by JC Hay
"You sound like you read up on it." He looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "Are you secretly thinking of going into Operations?"
Netta couldn't hold back a smile at that. "Hardly. My sister fought in— She was a soldier." She told herself that he didn't need to know more than that. The lump crushing her windpipe wouldn't have allowed her to say more anyway. The pain abated some as she avoided the topic. It was better this way.
She distracted herself by examining his chest. Purely out of medical curiosity, she reminded herself. The bruising over his ribs looked horrible, black and vivid purple with streaks of red where the impact had forced the blood away from the surface. The wounds did little to detract from the sculpted musculature of his upper body. Without coming off wiry, each muscle stood out in stark relief beneath the warm umber of his skin. She smirked. If she'd had him around when she was in college, memorizing all those muscles for anatomy class would have been a lot more entertaining.
"Is it that bad?" He sounded resigned.
"More like glorious." She rushed to append, "-ly purple."
He turned his head, eyes narrowed. But she'd still caught the spark of heat behind them. The way they'd dipped to look down the front of her shirt before rushing back to her face.
"I'm serious. This looks like it hurts." She kept her face down to hide her smile. Other injuries were written in white scars across his skin. The puckered star of a gunshot wound. The straight slash of a blade. A poorly healed animal bite in his upper arm. He'd seen a lot of action, even before the IRS started to take its toll, but something was missing. "I'm not seeing much muscular atrophy. Your implant rejection can't be that bad."
"That's not what my doctor said." As he spoke, she spotted the mild palsy in his opposite hand, signs of his nerves losing their myelin. "And as for the pain, I've had a dump of beta-endorphin. Pain's easy to shut down."
Netta gritted her teeth to avoid letting her horror show. "You’re using transcranial stimulation for that?" She already knew the answer but felt like she had to say something. It was a dangerous upgrade, despite how common it was in military mods. "Pain's your warning that things are wrong. It's not healthy to turn it off."
"If I gave in to the pain, I'd be out of commission, and you'd be on your own. Hardly a good option for either of us."
Netta ran her hands along his ribs, feeling the telltale bumps of the intercostal armor he'd mentioned as well as the slight crepitus she'd expected to find. The heat of his skin brought back too many other memories, too many other wants, and she forced herself to focus on the clinical. "Definitely two broken ribs here. This one feels like it’s in two places." He nodded, and she moved up to his shoulder. "This arm's not sitting right. Do you have any upgrades, or is the rotator cuff degraded?"
"Just bio-fiber implants." He winced as she lifted his arm. "Tell me about your sister."
The movement had to be agonizing for him to feel pain through the beta haze. "I think the joint hyperextended and caught muscle when it relocated. And there's not much to tell."
"I'd like to hear it anyway. It'll keep my mind off things when you reseat that shoulder."
She grimaced. Of course he'd realize it was the best way to fix things. "You should probably look at the wall. Read the crawler or something."
He chuckled. "Natural eyes, remember?"
Netta checked the detailed AR, finding it hard to believe he didn’t see the digitally rendered decor—the fake window with a view of an unoccupied Chaupati beach, the bright orange Devanagari letters of the news crawler, with Arabic subtitles flowing in the opposite direction. Without AR, the room would be a lifeless, gray space. "This is going to hurt," she said automatically. "Or maybe not, in your case."
Joshi nodded and stared off in another direction while she planted her back in his armpit. "Sister?"
"You're persistent." She grabbed above his elbow with both hands and braced her feet on the floor. "There's not much to tell. We were fifteen years apart. She was the firstborn. Mom and Dad had me late." Thoughts about Jada were never quick in coming. They had to wend past all the barriers she'd put in place before they could surface, and they didn't want to shake loose easily. "She fought in the S-A."
"The Sino-American War gave us a lot of the progress in implant technology."
