The Spare Man, page 15
Jonas Zuraw
Neomia Jakobsberg
Dalphon Karl
Vishal Tharman
Sarika James
Gerd Sýkora
She used to say their names every day until her therapist had convinced her that it was making her worse. The room started to spin again.
Slow breaths. Name two things she smelled. The deep, woodsy smoke of an Islay scotch. Cordite burning.
Tesla staggered to her feet, Annie’s capelet dropping to the floor, and bolted for the lobby. Her limbs were shaky and uncoordinated and she almost blacked out again. It would be better if she could get outside.
There was no outside to get to. The lighting in the lobby was a twilight after the nighttime theater to create a transition to the walkway. Tinted glass doors fronted it, and through them she could see people waiting for her with cameras held in their hands or pasted to their foreheads. Most of them tried to look casual about it, as if they just happened to be waiting there for someone else or it was where they had paused to talk, but she’d seen this kind of grouping before.
Sweat still stuck her clothes to her body, and she knew that her eyes were dilated and her cheeks flushed because she’d seen photos of herself taken in this state by people who had no idea what was happening in her brain and just thought that she was on drugs, which, to be fair, there was a period when that had been the only thing that had quieted her mind and—
Tesla closed her eyes and took in a slow, deep breath. She was panicking. This was a standard response and she just had to wait it out. What I’m feeling is panic. It is very uncomfortable but it is not dangerous. She wanted Gimlet desperately but she could manage. Deep breaths. Slow breaths. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four.
Slow footsteps approached from behind, and Tesla flinched, eyes snapping open.
Annie stood at a distance, watching her. The woman looked out at the walkway and shook her head. “Vultures.” She sighed. “Well, you can’t go that way, can you?”
“I’ll hide out in the bathroom.” It wasn’t the first time and wouldn’t be the last.
“Let me see if I can get us backstage. You can get around them through the service corridors.” She smiled sadly at Tesla. “I used to be famous, back in my day. Most of it, I don’t miss at all.”
SOPHISTICATED LADY
2 oz cranberry juice
1 oz simple syrup
1 oz lime juice
Pinch salt
1-inch wheel of cucumber and 1 slice cucumber
Muddle cucumber wheel, salt, and simple syrup in shaker. Add cranberry and lime juice. Shake for 15 seconds. Strain into martini glass, and garnish with cucumber slice.
The backstage dressing room was bland with no effort to dress it up for passengers. Everything was a serviceable gray-white and battered. Tesla sat in a polyamide chair in front of a makeup mirror and tried very hard not to look at herself, so she wouldn’t see how incredibly obvious her panic still was.
Annie and Jalna sat opposite her, the mirrors repeating them in a long reflective tunnel of kindness.
“You should come to yoga with us tonight. We were planning to go right after the show for the end-of-day wind-down, and I promise that no one will give you any trouble.” Annie rested her hand on Jalna’s arm. “Sweetheart, tell her she should come.”
“Annie, si æl a besoin de calme, alors c’est mieux qu’æl soit dans sa cabine.”
“Le yoga est calme! Et æl ne devrait évidemment pas être seule dans cet état.” Annie’s Midwestern accent flattened even Lunar French.
“I’m sorry I made you miss the rest of the show.” As soon as a member of the staff appeared to escort her through the service corridors to the Yacht Club, Tesla was going to hide in her room and … what? Everything on her list of possible ways to find the actual murderer involved leaving the room. She had been trying to figure out where the yoga class was, and they just invited her.
“We’ve seen the show before.” Annie brushed the concern out of the air. “Though I’ll admit that I’m jealous of Jalna getting picked as the volunteer. Isn’t that just the luck.”
Jalna drew in a breath to speak and then exchanged it for a smile. “Well. Perhaps we shall try again and you will be the lucky one.”
There was something that she hadn’t said. Tesla was alert enough to be able to tell that, but couldn’t pluck out what it might have been. She took a sip of her water and knew that she should carry on the conversation, but the amount of energy required seemed beyond her.
