Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(82)
Such as, oh, let’s see: you have been micro-managing my life for the vast majority of it, perhaps? Or that you used me to do your warmongering dirty work? Or that you’re causing all those drone strikes, all those deaths, which are happening as we speak?
He played it off like nothing had changed. “The election results were in our favor, and I thank you for all your efforts toward that end. But, kiddo, I’m worried about some vidcasts I’ve seen. Vids featuring you, today. What’s going on?”
“I got clued in, Zeke,” she said. “I know Texas isn’t our enemy. I know you’re behind the drone strikes.”
He was silent for a really long time.
“Where are you getting these ideas? Is mech-Daniel functioning correctly? You should run a diagnostic on him.”
“Why? Are you thinking of ordering him to kill me again? Using your Ashe back door, maybe?” This time she didn’t wait through the pause for his reply. “How about you and I make a deal instead? Call off the drone attacks, effective immediately. Apologize publicly.”
He took a long pause before replying, “Or else what, kiddo?”
“Or I will have you removed from office.” She moved her com closer to her mouth, to up the resonance in her voice. “Do we have a deal?”
There wasn’t any reason to prevaricate or pussyfoot. These were the terms. She had copied the conversation and tagged Fez on it. She had no doubt it would be disseminated widely and immediately with verified identity tags.
Don’t fuck with me, Zeke. You know I have nothing to lose.
She’d been waiting for ten minutes now for a response. Of course, it was entirely possible that he didn’t mean to reply, that their conversation was effectively over. If he proceeded to ignore her completely from here on, it wouldn’t surprise her. Zeke and Daniel and their kind were fond of leaving difficult conversation threads unresolved, dangling like live wires on wet pavement.
He knew how thin her patience thread was. Forcing her to wait must be a fucking thrill for him.
Restless, irritated, and just a little scared, she was just about to go hunting for Kellen, when he came to her.
“Angela?” He always said her name that way, the Spanish way, closer to angel. It made her feel worshipped but always unworthy. Everyone knew real angels didn’t exist.
She spun the chair so she could see him. Too tall for a sub, he bent in the doorway, one hand curved over the lintel. The look on his face made her heart double-whump.
“Is everything okay?” Such a stupid question, every time somebody asked it. Of course something was un-okay. Else why even ask the question? Yet she had, of him, because of that look.
“Vallejo won’t be a danger to us going forward,” he said in a weary voice. “I am willing to guarantee that personally.”
“You’re sure? He’s wily.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. For one thing, I locked him back in the lounge. I also threatened him pretty bad with some shit he’s particularly scared of, but mostly, I think he’s just tired of being kept prisoner. Those UNAN detention blocks aren’t fancy living, and his captors haven’t been kind. Don’t mean he won’t get up to no good the first second we loose him upon the world, but for right now, I think he’s harmless.”
He crossed the module toward her. This wasn’t a big sub, and apparently, it hadn’t been built with more than one communications officer in mind. Little room, spherical, metal, covered floor to ceiling with electronics. There wasn’t another chair, so Kellen went to his knees in front of hers.
She couldn’t help herself. She reached for him, drew his golden head into her lap, and stroked it until she was halfway to weeping.
The answer to her earlier silent question hovered right there over his bent body. What must I leave behind? If this worked, if she kicked Zeke out of office and ended his secret reign of villainy, she had to become something not-her. Something alone and unassailable and made of authority.
Kellen was her weakness, had always been, and if she let the world know he existed, her enemies would use him against her. They would threaten him. They would use him to put her back into her box and make her shut up.
That weakness, the fault in a dragon’s scales, the dry spot on Achilles’ heel, was love. Love created loss. Love was baggage.
No wonder the mentors had broken them apart. No wonder she must do it again.
“You’re trembling like a guilty thing surprised,” he said, his voice half-muffled. “Cold?”
“Am I crazy or did you just whip out Wordsworth on me?”
“Definitely crazy, but then, you always been mad as a hatter.”
She smiled. “Loopy as a shoelace.”
His hair was fine and soft, even softer than Yoink’s fur. She could stroke it all day, every day. This could be her life.
What if they just ran away? Got a unit somewhere, made her digitally dead again, pretended to be the people they should have been, might have been, if no one else had ever intruded on their lives and destinies. Oh, she knew it wasn’t real; she knew why they couldn’t. In that scenario, the attacks would continue, people would die, and the both of them would be eaten from the inside with guilt.
But for half a second, a stolen frozen moment under the ocean and on the edge of uncertainty, she indulged the fantasy. It was pretty fucking amazing.