by Jay Posey
He moved closer, touched the spine of a cracked leather-bound volume.
“Let’s not touch them, sweetheart,” Cass said.
“Oh, it’s alright,” Mol answered, coming in from the back. “They’re meant to be touched.”
She walked over to Cass with her hand extended. “I’m Mol.”
“Cass. This is my son, Wren.”
Wren turned away from the books, moved closer to his mother.
“Hi, Cass. Hello, Wren.” She knelt with some difficulty down to Wren’s level. “My goodness if you aren’t the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Any chance you’re an angel?”
“No, ma’am,” he said quietly.
“Ma’am? Now I’m sure you’re an angel. Your mama must be quite a woman to be raising an angel. That is no easy task.” She glanced up at Cass. “You might want to keep him away from that one, though.” She nodded at Three, with a smile. “No telling what he’ll teach him when you’re not looking.”
“I don’t like what he’s been teaching him when I am looking,” Cass replied with a shrug, smiling back. “But he’s been taking care of us so far.”
“Yeah, he’ll do that too.”
Both women were looking at him now, and Three was suddenly uncomfortable. It was strange seeing them there, in the same place, right next to each other. Three’s carefully separated worlds colliding. He glanced away, surveying the apartment again for no real reason. Changed the subject.
“Twitch stayin’ out of trouble?”
“Have you met him?” Mol answered, lightly sarcastic. She struggled back up to her feet, and Three reflexively reached out to take her hand. She accepted the help, her hand warm and strong in his. Her blue eyes sparkled up at him. Even at her full height, she was nearly a foot shorter. Her voice dropped, tone warm and reassuring. “He’s fine, Three. We’re fine.”
Mol’s eyes held his steady gaze for a moment. Strong. But concerned. She looked away, to Cass and Wren.
“You make yourselves right at home. Bedroom and bathroom are back there. If you want to take a shower or anything, you let me know. Sleep, whatever you want. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”
Three realized he was still holding her hand. He let go, busied himself taking off his coat and harness.
“Thank you,” Cass said. “This is really kind of you.”
“Selfish, really. Place like Greenstone, we don’t get a lot of chances to host company. Have to milk it when we can.”
Three noticed Cass was standing with the fingertips of one hand pressed in on the arm of a chair. Subtly keeping her balance.
“It’s alright if you wanna lie down, Cass,” he said. “Been hard goin’.”
Her eyes flicked to his. He knew she’d never admit it, but she needed it. He nodded.
“Go lie down,” he said, firmly. No longer an option.
“Isn’t there something I can do? I feel bad just coming in and taking over…”
“Sweetheart, go on back there and rest up,” Mol said. “Bed’s all ready. If you’ve been keeping up with this brute all day, I’m surprised you can even stand. Not to mention your little one.”
“Yeah, it’s been a long road,” Cass replied. “We came all the way from the Vault.”
Three winced, at least internally. He’d meant to tell Cass not to mention it. Forgotten. His expression must’ve caught her attention, because she looked over at him, and her face changed suddenly.
“The Vault?” Mol turned and looked back at Three, excited. “How’s Gev? Big goon hasn’t pimmed in like a month.”
Three stilled himself. Kept his eyes on Cass. She understood now. Pressed her lips tightly together, in a silent apology.
“Wren, baby, why don’t you come lie down with me for a little while?”
“I’m not sleepy, Mama.”
“Wren.”
The boy didn’t know what was going on, but he understood his mama wasn’t requesting. He slipped his hand into hers and let her lead him back towards the bedroom. Mol’s gaze hopped from Three to Cass, and back again. Excitement beginning to drain.
“Three. Did you see Gev?”
In the back, Cass quietly closed the door. Mol didn’t turn, just looked intently at Three. Her eyes different now. Wider, unsteady. Searching his.
He could feel himself telling her before he even opened his mouth. Tears had already started to well in her deep blue eyes.
“Three…”
“He’s gone, Mol.”
