by JC Hay
Not that he could have expected that. Netta couldn't help but admire the graceful way he leaped back, arms up to ward off the blow. He glanced at her hands, confirming that she didn't have another weapon to bring to bear.
She let her breath out, bracing herself on the edge of the table. After three years it wouldn't do to collapse in front of him from adrenaline-shaky legs. Netta pulled the breath back in, trying to exude a calm she didn’t feel. "It's been a long time, Joshi."
Netta's first thought was that he looked old. Not in a decrepit manner, but that he'd been roughly used and neglected. Rather than dispelling her memories of his perfection, the contrast highlighted them, drove home why those seven days with him still haunted her memory three years later. Gray dusted the dark hair at his temples, and the lines around his eyes and between his brows had deepened.
His eyes—she'd forgotten what actual human eyes looked like. The scientists and staff at BlueGene had upgraded to cybereyes, just as she had. As the price came down and the available software became more varied and useful, they were becoming universal. The delivery driver who had brought her food yesterday had them, no doubt tied to bodycomp software that projected a GPS map to his next destination.
But not Joshi. His eyes were still beautifully human. Netta resisted the urge to touch him, and her fingertips ached at the denial. "You've looked better."
He smiled, the warmth traveling all the way to those soft brown eyes. "You're okay? Did they take anything?"
"Did who take anything? What are you on about?" She scanned the lab to be safe, but everything was just as she'd left it.
"You've been robbed. The place is ransacked."
Laughter bubbled up, an unexpected emotion surfing on the last waves of adrenaline in her blood. "I work here. It’s always like this."
He examined the room more slowly this time, and she could see him processing the patterns in the chaos, trying to understand. After a moment, he nodded. "Things are where you use them."
The tingle of disappointment she'd felt at his scrutiny evaporated. So few non-scientists understood. The research stayed pure, but the rest of the lab tended to get disheveled as you focused on the work.
"Wait, you broke in here because you thought I'd been robbed?" She'd been meaning to upgrade the security in the hall, knowing that it would only be a matter of time before BlueGene or one of their rivals came after her. She couldn't hide behind faked data forever. Sooner or later Corporate Services would be hired to send someone.
The silence from Joshi dragged on, past uncomfortable and into deafening.
The fear and disappointment slammed back with a vengeance as the realization hit home. "No. You broke in because you're here to do the robbing."
"Not exactly." She waited, and he obliged by continuing. "This is a cleanup job."
Netta looked around at the lab. "It's fine like this."
"That's not what I mean. And you're brilliant enough to know the difference."
Her pride fluttered at the compliment, trying to lift her spirits, but her disappointment held strong. It was the option she hadn't expected, that BlueGene would decide her work needed to be destroyed rather than risk losing it to a rival. She put one hand on his chest, as though she had any chance of holding him back. "Please. I'm so close."
He took a deep breath, the warmth of his body pressing up against her hand and reminding her how he’d felt beneath her palm three years before.
The pause gave her hope, that he'd been fighting with himself, that he would understand, but when she looked into his face, the sadness in his too-human eyes was plain to read.
Joshi took a step back, leaving her skin cold where his pulse had been a heartbeat before. "I'm sorry, Netta. It's what they pay me for. If it helps, I know how you feel. It's nothing personal, just business."
She was about to tell him exactly how personal it was to her, but the door to the lab hissed open again. From the hall, the high-pitched whine of a capacitor grew loud, and Joshi stiffened. His eyes widened, his sudden inhalation a mirror to the fear that chilled her limbs and kept her very still.
The man by the door nodded, his voice as soft and cultured as his accent. "A concept we all understand too well. Dui bu qi. Move so I can see both of your hands, please?"
Chapter Two
J
oshi laced his fingers behind his head, ignoring the grind in his shoulder that lanced dull pain through the joint. Standing next to Netta gave him the excuse to assess the newcomer. Chinese, but the accent had told him that much already, and dressed impeccably in a linen suit that looked perfectly designed to maximize mobility but still beat the heat.
