Jay Posey - Three

The room was large enough for a hundred or so people to find places to sit, with tables of various sizes and shapes and salvaged chairs gathered into small knots and clusters. If not for the obvious scavenger atmosphere, the room wouldn’t have been out of place in any number of the outpost towns that Cass had been through before she’d left RushRuin, or after. But it had a cavernous feel now, with places for so many occupied by so few. And clean. Almost sterile. For all the trauma the Vault must’ve endured, it was strangely tidy. Jackson had kept busy.

Wren drove his shuttlecar back and forth along the oval flexiglass table making soft, rumbling engine noises. Jackson watched from across the table, fixated on the toy but eyes unfocused, distant. He’d certainly proved to be an almost overwhelmingly generous host, but there was an edge about him that Cass couldn’t place. Something wild lurked behind his youthfulness. The fitful attempts at small talk always trickled to nothing; Jackson seemingly content to sit in silence, and Cass unsure of what questions were safe to ask.

The bath and food had done her well, but the gnawing hunger of her nerves was growing steadily, and she could feel her eyes dancing in their imperceptible rhythms. At least she hoped they were imperceptible. Three’s synth had been surprisingly effective at preventing her cells from imploding, but it was becoming painfully apparent that the dose had been a substitute and not the real thing. Her limbs burned with pinprick fire, angry, like long-compressed nerves reawakening. Occasional flashes of pain shot through her tongue without warning, stainless-steel pangs without apparent cause or reason. She figured another two days. Maybe less.

“How long have you known Three?” she asked, rousing Jackson from his daze.

“Couple years, I guess. Maybe longer. Hard to say. He was always just sort of there, then not, if you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“Strange one, that. Gev always had good things to say about him, but he always made me nervous. Not in a bad way, like he was going to hurt anyone or anything. Just kind of. I don’t know. Doesn’t feel right, yeah?”

“He isn’t real,” Wren said, still pushing his shuttlecar back and forth along the table.

He said it so matter-of-factly, but the comment hit Cass like a concrete wave. Wren had only ever described one other person that way before.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“He’s just pretend. You know, like Dagon… sorta. Except not so weird.”

Jackson looked at Cass with questioning eyes, looking for any clue as to what her son meant.

“Who’s Dagon?”

Cass shook her head, processing. “Just someone we used to know.”

“Just someone who’s still lookin’ for you.”

His voice came from some corner, unexpected, startling. Jackson flinched visibly at Three’s sudden words. How long he’d been standing there, none of them knew.

“Guess I should knock.”

“Doubt it’d help,” Cass answered. “You sneak too much.”

Three half-shrugged a shoulder and approached, grabbing a chair and sliding it to the head of the table. He sat heavily, nodded to Jackson, rested his eyes on her. Studying. Cass tried to hold his gaze, but felt herself wilting. Every time she looked into those dark eyes she felt she was telling him everything she’d ever done.

“Jackson gave us a tour,” she offered. “You wouldn’t believe the Treasure Room—”

“We need to talk,” Three interrupted, more forcefully than she’d expected, almost impatient.

“OK.”

Three didn’t take his eyes off hers, just watched and waited. Like he had a lot to say, and didn’t know where to start. Or like he knew a secret.

“You guys want to work this out alone?” Jackson said. “I can take Wren—”

“Might be a good idea,” Three replied.

“No,” Cass answered. “You can go if you want Jackson, but Wren stays.”

Three and Cass stared at each other. Wren had stopped playing. Jackson just sat with both palms on the table, unsure whether to stay or leave. Three let a tense breath go by, then another. She wasn’t going to back down. The last time he’d separated them had nearly been catastrophic.

“Fine,” he said at last.

Three paused, gathered himself. She’d never seen him like this before.

“We’re in real trouble,” he said. No one seemed surprised. But no one had anything to add, either.

“When I agreed to bring you out here, it’s because I figured whatever heat you’d gotten into, you and the kid could wait it out here at the Vault. Best guess was that you got into owing some chemist more than you could pay. But it’s not like that, is it?”

Cass shook her head slowly, but didn’t offer any more. Didn’t even take her eyes from his. He pushed.

“This… whatever it is. It’s not gonna go away on its own. And they’re not gonna stop looking for you. Ever. That about right?”

She nodded.

“So. Is there anywhere left in the world for you to go that they won’t find you?”

For the first time, Cass let her eyes leave his, dropped them to the table. She felt her shoulders slump reflexively. Three had asked her the one question she’d been asking herself for however long it’d been since she started running.

“I don’t know who they are, but they wouldn’t come looking for anyone out this far, yeah?” Jackson asked. “I mean, why would they?”

“That’s a fine question. Cass. Why would they?”

She didn’t look up from the table. Didn’t answer.

“It’s my fault,” Wren said, in his quiet voice.

“Wren.”

“It’s OK, Mama. I don’t mind.”

Wren looked at Three, then away, like he was ashamed.

“It’s me. I did something bad.”

Cass kissed the top of Wren’s head, hugged him.

“No, baby, you didn’t do anything wrong…”

Three remained motionless. Didn’t even seem surprised. Cass took over the explanation.

“You know Wren is,” she paused, searched for the word, “special. We were on a job. My crew, I mean. Kostya, Fedor, Dagon, we were all on it. And it was a tough one, tougher than most.

“Tough because we didn’t have much time to get it done, and there was this guy, this… individual, who wouldn’t cooperate. He was the key to everything. And I tried to get him to help us, I really did. But he wouldn’t listen. He kept saying we didn’t know who he was, what he could do, kept telling us what he was going to do to us… so one of ours went to work on him. Hard.”

She closed her eyes, hated dredging up the terrible past. Who she’d been. What she’d done. And what she’d made her child part of.

“Wren shouldn’t have been there. I didn’t want him to be there. But he was, and Asher…”

She caught herself, stopped. Glanced up at Three. She’d said more than she’d meant to.

“He was hurting him,” Wren continued. “Real bad. I didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t know what he did,” said Cass, almost whispering. “None of us do. But Wren made Asher stop. Stopped him. Long enough for the target to ship. We couldn’t finish the job. After that, Asher wouldn’t leave Wren alone. He wanted to know what Wren had done, how he’d done it. And Wren, you know, he just doesn’t know sometimes… but he just kept at him, and I couldn’t protect him forever… so we left.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Wren said. “It was an accident.”

Cass hugged him again.

“I know about RushRuin,” Three said. Cass silently cursed herself for slipping up, revealing Asher’s name. If Three knew about RushRuin, he’d know what they were capable of. And there was no way he’d stick around to help them now. “And I know they’re not in the business of running Sec/Nets.”