Текст книги "Our Lady of the Ice"

Автор книги: Cassandra Clarke

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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MARIANELLA

Marianella stepped out of the taxi. Her limbs felt strange—weak. She paid the driver in cash, careful to hand the money over with her left hand, the hand she had not used to beat Diego and leave him bleeding in an alley. If the driver noticed the blood splattered across the front of her dress, he didn’t say anything. She’d tried to hide it with her coat.

“You sure you want me to drop you off here?” he asked, leaning out his window. The gates to the amusement park rose up out of the cement. Eliana was sitting on the steps, her head bent down so that her face was covered by her hair.

“Yes,” Marianella said. “I’m meeting a friend.”

“Whatever.” The driver tucked the money into an envelope and sped off, leaving Marianella standing on the curb. Eliana lifted her head enough that Marianella saw the glint of her eyes. She almost didn’t want to walk across the street, almost didn’t want to face Eliana head-on.

It had to be done, though.

Marianella took a deep breath, lifted up the hem of her dress, and walked over to the park gate. Eliana watched her through the tangle of her hair. Her eyes were red from crying, and Marianella could make out an almost imperceptible vibration in her shoulders.

She stopped a few paces away from Eliana. Let the fabric slide out of her hands. They stared at each other in the shimmering, cold darkness.

“I’m sorry,” Marianella whispered.

“Is he dead?”

The question was hard, edged in ice. Marianella shook her head.

Eliana looked away, off in the direction of the smokestack district. “I couldn’t get in,” she said. “The gate was locked.”

“I know. I can open it.” Marianella wondered why Sofia hadn’t let Eliana in. Surely she’d seen her crying on the surveillance recorders. It was probably because Eliana was human. Sofia could be so cruel sometimes.

Marianella walked over to the gate and folded her hand around the lock. Energy bolted through her palm; for a moment she felt frazzled and lit up. Then the gate clicked open. She dropped her hand away and looked over at Eliana. She was crying again, silent tears running in rivers over her cheeks.

“Oh, sweetie,” Marianella murmured. She glided over to Eliana and knelt down beside her, not caring about the damp, oil-stained cement. For one shuddering second she was afraid that Eliana was going to pull away from her, but instead the opposite happened, and Eliana collapsed onto her shoulder, weeping loudly. Marianella held her close and stroked her hair and made calming noises as though Eliana were a frightened animal.

“He tried to kill you!” Eliana wailed.

I know, Marianella thought, but instead she said, “It was Ignacio who wanted me dead. Not Diego. We need to get inside the park before—” Eliana wailed more loudly, and Marianella didn’t let herself finish. Before Ignacio comes looking for us.

Gently, Marianella lifted Eliana to her feet. Eliana was as pliant as a doll, leaning up against Marianella for support, her steps trembling and weak. Together, they walked through the gate, leaving Hope City behind them.

Marianella guided Eliana over to a nearby bench and then went back to shut and lock the gate. She looked through the bars, out at the empty street. The streetlamps flickered, casting jittery shadows on the outside. It made her think that someone was out there, lurking, watching, with a loaded gun pointed straight at her heart. She didn’t like being in view of the street.

She turned away and walked back over to Eliana.

“Let’s get you a place to wash up,” she said softly, pulling Eliana up to standing. She would take Eliana to the Ice Palace, at least for the night. Sofia would be there, and Marianella needed to speak to her.

They walked along. The only sounds were their footsteps and Eliana’s crying. Marianella wondered if Eliana was in shock. Already it felt as though Eliana were walking through some other plane of existence, like she wasn’t aware of Marianella’s presence at all.

Finally, the Ice Palace appeared in the distance, the spotlights turned on as if to act as a beacon. Sofia and her generators. Marianella guided Eliana along. A maintenance drone slid across the pathway, chirping once to acknowledge Marianella before it disappeared into the shrubbery, on its way to whatever it’d been programmed to do. Marianella wondered if it was one of the newly sentient ones, if it had tripped the wires that had caught fire and exploded in that power plant.

