“I’ll carry the treasure.” Her tongue flickered across her lower lip. “Just like old times.”
I gave the ConCom one last glare, then followed her to the platform, preparing myself for twenty-seven hours of angst and nerves and the dredging of long-buried anger. Not the mission I’d expected, not at all. But at least this way one worry was gone….
No way would I fall asleep on the way down to Florida.
Our roomette aboard the Silver Star was not Amtrak’s finest. The size of two London phone booths stuck together, it smelled bluely antiseptic, like the water in an airplane toilet.
We settled into the two seats, facing each other, our ankles almost touching. Lexia instantly rebelled against the small space, flicking on and off the lights, discovering cup holders and coat hangers concealed in the walls. She fiddled with the small table beside her until it unfolded, astonishingly, into a toilet. Hence the blue smell.
I set the briefcase on the floor and rested my feet on it. When the station outside began to slide away I relaxed a little, feeling safer in motion. But Lexia was hovering now, fussing with her backpack up on the luggage rack.
“Sit down,” I said.
“And fasten my seatbelt? This isn’t a plane, T-Moon.”
“Lucky thing, too.” I breathed deep to feel the reassuring pressure of the PPK’s holster against my chest, the Taurus strapped to my ankle. Guns and planes don’t mix, so when carrying briefcases full of cash, slow and steady wins the race.
As long as slow and steady stays locked and loaded.
The conductor knocked on the door, asking for our tickets, and Lexia started fucking with him. She asked how long till New York City, and he sputtered until she laughed and admitted we were on the right train, headed down to Miami. She chattered as he punched and tore along perforations: asking questions about the “sleeping arrangements,” half-flirting, pretending she and I were lovers who’d just been in a fight, sowing confusion.
Once he was gone, Lexia slid the roomette’s door shut, locked it, and drew the blind that hid us from the corridor. She finally settled in the seat across from me, staring out the window.
But twenty seconds later she was bored, nudging the briefcase with one foot. “Maybe we should look inside.”
“Forget it.”
“Don’t you want to see what fifty-seven thousand dollars looks like?”
“Eighty-four.”
“Whoa, that’s a lot. Thanks for telling me.”
I cleared my throat. Score one for Lexia.
“What if it’s not all there?” she said. “What if one of the ConCom borrowed some? Shouldn’t we count it?”
She reached for the case, and I lashed out with one steel-toed boot. She jerked back her hand, nursing two fingers between her lips. “Ow.”
“I didn’t touch you.”
“It’s the thought that counts.” She played dejected for another moment, then her eyes brightened again. “Seriously, though, the case felt too light. It made a clunking noise, like there’s a brick inside. Pick it up yourself.”
“We’re not. Opening. The briefcase.”
“They didn’t say we couldn’t. So why not?”
“Because I can’t imagine anything worse than being stuck in a tiny roomette with you and piles of someone else’s cash!”
I shouted the last three words, which seemed to still the train noise for a moment, and her eyes grew manga-sized. Tears flickered with the shadows of passing trees. “You don’t trust me, Temptress Moon?”
“Well spotted. You are, in fact, the last person I’d trust.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because you’re vain and self-centered and you do pointless, destructive things for fun. You’re chaos personified.”
She smiled. “Flattery this early in the journey, Temptress Moon?”
“Quit calling me that.”
Lexia leaned back, propping her feet up on the briefcase. “Oh, so that’s what this is about? You miss your little paladin girl?”
“Miss her? It took me two years to level her up, then gather all the artifacts I needed for that life-link!”
“But immortal is boring, T-Moon, and anyway, you enjoy grinding.” She nudged the briefcase again. “Did you hear that? There’s a brick in there, I swear.”
“Quit fucking with the case. Quit looking at it. I’m not letting you do to the ConCom what you did to me, okay?”
“A blatantly false comparison,” she said. “I quite like the ConCom, and I hated little miss Temptress Moon.”
