“This will force him make the wrong decision; no, worse, it will make him useless. The Program ruins people, Mitsuru, you should know that.”
“I do,” Mitsuru acknowledged, unblinking. “No one knows it better, except mad old Alice. But that changes nothing. Alex Warner will be an Auditor, and a Black Protocol user. He will complete the Program as the rest of us of did, Michael. Gaul wants another tame monster, and I intend to hand him one, gift-wrapped and ready to go to work. I’ve heard about your reputation for squeamishness. Don’t expect the same from me. I need to know that you’ll do your part,” she said, recollecting her documents and looking at him seriously. “I need to know that he’s being properly trained, so that I don’t have to worry about that aspect of the situation.”
“So you can make him into a monster?”
“You said it. The useful kind. Like me.” Mitsuru nodded and then spooned some of the noodles from her soup into her mouth. “Can I count on you to make him ready? Duly noting your objections, of course.”
“I wouldn’t want to disappoint you all,” Michael said sourly. “Of course. I’ll try and make him ready. And you, my dear, you should know – you sound more like Alice every day.”
“Good,” Mitsuru said tersely, returning her attention to her soup.
--
“Where are we?”
Alex glanced around at the neighborhood they’d emerged in. He’d spent a shaky few minutes in an alley behind some dumpsters after the apport, jarred by the abrupt transition and mildly nauseous, but it had passed quickly, and he felt alright now. He wondered if it had been that bad the other time, when Mitsuru had brought him back to Central, but he couldn’t remember anything about it. Maybe Svetlana simply wasn’t very good.
“The Mission,” Eerie answered, grabbing Alex by the arm and pulling him along. “There are some places I like around here. We’ll be able to find clothes and stuff.”
The Mission was an older neighborhood, grimy and dignified, poor and yet overflowing with optimistic entrepreneurs and vividly colored street art. The majority of the people on the street seemed to be Latino men, but there was fair representation of hipsters and young families on the busy street as well. They passed a flower stand staffed by a Vietnamese family, and Alex returned a smile from a cherub-faced little boy, who stood on top of the counter his grandmother worked. Outside, on the sidewalk, a half-dozen enterprising homeless had laid out blankets, and were selling second-hand books and knickknacks. The neighborhood was bustling and vibrant, the air thick with exhaust and the smells of a dozen different cuisines. After his time in Central, it seemed fantastically crowded and loud to Alex.
Eerie dragged him a couple of blocks up Sixteenth, turning at Valencia Street. She released Alex’s hand in front of a skate shop, explaining that she wanted to visit the boutique next door, which only did women’s clothing. Alex dug through the stock at the skate shop for a while, coming up with a couple black t-shirts, a pair of baggy drab green pants, and a heavy, dark grey sweatshirt for the evening. The sullen, heavily tattooed man at the counter took the money Eerie had given him with an air of bored resentment, slowly counting out change and then haphazardly shoving his purchases into plastic grocery bags. Alex stepped out of the skate shop, glanced at the boutique and didn’t see Eerie, and figured she was trying stuff on.
He wandered down the block and then across the street to a discount clothing store, where he bought a package of generic tube socks and a couple pairs of boxer shorts. By the time he returned the boutique, Eerie was waiting for him, a bag shoved underneath one of her arms.
“What now?” Alex asked, scratching his neck. He wanted to go somewhere and change, as he was tired of wearing dirty clothes, and it was too windy for pants with a hole in the knee. The breeze coming off the San Francisco Bay appeared to be every bit as cold as he’d been led to believe.
“I still need to go to some more places,” Eerie said with a frown. “Are you finished already?”
Alex shrugged.
“Sorry, I guess I didn’t think too much about it,” Alex said, feeling a touch embarrassed. “I bought the first things that fit, and looked alright, you know?”
Eerie bounced from one foot to the other, hopping around oblivious pedestrians in the pursuit of some private game, while a disturbing thought occurred to him.
