A few milliseconds flashed by.
In the distant shell of her flesh, Bobbi sweat.
the shard said.
And that was it. Before she could reply, the fragment broke apart, either by design or by the travails of whatever journey it had taken to get to her brain. She woke up, eyes snapping open, staring ahead into a sea of concerned faces that surrounded her. Bobbi became distinctly aware of the sweat that drenched her clothes, and the stinging of her eyes as tears welled in earnest.
“Bobbi,” Violet murmured in her ear, her voice tinged heavily with fear. “Honey, are you there? Can you hear me?”
“I’m…here.” Bobbi looked at the other woman. A tickling sensation crawled in her nostrils. She grasped at it and her fingers came away bloody. “I’m all right.” Bobbi wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m sorry. It was Cagliostro – or a piece of him, anyway.”
“A piece of him?” Janelle’s voice, etched with concern as well. “Bobbi, what the hell just happened, girl? One second you’re talking to us, and the next minute you’re stock still and sweating like a horse.”
“Do horses sweat?” Bobbi asked, dazed. They’d been gone for what seemed like ages. Then she got a hold of herself, and the fog of sudden network connection blew clear. “I’ll tell you all about it, but Jesus, get me some water, first.”
t would appear that she is getting closer,” Lionel Knightley said over the link, his voice like an upsampled echo through the Network. “She’ll be coming up into orbit soon, sister. Her or her killers.”
“You don’t think January would actually hurt you, do you, Lionel?” asked The Fury, her voice rich with concern. “We’ve done a lot here. I don’t want to see it put to a premature end.” She too was a phantom voice, entering Walken’s mind from somewhere else in the Network – on Earth, not in orbit, in the depths of New York’s urban wilds.
“Your concern is very heartening, Julia,” Lionel said, his voice dripped freon. “If you try a little harder, I might just think that it was real.”
Mendelsohn snorted. “I care about the goal. I can’t afford to care about anything else more than that. You know how I operate, Lionel.”
“I know all too well, sister,” Lionel replied, still frosty. “But the fact remains that she is coming here, she or people working for her. I say she has violence in mind, either now or when she sees what we’re doing here, if she is corrupted with Babylon the way you say.”
A low growl of consideration escaped from Mendelsohn. “You might be right. I could send a group of people up there, but they’re not trained to fight in low gravity.”
Lionel chuckled. “Plenty gravity up in Treehaus, sister. I have my laboratory firmly in the industrial section. No floating here.”
“Well, that’s good. I’m glad that you got those people you needed up there with you, too.” Mendelsohn seemed about to say something else, but then caught herself, grew cautious. “Is someone else there, Lionel?”
Walken took a mental breath. “I am here.” His voice sounded every bit as chip-flat and cold projected into a telephone call as it was in the open air. “I have been listening.”
“Ahhhhhh.” Lionel’s tone lightened. “The Walker, he is here.”
“I thought you said that this line was secure, Lionel,” Mendelsohn hissed.
“No line secure against the Walker, sister,” Lionel said with a soft laugh. “He see all, he be all. But the truth is that I invited him here. He be listening since before you came on. Isn’t that right, mon?”
“Long enough, yes,” Walken replied. “I’m sorry to eavesdrop, but I had hoped to reach you both at once. It has been…most difficult to speak with you at the same time.”
“Agent Walken.” Mendelsohn sounded about as happy about it as Walken thought that she would be. “Lionel, are you sure that this is the real him?”
“As sure as I can be, sister,” Lionel replied. “The dubs say he’s the real thing.”
Mendelsohn’s tone took an even sharper edge, flavored with incredulity. “The dub? Lionel, I don’t know what you’ve –”
“I feel that the how is not so important as the why, Commander,” Walken said. “I am here for a reason.”
“And that is?” Mendelsohn sounded equal parts curious and amused.
“We are in danger.”
“No shit,” Mendelsohn said. “Do tell, Agent. Which source of imminent destruction do you refer to?”
Walken heaved a mental sigh. “Please…” He attempted to soothe, but utterly failed thanks to his stone-flat voice. “You already know that I am not a danger to you. You would not have consented to my involvement in the first place if this were so.”
“Hosts all go crazy eventually.”
Walken made a soft sound that ended up sharing more in common with a bee than any indication of human consideration. “I am sure that I am not any judge of human sanity, but the fact remains, we are in danger.”
“You’ve said,” said Mendelsohn. “Who was that, again?”
“An excellent question.” Walken paused a moment to collect his thoughts and suppress the darkness lurking beneath the surface. Since he had returned from Los Angeles, it had grown increasingly difficult to keep from feeling the cocktail of shame and anger that rose with Kim’s death. “There are a few suspects. Hatred, for one. Ambition. Jealousy. All very human, I expect.”
“Ah…”
Feeling that he had the advantage, Walken continued. “Tell me, Commander. Why were your troops in Los Angeles?”
