Blackout

“He was a journalist,” said Becks quietly.

 

“So he wasn’t trying to set himself up as the competition. Huh.” The Monkey looked toward where the Cat still sat calmly, fingers skating over the surface of her tablet. “Cat? Does what these people are saying have any merit?”

 

“Mmm-hmm,” she replied. She didn’t raise her head. She might as well have been responding to a question about whether she wanted soup for dinner.

 

The Monkey frowned, a flicker of irritation crossing his face. He pushed the Fox gently away from him. “Look at me while I’m speaking to you.”

 

The Cat still didn’t look up.

 

“Look at me.” The Monkey’s annoyance was entirely unmasked now. He didn’t look forgettable at all. “Jane. Put it down, look at me, and tell me what you did.”

 

“That’s not my name.” The Cat finally took her eyes off the screen. Her lips were pressed into a thin, hard line as she raised her head and glared at him. “My name is Cat.”

 

“Your name is scared little girl who couldn’t deal with all the boys who only wanted you for your body, but wished you’d put your brain in a jar so that they could fuck you and be smarter than you at the same time. Your name is ‘I took you in when you said you wanted out.’ Your name is ‘you came to me.’ I own you. Now what. Did you. Do?”

 

Carefully, like she was in no hurry at all, the Cat put her tablet aside. She stood and strolled over to us, stopping barely out of the Monkey’s reach. “You took the man from the CDC’s money. You said you’d build him the perfect disappearing girl—one who’d never set off any red flags or raise any alarms. And then you went into your damn workshop, like you always do, and you left me alone with Princess Crazy-Cakes here”—she gestured toward the Fox—“to entertain your client until he got bored and went away. He didn’t get bored. He knew how you worked. He was waiting for you to leave.”

 

“What?” The Monkey glanced at the Fox. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

 

She sniffled. “Kitty told me to go outside and play with the crows. We found a dead squirrel. I set it on fire.”

 

“Kids these days,” said Becks dryly.

 

The Monkey ignored her. His attention swung back to the Cat. “What did you do?”

 

“He offered me a hundred thousand dollars to plant a tracker in her state ID. You know how easy it is to bug those things. Just swap out the RFID chip for one that broadcasts what you want it to broadcast, and you’re in business.”

 

“You’re supposed to refer all business decisions to me,” he said in a low, dangerous voice.

 

“You would have said no.”

 

“Yes, I would. That isn’t how we do business.”

 

“Maybe it isn’t how you do business, Monkey, but times are changing, and you’re not changing with them. There are a lot of people out there offering services we aren’t. We need to stay competitive.”

 

“And that means going behind my back and getting half of downtown Oakland bombed?”

 

The Cat shrugged. “They only took out half.”

 

The Fox paused, a thought almost visibly struggling across her face. “Is this why you told me I should put things in their shoes?” she asked.

 

“Hold up there,” I said. “Whose shoes? What things?”

 

“Don’t freak out,” said the Cat. “They were tracking devices for the CDC to follow, so they’d be able to take out the horrible bastards who broke into their facility. They must have been too busy to come after you until you’d ditched the shoes. You got lucky.”

 

“That, or we were staying at the Agora,” said Maggie. “Best security screening technology on this side of the state. No matter how much those trackers were broadcasting, they wouldn’t have gotten through the shields.”

 

“I haven’t changed my shoes,” said Becks slowly. She looked at me. “Have you?”

 

“No.”

 

The Cat stared at us. Then she pointed at the door and started shouting, “Out! Get the fuck out of here! You have to leave!”

 

“What’s going on?” asked the Fox.

 

For a moment, I felt almost bad for her. Sure, she was crazy and homicidal, and probably the most dangerous person in the room, but she was also the one who had the least responsibility for her own actions. She needed to be taken care of, and the people she’d chosen to do that had used her as a weapon. That wasn’t her fault.

 

And it wasn’t my problem. “Kitty did a bad thing,” I informed her. Looking back to the Cat, I said, “Well? Turn them off already.”

 

The Cat licked her lips, eyes darting from me to the Monkey as she said, “I can’t.”

 

There was a moment when it felt like the world stood still, all of us considering the meaning of her words. Then Becks shouted, with all the authority of an Irwin in a field situation, “The van! Get to the van, get armed, and get Maggie out of the line of fire!”