He heard the servos whine and click, and reached out to grab her elbows, supporting her before she sank to the floor. Pulled her close. She buried her face in his chest, clung to him fiercely. After a moment, shock gave way and her body began to shake with quiet sobs, her tears soaking his shirt. He held her for a long while, silently sharing the grief, tormented by her closeness.
Night had fallen, and outside the high and guarded walls of Greenstone the unearthly cries of the Weir echoed amongst the urban labyrinth, answers to their own calls. Together, jCharles and Three stood atop the roof of the Samurai McGann, looking down on the throngs flowing in the street below, snaking through each other like streams intertwined. The women and the boy had remained in the apartment beneath, leaving the men undisturbed to attend to their business.
“I don’t know how many times I tried to talk him into coming here,” jCharles said, more to himself than to Three. He took a pull on his stimstick, held it. He’d handled the news better than Mol, but Three knew it’d take him longer to actually come to terms with Gev’s death. jCharles exhaled with the sudden puff of a humorless laugh. “Said he couldn’t handle all the noise.”
Mol would grieve hard and fast. Twitch, well… he had a history of holding on to things.
“Sure, much better to live playing doorman to a bunch of trash-hunters,” he continued, “and die as one.”
Three just stood silently, letting the distractions below draw his attention. Twitch wasn’t talking to him so much as he was thinking aloud. Processing. No need to interrupt.
“The noise.” jCharles took another drag on the stimstick, held it, let out a breath like an extended sigh. Flipped some internal switch, packaged up whatever he was feeling about Gev. He’d deal with it later. “So you settling down, or what?”
“What.”
“Wouldn’t blame you if you were. Cass… she’s sharp. And a real looker, you know.” Three shrugged. jCharles smiled. “Yeah, you know. Kid’s cute, too. You don’t watch it, Mol might squirrel him away somewhere, keep him for herself.”
jCharles hadn’t meant it that way, but Three felt the cut anyway. Mol had wanted her own for as long as he could remember. And she’d had one, for the briefest, cruelest time.
jCharles turned to face him, serious.
“What’re you doing, man?”
“Standin’ here listenin’ to you, Twitch.”
“I mean it, Three. This isn’t like you. Traveling heavy. People in tow. I know it’s not for the money, ’cause you’d never take a job like this. And you look tired, brother. Real tired. So what’re you doing?”
It was the question Three still couldn’t answer. Or maybe wouldn’t. A woman in a yellow coat floated through the crowd below, with the flow but not of it. A bright leaf atop the current.
“The right thing, I hope,” he said. “We’ll see.”
“Is it the good guys or bad guys chasing them?”
“Bad ones.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
jCharles leaned over the edge of the roof and spat, watched as it tumbled towards the street below. Another pull on the stimstick.
“Listen, man. You wanna do you the penance thing, that’s your gig. But Mol and me, we never put that on you. You know that. We never put that on you. Don’t pick it up on our account.”
“It’s not like that,” Three answered, hoping it was true.
“I hope not. ’Cause no matter how it ends, Jakey’s not coming back.”
They stood in silen
ce for a time, and Three wondered what outcome he was hoping for out of all this. He’d been too busy fighting for that next minute to stop and think what it’d be like when it was all over. Cass and Wren would be with Wren’s father, whoever he was. At some point, Cass would die. And what? He would go back to living the life he’d led before they stumbled into it? No matter what else happened from here, he already knew that was impossible.
“Well, here’s the deal,” jCharles said. “Bonefolder’s people are going to meet us tomorrow.”
“Meet me tomorrow.”
“Us. Tomorrow afternoon. You convince them you can make it worth their while, they’ll kick it up the chain, and with some luck you’ll be on your way out.”
“I appreciate the introduction, Twitch. But stay out of the way.”
“They won’t talk to you without me,” he replied, stern. “And if it goes bad, you’re gonna need the help.”
“That’s why I don’t want you anywhere nearby. It goes bad, I disappear, easy. They know where you live.”
“Then don’t let it go bad.”
