Gilman, Laura Anne - Overrush (A Wren and Sergei Story)
Laura Anne Gilman
Laura Anne Gilman was born in New Jersey, left briefly to go to
college in the wilds of New York State, then returned to her old
stomping grounds of Essex County. Ignoring all advice from her
family and friends, she began her writing career in 1997 with a sale
to Amazing Stories. Since then, she has published more than a
dozen short stories, three media tie-in novels (two Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, one Poltergeist: The Legacy), been reprinted in
high school and middle school textbooks, written two nonfiction
books for teenagers, and edited two anthologies (OtherWere and
Treachery and Treason). In there somewhere she also has a full-
time job as an editor for a major publishing house. She is married
(Peter), with one cat (Pandora).


   You didn't say anything about a body!"
Well, that got his attention, anyway, Wren thought, see¬ing the
startled look in her partner's eyes. "Excuse me?"
"Body. As in dead. 1 thought we agreed, no more dead people?"
She collapsed bonelessly in the large leather sofa opposite
Sergei's desk. But she couldn't meld with the butter-soft material
the way she normally did. Not with that much adrenaline coursing
through her system. "Walk me through it."
That was the thing about Sergei. You could flap him for maybe, oh,
ten seconds. Then he was back in the groove. Which was good.
She needed grooveness right now.
"Body. Dead. Propped up in front of the painting like a rag doll,
only ickier. Blood, pooled and dried." She could feel herself
calming down as she recited, the act of talking it out giving her
some distance. Head wound, looked like. He was wearing
slicks"—the outfit of choice for the well-kitted burglar—"but his
hood was back, like he's stopped; like he thought he was in the
clear."
She had been cruising up until then. It was a flyby, an easy job.
They'd been hired by an insurance company who suspected that
their well-to-do client hadn't actually been relieved of certain heavily
insured paintings in a recent robbery as he claimed. So they'd
come to Sergei, who had a certain . . . reputation ... of being able to
retrieve missing objects, and offered him a hefty check to
ascertain the truth of the matter. Quietly, of course. Bad business
to look as though you doubted the word of a wealthy client.
So Sergei took their check, shook their hands, told them they'd
have an answer by the next Monday. And then he'd called her. He
was the money guy the deal guy. The face people saw.
She did the dirty work. The physical stuff. Ego aside, when it came
to Talent, there were maybe fifty mages who could manipulate
current the way she did, with the results she got. Skills, maybe
another twenty thieves working today who could finesse the way
she did. There were maybe ten other people in the world who
combined the two. And only one of them was better than she was.
But she was the only one who kept it legal. Ish. And dead bodies
had no place in a legal game.
Wren didn't believe in ghosts. Dead was dead was dead. But . . .
She exhaled once, slowly, letting all the remaining tension flow
from her neck, through her shoulder muscles, down her arms and
legs until she could practically feel it oozing out of her feet and
fingers like toxic sludge. And with it, the buzz of unused current-
magic still running in her system, drawn back into the greater pull of
the earth below her.
 she opened her eyes again, the world seemed a little more drab
 somehow, her body heavier, less responsive. Current was worse
 than a drug; it was like being addicted to your own blood,
 impossible to avoid. All the myths and legends about magic, and
 that was the only thing they ever really got right: you paid the price
 with bits of yourself. She reached almost instinctively, touching the
 small pool of current generated by her own body. It sparked at her
 touch, like a cat woken suddenly, then settled back down. But she
 felt better, until she looked up and saw Sergei staring at her, a
 question in his eyes. And the ghostly presence she had felt on
 seeing the stiff weighted on the back of her neck again.
What? she asked it silently. What?
Wren bit the inside of her lip. Scratched the side of her chin. Then
she sighed.
It didn't matter if you believed in ghosts or not, if they believed in
you.
