Page 18 of Redstone
“There you go,” the man murmured. “Can you hold yourself up?”
“Not yet,” Kyle said honestly. “You say you’re my contact. Prove it to me.” Because he wanted nothing more than to believe that he wasn’t alone in there. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be, but he’d almost beenkilled; he was being pulled and pushed, and everything had gotten twisted in ways he hadn’t been able to anticipate, and Kylehadto know …
“Fledgling.”
Kyle slumped back suddenly, a tension he hadn’t even known he’d been holding onto evaporating from his body, and the man smiled.
“I’m Magpie,” he continued, “but here you can call me Isidore. Or Iz, either is fine.”
“Isidore.” Kyle had never felt so relieved in his life. It was almost enough to make him blush; he was so stupidly grateful not to be alone. He hated feeling that vulnerable, but he wouldn’t get very far if he lied to himself either. “You saved me back there.”
Isidore shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for. It was touch and go for a moment, but your clothes made good bargaining chips.”
“Because of the Regen fluid.” Kyle remembered now: his sudden expulsion from the tank, his rapid trip down the hall. “Someone pulled me out of Regen before I was done recalibrating after getting my mods deactivated.”
Isidore frowned. “Not very subtle. We’re going to have to be more careful than I thought if they can get away with being blatant.”
“You know who they are?”
“No more than you do, but I know that there are plenty of people in this prison who would love to have you in their power, for all sorts of reasons.” His thumb rubbed a gentle circle at the base of Kyle’s neck, right over the vertebrae. It was oddlyintimate, but Kyle didn’t say a thing. He felt touch starved, like he had after getting pulled out of his escape pod so many years ago, numb with terror and shock. “We’ll just have to be more careful. I’ve set things up to encourage most people to leave us alone, and we’ll be able to tell without much difficulty if we’re being followed down here. No one likes to be this close to the core.”
“The core?”
“The core of Redstone. The iron. It pulls on the blood, tears at your organs. It’s very destructive, long-term.”
Well, this sounded like a shitty place to be. “Shouldn’t we try to avoid the core, then?”
Isidore shook his head. “We’re not going to be here long enough for it to matter. Others stay away because they know it will mess with them, but for now our proximity will keep us a little safer.” He finally let go of Kyle, and Kyle shivered at the loss of contact. He felt colder even though it was actually warmer down there than it had been up in the hallway.
“What’s the game plan?” Kyle asked, trying to distract himself from feeling bereft.
“Survival. By any means necessary, which for you means that if there’s something ugly to be done, you let me do it,” Isidore said. He seemed quite serious. “Your only job is to survive until your trial. That means we can’t give the warden any excuse to delay things based on your behavior, so if there’s fighting, you run back here. If there’s any issue at all, you get out of it. If people ask, you run because I told you to. As far as the gangs are concerned, you’re mine, bought and paid for.
“That doesn’t mean people won’t try to challenge me for you or go after you once they realize who you are, but it does give you a layer of protection where justifying your actions is concerned.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because if they think you’re soft, or a coward, they’ll come after you regardless of your status as mine. Weakness is consumed in Redstone, unless you’re part of a larger whole.” Isidore shrugged again. “And we’re a team of two. Hardly big enough to hold our own against everyone.”
Kyle considered that. “We should try to recruit more people to our cause, then.”
Isidore frowned. “We can’t trust anyone else.”
“We don’t need to trust them; we just need to convince them to work with us.”
“The inhabitants of Redstone are some of the worst people the Alliance could find and convict,” Isidore pointed out. “They’re not prone to teamwork or to convincing that doesn’t come on the end of a knife.”
“That doesn’t mean they can’t be persuaded in other ways.”
Kyle was expecting a fight, but Isidore surprised him by smiling. He looked totally different smiling, the terseness that muted his expressions gone. He looked young, almost as young as Kyle felt. “You’re so much like Garrett. I’m not surprised you two found each other.”
“I’ve … never actually met him in person.”
“But you’re working together. You have the same ideas about people and about what you should be able to accomplish.” He shook his head, but he was still smiling. “And if you really are like him, you might be able to do it. I’ll do what I can to help, but I’m not going to let you risk yourself unnecessarily either. Whatever you do, it has to come off as my idea. If I don’t maintain my public control over you, I might as well not have any control at all, and you’ll be considered fair game again. And you can fight, I know that, but you can’t fight everyone.”
“Especially not without my mods,” Kyle muttered, and Isidore nodded.
“Exactly.” Isidore leaned back and glanced down the hallway. “Sound’s picking up. You’ve been out for about six hours, so they’re getting ready to serve breakfast by now.” Kyle’s stomach growled in sympathy, and Isidore flashed his teeth. “It’s good that you’re hungry, but we’re not going back down there yet. I’ve got a few things set aside that you can have in the meantime.” He reached over behind one of the piles of equipment and grabbed a little synthetic package with dull, dry nutrition bars inside of it.
