Where Futures End Page 17

  He noticed Aedric’s alien friend pulling off his goggles too, although Reef hadn’t seen him put them on. Had he been the one trying to hail him just now? Reef supposed a translation program would be the only way they could communicate. Cadence was already carrying her daughter toward the hallway, her goggles twined around her wrist. Reef abandoned the idea of getting them back. What would he even have to say to me? He had only one idea.

  “Hey.” He caught up to Cadence. “Did you ever read anything in the Girl Queen stories about a Fated Blade?”

  “I don’t remember. I stopped reading those stories a long time ago.”

  “Has Aedric ever mentioned it?”

  She turned to him in the mouth of the hallway. “Aedric always says nothing is fated, it’s just that some things happen in the right place, at the right time.”

  He looked at her holding some other guy’s kid, going home to some other guy’s apartment. “And some things don’t.”

  She reached over and trailed her fingers over Reef’s arm where his leech-hunter patch would show if she were wearing her goggles. “I wish I’d met you before I’d met Aedric. I think everything would have been different.” He caught her hand, moved close enough to kiss her again but felt unsure this time.

  A few bulbs winked to life around her. “If I get visas before Aedric does, will you leave him?” Reef blurted.

  She didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  He must have looked surprised at her quick answer, because she added, “Would you want to raise a daughter here?”

  The wispy hair escaping from Shasta’s ski cap was a halo, lit by a thousand bulbs. Reef’s gaze traced the outline of the girl’s tiny nose, her rounded chin. “She looks more like you than like Aedric,” he said.

  Cadence frowned. “She’s Croy’s.”

  More surprise, and then guilt for thinking she’d take Aedric’s daughter from him if she got the chance. Croy couldn’t know anymore that he had a daughter, not in the state he was in.

  Cadence looked away, and he wanted to tell her that he didn’t really think so poorly of her, but he could only step back and stuff his hands in his pockets and then she was gone, down the hallway and out the door.

  Aedric’s alien friend slipped past Reef to follow her but then stopped and turned back. “Aedric,” he said to Reef.

  Reef was hit with a sudden flash of suspicion and alarm. Not his own. He studied the alien’s face, but it was stoic as ever. “He’s not a good guy,” he said to the alien. “I get it.”

  The alien disappeared down the dim hallway. Reef stood against the wall, felt the music humming in his bones, saw pinpoint lights whether his eyes were open or not. He thought about Cadence warm against him, and about Shasta needing a father. He thought about what the three of them would look like on a poster all together. He wanted to leave but he waited until his head felt a little clearer. As he walked out, the lights on the map all flashed red. “Your move, China,” he mumbled to himself.

  The dream came to Reef a week later: His container was perched at the top of a thousand-container stack, so close to blue sky Reef was almost above it, lost to gravity. It was just him and sunlight in a field of vapor and gas and the tiniest water droplets. They were all wrong about the way to pass into the Other Place. This was the way, through color and light. He pulled a lever, released the prongs that clamped his container to the one below it, and lifted away.

  A heavy knock on the door dragged him back to earth. He lurched upright in bed and pushed aside a can of soup to peer through a peephole at the back of a shelf. “Olls?” But it wasn’t Olly out there hiding under the hood of a huge coat. Reef jolted back. His head slammed against another shelf. He let out a few whispered curses while he undid the locks and popped the door open.

  “Too early?” Cadence asked from under the hood.

  “No, I’m awake.” Or I am now, anyway. She was shivering in the cold and he wanted only to pull her inside and wrap his arms around her. But a familiar ache was starting up his bones. He stopped himself from looking around for his resin. Food would take his mind off it. “There’s a place around the corner that serves breakfast. Just like eggs, if you close your eyes while you eat it.”

  A paper bag appeared from under the coat. “I brought egg rolls. Close enough?”