The mangler in the man's hand stayed focused on Joshi the entire time, the flattened nose cone that indicated the business end of the weapon showing a full red bar of LEDs to indicate maximum charge. One pull of the trigger would fire a tight microwave beam, superheating the water in cells and organs and rupturing flesh with steam. As weapons went, they were ineffective—hard to focus, lots of splash damage, and time-consuming to charge up. The pain and massive destruction they could create made them plenty intimidating all the same.
The newcomer stepped close enough for Joshi to see himself reflected back in the mirrored surface of his cybereyes. One hand kept the mangler between them, while the other reached out and plucked the pistol from Joshi's shoulder holster.
"I'll want that back."
The other man laid the heavy pistol on a counter, next to the bag of yarn. "Sadly, you won't be needing it. I will send it to be buried with you though. It's the least I can do." The man’s movements were slow and graceful. Restrained. Joshi recognized the obvious ploy to disguise how modified the man might be. He used the same tactic himself—if you don’t show off everything you’ve got equipped, you can still unveil a few surprises that might give you the edge in a fight.
Some of those surprises Joshi’d had done on his own, just to make sure they’d stay out of his files with Corporate Services. He’d heard too many rumors, too many stories of operatives sent to take down other operatives, and anything not in his file could be the thing that saved him. With his thumb, he pressed the space on his left wrist that told his bodycomp to dump adrenaline into his bloodstream.
Joshi's vision narrowed to a near-tunnel, while the rush of his pulse crescendoed in his ears. Every muscle in his body tensed for action, pulling a gasp from him. He planted his feet, already calculating the ways his opponent might respond.
The other operative nodded, his look almost resigned despite the emotionless chrome eyes. "Or we could do this, I suppose. I haven't fought one of you older models since the war." He set the mangler next to the pistol and stretched with languid grace. The creak of tendons sounded enormous in the silence. "I could use the amusement."
Joshi hoped Netta had been smart enough to take cover. He charged.
The assassin didn't change into a fighting stance. Joshi barely saw him move. One moment he stood calmly, and an eyeblink later his heel had already driven out into Joshi’s ribs.
White pain blinded him. Joshi bounced off the strike and back into a table. Lab equipment went to the floor with an expensive-sounding crash. While his bodycomp dumped painkillers into his blood to compensate for the broken bone, Joshi used his momentum to spin on the smooth rubber surface of the table and drop behind his attacker. His punch was moving before his feet hit the ground.
The other operative ducked under the swing. Two fists hammered into Joshi’s injured rib and sent pain shredding past the drugs that should have stopped it.
Joshi screamed and slammed his elbow into his opponent’s shoulder. Nerves ached as he cracked into subdermal plating, and his elbow skidded off the other operative.
The man didn’t hesitate. He rolled with Joshi’s elbow, twisting to catch the arm with a grip like a steel claw. He changed the angle quickly, pinning Joshi with a hyperextended armlock.
Joshi cursed his stupidity, could almost hear his old instructor chiding him. This is
what happens when you let emotion drive you into action.
"That wasn't rational, my friend." The other operative stepped in and lifted, putting pressure on Joshi’s shoulder joint and steering him around the lab table. "Then again, you early versions tended to be short on tactics. It's what made you so disappointing."
This was going to hurt. Joshi went slack, dropping to the floor with all his weight. His shoulder dislocated from the pressure, blurring his vision. At least he didn't need to see for the next part.
The sudden shift pulled his opponent off balance. He stumbled forward just as Joshi powered up with his good arm. His fist caught the man in the solar plexus. Even through subdermal armor, the punch connected, driving air from the other operative's lungs in a cough.
More importantly, he released Joshi in surprise.
Joshi tucked his dislocated arm against his chest, ducked under one table and scooted down the next row away from the man. With luck, he'd not be the only person to act without thinking.
