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In seconds they were gone, and King sat alone, revelling in
the moment. He had men in the city now, searching for answers. Whoever else was
working with Gina would soon be in his hands. He just needed to wait, and then
he’d destroy them.

Somewhere in the distance, a siren began to keen, the sound
bringing with it a decade-old memory. Ten years ago King had quelled a similar
uprising. There’d been an upstart mobster who’d taken the first steps toward
separating himself from King’s empire. The man owned properties along the
waterfront, and he’d been skimming from his payouts. When King’s thugs had
caught the man, he’d sworn his innocence, but by then it had been too late for
amends. The warehouse had been doused with gasoline, the man tied to a chair in
the upper floor, and the building set alight.

The sirens down on the street rose, and King chuckled.

The firemen who’d gone in had made it to that floor, but
they hadn’t made it out alive. He hadn’t planned
that part
, but it gave him
satisfaction all the same. You were only as powerful as you were feared, and
the media storm that had followed that fire had done more for his power than a
single death ever could.

Outside the windows, the sun reached the horizon, columns of
light touching the buildings of the city. The sirens on the street abruptly
stopped, and King smiled to himself, a great sense of peace riding over him.
Something of terrible magnitude was unfolding tonight, but he was determined to
rise above it.  He’d done it before and he’d do it again.

‘Yes,’
he thought with dark humor.
‘I’ll smoke out
the rats, then burn them all.’

Tyrone “King” Fischer’s federal trial had marked the end of an
era in New York: the entire crime structure falling like a house of cards on the
morning he was taken into custody. Information from the trial had been closely
monitored, a gag order preventing the smallest details from emerging in the
press. Despite the lack of official information, the trial gripped the city
like a fever, news agencies staking out the courthouse, chasing the lawyers
down the street. It was whispered that there’d been a mole inside the mafia
family the entire time: Gina Cerritos’s name was bandied about. Whoever it was
had willingly traded their information for the protection that came from the
feds. And in the end, King, and eight of his closest confidantes, Luca Brin
included, were convicted.

Indigo didn’t care. She was just glad it was over.

Her life, more than ever, had a new start, but the victory
felt empty. Jude Alden was officially missing, but everyone knew he, like Marq
Lopez, was likely dead. She and Elliot got together in the spring, sharing a
bottle of Jack Daniels and burning a pile of Jude’s old clothing and comic
books on the roof of Indigo’s apartment, crying together as they said goodbye.

The last item Indigo threw in was his note.

Tonight she sat side by side with Shireese, watching videos
on her newly-purchased laptop. She would be graduating soon, and moving off on
her own, but for now, she was content to have one last night when everything
was the same. On the spur of the moment, she clicked open her documentary. The
two of them watched, in silence, as the film played: Indigo’s life summarized
in snapshots and music, pictures of her flickering from childhood through
adolescence, the images morphing into the woman she was today.

The last section of the film was the very first scene Indigo
had edited months earlier in Professor Yamamoto’s class: she and Shireese
drinking beer on the roof of the apartment building, the two of them dancing at
O’Reilly’s, the apartment in disarray, Indigo asleep on the couch, Tanis
standing next to Shireese at a concert, Indigo laughing behind them. Joy and
friendship and life lived.

The music faded, and one final scene appeared.

It was Indigo, staring out the window of a train, the
light flickering in the darkness. Indigo looked up at the camera, frowning.
From offscreen, a voice appeared.

“So was it worth it?” Jude asked.

Indigo cleared her throat, eyes red-rimmed and weary.

“What’s that?”

“Going home again,” the voice answered. “Seeing your
mother after all that time.”

She chewed her lip, then nodded.

“Yeah,” she answered. “It was.” She put her head back
against the glass, turning away from him. “It was a… good start.”

For a few seconds, the camera rested on her profile,
focusing and refocusing on her face.

“Thanks,” Jude said, almost to himself. “For letting me
come along.”

Indigo didn’t answer.

The camera jiggled, and the screen went back, the music
fading away to nothing.  Both women were sobbing, the apartment more empty
than it’d been minutes before.

“He’s really gone, isn’t he?” Indigo choked.

Shireese reached out, pulling her into her arms.

“He is,” she whispered. “But you’re still here...”

: : : : : : : : : :

Fran saw Nathan through the crowd. He was small and wiry,
his hair short again, much more the bright-eyed cadet she remembered, rather
than the wearied undercover agent he’d become over the years. She waited by the
other delegates, smiling as he neared.

“It’s good to see you again, Nathan,” Fran said. “I wasn’t
sure you’d still be here once the trial ended.”

“Time enough to head off on vacation,” he laughed. “I want to
make sure the last loose ends are tied up before I go.”

“Glad to hear it,” Fran said with a smile. “I owe you one.”

He shook his head, his expression pained, and then
controlled once more. The time had changed him, and even a new haircut couldn’t
put all of it back.

“Just doing my job, Commissioner.”

 “Have you thought of what you’ll do next?” she asked.
“Now that you’re back on the force?”

