“Renaldo didn’t look too happy,” Horatio commented when the din had faded almost entirely.
“He’ll get over it,” Will said.
“Yes,” she agreed. “He has to realize that I can’t trust anyone, not anymore.” She glanced at Will and Horatio. “Maybe not even you two.”
“We’ll submit to scans, of course,” Horatio said.
“I know you will,” Rhea said. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t be infiltrated at some point in the future.”
“Then we’ll have daily scans,” Horatio said.
Rhea nodded. It would have to do.
She tried to access the Net. Even with the breach in the wall she wasn’t able to get a signal. She had insisted on installing a grounded metal screen around the cargo container she used as a bedroom, which formed a Faraday cage around it. The cage meant no unauthorized transmissions could get into or out of her room. It also meant when she wanted to browse the Net she had to do so in a different area. Why she had insisted on such a security precaution, she didn’t know. She supposed it was something she had done in her past life, something that had carried over into this one.
Rhea strode toward the adjacent cargo container. “Have you ever heard of Veil?”
Will shook his head.
“I have not,” Horatio said.
As she neared the hole in the wall her connection to the Net reactivated. She promptly ran a search on “Veil,” but found only the definition, and a few random usernames on various VR forums and streaming sites. She tried the search again, adding in the phrase “Rust Town or Aradne,” but this time got nothing at all. Which made her think that someone in power had been scrubbing things…
“The assassin said something, I take it?” Will asked from behind.
Rhea nodded. “He shouted ‘for Veil’ when he attacked. While you’re scanning my followers, ask them if they know anything about a man named Veil. Tell them to reach out to their networks.”
Will nodded.
“I’ll also upload a video to SubverseTube,” she said. “And ask my subscribers if they know anything.”
“That’s a good idea.” He paused. “You know, we should change locations. Too many people know I stay here.”
“We could,” Rhea said. “But what’s to say he won’t hunt us down again? The Scorpion might have been sent by Veil, for example. We were in the Outlands, but he still found us!”
“Good point,” Will said.
“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to stay here for very long anyway,” she said. “As soon as we find a way to restore the water, I’ll be on the move again.”
“Different city?” he asked.
“I haven’t decided yet. But either way, Veil will still be a threat.” She studied him. “Maybe now would be a good time to come clean on what you know about my past. You once sanded away a mark from my forehead. Why? What did the mark mean?”
Will shook his head. “The knowledge won’t help you. It will only make things worse. Confuse you. Trust me on this.”
She sighed. “All right. I trust you.” She glanced at the hole in the wall. “When you go, send one of the 3D printing drones up here. I want my wall, and its Faraday cage, restored.”
Rhea sat in the corner of the adjacent room, watching the humming drone work. It sprayed a melted concoction of metals into the gap in the wall as it moved from side to side. Every time it completed a horizontal pass, it moved upward almost imperceptibly, less than a millimeter. In that manner it slowly filled the hole in the wall.
Meanwhile, cleaning robots carried out the blood-stained mattress. Horatio had departed with the body earlier, carrying it in a body bag so as to not spread blood all over. Rhea had felt only anger when she saw that bag. She experienced no sadness or remorse of any kind. She wondered if that made her a bad person.
I should feel guilty about killing him, shouldn’t I?
But she reminded herself that it had been an accident. And self-defense. But the worst part was, a part of her had enjoyed it.
No, not the killing. Never the killing. Only the fighting.
She remembered smiling when she kneed him in the groin.
Yeah, I like fighting.
When the gap was completely sealed, the drone deployed a telescoping arm to retrieve the existing section that had been cut away. The sheet metal flopped back and forth, emitting a deep twang, at least until the drone could press it against the wall. Then the machine began welding the edges to the surface.
When the drone completed the task, it promptly flew into the open door and vanished. She accessed the inner security camera, which was located well within her line of sight—ensuring that the shielding from the Faraday cage wouldn’t interfere with her signal. From the cam’s viewpoint, she watched the drone move to the discolored section of wall that remained where the gap once was; when the flying machine arrived, it began spraying streams of metal onto the surface, and slowly crept upward after each pass.
While it worked, she thought idly of the camera and the motion sensors in this current cargo container, adjacent to her bedroom. The monitoring devices had been temporarily disabled by Anderson during his earlier attack, since he had the passcodes like most members of her inner circle. Giving out those codes had been a mistake, she realized. Best to keep them in her possession alone, like the codes to the sensors of her bedroom. As soon as Horatio had taken away Anderson’s body, she’d changed all the codes in the vicinity, with the intention of keeping them to herself.
The drone reached the top of the former gap and then flew out of the room. As it passed her, it beeped twice in acknowledgement, or perhaps thanks, and then departed. She could no longer discern any difference in coloration on the wall. The gap
