Morningside Fall (16 page)

C
ass sat at a table right in the middle of the Mister Sun’s main room, alone, eyes intent on the door. The lights near the entrance were turned low, all the others were off completely, casting the area in a dusky gloom. Painter and Wren were both upstairs in Painter’s small room, hopefully getting some much needed sleep. Though she wouldn’t have been surprised if they were both lying wide awake, listening for whatever might come. Mister Sun had retired to his side room. She was pretty sure he was waiting just on the other side of the door, just in case.

It’d been a gamble, sending a message through Able, but it was one she’d felt she had to take. If North was in on the plot, they would know soon enough. And they’d already done everything they could to stack the odds in their favor.

“One incoming,” Cass heard Wick say over internal comms. “It’s him.”

A minute later, the front doors slid smoothly open, and a hulking figure stood in the entrance, silhouetted by the street lights behind him. He stepped cautiously over the threshold, out of the shadows and into the softer lights at the entrance. It was North. He looked off to his right as he entered, lowered his head and squinted, trying to force his eyes to adjust as he peered into the darkness. But as he scanned back to his left, his eyes quickly locked on Cass’s, drawn no doubt by their soft electric glow.

“Lady Cass,” he said, with a slight bow. North seemed surprised to see her. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” He stepped forward.

“That’s close enough,” Cass said as North reached the edge of the light, near the first row of tables. The doors slid closed and the locking mechanism clicked audibly.

“Front’s clear,” Wick said.

“Street’s clear,” Sky said.

“Rear’s good,” Finn answered.

Cass didn’t answer. Just kept her eyes on North. He remained at the entrance, hands folded in front of him. Usually quietly confident, he seemed instead tense and uncertain. Maybe just a man awakened in the middle of the night. Or maybe a man fearing the unraveling of a plan. Cass let him wait in silence, knowing the less she led him, the more likely he was to reveal his own thoughts.

“A bit late for tea,” North said. Cass held herself still, her eyes locked on his. An odd benefit of her altered eyes; he knew without a doubt that she was watching him, but couldn’t read her expression.

“Are the others joining us?” he asked.

“We’ll see,” she answered.

“May I sit?”

“If you must.”

Cass waited while North moved to the closest table and pulled a chair out for himself. He sat with his hands in his lap, under the table.

“Hands on the table,” Cass said.

“What’s going on, Cass?”

“Hands on the table,” she repeated. His shoulders sagged and he sighed. Then he raised his hands slowly in an exaggerated motion and held them up and open, and then placed them flat on the table in front of him.

“You’re usually more hospitable,” North said.

“You never really know people, do you?”

“It’s been a long few days, Lady. I have neither the energy nor the patience for games.”

“No games,” Cass said. “But I do have some questions.”

“They couldn’t wait for morning?”

“No.”

“Enough, Cass. I assume from the time and location of this meeting that you’ve learned something significant. And I assume from the fact that we’re the only two here that it’s something you don’t want the others to know.”

“What makes you think we’re the only two here?”

North’s eyes narrowed and his head started to turn slightly, but he stopped himself, kept his eyes on hers. She wondered just how much of her he could make out in the darkness.

“Have you spoken with Aron tonight?” she asked.

North shook his head. “Should I have?”

“How about Connor?”

His brow furrowed. “Not since we were with him together. Did they discover something?”

“They’re dead.”

His face passed through a range of emotion in seconds, from confusion to disbelief to shock. It all looked genuine to Cass. “Who… what happened?” he asked.

“They tried to take Wren.” Another wave of emotion.

“Tried to
take
him? Where? I don’t understand.”

“This is the first you’ve heard of it?”

For a brief moment, North didn’t seem to understand the question. When he grasped the implication, he became visibly angry and stood up.

“I have pledged my life to serve your son,” he said. “And I have served faithfully, at times to my own great pain.”

“Easy there, partner,” came a voice behind him. His eyes went wide, but he didn’t turn. “Why don’t you sit back down and keep your hands on the table like the good lady asked.”

North slowly lowered himself back into his chair, revealing Gamble’s petite frame behind him, her jittergun aimed squarely at the back of his head.

“I take this treatment as a great personal offense,” he said. “I have been nothing but a friend to you and your son.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Cass said.

“If I had known anything about a plan to take Wren from you, I would’ve stopped it myself.” He glowered at her from across the room, seemingly more angry at the questioning of his honor than over the deaths of Aron and Connor. “And if what you say is true, then I do not blame you for taking their lives.”

