The Second Rebel, page 5
“Time to get to work, Luce,” I tell myself.
Isa sets up our stools as I unzip my bag. Inside is my entire collection of airpens in a variety of colors. I grab the white first to lay down a base over the smooth stone of the building, while Isa selects a yellow since the background of the painting will be the sickly sky of Venus, not the lie of the dome around us. Almost as soon as the airpen is in my hand, my heart steadies; I fall into the familiar rhythm of painting.
The airpen mists swaths of the wall a blank white, and as soon as I finish, Isa steps into my place with her yellow to paint atmospheric clouds. I select an orange and follow along with her, shaping a planet most Icarii never see. After the background is done, we choose some blues—this time she’s the base and I’m the shadows—and begin the figure of the woman who is the calling card of the Keres Art Collective.
As she begins to take shape, I wonder if Shad intentionally designed her to look both Icarii and Aster. Even in college, Shad’s work focused on the poor treatment of lowlevels, Asters included. But as we move from the figure’s slender body to her outstretched gray wings, she loses any resemblance she had to humanity. With a shadow there, her mouth gapes a little too wide, her teeth jut a little too sharp. With a highlight there, her fingers end in ragged claws.
“Eight minutes left,” Isa says, but I’m feeling good about our time. And the Keres is looking good, even if the design Shad chose for Isa and me isn’t one I would’ve picked. But after assignments went out, Isa made it clear she didn’t want to argue with him.
“If we impress him with this, we’ll get to do other things,” she explained, and since I love Isa, I bit my tongue. I didn’t want to tell her the real reason we got stuck painting the Keres was because I refused to paint Lito.
Lito, the Icarii traitor.
Every Icarii from Spero to Cytherea has seen the news—and we all know what the stories say. Lito sol Lucius, radicalized by an Aster terrorist cell, broke into Val Akira Labs on Mercury to steal sensitive Icarii data. And as everyone I knew at work, from my manager to the interns, began to look at me with suspicion, the members of Keres built me into someone one step away from greatness.
“Your brother is the symbol we need,” Shad told me last night as he planned the strike against the Maintenance Guild on lowlevel Cytherea. He’d brought up my online portfolio from CCAD on his compad and was flipping through various paintings I’d done of Lito for classes. I was more shocked he remembered my work at all than that he was talking about Lito—everyone was talking about Lito at that point. “He speaks for true Icarii freedom. His is the path Keres should follow.”
I was too angry to point out that Lito didn’t say anything, that his path was unknowable to anyone but him. The news could say whatever it wanted; that didn’t make it true. And while I could absolutely see Lito getting caught up in something crazy because of Hiro—my brother had always been willing to follow Hiro through the thousand hells—I doubted he was targeting the average Cytherean citizen. Besides, how was Lito’s break-in at the labs tied to justice for the lowlevel people of Cytherea? Wasn’t that Keres’s mission statement? I asked Shad, but he didn’t seem to care. “Just think about painting Lito for us,” he said, waving my concerns away. I agreed, if only to get him off my back.
When we met up earlier tonight, Shad didn’t mention Lito again. I guess he’d found something else to occupy his short attention span.
“Three minutes left,” Isa says, tenser than before, but as I finish the last white streak of the Keres woman’s hair, I step back to survey the whole painting and realize—we’re finished. All things considered, she looks good. Maybe even better than she does when other Keres artists paint her. Though… it probably helps that Isa and I aren’t painting her to look sexy like some of the guys do.
Movement above catches my eye. I freeze, breath caught in my throat. On the top of Building B, a figure prowls. A peacekeeper?
But just when I’m about to shout, the cry fizzles out. The fluid way the person moves doesn’t scream security to me. Another artist, then? Besides, what security wears a hooded jacket to hide their face? The figure puts a leg on the lip of the building and leans over. I feel like they’re looking directly at me. Watching me.
“Isa…”
“What?” Isa steps to my side and follows my gaze. She doesn’t seem nearly as startled as I am. “Probably just a fucking junkie, Luce.”
