There was a small stretch of New Destiny called Little Havana. It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it piece of real estate. A few blocks, tops. Mostly commercial with a few tenement-like buildings on the fringe. But it was also what Timony liked to call a blind spot. On the border of the American and Russian sections, it didn’t fall into either but touched both. It was a good place to get lost.
The name, of course, came from the cuisine. Decent Cuban food was hard to find anywhere on New Destiny, but your best chance was here. Not the gourmet shit you’d get at a resort or a hotel, but the good stuff. Flavorful and plentiful. No fusion dishes. Just hole-in-the-wall spots with lots of options and few questions.
But it was also a hotbed for people trying to skirt the law.
Illegal gambling. Some prostitution. Any drug you could name, and probably a few so new you couldn’t. Needless to say, it wasn’t along Timony’s usual route home. But it was a good default when looking for answers without the luxury of time to make a plan.
“Any leads?” Slade said into her earpiece. She was a few blocks away from Timony, heading into a tiny joint named Victor’s Café.
“Nothing yet,” Timony said. She’d stepped into an alley to discreetly look at her phone display, which revealed a basic map of the area. She could see two glowing blue dots—one was her, the other was Slade.
She needed a third.
She needed Illyana.
“What’s this woman got to do with your dead Russian stalker again?” Slade asked, then muttered an order for black coffee to whoever was working the counter.
“Illyana knows everyone,” Timony said, stepping back into the flow of traffic, pulling her hood over her head. “Madams tend to know the people in power in the neighborhoods they serve. She likes to stay off the grid, but I have a tag on her phone. What’s happening on your end?”
“Waiting for our boy Carvajal,” Slade said. “He was hesitant at first. Still doubt he’ll show.”
“Keep me posted,” Timony said, before disconnecting.
In the hours following the Russians slinking into the Bazaar, Slade and Timony wandered New Destiny, together for stretches, apart for most, but always in contact by earpiece.
Brainstorming, plotting.
They knew some things: The Russians had Oneida. She couldn’t get in touch with Tobin. Something major—perhaps a first contact—had happened out in space. But it was all being kept under wraps. Finding aliens was the kind of thing that would dominate any news cycle, the kind of story that would spread in seconds. But they didn’t see a story anywhere. There was a reason for that. A reason they had yet to understand.
The list of people they could trust was short, and consisted of the two of them.
The plan was simple: find another person they might be able to trust who could potentially help them—namely, Tobin. Tobin had power. He had contacts. But they didn’t know where he was. Until they could find him, they needed more information. And while Little Havana was a great place for drugs or sex or a backroom bolita game, the most valuable asset available for sale, by far, was intel.
Slade set up a meeting with Carvajal. She was going into it fresh, asking for help trying to decipher some black-market bank transactions, so hopefully he wouldn’t be spooked—at least not until Slade could brace him to dig deeper on the incident with Adan, see what else it would lead to. At this point, Slade didn’t trust that she’d be safe, looking for that information by herself.
Something was still scratching at the back of Timony’s head. Why had Oneida sent her after the least helpful hacker on New Destiny? He had every right to be cagey, but the speed at which he declined to even entertain her ask made her think something else was going on there.
But she needed to know more to be sure.
While Slade dealt with Carvajal, Timony needed to figure out what was going on with the Russians. Enter Illyana.
Any good spy has a buffet of sources. Contacts in various pockets and industries they can call on when trying to piece something together. The asks could range from Is this legit? To Can you risk your life here? Timony didn’t like asking for the latter, but she knew this ask might fall into that bucket.
Illyana made a good life for herself and her women on the fringes of New Destiny society. She ran a high-end service that catered to the powerful and wealthy. And Timony knew that the powerful and wealthy tended to talk while naked. Either boasting or bragging beforehand, or looking for a shoulder to cry on after the fact.
Politicians loved pillow talk. They just tended to do it with women who were not their wives.
But finding Illyana shouldn’t have been this hard. The madam floated between three brothels, but Timony couldn’t find her at any of them. Phone tracking was a last resort. In addition to working contacts on a basic human level, Timony was also paranoid as fuck, so she tagged all her sources. Some fun little code remotely transmitted to her phone, and boom: location services available 24-7. Illyana would have to get a new phone and wipe her cloud backup to shake it. Which was unlike the technophobic madam.
But given the lack of a third dot on her screen, maybe she had.
Or else the phone was just off.