“It is true. It’s why I’m here, instead of at the compound. And it’s why I asked you to come, North. I don’t know who else we can trust.”

“
This
is trust?” he said, waving his hand vaguely around and ending by pointing at Gamble behind him.

“No. But it’s smart,” Cass answered. Then, “You can bring the lights up.”

A moment later, the lights came up in the room, and North’s eyes darted first to the back corner of the room, then to the left, where Able and Swoop were standing.

“Seems excessive for one man,” he said.

“We weren’t sure you’d come alone.”

“The message said to.”

“Can I offer you a drink?” she asked.

“Are they really dead?”

Cass nodded. North looked down at his hands on the table, curled them into fists, and then stretched his fingers out wide. “Then yes, I would like a drink.”

Before Cass could stand up, the door to Mister Sun’s room swung open and he came out with a little bow, motioning for her to keep her seat. She chuckled at that, and suppressed a smile as Mister Sun disappeared to the back room. Gamble holstered her pistol and sat on a table, legs dangling like a kid.

A few moments later, Mister Sun returned, carrying a tray with cups and a pair of bottles, which he placed on Cass’s table. Cass motioned to North, and he joined her. He poured for himself from one of the bottles, and offered some to her, which she declined. They sat in silence for a few minutes while North sipped and processed.

“What was their plan?” he said. “What were they hoping to accomplish?”

“They wanted him to use the machine.”

North watched her for a long moment, and then took another sip of his drink. He shook his head as he set the cup back on the table.

“No. Before. Let’s start at the beginning.”

It started as a flutter in the corner of Painter’s mind. Something alien and unwanted, like a nightmare he fought to forget, all the while feeling the more he struggled to ignore it, the more certain it seemed he would recall it in all its vivid horror. Yet worse. Painter couldn’t quite find a way to describe it even to himself. It was almost as if it was
someone else’s
nightmare was thrust into his own head. A flash of incoherent babble crackled through his mind, and he sat up violently on the floor.

But as quickly as it had come, it vanished, and his thoughts were clear once more. He checked the time. 01.47 GST. Maybe he’d started to doze off, and the turmoil of the day had bubbled through in an almost-dream. If there was another explanation, Painter couldn’t think of one. Even so, the feeling it left behind made him uneasy.

He looked over to the bed he’d given up, where Wren was breathing in the slow even rhythms of undisturbed sleep. At least he hadn’t woken his young friend. Hard not to envy the little king, sleeping peacefully despite the events of the day. Of the week. But then Painter shook his head. Who knew what burdens the poor boy carried? It seemed more like a life in prison than a life of power.

Painter fluffed up the bundle of clothes he was using as a pillow and then lowered himself onto his back carefully. His back and ribs still ached from his near-death experience with Gamble, but already the pain was less severe than it’d been, even just an hour ago. He reached up and lightly ran his fingers over his cheekbone, and over the gash that Mouse had had to seal up. Still puffy, and warm to the touch, but some healing was already evident there too. Funny, the way people treated him, like he was something lesser, something to be pitied. If they only knew… but then, even Painter still didn’t know all the ways he was different. Better, even.

His thoughts turned to Snow. If she had only known, would she still have joined up with whatever gang it was that had poisoned her so? Her eyes haunted him. The look of utter horror as she stared at him, mouth open, as if Painter had risen rotting from the grave. If she had only given him the chance, could he have even explained it to Snow?

Not with his mouth, no. Odd that with all the other improvements the Weir seemed to have made, they couldn’t fix his stutter. Improvements. Something within him revolted at that idea. They weren’t improvements as much as they were
violations.
And yet, he couldn’t deny that the Weir had in some way made him stronger. For so long they had been nightmare creatures, bringers of terror and death. His instinctual hatred was only natural. It was a challenge to even entertain the idea that maybe the Weir were in some way not completely evil. But if they
were
completely evil, then what did that mean for him?

Painter laughed at himself for trying to find reason in any of it. It all seemed meaningless. Useless attempts at philosophy by an untrained mind. Maybe life was just a series of accidents after all. Probably he was too tired to think. He lay with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, and let his mind wander, heedless of its direction.

The room was dark except for thin orange ribbons cast on the ceiling by the street lights through the blinds. Not
dark
to Painter’s eyes, but what he knew was dark for normal humans.
Normal.
Average. Common.
Unremarkable.
Painter closed his eyes and let himself smile at that. Yes, that seemed a better description.
Unremarkable
humans.