I turned away and stared out the window. The backyards of people poor enough to live next to train tracks flashed past—weedy lawns and broken cars. “It was the Voice of Barding, right? Because it gave her a higher charisma than you?”
“I didn’t give a shit about that crappy Voice of Barding,” Lexia said. “It was your tepid alignment.”
I hissed out a slow breath through clenched teeth, feeling the dull twinge of old wounds. Here it was, said aloud at last: the underlying conflict of those last months of our relationship, in game and out.
“Neutral good is not tepid,” I said. “It’s the only real good, beyond the rigidity of law or the self-indulgence of chaos.”
She rolled her eyes. “Beyond relevance, you mean. Goodness all alone is just an abstraction. Where’s the story in neutral good?”
“Ever heard of Robin Hood? There’s a story for you.”
“Not this farko again.” She sighed. “Dude steals from the rich and gives to the poor. That’s definitional chaotic good.”
I shook my head, the old arguments rising inside me, one hand scrawling on an invisible whiteboard as I spoke, drawing an alignment matrix in the air….
“Robin Hood isn’t chaotic at all,” I said. “The Merry Men aren’t a bunch of fuckwits—they’re an organized group with a strict internal code. And when King Richard, the lawful frickin’ leader, comes back from the Crusades, Robin Hood restates his loyalty to the crown! He’s for the greater social good, whether achieved lawfully or chaotically. That’s definitional neutrality.”
Lexia leaned forward, crashing through the invisible whiteboard. “But when King Richard comes back, the story ends! Robin Hood becomes just another monarchist suck-up. It’s only when he’s embracing his inner chaos that he’s worth putting in a story. He’s probably waiting for the next evil sheriff to take over so he can start up another guerilla campaign.”
“Um, citation needed. In the actual, not-made-up-by-you story, Robin Hood isn’t pining for chaos at the end. He gets elevated to the nobility and lives happily ever after.” I raised my hands, balancing left palm and right. “And that’s because he’s neutral good: happy inside or outside the system.”
She grabbed my wrists and pulled them out of balance. “Cite this: All that Earl of Huntington crap doesn’t appear until the late fifteen hundreds, after a century of proto-Disneyfication. In the early tales, Robin Hood’s a frakking May Day character.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, great. Are we back to that semester you got all Marxist in AP History?”
“Not that May Day, the chaotic pagan one where they dance around the phallus. And however you try to neuter him, Robin Hood still robs from the rich—not the tax-hiking rich or the sheriff-aligned rich, any rich will do—and gives to the poor. And that is some pretty fucking chaotic social engineering.” She paused and frowned, her face only inches from mine. “Hey, are we in kissing frame?”
I pulled away from her grasp, sinking back into my seat, my gaze dropping from hers. I saw fresh Celtic squiggles on her arms, and more muscles than I remembered. But despite tattoos, workouts, and green-streaked hair, Lexia hadn’t changed much in the last year. This close, she still smelled the same.
I turned to the scenery blurring past. “Nice time to glorify stealing, when we’re babysitting eighty-four grand of someone else’s money.”
“Nice time to change the subject.” Lexia stood up, stretching. “Shit, I need a drink.”
One hand on my shoul
der, she pulled her backpack down from the luggage rack, its straps flailing around my head. I heard the top of the vodka bottle spin—a sharp sweetness spread across the roomette’s antiseptic smell.
She took a long drink, then sat and offered me the bottle. The liquid sloshed languidly with the train’s motion, and the glass frosted with condensation; she must have packed it straight from the freezer. Tempting, but I shook my head.
Everything she’d said so far made me trust her even less.
“You think you’re Robin Hood, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “We share an alignment, him and me. Delicious chaotic goodness.”
“Hardly,” I said. “He’s neutral good. And you, my dear, are chaotic neutral.”
She turned to watch the scenery, shaking her head. “You still don’t know why I killed you, do you?”
“To bring chaos to the established order?” I said. Back then, almost unkillable, Temptress Moon had ruled in Mayhem. A cold, pale queen whom all had feared, even as they loved her. “And for fun, I suppose. Not much good came of it, certainly. From the message boards I’ve read, Mayhem’s been a slaughterfest since she died.”
