Chapter 22
I fall to my knees beside Edgar’s crushed form.
“No,” I whisper, picking him up.
Vale must have seen him. She would have recognized him … and with his broken wing, he wouldn’t have been able to escape. I imagine her knocking him to the floor and stomping on him.
I don’t know if an AI being can feel pain, but I ache in sympathy.
This is just exterior hardware, I know. His true self is housed in the computer hidden in my backpack. But I’ve never repaired something as intricate and tiny as a spybot bumblebee. I’m not sure it can be done.
“You’ll be okay,” I whisper, slipping his body into my pocket. I won’t leave it here, no matter how damaged it is.
“Augusta?”
Eames stands over me. I feel his presence by my left shoulder, but I can’t look at him. “It’s fine,” I say. “He’ll be fine.”
He squats down beside me, putting a hand on my arm. Unlike the first time he touched me, this squeeze is gentle. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “You—you had that spybot a long time?”
He doesn’t know that Edgar is an AI—that he’s a person. Eames must think I’m distraught over a toy. But even so, his eyes are soft.
“It’s fine,” I say again. “They didn’t destroy him. Just his body.”
Bodies can be remade. I should know.
But they’re never quite the same.
Piper walks over. “What is it?”
I shake my head. The fewer people that know about Edgar, the better. “It’s nothing. Just … lost our way of spying on Vale.”
I squeeze my hands into fists, trying to calm myself. Edgar’s loss is a blow, but I can still do this. I have to do this. I can fix him later, so long as I survive.
I look at Piper. Now that I know she’s Vale’s daughter I can’t unsee it. It’s subtler in Eames. With his tanned skin and dark hair, he must resemble his father. “Now what? Do we just stay here?” asks Piper.
“We’ll wait a few minutes—let Vale and Ratiofrustration get farther away. Then, I’m going to end this.”
“End this?” asks Piper. “How?”
I playfully pat her on the head. “Stylishly.”
She swats at me, but not with any real heat.
“I’ve got a plan,” I say. Well, I’m concocting a plan.
I close my eyes, imagining the building laid out like a chessboard. It’s what Prefect would do.
I’m out one rook—but I do have two new pieces to consider.
Consul is a sneaky little bishop, sliding her way into the game without me even realizing she was there.
As for Eames … well, he’s another knight.
Same as me. Vale is queen. She has Corey, a rook if ever I’ve seen one.
He’ll blast through enemies so long as they’re in front of him.
As for Carla … pawn. Definitely a pawn. But pawns have potential to be more.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s the plan: Carla.”
Consul, Eames, and Piper stare at me.
“I truly hope that was just the title of the plan and not its entirety,” says Consul.
I ignore her. “She doesn’t know what Vale’s up to, right? She’s a believer—she and Bud are actually hacktivists, right? That’s the vibe I got. Vale is the one who’s in this for the money.”
A flicker of regret crosses Eames’s face. “I never got the chance to tell Aunt Carla what Mom’s really up to. She’s—she’s our godmother, actually. My mom’s old college roommate. She doesn’t deserve what’s coming.”
“Well, to be fair she didn’t protest when Vale murdered a security guard,” I say.
Eames shifts on his feet. “I, uh, sort of made it look like a kidnapping when we ran away.”
I blink. “You what?”
“I had to throw them off the trail,” Eames says. “To give us time to get to an ISD field office.”
“So Carla thinks you’ve been kidnapped and delivered to the feds, which is why she was okay with this terrible plan.” I press my fingertips to my forehead, trying to stave off an inevitable headache. “All right. So we tell her.”
Consul raises an eyebrow. “How?”
“We still have a radio,” says Eames, pulling it from his pocket. “They’re using these to communicate, right?”
I forgot I gave that to him. “Well,” I say. “That has … potential.” I take a moment to consider. “All right. I take the radio, lure Carla away from the others—”
“We,” says Eames firmly.
I look at him. “Eames, I don’t know…”
His gaze meets mine and he doesn’t look away. “This isn’t your fight,” he says quietly. “I’m not letting you do this alone.” He directs his next words at Consul. “You’ll stay here and protect Piper. Got that?”
“That is my job,” she agrees. “I still don’t think your being here is coincidence,” she says to me. “But I think we have sufficient evidence to conclude you aren’t working with Vale.”
“What gave it away?” I ask dryly. “The broken nose, the drugging, or the multiple fights?”
She doesn’t deign to reply.
“Hey.” It’s Piper who speaks up. She steps closer to Eames. “I want to help, too.”