“Hey, do you think I need to buy anything special for tonight? I mean, like, clothes? Do they have a dress code or anything, wherever it is you want to go?”
Eerie smiled at him, clearly amused.
“Alex will be fine in whatever, because he is a boy, and no one cares what boys are wearing. But, I still have to do some shopping.” Eerie pondered for a moment. “I don’t come to San Francisco often…”
Alex sighed inwardly, but fixed a smile on his face.
“Well, lead on, then,” he said with forced cheerfulness. “I’ll carry your bag for you.”
To his surprise, Eerie turned away and tucked her bag further under her arm.
“Well, no,” Eerie mumbled, her back to Alex. “That wouldn’t be good. If you are done, then, would you like to wait somewhere for me?”
Alex found himself abruptly abandoned at a small, green Formica table, in front of a cafe, waiting for a cappuccino to cool. Eerie had deposited him there rather firmly, leaving him money and instructions to stay until she got back. Alex leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, stretching out his legs and trying to convince himself that the weak sunlight was somehow warm. He dug his headphones out of his pocket and put them in, letting it play at random. The song that came on was ambient, electronics simulating the distant rumble of thunder and the chattering of insects over a textured, looping washes of static. By the time the vocals kicked in, Alex was half-asleep.
Alex drifted, letting the world pass him by, his head resting against the cool brickwork of the building, his legs stretched out underneath the table. The battery in his mp3 player must have died at some point, and he must have nodded off, because when Alex woke, Eerie was talking to him.
“You have a bad habit of falling asleep whenever you’re left alone,” she scolded. She wore a new t-shirt, a white jersey with three-quarters-sleeves in red. Her black skirt hung in folds a bit above her knees, and her black socks cut off a little below. Alex rubbed his eyes and tried to compose himself, hoping he hadn’t drooled while he slept, or anything. Eerie twirled in front of him, her skirt flaring. “What do you think, Alex?”
“It’s… you look very cute.” Alex stammered. “Um, yes. You look good.”
Eerie nodded seriously, and Alex was relieved that he had apparently said the right thing.
“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “And I have flyers, also.”
“Alright,” Alex said, nodding uncertainly. “You have flyers?”
“For tonight,” Eerie clarified. “Also, this is for you,” she said, tossing him a disposable Korean cell phone. “My number is already programmed in. Just in case.”
“Good idea,” Alex said approvingly. “Glad you thought of that.”
Eerie mumbled something and appropriated his coffee, sipping at it and then making a face.
“Bitter. Cold. How long were you asleep, anyway?”
Alex shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said, yawning. “How long were you gone?”
Eerie looked embarrassed, and then laughed self-consciously.
“I don’t know either. Hours, I guess.”
Alex nodded uncertainly, wondering again about the girl. She was so dreamy, most of the time, tempered with strange periods when she could be alarmingly perceptive. He didn’t know what to make of it; she was nothing like anyone he’d ever known before, in one sense, but, when she’d shown off her new clothes, she could have been any girl he’d ever met. With one important difference, he reminded himself – this girl seemed eager to have him pay attention to her.
“Did you get everything you needed?”
He tried not to sound hopeful, putting the pho
ne in his pants pocket and gathering his bags from underneath the chair, pleased to find they had been left alone during his nap.
“Pretty close,” Eerie affirmed, glancing through the bags she was holding. “Let’s go get a room at a hotel, Alex. We’ll need some place to shower and change, anyway, before we go out. Don’t worry,” she said reassuringly, misreading his expression. “I can afford it. Money’s not a problem for me.”
Alex spent so long contemplating the amazing ramifications of her suggestion that, by the time he got moving again, he had to hurry after Eerie, who was already halfway down the block.
--
Alex woke to the ringing of an alarm, and he came up fighting, struggling with a mess of sheets and blankets that he’d wrapped around himself in his sleep in a protective cocoon. It took him a minute or two to remember where he was, to find a clock to inform him that it was a little after seven in the evening, and then another to be grateful that Eerie had apparently woken up before the alarm, and headed off to the shower, thereby missing the spectacle of his awakening.
