Chapter 9

The doors to the Library stood ajar. It would be dark and cool inside, but Anya hesitated on the cracked marble steps with half her brain still barreling down the road west.

She could not shake the feeling that she was making an enormous mistake.

Despite all his oddness and apparent power, this Shaw was just a man. Mortal, ordinary. He knew too much, which made her teeth hurt, but if he’d kept his word vis-a-vis Lily and Michael’s exit, then there was nothing he or anyone else could do to hurt her.

Anya hated assumptions. They tended to result in bloodstains. Don’t assume the room is clear, check the corners. Don’t assume the target is dead, fire an insurance round. Don’t trust a sneaky little bastard just because he appeared to have held up his end of a rather precarious deal…

But was running short on allies and even shorter on friends; someday she might need Shaw. The thought made her shudder as she pushed through the heavy oaken doors.

There definitely would’ve been shooting, she decided. If they hadn’t made it off the Farm, she would’ve heard shooting and alarm bells. So everything had to be fine. She had to focus on this work.

Inside it smelled like time. Classes must have let out early, because clusters of exhausted cadets were stationed at the research tables in the study area, nodding off over reference materials.

Some of them started to err on the side of caution and stand to attention as she passed, but Anya waved them irritably back into their seats and walked faster. Civilian clothes. She needed civilian clothes.

She left the stacks and beelined for the administrative wing, trying to figure out a plan of attack for the sentries. She’d brought a pack of cigarettes and a pitifully small fold of worn, limp bills. No time to secure better bribes.

Inez waved her down. Anya stopped, trying to fix a smile onto her face. Trying to hide the cigarettes.

Have you seen Owen, Inez asked, releasing an exasperated puff of air. He’s not at his apartment or office. I need his signature.

Forge it, Anya suggested. How long until sunset? She’d lost her watch ages ago, in a card game. I heard he was in the hospital. Do you know what time it is?

Inez clapped a hand over her mouth, and Anya belatedly realized she hadn’t thought to ask why Owen was in the hospital and apparently unreachable, because she didn’t care.

He’s fine, she lied. I have to get something from his office actually. And bring it to him.

Inez relaxed. I’ll unlock the door for you.

Hell yes. Anya was a good spy after all. It actually lifted her spirits for a moment before the lead weight of reality dragged her right back down: she actually was a liar who misled her friends.

Inez’s jingling keys echoed off the high ceilings. Anya debated telling her. But then the poor cadets wouldn’t know she was coming, and they deserved a sporting chance.

Did he have an accident? Inez asked. I haven’t seen him in a week. Connor was looking for him too.

Who cared. Bastard. Maybe he’d slipped and broken his hip, something the elderly and irrelevant tended to do. It would serve him right. Save Anya the trouble of handing him his ass on a plate.

No one tells me anything, Anya said. I’m a pariah. I just know that he’s up there.

New Columbia reused everything. Most of the rooms they passed on the way to the office were stacked floor to ceiling with books and furnishings too damaged to use but too precious to throw away.

Owen often spent his free time repairing those books, stitching them into new bindings and inlaying their spines with foil. He’d told Anya that there were times he couldn’t bear to think anymore, and that nothing helped like slow, detailed work.

“It makes everything go quiet,” he’d told her the first time she’d visited his workshop. Back when she looked at him and saw her dead lover. “You ever feel like that?”

Anya had shrugged. Most of the time her head felt empty of all but flies and fog. The Coalition had seen to that. But of course New Columbia reused people too.

Inez got Owen’s door open with a flourish, pocketed her key ring, and signed, tell Owen that he needs to sign my requisitions. And that I brought over pozole, but he wasn’t at home.

Anya promised to tell him. She promised to turn the lights off and lock the door behind her. She told Inez that Owen didn’t deserve to even look at her pozole, and then had to agree to come for dinner herself, and answer questions about her emotional and mental wellbeing. Aiden’s funeral (full military honors) had been postponed, perhaps cancelled; had she heard about that? No, Anya had not. Yes, she did think it was odd. Inside she was screaming.

Then, finally, Inez left.

Aiden would’ve been in and out six times by now. He wouldn’t have even needed keys. But if Aiden was around, Anya wouldn’t be doing this at all; she’d be on leave, drinking by a lake and getting laid. God damn him. God damn the war, the Coalition, and the whole miserable, rotten, ugly world.

