“It's not Holmes,” he says, and I see a cold light in his eyes that I recognize, and I don't like at all. “It's the board. There are some allegations surfacing regarding Alberta's actions in Hartford, and her employment of your sister. Alberta may be able to save her job, if a fall guy steps forward. If nobody ever finds out about the prime minister and Indigo Xu.” Low winter sunlight glints off his hair. “She should be able to regain funding in the new year. If.”
“Fred.” Shit. Jenny, you may have miscalculated this one.
Really, Casey?
You think?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I reach for his arm. He's not listening. He crosses to the window, pushes the curtain aside, and stares out across the parking lot. “Fred.”
He turns around, leaving indented footprints in the nap of the rug. “Give Patty a note for me when you're on the beanstalk?” He holds out an old-fashioned envelope like the kind you'd use for a wedding invitation. A strange, formal gesture: a handwritten note.
I take it from his big, blunt fingers, noticing the pale beginnings of liver spots on the backs of his hands. “Where are you going to be?”
“Hartford,” he says with finality, and turns to leave me standing there. Unable to resist the drama, he stops beside the door. “After that, probably the electric chair.”
He had me until then. Valens always was the hero of his own movie. Every inch of him.
I take one step forward. “Fred.”
“What?”
“I'm not sorry,” I say in a stranger's voice. “But I'll say nice things about you when you're dead.” I don't know if he glances over his shoulder before he leaves, because I can't watch. I swallow and look down. And when the door clicks behind him, I fumble my hip from my pocket and key Razorface, tell him to back off Holmes and I mean it this time. His hip, of course, isn't on.
He isn't taking my calls.
I should call Riel. I should warn Holmes myself. If it's Face and his vengeance aginst the Montreal, you would think the choice ought to be clear. Except I know that the only way to stop Razorface at this point is to kill him.
And I'd have an easier time cutting my own throat.
There comes a day, I guess, when you have to let the whole wide world make its own damned mistakes and then clean them up as best it can. Just keep running and trust in God, and hope you stay in front of the steamroller somehow.
Brave words.
I wonder if anybody ever actually believes them, or if we're all just pretending as hard as we can.
6:50 PM
Tuesday 19 December, 2062
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario
Leah twisted her hands in her lap and stared at the wall. Ellie's not coming. Genie's not coming. Bryan—a guilty little smile, quickly brushed away—Bryan's not coming either.
What are we going to do?
She struggled off the sofa, barked her shin on the coffee table, and took it out on the overnight bag on the floor by Ellie's favorite chair. “Putain de marde!” And then she glanced guiltily over her shoulder to make sure no one had heard her swear. Dad hadn't come home from his errands yet, though, and Leah was alone in the apartment except for Genie.
Genie, who was in her bedroom and wouldn't open the door. I'll try again, Leah decided. Stupid little piggy. “Oink, oink,” she muttered under her breath — and then she felt bitterly guilty. She judged right, at least, and didn't sting her knuckles on the door by knocking too fast. She laid the palm of her hand flat against the wood and leaned forward. “Genie?”
“Alle!”
The clarity of her sister's voice startled her. She'd expected words clogged with tears. “Genie, ouvre la porte, s'il te plaît.”
“Non. Je ne veux pas te voir.” But Leah heard soft footsteps across the area rug and the hardwood floor, and the rough wooden door slid away from her palm. Bright eyes peered through the crack. “Que veux-tu?”
“Let me in?”
Genie started to push the door shut. Leah leaned on it.
“You're leaving!”
“I have to.”
Genie struggled with the door, trying to get her shadowy weight behind it. It didn't work: Leah stepped into the room and Genie spun away, shouting. “I want to come, too! I won't get to talk to you or Papa at all. It'll be just me and Ellie, and you won't come back, and Aunt Jenny won't come back either, and I hate you all!” Genie threw herself across the room and collapsed on the bed, covers bunching in her bird-claw hands.
Won't come back.
Like Mom. Leah blinked and could have kicked herself for not catching on quicker. “This is about Mom, isn't it?”
“No.” Muffled under covers, followed by a coughing fit that made Genie's shoulders huddle down like a clenching fist.
“Genie, don't. You'll make yourself sick.” Leah crossed over to her and sat down on the bed. Richard, what do I do?
“Elspeth will take care of her, Leah.” The voice in her ear sounded different, and she frowned.
You can't talk to Elspeth. Just me and Aunt Jenny, and we'll both be on the Montreal. And then Leah smiled. Richard, you can make the nanites work for Genie, too. And they could fix her cystic fibrosis. They don't have to augment her or anything. You could just — and—
“Leah, no.” That definitely wasn't Richard's voice.
You're Alan. Genie was crying — silently, but Leah could tell it was for real by the way her sister's whole body curled around the pain. “Chérie, it's safer here—”
“Je ne soigne pas!”
And not-Richard's voice, as if in her other ear. “Not exactly. We're — us. Both of us. I'm still what I was.”
So you'll help me.
“I will not make the nanites self-programming. It's not safe.”
You're self-programming. It will make her well!
“I'm not safe either, you know. Leah, what are you doing?”
Shut up. Leah gave Genie's shoulders a squeeze, and stood up. “I'll make it better,” she said quietly. Richard — whoever you are — you're going to do this for me. Because I'm doing it whether you help or not.
1905 Hours
Tuesday 19 December, 2062
Bloor Street
Toronto, Ontario
“Jenny.”
Richard? Except it isn't Richard, is it, quite? I stop with one foot on the stairs up to Gabe's apartment, my duffel bag slung over my shoulder. The new polymer on my left hand itches, and I press it against my BDUs. What do you need?
“Hurry. Leah—”
I've covered half the flight before I realize I dropped the duffel bag, and I don't really care. It takes longer to unlock the door than it did to pound up the stairs, and the first thing I smell is the rankness of blood, sticky sweet as corn syrup. “Oh, fuck.”
Genie's bedroom. I hear them in there, hit the door hard enough to bounce it against the wall. The room's too warm by anybody's standards but mine; Genie keeps the thermostat set high. She's so damned skinny. I can't take in the scene all at once; my brain images it in fragments. Genie's comforter spotted in red, Leah bent over and Genie stretched out flat. “Leah, what did you do?…”