She bent over and cried until no more tears were left.
Eventually, a pair of doctors came into her room—one male and one female—and gave her a peremptory examination. Vision, reflexes, a quick check of her innards with a handheld scanner.
“You’re good to go,” the male doctor said cheerily, as he scrawled his signature on the processor in his hand.
“Everything looks fine,” added the woman smiling beside him.
You didn’t look into my mind, Raven said silently. You didn’t see the sickness in there.
“You can get dressed and leave,” the man said, “whenever you’re ready.”
“Before five P.M.,” the woman added.
They left Raven sitting on the bed, wondering where her clothes might be. Then she remembered that when Quincy brought her to this hospital she had no clothes on.
The thought of Quincy welled up inside her again. But Raven forced it down, away. He’s dead and there’s no bringing him back. From somewhere deep in her memory she remembered a schoolteacher telling her, “Life belongs to the living. Don’t bury yourself in useless mourning.”
No mourning, Raven told herself. But vengeance, justice, payback—those are worth living for.
The door to her narrow stall opened and Alicia Polanyi stepped in, a capacious handbag on one arm.
“Are you all right?” Alicia asked.
Raven nodded. “So they tell me.”
Hefting the handbag, Alicia said, “I brought you some clothes. Evan gave me the combination to your apartment’s front door.”
“Very generous of him.”
Alicia’s lips twitched in what might have been the beginning of a smile. “He can be generous—when he’s getting what he wants.”
“He wants me back at the office tomorrow,” Raven said, without moving from the bed.
Alicia nodded. “I know.”
“I can’t go back there! I can’t look at his face without wanting to kill him.”
“You’ve got to. If you don’t, he’ll see to it that no one will employ you. You’ll be dumped into the unemployable pool. You’ll end up selling yourself again.”
Raven said, “I’ve been there before.”
“You don’t want to go back there,” Alicia said, her sallow face lit with inner fire.
“I want to kill him.”
“Evan?”
“Evan.”
Alicia stared at her for a long, silent moment. At last she whispered, “So do I.”
Raven blinked at her as she digested Alicia’s words. Then she felt herself smiling.
“Then let’s do it. You and I. Together.”
“Don’t be crazy.”
“I mean it,” Raven insisted. “It won’t be murder. It would be execution. He killed Quincy.”
Alicia nodded again. “Yes, he did, didn’t he?”
“Justice,” Raven murmured.
With a shake of her head, Alicia said, “I couldn’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“He’s too strong. Too powerful. If we tried it and failed… think what he’d do to us.”
“What’s he doing to us now?” Raven countered. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life with him pulling your strings?”
A long silence. Then Alicia whispered, “No. I don’t.”
“Then let’s kill him.”
Alicia’s eyes went wide. “Do you think we could?”
“We could try.”
“But if we fail…”
“We’d be no worse off than we are now. We’re his slaves, Alicia! He points his finger at us and we perform anything he wants.”
“But with Rust it’s all… imaginary.”
“Murdering Quincy wasn’t imaginary.”
“True.”
“And what he made me do.” Raven shuddered at the memory. “It might have been all in my mind, but he watched it somehow. He enjoyed watching it.”
Alicia’s skeletal face went solemn. “He’s enjoyed watching me, too. Many times.”
Raven swung her legs off the bed and stood up. “He’s killing us a centimeter at a time. We’ve got to stop him, once and for all.”
“Do you really think we could do it?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. But we’ve got to try. I’m not going to let him kill me, torture me to death.”
“Me neither!”
The two women clasped each other in a sisterly embrace.
As Raven swiftly pulled on the clothes that Alicia had brought, a sudden thought seared her consciousness.
“Our conversation is being recorded!” she realized. “It’s part of the hospital’s data system.”
Alicia nodded, tight-lipped. “We’ve got to erase it.”
“Can you do that?”
“If we act quickly enough. I’ll go back to my office and erase the record. Then, at the end of the workday, I’ll meet you in your quarters.”
Raven nodded. “I’ll wait for you there.”
PLANNING
Raven returned to her apartment and waited impatiently for Alicia to show up, pacing back and forth through the living room, her mind churning.
Was Alicia able to erase the hospital’s recording of our conversation? Is she really going to work with me or was she lying about it? Is she working for Evan?
That thought sent an electric current through her. Is she so attached to Evan that she’d betray me? Or worse, maybe Evan controls her so completely that she’s spilling her guts to him right now! Raven stopped her pacing and stared at herself in the mirror hanging over the sofa. I’d be better off dead, if that’s the case.
The doorbell buzzed. Raven turned and stared at the screen by the door. Alicia Polanyi. Alone. By herself. No one with her.
“Door open!” she called out.
Alicia stepped into her living room, but not before casting a quick glance back over her shoulder.
Raven realized, “He can see that you’ve come to my quarters.”
Alicia forced a smile. “Raven, there are tons of records from all the cameras installed throughout the habitat. He’d have to spend all his time sifting through them if he intended to keep watch on you.”
Taking in a deep, calming breath, Raven said, “I suppose so.” But then she thought about it. “Couldn’t he set up an automated search system to watch my door?”
“He could,” Alicia answered. “But he’d ask me to do it for him. Evan is smart, but he hardly ever does his own dirty work.”
Raven smiled cooly. “That’s what assistants are for, I guess.”
As she gestured Alicia to the sofa, the phone announced, “Incoming call.”
Both women froze. The phone continued, “From Dr. Tómas Gomez.”
Raven breathed again. “Phone answer,” she said, as Alicia sat tensely on one end of the sofa.
Gomez’s broad-cheeked tan face filled the wall screen on the other side of the room. He looked alarmed, his dark eyes wide, his hair disheveled.
“Raven!” he called, as if he were floundering in a heaving ocean. “I need your help! Right away! This idiot that Waxman assigned to assist me is no good at all. I need you!”
Raven blinked at him. “Tómas, I’ll be happy to help you, but I’ll have to get Mr. Waxman’s permission first.”
“Do it! Please!”
“First thing in the morning,” she replied. “I promise.”
“I’m going to call him now,” Gomez said.
“He won’t answer you, not after office hours. Not unless it’s an emergency.”
“This is an emergency! It’s urgent! All my work will be useless unless I can get someone to help me.”
“I’ll do what I can, Tómas.”
“Please!”
“I’ll speak to Mr. Waxman first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Please,” Gomez repeated.
Raven thought she should ask Tómas to have dinner with her, calm him down, soothe him. Then she glanced at Alicia and decided that it would only cause complications.