THE MORNING AFTER THE HEIST, on my least favorite day of the year, I drain the vodka from my glass, waiting for the arbiter to finish his inspection. “So, is there a verdict yet?” I ask without bothering to hide my impatience. The slender man makes a show of remaining silent at the desk over which he has been hunched for the better part of an hour. It’s overdramatic White slush. Anemic assholes think it profound to feign an air of aloofness, hiding behind contracts and commerce the way spiders hide and wait behind their webs. Two hundred were sentenced to life in Deepgrave during the Hyperion Trials for their part in the Gold judicial system. Should have been ten thousand. Rest were saved by the Amnesty declared by the Sovereign.
Bored, I survey the rest of the penthouse. It is painfully tasteful, done up in the restrained ostentation popular in Luna’s upper circles—minimalist decor with rose-quartz floors and large windows that look out over the glowing nightscape. On a moon where three billion souls clamor atop each other to breathe, only the offensively rich can afford to waste space.
It reminds me of so many of the decadent flats I encountered as a high-end claims investigator for Piraeus Insurance, before the Rising. Back when I was the help.
HighColors looked down on Grays because we took out the trash. LowColors hated us because they were the trash. Everyone else feared us, because for seven hundred years we have been the all-purpose knife of the state. Obsidians? Circus freaks, the lot of ’em. Grays do work. We are adaptable, efficient, and bred for systematic loyalty. Little has changed for most of them: new masters, same collar.
I yawn. I’m thinking too much again, so I pop a zoladone, stand and pace as the drug leads my wandering thoughts back to my employer with a cold, distant hand.
Oslo, if that is in fact his name, is an inoffensive, impossibly meticulous creature with a dreadful sense of calm that borderlines on the robotic. Slender, and professional in his white business tunic with a starched high collar and sleeves to his knuckles. His skin is squid ink black. His head bald and the irises of his eyes an unsettling white. He adjusts the digital monocle on his right eye.
“I do believe this is the item my clients requested,” he says in a harmonic baritone.
“As I said. Can we wrap this up?” He leans closer to the blade one last time before straightening and sheathing it very carefully into a gel-insulated metal briefcase.
“Citizen Horn, as ever, you delivered the requested item in a timely manner.” Oslo turns back to me, typing into his datapad. “You will note that the agreed-upon sum has been deposited into your Echo City account.”
I pull up my own datapad to check. His right eyebrow goes up. “I trust everything is satisfactory.”
“Yut,” I mutter.
“Yut?” he says in curiosity. “Oh yes, legion speak. Denoting an affirmation, usually done to convey affirmative sarcasm to a disliked officer.”
“It’s called dog tongue,” I say. “Not ‘legion speak.’ ”
“Of course.” He touches his chest. “In fact I studied it extensively. I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a military enthusiast. The traditions. The organization. ‘Merrywater ad portas,’ ” he says with a smile, using the phrase that seven centuries of legionnaires have shouted in memory of John Merrywater, the American who almost turned the tide of the Conquering by invading Luna—a reminder that the enemy is always at the gate.
I let it go, reminded of something the Ash Lord said to my cohort as a valedictory speech. “Those you protect will not see you. They will not understand you. But you are the Gray wall between civilization and chaos. And they stand safe in the shadow you cast. Do not expect praise or love. Their ignorance is proof of the success of your sacrifice. For we who serve the state, duty must be its own reward.”
Or something like that. Good branding. Works like a charm on sixteen-year-old gray matter.
“Now, what is next on your mysterious employer’s list?” I ask. “The sword of Alexander? The Magna Carta? The blackened heart of Kuthul Amun? I know. The knickers of the Sovereign herself. If she wears any…”
“There will be nothing else.”
“Between you and me, I doubt she wears—wait, what?”
“There will be nothing else, Citizen Horn,” Oslo says, picking up the briefcase containing the razor.
“Nothing?”
“Correct. My client has found this business relationship most satisfactory, but this piece will be the final acquisition, completing their collection. Thusly will we conclude our affiliation. Your services will not be required in the future.”
“Well, my bank account’s sorry to see you go,” I say, feeling a nasty hollowness knowing no job is waiting in the wings. It’s the first time in three years I’ve not had one on deck. “But nothing good can last forever, eh?” I stand and offer my hand to the taller White. He shakes it gently, and I hold on. The platinum rings on my forefinger dig into his tissue-thin skin. “So you’re still not even going to give me a hint about who I’ve been stealing for all this time?” He jerks his hand away and I narrow my eyes at him. “Just a hint.”
Oslo stares at me intensely.
“Why did curiosity kill the cat?” he asks me.
“Is telling riddles part of the job requirement?”
He smiles. “Because the cat stumbled upon the anaconda.”
I linger in the suite after Oslo has left, long enough to dull the bitterness of his words with a couple more glasses of vodka. Out the window, my city of towers writhes. She looks prettier in the dark.
