Day 7
Day Seven
(age twenty-four)
Kelli had a lot of planning to do.
If everything went well on her return, then the Quixadas would be satisfied with the character kernel and let her go home.
At which point she’d have to deal with Baz in person again.
She’d get arrested for setting the fire and she’d lose her job.
Or, possibly, the messages had never actually gotten to Baz.
In that case, Kelli would have to explain why she’d missed an entire week of work.
She’d have to either fess up about everything, or cross her fingers, lie, and hope that the messages didn’t somehow belatedly appear.
All those things were different variations on the good option. The bad option was that Conchita Quixada did not let her leave.
So she spent most of the return trip curled in on herself in the middle of the study, thinking over her options.
She could run. She couldn’t do it now, of course; Kelli did not know how to fly a spaceship.
But on Io, possibilities would expand. The Brimstone Syndicate owned a warehouse and distribution center, and probably a lot of other things, but they couldn’t own the whole moon.
She could find her way to another platform.
Slip out when no one was looking. Find a community standards enforcement office, or a spaceport that sent passenger liners back to Callisto.
What if the syndicate saw that move coming and tried to stop her? What if they locked her up? Kelli didn’t know how to pick locks. But Ting did, and Ting already felt sorry for her.
“Hey,” Kelli whispered to Ting, when Rowan was up in his nook and Zhaleh was busy in the storage room. “Can I ask you something kind of weird?”
“Sure,” said Ting, who’d been floating in the hall, scrolling through something on one of the workstations, chewing on a bit of stringy cheese. They turned and gave Kelli their full attention. “What’s up?”
Kelli didn’t know a good diplomatic way to have these conversations. She had to just spit it out and trust what she knew about Ting. “If they don’t let me go back home,” she whispered. “If they lock me up. Will you help me?”
“That won’t happen,” Ting said confidently, and then they stopped and thought.
Kelli could almost see the thoughts passing over their face, one by one—how they’d blackmailed Kelli and Rowan for no greater purpose than a birthday present.
How Ting hadn’t thought they’d ever do that.
“Shit. I mean, I think that won’t happen. ”
“Maybe it won’t. But if it does?”
“Yeah.” Ting blew out a breath. “Don’t tell the other two. But if that does happen? Yeah, I’ll help.”
That left the problem of violence, which was trickier. The Brimstones looked like they probably had guns, in addition to outnumbering her.
Kelli had never been in a real fight, but she’d fought her teachers in elementary school sometimes.
When she was already mid-meltdown, and a person twice as big as her tried to solve it by holding her down or trying to drag her off somewhere, she’d pushed and kicked and bit in self-defense—and she’d sometimes won those fights.
They’d been bigger than her, but teachers didn’t fight to the end of their hit points like in a video game; if they were convinced that hurting Kelli was too hard to be worth the effort, then they usually stopped hurting her.
For the moment, at least; she’d still gotten detention after, and all sorts of other longer, slower punishments.
It hadn’t stopped her from curling in on herself when the meltdown was over, frightened and ashamed of what she’d done.
But Kelli was an adult now. And she didn’t have to be ashamed to fight criminals.
Could she fight people like Conchita Quixada’s armed bodyguards, the way she’d fought the teachers?
It would be a lot harder than any fight she’d had before.
But Kelli could try, if there were no other options left.
She couldn’t do the fancy martial arts tricks that people did on television, but she could imagine punching men, biting their hands, kneeing their groins, driving her fingers into their beady eyes.
If she hurt someone’s hand and they dropped their gun, maybe Kelli would have a gun all of a sudden.
She’d have to save it for the right moment, when there was a hope of success, and Kelli wasn’t sure how to tell what that moment would be, but in principle? If she had to, she could fight.
What else could she do? She could smash delicate equipment.
She could take Orlando’s character kernel hostage; she could threaten to sabotage or destroy it.
She could pitch a loud fit, scream for help, and see who else in the organization had qualms like Ting’s.
