23 – Facing the Stains

Tony yawned and stretched, wincing at the tightness of his partially healed flesh. He squinted into the sun shining through the west-facing windows, holding a hand up to block the streaks of yellow and ochre light. As his optics adjusted, he glanced at his AUI and saw it was after four. The apartment was silent. Where was Addie?

A blinking message icon was his first clue, and as he had Nora read it to him, he saw his second clue—a tray of snacks and drinks on the table beside the pull-out sofa bed. When Nora finished, he looked at his mini-map, smiling faintly as he saw Addie’s little dot moving steadily closer to the neighborhood. “She’s on her way back,” he grunted, twisting the tab on one of the fruit drinks she’d left for him.

As he sipped, he checked his nanites’ latest report and saw that all his injuries were yellow and green. He’d taken some organ damage—kidney, liver, spleen, and intestines—but the nanites were good. Given time, they’d remove most of the resulting scar tissue and encourage healthy cellular growth with harvested stem tissue. “Lucky for me.”

He set the empty drink pouch down and opened a protein bar, munching noisily as he watched Addie’s slow progress through the afternoon traffic. He’d certainly taken more bullets than he’d thought, and far more than he should have. It was worth it, though—if he hadn’t, Addie would be dead or languishing in a trauma center they couldn’t afford. God knows what kinds of corners they’d cut when they realized how limited her payment options were.

“No,” he corrected himself. They wouldn’t cut corners. Tony, desperate to see her made whole, would have told them she’s a spark, and then whatever corp was running the trauma center would have given her a one-sided contract in exchange for proper medical care. Yeah, it was worth getting shot up to avoid all that. With a grunt, he sat up on the side of the bed and paused, letting his blood pressure equalize.

Thinking better about standing right away, he ripped open the second juice pouch and guzzled it down. Unfortunately, the added fluid in his guts only served to make the pressing needs of his bladder all the more urgent. “Here we go.” He lurched to his feet and, wearing nothing but his blood-stained boxer-briefs, stumbled toward the bathroom.

As he went, he saw his pile of discarded, bloody clothes, and shook his head. He didn’t want to put those back on. He could send Addie over to his place; he still had a couple of sacks of clothes there that he hadn’t moved. After he used the bathroom, he peeled off his bandages, tossing them into the garbage, and then spent a few minutes scrubbing the dried blood off the parts of him he could reach.

By the time he was finished, sitting on the couch, a towel he’d found hanging in the bathroom wrapped around his waist, Addie was parking the van downstairs. While he waited for her, he ate a bag of BBQ chips. He was just crunching the bag into a ball when she came through the door, all smiles, face flushed from the cold outside air.

“Tony! You didn’t have to make up the couch. How are you feeling?”

“Hey, Ads. I’m doing better.” He smiled, leaning back, ankles crossed. “How’d your meeting go?”

“It was amazing! You have to meet this guy! He’s so nice and helpful, and he didn’t even want anything for his time! He’s like some kind of Zen guy, you know? He’s all into karma and sharing knowledge…” She trailed off, beaming. “I sound hysterical, don’t I? It was just so nice to meet someone like that, and I’ve been thinking about it all the way home.”

Tony nodded, happy that she was happy, though a part of him was suspicious, as always. Was the guy trying to get his hooks into her? People weren’t, generally, nice, at least not in his experience. “That’s great, Ads. Hey”—he tapped his bare chest—“you think you could go over to my place and grab some clothes for me?”

Addie grinned, stepping closer. “I don’t know. I kind of like you helpless like this.”

Tony huffed a soft laugh and tried to smile, but it came out as a smirk—whether mocking himself or Addie, he couldn’t say. “You still like me, huh? Even after spending the afternoon with a super nice, Zen guy?”

Addie’s grin only widened as she reached out to push her fingers through his hair, gently scratching his scalp. “Jealous? Relax, he’s like sixty. Besides, you’re super nice, too. I mean, at least to me.”