The words sting unexpectedly. It’s easy to forget Isa’s surname has a val attached to it, that I’m the only one here who actually came from this level.
“Come on, Luce, we have to go,” Isa says, calling me back to the roof. She’s tossed all the airpens into my bag and is zipping it up. Right. She’s totally right, especially if someone is up there and has called security on us. I grab my bag, pull the strap over my head, and start toward the others.
They’re finishing paintings of their own, recalling their personal drones, and putting away paints and tools. The word CROOKED blazes in red letters, dripping like blood. Another duo has painted three sets of lungs stacked on top of each other. The top set is clean, the middle slightly faded, and the lungs on the bottom are withered and brown. CLEAN AIR IS A RIGHT is painted above it in the stiff typeface of a personal drone.
“Isn’t that yours?” I ask Isa, but she doesn’t meet my eyes. She shrugs like she doesn’t know or like it doesn’t matter, but I know Isa’s designs like I know my own. Why didn’t Shad have her work on that when she was the original artist?
“All done?” Shad asks with a smile when we approach him and his partner. His fingers are stained with ink, signs of his guilt. Mine are too, now that I think to look. But all of that is forgotten when I see Shad’s painting.
Blue-black hair like a crow’s feathers. Dark eyes reflecting the clouds of the Cytherean dome. His face in profile, showing off the same prominent nose that I have. A painting so much like my painting, but wrong—so much of it wrong—that my anger bubbles up hot and fast.
“What the fuck, Shad?” There’s no moderation to my voice. The entire group spins in our direction, faces paling. But I don’t care. Let them look. He stole my art. He plagiarized my painting. He took my brother’s face—
“Your brother now belongs to the people, Lucinia,” Shad says, cold and distant. “He is a symbol for so much.”
“But that’s my painting,” I say, and I know he knows what I’m talking about. It’s one of the best pieces in my CCAD portfolio. “His face isn’t even right—”
“We can talk about this when we’re not trespassing on the roof of a building right next to our illegal artwork,” he grinds out. To the others, he gestures toward the ladder. “Let’s get out of here.”
I unzip my bag of airpens. I’m reaching for a soft brown when Isa’s hand shoots out to grab mine. “Luce, what are you doing?”
“Fixing this fucking mess,” I say, pointing with my chin at the image of Lito.
“Are you serious?” She looks like I slapped her.
“It’s not right. It doesn’t look anything like my brother. His cheekbones—those aren’t his cheekbones. And his jawline—”
“Leave her, Isa!” Shad calls. “If she’s going to be a stubborn bitch, let her get caught.”
It’s only now that I remember the figure on the roof above us and realize how loud our shouting has become. But it doesn’t matter. If they’ve called the peacekeepers, they’re already on their way. I’ll just have to work faster. I can’t leave Lito looking like this.
“If we go and you stay, how’re you going to get down?” Isa asks.
“Leave the ladder,” I say.
Shad scoffs. “You’ll just lose it when you get arrested.”
“Then I’ll buy you a new one,” I snarl.
Shad quirks a brow. The ladders aren’t cheap, and while he has money—his parents have money—I have a job that earns me an annual salary that makes ends meet.
“I’ll buy you two, then! I don’t fucking care.” I have no idea how I’ll make good on this promise, but it doesn’t matter right now.
“Whatever.” That seems to convince him. “Isa, let’s go.” He follows after the other members to leave.
For a moment, I look at Isa and think she’ll stay to help me. We’re a pair, after all, two artists working in sync. And if anyone understands what it feels like to see Shad co-opting her artwork, it’d be her. But then, at last, she releases my hand and backs away. “Please call me later to let me know you’re safe,” she says, and I murmur some sort of assent, knowing it’s a lie.
I don’t look back at her as she leaves.
I grab several colors at once, shadows and highlights for Lito’s skin, then set to work. I try to focus on what’s in front of me, on putting down one line at a time, instead of the racing of my heart. My compad vibrates in my jacket, but I ignore it. I don’t want to know how much time has passed. I sharpen his jaw. I lift his cheekbones. I add the hook to his nose that Shad ignored in favor of making him pretty. If my brother is going to be on this building, I want him to be Lito, not some idealized version of him.
