I had a sudden inspiration. “Kinnis, won’t your wife be worried?”
“Christ, yes. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“One quick way to let her know you’re safe would be to get on the net. You, too, Cel.”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly.
But Kinnis was looking at the cameras happily. “Being on the net would make me a hero to my kids, Ceclass="underline" the guy who saved the city. And like she said, it would let my wife know I’m safe.”
“I don’t know,” Cel said again, then sighed. “I don’t know why I keep doing what you say.” Because I ask it. Katerine was right. “Come on, Kinnis. You head for those teams over there, I’ll take this side.” She walked out, waving. “Hey!” Lights swung her way.
Kinnis stepped out after her, to one side. “Me, too!”
I slipped into the shadow left behind by the piercing light and hurried away.
It was almost dawn by the time they were dressed and outside. The woman and Spanner stood in the doorway, murmuring. Something changed hands. Lore looked around, ignoring them. The apartment building was a converted warehouse, made of the long, thin bricks manufactured before the eighteenth century: they were in the center of the city, surrounded by trees and a high wall.
They found a cafe. Lore stirred her coffee aimlessly. Her body felt hopelessly confused: whenever she thought about what had happened she felt a flush of arousal followed quickly by shame.
“I don’t want to do that again,” she said quietly, not looking at Spanner.
“You enjoyed it.”
“Yes. That makes it worse.”
“It would have been better if you hadn’t liked it?”
“Yes. At least then I would have felt more like me. More in control.” She stirred the coffee some more. It slopped over into the saucer. “I just feel so… used.” No, she wanted to feel used, but she did not. She felt as though it did not matter, and that frightened her. She stared blindly across the river, broad here, and slow moving.
“Anyway, it’s done now. And you did enjoy it. You can’t tell me it wasn’t good.”
And it had been; it had been very good. What did that say about her?
“When did you drug me?” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm.
“Who says I drugged you?”
“Just tell me when.”
“After you had already taken off your dress.”
After you had already taken off your dress. So she did not even have that much of an excuse; she had already unbuttoned her dress. Some part of her had been willing, even without the drug.
Spanner squinted at the rising sun, sipped from her coffee. “So,” she said casually, “do you want me to tell you when I’m doing it, next time?”
Next time.
Lore watched the sparkle of morning sunlight on the river. It looked so bright, so optimistic, on the surface. But underneath there were river reeds, and pikes to eat smaller fish, and the rich river mud was made of dead things, including the bones of thousands of people.
Next time. “There’s no sign of business improving?”
“No.” Spanner waited for a waiter to refill her coffee. “This is more profitable, anyway.”
How many times had the river accepted victims? The river did not care whether those who slid under its surface were women or men, victims of murder or heroes trying to save a drowning child. It was all the same to the river. Death was all the same. Just as it did not matter what kind of person Lore felt she was inside: if there were many more times like last night, she would become someone else, someone who did those things.
But Spanner and the temporary fake PIDAs were all that held the implacable, uncaring river of her past from pouring in on her head. With Spanner she might drown; without her, she certainly would.
The message tone woke me minutes after I had gone to bed.
“Lore? Ruth. I heard about the plant. Are you all right.” I staggered out of bed. “I’m here.” I found the ACCEPT button. “I’m fine.”
“Oh. I woke you. Sorry.”
“It’s all right. What time is it?”
“Half past four. Listen, about Spanner.” I sat up straighter. “Ellen’s been with her. She called and left a message saying the medic’s been back and there’s no infection. Ellen seems to think the pain’s still pretty bad, though. Do you know what happened?”
“No.” If Spanner hadn’t told them, it wasn’t my place. Maybe one day. I was too tired to care if my lies were convincing.
“Well,” Ruth said uncertainly, “I’ll let you get back to sleep. You look exhausted.”
“Thanks. And thanks for calling.” I meant it. It was good to have someone who cared.
I was dreaming about a fire when the screen woke me again. This time it was Magyar. She must have got my number from the records.
“Hey, Bird, you there?”
“I’m here.” I scrubbed my eyes. “Time is it?”
“After five. They’ve just let me out. Kept asking me over and over what had gone wrong. And how I’d known how to fix it.”
“You didn’t tell them?”
“I told them part of the truth: that I’d been reading the manual a lot lately because I was worried that Hepple’s idiotic games were going to hurt the plant somehow.”
“What did they say?”
She laughed. “Not much. Then they sent Hepple from the room.”
“He was there?”
“Not for long.” When she smiled her eyes wrinkled upward, like a cat’s. She stretched. “I feel good, Bird. I don’t think he’s going to work in this city again.”
“You told them about the bugs, the nutrients?”
“Everything.” She yawned. “Thought you’d like to know: Someone from the command-post staff, the documentation people, said they’ve traced the spill upline to some off road drainage in the north of the county. Well away from any manufacturing complex and off the usual transport routes. The official opinion is fly dumping.”
“Right.”
She nodded. “As far as I’m concerned, this was planned.” She yawned again. “Before I forget, tomorrow’s shift is twelve hours: four till four. With overlap.”
“That’ll be fun.” I tried to imagine the chaos of overlapping shifts, with both shifts overtired and irritable.
“Yeah. But the pay’s good: time and a half for the whole twelve hours.” Another yawn. “Gotta go. Those leeches sucked me dry. You’d think it was my fault things went wrong. ‘So tell us again why you think the glucose line malfunctioned, Cherry.’ Over and over. Jesus. And I hate it when they call me Cherry.” She reached to the side to cut the transmission, then stopped. “I didn’t tell you earlier, Bird, but I think between us we did a good job. It was hard to not tell them what you did. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“I do.”
“Good, because it’s too late to change your mind without making me look like an idiot. I’ll see you at the beginning of the shift.”
No one had ever said to me before, See you later, at work.
Chapter 20
When Lore gets back to her suite after swimming with Sarah, she is exhausted and has the faint beginnings of a hangover. The light on her screen is red: she has a message. She ignores it. All she wants is a shower and several hours’ sleep.
She is climbing into bed when the phone chimes. It takes her a moment to recognize the family-emergency override tone. She drags the sheet from. her bed to wrap up in.
“Yes?”
“Lore… Lore…” The screen remains blank and whoever has called her is sobbing. “Lore…”
“Tok? Tok, is that you?” The screen suddenly flashes into color: Tok’s face is swollen and ravaged with grief.
“She’s dead. Those bastards. Oh, Lore, she’s dead…” He says more, but his tears thicken the words beyond sense.
“Tok, please.” Who was dead? “Take some deep breaths. Tell me-”