They had stored the body in one of the rooms in the basement,
where Sergei kept the materials needed to stage the gallery's
ever-changing exhibits: pedestals, backdrops, folding chairs. Wren
opened the door and turned on the light, half expecting the corpse
to be sitting up and looking around.
But the body lay where they had left it, on its back, on the cold
cement floor. "Hi," she said, still standing in the doorway. That
sense of a presence was gone, as though in bringing it here she
had managed to appease its ghost. But it seemed rude somehow,
to poke and pry without at least some small talk beforehand . . .
"I don't suppose you can tell me what happened to you?" She
closed the door behind her and locked it. Sergei's gallery
assistants were gone for the night, but better overcautious than
having to explain.
Wren swallowed, then put the book she was carrying down on the
nearest clear surface. No point trying to recall anything from her
high school biology courses—that, as her mentor used to say, was
what we had books for. "Rigor mortis," she said, and flicked two of
her fingers its direction. The book opened, pages riffling until the
section she needed lay open. Taking a small tape recorder out of
her pocket, she pressed "record" and put it next to the book.
"The body is that of an older male, maybe a really rough fifties.
He's wearing jeans, sneakers, and a long-sleeved button-down
shirt. Homeless, probably—his skin looks like he hasn't washed in
a while." She walked around the body, trying to look at it
objectively. "Hair, graying brown. Long—seriously long. This guy
hadn't been to the barber in a long time."
She stopped, stared at the corpse, trying to decide what it was that
struck her as being wrong. "There are no signs of trauma. In fact,
there's no sign of anything. Unless he died from an overdose of
dirt." It might have been a heart attack or something internal, she
reminded herself. The only way to tell would be to cut him open . . .
"Ew," she said aloud. "Rigor mort. Tell me about it."
There was a faint hum, like that of a generator somewhere starting
up, and a voice rose from the book: "The stiffening and then
relaxing of muscles after death, as caused by the change in the
body's chemical composition from alkaline to acid. Process
typically beings in the face and spreads down the body, beginning
approximately two hours after death and lasting twelve to forty-
eight hours. A body in full rigor will break rather than relax its
contraction."
Wren flicked her fingers again, and the voice stopped. "The body
was stiff but not rigid when I picked it up," she said thoughtfully.
"And it stretched out okay when we got it in here—nothing broke
off or went snap." She grimaced, then bent down to touch the skin,
at first gently, then jabbing harder. "The skin is plastic, not hard. So
I guess it's safe to say rigor's pretty much wearing off. So he's
been dead at least half a day, maybe more. Not too much more,
though—he doesn't smell anywhere near that bad."
Sitting back on her heels, she looked at the book. "Next
paragraph," she told it. The voice continued: "Also to be
considered is liver mortis, or postmortem lividity. When a person
dies, the red blood cells will settle at the lowest portion of the
body. This can be identified by significant marking of the skin.
Markings higher on the body would indicate the victim was moved
after death."
Wren made a face, then she sighed, gave herself a quick, silent
pep talk, and reached down to take off his shirt.
"There better not be anything disgusting hiding in there," she
warned him. "Or I'm so going to throw up on you."
Her fingers touched the skin at the base of his neck, and the jolt
that went through her knocked her backward on her rear and
halfway across the room.
"The hell?"
"What am I looking for?"
Wren shook her head. "If I tell you, you—just touch him."
Sergei shot her a look, but knelt to do as she asked. He was still
wearing a tie, but his shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows. Long,
manicured fingers touched the corpse's hair, then the side of his
cold cheek, flinching slightly away from the feel of dead flesh. You
never got used to it, he thought.
"Go on. His torso."
Sergei placed the palm of his hand flat over the corpse's chest,
where Wren had left the shirt half-undone. He waited. Then
frowned. "What the hell?"
"You feel it?"
Sergei nodded, astonished. He was reasonably sensitive to the
natural flow of magic—that was how they'd first met—but this was
different somehow. "I feel . . . something. What is it?"
"Overrush."