"Largely because both sides took advantage of the desperation to legitimize untested technologies and large-scale human experimentation." Netta shoved up into the joint with all the force her legs could muster. He huffed quietly, and she felt his shoulder dislocate and reseat itself. It came apart too easily for her preference. Maybe she'd misjudged how far along his rejection had progressed. The joint felt loose. "Is that better?"
Joshi stood and swung his arm in a few directions. She noticed he didn't bring it above the line of his shoulder. "It will do. It's better than it was, thanks."
She stepped in under his arm and laid a hand on his broken ribs. "I'd feel better if we had resin cast available to protect these."
"I'd feel better if I had a dozen military-grade drone rigs running double perimeters around us. We can't all have what we want." He looked at her mouth, a momentary lapse in his aloof control that brought memories rushing back to her. Frustration slithered in the spaces between her thoughts—wishing he’d stop the tease and tell her if their liaison three years ago had been business or pleasure.
Or she could just run with the now. She stepped closer and leaned up to kiss him. He pulled away slightly, and Netta could feel his nervous tension. "I'm not some lost girl anymore. I know what I'm doing."
He nodded with a sigh. She slid her hand up his cheek, feeling the stubble grate against her palm as she tugged his mouth to hers. His good arm slipped around her waist, keeping her tight against his chest as their mouths took turns yielding to each other.
The patient insistence of his lips matched the quiet, slow-blooming heat that swelled out from behind her ribs and spread along her nerves like a warm blanket. She opened her mouth, inviting more, and he obliged her. Netta curled her fingers in the waves of his hair, keeping him as close as she could.
When she broke away to draw a breath, he leaned his forehead against her shoulder with a shuddering sigh. She opened her eyes to look at him, but her attention was pulled immediately to her picture on the AR Newscrawler.
"What is it?" Joshi stiffened and moved away from her. "What's wrong?"
Netta forced herself to remember that he couldn't see the wall, which was plastered with pictures of both of their faces and someone's phone-cam footage of her burning lab. Her heart pounded against her ribs, desperate to escape, and any warmth the kiss had created in her had turned to icy water. It impressed her that, when she spoke, she could keep her voice stable. "We're wanted. For bioterrorism."
Chapter Four
H
is shoulder ached even as it slumped under the weight of her announcement. “Clever,” he admitted. “Harrying 101, really. It cuts off our options for finding help, eliminates a lot of the places we might hide.” He knew full well that Corporate Services understood how to break their prey. He’d been one of their preferred hunters and excelled at keeping prey on the edge.
Not that he felt any pride in the skill, seeing the terror and hopelessness in Netta’s face. For a moment, protective rage blossomed in his chest, and he wanted to find the bastards who had set this up. Do the things she didn't think him capable of. What he was made for. He curled his hand around her arm and led her back to the bed so she could sit down.
Getting emotionally compromised would only endanger them both. Rule One. Do the job without attachments. Every operator kept their own moral code; it gave them a compass. Kept them sane in the otherwise murky and amoral world of intercorporate warfare. He couldn’t get involved, couldn’t afford to care, or it would limit his choices. Keeping her safe took precedence.
"But that's not true. That's not what happened at all." Netta's voice sounded far away. She still focused on the gray, featureless wall, and Joshi had to
remember that she received more input than he did. He thought again about going back for the ARglasses in the other room; at least then he’d be able to see some of what the news stories were saying. The urge to smile felt out of place, but it was probably the first time in his life he wished he could view the colorful projection of Augmented Reality that overlaid the everyday world.
He curled his hand over hers. "Of course it's not true. But you and I are the only folks who know that. On the plus side, there are places, even here, where people don't pay attention to what the news is telling them. It's going to take a bit of running first, but we needed to move anyway."
"What about you?" She shook her head as if clearing it and focused on him. "You needed to sleep."
"Things have changed. I can sleep later. For now, we move." He walked to the far side of the bed and began to tuck her knitting back into its bag. The softness of the yarn surprised him; he had expected it to be scratchy or itchy. Instead it felt light, almost like spun silk. "Time to break out the cash I asked about."
