Jacinto spat on the deck and grunted. “Yeah, well, life’s hard all over.”
Walken synthesized a chuckle. “Indeed. I am pleased, by the way, that you were able to get the scientists to Treehaus.”
Jacinto gave him a flicker of a smile. “They call you?”
“No, but Knightley had told me of their arrival before she picked up, and she confirmed the same.” He took a drink from his beer, felt it slide down his throat, a foreign substance to him now. “At any rate, she will cooperate because the stakes are too high not to. An end to the Yathi? Can you imagine any greater cause?”
“Not really.” Jacinto chuckled. “Well. A long, happy life with Jim.”
For a moment, Walken almost asked who, before he remembered Strikeboy’s real name: James Timmins. “You must miss him terribly.” He tried to affect the appearance of kindliness.
Jacinto nodded. “Yeah. Usually when I’m away, I’m busy, so I don’t have to think about him not being around – business, you know? That keeps me occupied.”
“It is business now,” Walken said. “Perhaps you can focus on that.”
Jacinto considered it a moment. “Nah. It’s really just not the same. What about you, man? Didn’t you and Boss January used to have a thing going before…?”
Walken looked at him and blinked once. “Yes, but that was a long time ago. I suspect it had more to do with adrenaline than any real affection. I was not…in a good place at the time.”
“Monster in your head, trying to wake up,” Jacinto said with a nod. “Yeah, I heard all about it from Marcus in the day. Hell of a thing, sounded like. But still, you know, she’s still cute as hell. Skinny, sure, but cute. Maybe once you get cured up, you and she could make a go at it again.”
“I highly doubt that. I understand that she is involved with someone else, even if I were capable of a relationship.”
Jacinto made a soft, dismissive sound. “I don’t see it. Maybe, I guess, but they just seem the World’s Closest Friends. I mean I’m sure Vi would go for it in a heartbeat, but Bobbi doesn’t seem wired for it to me.”
These facts did nothing to stir anything inside of him. Walken simply shrugged. “I have made my peace with it.” He took another, deeper draught of his beer. “And I don’t have the capacity anymore. There are too many other pressing situations to be dealt with for this to have any kind of a place at this particular time.”
Jacinto let out a snort of laughter; he kicked back against the wall and tipped his can in a long drink. “You sound like her. She always made it the job first, before anything else. Probably why Marcus got fed up waiting on her.”
“A bad reason to reject someone so strongly.” Walken put his beer aside and peered over the back of the pilot’s chair at Jacinto. “Do you think he’s really dead?”
“If he isn’t, Julie’ll kill him if she found out. I think she cared for him herself at one point, but she sure as shit doesn’t want to let go of the power that she has now.”
Walken thought about that. The Fury certainly seemed to have taken the mantle of leadership seriously. Such is the nature of power. So hard to accept for so many, at first, but wielded with gusto once acclimated to it. Mother’s face hung suspended in his mind, and he recalled the history of the Yathi, how she rose from the civil ranks and made them a people, united the city-states that had existed for so many thousands of years. No hive but her own, and she queen of it.
He looked down at his fingers, sheathed in their rubberized coating. He watched them flex, aware of how many thousands of muscle bundles worked inside of them. Saw in his mind the projectors that generated the magnetic fields around his hands, his arms, the elements that would flash-heat the trapped air into white-hot plasma. His alloy-laced bones, his diamond heart. The poreless white skin beneath his sensor-absorptive coating, Nemean invulnerability rendered from flesh impregnated with nanomachines. The quantum devices that lurked within his nervous system and made him so incredibly fast. He was supposed to have been the Mother’s killer, but why make him so powerful that he could challenge her in a fight? Who was the being trapped inside his patchwork brain?
“I think that she might not want to,” Walken said. “She’ll say that she cannot trust that he is who he says he is. Could he not have been taken over?”
Jacinto gave Walken a sharp look.” That’s fucked up for you to say, man.”
And yet, as Walken studied himself, a possibility came to him.” Tell me. Do you know the story behind how Bobbi and I were brought together?”
