True says nothing. He needs time and she doesn’t trust herself to talk, not yet. She stares across the courtyard at the bubbling fountain, exhaustion and adrenaline forcing her heart into a frantic, shallow rhythm as she thinks again about Li Guiying, a skilled and highly respected robotics engineer, a specialist in swarming algorithms, who began her career at Kai Yun Strategic Technologies.
Guiying was behind the swarm. True has no hard proof but she believes it. She’s sure Shaw believes it too.
Guiying cultivated True’s friendship. Why would she do that? Was she a psychopath, wanting to win the trust of those she’d hurt? Or was it a ploy to keep a potential enemy close? Or was it guilt?
True imagines Alex there with her, asking: So now that you know, what will you do?
Over the years she’s envisioned retribution in a hundred forms—righteous justice—though it was never more than a what-if fantasy, her vengeance denied because no one involved was left alive. She thinks now it was lucky not to have the choice.
Early morning light spills into the courtyard, coloring the limes and tangerines on the little trees. She gets up, follows Shaw to the kitchen—a narrow but modern room with high-end appliances and a quartz countertop. They’re out of sight of her surveillance beetle here, probably outside the range of its audio pickups too.
Shaw looks up from his contemplation of the brewing coffee. His AR visor is on the counter. No screen filters his pale gaze.
“I thought they were all dead,” she says. “Everyone who had hurt him.”
“You were lucky, then. I always knew someone was left. I never thought I would know who it was.” Gentle words, wrapped around a cold promise.
True is surprised to discover she wants no part of a murder—if that’s what he’s thinking. “You need to come home with me,” she says, shifting gears, resolving to persuade him. “You are the survivor, Shaw. The only witness. You need to testify, demand an investigation.”
“No.” He says it casually.
“You don’t have a choice,” True insists. “You promised them justice. Righteous justice. You owe them. It’s up to you to shine a light on what happened. That’s what she’s afraid of. That’s why she’s been following me.”
“No,” he says again. “She’s not afraid. Not of that. She’s had eight years to clean up the mess. There won’t be evidence left to find, no proof she had any part in it, or that it ever happened. All you’ll hear from officials on both sides is denial and outrage. If they respond at all.” He surprises True with a slight smile. “She’s tried to get close to you because she wants you to take care of it.”
This requires a few seconds to sink in, a few seconds for her to grasp his meaning.
When she does, she recoils. “No, you’re wrong.”
She wants him to be wrong. True wants to imagine Guiying as a psychopath drawn to her because of some twisted fascination at the magnitude of what happened at Nungsan. A psychopath requires no consideration. But if instead she is a secret penitent? Someone haunted by guilt she cannot bring herself to reveal?
True clutches the counter as she is slammed by the weight of a bone-deep exhaustion.
“You going to forgive her?” Shaw asks.
“No.” One syllable uttered in soft certainty. No.
It isn’t possible. It’s not possible to escape. In her head the video plays again: Diego’s screams, the crucifixion, the flames. The resolute grip of a black hole. Could Shaw be right? Was even Guiying caught in that inexorable orbit?
“I’m putting up a bounty on her,” Shaw says as he pours the coffee.
True catches her breath. Her hand goes to her mouth. Deeper and deeper, she thinks. She asks, “Don’t you want to hear her side?”
He shrugs and hands her a cup that she accepts automatically, only to be startled at the heat against her hands. He says, “Better if you take care of it. That’s what she wants. Why don’t you call her? Let her know her options. Let her know it’s time.”
True sips the coffee, a strong brew, perfect, and wonders, What is right action, in this circumstance, in this time? She despises the idea of a private bounty. That’s retribution. A warlord’s justice. Guiying’s involvement has not been proven, may never be proven. If Shaw is right, there will be no legal way to make the case.
So don’t resist.
Call her. Confront her. Invite her to speak in her own defense. Isn’t that right action? It’s something close, anyway. Better than a warlord’s bounty.
Her gaze returns to Shaw. “You haven’t posted the bounty yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t post it.”
“Call her.”
True decides instead to compose an email. She keeps it simple, one line:
It’s time to tell the truth.
She appends the number of her temporary phone and sends it.
Does she expect a response? Yes and no. The moment feels like a break point between alternate timelines, each branch equally likely. She leans against the kitchen counter, sipping coffee, not thinking too much. Shaw busies himself collecting tangerines from the courtyard trees and peeling them, perfuming the kitchen with citrus oil. After twenty minutes, True says, “She’s not going to call.”
Seconds later, the burner phone rings.
Shaw meets her gaze, an eager glint in his eyes. She nods, swipes to accept the call, puts it on speaker. She doesn’t say anything though, and after a few seconds Guiying’s voice speaks into the silence with tentative uncertainty. “True? True, are you there?” Shaw cocks his head, the slant of his eyebrows posing a question. “True,” Guiying whispers, “I never wanted any of it to happen.”
True hears this as a confession but, if so, it’s also a lie. “Yes,” she counters. “You did.”
“No, I did not want it to happen,” Guiying says in a soft, confessional voice. “Please, before you say anything, do anything, will you see me?”
Shaw predicted it but True is stunned all the same. “In person?” she asks.
“Yes. I am… on my way to Rabat. After last night, I… I do not want it all to start again but when I saw that picture of Rogue Lightning, I knew it would.”
“The picture?” True asks.
“On the fighter, shot down during your operation in the TEZ.”
Shaw looks puzzled but True remembers what Tamara told her about a freelance intelligence agent visiting the crashed Arkinson, taking pictures. Guiying must have had an ongoing search set up for that emblem, maybe for anything to do with Rogue Lightning.
“I hope you are still in Rabat,” Guiying says. “I hope you will see me.”
True mutes the phone. She tells Shaw, “It could be a trap for you, with Guiying as the bait.”
“It’s probably a trap for both of us,” he says, touching his centipede bracelet, setting it to crawling in slow motion around his wrist and hand. “You willing to take the chance?”
Her smile is bitter. She’s been taking chance after crazy chance ever since she returned to the gate in Manila.
She unmutes the call, asks Guiying, “Will you be alone?”
“Yes. I’ve told no one where I’m going, and I’m flying on a French passport.”
So she expects to be followed but not right away. “I am not alone,” True warns her.