Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel

by Amie Kaufman

  “Nearly a year ago.”

  “And you’ve been on your own since then?”

  I think of Dani, and of a boy on the Polaris space station who helped me get my first fake ID, and I think of the couple on the Starchaser who let me stow away in their cabin on my way to Corinth. I swallow. “I prefer to be on my own.”

  “Me too.” Gideon’s gaze, when I look up, is waiting for mine. “Easier that way. No complications.” He’s no longer trying out turns and spins. His palm against the small of my back is warm, and it’s only then that I realize that if his hand’s against my back and not at my waist, we must have drawn closer, breath by breath, over the last hour.

  “No one interfering with your plans,” I reply, my voice barely audible.

  His steps slow, and mine mirror his, until we’re standing still in a pool of light cast by the bookstore sign behind us. “No one you’ll hurt by messing up.”

  “No one to hurt you.”

  He lowers our joined hands—no longer even pretending that we’re still dancing—until they hang between us. His fingers tighten, and though I know what’s coming, I can’t make myself pull away. The neon lights turn his eyes every color, colors I never even knew growing up on Avon. His throat shifts in the light as he swallows.

  “Gideon,” I whisper, unable to speak above a whisper. “This is a bad idea.”

  “I know.” His eyes don’t move from my face, scanning my features, lingering on my eyes, my lips. “Just let it be a bad idea a few moments from now.” When he lowers his head his lips are soft, brushing mine once—then again, lingering a little longer, pressing a little closer. Then he eases back a fraction, giving me a chance to pull away.

  I ought to do just that. Or I ought to play him. I should end this now, before it goes anywhere, or I should take advantage of this moment and secure his loyalty and banish any hint of mistrust. I should do a thousand million things differently, and instead I do the one thing I can’t do, the one thing I want to.

  I lean closer and tilt my head up, meeting his mouth again and stretching up on my toes so I can press into him, harder. His hand at my back tightens and pulls me in against him, his body warm all along mine, and our lips part, and I slide my arms up around his neck, and he gives a tiny groan against my mouth, and my whole body turns to fire as the Butterfly Waltz in the background sings of wanting, and of dreaming, and of things lost far too soon.

  Maybe there is something more than killing LaRoux. Maybe…maybe…

  Abruptly the music cuts out, leaving us in silence. I jerk back from him in surprise, glancing at the palm pad, which is buffering and searching for a signal. My breath is coming too quick, too loud—I can hear it echoing in the silence. My lips feel hot, swollen, and my gaze swings back toward Gideon as if drawn by a magnet.

  He’s staring at me, looking every bit as ragged as I feel. His eyes are a little wild, his hair disheveled on one side where my fingers raked through it. He swallows hard, and when he speaks, his voice shakes a little.

  “You’re right,” he manages, gazing at me. “That was a terrible idea.”

  On the gray world, the blue-eyed man has found a way to sever us from our universe. We can no longer feel the others, in this world or in ours. Once we were infinite. Now we are three.

  The emptiness is pain, and the only relief comes in the brief flashes we see when we break through the blue-eyed man’s prison for an instant. We try to watch the green-eyed boy, try to remember our plan, but we are so few now.

  We are alone. And loneliness is a gnawing madness. The other two let their agony escape in the flashes and gaps in the prison around us, driving the people of this world mad.

  But we…I…I remember the ocean, and a little girl who called me friend.

  I remember dreams.

  THERE’S SOME SORT OF SHORT circuit happening in my brain, and I can feel my pulse pounding at my temples, and all I want to do is lean in again and shut out any need to speak, at least for a few more minutes. I’ve been dying to do exactly what I just did for days—and now, all I want to do is kiss her again.

  But though her eyes are as dark as mine must be, her grip tightens on my hand, easing it away from her waist, and there’s nothing I can do but let her. She clears her throat. “You were a fraction behind on the beat that last time, but I think we’ll blend in well enough on the dance floor if we have to.”

