Will looked at her, as if expecting her to add to the conversation, but she ignored him, and instead returned her gaze to the gap in the wall, and the parking garage beyond.
She found her eyes involuntarily drifting toward the distant horizon. Toward Aradne. The city that had caused her so much grief. The city that had tried to extinguish an entire settlement. She doubted justice would ever come to those responsible. The city council. The mayor.
Unless I take justice into my own hands.
No. She wasn’t a vigilante. She had enough people trying to kill her as it was. Last thing she needed was to put herself on some international Most Wanted list.
Will low-crawled to her side and propped himself up against the same gooseneck vent.
She glanced at him for a moment, then returned her gaze to the distant horizon.
“What’s up?” Will said softly. “You’re awfully quiet.”
She sighed, holding her eyes to the horizon. “What am I? Why are people trying to kill me? Is it because I’m not human? Because I’m a cyborg? Or is it something else? Something I did in my past life. Something… unforgivable.”
“Only Veil knows the reason why,” Will said.
She finally looked at him. “The Scorpion told me there’s a price on my head.”
Will pursed his lips and nodded. “Set by Veil?”
She looked away. “It wasn’t clear.”
“If there’s a price…” Will began.
“Then there could be more than one assassin trying to kill me,” Rhea said.
“Yeah,” Will agreed. “Not something that, uh, most people would want.”
“We know Anderson was employed by Veil,” she said. “But The Scorpion could be working for someone else.”
“Maybe he’s an independent bounty hunter,” Will told her. “Someone posted your bounty, and he’s just one of the many applicants for the job. Veil could be another.”
Rhea had nothing to add to that. It was all speculation at this point.
“Bounty hunting is a profession almost as popular as salvager,” Will said.
“Salvaging isn’t very popular…” Rhea told him.
“My point exactly,” Will said. “Most bounties I’ve seen have been for the heads of bandits. Well, not necessarily the heads… ‘dead or alive’ seems to be a common word choice I’ve seen on the digital postings. So it’s not a job for the weak of heart. You have to be willing to kill, since I guarantee you most bandits aren’t going to let you capture them alive. That’s one of the reasons why the profession never appealed to me.”
“You have access to these digital postings you mention?” she asked. “You’ve seen my name there?”
“Not exactly,” Will said. “I haven’t checked in a long while.”
“You’ll have to show me how, sometime,” Rhea told him. She paused. “You’d think the authorities would have caught up with me by now if I was wanted for crimes. I haven’t always had my public profile disabled, or my comm node programmed to ignore third party connection requests…” It was technically illegal to do either while inside a settlement or city, but that hadn’t stopped certain slum residents.
“You’d think the authorities would have, yes,” Will agreed. “Except you’re forgetting that we assigned you a new ID when we rebooted your brain. Giving you a clean slate. There’s only two ways to do that: wipe a mind clean or transfer it into a new mind-machine interface.”
“It’s too bad we couldn’t retrieve my old ID,” she said.
Will looked away.
She wanted to ask him to reveal what he knew, to tell her what the mark she once wore on her forehead meant, but she knew he never would. It troubled her, because it made her believe the mark must have represented something really terrible, for him to clam up like that, let alone sand it away on sight.
She sighed, and Will rested a hand on her shoulder. It felt good. Not in the way that a lover’s hand might feel, but comforting, like an old friend’s.
“Do you think Aradne will ever restore the settlement’s water supply?” she asked.
“We already know they will,” Will replied. “But the real question is, how many dehydration deaths on the part of the slums will it take?”
“Exactly what I want to avoid,” Rhea told him. “We lost enough lives when the bioweapons attacked the settlement. Such a despicable act. It almost makes me want to…”
“What, take justice into your own hands?” Will asked.
She smiled, shaking her head. “You know me too well. It’s a terrible thought, isn’t it?”
“It is,” Will told her sternly, dropping his hand. “Don’t let it cross your mind again. Because even if you’re successful, you’re only dooming yourself to a lifetime of running. Killing a public official is a crime punishable by death.”
“Who says I want to kill him?” she said. “Just rough him up a little.”
Will frowned, then laughed. He turned away, shaking his head, and gazed into the street below. He seemed to be scanning the buildings. “You think he’s close-by? The Scorpion?”
“He’s out there, somewhere,” Rhea said. “Close or far. If he’s close, he’s watching us no doubt.”
“Let him watch,” Will said. “He can watch all he wants. As long as he doesn’t attack.”
“If he finds a weapon, he’ll use it,” she said. “You remember his first words to me? ‘I had you in my sniper sites so many times.’ Words that send a chill down my back just recalling them.”
“You have to keep in mind, he’s probably trying to avoid the Aradne security forces, just like us,” Will said. “When the security forces set up shop in the Outlands, the first thing they do is quarantine the area. No one is allowed in or out. Not salvagers. And certainly not assassins.”
“Maybe he’s in league with them,” Renaldo said, coming up beside Will at a crawl. He leaned against the same gooseneck vent. “How’s it hanging? You guys looked like you were having an