Tony closed his eyes, loving how her touch sent little tingling sensations down the nape of his neck. He wanted to pull her onto his lap, kiss her, and… more, but, as usual, that voice in the back of his mind warned him off. She wasn’t some doll; her feelings mattered, and he had some shit to figure out before he went and messed her up. So, he reached up to push her away, but when he grabbed the lapel of her jacket, she leaned into him and he caved, pulling her down so he could reach her lips with his.

Her skin was still cool from the outside, but her breath was hot. Her lips parted right away, her agile tongue, warm and probing, darting against his lips, exploring their contours. She tasted good, and he felt his heart quickening, his breath getting rough, and other parts of him responding. Suddenly, he remembered he was only wearing a towel, and his earlier self-admonishment reasserted itself. Gasping, he pushed her back, shaking his head.

She didn’t give him a chance to protest—to devise another lame excuse. She smiled and turned, practically skipping toward the door. “Be right back with your clothes.”

When the door clicked shut, Tony realized he was holding his breath, and he exhaled loudly. “This shit is getting out of control, Nora.”

“Would you like to begin a counseling session, Tony?”

“Maybe just hear me out, let me think out loud. Tell me if you see a problem with my logic.”

“Of course! I’m all ears.”

Tony snorted a quick laugh at the turn of phrase—a bodiless AI telling him she was “all ears.” He cleared his throat, gathered his thoughts, and said, “I don’t want to mess things up with Addie. I guess you could say my thoughts about her have evolved. I used to think she was too good for me, that I was trouble for her, and needed to keep her at arm’s length. Well, I still think all that, but I’ve come to realize I’m too damn weak to be… shit, noble, I guess.

“I want her too much, and, dammit, like I said, I’m weak. I mean, hell, I could walk away. I could go cold turkey and disappear, but being near her all the time? Seeing her, listening to her, knowing she wants me, too? It’s like torture. So, as far as I see it, if I want to be with her, I need to get to the root of the problem with me and solve it. I need to remove the threat hanging over my head—and hers if she’s with me.”

The words sat heavy in the room. He dragged a hand through his hair before Nora’s voice gently broke the silence. “What threat, Tony? How will you remove it?”

“Cross. Well, not Cross, but the people there who did this to me. The people who wanted me to suffer. If they check in—If they find out I’m happy and that Addie has anything to do with that happiness, they’re going to use her to destroy what’s left of me.”

“Cross is a megacorporation with upwards of a million employees and affiliate contractors. How can you possibly remove that threat?” Tony knew Nora was playing devil’s advocate now, doing what he’d asked by questioning his logic. Even so, her words struck a nerve, and he almost snapped as he replied.

“I don’t have to destroy Cross. I need to deal with Eric and Jen.”

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“Jennifer Stavros is a partner and acting vice president in charge of acquisitions for Cross Corp. Eric Allenson is her head of security, and with Cross's resources behind him, he has access to tier-one mercenaries and operators.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it. I’ll need some upgrades, but more importantly, I’ll need to catch them with their pants down.”

“It sounds like you’re set on a course of action. Would you like me to help brainstorm some plans?”

“No, dammit. Just tell me if I’m right. If those two want me to suffer, I need to deal with them before I get Addie hurt, correct?”

“Perhaps. The city is a big place with many, many citizens. You could disappear. If not here, you could go elsewhere, to a city where Cross has less influence. Setting that idea aside, there’s also the chance that Jen and Eric have moved on, that life has found a way to make them forget about you. Perhaps the suffering they inflicted was sufficient to take you out of their sights.”

“Yeah, maybe, but that’s a risk—” Tony stopped talking as the door opened, and Addie came through, arms wrapped around a bundle of clothes.

“You only had T-shirts,” she announced, holding up his clothes. “So you’ll want your jacket if we go out. I’ll try to clean it.”

“You don’t have—”

“Hush. I want to.” She set his clothes on the couch beside him and then picked up his black jacket. The thing had probably saved his life the night before; the guy with the SMG needler had shot him dozens of times, and that coat had stopped every one of those rounds. Tony was lucky the banger hadn’t been good with the thing—hadn’t walked the needles upward, into his neck and face.

