“Jay,” they asked, and now instead of intense, even instead of their crisis-mask of calm, they just sounded exhausted, entirely and bone-deep. “What is going on?”
“About ten minutes ago, I opened that message from Radiance HQ Shiloh gave me. I know, I thought I’d focus on Maureen’s disk first—that was a mistake. I shouldn’t have waited. It was a recording. Just a couple seconds long.” He took a deep breath, like the last one right before diving headfirst into deep, dark water. “It was from Regan.”
Rowan’s eyes opened wide; for the first time, Jay had the feeling they were completely present and painfully aware. When they spoke, it wasn’t in their tightly controlled voice anymore, and Jay actually had to lean a little closer to hear their faint whisper. “How? What?”
“I don’t know,” Jay said in as level and calming tone as he could manage himself, hoping it would ground both of them. “There was nothing else on the drive, no background noise, nothing I could trace—”
“What did it say?”
Jay faltered, then made himself speak the words that had chilled him to the bone. “‘Blood in the water.’”
Rowan nearly took a step backwards, seeming to fall off-balance for a moment, as if someone had slapped them in the face. When they recovered, their hands were balled into fists, and their breathing quickened. “He said that? You’re absolutely sure?”
“Yeah. Just four little words.” Jay smiled, but it didn’t feel good at all. “Not much mistaking what they mean.”
“And you’re sure it was him?”
“Not much mistaking that either.”
“I want to hear it for myself—no I don’t,” they said quickly. “Because it’s not real, it’s just another trick. What do we always say about this place? Tartarus lies—”
“Not this time,” Jay maintained, hating every word. “It’s him. That was an official Radiance drive, Lakshanya Chandrashekar’s own encryption, nothing gets past her. And I ran voice recognition, about eight times. I analyzed every millisecond. It’s Regan’s voice, without question, nobody could make a fake so perfect I wouldn’t catch it. And it’s not like I wouldn’t know his voice anywhere, there’s that too,” he finished in a mutter.
“Then he needs help. If that’s really Regan, saying—that—then it confirms beyond a doubt that he’s out here somewhere and we need to find him, right now, before—”
“Yeah, that’s been on my list for a while.” Jay still didn’t raise his voice, but it was getting harder not to. “I’m working on it. Believe me, I’m really, really working on it. I’ll talk to Radiance, find out when and where but you know how tight-lipped they are about their contacts. That’s why I started with Sharpe’s position first instead of just asking them about Regan. If he’s a ‘contact,’ we’re not getting anything else.”
“We have to at least try! Regan was there, we know that!”
“And I will. But that’s not our only priority anymore, it can’t be.”
“What’s a higher priority than finding Regan again?” Rowan stared at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking another language, one neither of them had heard a word of in their lives. “And Zilch? And their heart? Everything else is secondary, even…” They stopped, as if they weren’t sure of their own words anymore. “Even Sharpe.”
“Listen, I know Regan’s important to you—he is to me too!” Jay remembered not to shout just in time. He froze for a full second before continuing, in as loud a whisper as he dared. “Was, is, I don’t even know, that last runtime was—”
“Regan is important to me the way breathing is.” Rowan’s voice was soft, but it surprised Jay into silence anyway. “And I know you feel the same. Even after all this.”
Jay held very still, afraid of giving some wrong answer, or answering at all. Finally, his shoulders sagged and he nodded, letting his head drop so far down his chin almost touched his chest.
Rowan stepped forward and caught his hands in both of theirs. Jay hadn’t even realized he was shaking, or that he’d been holding his breath, until he could breathe again. “This has been hell on all of us, but you saw him last, the night this all started. And now that message, saying…” They stopped, shaking their head as if to clear it of the words they didn’t want to remember. “But what are you saying?”
Jay kept his eyes on their hands and held them tight in his own as he carefully chose his next words. “This isn’t Parole. We don’t know how things work out here. We don’t know anything. Be careful who you trust.”
