Bitter Angels

by C. L. Anderson

  My official job was to keep the streets peaceful. What that meant was I had to make sure that Dazzle’s children did not kill too many of Oblivion’s, and vice versa. I spent a great deal of time talking. I spent almost as much time tracking the shifts of turf, following the rise and falls of gangs, guilds, and families. My runs in the black sky were fairly regular too. I was one of the few licensed pilots on Dazzle—a status that allowed me to see Emiliya and other old friends. A status I kept in part because of Hamahd’s good reports.

  One more thing to keep in mind during…whatever was to come.

  I entered the Security house through the central front door, stopping to palm the active pad on Hamahd’s desk. Hamahd gave me a cursory glance and added his print for confirmation. We nodded to each other and I walked to the former storeroom that was my office.

  It was a comfortably furnished storeroom now, with a desk and a screen, chairs, a cabinet, and at the moment, the cross, pacing Solaris saint I had sent Hamahd to bring me.

  “Thank you for coming, Seño Chen,” I said. “I’m sorry if I’ve kept you waiting.”

  “I hope there’s no problem, Captain Jireu?” One of the things I like about the saints is they are reflexively polite. Liang Chen was angry, but because I had been courteous, he was incapable of being anything else in return.

  “Nothing new. Will you please sit down?” I took my seat behind my scarred and listing desk and gestured him to the best and newest chair.

  “Thank you.” Liang sat, crossing his legs and his arms. He was not tall, but he was solid in a way very few of us from Erasmus are. “How can I help you?”

  I had considered and discarded multiple approaches on my way down. My relationship with Liang was complicated, to say the least. We neither liked each other nor hated each other. We both pitied each other for very different reasons, and we needed each other.

  Finally, I decided I would imitate the Grand Sentinel and be direct.

  “I have been told that a new group of workers is arriving from the Pax Solaris.”

  Liang shrugged his shoulders, plainly irritated I was talking about such a small thing. “It’s the usual rotation. We aren’t allowed enough hands to do what we really need to, so the people we do have burn out pretty quickly.”

  I watched Liang for a moment. In addition to polite, he was inherently honest, something else I liked about the saints. They said what they meant and meant what they said, and if they didn’t, you could tell right away.

  “So there’s nothing about them I should know?” I could make Liang’s life difficult and chose not to, and he knew that. He did help the people down here, kept thirst and the worst starvation at bay. I was grateful for that, but it was no different from the gratitude I felt for Hamahd—it only went so far, and no further.

  Liang shrugged again. “I don’t know for sure. Might be they’ve finally decided to investigate Bianca Fayette’s death.”

  I blinked. “Bianca Fayette?”

  He frowned. Real anger deepened the lines on his brow and stiffened his shoulders. “Yes. A member of the Guardians who was…found dead a year ago.”

  That was it, what I had been trying to remember.

  A dead saint. It happened now and again. The foundation streets were not necessarily safe, even for those who understood them. I had seen the report. I had seen the place it happened and supervised the transfer of the body to the saints. When they did not raise a stink with the guard or Commander Barclay, I had forgotten about it.

  “I take it you were not satisfied with our investigation for…I’m sorry, what was her name?”

  “Fayette,” Liang said, slowly and clearly. “Bianca Fayette.”

  “You were not satisfied with our investigation for Seña Fayette?” Not that there had been any. The body had been more liquid than solid by the time we’d been notified of its existence. Whoever or whatever had killed her was long gone.

  Then it occurred to me that no one had come to investigate any of the other deaths we’d had among the saints in the past five years. But then again, none of them had been Guardians.

  “Your people said it was simple robbery.” Liang lifted his shaggy eyebrows. “Is there any reason to believe otherwise?”

  “You must think there is or you wouldn’t have made the request for an additional investigation. At least, I assume you did?” I didn’t assume anything. I was fishing, but Liang didn’t seem to notice.

  “Just for form’s sake.” Liang looked away. As I said, you could tell immediately when the saints tried to lie. “We are in a dangerous neighborhood. Coordinator Fayette wasn’t careful enough.”

  Which was what I had been thinking, but hearing it from this mild, polite little man was both incongruous and uncomfortable. “That’s a little cold.”

  “For a Solaris saint, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  Liang blew out a sigh and rubbed his hands together. “I suppose it is. But I’ve got no time for those who can’t remember the difference between immortal and invulnerable.” He put his hands on the chair arms, getting ready to push himself back up onto his feet.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Sorry.” He grimaced, probably because he realized he’d just delayed his own retreat. “Bianca Fayette was a licensed immortal. Some of them forget that just because they’ve been chemically fiddled with, they are not immune to being bashed over the back of the head. Which is what you said happened to her?”

  “I’d have to look it up, but yes.” I watched him. I’d never heard a saint speak this way about anybody. I’d never heard them speak openly about their immortals either. I wonder what that did to them, the knowledge that death was a choice. What must it be like not only to own your life, but eternity along with it?

  Liang finished standing up. “Bianca Fayette tried to turn a profit from her time here. That’s not what we’re here for.”

