Persona

by Genevieve Valentine

  She’d refused to kill Ethan, when Zenaida had suggested it as a way of warning the Americans they weren’t untouchable. It was possible he had nothing in his favor but her reluctance to kill him, but that was enough. Chordata could push, but she wouldn’t be forced. (“I’ll talk to Magnus,” she’d told Zenaida, knowing he’d jump at the chance to secure their position in a higher echelon by negotiating a relationship with the Americans. Awful, but maybe less awful than killing.)

  But there was something about feeling trapped, about being surprised by a hunter, that always made her want to strike.

  She said, “Good evening, Martine.”

  Martine’s grin got wider. “I guess you’ve heard the trouble you’re in.”

  “Magnus was kind enough to tell everyone.”

  Martine shook her head, ashed the cigarette. It was one of her biggest tells—a small, absent habit left over from the days when she could still smoke—but all it ever heralded was bad news.

  “I don’t know what you two are doing,” Martine said. “Burning you in public is a bit dramatic even for Magnus. You’ve only been gone a few hours. That’s a lot of paperwork just to get back at someone for cheating on you.”

  She should confirm whatever Martine was saying; any lie was more to her advantage than the truth. But before she could think better of it she said, “No.”

  Stupid. She knew better than to get angry.

  Martine raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

  He thinks of me as a liability, she thought, a strength or a liability, that’s all; but just for a moment, there was a warmth on her collarbone where Magnus had rested his fingers.

  She filed it away. It was a problem that would hold.

  “So if you’re not running away from home,” Martine pressed, “why did you vanish with some guy?”

  This was how Martine won: she got you where she wanted you when there was nothing at stake for her, and let you condemn yourself. Useful lesson, if Suyana lived long enough.

  “I vanished because someone was shooting at me.”

  “Wasn’t me,” said Martine.

  Sometimes Suyana forgot how Martine could cut through the bullshit, when she wanted to.

  Grace gave Martine a long-suffering look, then glanced at Suyana. “Do you know who it was?”

  Grace said it in a tone that sounded like it was code for Was it Magnus? but she and Suyana weren’t that friendly, and Suyana couldn’t be sure.

  “I’m building a list,” Suyana said.

  “I bet,” said Martine. “How long is it, by now?”

  “Taller than you, and getting longer.”

  Martine actually smiled at that, then covered it by taking a puff off her cig.

  “I’m hoping to work things out with Magnus,” Suyana heard herself saying.

  (If he felt that way, was there desperation beneath all this disowning? Martine was probably just sowing discord, but Suyana would take any ammunition she could get.)

  “How do you plan to get un-abducted?” Martine asked. “He went public. They can’t pretend you’re some loser scratching an itch. You’re out of the picture. You’re working for the enemy until they think of a better story.”

  Martine wasn’t wrong. Her options were narrowing.

  Suyana shivered; the glasses on her tray rattled, and she clamped her other hand on it to stop the note from spreading. There wasn’t time for panic. She’d have to think of a better story, that was all.

  “You’re in danger if you stay,” Kipa said.

  “She’s in danger anywhere,” put in Grace, looking Suyana over as if this had been a test and her results were disappointing. “Why did you come here?”

  “I owed someone a favor,” Suyana said.

  Grace glanced at Kipa, and some expression crossed her face that Suyana couldn’t read.

  “Mistake,” said Martine. “I don’t think you know how much it’s worth to turn you in right now.”

  She didn’t sound smug—it sounded like a warning—but Suyana bristled. As if she’d never suffered a swift change of circumstance; as if Magnus had shadowed her from childhood the way Martine’s handler Ansfrida had, and hadn’t appeared out of the blue, perched on the desk that had belonged to Hakan, whose name had vanished with him.

  Acid rose in her throat.

  “Call them, then,” she snapped. “Prove you’re right. Be the person who found me out, that’s the cover of Atalanta at the very least. And after I disappear, you can hope my replacement never climbs higher than I have.”

