Page 19

I drag her into the shower with me, which is a whole separate room the size of most private cubes.

The tile’s warm underfoot and, when I touch it, so are the walls.

Since I won’t be pushing her up against cold tile, I lift Kez against one wall.

Since my dick’s too sore for another round, I bring her with my fingers and mouth.

The sex relaxes both of us, and when we’re done, I wrap Kez in warm, fluffy towels, carry her to the bed and tickle her until we’re both dry.

While we’re dressing, I tap up our messages on the flexypane wall.

Scan through them. Message from Chiara to confirm she hasn’t had any trouble; Bradley and Hithen are on her detail today.

Good, that’s one less thing to worry about.

Eleven fucking messages from Myhre. She’s killing me.

I scan them. She’s come to the same conclusion I have about Mike, although resentment shines through every word of her report. That makes me smile a little.

She’s also found the connection I suspected between Mara and Chiara’s cousin.

That message ends with a request that the rest of Chiara’s extended family be placed under house arrest. I press my thumb to the flexypane to authorize that action.

I’ll ship them to the Core System when I get back.

I’ve had enough of placating fucking Tyngs.

The last message is Myhre passing on a plex from Exeter, Mike’s boss. I route that one to my ship for later. Doubt it’ll be anything other than an apology and that’s one less thing I need to deal with this morning.

While I’ve been going through Myhre’s interminable messages, Kez has been plexing her friend Jale. She’s nodding to herself as she reads Jale’s responses, which I take as a good sign.

“Your friend happy to talk to the other breaks?” I ask.

“Yeah, no problem. She says she’s pretty sure all but one break will side with the Deep Whites. Not much love for the Founders among them.”

“Good.” I tap up the last message, which is a response to the message I had the ‘bot send to Payton. It’s just an address.

“That’s where I met Kimpler, that one time,” Kez says, reading the code.

“How many years ago was that?” I ask, watching her pull an entire wardrobe out of her backpack. “How many nights were you plannin’ to be away, kitten?”

She rolls her eyes. “Eight and one. Just because you wear the same thing every day.” She trails off pointedly.

I open my other bag, the one I didn’t fill with sex toys, and pull out the change of clothes I brought.

My usual black fatigues, sure, ‘cause they’re comfortable and hold my knives.

But I’ve also brought another of her creations.

A kemwar-patterned vest that crosses over my stomach and falls to mid-thigh.

Good for concealing the hilts on my belt.

Kez snorts. “You’re just showing off now.”

“Yup. What you got?”

She’s already pulled on a white unisuit, but it’s obvious something goes over it.

Or something better go over it, since I can see her nipples and the dark cleft between her thighs pretty fucking clearly.

Since she doesn’t mind me showing off my nipples in public, I should probably be all right with her showing off hers.

But I’m not. What’s mine is mine and no one else gets to ogle it.

Fortunately, something does go over it. Kez holds up several handfuls of cloth. “I can’t decide.”

“Somethin’ soft.”

She tilts her head as she considers her options. “I was thinking more along the lines of body armor.”

All of the attempted hits so far have been up close and personal, but that don’t mean the next one will be.

Still, true snipers are rare outside the military, and one of the many things I like about Kuseros is that it doesn’t have one.

“Accordin’ to her file, Payton don’t even have basic skills.

I think she’s got more to fear from us, than we got from her,” I pause for effect.

“Specially from you. I’ll have to warn everyone we meet now about you. Hurricane-hands.”

She points at me with a handful of cloth. “That is not even remotely funny.”

I pounce on her, crossing the short distance between us in an easy leap and pinning her to the floor. “Show me the hurricane, kitten.”

She bats at me, but doesn’t put any real strength behind it, or any serious effort to fend me off and pretty soon we’re rolling around on the floor, kissing and wrestling, amongst the towels and Kez’s clothes. I bump up against her backpack and freeze when I hear something crunch.

Kez, sprawled on top of me, props her hands on her chin and rolls her eyes. “That was for Payton.”

“Oops.”

“Idiot.” She climbs off me, retrieves a handful of soft blue cloth from the floor and pulls it over her head.

It’s an asymmetric tunic, off the shoulder.

The blue cloth makes her eyes look insanely blue.

Like icefire. The sweater is raveled and ripped in places, which is very Kez, even when her clothes are hot off the printer.

Her white unisuit peeps through the holes and I realize there’s a pattern on the unisuit.

It looks like skulls and crossbones, but when I peer at it, I realize that they’re not crossbones.

Each skull sports its own set of bunny ears.

Chuckling at my kitten’s sense of humor, I climb to my feet and help her gather her scattered clothes. While she’s balling them up – I swear she could not fold an item of clothing to save her fucking life – I run my hands over her. Soft cloth over softer skin. Exactly what I wanted to feel.

When she goes to stuff her clothes in her backpack, I peek inside the bag. Scoop out two pieces of a small figurine. “What was it, kitten?”

“Madonna and Child. Chi says Kimpler was a Krister. My Granna always had one of those around. I thought Payton might like it.”

Another thoughtful gift. I inspect the pieces. Looks like there’s a central joint that’s snapped under the figurine’s long blue robe. “Think I can fix this, kitten.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, gimme a minute.” I walk over to the flexypane by the door and tap up the interface with the hotel.

