Page 6 of Redstone
Okay, Cain moved fast, but so did a lot of people. Mods were supposed to be completely shut down, but some older versions made it through the scans, devices disguised as necessary for health. Other people were just insanely juiced, especially when they first came in, something that took a while to drain away. Knocking someone out didn’t mean Isidore Cain wasn’t a lamb, it just meant he might be lucky. So later that evening, Rory’s second-in-command gave assaulting him a try. He didn’t open with conversation, just walked up behind Cain during dinner and grabbed his pretty, ridiculous hair, yanking hard.
A second later he fell back, clutching his bleeding hand to his chest and biting back a scream. He was lacerated from fingertip to palm, a hundred cuts overlaying each other.
Thatwas the sort of mod that shouldn’t have been so easily overlooked, andthatmeant one of two things: either Isidore Cain had bribed the fuck out of someone to get away with that,or he was a prop. Either way, nobody wanted to deal with him after that. He would have been written off entirely and isolated like the sharks if it weren’t for the fact that he managed to grab some important parts off an “aggressively decommissioned” robot guard the very next day. Important, lifesaving, dealmaking parts.
In less than a standard day, Isidore Cain had carved out a careful place for himself in the fabric of Redstone. Lone wolf, mechanic, pretty face with dead eyes. He was fucked up, the pack leaders declared. Fucked up but worth working with as long as he managed to stay alive.
He’d stayed alive for three months now.
Isidore bunked in a room that had been partially hewn out of the bedrock of Redstone itself, close to the dark, icy heart of the place. It was easy to decamp there because the room made people uncomfortable: only the crazies lived so close to the rock. He could feel the pull of the iron tear at his cells, twist his blood in his veins, and make his heart labor harder than it was meant to. Isidore could feel the effect the place had on him, and it wasn’t a good one. But it was safe there because of that, and he wouldn’t be there long. And there were plenty of advantages to privacy, after all.
Isidore Cain didn’t speak much, people said. When he did speak, he talked so softly that you had to lean in to hear him, lean close to that razor hair and those blank, abyssal eyes. People would rather strain to hear him than lean too close because there was no telling what the man might do. He was a political prisoner, after all. Those fuckers were crazy. Isidore Cain was someone you left alone until you needed just the right part, and how had he accumulated all of those anyway? No one went to check his bunk, in the dark, painful center of the prison. No one followed Isidore Cain, and everyone said that was the best way of dealing with him.
Crazy, they whispered to each other.Fucked in the head.He won’t last long down there,they said.He’ll be spaced soon enough, nobody’s problem then.
It was all perfect. It was all wrong. It was, as Isidore’s handler and backup reminded him time and time again, just what needed to be happening, and it was only short-term.
The truth was, Isidore Cain wasn’t hard. He wasn’t soft any longer, not the silver-eyed boy who had somehow caught the attention of the most beautiful man in the room, or the hollow-faced wretch who bore the responsibility, merited or not, of his radical cousin’s actions on his soul. Isidore was somewhere in between now, rough and granular in some places, smooth and delicate in others. He hated Redstone, hated his role, hated everything about what he was doing.
Except for how wonderful it felt.
***
From the moment Isidore first met Symone St. Clair, she had seen more deeply into him than he was really comfortable with. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he’d been glad to have a place to go after Paradise was taken away from him, but in a way, Isidore felt like he’d exchanged one prison for another. Not because he was locked in a cell or abused in any way, but because he was desperately unprepared to be anything other than what he was.
On Solaydor, stasis was synonymous with death. To Symone St. Clair, it was even worse: stasis wasboring, and boredom was the touchstone of an uninspired mind. Such things could only be dealt with in one of two ways: burning the source of boredom out of her social circle or coercing it into a chrysalis from which it would emerge, by force if necessary, completely rejuvenated.
She’d seemed doubly intent with Isidore because of her unfortunate insights. He’d tried to hide what he felt during their first meeting in her ridiculously large office, but she’d split his skull right down the middle and laid his brains out like a book.
“First point: you feel ludicrously guilty for something you had no control over.”
He’d frowned at her. “I wasn’t blameless either.”
“But you don’t need to carry such an enormous stone around behind you. Good lord,” she’d sighed, rolling her vermillion eyes. “If I wanted to expose myself to this kind of self-flagellation, I’d get a membership at the local masochist’s club. What was Garrett thinking, sending you to me?”
“I’m wondering the same thing,” Isidore had muttered.
“I’m sure you are. Second point: you’re in love with Garrett even though you obviously know it’s hopeless because he’s ridiculously infatuated withmonogamy, of all things.” She’d tilted her head at him. “He knows how you feel, of course. He knows everything, that little brat.”
“I don’t expect anything from him,” Isidore said, and that was completely true.
“No, you don’t, but not because you don’t want it or enjoy the drama of a star-crossed romance. You don’t feelworthyof it, on top of the obvious unsuitability between the two of you, which is, again, quite tiresome.”
“No one asked you to psychoanalyze me, you know.”
Symone smiled thinly. “Oh, darling, I never have to be asked. It’s a pleasure. Everyone is refreshing even if only for our first meeting. Third point: you have no idea what to do with yourself now. Your guilt has ruined your trade for you, hasn’t it? Your … mechanics. Engineering. Whatever it is you do.”
“Vehicle maintenance,” Isidore said faintly.
“Vehiclemaintenance, good grief. At least Garrett’s other pet mechanic has a sense of creativity. Wyl is an artist, and you’re what, a wrench monkey?”
Isidore felt his face flush, not with shame now but with anger. It was unfamiliar, this burn in his chest. He hadn’t allowed himself to get angry in a long time, not since he was first arrested. The shame of what his cousin had done on Paradise was too much, and it was just easier to let himself be treated badly because he deserved it, didn’t he? So many people had died, and Isidore had facilitated that; he’d damaged people he respected, people heloved.
And yes, it had ruined his life, and he had been spat on and beaten and lost his family and his planet, and on top of all that, Garrett had come to save him and thensent him away, but what right did he have to be angry about that? About any of it?
“Poor little wrench monkey,” Symone cooed sarcastically. “Pulled away from all he’s ever known and thrown to the wolves. Whatever will you do with yourself now since your mechanic’s hands are tied?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” Isidore snapped.