A figure moved up ahead on the path. Marianella’s machine eyes kicked in, and through the darkness she saw that the figure was Sofia. Eliana stirred against Marianella. The muscles in her shoulders tightened.

“No,” Eliana said, and her voice pitched more loudly into a shriek. “No, no! She’s going to hurt me.”

“It’s just Sofia,” Marianella said. Sofia stopped and gave Eliana a cold look.

“What’s going on here?” Sofia said. She looked at Marianella’s dress. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s not my blood,” Marianella said automatically. Eliana gave a sob, and Marianella immediately regretted saying it.

“What happened?” Sofia’s eyes swung back and forth between Marianella and Eliana. “Was it Cabrera? Did he hurt you?”

“He tried, yes.” Marianella squeezed Eliana tighter. “Please, Sofia. She’s very upset. Let me put her up in one of the palace rooms.”

Sofia’s eyes narrowed. She studied Eliana, who was shaking more violently now, her head buried in Marianella’s shoulder.

“Please,” Marianella said.

“You’d do it even if I said no,” Sofia said. “Get her out of here.”

Marianella sighed with relief. “Come along,” she whispered to Eliana, and together they shuffled up the path.

“I don’t want to stay here,” Eliana said when they were finally inside the palace. “I don’t—just let me go home.” She struggled against Marianella, but Marianella held her tight.

“It’s not safe,” she said. “You’ll need to stay here, at least until we know what to do about Ignacio.”

“Diego will keep me safe!” Her shout bounced off the walls. Then she covered her face with her hands and crumpled down onto the floor. Marianella stood there, awkward, watching Eliana’s shoulders shake. Marianella doubted that Diego had ever been able to keep Eliana safe, but she didn’t dare say that out loud.

*  *  *  *

Marianella didn’t bother to sleep that night. She took a long, scalding shower, rubbing hard at the places on her skin stained by Diego’s blood. Afterward, she sat in the place beside her window where she liked to pray. She said the rosary three times, once for Diego and once for Eliana and once for herself, for forgiveness. When she finished, she dropped the rosary into a shining pile of beads on the sill and stared out at the gloomy park.

The dome lights came on, that slow mechanical sunrise.

A maintenance drone buzzed into the room. Marianella jumped at the sound of it, her nerves raw after last night. It was a park drone, still running on steam. A bell chimed deep inside its shell. It had a message for her.

“What is it?” Marianella said, anxiety turning her clammy. She stood up and walked over to the drone and knelt down at its side. It chimed again.

“I know, I know,” she muttered, even as her thoughts trembled. Why was a drone coming to her room? Sofia wouldn’t have sent it; she always visited herself. It certainly wasn’t bringing word of a culling. Ignacio?

Marianella removed the paneling on the shell and hooked herself into the drone’s system. Immediately she was flooded with a message in the jittery ones and zeros of the drone’s language: she had a visitor at the gate. Alejo Ortiz.

Marianella withdrew her hand and let out a long sigh of relief. In the aftermath of the attack, she hadn’t once thought of him. He wasn’t going to be happy with her, running out of the Midwinter Ball like that. At least not until she explained.

“Thank you,” Marianella said to the drone, replacing its panel. She changed out of her dressing gown and into a pair of slim trousers and an old sweater, the two items of clothing that were closest at hand. The dress from last night was puddled on the floor, the fabric arranged so she couldn’t see the blood.

Marianella went out into the park and made her way toward the front gates. Out in the freezing air, she felt a flicker of fear that this might be a trap—that it hadn’t been a park drone who’d come for her, but one of Cabrera’s drones, programmed to lie. But then, there was no way Sofia would let that happen. She might be radical and antihuman, but she wouldn’t let any harm come to Marianella. Of that much, Marianella was certain.