His opponent grabbed up the mangler from the table and pointed it. The radome tracked Joshi with the smooth precision of a targeting computer, just as Joshi’d hoped. With a quiet prayer to whomever watched over villains and operatives, he changed direction to dive behind the lab's server.
At nearly the same time, the other man fired.
Netta couldn't move for fear of throwing up. She watched, helpless, as the new agent fired his weapon while Joshi dove behind her computer. The one that had all her research. The one that had the answers.
The one that, a heartbeat later, sparked and flared where the invisible beam hit exposed metal, paint bubbling and blistering under the heat. She didn't need x-ray vision to know that the protein storage matrix, so carefully nested inside the server, had boiled and ruptured into uselessness.
Three years of her work. One life already lost. So many more that she could have saved. Gone in an eyeblink.
It took her a moment to realize her fears were as much for Joshi as agony over the loss of her data.
He was losing the fight. The other operative, the killer, had tossed his weapon aside and returned to fighting hand to hand. His speed and strength outpaced Joshi's; she didn't need her optics modules to identify that.
The two of them danced backwards across the room, Joshi engaged in a delaying action to keep the other man's attacks from finishing the job, but his defenses were narrowing. Too many hits were sneaking around the edges, and with one arm tucked against his chest, he wouldn't last long.
Netta grabbed her knitting bag, and her foot nudged something on the floor. The iron bar she'd brought in originally. She scooped it up before ducking under the table to come out in the next row.
Joshi went down with a crash, supplies being pulled off a rack as he scrambled for purchase. The other man tugged a backup pistol from a holster at the small of his back and clicked the safety off as he leveled it at Joshi.
"Impressive," he said. "If it’s any consolation, most of you early models don't last this long. They rely on speed and strength. No elegance to their style at all. But you're different."
"I like surprising people."
Netta could hear the pain behind Joshi’s words, and she still admired him for his defiance. Not that she would tell him that. Or that these next seconds were about anything she might have felt about him. His kindness had been paid for, artificial. Unearned. Given her history, that was all she deserved.
No. This was for her.
"It's almost a shame it won't save you, Mr. Joshi. Good b—"
The operative stopped mid-word as Netta swung the iron bar into the back of his head. Her fingers went numb from the impact, and the killer took a step forward before dropping the gun and collapsing.
Joshi stood up and looked at her. She found herself staring back at those completely natural eyes, reading the surprise and relief that warred in their depths.
"What?" she responded. "I wasn't going to let him execute you."
He reached out and took the iron rod from her. "You didn't hit him hard enough."
For a moment, she expected him to swing the bar into the unconscious man, finishing the job she'd started, and her stomach lurched in expectation of the violence to come. Instead he smashed it into one of the gas taps on the table. The nozzle broke off, and the room filled with the smell of natural gas. Joshi didn’t hesitate and cracked open two more taps.
He dug into his pocket and pulled out a palm-sized lump of pinkish-gray putty. She'd seen enough action-adventure vids to know what happened next, a fear that was confirmed when Joshi looked at her and said, "Run."
She froze, and he repeated himself, charging toward her and herding her toward the door. He activated the timer as he moved and dropped the explosives behind him. The other operative grunted in pain as he started to recover, then Joshi had shoved her out into the hall and slammed the door behind them.
Netta jumped through the open window to the roof and lowered herself to the street below. Joshi followed, his feet hitting the ground just as her lab, her only home for the last three years, exploded.
Netta raised her arm to ward off the rain of debris and shattered glass. Fire licked at the edges of the building roof that hadn't exploded outward.
She resisted the urge to plunge one hand into her knitting bag and stroke the wool to calm herself. Three years. When was the last time she'd even been outside? Panic seeped in at the edges of her brain. Her clinical mind took over on default, noticing her accelerating pulse and her rapid breathing. Don't hyperventilate. We're outside. People go outside every day. She felt naked, unprotected, while her former sanctuary burned.