Idly, I cycle through the contents of my address book, looking for a distraction. It’s a sea of detritus: bodies I’ve explored, relationships I’ve stretched past fraying. And floating amidst that wretched digital sea, standing in front of the city that never sleeps, surrounded by a billion breathing mouths, I feel the dark creep of despair. I pour one last drink, willing the numbness to spread.
A half day later, after a nap and a sobering plate of Terran noodles, I meet my crew to disburse the funds, though I hardly feel like company, on account of the date. They’re huddled in a booth in an uppity South Promenade bar on the fringe of Old Town, drinking vibrantly colored cocktails. Volga twirls a pink umbrella between massive fingers. The bar itself is located inside the gutted carcass of an old advertising dirigible that someone renovated in an attempt to commercialize irony. Seems to be working despite the wartime rationing. The place buzzes with soldiers, packs of slick, suited Silvers, new-monied Greens and Coppers. All the ones near the right levers to make cash when the free market opened, now surrounded by the gaggles that attend them like brightly plumed vultures. It’s mostly midColors, and there’s been more than a few nervous glances aimed at Volga. The big girl has ordered me something called a Venusian Fury. It’s dark as its namesake, Atalantia au Grimmus, and tastes like licorice and salt. Something in it makes the back of my eyes buzz and my groin swell. “What do you think?” she asks hopefully.
“Tastes like the ass end of the Ash Lord.” I push it away. She looks downcast at the table. In my haze, pity is slow to come, and dull when it does. I hate bars like this.
“You know what the Ash Lord’s ass tastes like?” Cyra asks.
“Look how old he is,” Dano says, taking a break from staring at a beautiful slip of a Pink at the bar, who looks nervously at his nasal piercings. His head is buzzed in popular fashion with Obsidian dragons. “Tinpot’s been around long enough to try everything.” I don’t reply, trying to hold on to the buzz left over from Oslo’s vodka. I’ll need it where I’m going.
“Whose idea was this commercial shithole?” I ask.
“Not mine,” Dano says, holding up his hands. “Not nearly enough bare tits in this place.”
“It was mine,” Cyra says defensively. “It was featured in Hyperion Weekly. You know, Eph, it is humanly possible to enjoy something different. Something new.”
“ ‘New’ generally means someone’s just trying to make money off something old.”
“Whatever. It’s better than the black-hole dives you visit to pickle your liver. Least here I’m not worried about getting an infection just by walking in the door.”
“Let’s get this over with.” I pull up my datapad so they can all see, and transfer the funds into each of their accounts. Sure, they’d see the balances change on their own pads if I’d just done it over the net. But there’s something incredibly human and satisfying for them to see my thumb disburse the money. “All done,” I say. “Six hundred apiece.”
“Even for Limey?” Dano asks. “Thought she was getting half.”
“What the hell does it matter to you?” Cyra snaps.
“The rest of us did our jobs without a bloody hitch.” He goes back to looking at the Pink girl, who’s talking with her friends. “No reason we shouldn’t get a little bonus for that action.”
“I need no bonus,” Volga says.
Dano sighs. “You ain’t helping the cause, love.”
“What the shit is your damage?” Cyra glares at Dano past Volga between them. “Always jacking on about my business? Why don’t you tend your own and focus on catching diseases from Pink slips.”
I lurch to my feet. “All right, this was fun. Try not to catch anything.”
“And he’s out like a Drachenjäger.” Dano checks his newest shiny chronometer. This one has rubies embedded in the hands. “Two minutes flat.”
“When’s the next job?” Cyra asks.
“Yeah, boss,” Dano says. “When’s the next job? Cyra’s got bills to pay.”
She flips him the crux and stares at me with more desperation than she probably means to show. It’s pitiful. “So? Your man’s got another job, right?”
“Not this time. We’re all done.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I said.” Seeing rain slithering down the windows, I pop the collar of my jacket.
“Ephraim,” Volga says plaintively. “You just arrived. Stay for a drink. We can order you something else?” She stares up at me with those big mopey eyes, and for a moment I consider it, until I hear a telltale hush of the patrons and turn to see two towering figures emerge from outside through the dirigible’s metal door. Golds. They wear black jackets with legion epaulets, their shoulders eclipsing the heads of the other patrons. They blithely survey the room with entitled eyes, before one of them catches sight of Dano’s Pink and strides to the bar. The others make room and he introduces himself without a care in the world. There’s an iron griffin pin on his chest. Arcos spawn. Dano’s eyes go down as the Gold’s hand drifts to the Pink’s waist.
“Boss…” Dano says, eyeing me warily.
I realize my hand has drifted to the butt of the pistol under my jacket.
Bloodydamn Aureate. We should have purged the lot of them, or exiled them to the Core. But that chance is gone. All for the war effort.
“Just one drink, Ephraim,” Volga says plaintively. “It will be fun. We can tell each other stories. And share jokes, as friends do.”
“It’s always the same story!”
As I leave the dirigible in the gravLift, the warm laughter of one of the Gold youths chases me down into the night.