Company Town (34 page)

“I'm sorry,” Hwa said. “I'm sorry I'm not … doing more.”

“I don't need to be seduced, Hwa. I just need you to be here, and alive, and safe, with me.” He paused, and nestled a little closer. He stroked down the length of her spine, his touch reminding her of the way his voice would shiver down her nerves when he spoke to her from across town. This was better. Much better. “Although if there's anything in particular you feel that you need, please tell me.”

Hwa rolled over to face him. It was more difficult than she had imagined it would be. Her body didn't want to move. And her eyes didn't want to meet his. “I just…” She swallowed. “I just don't know how to do this.”

He gathered himself around her carefully. “You don't have to do anything. You've had a shock. You've had three months of shock. It's all right if you want to process that. It's probably healthy. But it's also all right if you want to forget about it, for a little while.”

She deliberated on that for a while with her eye in the hollow of his collarbone and her ear tuned to his breathing. If he noticed the tears on his skin from her good eye, he said nothing about it. Just kept up that light but insistent stroking down her back until she felt boneless.

He flinched when she finally reached for him. Gasped and shuddered like she was made of fire. It felt like triumph, like finding an opening in an opponent's defenses. “All you ever had to do was this,” he whispered. “I made that rule for myself. That if you started it, I'd finish it.”

“Like a fight.” Hwa's mind drifted with her hands. She wished it were a fight. Then she would know the moves. She would know how to read him. She froze, and he froze with her, a question on his face. “That night. You came back here with vodka. Chilled vodka. Because you knew I was here waiting.”

“Yes.” He smiled and buried his face in her neck. “I hoped that night might end differently.”

“Like this one?”

“Like this one. If you want.”

She did want. She wanted powerfully.

It didn't hurt as much as she thought it would. It did hurt. But after all the other pains she'd endured, the vague knee-scraping sensation between her legs wasn't all that bad. Stranger was the sense of her muscles accommodating something new. It felt like things had shifted around in there. That was weird, until it wasn't. But it was still better than
not
having the sensation—by the time he was inside her, he'd cranked her past the point of words. So she didn't ask for what she wanted and simply flipped him over and climbed on top.

She thought that would have done a number on her back, but she felt fine. Better than fine, actually. A little bowlegged, but even her knee felt better. Apparently a bunch of dopamine rushes were good for the body's healing process. They certainly left her sleepy. And this time, he let her close her eyes.

But when she woke, Daniel was gone.

Hwa put on his shirt and moved out into the living room. There was a martini shaker and two glasses out, but Daniel wasn't there. She went back to the washroom. Maybe the bathtub. But no. Gone. And no note.

Maybe he was getting food. But they had plenty of stuff in the fridge.
They
. That was weird. They were a
them
now. Bizarre. And yet also not. Since meeting, they'd spent almost every day together in one way or the other. This was just another way of being together. The bizarre thing was him wanting her.

“Prefect?”

“Ready.”

“Prefect, where is Daniel?”

A long pause.

“He is with Joel, on the top floor of this tower.”

“Is Joel all right?”

“He is with Calliope and Layne and Sabrina and Eileen.”

Adrenaline poured ice water over her dopamine haze. Fear replaced buzz. Her afterglow flickered out and went dark.

“What?”

“We are all here, Hwa. Waiting.”

 

18

Killer

Enter the Dragon.

That was the first thought Hwa had, when she saw this room for the first time. How many times had she and Tae-kyung watched that movie? Sure, it was jeet kun do and not tae kwon do, but Bruce Lee was a classic. Hell, they'd even watched
Game of Death
a few times.

“Joel?” She wandered through the halls of mirror and crystal. “Daniel?”

Why hadn't Joel been evacuated? Surely the city as a whole wasn't safe any longer. Who knew what other explosives might be lurking in the Slocum spheres? Ridiculous to think it was all over.

“Joel?” She made her voice bigger. “Joel!”

Her voice echoed back to her across the crystals. Hwa watched multiple versions of herself advance slowly across the room. “Daniel?”

