Free Fall

And yet, the sense of current running through the walls and floors remained, and the thought of moving elsewhere gave her physical pain. So she stayed, barren walls and all, and only occasionally—like now—wondered why.

This time, she asked it out loud.

“It’s like a fortress,” Bonnie said in response. Her legs were curled up under her as she sat on the sofa chewing on a brownie, the half-empty pan on the coffee table between them. How had they eaten so much, so fast? “Even as empty as your place is. The building’s soaked up so much current over the years, it’s in the building now. That’s why we both just had to live here. Probably why P.B. spends so much time here, too. I can barely get the guys to go home, some mornings.”

Wren didn’t want the details. Bonnie was cheerfully if discriminatingly polyamorous, and while Wren had no problems with that, she was going through a self-imposed dry spell, and didn’t need the reminder of what she was missing.

“I bet that’s why that psi-bomb didn’t do any damage,” Bonnie went on, thinking the problem out logically the way the PUPIs—the forensic scientists of the Cosa, for lack of a better term—were trained to do. “The building practically deflected it, the way treated glass does UV rays…”

The bomb had been planted by the Council—suspected, not proven—back when they were trying to scare the lonejacks into signing on to the Council’s agenda. A classic tactic that had backfired because the Council forgot one basic lesson when dealing with lonejacks: when pushed, they get ornery. And even more stubborn.

Wren had heard, and seen, stranger things. “Or maybe it’s just a really well-built building.”

“Yah, maybe. Got no complaints about the soundproofing, that’s for sure.”

“Oversharing…” Wren murmured.

“Speaking of which.” Bonnie could switch topics without warning, giving you mental whiplash. “What the hell bit your tail? And don’t tell me nothing. You never eat four brownies in one sitting like that, so I know you’re seriously wiped out. You were on a job this morning, weren’t you?”

Wren didn’t talk to Bonnie—or anyone—about her jobs. Part of the service she provided was privacy and confidentiality about the details of what she did. But the actual nature of her work wasn’t exactly a secret any more, not among the Cosa. And certainly not to the PUPIs, damn them.

“Yeah. It was a setup. Someone played me, lured me out there, and jumped me.”

“What?” Bonnie’s normally half-asleep expression woke up suddenly, and she leaned forward, peering again at Wren. “You’re okay. They’re not, I take it.”

“They’re not,” Wren agreed.

“You need to…” Her voice trailed off. The PUPI were formed with the single goal of bringing justice to the Cosa, finding the truth behind things the Null justice system couldn’t or wouldn’t handle. But Bonnie was clearly having difficulty determining how they would be able to help Wren, in this instance.

“I know who they were.” Underneath the fog, a cold clarity had settled over her on the trip home, and the warmth of the shower, and the gooey sugar of the brownie hadn’t broken it even slightly. Now, when she needed it, it rose to the fore. “I know who sent them. And I know what to do about them.”

“Who, and what?” Bonnie sounded like she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but couldn’t stop herself from asking.

Wren stared at the ceiling, then got up to go into the kitchen.

“Valere!”

Wren poured herself a mug of coffee and came back into the main room where Bonnie was sitting.

“I’m going to take them down,” she said, simply.

“The Silence.” It was a logical conclusion, and for all her perky-goth casualness, Bonnie was bone-deep logical.

“Yeah.” Wren drank her coffee, and watched Bonnie mull over what little she knew, fitting the pieces together with recent history.

“You’re serious about this?”

“I’m serious.”

“Why now? I mean, no offense, Valere, but you were offered leadership shit back when this all started, back when it was just a bunch of random vigilantes and their pit bulls.” It had been mastiffs, actually, the ones Wren had seen, but she didn’t correct her. “And it’s not like you didn’t know how serious it was, that they wanted us all dead and gone and never-existed.”

“I couldn’t do it then,” was all Wren said, but after a minute, Bonnie seemed to get it. You could know something in your head, and in your heart, but that wasn’t the same as knowing it in your gut. Down where you can actually do something about it.