I feel for the kid, I really do. It’s hard sitting in one place while everyone else takes risks.
I rest a hand on her shoulder. “You are helping, just by not being caught. So long as you’re hiding, your mom has to keep searching.”
“And what happens when she starts killing more people?” asks Piper quietly.
A fair question. And one I don’t have an answer to. Sooner or later, Vale is going to get desperate enough to start killing hostages.
“I won’t let her hurt anyone else,” I say.
“How?” asks Piper.
I pinch the corners of my mouth into a smile. “However I have to.”
That sounds better than “I have no idea.”
Piper doesn’t look convinced. “Isn’t there anything I can do to help?”
I open my mouth to say no, but then I close it again. A half-formed plan comes to me in an instant, and this time, my grin is entirely unforced. “Actually, I think there is.”
Ten minutes later, Eames and I are preparing to leave the apartment.
I press Matthew’s ringware to the door. At once, the holographic menu appears in my vision and I swipe the UNLOCK button. “Where did you get that?” asks Consul, frowning.
I flick the ring through my fingers, magician-style. “I have my ways.”
That only makes her frown deepen.
“All right,” I say, turning to face Piper and Consul. “I’m going to leave the door unlocked. Just in case something goes wrong.”
A shadow crosses Piper’s face, but she nods.
Eames steps through after me. He takes a moment to glance back, then he wrenches his gaze away. He shuts the door as though it’s far heavier than its physical weight.
The hallway is even darker than before. The late afternoon sun is angled for shadow rather than illumination.
Only one hour of the blackout remains. Vale chose this time deliberately, using the reduced security and lack of electricity to slip through the city unseen.
When that’s taken away, what will she do?
Nothing good, that’s for sure.
Eames and I walk quietly down the hall. Another flick of my fingers brings up the schematics of the building.
I can see the layout—each apartment’s number, the curve of the hallway, the expanse of space that opens up into the pool below.
But most importantly, I see the location of each and every storage closet.
“Okay,” I whisper. “This is risky. But if we time it right…”
Eames nods. “This is the best plan,” he agrees.
His approval shouldn’t mean anything to me, but it does. It feels good to have him on my side.
There are no signs of Vale or her crew. They must have moved on from this floor and gone up to the next one.
I use Matthew’s ring to unlock a closet and we shuffle inside. It’s cluttered with a rolling mop bucket, several brooms, and an empty cart. A red-tinged emergency light glows softly overhead. There’s also a garbage chute that I assume leads into the basement bins.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s get started.”
Most visors are equipped with a small speaker and projector. They’re not great, and mostly it’s used by older people who take video calls in public and annoy everyone around them. But now, I’m grateful for that function.
I slide off my visor and glance at Eames.
It’s the second time he’s seen me unmasked. His gaze flicks over my broken nose, at the bruises forming beneath my eyes, and, finally, settles on my hair.
“It’s not normally that color, is it?” He reaches out to touch one of the strands—brown fading into hot pink. “That’s smart-dye.”
“Insta-disguise,” I admit. “Combine that with the visor and you’d be surprised how hard it is to recognize me.”
“You’ve been doing this a long time.” It isn’t a question.
I nod. “Three years.”
He looks at me sharply. “So … since you were…?”
“Fifteen.”
“That’s so young.”
I think of Piper and her age-inappropriate true crime books. The truth is, shitty things make you grow up fast.
“I thought minors weren’t allowed to become wraiths,” says Eames.
“So you waited,” I say.
He looks away. “Yeah, until my eighteenth birthday. Then I took Piper and got out of there. Now we’re with ISD until she’s in prison.”
“Is that what your deal hangs on?” I ask quietly. “Vale being convicted?”
Eames nods tightly. “When she’s arrested, we’ll have to be kept under ISD supervision until she’s found guilty. We’ll be witnesses. Then, when it’s all over…” His eyes are unfocused, as though gazing into a future only he can see. “Piper—she won’t grow up like I did. She’ll be free of all that.”
Some tethers are harder to break than others. And the bonds between family are the hardest of all. Eames did. I can only imagine how difficult it must have been. To flee from the people who had raised him.
He did it, though. For his sister.
I’d do the same.
“Yeah,” I say, “you’ll both be free in, like, five years. Trials take time. And she might not end up being convicted.”
ISD will want Eames in easy reach. They’ll want to use him to take down Vale’s associates.
Anyone she ever dealt with. And they’ll dangle the prospect of his freedom, just to make sure he cooperates.
