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Which makes me think something here is amiss as we reach an unlit atrium with unpolished sandstone floors perforated by pink jasmine trees and slink across the floor in a V formation toward the set of double doors that leads to Quicksilver’s bedroom suite. Cloaks deactivated so we can better see. Razors rigid and held out, metal drifting centimeters above the sandstone.
This isn’t a home. It’s a stage. Made to manipulate. Sinister in the cold calculation with which it was constructed. I don’t like it. I key Sevro’s frequency again. “Something’s wrong here. Where are the servants? The guards?”
“Maybe he likes his privacy…”
“I think it’s a trap.”
“A trap? Your head or your gut talkin’?”
“My gut.”
He’s quiet for a breath, and I wonder if he’s speaking to someone else on the other line. Maybe he’s speaking to all of them. “What’s your rec?”
“Pull back. Assess the situation to see….”
“Pull back?” He snaps the question out. “For all we know, they just dropped nukes on our people. We need this.” I try to interrupt, but he steamrolls me. “Shit, I’ve run thirteen ops just to get intel on this Silvery asshole. We leave now, that’s all slagged. They’ll know we were here. We won’t have this chance again. He’s the key to getting the Jackal. You gotta trust me, Reap. Do you?”
I bite back a curse and cut the signal short, not sure if I’m angry with him or with myself, or because I know the Jackal removed the spark that made me feel different. Every opinion I have feeble, and malleable to others. Because I know, deep down, beneath the intimidating scarabSkin, beneath the demon mask, is a callow little boy who cried because he was scared of being alone in the dark.
Purple light suddenly floods the room as a luxury vessel cruises past the wall of windows at our backs. We hastily line up to either side of the door to Quicksilver’s suite, preparing to breach. I watch the vessel drift along through my black optics. Lights pulse on one of its decks as several hundred Pixies writhe to some Etrurian club beat that’s all the rage on far-off Luna, as if a war didn’t wage on the planet beneath this moon. As if we didn’t move to rupture their way of life. They’ll drink champagne from Earth in clothes made on Venus in ships fueled by Mars. And they’ll laugh and consume and screw and face no consequences. So many little locusts. I feel Sevro’s righteous wrath burn in me.
Suffering isn’t real to them. War isn’t real. It’s just a three-letter word for other people that they see in the digital newsfeeds. Just a stream of uncomfortable images they skip past. A whole business of weapons and arms and ships and hierarchies they don’t even notice, all to shield these fools from the true agony of what it means to be human. Soon they’ll know.
And on their deathbeds, they’ll remember tonight. Who they were with. What they were doing when that three-letter word gripped them and never let go. This pleasure cruise, this hideous decadence is the last gasp of the Golden Age.
And what a pathetic gasp it is.
“Of course I trust you,” I say, tightening my grip on my razor. Ragnar’s watching us, even though he can’t hear our signal. Victra’s waiting to breach the door.
The light fades, and the ship disappears into the cityscape. I’m surprised to realize I don’t feel satisfaction in knowing what’s about to happen. In knowing their age will fall. Neither does it bring joy to think of all the lights in all the cities across this empire of man dimming, or all the ships slowing, or all the brilliant Golds fading as their buildings rust and crumble. Would that I could hear Mustang’s take on this plan. Before, I’ve missed her lips, her scent, but now I miss the comfort that comes knowing her mind is aligned with mine. When I was with her, I did not feel so alone. She’d probably chastise us for focusing on breaking rather than building.
Why do I feel this way now? I’m surrounded by friends, striking at Gold as I have always wished. Yet something itches in the back of my brain. Like eyes watch me. Whatever Sevro says, something is wrong here. Not just in this building, but with his plan. Is this how I would have done it? How Fitchner would have done it? If it succeeds, what do we usher in after the dust has settled and the helium no longer flows? A dark age? Sevro is a force unto himself. His rage a thing to move mountains.
I was once like that. And look what that got me.
“Kill his guards. Stun the Pinks. Smash, grab, and go,” Sevro is saying to his Howlers. My hand tightens on my blade. He gives the signal, and Ragnar and Victra slip through the doors. The rest of us follow into the dark.
The lights are off. It’s tomb silent. The front room empty. An electric-green jellyfish floats in a tank on a table, casting weird shadows. We move through to the bedroom, smashing through t
he gold filigreed doors. I guard the door with Pebble, crouching on a knee, silenced railgun cradled in my hands, sheathing my razor on my arm. Behind us, a man sleeps in a four-poster bed. Ragnar grabs him by the foot and jerks him out. Clad in expensive sleepwear, he sprawls onto the floor. Waking midair and screaming silently into Ragnar’s hand.
“Shit. It’s not him,” Victra says behind me. “It’s a Pink.” I glance back. Ragnar kneels over the Pink, blocking him from my view.
Sevro hits the bedpost, cracking it. “It’s three in the morning. Where the hell is he?”
“It is four p.m. market time on Luna,” Victra says. “Maybe he’s in his office? Ask the slave.”
“Where is your master?” Sevro’s mask makes his voice warble like a steel cable struck by an iron rod. I keep my eyes trained on the living room until the Pink’s whimper makes me look back. Sevro’s got his knee in the man’s groin. “Pretty pajamas, boyo. Wanna see what they look like in red?”
I flinch at the coldness in this voice. Knowing the tone all too well. Hearing it from the Jackal as he tortured me in Attica.
“Where is your master?” Sevro twists his knee. The Pink wails in pain, but still refuses to answer. The Howlers watch the torture in silence, bent, faceless stains in the dark room. There’s no discussion. No moral question at play, I know they’ve done this before. I feel dirty in the realization, in hearing the Pink sobbing on the ground. This is more a part of war than trumpets or starships. Quiet, unremembered moments of cruelty.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know.”
The voice. I remember that voice from my past. I rush from my post at the door and join Sevro, pulling him off of the Pink. Because I know the man and his gentle features. His long, angular nose, rose-quartz eyes, and dark honey skin. He’s as responsible for making me what I am as Mickey ever was. It’s Matteo. Beautiful and fragile, now gasping on the ground, arm broken. Bleeding from his mouth, holding his groin where Sevro beat him.
“The hell’s your damage?” Sevro snarls at me.
