“What the hell is that?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know.” Jaeger tipped his hat and left the room. “Rudi, where the hell did you go?” he called out. “I swear, if you’ve disappeared again …” The rest was muffled as he walked away.
Allen had been hanging back respectfully, but now he approached me, concern on his face.
“You okay, Al?” I asked.
“I’m fine, Roche. How do you feel?”
“Just peachy,” I chuckled. “Looks like we’re turning into one another. Next thing you know I’ll be getting blue bulbs put in my head.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Allen said.
“It’s just a hand, Al, don’t worry. I’ve lost more before and still kept going.”
Nightingale pulled the IV from my arm, capped the vein, and had me apply pressure. There was a knock at the door. Allen went to answer it. His expression transformed to one of suspicion, but he moved aside regardless. Simone Morane stepped in, looking pale.
“Night, thank you for everything,” I said to the doc.
“You’re very welcome, Elias,” she responded, brushing past Simone on her way out.
Allen stayed where he was as Simone approached the bed, though he followed her with his eyes the entire time. She had a bunch of flowers. Where had she gotten those at this time of year?
“How do you feel?” She was acting like I was on death’s door. I almost could have been, and she’d’ve been the one to put me there.
“Could be better.”
“Elias, I’m so sorry for this. I never meant … I pulled the trigger just as you and Allen were trying to get out. I didn’t —”
“Some forewarning might have been helpful. We could have avoided all this if you’d told us your plans!” Allen’s voice was hard and growing louder. He was angry. I hadn’t known he could get this angry.
“Warning you would have compromised the situation,” Simone said.
“And this hasn’t? Do you understand what a missing hand means for him?”
“Allen, calm down.” I put up my right hand, waving him down. It was still weird to move it without feeling it. “I do understand what you did, Simone, but you put yourself in plenty more danger by going against your former employer.”
Allen put his hands on his hips and groaned. “The capek will wait outside until you two are ready.” He stormed out of the room, being sure to give Simone as wide a berth and as dirty a look as possible. Yikes.
“It was bound to happen eventually,” she began after Allen had left. “I did have to make a deal with a few devils to get my father to safety, but at least I know he won’t just disappear one day. It puts my mind somewhat at ease. Greaves will be gunning for me and me alone. And I’m glad you’re okay, too.”
“Oh, she was upset to find out I survived that explosion. Well, more nervous than upset.” I snickered, rolled to face my bedside table, and showed her an envelope from the FBI. “Now she’s trying to buy my silence.”
“Really?”
“A fresh scrub of my files at the FBI, plus my name removed from certain secret lists … It’s enticing, but I don’t think she knows that I’m not the one with all the evidence. I’m going to milk it for all it’s worth, though.”
Simone laughed. “You really enjoy flirting with the edge, even from a hospital bed.”
I shrugged. “It’s in my nature.”
She gave a half-hearted smile. “What are you going to do now?”
“My apartment is trashed, as is the one above it, so two people are out of a home. Allen and I discussed sharing his place. Not a bad idea, considering it’s better than the street. I might refurbish the old place once they fix the supports, maybe rent it out, make some side cash.”
“You own it?”
“Sort of. It’s a long story.”
Awkward silence surrounded us.
“Shall we?” I asked.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
She helped me up from the bed. Walking around with more weight attached to my wrist than before was jarring; it made my shoulders sit unevenly. The hand was nimble, but it was surprisingly heavy. Outside my room, Allen followed us to reception, not attempting to hide his animosity toward Simone.
I put my hands on the counter and asked for the bill. When the paper was slid toward me, the number made my chest hurt. The well of money the Eye had provided was now closed off, and after factoring in my lost apartment safety deposit and this hospital bill, I didn’t have much left. Meanwhile, Allen had spent the last bit of his money on Jaeger’s services. The poor bastard was running on a trickle of cash. And so was I.
“Oh, sir, my mistake,” the receptionist said, pulling the paper back and looking it over. “It seems your stay has already been paid for.”
“What? By who?”
She rummaged around her desk for a moment. “They chose to remain anonymous, but … it left this for you.”
It. The Rabbit.
She handed me a small envelope. I was getting more mail now than I’d gotten over the past few years. A small folded note. Formal cursive in the centre of the page. It wasn’t signed.
Now you can truly be my Iron Hand.
I crumpled the note and threw it in the trash. I wasn’t that name anymore, and that name was no longer me. I looked at my hand, making a fist again, unable to feel it. The hand that wasn’t there.
“Who was it from?” Allen asked.
“Just … no one.”
“No one, mm-hmm.”
“Later, Allen.”
We made our way to the hospital entrance. Before Allen and I could leave to find my car, Simone stopped me.
“Do you mind if I give you a ride home? We need to talk.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Allen interjected. “For all I know, you’ll finish the job and drop his corpse off on my doorstep.”
I agreed with Allen, but I had my own things to say to her.
“I’ll see you there, Al.” He grimaced at me. “I’ll be fine! If I do die, you’ll know who to look for.”
