10 – Coffee Conversations

Two days after Tony met with Glitchwitch, he was jogging home from the gym when he saw Addie lingering near the door to the florist’s shop. The sun had just begun to rise, which made seeing her up and about more than a little surprising. When she heard his footsteps on the sidewalk, she turned away from the door, saw him coming, and laughed.

“Oh my gosh! I’ve been down here ringing your buzzer. I knew you’d be awake!”

Tony came to a stop, leaning over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath. “What are you doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep! Last night I did it! I faded—my entire body! JJ says he thinks it lasted almost two seconds.” She was breathless, eyes eager—almost manic—wringing her hands as she spoke.

Tony finished catching his breath and stood, frowning. He tilted his head, caught off guard by her enthusiastic announcement. “Hold on. I didn’t even know you were working on that.”

“I’ve been practicing with my hand, but I never had enough Dust to do more. Since I got this reactor”—Addie touched the center of her chest, pressing the soft fabric of her sweater against her breastbone—“I’ve been trying at night. The first night I managed my arms, which was very weird, but last night—”

“You made your whole body disappear?” Tony unlocked his door, and the two of them walked through Mrs. Lane’s shop and onto the stairs.

“It’s not just disappearing, Tony—I’m not invisible; I’m between dimensions.”

Tony paused halfway up the flight of steps to turn and cock an eyebrow at her. “You can travel to different dimensions?”

Addie laughed behind and gave his lower back a gentle shove. “No! My book says people like me are tethered to this dimension somehow. Anyway, it’s so weird! I can still see the world, but it’s like I’m looking through a blue lens and nothing has any detail. Oh! Also, I kind of just float. I tried moving, but when my whole body’s on the other side, I can’t feel it; I can’t control my muscles. The book says I have to learn to use my intention to make myself move.”

Tony unlocked his door and held it open for Addie. “So, why aren’t you going nuts like a fade? I mean like that woman who chased me?”

“Don’t call them nuts, Tony! They’re just…” She trailed off, clearly upset, but struggling for the right words. Finally, she shrugged and flopped onto his couch. “Nobody knows. The fades who get like that can’t really communicate what’s wrong. Maybe it’s just a matter of luck—or, I guess, bad luck. Maybe their mutation is messed up.”

“So”—Tony grinned and walked over to his little kitchen, intent on using the coffee machine Mrs. Lane had gifted him—“you’re saying you’re basically a mutant witch?”

“A witch?” Addie growled, grabbing a sweatshirt he’d left lying on the couch and throwing it at him. It fell short, sliding across the beat-up old flooring.

Tony smirked, turning on the coffee machine. “Want some?”

“That’s why I’m here!”

Tony’s smirk turned into a smile as he drummed his fingers on the counter, watching the machine spit out his dark roast. When it finished, he put another coffee cup—he had a grand total of three—under the spout and punched in the commands for medium roast with sugar. He leaned on the L-shaped counter, watching Addie while he sipped the pleasantly smooth brew. He really owed Mrs. Lane for that machine.

“Why are you staring at me?” Addie folded her arms over her chest, stretching out her legs and barely catching the beat-up old coffee table with her heels. Tony had picked up the table from the sidewalk; someone’s junk was his new furniture.

“I mean, you’re the one who came over here. Did you want me to ignore you?” Before she could respond, he asked, “Why didn’t you use my location marker?”

“Huh?”

“When you were waiting outside, didn’t you check to see if I was home?”

Addie’s eyes widened, and she shook her head, stifling a yawn. “I guess my brain’s tired, even if I couldn’t sleep.”

Her coffee finished squirting into the cup, and he carried it over to her. Then he sat on the coffee table beside her feet, watching as she took a sip. “You didn’t sleep at all?”

She sighed happily as she swallowed, holding the warm cup against her cheek. “Just a little, but I woke up around two and couldn’t stop thinking about what I did. It really does feel like magic, you know?”

Tony nodded. “I never met a spark who could do that. I don’t think it’s very common.”