Sergei pulled his hand away, wiping it on his slacks as though that
would erase the taint of death. "Which is ... ?"
"Current. Only, more than that. There's current residue in him that's
impossibly high. This guy's—God, I don't know how to explain it. I
don't even know what it is! But it feels right. That's what you're
feeling. It's the only thing that could explain—"
"Genevieve!"
He hated shouting at her, but it seemed to do the trick; she pulled
herself together. "Right. It looks like he got caught up in current,
major mondo current, pulled it in—and got ungrounded. Which is
impossible. I mean, any lonejack worth their skin knows how to
ground. You don't make it past puberty if you can't."
"So this fellow should have been able to ground and dispel any
current he couldn't use."
"Unless," Wren said, even slower than before, "unless somehow,
he was stopped ..."
Sergei stared at the body. "How? By whom?"
Wren shrugged, hugging herself. "Damned if I know. I didn't think it
was possible. Grounding's as much mental as physical—like
breathing. Which he's not doing, either, anymore."
Sergei sat down heavily on a velvet-covered stool and rubbed the
bridge of his nose. "You couldn't have just left him there?"
She didn't even bother glaring at him, looking at her watch instead.
"Almost seven," she told him. "You'd better get upstairs and meet
our new client. I'll see about finding the old boy a more final resting
place."
Sergei caught her by the arm. "Be careful," he told her. "I don't like
this."
She put her hand over his. "That makes two of us, partner."
Sergei never asked what she'd done with the body. She never
offered to tell him. He told her, instead, about the new client. "It's
something a little different," he said. Different was good. Different
required planning, plotting. That was what they did best, the
different ones. The difficult ones. That was why they were the best
Retrievers in the business, on either side of the law.
And different distracted her from the memory of a man torn apart
from the inside by too much of the stuff she depended on to exist.
Lonejackers were all current junkies. Didn't matter that you were
Mage or freelancer; it got in your blood, your bones, and if you
could jack, you did. And if you jacked too much . . .
Her mentor had gone crazy from current. She had always thought
that was the worst thing that could happen. Maybe it wasn't.
Sergei's hand touched her waist, his breath warm in her ear. "Stop
thinking. We're on."
Wren nodded once. It wasn't the usual run for Sergei to be with her
on a job, but you had to mix it up every now and again. If they start
expecting one, give them two. If they expect two, don't hit them at
all that night, that week, that place. And when they expect stealth,
walk in the front door.
"Mr. Didier, a pleasure, a pleasure indeed ..." Wren tuned out the
host's nervous bubbling. If 'jackers were bad about hanging around
each other, gallery owners were worse. At least a 'jacker would let
you see the knife before it went into your back. She detached
herself from Sergei's side and began to wander around the gallery.
It was larger than Sergei's and more eclectic. There was a series
of oddly twisted wire shapes that she thought she might like. Then
she saw them from a different angle and shuddered. Maybe not.
Snagging a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter,
she took a ladylike swig, licked her lips, and in a heartbeat
effectively disappeared from the awareness of everyone else in
the room. There wasn't any real magic to it—herd-mentality
clothing, a perfectly ordinary body and face, and a strong desire
not to be noticed, sewn together by the faintest of mental
suggestions that wafted along the current that was humming in the
lights strung along the room, illuminating the exhibits.
Walking slowly, she made a half-circuit of the main floor, then
moved up the short, straight staircase against the back of the wall.
Nobody saw her lift the velvet rope barricading the steps, nobody
saw her move up into the private areas of the gallery.
She barely paused at the primary security system at the top of the
stairs. Her no-see-me cantrip was passive, neither defensive nor
aggressive, and she passed through the barrier of current without a
hitch.