  “The…” It’s all I can do to remember what a dance floor is, but I nod because I know nodding’s the thing I’m meant to do, and slowly my thoughts clutch at each other and pull themselves back into order. “Right. No more practice, then?”

  She shows me her lopsided smile in return for the tease, but I know she’s as thrown as I am by the intensity of that kiss. So when she steps back, I turn away to pick up the palm pad and switch it off before the music starts again—I need to give us both a little time to recover. “Time for a rest?” she suggests.

  “It’s getting late,” I agree, setting down the pad after I nearly drop it, and sinking down to sit in our nest of blankets, my back against the wall. She walks over to ease down beside me, and picks up the burner pad she’s been using today, checking for any updates from her contacts. Making herself busy.

  I’m hyperaware of her presence, her knee just a hair’s breadth from mine. I could reach across and touch her with the smallest movement, and I can practically feel the static jumping back and forth between us, but I hold back. Reach for safer ground—because if I don’t put some distance between us, I’m never going to think straight. “You know what? Stay here just two minutes. I’m going to go get you something that’ll put your fancy upper-city food to shame.”

  I can’t afford to move around much out here, with cameras on every corner, but I know the mouth of the alleyway is a blind spot—it’s one of the reasons I chose it. So I keep my head down as I step out into the street, and the bright red banner I want is only two stalls up. Its takeout storefront is nothing more than a tent, really, a canvas roof strung between the two neighboring buildings, the kitchen tucked away in the back of the building behind it.

  Mrs. Phan’s has the sector’s best Pan-Asian grub, light-years ahead of the pretentious crap they serve in the four-star, hundred-galactics-a-sitting places in the upper city. Sofia deserves a break from my protein bars and gel packs. What are you trying to do, man? Bring her a courting gift?

  I shove the voice in my head aside and nod to Mrs. Phan, who’s manning the counter herself. They have a menu here, but the locals just ask for whatever’s cooking; it’s always good. I hold up two fingers to indicate my order, and she bustles away to call unintelligible instructions to the kitchen staff. There are a couple of guys sitting together in a corner, gazing deep into each other’s eyes, and a woman by the other wall working a logic puzzle on her palm pad, and none of them casts a second glance at me.

  Mrs. Phan dumps two containers of steaming noodles on the counter, along with two bottles of her husband’s home brew and two pairs of disposable chopsticks. She takes my money and I’m out in under two minutes. Success.

  Sofia’s eyes light up when I let myself back in, and she practically tosses her palm pad aside, hands extended for the noodles. “That smells incredible,” she whispers, almost reverent, but she’s smiling, and I’m smiling right back. We’re both silent as we pull the lids off our containers and the caps off our beers, sending up clouds of steam as we dig into the noodles with our chopsticks. I shovel up my first mouthful, the spicy sauce burning my tongue. It’s perfect. Beside me Sofia tries her own mouthful, eyes widening, those perfect manners vaporizing as she speaks with her mouth full. “Oh my God.”

  “I know, right?” We’re on safer ground with the food, and for a couple of minutes we’re both quiet—no calculation, no consideration, just enjoying the meal. Still riding out the ripples from that kiss. Me trying not to watch, sidelong, as she licks the sauce off the ends of her chopsticks.

  “Nobody saw you?” she asks eventually.

  “
I’m sure,” I reply around a mouthful. “This place is secure. Nobody’s getting in without an invitation.”

  “My place was secure too,” Sofia points out drily. “So was yours.”

  So was Mae’s.

  I’ve had days now to think on what she did. I haven’t dared make contact—if she did what I told her and sold out the Knave to get her kids back, then they’ll have a watch program on everything she touches, and they won’t be letting her out of their sight. There’s no safe way to reach out to her—not for either of us. She knows it too—that’s why she posted the picture of her, Liv, and Mattie on her public profile, I’m sure of it. What I wasn’t expecting was that I really miss talking to Mae. It’s been years since I went even a day without checking in, and there’s an ache that’s part loneliness, part pain that she’d give me up. But really, I can’t blame her. I don’t.