“Marcus told me, yeah.” Jacinto looked away from him, out through the canopy and into the night. Beyond the tangle of black industrial spires, the lights of the city shimmered in a constant neon bonfire.” About how Cagliostro was supposed to break your mind so you could be implanted with one of those things. With those fucked up little girls.”
The image of the Doll he’d killed sprang into his mind, laid out on the ground like an angel with a halo of white blood. Walken nodded. “This is true, but the Dolls had synthetic brains.” He thought of the Dolls, with their minds made into vast computer vaults, vast and flawed, leaking frozen personalities. A failed experiment, Lionel had called them. “But what if they had been successful? Can you imagine a digital brain containing the recorded personality of a human being? It would not grow, it would not change, but you would not need it to. Not to perform many different tasks.”
Jacinto stared at him. “You’re not allowed to have beer anymore.”
Walken blinked at him. “Oh. I’m sorry. It’s just…a thought, nothing more.” He gave Jacinto a plastic rendition of a smile. “Jacinto, I have a destination for you.”
With a frown etching itself deeper on his face, Jacinto nodded. “All right. Where are we going?”
“Somewhere… unexpected.”
obbi had to go on a wild goose chase, with very little to work with – or so she thought at first. She knew the feeling she got when facing Cagliostro, and what his code “looked” like…but how in the hell was she supposed to find him from all of that? Certainly, he gave off no magical scent she knew of one could use to track down a missing intelligence. And who the hell could have gotten him? She could only think of one being powerful enough to interact with him on that scale. She imagined the great black sun of entropy, the Mother of Systems, the terrifying crush she had put on Bobbi merely by being in her proximity. Like the crush of gravity, cold and irresistible. Bobbi remembered telling the beast she would shoot her in the face. A good story for a laugh, or to prop up morale, but Bobbi had no real illusions she’d be able to do it the network. Despite all her power, she wasn’t… that.
I’m not a monster. She sat alone in her office staring at more holographic windows than she could count. The words of the old ghost’s shard rang in her head. “Accept him.”
Not a monster. A second voice, soft and treacherous whispered, right?
It took her another straight week of searching without any kind of success for her to finally give in and call for Violet. She had hardly slept, or eaten, only enough to keep her electrolytes up. She’d been downing wafers of black crystal stimulant as if they were candy, and her nerves had frayed like old wires. Hunger that had nothing to do with her stomach yawned always, and despite her best efforts, she knew she would not be good enough to find the old bastard on her own. So hungry. So tired. Bobbi let out a shallow sigh, and bid the computer call for her.
Violet had not remained far away. In a few minutes, the door to her office slid open. “Hey.” She blinked faintly in the light, her blue eyes luminous from the glow of the holographic monitors. She took a timid step into the room, two steaming mugs in hand. “You needed me, my lady?”
“Yeah.” Bobbi gestured for Violet to approach
She did so without a word, stopping at the edge of the desk and looking down her with concern lining her lovely features. “Search isn’t going too well, is it?” Violet sighed. She looked Bobbi over. “I’m sorry to hear it.” She proffered one of the mug
s, and Bobbi caught a whiff of herbs. “I brought you some soup. Why don’t you have some of that instead of water and electrolyte solution?”
Bobbi gave the mug a doubtful look, but took it. “Thanks, Vi. I appreciate it.”
“I wish you would take better care of yourself,” Violet murmured. “Can’t help us if you’re dead.”
“Can’t seem to help you anyway,” Bobbi growled. “I can’t find Cagliostro anywhere. No traces. Nothing. It’s like he never existed in the first place.”
Violet shuddered.” What a terrible proposition, my lady. Whoever did snatch him must know a lot.”
“Maybe,” Bobbi said. “Or maybe they just managed to…I don’t know, lure him in, somehow. Or overpower him.”
Violet took a long drink from her cup and set it on the desk amid a pile of curled foil sheets. The crinkle triggered the taste of black crystal. “You’re thinking it’s the Mother.”
Bobbi shrugged and tasted the soup. A rich, herbal brew spread through her sensorium. Chicken in there, maybe, or something flavored like it. “Hey. Who made this?”
