by Loren Walker
"So where, then? Where do you work out of?” Renzo pressed
"At this time, I have no base of operations," Sabik admitted. "And I would need financial assistance to set up my team, and my treatment options. Do you have any funds to support the cost of this endeavor?"
Phaira deflated again. "No. We don't have much of anything anymore."
An idea occurred to her. "But I could get some rana."
She glanced at Renzo, anticipating his protest.
But he just stared at the floor.
So Phaira turned back to Sabik. "If you'll take her on as a patient, I'll get you paid. I swear it. When can you start?”
“As soon as we have a place to go, I’m yours, Miss Phaira.”
* * *
“Are you in a lot of pain?” It seemed like a dumb question, but it was the only one that Phaira could think to ask, as she gingerly sat on the edge of the hospital bed.
“It’s pretty much the worst thing ever.” Anandi's voice was muffled but had that ring of slyness that Phaira remembered. She was still covered with bandages, some showing an orange, oily sheen.
“I’m so sorry this happened," Phaira said. "And that I haven’t come to see you.” She looked at Anandi's left hand, which was mostly unblemished, and wondered if she should take it, if that was the proper gesture. What did she do when Renzo was hospitalized? She couldn't remember.
“Don’t apologize,” Anandi said, shifting in her bed. “I should be the one apologizing. I shouldn’t have been so petty. If I had been better - ”
“I was pretty terrible, too," Phaira pointed out. "I should have listened to what you had to say."
A long silence followed. Through the bandages, Anandi's eyes were rimmed with pink, but sharp, looking Phaira up and down. She had a thousand questions, Phaira could see it. What could she say, really? Even describing the events that took place, it seemed too simple; there wasn't enough weight to express the reality of what she remembered, of what she grieved, and hated herself for grieving.
A tiny, almost unperceivable click in the room.
Phaira’s heart leapt.
She got to her feet, swiveling in place and looking for some kind of surveillance.
“Who has been here?” she demanded.
But Anandi's gaze was fixed across the room, where a pair of scorched boots lay in the corner. "I heard it too," she whispered. "In my right boot. Hidden compartment."
Phaira crouched down to feel the edges of Anandi's burned boot. Ash smeared across her palm as she searched.
There it was, she felt the familiar edges. She studied the Lissome. It hadn't cracked, and it didn't look like the fire had damaged it.
She held it between thumb and forefinger, and raised it to Anandi's eyeline. "Is this yours?"
Anandi struggled to sit up in the bed. “Give it to me.” Her voice was strangely urgent. "Put it on my thigh."
Confused, Phaira placed it on the girl's left thigh, over the scratchy hospital blanket. Balancing the Lissome there, Anandi managed to shift her torso upright. Her heavily bandaged arms on either side of her thigh, she activated the Lissome with a wave of her finger. The device projected three screens instantly. The pixels highlighted Anandi’s shocked face.
“What is it?” Phaira asked. She found her reading glasses and slipped them on, peering over Anandi’s shoulders.
A financial catalogue, she quickly realized: bank account numbers, routing numbers, business transactions, real estate deeds. She caught names in the scrolling screens. Sava. Sava. Sava.
And not just Savas, but the name Ajyo, too. Anandi and Emir were listed, and someone who might have been Anandi’s grandmother?
“Why would he do this?” Anandi was whispering. “Why would he give this to me?”
“Who gave this to you?”
But Phaira knew the answer before Anandi said the name.
“Theron told me to hold onto this, that it would unlock eventually,” Anandi continued under her breath. “But what am I supposed to do with all this?”
The answer was automatic: Dissolve the accounts. Destroy their resources, their real estate, their dummy bank accounts. It's the only way to decimate syndicate power over Osha.
And by the look on Anandi’s face, she’d come to the same conclusion, staring at Phaira with wonder. “My grandmother’s accounts are in here. My father’s inheritance.”
Phaira tried to process everything, tried to get her tongue to work, even as she wanted to sink into the floor. “Why is your family included in all of this?”