Netta rolled over so she was facing him and dug into a pouch on the front of the knitting bag. She pulled out a thin stack of bills, no more than a few thousand rupees. "Will this do?"
He took the money and counted it quickly before dividing it between his front pockets and the bag. "It will have to do. Come on." He started for the connecting door when a heavy fist pounded on the door to his room. The thin walls shimmied with each strike, and the door certainly wouldn't hold against a concerted effort.
Joshi almost sighed in relief—knocking meant the conventional authorities, who still had rules to follow. When the assassin from Corporate Services found them, he wouldn't bother with announcing his presence before he kicked down the door.
Joshi turned to Netta and signed for her to get down. She had finished packing her scarf and pulled the bag onto her shoulder. Before she could ask a question, he held a finger to his lips. She nodded, and the people in the hall knocked on the door again.
Quietly, Joshi closed the door between the two rooms. It wouldn't confuse them for long if they came through, but it should make them pause, and that would be all the time he needed. When he heard the door give way in the other room, Joshi triggered the combat hormone cocktail from his bodycomp and went into action.
Time dilation was a common side effect of the massive amounts of adrenaline, and despite the years of experience, he'd never quite gotten used to the sense of everyone else moving in slow motion. He burst into the hall from Netta's room, surprising the three officers still standing there. By the time they reacted to his arrival he was among them, like a tiger among goats.
Two went down as he cracked their heads together with a sound like coconuts striking concrete. The third started to turn, swinging the police-issue stunner up before Joshi stepped in and grabbed the top of the weapon. He twisted and shoved as the officer fired, directing the twin darts into the man who'd entered the room.
The fourth officer went down twitching as Joshi spun the one with the stunner into a sleeper hold. With a twist, he could end the threat permanently, the way he'd been taught. But it wasn't the officer's fault they'd been sent. And if Netta believed he could be more, then maybe he could try. A few long seconds later, the guard slumped into unconsciousness. Joshi lowered him to the floor, then paused to check the first two, making sure their pulses were still strong.
He looked up to see Netta standing in the doorway. When she didn’t move, he prompted her. "It's time to go."
Netta stepped into the hall and studied the collection of khaki-clad bodies on the floor. "Are they—?"
"Out cold, but not for long. I’m just thankful it was only the regular police and not Force One agents. Those guys are wired up enough to give most operatives a run for their money." As an afterthought, he went back and grabbed a pair of service pistols from the officers. He tucked one into his waistband and stuffed the other into the bag with Netta's knitting. "Ready?"
"How are we going to get down the street without getting spotted?"
"We won't." At her horrified expression, he put a hand on her shoulder. "The cameras have enough gait analysis technology and other identification systems that a few superficial changes won't fool them. I could teach you more or reprogram my own systems, but both of those require time we don't have. Instead, we go and hope we're into the Blackout Zone before anyone has locked in on us. But that means we go. Now."
She nodded, and he kissed her again. For luck, he told himself. It sounded better than admitting he wanted to, or the fatalistic thought that, on the chance that Force One officers were swarming the building, he wanted to go out with the taste of her on his lips. He kept it quick, but she melted against him all the same.
When he broke from her mouth, she looked at him and gave a forced smile. "Lead the way."
For just over fifteen hundred rupees, Joshi managed to buy a no-frills mobile and three hits of Jhakās Goldline. The phone, as labeled, had five gigabytes of data remaining. The drugs cost almost twice as much as the phone and, hopefully, would keep phase two—Yashilla—from killing him long enough for her to hear him out.
He glanced back at Netta, who kept her head down as she walked through the crowd. He admired the gesture, useless as it was. Analysis software didn't need much to figure out a person's identity or track them by gait, height, or a dozen other points of biometric data, and Mumbai's tech base made sure their programs were cutting edge. Fortunately, those programs still required an idea of what to look for, which meant human minders. He'd have them both in the Zone long before anyone could respond. The next time, Mumbai Police weren't going to send the regular forces out, and he doubted he could handle more than one of their elite Force One team in a pinch.