Still, Marianella slowed her pace as she neared the gates, and took a meandering path through one of the overgrown gardens so she could see the person waiting at the gate before he could see her. She moved as lightly as she could, weaving through the vines and tangled branches like a dancer. Soon, the gate materialized into view, all those wrought-iron fairies guarding the entrance. Marianella felt a pang of regret, seeing them and remembering how she had walked through them last night with Eliana weeping at her side.

A man waited on the city side of the gate. Tall, television-star handsome. Alejo.

Marianella let out a deep breath of relief and pushed out of the garden, onto the path. Alejo looked up at her in surprise. She reached up to smooth her hair away and found a dead leaf crackling beside her temple.

“Good God, Marianella,” Alejo said. He wrapped his fingers around the bars and pressed up against the gate. “Did you sleep out here?”

“No, of course not.” Marianella arrived at the gate, where she undid the lock. The gate popped open. Alejo gave a gasp of surprise and lifted his hands away.

“That’s quite a trick,” he said, grinning. But then this grin vanished, and he peered at her closely, as if she were a book he needed to study. Marianella looked away.

“What happened to you last night?” he said softly. “You just ran off.”

“I had to,” Marianella said. “You ought to come inside, by the way. It’s not safe on the boundaries.”

“What? Why not?” Alejo squeezed through the open gate, and Marianella pushed it shut, relishing the comfort of that metallic twang as the latch sank into place.

“Ignacio,” Marianella said. “Cabrera. We can talk in the garden.”

She began walking toward the interior of the park, but Alejo hung back, marveling up at the bursts of colored blossoms decorating the trees.

“This place,” he said, shaking his head.

She waited for him, let him relish whatever childhood memories he had of the park. His nostalgia didn’t last long. He dropped his gaze back down to her and said, “Now, what’s this about Ignacio Cabrera?”

“He was at the ball last night.”

Alejo’s expression didn’t change. Always the consummate politician. “That’s not possible. He certainly didn’t receive an invitation.”

“He must have come uninvited.” Marianella walked toward the garden again, and this time Alejo jogged to catch up with her. The overgrown trees arced, unmoving, overhead—filtering dapples of green and white across the path. “At any rate, he saw me.” She told Alejo the rest of the story as they walked. Her voice sounded like it came from outside her head, like it was humming with a peculiar feedback. She told Alejo everything, even about how she had beat Diego in the alley, because he was the closest she had to a confessor in this moment.

She finished just as they arrived at the entrance to the garden. One of the metal gates hung sideways, broken in its frame.

“That’s terrible,” Alejo said in a low voice. “Absolutely terrible. You should have come to me. My associates were there. You didn’t have to put yourself at risk like that.”

Marianella slipped into the garden. She’d rather harbor this heavy guilt than know she had invited the aid of a terrorist.

“It was easier that way,” she finally said, and settled into a place on the cleanest bench. “To just run. I’m sorry, I am, but—”

“You don’t need to apologize, for God’s sake.” Alejo sank down beside her. “I’m just glad you’re not hurt.” He paused, tilted his head, looked up at the trees. “This is a problem.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Marianella glared at him. “I don’t think he’ll even let me pay him off at this point, do you? If he wants me dead so badly?”

Alejo rubbed his hands over his forehead. “The man’s primary focus is money,” he said. “It always has been. I take it you didn’t try to negotiate with him last night?”

“Negotiate!” Marianella cried. “I didn’t even see him! Negotiation was the farthest thing from my mind. I was just trying to get Eliana and myself out of there alive.” Her voice hitched. She remembered the sting in her knuckles as she slammed her fist into Diego’s forehead, knocking him unconscious. It had been necessary, a necessary evil, the only way to escape—at least, that’s what she had thought last night. In the sallow light of morning, Alejo’s suggestion of a negotiation seemed almost reasonable.

“I did what I thought I had to do,” she whispered. It was more to herself, but Alejo drew his arm around her shoulder and gave her a quick, brotherly squeeze.

“You were scared,” he said. “We can figure some other way out of this.”

