table. He needed new furniture, she thought. Or at least a set of coasters.
“You think Orrin might have information that would be damaging to a criminal smuggling operation.”
Bose nodded. “None of this would matter if Orrin had been just another one of Findley’s hired drifters. Orrin would have left town or found other work or otherwise disappeared into povertyland, end of story. The trouble is that Orrin surfaced again when we took him into custody. Worse, when we asked him about his employment record, he piped right up about his six months at the warehouse. Mention of the name set off alarms in certain quarters, and I guess word worked its way up.”
“So what are the smugglers afraid of, that Orrin will reveal some secret?”
“I said the federal agencies are too busy to take on corruption in HPD, and that’s true. But there are ongoing investigations related to longevity-drug rings. Findley—and the people Findley works for—are nervous about Orrin as a potential witness, now that his name and history are in the database. You see where this is going?”
She nodded slowly. “His psychological condition.”
“Exactly. If Orrin’s admitted to State Care, that constitutes a formal declaration of incompetence. Any testimony he might give would be fatally compromised.”
“Which is where I come in.” She sipped her beer. She seldom drank beer. She thought it tasted the way old socks smell. But it was gratifyingly cold, and she welcomed the slight buzz, that oddly clarifying wisp of intoxication. “Except I’m not on Orrin’s case anymore. I can’t do anything to help him.”
“I don’t expect you to. I probably shouldn’t have told you what I did, but—like you said,
“So you think his document is what, some kind of coded confession?”
“I honestly don’t know what Orrin’s document is. And although it mentions the warehouse—”
“It does?”
“In a section you haven’t read. But it’s hardly the kind of evidence you can take to court. I’m just…” He seemed to struggle for a word. “You could say, professionally curious.”
You could say that, Sandra thought, but you’d only be telling a fraction of the truth. “Bose, I saw the way you acted when you brought him in. You’re more than curious. You actually appear to give a shit about him. As a human being, I mean.”
“By the time Orrin was remanded to State I’d got to know him a little bit. He’s being railroaded, and he doesn’t deserve it. He’s… well, you know how he is.”
“Vulnerable. Innocent.” But a lot of the people Sandra dealt with were both vulnerable and innocent; it was commonplace. “Endearing, in a kind of spooky way.”
Bose nodded. “That thing his sister said back at the restaurant. ‘A wind blows through him.’ I’m not exactly sure what she meant by that. But it sounds about right.”
Sandra couldn’t say at what point she decided to stay the night. Probably there was no single point of decision; that wasn’t how it worked. In her relatively limited experience, intimacy was a slow glide orchestrated not by words but by gestures: eye contact, the first touch (as she put a hand on Bose’s arm to make some conversational point), the easy way he came and sat beside her, thigh to thigh, as if they had known each other for half an eternity. Strange, she thought, how familiar it began to seem, and then how inevitable that she would go to bed with him. There was no first-time awkwardness about it. He was as sweet in bed as she had suspected he would be.
She fell asleep beside him, one hand draped across his hip. She wasn’t aware of him when he slipped away from her. But she was dimly awake when he came back from the bathroom, caught for a moment in the amber glow of city light through the bedroom window. She saw the scar she had already felt with her fingertips, a pale ridge that began below his navel and meandered like a mountain road along his rib cage and up toward his right shoulder.
She wanted to ask him about it. But he turned away hastily when he saw her looking, and the moment passed.
In the morning Bose made French toast and coffee even though there wasn’t time to linger over it. He moved around the kitchen, heating butter in a skillet, breaking eggs, with a confidence and ease she found pleasant to watch.
A thought had come to her during the night. “You’re not working for the federal agencies,” she said, “and you’re barely working for HPD. But you’re not alone in all this. You’re working for
“Everybody works for somebody.”
“An NGO? A charitable organization? A detective agency?”
“I guess we’d better talk about that,” he said.
Chapter Eight
Allison’s Story
1.
Once we’d made the transit to Earth, the managers put us in adjoining medical care suites and we slept for most of two days. A team of nurses hovered over me at all times, and at intervals I asked them about Turk. They said he was doing well and that I could talk to him soon. They wouldn’t say more than that.
I needed the rest, for obvious reasons, and it was pleasant to wake, sleep, dream, and wake again without fearing for my life. Obviously, there were problems I would have to face sooner or later. Big ones. But the meds I was swallowing washed away all urgency.
My wounds were minor and they healed nicely. Eventually I woke feeling fit and hungry and for the first time impatient, and I asked the bedside nurse—a male worker with big eyes and a fixed smile—when I could have something more substantial than protein paste to eat.
“After the surgery,” he said blandly.
“What surgery?”
“To replace your node,” he said, in a tone of voice that suggested he thought he was talking to a slow-witted child. “I know how hard it must have been for you, surviving in the wild without it. When the Network went down it was hard for all of us. Like being alone in the dark.” He shuddered at the memory. “But we’ll have you repaired before the end of the day.”
“No,” I said instantly.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t want surgery. I don’t want my node back.”
He frowned for a moment, then turned his maddening smile back on. “It’s perfectly natural to experience anxiety at a time like this. I can adjust your medication—would you like that?”
I told him my medication was fine and that I was simply and explicitly refusing surgery, as was my right under established Voxish medical protocols.
“But it’s not an invasive surgery. It’s just a repair! I’ve seen your history. You were implanted at birth like everyone else. We’re not
I argued with him at length and fiercely. I used words I shouldn’t have, both Voxish and English. He was shocked at first, then silent. He left the room with moist eyes and a perplexed expression, and I figured I’d won a