Illyana had helped Timony a few years back—she’d been integral in averting a bombing during a diplomatic summit. She overheard a few alarming details when one of her girls reported back about a cheap john who refused to tip. The intel had helped Timony and Slade find the terrorists before they could do any real damage, and the summit went off without a hitch.
Since then, Illyana had remained an integral source, and if anyone knew what the Russians were stewing over, it’d be her.
Timony’s earpiece came on. She heard Slade talking—polite hellos. She heard another voice—male, nasally, and a little high-pitched.
Carvajal.
Slade was patching Timony in for a second set of ears. Good call.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Slade said. But the words were garbled, the reception spotty. Static exploded in Timony’s ears. She tried to keep moving, to find a better spot to stand, but the static only got thicker.
Then it clicked for Timony.
That was the reason Carvajal was cagey. He wasn’t just a tech wizard—he was a hacker. And hackers used signal blockers.
“You call, I answer,” Carvajal said. “Always happy to help the Bazaar. You tend to be good with the petty cash.”
More static. Timony missed Slade’s response completely, like the woman was speaking underwater, from a thousand miles below.
This was definitely more than just bad reception. She turned around and started walking toward Victor’s Café. Her pace picked up, her body reacting before her mind.
“—need to get into some servers . . .” Slade said before cutting out again.
Timony jabbed her earpiece further in, knowing it wouldn’t help, but needing to distract herself from the feeling of dread growing like a soap bubble in her stomach.
“—pretty risky to do that, big ask,” Carvajal said. “Hope you came with a nice, thick envelope—”
More static. Timony cursed under her breath.
Then her phone pinged. She looked at the display. Another dot.
Illyana.
Really bad timing, Timony thought. She watched as the red dot inched away from her and Slade’s respective blue dots. Wherever Illyana was going, she was moving fast.
Timony took a deep breath. She had to decide. Follow Illyana or stick around to back up Slade.
“—take care of you, don’t worry,” Slade said, the audio clearer now.
“Come with me,” Carvajal said, his voice low, almost impossible to track.
Timony watched Illyana’s red dot speed down Calle Ochenta. She turned and followed.
Slade was a big girl, Timony thought. She can take care of herself.
Then why did Timony feel like she was bailing on her friend?
She closed the gap on Illyana fast, finally seeing her in the distance. She was walking at a good clip—looking around and moving briskly, as if she didn’t want to be noticed but needed to put some distance between her and something. Someone.
Timony took a few long strides forward and reached out her hand and grabbed Illyana’s shoulder. The woman turned around to face her.
It wasn’t Illyana.
“Yes?” the woman asked in heavily accented English.
“Who are you?” Timony asked.
The woman backed up a few steps.
“You tell me,” she said, clearly struggling to find the right words. “You touch my shoulder.”
“Where’s Illyana?” Timony asked.
“Who?”
From behind, the blonde woman could have been anyone—could have easily been Illyana. But this woman was slightly older. Her face fuller. She grabbed the woman by the collar of her dress and patted her down, coming out with a phone. She couldn’t be sure if it was Illyana’s—all phones essentially looked alike—but Timony knew the make and model was far more expensive than this woman could afford, from the state of her shabby dress and beaten shoes.
“Who gave you this?” Timony asked.
“I don’t . . .”
Timony leaned in closer and dropped her voice to a growl. “I’m gonna give you one more chance—who gave you this?”
The woman paused, her face turning, as if searching for help that wouldn’t come. She finally spoke, “A skinny man. He gave me one hundred dollars. Said to just carry it around the neighborhood . . .”
Timony let the woman go. For a split second, she considered interrogating the woman for more information, but it was pretty clear this woman was a bystander, not a player. Anything she gleaned from the shakedown wouldn’t be worth the time spent on it.
Timony looked at her own phone display. She saw Slade’s blue dot. Unmoving. She tapped her earpiece. More static.
Then she realized what was happening and cursed under her breath.
She barely saw the fist that came sailing at her head.
Timony ducked back, the woman barely brushing her nose. Timony dropped into a squat and hammered her fist into the woman’s liver, furious at herself for brushing this woman off, the low moan escaping the woman’s mouth not enough to make up for Timony’s mistake. She’d been sloppy. She was too scattered. Her concern for Slade was distracting her.
Was she okay?
Timony ignored the Klaxon blaring in her head, telling her to run. She had to deal with what was in front of her. The woman stumbled back and grabbed Timony’s outstretched arm and sent a solid chop into her elbow, which shot a wave of pain up through it. Timony pulled back, stumbling a few paces away from Fake Illyana. She put her hands up in a fighting stance.
