by Sean Platt
“What about Isaac’s being at the fundraiser? He’s so stupid, his actions sometimes ruin the best of plans.”
“Don’t worry about Isaac.”
“What about my mother?”
Alexa paused. “What about her?”
“She’ll be there too. Did you know?”
Another long pause. Then: “No.”
“Even though you’re in your cabal together.”
“We’re not obligated to clear our personal plans with each other.” Alexa huffed. “How will she even get there? She’s a corpse.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“And why? She’s — ”
“She wants to be there,” Micah interrupted, “so that Kai can kill her.”
That stopped Alexa entirely. For a moment, Micah almost wanted to ask his canvas if the other party was still there.
“What did you say?”
“I sent Kai to see her. To do what we’d discussed. I told her that Rachel is in her way, too. In Kai’s way — and Costa’s, since they’re buddies. I told Kai I’d help her get her Beau Monde tag if she took care of it.”
“You can’t promise that,” Alexa said.
“When Rachel is gone, I move up. When I move up, I can promise whatever I want.”
“You can’t be sure you’ll move up,” Alexa said. Micah barely heard her. Of course he would. Alexa, with her poor record of keeping secrets, had all but told him so.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Micah said.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t know?”
Yet another pause sat on the line’s opposite end. Micah read what he could from Alexa’s breathing, and his truth AI culled a few more certainty percentage points. No, she apparently didn’t know any of this. Micah wanted to respect Alexa Mathis for all she’d built and done, but this just made her look stupid. But then again, maybe he still could respect her. Even the most respectable people weren’t immune to the manipulations of a master like Rachel Ryan.
“Rachel gave Kai her permission,” Micah said. “She said she’s ready to die and that Kai could kill her if she wanted.”
“And Kai didn’t kill her then and there?”
Micah shook his head as if Alexa were in front of him. “No. She said that Kai needed to wait until the James event, coincidentally.”
“Why?”
“West, Alexa. Do I really need to spell this out?” It didn’t matter that he’d had time with the information, or that he was assaulting Alexa with the news. He was still insulted by the whole thing enough to transcend sense. “If Kai kills her in public and does it in a way that’s slippery enough to be believable, everyone’s going to know I was behind it.”
“There’s no tie between you and Kai.”
“Are you sure about that? She’s a softie, deep down. I’ll bet she told Costa.”
Alexa said nothing. They both knew handling Nicolai wasn’t an option on the table.
“It hardly matters. Even if she didn’t tell anyone else that we’re connected, there have been leaks. At the Aphora concert riot, one of my idiot operatives, Jason Whitlock, hooked up with her. In his shoes, anyone could have drawn conclusions about my relationship with her from that alone, even though I had nothing to do with pairing them up. And if a connection can be drawn between Kai and me, it can be drawn between me and you.”
“I doubt that.”
“Really, Alexa? How do you know I haven’t told all my friends that I’m in touch with one of the world’s most famous recluses?”
There was a beat, then Alexa gave a small, tension-breaking chuckle. Of course that wasn’t an issue. Micah’s lips were drum tight, and more importantly, Micah didn’t have friends. But that didn’t mean the connection couldn’t be made — especially by people with elevated means, like Rachel and Alexa’s cohorts on Panel. And if a current member of Panel was known to have colluded with a candidate meant to fill a murdered woman’s seat in the mysterious group? Well, what might that mean for the candidate’s chances of joining the group — or, perhaps, either of their chances of staying alive?
“It’s worth the risk,” Alexa finally said.
“So does this mean you still want me to have her go ahead?” Micah asked. “To have Kai do what Rachel wants her to do?” But he was just mouthing the words, realizing he didn’t have an opinion either way. Both options — kill or don’t — seemed terrible.
“Getting rid of Rachel is also what we want, Micah.”