“Because we are connected,” Anandi said softly. “Ajyos and Savas. We feed into their activities, whether we are willing or not. So: one stroke to finish it all. It's brilliant, really.”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Phaira told her. “You can think about it. Make sure it’s the right thing to do.”
Anandi shook her head. “I don’t have to think about it.”
For the next few minutes, the room was heavy with clicks, swishing screens, error commands, and Anandi’s strained breath. Phaira did her best not to pace, not to run her hands through her hair again and again, or let her knees achieve the weakness they wanted. Her thoughts were slotting together, and she was afraid to believe the picture forming in her head: Theron had always planned to dismantle the syndicate. He'd been collecting all the financial information for weeks. But he knew he was slated to die, and he wanted to be sure that someone would make the final blow, even if he wasn't around.
But what about all the anti-NINE technology? What about her brother? What about nearly shooting Sydel on the bridge? Was it all a trick? A performance? Was it to propel her to react, to give him a proper death, so he couldn't be seen as a martyr?
“It’s done.”
The pixelated screens sucked back into the Lissome, and Anandi leaned back with a sigh. To Phaira's surprise, she was smiling. “Well, my family is officially broke. And so is every Sava in Osha.”
They’re free, she realized. For the first time, they’re free from the Savas.
And so am I.
VII.
Renzo had gone back to the Arazura to sleep, and Phaira was glad for it; it was too awkward to have him in the same space. That evening, Phaira did her best to trim Sydel's fingernails. She didn't want the nurses touching her, as clumsy as Phaira was at anything like caregiving. It was only when she was alone with Sydel that she let tears fall for Cohen, and let the pain sear through her chest. In response, Sydel sighed sometimes, and her fingertips fluttered.
"Phaira."
Her name travelled across the room. Phaira froze, holding the pair of scissors.
"Will she recover?"
Phaira closed the scissors, gripping them in her fist, so the inch of sharpness was exposed.
Only then did she twist at the waist to look.
CaLarca wasn't alone in the doorway; she was with her partner, Ganasan, who held their sleeping child against his shoulder. There was a quiet strength to the threesome, and a calmness that Phaira could not recall ever seeing in the woman with the braids. It enraged her. What do you want now? she wanted to scream at them. Haven't you done enough, hurt enough? Are you glad that Cohen is dead? Why do you get a happy ending, and we don't?
"I don't know," Phaira finally said, her voice tight. "I don't know if she'll wake up."
She looked at the shears clenched in her fists. Then she put them on the bedside table, exhausted to the bone.
"She's pregnant, apparently," she announced, surprised at the confession.
CaLarca's gaze shifted to where the girl lay. "She is. I can see the life." There was both wonder and sorrow in the observation. Phaira saw Ganasan put a hand around CaLarca, how his fingers pressed into her shoulder, and she burned desperately for that kind of comfort.
"Can I speak to CaLarca alone?" she asked.
CaLarca and Ganasan exchanged intimate looks.
Then Ganasan ducked out of the room with their son and closed the door.
The three w
omen in the room were silent.
"May I sit?" CaLarca asked, gentleness in the request.
It made Phaira want to flinch with suspicion. But she was so tired of fighting.
Phaira nodded at the bed. "Go ahead."
CaLarca settled onto the mattress, moving stiffly. She was in pain, injured from the fight on the bridge, Phaira realized. What had happened there?
"You shape-shifted." Phaira winced at the term, but it was the only word she could come up with. "You figured out how to change your face, like Kuri did."
"Yes," CaLarca said. "That man was Zarek Voss. One of the original NINE. He betrayed me, so it seemed only right to use his face to betray Joran."
"Where is this Voss now?"
CaLarca's silence gave the answer.
"And then you disappeared. How did you do that?"
"Another Nadi trick," CaLarca said. "One I don't want to use again."
She gazed at the girl in the bed, laying her hand over Sydel's. "What are your plans, Phaira? She can't stay here."
"I'm setting up care for her. And treatment. At least, I will when I get the rana."