  I blame the ones who used her kids to threaten her.

  This is my vindication, though I don’t know who it is I’m making my case to, when I lie awake at night, debating some imaginary opponent. Silently pointing out that this—the threat to innocent kids—is just the latest in a long line of reasons that my cause is just, and I’m only doing what’s required to take LaRoux Industries down. I’ve reached inside myself more than once, searching for any sympathy for the woman I’m sending running all over the galaxy, or even just trying to dampen my satisfaction when she’s forced to ditch another disguise and go scrambling all over again. But the truth is, her fear feeds me. I can imagine, just a little, that it’s LaRoux’s fear. That it’s him I’m hounding. And after all, the great Commander Towers opened herself to this when she chose to look the other way for him.

  “I guess I hope this place is safer than either of our homes were,” I say eventually, recalling myself to the conversation at hand. “And I’ve got your back, Sofia, I promise.”

  “I know,” she says softly. Almost wistfully. “I can’t tell you how long it’s been since somebody said that and I believed them. I haven’t had anyone I could trust.”

  I want to dump my food and turn to her again. But I make myself speak instead. “You have me now,” I murmur.

  She’s found the little card for the restaurant I got the noodles from, pulling it free from the side of the container. Absently she weaves it through her fingers, moving it back and forth almost too quickly to follow, passing it from hand to hand. Then she lifts one hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, and the card simply vanishes from her palm. She laughs at my expression.

  “Remind me not to gamble with you,” I say, tilting my head to try and work out if she tucked it in her hair. “I’d lose my shirt.”

  “The drawback being?” She flashes a grin at me.

  “I’d rather you lost yours.”

  I’ve known girls who would’ve blushed, or glared at me, or even got up and left. But Sofia just laughs again, leaning her chin on her hand. “It seems tricky, the sleight-of-hand stuff, but it’s just practice. Anyone can do it. The real trick is reading people, knowing what they’ll do next. It’s not just about making them do what you want. It’s about making them think it was their idea in the first place. That’s the real skill.”

  “She says to the guy who invited her into his den and showed her all his secrets,” I point out, wry. “I’m almost sure that was my idea, right?”

  “Of course,” she replies, solemn.

  And I haven’t shown her all my secrets, of course, not by a long shot—but the fact that she got inside my den at all sets her apart. That was my golden rule, and I broke it, and now here we are. Still, I can’t help drawing closer to one of those secrets I haven’t told her. “You’d be a match for the Knave,” I try, and sure enough, her smile dies.

  “He scares me.” The card reappears in her palm once more, and she keeps her eyes on it, as though the confession costs her. “Someone who can find out all your secrets, even when you try to erase every sign. It’s like somebody reading your thoughts. Your most private memories.” Her expression’s tight as she speaks, the relaxed pleasure of the dancing and the meal and even our kiss overlaid with that weary caution she never shakes entirely.

  “Nobody can see everything,” I say softly. And I can’t help it—I reach across to tuck her hair behind her ear for her, press two fingers to her temple. “Some things you never let outside of here.”

  “What he does is the closest thing possible,” she replies, picking up her chopsticks again and digging them into her noodles.

  “Sofia, can I ask you something?”

  My tone tips her off, and she’s wary as she glances up. She tries to deflect by smiling, but it’s the wrong smile. Two dimples, not one. “You can’t have the rest of my food, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  I press on, though I know I’m not going to like the answer. “I was just—the things you say about the Knave. If you could tell me what he’s done to make you so afraid, perhaps I could help.”

  She keeps her eyes on her meal. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “But I do.”

  “Gideon, you worked for him,” she says, softer. “I’m not putting you in a position where you need to choose between me and whatever he might ask you to do.”

  “I’d choose you,” I say, too fast, and want to bite back the words. Get a grip, Gideon. “I won’t put you in danger, I promise. Please, you’re trusting me all the way to the Daedalus. Trust me with this much more.”

