by F P Adriani
My bottom lip dropped open, but he only turned away again, with his whole body this time. “Like I said, you do what you’ve got to do, go where you’ve got to go, where you belong. You were away from here for too long, Diamond Sand. But I’ll always be here if you come back.”
He walked across the room and out the doorway.
I stood staring at that spot, alone now with all the knowledge I’d just learned swirling about me and through me. And I suddenly realized that Tan was wrong. I’d been wrong too. Very wrong.
No matter what I wanted or did, this place was inside me, it was part of my structure, and I couldn’t get away from it. I never had. My prior existence here had only followed me light-years away, had only dogged me across the galaxy, across time. My past never letting go of my present or my future.
For better or worse, I belonged here. It was a marriage I couldn’t divorce.
My fingers tightened around the e-drive. I was now in possession of a double insurance policy to protect Hu from me and me from the UPG. And I didn’t want that policy out of my possession because it might come in handy someday.
I moved over to one of the desks, picked up a pen and a blank notepad, and began writing out my report.
*
Before I sent it off to James, I had some business to take care of with the e-drive, copies to make and store, digital and hard.
The next day I purchased a computer, a printer and vault safety-deposit space under another identity of mine. And then I got to work on making that insurance policy more effective.
As I did all this, I thought about where to step to in the days ahead. I thought about Blackedout Gblackedout and how I could probably use my talents to find him on my own. I could probably do a lot on my own. Shit, I’d pretty much worked this way all along. I’d been trained by the UPG only in the beginning; the rest had been all me.
Maybe I should have been working alone from Day One.
*
I finally brought my report to the Pine Mine Communications Building; I sent the document’s scan encrypted. And I felt very satisfied about this, as if I’d given someone a long-overdue Fuck You. It was not enough, but it would do for now.
When I walked back out the building, I thought of Tan. My feet moved in his direction, toward his office. But when I got there, Abe said Tan would be in a meeting for the rest of the day.
Feeling disappointed, I went back to my hotel to fall asleep on my bed. As I drifted off into the blackness, I wondered if having an uncertain future was a good thing or a bad thing.
*
The next afternoon when I came back from the hotel restaurant after lunch, my room phone was ringing. I picked up the receiver and was surprised to hear James’s angry voice saying he was on Diamond and had gotten my message bounced back to him just as he’d set foot on the planet.
“You’ve failed,” he growled. “The Festival was a goddamn mess. And what the fuck kind of report is this? You won’t get paid for this. You were supposed to arrest her.”
My insides were churning, but I kept my voice as calm as possible as I said, “You know, James, I almost got killed that Festival day. But you don’t even give a shit about that, do you? At some point, you’re all the same at the UPG. If you don’t care about the individual’s getting killed, why bother keeping order? Who you keeping it for? The machine?”
“I’m not getting into a debate with you. We need to meet. Tonight.”
*
He said the same “You were supposed to arrest her” as soon as he showed up at the bar we’d agreed to meet at.
The big place was dark inside and crowded; I got there much earlier and waited at a table facing the door, my small popper lying inside my black corduroy jacket’s pocket. And when James strode over and sat down, I moved the gun to my seat under the table. And that was when he repeated the bit about my not taking Hu into custody.
“Well, I didn’t,” I said to him now. “She got away, and I don’t know where she went, like I said in my report. AND I’m sick of you whole fucking crowd. I’m sick of doing your dirty work. You just completely disgust me. You knew. All along you knew. About my parents. The UPG killed them, you complete pieces of shit.”
I was pleased to see some of the color and arrogance disappear from James’s face as fear took their place. In fact, I’d never seen him look so afraid, so vulnerable, not even when he’d been poised above me having an orgasm.
His throat twitched as he swallowed, so did his fake mustache; then he blinked and seemed to recover himself a bit. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where did you hear that?”
“Shut your fucking lying mouth!” I yelled. And he did—fast. Some heads had turned my way at my raised voice, so I lowered it now, and leaned forward over the table more, toward James. “You never were that good an actor. That’s why you were always sitting behind a desk, and I was always doing all the fucking lying leg work.
“The thing I can’t figure out is: why the UPG would kill my parents. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how you recruit people. Get them all riled up about their families being destroyed by others when YOU’RE the ones who’ve done the destroying. I know all about it now, oh yeah I do. I’ve seen files detailing the truth, and they’re all tucked away somewhere nice and neat.
“So this is the deal, James. I don’t want to hear from or see you ever again. As far as you’re concerned, I don’t exist. But the files still do somewhere. If you ever come after me, the files will be released to the public. I should kill your fucking ass right now.” His eyes darted around wildly; with his suddenly sunken cheeks, his face looked more than a little shaken.
I’d always doubted he’d ever been out in the field in any capacity. And I’d never threatened him before. He was basically a pencil-pushing scumbag, James was. But he was smart enough to know that I wasn’t bluffing this threat.
