Chapter 8

Midway through Anya’s probation, when she’d been confined to the Farm to learn how to be a person, she’d told Aiden a terrible secret.

Before that they’d been at dinner; an old-world ritual known as ‘meeting the parents’.

Despite his rank Owen lived like a prisoner in a single barren room on post. Back then Anya had found the lack of visual stimuli calming. She’d been experiencing something she could now define as ‘homesickness’. She’d felt it whenever she looked at Owen, and would feel it until she gradually remembered that it wasn’t him she missed at all.

She’d asked, through Aiden, how it was possible for an Operative to father a child. Owen had immediately poured himself a double whiskey as Aiden explained, laughing, that they’d adopted him after Miles caught him picking Molly’s pocket in the market.

“Owen told them to take me back,” Aiden had concluded. “He threatened to do it every time I misbehaved, but eventually he came around.”

“Talk about something else,” Owen had said, pouring another double.

Afterwards, walking home, Aiden had apologized. It had been his fault, bringing up the past. Driving his old man to drink.

And then Anya had confessed her secret: she’d never had alcohol.

“You want to?”

When she’d shrugged, Aiden had taken her to the storage hutches behind the mess hall and expertly picked the lock, explaining that Cook hid the strong stuff in a crate labeled ‘Potted Meat’. He’d been helping himself since he was a teenager.

They’d stolen and drank two bottles of red wine. Then, loaded to the gills, they’d started playing with guns.

Aiden had handed over his pearl-handled revolver, which had once belonged to Molly. A beautiful weapon.

“Don’t shoot me, now,” he’d warned, his face very close to hers. “I didn’t shoot you.”

Now Anya stood outside the same hutch, sun hammering down on her neck as she fumbled with the lock. Love was a weed. Unless she dug it up by the roots it would keep on putting out bitter little shoots.

The lock surrendered. Anya shouldered inside, making her way to the back.

Heat swallowed her. She dug through crates until she found Cook’s newest hiding place: Brined Mackerel. When she popped the lid she found a single small bottle of Waco brandy.

Better than nothing. She’d filled up her ration card for the month.

She was peeling the wax seal off with her pocket knife when someone behind her cleared their throat. Anya spun, little blade at the ready—

Her shadow with the bicolored eyes sat perched on a crate. He wore the uniform of a Corporal in the New Columbian Army. Today his nametape said ‘Shaw’. In the Library it had been something else.

She hadn’t heard him come in.

“Looks like a party,” he said, nodding at the brandy. “Am I invited?”

No, but your mother is, Anya signed, one-handed and truncated. She peeled off the rest of the wax with her teeth and popped the cork.

“My mother doesn’t drink,” Shaw replied lazily. “But she’d appreciate the sentiment.”

Anya paused, bottle hovering halfway to her mouth.

“Surprise,” he continued, wiggling his fingers before silently continuing, it’s a valuable skill.

Son of a bitch. Anya spat the cork at him and took a long swallow. She was going to have to hope no one saw her burying his corpse out back of the hutch in broad daylight.

“Did you deliver my coin,” he said. “To our mutual friend?”

She said something about killing insurgents. Anya offered him the bottle. He frowned and shook his head, so she drank again. Didn’t seem to care much. Maybe you should’ve sent her real money.

“Oh. How interesting,” Shaw mused, rubbing beneath his blue eye with two careful fingertips. “Well, as pleasant as this has been, I’m going to cut to the chase. We’re out of time.”

Anya tugged at the collar of her shirt. She was soaked in sweat, but he looked fresh as a spring daisy. I have nothing but time.

“Your friends don’t. I need the data Aiden retrieved from Alpha Base, and they need to get out of Dallas. Since I can’t debrief him, I’m stuck with you. Do you know where it is? Can you get it for me?”

I can’t get anywhere near it, Anya signed, drinking again to stop the bottom of her stomach from plummeting into her boots. Why do you want it?

