The Atomic Question - Ch. 11

It wasn't a long wait for the taxi. Within fifteen minutes a Crown Victoria pulled up to the square in front of the Orchard, painted with glossy yellow and black in the style of Knight Errant uniforms. An elven individual got out of the driver's side and adroitly opened one of the rear doors for Dawson. There was a barely perceptible raise of one immaculate grey brow when she told them the destination but no commentary was proffered.

The Crown Victoria was lovingly cared for inside as well as out. Dawson judged it to be a 2064 model, maintained to be like factory-new in an effort to provide Ares passengers with a tasteful mid-luxury experience even if they were just lower ranking assistants on errands. Tinted ballistic glass windows had the interior dim in the way Dawson always preferred cars to be dim, shrouding her in menacing half light that made questioning people from the driver's window slightly easier to achieve.

In the spacious rear seat however she had nothing to do but wait. Sometimes driving could help with thinking about existing problems but other times it could lead to thinking about the past. If she disassociated, Dawson would end up leaning against the door and watching San Francisco roll by, the pristine opulence of Silicon Valley gradually giving way to the decay and squalor of the neighborhoods by the bay proper.

So she focused on the driver instead. Elven, given away by the ears and brows and a little by the chin and nose. Lines around their eyes suggested habitual worry but lines around the mouth suggested frequent smiling, and more than just the polite side. Androgynous with no particular fullness of their upper body, and a subdued gray-blue sweater vest over a thinner black dress shirt. A name tag on their chest displayed the first initial M. and a surname, Richland.

Of more interest was the driver's hands. Their fingers were lightly calloused in an easily predictable way, indicating that it wasn't from exercise but from repetitive motion. Probably cleaning the Crown Royal fastidiously both inside and out, while wearing gloves for the more sophisticated automotive work on the battery and circuitry beneath the hood. Immediately a fondness blossomed in Dawson for this person; people who cared about their cars to this extent reminded Dawson of her uncle, and were in her experience always good people.

Richland's eyes flicked up the rear-view and caught Dawson staring at her and it took some restraint to keep from reaching out with her essence and touching the elf's. It would have been rude to start prying on someone just doing their job.

The elf spoke. "You looked stressed, ma'am." Their voice was calm, controlled and deferential. Vaguely feminine in enunciation of words, but vaguely masculine in its depth. "It is not unusual for my passengers to enjoy a cigarette during a trip."

At the suggestion Dawson could detect a faint, distant trace of soylent nicotine somewhere in the car's upholstery and carpet, so faded and mitigated by Richland's vigorous cleaning that she would never have noticed it on her own. She detected also a faint trace of displeasure in the driver's voice and in spite of her attempt to keep from connecting to them she picked up a stray sentiment: the resentment towards decorum preventing them from adding please open a window, hoping the idea would occur to the passenger on their own, though it so rarely did.

So Richland's relief was as plain as day when Dawson said, "It's been a long time since I smoked." And yet again in spite of her efforts, Dawson's eyes wandered to the window and she thought of the past.

Her last cigarette. A late afternoon in late summer in 2068. Climbing out of the High Mobility and stretching. In two days Salesforce Tower would explode. In two weeks the occupation would be declared over. Patrol nearly done, but Vic couldn't wait until they got back. Claimed he was starving. Dawson joking that with his reserve he could go a week without eating.

Him going into the convenience store. Pickers nearby at a trash can across the street, dumping empty soykaf cups and snack wrappers. Vayger inside just holding her Desert Strike in her lap and not making a sound. Broken, it seemed.

Soylent tobacco had no carcinogenic qualities. Didn't pay to kill the customers. Dawson had never really gotten much out of them, but the feeling of something in her mouth was worth walking a little ways down the street to light one up with her little black and yellow electric lighter.

Her standing there on the street corner, twelve meters from where she should have been by the truck, Alpha on its strap over her chest. Pulling on the cigarette and thinking If this habit can't kill me is it even worth keeping? But doing it anyway because habits made her feel nearer to being a normal person, in a moment where she should have been vigilant. What a hypocrite she was, telling Gaines that he shared no blame when she herself still felt flecks of this blood on her throat.

Her back turned, not seeing the orks creeping down the other side of the street. Vic coming out of the store with soy pork burritos in both hands. When the bloody tusk in front raised the filthy Defiance T-250 and pulled the trigger it jammed. Dawson had heard that and spun around immediately.

Victor Reyes with his hands full and his gut exposed, dropping his burritos too late to go for the Ares Lightfire 75 at his hip in its holster. Not before the tusk could switch the firing mode on the Defiance and pump it once. Not before he could pull the trigger.

