by Watts Martin
Some of the students clap, although the noise dies quick, stifled by teenage self-consciousness. The cisform girl raises her hand again. “But how can you measure success when there’s no laws to overturn or get passed?”
“Well, like I said, I’m not in the RTEA myself, so I can’t tell you what they do. But I know there’s a lot of data points you can track, and there’s also—well—the feel. I mean, I’ve lived on Panorica, I’m still there a lot, and I don’t worry about what neighborhoods I can go into. Not much, anyway. Thirty years ago I might have felt like I needed to be more careful. I’ve also lived on Carmona, and I’m really sure I’d have only stuck to certain places there thirty years ago.”
The mouse doesn’t bother raising his hand. “So do we still need the RTEA?”
What kind of a question is that? She bites back a sarcastic response. But she doesn’t want to give a glib answer. Maybe it’s a good question.
He goes on. “I mean, I know there’s still discrimination. But you didn’t join it, and you’re not worrying about having your ribs broken or being blown up or something. I never hear about it except in history class. I don’t think Purity is even still around.”
“They are. At least they were around ten years ago when one of their leaders tied me to a chair and threatened to cut off my ears.”
Most of the students gasp or wince.
“I understand your question, though. I’d have asked it a few years ago, even after the tied to a chair thing. Hell, I’d have asked it a few weeks ago. Can I say ‘hell?’ Sorry.
“I guess I stayed away from the RTEA because I lived through what happened to my mother, right? And that was the worst attack from them, but not the only one. I hope none of you will ever have to face people that crazy, but here’s something to think about. How many of you—and I’m speaking just to the totemics now, sorry—have ever been walking down the street and noticed cisform people giving you a wider berth than other totemics do?” About two-thirds of the totemics raise their hands, including Skeptical Mouse. He looks dismayed.
“How many of you have noticed ones you know doing that, like your classmates?” Nearly half the hands stay up.
“I’m not going to ask cisform students to raise their hands. But as long as a majority of those hands go up when somebody asks that question—maybe even if just a single hand does—then I think the RTEA still has a point to make. As for Purity, honestly, I don’t know how much of it might exist under that name anymore. But their ideas are still around, and after—” Whoops, she needs to be careful where she goes from here. “If circumstances change, they might get more popular again. If more people become totemics, for instance.”
This sparks quiet conversation for a few seconds across the whole group. Then a lanky cisform boy in the front, short black hair and skin the color of the Ring’s sky, raises his hand. “So was the bomb your mother’s?”
The room explodes in angry noise. Gail’s ears flush.
“Hey!” Tabitha stands up, raising her hands over her head. “Settle down!” She turns to Gail. “I’m sorry—”
“Don’t be.” She levels her gaze at the pale kid. “He’s not the only one who wants to ask that. He’s just the only one who had the nerve to.”
He shifts in his seat, but keeps his eyes on hers. He doesn’t look mocking. Doubting, maybe.
“In the time I knew my mom—and in everything I learned about her later, from my adopted sister who worked with her at the RTEA, coworkers, even my dad before he left—she was brash, direct, sometimes confrontational, and she didn’t give a damn about ruffling feathers.” She pauses. “First ‘hell,’ now ‘damn.’ I’m a terrible role model.” Most of the kids giggle. So does Nevada, although Enrique and Tabitha both twitch.
“But here’s the thing. I’ve seen news images of her being beaten, when they cracked her ribs. Instead of fighting back—” She hugs herself. “She did this. And she let herself get beaten. She could have died then.
“And it’s not that she was some supreme pacifist, that she was against fighting back. She knew that any violence a totemic commits just becomes ammunition. ‘See, they don’t just look like animals, they act like animals. They think they’ve gone and made themselves more than we are, but really they’ve made themselves less.’ She would have rather died than give someone that ammunition. Eventually, she did.”
He looks down, shamefaced.