And as though the room had heard her command, one of the facets opened and out spilled Daniel, with Joel in tow. Daniel was holding a gun. He was pointing it at Mr. Branch.

“He's gone insane!” Branch held his arms a little higher and splayed his fingers a little wider. “His switch has flipped!”

Cold adrenaline washed over Hwa's nerves. “What?”

“Don't listen to him, Hwa. It's him. It's Branch.
He's the one.
”

“Daniel, why are you doing this?” Joel looked scared. His eyes were red. He'd been crying. “Just put the gun down. You don't have to hurt anybody.”

“Joel, he wants to kill you,” Daniel said. “He's the one who sent the death threats.”

“No, Joel! It's Daniel!” Branch pointed. His eyes were wild. He was panicked. “It's
Daniel
who wants to hurt you. Daniel's been skullcapped. From the inside. Your brothers and sisters sent him to eliminate you. That's why they needed you to get your father out of the way. He was the only one protecting you. They were hoping all along you'd get Hwa to kill him. Luckily she had plenty of good motivation.”

Joel turned the colour of the modelling clay they used in art class. Not just pale, but grey. Ashen. Those were real words for real colours, Hwa realized. People actually looked that way when they were afraid. And Joel was terrified.

Joel turned slowly to face Hwa. His voice cracked. “What … What is he talking about?”

Hwa shook her head. She kept her hands open. She moved very slowly toward him. “It's nothing. He doesn't know what he's talking about.”

“She believes in conspiracy theories,” Branch said. “About your family. About the company. She thinks the company blew the rig, three years ago.”

How would Branch know that? She had told exactly one person about her suspicions. Bile rose in her throat. She turned to Daniel. Daniel was shaking his head. “It wasn't me,” he whispered. “Hwa, please believe me, I promise you, I didn't tell any of them anything, I—”

“What is he saying?” Joel asked.

“It was never about you, Joel. She came back to work just so she could get revenge for her brother. Why else would she return, after being shot?”

And just like that, Hwa remembered who had sent her out in the hallway that day.

Is it true one of the other teachers here has a type?
She had thought Coach Brandvold and Coach Alexander meant Moliter. But they hadn't. They were talking about Branch.

Branch had cancelled science club the day they found Sabrina. She'd been alive, when they found her. Her only available timeslot was in the afternoon. After school.

“Oh, my God,” Hwa murmured. “It was you. You son of a bitch, it was you.”

She ran at him. Joel threw himself at her. He body-checked her and she stumbled back on her bad knees. From the floor, she watched as Joel raised his fists and assumed the standing position. The fighting stance. The one Angel had tried so hard to drill into him, when the summer was freshly dead and snow was just a distant hope.

“No.” She shook her head. “No, Joel. I won't do that. I won't fight you.”

“Are we really friends?” Joel asked. “Or are you just using me?”

Why are we friends? Are we really friends? Why do you try so hard?

She stood up. “Yes, Joel,” she said. “We're friends. I am really your friend. I would still be your friend, even if there was no money.”

“No.
I'm
your friend. Your
only
friend. She's just the woman who's paid to spend time with you and make you feel like she's your friend. Just like her mother, the whore.”

“Fuck you,” Daniel said, and fired the gun. Hwa hit the floor. Joel hit the floor. Branch wove on his feet for a moment. Then he, too, hit the floor. Only Daniel remained standing. Hwa started crawling toward Joel, who had covered his head with his hands.

“Joel,” Hwa said. The boy whimpered. She kept crawling. “Come on over here, b'y. Come on, now.”

On the floor, Branch began to twitch. Hwa smelled something terrible. Something like the smell of Sandro's lab. She watched Branch sit up and shake off the wound that had sheared off half his face.

“That's why Daniel hired her,” Branch continued, as though nothing had happened. His voice was a thick burble of blood and rot. “Didn't you ever find it a little strange that you had a full-time bodyguard when Security was right there?”

“Daniel,” Hwa murmured. “Daniel, run, now.”