By the time Dawson had her Alpha up and the safety off, the tusks had pulled off half of Vic's clothing. They were trying to tear his boots off when she opened fire, nearly hitting one in the head. The bullets scared them off immediately, clutching a Knight Errant employee's equipment in their hands and holding it in the crook of their arms.

"You fucking bastards!" Pickers' horrified scream as he pulled out his Ares Predator and started firing after them. Too far, and he was emotional. Not using his smartlink or his ocular implant. Vayger popping up out of the gunner port and racking a bloodhound round, firing and hitting the center ork in the back. Trackable radioactive dye splashed on all of them and within two weeks they'd all be caught. Dead within a year, in prison.

Dawson dropping to her knees at Vic's side. His last words in her ear. Her last words to him in his face. The cigarette still in her mouth.

Richland spoke into the silence of Dawson's memory, tearing her back to the moment. "That's to your credit," they said softly. "Heroes don't smoke."

Dawson shut her eyes, a small tear escaping out of the right one to trail down her face. She turned towards the window to keep it from being seen. She said evenly, "I agree. They don't."

She would have been content to endure the rest of the ride in polite silence but Richland, likely sensing that Dawson was melancholy, tried more conversation.

"I recognize you, from the newscasts. Am I taking you somewhere dangerous?"

"There might be a fight," Dawson admitted, running the fingers of her right hand through her hair on the right side of her head, without removing her hat. "I doubt anyone will try to kill me. At least not any of the people I'm intending to find."

Richland said courteously but without hesitation, "If I drive you somewhere and you end up getting shot there, I'd feel terrible."

The small smile the elf was wearing helped to dispel Dawson's sorrow. "Guess I should have you take me home, then. Though I could die there too, of too much sex."

"For that," Richland said, "You could thank me."

It felt good to laugh, however softly, without bitterness. "It's alright," Dawson said, "You're only doing your job. Take me to the arena so I can do mine."

"Is this a job for Knight Errant?" Richland said, conversationally. "Or Lone Star?"

At this question Dawosn put one fist in front of her mouth. "Ah, no," she replied carefully. "In fact no one wants me on this task. But it is still my job."

Richland nodded their head sagely, like they had figured this out already. "That is behavior befitting a hero."

Difficult to argue with that. "Can a hero enjoy any music?"

At this they only smiled, sparing one hand from the wheel to interface with the stereo. A button press and a turned knob later and energetic music began to spill out of the speakers: guitar, horn and steel drums. Dawson turned her eyes to the passing city and let San Francisco in 2080 connect to her.

"It's a beggar's life, said the queen of Spain! But don't tell it to a poor man! 'Cause he's got to kill for every thrill, the best he can..."

The familiar urban decay crept up on her view, building by building. The further north one went the more frequent the bombed-out structures and empty lots, the more common the dive bars and cybernetics shops. The more fortified the gun stores and pharmacies. The more frequent the passing DocWagons, and the faster they drove.

People sitting on porches and lounging in chairs outside open garages looked at her as the Crown Royal passed. When eyes met her she sensed for a single moment the span of their lives, the complexity, the bravery and the surrender, the tapestry of perseverance and desire, fulfilled or otherwise. Just a hint, just a thread. So many threads.

"Everywhere around me, I see jealousy and mayhem! Because no men have all their peace of mind, to carry them..."

Had she always seen them before the storm struck her? Before she'd taken that monster's hand in her own and tried to save him? Because she'd seen herself lost in the rain and thunder and remembered all the times she'd uttered under her breath god, please. Someone save me.

"Well I don't really care, if it's wrong or if it's right... But until my ship comes in, I'll live night by--night!"

No, she told herself as the Crown Royal stopped at an intersection. The threads were always there, and anyone could see them if they cared to. Guess where they led to. The only thing different now is she could touch them. Feel their pull, and pull back if she needed to.

"When the joker tried to tell me, I could cut in this rube town! We he tried to hang that sign on me I said 'Take it down!'"

Congregating at the corner was a group of orks dressed in the style of the Bloody Tusks. They looked Dawson's way and one raised her fist to her chest, a Remington 990 slung over one shoulder.

"When the dawn patrol got to tell you twice, they're gonna do it with a shotgun! Yes, I'm cashing in this ten-cent life for another one..."

The light changed and the driver took them cruising by a cafe where at a table outside two elves and a troll in berets and small round glasses sipped real coffee, if the sign on the window were telling the truth. Beside them was a mechanic's shop where a Japanese woman in blue overalls was tapping languidly on a display screen while a dwarf man rummaged beneath the hood of a leaf-green 2071 Testarossa.

"Well I ain't got the heart, to lose another fight..."