“So…how? You alone? Or you knock on my door and say ‘It’s time to do this’ and I’m supposed to fall in lockstep behind you? All of us are? On your say-so, you whose partner is part of the problem?”

“No.” Wren knew that Bonnie was just being devil’s advocate, and didn’t take offense. “Exactly the opposite.” She was still trying to work it out herself, so she was choosing her words carefully, trying not to get tangled up in her own thoughts. What had been so white-hot and clear walking out of the theater cooled slightly under rational considerations, but Wren knew she had been right, in that heat.

“We went about it the wrong way, before. We tried to organize, to become an army. A solid force of opposition.”

“And that’s not going to work?” Bonnie asked. “Then what the hell is?”

“You study any history when you were in school?” Wren asked.

“American history, I mean.”

“A little, I guess,” Bonnie said dismissively. “I wasn’t much for classes back then.”

“Me, neither. But I liked the textbooks. And some stuff stuck, even when I didn’t know it was sticking.” Never any of Neezer’s classes—she’d had no head for biology, and Neezer kept her away from any of the expensive microscopes, since her control back then had been for shit. But history had intrigued her.

“Back in the American Revolution, the British sent their troops in. They marched like they’d marched in Europe—straight lines and squared off formations, and bright red uniforms. Soldiers.”

“Yeah, so?” Bonnie wasn’t following, for once.

“The rebels were frontiersmen,” another, deeper voice said.

Both women jumped: they hadn’t heard P.B. come in. Wren had been expecting the usual tap on the window, forgetting that he now had his own key, now that he was staying with her on an official basis.

“They wore brown, to blend in with the forest and the crops. They shot from behind trees, lying behind rocks. They were snipers, not soldiers.” The demon paused, sounding as though he were lacking only elbow patches and a classroom to go into academia. “A lot of that’s historical legend, actually. But there’s truth in it, too. You thinking of turning us into snipers from behind mailboxes and fire hydrants, Valere?” Then he saw the bruises on her face and his oddly flattened, bearlike face went from amused to furious. “What happened?”

She had almost forgotten how bad she looked, even with the blood washed off. “Welcome home. I got jumped. Down in the theater district. Someone used the job as a chance to get me alone.”

“He dead?”

“All three of them are.”

“Good.” The thing about demon: they didn’t much give a damn about violence. Wren didn’t know much about the breed, and she knew more than almost anyone, from what P.B. had told her over the years. But the one thing everyone knew: the reason they made such good couriers for top-priority or dangerous packages was that a demon would kill you if he felt threatened, and feel no guilt about it. They didn’t have guilt.

“Silence?” Danny had come in behind P.B., taking the time to remove his coat and hang it up in the closet. He was dressed in his usual jeans and cowboy boots, with a baseball cap over his curly brown hair to cover the small, curved horns peeking out.

“From what they said, I suspect so. The plan was to take me out, and then come get P.B.”

Bonnie hadn’t known about that. Wren had almost forgotten, herself.

“And you killed them first. I never get to have any fun.” P.B. was being jovial, but his jawline gave it away, if you knew what to look for. Black gum showed against his white fur, like a dog preparing to snarl, emphasizing the polar bear–like appearance that gave him his nickname. He might be causal about killing, but he knew—they all knew—that Wren wasn’t. So there was more to the story that she wasn’t telling.

She twisted her mouth into an almost-smile, wincing when it hurt her face. “You’re still pissed off because I stopped you from interfering in an attack, last winter.”

“I remember.” He was looking at her, and she held his red gaze steady, until he was the one who looked away. But he didn’t seem displeased by what he saw, despite that. In fact, she almost thought that he looked…smug? “You said to hold off, because the Patrol was coming. You were right. Bart agreed, and it all came out right. Patrol power. Yay.” They had argued about that, at the time, and afterward. Clearly he still thought he had been right.