  It took me a moment to digest this. I suppose, if I had bothered to think about it, I would have thought saints were human and therefore vulnerable to corruption. I had never considered the possibility I would hear one of them talk about it. I didn’t want their secrets. But now it looked like I would have no choice but to take them.

  “Why didn’t you ship her home?” I asked.

  The corner of Liang’s mouth twitched. “As if any of us would have real jurisdiction over a Guardian.”

  “I see.” For once, something Liang said about the Solarans that made perfect sense.

  “Maybe.” But Liang’s eyes did not hold the benefit of even that much doubt.

  “Sorry to have dragged you down here for this.”

  He sighed one more time, deflating into himself. “That’s all right. I was coming down anyway. A friend of mine sent a message from Werethere. They’ve gotten a shipload of emergency construction workers from Oblivion. He’s asking to see if there’s any word of your mother.”

  “Thank you.” I had to work to keep my gaze steady. There was no way Hamahd was not listening to this conversation.

  There is also no way he doesn’t know you’ve had Liang helping look for Mother, I reminded myself. It’s just that until now he hasn’t decided to care.

  Liang shrugged, irritation and anger adding force to the gesture. “It’s hard. They’re playing games with the names. Have you managed to get her ID number?”

  “No.” I managed to remain calm. “It is not the sort of thing the Clerks are inclined to share.”

  Liang snickered. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. I’ll keep the channels open.”

  “Thank you.”

  We stayed there in silence, not friends, but not enemies, using each other, but wishing we didn’t have to, each trying to understand the other as best he could.

  “I’m on your side, Amerand,” he said.

  I said nothing. I believed him. The problem was he had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I need to get back,” said Liang at last. “They’re shutting off the water in fifteen, and I want to make sure th
e crowd doesn’t get restless. Unless there’s anything else?”

  “No. Thank you.” I stood to acknowledge his departure. “Do you need extra Security?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “If any OBs become a problem, send them to me.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  Liang left me with only one sideways glance, which I couldn’t read. I rubbed the back of my neck and stared at the closed door.

  Something was changing. It involved Kapa. It involved the saints. It involved Fortress and the Clerks. It involved me and Emiliya and Kapa and by extension all of our families.

  In the heights, I hadn’t thought I was in trouble.

  I had been very, very wrong.

  SEVEN

  TERESE

  No matter how desperately you want to get your mission started, get your boots on the ground somewhere else, it never goes fast enough. When you need a total physical makeover, it takes even longer.

  To make matters worse, medical rebirth is boring. And painful.

  I had to go through seventy-two solid hours of anesthetic dreams before I was allowed to awake fully to my new physical self. The human body does not like to have its clock reset. It protests and struggles and begs the brain for help. They have to keep you either completely out or fuzzily numb for days while the nanos and the doctors do their work, but even then you are aware in some subbasement of your mind that what is happening is wrong.

  I had been told I was being put back to the physical equivalent of a woman late in her third decade, but when I first tried to get out of my bed, I felt like I had been accelerated toward death’s door. I swear, my veins burned. Childbirth? Nothing. I’d’ve done it three more times rather than face that new pain.

  The therapy to get myself and my body up to speed was much the same as the medical rework: prolonged, painful, and boring. Multiple therapists and trainers worked with me and on me, blithely unaware how close they were to grievous bodily harm. But then, I expect they were used to that.

  David did not come to see me. He didn’t call either. I shoved the fact of his silence into the background and struggled to get on with the job of getting my body and mind into full working order again.

  I didn’t call him either.

  Before I went under the needle, Allie and Dale came down, having obviously resolved to try a concentrated-intervention strategy. They argued with me for hours. They reminded me what I was doing to them, what I was doing to their father, what I was doing to myself. They insisted I was not fit to meet the challenges of impending war. Was I aware I might just make things worse?

  I pointed out I had a duty to not just the past, but the future. I was doing this to keep them safe, and their families yet to be. I pointed out I hadn’t volunteered for this, not entirely. I was being called back to active duty.

  They left—sober, disturbed, and more convinced than I would have believed possible, which gave me the strangest twisted feeling in my heart.

  Jo came alone, of course. She waited until after the major treatments, and until I was on my feet again. She walked into the hospital room and looked me up and down intently, memorizing every detail of every change. Then she turned on her heel and left without saying a word.

  I huddled under the covers and sobbed with the pillow stuffed in my mouth for ten full minutes before the nurses came and pulled me out.

  Slowly, I did adjust to my rejuvenated body. The pain faded and I began to enjoy the strength and energy. I wasn’t that much lighter, but the weight I carried was muscle mass, so I was stronger and less…worn. I ran through the terrace parks, braving the driving Lake Michigan winds and sometimes risking my new ankles on the ice. I walked through the chaos of the lower city, plowing through drifts for the sheer hell of it, and once getting into a snowball fight with a mob of schoolkids who had slipped the leash for a moment.

  Everywhere I went, memory stirred. Not huge things. Most of the actual places I had frequented when I was assigned here—the bars, restaurants, and clubs—were long gone. It was more the feeling. The walkways felt familiar under my shoes. Smells created waves of pleasant nostalgia. Even the air that carried the rush and rigor of the city’s presence felt comfortably familiar.