Dawson had felt stirrings of this sort the first time she'd laid eyes on San Francisco from the air. She'd been too mired in the mentality of a soldier of fortune to accept the feeling then, too guilt-ridden to accept it after the occupation even as it tried to grow on her like ivy on a statue. Ever since Alenia forced her way into her heart the feeling had grown and after the lightning it had become louder than ever.

These people, with all their flaws and struggles, needed her, or something like her. They needed all the help they could get to shield them from predators above and below.

"So until my ship comes in... I'll live night by--night!"

- - -

It was early afternoon when the Crown Royal pulled up in the vast parking lot outside the arena. Dawson thanked Richland for the pleasant conversation and released them, walking the rest of the way towards the place the tusks considered sacred ground. To the northwest the stadium loomed, its sounds of machinery and hammering ceaseless until after sundown.

Calista reportedly had a hands-off approach with how the go-gang shamans treated their automobiles and seldom visited the stadium so it wasn't a good place to start. She probably wouldn't even talk to Dawson in public. That in mind she marched across the barren concrete field separating the arena and the stadium from the street proper, feeling her pockets for her various implements: Commpad, balisong, water, railgun. Badge in the inside pocket out of habit, though it wouldn't likely open any mouths here. Stars would be more likely to grease teeth on go-gangers but those were in the glovebox of the car.

At that thought her commpad chimed. Dawson pulled it out while walking and read Instinct's messages about her meeting with the commissar. A mentor spirit helping the world's most anti-corporate state, and it looking like her? Another damned enigma on top of all the others.

I'm coming with your restitution, Instinct said. That at least was a relief, but Dawson couldn't wait for backup without inviting trouble... Or getting into it. She'd spent all morning fucking Gaines and could spend all afternoon fucking the next person to smile at her broadly enough.

The last few times she'd come here the orks on guard had been hostile and belligerent, reluctant to let her in and happy to bay for her blood when Ionfist was keen to spill it. That fight now was months behind them and Calista's influence had already altered their outward behavior.

That fact was more apparent than ever when instead of switching the safetys off their AK-97s and calling her a breeder, the half-dozen tusks seated at a long folding table were playing some kind of game. There were no holographic projectors, no cyberdecks, no electronics of any kind present. What they had were forged metal dice, repurposed sheets of paper, and in the case of the one at the head of the battered table a twice-folded sheet of cardboard that obscured his own dice and paper from the others at the table.

As Dawson approached she could hear one of the orks speaking, hands folded in front of him on the table His blood-red hair and the blue ink tattooed entirely over his right hand from wrist up marked him as an Ivanist.

"The elf's tone displeases me," he declared. "I punch him in the throat."

The ork behind the cardboard, her teal neck brand identifying her as a Justice, gestured in his direction. "Make an attack roll."

The Ivanist rolled a metal die which clunked five times across the table. "Total of twenty-three."

"You hit the elf in his throat with your balled-up fist and he goes staggering backwards, struggling to breathe and grasping at it neck with both hands. He falls to his knees."

A third ork, this one bearing the Dark Star on one side of his face, took advantage of the violence. "I step into the space between them and say to the gasping elf, 'You can see our companion has a short temper. It might be in everyone's best interest if you let us pass.`"

"No need to roll intimidation," the judge said, "He's in no position to..."

The Judge trailed off when she saw Dawson standing some three meters away from their table by the door to the arena, hands in her pockets. All the other orks twisted in their seats to look at her.

A moment of slightly awkward silence followed before the Star ork said, "Hey."

Dawson relaxed her stance. "Hey."

Their guns were under their seats but none of them reached for them. The Ivanist asked, "You need to go in?"

"Yeah," she said.

The Judge gestured assent. "Door's unlocked, don't let us stop you."

Dawson rolled her shoulders restlessly. "Sure you don't want to fight about it?"

One of the other orks grinned. "You rolling seduction?" Dawson couldn't help but smile. She recognized him from the tussle the day before in the field.

"Maybe when I come out," she replied.

The orks returned to their game and Dawson thought, wish it was that easy every time.

The interior of the arena was better lit than it had been in the past, and the walls were clean. The aesthetic was mostly the same, the spaces filled with seats and the trappings of raucous celebration. It was nearer now to the sports stadium it once had been, before the long decades of the awakening had driven away the investors who made such things profitable. During the occupation the Protectorate had used the parking lot of the stadium as a shooting range for marksmanship training, which their death squads would go on to apply in the nearby neighborhoods.

In the aftermath of that period the Bloody Tusks made this place their own. Even now it smelled of old copper with a faint tinge of gasoline, scents that Calista's vision was unlikely to ever dispel fully.

