by S. C. Jensen
“You made it out of there,” Hammett said, squinting up at me in an imitation of Dickie’s half-moon smile. “I knew you could do it.”
“Out of the frying pan,” I said.
Dickie pursed his lips and shook his head. “Sorry, we already did that. We’ve been in the coals since we turned the wrong way in the tunnel. Is there anything worse than death by fire?”
“Death by dismemberment?” I suggested.
Dickie wrinkled his nose and looked a little ragged round the edges. “That was a rhetorical question, Bubs. But sure. That would be worse.”
“You never noticed that you were working for an organ-harvesting ring?”
My gaze travelled over Sal and Oki and the whiz kids, expecting to see some trace of—I didn’t know what—shame, guilt, self-loathing? They all looked back at me with eyes like hard black marbles.
“We are not harvesters,” Oki said. “Although we occasionally have to make a deposit at the organ bank.”
My stomach churned. “Depositing dead bodies, you mean?”
“Everyone has enemies.” Sal crossed his hairy arms over his chest. “Might as well give the bastards a chance at redemption. Maybe their kidneys go on to live in some real nice kid, you know?”
“Are you paid for this . . . service?” Bile burned the back of my throat.
“We are paid in ‘no questions asked.’” Sal shrugged. “Sometimes we help dispose of less useful parts.”
“Is this how you’ve been dealing with the feedreelers?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Oki said. “What matters is that you need to get someone into Libra to save Tom. The best way in is through the chop shop in the basement. You had a solid plan.”
“It was solid when Gore and I were going to do it,” I said. “But I can’t go in there on my own. And Gore is . . . I don’t even know. Is he alive? Will he recover?”
“SecurIntel’s operatives are top of the line biobuilds,” Oki said. “He’d been harvested. A rush job. They missed a few parts. I was able to patch him up. We keep spares on hand for when jobs go sideways.” She turned to the whiz kids. “Show her.”
The kids stood up and lifted their clothes to reveal a patchwork of scars across their bodies. Gashes through ribs and over the heart, jagged lines bifurcating bellies. Some of the scars were long-healed and silvery white. Some were fresh and red.
“You’ve all been har—” I choked on the word. “Harvested?”
“And they’ve all been patched up.”
“But you only had a few hours,” I said. “How could you source replacements, perform surgery, and . . . what? Bring him back to life? That’s impossible.”
“Look,” Oki said impatiently. “I’m a tinker. I work fast. I keep organic and synthetic parts on hand. And he wasn’t truly dead.”
“He was cut open on a pile of corpses—”
“Listen!” Oki shouted over me, and slammed her fist on the table. The whiz kids winced and glanced nervously at their leader. I’d barely heard her speak above a mumble, let alone shout. “There is a limited amount of time in which organs can be harvested from a dead body before they start to break down. Victims who are snatched off the street for transportation to Libra or another harvesting facility are often shot full of a similar compound to the one LunAstro sent with you to slow your metabolism and simulate death. Your friend was swimming in it. Maybe even stuff from his own bag. There were a few vials missing from the carousel you were carrying. Now please—” She rubbed her forehead with the back of her fist. “No more questions. I am trying to explain how we are going to get Detective Tom Weiland out of that building.”
I sank down in my chair. Once again, everyone else seemed to know more about what to do than I did. Heat flushed my cheeks. The rest of the room—including the kids—had connected all the dots and seen the big picture and come up with a plan while I was still sitting there trying to figure out which way to hold the pencil. I said, “Sorry.”
“Okay.” Oki breathed out in a long breath. “What I’d like to do is plant a few of us at the pick-up point, loaded up with that LunAstro serum so we appear dead for an hour or two. The drop where Sal found Gore is usually destined for Libra. Usually only the prime bodies end up there, and they are never cut up like Gore was. I’m thinking whoever got to him was trying to send a message. Either to us or to Libra, it’s hard to say without knowing who hit him. Hopefully his repairs will be completed soon, and we can ask. If not, we’ll just have to assume they will be expecting us.”
“That means you stay here.” Sal pointed to me with a hairy finger.
The flush in my cheeks rushed to cover the rest of my body. I got shakily to my feet. “I’m not staying behind. I can help.”
“You are a liability,” Oki said. “It’s clear that this Price character is trying to lure you into the building by using Weiland as bait. He wants you to come.”
“I promised to bring him the flash drive,” I said. “And the android, Patti Whyte.”
That wasn’t strictly true. He’d said he wanted those things. I hadn’t promised anything. And even if I had . . .
“You have neither,” Oki said. “And yet you still plan to go inside? I believe he knew you would play it that way, and that your plan plays directly into his hands.”
“I can’t leave Tom in there,” I said.
“We’re not going to leave him.” Oki drummed her fingers on the table. “Kymani and Yin here will find Tom and get him out while I cause a distraction.”
“A distraction?”
“LunAstro gave you a different flash drive, right?” Oki said, and I nodded.
“It was in Gore’s bag. A virus capable of obliterating the mainframe network,” I said. “At least, that’s what LunAstro’s little weasel in the tower said.”
