A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle)

by Michael G. Munz

  Marc sighed. "As far as we know, he's just the shooter. I'm probably not giving away any secrets by saying the AoA doesn't know any other connection."

  "And given your reaction when I mentioned Gideon, you don't know anything that connects him to the shooting either."

  "Nope. You know Gideon's last name?"

  Flynn answered first. "We never did get it, did we?"

  "I've wished that were otherwise lately," said Felix. "One last question then. How about Ondrea Noble?"

  "Who's Ondrea Noble?" Marc and Flynn asked together.

  Felix laughed. "Guess that's a no. She's been with Gideon both times we've seen him. She's a designer for Marquand Cybernetics. But if she's not got anything to do with ESA either, I don't know. Maybe I'm wasting your time here." He looked back and forth between the two, trying to read them. "You would tell me if you knew something, right? Even if you couldn't tell me what it was? I'd understand if you couldn't say more, but if I can rule the connection out, it'd save us some time. Or, at least, mostly rule it out," he added with a chuckle. "You know how I feel about being completely sure of anything."

  "I think we can give you a definite no about knowing any more than you do," Marc said. "Sorry we can't be more helpful."

  "Oh, no worries. I just hope I haven't wasted your time."

  "Hey, we helped you rule something out, right?" Marc smiled.

  Felix smiled back. "Not nearly as much fun that way, though. But okay, I'll grudgingly admit you've been at least a little helpful." He checked his watch and stood up.

  "Leaving already?" Flynn asked.

  "Yeah, I'd better leave you to keep doing whatever classified stuff you're doing. And I need to meet up with Caitlin again."

  "Oh, I see." Flynn cracked an imaginary whip, complete with sound.

  "Envious?" Felix asked with a wink.

  "Just giving you a hard time."

  "I see. Then expect some payback when it happens to you, too. I'll get Caitlin to help with the harassment. You won't know what hit you."

  "He's not kidding," Marc chimed in. "She gets a look in her eyes like a cat gives a mouse."

  Felix laughed. "Smile when you say that!" Marc had been smiling already, but it seemed like a good line regardless. Moments later, he was at the door. "Watch your back, Marc, whatever you're into. Let me know if you do need any help."

  "I will. Thanks."

  "Good to see you, Flynn. Oh, and if I see Dio again, I'll call you. Not that the AoA's looking for him or anything, of course."

  "Yeah, yeah, aren't you perceptive." Marc waved.

  "I'd offer more active help if I weren't so tied up with this thing with Gideon."

  "We're not completely helpless, you know," Flynn told him. "Concentrate on your own stuff. We'll do fine on our own." He smiled, belatedly, as if it was an afterthought just then.

  "Well, who knows? Two birds and all that."

  Felix gave them both another parting smile and let himself out. Did Flynn just tell him to mind his own business? The door locked after him and he headed out, wishing he had more to tell Caitlin.

  CHAPTER 17

  The unfolding trolley doors released Caitlin into the late-afternoon warmth. Air cooled by the river that flowed a block south provided small relief from the stifling atmosphere that had surrounded her moments earlier. Ahead waited the grey stucco of her flat, and she took to the bits of shade beneath the sapling maples that the city had been kind enough to plant along the sidewalk. Against the colour of a clear blue sky, they could be verdant and gorgeous as leaves danced with golden light, yet today they seemed mere refugees amid grey concrete and white haze.

  They resonated perfectly with—or perhaps because of—her mood.

  A cloud of worries and personal demons hounded her thoughts with troublesome whispers. What Felix referred to as a second wave of grief over Gideon's fate again forced her to examine the guilt she felt over her own part of it. Then and now, she'd told herself that she'd done what she'd thought was right. It was the solid ground she had found to stand on; though she inarguably felt safer with Gideon gone from her life and the lives of her fellow Scry, the means were not her choice, and she certainly hadn't pulled the trigger.

  And yet the possibility that she had not left a dead body there that night—that he had continued on and could have been aided somehow instead of simply discarded in the mud—had sewn a seed of remorse in her heart. Had she been so anxious to be rid of someone—someone to whom she and others owed their lives, even—that she'd treated his life as no better than trash? Though his association with The Scry put all of them at ever-deepening risk, she never believed that she wished him death.

  Could she have been wrong about herself?

  Shame was a good part of what she was fighting, Caitlin knew. And yet hadn't they made certain he was dead? Even summoned an ambulance to find him? After seeing Gideon again, she could no longer be sure how much of what she remembered was real and how much she had created to protect herself. That Felix remembered the same events that night should be reassurance enough, but Gideon's return created a doubt that continued to fester.

  They would find out. They had to. It was an assertion that had given her some comfort. Though a part of her hated to admit it, Felix's commitment to aid her had bolstered that comfort. Then Diomedes's appearance brought another element of that night back to the forefront of troubled thoughts, and that comfort was no longer enough.

  She wanted to clear her head with something soothing, for a time at least, if she couldn't banish the source of the problem. She needed a cup of tea.

  She laughed ruefully to herself. What she needed was a ride, or at least a soak in the tub. There was no horse there for the former and likely no time for the latter. But the tea would be a help.

