Page 56 of Tyton: The Spider and the Dragonfly
“And if you aren’t lucky?What if fifty come?”
“You’ll have something to remember me by.”Sesi winked and disappeared into the lab.A moment later, she heard three bodies drop one by one.Callie ran on her tiptoes back to the maintenance room, still making far more noise than Sesi had on the roof.The door slid open and she crouched, waiting.
The electric hum of Hexaline lights accompanied the silence.Callie turned the ulu over in her hands.She practiced moving it through the air.It seemed clumsy and awkward to her, but then again, she hadn’t ever used any sort of knife, let alone this one.Somehow, Sesi made it seem graceful, like an extension of her hand.
Then she heard it.Two voices echoing in the stairwell.At least, she thought it was two.She couldn’t be sure.This was all so new to her.Callie’s heart pounded against her sternum.She took a step back and allowed the access room door to slide shut.
Sesi crouched, scanning the lab.Microscopes, high fidelity interfaces, spools of Auratomic wire.The Hexaline printer was currently working on something, but it wasn’t the tech she was looking for.
She read the labels on the cabinets.Wire dissolvers, printer part ordering numbers, large model interface – there.Sesi pulled the documents.Now to find the interface.
The box sat inconspicuously with the log files.It was a strangely modest place for something so dangerous, but Sesi was not a scientist and had no idea how they organised things.She would have had it on a pedestal in an Oronglass case with a beam of light shining on it from above.
No sooner had she picked up the interface than she heard the door slide open.Sesi crouched.The telltale heel-toe tread of a SecTac trained agent headed her direction.Sesi slowly raised her wrist to punch in the disabling sequence signal, but she fumbled the box and it fell with a clatter.
“Fuck.”She hissed.But she heard no other sound.Sesi turned her head as far as she dared.
“Sesi?”
A flash of panic hit her nervous system and she whirled around.What the fuck was Freckles doing here?Sesi stood and saw Callie, covered in blood, the security guard twitching at her feet.She picked up the box and ran.“Let’s go!”she commanded.
They bolted out the door and Sesi saw another one sprawled out in the middle of the hallway.“You killed two?”
“He was behind the other one.I had to kill him before I could kill the one who was going to kill you!”she hissed
They burst through the door of the maintenance room and Sesi pinned Callie against the wall with a kiss so ferocious she thought she might suffocate.Callie’s heart leaped into her throat and then she dissolved into the kiss.Sesi pushed off the wall.
“Shit” Sesi shook her head.“Sorry.That was a bad idea.Give me my knife back.I’ll give you oneafterI’ve shown you how to use it.You left a bit of a mess back there.”
Callie handed her back the ulu and followed her up the ladder to the hatch, unsure whether she would be able to walk.
Nine of Swords
January 10 2268
C
allie woke with a start.She had murdered two people.Two people who probably had friends.Parents.Maybe even partners.People like Brin.
At the time, Callie wasn’t thinking of that.The only thought in her head was Sesi.Sesi might be in danger.She could hear them through the door.Talking in whispers.Walking, heel-toe away from her.
It only clicked now how truly lucky she had been.If they hadn’t been concentrating so hard on getting to the lab or if one of them had turned, she would have been caught.Or if they hadn’t been talking, she might have been heard sneaking up on the one in the rear.Or if she hadn’t cut as deeply, he might have made noise and alerted the other.
But none of those worries had been present in the moment.Even when her hands were coated in blood, hot and sticky, she had only thought of getting to the next one before he found Sesi.Even though Sesi could have easily dealt with them herself.She had seen her do it.
Which meant she had murdered for no reason.What did that make her?
Dots appeared and disappeared.Callie sat, her legs hugged to her chest as she bit at her fingernails until they were ragged.
Half an hour later, Sparx held Callie who was having an existential crisis in one arm and balancing a can of Choklat in the other as her sobs tried their best to knock it out of his hand.He waited until after the tears and the Choklat had been drunk before speaking.
“How many people did Brin kill?”
“What?”Callie sniffed.
“How many?”
“None!”Callie’s brows furrowed, indignant.
