Free Fall. Laura Anne Gilman
going to deal with the ones who had sent them, who had set them on her for the sole fault of being a Talent.
The Silence. No matter what Sergei once thought of them, no matter what her ex-partner still thought of them, they were the enemy. Elegant Andre, his errand-boy Poul, even the blond woman who had tried to warn Sergei to back off…all of them ranged on the wrong side of this war.
And Sergei? Where was her former partner, her lover, her love, in all this?
Wren let the water hit her face, washing that question away. She couldn’t answer it. She wouldn’t deal with it. Not right now. Let him just stay out of the line of fire, and she wouldn’t have to deal with it.
After the initial tears, after the attack, Wren’s tear ducts had dried up. She had thought she was holding back, but now that she was safe, in the safest place she could think of, the tears didn’t return.
The water might be washing her skin and soaking her hair, but inside, she was dry and still as a summer desert at noon.
Turning off the water without even bothering to soap up or wash her hair, she got out and wrapped herself in the first towel that came to hand. Her hair in wet chunks against her bare shoulders, she started for the bedroom when a knock at her front door stopped her.
“Who is it?” she yelled.
“Bonnie!” the voice yelled back, in a “who the hell do you think it would be” tone. Wren had forgotten she’d invited the other lonejack up. Brownies. Right. Wren didn’t even need to reach for current to unlock the door; it was already in her veins, doing her bidding before she thought the command. “Make yourself at home,” she said, and continued down the short corridor, into the bedroom.
Twenty minutes later, she came back out, dressed in sweatpants and an old cotton sweater, thick wool socks on her feet. Her hair was still wet and slicked back, and her face was pale and pinched around the mouth and eyes.
“Jesus, Wren.” Bonnie practically shoved a still-warm brownie into the Retriever’s mouth. “You still look like hell. What happened?”
Choking on the chewy goodness of Bonnie’s baking, Wren could only laugh, helpless. She chewed, swallowed, and said, “There’s a damn story, all right…”
“Come on.” Bonnie tugged at her hand, leading her like one would a child. “Sit. Eat. Get something into you. We’ll worry about protein later.”
Bonnie was such a little mother, Wren thought, letting herself be led into the main room and settled in the oversized chair that was still her favorite piece in the space.
“I thought you said you were going to make this place look a little more, ya know, lived in?”
“I did.” She had. The room now boasted a sofa, and a coffee table, bought under repeated prodding from P.B. to “start living like a grown-up already.” And she had even bought a café table and chairs to eat dinner on. All right, so they were stored in her office most of the time. She really didn’t need a dedicated dining space, considering most of her meals were eaten standing up at the counter, or sitting on the floor in her office, working.
“Wren…A rug, maybe? Something on the walls? A cabinet for the stereo?”
Wren felt unutterably weary, and more than a little snappish. “Don’t rush me.”
She still wasn’t sure how to decorate, anyway. She had Talent, but no talent for that kind of thing.
The first time she had walked into this apartment, trailing behind the Realtor who had better things to do than show twenty-somethings apartments they couldn’t possibly afford, she had fallen in love with it. The kitchen defined “small,” the plaster was cracked in places, and the traffic outside was pretty much 24/7. But the fifth-story walkup had large windows, hardwood floors, high ceilings, and a sense of comfort and energy that could only come from being situated directly on some source of current, be it traditional magical ley lines or an underground thermal generator or sheer good vibes.
She had dug deep into her savings, and rented it on the spot.
Almost a decade later, sitting in the main room, she didn’t feel quite the same sense of comfort within those walls. Too much had happened there, both good and horrible, for it to be a refuge without flaw. So she resisted making it feel too homey.
And yet, the sense of current running through the walls and floors remained, and the thought of moving elsewhere gave her physical pain. So she stayed, barren walls and all, and only occasionally—like now—wondered why.
This time, she asked it out loud.
“It’s like a fortress,” Bonnie said in response. Her legs were curled up under her as she sat on the sofa chewing on a brownie, the half-empty pan on the coffee table between them. How had they eaten so much, so fast? “Even as empty as your place is. The building’s soaked up so much current over the years, it’s in the building now. That’s why we both just had to live here. Probably why P.B. spends so much time here, too. I can barely get the guys to go home, some mornings.”
Wren didn’t want the details. Bonnie was cheerfully if discriminatingly polyamorous, and while Wren had no problems with that, she was going through a self-imposed dry spell, and didn’t need the reminder of what she was missing.
“I bet that’s why that psi-bomb didn’t do any damage,” Bonnie went on, thinking the problem out logically the way the PUPIs—the forensic scientists of the Cosa, for lack of a better term—were trained to do. “The building practically deflected it, the way treated glass does UV rays…”
The bomb had been planted by the Council—suspected, not proven—back when they were trying to scare the lonejacks into signing on to the Council’s agenda. A classic tactic that had backfired because the Council forgot one basic lesson when dealing with lonejacks: when pushed, they get ornery. And even more stubborn.
Wren had heard, and seen, stranger things. “Or maybe it’s just a really well-built building.”
“Yah, maybe. Got no complaints about the soundproofing, that’s for sure.”
“Oversharing…” Wren murmured.
“Speaking of which.” Bonnie could switch topics without warning, giving you mental whiplash. “What the hell bit your tail? And don’t tell me nothing. You never eat four brownies in one sitting like that, so I know you’re seriously wiped out. You were on a job this morning, weren’t you?”
Wren didn’t talk to Bonnie—or anyone—about her jobs. Part of the service she provided was privacy and confidentiality about the details of what she did. But the actual nature of her work wasn’t exactly a secret any more, not among the Cosa. And certainly not to the PUPIs, damn them.
“Yeah. It was a setup. Someone played me, lured me out there, and jumped me.”
“What?” Bonnie’s normally half-asleep expression woke up suddenly, and she leaned forward, peering again at Wren. “You’re okay. They’re not, I take it.”
“They’re not,” Wren agreed.
“You need to…” Her voice trailed off. The PUPI were formed with the single goal of bringing justice to the Cosa, finding the truth behind things the Null justice system couldn’t or wouldn’t handle. But Bonnie was clearly having difficulty determining how they would be able to help Wren, in this instance.
“I know who they were.” Underneath the fog, a cold clarity had settled over her on the trip home, and the warmth of the shower, and the gooey sugar of the brownie hadn’t broken it even slightly. Now, when she needed it, it rose to the fore. “I know who sent them. And I know what to do about them.”
“Who, and what?” Bonnie sounded like she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but couldn’t stop herself from asking.
Wren stared at the ceiling, then got up to go into the kitchen.
“Valere!”
Wren