Dawson made her way to the stadium proper and from a place at the top of the stairs she could see down into the pit where she and Instinct had fought Ivan Ionfist, not knowing the rest of the world would see it soon afterward. In the time since the sound system she destroyed by jumping in through the roof had been replaced with a modern one, high-end speakers affixed with bolted brackets to the rafters and beams above. Expensive stuff... Even if the go-gang was modernizing in some ways, they were getting money from somewhere if they could afford things like this.

On the side opposite to the one Dawson had come in, an area had been cleared of its seats to accommodate a large round table. At that table sat Calista, Dramatis Regina of the Bloody Tusks of San Francisco. Other orks in the colors of the go-gang in other cities answered to other figures, some every bit as brutal as Ivan Ionfist, but here in the Bay area they answered to her. A satyr about a meter and a half tall, Calista's upward-angled horns gave her a countenance like a dusky marble gargoyle while her choice of clothing made her look like the frontwoman of a band that would find punk too mainstream a term for their material.

The half-dozen other orks at her table were of a peculiar sort: older than the typical Tusk and more elaborately dressed while still leaning towards the fourth world warrior-poet aesthetic. One of them Dawson recognized as the blonde-haired conductor who had directed the makeshift instrument players at the field the morning before. As Dawson watched he pointed towards Calista and said something severe from behind his small half-lens spectacles, inaudible at the distance but impossible to mistake for anything but an accusation.

Calista said something brief and guarded. Dawson had been present at enough corporate boardroom meetings, field debriefings and criminal interrogations to recognize when a group of people wanted to know something and the person with the answers wasn't interested in giving them any.

The satyr was playing something close to her chest and her supporters in the go-gang wanted to know what it was. If Dawson approached now Calista would probably have her thrown out rather than look like she was trading secrets with a cop while her inner circle was demanding to know what the hell she was up to.

Dawson thought for a moment. Though it was her preference to be low-profile when possible, this was perhaps a fitting situation in which to be melodramatic. She began walking down the steps towards the arena and after cupping her hands around her mouth, Dawson shouted out "Hey Calista!"

All the orks turned in her direction, uniform in their surprise, but only Calista's face flashed pure panic. Only for a moment and quickly contained, but it was there. This was the last thing she needed right now, and that meant Dawson had a position of strength.

So true to her nature as a bully, Dawson intended to rub it in. She reached the base of the steps and put both hands on the railing, and it was clear from Calista's desolate glare she understood what Dawson meant to do. The railing complained briefly about her body weight as she lifted her legs up over it and hung down into the arena proper, and then the magic in her welled up in her hands and feet to communicate with the surface of the wall. She descended adroitly around the spikes built into the perimeter of the arena to arrive at the dusty hardwood floor where months before they'd fought Ivan Ionfist, not knowing the world would see it.

Dawson pulled off her coat, wrapped the Accelerator up in it and then set it on the ground where she'd come down with her hat on top. And then for good measure, pulled off her white dress shirt to bare her chest and draped it over the pile. Rolling her shoulders she looked up to the stands where Calista's inner circle were divided between slinging harsh words at their leader, running to get the rest of the tusks for what seemed to be about to happen, and ogling a topless Dawson.

This was hardly subtle, but Dawson felt a need to make clear her intent. Again she cupped her mouth and shouted, "I'm going to beat some answers out of you, Calista. Don't keep me waiting."

Anger stole over the satyr's face at last. Perhaps she could have bullshitted her way through her go-gang's complaints, claimed royal privilege, promised results and kept them in the dark until then, but for a Bloody Tusk there was no refuting a direct challenge. Without a word Calista made for one of the upper areas, doubtless to retrieve something she needed to fight.

It was a wait of several minutes which Dawson spent stretching, cracking her joints and back, limbering up and making a show of expressing her severe abundance of energy. The magic in her roiled, eager to be used and as orks filed in for the imminent fight--no doubt sprinting across the parking lot from the stadium and from neighborhoods nearby--she could feel the essence welling in the air. Any place where people gathered became a miasma of tangible emotion and Dawson could admit now she could always feel it. Had always yearned to immerse herself into the lives of others but felt unworthy. Had shut it out, until the storm struck her.

The go-gangers filling up the arena seats knew what it was like to live on the edge of ruin. They had seen her in more than one form and found her inspiring: they related to her, identified with her. Saw their struggles in hers. Some of them felt so strongly for her that they branded their faces with a symbol they considered representative of the pursuit of being redeemed, which she seemed to embody.

Dawson still felt they'd be better served by better role models. But until they materialized she'd have to suffice. So it didn't fill her with anxiety when the murmurs of excitement and anticipation increased in volume after Calista reappeared, carrying her spear over one shoulder. Her shamanic magic would have allowed her to regrow the pieces together after Ivan had stepped on the weapon, breaking it in half. Its obsidian tip looked no less deadly than it had that night, when only the vast difference in physical might had prevented her from skewering her predecessor.