“Of course I am.” Rowan looked up at him with the first real reaction to break through their careful control, aside from shock, pain, or grief. Confusion. “I trust you. And I trust…”
Jay said nothing. He was holding his breath again.
“No.” Rowan let go of his hands. “No, that’s not—”
“That message might not be a call for help. It might be a warning.”
“Yes, exactly, he’s warning us about Sharpe, he’s still trying to keep us safe!”
“No, Rowan. That message is a red flag, but Regan’s not the one waving it.” Jay forced his voice to stay hard but level, and keep saying the words. The sooner he said them, the sooner they’d be out of him like poison. “When we find him…Regan might not be Regan anymore.”
“What?” Rowan heard him. He knew they did. And couldn’t blame them for a second for wanting to deflect, but he couldn’t stop either.
“Maybe he didn’t betray us on his own free will.” Now it was Jay’s turn to try to access some of that control Rowan had in spades, or had when they’d started this awful conversation. Keep his eyes and voice level and steady and don’t crack, break, or run. “How long did SkEye have him under their thumb?”
“That’s not fair, Jay. That was years ago.”
“Fine, you’re right, let’s not go back years. How about just a couple months?” Jay stopped to catch his breath, surprised that he even had to. Suddenly it felt like he’d sprinted beyond his comfort zone. All of this was far beyond it, anyway. “Listen, I know nobody wants to talk about this, but it was only a couple weeks before Regan disappears and everything breaks out—”
“No,” Rowan interrupted, seeming to instantly know where he was going with this and not liking it at all. “That has nothing to do with—”
“Sharpe grabs him! Two days in a detention center. He’s recaptured, re-addicted, re-clean—”
“Yes, exactly, he survived Sharpe, he survived another round of withdrawal, he escaped, he made it home even though it almost killed him. Regan did all that.”
“Sharpe had him,” Jay said, stating the fact as if it were the only real one left. “For two whole days. Right before all this started. We’re really supposed to just let that go, like it’s all a coincidence?”
“Stop,” Rowan said simply, very quietly.
But Jay couldn’t, not once that particular dam had burst. “And what did Sharpe do to him? We don’t even know! Regan didn’t know! What the hell could somebody do to a person, so they don’t even remember?”
“I remember. You don’t have to remind me.” Their voice had defaulted to their triage detachment again. Jay forced himself to ignore this red flag and focus on the original.
“So we can’t rule out the possibility he’s been compro—”
“No.”
“No? Just—no?”
“No. I do not accept that.”
“Okay!” Jay tipped his head back to look up at the dark ceiling and bright, soft lights in the treetop for a moment, fighting the urge to break into helpless, borderline-hysterical laughter. “All I know are the facts. And now we have a new one to consider.”
“Well, here’s one more fact: Regan did not betray us.” Rowan folded their arms now, and Jay could swear they were digging their hooves into the ground.
“I’m not saying he did!”
“Then, once again, what are you saying?
“There are so many possibilities here, and not a whole lot of good ones, okay? W
e just have to look at this from every angle and be ready for whatever—”
“There are possibilities I’ll accept, and ones I won’t—like Regan being a traitor!” Rowan started shaking their head and Jay almost took a step away from their horns. But like before, he didn’t go anywhere. “And I won’t abandon him. Not when he needs us most. How can you even think that, Jay? After—”
“You think I like even considering this? You think this is fun for me?”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because what Regan pulled on that last runtime caught me totally unprepared, bam, never saw it coming! I had a plan for anything—except that!” Jay leaned closer and whispered, so harshly it hurt. “And so this time we can maybe be ready, if it all goes to hell again! I hope it doesn’t! But we need to be prepared!”
“I’ll never be prepared for that.” Rowan shut their eyes and kept them squeezed shut as they spoke, as if the possibility stood directly before them beside Jay, the tree, and Annie as she slept. “We might lose Regan forever out here and I can’t. I just can’t.”
“Rowan… I just don’t want you to get hurt. Again. Like I did.” Jay took in a slow breath, disturbed at how much it shook. The exhale was just as bad. “We might have already lost him.”