Wren cast one look back down the stairs, picking Sergei out of the
crowd with ease. He was leaning in to hear what an older woman
was saying, his shoulders relaxed, his right hand holding a glass,
his left gesturing as he replied, making the woman laugh. If you
didn't know what to look for, you'd never recognize the break in the
line of his coat as a holster. The one time Wren had picked up the
compact, heavy handgun, she'd spent the next hour dry-heaving
over the toilet. Psychometry wasn't one of her stronger skills, but
she could feel the lives that gun had taken.
But hating something didn't mean it wasn't a good idea to bring it
along.
Moving down the hallway, Wren counted doorways silently,
stopping when she came to the seventh. A touch of the doorknob
confirmed that there were elementals locking it. Trying to use
magic to force them out would bring smarter guards down to
investigate, exactly what she didn't want.
Going back to the stairs, she leaned against the wall, just below the
protective barrier, and took a deep breath. As she exhaled, slowly,
she touched the current, sending a wave of disturbance racing
down the stairs.
The twinkling lights in the gallery window went out with a satisfying
pop, followed in quick succession by the lights over the exhibits.
As the crowd milled about in confusion, Wren raced back down the
hallway and slipped inside the seventh room, trusting the chaos
downstairs would hide her own intrusion.
Inside, the room was dimly lit, three paintings stacked against the
wall like so much trash. Sergei would have had conniptions if he'd
seen them treated like that. But Wren wasn't interested in their
artistic value. A razor let her slice the bottom painting out of its
frame and remove the piece of carved bone pressed between two
layers of canvas. The relic went into a small, rubber-lined case that
fit in her pocket, and the painting was placed back into the frame. A
finger run along the serrated edges and a tiny drawdown of power,
and the two layers sealed themselves together again. Done, and
prettily, too, if she did say so herself.
"Sssst!"
She managed not to freak by the skin of her teeth, turning to glare
at Sergei standing behind her.
"They're frisking everyone downstairs," he told her, heading off any
questions. "We need another exit."
"Right. This way."
"This way" ended up being a long hallway without a single door off
it until they came to a T-intersection Sergei looked decidedly
unhappy, his gun now out and ready in his hand. Wren barely
spared it a glance, too busy listening to the hum of current
throughout the building. It was alert now, singing in activity. The
building was locking down, tucking itself up tight. "No, down here,"
she said suddenly, grabbing his free hand and tugging him to the
left, concentrating on the patterns. Down the hall, through a heavy
fire door, a pause on the landing to determine up or down, then up
to another fire door and into a hallway that was the exact replica of
the one they'd left behind. They took a corner at a full-out run and
stopped.
"Oh hell."
Wren stared at the blank wall. She could smell the sweat on her
skin, Sergei's. She could feel the thrum of blood racing in her
veins. Panic bubbled just below the surface. But Sergei's voice,
next to her, was calm.
"Get us out of here."
She knew what he was asking.
I can't!
We're dead either way. Or worse . . .
She reached, grabbing every available strand of current, draining
every power source in the building, siphoning off Sergei until he
staggered. Filled and overflowing, practically sparking and glowing
from within, she grabbed her partner in a bear hug and threw—
There was no transition. Her chin to the ground, palms abraded by
macadam, vomit pouring from her mouth. Her body ached and
quivered, and she was drenched in cold, sticky sweat.
When the torrent finally released her, she fell to her side, panic
filling her brain.
"Serg?"
"Da."
Utter relief filled her at the sound of his voice, faint and worn-out,
somewhere behind her. "I told you 1 was no good at this," she
said, wiping her face with her filthy sleeve. There was a scrape of
flesh against pavement, then a slow stream of curses in Russian.
"You 'kay?"
She managed to find the energy to roll over and watched as Sergei
fussed with his cell phone. Throwing it down in disgust, he reached
into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his PDA. He glared at it,
then her, then threw the equally useless device next to the cell
phone.
"Oops?" she offered.
He closed his eyes, picked up the gun from where it had fallen
when they translocated. It seemed to click and spin in all the right
places, and some of the lines on his face eased as well. He
replaced it in the holster, then leaned forward and took her hand,
pulling her up with him as he stood.
