Salvi’s body had then yearned for more sleep so she’d headed back to her fake apartment, but found her mind wouldn’t let her relax until she’d cleared some of the debris from the night before. She’d made a call to Hernandez.
“Hey,” she’d said when he’d answered.
“How you doing?” he’d asked.
“Ugh…” she’d groaned. “Look, I just want to apologize for last night, in case I–”
“Salv,” he’d cut her off. “You’re like a sister to me… Let us never speak of this again.”
She’d sighed with relief. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he’d said, and ended the call.
With that off her mind she’d lain down and finally fallen asleep.
She’d slept most of the day before finally rising to prepare herself to visit Chaney to apologize. Bronte had arrived back at the apartment around 4pm. Thankfully he’d checked in with her earlier to let her know he was okay. He’d left the club and had gone back to his new friends’ house to party, hoping to meet their tech dealer, this guy known as J-Dog. He did, but the guy turned out to be small time, dealing with friends only. Bronte tried to find out where this J-Dog got his supply from, but the guy wouldn’t tell him, and Bronte knew he couldn’t push.
So now Salvi bided her time until she could head back to The Dream Bar to try and speak to Chaney. She stared at the lights of the city outside the windows, as memories of the previous evening flashed through her mind. The people painted and tattooed to look like androids, the old man Hillier with his holographic ‘pets’, the people on the dancefloor with the VR headsets moving in a trance-like state, Erica and her needle, the statue of the Winged Victory of Samothrace with its holographic head adorned with neural devices, Salvi’s glitching vision, the large white angel spreading its broad wings behind the Ceiling’s bar.
But another recent memory seemed imprinted across all of the others. The vision of Myki Natashi sitting dazed in her bed, post-Flyte, the imprints on the sides of her face. Knowing Myki had been seen leaving Floor to Ceiling the night Barker died, Salvi wondered whether Myki had willingly taken the drug and enjoyed a night with her boyfriend down in Diabolique, or whether the Flyte had been forced upon her intentionally to make her black out the night. Salvi recalled Myki moving away from her and begging: “No more… Please!” Did that mean it had been forced upon her? Or was she just horrified at having more after she’d slept through her partner being murdered. Erica said the shortest ‘trips’ lasted about four hours. Myki must have had it at Diabolique to have been sleeping it off around 12.30pm when Barker was killed, and then still very groggy when Salvi and Beggs had arrived at her apartment. Riverton said the footage of Myki leaving the club indicated she was inebriated. Had the killer simply seen an opportune time to erase Barker, knowing that Myki had had Flyte and wouldn’t remember? Is that why Myki was afraid? Because she really had no idea who did this? Or had something else happened down at Diabolique that made Barker take her home while she was still heavily inebriated? Had the killer confronted him there? Had Barker done something to offend the killer?
Salvi pictured the neural devices shining silver in Erica’s hands. Yet again, she thought of Subjugate-52 and residents of the Solme Complex; how the neural devices controlled them, and how the Complex made them forget certain aspects of their past.
“Hey,” Bronte’s gruff voice said as he exited his bedroom.
“Hey,” she said, turning around. “Don’t you need more sleep?”
He nodded. “Hell, yeah.” He ran his hand over his closely shaved head. “I just wanted to catch you before you left. You sure going back is the right thing to do?”
She nodded. “We have the tech but it’s not enough. I need to try something.”
“You’re lucky you got out unscathed, Salv.”
“I know.” Her face fell a little. “I’ve been thinking… What if the Chief’s daughter OD’d? I don’t want to be the one to tell him that.”
Bronte shrugged. “It’s part of the job, Salv. But first we gotta find her body. Until there’s a body, we have to consider her as alive.”
Salvi nodded. “And that’s why I’m going back in. To find out what happened to her, and to find out who killed Caine.”
She grabbed her purse and headed for the door.
“Be careful,” he said.
She shot him one last look, nodded and left.
Salvi entered The Dream Bar and looked around. The V shot had well and truly taken effect and she felt human again, but the last thing she wanted to do was have alcohol right now. She moved to the bar and her chatty barman, Dante.
“Hey,” she smiled.
“Hello, there!” he smiled.
“I don’t suppose Lance is in tonight?”
“I’m not expecting him. You got another message?”
“Do you know where I would find him tonight?”
“What’s today?” he asked himself, mind turning over. “Oh, he’d be over at Floor to Ceiling. It’s another one of his clubs.”
“Right,” Salvi said, feeling her shoulders slump. “Thanks,” she said, making her way for the exit.
As she stepped outside, she used her burner phone and called Ford.
“Yeah?” the detective lieutenant answered.
“He’s at Floor to Ceiling tonight. I gotta go back.”
“Brentt–”
“I got no choice,” she cut her off. “I can’t let too much time pass. I ran out on him. I need to apologize.”
Silence hung on the line for a moment.
“Do not go back into the basement.”
“I won’t. I won’t leave the first floor,” she said. “He can’t touch me there. There are too many tourists. Too many people who don’t know the truth about what happens on the Ceiling or in Diabolique. It’ll be safe.”
Ford sighed. “Do not leave