  Caitlin reached her building, trotted up the few steps to the door, and keyed in her pass code. The light smiled green at her, but the door still took a second yank to open off of the catch. Her landlord was still taking his time with fixing that little quirk.

  Taking its time as well was the lift, and as she stood waiting, her craving for a cuppa growing, she considered taking the stairs up the eight flights. But her flat's lift had a way of ascending that made the speed rather palpable, and though she wouldn't admit it to anyone, she rather enjoyed the sensation. It wasn't a horse, but it would have to do until she could next get out of the city. Who knew how long it would be before that happened?

  Perhaps she could tear herself away if she needed to. It would have been easier that morning than it was since Diomedes had re-entered the mix. For the first time Caitlin wondered if the murderous freelancer had recognized her on the street. The only other time he'd seen her was when he'd shot Gideon, and she didn't think he'd gotten a very good look for those few minutes in the dark. Yet there were cybernetics that might do the remembering for him.

  She had put a gun to his head to defend Felix. If he did remember, it would be an understatement to say he would not be well chuffed to see her again. But he'd never bothered her since that evening.

  The bell for her floor chimed. She stepped off of the lift and realized that in her brooding she'd completely forgotten to enjoy the ride.

  Bollocks.

  Her door was immediately across from the lift. Moments later she was through it and making a beeline for the kettle when the sight of a figure on her balcony made her nearly jump out of her skin.

  Standing outside the glass, watching her, was Gideon.

  Caitlin froze. Again she had the feeling of being confronted by a ghost. Though dressed in the same sweatpants, t-shirt, and jumper he'd worn earlier, now those clothes were torn and dirty. They made him look considerably more haggard than he was a few hours ago, even without the fatigue apparent in his eyes. This time the ghost stood only meters away. All that she need do to speak with him would be to cross the distance and slide back the door. Then he reached up and rapped on the glass, and she was suddenly less concerned with whether or not she'd find the answers
she was looking for than whether she'd like what they turned out to be.

  "Gideon." It was a greeting that she whispered, though very nearly a question as well. Hearing her through the glass, or perhaps just reading lips, he nodded and rapped again.

  He waited patiently, but as she moved closer she could see an uncertainty in his eyes. Though small, it stood out in contrast with his previous and sometimes crazed confidence in a way that, for a moment, made it seem like pleading.

  She reached the door and paused with her fingers on the handle of the sliding glass. If he'd been at her front door she'd have preferred to step into the hall to speak to him. But he wasn't in the hall, and there seemed little point in joining him on the tiny balcony. She stood, torn.

  Oh, sod it! The door was unlocked and open a moment later. She stepped aside to let him in.

  The large man took the wordless invitation and came inside. "You are Caitlin Danae," he spoke. The voice was the same as it had been before. "I need your help."

  A myriad of questions bottlenecked in her throat. Her thoughts jumbled, words became elusive, and she stared without speaking until she became conscious of gaping at him.

  "Gideon," she managed, "what happened to you?"

  "Are The Scry working for anyone?" His voice was calm in a way that had her taking a step back.

  "What?"

  "I need to know if I can trust you or not. Are you working for anyone?"

  "Anyone who?" she demanded, taken aback by the question. "No—no, I'm not."

  "You were at my apartment. How did you find it?" he continued. "Were you following me?"

  "You told us to find you there. Months ago, when The Scry were working for you. I was looking for you."

  He waited, watching her, sizing her up. She was aware she hadn't actually answered his entire question, but then she hadn't asked how he had found her flat, either.

  "I don't remember telling you that," he said finally.

  "I'm not a liar," she said. "Gideon, what—"

  "Who's the man who attacked us?" he pressed. "What does he want? Did you help him find me?"

  "What? No! He— You don't remember Diomedes?"

  "You say this as if I knew him. Who is he?"

  She gaped. Had he repressed the shooting? Did he have amnesia? "Gideon, what is going on? What happened to you?"

  He frowned as if trying to decide what to say. "There was an accident. I've been away for a while."

  "An accident?" She saw him again, face down in the mud. Bloody. Violated. Murdered.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  "An accident!" she repeated, appalled at the word. "I saw you dead!"

  He stood staring, unsure. Confused. "I was never dead. . ."

  "Then, what happened?"

  He blinked, off-balance, as if the question surprised him. "It. . . it doesn't matter."

  "Doesn't matter? You were shot, you were—you were gone! We checked, we made sure there was nothing we could do for you! You can't just tell me you got better!" She was vaguely aware she was glaring at him.

  "You say. . ." he began, steeped in confusion. "You say I was shot?" Gideon turned away like a toddler separated from a parent.

  "You truly didn't know?"

  "I don't remember." He blinked again, becoming more composed. "You seem to know a great deal. Tell me. Why? Have The Scry been following me?"

  She leaned against her dining room table, still feeling vulnerable for his presence in her flat, but somewhat more at ease as his tone softened. "The Scry were working for you. You more or less recruited us. You don't recall that, either?"

  "You assisted me, once. You and a few others of your group. Once, that is all. You proved yourselves valuable, but I remember no further contact."