“There is no other way.” Marianella stared straight ahead. “He won’t take my money.”

Alejo was silent for a moment. In the distance Marianella heard the clicking whir of one of the performance robots, sneaking its way through the park’s path, avoiding her and Alejo.

“My associates,” Alejo said slowly. “You know they’d be willing to—take care of him for you.”

Marianella’s breath lodged in her throat. She felt dizzy. “Kill him, you mean. Just say it.”

“Fine, yes, kill him. He certainly wouldn’t be the worst person they’ve targeted.”

“Wouldn’t it go against the cause?” Marianella’s question was more mocking than she’d intended, and she squeezed the bridge of her nose. “You’re the one always saying that they aren’t mercenaries for hire.”

“I say that, but they really kind of are.”

She could feel Alejo staring at her. Waiting for an answer. She didn’t tell him that Sofia had offered the same thing, that it had given her a sick feeling in her stomach like the world was falling apart.

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to kill him. I don’t want to—be like him.”

“You already beat up one of his men.”

Shame rose fast in Marianella’s cheeks. She stood up in a rush of anger. “That was self-defense.”

“So is this, for God’s sake!”

“And I didn’t kill him. I could have, but I didn’t.” She turned to face Alejo, found him gazing up at her with a calm expression that only unnerved her further. “We have to find some other way. If not my money—” She closed her eyes, trying to think.

“We have to do something,” Alejo said. “It’s not just about you—and don’t take that the wrong way. I certainly don’t want to see you dead. But he’s going to try to find you. He’s going to investigate you. And once he does that, he’s going to find out about the dome, and he’s going to want to destroy it.”

Marianella took a deep breath. She slumped back down onto the bench beside Alejo. She was no longer angry, only defeated. And Ignacio had defeated her.

“The dome,” she said weakly.

“Yes, the dome.” Alejo leaned in, pitched his voice low. “Let the AFF handle it. One assassination, and he’ll be gone.”

Marianella pushed her distaste aside. She had to try another approach. “He’ll be gone, but what about the rest of his organization?”

Alejo didn’t answer.

“Are you going to kill all the rest of them too? The men loyal to him? Surely he’s grooming someone to take his place, and they’re going to want to know why the AFF took him out. What if they trace it back to me? The threat of my identity is always there. Always.” Marianella shook her head. “And you can’t just keep killing people to get your way. You can’t.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?”

“You go to him,” Marianella said. “You pay him off. I can send you the money. We should have done that from the beginning. He told me flat out that he wouldn’t kill you.”

Alejo leaned back on the bench and crossed his arms over his chest. “That puts my career on the line.”

“So send one of your AFF friends to do it!” Marianella threw up her hands. “Tell him I’m part of the AFF, that they want to protect their own. I can send the money to you.” She hated that, hated the idea of aligning herself with terrorists. But it was better than letting herself become a murderer.

“You’re willing to let Cabrera think you’re part of the AFF?” Alejo laughed. “Not what I expected.”

“These are desperate times,” Marianella said.

For a moment, Alejo let his politician’s mask slip, and he looked sad.

“This is my act of desperation,” Marianella said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

SOFIA

“What do you want?” Sofia let the door slam shut behind her. Cabrera was writing something with a ballpoint pen and didn’t look up at her when she walked into the room.

“Hello, Sofia. It’s nice to see you, too.” His pen continued to scratch across his paper. Sofia didn’t sit down. She knew this wasn’t about reprogramming more icebreakers, because if that had been the case, he wouldn’t have told her to come alone, and they would be meeting on the docks, at night—not in his office, during the middle of the afternoon, the day after Marianella had stupidly slipped out of the amusement park to attend a fund-raiser gala for her damned agricultural domes.

“Please, have a seat.” Cabrera finally looked up, his face pleasantly expressionless. He set his pen aside. “I have a proposition to discuss with you.”