The dramatis regina of the Bloody Tusks opened her left hand palm-up, where a deep blue butterfly appeared. More such insects of other colors peeled off from it rapidly and took flight around the satyr's body, rapidly engulfing her and then, once she was completely obscured, hastily flying down towards the arena and taking the shape of her, horns and all. She emerged from the cloud and the creatures dispersed, dissolving back into the magic they'd been made from.

If Calista meant to talk down here it became impossible when the blonde conductor above began to clap rhythmically. The other tusks, looming now on the stands above, quickly took up the practice as if they'd been rehearsing it every day for the last few months. Somewhere up above the speakers came to life, and with the conductor leading them Calista's inner circle gave voice to their frustrations with her.

"The deception... With tact. Just what are you trying to say? You got a blank face, which irritates... Communicate, pull out your party piece!"

Dawson narrowed her eyes and sought to sense Calista's aura and when it came into view, she could see the turmoil in her. The magic within her body was roiling, reflecting her emotional state of being caught between a gun barrel--Dawson--and a blood-red brick wall full of holes. Try as she might to reach out and grasp hold of Calista's essence, the satyr was being evasive. She was an experienced magician and easily kept clear of Dawson's brute force attempt to begin reading her thoughts in much the same way she'd kept clear of Ionfist's opening attacks when she stood up to him in this same space.

I'm not Ionfist, Dawson thought, And I'm not here to kill you. But Calista knew things, and she would either divulge them to Dawson or lose face in front of her followers.

"You see dimensions in two! State your case with black or white! But when one little cross leads to shots, grit your teeth! You run for cover so discreet, why don't they..."

Calista brought her spear up into both hands and pointed it towards Dawson, and Dawson charged straight at her.

"Do what they say! Say what you mean! Oh baby, one thing leads to another! You told me something wrong I know I listen too long but then, one thing leads to another!!"

Always eager to escape, the magic in Dawson's body leapt to her suggestion at once. She thrust out her right hand and the energy departed from her open palm, communicating with the oxygen in the air and igniting it into a ball of fire that flew forward through the space between them. Calista spun her spear and met the orb of flame with the obsidian tip, deflecting it to the hard wooden floor below where the dust of bygone years went up in a scatter of sparks.

By spinning her body mid-stride Dawson helped the magic within circulate and come out of her extended left hand, interacting with the mana in the air and calling out to the electrons of the far arena wall above and beside Calista's head. Over the course of a single second the matter responded and a bolt of lightning coursed between her fingertips and the far surface, missing the satyr's left horn by less than a meter. She flinched, gritting her teeth; that had seemed to frighten her just a little and she loosened her stance, spear at the ready.

Playing her part as the bully Dawson affected a clumsy overhand right at Calista when she was just within reach; the ork ducked easily and slid her hand halfway down the haft to thwack at Dawson's right shoulder with her spear. Not as hard as she could have, but a little harder than it needed to be. And in the outburst of emotion, Dawson caught a snatch of sentiment from Calista: You're really fucking me over right now.

"The impression, you sell!" sang the conductor, "Passes in and out like a scent! But the long face that you see... Comes from living close to your fears! If this is up then I'm up but you're running out of sight... You've seen your name on the walls!"

Before Calista could dance adroitly out of the way, Dawson reached out and grabbed her spear just below the head. The satyr wouldn't give her focus up but knew immediately she couldn't win against Dawson in a contest of arm strength, no more than she could win against Ivan. With a great pull Dawson hauled her nearer, spear sliding past her own neck until their faces were close.

"And when one little bump leads to shock, miss a beat!"

Dawson hooked one arm around Calista's midsection, her expression of rage changing suddenly to one of alarm.

"You run for cover and there's heat, why don't they..."

Pivoting all of her weight on her left leg, Dawson spun herself bodily and carried Calista with her. Halfway through the turn she let the satyr go, sending her hurtling across the arena.

"Do what they say! Say what they mean! One thing leads to another!"

Calista rolled twice as she landed and then came up on one hand and both legs, spear still in her grip. Dawson had only just righted herself when the satyr stroked her free hand through the air and froze the ambient moisture into narrow lengths of ice. Three in total, which she promptly sent flinging Dawson's direction with flicks of her three center fingers.

The first Dawson ducked under, feeling it rush by the top of her head and shatter into the wall meters behind her, peppering her back in crushed ice. She lunged forward and grabbed the second in both hands, coating her own fingers in frost to keep them from being bitten by Calista's ice and breaking the icicle into shards. Crossing her arms let her form a plate which the third projectile collided with and swiftly combined, the friction heat causing them to fuse together. Letting the amalgamation slide off of her to the ground, Dawson sprinted forward with as much energy as she could muster in Calista's direction.

