Unity by Elly Bangs (free e reader txt) 📕

Standard lowered his eyes. “It’s what I would do.”

“We need to get off this train,” I said. “Right now.”

“We’re already moving at a hundred KPH.”

“Let’s not act without thinking,” Naoto said. “This is all speculation. We don’t know anything for sure.”

I forced myself to turn and give our captive a long look. “You’re right,” I said. “We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with. By any means necessary.”

Naoto hesitated to ask. “You mean . . . torture?” He looked at Standard—who seemed to shudder and look away in response. It wasn’t the chilling composure I had expected from a mercenary.

“Torture doesn’t work,” I answered. “It’s never been a remotely effective method of retrieving information. Even the Medusas know that. But I . . . I have other options.”

Naoto flinched. “You can’t. Can you?”

Standard gave me a questioning look, but did not ask.

“Wait outside,” I told him. “Keep watch.” When he was gone, I turned to Naoto and whispered, “I can brush the surface of her memories without internalizing them. One-way link.”

“Is that . . . ?” He trailed off, but I could fill in the blanks. Wise? Safe? Ethical? In each case the answer was the same.

“Not at all,” I said, flexing my fingers. “It’s unforgivable.”

It never would have occurred to me to do something like this, when I’d been whole. The person I had been back then would have been incapable of such a hideous crime. If it were only my own life at stake now, even the person I had devolved into since then might have simply accepted the risk of walking into a trap at Crossroads Station. But Naoto’s life was something else. It was too high a price to pay for my principles.

He touched my arm as if to stop me.

“What . . . what are you going to do?” the young assassin stammered.

“She might still tell us,” Naoto said.

“She might lie,” I said. “This is the only way to be sure.”

“Wait,” the assassin said.

I crouched down on the thrumming floor. I cleared my mind and focused on my breath. It had been so long since I’d sent a thought-command to my unifier that for a moment I was afraid I wouldn’t remember how—but I pressed my palm to the assassin’s forehead. I closed my eyes and willed.

The pain of all those shorted cybernetics was the first thing I felt in the moment I became her. It was in my hands and arms and the back of my neck, so razor-sharp and white-hot that it almost shattered our connection the moment it cohered—but I focused, compartmentalized, endured. I moved deeper. I reached into her writhing morass of intrusive thought and involuntary recollection. I tried to touch only the memories I needed.

There. I’m in the corridor of the second-to-last car, racked with adrenaline, shooting at the woman’s bodyguard. I miss. Fucking shit, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I shoot straight? I just need to shoot the bastard like I shot Grenley. It’s not different. It shouldn’t feel any fucking different. Finally I hit him. I hit him in the chest. But he’s not dead. Fuck me, he’s still there. I’m holding the trigger down, but the guns are still charging. Everything is fucked. But why isn’t he returning fire with that huge motherfucking wave rifle of his? What the fuck could he be thinking?

(What had Standard been thinking? I wondered, in the corner of myself that was still Danae. Why not just fire?)

For a split second, I lost my focus. The internal burns weighing her arms down surged with fresh pain, and her memory blinked. Now I was in a dim room, naked, bound by different restraints. Naked with Grenley, the creature that bought me at the age of ten, that hacking old imp with the infinite appetite for young flesh, the debts owed to the wrong people, the smug and fatherly self-assurance that none of his little girls would ever have the guts to earn their own freedom by hard-boiling his perverted brain.

(No. Not this. I cringed with two bodies at once. I felt two different jaws ache from clenching. I banished the memory. I focused again.)

(Focus.)

There. I kept to the sidelines of the station and memorized the image in the shard. The image the client had sent. A woman, thirty-one years of age, 1.7 meters tall, African descent, bony; names include Danae, Ruth, Sybil. This was going to be my breakthrough job. I was going to make a name for myself, move down into Bloom proper once the smoke cleared, work for the Clan. No more hunger pangs. I wasn’t going to fuck this up. I staked out the station for hours—and just my luck, there she was. With a guy, Japanese or Korean looking, sour-faced. A second man was with them. I could tell I didn’t want to fuck with that guy even before I saw the wave rifle peeking out from under his coat like he didn’t care who saw it. I’d have to take care of him to get to her. So I watched them. Followed them carefully onto the train.

(Focus.)

Rewind further. The call had come in at midnight ten hours before. The face in my shard had said: one woman, taken alive, alone, by any means necessary. Fifty thousand squid, payable upon delivery. Fuck me, I’d thought, what a fucking fortune. I’d said yes. For a second I wondered who my new employer was, who the target was. It didn’t matter, but I kept wondering anyway. There was just something odd about him. His voice sounded so old, somehow. Older than a voice ever ought to be coming from a face that young. Just an ordinary Epak face, thick, bald-headed, with a blue logo stamped on his right cheek. Something about him was definitely off, but what did it matter? I’d finally found myself a job. I grabbed my