Sofia stared at him. The record player was still set up behind the desk. A disc of vinyl gleamed in the office lights, but the turntable was still.

“I don’t need anything else from you,” Sofia said.

Cabrera studied her. “Odd. I thought you were still waiting on something.”

The programming key. Sofia could picture it, the little sphere of burnished metal filled with interlocking numbers. With it Araceli could unlock all the secrets of her code—without it, her plan was much more difficult.

Sofia didn’t say anything.

“Sit, sit,” he said, waving at the chair. “It won’t take long.”

Sofia considered her options. There weren’t many.

She glided forward, sank down into the chair.

Cabrera grinned like he had just accomplished something. “I have a bit of a problem, Sofia.”

“Is that so?”

“I don’t feel like you’ve been entirely—honest with me.”

Sofia thought about Marianella walking through the gates of the park, a panicking Eliana at her side. He tried.

Sofia didn’t move. “Excuse me?”

“About your”—Cabrera wriggled his fingers, as though conjuring up the right words—“associates. Your less-than-human associates.”

“Less than human?”

“Oh, don’t take it personally, my dear. You know what I mean. I was under the impression that we were partners. That you would keep me abreast of any unusual situations related to the denizens of the park.”

Sofia wrapped her fingers around the armchair and squeezed. “That was never part of our arrangement. I was under the impression that I was to be your reprogrammer,” Sofia said. “Which I’ve done. Unfailingly.”

Cabrera stared at her. “You aren’t human, so I can forgive you for not understanding, but a partnership with me is a partnership all the way through. You reprogram my robots, and you warn me of any potential problems from your kind.” He flashed her a grin. “I’ve certainly been keeping up my end of the bargain. Getting those items you requested, yes, but also keeping the park safe from city cullings—”

“You fucking liar. You know there was a culling—”

“That wasn’t the city. Outside my jurisdiction, I’m afraid.”

Sofia darkened. Marianella had seen one of Alejo Ortiz’s men that day. The AFF, then? Sofia hated the idea that another group of humans could force themselves into the park. She would have to investigate further.

“I had a problem a few weeks back, however. It happens. I thought I was successful in dispatching with it. My methods have never failed me before.”

“Your methods?” Sofia loosened her grip on the armrests. Her programming was well suited to making her seem to know less than she did.

“You don’t want to hear about this, do you?” Cabrera waved his hand. “You’re programmed to be a lady. I wouldn’t want to upset you.” Another cold glittering grin. “Suffice it to say, my problem is still very much alive. Plus, she left one of my best men bleeding in an alley last night, despite her small stature. Putting all that together, I’m forced to conclude that she must be one of yours.” He leaned forward, pressing his hands into the desk. “I’m really rather upset that you didn’t mention her, especially considering how high-profile she is. This is what I mean, about you not understanding our partnership.”

“Maybe your methods aren’t as successful as you think.” Sofia’s brain churned, wild with information and the memory of Marianella’s face.

Cabrera stared at Sofia for a moment. Then he laughed. “I locked her outside the dome, Sofia. That’s what I do. A human would have frozen to death in under an hour. Hardly enough time to find her way back inside. And yet.” He spread his hands over the desk. “Here we are. I saw her last night at a fund-raising gala for the agricultural domes. Now, why would a robot—or in this case, a cyborg—want to build an agricultural dome?”

“Why does a robot want anything?” Sofia folded her hands in her lap. Marianella was a fool, going to that party. She still had too much human in her.

“I have an answer to your question.” Cabrera tapped his fingers against the desk, one finger at a time, slowly and then quickly. The rhythm of a tango. Sofia watched his fingers and wanted to rip his hand from his arm.

“The answer to what?” The rhythm was already beating into her brain, luring the programming out.

“To what a robot wants.” Slow, slow. Quick, quick, slow. “It’s whatever a human wants. Isn’t that right, Sofia?”

Sofia closed her eyes. The tapping stopped. “You’re talking about Marianella Luna, I suppose? The woman on the advertisements?”