  “All right, hang on.” His heart zigzagged inside his chest. He shrank inside and hurried to shove aside partitions to make room for another person to fit inside his cramped living space. He pulled down a bench-top over the bed, a table over the basin that served as a sink. Some of his stuff had to come down from their hooks to leave enough head room. I’ll be pissed if this turns out to be a dream, he thought.

  Cadence ducked inside and slid onto the bench. He sat on the table. His knees had never been so close to a girl’s knees before, not even the night he had not quite danced with her.

  “Is that a real book?” She tugged a paperback out from where it was wedged under a drawer. The drawer tilted precariously. “Looks like you.” The cover showed a man with a gas mask dangling over his chest. Reef looked down and realized he’d slept with his goggles around his neck. He let out a laugh and Cadence laughed with him. He reached to move a shelf jutting near her head but his hand went instead to her hair and then to her cheek. He nodded at the book. “That’s the Aeneid. ‘I sing of arms and the man.’” He spotted his tin on the floor next to her foot and his mouth went dry. “I always thought that would be a good name for a pub—The Arms and the Man.”

  This time she only smiled. He reached for the paper bag instead of the tin.

  “The sign could have two crossed arms like this.” He held an egg roll in each hand and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You have to imagine these egg rolls as guns to get the proper effect.” He was trying to get her to laugh again, but it wasn’t working. He suddenly remembered something she’d said the night before, about how the aliens had stopped wearing red bracelets because they got sick of everyone asking them for things. Why had she told him that? Because she wanted something from him?

  Because she was unhappy that he wanted something from her?

  He leaned his legs away.

  She fidgeted with the sleeves of her coat. “Aedric got into some trouble on the Floating Isle. He can’t go back there without risking his life.”

  Reef fought to keep his face blank against the surge of triumph he felt. There was no way now that Aedric could steal Cadence away to Canada.

  He shifted over next to her and rubbed his hand up and down her jacketed arm, his reservations forgotten. “I’ll make sure you have whatever money you need. I’ll run more instances—and I’ve got some Alt items I can sell—”

  “I’m taking a fourth husband. He has visas for me and Shasta.”

  Some invisible force slammed into Reef’s chest.

  Cadence hurried to add, “Once the three of us get to Canada it’ll be easier to get visas for the rest of you. I wouldn’t leave Croy otherwise, not like he is.” She rested her hand on his knee. He felt angry and excited all at once. “I’ll get a visa for you.”

  Reef put all his concentration into memorizing the feeling of her hand perched light as a bird on his knee. It was the only thing he could do to ignore the acid eating away inside his stomach. He remembered what Aedric had said to him once—that if Reef had claimed he could get visas for all of them, Aedric would have known he was a fraud.

  “I won’t let Shasta stay here one second longer than she has to,” Cadence said into her jacket collar. She couldn’t look at him. Her face was lined with regret.

  She moved toward the door and he caught her wrist. Her bones were like bird bones. The light coming through the ceiling vent showed the downy hair along her arm where her coat sleeve had slid back.

  “Good enough to grace your pub sign?” she asked, waggling her arm in his grip.

  He looked from her weak smile t
o the bed half hidden under the bench-top he was sitting on. He tried to think of some way he could stop her from leaving him.

  Her arm went rigid in his grip. “Don’t ask for more than I can give you,” she said.

  He shook his thoughts away. “I’m going to find a way to get a visa. I’ll follow you there, I’ll find you.” He had his arms around her waist, his face pressed against the zipper of her jacket. “I promise.”

  She moved her fingers through his hair and then stopped abruptly. He’d meant to make her feel better, but he’d only upset her more. The door popped open, but he hardly heard the sound. She left him with the feeling he was back inside his dream, pressed up against some glass ceiling and shut out of better worlds.

  Reef waited outside her apartment building while imaginary creatures passed by him unseen. He itched to put on his goggles, but he didn’t dare give in to the distraction. An un-enchanting fog hung in the air and left a chilly mist on his face. Aedric finally stepped out through the glass door of the building. He immediately turned to Reef as if he’d sensed him.

  “What’re we going to do?” The words came out before Reef even knew he was speaking them.