The satyr took a single step back, set to fend Dawson off with her spear's edge. Absent a gun--which would hardly have been dramatic--Dawson sought to get in close and score swipes with fire-tipped fingers. Several times she overextended on purpose and let Calista counter with a swift sideways strike from her spear's haft or butt.

As they fought Dawson became more punishing, leaving less room for error and forcing Calista to keep up at what was clearly great effort, if the sweat and heavy breathing were any indication.

"Then it's easy, to believe... That somebody's been lying to me! But when the wrong word goes in the right ear... I know you been lying to me!"

A swift uppercut motion that Dawson barely telegraphed almost connected with Calista's jaw, singing one of her cheeks and forcing her to stagger backwards against the arena wall. The satyr's essence flared with rage and she gripped her spear with pure muscle memory.

"It's gettin' rough off the cuff got to say enough's enough... Bigger the harder, he falls!"

Dawson lifted both fists and froze them together, aiming a slow overhead strike at Calista's head.

"But when the wrong antidote is like a bulge on the throat!"

Forgetting herself, forgetting whatever her scheme was and forgetting that the other orks were watching, Calista launched herself off the wall spear-first.

"You run for cover in the heat why don't they--"

And to the words one thing leads to another! Calista ducked under Dawson's blow--denting the wall of the arena--and jammed her spear point first into the human's abdomen.

It wasn't the worst Dawson had ever been hurt. Ishikawa breaking her ribs had been more painful and longer lasting, and getting shot was more immediately life threatening, but there was no denying the bloom of heat and cramping of the muscle now parted by the obsidian.

Calista's aura practically collapsed in an instant. Dawson grabbed hold of the satyr's essence and tapped into her active thoughts: Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!

But to her credit her face betrayed none of her inner panic. Slowly she pushed Dawson away with one rough shove and let the human drop to one knee, hand over her midsection as if to staunch the bleeding. The magic in her rushed to the wound to clot the blood and knit the flesh, and by next morning there would be only a faint scar, not anywhere near as obvious as the one on her cheek from Goro's laser-sharpened blade.

The conductor had stopped singing and the music had cut out suddenly, but the bloody tusks were hardly quiet. They cheered Calista's name while her inner circle looked on, contemplative and still suspicious, but satisfied there was no collusion. Surely she wouldn't wound an enforcer of the corporate court if they were actually in league somehow.

And the other tusks now believed Calista could hold her own against the Dark Star. If Dawson had wanted to subdue the satyr she'd have just pointed the Accelerator at her face, and only now it occurred to her that doing just that up on the stands might have worked almost as well as this, and she wouldn't now be bleeding.

The dramatis regina came close and used the butt of her spear to prod Dawson on the shoulder. Her expression was stern but her words came out strained, barely audible below the crowd.

"Take my hand. Now."

She offered it, and after an appropriately dramatic delay Dawson took it. The satyr's fingers and palm were hot, slick, pulsing with her essence. Mana butterflies escaped from between their fingers, impossibly thin and unfurling into impossibly graceful. As they multiplied and swarmed around them the sounds of the arena dulled to a distant rumble and Dawson found herself standing up, only able to see Calista amid the swarm. In the confusion of imagery and sensation Dawson's grip on Calista's essence slipped, taking away her insight into the satyr's thoughts for the moment.

When they retreated back into the shaman they were in her private office, high up above the arena. Expensive computer interfaces were set up along one wall, blocking out all but a single square of glass from which one could observe the court below. Opposite the computers was a wall of romantic oil paintings: epic battles, lounging mythical creatures endeavoring to seduce statuesque mortals, and hidden marvels of nature that were they real in the sixth world had almost certainly all been turned into luxury resorts or strip mines.

"Idiot!" Calista shouted. She dropped her spear as if it were the last thing on her mind and rushed to Dawson's side, grabbing hold of her as if she were afraid the human would fall down. "What the fuck are you doing here? If you wanted to talk you should have come at night, or... called me or something! Sit down!"

"I'm fine," Dawson said, nevertheless letting Calista dote on her. "Looks worse than it feels."

Out came a kit from underneath the threadbare couch she was put onto and soon was applied the biomed gel. "You think I get off on stabbing people?" Calista asked, rhetorically. "Fighting is a fucking metaphor, Dawson. Civilized conflict is ideological."

Dawson permitted her to smooth out the gel on her abdomen, and then with deliberate slowness reached out with her right hand and gripped Calista by the face, thumb on one cheek and index on the opposite. She said, "Sorry about the burn."

