Forty-Six #2
Kob’s expression changes before he looks away.
She forgets that the end of her contract is something he doesn’t like to think about, any more than she wants to contemplate his medical situation.
“You can’t be fucking serious, Isa,” he says.
“Anything you come up with—including nothing at all—is better than paying a ghostwriter to say it for you.”
“You haven’t thought about your coda?”
Kob shakes his head. “How can I know what I’ll want to say until it happens?”
She closes her screen in exasperation. “I wonder what’s going on in there.
What are they asking him?” She’s prepared clients for interviews, press conferences, speeches, and all sorts of other high-profile public situations, but she’s never once imagined what it would be like to be in their place.
Atiers are meant to stand in the shadows of others.
Martim has no one to help him the way he would’ve helped Sandbar Uchi.
Right now, he’s not just doing his client’s job—he’s doing his own as well.
Seems like something that, if ever discovered, ought to earn the young man a promotion rather than a termination.
By the third hour, she’s restless and jittery.
On the desk screen, she can see crowds of protestors gathered around the entrance of the building, their numbers growing by the minute along with the swelling ranks of Cityhab Security officers.
To the hardcore big-Es, anti-Company reformers, and anyone connected to the Field 93 disaster, Sandbar Uchi’s almost guaranteed ascension to the Board of Directors is a travesty.
She’s certain there are badgeless out there, too, potentially armed members of United Freelancers who carry a principled grudge against not just Uchi but all the jarbrains who rule the Company.
They’re certainly not fond of contractors either.
The crowd doesn’t appear violent… yet. But it won’t take much to change that.
“I’m going to take a walk around to check on things.”
The corridors of the Bridge are empty and quiet.
Everyone of importance is inside the assembly chamber watching the hearing.
Isako’s boot heels click on marble floors as she makes a circuit of the building, refamiliarizing herself with its layout.
When she gets back to the central entry hall, she climbs the wide staircase to the semicircular second-floor landing.
A lone figure in a long coat stands overlooking the rotunda, elegant ebony hands resting on the balustrade.
Isako comes to a stop, tiny hairs rising on her arms as if stirred by an icy breeze.
The man turns his narrow face. “Atier Isako.” The Ronin Killer’s voice is as delicately smooth as a sheet of rice paper. He inclines his sharp chin in calm greeting, as if he’s been expecting her. “What a coincidence, meeting you here.”
“Elias.” Her pulse speeds up in her throat, and her fingers twitch imperceptibly as she makes herself approach and stand next to him by the railing. “What are you doing here?” she inquires casually, as if they’re running into each other at a social function.
With predatory grace, he leans his forearms on the banister and surveys the first floor. “The Agency sends me where I’m needed.”
“And they think you’ll be needed here?” She can’t help it; her eyes fall to the bulge of the shoulder holster under his jacket.
She knows what it’s like now, to carry a gun.
To fire it and take lives. She swallows, dry-mouthed.
The kinship she suddenly feels with this man makes her want to shudder and sink through the stone floor.
“Possibly. A lot of attention on these proceedings. Anything could happen.”
Security guards are lining up at the entrance of the building in full riot gear, clad in face masks and shields and wielding fully charged shock batons.
The tide of noise from outside is rising as the horde of angry protestors grows by the minute.
She glimpses raised placards through the windows.
Keep murderers off the Board! Justice for Field 93. Terraforming = Terror forming.
“Let’s hope nothing gets out of hand,” she agrees.
Why is Elias here? Does the Agency know of her plan? No, impossible. She told Constance that Martim was dead. Only she and Kob know the truth about Sandbar Uchi.
Sweat breaks out on her neck. Kob.
Marsh Elias slides his inky-dark, heavy-lidded eyes over her. “I take it you’re here in service of your client? Are you merely an observer, or perhaps something else?”
“Elias,” she scoffs, “you and I are old hands; you know I’m not going to answer that.”
He chuckles softly. “Of course, you’re unimpeachable.”
“I don’t trust a man with a gun.”
“I was sorry to hear about your apprentice,” Elias says.
She forces a neutral expression. “The way of the Vastness.”
“Indeed.”