“But with everything you have going on, taking a little time to breathe and stretch will simply do wonders. I understand that you don’t feel like it, Lord knows I understand, but I also feel so confident that yoga will—”
The door opened, thankfully, cutting off Annie’s well-meaning monologue on the merits of yoga. In a long blue-and-silver cape, Nile Silver swirled into the room. “Good evening, dear friends, allow me to introduce myself, I am the Ama—” He stopped and dropped his arms, staring at Tesla. “Oh, shit. I’m so sorry—I’m so, so sorry. Are you all right?”
She was standing, pressed back into the corner. Her chair was on its side and the water bottle was rolling across the makeup table, spilling water as it went. Her body felt tight and sweat coated her. She closed her eyes against the too-bright makeup lights.
Stars and the lab are spinning past.
Gasping, Tesla opened her eyes and swallowed. “Sorry. I’m…” Seriously messed up. She dragged in a breath that shuddered as she did. In, two, three, four. It stuck in her throat and she forced it back out, two, three, four. “Sorry. This is your dressing room and I’m in the way.”
“No, no.” He shook his head and pointed at her leg. “You’re bleeding.”
She looked down and a stream of blood ran down her shin from a fresh gash that wrapped around the outside of her calf. It didn’t hurt. She hadn’t felt it at all. “Oh.”
Annie jumped up. “First-aid kit?”
“Um…” Nile turned, looking around the dressing room.
Jalna shook her head, rolling her eyes, and went to the sink, where she grabbed a handful of recyclable towels. “Tesla, would you like to sit down, if you please?”
Nile fished in his pocket and pulled out a name badge. He slapped it. “Delta, delta, one, one, three. Repeat. Delta, delta, one, one, three.”
The room had been too hot, and now it went as cold as orbiting into a planet’s shadow. “You called security?”
Nile looked at her, mouth still open. “Um. No. I called a doctor. Delta-gamma is medical and security.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “It’s just a scrape.”
Kneeling near her, Annie snorted and reached back for the towels that Jalna had pulled. “May I see?”
“It’s fine, really. I do this all the time.” When she had the DBPS turned up too high it was easy to hurt herself. That was a later problem. The now problem was that even without security attached, she did not want one of the ship’s doctors. “You didn’t need to call medical.”
“I did. Actually. Ship’s rules for a passenger injury.” Nile swept a hand over his dark pomaded hair. “I’m so sorry. They told me that … you were back here and that someone had a bad reaction to the pyro—I didn’t think it was the same person. Listen. I’m really sorry about that. There’s supposed to be an announcement.”
From the pause before he said “you” Tesla knew that he’d been about to say her name. That TESLA CRAAAAAAANE!!! was in his dressing room and that he’d come back here to impress her. Would he have apologized about the pyro if she were just an average audience member?
She swallowed the rock in her throat. “It’s very different than your close-up magic.”
He winced. “Can I get you anything while we wait?”
“I’m fine, thank you.” She pushed away from the wall, trying to ignore the trembling in her knees. Stars and sparks and darkness. “And I should be getting back to my cabin.”
“Not while bleeding.” Jalna bent down and righted the chair that Tesla had knocked over, and probably cut herself on. “Sit, if you please.”
She sighed and sat down, because being a walking biohazard was a social faux pas under the best of circumstances. Here, they’d probably use it as an excuse to lock her in her cabin. Tesla held out her hand for the towels. “Thank you.”
Frowning, Annie handed them to her while Jalna watched with an equally expressive frown. The tall woman rolled up her sleeves as if she wanted to help, revealing a faded tattoo of coiled pea shoots twisting down from beneath the fabric.
Jalna tsked. “There must be someone to accompany her through the service corridors. Is that possible?”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Yuki can take you through.” The Amazing Nile Silver unbuttoned his cape and hung it on a hook near the door. “Or I can. Actually, yes, why don’t I do it. You and your spouse were so nice to me earlier this week. Where is he?”