Addie’s expression grew stormy, her brows narrowing and her eyes glinting with something like anger. “Zane could do it. At least, he claimed he could.”

Tony cupped his coffee mug in his palm, nodding along. When he saw she was upset, he nudged her leg with his knee. “Don’t let that asshole mess up your good mood.”

His words had the desired effect: she smiled and nodded, sending her thick ponytail bouncing. “Right. He was a creep. I bet he was lying, anyway.” She sipped her coffee. “You were at the gym?”

Tony lifted an elbow and sniffed his armpit. “That bad?”

Addie laughed and scooched down on the couch cushion, getting comfortable. “No, I don’t smell anything. If you wanna take a shower, though…”

“Well, I did plan to, but I wanted to hear your story, first. You understand how damn awesome that fading stuff is, right? I mean, if you can figure out how to move—”

“I can go through doors!” she finished, breathlessly.

“Forget doors; you can go through walls!” Tony could think of a million ways an ability like that would take their operator game to another level. If Addie could bypass security entirely… He tamped down on his excitement, trying to remain realistic. “It’s cool, and I’m excited, but don’t stress about it. It’ll come when it comes.”

Addie didn’t say anything for a while; she just sipped her coffee and watched him with a little half smile on her lips. He wondered what she was thinking about, but before he could ask, she suddenly leaned forward and grabbed his knee. “Oh my gosh! I didn’t tell you about the lightning!”

“Lightning, huh?” Before she could expound, he held up his free hand in surrender. “Please don’t shock me again.”

“I wouldn’t! Tony, it might kill you! I can make the electricity arc out of my hand now, like—” She stopped speaking, scanning his nearly-empty living room. “I don’t want to break something or blow a breaker, so I’ll just describe it. I was doing the same thing I learned back when I had my old Dust reactor. No, I have to show you. Here”—she held her hand out, palm up—“you should back up in case it gets away from me.”

She didn’t have to tell Tony twice. He stood and moved all the way back to the kitchen. “Okay?”

Addie’s smile grew as she watched him, but she didn’t tease. “Yeah, you’ll be safe over there. Watch my hand.” Tony stared as, at first, blue sparks popped in the air over her palm and then, sizzling arcs of blue electricity erupted from her palm. It was hard to track them, considering they were electricity, but they seemed to arc out of her skin and sink back into it.

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Addie shook her hand after a few seconds. “That’s, like, one-fourth of how much I can push out. If I push as hard as I can, it drains my reactor in just a couple of seconds, but I can actually aim it at things.” She smiled sheepishly, shaking her head. “I set some of my dirty laundry on fire. I really liked those pants, too.” She pushed her lips into a pout.

Tony laughed, enjoying this side of her personality. “Holy shit, Ads. Maybe you don’t need to learn to fight. Someone grabs you, I feel very damn sorry for their heart.” He thought she’d celebrate his pronouncement, but her face fell, and she slumped back into the couch.

“I was looking forward to that, though.”

“Well, we still can. I need the practice anyway. Also, you might be low on Dust sometime.” Tony walked back over and, this time, he sat beside her on the couch.

“Okay, good.” She yawned and leaned forward to put her half-empty cup on the table. Then she flopped back, slumping against him. Tony put his feet on the table and continued to sip his coffee, enjoying the closeness—the warmth of her. After they sat silently for a while, he realized her breathing was slow and steady, and he knew she’d fallen asleep. He lifted his arm to drape over the back of the couch, letting her shift closer into his side.

He sat that way with her long after his coffee ran out. A voice in the back of his mind said he ought to make some breakfast or take a shower—both, really. Another voice told the first one to shut the hell up. Tony listened to the second voice. He leaned his head back, staring up at the ceiling, his breathing slowly but surely matching the rhythm of Addie’s.

The next thing he knew, Addie was stirring, yawning as she nuzzled into his ribs, and he was blinking, disoriented and utterly stunned to see the clock on his AUI read 10:03 AM. “Shit,” he muttered. “Addie?”

