Going Under

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Would you quit with that?”

  “No. I’m still pissed about everybody shoveling shit down my throat. Forgive me if my burps stink.”

  Aw, dammit all to hell. Glory felt as hurt and betrayed as anyone. The ripples of the lies—his and Emily’s both—kept spreading outward. “I’m sorry.” He sighed, rubbing his forehead to get himself to chill already.

  “Spare me.”

  He tried again. “I never meant my deception to hurt you.” Practice apology. But then the look in Glory’s eyes reinforced the rightness of it. “I apologize, Glory.” He stuck out his hand. “Raynard Mills. My friends call me Fox.”

  She snorted but shook his hand. “Your parents must have hated you, Raynard.”

  “It’s a family name, Glory.”

  “Gertrude,” she admitted. “Also family. Always hated it.”

  “I think—no, I know—Emily wouldn’t have wanted this to hurt you. Did she tell you what she went through?”

  “Some.” Glory narrowed her eyes speculatively. “But you can tell me the rest. Come on in. You’re not going after her until the morning ferry anyway.”

  “You’re so sure that’s what I’m going to do?”

  “Hell. The pair of you—worse than a couple of lovesick teenagers swapping notes via your friends in gym class. Judging by the look in your eye, you’ll chase her to the end of the earth and back. You’ll want supper before that, at least. I have leftover creamed-chicken casserole.”

  “Or we could go down to the Sunshine Café. My treat.”

  Glory pressed her lips together. “Tell me the truth—you don’t like my casserole either?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “I hate you all.” But she got her coat.

  * * *

  Em made an appointment with the lawyer—one her mother recommended and had the home phone number for—and took the first morning ferry, anxious to see her plan through. Afraid, maybe, that she’d chicken out and not be able to do it.

  Overall, though, she felt better for making the decision. Meet the wave head-on and try to swim it out. Wasn’t that how the surfers saw it? The challenge is to ride the wave, instead of drowning under it. Maybe after this, she’d rent a house somewhere like Hawaii, that would let her bring Anansi and Dinah. She’d learn to surf and warm up her blood again. Maybe even buy a house and invite her mother to visit.

  Certainly there was nothing left for her on Lyra.

  The bad thing about going early, however, was she ended up with time to kill. She drove off the car ferry with Anansi bouncing in the back, barking out the window at the school bus full of waving kids. She dropped him off at the doggie daycare she’d found online, found the right parking garage and ditched the Jeep with hours before her appointment. Once he got over being annoyed at the early morning call, the lawyer had warmed to her case.

  He thought they could approach Gametronix—at least the parent company, since Gametronix itself had, fittingly enough, gone belly-up—with a deal. Em wouldn’t sue them for wrongful termination and sexual discrimination if they wouldn’t go after her for the noncompete. The resignation made it trickier, but the lawyer said the case for unfair pressure would be pretty cut and dried.

  Fortunately she’d kept careful records on her development of Labyrinth, along with all the records she’d had at home for Amazonia. She’d hand it all over to the lawyer and let him do his magic.

  So, she walked down to Pike Place Market and wandered along the waterfront, trying not to think. It had been so long since she’d shown her face in public this way. At first she kept expecting someone to recognize her, but of course they didn’t. A man gave her a long look and she found herself cringing, calculating if she could dodge around a three-woman-deep stroller brigade in front of her and ditch him, until his friendly smile penetrated her awareness. Flirting.

  People did that. A whole world of them.

  The brief meeting with the lawyer had left her feeling surprisingly optimistic, so she treated herself to lunch on the waterfront. Fresh crab legs. While she ate, she downloaded and read two of Fox’s stories on the ereader she’d bought that morning. He had several available, but not much else, which meant he did the journalism under another name. Part of what she’d promised she wouldn’t look into. Not yet.

  After all, she’d know soon enough, right?

