“So I’m told.”
The power tech hustles me toward an empty stretch of wall, away from the cranky complaints lobbied from the staircase and the static voices from the wall-screen’s newscast. He jerks his head at Deep Voice. “He’s not wrong. This ain’t no place for you.”
“It’s for my dad.”
“You’d land your dad here?”
“He can’t stay with me.”
The power tech doesn’t answer. His face expounds for him.
I’m a god-awful daughter. Suitable spawn for a god-awful mom.
“Look,” I start, and the lights go out. Again.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say, and the room agrees—loud and pissed. One power-out isn’t that unusual, but two in succession? That’s not a city power-grid glitch, that’s a faulty tower circuit. Harsh voices clamor between “I want a damn refund!” and “This is unacceptable, you hear me, Gerry?”
The power tech doesn’t join in.
“You looked into the circuits here?” I ask. “It’s your job, right?”
“I don’t work for free,” says the techie.
The wall-screen flickers on in the opposite corner. Nothing else, not the lights or the fans, just the lone screen in the dark.
“Attention,” says a sleek female voice, light and razor-edged. “If I could borrow your attention for a sec.”
Mom.
My heart falls out of my mouth and I can’t feel my hands.
Mom.
The screen crackles and there she is. Smiling with her too-wide mouth, dark hair swept high. Her airy purple blouse has the Archivist symbol stitched into the collar. The same hairstyle and blouse she wore the night she died.
The night she blew up the House Archive.
“That’s better,” she says. “Now, I assume you all know who I am? Excellent. Then you know you cannot stop me. I hope you’ve enjoyed your ravaged energy, but this is the end. You will be held to Account.”
The feed fizzes, separates into static, stringy color that realigns into an ad for upmarket shoes. Sleek men’s shoes with low heels. The same ad that pops up between everyday feedshows. Regular programming.
The lights return. Blare. Colors and movement and a host of raised voices, none of them Mom’s.
She’s dead.
She was right here.
She’s dead.
“Hey.” A hand touches my arm, and I jump from my skin.
I swing round. “What?”
The power tech, eyes pissed and mouth determined. “Wasn’t that your mother? What the hell?”
I shake him off. “I can’t talk about this.”
I can’t think about this. I can’t even breathe.
My chest cycles windstorms. All I do is breathe.
She’s dead.
That was her voice. I’d forgotten.
No, I hadn’t. She talked in my dream. And even if she didn’t, she’s a hack-bomber who kills people, so what do I care?
The techie clasps my arm. “What do you mean you can’t talk about it? She’s on the damn feeds, girl! That ain’t a luxury you get.”
“What do you want me to say? She’s dead.”
The room roars, fear and anger. The righteous indignation of the wronged. They do know her, have been hurt as the whole city has been hurt. Punished for the bloodlings’ past sins.
Mom held the rear access door of the Archive open for me that night. Snuck me past security. “I’m so glad you came!” she’d said, like a little kid. Like we were getting away with something. “I was afraid I wouldn’t get to show you where I worked.”
My museum tour had run late, and I didn’t think I’d make her highly specific time frame. Something to do with guard rotations. “I could have just come tomorrow,” I said.
She smiled. She had a pretty smile. “No, you really couldn’t.”
“What did she mean?” asks the techie, shaking me a little. “What was she on about? What ‘end’?”
I twist out of his grasp. “I don’t know, okay?”
And I don’t, except that Mom’s vengeance always meant paying back in kind.
“Hey, you!” says another and all too familiar voice. “Back off her!”
Greg. Lean, lanky, pretty in an oily way. His shirt was nice once, a paisley button-up that was probably somebody else’s. The sleeves are too long. So are his curls. They flop into his eyes, oily and frizzy at once. He sidles up next to us, strutting manfully while also taking care to keep me between him and power tech’s beefy frame.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“What do you think?” His glare balances between lethal and sullen. “Some of us don’t have anywhere else to live.”
I clutch my head. Of course. Of course. If it isn’t Mom’s fault, it’s mine. And it’s not like this isn’t the place I helped Greg get a room in before, way back when we were still speaking. What did I expect?
“The real question is, what are you doing here?” Greg flicks my hair off my ear, shaky knuckles brushing my temple. “This looks like hell, by the way.”
“So do you.”
He grins. The same grin he gave me when we were kids, missing tooth and all. His hand drops to my shoulder and rubs. “Aw, rough day?”
“This your boyfriend?” The power tech’s disapproval is almost tactile.