My finger lying on the trigger, I took a long look at him, wondering what the hell I’d ever seen in him, what the hell I’d ever seen in that whole life of mine, which now seemed like a life someone else had lived, someone I didn’t know.
James was speechless the whole time I stared.
My sweaty finger now itched…but he just wasn’t worth it, goddammit.
Slipping my popper back into my pocket, I stood up. I looked down at him and finally said, “That you were just a kid then yourself so weren’t involved is the only thing that saved you right now. But you’ve got no heart, James, and what’s even worse: you’ve got no guts. Goodbye and go fuck yourself hard till the end of time.”
*
When I got back to my hotel, I called Tan’s office. My hand shook on the receiver, but the line only rang and rang and rang.
I hung up, left the hotel, drove to The Complex, walked to the Records Building, and banged on the door to his little apartment there. No answer.
I sighed. I really, really wanted to see him, and he was nowhere to be found. …Okay, there was one more place to look.
Back in my car, I drove faster than before. And by the time I pulled up to his house and saw the lights on inside, my hands were shaking again.
He must have heard me pull up, or he saw my car or something, because now the front door opened, and I saw his slim backlit form. I jumped out of the car and walked over to his stoop. He pushed the screened door open and held it like that, silently waiting.
But I only stood there as I said, “I looked for you at The Complex. It’s over. They know I know about the report. I warned them, I quit with them.”
He nodded and tilted his head toward behind him. I walked in and he closed the door behind us, began walking down the hall toward the back of the house, as he’d done my first time there. I followed him and we stepped out onto the patio. His right arm motioned for me to sit down on one of the lounge chairs, so I did.
“I was out here,” Tan said, “and came in for a drink, then I saw your car up front. You want a drink?”
“Actually, yeah. I could really use one
.”
He turned around and walked back inside. My eyes closed, I waited for him, the warm night wind gently fluttering my hair, making it tickle my face. Not only did it look beautiful here, it felt beautiful too. There were so many things to see on Diamond, to feel. I had missed so much, had a lot to make up.
I heard his footfalls on the tile patio. I stood up and took the drink, which felt cool in my warm hand, even cooler down my throat once I’d taken a sip. I walked over to near the patio’s edge so I could see that Magenta Mountain again. It loomed beyond, looking so large, I felt so small.
“What will you do now?” Tan asked me as he walked up beside me. He held a glass in his hand, and he took a sip of his drink as he too looked at the mountain. Then he added in a quieter voice, “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
I stared at his beautiful profile, saw how sad he looked. I realized then that he often looked like that. Or maybe he looked different to me now—and when had that change taken place? Had the change been in him, or in my perception of him, or in both?
I said now, “Come on, you don’t mean that.”
“But I do, Pia.”
“Tan, I’ve been thinking,” I began, half-musing out loud. “I’m my own person, and I’ve never taken orders too well. Even in my job…I’ve done things I shouldn’t have. What was expedient, I’d do it. I really should be working alone, or at least I should be in charge.”
“That’s the way I’ve felt about myself too.”
“Then this is something we have in common.”
His head turned to me, and I smiled a little, only he didn’t smile back. I felt a bit worried: had something changed for him toward me?
I took a risk. “Did you mean what you said last time about your feelings for me?”
“You know I did.”
“But something seems different now.”
His eyes tilted down toward his glass; he gently swirled it around, the dark liquid inside making a little sloshing sound. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my job. I don’t know where to go from here.”
“That’s the way I feel too—maybe we could work out something together. A new business. Security, investigating—I don’t know yet.” The more I thought about it now, the more excited I got. I began talking faster. “Why can’t I keep tying up my past while experiencing a separate future? A new life? And I think together we could use both our interesting talents and…” My voice faded away as I listened to his soft laughter. His eyes were on me now, and they’d softened too.
“You’re still a riot,” he said. “Even in the midst of a mess, you can always make me laugh.”
I half-smiled at him, and he kept talking. But his voice sounded somber again. “Pia, unfortunately, nothing’s changed here. It’s as dangerous as ever. And now I know the level of corruption. At work yesterday I was listening to a Councilmember complaining about a contract not being fulfilled on time because of the moratorium, and I wanted to quit on the spot. It all seems so fake now—the UPG, The Council, my fucking command. You’re not the only one who’s been living a lie. But then I think about all the innocent people depending on me there…and then I don’t know. You just can’t walk away so easily sometimes.”
“Well, maybe we can think of some solution to all this together, you know? That’s the operative word: together, you and me.”
He had been staring at me, and now he took a few steps sideways to lower his glass onto the dining table. I did the same with my glass, but I stood several feet away from him.
He lifted his head, his eyes on mine again as he said, “I’ve never met anyone like you. I’ve never felt such a strong attraction to a woman so quickly. When I think back to before then, I see myself as a walking zombie, going through all these motions, most of it shit I don’t even like. If I never met you, I’d still be the walking dead, and I wouldn’t even know it.”
“Well, now you have met me and, to be honest, I need a real friend around here. And it looks like so do you.”