  The doctors said it was a side effect of the medical rebirth. My body had been reset to a previous time, and it was the physical sensation of being that age strengthening the memories of the place around me.

  I hoped that was true. Because I didn’t like what the alternative meant. It meant David was right, and something inside me was burrowing through my time with him to the old life underneath. And it felt good.

  Indoors, I played in old Xperiensors I’d enjoyed in my second and third decades, and tried some new ones Siri recommended. I took the stairs instead of the elevators and reveled in my speed.

  Vijay and Siri came around regularly and we would go out and get dinner, or sit around the room and talk about old times and catch up on the unit gossip.

  We did not talk about our personal lives. We never had. For this, I was grateful. I caught all the playful slaps and arm punches that passed between them and hadn’t been there before; all the looks filled with things they were never going to say in front of me. I pretended I didn’t notice. They let me pretend and we were all satisfied, for the moment anyway.

  It wasn’t like we didn’t have plenty to keep ourselves busy. There were hours upon hours of reports in various formats to be reviewed, walked through, and talked over, from plain text to full-sensory, composite XPs. We had to review Siri’s dossiers on key power figures on Dazzle where we’d be based, like Commander Favor Barclay (“He’d like to be a good guy, but he’s too frightened”), as well as potential information sources like Natio Bloom (“the ‘Master of Dazzle’; spends a lot of time trying to convince everybody, himself included, that title still means something. Kind of sad.”). Then there were personnel decisions, equipment decisions, strategic and logistical decisions. I needed to brush up on at least one of the Erasmus dialects. Siri, of course, already spoke the slang fluently—and more than a little smugly.

  In addition, I had to spend time coordinating our operation with the Common Cause Assistance Foundation, which was running the current aid mission to Erasmus. I had a few old pangs when I sat down with the board. During the Redeemer crisis, I’d also gone in with an aid mission. It is, in fact, the most common way to insert Guardians into a non-Pax environment. This is not to say the aid is disingenuous, or that the people who give it are not dedicated humanitarians. They are, deeply so. They are our open hand.

  This time, oddly, I wasn’t going to be given a cover in the aid mission or even a formal designation with them. I was going under my own rank as Field Commander with an open and visible mission: to find out what had really happened to Bianca. But, as much as possible, we try to work with any humanitarian agency in place when we go. They have a solid knowledge of the local community and the local power structure. That was important because Siri and Vi-jay’s personal experiences were almost two years out of date.

  And, of course, the fact that I was not going in undercover with CCA did not mean that no one was going in with them. I just had not been officially informed about it.

  I remained uninformed until six weeks before our scheduled departure, when Vijay abruptly stopped showing up to meetings and ate his meals out. It was part of the deal. He and his were going to be our connection to the black market, the smugglers and the pirates. I couldn’t know where he was or what he was going to look like. He’d get his reports to Siri, and she’d get them to me.

  I gave her a week to mope. She, of course, denied that she was moping. But his leaving hurt her. I tried not to imagine their farewell: how they had held each other, laughing and joking together. Siri would have threatened him with assorted interesting and impossible punishments if he didn’t take care of himself. He would have mocked her ruthlessly until she had no option but to give him one of those playful slaps I’d seen, and he would have grabbed her h
and, and then…and then…

  It wasn’t that I minded that they were lovers. It was the contrast between what I imagined for them and the way I had taken leave of David that was too much to bear.

  I turned my face to the world again, and I kept on going.

  We were three weeks away from launch when Siri arrived on the threshold of my hotel room and asked to be let in. It was late, but I was up, with my glasses plugged into my set so I could go over the unsteady XPs from one of Bianca’s trips to Fortress.

  I unplugged as Siri dropped onto the sofa. She rubbed her long hands together in a way that was more a sign of restlessness than of trying to get rid of Chicago’s February chill. I tried not to notice as I folded my glasses away into their case, but the warnings were already sounding in the back of my mind.

  “So, what’s up?” I asked as casually as I could.

  “I had a meeting with Misao, about Jerimiah.”

  “And?” Siri had been working with Jerimiah over the past weeks, distilling the information that he—it—still held, matching it against her own experiences in Erasmus. I read the reports closely, but I had stayed as far away from the meetings as I could. I couldn’t stand to be in the same space as Jerimiah, let alone when Siri brought out Shawn, her own Companion, to help with analysis and what passed as interrogation between the two artificial constructs. At those times, the loss inside me opened so wide I felt like I’d start bleeding from my heart.

  “I think it would be valuable to have him on the mission with us.”

  Him. Jerimiah.

  With an effort, I set aside my emotions and tried to think in purely practical terms—about logistics, about advantages and disadvantages. “That means a lot of extra equipment to keep him coherent and to be able to tap in and communicate securely, especially going into a place with such a fragmented datascape. Will Misao authorize that?”

  “We wouldn’t need the extra tech if you carried him.”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “If you had Jerimiah installed.”

  I stared at her. I heard what she was saying, but for a long moment, there was a wall between her words and any form of comprehension. Slowly, understanding leaked through. She wanted me to carry Jerimiah with me, inside me, as I had once carried Dylan.