Owen’s formal office was dark as the grave. Faded curtains had been drawn across the three tall windows, but a single bar of fading sunlight slipped through a gap between them and brightened a section of rectangular desk.

Anya closed the door with a soft click, and went to work.

All the desk drawers were locked, as she’d expected. In the sparse light she tried a succession of picks without much luck and then held her breath, listening carefully.

Not a sound.

Anya offered up a silent apology and broke the desk.

Just a little. The ancient wood had warped enough to fit a few fingers into the gap between the top drawer and the frame, and it didn’t take much effort to tear it loose.

Owen would take one look and know it had been tampered with, but Anya was past the point of no return — in terms of the desk, and her choices, and his opinion of her as a person.

Right away she saw there was no drive, just rolling charcoal pencils and a few illicit matches. Anya scooped the latter up on principle, even though she enjoyed the mental image of Inez dragging Owen by the ear like a misbehaving cadet, scolding him about fire and old paper.

The rest of the side drawers were empty or held nothing but junk; a burnt-out lightbulb, a brass eagle meant to screw onto a guidon pole, the water-stained pennant itself.

The long center drawer stuck in its tracks, so Anya fixed it until it broke. Definitely not junk in this one: a cigar case budged up against one side, next to a neat stack of papers and an old revolver.

Most importantly, though, she saw a corner of familiar waterproofed cloth…

She snatched it up, but cloth was all it was. No drive. Nothing else in the damn drawer, either. What would happen to them now, she wondered, briefly imagining Shaw doing his appearing act on the road west and getting knifed to death.

Sighing, Anya propped her feet up on the desk and helped herself to the cigar box. What were the chances he’d had counted them? High. But she wouldn’t leave empty-handed, or waste the matches.

Well, she’d kept her end of the deal. Not her fault Owen had gotten rid of the drive. Shaw would have to suck it up and…

There were no cigars in the box, just dull metal shapes pinned to cardstock. Frowning, Anya opened the curtains for a little more light.

A silver insignia was pinned to the top card — the number 99. Underneath, Owen’s familiar cramped handwriting spelled out ‘Connor’ in faded ink, with a date. A long time ago. He would’ve been about twenty.

The rest were there too. 16, no name, fresh ink. 34, Elin. 03, Juno. 86, Victor: the insignias from their Operative uniforms, their chosen names, the date they’d defected. Owen’s and Miles’ were black with age, the writing faded to illegibility. Was it sentimentality? Nostalgia?

23. Anya. She touched the little badge gently with her fingertip, heart in her throat, remembering hours of polishing. Aiden or someone in the hospital camp must have taken it before they burned the uniform and passed it on to Owen…

The box also held a bundle of yellowed letters that Anya itched to examine for blackmail material, but when she lifted them up…

Seven more squares of card stock were nestled underneath.

She pulled them out, stomach souring. 67, Thomas, and 01, Sparrow. 11, River. 51, Adam. 79, Scott. 00, Marcus. 29, Calla. Two dates for each, the end dates close together, all within a matter of weeks. Or days.

Violent static buzzed in Anya’s brain. Those names…the headstones. In the Red River plot. Not dogs after all. They’d fought there, and they’d all died there. Every single one of them.

Not Connor, though; he would’ve known them all, survived them all. Miles too. Aiden would have known them, would’ve maybe even grown up around them, but he hadn’t said a word, never, not one word from any of them…

She looked down at the silver pins. The box rattled as a tremor shook her hands. Was this all they were, even now? Disposable and forgettable? Tools of the trade, weapons of war?

Anya inhaled and exhaled on a four-count and visualized a long hallway of trapdoors opening to swallow her shock and confusion. As she imagined the comforting sound of all those doors slamming shut on the hurt and pain, her fingers touched a switch on the underside of the desk.

She depressed it, and heard a muted click as a false bottom popped up.

The secret compartment held some paper money and an Operative’s knife in a scuffed sheath. The number 74 was engraved on the dull blade just below the hilt. Owen’s.

Beside it was the drive.

Anya let her forehead rest on the desk for a moment. Then she scooped the drive up and put everything back together as best she could, wetting her finger and pressing splinters into place.

The box she kept, tucking it into her coat pocket. As an afterthought she took the revolver too. It was loaded. Felt and smelled well-maintained.

The brakes on her life had been cut and she wasn’t even in the driver’s seat. She was under the wheels.

And still there was work to do.