  For just a moment, Martine looked worried, as if she was trying to determine what deal Suyana had almost sealed that could be fulfilled by her successor.

  Good, thought Suyana. A little doubt would be good for her. Let her wonder where Suyana had allied herself before the bullets started.

  (Martine’s predecessor’s predecessor had been the first to sign a relationship contract with the American Face; Martine didn’t need that now, but it had been the making of Norway not so long ago, and Suyana guessed it was trivia Martine wasn’t allowed to forget.)

  “Yes,” Martine said. “Let’s hope.”

  Suyana glanced at the door, gauged if she could make it in a sprint before they stopped her, gauged if her leg would make it. At this point, she’d rip the wound open just to get out before Martine could call whatever security guy was slinking around in here on her dime. (Martine didn’t trust her well-being to IA-issue bodyguards. All hers were bought and paid for.)

  The path was clear. If she could slip out before they stopped her, she might be all right.

  Kipa had stopped trembling, as if every moment that went by without someone striking a blow was a good sign and Martine’s words were all air. But in Suyana’s periphery, she saw Grace hitting a button on something as it disappeared back into her pocket.

  That was it, Suyana thought, her stomach dropping out from under her. She’d been called for.

  Magnus would be alerted, and in a few minutes whoever he’d appointed would appear through the crowd to bring her outside for a discussion she’d never walk away from.

  She measured what was in the balance—anything she could bargain with—and came up with some answers that weren’t reassuring.

  All right, she thought, set down the tray with shaking hands. If she was marked for death no matter what, she’d scale back her loyalties. If no ideals or politics could give her sanctuary, she could live for her own sake.

  It was blind fleeing, it was what animals did when faced with a predator, bolted without strategy or hope—but sometimes there were no choices.

  She gave Grace a withering stare, then turned to Martine. (She didn’t look at Kipa. Kipa was Chordata’s best hope, now that Suyana was out; Kipa was their secret now.)

  Martine’s grin was two slivers of marble in the dark. “Well, if you’re going to run, run.”

  Pride almost kept her still, but there was no pride in getting caught because someone goaded you. If she was going to die, she wanted to do it more nobly than in a nightclub because she’d been dared to make a point.

  She moved for the exit. (She didn’t run—that much pride she still had—but it was a near thing.)

  Across the club, she saw Daniel heading toward her, his face desperate and grim. She angled back a little to fall into step with him; she’d have a few seconds before she had to duck for the bar and head for the kitchen. It was just enough time for him to tell her something, if he had to.

  She kept her eyes forward (the last thing she needed was to alert Martine she knew the taxi dancer), kept her pace steady, primed herself to distinguish his voice amid the hail of voices.

  But he reached across her and grabbed her arm. It brought her up short; she spun on her heel to face him. His hand was gripping her just above the elbow, low enough under her gunshot wound not to hurt her.

  “Daniel? What—” she started, but his expression was desperate, and he looked as if something terrible was at his heels.

  “I’m sorry,” he sai
d.

  Before she could say anything else he was kissing her. His lips were dry and pressed closed, and he pushed too hard against her mouth—she could feel his teeth. Her mouth had been open; her breath escaped against his teeth. He breathed in through his nose, a sharp, anxious noise. (There had to be a reason for this, this was for someone else’s benefit, something was wrong.)

  His thumb curled in and pressed too close to the wound, hard enough to bruise; it ached.

  Something was very wrong.

  She pulled away. He let go at once, as if he’d known, and she saw his neck was strained, his eyes were flat black, he was on the verge of panic.

  He said, “Run.”

  Something moved into her peripheral vision. A shooter, she thought—she took a step back, started to turn.

  “Delegate Sapaki,” said a stranger.