Three knew he couldn’t argue it. It was Twitch’s turf, he’d go where he wanted. “Fine. And the quint?”
“Stack I got her today was a street job. Bigger quantities, I’ll have to go Downtown.”
“We’re going to need more than the stack.”
jCharles eyed him. “What’s she burning?”
“Told me fifty a day.” jCharles let out a low whistle in surprise. Three hadn’t even hit him with the real numbers yet. “But she was lying. Hard to tell, since I don’t know when she boosts. I’m guessing one-fifty, maybe as much as two hundred.”
“No. No way,” Twitch shook his head. His tone was patient but dismissive, as if Three, not well-versed in the world of chems, couldn’t be expected to know just how far off his estimate had to be. “Girl that size, that much would wreck her.”
“Already has. But I dosed her with Trivex myself before we got here.”
“Trivex is different–”
“A full jector, five doses. At once.”
jCharles stopped arguing. “Guess we’re going Downtown, then.”
“Busy day.”
“Yeah. It’ll be interesting,” said Twitch, deactivating the stimstick and sliding it into a thin pocket on the sleeve of his coat. “Like old times.”
“Hope not.”
jCharles chuckled and turned towards the hatch leading back down to the apartment. He called back as he walked away. “Get some sleep, brother. World’ll look lighter and brighter tomorrow.”
Three held his ground. “You sure you can’t find us another place to crash? Doesn’t have to be fancy. Cellhouse would be fine.”
jCharles stopped, threw a look over his shoulder. “Don’t do that. It’s insulting.” Three felt the admonishment, the hard tone. A tense moment lingered, jCharles letting Three know he was serious. Then, he opened the hatch and headed back inside, softening the blow as he went. “Besides, Mol would kill me.”
Three knew it wasn’t fair, coming into their lives and at the same time, trying to maintain distance. But the trouble on his trail now was like none he’d known before. And he’d sworn he wouldn’t bring that to their doorstep. Not again. Never again.
He stayed on the roof late into the night, not wanting to face Mol again. Not wanting Wren to see him. Not wanting Cass to look in his eyes again. His mask was cracking, he knew. And he couldn’t afford for any of them to see that for the first time in long years, Three was standing on the edge of tomorrow, and was desperately afraid.
Twenty
Sunlight streamed in through a crack in the shade, a pure white sliver that fell warm across Cass’s cheek. Her eyelids fluttered, drew open heavily. She felt herself waking, slowly, awareness leaking in like warm water pooling in from under a door. And as she woke, she was loath to move. The bed was more comfortable than any she could remember ever having slept in before, the sheets and blankets a secure cocoon of warmth and comfort that seemed to have been arranged and fitted to her exact frame. Wren was gone, but Cass felt so perfectly at peace that her usual desperate need to know where he was at all times failed to kick in. In the other room, no doubt. Safe. She could hear the low tones of Three’s voice through the door, a quiet rumble like distant thunder.
She rolled to her side and arched, stretching, scissoring her legs to different corners of the foot of the bed, feeling the sheets run smooth and cool across the bare skin of her legs. jCharles had given her a stack of quint the evening before, which her bloodstream had greedily accepted. Cass relaxed her stretch, accessed GST. It was nearly noon. She’d slept for fourteen hours.
She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed. Took a deep breath. A smile crept to her lips. She felt good. Better than good. She felt well. She slid out of bed, dressed, and padded barefoot into the adjoining room.
“Mama!”
The conversation stopped when Wren called to her. He hopped off the couch and ran over. She stooped to intercept him, and swung him up to hug him tightly. jCharles was sitting in one of the plush chairs. Three, as usual, was standing. Mol was seated on the couch, next to the spot where Wren had been moments before. She had a book open on her lap. Apparently she’d been reading to him.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Cass said.
“Hope we didn’t wake you,” Mol answered. “I was trying to keep them quiet, but you know how boys are when you get ’em together.”
“Thanks, Miss Mol, but I probably should’ve been up about six hours ago.”