They leaned against each other for a few moments, listening to the
sound of their still-beating hearts. In the near distance, a car hit the
brakes too hard, squealed again. Farther away, the hum of
engines, horns, sirens wailing call the normal sounds of the city at
night.
"You got it?"
She nodded, touching her pocket. "Got it."
"Then let's get the hell home." He paused. "You have any idea
where we are?"
Wren tried to laugh, couldn't find the energy. "Not a clue."
They came to the end of the alley and paused to get their bearings.
"Wow. I managed to toss us farther than I thought."
"In the wrong direction."
"Bitch, bitch, bitch." She paused, her head coming up like a dog
catching a scent. "Sergei?"
A strangled scream answered her, and they whirled: bodies,
exhausted or not, tensing for a fight. A figure staggered toward
them, its skin crackling with fire like St. Vitus' dance, blue and
green sparks popping and dancing along his skin. He jittered like a
marionette, jinking first to the left, then right, forward and back,
moaning and tearing at himself all the while.
"Oh God . . ." Wren went to her knees, her already depleted body
unable to withstand the barrage of current coming off the man in
front of her. "Oh God, Sergei ..."
The burning figure lurched forward again, and Sergei reached
instinctively. A sudden loud crack cut across the buzzing of the
current in Wren's ears. The figure jerked backward, his eyes
meeting Sergei's with an expression of relief, gratitude, in an
instant before he pitched forward and fell to the ground.
The lights disappeared, and Wren heard a faint whoosh, as though
all the current were suddenly sucked back inside his skin.
Sergei went to the body before she could warn him not to, flipping
it onto its back. Long fingers tipped the man's head back, and then
Sergei nodded once, grimly, and released him, getting back to his
feet and putting the pistol away.
Wren looked at what her partner had been looking at: a pale blue
tattoo under the dead man's chin. "A Mage."
"That the same thing that killed the other stiff?"
Wren touched the rapidly cooling skin just to make sure, but it was
a meaningless gesture. "Yeah," she said with certainty.
"Right. We're out of here." He put one large palm between her
shoulder blades and steered her toward the sounds of traffic and
cabs. Neither of them looked back.
Wren was still nursing her first cup of coffee when Sergei arrived at
their usual meeting place the next morning, sliding into the booth
across the table from her. The waitress brought over a carafe of
hot water, tea bags, and a mug without being asked, and Wren
watched him as he went through the ritual of testing the water, then
stirring in the right amount of milk. She couldn't stand the stuff
herself, but she liked watching him make it.
Finally, he took a sip, then looked at her.
"His name was Raymond Pietro," she told him. "Twelve years with
the Council. Specialized in research, which is their way of saying
he was an interrogator. Truth-scrying, that sort of thing. Only the
past tense isn't just because he's dead. Rumor has it he went over
the edge last month."
"Over the edge" was a gentler way of saying he had wizzed. That
the chaotic surges of current had warped his brain so much that he
couldn't hold on to reality any longer. But that didn't explain his
death. Wizzing made you crazy, dangerous, but your ability to
handle current actually got better the more you gave yourself over
to it. That was why wizzarts were dangerous. That, and the raving
psycho loony part.
"They dumped him?" It might have seemed like a logical
explanation to Sergei, but Wren shook her head.
"Council takes care of its own. They have a house; really well
warded, totally low-tech, so he wouldn't be distracted by electricity.
He disappeared from the house two days ago. Council was
freaking—the guy I talked to actually thanked me for bringing news,
even though it was bad.
"They also said Pietro wasn't the first of their wizzarts to go
missing. They never found the others."
Her partner's face, not exactly readable at the best of times, shut
down even more. She finished her coffee, putting the mug down
firmly on the table in front of her. "One might have been an
accident, or a particularly crude suicide, but not half a dozen.
