Page 11 of Defiance
“Wait. You shorted our bionics?!”
Glowing white dots popped across my vision as my eyes slowly adjusted to life on their own. I looked down at my forearm, squinting to see that nothing glowed beneath my skin where my holotab was grafted to my metacarpals and ulna. I rubbed at it, feeling oddly naked. Like the day I took off my wedding ring for good and couldn’t stop fussing with the smooth pail skin underneath.
“We don’t want any recordings. It’s a precaution.”
“There’s no gossip in the world juicy enough to warrant rebooting the robots in my brain,” I complained, pulling on my earlobe to try to stop the ringing. “Feck’s sake. And who’s ‘we?’”
I found Imani’s face swimming above mine and our eyes latched. Her deadly serious stare settled the string of curses at the tip of the tongue. When she saw I was done, she rolled her shoulders back and stood up straight.
“We really don’t have long, so I’m going to be blunt.”
“I really am in trouble, aren’t I?”
“It’s about the dolls.”
My expression darkened. All of my frustration evaporated.
I’d kept to myself in Renata just like I’d done back home. My divorce had been messy, public, and absolutely gutted me. Not because I’d tossed John—he could shove a pineapple up his arse—but because he’d won my family and friends in the battle. The past several years had been lonely and hollow, and I hadn’t expected for that to change in Renata either.
But after Imani went to Huajile, things changed. She believed in transparency and kept me informed, including me in places where my training made sense. It was thanks to Imanithat I helped at the clinic and felt like I was becoming part of the fabric of our new home.
So even though I hated talking about the dolls, I moved closer.
“Okay. I’m listening.”
“How do you feel about the other species?”
The question confused me. It didn’t warrant the cloak-and-dagger bit. “You mean the delegates? They’re good lads. I like them well enough.”
“How about hjarna? Advenans?”
I scoffed, my cheeks turning red. “I’m not going to hold an entire species responsible for what happened to us. That sort of vitriol is reserved for the British. And I don’t think I’ve met an advenan, really, so can’t say.”
That caught Imani’s attention. Her brows rose with surprise. “But Novak–” She pressed her lips shut and started over, swallowing her words. “I’ll make it short. Nothing from Huajile has made it into the news.”
“Not even the factory explosion?”
Imani shook her head once.
“None of it. The politics are complicated,” she sighed, looking weary, “but Vindilus and I agree with Ferulis that no news means a bigger operation than we thought. Whatever Guei was doing with dolls like yours, it’s not about selling them to brothels. It might not even be about money.”
“I don’t know, isn’t it always about sex and power?” I shrugged, sliding on my biologist’s tinfoil hat. “The Occam’s Razor of biology.”
“Maybe not. There are cargo ships moving things in from the Outer Rim. They’re disappearing and manipulating their manifests to hide whatever it is through ghost markets and trading loopholes. Ferulis thinks something big is happening and if we sit on our hands, we’ll get eaten alive.” She lookedat me meaningfully. “He wants to gain an advantage while they still don’t know we have the intel. There’s a charity event on the hjarna homeworld, and a human representative has been invited to go. He wants one of us to attend.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, jaw set tight.
“You need me to go and play the victim while I’m rubbing elbows? I get it. Amelia is literally in labor and Roz isn’t Rosie, but I’ll be honest. I’m not good at crying on cue unless I can chop some garlic first.”
Imani gave me an appreciative smile, but I could tell from the way it didn’t reach her eyes that I was on the wrong track.
“We want you to go, but not for the cameras. A covert elite named Novak Gaul arrived today with a midwife for Amelia.” Imani stopped, her brow creased. She stared at her boots, convincing herself to continue. “He’s a good man. Vin’s brother. He’s the one that killed Rosie.”
“Jaysus,” I swore, brushing my nails through my messy bun. Our colony was protected by a wide range of killers with long receipts, but none of them had ever killed a human. Except for this one. Novak. I felt like I’d just floated off a continental shelf and the cold waters of the open ocean were waiting to swallow me whole.
“He didn’t know. He thought–” She stopped herself again, looking anxiously down at her forearm where our holotabs might glow back to life at any second. “He’s an advenan. They’re incredible trackers. Ferulis had him escort the midwife here so he could choose a human to use as bait.” Imani held my stare. “Novak said the strongest scent trail he can follow is the ‘woman with plaited copper silk that smells like the river.’ That’s you.”
This covert agent had chosen me because my smell was strong. I scoffed, rolling my eyes. I smelled fishy and felt cursed.