“Sick bay.” Tesla picked up the water she’d knocked over as her brain slowly churned back into useful thought. She had come here specifically so she could ask the magician questions. Nile Silver had been arguing with a bald passenger and George before she was stabbed. Yuki looked like the person Shal had chased, and someone was lying somewhere about if he had or had not been in the R-Bar that night.
“Oh no!” Nile turned back from the cape. “And you came to the theater to relax and then my stupid pyro and now you’re hurt. I don’t even like the effect. But the ship … I’m still so sorry about that.”
“It’s not your fault.” The fault rested firmly in her. Tesla grabbed that train of thought before she could spiral down further. She needed to ask him questions. Keeping her attention on the bottle, she poured a little water on a towel and wiped away some of the blood. At another time she could be subtle, but being functional felt like a triumph. “You know about the murder?”
“Yes, it’s terrible.” He straightened his cuff links. “But let me reassure you that there’s nothing to be afraid of. The security chief has told the staff that they’ve arrested the person who did it.”
“My spouse.” Tesla kept her gaze fixed on him. “They arrested my spouse. He didn’t do it.”
He stared at her like he’d never seen her before and then his eyes widened. “Oh—oh. That’s … They didn’t tell us who.”
“I’m sure.” She set the bottle on the table. “The thing is, we were in the booth next to George Saikawa at karaoke. You had an argument with a passenger in front of the booth. Bald. White. Gamer’s belly. Sequined shirt and capelet? I’m trying to find them.”
He pursed his lips for a moment, looking at the floor. “They’ve asked us not to talk about it.”
All of the frustration and rage at the ship and herself boiled up and over, and Tesla had to hold perfectly still to keep from shouting at the man. There were many things she could do, but shouting at staff was never, ever one of them. He might be a magician, but he was still an employee and she was still a client.
The room was too hot, and energy made her joints crackle. She finished wiping off the scrape—which really wasn’t that bad—and said, very carefully, “I see. Well, I wouldn’t want to get you in trou—”
A dog barked.
Tesla sprinted to the door and yanked it open. Leash trailing across the floor, Gimlet charged into the room.
Her stumpy tail was wagging her whole back end as she barreled straight to Tesla and stood on her hind legs. Her eyes were bright and her ears pointed with full attention at Tesla. The tip of her little pink tongue flicked out to touch Tesla’s hand in a tiny dog kiss.
A sob rose up her throat like a rocket launching. She kept her back to the room and scooped her dog up. Tesla let herself bury her face in doggy scent and focused on Gimlet’s little snuffles and grunts. She skritched the ears and couldn’t feel their silkiness or warmth, which meant she had to be careful not to accidentally hurt her dog.
Tesla leaned out into the hall, some part of her expecting Shal to be chasing Gimlet, that Haldan Kuznetsova had done as he’d promised and gotten them to release her spouse, while also knowing that he wouldn’t be there.
Officer Piper jogged down the corridor toward her, annoyance clear on her face.
If Tesla started crying now, she wouldn’t stop until they reached Mars. And then Shal sauntered around the corner, trailed by the wall of Bob.
HANKY PANKY
1.5 oz sweet vermouth
1.5 oz gin
.5 oz Fernet-Branca
Lemon peel
Stir ingredients over ice for 40 seconds. Strain into coupe. Garnish with lemon peel.
The dressing-room door clicked as Annie and Jalna followed Nile out into the hall, leaving Tesla and Shal alone in the dressing room. Gimlet huffed at the door, small tail wagging.
Mostly alone.
Shal ran a hand down Tesla’s cheek and his brow furrowed with concern. His lips parted with a question and she stepped into him before he could ask if she was okay. That question turned into a kiss.
Her spouse’s lips were full and warm and slightly chapped. His arms went around her, pulling her against him with gentle pressure. She dialed back the DBPS so she could feel the warmth of his hands playing along the length of her spine. He found the tight spots and pressed against them as part of his caress.