“No!” Rowan half-shouted, voice nearly breaking. Annie shifted in her sleep but didn’t wake up. “Regan is alive—and so is Zilch, we can see that, we have solid, concrete evidence, so—”
“That’s not what I mean. You know it’s not.”
“And I won’t accept it, because it’s impossible. Regan didn’t betray us. He hasn’t been brainwashed, nobody is controlling him. When we find him—he’ll be him!” Jay sometimes wondered if tears from all-black eyes that had been turned from Tartarus vapors would be clear or black themselves. He’d never seen them; he’d never seen Rowan anywhere near crying and that was probably the way they liked it. But that might be about to change. “And he’ll be alive! Blood in the water or not. We’ll get him back. We have to.”
“Okay. Fine.” Jay held up his hands, then let them drop. He’d never been so glad to let a conversation drop either. But the unanswered questions and a decade of memories seemed to hang around them like heavy curtains. Just like the Tartarus wastes, everywhere they looked tonight, they saw ghosts. “So where does that leave us?”
“I don’t know, Jay.” Rowan’s voice was flat again, as lifeless as it had been at the beginning of this entire ordeal. “Where does it leave us?”
This time, when he turned to go, Rowan didn’t try to stop him.
The next day came and the FireRunner had yet to ship out. Resolving that if any working shield existed anywhere in this outpost, they would find it, Aliyah and Jay set out in the now-familiar disguises of ponchos and sunglasses. Everyone else was free to stay on the ship, join in the search, or keep an eye out for anything else useful while they were still in a friendly port. It would likely be a while before they saw another.
Seeming moderately panicked at the realization that they’d soon be confined to the ship, Indra was quick to follow. Shiloh didn’t come close to sharing his cabin fever but was relieved to see him excited about anything after the ordeal at Radiance HQ. Xie had no idea what he was looking for but readily agreed to help him find it before they left.
There wasn't much to see down on the street leading to the docks. Like Meridian, this barrier-domed outpost was little more than a single main street, though the prefab buildings and parked trucks made it look even less established and more like it was made to be dismantled at a moment’s notice. A few people passed by, mostly Radiance volunteers.
A short distance away, Annie and Rowan—in a large, ill-fitting trench coat, ears and horns covered by a hat even bigger and floppier than Shiloh’s, and hooves in even worse-fitting boots—conversed in low tones. They’d chosen a shady spot under one of the few trees in this protected bubble; Shiloh wondered if it reminded them of the huge one in the FireRunner’s tank.
But xie didn’t have time to wonder for long. The sound of a deck of cards being loudly shuffled came from behind xir and, for a moment, Shiloh wondered if xie’d fallen asleep. The last time xie’d heard that sound was in a dream. But xie felt awake and alert as xie turned to see Indra with the cards xie’d heard, shuffling them in midair with more skill and ease than Shiloh had ever seen in person.
“You’re really good at that,” xie had to say, watching as cards streamed from one of his hands to the other, none of them falling to the ground.
“What?” Indra actually looked puzzled as he continued shuffling—he wasn’t even looking at what he was doing, Shiloh realized. It seemed a lot more like a nervous habit, like when Annie twirled her hair around her finger, finding comfort and relief in the repeated sensation. “Oh! Thanks. It’s just something I do to calm down. Been wound a little tight lately.”
“I could never do that.” Shiloh couldn’t help staring now, at the way the cards seemed to float between his hands, the way his motions seemed so automatic and effortless, the small glittering trails the cards left in the air—
“Everybody needs a way to blow off steam. This is mine. Usually for an audience, but even—woah!” Indra clapped his hands together, cards between them. Still, tiny bright lights danced around his hands, like sparks that didn’t burn. “Was that you?”
“Ah, sorry!” Shiloh blushed, clamping down on the unconscious energy flares like blowing out a candle xie hadn’t noticed was burning until it caught something on fire. “I didn’t mean to do that--I was just watching, and...”
