Eva crouched next to Sue and picked up a random piece of Pod Pal. It felt like metal—smooth, oblong, with no sharp edges and no dangerous points. Almost like one of Vakar’s scales, but much smaller and a dull gray.
“Does this use nanotech of some kind?” Eva asked Sue. “I’ve seen . . . things that can take apart a living creature and replicate its form. Would something like that be able to shrink and grow?”
“Nanotech is by definition incredibly small,” Sue said, brushing away one of her yellow bots as she spoke. “Like, we don’t bother using it in our custom ships mostly because it can’t do much.” She pursed her lips again, as if thinking, then continued. “Like, imagine a tardigrade trying to move an orange. It can’t. Even bazillions of them are still too tiny. Nanotech is best for dealing with things on the, you know, molecular or atomic level.”
“So even if there was nanotech, it would need bigger stuff to work with, and that stuff shouldn’t be able to shrink and grow?” Eva asked.
Sue nodded, her attention drifting back to her lap. Eva wandered into her own thoughts as she paced the full length of the room, and her thoughts were shaped like a particular Proarkhe artifact that had once transformed in front of her, from a large rectangular object to a much, much larger humanoid robot. And Josh had been at that facility, working on something, for which Mari and her Forge friends now needed him . . .
Eva didn’t like the picture she was forming with those available materials. Especially given that his trail had led them here, to the place where these Pod Pals had been invented. But no, the timeline made no sense. Lashra Damaal and the Sylfe Company had been shilling these things all over the universe before Josh ever made it out of the Fridge facility. Whatever Josh was up to, whatever had happened to him, couldn’t be related to these robot Attuned knockoffs.
Probably. Maybe. Eva couldn’t shake the thought, but she tucked it away into the back of her mind because it wasn’t helping anything.
“I need some fresh air,” she announced, heading for the door. “Anyone want to join me?”
Min and Sue barely acknowledged the question, as distracted as they were. Pink and Vakar, meanwhile, shared a look as if they were playing a mental rock-paper-scissors to decide who was going to offer. Eva wasn’t sure whether it would be the winner or the loser, and she squinted at them with her lip curled into a half-snarl.
“Are you sure you’re up to walking around?” Pink asked, crossing her legs. “That was a hell of a poison you got hit with, and there may be more of those things out there. Or other ones that can do worse.”
You may be recognized again, was the warning, the threat she very carefully did not say out loud.
Eva nodded. “Lo siento, pero I can’t stay in here if we’re going to have a chance of finding Josh.”
“And you’re going to, what, start interrogating random strangers?” Pink asked, leaning forward to rest an elbow on her knee.
“I’m going to keep gathering intel about the situation here,” Eva said. “This whole place reeks of rotten fish, and not just because we’re near the ocean.”
Now Pink’s expression softened slightly. “You know you can’t fix this, right?”
“Fix what?”
“Garilia. What’s done is done.”
Eva did know that. It was her fault the revolution, or coup, or whatever it should be called, had succeeded in the first place. And were things worse for it? Maybe, maybe not. She hadn’t seen much of Garilia when Tito brought her here, had only known about her mission and its parameters and what she had to do to make sure it succeeded. Afterward, she’d alternated between refusing to think about it entirely and bingeing research to learn more about the place, its people, its political situation—and, of course, searching for any mention of her name, any image that might show her, any scrap of a whisper of something to connect her to the awful thing she had done.
That was how she knew she’d acquired names beyond the Hero of Garilia. It was rare that she’d turn up anything, because the new planetary government was thorough in its control and scrubbing of any unofficial versions of the events of that cycle. But every so often, she’d find a post on some random message board, an amateur q-net site with an eyewitness testimony, even a passing mention on a documentary holovid whose other topics were conspiracy theories in line with the extreme trash Leroy had always been obsessed with.
But apart from her actions, there was the question of outcomes. Had she made life better for the people here? Some of them certainly believed that. Some of them didn’t. They were probably both right, and wrong, because nothing was that simple and clear-cut. So why did she care about finding out what Damaal was up to? Why did it matter to her, to know the situation on the ground, to see for herself the full trajectory of the shot she had fired almost nine years earlier? Especially when she had other shit to worry about?
Échale tierra y dale pisón, she told herself. Don’t be such a metiche. Focus on finding Josh and getting him back to Mari.
“It’s all for the mission,” Eva told Pink, who smirked skeptically. “Really. And now that we’re back in Big Brother territory, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Vakar stepped forward, smelling like ozone, like the air before a heavy rain. “I will go with you. My superiors expect a report on our progress, and my findings so far are minimally useful to satisfy my established mission parameters.”
That was its own shitty problem. If Vakar didn’t turn up something, his Wraith bosses would yank on his leash and he’d be gone. With everything else happening, Vakar leaving was the last thing Eva wanted. Sure, they’d spent plenty of time apart in the last six months, off and on, but right now, in the middle of Garilia . . .
“We’ll find something,” Eva said, with more certainty than she felt.
Pink stood as if weary and they exchanged their usual hand slaps, snaps, and hip-bump. “Stay safe,” she said. “I’ll keep these two from burning down the place.”
Eva winced as claws sunk into her shoulder. “Seriously?” she asked Mala, who had once again settled across her neck as if she belonged there.
“Miau.” Mala’s hazel eyes were half-lidded, and she purred as she sent out a wave of contentment.
“Whatever. Probably need to shit somewhere at this point.” Eva sighed. After the way Mala had deescalated that situation with the Attuned, maybe having her along wasn’t such a bad idea. But hopefully, whatever she and Vakar found on this particular reconnaissance foray would be less dangerous.
Shouldn’t have even thought that, Eva told herself. Now you’re definitely going to end up punching someone before the cycle is over.
Chapter 14
Curiosity Kills
If the xana in the lobby was surprised to see Eva, he didn’t say anything, and his psychic emanations were as deferential and eager to please as they had been when she arrived. He tried to assure her that there were many excellent food options in the building when she asked, but she insisted right back that she wanted to take a walk outside, and eventually he directed her to a few potential restaurant equivalents nearby. She felt the barest sour twinge from him when she was far enough away that he probably didn’t think she would notice.