Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five (22 page)

‘You were the one didn’t want to talk.’

Lila had to concede that one. ‘This is all getting off on the wrong foot,’ she said, opening a thing she presumed was a refrigerator
but
seeing only an empty boxlike thing and a control panel beaming full of coloured pictograms instead. ‘Can we start again?’

She stared at the machine blankly, peering at the images, which seemed to be an entire market’s worth of items, some of them
flashing, some of them blued out. Zal’s hand reached over her shoulder and touched a milk carton, tapped a red circle twice
that registered the fat content, and ran his finger up the image of a jug that appeared until it was a quarter full.

‘Open the cover,’ he said, flicking his thumb in the direction of the box front. She opened it and took out her milk.

When she turned around Sassy was giving her a long, wide-eyed stare of disbelief.

‘I’ve been away,’ Lila said, frowning as she poured.

‘She’s a bit slow,’ Zal added to Sassy as he went back to his position at the sink.

That got the ghost of a smile so Lila didn’t say anything for a moment or two. She didn’t need to eat the cereal but she wanted
to. It tasted better than she expected. As she looked up from her bowl she saw that Zal was also looking expectantly at Sassy
and guessed they’d done some talking the night before.

Sassy made a giving-in face and looked into her tea. ‘I ran away,’ she said. ‘Like you didn’t know that.’

‘No record of it,’ Lila said.

Sassy narrowed her eyes. ‘How do you know?’

‘I’m the girl who is plugged in,’ Lila said. ‘My job to know.’

‘That explains something.’ Suddenly she wasn’t an awkward teenager confessing something she’d rather not. The confidence of
a much older person took command of her and Lila found herself looking into eyes that were more than capable of dealing with
whatever they saw.

‘You’re a machine. The ones looking for you must be the same. I have trouble hearing them. I thought it was a block but it
must just be the speed.’

‘I’m easy to find,’ Lila said, but as she said it she knew there was one category of people that wouldn’t find her easy to
locate – machines. Thanks to her rogue-jacking habits she was sufficiently able to mask herself on the networks and she wasn’t
plugged in to anything that was capable of hacking her. This meant she was closed to the other cyborgs. The only place she
could be aware of them was inside the Signal, and that was too fast and complex even for her to track through it.

Sassy shrugged. ‘I just know what I hear and see.’ She stared into her tea mug, swirling the contents. Her face was tense.
Then she sighed and set the mug aside. As she looked up all traces of the teenage attitude were gone. Without it she looked
even younger although it had also taken all her vulnerability with it.

Zal lowered his bowl and glanced at Lila.

‘It’s easier when I pretend,’ the girl said. ‘Sort of. I mean, it’s easier for everyone else and it distracts them.’ She straightened
her back. ‘It’s not an accident that I’m here, you’re right. I came before you, to clear the way and make sure the house was
safe for the time being. But you got here a bit soon. I’d have been gone myself only you caught me in the act . . .’ She glanced
at Zal meaningfully. ‘I didn’t think you’d be so quick or so sharp. When you cornered me I realised I’d never outrun you and
I panicked and did what I do best. Afterwards it seemed like a good idea. I could keep up the old act and watch over you at
the same time.’

‘Watch over us?’ Lila frowned. ‘Who for?’

‘For myself,’ the girl said. ‘You were looking for the one who made you, to whom you were important. You were trying to figure
out why anything that has happened to you has happened – was it part of a grand scheme or only a series of incidents without
a greater meaning? What you have found seems to point at the mage, Sarasilien, though you wonder if he too is only a lesser
player in some even bigger plot, yeah?’ She nodded, seeing Lila’s silent agreement. ‘You see, I didn’t know this until I got
here. I was supposed to find the house and clean it, that’s all. But when you got here I realised who you were.’ Her glance
included them both. ‘I couldn’t help it. I overheard.’

‘You have a bit of a habit there,’ Lila murmured although she didn’t want to interrupt.

‘They’re looking for me, and you,’ the girl said, without taking visible offence. ‘You don’t have any guard. You know nothing
about the spirit plane, or you’d be much more careful. I was doing containment. And anyway, even if you were half a mile away
in a lead box I’d still hear you. I can’t not. Another reason I like it here. Quiet. Like I said.’

