The Flux (19 page)

Then she collapsed.

“Not everything needs ’mancy, sweetie,” Tyler said, kissing her on the cheek. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Can’t...” She looked around, dazed. “We can’t leave Rainbird behind.”

“
I
can. That guy’s a douche. And we’re, uh... well, we’re running out of time.”

He jerked his chin over towards the melted Humvee wrecks. Released from Valentine’s spell, the cops were coming to.

“We gotta get Rainbird.” Valentine grabbed at Rainbird weakly. “We have to.”

“You got a choice,” Tyler said. “Run with me now, or don’t. Not trying to be impolite here, but I got a battalion of armed enforcers coming to.”

He head-jerked again towards his men, who leapt over fences, evading the area. They’d had a plan to escape, Paul realized, and had enacted it while Rainbird had gone full-tilt – and Tyler watched them leave.

“Won’t they stay to rescue you?” Paul asked.

“I taught them I’m no special snowflake. They wouldn’t respect me if I asked for help. You in, or out?”

Aliyah. Rainbird knew about Aliyah. If they left him behind, he’d get captured by SMASH and everything Rainbird knew would lead the government right to his daughter’s door.

“…I’m out.”

Tyler clapped Paul on the shoulder. “Good luck, man. Take care of her. She
is
a special snowflake.”

He ran for the fences.

“Wait!” Valentine cried, reaching after him. She collapsed onto the scorched lawn, exhausted.

Paul tugged her to her feet. “Go
Grand Theft Auto
, Val. Get us out of here.”

“No deal.” She gestured at the strained sky above them, otherworldly dimensions threatening to push through. “One glimmer of ’mancy, and
they
get access.”

The air behind her rippled like smeared glass. The air thrummed with the low hum of buzzsects gnawing at the laws of physics.

“Do you remember those things eating you alive?” She swallowed. “I do.”

David raised his head, weary. “The ’mancers. They’re still here.” Then: “
Get
them, you fools!”

“They aren’t the ones we should be getting,” Lenny protested. “They stopped that idiot from burning us.”

A thin grumble of assent.

“
’Mancy. Is. Illegal
.” David gathered strength from that single, idiotic statement. “Any able-bodied man who doesn’t move to get them will be brought up on charges.”

Like zombies, exhausted and naked and bruised, the cops stumbled to their feet to converge on Paul and Valentine. They patted the ground, dazed, looking for any weapons they could find. Their batons and guns had been swept clean – but they picked up twisted chunks of incinerated patrol cars to hammer the ’mancers into submission.

Not a one of them recognized the signs of a broach.

Paul looked around, realizing the bind they were in. The last time he’d healed a broach, he’d done it while SMASH had been occupied by Valentine’s attack. And SMASH were trained ’mancers with a respectable fear of extradimensional incursions. But now? David led the Task Force, an egomaniac who barely understood ’mancy. If anyone distracted Paul while he tried to mend reality, the broach might worm itself in so deep that America’s best efforts might not be able to push it back.

No
, Paul thought.
I can do this. I can–

There was a sizzling noise as his arm dripped fresh blood onto the cinder-covered ground, as if to remind him what had happened the last time he thought he could push back an extradimensional incursion.

He sagged. Once again, he was calculating Imani-odds – unwilling to risk global destruction to fix an immediate problem…

He looked around. What could they do without ’mancy? Rainbird, a large man, was unconscious. Paul was not a strong man, and Valentine wasn’t big on endurance; they might be able to drag Rainbird a block or two before the cops caught up.

Paul ticked off the options on his fingers. “We’ve got… no ’mancy. No equipment. Aside from this phone.”

“We’re about to die, and you’re making lists?”

Paul looked hurt. “You know it’s how I cope with stress.”

Valentine heaved Rainbird over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry; her knees buckled, and Rainbird tumbled down her back, landing face-first in the smoldering soil. “Fuck, Paul, I don’t know –
call
somebody.”

“Who would I–?”

The phone rang.

Paul squinted at the name on the phone. He held it to his ear, baffled. “…Oscar?”

“Your friendly neighborhood drug distributor,” Oscar demurred. “I have agents stationed nearby. Did you want a ride? Oh, never mind, I’ll assume you do. How much would you estimate this purchases me in Flex?”

“A lifetime’s supply,” Paul said, feeling a wave of gratitude as a minivan screeched onto the street, two men in ski masks tumbling out.