  "There was further contact." The first time he'd come to The Scry to get extra eyes and ears on a particular night, it was Caitlin and a few others with whom he worked. "But The Scry haven't been following you. I have."

  "Why?"

  "As I said, I thought you were dead. Buried. Then I saw you alive, just last week." She hesitated, uncomfortable explaining her full motivation to him. "I needed to find out what really happened."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "Bollocks, why do you keep saying that?"

  "Saying what?"

  "That it doesn't matter."

  He frowned, confused again. "I don't know. I'm unsure I even mean it." Still again his gaze recomposed itself, hardened, as if his mind were a ship rocking back and forth. "I barely know who you are, and you claim you know so much of me. You swear to me you're not working for anyone."

  "Yes! Crikey, how much do I have to say it?"

  He gave no answer, merely staring back at her as if deciding whether or not to take her at her word. Whatever inner conflict she had regarding this man, she did know she was working only for herself. She met his gaze, daring him to say things were otherwise.

  "Alright," he said finally. He turned first and looked out the window toward the street, then at the sky. "I can't see the Moon from here." He went on before Caitlin could ask what he meant. "I need to know what you know. About this Diomedes. About me. I can't—I require your help."

  "What sort of help?"

  He shook his head. "Later."

  "Later," she muttered with a sigh. She was being carried into Gideon's world again, riding on her obligations, her remorse, and her curiosity. It was the place she'd been trying to escape before he'd been shot, and it now loomed again on her horizon. She was losing control of it. Would she be able to do more than simply hang on? "I have some questions of my own," she answered.

  "Then ask."

  "Who is Ondrea Noble?"

  Gideon rose and paced the room once, watching her like a cat before relinquishing his answer. "My sister."

  "Your sister." She considered his answer. "You two are close? I think every time I've seen you in the past week, I've seen her. But you'd not mentioned her before."

  "I had a brother once. My twin." His eyes glazed as he drifted a moment. "But he's gone now. She is all I have. She helps me. She's helped me recover, got Marquand to pay for it."

  "Pay for what? What did they do?"

  "There was some head trauma. They said my body was broken also. Some of my cyberware was damaged. They replaced that as well." He sat again, elbows on his knees as he leaned forward in a portrait of weariness. "Ondrea could tell you the specifics. She was always more technical than I."

  "And Marquand just covered the entire cost?" His sister must have some clout.

  "Mostly." Gideon opened his hand slowly, as if studying it. "I'm told I'll need to do some work for them after. But she said it was the only way to get them to save me."

  "Did she say what sort of work?"

  He shrugged in a way that made Caitlin think he didn't know. "Nothing until I'm healed completely, but I owe them." He dropped his head away, and then looked up at her again. "Except I don't think they trust me."

  "Why not?"

  "I'm not to leave the building. They say I'm still healing and need to be observed. I'm supposed to sleep sixteen hours a day, hooked up to monitors. Why is my sister out to get me? They'd keep me locked in that room completely if they could!" He shouted the last part suddenly before catching himself. "I am sorry."

  "It's alright." She waited for him to calm a bit before asking about what caught her ear the most. "Ondrea is out to get you?"

  He shook his head as before. "I didn't say that—didn't mean that. She's always helped me. She's the one who got them to let me out to help me remember things." He shook his head vehemently. "She's trying to take care of me!"

  Though it felt like he was telling himself that as much as he was Caitlin, he said it with such force that she wondered if it would be wise to question the assertion. She settled for a middle ground. "But you don't want to go back."

  "Something. . ." he started, and then cut himself off. "No."

  "Will you be alright if you don't? Will it affect your rec
overy?"

  "I want you to answer my questions now. Tell me what it is you say I'm recovering from. Who did it? Why?"

  "Your sister really only said it was an accident and left it at that?" It wasn't so much that Ondrea hadn't offered more that struck her as off, but that he hadn't asked the woman for any further details.

  "Yes. Whenever I spoke to her, learning more about it felt unimportant compared to other things we had to discuss. I would know what you claim to have seen."

  She told him then, keeping the story brief. She described to Gideon his own search for Diomedes, their pairing to bring Ken Wallace to justice, and the argument that ended with Diomedes pulling the trigger. She told him of how they ran off Diomedes, of the difficult decision to leave Gideon's body—beyond help, they believed—to be found by the authorities, and finally, how they destroyed the captured weapons in accordance with his original intentions.

  When she was finished, she waited, watching Gideon where he sat. At first he continued to simply listen as he had before, giving no reaction to indicate that he'd just heard the tale of his own violation. She was trying to decide what more to tell him when suddenly he spoke.

  "You said this Felix was the one you were with today. Can you trust him?"

  "Very much. Felix was the first to believe you weren't the arsonist Wallace had painted you as, and he's the one who got Diomedes to work with you. I've never known him to break his word. He has a reputation for that, as a matter of fact. And," she added finally, "we've been seeing each other for the past five or six months. I could hardly do that without trusting him."

  "But you let Diomedes go."

  Though his implication took her by surprise, there was so little emotion in the statement that she was not entirely sure how he'd meant it. "I'm not a killer," she said after a breath. "Diomedes is wanted. There's a bounty."

  "For what he did to me?"