Mol shot Three a flat look. “Now you’ve got her doing it.” Her eyes were red, slightly puffy. Cass guessed she’d been crying recently. “At this rate, you’ll have Twitch calling me ‘Miss’ before you go.”
Three was unmoved, his stone mask intact. He looked Cass in the eye without expression. Grim. Cass couldn’t help but wonder what had transpired while she slept.
“So what’s the plan?”
Three’s look lingered for an uncomfortably long moment. Almost angry.
“Tryin’ to work that out now, actually,” jCharles answered. “We seem to have a timing issue.”
Cass moved on into the room, letting Wren slide down to his feet as she did so. To her surprise, he went right back to the couch and plopped down next to Mol, close. Right up next to her. She dropped an arm around him casual, like family. Cass, aware of the tension in the room but unable to identify the reason, situated herself on the arm of the couch, neither sitting nor standing.
“Anything I can help with?”
“No,” Three answered in his direct way. A look passed between him and jCharles. She recognized the look, the one that Three used to indicate there would be no further discussion on the matter. jCharles either didn’t read it the same way, or didn’t care.
“Actually–”
“I said no, Twitch.”
“Options and time, man. We’re short on both. Don’t say no to me again unless you’ve got a solution.”
“I’ll go,” Mol offered.
“Absolutely not,” Three said without looking at her. jCharles glanced over, warm, but shook his head.
“I’m not a cripple. I can still handle myself.”
Cass got the sense everyone was talking around her, and she didn’t like it.
“I know, Mol, but I didn’t come here to bring you into this–”
“If you’re in it, we’re in it,” jCharles said, cutting Three off. He leaned forward on the edge of his chair, voice intense. “That’s how it works. Spatz Three, do you have any idea how tired it gets, you playing this solo warrior gig all the time?”
“jCharles,” Cass injected. “What’s the problem?”
Three looked her way, but jCharles ignored him.
“Schedule. We’ve got to be in two places at once. And neither of them are pleasant.”
“And I can’t go to one?”
jCharles looked back to Three, eyebrows raised. Cass saw the muscle of Three’s jaw working. Finall
y, he turned to her.
“I’ve gotta go see the Bonefolder’s people. They won’t talk to me without Twitch there. But he’s got a chem drop lined up Downtown.”
“Caught a lucky break on the timing,” jCharles added, “but with the quantity they’re moving, they won’t wait around. And it might be a week before I can get a handle on that much again.”
Cass understood now. And it offended her that Three wouldn’t consider letting her take care of the drop. She stood up.
“Then of course I’m going,” she said. “It’s for me, it’s my thing. I’ll handle it.”
“Too dangerous, Cass,” Three answered. “Greenmen don’t patrol down there. You don’t know your way around. You’re a wo–”
He stopped himself, but not soon enough.
“What, a woman? Who do you think I am, Three? I’m not some useless skew, you know. You think a crew like RushRuin picked me up because they felt sorry for me?”
If she hadn’t been so worked up, she would’ve noticed the sudden look of surprise and concern that passed between jCharles and Mol.
“jCharles, just tell me where I need to be and when. I can handle it.” jCharles looked back at Three, but Cass wasn’t having it. “Don’t look at him, he doesn’t have a say.”
Three smoldered but didn’t reply. Cass took small satisfaction in knowing he didn’t really have any other choice.
“One sec, lemme sig you the spot.”
He bursted the location to her. She pulled up a satellite overlay, gipsed the path, scouted the area via the image projected directly on her corneas.
“That’s what we call ‘Downtown’.”
Rows of concrete blocks were arrayed around a large central structure that looked like an old aircraft hangar. None of the wild color that painted the rest of the city was apparent Downtown. Everything was still cast in its original concrete gray. Cass realized the blocks were isolation units, individual prisons for what once must’ve been Greenstone’s most violent and deadly citizens. From the looks of it, the neighborhood hadn’t changed much. More garbage, maybe.
“How much product are we talking?”
“Forty-five hundred in tabs.”