Stumbling and cursing, he made his way to the room’s secondary bathroom, itself an impossibly immaculate expanse of faux marble countertop and chrome fixtures, and inspected himself in the acres of mirror there, deciding that he didn’t look a whole lot different than he had on arrival. His chest was still mottled with bruises, but it didn’t hurt as much when he took a deep breath, and his arm had settled into a periodic dull throb. He felt a sense of profound disappointment, and a great deal of embarrassment, every time he thought about the girl in the other bathroom.
He took a hot shower, more to help stretch out his sore muscles than anything else, washing his hair and cursing his failure to find a barber while Eerie had shopped, resolving to get it taken care of tomorrow. Alex stayed under the hot water for an extra few minutes, letting it beat down on the back of his head, thinking about Eerie. He wondered where she fit in the whole power struggle in Central, if she had a side, or allegiances of her own.
It didn’t seem possible to Alex that she managed to stay completely uninvolved, as the conflict seemed to consume the whole of Central, where Eerie had lived since she was a child. Even so, it was hard to imagine her as one of Anastasia’s lot, and though he hadn’t met too many people from the Hegemony yet, he had even more trouble with the idea of Eerie fitting in with them.
They had taken a BART train to the Hilton that afternoon, after she’d finished shopping, a glass tower embedded in an otherwise commercial neighborhood. Alex had requested a room with two queen beds, to be on the safe side, paying with the stack of bills that Eerie had given him earlier. The guy at the counter had found that amusing, and Eerie had laughed when she opened the room door, causing immediate and total regret in Alex. He had no intention of spending his time at the Academy rebuffing the advances of cute girls, whether or not they were weird. Or insane. Or not human. He had, after all, been forced to spend a good portion of his life in strictly all-male institutions. Clearly, he thought, his understanding was lacking.
Napping on their respective beds, Alex was acutely aware of Eerie sleeping a few meager feet away. If he held his breath, he discovered that he could hear her breathing. He tossed and turned, wondering what would have happened had he requested one bed, wondering what would happen if he got up and went over to her. Helpless, he cursed the stupidity and fear that kept him from finding out.
He hadn’t slept all that well, Alex thought, feeling profoundly sorry for himself.
--
“Have a seat, Miss Martynova,” Gaul said mildly, gesturing at the plush office chair in front of his desk. His hands were steepled in front of his face, his expression unreadable. Behind him, Rebecca scowled from her perch on the windowsill, circles underneath her eyes, dangling a cigarette out the open window.
Anastasia took the offered seat without comment, smoothing her silk dress carefully across her lap as she sat. Then she waited in polite silence, her hands folded neatly, resting on her knees.
“I’m certain you know why we’ve called you here today, Anastasia,” Gaul said from behind his hands, the glare from his glasses hiding his eyes.
“I’m not so certain,” Anastasia said dismissively, inspecting her immaculate black nails. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Where’s Alex?” Rebecca demanded, her voice tight and her frustration obvious. “Where’s Eerie?”
“I don’t know,” Anastasia said, sounding bored. “Are we finished, then, or do you have more?”
Gaul turned briefly in his seat to glance at Rebecca, who gave him a curt, angry nod.
“The students in question appear to have departed the Academy sometime this afternoon,” Gaul said mildly. “We have reason to believe that members of the Black Sun Cartel assisted them in this endeavor.”
“Is that so?” Anastasia shrugged and gave them a wan smile. “Well, I am afraid that I don’t know about it. If this was done by members of my cartel, as you suggest, then it was done without my knowledge.”
“You expect me to believe that your cartel members acted on their own?” Rebecca made a face. “Not likely. You run too tight a ship, Anastasia.”
“Believe me or don’t, Rebecca. I’m telling the truth. I am not sure what else I could offer you…”
“Help us to understand,” Gaul suggested. “If you didn’t approve it, how could this happen?”
