Chapter 12
THE INSIDE OF THE TOXIC waste container is about as comfortable as I expected.
“My back’s not going to thank me for this tomorrow,” groans Old Woman, shifting stiffly opposite me.
Our feet are almost touching in the middle of the two-metre-wide plastic box.
Her deep, deep, deep wrinkles are highlighted by the harsh blue of the light bar I thought to grab just before we left.
She looks like a ghost. Albeit the ghost of someone who lived about a hundred years too long.
“We should have brought cushions.”
She stares at me. “Why didn’t you bring cushions?”
I shrug. “Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t know what to pack for a toxic waste container ride.
Blast it all. They were right by the…blast it.
” She shifts again, this time with considerably more irritation in the motion.
Her mood’s not helped by a sudden force pushing us left as the drone carrying us swings around a corner.
She almost topples sideways. I pretend not to notice. She glares anyway.
“Who’s trying to kill you?” I ask it simply and casually. Normally I’d wait for Old Woman to be in a more receptive mood, but I suspect this trip isn’t going to be conducive to that, and I’m sure as hell not going to waste the next five hours listening to her complain. “I know you know.”
Old Woman’s shadow vibrates as the light bar between us shifts slightly. Her expression doesn’t change from elderly grump, but my revs are active and I can tell immediately that I’m correct. Not that there was much doubt, but still.
“You’re right. I do.” She holds my gaze. “I just don’t feel like telling you, dear.”
“Really? Really? What the hell?” I slam my fist against the container’s wall; there’s an echoing boom and the entire thing quivers with the impact.
Old Woman flinches. “I’ve been pretty damned patient up to this point, but this is ridiculous.
You hire me to keep you alive, then cut me off from every conceivable one of my tools.
You know who’s trying to kill you—information that could, you know, also really help—and you won’t tell me.
Or tell me why they want you dead. And yes,” I say as she opens her mouth, “I remember the damned file. I don’t care any more.
I’m not convinced I can keep you alive long enough to get it. ”
I gesture emphatically to finish. It’s partly theatre, even if the irritation is real; I’m pretty confident in my ability to stop her from being killed.
If I’m being honest, I’m much more concerned about the possibility that all this excitement is going to do the job anyway.
I’m good, but I can’t fight natural causes.
A long silence follows. I refuse to break it.
Finally, Old Woman closes her eyes. Exhales.
“Fine, Azure. Let’s adjust the deal. You answer every question I ask between here and Themis—honestly. Humour me that far, and I’ll tell you everything.” Thrown by my little outburst, but more in a grandmotherly, dismayed-by-a-tantrum sort of way. Like she’s placating a child.
Still. Heart rate steady, breathing steady, pupils steady. She’s not lying.
It’s not a great deal, to the extent that Old Woman’s questions have a tendency to be weird and uncomfortable. But it’s better than the alternative.
“Fine.”
“Lovely.” She settles back immediately into her annoyingly chirpy demeanour, the lack of cushions apparently forgotten. “Let’s resume from last time. Favourite memory.”
“Smashing your aquarium.” She looks at me primly. “Fine. Fine. Favourite memory. Let me think. I suppose…” I trail off.
“Yes?”
“I was a kid.” The container vibrates and growls around us as we swing hard into another corner.
“Maybe… twenty years ago, now? My dad had somehow gotten us access to Bio 3. The one with the forests. Probably not that impressive to you, but I’d never seen anything like it.
It was like another world. And then we were eating lunch—just junk, you know those cheap D-bars they used to make?
—and there was the announcement that Resolution Ten-O-Ten had passed in Crius.
Eighty-two percent, verified.” I let out a soft chuckle.
“There were people cheering for the rest of the day.”
Old Woman is listening with a vague frown. “So… your favourite memory is when killing lifers became legal?”
“No. I mean, yes. Sure. But that’s not…” I shake my head. “That was the last time I saw my father smile. The last time I remember him happy.”
I end softly. So lost in the recollection that I forget, just for a moment, why I’m having it.
“What happened to him?” She says it gently, but the words are a reminder. I come back to the present. Scowl.
“He died.”
“How?”
I examine the cross-shaped scar on the back of my left hand, virulent in the light. “An AMRoN outbreak.”
Old Woman just studies me, not reacting. She’s not surprised. No. Worse. She damned well knew.
“Your mother?”
“Same. But when I was six.” Flat and hard. I had an i-holo of her, years ago. Of both of them. Always kept it on me. It helped me keep their faces clear in my mind.
I don’t have it any more.
“Favourite food?”
“What?”
“Favourite food,” Old Woman repeats, as if the question wasn’t entirely anachronistic to me explaining to her the tragic, slow deaths of my parents to the necrovirus. Her eyes glint blue in the light as they fix on me.
“K-bars.”
“I said no lies.”
“Seriously. It’s K-bars. I actually get ill thinking about eating anything else, these days.”
She grimaces. “Alright. Favourite food before your insular cortex got irreparably damaged.”
I think. “Choks. Those crunchy chocolate balls—”
“I know what Choks are,” Old Woman interrupts. “Really?”