Calista was momentarily silent as Dawson's finger brushed over her lightly seared skin, her expression softening as the essence welling up in Dawson's skin tried to repair the damage to its neighboring cells. "Looks worse than it feels," Calista mimicked, turning away slightly.

Without letting go of the satyr's face Dawson continued speaking. "What happened to personal responsibility? Why all the concern for me now, Calista?"

Briefly the satyr met her eyes. "Because you're--" She stopped herself from saying whatever came next.

Like a claymore going off Dawson's essence surged outward and crashed into Calista, trying to pin down her mind and read her thoughts. "I'm what, Calista? Tell me."

The satyr stammered, trying to pull away bodily but finding Dawson's other hand holding her shoulder. Their nearness aided Dawson's brute-force attempt to command Calista's essence with her voice, yet the shaman was elusive. She had conviction.

"No," Calista hissed. "I can't... won't..."

Dawson turned the satyr's face to make their eyes meet and fixed her with the sternest gaze she could summon. Like scraping paint from a receiver using a knife's edge she was able to peel off the next word Calista had almost said.

Important... Because you're important!

It gave Dawson a surge of satisfaction to pry the admission from Calista's mind, a tyrannical delight independent of the content of the statement itself. Briefly she considered that she should feel guilty--not for doing it but for enjoying it--and then discarded the notion. She had always been a bully and her task was to find a way to make it into a good thing.

She could keep putting the screws to Calista but there was no need. She eased off with her essence and the sudden absence of Dawson's presence left Calista disoriented. Now there was room for a little detective talk.

"I'm important," Dawson reminded her, "That's your testimony. All this new, fancy electronic equipment--it's you making footage of me for the matrix and inflating my image, isn't it? I might wonder where a go-ganger gets the money for this sort of stuff... and why you're doing it."

Dawson let go at last of Calista's face to let her speak haltingly. "Not... telling you anything..."

With the same hand Dawson grabbed the back of the satyr's head and stuffed her face-first into her chest, still wet from the exertion in the arena and warm beneath it. "I could beat it out of you," Dawson supposed, "Embarrass you in front of all your go-ganger friends. I could do to you what I did to your protege Zelda." That earned a shiver from the ork. "But that won't make you trust me. You filled her head with all that simsense junk and made her think I'm some kind of hero. You've done that for all of them out there and you never asked if I thought it was right. No, it's worse--you did it without asking because you knew I'd never agree to it!"

Using one finger, Dawson lifted Calista's face and saw the watery quality in her eyes. "Well here's your hero, drama queen. I already know this is about more than just making the Bloody Tusks look good. I'm important, and it's time to tell me why."

The slightest shake of her head. "Too much is at stake," Calista whispered, breathing heavily. "More than just... reputations."

Dawson shook her head in turn. "You don't get to play this one close to the chest," she said. "I'm important? Then you can't hide things from me! I'll..." She paused, thinking, and then continued with resolve. "I'll leave."

Calista's eyes widened and her breathing quickened. "You wouldn't! You won't!"

"I will," Dawson said. "I'll gather up everyone I love and I'll leave San Francisco. "I've spent every year in this place being kept in the dark. By Knight Errant, by Lone Star and the city council and the Corporate Court. I didn't care before because I wanted to die, and now that I want to live I won't spend any more of my life stumbling around searching for answers with a gun in my hand."

Dawson made to stand up but Calista pressed a balled hand into her bare chest. "No!" The word came out as a sob. "You have to be here! You have to... do what you do..."

With her left hand Dawson cupped the satyr's singed cheek. "Not unless you tell me why."

And now it seemed Calista was at the end of her rope. Dawson could feel beneath the surface a frantic desolation: the need to tell the truth but the awful certainty that to do so would endanger everything. "Because it'll change what you do!" she whispered hoarsely. "You weren't supposed to come here! To know I was involved..."

The weeks-old painting of Reymont's hitman firing on Dawson had led her to Zelda, and thus to here. And Calista knew things she shouldn't, which she'd used to make her game truer to life than it had a right to be. The tusks on the street had been speaking of a painter who could see truths, but maybe that was just incidental, a loose casing leading to a magazine.

Dawson met Calista's gaze and asked her, "Do you think I'm on the side of good?"

Calista seemed to understand the intent of the question and took it seriously. She swallowed heavily and answered, "Yes."

"And do you need me to play some part in what is going on?"

The satyr's expression became guarded but she had already spilled that particular powder. "... Yes."

"Then we have to trust each other. We have to take responsibility. You tell me everything--everything--and I... I'll displace my memory. Whatever I need to not know to make it work, I'll forget until I need to know it. Nervous energy moved behind Calista's eyes and Dawson pressed the only leverage she had. "It's that or I leave California tomorrow."

