Shards and Ashes

silently, then both gave a soft cheep as information was exchanged and verified. Deal done. It was more civilized than spitting on palms.

“How’s the staff?” That was a question I was allowed to ask of a Junior Admin, and Helman looked pretty casual, in general. “The mood?”

“Tense,” he said. “Budget’s been running tight this year. Clark’s been in strategy meetings for a week. He’s due back tomorrow. We’re trying to get everything perfect before he arrives, so be prepped for short tempers and long hours.”

Nothing new to me.

Helman shut the door with a press of a button, and the lights came up in the entry hall automatically. Clark’s home was the size of an entire level where I’d come up; the hall alone was as big as a small factory, tiled in shiny, rare natural stone and with beautiful art on the walls. I’d never seen better, but then, this was my first time inside one of the Res buildings.

“He’s had a couple of assassination attempts,” Helman admitted. “That’s why we’re bringing in all new support staff. You came highly reviewed.”

I knew I had. I had years in Corporate service, wearing the black jacket, my head wired into the earpiece, taking my orders and doing whatever needed to be done, anywhere, anytime. I’d never had to fry a train full of redundant child-workers, though. Not yet, anyway.

I pointed to the staircase. “Up?”

“And to the right.” Helman nodded. “Oh, you’ll need to check in with Pozynski, desk at the top of the stairs. She’ll give you the credentials.”

I nodded and moved on, jogging lightly up the winding staircase toward the second level, and paused in front of a desk on the landing, where a beautiful, willowy blond girl in a well-tailored jacket smiled at me impersonally, our handhelds talked, and she passed me over a plastic bin of things.

Item one, a pistol, with two extra magazines. I took it out and checked it with professional speed; it was a good weapon, very clean and well machined. It wasn’t a Corporate product; I checked the insignia on the side. Different logo. “We’re buying weapons from Intaglio?” I asked. Intaglio was a direct competitor in arms and food production. Their headquarters were halfway around the world, which had made it a hell of a lot more difficult to bomb them out of existence. Location, location, location.

“We buy from the vendor with the best price and quality, same as anyone else,” Pozynski said. “Sometimes that’s one of our divisions internally. Sometimes it isn’t. The weapons contract is with Intaglio right now. Problem?”

I loaded the gun. “No problem,” I said, and slipped it into my empty shoulder rig, under the jacket. Weapons contracts with out-of-company vendors meant people got downsized. My gun had bodies on it, even before I ever fired it.

Pozynski checked the list and held out a thin metal chain. A collar.

I didn’t reach for it immediately, and looked at Pozynski, who raised her pale eyebrows. “Everybody here wears them,” she said, and tapped her own with a long, tapered fingernail. “Regulation.”

I hated it, but I smiled and said, “I just don’t look as good as you in jewelry.”

That earned me a more genuine smile. “Oh, you’ll look fine.” Pozynski stood on tiptoe to put the collar around my neck and snap it in place. It was a thin braid, and she fiddled with it to pull it down a little, make it more like a decorative object. “There,” she said, and slipped it under my shirt. Her fingers felt cool and sweet against my skin. “If you don’t like the length, just hold it for a few seconds, then pull to drag it lower. If you want it shorter, three taps on the chain to make it contract. It has a safety, you can’t strangle yourself with it accidentally. Got it?”

“Got it.” I’d worn a collar before, but when I was just starting out. The first year of dogsbody service, everybody wears one. For good behavior. That way, they can end you on a moment’s notice, just by pressing a button on a handheld.

I thought I was past all that. Guess not. The chain felt thick and heavy around my neck.

Pozynski pointed up, and up I went. The hallway overlooked the entry hall below—a perfect defensive position, if you were properly armed, because they’d reinforced the wall beneath the banister with ballistic armor. There were gunports, too, though well disguised as ornamental medallions. Position of last resort.

Well, I was the last resort, because as Clark’s personal first-class dogsbody, I was expected to put myself in front of any danger.

The second door on the right had a palm scanner, which not only read the whorls and loops of fingerprints but also tested for body temperature and pulsebeats. No cutting off some poor bastard’s hand to trick your way inside.

I put my hand on the scanner. Light flashed beneath it; there was a soft, approving beep; and the door clicked open.

I stepped inside, closed it behind me, and immediately registered a change in atmosphere. The carpet was thicker, lusher beneath my polished shoes. The lights were more subdued and elegant. The artwork on the walls was priceless, full of color and swirls and confusion.

There was another desk at the far end of the room, near a dazzling bank of windows overlooking a false, computer-generated sunrise. Behind it sat a woman of about my own age—thin, serious, dressed in a Corporate jacket like everyone else but with a small golden pin on the lapel that denoted her as Senior Administrative staff. She had brown hair, which she’d pulled up into a tidy coil on top of her head, and although she wasn’t especially pretty—not on the level of Miss Pozynski—she had a certain gravity to her that drew my steps her way. Again, she was young—younger than I was, this time.

Then she looked up and met my eyes, and I felt a shock of surprise. “Virtue?” I blurted, and immediately stopped myself. My gaze flew to the digital nameplate on her desk. V. Hardcastle, Senior Administrative Assistant. Her real name, the one she’d been born with down in the levels. What the hell was she doing here? She hadn’t been on the train.

“Zay,” she said, and gave me a smile that was tense and free of any surprise at all. “Welcome to the Res. Handheld?” I gave it to her, still struggling to accept the sight of a familiar face, here. She matched the handheld to hers, orders digitally transferred and confirmed with the audible ping, and then she relaxed a little as she gave the device back to me. I slipped it into my pocket, and felt my face sliding into a frown.

“You got me this job,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

“I felt I needed someone I could trust,” Virtue said. “Like the old days, on the level.”

I nodded, still measuring this new Virtue. I didn’t know her. A gap of a year in Corporate was more than enough time for someone to shift themselves completely—look at me. I’d gone from a tough, hardscrabble orphan to a tough, hardscrabble orphan with a gun.

And we’d been apart way more than a year.

“Relax,” Virtue said, and smiled. I recognized the smile, as I’d recognized the eyes. Warm, guarded, fragile. Her old, familiar smile. “We’re not at knives yet.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You’ve done well for yourself.”

“Yes,” she said. There was a strange flash in her eyes I didn’t understand. “I worked hard enough for it.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said. “Difference is, I didn’t apply for the job.”

“I know.” Virtue swallowed hard, not looking away from my eyes. “I told you not to go, Zay. I told you.”

“You knew. You knew all along, didn’t you?” I’d spent a lot of time not thinking about the Cup Train, and a lot of time feeling way too much; that’s the way of things, when you push them back into dark corners and cage them up. They turn nasty. The surge of rage that swept over me was blinding, and I wanted to grab her by the throat and shake an answer out of her.

I didn’t have to. She was already talking over me. “I didn’t know, I swear! I just guessed something was wrong. If I’d known, I’d have blown the whistle, Zay. You know that. I just had a tingle, and I heeded it.”

I believed her. I might not know this present-day Virtue, but that Virtue would have screamed the house down if she’d really known what was going to happen. She wouldn’t have just saved herself. We were cold, we K kids, but not that cold.

“So why did you hire me?” I asked. “Old times’ sake?”

“In a sense,” she said, and stood up. “Come with me. I have someone I want you to meet.”