There’s a few more questions, none as challenging, before Tabitha gives everyone leave to head to lunch. There’s a round of applause that makes Gail’s ears color. Afterward, some of the students come up to shake Gail’s hand. One of them hugs her, then runs off looking mortified. She can’t help but smile, although it’s as much bemusement as amusement.
“Ms. Simmons? Good luck with whatever you’re doing at the RJC tomorrow.”
It’s the rabbit girl. What? How does she know about that? “You’re—your mother works there, doesn’t she? Ms. Dupree.”
The rabbit nods. “Yes. She’s an arbiter there. She knows your sister. Um, adopted sister. She really likes her.”
Gail smiles. “I like your mom, too. What’s your name?”
“Josie.” The girl smiles shyly, like she wants to say something more, but after a moment she just shakes Gail’s hand, too, and follows her classmates.
As they walk back to the teachers’ lounge, Tabitha puts her hand on Gail’s shoulder. “Thank you so much, Ms.—uh, Gail. You’re really inspiring.”
She stumbled through about fifteen minutes of quasi-speech and mostly just demonstrated how little she actually knows about the RTEA. Inspiring to who, exactly? She turns to look up at the tigress, and the sincerity in the woman’s eyes makes all her snark shrivel away. “That’s not something I’m used to hearing anyone say.”
“Oh, don’t sell yourself short.”
Nevada laughs. “She does that all the time.”
Gail’s ears fold down. “You’re gonna make me blush. Look, my mom’s the one everyone cares about. I wouldn’t be famous here if it wasn’t for her. When people come up and gush at me about how great it is to meet me, I cringe inside. I don’t do anything. I don’t know anything.”
Tabitha’s started to look nervous as Gail’s little depressive rant picks up steam, but Nevada slips her arm around the rat’s shoulders. “Do you remember what Ansel said yesterday? Did you hear anyone cough?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I didn’t hear a single cough.”
“You’re a natural speaker, Gail, trust me.” Enrique shakes her hand. “If you want to come back next year, or do—well—anything with the school, we’d love to have you.”
Nevada’s tail wags. Gail stammers something noncommittal, pleasant enough to make both Enrique and Tabitha look happy before they head off.
“And I’d love to take you out to dinner before you leave.” Nevada tilts her head. “You’re appearing before the RJC tomorrow? I overheard Josie.”
“Yeah, it’s that thing I’ve darkly hinted at but haven’t explained. I’ll stick around until I can take you up on that dinner offer, though, I promise.” She gives Nevada a hug. “Thanks.”
The vixen hugs her back, tail wagging harder.
“God, how can this be so difficult? I got the information you said you needed from my banking partner back on Carmona to you yesterday!”
When she’d left the school, a simple thought had hit her like a cargo hauler: everything but the tribunal lies behind her now. Her life is almost back to normal. Instead of feeling relief, she just feels like she’s got an extra knot or two in her stomach, though. Maybe it’s the unresolved bank screwup. Her life can’t get back to normal until she can fly Kismet out of dry dock, right? So that’s what’s led her to screw up her lunch at Blue Coyote by calling her bank.
“Our dispute department’s reviewing that information now, Ms. Simmons.”
“Come on.” She groans. “How much reviewing can this take?”
“I can connect you with them
directly if you’d like.”
“Yes, I’d like.”
“Just a moment.” Hold music starts playing.
What’s on her plate claims to be a vegetable enchilada, but it’s lying. It’s diced vegetables cut in precise cubes, with a light beige creme drizzled over them in precise rings, mounded on a corn tortilla cut to a precise square. It’s undeniably artful, and the vegetables have a super-intense flavor that must come from compression cooking. But she wanted an enchilada. This is an enchilada construction kit.
“Ms. Simmons? This is Kimberly with the dispute resolution group.”
“Hey. So…?”
Kimberly has the decency—or the acting ability—to sound genuinely apologetic. “I’m sorry this is taking so long. You’ve been over the case information with one of our other representatives, correct?”
She sighs. “More than once.”