And just as he was finally drifting off into sleep, a soft but sudden sensation caught his attention. He lay still, holding his breath, searching for it again. A few moments later, yes, there. The merest trace of a new pulse of signal. It was hard for him to notice unless he really concentrated. Painter rolled over silently and pushed himself up. Crept to the window. Eased the blinds away from the window ever so slowly. Just enough to catch a glimpse of a shadow as it slipped into an alley.

Someone was in the street below.

“Straggler’s back,” Sky said over the team’s special communications channel. This was the third time the figure had passed near Mister Sun’s place; first might’ve been an accident, and the second a coincidence. But three times was as good as an enemy action. It was a tough call, though. The straggler was either really terrible at avoiding observation, or really good at looking like an amateur. Trouble was figuring out whether he was scouting the site, acting as bait, or just in the absolute wrong place at the perfectly wrong time.

“That’s three strikes,” Wick said. “If you wanna drop him, I’ll work clean-up.”

Technically, as a member of the Governor’s personal bodyguard, Sky was authorized to take any measure he deemed necessary to ensure the boy governor’s safety. It was a heavy responsibility to bear, though, and Sky was ever mindful of the cost every time he pulled the trigger, no matter how justified. And he was nowhere close to feeling justified.

“Finn, you getting any read off him?” he asked.

“Negative. He’s not talking to anybody.”

Sky shook his head. “What are you doing out here, man?” he whispered to the figure below. Straggler moved into the shadows along the building across from the Tea House. “Go home. Just go home.”

“I don’t like it, Sky,” Wick said. Wick hadn’t been blessed with Sky’s patience, but he never went without the OK. Of course, he also usually had a really good read on people, and if he didn’t like it, there was probably good reason. Just as Sky was thinking that, the straggler darted across the street and towards the back entrance. Wick was nice enough not to comment.

“Trouble,” Sky said. “Straggler just ducked behind the building. Did you pick him up, Finn?”

“No, I don’t see him. You get an ID?”

“Negative. Pretty sure it’s a dude, but never got a look at the face. Some kind of hood or something.”

“I’m not seeing him,” Finn said.

“You’ve got eyes on the back door?” Wick asked.

“Of course,” Finn said. “But if the first time I see him is when he’s at the door, that’s bad things, man.”

“Sky, you agree he’s hostile?” said Wick. He was looking for confirmation, to OK the kill if necessary.

“Can’t say for sure. But he’s definitely shady.”

“Alright, hang tight, bro,” Wick said to his brother. “I’ll swing around.”

“Hold there, Wick,” Finn said. “I’ll loop Able, get him to come out.”

“I’m already street level,” Wick answered, and Sky could hear the movement in his voice. “And I’m almost there anyway.”

From his elevated position, Sky saw Wick effortlessly flow across the street like a wisp of smoke. They were all highly trained professionals, but nobody really moved like Wick. He vanished around the same corner where the straggler had gone less than a minute before.

There was a long silence. Sky kept careful watch of the approaches towards Mister Sun’s, but his eyes kept drifting back to that corner, wondering what was going on down there. What was taking so long? As he looked back up at the far end of the street, three figures came into view, and Sky cursed to himself.

“Patrol inbound; front side, three men, fifty meters,” he said.

“Check,” Finn said.

Wick didn’t answer. Forty meters. There was a sudden sharp noise from the alley, quickly muffled. But not quickly enough. Sky saw the guards in the street react, their posture stiffening. Alerted. They fanned out slightly and started prowling towards the building.

“Wick, you alright?” Finn asked. No response. Thirty meters. “Wick!” Finn said again, more forcefully.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered in a whisper. “How close is that patrol?”

“Twenty meters,” Sky reported. “One’s splitting off.” One of the guards was now moving to an adjacent alley, circling around towards the back of Mister Sun’s house.

“I gotta to take Straggler in.”

“Swoop’ll be pissed,” Finn said.

“Doesn’t matter, they’re too close. Tell him we’re comin’ in the back.”

“Alright, check.”

Sky heard the subtle click in the channel as Finn cycled it and looped Swoop in. “Swoop, Finn.”

A moment later, Swoop answered, “Yeah, go.”

“Problem. Wick’s gotta bring a guest in through the back door.”

Sky watched as the two remaining guards spread their position, one keeping to the front of the building, while the other cautiously tried to get an angle on the alley where Wick and Straggler had gone.

“And we’ve got a patrol sniffing around outside,” Finn added.

There was a pause. There was almost always a pause with Swoop. “Check,” he finally said.

The guards looked at each other, and one nodded to the other. The first entered the alley.

“Keep your head down back there, Finn,” Sky said.