“Don’t worry about it! That was awesome. Actually…” Indra smiled slowly, a little mischievously, as if he were putting something together for the first time, something he liked. “Can you do it again?”
Five minutes later, Indra stood in the center of a growing crowd, demonstrating exactly why the sound of cards and coins usually accompanied his words in dreams.
“Pick a card! Any card!” Indra’s voice carried well even over the sounds of engines and the excited crowd. Any last bits of wandering attention were caught in his sweeping, flourishing movements. “Any card in the world—no, actually, just any card in my hand! Pick any card and I will match it, find it, bring it home. Everybody’s looking for something and today’s looking great for cards…”
It worked like a charm. While Shiloh remained unobtrusively off to the side with xir head down, Indra stood in the spotlight—a quite literal one that Shiloh focused on maintaining. Subtle enough not to set off anyone’s suspicion but flashy enough to catch attention. When Indra’s hands arced through the air, faint flashes followed their movements. When cards flipped over, they flared in small showers of sparks.
“Is this your card? No, of course it’s not, they’re mine!” He said with a laugh that actually sounded genuine. “But it’s the one you picked, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s what I thought!”
Not all powers came from Chrysedrine. Indra’s ability to manipulate everyday objects, making them appear and disappear seemingly at will were uncanny, but not supernatural. But he did command another kind of magnetism, Shiloh’s influence aside. It came from a brilliant smile, an engaging charisma, and an infectious laugh.
“Yes, this is the lost and found desk. Did you lose this Queen of Hearts? ‘Cause I found it—Yes! Yes, God, I get tired of being right!”
And he did glitter. It hadn’t taken long to figure out that Indra’s natural showmanship and Shiloh’s energetic spark was a winning combination. With every spark, the gathered people let out appreciative ooh’s and aah’s.
“What did I tell you?” Indra glanced over his shoulder and shot Shiloh a grin as equally dazzling sparks cascaded around him. “Sometimes all you can rely on are your wits and your hands. Lucky mine have the Midas touch.”
“Your wits or your hands?” Shiloh couldn’t stop smiling either. Not when he looked like that. After Radiance HQ and then the infection scare, Shiloh had been actually afraid xie might not ever see Indra’s sm
ile again. There were still dark circles under his eyes but today they were lit up with Shiloh’s flares and his own kinetic energy.
“Both. And a little help from my friends.” He winked, revealing the Jack of Spades with a flourish. He turned his smile up another few watts and went back to his hustle. “No, no tips necessary, good people! Your delight is a far better reward!”
Shiloh watched, hypnotized, as his long, nimble fingers manipulated the cards and pulled threads of chance, so enthralled xie almost forgot to keep up the fireworks. Indra had obviously been practicing this for years. This at least partly explained how he’d been able to float from place to place for as long as he had. Alone.
“And that’s all folks!” Indra raised his voice a minute later, flipping the cards back into his hand with a final flourish. “We had some good times, good memories, a few laughs. Thank you, we’ve been great!” As the small crowd dissipated, he busied himself in collecting the cards, not looking up.
“Nice job,” Shiloh said quietly as the crowd dispersed, and Stefanos’s large frame appeared from the back of the audience. Shiloh wondered if he'd been there the whole time. He hadn't had the best viewpoint from where he'd been standing, but then, with his eyes, maybe he hadn't needed it. “That was a great idea.”
“Not really, it was reckless and idiotic and could have gotten us all caught and killed, especially ‘cause we don’t even need the money,” Indra groused, his performer’s smile disappearing as fast as his cards up his sleeve. “But if I didn’t find some kind of creative outlet, I was gonna find a tall object and walk off.”
Shiloh felt a cold shock of alarm. “Indra, if you’re—”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry,” Indra said, holding up his now entirely non-glowing hands. Now that he met xir eyes, he was clearly more than just tired. He looked brittle, wound tight as a string that might snap. “Just been a hard couple days. Family stuff. And then…you know.” He dropped one hand but kept holding up the one that until recently had cracked and peeled with the Tartarus ghost’s poison.
The Lifeline Signal Page 24
