they wouldn’t be needed. While I watched, two ambulances turned off their flashing lights and drove away. There were probably about two hundred people watching and waiting for survivors. While most of them would be the next shift waiting to go in, many were media.
“Cel.” She turned. “Wait.”
“What’s going on?” Kinnis asked.
They had trusted me earlier, with their lives. “I can’t afford to have my face seen on the net, or my name mentioned. I need to avoid them.”
Cel shrugged. “I don’t see how we can help you.”
“I thought that if everyone was swarming to talk to one of you—or both of you—I could get away unnoticed.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. She didn’t relish the idea of a media feeding frenzy, and I didn’t blame her.
I had a sudden inspiration. “Kinnis, won’t your wife be worried?”
“Christ, yes. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“One quick way to let her know you’re safe would be to get on the net. You, too, Cel.”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly.
But Kinnis was looking at the cameras happily. “Being on the net would make me a hero to my kids, Cel: the guy who saved the city. And like she said, it would let my wife know I’m safe.”
“I don’t know,” Cel said again, then sighed. “I don’t know why I keep doing what you say.” Because I ask it. Katerine was right. “Come on, Kinnis. You head for those teams over there, I’ll take this side.” She walked out, waving. “Hey!” Lights swung her way.
Kinnis stepped out after her, to one side. “Me, too!”
I slipped into the shadow left behind by the piercing light and hurried away.
It was almost dawn by the time they were dressed and outside. The woman and Spanner stood in the doorway, murmuring. Something changed hands. Lore looked around, ignoring them. The apartment building was a converted warehouse, made of the long, thin bricks manufactured before the eighteenth century: they were in the center of the city, surrounded by trees and a high wall.
They found a café. Lore stirred her coffee aimlessly. Her body felt hopelessly confused: whenever she thought about what had happened she felt a flush of arousal followed quickly by shame.
“I don’t want to do that again,” she said quietly, not looking at Spanner.
“You enjoyed it.”
“Yes. That makes it worse.”
“It would have been better if you hadn’t liked it?”
“Yes. At least then I would have felt more like me. More in control.” She stirred the coffee some more. It slopped over into the saucer. “I just feel so . . . used.” No, she wanted to feel used, but she did not. She felt as though it did not matter, and that frightened her. She stared blindly across the river, broad here, and slow moving.
“Anyway, it’s done now. And you did enjoy it. You can’t tell me it wasn’t good.”
And it had been; it had been very good. What did that say about her?
“When did you drug me?” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm.
“Who says I drugged you?”
“Just tell me when.”
“After you had already taken off your dress.”
After you had already taken off your dress. So she did not even have that much of an excuse; she had already unbuttoned her dress. Some part of her had been willing, even without the drug.
Spanner squinted at the rising sun, sipped from her coffee. “So,” she said casually, “do you want me to tell you when I’m doing it, next time?”
Next time.
Lore watched the sparkle of morning sunlight on the river. It looked so bright, so optimistic, on the surface. But underneath there were river reeds, and pikes to eat smaller fish, and the rich river mud was made of dead things, including the bones of thousands of people.
Next time. “There’s no sign of business improving?”
“No.” Spanner waited for a waiter to refill her coffee. “This is more profitable, anyway.”
How many times had the river accepted victims? The river did not care whether those who slid under its surface were women or men, victims of murder or heroes trying to save a drowning child. It was all the same to the river. Death was all the same. Just as it did not matter what kind of person Lore felt she was inside: if there were many more times like last night, she would become someone else, someone who did those things.
But Spanner and the temporary fake PIDAs were all that held the implacable, uncaring river of her past from pouring in on her head. With Spanner she might drown; without