Joshi ran a hand through his hair and fought against the sense of doom that gnawed at the back of his brain. Taking Netta to Yashilla was a bad idea. Twice as bad with half his brain still dwelling on how Netta had felt in his arms, how her mouth had tasted, and the tiny noises she made as she clung to him. Yashilla could smell uncertainty like sharks could smell blood, and she preyed on it as her stock and trade.
"Where are we going?" Netta kept her voice low as she walked next to him. "Are the drugs for your pain?"
Joshi had to resist the urge to laugh. "It's a psychotropic, so it'd likely make me think my ribs had sprouted mouths and started singing. Not much help against pain."
She smirked. "I don't know, I'd be horrified enough to stop noticing the hurt at that point."
"True enough," he agreed. "It's a bribe."
Her head turned, fear returning to her features as she followed him into an alley. "It's gone," she whispered. "All of it."
He couldn't see the difference, other than the change in street traffic. The bustle of professionals, laborers, and tourists had been thinning for several blocks. As they faded out, so did the population of those who preyed on them—beggars, bootleggers, and pickpockets. By the time they'd reached the stacks of reclaimed shipping containers that marked the edge of the Blackout Zone, the only other people left on the street were those who knew the people around them didn't have anything to take. He led her through a container that had been cut open at each end like a tunnel, and they emerged into the courtyard that marked the entryway into the coastal expanse. "Welcome to the Blackout."
"There's no ARvertising." She sounded incredulous, as though she'd never experienced such a concept. Then again, she probably hadn’t. Not in any meaningful way at least. Her gaze darted everywhere, trying to take in the lack of content.
For Joshi, the smell made him more aware of the place than the loss of images he couldn't see anyway. No matter how many years passed, the briny smell of the tsunami exuded from the stones themselves. No number of rains would be able to wipe the vague aura of death that hung at the back of his brain when he visited. "The locals will strip out any power sources or wiring overnight, which puts a dent in the ability of AR to thrive. It also makes setting up cameras impossible."
&
nbsp; He led her through the maze of shanties and half-assembled rooms reclaimed from whatever their occupants could find until he reached Yashilla's door. So many memories. So many times he'd sworn that he'd never knock on it again. And an equal number of times that he'd broken that promise to himself. After a deep breath to steel himself, he knocked.
The door opened just enough to allow a double-barreled shotgun to emerge. The voice at the other end was muted and distorted by the thick sheet of steel. "Palashkulum Joshi. Give me one reason why I shouldn't turn you in for the bounty on your head.
Joshi pulled the bag of drugs from his pocket and pushed it through the opening. The action forced him to press into the barrel of the gun until any armor he’d had implanted wouldn't have mattered anyway. "Have three."
The bag tugged out of his grasp. A moment later the door swung inward and they could walk through. Once it had closed, orange light flared into existence as their host fired up a generator. Netta flinched, and Joshi wondered what kind of AR horrors Yashilla had set out to "entertain" her guests.
"I wondered when you'd get desperate enough to show up here." She'd lost weight. Her clothes hung awkwardly on her, and it bothered him that he both noticed and felt a flash of concern. She stalked across the tiny space, stepping around the dozens of computers that formed her only visible decoration. "My money was on forty-eight hours, Jo. You disappoint me."
He scoffed. "There's a surprise."
"Not really," she deadpanned. She shrugged in indifference, then flipped a switch. Netta relaxed, and Joshi let out a breath in relief. He'd made the mistake of wearing his ARglasses at Yashilla's place once, and that had been enough to make certain he'd not repeat the experience. He could only imagine how it would be for someone who couldn't turn off the feed themselves. Not only did she tend to display lurid crime scene footage on every available surface, she overwrote her own appearance in augmented reality. When he'd looked, she'd been a flayed corpse, wandering through her grisly abattoir. There was literally no telling what she'd graduated to in the years since.
