Raven held her glass up. “Cheers!”
We clinked glasses, then Raven took a long swallow. “Ah, that’s much better!”
I sipped my drink, then decided I liked the flavor enough to take a swallow myself. Whatever was in it, the drink was strong. I felt it immediately in my head, like I was almost flying.
“Holy shit.”
“I know, right? That’s what they’re known for here. So, I’ll just say it plainly, Tycho. They sent you to Mars for a reason. It wasn’t just to question Geoffrey Rosenstein.”
“I see.” I had another careful sip, not sure how I was expected to respond.
“You’re not at all curious?”
“Of course I’m curious.”
“Don’t get tense on me, we’re out here to relax tonight. You and I are going to have plenty of drinks, and maybe even dance a little, but we have to talk about this first. The more easy you are about it, the quicker that will be.”
“I’m fine, Raven, really. If you have something to tell me, you can go ahead and tell me.”
She leaned forward and looked into my eyes, long enough that I wanted to say something to break the silence. She must have found the words she was looking for, or maybe the confidence in that I was really as calm as I’d said.
She continued, “After the last trip to Mars—the big one, I mean—the Operator was questioning Andrea’s recommendation to bring you into the family.”
Raven hadn’t been with us for that particular mission, which was probably why Andrea had picked her to break this news to me. She was the only member of the team who didn’t have any personal reason to question my actions on Mars.
“That doesn’t surprise me. I got involved in a street fight. Something that didn’t have anything to do with our mission.”
“I know all about it, Tycho. You can tell me the whole story if you want to, but that’s not the reason I’m bringing it up.”
“Well, what is?”
My Casablanca Sunset was already half gone. How had that happened?
“I wanted you to know that Andrea stood up to the old man on your behalf. She gave him pushback, and that’s not an easy thing to do.”
“No, I don’t imagine it would be.”
The Operator was the man in charge of Section 9—the whole organization, not just our team. I had only met him once, traveling to the fringe of the system to do it. As far I knew, he lived on Sedna, a tiny planetoid so far out it goes around the sun once every 11,400 years. The Operator was like that—distant, anonymous, barely present in day to day life, but always on the periphery.
“Do you get what I’m saying here, Tycho?”
Raven was peering at me while sipping her drink. From the look on her face, she was wondering whether I was too stupid to pick up on her implications, or too drunk, or just not paying attention.
“Spell it out for me, Raven. Let’s just say I’m too drunk to follow you.”
She laughed a little at that. “These drinks aren’t that strong. I’m saying our boss has your back, Tycho. Which means you’re one of us. Which means you can stop worrying and stressing so much. Just—”
“Just don’t jump off any more buildings or get into any more unassigned firefights with giant cyborgs.”
She grinned. “I’m so glad we understand each other.”
“I wonder if we do, though.”
The grin disappeared. “And why is that?”
“Well, I know Andrea likes me well enough. We’ve always been friendly. What I don’t understand is why she would go to bat for me like that. I mean, I did it. The mission was to exfiltrate the package from East Hellas, right? Well, we had him and we were taking him out of there. No one was paying any attention to us right at that moment. The mission was a mess, but we were getting away. And then I threw myself into this firefight on the street. I had no orders to get involved in that fight. So why would she stick her neck out for me? I mean, I had no justification at all for what I did.”
“You’ve got a weird side to your personality, Tycho.”
“What do you mean?”
The lights in The Emerald City were all different shades of green, and the effect was starting to look positively surreal. A monochrome world with little stars and diamonds and triangles, and all those bright shapes spinning around and around while a beautiful woman bathed in teal is telling you you’re weird. What does “weird” even mean in a context like that?
Right at that moment, a new song came over the nightclub’s speakers. Something fast, aggressive, and sexy all at once, and Raven perked up as soon as she heard it. “Hold that thought, Tycho. I love this song!”
Quicker than I could even respond, she slipped out of the booth and headed straight for the dance floor. I turned and followed her with my eyes, sipping at my drink while she started moving. She didn’t need any time to get into the music; she dove in like she’d been there dancing all night. For the three or four minutes the song lasted, Raven was in another place entirely. I couldn’t see for sure from where I sat, but I had the impression her eyes were closed.
Even so, she didn’t bump into any of the other dancers, not even the obnoxious guy swinging his arms around like he was trying to hit someone. She spun away from his fist, bringing an elbow up in the same movement. A moment later, she spun just a little too close to him and messed his rhythm up. The guy tripped and almost fell, but she caught him by the small of his back. Then she turned away again and danced several feet away from him until the song was over. When she came back to the booth, she winked at me.
“That wasn’t an accident,” I commented.
“Of course not.” She picked up her drink, had a long sip, then leaned back and regarded me curiously. “Didn’t you have a question for me?”
“It was more like you had something to say to me. A weird side to my personality?”
“Don’t take it too personally, it wasn’t an insult or anything like that. I just mean you aren’t telling the whole story about what happened on Mars. You know I wasn’t there, and you know I’ve heard everyone else’s version of what happened. Why not tell me your story? The story that’s real to you. Otherwise, all I have to go on is everyone else’s version.”
“What’s everyone else’s version?”
“Well, in the Andrew Jones version, you just like fighting so much that you decided to endanger the whole team so you could get in one extra round. With the biggest cyborg chimeras you could find. And without even warning everyone.”
“That’s not exactly fair. I told him why I did it.”
“You told Jones, but you can’t tell me?”
“Of course I can tell you. Those chimeras were killing the protesters. Regular citizens, civilians. I couldn’t just watch it and do nothing, so I jumped down to help.”
Raven stared at me in silence again, but this time she was smiling at me. “That’s what I like about you, Tycho,” she said. “You’re a killer like me, but there’s this sweet little boy inside and you can’t let that go. The big bad robots are hurting innocent people, so Tycho Barrett attacks the robots. Doesn’t even think about it, just goes right in. Maybe that’s what Andrea was talking about.”