Crickets on the line.
“Commander?”
Still nothing.
“Very well, we will table that for a moment. Let me ask a different question: why has Bobbi January not been involved in our little conspiracy? I understand that she’s been quite key to suppressing Yathi efforts across the planet, especially with respect to assassinating key Yathi operatives.”
“She is an abomination,” Mendelsohn roared. “She isn’t even human anymore!”
Now we’re getting somewhere. “I find that an interesting thing to say. Considering that measured by popular philosophy, neither am I.”
“You’re different! You don’t have that thing in your brain, however it happened. You kill Yathi, and you do it for the human race.”
“So does she,” he said.
“She surrounds herself with Yathi,” Mendelsohn continued in a voice that could eat through metal. Walken understood why she got the name Fury. “Crazy or not, they can return, and they will. Scalli told me about her. He told me that the machine Cagliostro put its programming in her head.”
“She has the ability to use the Network as the Yathi do,” explained Knightley. “Gifted to her by Cagliostro four years ago. There is no human-built sys
tem that she cannot infiltrate.”
A very interesting development. Still doesn’t explain Mendelsohn’s rage. “I still don’t see what the problem is. She works with those who are no longer controlled by their parasites, and actively kills the Yathi where she finds them. On top of this, you seem to suggest that Cagliostro has some hold on her, but we are working together here because of his help and his intrigues. What, precisely, is the problem?”
“I’m not here because of Cagliostro.” Mendelsohn spat the words out as if they were poisonous. “More of our people died because of him than anyone else. I’m here because of Lionel, and because he wants to kill them all. We don’t work with that…thing. And as for January, she is its puppet, and nothing more. She fights them now, but that’s only to put herself into a position to be able to control them both. She and the rest of her monsters must be killed, else they’re just going to become the next problem once we destroy the fucking things.”
“The good thing about being in an alliance,” Walken said, “is that no one party makes the decisions. I think you’re acting…emotionally, Commander. It’s understandable, but nevertheless, it is not optimum. Why waste efforts to destroy a potential ally, or at worst, an additional distraction for Yathi forces?”
“They are all traitors to humanity,” the Fury insisted. She had begun to sound very cold indeed.
“But you must admit,” Walken said, “she is very effective. And she has a vast technological advantage over you. If she intended you harm, you would most likely not be able to counter it.”
“She’s not human anymore,” Mendelsohn said, and Walken could almost envision the severe woman digging her heels into the earth. The immovable object. “Marcus said that she wasn’t.”
“One,” Walken said crisply, ticking off points with the fingers of his hand.” Unless he has produced evidence to that effect, we must put that aside as mere conjecture. Two, Bobbi did not seek vengeance when he left with his faction, even though she undoubtedly had the means to kill all of them. Sentimentality is not a mark of the Yathi.”
“That doesn’t mean that she isn’t still attempting to undermine us from afar,” said Mendelsohn. She opened her mouth to speak further when Walken interrupted her yet again.
“Three, she has demonstrated considerable care in maintaining the safety of humans – both those of her own personnel and bystanders.” He was surprised to hear his voice take on a faint edge of its own. “She would appear to be the only one who does.”
“That’s some easy shit to say when you’re leading from behind.” The cold venom in Mendelsohn’s voice seeped out with every word. “She has the technological edge, but my people fight. They don’t snipe people through windows.”
“Of course they do.” The spark of anger within him had begun to seethe, to spread. “You have done great work in reducing the enemy’s numbers, Commander, but in my judgment, you tend to confuse effectiveness with ruthlessness. From everything that I have been told, this was the same mistake of your predecessor. Though it must be said, while he preferred overt action as well, he did not offer up his troops on an altar for slaughter. Just what were you attempting to do, sending your team to that hotel? Capture the wise men for yourself? Did you not trust that I would perform the task as I had told Mr. Knightley that I would? You prefer to be in command, I understand that, but there are many sides to this conflict. If you wish support, you may well start to act as though you were a partner in this.”
“You dare,” Mendelsohn roared over the line. “When I lost my people – good people! And she lost nobody!”
“How would you know that,” said Walken calmly, “if you weren’t watching her?”
“I…make sure that she is monitored,” said Mendelsohn with the slightest hint of uncertainty in her tone. “No enemy should be allowed to exist unwatched. Besides, I didn’t realize that you were going to be involved.”
That was certainly surprising. “You didn’t know?”
“I did not,” she admitted. Walken bet it burned in her guts to say it. “When I saw that January was gathering her forces there, I thought…”
“You thought what?” Walken pressed. “Who were you looking for?”
Lionel finished the thought for her. “She thought that it might be Scalli.”
After a moment’s silence, Mendelsohn replied in a flat, bitter tone. “Well, it wasn’t. And if I were kept in the fucking loop I would never have interfered.”