“Hmm?”

“We fell asleep. Is your dad messaging you? He’s going to be worried.”

She sat up, blinking, her eyes bleary. Fabric imprints from Tony’s shirt on her cheek. “Hmm?”

“It’s after ten,” he said with a laugh. “I guess I didn’t get enough sleep last night, either.”

“Ten? Hmm?” She looked around his apartment like she had no idea where she was. “Tony…” He watched her eyes slowly come into focus as she put the puzzle together. “Oh! Oh my gosh!” She looked at him with a timid smile. “You let me sleep here?”

He shook his head, twisting left and right, grunting as his lower back popped. “No, I fell asleep, too.” When he saw her smile slowly spread, he laughed and glared down at her. “Your dad?”

“He thinks I’m asleep upstairs, I’m sure. No messages.”

“We need to go see about a ride,” he said with a grunt, standing up.

“A ride?”

“Yeah, I thought about it while I was in the gym. We’re gonna have a crew to move around and a principal to escort.”

“Principal?”

“Um, in the business, when you’re escorting or protecting someone, you refer to that person as a ‘principal,’ yeah.”

She yawned again, scooting forward on the couch. “So, we can’t just order something like an Aurum town car?”

Tony shrugged, walking toward the bathroom. “I guess we could, but we’re going to be staking out the target site for a while, too. Be nice to have a vehicle.”

“Wait!” she yelled, jumping up. Tony froze, then whirled to scan the door, mentally mapping the steps he’d need to take to get to his guns. What had she heard? Addie hurried past him, calling over her shoulder, “Let me go first. I have to pee.”

He groaned, relaxing his suddenly tense muscles. Shaking his head, he went to the kitchen, put his cup in the sink, and raided his fridge for a protein pouch. He quietly slurped the vanilla-flavored stuff while he waited. It had the consistency of yogurt, but the pouch allowed him to squeeze it directly into his mouth. Addie was out by the time he threw the empty pouch in the recycler, and she watched him chug a bottle of water. “Thirsty?” he asked, holding the fridge door open.

“Anything fizzy?”

He nodded, getting her a pouch of orange soda. Addie’s eyes lit up as she took it, but she didn’t comment. Instead, she asked, “You think we can afford to keep a vehicle? Where will we park it?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Your dad needs a new place, and so will I soon. Maybe we ought to look into leasing one of those industrial buildings down on the west side of the district. You know, past Glitter Row.”

Addie took a long gulp of her soda, then wrinkled her brow and shrugged. “That’s Dagger Rat territory, but I think they’re pretty easy going if you pay your protection. There’s, like, no foot traffic there, though. My dad’s store—”

“He wants to switch to mail-order, remember?”

“We could live there?”

“I mean, if we get a warehouse, we can frame out whatever kinds of rooms we want. I had Nora look through the listings, and there are a bunch of vacant buildings. Of course, if things really take off with the megacorps moving their operations into the Royal Breeze neighborhood, it’ll continue to shift people around and bring more population to the Blast, so…”

“So we should move fast?” Addie held her soda pouch up. “Thanks for this! I’ll go talk to my dad about it.” She pointed to the hallway. “You should take a shower.”

Tony folded his arms, watching her go to the door. When she pulled it open, he called, “Hey.”

She paused and turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

“Are you gonna tell him?”

She narrowed her eyes, probably because she’d gotten to know him well enough that she could tell he was about to say something obnoxious. “Tell him what?”

“That we slept together?”

Her cheeks flushed, but her eyebrows stayed dangerously furrowed as she growled, “You wish,” and pulled the door shut before he could reply.

Tony sighed heavily and did as commanded, walking to the bathroom for a shower. “I guess she’s right about that, huh, Nora?”

“About your desire for sexual inter—”

“Okay, okay. That one was rhetorical.”

Tony took a quick shower and put on some clean clothes. After stuffing his pistol and holster into his waistband, he shrugged into his coat and hurried downstairs. Mrs. Lane was there, arranging bouquets as usual. She looked up when he came down and nodded toward the door. “Just saw your little girlfriend.”

