Chapter 18
Eventually, I realized storming off like a child wasn't going to make the problem just leave. So I went downstairs to face my "partner." I descended the stairs unsure what would be waiting for me. It was stupid to leave her alone in my workshop, but what more harm could she do?
I was surprised and concerned to find my workshop empty. I had expected her to be at the bottom of the stairs, glaring and waiting with some choice words. This was worse, somehow.
I looked toward my suit room, but it was closed. I checked it anyway. Empty. The suit looked unbothered. But as I turned away, something out of place caught my eye. A door at the other end of my unit was open, one I never used.
I walked into what was really the front of my unit. It would serve as a front desk area if someone actually ran a business out of it. It was a small room with frosted front windows and a door, and a table that ran three-quarters of the way along the back wall. I looked around the unused space before my eyes landed on the last detail: an open door leading to an even smaller room that would serve as a storage space or small office. Inside, I found Rhea, looking like she was sizing the place up.
"It's not very big," she said without turning around. "But I should be able to fit a bed in here."
"A bed?" I asked, surprised. "you're planning on staying here?" I made no attempt to hide the annoyance in my voice.
"Well yeah. I can't get upstairs very easily, so I'll need something on the first floor," she explained. "So it's this or the bathroom." She finally turned and gave me a smirk. "Unless you're going to build me a room."
"Yeah, with all my free time." I let out a breath. "I assumed you'd stay at home."
"You think I want to commute every day? You know what gas goes for now? I'm unemployed, remember?" Her eyes drifted away from mine as she added, "Besides… I don't have a place anymore."
"You don't?" I did some quick mental math. "Even if you stopped paying the second you were dropped, you wouldn't have been evicted this quickly."
"I wasn't kicked out. I sold it."
"Why?"
"To find you, dumbass!" she snapped. "You think hunting you down was cheap? That info broker alone cost me a fortune!"
How does one reply to that?
"I… didn't think about it like that, I guess."
"I've been using a cheap motel, but I can't pay for it forever. So I figured you'd be nice enough to take in a disabled veteran." She shrugged. "Not that I'm giving you much choice."
I let out a long breath and gave the drop ceiling a hard inspection.
"Look," she said, her tone shifting—more serious now, a little gentler. "I get it. If I were you, I wouldn't be any happier about this." She gestured to herself. "Some cripple rolling in and holding me hostage would make me just as mad as you." She paused. "I'd probably take it worse, honestly."
She waited, but I couldn't think of anything more intelligent than "yeah," so I stayed quiet.
"So I get it. But—" she fixed me with a hard look—"you need help. Like it or not, I have the knowledge you need to actually make a difference, and stay alive long enough to do it."
"And all I want for that knowledge is to take down the guy who took my brother. The same one you've already tried to take down."
"And what? You're going to run to the police or your old boss if I don't fall into line? If I don't try hard enough, or get your coffee order wrong?" I grumbled. "Because I'd rather rot in jail than be…" I struggled for an analogy. "…whatever that would make me."
She snorted. "I'm not turning you into my bitch, gearhead." She rubbed her eye. "And I take my coffee black—that's hard to mess up."
She gave me a second to react. When I didn't, she rolled her eyes and kept going. "I'm playing it straight with you. I'll help you. And I plan to work as a team. As begrudging a team as it is."
I wasn't convinced, and it must have shown, because she sighed and tried again.
"You being some kind of indentured servant would just make you hate me, and anything I asked you to do. That would ruin the chances of getting my brother back alive," she added. "It'd also make it more likely you'd get caught or killed, which doesn't work for me either. So no I'm not going to hold that info over you like a whip and make you bark. But yes, I have it if I need it. So don't try to get rid of me either. Fair?"
"What part of any of this is fair?" I asked.
"Buddy, you know how 'fair' has worked for me, and I suspect it hasn't been much better for you. Don't expect it now." She snorted.
"Now, I'm sure you're not feeling all that eager, but I'll need help getting stuff brought in." She tapped the chair. "I don't carry stuff too good anymore."
I crossed my arms and refused to move, earning another eye roll from her.
"Come on, man." It came out almost as a sigh. "You need to get past the part where I'm here, because I am. Acting like a kid about it is just going to make things worse for both of us. I'd rather work as a team, one where I only change what I have to. It's that, or we fight over everything and nothing gets done." Her conciliatory tone sounded forced. "The only other option is you quit and go to jail, an outcome neither of us wants."
