Jesi and I didn’t talk much about what happened. I felt like a complete prick when he’d tried so hard to make it good for me, and he just felt guilty, I knew. Ajui must have known what was going on, but he said nothing about it on the six-hour train journey to Kar-det-wei. No one said much at all. Ajui and Parido talked a bit, but even though Jesi had paid for a private compartment, they kept being interrupted by conductors and other service staff, so they had to be careful what they said.
Jesi hadn’t got that much sleep, which was my damn fault. I wanted him to nap on the train, but he looked at Ajui and shook his head. “No. He won’t be able to talk to Parido if I’m asleep. Make the most of it, Tinun.” No one explained why it might be a good idea to make the most of it now. No one had to.
Ajui was made up again as a sick man, but there were plenty of people who didn’t need make-up to look like they were dying. The entire train was packed with the sick, the desperate, their carers and even, I learned from conversations I caught the few times I wandered off just to get away from the tense atmosphere in the compartment, people who had lost loved ones and were looking for consolation. It was all completely fake, I knew. The shrine had been created entirely by the Exalted, using a phoney holy seer and some elaborately set up mock cures, and people’s imagination and desperation did the rest. The irony was, Parido had told me, that the power of hope and the human mind had actually managed to create a few genuine ‘miracle’ cures, which had only increased the shrine’s reputation. Every so often, one of the Exalteds’ pet seers would have ‘visions’ and claim to communicate with the dead using simple telepathy to pull key information from the heads of their dupes.
They hadn’t used any of their Bridges for this—the existence of Bridges was considered too great a secret to reveal, even for the sake of keeping their shrine operating, and they didn’t need them to pull off their con job. It was a sweet and lucrative deal—and yet for the Exalted, it brought in nothing more than pocket change compared to their worldwide activities. Luiz swore once this mission was over, she was going to do what she could to get the ESF to investigate this group. Parido had only given her a cynical smile and wished her luck. No one had told her about ESF’s other activity—Jesi was determined to keep her as uncontaminated as he could. He wanted her to be able to go back to work, even if he couldn’t.
Having seen the shrine and the surrounding development, I was prepared for it. Jesi stood outside the train station, mouth slightly open in shock, looking at the amulet sellers, the holy men swinging incense and bawling out prayers on the corners and at every lamp post and street sign, people hawking accommodation, transport, bottles of lake water and tickets to the inner sanctum at the temple, and everywhere the sick, the dying, and the bereaved, lost, tired and desperate to get away from the noisy, over-colourful crowds. Here and there I saw the dark red uniforms of the Exalteds’ guards. Seemed to me like there were more of them today, but maybe they’d just got shifted around.
“Tacky, ain’t it,” Ajui said briefly. “I’m hungry. Where are we staying?”
They took an incredibly overpriced taxi to the hotel half a kilometre from the station, and endured the fake piety and solicitousness of the receptionist before being taken up to a room that was a bit less grimy than the one where we’d found Ajui hiding, but about ten times more tasteless. “Well if I wasn’t dying before I came in, I sure would be now,” Ajui said, throwing himself onto the bed—something I wouldn’t have touched without wearing a full coverall, mask and gloves. “Does this dump have room service?”
Jesi tossed him the menu. “Have whatever you like, then I’m going for a walk to scope out the site.” He made a call on his personal line to Luiz, saying they were there and getting into position. I recognised he was now in mission mode, impatient to get on. But it would be tomorrow at the earliest before he could get into position, which meant a bit of thumb twiddling. He was also avoiding looking at me. I knew why—but I didn’t know how to make it right between us.
Watching Ajui shovel food into his mouth like it was about to be made illegal wasn’t one of my pleasures, but Jesi didn’t seem to mind. He didn’t really seem to notice, like none of it was important. Ajui keep shooting him hard looks like he was reading his mind but didn’t like what he saw.
When he’d finally finished stuffing his face, he grabbed Jesi’s wrist. “Your shields ain’t that good, kid. You gotta concentrate. Them Exalted are more powerful than me. If they get a bead on you, then they can pick your head wherever they are. You’re getting sloppy.”
“Sorry,” Jesi murmured. His expression became intent for a few moments. “Is that better?”
Ajui nodded. “Yeah. Just keep working on it. You’re gonna need to be real locked down when you get close to that ceremony chamber.”
“Yes, I know,” he said, accepting the correction, then he stood. “All right, I’m going to play tourist. Tinun, keep out of sight. You’re sick.”
“You say the sweetest things, Jesi,” Ajui said with a grin.
Jesi turned to Parido. “Can you...give me some privacy? With Nev?”
“Of course. Just one thing—some of the guards are also telepathic, and others are empaths. You can’t afford to drop your shields at all. You’re not safe even here. Many of the staff in these hotels work for them too.”
“Understood. Thank you,” he said to Parido and Ajui both. “I was getting distracted.”
Parido shot me a narrow-eyed look. “Yes. We need to avoid that, don’t we, Langse?”
“Already on it, Parido. Come on, Jes.”
It was mid-afternoon and I guessed it was probably hot from the bright sun and the red faces of the people passing us. “Which way’s the laundry?” Jesi asked, keeping his voice low. I pointed in the direction and we headed that way.
There were four likely businesses that had dealings with the guards and the Exalteds’ infrastructure. Parido had already picked out two as being vulnerable to corruption or threats, and after seeing them for himself, Jesi agreed. A fresh meat supplier looked the most promising as it had a delivery scheduled late the following afternoon, and I’d picked up on the owner grousing about his unreliable casual assistant.