Voices cut through the haze. People were gathering. Of course they were. Something had exploded. Even in a relatively uninhabited part of the warehouse district, there were bound to be hundreds of people. It was Mumbai, after all. Netta looked left and right. No one seemed to be paying her any more attention than anyone else. No one had associated her with the destruction. If she was cautious, she could slip away. She wondered how long it would take to reach the apartment she supposedly had in Bandra.
Fingers curled around her elbow, gentle, but firm enough that she couldn't ignore them. She spun and found Joshi staring at her, his concern so apparent that it burned her. As though he had the right to care. As though she deserved it.
Netta slapped him.
He didn't move, just closed his eyes and said, "I earned that. But you need to go if you plan on living."
"Go? Where?" She could hear the edge of panic in her voice and fought to keep it under control.
"That explosion won't slow him down for very long. We both want to be a long damn way from here when he pulls himself out of that wreckage."
His fingers trembled where he held her arm. A random, unconscious behavior. So slight that she wondered if he'd begun to notice it yet. Netta knew the symptoms of implant rejection all too well, but then she'd dealt with her sister for such a long time. It made her hyperaware of the signs.
He caught her staring at his hand and removed it. The brief pang of regret at the loss of him surprised her. Worse, it reminded her of the last time he’d left her alone in the city, unsure of what she would do on her own.
Then he stepped into the crowd. Abandoning her.
Panic crushed her ribs, and she squeaked, taking a step after him. "Wait! Where do I go?"
Over his shoulder, he said, "Don't go anywhere that BlueGene knows about."
Where in hell would that be? They'd given her everything. She didn't have anyplace in the city that they hadn't purchased for her. "You can't just leave me! Not again." When he didn't respond, she grabbed him by the shoulder.
He winced, and she remembered after the fact that it had been dislocated. The pain didn't stop him, however, and he continued through the crowd with an uncanny ability to dodge between people.
By comparison, Netta felt like she was swimming against the tide.
In the sky overhead, a slash of Devanagari letters burst into
flames to advertise a movie. The augmented reality overlay—ARvertisements—surprised her, but Joshi gave no sign of noticing. It brought her focus back to his human eyes. She stared, wondering what he saw when she looked back at him. She whispered the only word she had left and hoped he could hear it through the noise. "Please."
Sirens sounded in the distance. Sorrow darkened his eyes, and he kept his gaze down as he stepped around a building and out of her line of sight.
She had followed him far enough from the explosion that the crowd had thinned slightly. It gave her an opening to chase after him.
He waited for her just around the corner. "Don’t follow me, Netta. You can't—"
"No, you can't. You blow up my home? Destroy my life's work? And now you want to abandon me on the street?" She resisted saying again, but only barely.
He took her by one shoulder. "It's not that I want to. It's just safer this way. There's a killer hunting us, in case you hadn't noticed. Or at least after me. You're going to be safer far away from me."
"I want to hire you." She blurted the words without thinking, but they worked. It made sense. And it gave her an out.
His head tilted like he'd heard an uncomfortable noise. "That's not how it works. You need to go through Corporate Services to hire a bodyguard. They'll assign someone." He said it with a practiced, matter-of-fact tone, as though he hadn’t just suggested calling the very people who’d been hired to kill her.
"That’s ridiculous. You're here. You're available. More importantly, if they’ve already got a contract to come after me, then I doubt they’re going to be in a hurry to protect me as well.”
“They’re neutral. That’s why any organization can use them. They don’t choose sides.”
Netta growled. “You almost sound like you believe that. You really think they haven’t chosen a side against you at the moment?”
"I don't do wetwork."
"What?" She blinked, appalled at the idea that she'd hire him to murder someone for her. A corporation might have no qualms about doing it, but she never could. "No! I want you to do the exact opposite of that."
