the Cooperative City. There, skyways disappeared into the yellow haze, and I could never really see the ground, satisfied instead with imagining where it was below. Instead, here between the skeleton of an unseen undercity, shifting dark water that laps gently at Apex City’s bones, reflecting back upwards the lights in a shifting mirage.

  The air is clearer here than Murasaki, they must have better infrastructure for their carbon scrubbers and air purifiers. Everything here is always better than they ever were at Murasaki each time I am tempted to draw the comparison.

  There is almost a gentle breeze in the night air, and I lean against the railing, pitching my torso over the edge as far as I feel safe doing so into the open sky, taking a deep breath and trying to feel as if I too could fly with Pooka. It might be the alcohol helping, but moving air just feels like life.

  “It’s a good view?” remarks Rhett, coming to my side, leaning backwards against the railing on his elbows. Hanging from his wrist is a plastic tote bag he’d picked up on the way from his apartment. It was on a floor only a few levels below us, only accessible with a thumbprint scan in the elevator. Instead of a corridor like on my own floor, with several numbered rooms and the shared bathrooms at the end, there was a dead-end hallway with only a few doors. I wonder who else he shares the floor with, maybe Regina? From there, we took a utility stairway up the final levels to the roof deck.

  There is a Vespa on Rhett’s ear still, wings buzzing restlessly as it perches on the helix of his outer ear. Pell, however, isn’t with him. I don’t think I saw him at the party either till he appeared to collect me off Adrian. His movements don’t have the crisp efficiency I’m used to seeing from him; his hard frame softened by a sweater instead of white collars and suits. Still recovering then.

  Adrian leaving me unsupervised, but not Rhett, is a curious observation I’ll have to think on further. The most obvious answer is that Adrian now perceives him as a threat to monitor, and not me. Or perhaps Adrian doesn’t have the same leverage over Rhett that he has over me, although I think that secret becomes less and less obvious with every mission that passes. I swallow nervously.

  “It’s nicer than Murasaki,” I reply sincerely instead, pulling my thoughts back to the view in front of me. “There was this smog there that never cleared.”

  “Hmm, that’s from BCF. They do plastics manufacturing.”

  “At Co-Op City?”

  Rhett hums an affirmation. Then he holds the plastic bag in his hand out for me without any preamble. “Here.”

  I sniff, cautiously taking the tote uncertain of what to expect from him. “Why?”

  He doesn’t meet my eyes, looking at the ground in front of his feet. His lean hands tug at the edge of his sweater. “It’s thanks for saving my life. Maybe a little of an apology, reassurance I’ll keep my word and vouch for you still. I dunno.”

  “You’ve saved my life. I think we’re just even now,” I mutter, dipping my hand into the tote to pull up a black folio. My heart jumps into my throat, and I put the tote down in the shadow of the railing to open the folio with both hands.

  Beautiful matte paper unfurls in my hands. Natural beige fibres thread between visible, genuine wood pulp; a subtle pressed texture on its surface. I brush a palm across the top sheet, then flick my thumb down the side to leaf through the pile, estimating the number of pages. This is high-quality stuff, way better than my dad could ever get ordered for me.

  I’d smell it if I didn’t think it would be too weird, but I can imagine what it would be like if I put my face to it — wood pulp and glue. I content myself with just my fingertips across the surface, admiring the organic textures and colors.

  “This is amazing,” I gape, feeling a grin grow from ear to ear as I admire the gift. “How did you get it?”

  “Mia tracked it down for me,” confesses Rhett, infuriating casual indifference in his reply. He still won’t look at me, but there is a curl of amusement at the edge of his mouth.

  I laugh, shutting the folio and tucking it under my arm. “Nepo-baby! Can’t even do your own shopping!”

  “Is that so?” he mutters in reply. “I can take it back?”

  “No, no, no,” I reply, suddenly defensive, recoiling from him in case he moves to take the folio back. “I want it. Give it to me!”

  He laughs, the first time I’ve freely heard him laugh. His face relaxes, and the tension in his jaw softens. It’s not lyrical and free-flowing like Regina, but low and soft, as if he himself is unfamiliar with the sound of his own voice. Or maybe it's not the first time; he was laughing on our first - no, second - mission together when we rode Pooka. What a strange feeling that must have been to fly across the ground on an invisible Equus.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You didn’t have to,” I say finally into the space that follows as he catches his breath, inserting the folio back into the tote bag and feeling a pang of sadness as I put it away. “I’m serious that we were even.”

  Rhett tucks his hands into his pockets, watching out over the city behind me and across the roof. “You owe me then. Don’t -” then he bites off whatever he was going to say next, chewing on the words in the dark. After a moment of thought, “Don’t improvise like that again.”