“Tinun can work on him tonight—tomorrow, we’ll visit,” Jesi said, as we stood around the corner from the butcher’s store. “If we don’t succeed in persuading him to call in sick, I’ll disable him and Tinun can convince the owner to take him on.”
We were pinning a lot on Ajui’s powers of persuasion, and there had been a short but unpleasant argument between him and Jesi about how to handle things. The little prick thought we should just shoot a business owner and his assistant, and go in masquerading as a legit delivery. Jesi pointed out rather forcefully that, as the nominal good guy on this operation, he wasn’t going to kill any innocent civilians no matter who their customers were. “There ain’t no such thing as an innocent civilian,” Ajui had growled, tapping his temple. “Trust me on that.”
“Leave me with my illusions,” Jesi had said dryly. “No unnecessary killing.”
“Hey, I never killed nobody unnecessarily in my life!”
“Your definition of ‘necessary’ needs some work then,” I’d pointed out. “Because ‘you’re in my way’ isn’t a good enough reason.”
“It is to me. It is if I don’t like ‘em neither.”
Jesi had glared at Ajui until the little prick had backed down and shut up. Still wasn’t sure he wouldn’t off someone when we weren’t looking but there was only so much we could do to control him.
The sun was getting low. Ajui was going to scope out the casual driver after supper. We still had three hours or so to kill. “What’s your plan B?” I asked.
“Try and get into another delivery vehicle, but I don’t like the odds. Parido thought this had the best chance of success.”
“Sixty-one percent isn’t a certainty.”
“No.” He stopped, looked at me. “The only certainty is that we all die sooner or later. I want to talk to you, Nev. Let’s see if there’s space on that beach.”
We had to walk a ways from the shrine. To the north end of the development was the original village of Kar-det-wei, which had existed long before the Exalted had laid their twisted plans. On the far side, which was a good two kilometres away from Jesi’s hotel, we found ourselves on a shingle beach with hardly a soul—living or dead—to disturb us. Jesi made himself comfortable, and stared out over the silver-blue lake, towards the distant mountains on the other side. It was gorgeous here, if you could ignore the high-rises behind us. “Wonder if this will keep going if the Exalted are gone?” I said.
“I suspect it’s got a momentum now that no one can stop. People’s ability to delude themselves will triumph,” he said quietly, before looking at me. “Like us. Thinking we can make this work.”
There. He’d said it and we couldn’t dance around it any more. “I...think it would be best if I moved on. When this is done. I mean, if I hadn’t been a Bridge, it’d have been over for us. That’s how it goes.”
“Except I’d be dead.”
What I’d give to be able to just...touch him. I gritted my teeth, told myself to stop wishing for the impossible. “Yeah, well that’s crap. If everyone who lost a lover killed themselves, the world would stop working. I don’t want you at that price, Jes. I won’t forgive you if you do it, I swear. I love you, but that’s the coward’s way out.”
“You’re talking about running away because you can’t bear it, love, but you won’t allow me my escape?”
His brown eyes, so kind, so wise—so sad—held me, and I knew he had a point I couldn’t argue against. Still tried though. “You’re a young, great-looking guy. You could meet someone else. Hell, maybe I could. It ain’t natural, trying to hang on.”
“Maybe not, but.... I thought I’d lost you forever,” he whispered. “Then you came back and it was a miracle. Only the miracle is more like....”
“A curse?”
He nodded unhappily. “Yes. I can’t bear the idea of you going, but I don’t want you to suffer. I just...don’t know what to do. Yes, I’m a coward. I can’t face losing you twice. But I never want you to feel the way you did last night.”
“That was me being stupid.”
“You think I can’t imagine what it’s like not to be able to touch you?”
I sighed. “No, I figure you know. Look, I’ll stay until you’re ready to let me go. I won’t stay a second longer. Is that good enough?”
He stared back out over the water. “Just give me a couple of weeks to get used to it. I won’t make you wait too long.”
I’d wait forever, if he wanted it, but I knew it was bad for him, having a dead lover holding him back. He shouldn’t be having to make these choices. Neither should I. “I’m gonna miss you too. I didn’t mean it...I wouldn’t look for someone else. I’d wait for you, wherever I ended up.”
He smiled. “I’m hoping you’ll just get on with a fabulous new life, and I’ll find you when it’s time. I’ll wear a red flower in my lapel, so you know it’s me.”
“Hold you to that, babe.”
Even though he couldn’t feel it and neither could I, I put my hand over his, sitting on the beach together like we were just regular lovers. We could have had so many years of this...I couldn’t help be angry at losing that time with him. But who was I mad at? The arseholes who killed me? The powers that be who organised this whole spirit thing, who even Parido didn’t know about? Or just me for not dodging that bullet like I should have? Being angry was pointless. It just was the way it was.
We sat for an hour or so until the sun started to set, and then he got up and stretched. “Either Tinun will have sent me bankrupt exploring room service, or he’ll be eating the chairs. We have to get back.” I nodded, started to walk back along the shore. “Nev?”
“What, babe?”
“I don’t care what happens in this life or the next. I’ll always, always be yours.”
I smiled, even though my eyes were getting scratchy. “Me too, Jes. I don’t need any red flowers to find you. I’d know you with my eyes closed. I’d know you dead or alive.”
And I would find him. Fuck that forty-three percent.