It was CaLarca's turn to wince. "I put the rana back into your account. Earlier today. It was just a means to.... it was wrong, and I apologize for stealing it. For everything."
"Thank you, I suppose," Phaira said wryly. "But it won't be enough." She glanced at Sydel again. "I'll make up the remainder through jobs on the LRP network."
CaLarca's face showed a hint of a smile. "You will do well, I think, in that role."
"If it makes the rana, then it's worth it," Phaira said with a sigh. "But it's also travelling across Osha, and I can't leave her alone. Emir will be busy with Anandi's recovery. I can't bother him with it. And Renzo...."
Phaira trailed off, looking at her hands. "Plus, this treatment could take months. I need to figure out a secure location to make sure no one interferes."
"I will care for her."
Phaira held her breath.
"And care for the baby, if it is born," CaLarca continued. "Until Sydel wakes up again.”
Phaira stared at CaLarca. What manipulation was this?
“No." Phaira felt the word burst out of her mouth. "You have no right. You have no right to even ask for such a thing,” she continued to hiss, feeling hot tears coming to her eyes.
“I promise you, Phaira,” CaLarca said, her voice husky with grief. “I will guard her with my life. For both of their lives. Ganasan will agree. It's what we are meant to do, what we should have done from the start, when Sydel was a baby. It's only fitting that we care for her offspring too, as needed."
"I can't. No, I can't do that."
Her eyes were sincere. "You say you need a secure location. Bring her to the South, to our land. We can rebuild to accommodate Sydel's needs, both for comfort and security. We will isolate ourselves for her, to keep her safe. And you would make the final decisions on her care. I would carry out whatever you asked.
"Without arguing with me?" Phaira couldn't help but add.
CaLarca's black eyes glittered. "Perhaps a strong suggestion."
Both women smirked at each other, and Phaira wondered if this was all a dream, including the question that followed: "I have a favor to ask."
CaLarca's eyebrows lifted high.
"I need to develop my Eko," Phaira said. "Just receiving messages isn’t enough. I’ve always been afraid to see what else I could do. Physicality has been the only thing for so long. I don't want to rely on only that anymore. Not if I'm going into LRP work."
CaLarca regarded her with curiosity. "I can show you. If you're certain that's what you want."
"I do." Phaira glanced down at Sydel in the bed.
Because I'm a NINE, whether I like it or not.
And I'm going to use it for good, like she wanted.
* * *
As the sun rose over West Lea Hospital, Phaira and Renzo sat in the Arazura cockpit. Every part of the ship was empty, and echoing. Phaira's chest ached, straining for the sound of her little brother's chortle, or heavy footsteps. She could smell him. She could feel him in these walls, and Theron too, somehow; ghosts in these walls were stretching out to touch her. She hunched her shoulders and drew her knees to her chest, feeling the sheathed katana press against her back.
Renzo was the one to break the silence. "I'm going back to work."
"What do you mean? At the university?"
"The anti-NINE tech business is valid," Renzo muttered, gazing out the windshield. "And needed. I can rebuild, and keep developing - "
"It's a Sava business," Phaira said, curling her lip with disgust. "You can't be serious."
"It's my company," Renzo corrected. "It's in my name. Doesn't matter how it started, it can continue as a legitimate manufacturing company."
"After everything that's happened, that’s what you want to do? Make weapons?"
"It's needed," Renzo shot back. "Whether you want to admit it or not. There's more NINE out there. And some may try and hurt people."
In the silence that followed, a chasm loomed between them, so deep and hollow that Phaira could feel the reverberations. What would they be without Cohen to connect them? Maybe this was the last time they would speak to each other, without that common thread. Her chest wrenched with pain, and she had to steel her eyes and her throat, to keep tears from being seen or heard. Renzo seemed even colder than before, even more shut off and hardened. Maybe she looked the same to him.
"You're joining LRP?" he asked gruffly, not looking at her.
"I am."
"I can give you some equipment. In case you run into a NINE."