“Mayhem a slaughterfest. What a tragedy.” Lexia took another drink. “Perhaps we’re laboring under different definitions of good.”
I shook my head. “Don’t take the easy way out, Lexia. Murdering your boyfriend doesn’t count as good under any moral framework. And neither does stealing this money.”
She looked down at the case, a smile forming on her lips. “Well, that’s one way to illuminate the issues under discussion.”
“What is?”
“Why not define our alignments in terms of this mission.” She kicked the briefcase. “For example, why did the ConCom call upon you, Mr. Famously Neutral Good, instead of getting someone lawful?”
“That’s obvious,” I said. “Lawful good also takes the money to its rightful owner, but he won’t bring a gun across state lines. He follows the laws of the land, even if that risks getting robbed.”
“Fair enough. So what does lawful evil do?”
I leaned my head against the window. The glass was cool, pulsing with the rhythm of the tracks. “That one’s trickier. If I’m lawful evil, I can’t break my word, but I don’t want any good to come of my actions.” I chewed my lip for a moment, in no hurry to answer—we had about twenty-six hours to go, after all. “So I promise to take the money down to Miami, but in ambiguous terms, like one of those contracts with the devil. So I steal it and use the proceeds to start an evil cabal—a well-organized one with a strict internal code.”
Lexia shook her head. “Two problems. One: eighty-four grand doesn’t buy a lot of minions these days, so your cabal is small and lame. Two: the ConCom is composed entirely of aspies with level-twenty powers of nitpicking. Before they hand over any money, they make your lawful-evil ass swear to an ironclad agreement to deliver it.”
I shrugged. “So I deliver the money, but then convince the hotel owner to use it in a scheme to foreclose on several orphanages. All very legal.”
“Much better.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, seeing the invisible whiteboard again. “Okay, Lexia, you do true neutral.”
“That’s easy: true neutral takes the money to Tijuana, has a draz of a time on someone else’s dime.” She raised a hand to ward off my protest. “Unless, of course, we’re talking druidic neutrality. In which case she steals the money and gives it to the Florida Marlins.” She snorted. “Because balance is everything.”
“You always did find balance boring, didn’t you?”
“Except when it’s falling apart, T-Moon. Chaotic neutral goes to you.”
“No way,” I said, “I did the first two, and you’re the chaotic neutral one in this roomette.”
“I’m chaotic good, you fuckwit.” She took a drink. “But were I chaotic neutral, I’d start by taking this train in the wrong direction. And when I get to New York, I take the briefcase to Grand Central Station at rush hour, pop the latches, and fling it all oh-so-high into the air.” She gestured with the vodka bottle, which sloshed with delight. “Then I watch that lovely dance ensue.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, visualizing it. The afternoon light flickered through the trees like a movie projector on my eyelids. “Wow, not bad. And you say that’s not your natural alignment?”
“Of course not.” She smiled. “I’m all about the greater good.”
“Yeah, right.” I opened my eyes and looked at the vodka bottle. “No poison in that bottle, I assume?”
She took a long drink, then held it up for me to check: The level had definitely gone down.
I reached for the bottle, which was as cold in my hand as a can of frozen orange juice. I took a sip, then a real drink. A little was okay, as long as I didn’t get too far ahead of her.
“You do chaotic evil,” she said.
“Whoa. So many choices.” I took another drink. “Steal the money, obviously…and then go through the Miami phone book and pick eighty-four random names, hiring a hit man to kill each one.”
“For a thousand bucks apiece?” She laughed and pulled the bottle away. “Those are some pretty cheap hit men.”
“All the better. Think how many innocents my cut-rate hit men will kill in their chaotic, unprofessional way.” I pulled the bottle back and took Swig Number Three, having decided to count my drinks. “So do chaotic good, if that is your real alignment. You steal the ConCom’s money and give it to the poor?”