“You don’t know my mother. If she’s allowing this to happen, that means it won’t turn out the way you think it will. She’s hiding something. There’s — ”
“I’ve known your mother for nearly as long as you’ve been alive,” Alexa interrupted, her manner short. “I know her plenty. Enough to know she’s always planning five contingencies deep. Sometimes, she wants people to dance for her, and sometimes she doesn’t want them to dance at all but knows they won’t dance on their own because they’ll sense her pulling the strings. It’s a case of us not knowing that she knows that we know she knows.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Kind of the point,” Alexa said. “The truth is we can only guess. Maybe she’s finally tired enough to die and wants to go out with a bang. Maybe she wants us both caught. Or maybe she just wants us to think we’ll get caught and not even try — which is why she told Kai what she was up to, so that Kai would run back to you and make you second-guess everything. Or it could be a level deeper, and she really does want Kai to kill her but wants you conflicted about it. Or one level deeper than that, where she wants — ”
“I get the idea,” Micah said, rubbing his forehead. And yes, that sounded like his mother. Every time they’d ever negotiated anything, he’d felt like they were playing a strategy game that Rachel had a blueprint for while Micah wasn’t even allowed to see the board. It was a wrecking ball to his confidence.
“So to my point, we move ahead,” Alexa said. “There’s no way to know what she has up her sleeve, so either choice might be wrong, and there’s no point in wondering. And we do have an ace, remember.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know I’m helping you.”
“That protects you. It doesn’t protect me at all.”
“You’re her son, Micah. You’ll be fine.”
“She’s my mother, and I’m planning to kill her,” Micah blurted. For some reason, Alexa wasn’t getting the irony.
“Kai is the best choice for this. She’s the most intuitive person I’ve known since Chloe Shaw herself. The cards are on the table at this point, so we might as well play them out. Go to the event. Send Kai. Send her as…” Alexa paused, seeming to stumble on an obstacle. “What about Costa? He’s with you now, right?”
“As much as he could be.”
“Then send Kai as his date. People will assume she’s an escort.”
“She is an escort.”
“Even better.”
“And my big act? I’ll be out of pocket for most of the event, onstage with Jameson Gray. I won’t be able to keep an eye on her.”
“Of all people, Kai doesn’t need anyone keeping an eye on her. She has an understanding with you and now another with Rachel. Tell Kai you don’t trust Rachel’s intentions, then let her do what she does best: feel things out and decide on her own. Your goals align with Kai’s. She wants Beau Monde. You want Panel. Both are served the same way. Whatever moves her up moves you up, too. Whatever hurts her chances hurts yours.”
Micah sighed. He wanted to sit, but that felt like letting his mother win.
“All right,” he said. “But I don’t like it. And I don’t like how my neck is on the line.”
“I’m taking plenty of risks, Micah. Not to be insulting, but there’s a lot going on this Shift that’s above your pay grade.”
“Fine. I’ll go, and I’ll send Kai with Nicolai Costa. I’ll have to trust her.”
“She’s
worth trust. And Micah? There’s something else about Kai. Something you keep failing to take into consideration.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re the closest thing to family she’s got.”
Micah supposed Alexa’s pat statement was meant to imply love or at least loyalty, but it was a hard connection to make in the Ryan family, where children killed to climb and parents ate their young.
“Let Kai do her job,” Alexa said. “You focus on yours.”
“Smiling for the cameras.”
Alexa corrected him. “Smiling for the cameras and being a gracious loser. Putting on a good show. And making loose ends go away.”
“And doing Jameson’s little magic act,” Micah said.
He could almost hear Alexa nod. “That’s what I said.”
Chapter Six
“I’m not supposed to show you this,” Kai told Nicolai.
He trailed behind her, not intending to watch Kai’s swaying hips but not bothering to turn away either, now that he was back here. She was wearing a tan skirt that was modest by city standards, stopping an inch or two shy of her knee. But Kai managed to make even modest look sexy, just by being Kai.
“Naughty,” Nicolai said.