The doors to the assembly chamber open and a flood of noise spills into the rotunda. The confirmation hearing is over. Board members, their aides and staffers, members of the Companynet press, and senior Company observers spill out of the chamber, all of them talking loudly and at once.
She needs to get out of here before she’s caught in the crush of people leaving the second-floor observation balcony behind them. “I’d better be going,” she says, turning away.
He places fingers lightly on her arm and she freezes. “A word of advice,” he says, leaning over and speaking in an undertone. “When you can’t stop something, get out of its way.”
Without another word, the gunman retreats, gliding along the outskirts of the incoming crowd.
She glimpses him being intercepted by a short, stocky figure.
She can’t see the other man’s face, only the curls of hair under the back of his pageboy hat.
Condor Anand. Of course he’s here, too, accompanying his client.
Isako hurries for the stairs, takes the marble steps down as fast as she can without drawing attention.
Elias touched her only for a second, but she checks her sleeves and pockets, pats down her coat.
She doesn’t find any tracking or recording devices.
Her heart’s pounding when she reaches the room.
“Marsh Elias is here,” she gasps, shutting the door and putting her back against it. “Kob, you need to leave.”
Kob looks up from the screen where he’s been watching the security feeds streaming from cameras inside and outside the building. “Why?”
“I think he’s here for you.” She feels the unfamiliar edges of panic nip at her mind as she reaches for denial. It’s too soon. Kob hasn’t been badgeless for long. He still has over half his grace period left. The Agency wouldn’t terminate him. Not Strikebreaker, not so soon.
But he hasn’t been laying low, not lately.
He inserted himself into another atier’s assignment, and she’s selfishly involved him in every messy step.
Kob’s been asking inconvenient questions, confronting a senior director with accusations of murder, fighting and killing shadowcons, driving a getaway vehicle away from a murder scene.
He’s been doing atier work without a license or a contract, wielding his longknife in service of no client, in defiance of the Agency and the Code.
For that, the gunman could come for him early.
When she decided to draw Kob back into the edge life, she understood she’d be exposing him. They’ve been in a race against this moment. Isako wants to scream. Why today? Tomorrow, or the day after, or a week later, they could face the Ronin Killer together.
“You need to get out of here,” she insists again, stepping toward him.
Kob stays where he is and takes a swallow of lukewarm coffa. “You want to throw our plan to save Martim’s life out the window because a Partner showed up?”
“Not just any Partner, Kob. It’s Marsh Elias .”
“The Ronin Killer. The gunman.” He stands. “The person the Agency will send to kill me.”
“Yes,” she hisses. She’s upset by how untroubled he sounds. “Don’t underestimate him.”
“I wouldn’t dare. But I’m not running from him.” Kob takes a step toward her, arms open. “Elias and I are cut from the same cloth. He might catch up with me eventually, but I don’t think it’ll be today.”
The door opens before she can argue with him further.
Martim and Thea rush inside and slam the door shut behind them.
“Christ,” Martim exclaims, wiping a hand across his dry brow out of habit rather than necessity.
“That might’ve been three of the worst hours of my life, and coming from me, that’s really saying something.
They grilled me on things I didn’t even know the director was involved in. ”
“It wasn’t that bad,” Thea tries to reassure him. “Sullivan shut down a lot of the tougher questions and tossed you softballs. You answered everything exactly the way Director Uchi would’ve.”
“I wish the bastard was here,” Martim says. “God, I wish it was him instead of me in that hot seat.”
“What the public and the press think of the confirmation hearing doesn’t count for much,” Kob reminds them.
“Only the vote of the Board members matters. Right now, every poll is predicting you’ll be confirmed by a narrow margin.
After you meet with Minto this afternoon and cut a deal, you’ll make it a certainty. That part’s up to you and Isa.”
Isako eyes Martim with concern. The more she looks at him, the easier it’s becoming to see past his appearance and find the young man she recognizes.
His peculiar use of old-faith curses, the way he straightens his sleeve cuffs before he speaks, the awkward expression that he tries to suppress when something’s bothering him.
They were invisible at first, but now that she’s looking, they seem glaringly obvious.
“Are you ready?” she asks him. He’s going to leave three hours of grueling public interrogation to enter into a decisive negotiation for his very life.