“Demi here checked it out,” Oki said.
An androgynous child with a shock of white-blond hair falling in their eyes nodded and said, “It’s legit powerful stuff.”
“She’s coming with me,” Oki said. “If Gore is unable to accompany us, Demi is the only other person who will be able to get past their internal security and activate the drive.”
Bitterness crept up from my stomach and sat like a lump between my lungs, making it hard for me to breathe. They didn’t want my help. “You realize that we’ll just be empowering LunAstro if we take out Libra, right?”
“It’s the only hope we have of getting Tom out,” Oki said. “It’s the same plan you had all along. It’s a good plan.”
“It’s the same plan except I am not going to have anything to do with it,” I said. “You think I’m going to screw it up, just like I’ve screwed up everything else. Is that it? You’d rather take children—children!—on a dangerous mission like this than some burned-out, has-been cop who can’t even keep her best friends safe?”
“Bubbles, calm down.” Dickie put a hand on my arm, and I wrenched it out of his grasp, tears burning in my eyes.
“Everything you’ve all been telling me is a lie,” I said. I whirled on Cosmo. “I get to decide how my past shapes me, do I? When did I decide any of this?”
Cosmo stepped up, his big, glitter-covered eyes blinking at me as if I’d slapped him. “We’re trying to help.”
“If you go in that building,” Oki said. “Libra will be waiting. You are their best bet if they want to get their hands on Rae and whatever that program is in her brain. They want you. I don’t know what LunAstro was playing at by sending you into the lion’s den like that. Maybe they don’t see your value to Libra. Maybe they don’t care. But I do. We can’t risk it. I don’t know a lot about Libra, but I have heard stories about Price that would curl the hair on your ass. If this tech ends up in his hands, HoloCity will become a war zone.”
I slammed my metal fist into the table and sent a crack through the middle of it, with Dickie, Hammett, and Cosmo on
one half and Sal and Okie and her dream team on the other. Blood pounded behind my eyes and my muscles seized up like rocks. I wanted to strike out and hit something, to fight whatever it was that was holding me back. But the monster was me.
Oki and her whiz kids stared at me, open-mouthed. They were putting their lives on the line to save Tom and I was . . .
What?
Jealous? Did I really need to be the one to save him so badly that I resented the efforts of these people who were trying to help me?
“Fine,” I said.
Tears streamed down my face and I turned away. Panic and helplessness clawed at the inside of my chest, tearing their way out of me like Rae had torn out of the coffin box to emerge bloody and violent and victorious.
Except I didn’t feel any of those things.
I felt bloodless and empty. Even less human than Patti.
I was nothing but a shell.
Nothing.
I ran out of the room as fast as I could without hopping a bangtail and launching back out into the great black beyond. I practically tore the big metal door off its hinges with my upgrade before hitting the stairs at a dead sprint.
Tears blurred my eyes so that the secret staircase was just a black smear as I plummeted through it. The explosion of colour in the wig room was like a psychedelic watercolour painting when I burst through the door next to the statue. My breath came in hard punches, sharp gasps punctuated by long, painful stretches where I couldn’t seem to breathe at all. Pain spasmed through my chest as my lungs heaved and my heart drummed, fighting against an enemy they would never defeat. Colours whirled around me as I spun in the room, needing desperately to get my bearings so that I knew which way to run. In my head, Rae’s and Tom’s voices bounced around like rubber bullets, leaving stinging welts wherever they landed.
Just let me die.
It hurts.
There was nothing I could do. The situation was completely beyond my control. I couldn’t help them. It was too late. I was going to lose the man I… what? Loved? I had been too stupid or stubborn or scared to admit it when it counted, and now it was too late. My stomach clenched. I was going to lose my best friend, the person who saved me when I was at the lowest point of my life, the one who gave me compassion and hope when I had nothing. And now, when they needed me, I couldn’t help them.
I collapsed to the floor with my hands wrapped over my head and screamed. The sound ripped out of my chest like a slug screaming through an abandoned tunnel. The back of my throat burned and tore as I forced every last ounce of air out of my lungs. But I couldn’t get away from the suffocating feeling in my chest.
It hurts.
Just let me die.
Maybe Oki and the others could save Tom. Maybe he would be okay. Maybe they’d find a way to help Rae. But how could I ever face them again knowing how badly I’d failed them? I took and took and took from them when I needed support. And when they needed me, I had failed.
Sobs wracked my bones as if I was being beaten from the inside out. Everything ached. Burned. Grief tore at me like a physical force, like destroying my body was the only way to kill the ugliness inside. The rotten core that had been eating away at me since I was a kid and I was trapped in the Grit, getting a glow-up to escape the feeling of . . . feeling anything.
The floodgate of emotion had been opened and all of those feelings I’d locked away and numbed and hidden for years fought one another to get out all at once. Anger and anxiety, fear and sorrow.
And, above all, powerlessness.
No matter what I did, life had a way of reminding me that I had no control. I was a piece of non-biodegradable trash being rushed along by fate to the great big landfill of human garbage that we call existence. It didn’t matter what I did, I was going to end up there.
We all were.
