claimed for him, slim, sweet-faced, with huge brown eyes that stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
“Dead?” Cerise echoed.
“What happened?” Mabry said, and Trouble turned gratefully, to see armored cops crowding into the room behind Mabry and Starling.
“I don’t know,” she said. “The glass didn’t cut him, not seriously—”
“Here,” an armored man said, and held up an injector. Starling took it, inspected the label and the discolored tip, then made a face and handed it to Mabry.
“Gerumine,” he said, and Mabry grunted.
“It’s a euthanasiant,” he said to Trouble. “I wonder if he took it himself, or if Novross gave it to him.”
“You don’t know that’s what happened,” Cerise protested automatically, pushed herself to her feet. Her hands were shaking, and she jammed them into her pockets.
“Well, he sure didn’t take it,” Starling answered, nodding to the Mayor. “And you two didn’t, and the injector’s been used. That doesn’t leave many choices, does it?”
Trouble shivered again, stood slowly, glass crunching under her feet. “Jesus,” she said, and then, “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Mabry said.
Cerise said, “He said he was cleaning up the mess, the mess he’d caused. I suppose Silk was part of it.”
Like me, Trouble thought. It could’ve been me—fifteen years ago, it might have been me. The fog was thicker now, drifting in through the shattered windows, cold and wet on her skin.
Mabry touched her shoulder, turned her away from the two bodies, newTrouble’s and the Mayor’s, urged her toward the door. Trouble went unresisting, and Cerise followed more slowly, looking back toward the boy’s body and the grey-jacketed medics kneeling beside it.
Mabry paused on the landing, touched Trouble’s shoulder again. “This—incident—presents an opportunity for us, one that I don’t want to see go to waste. It’s important, Trouble, will you listen?”
Trouble made a noise that might have become laughter, bit her lip again to keep it from swelling to full hysterics. “I’m listening.”
“Seahaven, virtual Seahaven, is without a Mayor now,” Mabry said. “If we had somebody legal in charge, somebody we could trust—”
“Me?” Trouble said, and lifted a skeptical eyebrow.
“It would make sense,” Mabry said. “You’re an old-style netwalker, you’ve been a syscop, you beat the Mayor at his own game. The nets would have to respect your claim, and we’d be able to crack down on Seahaven.”
Cerise grinned. “You shot the sheriff, Trouble, that means you get to be marshal.”
“I’m still on the wire,” Trouble said automatically. “People may not believe I beat him.” But the idea was tempting: to have Seahaven for herself, to take over that space, that status, for her own… And there would be other opportunities too—maybe Mabry wouldn’t approve, and Starling, Treasury, certainly wouldn’t, but the possibilities cut both ways, not just not to return to the shadows, she’d come too far for that anyway, but to redefine the bright lights, begin again the action Evans-Tindale had cut short. From Seahaven, with Seahaven’s sanctuary as a base and a passport, she could do anything.
Mabry said, “You could do it. Times are changing; the wire doesn’t matter so much anymore—too many people have them now. And you’ve earned it. That’s the thing nobody else can ever claim. You beat him.”
Trouble nodded slowly. “It can’t be this easy.”
Mabry grinned, showing very white teeth. “Probably not,” he admitted. “But in the long run, there isn’t anybody else. And even Treasury isn’t so stupid as to leave Seahaven untenanted, when they can have you in charge.”
“All right,” Trouble said, and nodded again. “All right, I’ll do it. Conditionally.”
“Of course,” Mabry said.
Cerise turned away, left them talking, walked down the stairs as silently as she’d come. Her hands were aching now, worse than ever, from the recoil; she rested a hand on each shoulder to try to reduce the swelling, hugging herself against the cold and the irrational feeling of loss. Not that she’d lost anything, not necessarily, but Silk was dead, and the Mayor—though he was no loss—and Trouble would become Mayor in her turn—She bit off that thought, knowing she was being maudlin, hysterical, and not knowing how to stop. Should I go back to the hotel? she wondered, get my runabout and get out of here, or should I just start walking, keep walking until I feel safe again? The street was still full of cops, a knot of them standing beside the fire engine, its bucket once again fully retracted, armored men clustering around the two snipers in congratulation; there were more cops at each end of the street, their mottled grey uniforms blurred even further by the thickening fog. She should probably thank the snipers, too, Cerise knew; they had saved her life. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it, couldn’t quite get past the cold that filled her, and stood with her hands on her shoulders in the fog, wondering what to do.
“Cerise?” Trouble said from behind her. “Ah, your hands.”
“Yours aren’t in great shape, either,” Cerise said, and Trouble looked down as though surprised to see the thin cuts that crisscrossed her palms and ran up the sides of her hands.
“It’s the glass,” she began, and Cerise said, “I was there, I know.”
“I know.” Trouble looked past her, toward the end of the street where the fog was thickest. “I wanted—I need to talk to you. Before I agree to this, there are some things I need to settle.”
“Such as?” In spite of herself, Cerise heard the old bitterness, the old anger, in her voice, and Trouble grimaced.
“Look, how many times do I have to say I fucked up? I don’t want to do it again, Cerise, I don’t want to leave, or for you to leave me, OK? If I take Seahaven, will you run it with me?
“And if I won’t?”
Trouble spread her hands. “Then—whatever. Is Multiplane hiring?”
Cerise stared at her for a long moment, not sure she had heard correctly, then, slowly, she began to laugh. “I don’t believe you said that.”
“What’s so goddamn funny?” Trouble glared at her, and Cerise got herself under control with an effort.
“I’m sorry. It’s just—you giving up Seahaven? To work for Multiplane? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Will you run it with me?” Trouble asked.
Cerise nodded, slowly. “It’s kind of a dumb question, sweetheart. Is there anybody who doesn’t want Seahaven?”
Trouble nodded back, reached out, careful of Cerise’s hands, touched first her shoulder and then her cheek. “It’s not going to be the same.”
“It never is,” Cerise answered. She forced a smile, and a lighter tone, knowing perfectly well what Trouble meant: the old days were long gone, and there was no going back, no matter what the regrets. “You’ll just have to bring the law in, Marshal, that’s all.”
“Thanks,” Trouble said, sour-voiced, but she was smiling. They stood close together against the chilling fog, the sky grey as glass above them, waiting for Mabry to return.
Chapter Fourteen