Kai paused to let him catch up, giving him a look. Recently, they’d been entirely out of sync. When she’d been eager for some personal attention, he’d been distracted. When he’d been interested (like now), they found themselves somewhere inappropriate. At those times, to twist the knife, Kai looked at him like he was a degenerate. As if sex wasn’t what she lived and breathed — as if he were the one off center.
“Walk up with me,” she told him. “Stop making me feel like I’m having to drag you.”
“You are dragging me.”
Kai took his hand. And proceeded to drag him until his pace matched hers.
“This is important.”
“If it’s so important,” Nicolai said, “just tell me.”
Kai didn’t bother to respond. They’d been through this a few times already. Nicolai felt worse than squeezed on time; he felt bled dry. He had more errands now than he’d ever had as Isaac’s lackey. The irony was he didn’t technically work for anyone. He was pre-Enterprise, acting the part a few illegal days in advance of truly joining the party. He couldn’t earn money as Enterprise yet, but he could stick his head out the metaphorical window, enjoying the breeze of a wild car ride. He was a free agent in all but official designation, and for a change, it was nice to be owned by no one.
And yet he was on Sam Dial’s errand. Sam wanted Nicolai to insert a crowbar at Braemon’s event and pry out damning evidence against the tiered system for Sam to publish later. But that was its own nested set of obligations. As much as he found himself liking the scattered, Beamsick young reporter, Nicolai hadn’t climbed to where he was by trusting the plans of others. So that was on his list, too: investigate Craig Braemon, investigate Sam Dial…and, curiously, poke at the edges of a Beam legend called “Shadow” who popped up in every corner Sam had sent him to.
And of course, Nicolai was on Micah’s errand as well.
Before he’d more than cracked the seal on Sam’s investigation, Micah had heaped even more atop him. If Sam was a puzzle, then Micah was a puzzle inside a puzzle. Micah gave Nicolai no shortage of intentions and ulterior motives to pick at. Figuring out where he sat inside Micah’s grand scheme was even harder than fitting into Sam’s. Fitting into them both at once seemed impossible.
And lastly, there was Kate to consider. Kate — who was still impossibly Doc in Nicolai’s mind — wanted yet a third thing, not quite what Sam wanted and likely the diametric opposite of Micah’s desire…though maybe not opposite at all, which made things more confusing.
And now there was this thing with Kai. She had something she absolutely needed to show him, and they had to cross District Zero to Little Harajuku to see it. Right now. Without explanation.
But out of Sam, Micah, Doc/Kate, and Kai, his choice of which ally to believe and follow was simple.
“Will you at least tell me where we’re going?”
Kai still had his hand. Instead of answering, she pulled him into a narrow alley. The weather in Little Harajuku was as controlled as the rest of the NAU, but the air felt too clammy. Buildings on either side of the alley were original New York structures, retrofitted inside not by the city itself, but by the hackers who called this place home. Brick walls were slick with moss and moisture that had collected on their cool surfaces — evidence, Nicolai thought, of the fact that weather experimentation was well within the domain of those who built their subversive wares here.
Kai stopped halfway down the alleyway. Both ends were stacked with garbage cans. A single lamp glowed overhead with what looked like a decades-old LED bulb. They’d replace that bulb with something contemporary when it burned out, but the things lasted forever.
Kai looked to one side of the alley then the other. They were alone, and the air was cool and quiet.
“We’re going to visit Ryu,” she said.
“Who’s Ryu?”
“Doc’s man. The dealer’s dealer.”
“Shit. I thought I recognized the name. Please tell me we’re just going to walk through his front door.” But Nicolai didn’t think so. Ryu was an underground legend. People talked about Ryu the way they talked about the second coming of Noah West and the Tooth Fairy, except that Ryu was unquestionably real. Rumors surrounding the legendary ghetto innovator sounded like childhood fears of the boogeyman: Ryu arrives at dark, blinds and deafens you, then takes you back to his lair. Even Nicolai’s stolid disposition, here in the dark alley at dusk, prickled at the thought.