“She’s not—”

“Oh, she already corrected me. You don’t have to. Doesn’t mean I don’t have my own two eyes.” She chuckled as she snipped a stem with her little clippers. “Any luck finding a new place? I still feel pretty rotten about how this all worked out for you.”

Tony pulled the door open, setting the chime off. “Nah, don’t you worry. I’m a resourceful guy.” He stepped out and called back, “See you later!”

“Bye, Romeo!”

Tony couldn’t help smiling at her attempt to be clever. He didn’t care if people thought he was with Addie. Hell, he’d be a lucky son of a bitch if he could pull that off. Too bad he wasn’t lucky. “Nora, make a note.”

“Ready.”

“Tony Santoro is not a lucky man.”

“Ah, I see. We’re creating a journal entry. Would you like to explain why you don’t think you’re lucky?”

He couldn’t help smiling at the PAI’s attempt to figure out what he wanted. Stuffing his hands in his pocket and turning to walk up the street toward Bert’s, he replied, “Nah, I’m just being dumb.”

“Tony,” Nora said, her voice taking on a severe tone, something he couldn’t recall her doing before, “you’ve asked me to try to intuit what you need, and I think, if I’m being thorough, I should apply that principle to more than calling cabs and adding dots to your mini-map. I think you need to talk to someone. I would love to fill that role for you. There are open-source psychiatric plugins for personal AIs that I am capable of running—”

Tony sighed heavily. “No, Nora. That’s not necessary.”

“Understood.” She sounded disappointed, and Tony almost felt a little sorry for her. As he walked, he mulled over her words. Would it hurt to try to talk about some of the stuff he was bottling up? He’d opened up a little with Addie, but that had just been a minor detail. How would she react if he started to get into the really heavy stuff that he was hiding from? Nora wouldn’t judge him. Nora wouldn’t freak out. He could even tell her to erase the memory of their conversations.

“You know what, Nora? On second thought, why don’t you go ahead and download a counseling plugin? Next time I’m having trouble sleeping, remind me you’ve got it.”

“Excellent plan, Tony. I’m glad to see I wasn’t out of line. As a reminder, you can dial down my emotive behavior if I do begin to irritate you with—”

“No, Nora. You’re fine.” Tony hurried across the street in the wake of a small cluster of AutoCabs and then stepped into Bert’s store. Addie and her dad were there, chatting away, and when the door chime rang, Bert waved him over.

“Hey, Tony! You want some sushi?” He held up a styrofoam container, and Tony shook his head.

“No thanks. Just brushed my teeth.” In truth, he knew Bert always got his “sushi” from Donald Nguyen’s bodega, and it was not good.

“Addie was telling me about your idea. You don’t have to sell me on it; the longer I can keep close to this one”—he tried to reach out and tousle Addie’s unruly hair, but she leaned back, scowling as she fended him off—“the better. Let me know if you find a place you like, and we can talk about splitting the rent.”

Tony smiled, leaning over the counter to hold a fist out to Bert. “My man! That’s what I was hoping to hear.” Bert grinned and punched his heavy fist into Tony’s mechanical fingers with a satisfying clack.

“Oh, brother,” Addie sighed.

Tony grinned at her. “Ready?”

“I guess.”

“You two off to work on a job?” Burt stuffed some kind of sushi roll into his mouth, chewing noisily as he awaited a response.

Tony gave him a half shrug. “Sort of. We need some wheels for a big job we’ve got coming up. Figured we might try to find a used van or box truck.” He motioned around the pawn shop. “It’ll come in handy for moving, too.”

Bert smiled hugely as he swallowed. “I knew helping you out would pay off, Tony.” He looked at Addie and winked. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t let you chase him off?”

“Ugh! You two are really hard to be around, you know that?” She slid off her stool, grabbed Tony’s arm, and tugged him toward the door. “Let’s go, Tony Baloney! I can only handle one of you at a time.”