I take a step back to check my progress. Lito’s profile takes up two square meters of space, big enough that, without a stool, I can’t reach the top. But now it’s beginning to look more like my original painting. Though Lito’s face is upturned, most is in shadow, only the curve of his nose and the downturn of his lips highlighted from the background of a Venusian sunset in yellow, orange, and purple. Rising from his head is a crown of gold. As soon as the dome wakes and light hits the gold, it will glow, alive and warm. It just needs a little thickening of his brows—
I hear a whistle above me and look up. It’s the figure in the hooded jacket again, still watching me. I want to shout at them to fuck off and leave me alone, but I see their hand come up and point at something. I follow it to the little shack in the corner of the building, the one that probably holds maintenance equipment.
The door opens.
Shit. Not maintenance equipment. Stairs to the building below.
“¡Oye tú! ¡Estate quieta!” someone shouts as a light hits me and Lito, almost blinding as the gold paint flares. “Stop right there!”
I snatch up my bag. A couple of airpens slip out, but I don’t have time to stop and grab them. I run as fast as my legs will carry me across the roof and swing myself onto the ladder. I slip on a rung, cling with my hands, and skid down. The ground comes up fast, and I land on my ankle wrong and stumble. The skin of my hands is scraped clean off.
Though it stings enough to bring tears to my eyes, I lean down and press a button to release the ladder. But the ladder doesn’t move, and when I look up, I see why. The man from the roof—a peacekeeper, my com-lenses note—is already coming down after me.
Forget the ladder, then. I take off at a run, darting out of the alley and across the street, my ankle shooting hot fire up my leg with every step. In the alley we had hidden in before, I hoist myself over a fence and ignore the pain shooting white stars across my vision.
A quick look over my shoulder tells me the peacekeeper is following, so I consider my options as to where I can lie low. What’s still open at this time of night? Restaurants? Too few people to blend in. A nightclub? Perfect.
I leave the alley as the peacekeeper hits the fence and starts to scramble over. If it weren’t for my ankle, I’d be able to outrun him easily with my longer legs, but I have to settle for taking what ground I can. I’m going to hurt tomorrow, I know; I’m making my ankle worse with every step I take, but it’s better than being arrested.
I can’t be arrested. I can’t be. I have a promising job as an artist at Val Akira Geneassists. I love my apartment. And after working on my relationship with my parents, I can safely say it’s been smooth sailing for at least a month. Well, three weeks, but I am optimistic. Getting arrested will ruin all that. My parents would be so furious, I’d become like Lito to them, a disappointing child with a rotten end. I’d lose my apartment on the upper level of Cytherea. I’d get fired and prove to all my coworkers that they were right to suspect me simply because Lito is my brother.
Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you were willing to throw everything away for a painting of Lito, my logical mind hisses.
I run another three blocks before rounding a corner onto Avenida Ramón y Cajal. As soon as I’m out of sight of the pursuing officer, I strip off my jacket, shove it into my bag, and toss the whole thing into a dumpster, airpens and all. I can’t worry about my things right now; I’ll have to come back for them later…
I know there’s a discoteca at the end of this street, the wild music reaching me even here. A sweaty girl in streetwear won’t look suspicious there, so I hurry down the adjoining alleyway, paint-streaked and bleeding hands shoved in my pockets, adjusting my stride so that I’m just a young adult eager for a party. My breath is coming in heaving gasps. The air is so thin down here. It takes all my willpower to slow my breathing.
I hear heavy footsteps behind me. The sound of something metal, and then a click. Something odd. Something dangerous. And though I shouldn’t turn back, though it makes me look guilty, I can’t help it—curiosity seizes my limbs and turns my head and—
“Put your hands up!” the peacekeeper yells, pointing a HEL gun at me.
“Shit!” My heart beats hard in my throat.
Thousand gods, please don’t kill me—
“You’re under arrest—”
Movement above me. A shadow falls.
