The first sign she was close was a shifting in the hedges and the bulbous false eyes of the repair drones peering apologetically out at her. They made their series of three falling clicks, an obvious query for which she didn’t have time or an answer. Muskrat usually barked and tried to play with the drones, but tonight, she only paid attention to Teresa.
The drones followed them to the canyon. In the deeper darkness, it was hard to make out the path, but she moved forward all the same. Now that she’d come this far, second thoughts started to haunt her. What if she picked the wrong cave and startled some local animal in its sleep? What if Timothy wasn’t there? High above, the orbital construction platforms rippled and glowed. If she looked out of the corner of her eye, she could even make out the Whirlwind, the third Magnetar-class ship. Only no. It was the second now. The flute-thing called out again, closer this time. She wished she’d brought a light with her. She hadn’t thought starlight would be so dark.
She found a deeper shadow that she thought was the sandstone shelf. She ducked under, her hand stretched in front of her. It only took a few steps more before she saw the cavern’s lights. The cavern was brighter than the night, and warmer too. The repair drones that walked with her had followed her in, or other ones had been there to begin with. She couldn’t tell them apart.
Her heart was beating faster. She was sure that she’d turn the last corner and find Timothy gone, his camp vanished.
“Timothy?” she called, her voice trembling. “Are you here?”
A slick metallic sound came from her right, and Timothy stepped out of the shadows, a gun in his hand. He shook his head. “You got to be more careful, Tiny,” he said. “My eyes ain’t what they used to be.”
Timothy’s expression and the casual way he held the gun were so comic, Teresa had to laugh. Once she started, it was hard to stop. The laughter seemed to have a life of its own, hilarity bursting out of her in a riot unstoppable and violent. Timothy’s confused expression only made it funnier. She howled, she buckled over, holding her sides, and at some point she noticed that it wasn’t laughter anymore. That she was crying.
Timothy watched her like she was giving birth and he wasn’t a doctor. The visible understanding that there was probably something he should be doing to help, but he didn’t know what it was. In the end it was Muskrat who came and put her thick, heavy, fur-covered head against Teresa. The violence of her emotions left her spent, and she rubbed the dog’s ears while the drones set up a little chorus of queries, aware that something was broken but not how it could be fixed.
“Yeah, okay,” Timothy said after a while. “Rough night. I get that. Come on back. You can … I don’t know what you can do, but I want to sit down, so let’s go back here.”
Her limbs felt heavier as she walked, but her heart felt lighter. As if she’d come all this way for someone to watch her break down, and even though nothing had changed, something was better.
The big man sat on his cot and rubbed his eyes with the knuckle of his first finger and his thumb. She sat across from him on a metal box, her hands in her lap.
“So,” he said. “I don’t really know how to do this part. But I think the way it goes is you tell me what’s bothering you?”
“So much has happened.”
“Yeah?”
And she told him. All of it. From her father’s tit-for-tat plan with the things hidden at the gates to the death of the Typhoon to the conspiracy to hide her father’s illness and the bemused absence that he’d become. The more she talked, the easier it got. Timothy barely spoke, only asking a few questions here and there along the way. He just gave her his attention and asked for nothing in return.
Eventually she ran out of words. The sorrow in her chest was still there, still as painful and heavy and hard, but bearable somehow in a way it hadn’t been before. Timothy ran his palm over his scalp. It was a dry sound, like dust hissing against a window. Back toward the mouth of the cave, Muskrat barked happily.
“Yeah, that all sucks,” he said. “It’s like that sometimes.”
“It gets better, though. Right?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just one shit sandwich after another.” He shrugged. “What are you gonna do? It’s the only game in town.”
“I just want—”
Timothy held up his hand, gesturing her to silence. Muskrat barked again, the bark she used when she saw a friend. And there were voices behind it. Timothy scooped up his gun, his eyes fixed on the entrance.
“It’s okay,” Teresa said. “They’re probably just following me.”
Timothy nodded, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
“Following you?”
“I have a tracker. They planted a tracker on me, can you believe that?”
His eyes widened, just for a second. “Ah, Tiny. Didn’t see it coming down like this,” he said. She saw something in his face, and she couldn’t tell if it was sorrow or amusement or both. Resignation, maybe. “You should lie down on the floor there. Flat as you can. Put your hands over your ears, okay?”
Who’s there? came from the entrance, sharp and hard.
“No, it’s all right. They’re not going to be mad at you,” Teresa said, and Colonel Ilich stepped out of the gloom, a rifle in his hand. Three guards from the State Building were behind him.
Everyone went quiet. Teresa felt a sudden dread bloom in her heart, the realization that she’d misunderstood something badly. That she’d made a mistake she couldn’t take back.
“You!” Ilich snapped. “Put the gun down! Get away from the girl!”
“Close your eyes, Tiny. You don’t want to watch this.”
“Stop,” Teresa said. “He’s my friend.”
The roar of Timothy’s gun was louder than anything she’d ever heard. It was like being punched from all directions at once. The sound alone was a kind of violence. She dropped to her knees, her palms pressed against her ears. Gunfire ripped through the cave. Ilich ran toward her, fear in his eyes, and pushed her down, shielding her with his body.
Timothy was screaming like an animal—deep and full of rage. He pushed past her, past Ilich, barreling toward the guards like he could brush them aside. The charge seemed to make the nearest man forget he had a gun in his hand. He tried to grab Timothy, but Timothy took the man’s wrist like it was something that belonged to him, shifted it until it snapped. Ilich pushed her down again, and she had to fight to see. Another gun fired. Someone shouted, not Timothy. Teresa twisted under Ilich’s knee, trying to find Timothy in the gloom. She got her head up enough to see him just as a wound bloomed on his leg. Redness splattered the cave behind him as he fell. Timothy lay in a fast-spreading pool of his own blood, twitching. Trying to get up as if he didn’t know his leg had been turned to splinters. He bared his teeth in pain and anger, swinging his gun around toward Ilich. She screamed No! She felt it ripping at her throat, but couldn’t even hear it herself.
Someone fired twice. The first round took the top of Timothy’s head off. The second blasted a wide hole in his chest. Timothy collapsed, motionless. The silence after rang like a bell.
“What did you do?” Teresa said. She didn’t know who she was saying it to. Ilich pulled her up. He bunched her shirt in his fist at the back of her neck like it was a handle, pushing her past Timothy’s body.