“Ah, so you do watch our television.”

Sofia opened her eyes. “She’s an heiress. An aristocrat. She’s not a cyborg.”

Cabrera tapped the rhythm out again. Slow, slow. Quick, quick, slow. “Aristocrats can’t survive the frozen desert.”

“Are you sure?” Sofia said. “Your sort certainly treats them as if they can.”

Cabrera paused, then roared with laughter. “Amusing, Sofia. Very amusing. I’ve never much gone in for that sort of thing myself. Landed gentry and the like. Too European. I’d rather find a new way of doing things.” He pushed back in his chair, turning toward the record player.

“No,” Sofia whispered.

“It’s just music, my dear.”

The record crackled and the music started, and Sofia flushed with relief because it was an old song but not one she’d ever been programmed to.

“See?” Cabrera smiled. “Just music. Now. Back to my proposition. Marianella Luna. I need her dead.”

“Then kill her.” The words were flat and tinny in her mouth.

“I can’t,” Cabrera snapped. “That’s my entire fucking point. I toss her out into the snow, and she shows up a few weeks later, not even missing any of her fingers or toes. She carries on like nothing happened. I only know one sort of creature that can survive in that type of weather.”

“A penguin?” Sofia said.

Cabrera fixed her with a cold stare. “Last night I sent Diego to shoot her in the heart. Even cyborgs have hearts. But she left him bruised and bleeding on the cement. Then disappeared.” He paused. “Do you know where she ran off to?”

“No.”

The music crackled in the background.

“I thought you might say that.” Cabrera reached over and lifted the needle and then dropped it.

Music exploded in Sofia’s thoughts, and then her thoughts didn’t belong to her anymore.

It was “Yo Soy La Morocha,” and it shot desire through her like a poison. Her whole body was burning, and when she looked at the man behind the desk, with his cold smile, she saw only a client.

“What would you like me to do?” she said sweetly.

The room was too hot. She began to undress, unbuttoning her blouse, slipping off her shoes. She unrolled her stockings, pulled them off one by one. The client stared at her, unmoving. She wondered if she had displeased him in some way.

“What would you like me to do?” she asked.

The client reached over and pulled up the record needle.

The silence was beautiful and terrible. Sofia gasped and pulled her blouse closed. Rage coursed through her.

“I’ll kill you,” she hissed.

“No,” Cabrera said. “You’ll kill her. Marianella Luna. Kill the human in her and then get that little human freak who lives with you to dismantle the rest of her. Otherwise—” He dropped the needle, and the music came back in and Sofia forgot herself, desire burning her up from the inside.

Silence again.

“Do you understand?”

Sofia glared at him, fury hot inside her.

“This should be easy for you, shouldn’t it, my dear? Just imagine she’s all human.” He dropped the needle, and the music prickled over her skin and she stood up and shimmied out of her skirt.

Back to silence.

“Do you understand?” Cabrera said.

Sofia felt whiplashed, slung back and forth between independence and slavery. Her clothes lay in puddles around her. Cabrera still held the needle, the record still spun in slow treacherous circles, like a shark swimming around and around a sinking boat.

“I will always have this,” Cabrera said lightly. “You do realize that, correct?”

Sofia didn’t answer.

“I’m actually giving you a choice,” he went on. “You like that, don’t you? Thinking you have a choice. Would you like to hear what that choice is?”

Sofia gathered up her skirt and stockings, her arms shaking.

“Would you?”

“Yes,” she said, grinding her teeth together until they sparked inside her head.

“You leave my office and you find her in this icebox we call a city and you kill her for me. And everything carries on the way it was before. That’s option A. Option B is you leave my office and you don’t do anything and I use my secret weapon here”—he nodded at the record player—“to get you nice and compliant so that one of my engineers can reprogram a new song into your pretty little robot brain, a song that’ll force you to kill her. That’s your choice.”

He dropped the needle again, only this time the music was safe. It didn’t transmit any hidden codes.