  The screen of the handheld was small (spy-issue, no other reason to have them so small), but it was enough to see herself stepping back from Magnus’s hand, moving for the hotel. The picture slid to the next one. She was knocked off balance in it, one arm out and a dark patch on her sleeve, her face a blur.

  It was the bullet; he’d taken the photo an instant too late to catch the impact.

  Daniel. Daniel had taken it.

  She went cold, but there was no doubt in it. That was the angle from the alley, looking out toward the hotel. That was the alley he’d run from to help her.

  Whoever this stranger was had his own reasons for showing her, but they were Daniel’s work.

  She’d known he was a traitor to someone (everyone was). She’d assumed he would, sooner or later, try to kill her, or turn her over to some faction. Ideals at war led to things like that; it was the nature of the game.

  She hadn’t imagined so petty a thing as this—so that some snap agency could make a little money. He’d seemed, somehow, to be thinking of better.

  It had taken only a moment. When she looked up at him she was still letting out the breath she’d planned to greet him with, and Daniel’s face was still empty with shock; no other expression had had time to descend.

  She didn’t want to think about what she looked like.

  She turned and shoved through the crowd, her bad leg burning, fast enough that he’d have to scramble to follow. If he followed her down to the kitchen, she was going to grab a knife and slice his neck open.

  Martine was watching Suyana with glittering eyes, her mouth already an O around some insult.

  As she passed, Suyana ground out, “He’s a snap.”

  Suyana had just enough time to see Martine’s face turn murderous; then Suyana was past the curtains, at the top of the stairs, her mind on what was waiting outside.

  Her sense of anonymity had vanished. There were eyes everywhere, trained on her, taking souvenirs. (At least Daniel had taught her something, before he sold her out.)

  She pulled the fire alarm.

  The music was drowned out by the piercing siren, and the floor rumbled with people heading for the front door—and the back stairs.

  She took them double-time. The pain shot up and up and up her leg with every step. Twice she stumbled, grabbed the rail, kept going.

  Downstairs, she wedged herself between the barbacks and line cooks pushing toward the exit. They squeezed through two and three at a time, annoyed at the false alarm. If there was really a fire, the kitchen saw it first.

  Two of the line cooks had apparently had enough of the evening, and they headed for the corner as soon as they were out the kitchen door. Suyana tried to keep close enough behind them that the cameras would only see a trio of workers slipping out for a drink.

  She didn’t look around for other cameras. She just had to assume she was being watched, from now on.

  There was a pang in her chest. She ignored it.

  The crowd was still thick—patrons were sidling and shoving their way out between the waiters. She wondered, with a knot in her stomach, if the panic had given Daniel time to get out before Martine’s security tore him to shreds. She couldn’t tell which outcome she wanted.

  As she turned the corner, it occurred to her that she was looking for a Chordata tail like she was supposed to if there was ever an IA incident. That wasn’t true anymore. They didn’t even know she was here; nobody but Zenaida had known Suyana and Kipa shared their secret. If someone from Chordata was waiting for her here, she was about to disappear.

  Maybe she should do her best to disappear before anything could catch up with her.

  Martine was going to call Magnus any second, just for laughs; Daniel had betrayed her in a way that made her sick to think about. It wasn’t as though she had much to lose, anymore, by disappearing.

  She picked up the pace.

  She was two blocks away from Terrain, in a narrow side street deep in shadow, when someone grabbed her arm.

  Pain lanced up her shoulder, and it was too dark to see, and Suyana’s mind went blank except the cold and furious thought: not tonight you don’t.

  Suyana stopped suddenly and pivoted as she struck with her free hand as hard as she could. She connected with an arm, knocked it aside. Her attacker yelped.

  “Ow! Jesus! I was shouting for you, are you trying to kill me?”

  Suyana froze, yanked back the arm that had already been arcing down for another blow.

  That voice was no stranger. It was Grace.

  14

  “Martine made us,” said Bo, when they were outside. “We have to go. There’s a car waiting.”

  Unbelievable how calm some people could be.

