Page 23 of Scion

“Anything by Radhoeff.”

“I approve. Most hated sound?”

“Splinter sirens in Crius.”

“Favourite music?”

“Water for Sleep?” It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to anyone play.

“I said music.”

I roll my eyes at her.

“Urgh. Fine. What do you remember of Oceanus?”

Silence.

I examine Old Woman as we sway in time to the motion of the toxic waste container. She asked it as calmly and smoothly as all the other questions, but she knows as well as I do that this one’s different.

“A lot,” I say eventually. “I mean, I grew up there, so—”

“Uh-uh,” she tuts, waggling a finger. “You know what I’m asking about. Answers for answers, Azure.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because I get to ask whatever I want, and I’m curious.”

My teeth clench, fortunately preventing me from replying straight away. I allow myself a couple of calming breaths before opening my mouth again.

“It was a bit over four years ago. I was working protection.” The last time I was working protection. “It was a strange job. Not as strange as this nonsense”—I gesture around us, and most pointedly at her—“but unusual. He wasn’t a lifer. Just a normal guy. A good guy.” My friend. “He didn’t even know I was there to protect him. The Keres arranged it so that I got moved in next to his awful little apartment. Assigned Housing wasn’t DeGov domain, back then, so they were able to spoof it.”

I rub my forehead. I hate these memories more than anything else. Partly because I’ve replayed them so, so many times.

“I was there for three months. Good pay, easy work. Nobody even came at him; I never did figure out why someone would want to kill him. And then…”

White heat. Disintegrating walls. Blood.

“The bomb?” Old Woman asks gently, sadness briefly in her expression.

I nod. Unsurprised she knows. Even if she wasn’t holding the file over my head, Damocles-sword style, it’s one of the most spectacular failures of city security in the past decade. “It took out the entire building. Three hundred storeys. I still have no idea how it got in there—even Assigned Housing has explosives sensors, and I made damned sure they were working. Every day.”

I did, that morning. Didn’t I?

“So he died.”

“Yeah.” I swallow. “And the Keres put me back together. Took… eight months, I think? They kept me in a coma for most of it. Didn’t want to use a lot of standard med tech, in case it interfered with my revs.” I take a deep breath. “By the time I was back on my feet, any trace of who had done it was long gone. I did everything I could to look into it, but the Keres didn’t pay an ungodly amount of tokens to keep me alive out of the goodness of their hearts. I’m still working off the reconstruction expense.”

Old Woman is silent for a time. The whine of the drone outside rises and falls as it hurtles down the Loop tunnel. “Talios took responsibility for it, if I remember correctly.”

“Like hell it was Talios.” I say it calmly enough, but meet her gaze. Drive the point home. “If they’d had the tech, they would have taken out a better target. Maybe even some DeGov neural cores.”

“So someone killed more than a hundred thousand people, just to get past you to him?”

“I don’t know.” I look up at her. “Do you?”

She meets my gaze, and nods slowly.

Great. No lies, unless she’s really damn good at beating my revs. More incentive to get that file.