“Yeah, it’d be poetic justice …” His voice trailed off as he left.
Despite having said she wanted to talk, she didn’t speak until we stopped in front of Allen’s place. I placed a cigarette between my new fingers and lit it, as always noting the eye engraved on my lighter.
“Elias, about what happened …”
“Don’t worry about it.” The smoke tasted bitter. More bitter than usual, that was.
“Allen is right, a missing hand is catastrophic —”
“Hey, a bit of positivity while I’m in earshot?” I forced a laugh to ease the tension. “I made a decision and I believe it was the correct one. At least, I have no reason to doubt it.”
“I never thanked you for … well, saving my skin. From the FBI, from the Mobs, from everyone. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me nothing, Morane. Er, Mercier … whichever you prefer.”
“At least let me make it up to you.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
I wasn’t sure what to expect until her lips met mine.
She pulled away, and I sat in stunned silence. She was soft, vulnerable, and I was … unsure how to process this.
“It’s all I can really give you,” she said.
“Uh, yeah.”
She looked at me. “Was that wrong?”
“I mean, confusing …” I said.
“I just thought … I don’t know. I’m not one for admitting my feelings to people, but with you, it felt natural. It felt right. Of all the people I’ve ever met, dated, killed … you’re the only person I’ve really connected with. No one else understands what I’ve been through.”
“Any war vet would —”
“No, not any war vet. And you aren’t just a war vet. I can tell that you lost something or someone just as I did. The fact that you know that kind of loss, that pain, that rage that builds inside and takes root forever … You understand me.
But … you don’t share that need to be understood, it seems.”
“Simone, I’m not one for opening up to anyone, either, not even to myself. I’m sorry I can’t be the one to give you comfort or solace. The War wasn’t what changed me. It stopped me from going back to my old life, but that’s not what made me jump at the chance to work for the Iron Hands. I lost people — someone in particular — and that changed me. We do understand each other, but not in a way where we can be something.”
“I see.” She nodded, looking away. It felt disgusting to crush her like this, but it was better than giving her false hope.
“But …” I started. This was going to be hard to explain. “Allen does, or did, have some sort of attraction to you.”
“Allen?” She almost laughed. “Really? Doesn’t seem to anymore.”
“No argument there. It’s unconventional, I know. And it seems to be causing a rift between him and me … I guess he thinks I saved you for some other reason than I’ve said. I just thought you should know. He’s a good guy.”
“You mean ‘it’?”
“No. He.”
She smirked. “Getting soft, huh? I mean, I don’t have a problem with Automatics, but I’m not an Autophile, or whatever they call them. I just don’t get that, by the way, attraction between machines and humans. I mean, who on earth would fall in love with a machine?”
She looked back at me, my expression, and I didn’t need to answer. A rush of guilt made her put a hand over her mouth.
“Oh,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“I know.”
“Was it …” She was struggling with the issue. She took a breath, recomposing herself. “I mean, it couldn’t have been too long ago. Was she nice? Special?”
Time to bite the bullet.
“Yeah, he was.”
And there it was. Everything clicked in her head: her eyes widened, and she flushed with embarrassment. “Oh, my God. Sorry!” She covered her mouth again as though the exclamation had escaped her mouth by mistake. “I never meant to … when I …”
“Simone, stop. You couldn’t have known.”
“Does Allen know?”
“I don’t know. He’s good at picking up on some things, but … the only people who definitely know are Robins and my parents, that’s it. Not even Sinclair. I don’t even want to imagine what he’d say if he ever found out.”
Simone looked shaken, blinking rapidly. “I never would have conceived it.”
“It’s fine, that’s the usual reaction. I’ve been pretending to be someone else for a long time. I think I should be true to myself for once. I think I’ve earned that.”
She sighed, taking some more breaths.
“Hey,” I said, grinning, “there is a way for you to repay me for saving your ass. My birthday is in a few days. I wouldn’t mind a letter or something on the sixth.”
“Maybe,” she said, more comfortable.
I gave her a wink and exited the car. I started to ascend the concrete stairs to the entrance when a voice jarred me.
“IT’S ALMOST BEEN A WEEK,” it said, from out of view. “YOU PLAN ON GIVING HER AN ANSWER SOON?”
“I still have a day, capek,” I said without turning. I was too tired to deal with it. Or with her.
Allen’s place was the first apartment on the ground floor. It was small. Very small. But I could make it work for the time being. He was cutting open mail with his paper knife and he looked up to greet me as I entered. I spotted something I hadn’t expected to see on his little dining room table: a brass box about the size of a cigarette holder. He noticed me leering at it and swiped it quickly, stuffing it into a pocket.
“Have a good talk on the way here?” he asked.
I groaned. “Al, it ain’t like that.”
“You say that far too often these days.” He stabbed at one of the letters, cutting clean through the centre. “Why did you really save her?”
“I told you why.”
“For some reason, I don’t believe you.”