  I frown at those words, my breath catching involuntarily, and kneel against the railings, hanging by my hands. He shifts to watch me with one eye, mask of indifference too complete for him to ask what is bothering me, or truly share his own feelings. Or maybe he is aware Adrian listens, and he doesn’t want me to say too much. I’m not sure how to navigate any of these relationships I’m growing to sense now.

  So instead we wait in silence, and I watch the water far below shift and ripple, driven by currents unseen.

  Rhett waited with me like this last time I killed someone. I say ‘I’, but only my mind hunted with Pooka last time. That time it was teeth and claws, warm blood on my throat and viscera caught between my teeth.

  At Diarbardi, it was my own hands. Something raw twists in my stomach as I hear the crunch of breaking bones again, feel the weight of that wrench, the jarring force that propagated up my limbs on contact, and the fear of moving shadows in the pale again. Unconsciously, I lift a hand to brush my arm where fingernails left scratches that have already healed to pale, fresh skin.

  Maybe he knows.

  “Does it ever get easier?” I ask.

  “First times become seconds. And thirds, and fourths,” replies Rhett, not even asking what I’m talking about.

  “I told Adrian I’d try harder,” I say timidly. “I don’t want to keep on fucking up because I have no idea what i’m doing. It doesn’t exactly feel good.” I wrap one hand around my elbow, cold suddenly in the exposed night air.

  “It’s easy to judge from Control. But yes, ideally most work doesn’t turn into colossal fuck-ups,” replies Rhett shortly. I snort in amusement, but cast another glance at the Vespa on his ear. He continues, “What about Pooka? I know -”

  “I’ll never control him,” I assert, confident of at least that. “But he’s not the same as he was either. ‘Trust me’ doesn’t mean very much from my mouth, I know that. But it won’t happen again, at least not like that.”

  I fly above, free and wild. I overlap with my friend, who I will trust and love to feel my sadness with me.

  Then I take a breath.

  “I need help,” I confess in a tumble. “I’ve been trying to build a comms device to contact my dad, but I need an invertebrate that can help program it. I need parts I can’t get from old alarms and sensors and locks. I’ll owe you. Anything you want. But I need help.”

  Rhett turns slowly as I jumble out my plea, a glance of concern darting across his features. “You have to be care-”

  “Adrian knows. I know he knows. He listens right, he keeps secrets right?” I can see the Vespa spin on Rhett’s ear, jointed legs delicately gripping the contours of his earlobe.

  The muscle in his cheek tenses, his teeth almost clicking audibly together as he clenches his jaw in the dark. And the warning he voices is a low rumble, “None of us are free agents, Conrad. Aquila has too much on each of us.”

  And yet, we have a power over Aquila too. An uneasy tension we could hold up as a mirror to chains. Regina wants my power. Regina needs Adrian. Regina will not turn on her own son, who is her own legacy. Individually, none of us would ever be enough; the keys we each hold too disparate. But the three of us could bring the agency to its knees one day. And Regina will play nice with each of us because she knows it.

  I will take the grace she has offered me and turn it to my own advantage, damned be the guilt that wraps my heavy heart and sours my gut. If the system will protect me from my worst mistakes, I will use it back as well. She wants a weapon. I will show her what that comes with.

  I will show Pooka that I can unravel chains in my own way.

  “I know. But I know this mask you wear isn’t you either. You weren’t always this way. You get itchy fingers too,” I declare.

  Rhett does not reply. In the dark, his expression is too complicated for me to read.

  “I’m just asking,” I continue, “that when the opportunity comes, I’ll trade a favor in return? Please.”

  Rhett frowns, shrugging slowly sideways as he thinks. “If the opportunity seems right,” he replies. It’s not yes, but it’s enough.

  “Thank you.”

  I stand, turning into the tranquil night and raising one wrist to the sky. Pooka dives, my vision just catching sight of myself in the blurred shapes and streaks of light that fill his vision in the night. At the last minute his wings snap open and he breaks sharply, primaries stretching like fingers in the dark. He lands, talons deftly gripping me, eyes gleaming, lighting up the entire roof with their fire. I can hardly feel his weight, ephemeral and cold like the chill of frost on the edge of freezers. Rhett watches my silent motion, his eyes narrowing in thought.

  I raise one hand, and pat Pooka between the eyes, digging one finger between the feathers of his brow and scratching his solid skin below. I can feel each calamus and growing pin feather with the sensitive pads of my fingers, some even broken with jagged keratin tips catching on my nail. He could be any shape he wanted to be, but he chooses imperfect shapes nonetheless. He leans into me, blinking his eyes shut slowly, and settles his wings by shaking his body and tail one after another.

  I feel trust from him. I feel raw emotions that he does not have the complexity to parse. And I feel him hand them to me, to process for him. He still feels his sadness and his anger; I cannot take them away from him or heal the wounds of the past.

  But I can try something new.