Forty-One #3
The director had proven before that he could and would discard people around him when they stopped being useful or no longer aligned with his goals.
And yet . Martim had imagined himself to be the exception.
All the things they had in common, Uchi’s talk of Martim being just like his younger self, the promise of an Exclusive, the fact that Martim had given everything of himself, had lied and killed and sacrificed his own life as surely as if he’d walked into the Vastness, something that even a renowned atier like Isthmus Isako couldn’t say—he’d come to believe that he was a special case, that he was the one who mattered.
But he was just a contractor. Disposable, in the end, like all the others.
As badly as the truth wounded, there was also, in a strange and terrible way, a profound relief in knowing that not even his client expected the impossible from him.
Martim leaned heavily against the desk, head bowed. Odd, how losing the ability to feel physical fatigue didn’t do anything to alleviate emotional exhaustion.
Thea watched him with wide eyes. “Are you going to get rid of me, now that you know?” With that high, soft voice, she sounded uncharacteristically fragile. “You could do it, you know. Just terminate my contract.”
Martim didn’t look up as he shook his head.
He wasn’t like Uchi after all. Try as he had, he couldn’t just get rid of people, justify it, and move on.
Those he’d abandoned and betrayed weighed on him.
Leanne, who’d died before he could see her again.
Isako, made a ronin. Addison, whom he’d used and left to her fate.
Elm Anders and the Field 93 survivors, eliminated on his orders.
He used to be able to lean on the ironclad virtue of the Code, and on drug use, but he didn’t have either of those crutches to help him anymore.
Thea was the only person who knew he still existed. He needed her, no matter if she was obligated to betray him. “It’s not your fault,” he said dully. “I helped him to trap you in second stage; I can hardly blame you for doing the same to me. We were both following orders.”
Thea crossed to the other side of the desk and tilted her head to look up into his face, her expression still brittle, but her voice strengthening.
“It could be years before the doctors figure out how to cure Gray’s Waste.
Maybe decades. Maybe never. And if we ever do get to that point, I…
” She closed her hands around the edge of the desk.
“I won’t do it. I won’t end your life, not unless you want me to.
I promise you that. I protected that bastard through absolutely everything, but after what we’ve been through, there’s a limit. I’m done taking orders from him.”
“Even if it means giving up your chance of freedom?”
She swept an arm toward the mural of the Vastness stretched behind Uchi’s desk.
“What freedom can people like us ever really have? I used to imagine that if I worked hard enough and made enough scrip, I could escape, somehow. Buy my way out of the city, go to the other side of the planet, live in some satellite hab far from everything I’ve ever known.
But I’m already in the only place where I’m valued, working for the one client who sees me as a person. ”
He didn’t look at her. “I’m not your client.”
“No, you’re not.” She came back around the desk. Martim felt her hand settle tentatively on his back—two machine bodies carrying frightened minds, trying to connect. “The way I see it, I’m on an Exclusive contract with you now, Director Dragonfly Martim.”
Martim winced. “This could all end really badly. I don’t want you going down this road with me, for who knows how long.”
“Don’t you see? What you said just now—that’s what makes you different from him.” Thea’s declaration held no doubt. “If you’re not dismissing me, then I’m not leaving.”
A pained moment went by. “So what do we do now?”
The bodyguard dropped her hand and stepped back.
“To start, I’m going to double security.
And I’m going to file a formal complaint with the Agency to have Isako’s authority revoked and maybe get her client to cancel her contract.
” Her no-nonsense demeanor was quickly reasserting itself.
“You need to prepare for your meeting with Jagmeet at seventeen hundred and the IR meeting with Yong at eighteen thirty. After that, you should run diagnostics and get some shutdown time.”
Martim made himself stand up straight and turn around. “Right.”
One day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time.
You weren’t made for this. But you are still the smartest, hardest-working, best-dressed motherfucker in the whole division.
“Thea,” he said, as the bodyguard reached the door. “No more shadowcons. If we’re really in this together, then you can’t be going behind my back. I don’t want Isako or Kob hurt or killed. They’re… I just don’t want that.”
She paused, hand on the door. “I shouldn’t have acted without telling you, and I won’t do it again. But I’m a longkniveswoman, too, Martim. I intend to keep us both alive. If anyone poses a danger to you, I’ll do what I have to.”