He jumped off the crate and stalked forward until he was within grabbing distance. Sweat darkened his collar. He smelled like starch. “I don’t. I need it. Did you give it to Owen?”

Shit. Curiosity nipped at her now.

I know exactly where the drive is, Anya signed. But I won’t try for it until my friends are out of the city.

Shaw frowned. “I need it tonight, before the gates close.”

Then get it yourself.

For the first time the mask of his composure slipped. “You’re not in a position to negotiate.”

Anya stared back at him, unblinking. Neither are you.

After a moment, he exhaled sharply through his nose. “They can leave with the crowd when the markets clear out. I’ll do what’s necessary, just get them through the north gate between 1700 and 1900.”

Fine. Anya held out her hand, and Shaw stared at it like it was a live weasel. She moved it up and down demonstratively.

Shaw clasped her wrist instead of her palm. “Meet me at the Oldtown gate,” he said, holding tight. “At sundown, with the drive. Do not disappoint me.”

Anya jerked her hand free, and handed him the empty bottle. What if Owen destroyed it?

“Pray that didn’t happen,” Shaw said quietly. “He hasn’t left the hospital in a week, by the way. Any idea why that might be?”

I don’t care, Anya asserted. Keep your end of the bargain, or I’ll put you in there with him.

Happy to have gotten the last word in, she exited the crushing heat of the hutch into the lesser misery of the late afternoon sun, heart racing, feeling his stare drilling into her back.

No one was working behind the desk at temp housing. The pegboard with its rows of keys was unguarded. Anya jabbed a shameless middle finger into a cup of coffee by the open ledger and found it cold.

Huh.

Leaning over the counter, she paged through said ledger until she found what she was looking for. Then she jogged upstairs three at a time.

It was tomblike. On her last visit there had been a handful of families on the ground floor waiting for post housing, nasty little barefoot kids playing everywhere, civilian spouses cooking and hanging laundry. Now the place was deserted.

She exited the stairwell on level three, counted doors, knocked twice. Then she knocked a third time.

After a short, watchful silence the door cracked, then opened wider.

“Michael’s asleep,” Lily said in an undertone, blocking the gap with her body. “Do you need him?”

Pressing her notepad against the doorframe, Anya scrawled a few lines: Leaving now. Horses + supplies waiting. Wake him up.

Lily shifted all her weight onto her right foot. “I…just a minute.”

The door closed. Anya heard a low murmur of speech. Then the door opened all the way and Michael ushered her in, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Anya did not look at the unmade bed or his inside-out shirt. She just showed him her notepad.

“We’re leaving,” he said, and immediately Anya felt like an ass. Of course Lily was illiterate, everyone from the Midlands was illiterate.

“Short notice,” she said. “Is there trouble?”

“No,” Michael said, and put his back to her.

Like water through a sieve. Lily met Anya’s gaze and signed, OK?

Anya nodded. Unlike him she was a great liar, so Lily relaxed visibly.

“Fix your shirt,” she said, and Michael did so unselfconsciously. His entire torso and right arm were a mass of scar tissue. Burns. Anya looked away too late, but neither of them seemed to notice. She might as well have been a cactus.

It only took a few seconds to pack; they didn’t have much. Like a good little scavenger Lily stole the blanket off the bed, rolling and cinching it with her belt.

Once upon a time, Anya had the rare privilege of going armed on the grounds of the Farm. That had of course been revoked, and now her hand itched for a weapon. Anything. Even a knife.

They took the stairs down, Michael bringing up the rear and Lily in the middle, and did not hear or see a living human being. Not the families, not the transfers from the Mojave awaiting permanent housing. No staff.

She didn’t need a weapon, she was a weapon. Still. It was eerie, and it was getting to her.

The door to the ground floor residential hallway was blocked by a neat sign indicating it was being treated for pests. Anya developed an odd feeling in her stomach. Was it a coincidence? Or had it been him.