“Good to see you again, Mr Tsabo.” K-Dash gave Paul a merry wink as he fired a burst from his automatic rifle, forcing the incoming cops to dive for cover.

“Did you bring donuts?” Paul asked.

K-Dash gave an exaggerated gesture of failure. “We ate them all, sir. On stakeout duty, watching you. But I promise I’ll get you a nice fresh baker’s dozen on the way back home.”

Paul felt a strange sense of reunion; he’d
missed
his bodyguards.

Quaysean and Valentine hugged before chucking Rainbird into the back seat. K-Dash fired over the cops’ heads, warning them away. The cops shouted for reinforcements, but all the electrical equipment in the area had melted.

They piled into the van and Quaysean pulled out, driving maniacally through the back streets, screeching around corners. Paul hadn’t known Quaysean was such an expert driver – but then again, Oscar wouldn’t have assigned them to watch over him if they weren’t truly skilled.

“They know what your car looks like,” Paul said. “And they have ’mancy-sensing drones…”

Quaysean flashed him a toothy smile. “We got that covered, Mr Tsabo. Don’t you worry about a thing. Want a sip of my coffee?”

Despite himself, Paul relaxed.

They screeched into an old repair shop, where a battered SUV waited in a shadowy garage. A pleasant blonde woman sat in the front, the perfect soccer mom; a small white kid in a baseball cap sat next to her.

“In the back, Ms DiGriz.” K-Dash opened the door for her. “Not so fast, Mr Tsabo – you have to authorize something first.”

He handed Paul a legal pad, then nodded to another gang member. A wiry black kid leapt into the front seat of the van that had picked them up.

Quaysean handed the kid an old McDonald’s cup brimming with Flex – Paul’s Flex – spilling over with clear crystals glimmering with pure, captured ’mancy. The kid, eager, gobbled a handful and then jittered as the energy coursed through him.

A request popped up on the legal pad:

The party of the first part would like authorization to use your Flex to speed like a madman and/or evade the cops on a wild, nonfatal drive through New York.

Paul looked up at Quaysean with new respect. Quaysean tipped his cap. “We
have
thought this through, Mr S. Oscar’s a little protective of his investments.”

Paul signed it. The wiry black kid pumped his fist and stomped on the accelerator pedal, screeching out of the repair shop. Paul knew from past experience with Gargunza’s men that their Flex trips rapidly became the stuff of legend; Oscar had snapped up a kid willing to trade a ten-year jail sentence to ride wild on Paul’s stolen ’mancy.

Quaysean quietly pushed Rainbird into the SUV’s trunk, then climbed in. “They’ll chase him. He’s got all your markers – Valentine’s crazy
Grand Theft Auto
-style car chases in the van she was last seen in, shattering opals in every drone overhead for miles around. By the time they realize their mistake, we’ll be long gone.”

Paul jerked his chin towards the soccer mom. “And your driver…?”

“Put a nice white lady in the driver’s seat and she never gets pulled over,” Quaysean said. “My advice would be to take a nap in the back, after you talk to Mr Oscar. If I don’t miss my guess, you’re going to need all your energy to deal with Mr Payne.”

Paul smiled. “How much do you know?”

“Did you want to say ‘thank you’ first?”

Paul pumped Quaysean’s hand. “Thank you, Quaysean.
Thank
you.”

Quaysean bobbed his head, blushing. “Glad to be of service, Mr Tsabo. Now let’s get you some donuts. You’ve got a deal to broker back at the Institute.”

They knew about the Institute. Paul shivered.

P
aul had
to wash up before he met with Payne. But Aliyah waited in his office. She was a little girl, sitting expectantly on his desk.

Paul was glad; he’d worried she’d wear that scarred warrior’s skin all the time.

“You got hurt,” she said.

For a disorienting moment Aliyah looked like a tiny Imani, waiting coldly for him to come back from late nights at the office.

Except Aliyah wasn’t angry.

She was upset her daddy had lied to her again.

And Paul
had
been trying to hide things from Aliyah. He’d snuck in so she wouldn’t see him covered in bruises, his clothes scorched, his hair choked with soot. He hadn’t wanted her to know how close he’d come to dying.

“I got away,” Paul offered.

She frowned, then leapt off the bed to hug him, pressing her face to his belly. “You can’t leave, Daddy. Ever.”

“Sweetie, I have things to do–”

“No. It’s not
safe
out there. You have to
stay here
, where nobody’s trying to kill us.” She kicked his titanium shin. “You keep losing fights. You keep losing limbs. I’m going to lose
you
.”