“Hepzibah did. Janelle cooks very well, and she’s been teaching her. Turns out that Hepzibah’s a complete natural.” Violet smiled faintly. “I worry what her recipes might turn out like, but it’s giving her something to do other than punching holes in things. She’s still very upset that she killed those men without being able to collect prisoners, you know.”
Bobbi made a sour face. “Still? It’s been almost two months.”
Violet shook her head, black hair tumbling around her shoulders. “You still don’t get it. Do you?” She laid a hand on Bobbi’s cheek, fingers intensely warm, and sighed. “Nobody wants to disappoint you. Not any of the Reclaimed, at least. I know that you dislike it, but you’re very much their new Mother in many respects. They need something to attach to. I need something to attach to.” She frowned. “I don’t like letting you down, either.”
Bobbi sank a bit in her seat as Violet referred to her as ‘Mother’ – but the darkening she felt vanished as Violet finished that last sentence. “Wait.” She looked up at Violet in surprise. “When do you ever let me down?”
“All the time.” Violet blinked down at Bobbi with surprise. “I lose my temper, I threaten people when I shouldn’t, I…” She spread her hands. “I never feel as if I’m doing enough. Perhaps if I could get over this…this anger of mine, I could be more helpful.”
Bobbi stared at her for a moment, unbelieving. Wishing to tell the dear woman that she was being ridiculous, she instead chose the calmer route – and took Violet’s hand in hers after putting her mug aside. “Look here, girl.” She smiled up at Violet. “You don’t ever disappoint me. Yeah, I know, you get angry, you threaten. There’ve been plenty of times over the years when you’ve very nearly melted down and killed everybody in the room. But you haven’t. You’ve always done what I’ve asked you to – you’ve saved my life more times than I could count!” She took Violet’s other hand, swaying them gently as she found her eyes, stared up into them. “Vi, you’re everything I could have ever asked for. You’re my…I don’t know. My best friend. Closest person to me that I ever had. I don’t need anyone else but you.”
The words brought a blush to Violet’s cheeks, and she looked down. “You’re so good to me, my lady.” She gave Bobbi’s hands a squeeze. “I’m so happy that I found you. I wish that the Eye had survived, and was our ally, but I…”
“Hey, it’s all right.” Bobbi’s smile picked up a little, and she tugged Violet down into her lap. Violet went happily, winding her arms around Bobbi’s neck, her long legs dangling off the small woman’s thighs. She rested her head on Bobbi’s shoulder and let out a long breath.
“I want this to end,” Violet murmured. Her tone was soft. Sad. “The fighting. I just don’t want the rest of it to.”
Bobbi wound her arms around Violet’s waist and kept her close; her cheek lay against the top of Violet’s head, the silky hair warm as the rest of her. Violet was always swarm, one of her many layers of erotic mystique. Bobbi had little doubt how most people found it impossible to resist her. “Honey, who knows. I mean if Tom does come find me, it might be something good, right? Maybe we don’t have to do…well, what we agreed to.”
“I don’t want to die.” The words were there, finally. Violet whispered them like a prayer.
“I don’t want you to either, honey.” Bobbi squeezed her again. “You can bet on that.”
They were quiet together for what felt like hours, Violet’s weight slight in Bobbi’s arms despite the height difference, the warmth of her body proof against the coolness of the room. Bobbi thought of how easy it would be to just chuck it, to take Violet and go, live with her until the eventual time when the world as they knew it would end and the beasts in stolen bodies would have their way. Would it really be so terrible?
Finally, Violet spoke. Again, the whisper, so faint that Bobbi could barely hear it. “I love you, you know.”
“I know, honey.” Bobbi rested her chin atop Violet’s head and chuckled. “I love you too. More than anything.” She squeezed Violet tightly, felt her warmth closer to her own, a prickling wave washing over her skin.
Violet turned to bury her face in Bobbi’s throat. “We don’t need to talk about anything. I love you. You love me. It’s platonic, that’s fine with me. Doesn’t have to take any other form than what it has. I realize that while I might be crazy, I think part of it…part of it was the loneliness, being cut off from the thing in my head, and then cut off from myself. I was never happy before I met you, and now…” Violet let out a soft sigh and drew herself up a little closer against Bobbi’s chest. “Now I feel better than I did. That’s enough for me.”