“I understand. Your previous banking partner on Carmona has confirmed the transactions we’ve requested information on, but your account’s still flagged for hold. It looks like we haven’t been successful in getting in touch with the independent auditor who initiated the complaint for his client.”
“Would that ‘auditor’ be a guy named Tom Laurel?”
“I don’t have that information.”
“Look, Laurel isn’t an auditor, he’s an amp dealer.”
“Even if that’s true, if the client’s chosen him as an independent auditor, we have to give him time to respond, Ms. Simmons.”
“You don’t understand. There is no client. It’s Laurel and someone working with him at your bank.”
“I’ll note your assertion for the investigation. Either way, his deadline to respond is tomorrow morning. We should be able to lift this by close of business tomorrow either way.”
“That’d be great, because I kinda need access to the money yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Simmons. I can check on extending a line of credit to you in the meantime, if you’d like.”
“Don’t bother.” She disconnects the call and covers her face in her hands for a few seconds, then goes back to the deconstructed enchilada.
Lunch is just about finished when she sees Suspicious Detective across the street. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding. Could it just be a coincidence? Sure, technically. But he could trace her here just as easily as she traced Jack—the guy might not be a great detective, but he’s probably not completely incompetent.
Okay. She could make the effort to try and ditch him. If the restaurant has a back exit, it’d be pretty easy. But even if he doesn’t know where she’s staying, he knows where she’s going to be. Ducking out would only be a delaying tactic. On the other hand, if he’s looking for a fight he’s got to have brought a weapon. He’s not stupid enough to want a rematch.
Beedle boop “Call from Blake Nelson.”
“Who the hell is Blake—” She looks across the street. Mr. Nelson. Oh, Mara’s Blood. “Fine. Connect him.”
Suspicious Detective doesn’t start with any small talk. “We need to have a conversation.”
“Shouldn’t I be having a conversation with your boss, not you?”
“This isn’t a conversation that involves him.”
Her ears lower. “Since you’re standing across the street, I’m guessing you want it face to face.”
“Smart rat.”
“We’re like that.” She disconnects the call, then gets up and walks to the café’s exit, steps onto the sidewalk, and faces him, hands on hips.
When he sees her he acknowledges her with a sneer and a heh she sees rather than hears, and he saunters across the street. As he approaches he raises his hands. “I’m not armed and I’m not looking for another fight.”
“Good.”
He points back in the direction of the RJC building. “Let’s walk and talk.”
She falls into step by his side. “About what?”
“You’ve made things a lot more difficult for us than we’d planned. You weren’t supposed to figure out it was Corbett, or to get there in time to catch him. And if he’d just played it cool he might have gotten away with the thing then.” He shrugs, hands in his coat pockets. “Or if I’d figured out a way to block you before Thomas got there. Heard he got suspended. Where’d he go off to?”
He sounds like he’s unhappy Corbett didn’t get away. “How should I know? He was investigating me, not the other way ’round. Look, the most likely outcome here is that Keces ends up with their databox, Quanta gets nothing, and everybody who’s supposed to goes home happy. Quanta’s claim is pretty tenuous, and Sky may not love Keces’ plans but they could be a lot worse.”
“That’s not the outcome I need, rat. My organization needs to get that databox before this charade of a tribunal gets underway.”
She comes to a stop, staring at him. That’s why this doesn’t involve Nakimura. Nelson’s working for Quanta.
He turns to face her, crossing his arms. “Look, I was there when you got into this whole thing. You're no moral crusader. You’re in it for the money. We have money. You help us, you get money. It’s that simple.”
This is ludicrous. She almost laughs, but it’s not funny ludicrous. “Even if I wanted to, which to be clear I absolutely don’t, what the hell do you think I can do? Steal the databox back from the RJC?”
Nelson shrugs and starts shambling down the street again. “You stole it from the PFS once already.”
“No, you idiot! It stayed with Agent Thomas the whole time!” she hisses. “Christ, if it’d ever been in my hands it’d already be with Nakimura.”