“Hey, are all those guns and the other stuff still in the van?”

“Yep.”

“I think we should offload ’em somewhere we don’t normally go—someplace well away from Cold Boy turf; I don’t want your dad getting caught up trying to sell ’em.”

Addie paused in the doorway to her bedroom. “Hmm. Yeah, I agree. Should I ask Beef?”

“Um, sure. Don’t tell him where we got them, though.”

Addie scowled. “You can trust him. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, and I think he likes you, too.”

Tony nodded, ducking his head as he threw her a half-smile. “Fair enough. Let me reach out to him, then.”

“Good idea! I’ll clean the blood off of this.” She held up his coat, then disappeared into her room. Tony stood and dressed, wincing at the lingering pain in his abdomen when he bent to pull his socks on. When he was done, he collapsed onto the couch, irritated that he felt winded.

“Nora, see if Beef will answer a call.”

A window appeared on his AUI, and the call tone sounded several times, and then, to Tony’s surprise, Beef’s face materialized. “What’s up, T?”

Tony lifted an eyebrow. “Not corpo-rat?”

Beef smirked. “We can go back to that if you want…”

“Nah, man, I’m just messing with you. How’s it going?”

“Just chillin’ like usual, collecting fat piles of bits and fighting the dolls off. You know.” His smirk shifted to something a bit more pleasant as he added, “Hey, that payday wasn’t bad the other day. Got something else for me?”

“Not yet, man. Ads and I need to upgrade our ranking in the SOA, and then I think some more doors will open. I was wondering…” Tony paused. He’d been planning just to ask Beef for an introduction to a fence, but he decided he ought to throw the guy a bone while he was at it. “You wouldn’t know someone who could move some hardware, no questions asked? Like, I’ve got a couple of pieces of cyberware I don’t want to come back to me, you track? I could pay you a percentage—call it a broker fee.”

Beef’s heavy brow lifted as visions of bits no doubt danced before his eyes. “What kinda percent?”

Tony started low. “Seven?”

“Make it ten,” Beef grunted.

Tony pretended to contemplate for a minute. He was fine with the number. A relationship with a reliable fence, one who wasn’t Addie’s father and who could move more questionable items, was worth a hell of a lot more than that. Slowly, he began to nod. “All right, Beef. You deserve that much.”

Beef smiled more broadly, exposing surprisingly straight and clean teeth, though three of them were chrome. “Glitter.” He inhaled, through his nose, narrowing his eyes in thought, then nodded. “Okay, I got a guy. I’ll send him your deets, but don’t embarrass me with him. Don’t mention the Helldogs, either.”

“Right. Solid, Beef, thanks.”

“I’ll tell him about my percentage so he knows to pay me directly.”

Tony shrugged. “If that works for you.”

“Liquid, dog. Hey, let me ask you something. We haven’t really talked since the job. I mean, I know you said you guys need to improve your rating with the SOA, but you’re not blowing smoke, right? You, uh, were cool with my performance, yeah?”

Tony could see the question was painful for Beef. To a guy like that, asking for feedback was being weak. It gave Tony pause, and he considered what would push the big man to do so. The only thing he could come up with was that he’d gotten a taste of working outside the structure of his gang and he’d liked it. He’d seen that there really was another way for him. Tony nodded, grinning. “Yeah, man. You were outstanding. I mean, you and I need to work together some more so we can read each other a little better, but that happens with any crew.”

“Right, T. Hell yeah.”

“Hey, if you’re serious about this stuff, you ought to get signed up with the SOA. You won’t have any trouble, and it’s anonymous, so your gang won’t know what’s up.”

Beef nodded. “I’ll look into it. I’m getting my leg fixed, by the way. The money we made plus some credit Doc P owes me will cover it.”

“Oh yeah? That’s badass, Beef. Keep me posted on your—”

“Don’t go getting all affectionate and shit, man. Just hit me up when you’ve got some work, right?” Beef’s gruff demeanor had returned, and Tony almost chuckled at the quick one-eighty.

