12


I left the assassins’ guild and found Frank at a street-side food vendor. He had stayed long past the expected time of our meeting, stalwart as I remembered him from our days in the Union army. He looked uncomfortable but unwilling to leave me hanging.
“I wish you hadn't come to Greendale,” Frank said.
“Why didn’t you warn me about the smoking police?” I asked, fishing a Gronic Fats out of my pocket.
He responded by digging into his cigarettes and lighting up moments later. “There aren’t cops just for that; they do other things. A buddy of mine on the force said they have a lot of pressure to improve the air quality in Zag City. Some travel guru gave the place a bad rating and the entire galaxy now thinks Zag is synonymous with ashtray.”
“I don’t see why,” I said as we both exhaled clouds of smoke into the air.
“You were in there a while,” he observed. “Is everything all right? Should I be worried?”
“It’s a big place full of interesting people,” I said, reviewing the numbers on my HUD that X-37 had recorded. I had purposely gotten lost on my way out to expand my map of the facility. Guards had quickly located me and escorted me to the proper elevator.
By some miracle hack that X-37 had pulled off, the elevator stopped frequently when I was sure it had been designed to move directly to the exit without any side trips possible. After a while, I found guards waiting for me each time the elevator opened. Even when they blocked my wandering, I gathered information on their security elements—how many guards they had, what they were equipped with, and how fast they responded to a minor breach of their security protocols.
“What’s it like being a fugitive?” Frank asked. “There are times I’d like to just run away. Shitty job, demanding home life, one boring day after another. Might be good to go renegade.”
“I was built for this kind of survival. I wouldn’t recommend it to a normal person. You’d have fun for a while, but then you would get homesick,” I said.
He nodded animatedly, dropped his cigarette, and twisted it out under his boot before lighting another only seconds later. “Zag City looks like an amazing place, and maybe it is, but it has a dark underbelly.”
“Most cities do,” I said. “You're retired. It's unfair of me to ask so much.”
I really wanted to say more, to express my sincerity, but graciousness and humility weren't something they taught in the Reaper Corps.
Frank locked his eyes on his feet, smoke twirling up from the cigarette he held down at his side. He dug at a groove in the concrete with the toe of one work boot.
“I feel like shit for not keeping better track of Elise,” he said, tensing up. I observed he was fit but very lean. His life hadn't been easy. I was sure that if I asked him he would tell me that his training in the Union military prepared him for other trials. I thought it probably hadn't hurt but that he had been tough before he enlisted.
He was a good man who sold himself short.
I waited, aware he was about to make some type of admission.
“I followed her to school a couple of times, during the brief time she stayed with us and also afterward. Every now and then, I'd surprise her at work. Thought I'd be embarrassing her, but she rolled with the punches. Her boss was suspicious, somewhat protective, but never gave me a hard time. I thought that was enough. I mean, what was really going to happen?”
“You know where she works now?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. “She waits tables at a diner if you’re hungry.”
“I never turn down a meal,” I said.
We headed through the revitalized downtown district of Zag City. It was different during the daytime, clean or somehow more organized. Excessive vehicle and pedestrian traffic made it louder than it had been at night, if that was possible. Frank moved easily through the crowd, never stepping out of anybody's way but never requiring others to swerve around him. That made me think he planned his steps in advance.
The diner where Elise worked was on a concrete island surrounded by wide sidewalks and major streets. It had an old look and feel to it, with classic music playing from the public address system. There were tables and benches outside.
“They usually have quite a waiting list over the lunch hour,” Frank said. “Looks busy, but we shouldn't have a hard time finding a place to sit today.”
“Let’s find a booth or something. I want to see her before she sees me. Might just leave if she looks okay.” I waited until he wouldn't take my words as a criticism. “Why did you stop following her to school and checking on her at work?”
He shrugged. “She's hard to follow. It got to be a lot of effort and didn't seem worth it. So far as I could tell, she was doing way better on her own than she would be with me following her around.”
We took our seats. It didn't take me long to spot her. She had put on weight but was still slim and youthful. “She's taller than I remember.”
Her dark, almost black hair was up in a ponytail. She had grown out the poorly bleached hair I remembered from Dreadmax. It was thick and luxurious now, complementing her smooth skin and youthful vitality.
“Why are you angry?” X-37 asked.
I didn’t answer but adjusted my attitude. She didn’t deserve to be anywhere near my world. I understood why the Union was after her. I knew that her father had used technology from the Lex project to cure her of a childhood disease.
Now she was too valuable for the Union to let go. That didn’t change how unfair her life was about to become. All I saw was a young woman making people happy through hard work and self-sacrifice. The galaxy needed more people like her and fewer people like me.
The first time I saw her, she was in a cage dressed to amuse dangerous men on a doomed prison station.
In a perfect galaxy, I could lurk near her as I was doing right now and protect her. Instead of a killing machine, I could be a guardian angel. Maybe that would make the Deadlands a better place. Maybe that would redeem a few of my sins.
Frank took one of the barstools and leaned his elbows on the counter. “That happened not long after you left her with us. Once she started eating regularly, it was like she had a growth spurt. I don't think she'll get much taller than she is now, but something had stunted her growth.”
She did ten things at once and still looked bored. I never saw her use a ticket when taking an order. The young woman seemed to just remember things. At one point, she carried a huge tray in both hands, lifting them high over her head to avoid another waitress who wasn't paying attention. All the while, she was calling back details to the cook then admonishing the hostess in charge of seating people who wasn't doing her job.
She worked her way toward our end of the counter, but her attention was on all the other customers. From what I gathered through my eavesdropping, someone had not shown up for work and she was covering two sections.
“Thanks again, Elise,” the owner and cook bellowed. “I know the dinner rush appreciates you, even if Mags doesn’t.”
Elise paused in a routine and cast him a delightfully sweet smile. “That's nice, Jimmy. Does that mean you're giving me a raise?”
They both laughed. Some of the regular patrons joined in with their own comments.
“I can see why you didn't think you needed to look after her,” I said. “This place looks safe.”
“She has a way with people,” Frank said. “I've seen her get mean too. But not often, and only with the neighborhood bullies.”
“You should've seen her on Dreadmax,” I said.
Frank became quiet.
“What's on your mind, Frank?” I asked.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about back in the day. Stuff better left in the past,” he said.
He was lying. I knew he was lying.
“He's probably connecting your name to the Union propaganda about the Butcher of Dreadmax,” X-37 offered.
The Union public information machine had put out quite a tale after Dreadmax, I knew. Their official narrative had been that an insane gang leader, a convicted terrorist and enemy of the people, had staged an uprising then detonated a nuclear device, eliminating all evidence of what had happened.
“Someday I'll tell you the truth about Dreadmax,” I said.
Frank grew even more uncomfortable and waved away my promise.