  Take a hint, Daniel thought as they headed down the street. Don’t get angry. If you get angry you lose.

  “We should talk about what just happened, I think,” he managed. His voice sounded a little tight, but it wasn’t even a fraction of how he was feeling, which was that he wanted to watch Martine’s security guys plant a bullet in Bo’s chest.

  Bo sighed with the air of a man who’d been recruiting under duress a while. “I did what I had to do to bring you in.”

  “I have the right to refuse a job offer.”

  “Usually,” said Bo, edged. “But you started this, and you can’t get mad that we don’t choose the stories.”

  The crowd was flowing out behind them. Someone was shouldering through, headed their way.

  Bo stepped closer. His expression shifted—the false calm vanished, and his words pushed past the cold. “You have nothing, and Sapaki wants you dead. You going to oblige her?”

  He’d dropped the act; the words came out bare, and Daniel thought that, not long ago, someone might have dragged Bo from a story he loved by reminding him that snaps had no bridges worth burning.

  And when something was laid out by a con man who’d reached the end of his con, a lot of arguments dried up. Sapaki had been a story. The story was over.

  (The farther away he kept from her now, the better for both of them.)

  “Point,” he said, pulled his lips thin like it counted as a smile, and picked up the pace.

  If his chest clenched like his ribs were caving in as he slid into the backseat of the waiting car, Daniel figured it was no better than he deserved.

  × × × × × × ×

  She’d known something was wrong as soon as he kissed her (stupid move, rookie move). It had felt like slow motion as Bo showed up and little disasters cast shadows on her face. Daniel watched as if from underwater as she realized what had been going on, that whole time she’d let him promise he meant her no harm.

  He thought he was prepared for how she’d look at him, until she did. Then he remembered all at once that Suyana dealt with problems, not people, and he was looking at someone who knew how assassinations worked.

  It was the best way for her to have looked at him. It would do him good to remember.

  × × × × × × ×

  The car was new and sleek, and had a fixed barrier between the front and back seats so the driver couldn’t snoop. Daniel watched through tinted windows as they slid pas
t groups of people out for the night, groups of tourists hopping lightly from the street to the curb, couples laughing in one another’s arms.

  “Sorry about that,” Bo said.

  It was calm, and so vague that Daniel wondered if the backseat was bugged, but there was that same edge of loss that reminded Daniel more than one person could be played in a con like this.

  “Not a problem.” He tried to summon some charm. After a moment he added, “I’ll always remember what you did for me back there.”

  “I bet.” But he didn’t move, and he didn’t speak to defend himself, and after another heartbeat he turned to look out his window.

  So that’s enough, Daniel thought, even though his chest was tight. Be done, until you can do something about it. Fight one thing at a time, if you’re planning to win.

  He looked out the window and took a couple of breaths, tried to focus. Outside, a knot of girls dressed in sequins sparkled for a moment under a streetlight.

  “So,” Daniel said, “we’re headed to a job interview?”

  “You had your interview. We’re going to meet the team.” Absently, like it was reflex, Bo touched his temple where the camera was.

  No wonder Bo had been so careful about what he said. Of course there would be audio. Snaps were always recording. Snaps never missed a story.

  To stave off panic, Daniel reminded himself that friendless wasn’t the same as powerless. A snap who joined an agency had advantages; transparency was a decent excuse. A snap could be in a position to profit anytime things fell apart.

  Maybe his new boss wanted to see what a young Face would do when you baited her with her worst enemy.

  After too long, he said, “All right.”

  15

  Suyana paused outside the car.

  Grace frowned. “Problem?” She was anxious, glancing left and right as far as she could without drawing attention. (Faces developed good peripheral vision.)

  “A lot of people have put me in the crosshairs in the last twelve hours. I’m sort of hitting the ceiling on people trying to kill me.”

  Grace’s expression cooled a few degrees. “Nice way to accept an invitation.”