“Yeah, but look at all the problems. And how safe is it for you here? Can you trust they won’t come after you anyway? And then there’s this new wrinkle: I’m beginning to think someone else is behind some of the shit here, like you’ve said before, some unknown factor. But if the people responsible can’t be pinpointed, it’s like fighting a ghost. You’re swinging at nothing. If there’s no end in sight, I don’t know if staying here is worth it anymore….”
“I’m staying. We can’t give up—not yet. Imagine if people had? We would have gone extinct on Earth. But we pulled ourselves together there and lucked out in stumbling across here. Lots of people have worked hard to start over again, trying to do it better than on Earth. Look at the history there—countries were started like Diamond was. People died to make those places work. And then their offspring shitted on the places, some places got totally destroyed. They didn’t learn anything. What would all the people who died feel like if they came back to life and saw the mess their offspring made, like the people died for absolutely nothing in the end? I don’t want that to happen here now. For my parents’ sake too.”
His eyes were still on me, and I saw admiration in them. I didn’t think I’d ever see that from him, because, for so long, he didn’t seem to respect what I was. But then, maybe I hadn’t respected it either.
He must have read my mind. “I’ve misjudged you.” He sighed, a little sadly. “And I’ll never stop feeling bad about that.”
“I’m sure you can make it up to me somehow,” I said, quickly flashing him a big suggestive grin.
Now, a soft laugh slowly blew through his sexy lips. When he spoke, he was half-smiling, almost shyly as he eyed me with his head slightly downturned and looking adorable. “And I thought falling in love with women who never love me back was my legacy.”
Moving toward him finally and slipping my arms around his waist, I smiled warmly at his face and said, “Well, you thought wrong.”
Diamond Sphere
Exactly six months after I started Miscellaneous Solutions Associated, a girl walked into my office and offered MSA its first real job.
Well, its first real real job. Previously MSA had been contracted for some real doozie jobs, like the guy who hired me to find his fake teeth. And then there was the mom who wanted a bodyguard for her being-bullied school-kid. Most days I would take any job; no job was too big or too small, too smart or too stupid. Whatever would pay the bills. And did I have bills.
Eight months ago I’d lost the income from my old job. Now I was totally on my own, living on savings and whatever I could make as half a security specialist, half a doer-of-whatever-needed-doing-for-a-client, and yet all a businessperson. It felt weird: businessperson was a hat I’d never worn.
When I first thought up the idea for MSA, I intended that both my friend Nell and my boyfriend Tan would become active semi-partners. And in the beginning both of them had been active in the business. But because it couldn’t even financially sustain itself yet, three months ago Tan had fallen away from MSA, and now almost all his efforts were geared toward his full-time job as security director at The Citadel Museum—where the girl with the real job for me had apparently found out about me. From there, from him.
Julianne Castano was the girl’s name. Up until four weeks ago, her mother had been a consulting scientist at The Citadel. And now her mother was dead.
Julianne stood on the other side of my desk; with her short straight brown hair, big eyeglasses, chubby cheeks and pouty frowning mouth, she looked around thirteen or fourteen. She might have been a little older. I didn’t ask her age.
Instead, I sat there while, beside her, a tall blond-and-gray-haired woman named Lori Godwin spoke. She was Julianne’s guardian, and she told me that Amy Castano’s death was listed as a naturally-caused heart attack. But Lori and Julianne didn’t think her mother had died of natural causes—Julianne especially didn’t think this, and that was why she was here.
“I want you to find out who killed my
mom,” the girl said bluntly now.
I stared at her pale face. “What makes you think someone killed your mom? Why would they?”
Now Lori Godwin said to me, “Could you close your door?”
While interviewing a potential client, I usually kept the door behind me open to my outside general office area. At the moment, Nell was sitting at the main desk out there, so was my assistant Roberto; at other moments, my one other employee, Mike, could have been sitting out there too.
I didn’t like keeping secrets from either my partners or my employees. I no longer liked keeping secrets, period. I had turned a new corner in my life; I had slowly been working on changing my previous covert behaviors, which were actually had-developed-later-in-my-life behaviors. And now, to better my current behaviors, to become more overt, I’d been working hard on remembering back to when I was innocent and young—not much younger than Julianne looked—and using my memories of that old me to change the current me.
I had nothing to hide now from Nell especially, but also from Roberto. His usual job was doing any legwork I needed doing. And because he had to put himself out there, I made sure he was always informed in here.
I wondered why Lori and Julianne had something to hide; I also wondered why they wanted our conversation hidden from the others.
My ass feeling uneasy, I shifted on my seat and thought in silence for a long moment….
Then I sighed loudly, stood up and closed the door, shrugging at Nell’s raised brown eyebrows right before the closing wooden door blocked my view of her.
I went back to my easy chair.
Now Lori sat down in one of the chairs across from my desk, and she said in a low voice, “It’s not so much that we need you to find Amy Castano’s killer. There’s a situation here on Diamond. A potentially dangerous problem.”