‘Who are they?’ Zal asked, placing his bowl quietly down in the sink, his gaze never leaving the girl’s face.

‘The people who sent me to prep the house or the ones looking out for you now?’

‘All of them,’ he said.

‘The faery Malachi and Temple Greer sent me to do the house. Malachi and me have history in Cedars, he rescued me from some
nasty business twenty-two years ago out in Cooper Bay and we’ve been trading favours ever since. Greer I don’t know personally,
though I see you do,’ she took in Lila’s expression. ‘He wanted me to check you out, see you were levelling with him.’

‘Because now they can’t tap me directly for information?’

‘I guess. I didn’t ask why, that’s not how business works for me.’

‘And the rest?’ Zal asked.

The girl looked suddenly unhappy. ‘You’ve been gone fifty years, yeah? Well, a lot changed in that time. A real lot. Not on
the surface – people still live in houses, still drive around in cars, still watch screens, play games, eat food, piss each
other off like usual, yeah? Sure the fashions and some tech has changed, so it seems, there’s a new space program and they’re
on Mars and they’re on the Moon and they’re doing this and all that, but on the big scales we haven’t come anywhere since
before the pyramids, you see what I’m sayin’?’

Lila nodded.

‘Well, in the last few generations born since the Moths there’s been a population explosion in people with powers – psychics,
seers . . . you can stick a bundle of names onto all the combinations of psionics out there right now. On the surface, if
you’re in the big social centres of the world, it looks like everyone’s OK with it, yeah? And you haven’t had time to get
this, but everywhere else it’s war by another name, not open war, kinda a cold war, a tepid war that keeps the surface okay,
keeps the economy okay, keeps everyone more or less in a home and a job, but there’s no real peace for anyone. It’s so widespread
now they say that the humans will be extinct in another hundred years. The only reason it isn’t a slaughter is that everyone
has someone close who’s a changeling, though ninety per cent of them are barely any different. It’s not like you can pick
them out by race or colour or creed. They come everywhere. But the camel’s back broke with the Returners. Like you saw across
town, the war’s getting open now. Meantime the rogue cyborgs have been dealing in body parts. Their own. Criminal markets
are full of upgraders. There are six chopshops in Cedars will make you over into a machine in two days, for the right price.
’Course they have trouble getting plutonium and such, so they have to use batteries old style but they aren’t so bad these
days. And other people have done other things. Your tech is in a lot of gear, Lila. A lot. The chatarazzi call it the Slag
Pot – everyone
melting down into psionic metal gloop. Some say harmony, but you know people. What do ordinary humans have to offer against
those with special abilities, special powers? It’s war. Anyway, the rogues were looking for you. Have been ever since Lane
found you and lost you again. For all the talk you’re the only one with metal and aether in working order and none of their
experiments at fusing those things have worked. Guess they found you.’ She gave Lila a curious look.

Lila admitted their execution and assimilation with a nod. ‘They paid you too?”

She shook her head. ‘I heard them, that’s all.’

‘You must have a good memory,’ Zal said, wistfully.

‘I learned to remember what’s important,’ she replied. ‘We don’t commit anything to a record. It’s unprofessional.’

‘We?’

‘Readers,’ she said and grinned, talking as if what she said was entirely old hat. ‘Readers don’t write stuff down where anyone
can see it. Bad for business.’

‘You’re not just a reader.’

‘I am, far as business is concerned,’ the girl said firmly and there was a clear note of warning in her voice. ‘That’s all
I am.’

‘So how did we get to be your business?’ Lila asked, leaning on the counter, still trying to figure out how Malachi and Greer
had steered her to what she thought was her choice of where to live.

‘Because I’m not just a reader,’ she said, and then she added awkwardly, ‘and because nobody ever offered to buy me a pony
before, which probably seems like dick to you, but mostly people fear me or want rid of me even when they think I’m only a
reader, even when they think I’m only a changeling, or just a street kid.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’m not any of those things either, except the street kid part is kind of right. I lost a lot of
my abilities a time ago. Deal went bad, I got burned . . .’ She shrugged her tough little shrug. ‘Since I’ve been in Cedars
I’ve been hanging with one of their gangs. Didn’t want to. Mostly I had to. They don’t let you go easy. Mal got me out. I
don’t want to go back. They do nasty stuff to people, including their own. I’m sure you don’t need a list.’