“I didn’t want to say his name before. I’m sorry. I feel like Micah is judging every little thing I say. You know he has a truth detector?”
“Not for you, though,” Nicolai said. “You can lie to him. You of all people.”
Kai nodded. “Maybe. But lies only stretch so far. He’s hooked into City Surveillance. This is the only part of the city that isn’t watched.”
“Convenient,” Nicolai said.
“It’s an informal contract. Labs like Xenia need places like this. The high-end labs have funding, but people like Ryu have incentive and guile. Places like Little Harajuku are permitted to exist. The bots and drones all look away.”
There was the sound of something falling at one end of the alley. Nicolai looked over and saw three black figures dressed in long cloaks. He flinched the other way but saw three more in that direction, closing slowly.
Nicolai’s lips pressed into a bloodless line. “Dammit, Kai. We’ve already done this, haven’t we?”
“This time, they’re friends.”
Nicolai watched the figures approach. His dashboard lit up, showing him the heat in Kai’s skin and the pulse in her neck. Friends indeed. She was as nervous as he was.
“This is important.” She swallowed, rushing. “The other thing I didn’t tell you was that I met with Rachel Ryan.”
“Why?”
Kai didn’t flinch. “Micah wants her dead.”
“What? And you’re — ?”
“She wants me to do it, Nicolai. But only at the Violet James fundraiser tomorrow. And she showed me something. Something Micah doesn’t know.”
“What?”
“It’s what I need to show you. Why we’re here.”
The cloaked figures were taking their time. Now that they were closer at each end, Micah could see their faces but couldn’t make out any details. One of them was wearing strange eyewear — something that looked like 1900s aviator goggles, but stuck with tubes and wires to turn it into something alien. This last man was taller than the rest, massive through the torso, and completely bald.
“It’s okay,” Kai whispered, her eyes wide, Nicolai’s dashboard still displaying her fear. “I didn’t want to come either.”
Before Nicolai could reply, the six people arrived and took up station around them. Four, upon closer inspection, t
urned out to be women, their hair cut short and punky in what seemed to be a Harajuku hallmark.
The bald man with the goggles approached. He looked them up and down and said, “You’re Kai.”
“You must be Ryu,” Kai said.
“Your reputation precedes you. You’re a friend to this sector.” He turned to Nicolai.
“This is Nicolai,” Kai added as the man looked Nicolai over again, starting with his shoes and finishing with the crown of his head.
“I know who he is.”
“What does that mean?” Nicolai asked.
“Please,” Ryu said. “Hold still.”
Two of the others stepped forward and removed long, wand-like devices from their coats. One waved hers over Kai while the other did the same to Nicolai. Then both pocketed the wands, used handhelds to read something on Kai and Nicolai’s right wrists, and wrapped each of them from hand to elbow in crinkly silver foil. As it was pressed into place, Nicolai felt his external senses fogging. He could still sense The Beam around him, but it had become instinct, all of his settings erased, his very presence anonymous and insignificant.
Ryu held up a small device that looked like a mess of electronics wrapped in gray tape.
“Picture the place where you live,” he said. “Until we arrive, I suggest you imagine yourself walking through it, again and again, noting every detail you can remember. Do you understand?”
Nicolai looked at Kai then back at the man with the goggles.
“This,” he said, “will be a bit weird.”
He tapped Nicolai on the temple with the device, and in an instant, the world went away.
Chapter Seven
Nicolai felt another tap on his temple maybe fifteen minutes later. It was impossible to say how long for sure, though, because time had become elastic. He hadn’t been knocked out, which is what he’d thought would happen. He’d simply lost his senses of sight and hearing. After a short while, The Beam itself seemed to become disinterested in him, and he lost the feel for it, too. At that point he’d found himself alone in a grave-silent black room, floating, able to feel his world through only his feet and hands.