  “This has nothing to do with trust,” she replies, curling over her bowl. “If you never give someone a weapon, they can never use it against you.” The hint of heat abruptly goes out of her voice, and she swallows. “It’s enough to say that he made my life a living hell, and I don’t know why. I don’t want to know why.”

  I feel like I’m choking on her words. I spent years building the Knave’s name, making my reputation as the best on Corinth—the best anywhere. On my own private time, I do the things that’ll keep me out of heaven. I chase down Antje Towers and hunt for a way to drag LaRoux’s crimes on Avon and Verona into the light. But the rest of the time, the Knave’s the best hacker money can buy, and yet he does much of his work for free. I’m practically Robin Hood. I left my first, angry years behind, when I realized my brother would be horrified by what I’d become. I changed, for the most part.

  And now someone, somewhere, has been hijacking that rep I worked so hard to build, using it while they hurt the girl beside me. This girl I care about far, far more than I should. Far more than is safe for either of us. “He’s not going to use me as a weapon,” I say quietly. “Nobody could make me do that.”

  She shakes her head. “I know he works for the LaRoux family, or he did at one point. And the friend of my enemy is my enemy too. He could use you against me, if he wanted to.”

  “He’s not—” I force myself to sound calm, shoving down the frustration that wants to surface in my tone. This is impossible, having an argument about myself in the third person. “I’ve never seen any evidence he’s involved in LaRoux Industries. I don’t think he likes them any more than we do.”

  “You’re wrong,” she says, soft but certain. “I tried to track him down once. Waste of money, of course. He’s too smart to let himself be tracked very far. But I got as far as a newer planet in the Sulafat system, and a bit of property with two names on the deed: Tarver Merendsen and Lilac LaRoux.”

  You what? She must have found someone good to do that work. Now’s probably not the time to work out who this person is and take him or her out of the business, but I add it to the list of things to do after we stop LaRoux. “That doesn’t mean he was working for LaRoux Industries, does it? Perhaps he was spying on them.”

  “That wasn’t what it looked like.” She looks tired, closing her eyes. “What does it matter?”

  “It matters because you’re not just my ally, and I know you’re good enough at reading me to know that.” That’s enough to open her eyes again, and I press on. “Tell me why he was hurting you, and I can k
eep you safe.”

  She reaches for her beer, gulping down a long swallow and setting it down too hard on the floor. “I don’t know why. Just promise me you won’t tell him where I am. Promise me, Gideon.” She’s still gripping the bottle, knuckles white. Whatever’s going on has her terrified.

  How can I possibly answer that? If I admit who I am, she’ll run. If I promise, I’m lying. But there’s nothing to do but nod. And something in her releases when I do.

  “He’s hunting me,” she whispers. “For almost a year now he’s been following me. I’ve had to learn how to tell when he’s getting close. Alarms, digital trip wires, that sort of thing. He has flags on my accounts, records of my transport travel. Every time I think I’m safe, every time I think I’ve lost him this time, there he is. I only get a few weeks—a month or two at most—before he finds me. This, on Corinth, is the longest I’ve been able to stay in one place. But he’ll find me eventually. I’ve just never been this close to LaRoux, and if the Knave finds me before I can—” Her lips press hard together, and she doesn’t finish her sentence.

  I feel like I’ve fallen ten stories. I know these tricks—hell, I invented most of the ways hackers like me track down individuals these days—but I would never use them to hurt someone like Sofia, an innocent. But someone out there’s been using my arsenal, the one I keep for people like LaRoux and Towers and everyone else who condones their crimes—and using it to terrorize people. All I can do is repeat her words like an idiot. “He’s hunting you?”

  She nods.

  I reach across to cover her hand with mine. “I promise you, whoever’s after you, you’re safe now. I know this game.”

  “Whoever?” she echoes, brows drawing inward. “It’s the Knave, Gideon. I’m positive. Three different hackers have confirmed that, separately. He signs his work, the narcissist. Like an artist.” Then there’s a flicker of a wry, humorless smile. “Or a serial killer.”