Lila had been paying attention acutely, but she got no sense that the girl was lying. She glanced at Zal, who seemed more
bemused than concerned although he was frowning and his shadow body had extended, diffusing to a fine haze around him. It
didn’t try to touch the girl, although he easily could have. He looked back at Lila and she
was reminded of how much she hated the thought of separating from him again so soon. She turned back.

‘I don’t like being watched,’ Lila said.

‘I don’t mean any harm,’ the girl replied quickly. ‘Never have.’

‘But you’re short of a name and a backstory,’ Zal said, ‘and we’re too old to fool around.’

‘I can’t give you my name,’ she said equally quickly. ‘It’s too much of a risk.’

‘Oh, so we’re supposed to trust you with knowing everything about us but you won’t extend even half the favour?’ Lila shook
her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘You’re not the only one who doesn’t like being supervised,’ came the retort, then, feeling clear anxiety she shook her hands
in front of herself to erase the attacking force of her statement – a faery gesture if ever there was one. ‘Look, the fact
is, I already know everything about you whether I like to know it or not. I know a lot about other people too. I can tell
you whatever you like, if you just let me stay here. I can hide you from the spirits, if they come here. They’ll never see
you here as long as I stay.’

Zal folded his arms thoughtfully and lowered his chin. ‘But the catch is that you’re on someone’s wanted list.’

Anguished eyes flicked towards him and remained looking at him firmly. ‘Yes. But we’re all on one of those.’

‘Might we know who’s buying your ticket?’ Lila asked.

The girl turned towards her and considered for a moment. ‘Sara-silien,’ she said very quietly. ‘I saw something, you see,
in someone, and he knows I saw it. It must be very important. Those rogues I mentioned looking for you, they were looking
for me too. He sent them, through Sandra Lane.’

‘The clone, right?’

‘Not at the time. It was twenty-two years ago. There were no clones then.’

‘How many does she have now?’ Lila was really wondering aloud and was surprised when the girl said promptly,

‘At least three I have seen. There are other cyborgs with clones too, of various kinds. Most of the old ones have at least
one. Rogues habitually scatter clones over big areas – across continents. They’re the reason I stayed so long in Cedars. There’s
a lot of old fey there, some demons in the gangmasters. They have enough strength to hold the rogues off. Nobody else does.
And they can’t do it off their own
turf. I managed to get myself disappeared from the networks so they can’t track me. It won’t be long before they know I’ve
gone though. My gangmaster has no reason to help me once he realises I’m not coming back.’

‘Was Malachi the one to get you out of trouble with Sarasilien?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded solemnly. ‘It was a big risk for him.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it interferes in a Long Game. The older forces, the long-lived ones, operate at timescales measured in centuries,
perhaps ages. Malachi is the middle kind – centuries, millennia maybe. But these others are older ones. They are fewer. At
least, they are now. In the past many more existed, but they got killed as the games went on. Sarasilien is one of the older
sort and what I saw is something concerning a Long Game that he has in progress. He is easily able to kill Malachi if he knew.
I am only telling you because I know you don’t wish him harm, even though you are angry with him at the moment.’

Lila stared down at the countertop, considering. She looked at the motes of quartz, stuck fast in the resin of the fake stone,
at the way their many different angles caught the light, or blocked it. She read between the lines and came up with an answer
that surprised her.

‘I suppose that locking someone away in Under for a few thousand years might be a move in such a game?’ Lila glanced up as
she finished, watching the girl’s reaction closely. She didn’t expect much. She’d already concluded that whoever and whatever
the girl was, she was an expert at showing only what she wished someone to see. From the side of her vision she kept Zal in
close check – he had senses that could bypass lying and concealment even better than her ability to read the microresponses
in other people’s skin that unerringly betrayed the depth of their concern about what they said or did.

‘Yes, of course,’ the girl said, shrugging it off in a way that neither confirmed nor denied Lila’s suspicion about her identity.
‘Listen, I know that the more I say the less you want to trust me, yeah? And not without reason. I know what happened to you,
both of you. But every game has its pieces and you must realise that you are those pieces, as I am. The players are not the
gods, cold and on high, as you might imagine. Nor the Fates. They’re just ones who live long and have power and like to play.’