She shrugged. “That’s a bit bland.”
“But you said Robin Hood was full of story!”
“Story is sticking a cocked arrow in some rich bastard’s face. So what’s the modern equivalent of that? How about I borrow the money and buy a couple of Stinger missiles, then shoot them at Rupert Murdoch’s Learjet.” Lexia sighed. “But I’m probably getting too sane for that, now that I’m all graduated and shit. Helping the ConCom fill downtown with seventeen thousand costumed geeks seems chaotic enough for me.”
She stared past me at the speed-blurred trees, her voice falling off a bit, and pulled the bottle back from me.
I frowned. Maybe Lexia did look a little saner, staring out the window like that, her hand tight around the vodka bottle’s neck. Almost philosophical.
I drank, counting Swig Number Four. The dining car was opening in an hour, and food would clear my head. But no more swigs after this one. It was going to be a long night of staying awake and watchful. Even if Lexia had grown too sane for shoulder-fired missiles, this was still the girl who had poisoned me….
I frowned, looking down at the bottle in my hand.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“I just realized: You haven’t had any since I took my first drink. What’s up with that?”
“Not thirsty anymore.”
I tried to hold her gaze, but my eyes dropped to the bottle again. My stomach flipped. “Quit fucking with me.”
“I’m not fucking with you, Temptress Moon. You’re being paranoid.”
“With you around, paranoia is an entirely reasonable state of mind.”
She sighed. “Well…maybe I did sneak something into that bottle just before I handed it to you. And that’s why I haven’t drunk any since.”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry.
“That’s why your head’s muzzy,” Lexia went on. “And that dizziness creeping up on you? A precursor of worse things.”
I swallowed again, glaring at the bottle. The view was shooting past at top speed now, but the ride felt as smooth as if we’d stopped moving, the train resting on the track like a turntable needle on a spinning disk.
“Maybe the slightest hint of disassociation?” she said, leaning closer. “As if none of this is real?”
I shook the bottle. “What the fuck did you put in here?”
“Sucker!” Lexia leaned back, laughing. “You feel dizzy, T-Moon, because we’re drinking eighty-proof liquor on an empty stomach in a speeding
train. And you feel disassociated because you’re a frakking geek, and we always feel disassociated.”
I clenched the bottle neck as tight as a club, then sighed. “Don’t do that shit, Lexia.” My mouth was insanely dry, so I took another drink. “I might shoot you.”
“You need to relax.” She held out her hand. “I’ll make you a deal. One more swig each, then we’ll go get microwave pizzas from the café car.”
I gave her the bottle, and Lexia held it steady for a moment, marking the level with one finger. Then she drank hard and measured it for me again—she’d knocked half an inch off. She handed it back. “Come on, wimp.”
“Okay. But pizza next.” I drank deeply.
When I was done, I capped the bottle and put it on the floor. The rattle of the train had settled into me, melding into my dizziness. I could feel the vodka in my veins, taking the edge off everything. Suddenly the briefcase full of cash under my feet didn’t seem so unnerving—it was just an object I had to take somewhere—and Lexia didn’t seem so dangerous.
I breathed out a slow sigh.
But she was staring at me.
“What?”
“That should be enough to put you down,” she said quietly.
I rolled my eyes. “Didn’t we already play this game?”
She stared out the window. “Yes, but I cheated last year. This time we both drank the same poison.”
“Fuck off,” I said. But her words were making my head spin again. I needed pizza.
She kept talking. “I put the roofies in there the moment the ConCom called. Figured you’d join me for a drink sooner or later.”
The train lurched, and both of us grabbed our armrests. Shit, I really was feeling disassociated now. But only because Lexia was fucking with me.
“You drank a lot more than I did,” I insisted. “Plus, I outweigh you by ten pounds.”
“Yeah, but I use those things to get to sleep these days.” She yawned. “So I have at least an even chance of waking up first.”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. But red spots were drifting into the roomette now, hovering at the edges of my vision.
Shit. She’d really done it.
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