“Really.”
“K-bars and Choks. Good God.”
“Not all of us grew up on meat and fresh produce,” I observe, a little defensively.
“True.” She nods absently. “Favourite holo?”
“Anything by Radhoeff.”
“I approve. Most hated sound?”
“Splinter sirens in Crius.”
“Favourite music?”
“Water for Sleep?” It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to anyone play.
“I said music.”
I roll my eyes at her.
“Urgh. Fine. What do you remember of Oceanus?”
Silence.
I examine Old Woman as we sway in time to the motion of the toxic waste container. She asked it as calmly and smoothly as all the other questions, but she knows as well as I do that this one’s different.
“A lot,” I say eventually. “I mean, I grew up there, so—”
“Uh-uh,” she tuts, waggling a finger. “You know what I’m asking about. Answers for answers, Azure.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I get to ask whatever I want, and I’m curious.”
My teeth clench, fortunately preventing me from replying straight away. I allow myself a couple of calming breaths before opening my mouth again.
“It was a bit over four years ago. I was working protection.” The last time I was working protection.
“It was a strange job. Not as strange as this nonsense”—I gesture around us, and most pointedly at her—“but unusual. He wasn’t a lifer.
Just a normal guy. A good guy.” My friend.
“He didn’t even know I was there to protect him.
The Keres arranged it so that I got moved in next to his awful little apartment.
Assigned Housing wasn’t DeGov domain, back then, so they were able to spoof it. ”
I rub my forehead. I hate these memories more than anything else. Partly because I’ve replayed them so, so many times.
“I was there for three months. Good pay, easy work. Nobody even came at him; I never did figure out why someone would want to kill him. And then…”
White heat. Disintegrating walls. Blood.
“The bomb?” Old Woman asks gently, sadness briefly in her expression.
I nod. Unsurprised she knows. Even if she wasn’t holding the file over my head, Damocles-sword style, it’s one of the most spectacular failures of city security in the past decade.
“It took out the entire building. Three hundred storeys. I still have no idea how it got in there—even Assigned Housing has explosives sensors, and I made damned sure they were working. Every day.”
I did, that morning. Didn’t I?
“So he died.”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “And the Keres put me back together. Took… eight months, I think? They kept me in a coma for most of it. Didn’t want to use a lot of standard med tech, in case it interfered with my revs.
” I take a deep breath. “By the time I was back on my feet, any trace of who had done it was long gone. I did everything I could to look into it, but the Keres didn’t pay an ungodly amount of tokens to keep me alive out of the goodness of their hearts.
I’m still working off the reconstruction expense. ”
Old Woman is silent for a time. The whine of the drone outside rises and falls as it hurtles down the Loop tunnel. “Talios took responsibility for it, if I remember correctly.”
“Like hell it was Talios.” I say it calmly enough, but meet her gaze. Drive the point home. “If they’d had the tech, they would have taken out a better target. Maybe even some DeGov neural cores.”
“So someone killed more than a hundred thousand people, just to get past you to him?”
“I don’t know.” I look up at her. “Do you?”
She meets my gaze, and nods slowly.
Great. No lies, unless she’s really damn good at beating my revs. More incentive to get that file.
“So that’s it?” She sounds vaguely disappointed.
“Pretty much. My memories of that day aren’t exactly pristine.
Getting blown up and then sleeping for more than half a year is a great story, but it doesn’t do much for your clarity.
” I roll my shoulders. “The Keres weren’t able to trace whoever put me on the job.
I’ve looked too, now and then—gone through all the old data on the bombing—but there’s nothing there.
Talios claimed it, and as far as anyone else is concerned, that was just what happened. ”
“Did you ever go back? Investigate in person?”
I shake my head. “Couldn’t, even if I wanted to. I’m dead there. DeGov inquiry would have wanted to keep guaranteed access to me for months, maybe years. The Keres gave me a new ID, new name, and new city after I woke up.”
“Oh.” She frowns. “So what was your name before?”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. Do you miss being them?”
I shrug. “I’m Azure, now.”
Old Woman considers me. It feels like she’s about to say something, but then the drone makes a sharp turn and she topples sideways like a graceless, flailing cadaver, crying out in alarm before muttering curses to herself as she picks herself up.
I do try to hide my smirk. She still sees. “You think watching an old woman get hurt is funny?”
“Not always.”
She harrumphs at me, checking herself for bruises before crawling carefully back into her seated position. “You really should have brought those cushions.”
“You really should have programmed the drone better.”
“I was in a rush,” she grumbles. “You said you brought some food?”
I reach into my pack and pull out one of the grey K-bars I printed, offering it to her.
She takes it. Holds it up to the light. Looks at it in pure horror. “But…why?”
“It’s healthy.”
“It’s an abomination. Something else, please.”
“There’s nothing else.” I grab one of my own and bite down. “It really doesn’t taste that bad.”
Old Woman is still staring at the greyish, semi-gelatinous bar in her hand. “Azure? Your life is a nightmare.”
I look around at the vibrating toxic waste container. Then at her.
“Yup,” I agree, and take another bite.