“Regardless of what you believe, it’s the truth. I don’t know what it would take to make you believe me. Of course I have feelings for people sometimes, just not her.” I built up my backbone and didn’t beat around the bush for once. “You ain’t the only one who’s ever been betrayed. Or the only one to experience shit. If you’re insinuating something, you’d best just say it.”
Allen looked a little less mad, but I could still feel tension emanating from him.
“You’ve been referring to me as ‘he’ for a week or so now,” he said, ignoring my previous prompt.
“Yeah.”
“Do I remind you of your car or something now?”
I chuckled. “No, no …”
“Did something about my saving your ass trigger the part of your brain that treats machines with decency?”
I coughed and looked at the ground. What was I supposed to say? That these days, he reminded me of my scrapped partner? He was smart enough to deduce things; he could go back through all our past interactions and cut through the subtext. Would he think our friendship up to this point had been disingenuous?
“People refer to Automatics as objects because they don’t want to see them as people,” I began. “Until now, I wanted to see everyone as an object because it was easier to cope with loss if what got destroyed was a piece of property, not a person. I wanted to distance myself from everything that reminded me of that person — including you — to avoid feeling pain. But I shouldn’t anymore. It’s complicated.”
“Everything with you is complicated.” Allen returned to opening letters, but with a normal amount of force this time. “You going to talk to the Eye soon? You only have a day left.”
“Great, now I got two of you hounding me.”
He looked up from the letter he was holding. “What do you mean?”
I didn’t sense any more hostility, but unease lingered between us.
“Nothing.”
“You do know letting this go could cause irreparable damage, right? Simone will rip this city apart,” he stated. “She’ll destroy this uneasy peace you’ve built. And if you up and leave, the Hands will resort to other, less humane methods to reassert their dominance. Just being employed by them, letting them trade on your name, could mitigate the damage.”
“I have a day, Allen,” I repeated. “And if what I built is a constant state of fear and oppression, then … it might be better to let it burn.”
Midway through opening a letter, Allen stabbed the letter opener into the table in frustration.
“Do you know what you’re doing, Elias?”
I looked back at him. He was a changed man, machine, whatever. I shrugged.
“No, I don’t.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BLAKE GIROUX PHOTOGRAPHY
BRENDEN CARLSON is a chemist and D&D dungeon master with a love for hard science fiction, tabletop role-playing games, and art house movies. A post-modernist by circumstance, he has a master’s degree in organic chemistry, focusing on the catalysis of isocyanides with other unpronounceable compounds. Combining his love of history and classic sci-fi authors, he began his writing career with the Walking Shadows science fiction series. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
Victor Lessard Thrillers
by Martin Michaud
(Quebec Thriller, Police Procedural)
Never Forget
Without Blood
Coming soon: The Devil’s Choir
The Day She Died
by S.M. Freedman
(Domestic Thriller, Psychological)
Amanda Doucette Mysteries
by Barbara Fradkin
(Female Sleuth, Wilderness)
Fire in the Stars
The Trickster’s Lullaby
Prisoners of Hope
The Ancient Dead
The Candace Starr Series
by C.S. O’Cinneide
(Noir, Hitwoman, Dar
k Humour)
The Starr Sting Scale
Starr Sign
Stonechild & Rouleau Mysteries
by Brenda Chapman
(Indigenous Sleuth, Kingston, Police Procedural)
Cold Mourning
Butterfly Kills
Tumbled Graves
Shallow End
Bleeding Darkness
Turning Secrets
Closing Time
Tell Me My Name
by Erin Ruddy
(Domestic Thriller, Dark Secrets)
The Walking Shadows
by Brenden Carlson
(Alternate History, Robots)
Night Call
Midnight
Creature X Mysteries
by J.J. Dupuis
(Cryptozoology, Female Sleuth)
Roanoke Ridge
Lake Crescent
Birder Murder Mysteries
by Steve Burrows
(Birding, British Coastal Town)
A Siege of Bitterns
A Pitying of Doves
A Cast of Falcons
A Shimmer of Hummingbirds
A Tiding of Magpies
A Dance of Cranes
B.C. Blues Crime
by R.M. Greenaway
(British Columbia, Police Procedural)
Cold Girl
Undertow
Creep
Flights and Falls
River of Lies
Five Ways to Disappear
Jenny Willson Mysteries
by Dave Butler
(National Parks, Animal Protection)
Full Curl
No Place for Wolverines
In Rhino We Trust
Jack Palace Series
by A.G. Pasquella
(Noir, Toronto, Mob)
Yard Dog
Carve the Heart
Season of Smoke
The Falls Mysteries
by J.E. Barnard
(Rural Alberta, Female Sleuth)
When the Flood Falls
Where the Ice Falls
Why the Rock Falls
True Patriots
by Russell Fralich
(Political Thriller, Military)
Dan Sharp Mysteries
by Jeffrey Round
(LGBTQ, Toronto)
Lake on the Mountain
Pumpkin Eater
Midnight Page 29