He fired, instead. He kept firing. And Branch kept moving.

“Joel. Listen to me. Get up. Come over here. Right now.”

Joel said nothing. He looked confused. Terrified. Frustrated. This was too much for him, Hwa realized. Too much for his implant. He was overloading. He hid his face, but Hwa saw it in all his other reflections. The way his face crumpled. The way he stared at the floor. He was shutting down.

“Joel.” Hwa reached out for him desperately. “Come here. It's going to be okay.”

“No, Joel.” Branch walked over, reached down, and put a hand on his shoulder. “It's not.”

And then he picked up the boy by his collar and threw him against one wall. The crystal crunched and cracked where his body hit it. Shards went everywhere. Hwa ran. Daniel ran. Daniel got there first. She watched as Branch picked him up and threw him to the floor. Blood pooled under him.

Hwa skidded to a stop. She stood between them, facing Branch. “Which one will it be, Miss Go?” Branch asked. “The boy, or the man? The leader, or the follower? The meal ticket, or the pity lay?”

Hwa heard herself panting. She had never wanted to kill someone so much in her whole life. Not even Lázló, in that elevator. The desire to hurt Branch was so strong it made her shake. She felt it from the roots of her hair to the tips of her fingers. She made herself walk to Joel's prone body. Made herself kneel down. Made herself feel for a pulse. Made it look calm.

“Get up,” she kept saying. Like she were coaching him out of a particularly bad fall on the mat. “Get up, b'y, come on, get up.…”

“When he wakes up, I'm going to tell him that
you
did all this,” Branch said. “I'm going to be that one special teacher that changes his life. The one who shapes him and moulds him into who he's supposed to be.”

Hwa felt a pulse. Joel wasn't conscious, but he also wasn't bleeding too heavily. That was good. She assessed: her comms were out. Her watch was gone. But the doors were still opening for her.

“You always think you're going to change him,” Branch said. “Every single time, you think you're the one who's going to make him see how the other half lives. But in the end, he always makes the right choice. My brothers and I, we inspire him to become the person he's meant to be.”

He's right behind you. Him and all his brothers.

“I don't know what you're on about,” Hwa said.

“Of course you don't. You never do. Not until it's too late.”

She had to play for time. Get him to go all supervillain on her and waste some time while she figured out a plan. Get to Daniel. Get to the gun. See if there were more rounds. “Brothers?” she asked. “What brothers?”

Branch waved a hand. He looked like a lord of the manor gesturing for quiet. As he gestured, the crystal walls of the room began to flicker. Some brightened. Some dimmed. In all of them was another version of Branch. In some he was a man. In others he was a woman. In still others, he was a machine: all glowing eyes and gleaming skin. In another he had six arms, each of which floated around him on delicate monofilament, twisting this way and that.

“These are my brothers,” he said. “And all of my brothers share the corporate mission. To extend the Lynch brand into the stars.”

Hwa sat back on her haunches. Beside her, the Branch brother in the crystal gave her a little wave, and pulled back a smile that revealed row upon row of long, black teeth.

“The science club project,” Hwa said. “The generation ship.”

“Precisely.” Branch smiled. He steepled his fingers. As he did, the fingers themselves appeared to blur. Like parts of his body were winking out of existence. “I'm going to inspire him. Mould him. Shape him. Send his mind spinning on that sense of wonder that you're all so very vulnerable to. It's so absurdly easy to exploit. All you need are some images of nebulae and some swelling violins and suddenly everyone believes in manifest destiny again.”

He—if it was a he, if he was a person, and not a thing, not some otherworldly awfulness that could send death threats from between layers of time, oh Jesus, oh Christ, oh Sacred Heart of Mary—had a point.

“You want to teach Joel? Great. But this”—she waved a hand at the broken crystal and blood—“this isn't teaching.”

“Oh, I don't want to simply
teach
Joel,” Branch said. “I want to change the course of his life. And the history of this company.” He smiled thinly. “And that's much easier to do when you're not in the picture.”