“The Pupil told you not to admit anyone while she was reading?” Jan asked.
Short glanced at Skinny, then shrugged. “Yeah, so how’d you know that?”
“The Sapient Pupil always reads at this time of day, but tells her bunk guards to inform visitors she’s napping. She doesn’t like to be interrupted while reading. She doesn’t like to be interrupted at all.”
“Right,” Short said, not quite bringing his rifle up. “So you see how that means you can’t see her, right?”
“You need not worry about angering her,” Jan assured them. “I am Pristine.”
Skinny blinked. “Seriously?”
“Most seriously.” Pristine clients were never denied service, but that list was probably ten names, tops, and some of them were dead. “Search for Don Quixote.”
Short’s eyes went distant as he scanned a screen Jan couldn’t see. “Don’t see it.”
“The last name begins with a Q.”
“Oh,” Short said. “Uh ... it says you’re still in orbit.”
“I know,” Jan said, with a heavy sigh. “That’s really starting to piss me off.”
Short glanced at Skinny, who glanced at Short. Jan could imagine the gears turning. If they let him interrupt Kinsley’s reading, and he wasn’t Pristine, they’d be on the outs with Kinsley for weeks. If he was Pristine, however, and they stopped a Pristine client from seeing the Sapient Pupil ...
“How’s this,” Jan said. “What if I overpower you?”
Short blinked. “What?”
“I’ll overpower you,” Jan said, “and make my way inside. That way, even if I have deceived you, you will have the perfect excuse for allowing me to interrupt the Pupil’s reading.”
“Because you overpowered us,” Skinny said, as if considering it. “Uh ... would it hurt?”
“Yes,” Jan said.
“Oh, fuck that.” Short stepped aside. “I just got my ass handed to me by Marquis yesterday. Don’t care for a repeat.”
That moniker caught Jan’s attention, and it also explained Short’s black eye and split lip. “Marquis was here?” Marquis was a moderately dangerous and extremely annoying bounty hunter, and Jan wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
Short spit a loogie at his own feet. “Yeah.”
This was worse news than Jan expected. “Did he come to the Hole?” If Marquis came to know Jan was back in town ...
“How you think I got these?” Short demanded, pointing at his battered face.
Jan considered. “You said the S word, didn’t you.”
Short huffed and hunched his shoulders. “Yeah.”
Along with a million other incredibly annoying attributes, Marquis had a very particular way of speaking. Those who had actually read a book often made the mistake of asking Marquis if he was quoting Shakespeare. Short was lucky to be alive after his transgression, but at least Marquis wasn’t here.
Jan glanced at Skinny. “May I pass?” Marquis was a problem for later or, hopefully, never.
Skinny watched him for another moment, then stepped aside. “Sure, okay. You seem like an honest dude.”
Jan beamed. “Not at all.”
Skinny stared blinkingly.
Jan clapped Short on the shoulder as he passed, which made the man jump. “Do me a favor, would you?”
“Why would I do that?”
“If you see Marquis again, don’t tell him you saw me.”
“Right,” Short muttered from behind Jan, as Jan walked up to the armored door sealing off Kinsley’s room. “Like he’d know who Donkey fucking Hotey was.”
Jan stopped at the door and punched a short combination into the door’s keypad. Kinsley didn’t change codes either, though she would swap out a whole lock. With an agonized, grinding moan, the door to Kinsley’s bunker rumbled open.
The door took time to rise. It took long enough that Jan wasn’t surprised to see the top of Kinsley’s pale, freckled face peeping over an overturned table. He was also unsurprised by the two ceiling-mounted guns pointing at his chest. This was the third time he’d had guns pointed at him since arriving at the Hole, which was ... better than average.
“Jan?” Kinsley rose to her full, skinny height. “No, you shouldn’t be here yet.” Her short red hair bobbed gently beneath the flow of her unit’s single air-conditioner.
Jan thought about the way Kinsley thought, which was different from most people. He supposed he had arrived thirty-five years earlier than Kinsley expected.
“Hush,” Jan said, stepping inside. “Don’t say anything you shouldn’t. You are not dreaming or hallucinating.”
“I’m aware.” Kinsley was dressed in her favorite (and likely only) pair of yellow pajamas, feet bare with unpainted toenails. “What I don’t understand is why you’re here.”
“Close the door,” Jan said, “and I will explain what’s changed. I will provide you with updated facts, and then this world will make sense once more.”
“Well,” Kinsley said. “All right.”
The big door rumbled shut without any visible movement from Kinsley. She had triggered it with her PBA. Kinsley’s brain-mounted computer was one of the most advanced on the planet and almost entirely her creation, save for the wetware guts. It could do things most people didn’t understand.
Jan waited until the door closed and did not approach. He didn’t do anything Kinsley wouldn’t expect. Things she wouldn’t expect made her nervous, and he didn’t want her nervous, especially when she had two automated guns pointed at him.
“May I?” Jan asked, once the door finished rumbling.
Kinsley nodded gravely. “Proceed.”
“An Advanced woman named Senator Tarack recently visited Tantalus prison and purchased my freedom.” Jan trusted Kinsley to keep this quiet. “Tarack sent me back to Ceto, guarded by her trusted security chief, to recover a stolen item for her.”
“I see.” Kinsley blinked and frowned. “And now that you’re free, and back on Ceto, you’ve come to me because you’ve encountered a problem you can’t handle alone.”
“Correct.” Trust Kinsley to get straight to the point.
“Cool.” Kinsley retracted her ceiling-mounted guns with a thought and sat
