No wonder he’d kept offering Layne another round first.
Hwa kept her attention on the bartender’s hands as he mixed the drinks. He kept his hands in full view, focusing on them in a way that seemed intentional. Maybe that was part of his contract, too. Hwa watched him pour the last two drinks for her and Layne. Nothing amiss. Then the bartender retrieved the next face in the queue, and began mixing a martini. He switched to thermal vision. He focused on the shaker.
Something flashed bright white in his vision.
It was there, and then it was gone; the bartender flipped over to focus-detection and the flash vanished, like he was trying to rid himself of a common glitch. Hwa was just a shadow Layne was talking to. Then Layne fell. Then Hwa moved. The other faces in the room scattered away from them, focused on them and not the bartender, depopulating his vision. Hwa twitched back along the reel. She landed on the right moment. There in the centre, frozen in that single second, the blazing white shape loomed.
“It’s him.”
Hwa nodded. “Aye. But what would he want with Layne?”
Síofra watched her carefully. “Do you not see it?”
“See what?”
Síofra logged in. He had a whole folder to show her. He twitched back along footage until he found the place he wanted. Hwa recognized the weigh station within the Angel from Montgomery almost immediately. Once more, she saw herself in thermal vision.
And there, behind her, that blinding white heat in the shape of a man.
“But…” She couldn’t look away from the image. “Joel’s the one with the death threats.”
“And you’re the one with a stalker.”
“But…” Hwa frowned. “That would mean that whoever switched the rounds during the drill … killed Layne.”
“Perhaps your friend picked up the wrong drink, Hwa.” He looked toward the air mattress. “May I have one of those pillows, please? Dawn isn’t for a few hours.”
*
Hwa didn’t hear him leave. She didn’t properly remember falling asleep, either. They’d been discussing next steps, and then for some reason he started telling a very long story about a job he’d done at a reactor in Vladivostok, and it involved an explanation of Russian baths, and talk of hot steam and cold pools, and how you had to be careful not to go to sleep in the sauna, and she thought it would be fine to close her eyes, just for a minute. After that, she slept until the door buzzed her awake.
“I didn’t order this,” Hwa said, squinting outside at the delivery man holding tiffins of food.
“T’were a gentleman’s name on the order, Miss. Said your head were right logy.”
Hwa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Aye. He’s not wrong.”
She brought the tiffins in and opened them. The kitchen looked different. Cleaner. Neater. Good Christ, he’d done the dishes. His performance reviews weren’t kidding about that quest for perfection.
“You didn’t have to do the dishes,” she said, when she called.
“Good morning to you, too.”
“And thank you for breakfast.”
“I thought it might help. Do you plan to go to school with Joel?”
“Aye.”
“And after that?”
She had stuffed the shirt with Layne’s blood into a self-sealing pouch. Hopefully its time on her floor hadn’t contaminated it. “Have to see a man about a blood sample.”
“And where is he, now?”
Hwa shook her head, then remembered he couldn’t see. “You’re not coming.”
“Hwa—”
“It’s not your kind of place,” she said quickly. “You’re too…” Pretty, she wanted to say. “You’re too fancy.”
“You would feel the need to protect me.”
Hwa rolled her smile inside her mouth. “Aye, and I already have one bodyguarding job. Which reminds me, I want you to call Joel and take him out somewhere, when my shift ends.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere. Just get him out of the flat.” Hwa cleared her throat, thinking of Zachariah’s softbot coiling one of its many arms around her neck. “He asked me to come live there with him. Joel did.”
“That’s sudden. Are you sure the two of you aren’t moving too fast?”
“Very funny.” She contemplated the air mattress and the boxes. Síofra had slept on a yoga mat with a blanket spread over it. “I’d be in Tower Five a lot.”
“That would make things easier.” He coughed. “Running, for example.”
“Aye. Running.”
*
School was fine, but Mr. Branch was sick for the day, so science club didn’t meet. Hwa suggested they do a full circuit, just to burn off the day, but Joel wanted to keep working on his project in the library. At least, that was what he said in order to get her into the library. His story changed the moment they were inside.
“What do you have here that’s about serial killers?” Joel asked.