“You won’t–”

“Shh.” She pressed up against him. It was as though she was trying to commit him to memory, storing this moment against some awful future where her daddy had died. “This place is perfect, Daddy. Can’t you see?”

Paul imagined himself as one of Payne’s hothouse flowers, holed up among the filing cabinets as he handled Payne’s infrastructure for him. Forgetting to wash. His natural shyness growing like a cancer, eroding his ability to speak to people.

Outside was violence and uncertainty; inside was the slow withering of safety. Paul understood, for the first time, why Valentine wanted to leave.

I still have to talk to Payne
, Paul thought, pulling away from Aliyah to go shower.

“Hey!” Aliyah yelled, furious. “You can’t leave!”

“I have to convince Mr Payne that we
can
stay,” Paul told her, and turned on the hot water.

P
ayne loomed
over Paul like a drill sergeant, bellowing, seeming to fill the entirety of the conference room.

“How in blazes did they track you back to
here
?”

“
The party of the first part may, at any time, use the drug to locate the party of the second part
no matter where he may be,
” Paul quoted. “That was our deal. Oscar wanted to ensure I couldn’t skip out on my responsibilities.”

“And you
accepted
that?”

“It seemed an appropriate thing to ask for in a business deal. And it wasn’t like I had a lot of choice. He’d deduced the truth about me.”

Payne turned away from Paul, fuming. “So a great ’mancer became a drug manufacturer. Working for a mundane.”

“
Hey
. I’m not the only Flex maker here. My clear, backlash-free Flex was only legendary because people had seen it before. Back in the 1960s. When Samaritan Mutual was
founded.
” Payne turned, outraged. “Or was I supposed to believe you made your fortune selling insurance?”

“I wasn’t propping up some penny-ante drug dealer, Paul! I was building an empire! An empire to
protect ’mancers
! ’Mancers who, you may recall, are endangered thanks to your poor judgment!”

This place is perfect, Daddy
. Payne was right; they’d almost lost this glorious retreat. He imagined Aliyah’s happiness turning to screams as SMASH agents rained anti-’mancer grenades on the place, drugged them, carried them off.

But he’d be damned if he took responsibility for what wasn’t his fault. Payne had done that back at Samaritan Mutual: he’d scream at people until he found a scapegoat.

Aliyah’s life was at stake, again, and once again Payne was blaming anyone else but himself.

“This was not
my
fuckup,” Paul said. “If Rainbird had gone in alone, he’d be tagged and bagged. Those devices knocked him the hell out, and
I
disabled them. So let’s not blame
me
for overwhelming forces – forces that, thanks to Oscar’s help, we escaped.”

“You shouldn’t have
needed
this criminal’s help! I’ve heard Rainbird’s report. You could have cleansed the issue!”

Paul remembered how terrified the cops had looked as Rainbird’s firestorm had swept in on them, humiliated men about to die. “
Cleansed
?”

Payne waved the problem away. “They’re
mundanes
, Paul.”

“So was
I
!”

Payne plopped into a chair.

“Oh, Paul.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I knew it’d come to this. I’d hoped you’d see necessity, but… I see it’s time to break open an old wound.”

He took Paul’s hand. His touch had the coolness of an old man with poor circulation.

“Paul, I know you’ve always resented me for… well, what happened with Aliyah.”

“You mean when she was dying and you tried to fire me to avoid paying her claims?”

“
No
.” Payne’s certainty made Paul’s doubt waver. “As long as she was dying, I paid. That was the contract we had. Note that not one claim to save that beautiful girl’s life was refused. You may not believe me, but I said prayers. I’m glad she lived.”

“Funny, given that you looked for every excuse to shortchange her.”

Payne stiffened. “I authorized the best care in the best burn ward in New York City. That’s what I
agreed
to, Paul. You paid me cash, and if something went wrong, I looked after you. I owed you. As I owe protection to all my clients.”

“And yet you hunted for ways to weasel out of my claims.”

“That, too, the contract. You’re a... a bureaucromancer. You understand the power of agreements. If someone wants my money, is it not my right to verify they kept to their terms?” Payne sighed, as though this conversation was already spiraling out of control. “When your daughter was dying, I authorized every expenditure. That was what I promised to do – and I keep my promises. But you – you wanted more. That’s understandable, Paul, as a father. You wanted to make her pretty again. But those million-dollar surgeries weren’t part of our bargain.”

“That was my daughter’s
face
you were denying.”