Cabrera looked at Sofia. She pulled her clothes to her chest, trying to cover her bare skin. The room was no longer too hot, but too cold. Even though Sofia didn’t feel the cold.

“Well?” said Cabrera. “Which option do you choose?”

Sofia considered her options, robotically, one by one. She considered every possible angle. Cabrera was wrong, as he so often was—he had given her more than two choices. Because he didn’t realize how adept she was at obfuscation.

“I’ll kill her,” Sofia said.

Cabrera smiled.

*  *  *  *

Sofia rapped on Marianella’s bedroom door without stopping, a bang, bang, bang that no human could manage without hurting herself. She was numb—from the music, from Cabrera’s threat. She’d either be a murderer or a murder weapon.

No. No. She banged harder on Marianella’s door. No human would ever tell her what to do again.

Shuffled footsteps. Sofia stopped knocking, and the door swung open. Marianella stared at her. She looked exhausted, her clothing rumpled and her eyes ringed in dark circles.

“Sofia?” she said in a slurred voice, like she’d been sleeping.

“I need to speak with you.” Sofia didn’t wait for an answer; she pushed past Marianella into the dim bedroom. “It’s about Ignacio Cabrera.”

The door swung shut.

“What about him?” Marianella’s voice had lost the blur of sleep; it was strained now, nervous. “My God, Sofia, what do you know?” She stared at her. “You went to see him, didn’t you? Just now?” She dug her hand into her forehead like she had a headache. “Why? I told you, Alejo and I know how to handle—”

Sofia grabbed both of Marianella’s hands and squeezed them tight. Marianella looked up, her eyes shiny with tears, and the sight of them made Sofia hurt inside.

“He called me over,” Sofia said, “for a meeting. I had to go. That’s the nature of my arrangement. And he—” She wasn’t sure she would be able to say it. Not now, not looking at Marianella straight on.

Marianella always did that to her.

“What?” Marianella cried. “What is it?”

“We have a problem,” Sofia said carefully.

Marianella’s eyes went wide and scared. “He wants you to kill me.”

“Yes.” Sofia squeezed Marianella’s hands.

Marianella sucked in a deep breath, and that act of breathing made Sofia aware of how vulnerable Marianella was, if you knew the right places to stab, to hit, to dismantle.

Which Sofia did.

Silence filled the bedroom, thick and choking. And when Marianella broke it, she said exactly what Sofia didn’t want to hear.

“Did he program you?” Marianella’s voice was flat. Empty.

Sofia closed her eyes. It was a fair question—she was still programmable—and she couldn’t begrudge Marianella asking it. But it hurt anyway, a hurt like coming out of the music.

“No.”

Marianella sighed with relief, a long whoosh of air that hurt Sofia even more.

“He gave me the option of doing it on my own first.”

“Are you going to?”

“No, of course not.”

Marianella closed her eyes, and her lips moved silently, the first lines of the Hail Mary.

“You didn’t think I was going to kill you, did you? I mean, really?” Sofia reached out, tentatively, and pressed her hand against the side of Marianella’s face. Marianella leaned into her touch, sighing, and with that, Sofia stretched her arm around Marianella’s shoulder and drew her close. She wanted to feel the warmth and softness of her body, wanted to feel that blood pumping through Marianella’s veins. It was the strangest sort of comfort.

“I don’t know what I think, Sofia.” Marianella laid her head on Sofia’s shoulder. “I just– How could you do it?” she asked. “How could you work for that—that monster?” She turned her head just enough that her hair brushed across Sofia’s shoulder. “You may not care that he kills humans, but he just asked you to kill a cyborg. And what do you say about that?”

“I had to work with him,” Sofia said. “It’s part of my plan.”

“Your plan, your plan!” Marianella pulled away, whirled to face her. “You’re helping Ignacio Cabrera, the man responsible for starving half of Hope City, just so Araceli can mess around with your programming?”