Operator’s voice, lost in my thoughts. “What?”
“I said we will have your striker marks removed and your striker status erased.” The Operator’s words are clipped. Backed into a corner. “ After you’ve completed the contracts.”
I nod. Relief and dread mingle in my mouth, the bitter dregs of finality. It’s done, then. And so it starts.
I take a deep breath and hold my mug even tighter. Warmth. “You said twenty-four hours for each contract?”
“That is correct.”
The same as any striker contract. Blurred lines, blurred lives. I can’t decide if it’s fitting or morbid. “So I text in the completion for each new contract?”
“That won’t be necessary. Normally Level One monitors only the active Alt log for natural completions; unnatural ones such as Peripheral, Revenge, and Assist Kills split off into their own separate logs and feed into legal for processing. Until these particular contracts are complete, we’ve set up shadow feeds for those logs to run on a delay. Those are what legal will be receiving while we get the originals. With each strike you complete, we’ll reroute the original entry into the natural completion Alt log before it can show up in the feeds for legal.”
Each piece of information he gives me is not done in the name of generosity, but as another shackle to tie me down to what I’m about to do. The more I know, the more of a danger I am—to the Board.
“Expect the first contract via cell tonight,” he says. “Cover your tracks. You can’t be found for seventy-two hours.” For the first time, the Operator touches his coffee, pushing it away with a well-manicured hand. He stands to leave—
And suddenly I’m panicking. Not ready.
“What’s your name?” I ask him.
He frowns. “You don’t need to know irrelevant information.”
“You know a lot about me. And you just asked me to kill your kid’s Alt. I’d like to know who I’m doing this for.”
An impatient hiss of breath through clenched jaw, the snap of biting teeth. “Sabian.” He turns to go, more agitated than I’ve ever seen him.
“Good-bye, West,” he says. His hand automatically goes to smooth the handkerchief in his pocket, falls down awkwardly when he finds it missing. A flash of pure fury crosses his features.
It’s those kinds of fires that are the most dangerous of all. The kind that refuse to light at first before exploding in your face, the inferno of it so sudden, so huge, there’s not even a chance of escaping before being enveloped.
I nod. Stare hard at my cup and will the warmth to stay. Once he is gone, it takes me a few minutes to gather my stuff to leave. I move mechanically, trying not to think too much. Safest that way.
Outside, I pull my hood over my hair. It’s starting to rain.
But Dire’s place isn’t far. And it’s where I go to find out about killing.
Chapter 6
I wouldn’t be alive without the skills I’d gained from working as a striker. But it brought out the very worst in me, so sometimes I wish I’d never met Dire.
Being fair is not one of my strong points.
I haven’t seen him in months. Ever since I stopped being a striker, when I became a complete.
Yet here I am, standing on the sidewalk in front of his store in the Grid. The familiar words Dire Nation printed on the front door bring a bittersweet pang to my chest. Everything about the place looks the same as the last time I stood here. Even the little blobs of old gum plastered to the window ledge are the same. Layers of old graffiti still there like permanent clouds of sad color.
I wonder what we’ll have to say to each other. Apart from business, I mean. If I think of Baer as being something close to a nurturing father figure, then Dire’s the surly uncle who has no problem letting his more-than-likely-unpopular opinion be heard. Never was this made clearer to me than the day I told him I was out, done.
He leaned back in his seat, making a point of looking directly at the still-fresh
“I said we will have your striker marks removed and your striker status erased.” The Operator’s words are clipped. Backed into a corner. “ After you’ve completed the contracts.”
I nod. Relief and dread mingle in my mouth, the bitter dregs of finality. It’s done, then. And so it starts.
I take a deep breath and hold my mug even tighter. Warmth. “You said twenty-four hours for each contract?”
“That is correct.”
The same as any striker contract. Blurred lines, blurred lives. I can’t decide if it’s fitting or morbid. “So I text in the completion for each new contract?”
“That won’t be necessary. Normally Level One monitors only the active Alt log for natural completions; unnatural ones such as Peripheral, Revenge, and Assist Kills split off into their own separate logs and feed into legal for processing. Until these particular contracts are complete, we’ve set up shadow feeds for those logs to run on a delay. Those are what legal will be receiving while we get the originals. With each strike you complete, we’ll reroute the original entry into the natural completion Alt log before it can show up in the feeds for legal.”
Each piece of information he gives me is not done in the name of generosity, but as another shackle to tie me down to what I’m about to do. The more I know, the more of a danger I am—to the Board.
“Expect the first contract via cell tonight,” he says. “Cover your tracks. You can’t be found for seventy-two hours.” For the first time, the Operator touches his coffee, pushing it away with a well-manicured hand. He stands to leave—
And suddenly I’m panicking. Not ready.
“What’s your name?” I ask him.
He frowns. “You don’t need to know irrelevant information.”
“You know a lot about me. And you just asked me to kill your kid’s Alt. I’d like to know who I’m doing this for.”
An impatient hiss of breath through clenched jaw, the snap of biting teeth. “Sabian.” He turns to go, more agitated than I’ve ever seen him.
“Good-bye, West,” he says. His hand automatically goes to smooth the handkerchief in his pocket, falls down awkwardly when he finds it missing. A flash of pure fury crosses his features.
It’s those kinds of fires that are the most dangerous of all. The kind that refuse to light at first before exploding in your face, the inferno of it so sudden, so huge, there’s not even a chance of escaping before being enveloped.
I nod. Stare hard at my cup and will the warmth to stay. Once he is gone, it takes me a few minutes to gather my stuff to leave. I move mechanically, trying not to think too much. Safest that way.
Outside, I pull my hood over my hair. It’s starting to rain.
But Dire’s place isn’t far. And it’s where I go to find out about killing.
Chapter 6
I wouldn’t be alive without the skills I’d gained from working as a striker. But it brought out the very worst in me, so sometimes I wish I’d never met Dire.
Being fair is not one of my strong points.
I haven’t seen him in months. Ever since I stopped being a striker, when I became a complete.
Yet here I am, standing on the sidewalk in front of his store in the Grid. The familiar words Dire Nation printed on the front door bring a bittersweet pang to my chest. Everything about the place looks the same as the last time I stood here. Even the little blobs of old gum plastered to the window ledge are the same. Layers of old graffiti still there like permanent clouds of sad color.
I wonder what we’ll have to say to each other. Apart from business, I mean. If I think of Baer as being something close to a nurturing father figure, then Dire’s the surly uncle who has no problem letting his more-than-likely-unpopular opinion be heard. Never was this made clearer to me than the day I told him I was out, done.
He leaned back in his seat, making a point of looking directly at the still-fresh
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