“You want to do it that way, we can do it that way,” Timony said.
The woman answered by pulling out a blaster.
Time slowed down. The muscle memory kicked in fast, as if Timony had never let the rust settle. As if she hadn’t been put on the sidelines, as if she hadn’t drunk herself stupid. She also knew this was a setup, something to keep her distracted, and she needed to end this quick. Whoever was behind this didn’t want her where Timony knew she needed to be.
Slade.
The static in her ear was gone. The connection was dead.
Timony’s heart beat faster, pounding inside her.
The woman lowered the blaster, starting to aim, but Timony dove forward before the woman could get a bead on her. She stepped around the woman, clamping the woman’s blaster hand, shoving it to the side. But as the woman’s arm moved, she fired—filling the air with a deep sizzling sound and the smell of burnt hair. Timony could feel the heat of the gun through her clothes, a burning sensation at her side. She’d been grazed, at the very least. But there wasn’t time to think about it. Timony twisted the woman’s wrist, hard, causing her to drop the blaster.
Before the pain of it could distract her, Timony sent her palm forward, slamming into the woman’s jaw. The crack she heard—followed by the low grunt of pain—told her she’d nailed it. As the woman toppled forward, Timony moved in, sending a knee into the woman’s midsection before shoving her down on the ground.
She caught sight of the blaster on the ground, a few inches from the woman’s midsection. Timony kicked it away. The clattering echoed down the empty alley. Timony stood over the woman, who was moaning—a long, growl-like sound, like a wounded animal—her hands covering her mouth, which was coated with blood. Timony sent a kick into her midsection.
“Who sent you?”
Moaning.
Another kick, sharper—toes hitting ribs. More moaning.
Timony crouched down. It’d been about a minute since she lost Slade’s audio.
“Who sent you?” Timony hissed, her mouth close to the woman’s face.
The woman, her face bloodied and bruised, turned toward Timony. She was smiling. Timony felt her entire body grow cold.
“You have no idea?” the woman said, her teeth coated with blood, a painful-looking gap where a tooth once resided. “Did you think you could stop this all by yourself, Timony?”
Timony grabbed the woman’s shirt and shook her, watched as she laughed—her head bobbing back, an evil, maniacal glee echoing down the vacant street.
“Who are you?” Timony asked again, hoping the repetition could change the result. But wasn’t that the definition of insanity?
Then static. A jumble of sounds in her earpiece.
“—the fuck off me. Who the hell—”
Slade.
Shit.
Timony let the woman drop, her strange, low laugh still rising up as Timony turned and ran back the way she came. She knew this was a bad idea. She knew that leaving the woman behind meant Timony would be losing any intel she could get out of her.
But she also knew Slade was in trouble.
“—ere’s your friend now?”
Jostling. Grunts. A crashing sound.
A scream of pain. A familiar voice.
Then silence.
Timony’s head was buzzing. Her every footfall felt like she was running through molasses. She couldn’t get there fast enough. The silence in her earpiece seemed to echo into itself.
The seven blocks between her and where she’d left Slade felt like light-years.
Timony finally saw the crumbling yellow facade, rounding the corner and dashing through the door. Her shoes skidded on the coffee shop’s linoleum floor. She knew what had happened before she looked down.
Before her knees hit the floor next to Slade’s body.
Before her fingers touched her neck and didn’t find a pulse.
Before she saw the bloodied footprints leading to a back stairwell.
“No, no, no, not now . . .” Timony said, running her hand over Slade’s jacket, trying to figure out what had happened. Her fingers found it. The wet, sticky wound in the middle of her chest—masked by the black clothing Slade always favored. Timony looked at her hand. Blood coated her fingers.
Slade’s ID badge was lying on the ground next to her. Probably whoever did this had rifled through her pockets and didn’t take it; they could be tracked if they did. Timony stuck the badge in her pocket and stood up.
She looked down at her friend. Saw the emptiness in Slade’s now-dead eyes. Timony thought she’d heard footsteps—fast, frantic, and getting further away. But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. She just sat on the floor next to Slade. Next to this woman she’d loved—this friend she’d trained from the beginning.
Next to this agent who, now that she wasn’t alive to hear her say it, Timony was certain was her better.
She felt the darkness of her hands—covering her eyes, hiding Slade’s broken and dead body from her vision. Just for a second. Just for a fleeting moment.
The void. She just needed the darkness. She needed to fade to black.