There was a difference between the absence of pain and the easing of pain. It was worth feeling the red knots of barbed wire to also feel his gentle touch as he found each knot and rubbed circles to break them apart.
::Hello, sweetheart::
At the ping from his system, she gasped and curled her fingers in his hair. ::You’re back online. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?::
His tongue just parted her lips, teasing her. ::Local access only. So, you’ll have to put up with lots of skin-to-skin contact if you want to ping me::
::Oh, yes. I would very, very much like to ping you. I’ll try to survive the local network restriction. :: She ran her hand down his front, carefully not putting pressure on his ribs, planning to circle back so she could grab his beautifully formed buttocks.
He squeezed her upper arms, rubbing his thumbs in circles on the balls of her shoulders. “Your new client came to see me. Fascinating story…”
“How much of it do you believe?”
“Mm…” His mouth quirked to the side and he ran his fingers down the side of her face. ::Parts. But he’s definitely leaving things out and highlighting only the things he wants us to focus on. I have a laundry list of things I want to follow up on. ::
::Me too. ::
::Speaking of which, good thinking to hide a note on Gimlet. What did it—::
Someone knocked on the door. “Medic.”
Sighing, Tesla stepped away from Shal, feeling his absence down the length of her body. She pulled the door open, and Ruth Fish was standing in the hall, bag slung over her shoulder. The medic looked up at Tesla and her eyes widened. “Well, shit.”
“We’re in agreement. What are you doing here?”
Dr. Fish’s jaw tightened. “I was answering a delta-delta call since I was kicked out of my own infirmary because … he’s here?” She turned to the side. “Bob. What is going on here?”
“Corporate said to release him. The chief told us to escort him back to their cabin.”
“This isn’t their cabin.”
“Yeah … well, the little dog.”
“My fault.” Shal held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I said, ‘Find Mama.’”
Gimlet huffed and shoved her face against Tesla’s leg. She put a paw on Tesla’s shoe, looking back at Shal as if he were an idiot for not knowing where Mama was. Tesla smiled at the little dog. “Good girl.”
“He’s not well!” Dr. Fish pointed into the dressing room, and her face was flushed. “Tell me that we’re at least keeping him under observation. Confined to his cabin? Stop shrugging at me!”
Tesla shut the door and leaned against it.
Fish immediately hammered on it. Tesla raised her voice. “We decline treatment!”
She could make out a rumble of voices in the hall, but the knocking stopped. Sighing, she shook her head and looked at Shal. “Well, that was annoying.”
“Tesla … what happened to your leg?”
“Oh. Bumped into a chair.” She shrugged, moving away from the door, but the mirrors around them gave her nowhere to hide her face.
In the glass over the makeup table, Shal’s gaze tracked her. “If I asked you how bad it was…?”
Her face was still blotchy from sobbing earlier, and sweat had glued parts of her hair to her forehead, the rest frizzed in a wild, unsettled mass around her cheeks. Tesla resettled the synthetic setae adhesive that held the wig in place and tried to finger-comb the vivid hair back into something that at least looked intentional. “Will you let me lie right now with a promise to tell you later?”
He sighed, lips pressing together as if he were actively holding his tongue. But he nodded. “Catch me up on the things you can, now?”
“Got in touch with Fantine, finally.” She went to the sink to run water over her hands. Gimlet followed, nails tapping against the floor, with worry in her furry face. As Tesla made an effort to repair her appearance with minimal tools, Shal stood behind her, running one hand down the length of her spine while the other worked the tight strands of muscle at the base of her skull. His skin was warm against hers, and she used the local connection to catch Shal up on her conversation with Fantine, the contents and reasoning behind her list of suspects, and send him the pictures of Yuki.
He sent back::Maybe. Take the earrings out…::
::He’d certainly have access to the service stairs. ::
::True … I’ll see what I can find out about him, if we can talk them into letting me connect to a system. ::
::If Fantine can talk them into letting…::
::That’s obviously what I meant to say:: In the mirror, Shal grinned at her and leaned forward to plant a kiss at the nape of her neck.