“Believe me, Paul, I looked at her photos every time I denied a claim. I owed you that. And you know what I saw? My darling sisters. Lisa, and Anna.”

Paul sat, puzzled. Payne blinked back a tear.

“This world is a harsh place, Paul.
That
is what the broach taught me. My mother had to make a choice between saving me, or my sisters, or those filthy buzzsects would have devoured us all. And… she saved me.

“Watching them die, Paul, I…” He looked away. “What happened to them was worse than death. That’s when I realized: this world is not filled with enough kindness to save everyone.
Someone
must decide who lives and who dies. And my mother, she… She couldn’t. She hung herself once I was safe in America.”

Paul wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m… I’m sorry.”

“I’m not asking for your sympathy, Paul. I am, in fact, asking for the exact opposite of sympathy. For if I paid out my money to all the folks who tugged on my heartstrings, well… I couldn’t afford
this
.”

Payne flicked on a security monitor; Aliyah rolled in a tumble of Mrs Liu’s magical cats.

She could have been abducted by SMASH. They could have lost everything.

But could he have watched those cops scream until their throats roasted? He knew those men. He imagined Lenny’s mother grieving, unsure who’d killed her son because Paul had wiped all the evidence away…

…he understood why Payne’s mother had killed herself. Not that he could condone it – leaving a small boy alone in the world seemed like the cruelest thing to do – but Payne had opened a window opened into the guilt his mother had endured.

Payne nodded. “I now have twenty ’mancers to look after. Yes, I denied your daughter’s coverage. Yes, I injured thousands yesterday, dispersing your flux. Yes, I would murder – and it
is
murder – a squadron of police to protect them. Because
someone
must be strong enough to make terrible choices, Paul. That is what a king does.”

“The king of New York,” Paul muttered.

Payne squeezed Paul’s hands. “And this drug dealer – I’m sure he wants the Flex. You’re right. I distributed my own drugs, back in the day. I even built my own laboratory. But once we give it to him, well… my experience with dealers tells me they always escalate. He’ll want more.”

“I don’t think he will.” The look Payne gave him made Paul feel naïve. “He’s... a businessman. His brother always wanted more, and got killed for that. I think Oscar is... well, reasonable. We can deal with him.”

“Yet the man refuses to meet with us.” Payne flicked another monitor on, showing K-Dash and Quaysean sitting in the atrium underneath Rainbird’s baleful gaze. Rainbird kept burning off his left hand, making it regrow, making them squirm. “He sends minions.”

“Would you blame him? He doesn’t want you to know where he is, any more than you wanted him to know where
you
were. And the man’s avoided the cops for years – we’re just one more authority to circumvent.”

“Can’t you track him–”

“I tried. Even if I felt like having you sic Rainbird on him, he’s using burner phones, dropping them quicker than I can find them. He’s off the Internet. He’s got long experience ducking government surveillance. What about your other ’mancers?”

Payne scowled. “Useless for practical missions. Hothouse flowers.”

“Look, what he wants is Flex. Give him Flex. You said you had a laboratory–”

“
I will not be beholden to a criminal!
”

Payne looked ready to strangle him at that moment. Paul changed tactics.

“With all due respect, sir, you don’t have a choice. We can’t find him. But if you work with him, he could be a great ally. He’s hunted by the cops, too. He could help us make this place safer. And don’t you want to be safer, with New York City’s new anti-’mancer hardware?”

Payne sniffed. “You’re romanticizing the man, Tsabo. He’s more of a murderer than I am.”

“Maybe. But weren’t you the one who said we had to make hard choices?”

Payne pushed his hands through his white mane of hair. He turned to the security monitors, flipping through them – looking at Mrs Vinere the masquomancer, the bookiemancer in his sports-related enclave, a high shot of the atrium. Looking over all he owned.

Then he switched back to Aliyah, playing with Mrs Liu’s cats. And Mrs Liu’s cats, as they always did in Aliyah’s presence, did far stranger things – in this case, singing “Rum Tum Tugger” as Mrs Liu clapped along.

Mrs Liu looked thrilled. And as Payne panned back to the atrium, he saw the ’mancers lining up, waiting to play with Aliyah – a community united by their love of Paul’s daughter.

Payne clasped calloused hands behind his back. “You know, Paul,” he said, his voice heavy with disappointment, “When I found you, I thought I’d found the answer to my prayers. Someone to carry on my legacy. And to my surprise, your daughter is the leader.”

He left the room.