Unity, Elly Bangs [best mobile ebook reader txt] 📗

passed him all the hard money I carried, without subtlety.

He gave me a cautious look but started to take the metal from my palm. Suddenly he drew back, wincing. “Sweet Jesus.”

I looked down at my mangled hand and pursed my lips apologetically. There was much more blood than I’d realized, dripping and pooling across the fine leather surface of his desk; probably I’d left a trail all the way from my tantrum at the watchtower.

“Pardon me,” I said.

“Good God, Rutger. Those fingers are torn half off at the knuckle.”

“So they are,” I said. I reached behind my back to discreetly squeeze the bones back into place as far as they would go, pausing between wet snapping noises to say, “Please, sir. I need that destination.”

“East to Phoenix, via Greenglass,” he answered in a horrified daze. “Get yourself a damn medkit, will you?”

“Are there any other trucks going that way?”

He craned his neck to stare past me, at the blood I was dripping on his fine carpet. “Tomorrow morning at oh-eight-hundred, but they’re—”

“I need to get there as soon as possible,” I interrupted. “Can I pay extra to arrange an earlier passage? Money is no object.”

“I can’t. All my wheels are already on the road. Aren’t you in some kind of pain? Are you sure you don’t need a bandage or—?”

“May I buy a truck?”

He blinked slowly. “Come again?”

“I want to buy a truck that can take me to Phoenix. Name any price. Squid, metal, barter. Anything.”

He stood there flabbergasted for a while before finally answering, “I’m sorry, but I . . . There’s just nothing here with that kind of cell capacity. The next truck that can make that haul comes in tomorrow morning around eight.”

I sighed and ruled out hijacking.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll be back then.”

On my way out I stopped into the bathroom trailer, where I hunched over the sink and worked to scrub my hand clean and wrap it up in my handkerchief. I paused to pick out a loose bit of meat that would only become infected. Whatever pain I felt was just a low hum in the back of my awareness, but I kept my head down to shield myself from the mirror. The closeness of my reflection tugged at me with all the gravity of a black hole. One glance and I’d be lost in self-hypnosis for who knew how long.

The alpha copy was waiting for me on the street outside the depot. He was wearing the flesh of a wealthy man, complete with suit and tie. His vessel’s resources had been instrumental in funding the search for Sybil.

The briefcase—my so-familiar briefcase—hung from his hand.

“You’re late,” I told him.

“And you failed,” he said. “Why?”

“She’s accompanied by two armed men. If you had been here as we planned, we would have her. She would be ours right now. Do you understand that?”

He glared; of course he understood. He grabbed my hand by the wrist to hold it up for his inspection, as if it was his own—which it was, in a sense. “You’re injured. You’ve damaged your flesh.”

“It was an accident. I was . . . frustrated. It’s irrelevant. Tomorrow we can follow them by truck.”

“Is there no faster option? Nothing at all?”

“I’ve exhausted every alternative.”

We were glaring at each other, the alpha copy and me. How I hated this. I hated that there were two of us. It was a necessary evil: given the absolute necessity of my finding Sybil and the complexity of my pursuit, I had needed to increase my reach. One sacrificial copy to incite chaos in Bloom City and track her to the surface, then two copies to ensure I could follow her after that. That was the plan.

“I hate this,” said the alpha copy. “I hate that there are two of us. I wish it weren’t necessary—”

“I know. Secure your own accommodations. Rest and gather supplies. Meet me here at dawn and we’ll proceed from there. Do you agree?”

It was a rhetorical question. Of course we agreed. Without another word, I turned away.

“Where are you going?”

“Home,” I said.

As I walked, I had to stop myself from grinding my teeth to bits again. I realized what would have to come next. In all this excitement, I had forgotten the life I’d been leading before today. With some effort, now, I reprised the role: adopting Rutger’s mannerisms, settling back into his gait.

“You’re late,” his wife (already I was thinking of her as that) said to me when I arrived. “I called work. They said you went out on your lunch break and never came back. What happened?”

“I’m sorry, babe.” I adjusted my accent and cadence. I returned her hug, bending slightly to accommodate her pregnant belly. “Shit luck. I took a schematic out on my break to look over, and some kid, twelve years old tops, ripped it out of my hands and took off. Probably thinking to sell the tablet.”

“That’s awful! Did you get it back?”

“Yeah, I tracked him down, convinced him he couldn’t sell it for crud. No harm done. Hurt my hand hopping a fence, but it’s okay. Just a wild goose chase and some lost work.”

“Thank goodness you’re okay. I was worried.”

“No harm done.”

As we ate dinner—and later, as we fornicated—I was preoccupied. Things would have to be put in order. Arrangements would have to be made to cover my exit. I’d need to assemble a new identity, forge new documents, find a new name, bury my trail. It was nothing I hadn’t done a hundred times before, but never in such a hurry—and even if my assumption of Rutger’s life had always been part of my plan to find Sybil, I had worked so hard make that life my own. It was a shame to cast his flesh off so prematurely.

“Are you awake?” Rutger’s wife asked me as we lay in the darkness.

I nodded with my eyes closed and laid my hand on her belly, the way I knew she expected me to.

“Can I ask