“All right.” Bobbi’s hand slid through Violet’s hair, silky and soft. She watched it separate over her fingers, every thread standing out in high definition, bathed in the glow of the holographic screens. She thought about threads…all of them connected, in some way, to Violet’s lovely head. The brain inside, fevered but lovely. The consciousness suspended in chemicals and electric signals. The complex of her. Tug one thread, the rest responded…
Bobbi nudged Violet with one hand, starting to guide her up. “Hey, honey, sit up, okay? I need to talk to you.”
“Hmm?” Violet blinked at her. “Did I do something wrong?” A spark of fear flickered in her eyes. Worried that she’d screwed up, saying what she did.
Bobbi chuckled. “No, no, you’re fine.” She placed a kiss at Violet’s brow before easing her body upward. “But…I do need to talk to you about something.”
Violet untangled herself and rose to stand. “All right. What’s up?”
How to say it? How to explain? Bobbi drew a deep breath, looking up at Violet, and took her hands. “Look. Cagliostro talked to me about something else. Something that I didn’t tell the others.”
“Oh?” Violet’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not like you to hide things.”
“I don’t usually. I mean…honestly, I never do. But this is different.”
Violet perched on the edge of the desk. Her hands slipped from Bobbi’s, and her eyes hardened up a bit. “If it was difficult enough not to tell anyone else, why are you telling me?” Something accusatory carried in her voice – something had changed with them, back in the past when she didn’t realize it. Perhaps in the moment that had passed. The unquestioning worship vanished; instead, judgment.
“Because you’re you,” Bobbi said, spreading her hands. Violet’s tone stung. “It’s something Cagliostro said. Something that I should do.”
“And you’re taking advice from the old ghost,” Violet said. “I don’t know how I should feel about that, considering.”
It took a few long, deep breaths before Bobbi could respond to that. Violet was right, of course. “It’s about Tom. Cagliostro says that he’s going to come find me, and that I should listen to him. ‘Accept’ him, for whatever that means.”
Violet frowned. She looked down at her h
ands, which she shifted to her lap. “Well. I figured that once we knew he was around that you’d probably try and find him, if only to figure out what happened to him back then.”
“Well,” Bobbi said. “We know what happened to him. Obviously, the Yathi got him. Now he’s been made into one of those frigging things. He can’t be human anymore.”
“Unless he’s Reclaimed,” Violet said. “That would explain a lot of what we saw.”
Bobbi nodded. “It would. We talked about that, of course. But how would he know about me, still?”
Violet nodded gravely. “The old ghost does. You were gone for some time, back then. Maybe he put the system into you somehow. Or maybe…I don’t know. Maybe it’s taken time for it to grow, and you’re only just now meant to use it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”
“I hate that monster,” Bobbi said, and surprised herself with her vehemence. “Stadil. Cagliostro. Whatever. I should leave him burning, or caged, wherever he is.”
“Cagliostro isn’t human,” Violet reminded her. “He’s an old chess bastard the same as the Mother is. They’re playing against each other. You happen to be his…everything. Pawn, queen, the lot.”
“Like Redeye was supposed to be,” Bobbi said bitterly. Her blood had turned to ice.
“Yeah.” Violet sighed. “But you’re more effective than The Eye ever was. You’ve carried her work forward more than anyone.”
“I’m not dropping satellites on people,” Bobbi said. “Terrible an act as that was, we never took out a member of the Authority.”
“You’ve done more than enough where it counts.” Violet sighed. “And more importantly, you’ve kept us safe. Far safer than The Eye ever did.”
She had Bobbi there. “But what about Scalli? If I were as good as you say, wouldn’t he have stuck around? I mean the kind of things that Mendelsohn’s supposed to be behind aren’t acts of humanity.”
“They’re acts of survival,” Violet said. “I imagine that’s exactly what she’d say. We’ve euthanized Reclaimed that were too crazy to be salvaged, haven’t we?”
Gathering Ashes (The Wonderland Cycle Book 3) Page 39