  The stories, though—she couldn’t resist checking them out, remembering how he’d laughed when she said she didn’t like them. Was it because they’d been only for the cover, the same as her awful paintings, and he truly didn’t care?

  But no. They were good. Swashbuckling space pirates and the fate of worlds balanced on the toss of a coin. Very much the Fox she knew. Or had thought she’d known. So hard to know what they’d had together, when both of them had been lying about who they were.

  First things first.

  She’d assembled all her weapons, had her personal power at the best she could manage. Time to step back through the looking glass.

  Resolutely she went to find the Jacker offices. She stuttered a little, when she told the receptionist she’d come to see Jared, but found more courage when the young man balked and she had to insist on seeing him immediately. The area behind the reception desk opened into a big bullpen of cubes and someone overheard the conversation.

  “Yo, Jared!” the guy called out. “Hot chick here to see you. Could be your last chance before you’re jobless and no woman will have you.”

  A few people laughed, the atmosphere obviously tense. Jared, coming around the corner, made a shooting motion at the guy, then spotted her.

  “Lisa?” His face went blank with shock, coffee cup sagging in his hand. He looked to one of the other people nearby and back to her, as if rechecking reality. “Is it really you, Lisa?”

  “In the flesh.” She felt the uncertainty of her smile.

  He set the mug down and, in two strides, had seized her in a fierce, awkward hug. “Damn, girl, it’s good to see you. So, so good.”

  Surprised to find herself a little teary, she squeezed his bony shoulders. “Me too.”

  “I always regretted...I—I mean, I wish that...” He glanced at the clock. “Fuck me but the timing sucks. Any other day I’d blow off the rest of the afternoon and say let’s go for coffee and talk, but I’ve got a serious shitstorm headed my way. I’m sorry. Nothing else would be important enough, but this is.”

  “It is,” she agreed. “Very important. Which is why we should go into the two o’clock meeting right now. You asked me to be here and here I am.”

  He’d started shaking his head and froze. Staring down at the industrial carpet, he put his hands on his hips. “Fucking Phoenix. All this time?”

  A murmur ran through the room, gathering steam and moving out to the hallways.

  “All this time.” She waited, braced for all the recriminations. She deserved everything he might say to her and more. Her heart thrummed like a hummingbird’s and her nerves screamed at her to run, but she made herself stand there and take it.

  Still elbows akimbo, Jared looked at her sideways, reminding her of Fox and how he’d faced that awful painting and called her on the lie her life had become.

  “I should have known it,” he said, in an accusing tone. “Of course Phoenix is you. I should have fucking recognized your work from the very beginning.”

  “You weren’t expecting it to be me.”

  “All those fucking avatars over the years—you did that to dick with me.” He looked so supremely annoyed that she nearly laughed. Totally inappropriate for the moment, so she squelched the impulse ruthlessly, but he must have seen the lip twitch. “Yeah, laugh your ass off. I probably deserved worse from you than that.”

  If he’d punched her in the stomach—which she’d decided ahead of time would be a legit response—she c
ouldn’t have been more surprised. “You deserved?”

  Jared glanced around at the considerable crowd that had assembled, hanging on every word of the confrontation while people at the edges told inquiring voices farther back to shut up. “Yeah. I’m saying it in front of all these people. We all fucked up, but I’m talking just for me. I didn’t stand by you, Lisa. I had a chance to do the right thing, the noble fucking thing, and I covered my own ass.”

  “Everybody did,” she said in a quiet voice. “I didn’t blame you for that. It was understandable.”

  “Even Henry.” Jared held out his hands in supplication to the universe for an explanation. “He had the girl every nerd dreams of and he bailed. Because of some fucking trolls? A job? When I heard that...man.”

  “I would have done the same thing.”

  Jared gave her an incredulous look. Then snorted and pushed up his glasses. “No, you would not have. When I thought you took off for Indonesia, I thought yeah, she ran. Who can blame her?”

  “I did run.”

