“I don’t care, Yeun. I gave you a chance, and you didn’t take it. What did you think was going to happen? They sent me in to topple a nation. You think I wouldn’t do the same to your company? You knew what I was from the very beginning.” Enda laughed, the sound of it crazed even to her own ears. “I could kill you right now”—she pointed the gun at Mohamed, groaning on the floor—“and your bodyguard, your fucking money, your multinational corporation, none of it could stop me. You thought you could leash me, but I’m not a fucking dog, David. I’m the person they send in when they want no witnesses and no survivors.”
Yeun’s finger twitched as his face grew pale. “Your file is out. It’s done.” He lowered his phone.
Enda shifted the gun, aiming it at Yeun’s forehead. The man whimpered, and squeezed his eyes shut. Under the torrential assault of the sprinkler system, it was hard to be sure he’d pissed his pants.
“I’m not going to kill you, Yeun. I could, but I won’t. Do you know why?”
Yeun shook his head.
“Because it’s going to be more fun watching you try and dig your way out of this hole.”
She turned away, and Yeun slumped in relief. Without a single thought in her mind, Enda swung her arm back, glanced over her shoulder, and shot Yeun in the hand, the bullet puncturing through flesh and phone. The man cried out and collapsed to his knees, hyperventilating and staring wide-eyed at his mangled hand. Blood poured from the wound, diluted in the artificial rain.
“Something to remember me by,” Enda said.
She used the hem of her blouse to wipe her prints off the gun and tossed it to the floor beside Mohamed’s unconscious form. She crouched over the man and retrieved her own gun from his pocket. She holstered it and walked out of the gym, leaving the men behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Enda reached the ground floor just behind JD. She saw him limping badly, grimacing with every second step, and jogged a few steps to catch up. She slipped under his arm, taking his weight on one shoulder. He jerked away at first, then saw who it was and relaxed into her.
Zero employees rushed past them, fleeing the fire or the water, the acrid smoke that hung thick in the air.
“You take care of your business?” JD asked.
Enda thought about that for a moment. Her dossier was out in the world now. “Enda Hyldahl” was compromised. She needed to get out of the city immediately, leave Asia, escape China’s sphere of control. “It’s over,” she said.
She was never one to share her burdens.
They reached the lobby and found Soo-hyun standing by the open front doors, utterly drenched, their normally spiky-shorn hair stuck flat to their head. They grinned when they saw JD and Enda. Despite his labored breath, despite his throbbing knee, JD couldn’t help but smile.
When he reached Soo-hyun, JD wrapped them in a tight hug. “Thank you.”
“What’s a little arson between siblings?” Soo-hyun said.
“So that’s what happened,” Enda said, pointing a thumb over her shoulder to the scorched couches.
Soo-hyun offered the Zippo to JD. “You should have it.”
JD shook his head. “It’s yours, keep it.”
They walked outside, past the throng of workers talking in hushed but excited tones, the roads clogged with police and fire service vehicles.
JD looked up to the VOIDWAR constellations glittering high in the sky. He couldn’t know it was the last day that tethered galaxy would form a roof over the city.
His eyes fell back to the street and he limped to catch up to the others standing beside the auto-truck, where instances of me waited patiently in their police dog bodies.
“Enda!”
She turned at the voice, and shook her head. “Li.”
Detective Li slammed the door of his unmarked car and approached the group, his tailored suit disheveled, heavy bags gathered beneath his eyes.
“What are you doing on the street?” Enda asked. “Shouldn’t you be off detecting somewhere?”
“It’s all hands on deck until the city’s cleaned up.”
“How’s that going?” JD asked.
“Lot of people still displaced. Lot of people going hungry while they can’t work.”
JD frowned.
Li looked up at the towering skyscraper, then back to Enda. “What shit have you trodden in this time, Hyldahl?”
“What makes you think I had anything to do with this?”
“Just a coincidence you’re here, then? Fire at Zero headquarters, some shit I don’t even pretend to understand happening in that game tanking their stock price.”
“Did you sell your shares like I told you?”
Li pursed his lips to quash a smile. “Do I want to know why you’ve got police dogs in the back of your truck?”
“They’ve been following us around,” Enda said. “I think they got wet during the flood; glitched out. Must think I’m their momma.”
“I’m sure that’s what happened.”
“Listen, Li; you’re going to talk to a Zero executive, and he’s going to tell you some things about my past. I won’t lie, it’s all true, but it was another life. One I’ve tried to leave behind.”
Li stared at Enda. Perhaps he remembered the good she’d done during her time in the city, perhaps he only thought of the paperwork he wouldn’t have to file. “I think sometimes past lives should stay in the past.”
“Thanks, Li.”
“My bosses won’t agree, you understand.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll need to talk to you before this is over, Hyldahl. So don’t leave the city. Don’t leave before five p.m. when I file my report.”
“I’ll be sure not to.”
Li walked away, shouting to a pair of firefighters standing beside their truck: “You got the sprinklers shut off? Good, then let’s go and take a look.”
He shot Enda another glance, nodded, and entered the building.
“We should get out of here,” Enda said.
“I couldn’t get your file,” one of me said, “but I dumped a lot of confidential Zero documentation on the