“If you’d gotten it to him earlier I could have handled it, but you didn’t, did you? So now we gotta get it back from that wolf woman, and the only person who can do that is you. You’re about the only one she trusts.”
“It’s not getting it from her, it’s getting it from there!” She stabs a finger in the direction of the Judicial Cooperative’s office. “And how much do you think she’d trust me if I managed to do this?” Now, after she’s spoken to her sister more in the last couple of days than the last year, after their relationship is less broken than it’s been for a decade, you want her to smash it completely?
“If I was you, I'd be less worried about keeping her happy than keeping her alive.”
Her blood freezes. “What does that mean?”
“You know they’ve killed people for this already. Do you think they’ll blink at doing it again? Everyone between them and the box is expendable. You, Bright Sky, your fox friend, Agent Thomas, Taylor, Nakimura.” He snorts. “Me.”
Her fists clench hard enough to drive her claw tips into her palm. “If you hurt anyone I care about, I will kill you.”
He stops walking and looks down at her. “You might think you understand the lengths they’ll go to for this, but you don’t. You have no idea. And you have no idea how much some of them would love to hurt you specifically. Hate me all you want, but I am throwing you a goddamn lifeline here.”
She closes her eyes. Take a deep breath. Stay calm.
“And if you figure out some way you can help us, I’ll see what we can do to help you.”
She doesn’t say anything. She’s still focusing on calm. It’s not happening yet.
After a couple seconds of silence, he goes on. “I saw you’re having financial trouble. More than your usual cash flow problems. Account locks, high repair bills. Tough combination. Even if that lock gets lifted, from what I hear, you don’t got much more money than what you need for your first payment. What about the second? Third? How many installments are there gonna be?”
“From what you hear, huh.”
“I really am a detective. We hear things.”
“Detective, extortionist, double agent. You get around.”
He sighs. “We can pay it all off for you, all at once. You go back to drifting around like you want. And I know what Keces offered you for the wreck. We can match that.”
“Even if I could steal it, which I can’t, I d
on’t trust you. I don’t trust Quanta. I know they don’t want to beat Keces to market with Shakti. Is this all just about stealing the better version of Kali?”
He snorts impatiently. “That’s not your business, or mine. Just trust me about the consequences. Either you choose to get a lot of money, or you choose to let people die.” He pulls out his viewcard and taps on it a few times. “I’ve sent you my contact info. Let me know what your plan is before the tribunal. And if you try and tell anyone about this…” He shrugs.
How the hell is she supposed to come up with a plan and pull it off in an evening? “I can’t do this. Please.” Something painful and cold twists up inside her.
“You can. Be creative.” He shrugs again. “We’re gonna have to figure out how to get the databox out of this damn asteroid belt with two or three law enforcement groups trying to grab it. So I think you’ve got the easy part here, right?” He starts walking away. “You told me you were better than I am and you know people better than you. I got faith in you, rat.”
Gail watches him cross the street, her vision blurring, then sits down on the sidewalk, leaning against a building wall and staring up at the ice sky. The scream comes out as a quiet choke.
Chapter 19
When Sky and Gail arrange to meet Ansel for drinks, they learn he’s relocated to a hotel near the city core, both cheaper and, as he puts it, more urban. The little bar they meet at is right across from his new lodgings; Sky knows it, although before they get there she confides to Gail she doesn’t think it’s worth the price.
Ansel seems impressed, though, by not just the drinks and the bar menu but the whole neighborhood. “I have to admit the club next door looks interesting, too.”
Sky chuckles. “You sound almost regretful about it.”
“No, I’m happy I found it. I’ve just been…surprised exploring the city today, I guess. Are you all right, Gail?”
“Hmm?” She snaps back to attention. Now isn’t the time to be thinking of ways to break into the RJC. Is that even possible? Maybe she wouldn’t be trying to steal the databox, she’d be trying to talk someone into giving it to her. God, that’s insane.