Someone's killing wizzarts, Serg. Pietro, our stiff, the others. Who
knows how many others? Council thinks—and I think they're
right—we've got somebody fine-tuning a weapon. Goes right
through the nulls, but fries 'jackers."
"And they're testing it on the wizzed population?"
"Nothing else makes sense. Nobody cares about the ones who've
wizzed. You can't, not really. They're as good as not there
anymore. So they're easy victims."
She was rather proud of how steady her voice was until she made
the mistake of meeting her partner's eyes. The quiet sympathy she
saw there destroyed any idea she might have had of remaining
calm.
Oh, Neezer . . .
John Ebenezer. Two short years her mentor. Five years now since
he started to wiz. Since he walked out of her life rather than risk
endangering her.
Are you out there, Neezer? Are you still alive?
"And if he—she, that—are?" His voice matched his face: stone.
"From everything you've told me, what I've seen, wizzarts are wild
cards, dangerous, to themselves and others. And quality of life
isn't exactly an issue."
Wren bit back on her immediate reply. He wasn't trying to goad her;
it was, to his mind, a valid question. And she had to give him the
respect of an equally valid answer. "Because that could be me
someday. Council might poke around, but they don't care about
lonejackers. If they discover anything, they might not even do
anything so long as they can cut a deal to protect their own." She
hated asking him for anything, but they had to take this job. She
would do it alone—but their partnership had been founded on the
knowledge that their skills complemented each other; she didn't
want to handicap herself by working solo if she didn't have to.
A long moment passed. Finally, Sergei sighed. "It's not as though
the Council will ever admit they owe us anything, least of all
payment," he groused, signaling to the waitress for a refill of
Wren's coffee. "First things first—is there any way to keep track of
wizzarts in the area?"
"Already ahead of you," she said, her hodgepodge memory turning
up what they needed. "It's not pretty, but once I have them in sight,
I can tag them; monitor their internal current pool. If
anything—any¬one—tries to mess with them, I'll know."
Sergei looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth. "How much risk
is there to you in this?"
"Negligible," she said, lying through her teeth.
Sergei tapped a finger on the space bar, studying the screen in
front of him, skimming the list of John Does brought into the local
hospitals for unexplained expirations. Of the seven names, two had
cause of death listed as lightning strikes. One more had internal
damage consistent with lightning, but the cause of death was liver
failure—apparently, he had been a long-term alcoholic.
None of the men matched the description of John Ebenezer. His
lips thinned as he entered another search, widening the area to
include Connecticut and New Jersey. Assuming Neezer stuck
around. Sergei wouldn't put any of his money on that.
Behind him, Wren made a sound of disgust, changing the channel
without using the remote. They had spent two days driving through
the city, walking into homeless shelters and into run-down
apartment buildings until she could See the wizzarts scattered
there, siphoning the faintest trace off their auras until she could
weave a leash from them to her. She had found seven, but had
only managed to create three leashes before collapsing from
exhaustion. Just the memory of her shaking, sweating body made
him angry all over again.
"Drink more of the juice," he told her, not looking over his shoulder
to make sure she obeyed him.
The screen displayed a refreshed list of names. Nothing.
"Serg?"
He was at her side before he consciously realized he'd heard her
voice. The juice lay splattered on the carpet, the glass rolling off to
one side, unbroken. He determined that there was no physical
danger and cupped her face in his hands, all in the space of
heartbeats.
"I'm here, lapushka," he told her. The pulse at her neck was
thready, and her eyes were glazed, pain lines forming around
them. He waited, cursing whatever idiotic impulse had ever led him
to agree to this, as she struggled to maintain the connection.
"Got him!"
They had lost the first one that morning, the leash snapping before
Wren could do more than be aware of the attack. She had cried
then, silent tears that left her eyes red-rimmed and her nose runny.
She had never been able to cry gracefully. His fingers tightened on
her chin. "Easy, Wren. Hold him. Hold him ..."