I clap my hands over my mouth as something lands on the peacekeeper—no, someone. The officer goes down, HEL gun skidding to land at the toes of my boots. The figure in the black coat—it’s the same one from the Maintenance Guild building—reaches down and presses something over the peacekeeper’s mouth, and then he stops struggling.
My jaw works, chewing on question after question, Is he dead? first among them. But then the figure stands straight—taller than me—and pulls back the hood of their jacket, and I’m greeted with a purple-tinted face and half-curled lips and shimmering golden eyes like a Venusian sunset.
An Aster. An Aster saving me, and I’m too stunned to say anything, to do anything, other than stare.
“Hi,” the Aster says, pointed teeth peeking out from a wide mouth, “I’m Castor.” A finger indicates the guy on the ground. “He’s not the only peacekeeper around here.” Then a gesture back the way I came. “And we should go.”
Stunned, I sputter for a second before finding my voice. “ ‘We’?” I repeat.
The Aster shrugs. “Unless you’re not interested in a message from your brother.”
Lito, part of an Aster terrorist cell, or so said the news. I never thought it could be true, but now…
Swallowing my fear, I run to catch up to the Aster. “This way.”
* * *
THERE’S A SMALL part of me that remembers Isa’s request to call her when I got home safe—if I got home safe. Then there’s a much larger part drowning in questions, like did the peacekeeper see my face? Am I a wanted figure across Cytherea? Is security on their way to my home even now? But all of that is overwhelmed by the simple sight of an Aster in my apartment.
My apartment, because I wasn’t about to follow a stranger to a place I wasn’t comfortable. And I want that message from Lito—no denying that.
We talked little on our way back—simple introductions; Castor said it wasn’t safe to explain things out in the open—but when he opens his mouth to say something, I press my paint-stained fingers over his lips and bite back a hiss at the sting of my tattered palm. I’m accustomed to being one of the tallest people in the room, but he makes me feel small and compact in a way I never have before. He says nothing when I drop my hand, and I wrestle my compad out of my jacket and swipe a quick message I don’t send.
Apt could be bugged, I write, turning the screen to him when I’m finished.
“Doesn’t matter.” He pulls a little silver device from his pocket and waggles it. I have no idea what it is but instantly relax at the assurance that we’re safe speaking here.
“Since the thing with”—safe or not, I still can’t say my brother’s name—“the labs, I’ve noticed someone tailing me to and from work. Not sure how in-depth they’re watching me.”
His sharp teeth make another appearance in a half smile. “You have a tail, and you still went out to paint with your friends?”
I shrug, trying not to let his words embarrass me. “I know how to lose people moving between levels. I know the bottom level of Cytherea better than most.”
“Still needed my help tonight,” he says. Of course he won’t let that slide. I would’ve been fine if my ankle hadn’t been twisted. He checks a compad of his own. “You can relax about that, by the way. Looks like they didn’t identify you or your friends. The all-ports warning is vague, looking for two individuals without many details.”
I want to ask him how he could possibly have access to that data—want to demand Lito’s message—but now that I’m home, my wounds pick away at my attention. “I’ll be back in a second,” I tell him, then excuse myself. The kitchen is off to the right, my bedroom at the end of the hallway, but I head for the bathroom on the left, wash my hands of paint and dirt, and, ignoring the sting, grab a first aid kit from beneath the sink. When I return, Castor is looking over my makeshift studio in the corner, the holoprojector with network access shoved aside and forgotten.
I try to experience my apartment the way an outsider would, the sharp smell of turpentine in the air, a freshly stretched canvas on my easel, my brushes resting in recycled cans like tiny flags claiming this space as mine, mine, mine. He looks at the rough sketch on the canvas—a planned landscape—before turning to the desk and the supplies I use to make my own paint—powders, shells, and various dried flowers. His eyes light up as he spots my finished paintings leaned against the wall.
He is sure of himself as he moves through my apartment, past spaces Lito and Hiro shared. The shabbiness of my living room falls away—the battered couch, the faded carpet, the walls I slapped a coat of lavender paint on when I moved in—until there is only him.