“Odd that Cagliostro didn’t tell you,” Walken said. He couldn’t read her face, so he wasn’t sure if she told the truth or not. Her tone certainly seemed to fit. He decided that he’d believe her for the moment. “Okay. Why did you think it was Scalli there?”
“We only got scraps of the comms traffic. I knew that it was her, and that she had people around, and that they were watching for someone to arrive,” said Mendelsohn. “I thought that perhaps they found him. Especially when her operatives on the ground turned out to be friends of mine – I thought they were going to break him out of there.” Her voice managed to turn bitter still. “I guess they’re just working together now, the traitors.”
“All the more reason to get in touch with her,” Walken said. He didn’t have time to think about Mendelsohn’s logic, or her apparent soft spot for Scalli. “If she’s good enough for your former associates, she can’t have gone around the proverbial twist.”
“Lionel,” she said. “What are your feelings on the matter?”
“Bobbi January has the technology we need, and she leads a proven force. Me say dat she is better as an ally than a rival, or an enemy.” Lionel sounded neutral, but Walken imagined the man was anything but at the moment. He did not seem the type to tolerate loose cannons, other than himself.
“Fine.” It wasn’t so much defeat as it was concession. Her bitterness did not fade, and Walken doubted very much that the matter had been closed. “I will contact her when I can. Do we tell her everything?”
Walken grunted. “Don’t trouble with contacting her. If they have made the same connections that I have, it will only further confuse things. I will save you that burden.”
“Are you sure that you should do that?” Concern etched Lionel’s tone. “There could be a great deal that could go wrong there.”
“Very true,” replied Walken. “But with Ms. Mendelsohn a poor option and yourself in orbit and thus lacking the effect of your sort of…charisma, I suspect I will do best to meet her face to face. We will have to meet eventually, and she will have to know the truth in time. Better to bring her into this matter and out of the dark as soon as possible.”
“And by a friend, too,” said Lionel. “The Walker knows what he is doing, sister. Better that we move on to business.”
“I will leave you,” said Walken, and he cut the connection. He had other things to see to now, and did not want Mendelsohn to have time to change her mind. When he disconnected, the cockpit of the Agincourt loomed around him, its faceted bubble a window to a gray night sky. Besides, he had already pissed off Mendelsohn to the point that he doubted she would speak to him further.
“Hey, chief.” Jacinto looked up from the entry aisle. Two days ago, he had taken Strikeboy off to Spain, where his mother’s people lived, and where he would remain safe – or at least as safe as he could be given the state of the world. Walken thought that perhaps he should have shipped the poor kid to the Amazon, but he doubted that would really have done anything more for Strikeboy should the Yathi come for him, short of reducing the number of witnesses.
Walken found that Jacinto tried to talk a good deal more to him in his partner’s absence. Interesting dynamic. Co-dependent, yet positive. He looked down at Jacinto and affected a flat smile. “Good evening. What can I do for you?”
Jacinto shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.” He handed up a can of Modelo to Walken. “Thought you might want a beer is all. You’ve been out here the whole time I’ve been back.”
Looking down at himself, Walken had to admit that it was
true. He had spent almost all his time in the Agincourt since Jacinto had returned in it. Before that, he lived in Jacinto’s converted aerobarn. He preferred it here, though. The technology was…comforting, he supposed. Advanced to a point, though of course, nothing like the machines within him. It felt a bit like staying around family antiques. “Thank you.” He took the beer from Jacinto, though he did not open it. He didn’t drink, after all, but the prop offered refreshing familiarity.
“Didn’t think that you still drank,” Jacinto continued.” But I thought, you know, maybe you’d like company.”
More likely Jacinto felt lonely, of course, but Walken smiled at him all the same. “Thank you.” He let out a soft sigh.
Despite being completely synthetic, Jacinto latched onto the sound. “What is it? Something on your mind?”
“Something like that.” Walken nodded. “I spoke with Lionel Knightley and Julia Mendelsohn.”
“Jesus, the things you get up to while I’m away,” Jacinto muttered. “What do you want to do with the Fury, anyway? She didn’t fuck around when I worked for her, sure as shit doesn’t fuck around now.”
“She was a captive audience.” Walken didn’t go into any further explanation. “I urged them both to join forces with Bobbi January.”
Climbing up on the pilot’s seat, his legs dangling off the side, Jacinto leaned against the dormant console and let out a whistle. “Man…” He took a draw off his beer. “I bet Julie didn’t like that one bit.”
Walken shook his head. “She did not. She claims that her operatives were at the hotel because she believed Bobbi and some ‘people that she knew’ had found Marcus Scalli there and were going to get him out.” He shrugged. “She also claims that she did not know about the operation.”
“That a fact.” Jacinto’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you think she’s telling the truth?”
“Perhaps,” Walken said. “Perhaps not. But in the end, allying with Bobbi January is the only real answer. But I expect that she feels very much pinned down where it comes to options.”
Gathering Ashes (The Wonderland Cycle Book 3) Page 38