I didn't respond. She was right. I was in check. That was probably why it was so hard to push back. I shifted on my feet, trying to think of a way out of this situation, and coming up blank.
"I'll pay for dinner afterward," she offered.
I let out a long breath. Like pulling off a bandage, it was best to just do it.
"Fine."
Unfortunately, moving her in was a pain in the ass. Most of her stuff was in her car, which was parked a block away. How she drove it with no legs confused me, until I saw it had been modified. We pulled it up in front of the unit and opened the front door, which I hadn't used since the day I got the keys.
But that wasn't the annoying part. The real problem was going to her motel to grab the last few things, then driving across the city in my van to a storage unit.
"I thought you said you didn't have much stuff left?" I asked, my mood not improving as we walked down the hallway to her unit.
"I said I kept the essentials, and this is the last stop." She rolled herself down the hallway. She hadn't asked to be pushed, and I wasn't offering. "Then the only remaining stop is picking up food. You still okay with chicken?"
I grunted in reply as we stopped in front of one of many identical blue doors, the only difference being the white number 416 stenciled across it. She handed me the key. I unlocked it, and the door rattled open.
There was a single crate in the center of the otherwise empty unit. I walked over and saw it was secured with a combination lock. I looked back at her, raising a silent question.
She shrugged. "One. Eighteen. Fifty-seven."
I dialed it in. The latch clicked open.
When I lifted the lid, I found a small arsenal. Mostly assault rifles, but there were shotguns and handguns mixed in. I wasn't an expert, but guns and bullets are hard to misidentify.
How'd she get this in here?
"It's what's left of my personal equipment," she said. "I lost what I took on the raid, obviously—but I had a nice collection."
"It wasn't safe in my car or the motel, so it had to be stored here." She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, "I told you—you'd need the cart."
"This is really impressive," I said, picking up one of the rifles. "But what am I supposed to do with these? I built the blaster specifically for super resistance."
"One." She held up a finger. "Not everyone you fight will be bulletproof. In fact, most won't be. So carrying a 'regular' gun is a good idea." She even added finger quotes.
"Two. They're not for you—they're for me." She emphasized that by driving her thumb into her chest.
"And finally, three—why don't you put all that back and stop talking in a public place? I know we haven't seen a soul since we got here, but you never know who's around the corner."
Feeling a bit dumb, I put everything back and locked the case. I had to go back to the front to grab a cart, but I managed.
We were back in the van not long after, a couple of takeout meals resting on Rhea's lap, heading back before either of us spoke again.
"I get I've dumped a lot on you in a single day," she started, a little more hesitant now. "But it's best to get all the uncomfortable bits out at once."
Her face was only lit by the red glow of a traffic light, making it hard to read her expression. I tried not to groan.
"We really do need to change your day-to-day routine. I haven't seen what your current one is," she said, then muttered, "although I'm pretty sure there isn't one." She held up a hand to cut off any argument. "But we need to get you eating right, exercising, training, practicing—"
"I told you before, the suit does all the actual work. It's more useful for me to improve the design than worry about the meat," I said, trying not to bristle.
"Again—that's silly. You still need to move. Even if the suit makes it easier, you need to be able to fight, keep fighting, get hurt, and keep going, then walk out, because no help is coming."
She paused, then added, "And that starts with a healthy diet and exercise. Unless you've got a robot doing the fighting for you that I don't know about." Her face flickered in and out of view under the passing streetlights.
"AI wouldn't be able to handle the kind of on-the-spot, out-of-the-box thinking that would be required." I said, remembering the bots I fought. "It'd be too limited. At least where AI tech is now."
"So you need to be fit, trained, and properly equipped. It's going to take all of that—and as much information as you can get, to succeed in any mission."
I drove in silence for a few minutes before she tried again.
"God, you're stubborn," she said, almost laughing. "I'm not drafting you into the army. I'm not going to chase you with a whip to make sure you're running fast enough, and I'm not going to hover over you to make sure you eat your vegetables. But if you want to honor whatever reason you have for doing this, you need to improve. You—not just the suit."
I watched the garage door slide open as I thought. The faint tingle of a ghost holding my phantom hand.
The door closed behind us.
"You'd better not expect me to call you ma'am."
The first real smile I'd seen crossed her face. "Never. Queen or goddess will be enough."
"Good luck with that."