She could somehow pit two factions against each other and escape in the chaos.
When her mood dipped low, she imagined even more outlandish things.
Could she find an axe? Maybe she should watch the awful movie with the axe man, see how that was done.
Or—if every other option was exhausted—she could find Rowan. He’d said he felt guilty about having to hurt her. He’d done it anyway, but maybe if she was in dire need, she could shake something useful out of him.
She didn’t think for long about asking Zhaleh for anything.
Too many unknowns with Zhaleh. But Zhaleh did swing through the doorway into the study, just once, with a nonchalant, businesslike look on her face.
She was in an outfit that Kelli strongly suspected of being pajamas: loose soft pants in a pastel shade, and a matching camisole top, as if she was lounging around at some glamorous slumber party.
Her hair was still immaculate and her makeup soft and perfect.
Those crystal earrings—a different pair this time—dangled from the tips of her ears, floating aimlessly.
Kelli looked pointedly away. Why did Zhaleh have to look like that all the time? Having embarrassing feelings for one career criminal was bad enough already; it shouldn’t be two.
“Sorry to bother you,” said Zhaleh, who didn’t sound sorry. “Just one quick thing.”
“What?” said Kelli.
“Conchita had one more instruction for you before we land,” said Zhaleh.
“Since the character kernel’s for Rosaura, the two of them wanted a small modification.
Just one line, or whatever it is that you do to add new concepts to a character kernel.
Rosaura wants Orlando to be madly in love with her. ”
Of course she did. But it made Kelli’s stomach turn.
“She’s sixteen,” Kelli objected weakly. Not that she hadn’t been madly and problematically in love, even younger than Rosaura—but that was different.
That was with a real person her own age.
Orlando was, what, in his thirties? Forties?
She’d never picked a specific age. Old enough to be a pirate captain, even one who appealed to younger viewers.
“That’s true.” Zhaleh’s face, cool and casual, betrayed nothing at all.
“And this is a sixteenth birthday present from her mom? Why would anybody’s mom let them do that?”
“I wouldn’t speculate. Maybe she wants to keep her out of trouble with real boys.”
Which was speculating, which she’d just said she wouldn’t do, but Kelli filed that under Zhaleh not making sense and let it go.
What should she do? Baz wasn’t coming to save her.
She could comply for the sake of saving her own skin.
She could hedge, in that hard-to-read shorthand, and hope she got away with it: Orlando loves Rosaura more than anyone else, the way he would love a little sister.
He would never take advantage of her. He always wants to protect her and make sure she is healthy and safe.
She could try to put in some kind of timer, so he’d pretend to be in love with her just long enough for Kelli to make her escape.
She could lie and say she’d done it when she hadn’t.
Or she could refuse, and run, and fight. . . .
Zhaleh was watching her carefully.
“Rowan said you liked the heist,” she said. “I don’t think you did. Liking part of something isn’t the same as liking the whole.”
“I don’t think he likes the whole, either,” said Kelli.
And she was beginning to have the impression that neither did Zhaleh. Unless giving that impression was just part of Zhaleh’s plan? Some people were like super-neurotypicals, even harder to understand than the regular kind, and Zhaleh was like that. Kelli couldn’t make sense of her.
“Want to know a fun fact about Conchita Quixada?” Zhaleh said, in that opaque, diffident, casual tone.
“What?” said Kelli, not looking at her.
“In the hall right behind her study, there’s a maintenance panel that comes loose. Famously badly maintained, some of those Ionian back hallways. The fuel lines back there are badly overdue for maintenance. You have to wonder what would happen if one little thing went wrong.”
That turned Kelli’s head. She stared at Zhaleh in revulsion—and in sudden understanding.
“I’m not your weapon,” she said. “You don’t get to point me at something and shoot. If you want something burned down, do it yourself.”
“Is that what you think I want?” said Zhaleh, unruffled. She sailed away before Kelli could come up with an answer.