It was dangerous touching her. The overrush of current could
easily jump to him, and he'd have no protection, no way to ground
himself. But he wouldn't abandon her to do it alone.
Sweat was rising from her skin now, dampening her hair against
her face and neck. But she felt cool, almost clammy, tiny flicks of
electricity coursing off the dampness, sparking in the air.
"Ah—yes, that's it, come on, lean on me . . . lean on me, dammit!"
She was chanting instructions to the wizzart, trying to reach into his
current-crazed mind. Trust wasn't high on a wizzart's list, though,
especially for voices they heard inside their own heads.
A bolt rumbled through her, almost knocking them to the side.
Sergei planted himself more firmly, his grip keeping her upright.
She'd have bruises on her face when they were done. He'd have
them, too, on the inside: lightning burns, internal scarring. Pain
ached through his nerve endings. This was insane. For some literal
burnouts they'd never have anything to do with . . .
For John Ebenezer, he reminded himself. For Genevieve.
The air got heavy, and he could almost smell the singeing of hair
and flesh, of carpet fibers cracking underneath his knees, the
fusing of the wiring in the walls, the phone, his computer. A
lightbulb popped, but all he could focus on was her labored
breathing, the voice crooning encouragement to someone miles
away.
Her eyes, which had been squinted half-shut, opened wide, and
she stared into his eyes endlessly. He felt as though he were
falling, tumbling straight into an electric maw with nothing to stop
his fall. He was her, was him, was the current flowing between
them. He Saw through her eyes the wizzart let go, felt the current
being pounded into him, flowing into her, and being grounded. He
understood, finally, for that endless second the elegant simplicity
of grounding, and reveled in the surge of power filling the matter of
his existence.
The wizzart slumped, fell unconscious in a puddle of his own urine.
Get him, Sergei urged into her open mind. Find whoever did this.
He felt her stretch back into the wizzart's self, backtracking the
current that had been pumped into him, striking out like the lightning
it rode in. A shudder of anger, hatred, disgust slamming into hard
walls, confusion, and time stretched and snapped back, knocking
him clear across the room and headfirst into the wall.
When he came to, the room was dark. He didn't bother to turn on
the lights—they'd blown, each and every one of them. Crawling
forward, he reached out, finding the top of Wren's head. She was
curled into a ball, silently shaking.
"I screwed up," she said. "I couldn't get them. It was too far away. I
couldn't reach the bastards ..."
He sat there, in the dark, and rocked his partner back and forth
while she cried.
"It was a good control group," Sergei said around a mouthful of
toast. "Small enough population to monitor, and nobody to care if a
few bodies went missing." He shook his head, less astonished at
the ways of mankind than impressed at the planning it had taken.
Planning and resources and a certain bloody-mindedness.
"You're a bastard, Sergei." He had dragged her out to have
breakfast, but she wasn't eating. Scrambled eggs congealed on
the plate in front of her. Sunglasses perched on the edge of her
nose even though the diner itself was shaded and cool.
He put his fork down. "What do you want me to say? It's over,
Wren. We got too close ... we scared them, at least. That will make
them pull back, be cautious."
"So they'll just move shop to another town? Sergei, I can't—" She
stopped. "I couldn't do anything last night. I didn't have enough
juice, wasn't good enough. We can't stop them. We don't even
know who 'they' are."
He ran a hand through his hair, wincing a little as he touched the
bandage on his forehead. "We know the how, what they're doing,
the kind of people they're looking for. A few well-placed words and
people will be looking and paying attention. They'll be able to
protect each other."
"It's not enough." He could see the tears building again and
watched her force them away.
"It's all we can do." He didn't have anything more to offer her.
Sometimes all you could do was make sure your own
neighborhood was clean. Sometimes that just had to be enough.
Wren didn't look convinced. But she picked up her fork, shoveled a
mouthful, and chewed, swallowed.
For him, that was enough.