Phaira thought about arguing, but she was too sad to try. "I'll think about it," she finally responded.
"And we have to do something for him," Renzo added. "Before we - he deserves it."
"I know," Phaira admitted. "I know."
They never did talk about final arrangements, the three of them. What would Cohen want? Where would he want to be laid to rest? The terminology, the thought, made Phaira want to put her fist through the Arazura windshield. Instead she dug her fingernails into her palms, and felt the pain, and felt guilty for feeling anything at all.
"Maybe a plaque next to Father. On the bridge." There was a choke to Renzo's voice.
"Toomba," Phaira finally spoke. "He'd want to go back to the mountains. He was going to go back, anyways. I think he felt at home there."
Renzo nodded, staring at his hands.
The Arazura console flashed; a call through the soundsystem. Renzo leaned forward to connect.
"Officer Lore?"
Renzo's eyebrows shot up his forehead. What? he mouthed.
Phaira flapped her hand at the speaker. "Phaira is fine," she said loudly. "What is it?"
"I'm outside. Got a minute?"
Phaira met Renzo's eyes. He dropped his gaze and fiddled with the console. There was nothing more she could think to say to Renzo, in that moment, anyways.
On the way out, she stopped into her cabin.
Then, clomping down the unfolded stairs, Phaira held out the folded uniform, the badge, and the Compact to Ozias, who waited on the ground below.
"Here," she said, shoving them at the detective. "I'm not patrol. So take them back."
Ozias held the bundle and the weaponry for a long pause, an annoyed look on her face. Then, to Phaira's surprise, she shoved the contents back at her. "You are, and I have a case for you."
"Did you not just hear me?" Phaira hissed. She pushed the bundle back at Ozias. "I'm joining the LRP network. It's a better fit for me, anyways. I'm no officer. I appreciate all you did, but - "
"You're not the least bit curious about the assignment?"
Phaira pressed her lips together, air ballooning at the back of her throat. "No, I'm not curious," she finally responded. "Nor available. I need rana now."
"For your brother's burial?"
Phaira flinched. "Yes. And other things."
Ozias regarded her with a
curious expression. "Thought you’d want to know that we’ve closed the case file on Theron."
It took effort to push the words out: "You found him?"
"Not yet.”
Her hopes sprung. Did he fake all this to escape, finally? Could he have survived the fall from the bridge? Was it all an elaborate plot?
"But the river is high, so it could take a while to recover the body," Ozias added. "Either way, with the family gone, we can close the files on the Sava Syndicate, and leave them in history where they belong."
To Phaira's surprise, Ozias's expression grew thoughtful, her bottom lip bitten. "I've been following that syndicate for ten years. It's strange to think that it's gone, just like that. Of course, one will rise to take its place, eventually. It’s just a matter of time. I will never lack for work. And neither will you, if you'll keep working for me."
"I told you, I'm not an officer."
"Then don't be official patrol. It works, anyways, for an unofficial investigation."
"What do you mean?"
"There's a new initiative to reopen unsolved case files across Osha, specifically ones involving strange behavior, or unexplainable deaths, to see if they are NINE-related. Hundreds of cases, potentially, to investigate. They might even move me up a rank to supervise it."
"Congratulations, I guess," Phaira said sourly. "What do you need me for?"
"I would feel better having someone with some expertise at the forefront, especially in the more difficult areas to access. As you say, you're no officer. But this is no standard patrol investigation. I need someone who can move outside the rules as needed and take care of themselves on their own. And be discreet, of course."
Phaira didn't know what to say, other than to repeat gruffly: "I need rana now."
"If cleared, I'll have discretionary funds," Ozias said. "I can advance you a certain amount. And you can still join the LRP network. I know you're already registered. But I ask that, if I call, you make my case the priority."
She nodded at the bundle in Phaira’s hands, which she realized was still there, weighing down her arms. "You can think about it. For now, keep the Compact, and the uniform. Whether you agree to work for me or not, they might come in handy.”