At this warning Calista's eyes strayed to a table beside the couch where a detailed image had been laser-etched onto a wide pane of glass. Dawson's gaze followed it and she caught the profile of a crowd: seven people arranged together for a photograph, the horns indicating that one of them was clearly Calista, younger by about a decade.

Before she could examine the other figures in detail the satyr's hand snapped out and planted the glass pane down flat to conceal it.

She said, eyes once more watery and voice strained, "I'm about to put all my arrows in your quiver, Impulse Dawson."

Hooking her left arm around Calista's lower back let Dawson pull her close again, and she kissed the satyr on the mouth. The surprise was evident in the shape of it. When it was over Dawson said, "You already did that. Now you're confessing to it. And it's going to free you, drama queen."

Calista started to talk. It was like a floodgate opened--dates and names and places came spilling out of her. She was frantic at first, then desolate, and then began to sob. She made clear her role in what was taking shape required her to be alone--entirely alone without any contact with anyone else involved. Everyone around her had to be kept in the dark and there was no one to confide in about her numerous fears, which were all well-founded. It had been taking its toll on her and straining her role as the Tusk's leader.

She cried. Calista believed in personal responsibility but the danger present was immense. Millions of lives were being gambled with on the outcome of a few people, half of whom had no idea what was going on.

She cried more. Admitted to everything she'd done so far and everything she still had to do. Fingered every co-conspirator and what they were guilty of and everything they had planned still.

At some point Dawson took Calista by the back of the head and held her, encouraging her to let it out. Let her be raw, without comment or judgement. The release of being honest with someone made her aura melt like soy-butter on a gun barrel and she permitted Dawson to sift through her thoughts without resistance and see the truth in what she was saying.

At the end they were sitting side by side on the couch, Dawson with one hand over her face trying to look at all the pieces and struggling silently to reckon with it. Dawson did this for ten minutes, Calista fidgeting beside her, before she let out a slow sigh and willed the magic in her to cycle to her head.

With a flash of mild discomfort, Dawson displaced her memory of almost everything Calista had said to her. When she opened her eyes and looked to the side the satyr was looking at her with awe.

"You... you did it, didn't you? You... you trust me!"

"Yes," Dawson said softly. "Apparently I do." She looked at the table where Calista's keepsake was, the image of her and six others. Dawson knew a few of them, but she had chosen to forget for the moment what the significance was of their appearance beside Calista. The others she would meet in time.

Calista was giddy. "Gods this is... I don't know what to do with myself..."

"Whatever your part in this is," Dawson suggested, leaning back on the couch. As much as Calista seemed lighter of spirit, Dawson felt heavier.

"Do you uh," the satyr said slyly, "Do you remember how you said we could fuck, after? You know, for a few hours..."

Dawson smiled impishly. "I wouldn't displace a thing like that," she stated, "Not without a really good reason."

"Maybe the reason," Calista tried, "Was so it could be a surprise for yourself. Spoonful of sugar and all."

"Hm. That almost sounds plausible." Dawson turned towards the satyr and loomed over her, setting a hand on her shoulder. "Guess I should fuck you, just in case."

The injury Calista had given her barely hurt anymore thanks to the biomed gel and it was easy enough to get her out of her ratty clothing. She smelled fresher than the typical bloody tusk, scented with something like green apples, and it was the most natural motion in the world to Dawson to push her the ork onto the couch, part her legs and bear down on her crotch face-first.

Between heavy passes with her tongue Dawson asked, "Been a while for you, hasn't it?"

Calista tensed up. She said without frills, "Yeah."

"Hm." Another deep lick. "I like it when people are pent up. Makes them easy."

That stung Calista's ego. "I'm not... easy."

"You're easy for me."

The satyr sought to protest but it was choked off when Dawson put her whole mouth to work. Seizing orally the area of her clitoris was easy and sucking it mercilessly until it surrendered itself for more targeted attention left it vulnerable to the tip of her tongue. The satyr's eyes half-lidded in mindless delight.

"I've been inside your head," Dawson said from between her legs, "And I didn't displace everything. Your months-long dry spell? Makes you easy prey."

Calista only grunted in response and Dawson continued. "I went almost ten years without another person touching me," she volunteered. "Didn't even touch myself."

Though her faculties were in decline, Calista was still able to mutter. "Skill issue."

At that Dawson laughed generously. "Maybe so," she conceded. "My skill now is sharper than ever." To demonstrate she seized the sensitive bud again and started to suck, harder and harder.

The ork moaned at first, then began to whine. She patted the top of Dawson's head and started to stammer. "Too much too much too much too much toooo much toooo much no no nonnnnnnahhhh....!!"