The Ones We're Meant to Find(75)

He’d hurt her, too. First with lies, then with the truth. They were even.

Too bad for Actinium, Kasey played to win.

“I’m here for a tattoo,” she said. In the background, GRAPHYC was abuzz. The world might have been ending, but body modifications still needed to be done. Jinx yelled at one of the employees to quit spying, and Kasey heard the curtain behind her fall. It divided the front of the shop from the back, the back being where Actinium’s office was. He stood in the doorway now, making no move to let her through. Is this a joke? his expression asked.

Kasey wished. To an onlooker, it would appear that they’d left things unresolved. But she knew exactly how Actinium had taken their last interaction. He’d poured his heart out to her and she’d balked. She’d asked him if this was what he wanted when really, she was asking herself, and he’d sniffed that out. He’d pushed her to the edge to test her; she’d hesitated, unable to jump. Her true choice, whatever it was, was not his.

As a team, they were finished.

But Kasey still had unfinished business with Actinium. “I found your hours,” she said. “I know you’re working.” She took a step forward. He stood his ground. No matter; there was enough space for her to squeeze in and he stiffened as their shoulders brushed, before turning to face her.

“I design them.” His voice was pure ice.

“My design is simple.”

“I don’t ink.”

“Don’t, or don’t know how?” Kasey challenged.

Actinium answered as she thought he might: by closing the door. A click, and suddenly the tiny space grew even tinier. It contained a green recliner, a stool, filing cabinets, and two large monitors atop a desk. Undecorated and utilitarian, like his unit, with the exception of the rabbit. A gray one, stretched out and dozing on the keyboard.

Not a cat, Kasey noted.

Just one of the many things she’d misled herself on.

A holograph floated before her nose, interrupting her study of the mammal. “Sign the waiver,” said Actinium, and Kasey did, waiving her ability to hold GRAPHYC accountable for any post-procedure complications. “Payment upfront.”

She transferred the amount. That gave Actinium pause. She’d said this wasn’t a joke, but he didn’t believe her. How far was she willing to go? “So what will it be?” he asked, sardonic.

What will you choose?

She told him. His lips thinned, but he kept his opinion to himself. He had her sit down, then snapped on a pair of black gloves before taking the stool. He positioned an armrest between them. The rabbit on the desk continued to sleep.

“Your wrist.”

Kasey held out her right. Actinium placed it, vein-side up, on the rest.

The next few minutes passed procedurally. The swabbing of disinfectant, then some sort of numbing cream, a reminder that this would hurt. The handheld machine buzzed as Actinium switched it on; the hairs on Kasey’s arm rose, followed by goose bumps at the light pressure of his hand on her wrist. He lowered his head and waited, allowing her one final chance to back out.

“Start,” Kasey ordered, and so came the sting that quickly heated to a burn.

You know all of my secrets, untold and told.

Kasey watched as the ink appeared in her skin, becoming one with her cells. Why, she’d wondered before, would anyone ever want to alter their flesh bodies when less permanent options existed in holo? In her case, she’d needed a valid excuse to be here in person. A guaranteed amount of Actinium’s time, just paid for. A reason to sit in this chair, as Celia had, to confirm his final secret, untold.

“You knew she was going to die.”

With his head bent so close, she could almost see straight through his skull. He would have recognized Celia—if not on sight, then by transaction tracking when she paid. He would have extracted her Intraface as requested, and destroyed it under Celia’s eye. But between those steps, he would’ve also figured out why she’d come. It’d be easy enough; a quick hack into her biomonitor. Kasey would have done the same. Top-stratum girl, asking for Intraface removal? The mystery would have been too enticing to resist.

“You knew she was sick, and still you let her walk out those doors.”

I hoped we would meet again, Actinium had said, if the circumstances allowed. As if circumstances couldn’t be engineered. What better way to reenter Kasey’s life than with the pretext of a shared loss? Sister. Lover. Celia dying to a man-made error in a perfect mirror of his own parents’ death would have been the cherry on top.

“You wanted us to have this bond,” Kasey went on, voice remarkably steady, just like Actinium’s hand as he continued to ink. The dark line grew around Kasey’s wrist.

He stopped. “She chose this.”

That’s what Kasey had said when she’d learned of Celia’s disease. The second heart in her chest was but a seed then, and her anger—at Celia for giving up on Kasey—was inaccessible. Actinium had unlocked it. Now, she’d seen what could be done in the name of anger and love, and understood why most people couldn’t control how they responded. It was biological. Lose a limb, and you bleed. Pain was directly proportional to the value of what was lost.

To Kasey, Celia wasn’t an organ or limb. She was light that Kasey, as a human and not a plant, didn’t need to survive. Still, her warmth was missed. Her death had left Kasey’s sky without a sun.