“Right. Tell your fence to hit me up.”

“You know it. Later.” Beef cut the line, and Tony sighed, shaking his head. Then he noticed Addie standing in the doorway to her bedroom with his jacket over her arm. She was looking at him with her head tilted to the side, smiling faintly.

“What?”

“You say you’re not nice, but I haven’t seen you be mean to anyone who didn’t deserve it. That was almost sweet how you were talking to Beef!”

“Ah, hell.” Tony chuckled, climbing to his feet. “Cut that out.”

Addie walked over and handed him his jacket. “You need to eat more. Let’s get something rich and filling. Noodles?”

Tony shrugged into his coat, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds perfect.” He smoothed the material down, trying to find the holes the larger caliber bullets had made. The material was self-repairing, though, and all he saw were some faint, gray seams where the black nano-fibers had stitched together. “Thanks for cleaning it up.”

“You’re welcome.” Addie grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the door. “Let’s go.”

“Hang on!” Tony laughed. “Nora, drive the van into the alley.”

Addie looked at him quizzically. “It’s right out front.”

“Yeah, but let’s wash the blood out. I want to pressure wash those arms, too. Some, uh, DNA is still attached.”

“Oh.” Addie nodded. “Good idea. Did Beef give you a contact?”

“He will. Maybe we can head there after we eat.”

Tony led the way downstairs, and when they opened the back door, Nora was pulling the van into position. Addie’s dad had a pressure washer in the store room, and, after they hooked it up outside, Tony spent some time washing the back of the van out and then cleaning the flesh and bloody residue off the ends of Malik’s arms. Addie helped, drying off the van floor and organizing the guns, knives, and the PAIs she’d pulled from the dead bangers.

“Damn, I’m glad you thought to do that,” he said, looking at the pile of chips with their glistening synth-nerve bundles.

“I’m sure there’s still footage of the fight somewhere. If the Cold Boys try hard enough…” She trailed off, and Tony could see she was worried.

“I’ll message Torque. Maybe he can do something about the footage from the club’s security cams. Nothing we can do about the corpo-sec drones that might have picked up the fight.”

“I know. I mean, bangers die every day in the Blast. Maybe the Cold Boys will just let it go. It’s not like they don’t have other things to worry about. At least it wasn’t on their turf.”

Tony wound the pressure washer’s hose into the machine’s casing. “It wasn’t?”

“No! They’re over west of Golden’s, bordering the Black Jades.”

“Well, then we have even less to worry about. The Ninety-Nine isn’t going to answer to them.” Tony picked up the big chrome arms and loaded them back into the van. “These are pretty decent pieces. They’ll fetch a good price even from a fence.”

Addie didn’t respond immediately, but jumped down and closed the storeroom door, arming the alarm. “I’m hungry!”

“Right. Let’s go.” Tony closed up the van and climbed into the driver’s seat. When Addie sat down beside him, he noticed a distant look in her eyes, and it made him wonder if she was okay with everything that had gone down. He nudged her shoulder. “Hey.”

“Yeah?” She looked at him, her blue eyes big and wide, almost like he’d startled her.

“You good? Have you taken a minute to process that shit that went down? You know you saved my ass when you blasted that guy, right?”

She smiled, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, Tony. I thought about it a lot while the machine was pumping blood into you at the clinic. You and I didn’t start that fight, and I’d do what I did again. You shot those bangers to protect me, and I, um, blasted that guy to protect you. We’re a team. You know that, right?”

Tony nodded, swallowing a lump of guilt that formed in his throat. Her words had struck a nerve. As he got the van rolling, he thought about what she’d said. If they were really a team, shouldn’t he trust her with his worries? Shouldn’t he tell her how bad Eric and Jen could be? Shouldn’t he finally face the horror of that night and lay it bare for Addie to see? In typical Tony fashion, he changed the subject on himself, pushing the thoughts to the side. “Hey, tell me about that guy. The spark. What’s his help going to look like? You gonna have, like, lessons or what?”