He would be a good wraith. He doesn’t panic in the face of danger, he’s smart, he knows how criminals work, and he has Piper.
She’s an ideal bit of leverage they could hold over him.
ISD would probably love to keep him on the books full-time.
And if Hannah Vale is never sentenced … they could just keep him.
I look away.
“You think they won’t hold up their end of the bargain?” asks Eames. Some of my thoughts must have shown on my face. This is why I wear a visor most of the time.
I twitch my shoulders. “There are decent people in ISD,” I say. “My handler is one of them. But I also think that it’s a shady government agency that only answers to a handful of people and tends to keep its own secrets.”
“You work for them,” he points out.
The corners of my mouth twitch. “Exactly.”
He returns my smile. “I would think that’s a good thing.”
The easy camaraderie should reassure me, but I’ve never been good with compliments. “I’m not like you, Eames. I’m not in witness protection. I’m here because it was a better choice than a prison sentence.”
The soft amusement drains away, leaving behind only questions. I can see the most important one forming between us, unspoken: What did you do?
Instead of answering, I pull the radio from my pocket.
“You ready?” I ask.
Eames nods. He cracks the closet door open an inch.
“Let’s hope we hit Carla’s knee hard enough to slow her down,” I say, booting up the radio. With a flick of my ringware, I open up a recent recording on my visor, activate the speaker function, hold it beside the radio, and hit PLAY.
The sound that comes out of the visor is tinny and a little distorted, and I hope anyone listening will attribute it to a bad radio connection.
“Mom?” says Piper’s voice. “Mom, can you hear me?”
I recorded a few different phrases and sentences with Piper, guessing which ones would work the best for this. I hit PAUSE and wait.
We don’t have to wait long.
The radio crackles with feedback, and then Vale’s voice comes through. “Percy?”
Except that isn’t Vale’s voice as I’ve heard it before. Emotion bleeds through that single word in a flood of mingled hope and fear. That isn’t Vale—it’s Percy’s mom.
At the sound, Eames flinches and draws into himself. It reminds me of an abused dog hearing the voice of its owner. My fingers tighten on the radio.
I find another recording and hit the PLAY button.
“Mom,” says Piper’s voice. “Mom, I want out of here.”
“Percy.” Hannah Vale breathes the word a second time. “Baby, where are you?”
I hit PLAY on a different recording. “Mom, I didn’t want to go.” Piper’s voice brims with emotion. Probably there wasn’t a lot of acting involved. “Mom, I’m sorry.”
Eames presses his forehead to the doorframe as though he wishes he could block out both voices.
“Where are you?” repeats Hannah. A vein of desperation opens up in her voice. “Sweetie, I’ll come and get you. We can go together—you won’t ever have to run again. I’ll keep you safe.”
Eames clenches his fists.
Such sweet promises. I bet Vale even means them.
I hit another recording to answer. “I—I’m in the lobby,” says Piper’s voice. “In the mail room. Will locked me in here to keep me safe.”
“I’m coming,” says Vale. “You’ll be all right. Just stay there.”
There is a crackle, then the radio falls silent. I turn the dial, shutting it off. If all goes to plan, we won’t need it again.
“You all right?” I ask quietly, putting my visor back on.
“I’m fine,” Eames says, sounding the furthest thing from fine. I let him have the lie—sometimes we need those untruths. Even so, I put my hand on his shoulder.
We’ve set the trap, and now all we can do is wait.
This particular closet is near enough to the stairs that we can hear the thumping overhead as someone sprints down the stairwell.
Vale. It must be her. Only she would care so little for secrecy.
A heartbeat after she passes the third floor, I hear another set of footsteps. These are slower and heavier. Corey, I mouth the word to Eames, who nods in answer.
And then I hear the final set of footsteps. Uneven, lighter than the last. As if the person is limping.
Carla.
I nod to Eames. He yanks the door open and rushes into the hallway. I follow and see Carla rounding the corner of the stairwell. Her hand is on the railing and she is favoring her left knee. Eames plows into her, taking her down in an impressive tackle.
In an instant, Eames has his hand over her mouth and his other arm around her waist. He drags her toward the closet, then shoves her inside. He pulls the gun from her holster and hands it to me. I drop it down the garbage chute.
Carla looks from me to Eames. Her fingers curl into fists, but she makes no move to attack us.
“Will,” she says once the breath returns to her.
“Aunt Carla,” he replies quietly. “I think we should talk.”