A ‘bot immediately appears on the viewie. Could be the same one. I’m not sure how to tell.

It’s just as obsequious as the one last night.

The ‘bot promises the glue I’ve asked for will be delivered to the suite in less than five minutes.

A delivery ‘bot arrives with two minutes to spare, waits while I apply the glue and whisks away after I instruct it to return the bags to the Infinity . The figurine sets up just fine, and I cradle it in one hand while I wait for Kez to finish in the ‘fresher. When she emerges, smelling of mint, I can tell she’s done something to her hair and face. Her bangs frame her face precisely, the tips just touching her chin. Her lips are a little glossier than usual; her eyes a little darker. She’s got rings through all her piercings.

But Kez always looks beautiful to me, so I’m not sure why she bothers.

I hold out my hand for her backpack, shoulder it and hold out my hand for hers, which she gives me with a smile. “You’re just naturally pretty, aren’t you?” she asks.

“Oh, yeah.” Real pretty. Lotta women are put off by my looks.

Too dark, too threatening, too sharp in some places, too blunt in others.

The chop-doc on Cayster gave me a new face, but I didn’t ask him to make it pretty, and he didn’t.

Only thing he did that I appreciated was cut down my ears, which used to be so big the boys in my squad called me ‘Copter. Kez has always looked beyond my face, right into my soul. That she finds my soul beautiful surprises me, but then, she sees more than most. “C’mon, kitten.”

We leave hand-in-hand. Our minds as synchronized as our bodies. We don’t talk during the five-minute walk through the fluffy clyros tree-lined streets from Cloud Palace to the address Payton has given us. We don’t need to; I know what she’s thinking.

Turns out, I’m completely wrong.

When we turn onto the street Payton’s given us, Kez looks up at me, chews her lip a little and says, “Will you come somewhere with me?”

“Any time. Anywhere. You know that.”

She nods hesitantly. “I want-I want to take you to meet Livvy.”

I stop in surprise. I’d figured Livvy was dead since Kez hasn’t introduced me to her.

Kez takes a few steps before she realizes I’ve stopped, backs up hastily. “What?” she asks.

“Why—” I trail off before I finish articulating the thought. I know why Kez hasn’t taken me to meet her mentor. I’m a Mod.

Kez looks up at me and flushes so deeply she rivals last night’s sunset.

I catch her chin in my hand. “Doesn’t matter, kitten.”

She swallows hard. “Yes, it does. What you said last night, about being proud of me? I’m proud of you, too. I’m proud of being with you. I want her to meet you.”

Sounds like a recipe for disaster. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“I don’t know.” She lifts one shoulder. Looks so miserable I lean in to kiss her, but she loops her arm around my neck and draws me down so she can press her forehead to mine.

“If she says anything awful to you, I’ll kill her.

But I want her to see-I just want her to see that Mods are like everyone else.

Just people. Good and bad. You’re one of the good ones. I want her to see that.”

I’m not one of the good ones, but I’ve always liked that Kez thinks I am. And I don’t care what her mentor says to me. If it’s important to Kez for me to meet the woman, I’ll meet her. The why, how, and what happens next don’t matter.

“Then we’ll go. Together.” We’re not getting separated again. Not until I’m sure Kez is no longer a mark. Maybe not even after that, since I’m finding I really like having Kez around full-time.

She smiles a little. “That bothered you, didn’t it? Last night. What happened while I was getting drinks?”

“Yeah. I’m still not sure whether or not drummer-boy sold you out. But what I do know is that we walked straight into a trap.”

Kez turns her head so she can look down the street at the tall white gates of our destination. “Do you think this is a trap?” she whispers.

“Go through life figurin’ everything’s a trap, kitten, and you’ll spend mosta the time bein’ pleasantly surprised.”

She chuckles. “That’s one way to look at it.”

“C’mon.” I turn her to face the gates, put my arm around her. “Let’s get this done.”

We approach the four-meter gates unhurriedly, giving the A-Eye time to flick its red beam over our faces. The gates roll open without a sound.

Beyond the gates there’s a long, white-shell drive.

Carefully raked into a herringbone pattern.

It winds in and around islands of greenery that obscure the low, white mansion perched on the edge of the cliff.

Each turn in the drive is designed to give a different view of the house.

The turn to the south reveals an infinity pool that snakes through a huge glaz atrium and disappears over the cliff.

The turn to the north reveals a ten-meter, blackened crater in the north-western face of the house.

“Shit,” mutters Kez.

“Pretty sure that ain’t part of the original design,” I say .

She nods.

We walk over to the hole and look down into it.

Whatever blew took out the north and west walls and collapsed the upper floors into the basement.

Metal and glaz wink in the late morning light, shining through polycrete dust and rubble.

Lots of broken tubing. Part of a shattered stasis tube peeks from under a collapsed column.

Looks like Kimpler did his cloning at home.

I circle the north end of the house, examining the blast damage.

PB-Ex, or something close. Military grade explosives.

Catastrophic damage, very specific, very controlled.

There’s a ring of dust on the blackened lawn, but none of the debris you’d expect from a blast that took out ten meters of house.

There’s not enough rubble in the hole, either.

It was vaporized. “This wasn’t someone getting in,” I observe quietly to Kez.

“It could have been Erin getting out,” she says.