A Dead Little Girl

I leave Rei's tent and go find a place off to myself. I find one near the generators they have set up, and I run a cable out to a heavy metal table. Someone goes and gets me a chair. Its weird not doing things myself, even now. I sit down and feel a sigh slip out. Too much is happening. I can't think about it all. And if I made a mistake, bringing all those people here to die...

For what feels like the hundredth time today I wonder if Kyoshi would fly me to Marina. I know its gone way past that, but...I tried, and failed. Too heavy. Too much.

I shake my head, huff out another harsher sigh and lay the thing down in front of me. In the glare of the electric lights it looks like a big, wilted flower. I can see veins of some kind of metal through it. I look for a power source, and can't find one. It must run on psychic energy or something.

I spend some time looking at it closely, and then I separate out some leads from the cable and attach them to what seem like nodes in the webwork. When I switch the power on, the glove lights up. I can see channels of energy flowing through it. They're just fading into the air, becoming heat, because in this they don't do anything, but it lets me see where the web is broken, torn, thinned, stretched...I am about to ground myself and get to work before it hits me.

There's the red glow, there, and then its...healed. Looks good as new, the webs of energy still shining to my eyes. Now, seeing more of how it fits together, I can see how it might be modified. I couldn't tell you, or draw up a diagram or anything. I just...see. I hunch down and get to work, careful but quick.

When I'm done, I detach the leads after I cut the power.

I think I saw where they brought Aimi. Kyoshi is probably still talking to his brother.

***

She's there, and looks surprised to see me, then looks like the cocky nothing she usually gives everyone.

"Looking to sow your wild rice already, Moses? Why, your litter isn't even born yet." She gives me a look that would be alluring from anyone else. Her eyes are still like one-way glass.

"No. I've, uh, I've actually got a present."

"Listen. Moses. I'm taken. If I wanted to fuck a machine, I'm sure I could make that happen without all the smell and the talking. So if you've got flowers or candy or something, I'm really flattered, but -"

She shuts right up when I hold up the glove. Yeah, Aimi, it isn't that hard to figure out what you want.

"I've seen you playing around with weapons you find. Well, not playing. I know you're dangerous. But they just don't fit the bill, do they?" She just watches my hand. I know she's measuring for a leap. "Its good as new. Better than new, actually. I figured, you know, the stuff we end up fighting, its usually bad to get close. So now you can sort of discharge the energy you make from a distance. Not that far, maybe ten meters or so, and it won't do as much as it does otherwise, but..." She's breathing harder. I suddenly feel bad and disturbed all at once. I want her to listen, though, this once, so I toss her the glove. She snatches it out of the air with a flash and slides it over her arm in a motion that's almost too quick to see. She clenches her deadly little fist and out flashes the pink blade.

She looks up at me, almost unguarded, almost actually here. "I don't get it, Moses. What's the deal? You're not trying to seduce me - it must be the lack of a tail. I figured Rei would get this fixed and give it back to me. But you? It doesn't add up."

How to say it?

"When we met, a year ago, in the control room for the lift out of Goshi Mine...you know, I've never been afraid of you. Don't get all offended. I know you're an assassin, but...after a cable-car load of tentacled eyeless, you weren't that scary. What scared me was...I was scared for the other people you might hurt, the other people you could get to. That we might have sacrificed so much just to be free, and you could ruin it all on a whim, or because it was your job. It was...I didn't understand how someone could be like that." Her eyes are glass again. "No! Listen, I'm not done."

I look at her until she stops pretending to be admiring her glove. "Listen. I...know what it means...to be made for a purpose. One you sort of chose, maybe, but never really got to choose. One that got chosen for you, where you just...fit into bigger things that were happening around you. I know what that's like. And..." shit this is hard "and I know you've done terrible things. On a whim, as a job, whatever. But now I know a lot more about that too. Maybe this whole time, I had to go out into the world, and suffer, over and over again, until I turned into the person who could call down gems out of the sky, rust out a city of millions of people. All of the cities. Refugees, homeless, hungry, because of me."

"How many people did I kill, do you think? I...don't have the guts to even ask. You think you've killed that many, Aimi? I doubt it. You'd be one busy girl. And I did it all, and now, it looks like...like it might have all been a mistake. I might have done just what the Enemy wanted. I can't even know if the things I've done...if they were right. I can't even know if they were right."

A long pause stretches out between us. Now she's looking at me, and I'm looking away.

"If...if we get through this...if we are going to survive...we can't know what will happen. Its too much. No one understands. Elder Moon doesn't understand. Jin-Kalys doesn't understand. We don't understand. Maybe Mokuzai would see it, but he's gone. Maybe peace is gone. But, " I look back at her "but I know, I know that if we don't trust, then we'll die. If we can't trust, we'll all die, one way or another. No trust, no hope. That's it." I feel myself trail off.

She smirks slowly and broadly. "Moses. Are you saying you trust me? Because I'm still a very bad girl." She clenches her little fist again and the blade leaps to life.

I don't move, and she wilts, just a little, thrown again. I don't know why I want her to see. I don't know if she can. Is she going to understand me, now? Is she going to forgive me? Hardly. I might as well ask the lamp-post outside for reassurance. She's a dead little girl. Maybe not dead, not yet. I guess we'll see, now.

"Maybe. Kyoshi does. Rei does." I pause. "And look. I don't think you can stop me, if it comes to it. And I don't sleep anymore. You seem to like Zip. Rei is family. You love Kyoshi. I don't know if anything can kill Baldr. HighDive can kill anything, and I think you know it after the fight today. And Una saved your life, so killing her would be...just really sick. I think you'd need a reason to kill Raoul. I wouldn't try Ichirou. And...as far as Kyoshi knows, you spared Namie. So I told myself those things, and I decided to give you the glove back."

"And who knows? Maybe, I hope, I won't regret it."

I go out just as Kyoshi is going in. He looks alarmed, sees Aimi with her blade out, looks back at me, but I'm still walking. I'll let her tell him all about it.

***

I get lost looking for my own tent, and when I come in I wake Zipporah up. She rolls over to look at me from under the covers - I realize its cold outside and close the tent flap. The brazier inside starts re-heating the small space.

"Moses...are you going to sleep tonight?"

I stand there for a moment, take a deep breath and feel myself unwind. I give her my best sly smirk.

"Nope." And I don't leave the warmth of the tent after that.