“She wore military combat armor,” I said. “Her face was covered by a dispersion mask. She looked human. But I picked her up,” I said, tapping my forehead. “Strong. She was haan.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“And you are certain this haan was female?”
“Yeah.” I rubbed my forehead, gun still pointing at the floor, and sighed. “Okay. You’re already in. Have a seat if you want.”
“No, thank you.”
He entered the room, then extended his hand and I shook it. The skin of his hand felt smooth and cool against my palm.
“I am Nix,” he said.
“I’m Sam.”
“I know.”
He took his hand back and looked around the room, pupils revolving as he turned his head robotically. He followed the stuff scattered across the floor until he found my feet, then followed all the way up until he finally met my eye again. “You are naked.”
“I see they sent over their top investigator,” I said, tossing the gun down onto the mattress and turning around to grab my clothes off the curtain rod.
“What caused the lacerations?” he asked.
“I got thrown out a window.” His brains twitched, like he wasn’t sure if I was serious. “No, really, look… you can see it from here.”
He stepped closer and followed my finger to the shattered glass hole in the side of my apartment complex. By the light of day it looked even worse, and my stomach dropped a little when I followed the path I’d fallen. It was a long, long drop.
“The haan threw me.”
“The female haan tried to kill you?”
“Yeah.”
“I do not think a haan would have the strength to throw even a small human with such force.”
“She had on combat armor.” I held the smoke between my teeth as I slipped one leg into my pants, squinting as smoke burned one eye. “Look, if you asked me yesterday I wouldn’t have bought it either.”
I pulled my pants up and cinched the belt. They were still a little damp, but wearable. The same went for the tank top. I pulled it down over my head and snapped the waist tight to my hard stomach and smoothed the material down over my ribs. “So, are you here to help me or what?”
“Help you?”
“Find Dragan. Find my guardian. The haan and the other soldiers took him last night. Are you here to help me find him?”
“No.”
I frowned, picking up the stunner and pistol and stuffing one in each front pocket. “Then no offense, Nix, but why are you here?”
“I was obtained to investigate the potential involvement of a haan in the attack.”
I shook my head. “Well, you’ll never get in there now, not until security’s done going over it, and probably not until they manage to pull the airbike out of our living room.”
“I don’t need to. If you’ll allow, I can gather what I need from you.”
“Me?”
“If you’ll allow.”
I was picking up something, an anxious hum through the surrogate cluster. Something was bothering the haan, something he was trying to keep to himself but wasn’t quite able to.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “How about I let you do whatever you’re looking to do and you help me find Dragan?”
The anxious feeling grew worse as he looked into my eyes with his iridescent pink ones.
“Yes,” he said.
“So you agree to help me?”
“Yes.”
Nix moved in front of me and leaned closer, until I could feel the warmth of his face against my neck. After a moment he reached into his tablet and drew some kind of electronic wand from out of the field. Sprouting from the tip of it was a set of metal prongs, two thin ones coiled around a central, thicker one. He held it between two spindly fingers as he drew in air, and then something under his clothes made that rattle again as he vented it.
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“A congenital defect sometimes causes an internal scraping of—”
“No, the wand.”
“It will take the sample I need.” I looked uneasily at the device as he moved it closer to me. The prongs were wickedly sharp.
“Will it hurt?”
He stepped closer, and I felt another weird surge through the surrogate cluster. A wave of unhappiness, and uncertainty mixed with a strange longing… a sense of familiarity, as if someone he thought he’d lost was returned to him after a long absence.
“Nix, do I know you?”
He shook his head, moving the prongs closer to my chest. “I was born in the axial hive.”
I peered down at the wand, feeling like I wanted to back away. “Wait, will it hurt or not?”
He held the wand frozen in front of me, so close that whatever energy it gave off made the skin beneath it tingle. Through the jumble of strange feelings pouring in over the link between us, I felt a sudden pulse of deep, abject misery.
“Hey, are you okay?” I asked him.
The current of signals stopped. He moved the wand away from me and stowed it back inside his tablet.
“Yes,” he said, “and no, it won’t hurt.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes. I’ve already taken the sample.”
“Oh,” I said, but he was lying. I didn’t get haan completely—no one did—but somehow I was sure that what he’d just said was a lie. I’d just missed something, something important, but I didn’t know what.
“This will help,” he said.
“Will it help with the fact that you’re a big, fat liar?”
His rigid face offered no expression I could read as he fell quiet. For a second I thought he’d gone into some kind of trance or something when I noticed a lot of little movements through the smoked glass of his skull. They settled down, and the sunset pink of his eyes flickered once.
“Your guardian’s security transponder is no longer active in Hangfei,” he said.
“What?”
“Each of your security personnel is fitted with a transponder used for identification purposes. Your legal guardian, Specialist Dragan Shao, cannot currently be located in Hangfei.”
“You’re saying he’s not in the city anymore?” That didn’t make any sense.
“Maybe. His transponder may also inactive, or someplace where the signal cannot be reached.”
“Oh.” I dropped the pack back down on the bed.
“That’s all I can say.”
“Are you… supposed to know that?”
“I have to go.”
The sudden shift had left me off balance, and a little angry. My head was pounding again.
“Fine,” I said. “Great. Go.”
He paused for a minute, then turned and crossed back around the bed. I followed him as he stepped back toward the hotel room door.
“Look, will you just tell me what’s going on?” I asked him.
“No.”
He stopped at the door and turned back to me. He extended his hand, and I shook it again.
“Wait,” I said. “Before you go.”
“What?”
“The haan female… Ava.”
“She is transitioning to become the new haan female.”
“Whatever. Will you see her again?”
“Yes.”
“Can you ask her for me about Tānchi?”
“Who?”
“Sorry,” I said. “The kid I dropped off last night. My surrogate.”
He nodded. “Ask her what?”
“I was wondering if there’s any chance I can finish the imprint with him,” I said. “Once this gets straightened out.”
He paused, and there was more subtle shifting from inside his skull. “You have already failed to complete the imprint.”
“I know, but—”
“Failure to complete an imprint disqualifies you from further surrogate service.”
My mouth dropped. As he turned to leave, I grabbed his sleeve and stopped him in spite of the fact that doing so could, under the current laws, be interpreted as an assault against a haan.