  “Ha! Hello there, Phoenix. Indonesia would have been bailing. Instead you recreated yourself bigger and better and showed us all.” He shook his head again, still dealing with the shock, but also with admiration. “I want to say you could have told me the truth, but what you did was brilliant. Well played.”

  “It’s water under the bridge then.” It began to feel that way, too, the old feeling of betrayal and desolation rolling down the river to the sea.

  “Not yet, it isn’t. But I’ve got a second chance and I’m going to do it. Syd, Cindy, where are you girls?” he shouted, then glanced at her. “Um, women.”

  The two programmers pushed through the group, looking her up and down.

  “I want you to meet Phoenix.” Jared introduced her as if she were visiting royalty.

  “Lisa Fucking White,” Cindy breathed and Syd thrust out her hand, then yanked it back.

  “Sorry!” She laughed and Cindy elbowed her. “It’s not every day you meet your hero. I should have practiced.”

  Emily put out her hand and shook with both of them. “I’m no one’s hero, but I’m glad you’re not pissed about the deception.”

  “Pissed?” Syd hooted and clapped her hands together. “I can’t wait to tell the world. This is going to be major.”

  “If management doesn’t fire me or pull the plug on the module. She glanced at Jared. “I have a lawyer coming to fill you in on strategy to deal with the noncompete. He thinks we should be able to avoid that particular lawsuit. But even without that, you all know that having me affiliated will bring out the very worst of the trolls.”

  “Oh, goddess, I surely hope so.” Syd chortled with nothing less than overweening glee. “Bring ’em on.”

  “Yes,” Cindy assured her gravely. “We’ve got your back this time.”

  “We all do,” Jared agreed. “And fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Fox pulled in every favor he knew, even pinging his NSA buddy to pull her credit card transactions for all known aliases. He could walk through gray areas those guys couldn’t, but they had the pull for this kind of stuff. Made the relationship most fruitful on both sides.

  And son of a bitch, she’d made a purchase at Best Buy the previous morning near downtown Seattle, then lunch on the waterfront later. As Emily Bartwell, so she hadn’t changed to a new identity yet. He spent fruitless hours checking transpo out of the city, knowing full well she’d likely just driven somewhere. Harder to track unless he got lucky with a camera on her license plate. She wouldn’t keep that long. Then she’d pop up somewhere new, under a different name, and finding her again would be nearly impossible.

  Not that the thought dissuaded him. Find her he would. After all, he had a nice nest egg now—what better to spend it on?

  He hit pay dirt midafternoon. No hotel stay, but she’d used her card to buy lunch for three people, it turned out, at a pricey restaurant near Pike Place Market. Who had she eaten with? Two other women and a guy, it turned out, according the waiter, who treated him like a stalker and refused to say more. Who were they?

  Fox leaned against the wharf railing outside the place, thinking. Only a few blocks from where she’d eaten lunch yesterday. She’d hung around this same area—why? Jacker. It was the only explanation. The only people she could know in Seattle. He searched his phone and, sure enough, the address popped up conveniently nearby.

  She’d not only stayed, she’d gone into those offices in person. He’d bet the whole kitty on it, even if he never would have predicted this from Emily. Or Phoenix. His idea of her dual faces revolved and refocused, like one of those pictures where you suddenly see the alternate image. They’d tipped her off and she’d decided to face it.

  Who knew she would?

  Maybe he should have.

  He contemplated going up there, finding her, though he’d hardly be Mr. Popular with that group right now. But the knowledge that he could see her, that he could lay eyes on her inside of ten minutes, burned a hole in his brain until the rational parts were obliterated and only the desire to find her remained.

  In fact, the fantasy of seeing her became so strong that a woman walking along the waterfront looked just like her.

  It was her.

  His Emily.