Nathan tipped his head to the side, considering.

“Well, I’ve got a backlog of paperwork to do,” he chuckled,
“but after that I thought I might consider being a detective. A desk job might
be a nice change.”

Fran smirked.

 “Detective Patel,” she said with a wink. “I like it.”

Working at Los Alamos wasn’t the worst job Julian Davis had
ever had. Far from it. It was, however, the most demanding.

He spent long hours struggling to unravel the complicated
intricacies of online security. The internet underworld was where the real
crime took place these days, and the Los Alamos base was where the government
fought it. There were hundreds of people employed by this particular division
of Homeland Security, the group of them spending their days in cubicles,
trawling the internet, every keystroke recorded for posterity.

Some of these people Julian knew by reputation: the kid
who’d hacked into the FBI mainframe, the virus programmer who’d brought Google
to a grinding halt, and the teenage genius who’d designed the now-illegal
interface for file-sharing. Others, Julian had met on-base: working out at the
gym, or buying groceries at the on-base store. They were the best and the
brightest from the tech world, and every single one of them had been brought in
for the express purpose of protecting the US from attack. All of them lived in
the gated community which surrounded Los Alamos. All of them were officially in
jail, serving life sentences for their actions.

All of them, like Julian Davis, had a new identity.

For the first months after his official ‘disappearance’,
Jules had simply struggled to keep up. The Fischer trial had dragged on for
months, the end unimaginably far away. Jules had testified in closed court,
earning him his second chance. A change from a jail cell, to Homeland Security
– even when he had to wear a tracker twenty-four hours a day – seemed like a
fair enough trade-off. Jules had a comfortable income, and a house, and a car,
a retirement plan, and health benefits. With all that’d happened since last
year, Jules didn’t regret a lot of what he’d left behind. And when he thought
of what the alternative was – a prison sentence, in a
real
prison – it
seemed like a good choice.

Most of the time.

In the past months, he’d finally begun to feel settled. He
was keeping up with his workload, and had earned his first ‘points’ that could
be used for off-base passes. The trouble was, he couldn’t
forget
Indigo.
She was there, on the edge of his consciousness, waiting to be found.

The first time he looked her up, he discovered she’d
graduated from university, and was applying for work at various design firms
around the country. He spent an evening looking through the images she had
posted on her locked Facebook page. The next morning, Jules was called into his
supervisor’s office. Admiral Janet Artola gave him the same
“You need to remember
that she’s being protected by NOT knowing about you,”
speech she’d given
him when he had arrived. He earned ten demerits for the infraction, and his
workload increased.

Jules left it at that.

The second time he found Indigo was
almost
an
accident. He’d been battling depression for weeks, and Morgan Drake, once known
as DemonDark, had suggested he give online dating a try. Jules had typed in his
information on a whim, leaving the picture bare. (He didn’t want to give Artola
any more ammunition than she needed.) Jules left his profile untouched for a
week, before going back to look through his matches. Finding he had none – it
appeared everyone
wanted to see who they were talking to – Jules began
probing the site.

The first name he searched for, once he’d hacked the
program, was Indigo Sykes.

She was there.

He read through her file, heart in his throat. She was
working in Colorado at a web design studio. She had listed a number of hobbies
and interests, but no pictures at all. He stared at the summary at the bottom
of the page.

I’m not looking for perfect anymore. I’m just looking for
something good.

Jules began typing.

: : :
: : : : : : :

Indigo sat in the coffee house, her eyes on the people milling
through the snowy streets. She’d only tried the online dating to get Shireese
off her back. They might live halfway across the country from one another these
days, but that had never stopped her friend from trying to help. Indigo had
decided she’d do this one date, and that was it. Shireese would be happy and
she could move on. It was like the obsession Shireese’d had with Elliot last
year. He was
nice
but there was definitely no click.

Today, Indigo was certain, would be the same.

Indigo sighed, fiddling with the handle of the coffee cup.
The year had changed more than just where she lived. Her priorities had changed
too. Indigo didn’t worry about the ‘right one’ anymore. Nowadays, she thought
long term, about compatibility and friendship. Sometimes, it was hard enough
just to get up in the morning, but Indigo figured if she kept going long
enough, that one day, she might just find a way to be happy again.

She took a sip of coffee, her mind flickering to another
time.

‘Maybe…’

The street was busy, the sunlight on snow leaving her
squinting. Outside, a figure passed, and Indigo leaned forward, her eyes
following him as he moved through the crowd. There was something about his walk
– the gait of it, and the way he held his head – that, even from the back, had
her heart pounding. The man disappeared back into the milling bodies, and
Indigo slumped down, chest tight.

‘Maybe…
’ she thought morosely,
‘I’m not ready
after all.’

She set the coffee down with shaking fingers, reaching for
her coat, hung over the chair behind her. The door opened at the front of the shop,
a gust of icy wind leaving her shivering. She pulled on one sleeve, turning to
put on the other, but stopped before she could finish.

Jude Alden was standing a few steps away.