Erica Hayes - Scorched

Adonis loved me. He was on my side. I knew it in my heart.

But that didn't mean his phone wasn't tapped. I struggled to keep my voice low. "No. I have to do this on my own. I'll get to the bottom of this, I promise. I'll be in touch. I… I just wanted you to know I'm okay."

"But—"

"Talk soon, Ad." I ended the call, and broke the phone open with shaking fingers. Pulled out the SIM card, and crushed it beneath my boot. Now, no one at FortuneCorp could trace me. At least, I hoped not.

I wiped my leaking eyes. Enough with the self-pity. I had things to do.

Taking a steadying breath, I walked back into the room. The delicious smell of cooked tomato and oregano watered my mouth. Glimmer was messing about in his little kitchenette, his crazy hair sticking up like a mad scientist's. He looked like a cross between Dr. Jekyll and Pepé le Pew.

It was unsettlingly charming.

I held out the gutted phone. "I, uh, had to break your SIM. Sorry."

He shrugged. "It's okay. I go through dozens." He yanked a bowl from his microwave and shoved it across the cracked bench towards me. "Hungry?"

My stomach grumbled. Lasagna, my favorite, homemade, steaming hot and dripping with herbed tomato sauce and cheese. Beat the hell out of Pop-Tarts. "Um—"

"Eat," he insisted. "I've had a dozen chances to poison you already. You've got serious trust issues, you know that?"

I snorted. "Hey, pal, you're the one with the secret underground lair."

That crooked smile. "Yeah. Well. A little paranoia is an occupational hazard."

"Uh-huh. And what is your occupation, exactly?"

"I watch things. Record them. Do a little cleaning up. As you see." He extended his hand in an after-you gesture. His wrist was scarred on the inside, I noticed, old pale lines criss-crossed over the veins. I looked away, uncomfortable. He wouldn't be the first augment to loathe his own skin. Steel slicing soft flesh, warm blood spurting, the bitter taste of copper…

I took the bowl and spoon and headed back to his desk. He sat, bathed in his screens' pale light. I took a cautious bite of lasagna. Mmm. Delicious herbs and roasted tomato made my mouth weep, and I gave up and dug in.

"What's all this?" I mumbled, my mouth full. Touchscreens, data flows, a virtual display projecting fine white light in three dimensions. It reminded me of the set-up in Adonis's living room, only bigger, flashier, more sinister and a whole lot cooler.

"My eyes and ears." Glimmer's fingers darted over the keyboard, and real-time CCTV flashed up, fuzzy black-and-white video of bright-lit shelves of cigarettes and snack food, a security grille, logo-painted windows. "Will you look at this? That's the fourth time the Gallery have robbed that same convenience store in six months. Someone forgot to pay their protection."

Curiosity got the better of me, and I leaned over his chair. Twenty-four-hour news channels, local and national, video upload websites. Stock market watch lists. Sapphire City Chronicle website. Bank and tax records. Police department database, dispatch comms, vehicle movement maps. Custom search engines, automatically sorting and filing hits. An optical satellite tracking system, GPS, cell phone grid triangulations, all overlaid on a digital map of Sapphire City. His own files, reams of information, dates and names and events meticulously catalogued. And all of it about crime and criminals.

Here were images, filed and numbered, mug shots, security cameras, paparazzi snaps and surveillance shots. I swiped through them on the big touchscreen. Gallery hooligans, the unaugmented kind with shotguns and pistols, robbing banks and gas stations, holding hostages, fighting with riot police, whipping up violence at mass demonstrations against poverty or war. Torched housing projects, the charred shells of stores and warehouses. Corpses, shot, burned and mutilated, the victims of gang violence and other angry Gallery shenanigans.

But also the augmented, masked and costumed. I leaned closer, spooning in another tomato-drenched mouthful. Damn, he could cook. This image showed a skinny African-American woman, in a fish-tailed black Goth skirt criss-crossed with scarlet ribbons. Her arm was cocked back, long-nailed fingers bent like talons, midway through hurling a cloud of screeching insects at a fire engine. Her hair flew in a bright crimson tangle, and her eyes were painted with cruel black makeup like a mad Egyptian queen.

"That's Witch," Glimmer said absently, typing as he talked. "She's Gallery. Real name Patience Crook. Owns an occult shop, crystals, tarot cards, all that quasi-Wiccan stuff. Only she's the real deal."

I raised my eyebrows. Nice. We'd never been able to track her true identity down. I swallowed the last of my dinner—mmm, delicious, he'd make some woman a good wife one day—and left the bowl on the desk. "You got some good info here. How come I never heard of you?"

"Maybe I don't want to be famous."

"Give it a rest, Glimmer. You know what I am. We're in the same game. How come we never met?"

He shrugged, but his black gaze darted away. "I keep to myself."

"Right." I flicked to the next image. Another Gallery villain, a stocky guy with long greasy hair, slamming his fist through a shopping mall's glass ceiling and freezing it to glittering icicles. "Awesome," I remarked. "My good buddy Iceclaw. Charming son of a devil. Nearly lost three fingers to frostbite one time because of him…"

I bit my tongue, appalled. Jeez, did I just share? What was this, a crime-fighters' coffee club? For all I knew, this Glimmer character was Gallery too, and playing sly tricks with me.

But I didn't think so.

Call me naïve, but some fragile instinct warmed my blood about him, and it wasn't just that he was sorta cute and smelled great and cooked like a punk-ass Jamie Oliver. He was good-guy material, no question.

And I had to admit, it felt good to be back in the game.

"Likewise," Glimmer said, either oblivious or pretending not to notice my discomfort. "Iceclaw's real name is Declan Finney. He doesn't have a regular job. Just hangs around the docks, crushing knuckles and collecting tribute money from the Dockside Boys."

I wrinkled my nose, disgusted. "Charming. One of those guys who just likes wrecking stuff. He giggles when he freezes things, d'you know that? Like an evil little boy killing ants with a magnifying glass."

The next image popped up, and I had to bite my tongue again. My uncle Mike, masked in silver, his bracelets alight with charge. He crouched on the roof of a trolley car, blue lightning crackling from his fingers.

I stiffened, unwilling to speak. How much did Glimmer know about our family?

"Illuminatus," supplied Glimmer. "With an augment like that, he could be a terror. I'm still figuring out who's who in the zoo around here. Luckily, this guy seems to be on our side."

I snorted. Fishing for information? Good luck with that. I wasn't about to tell him, for instance, that Uncle Mike was basically a human lightning rod, and that if he ever took those bracelets off, there'd be charred ground and broken glass from here to Oakland. " Our side?"

"Yeah." Glimmer slanted warm dark eyes at me. "Y'know. Truth, justice, freedom from violence. That sort of thing?"

"Uh-huh." I folded my arms, defiant. "Let me give you some advice, young Jedi. Be careful who you trust. You don't know me from a kipper. For all you know, I'm the Gallery's latest trick. What makes you think I give a damn for truth and justice?"

That quirky smile again. "I've had plenty of chances to hurt you, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, we've covered that. Thanks so much, and all. What about it?"

"Well, so have you, lady, and you haven't come at me yet. That's good enough for me." He tilted his chair back. "Now can we move past the Mexican standoff and get down to business? You have enemies, so do I. Maybe we can help each other. But if you want to leave, go right ahead. I won't stop you." He spun back to his screens, dismissing me.