  Aedric paused to fit his goggles over his eyes and scan the street, oblivious to Reef’s anxiety.

  “He’s not going to get any visas for us,” Reef said.

  “No, he’s not.” Aedric took his time studying something through his goggles. Most likely an Alt character offering a quest. All Reef could see was a huddle of men gambling with food tickets. “Even the kind of money they’ve got on the Floating Isle can only get a person so far.”

  “So what’re we going to do? She’s going to Canada without us. Can’t you use your vorpal to get us visas?”

  “Don’t you think I’ve been working on getting visas for a long time now?”

  Reef’s frayed nerves exploded. “Well, where are they?” he snapped.

  Aedric snatched off his goggles and glared at Reef. “I think I know how we can get one visa real easy. Don’t you?” A few of the men had turned to stare at them. Aedric lowered his voice. “Her newest recruit—Breck. He’s got a visa for himself as well as for her and Shasta.”

  “We’re just going to take it from him? His vorpal’s got to be stronger than yours if he lives on the Floating Isle.”

  Aedric scowled. A food truck rumbled up the street, and the men in the alley scrambled to meet it, tickets in hand. Reef couldn’t help watching the kitchen steam pour out as the truck opened. Aedric didn’t even glance at it.

  “Breck’s been salivating over this epic item in the dungeon inside the Georgetown steam plant,” Aedric said. “A silver scepter. I told him I knew a guy with a level three hundred sword who could help us get to it.”

  Level 301, Reef thought.

  “We run the instance with him,” Aedric went on. “Let him wear your goggles so he can use your epic sword, kill the Bristle Beast, and get the silver scepter that the beast drops. You’ll have to wear his goggles, of course, since he’ll be wearing yours. So while he’s busy fighting off mages, you’re busy searching through his hard drive for that visa.” He tossed a tiny disc at Reef. “Save it to disc—”

  “Why don’t I just send it through the chat channel?”

  “How many people do you think have heard him talk about getting a visa? How many of them do you think would like to intercept it when some idiot sends it through a chat channel?” Aedric glanced at the line of men waiting for their handouts, as though they were the ones plotting to intercept stolen visas. “Save it to the disc and then give it to me. I know how to erase Breck’s info from it so it’ll be good as new.”

  Reef resisted the urge to roll his eyes. You don’t think I can figure it out if you can? “And the other visas? For me and Croy?”

  Aedric gave him a blank look. “She didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  He let out a huff. “She’s in denial. Croy took a turn.”

  “A turn? You mean he’s dead.”

  “Will be soon enough. Too many drugs, or not enough—I’ve lost track of it.” Aedric put his goggles back on, used his electronic glove to flick through his inventory. “He’s in the hospital, but for all I know he’s already gone.” Flick, flick.

  Reef’s stomach tightened. The bitter taste of resin or fear filled his mouth. Someday that’ll be me, he thought. Will anyone care?

  Aedric tossed an invisible item into the gutter—dropping some vial from his inventory, probably. Reef heard a ping from Aedric’s earpiece that meant he had completed some task or quest. “I can get another visa,” Aedric said, taking off his goggles. “When that silver scepter drops, Breck will want you to pick it up so that it’ll go to his account—because you’ll be wearing his goggles. Then you can gift the silver scepter to my contact before Breck realizes what you’re doing. You and Breck swap goggles back and we get away fast. The money we get for the scepter should be enough to put us just over the edge of what he’s asking for a visa.”

  It all sounded too convenient. And he hadn’t forgotten the warning Aedric’s alien friend had given him.

  He watched a skirmish break out in the line at the food truck. On the back of the truck, a faded poster showed the president frowning with determination or disapproval—Reef couldn’t say which. “How do I know you won’t screw me over?”

  “You talking to me or him?” Aedric joked, nodding at the poster.

  “He’s already done his share,” Reef said. “Moved to Canada and closed the gate behind him. But I guess that’s how it goes when you’ve got the strongest vorpal. Right?”

