Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(16)
Seriously old. Even older-than-La-Mars-Madrid old. Had this person never undergone a single cosmetic alteration? Her wrinkles had wrinkles, and when she flicked her half-charred smoke to the ground and crushed it beneath one worn bootheel, her voice creaked and rumbled like a shed in a thunderstorm. “I see you checking out my dragon.” She jabbed a thumb toward the flame-licked car. “You the angel I’m s’posed to fetch?”
No, not an angel. Far from it. Fallen certainly, but the rest of it? No. “I am Angela Neko.”
“Huh.” She inspected Angela with too-perceptive eyes. “Somehow figured you’d be taller. Who’s your dude?”
Angela’s face warmed. He wasn’t her dude. Not in the way that the other woman implied. He wasn’t her lover. But he was playing the part of her husband. She should introduce him as such. And yet she didn’t. Somehow, couldn’t. “Dan-Dan is…my assistant.”
He goofily half waved, one finger at a time like a three-year-old. He clearly didn’t have his “imitate real-life Daniel as closely as possible” programming engaged. Someday soon she would instruct him to turn it on all the time now, since he should be in simulation mode 24/7, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it yet.
“Is he?” One side of the woman’s mouth pinched up in a half smile.
Angela wondered if she was recalling some of Daniel’s older vidcasts, the more sordid ones. A shudder gnawed through Angela’s body, and in her current exhausted state, she didn’t even bother to fight it. “What about you? Are you the fire I was told to find?”
The old woman snorted. Her dark eyes sparked like live wires, and she moved with the agility of someone half her age. Or maybe a quarter. “Guess I am.”
She whistled, and the car door opened. Passenger side, shotgun, not in the back where Angela was used to riding.
Something didn’t feel right. Angela hesitated, hoisting the bag she’d bought at the pharma higher up on her good shoulder. It didn’t have anything important in it, but there was comfort in holding onto a thing, even an unimportant thing.
“Come on, then, mija. I haven’t seen my wife in three weeks and kind of want to get home. You dig?” What was that accent? Colombiana? Chilena? But with an overlay of early-twenty-first-century slang.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” Angela framed it as a question.
The other woman rolled her eyes and swished her long, winter hair back over one shoulder. “Maybe ’cause I didn’t give it? Look, I can tell you all my names, but what you want more is confirmation that you aren’t being nabbed, am I right? Fine. I’m here because my boy messaged, told me to detour by Kingman and pick up the woman who would look least likely to get caught dead in a dusty transit station. Said you were top secret and posh beyond all possible belief. He didn’t mention specifically that you’re a sitting continental senator, but me, I can connect the dots.” Her black-eyed gaze swept up Angela and apparently found her lacking. “It’s pretty obvious you’re in something of a pickle, safety-wise, and my Heron, he can help you out.”
“Wait.” Angela frowned. “Who sent you?”
“Heron Farad.”
“And there was no…” She felt silly mentioning it but couldn’t help herself. “No additional message? From…somebody else? Nothing like a line from a poem or anything?” Nothing reassuring? Nothing comforting?
In the old days, Kellen would have been all about comforting her if he knew she was in trouble. If he knew she was scared. He’d been the army at her back, making her feel mighty.
Maybe he doesn’t realize. Maybe my last message was dry rather than serious. Maybe she’d confused the hell out of him—a bunch of bright, fun, poetic messages followed by a to-the-point businesslike one. But even if he was confused, it was going to be okay. He’d replied in kind last night. He had forgiven her, even if he hadn’t used those words.
He would be there, at the rendezvous place, and he would make some joke in that warm-honey drawl, and everything would be okay. She’d be able to think again. She’d be able to plan. She would be safe.
Another whistle in a different tone popped the back door. Mech-Daniel rushed forward and held it open for her.
“Nope, no other messages. You comin’ or do I have to incapacitate you and yer lanky dude?” Black eyes darted to mech-Daniel, but he was looking at Angela, not the raspy-voiced desert witch.
“Dan-Dan?”
“The car is clean. My scans show no threats in this area.” He paused. “But she is correct. We should probably hurry.”
That feeling that something wasn’t quite right still gnawed at the base of Angela’s spine, but she ducked into the car, which turned out to be a tightish fit. Three-quarters of the back bench seat was jam-packed with a giant pile of dirty blankets and smelled like a refugee center. Unwashed, musty, with an underwhiff of bleach and fear. She had to set her bag down on the floorboard, and it wedged itself tight against her shins when Daniel folded himself into the front seat and slid his chair back.
The interior of the car was just as personalized and bizarre as the outside: black ball fringe along the headliner over the windshield, an elaborate sugar skull balanced on the dash, and seat covers fitted out in some soft, dark fabric. The back of the driver’s side headrest was embroidered in orange with the words “El tiempo es un fuego que me consume,” and the right one continued with the rest of the quote, “Pero yo soy el fuego.” It was a Borges line from the last century, yet another piece Angela had been made to memorize. Time is a fire that consumes me. But I am the fire.