“Well, I am not certain about Eerie, but I told Alex that the resources of the Black Sun were at his disposal,” Anastasia explained matter-of-factly. “I had instructed my staff to provide him with anything that he might ask for, no questions asked. Perhaps, then, he requested transportation? My people would not have sought my approval, because I had already given it in advance.”
“Why would you do that?” Rebecca asked, surprised. “What did Alex promise you in return for that?”
“Nothing,” Anastasia said, shaking her head. “I didn’t ask him for anything, and he didn’t promise me anything. Maybe I like to help people. Maybe I felt sorry for him. Maybe I’m that confident. You’re the empath, Rebecca, you tell me.”
“You little witch!” Rebecca exploded, flicking her cigarette out the window. “How is that you keep me out of your head?”
“I have my ways,” Anastasia said lightly. “You can question my staff, if you like. All of them will corroborate my statement. Is there something else I can do for you?”
“Can you find Alex for us?” Gaul asked patiently.
Anastasia stood up, her smile compact and mocking.
“Is that all?” She asked cheerfully. “Ask me directly next time. You know how eager I am to do favors for the Administration, after all. But, as crass as it is to mention, if you want me to do you a favor, then…”
“You little brat,” Rebecca snarled, only to be cut off again by Gaul’s arm. “You’re still a student here, Anastasia.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Anastasia said, nodding.
“What will it cost us to get Alex back?” Gaul asked, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. “And Eerie too, of course.”
“Of course,” Anastasia deadpanned. “My terms are simple, and I hope, not too objectionable. If you want me to find Alex and Eerie, I will. But it will be the Black Sun that collects them, not Central.”
Anastasia waited while Gaul calmed Rebecca down, who was fuming and swearing behind him. She managed not to laugh out loud, not right then, but as a reward for her self control, she promised herself that she would laugh later.
Last, to be specific.
--
It wasn’t a club, but it wasn’t what Alex would have called a rave, either, from his vague understanding of what a rave constituted.
This was a couple hundred kids packed into what might have been an indoor basketball court, judging from the painted wooden floor that Alex could see peeking out from underneath the black foam mat that had been put down over it. The DJ was in the far corner of the room, spinning tribal-infused trance at a deafening volum
e, the sound system massively oversized for the space. A few long cloth curtains and a handful of black lights seemed to constitute the whole of the décor for the otherwise naked building.
The promoters had seemed leery of police attention, given the number of hoops they’d had to jump through to get here – a phone number on the back of a flier that Eerie had selected from the stack of them she had collected while shopping which rang endlessly until after nine, when a voicemail message appeared and gave directions to what turned out to be an alley in the Tenderloin. Alex found the whole thing sketchy, walking between two dark brick buildings and past overflowing dumpsters, the whole narrow alley reeking of urine and rotting food, up a set of stairs and into a small enclosed parking lot. There they bought tickets, and got a sheet of photocopied directions from a Mexican guy in a wife beater, and a blond girl with at least a dozen piercings in her face.
The party wasn’t anywhere close to the ticket location, and they’d ended up taking a bus back to Soma, Eerie leaning her forehead against the window, staring out into the intermittent darkness on Market Street. Alex stood next to her, clutching an overhead pole, wondering how long it would take them to get to the party, wondering if the bus driver planned to let them live long enough to get there in the first place. He was a little bit sick to his stomach. Alex stopped counting, but it was at least a dozen stops before Eerie abruptly stood up, grabbed his arm, and dragged him wordlessly from the bus and down a side street. There was a short line in front of the building, which looked like an old, anonymous commercial property. While waiting, Alex noticed that SF police impound lot was directly next-door, a couple of uniformed officers lounging by the closed gates, laughing at the party-goers attire. He swore to himself and wondered what the purpose of all that had been.
Eerie seemed pleased, however, and started bouncing up and down almost as soon as they were admitted into the flyer-strewn lobby, her eyes sparkling and her pale skin flushed.
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