The flood of emotions began to ebb.
I was nothing special. I was just another person living a life that was probably no better or worse than anyone else’s. I’d probably never make the cut if a machine like Hammett was in charge of skimming the top ten percent of people into the “worth saving” category. But Tom had a good chance. Rae definitely did.
I suppose there is a limit to how much suffering a person can put themselves through before their body and brain either give up or give it up.
I wasn’t going to give up yet.
Not when Tom and Rae still needed me.
So I wasn’t going to be the one to save them. I wasn’t the hero of the hour. But I could still be there for them when they healed, the way they had been there for me.
Maybe that’s all anyone could ever do for anyone else.
It hurts.
Yes.
Let me die.
Never.
I sat up and took a deep, shaking breath. My head spun and black spots swam in front of the room’s smear of colour. I wiped my eyes and the world came back into focus.
Okay.
Now, how do I help the heroes?
I pushed myself up off the ground, feeling like I’d just run a marathon. Through the sewers. Being chased by mutant alligators. But I was still standing.
That had to count for something, right?
Johanna had said that.
The maniacal cyber-witch might be onto something.
I rubbed my face and ran my fingers through my hair, gently for once. Even my scalp hurt. I set my shoulders and turned back for the staircase, prepared to be the best support I could be for the team going into Libra.
Dickie sat on the floor beneath the naked, beckoning statue with Hammett perched in his lap. Their homburgs tilted rakishly to the same side, but their faces had the wrung-out look of old dishrags, like a comic-tragic duo from an old black-and-white reel who had just driven pies into one another’s faces and ruined their best suits.
“Feeling better?” Dickie asked, his voice a whisper, as if he worried normal words might be enough to shatter me all over again. His cheeks had a raw, pink look and tears glittered in his eyes.
“How long have you two been there?”
“I followed you,” Dickie said. “But Ham figured it was best to leave you alone. Are you okay?”
I took a shaky breath and nodded. “I think I got it out of my system.”
“You’re doing a great job, Bubs,” Dickie said. He smiled sadly. “You always do. You can’t see it because you’re always so damned focused on what you can’t do, or what you could do better. You never see the good that you’ve done.”
“There isn’t much good to see,” I said, but the words felt empty somehow. Like they’d lost their power over me. Like even if it was true, it didn’t really matter.
“There you go again.” His voice cracked. “Do you know why I wanted to work with you, Bubbles?”
I shrugged. “Because you were bored with being a rich kid? You wanted some excitement? I don’t know.”
Dickie shook his head and laughed in a way that made my insides shrivel up like meatless cocktail wieners left in the back of the fridge until they freeze dried. I don’t know why I’d said it. I didn’t believe it. I loved Dickie and his perpetual smile and good humour and his endless supply of wacky business ideas. The truth was, I didn’t know why Dickie stuck around with me. He deserved better, just like Tom and Rae.
“Because you cared about me,” Dickie said. “When nobody else did. Especially not my highbinder parents. Because you care about every one of the cases you take on, no matter how insignificant the people are. When you were a cop, you got in trouble for caring about the wrong kinds of cases. Cases that were closed before they were opened. I’m not stupid, Bubbles. I know exactly what I’m worth in HoloCity. Nobody was coming for me when you found me hanging in that warehouse. Nobody had even reported that I was missing. Nobody would have cared if I’d died there. You didn’t have to, either. Those wannabe gangsters were
hardly worth the paperwork to book them, but you did it. And I know you got heat for it. I know you stepped on toes to put them away and keep them there. When you got kicked off the force, I thought I could help you, maybe. I thought maybe I could repay you for that bit of human kindness you showed me. I thought I could help you keep doing what you do best.”
My throat ached all over again. I said, “And what’s that, Dickie?”
“Making a difference,” he said.
“That’s the problem,” I said. “I haven’t made a difference. I’m spinning my wheels but the scenery isn’t changing. Nothing changes.”
“Why do you help the people that you help?” he asked. “Do you ever think about it, or do you just do it?”
“Go easy on her,” Hammett said. “She’s not exactly a natural at introspection.”
I glared at the pig. I flexed the fingers on my upgrade and made it into a fist. My chest felt tight. But it was different this time.
“I guess I feel like everyone has to matter or no one matters. If the skid-row pinches don’t matter, neither do the corporate executives or the rest of us in between. Not Tom and Rae, not you. Not me. I’ve met a lot of people in this town and there’s nothing that separates the back-alley pro skirts from the highbinder politicians besides circumstance.”
“We are more than the life we’re born into,” Dickie said. “I’m not a PornoPop magnate and you’re not a Grit skid. We’re people. Everyone you’ve helped, back in your HCPD days or as a P.I., was a person too. Maybe you can’t change this big old pile of corruption we live in, but don’t try to tell me you haven’t helped people. You can’t tell me that people matter and then tell me that helping them doesn’t make a difference. That’s some epic level dissociation right there if you believe that.”
“She does,” Hammett said.
“Well it pisses me off,” Dickie said. His voice shook and for the first time I saw something I’d never seen on his face. Anger. Real Anger. “I’m sick of it.”
