Chapter 11
STING
Vi tells us over breakfast, if you can call it that.
Canned fruit and stale crackers on the table in the Skylight Room, the four of us arranged in the positions we’ve worn into habit with Armen at the head, me to his left, Rogue sprawled in the chair across from me, Vi between us.
Mara is elsewhere, settling in, or trying to.
I’d kill for eggs and bacon once in a while.
Vi spills it fast. There’s a meeting today with the older woman, Alice, after second shift change, third floor, east wing, behind a service door marked with a faded red A. There will be documents, memos, and other things her father supposedly left behind.
She makes her case with no explanation, stating facts, laying them out like no further discussion is needed. She’s efficient, avoiding unnecessary words. This is how she tells us she’s going to meet with Alice whether we want to join, or not.
“I’m coming with you, Vi.”
She looks my way, expecting resistance, clearly braced for some kind of argument, ready with a list of reasons why meeting with Alice is too dangerous, stupid, or futile. Her ammunition is all stacked up behind her expression, ready to deploy.
She wasn’t expecting agreement from me.
“All three of us are coming,” Armen adds.
“Alice said I could come alone or with you guys,” Vi says, holding her hands up. “She didn’t say I had to bring all three.”
“She didn’t say a lot of things,” I reply. “That’s one of the problems.”
Vi opens her mouth, then closes it, smart enough to know that the fastest way to lose this is to debate the details.
“Fine. All three. Let’s make it a party,” she says with a forced laugh.
Rogue tips his chair back and reaches for another cracker. “Third floor east wing is dicey territory. Who runs that section now?”
“No one, officially,” Armen says. “Which is why people use it for things they don’t want seen.”
“Great,” Rogue says with a smile. “Love a field trip.”
I don’t respond to that. I’m already thinking about the route we’ll take and what that part of the Rot is like.
I’ve not spent much time there but I do know the third floor east wing is a dead section of trashed storefronts with busted-out gates and ceiling tiles sagging where water damage has made its mark.
Both times I’ve been through it were for reasons I didn’t enjoy.
But mostly I’m thinking about Alice.
I don’t trust people who come to us. I trust people we go to, people we’ve vetted, people whose motivations I’ve had time to take apart and examine.
Alice is none of those things. She’s a woman who approached Vi in a work hub, offered information about a dead man, and set a meeting in a part of the Rot where witnesses are scarce.
Every piece of that arrangement was designed by her. Location, timing, terms.
I don’t like operating inside someone else’s design. But I like the idea of Vi going alone even less. So we go.
“Second shift change,” I say to Armen. “We leave five minutes before. Standard formation.” He nods. Conversation over.
Vi is looking at me with an expression I can’t quite place. Not gratitude. Something closer to surprise. As if she expected a fight and got approval instead, and she’s not sure what to make of it.
I hold her gaze for a moment, then reach for a cracker. “Eat,” I tell her. “You’re going to need it.”