  Except her dark hair hung loose around her shoulders, long strands lifting in the wind off the water. She wore a winter-white tailored coat and boots that matched, along with a crimson cashmere scarf. Classic lines that never went out of style. Clothes from Silar’s life, most likely. Her cheeks, rosy from the chill air, echoed the scarf, her lips a deeper red with lipstick. She looked happy, smiling at a children’s choir singing carols.

  Snow White, awakened.

  Then she spotted him and her step faltered, her face going blank with shock.

  Would she run? He could outpace her easily, in her pretty heeled boots. But she started walking again, straight toward him. Oddly, some part of him wanted to dive into the crowds and disappear. As much as he’d wanted to see her moments ago, now, faced with her bearing down on him, so lovely, ethereal and vivid, he wondered if he could bear what she’d say to him. Or if he even knew what exactly he wanted to say to her.

  “Well, hello, Fox.” She tilted her head and her glossy red lips pursed. “Or should I call you by another name?”

  “Raynard,” he admitted. “Raynard Mills, of Geek Crunch Magazine.”

  “Raynard the fox. Clever.” Her gray eyes were crystal clear, irises circled by the darker ring that set the color off perfectly.

  “Not that deliberate. I started publishing articles in school and always used my legal name as my byline. In daily life, though, everyone called me Fox.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “And Mullins?”

  “My mother’s maiden name—which she reclaimed after the divorce and I adopted in solidarity. It also helped distance us from my father’s creditors, since he’d ruined the family with a severe gambling addiction.”

  “Laying all the cards on the table, are you?” She sounded cool, but she hadn’t walked away.

  “Seems to be the time for it. And you—Emily? Lisa? Silar?”

  She returned his gaze steadily. “And Thunder Troll, Riveter, SpiderMuffins, EyesHaveEyes, Nerfherder007...and Phoenix. But you knew that.”

  He whistled under his breath. At least two of them were identities he’d tracked as friends of Phoenix. The woman was diabolically good. “I didn’t get all of them.”

  “Perhaps you can go add them to the articles. Might as well make them as complete as possible.”

  Ouch. He turned and leaned on the rail, watching the Vancouver Island clipper chug across the water. Surprisingly, she stepped up to the rail next to him, set crimson-gloved hands on it.

  “Fox—”
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  “Look—”

  She glanced sideways at him, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Call me Emily. I’m sticking with it. Easier, on a number of levels.”

  “I really expected you to disappear into another identity,” he admitted.

  “I could have. In the wee hours of the morning, I came close to it. I had a couple to choose from, all set up.”

  “Of course you did.” The admiration surged through him, threaded through with whatever it was that flared to life in her presence.

  “Because of your tip, I had that option.” She slid her hands in the pocket of her coat, her profile nearly the same pale color as she watched the boats also. “I assume it was you. Thank you for that.”

  He felt dirty. The lowest of the low. “Don’t thank me. I owed you that much. I don’t blame you for hating me.”

  She shook her head slightly. “I don’t hate you. Or at least, not for that.”

  “For destroying your life then.”

  She laughed, her ironic chuckle. “I think we can both agree it wasn’t much of a life. And it was a lie. A house of cards that took all of my time and effort to maintain. It’s funny—once it fully penetrated that I’d been found out, that everyone would know what I’d worked so damn hard to hide—you know what I felt?” She glanced at him, a half-smile of deprecation on her lips.

  “The desire to murder me?”

  The smile spread. “Maybe a little of that. But mostly, I felt relief. Pure, wholesome relief.”

  “Huh.” He contemplated that, uncertain what to say to it.

  “Do you remember our first run together, when you asked me about Anansi’s name?”

  “Sure.” He nearly said that he remembered every moment they spent together, that each of the memories had lodged in his head like jewel-encrusted daggers, beautiful and lethal. He must be on a perilous edge of emotion, to be tempted to speak such overwrought metaphors.

  “I lied to you then—as I lied about most everything I told you—because I did take it from Gaiman’s book. The two brothers.”

  “Spider and Charlie.”