  Aedric smiled so that Reef could see the breakfast still lodged in his teeth. He looked at the poster. “Tough choice to make, wasn’t it? On the one hand, you can let the guy with a strong vorpal take over, call the shots. Or you can sit on your hands, afraid, and wait until some outsider takes over.”

  Reef snorted. “You’re saying you want me to choose whether to be screwed over by you or by Breck? Or are we still talking about Mega America and Great China?”

  “I’m saying I rather prefer our own genetically created tyrant. I’m saying it wasn’t such a bad choice to make.”

  Reef shook his head. But what else could he do? He needed a visa and Aedric was right—the easiest way to get one was from a guy they knew already had one.

  He still couldn’t stifle the unease spreading through him with the chill of the fog. “I’ll bring my friend Olly along. We’ll need more than just the three of us.”

  “Four of us. You met my contact from the Other Place.”

  The alien, Reef thought, and his unease grew. “If this guy Breck lives on the Floating Isle, how did Cadence even meet him?”

  “I introduced them,” Aedric said. But if he was upset about it, Reef couldn’t tell. He only pulled his goggles back over his eyes and turned down the side street. “Georgetown, nine o’clock.”

  The Georgetown steam plant was a boxy concrete building whose long skinny windows and razor wire blockade lent it the look of a prison. Huge black funnels protruding from the top were sentinels. Reef and Olly shivered in the fog while they waited outside a doorway someone had cut in the nest of wire.

  “You’re shaking,” Olly said.

  “I’m just cold.” Reef doubled over and tried to resist the urge to puke. He’d been stupid to let himself move up to two doses a day. There was no way he could hold out until after they ran the instance. And while getting high made Alt more immersive, it also seriously messed with his focus.

  “I’m not going in there with you like this,” Olly said. “I’m not saying I don’t really need to grab some items I can sell, but . . .”

  Reef fidgeted with his goggles. “Yeah, sorry I haven’t been around to—”

  Olly cut him off. “If my character gets killed here, I have to run all the way to the metro station and back
before I’ll be allowed to resurrect.”

  “A little exercise wouldn’t kill you.”

  “You’re right. Maybe I can talk Seattle into installing a few more hills under its streets.”

  “Give me a second.” Reef moved off into the dark by himself and opened his tin. He promised himself that he wouldn’t let his focus drift.

  A figure emerged into the light from the goggles around Reef’s neck. “Level Three Hundred,” Aedric said in greeting.

  “Three oh one,” Reef corrected.

  “Ready to swap?” Aedric nodded to another guy who was trudging through the tall grass of the empty lot. “This is Breck.”

  Breck’s wide grin was friendly enough, but his chemically bleached skin and blue contact lenses lent him a spectral look. “Hey there.” His vorpal was like an envelope of air holding him apart from the rest of them. Reef thought it was making the grass at Breck’s feet ripple, but he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t imagining it. It was the strongest vorpal Reef had ever encountered, and this was the guy he was supposed to fleece.

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself. As long as he doesn’t suspect anything, it’s not a problem.

  Breck reached to shake Reef’s hand like they were old friends. Reef yanked his goggles off his neck instead and handed them over.

  “Oh, right. We’re getting started?” Breck tugged at a zipper on his form-fitting raincoat and produced his own pair of goggles. “Careful now. New model.”

  Reef pulled the goggles over his head and gave Aedric a quick glance. Aedric’s usually blank face was full of loathing for Breck. He turned to say something to his alien friend on his other side.

  “Olly will be the tank.” Reef pointed back to where Olly was loading himself up with imaginary armor. “Breck, you hang back and do far-ranged attacks. If anything zeroes in on you, get close to Olly so he can take the damage.”

  “Right, right,” Breck said, wiggling Reef’s goggles into place over his eyes. “We’ll all get ourselves to Canada in no time.” He flashed another smile that made his cheeks bulge under the weighty goggles. Reef bottled his rage. Save it for the dungeon, where you’ll need it, he told himself.