“And take that hair out of your face. I like seeing people when I speak to them.”
Hwa tried to secure the left parting of her hair behind her ear. When she met Séverine’s gaze, the older woman smiled. “That’s better.” She turned her gaze to the kitchen door, and out walked Nail and Rusty, bearing a silver tea set and a tower of pastries on their respective trays. The men set each tray down silently and stood, staring at Séverine.
“Rusty, please tell Hwa about her breakfast.”
Rusty was Nail’s opposite: short where the other man was tall, talkative and not silent, gingery blond and not dark. He gestured at each item as he described it. “Good morning. For breakfast you have Earl Grey tea, steamed egg custard with smoked salmon, laminated croissants with bakeapple filling, and goat’s milk yogurt topped with blueberry-verbena compote.”
Séverine began removing her gloves. “Thank you, Rusty. The two of you may leave. I’ll ring for you when we’re finished here.”
Both men bowed, and took their leave. Hwa reached for the teapot, but Séverine shooed her hand away. “I’ll pour. You may begin assembling your plate. The tongs are just there.”
The china Séverine favoured was so thin Hwa could perceive light through it. The sight of her own grubby fingers on it made her wince. She grabbed one of everything and waited for Séverine to finish pouring. Then she waited as the other woman took her time putting together her plate, unrolling her napkin, and choosing her cutlery. She weighed her spoon in her hand thoughtfully, as though evaluating a weapon.
“I have work for you today, Hwa.” Her spoon slid into the custard and along the edge of the ramekin to bring up a steaming lump of yellow flecked with pink. “Rusty and Nail are going to the handoff, and I want you to escort them.”
Hwa swallowed her yogurt. She had never been to the new platform. After the Old Rig exploded, the town had voted to build another. But it hadn’t come cheap. It was part of why all the other companies were pulling out, and how Lynch could buy the town so cheap. What remained of the old platform waved halfheartedly from beneath the water like a veteran waggling an accusatory stump at passersby. Whenever her train swerved over it, she made sure not to look. If the dead caught you looking, they might start looking back.
“I understand if it’s difficult for you.”
“It’s not difficult.” Hwa plunged her spoon into the savoury custard with a bit too much force.
“And for this job, it will be necessary for you to escort the boys at a distance. Be as unobtrusive as possible.”
Hwa frowned. “Wait a second.” She hunched over her knees, slouching be damned. “You want me to spy—”
“Oh, hush. I’m not asking you to do anything untoward. Just follow them and make sure they’re safe, as with any other job.” Séverine watched Hwa over the rim of her teacup. “This town is changing, Hwa. My boys want to see that change happen. But I’ve already watched my share of train wrecks.”
*
The new platform afforded good views of the other towers and their windmills. There was her tower, Tower One, the oldest and most decrepit with grimy capsule windows jutting out at pixel intervals, and Tower Two, all glass bubbles and greenery piled like a stack of river rocks, and Tower Three, made of biocrete and healing polymers, Tower Four, gleaming black with solar paint, and Tower Five, so far out on the ocean that it was easy to forget it was even there. It had been designed by algorithm, and its louvers shifted constantly, like a bird fluffing its feathers up against the cold. Occasionally this meant getting a sudden blinding flash of glare when the train zipped past it, or when a water taxi approached its base. Hwa’s old Municipal History teacher said the designers referred to the towers by their respective inspirations: Metabolist, Viridian, Synth, Bentham, and Emergent. There was an extra credit test question on it, once. Mr. Ballard wrote her a nice note with a smiley face in the margin when she got it right. Now she couldn’t seem to get rid of that little factoid.
She watched Rusty and Nail milling through the crowd. Rusty kept shading his eyes. Nail stood stoically, eyes narrowed to the sun, seemingly unperturbed. He’d remembered to turn his eyes on, apparently.
From the sky, she heard the guttural churn of a chopper homing in on the platform. It bore the Lynch logo. As one, the crowd surged closer to the stage. Rusty and Nail must have moved with them, because she saw no sign of them at the edges of the crowd.
Then the explosions started.