Shaw reminded her of unexploded ordnance. She wasn’t scared of him, but who knew what he was capable of. What he might do.

A sunset would’ve been poetic, but the light was still strong, the sun slinking reluctantly west. Out on the lawn Lily took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, tilting her face up. “I didn’t know it could get this hot. How do you stand it?”

This was nothing. Anya tried hard to never be in Dallas in August. She shrugged, and shepherded them over to the horses waiting patiently under their awning: Rocket, and a neat grey gelding.

Lily cautiously held her hand out flat and let Rocket breathe on it. She wrinkled her nose as the rubbery lips brushed her palm. “Guess he likes me.”

Rocket was a good boy. He was a big spoiled baby. Anya also planned to leave Dallas and never return, and if he stepped in a gopher hole or got eaten out in the badlands it would break her heart. He would have a good, fat life out in the Federation. Maybe make a few little Rockets.

Lily wiped her hand on her pants. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. For how I was. And for everything I said in the tunnel.”

Anya stopped thinking about Aiden gifting her the stupid fancy horse just in time to parse this.

On the road east Lily had been on the verge of combustion. Brittle, foul-tempered, combative…but she had saved him. She’d done what Anya could not.

“What I mean is I’m grateful.” Lily rubbed the oiled leather reins between thumb and forefinger. “And I shouldn’t have been like that. It’s not like…I mean, you couldn’t exactly explain.”

Don’t apologize, she signed, knowing it was pointless. I’ve felt what you were feeling, and you could’ve been a lot meaner. I’m sorry.

The last two signs seemed to get through. Lily tried to hide her surprise, but she was no Operative. It flickered across her face like chain lightning.

They both looked at Michael, who was making friends with the grey and did not notice.

Lily cleared her throat. “The town’s by a lake. You’ll never guess what they named it.”

If it wasn’t Laketown, Anya had grossly misjudged the Federation.

“You should visit,” she went on. “It’s on a trade route, so somebody will know where it is. I want to be friends. Come visit us.”

Anya nodded. It was the last lie she’d ever tell Lily, because she was not going to visit and they would never see each other again. She was going to find a war, any war, and fight until she lost the ability to think.

Lily sighed and held out her hand. Surprised by the sudden formality, Anya reached out too—

Then Lily yanked her hand back and grinned, and for a moment she looked very young. The shadow that had sat behind her face on the road was gone. She all but shone.

She hugged Anya quickly, awkwardly around the middle. She was still all bones. Her hair smelled like beeswax. “Thank you. For everything.”

Then Lily cleared her throat and swung easily up into the saddle, nudging Rocket into a slow circuit of the lawn. As the clouds of confusion peeled off Anya realized with a pang that she was giving them privacy.

Last time there had been no goodbye. They’d been separated and wiped clean and sent back out to die, alone.

“I won’t see you again,” Michael said, like he was realizing it for the first time. “There’s still so much I don’t…”

Love, that awful weed, dug in its thorns.

At least this time she would know he was alive and happy somewhere. With mountains, he’d told her, sketching half-remembered shapes in the air. Green and peaceful.

She gripped Michael’s arms and shook him, then hugged him as her throat burned with unshed tears. He dropped his head down onto her shoulder, and Anya stood there as long as she dared.

Then she squeezed the back of his neck and pushed him away. She held his face between her hands and mouthed go.

Michael nodded, and Anya hoped his tears would also stay unshed; if he started crying then she’d need to do it too, out of solidarity. Gently, firmly, she turned him around and gave him a push.

She made herself watch as they rode off. Lily turned back and waved. Anya returned the wave too late.

Maybe she should go after them actually. Make sure they made it off the Farm and out of the city. Ride with them, just to the gates, and then…

Then what. Be late for her rendezvous, that’s what. Who knew what the consequences of that would be. They would have to take care of themselves and each other; she couldn’t do it forever.

Anya jogged up the hill toward the Library. The sun would be down in five hours. She had no time for paranoia, and even less time for sentiment.