Like a Boss (14 page)

She sneered and flicked away a falling ember. I glanced up; through the holes in the ceiling, I could see a sagging beam in the floor above. It had a giant crack in its middle, and it looked ready to come apart. I couldn’t outfight her, but there was no way she could win against a collapsing roof.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “What’s she paying you?”

That got a laugh. “Are you serious? I know how broke you are.”

“I own a distillery.”

“I hate rum.”

“I’m not asking you for a drink, I’m telling you I can pay more than whatever Letty’s paying you!”

Jennifer’s amused look faded. “You can’t buy your way out of everything. Definitely not this.” A half dozen pinpoint embers dropped on her head. The beam and everything it held up groaned.

“No,” I said, hauling myself upright. “But I can buy time.”

She narrowed her eyes. A shower of sparks fell on her, and she looked up long enough for me to grab a glass brick and hurl it at her face. The brick hit her in the chest, but it gave me enough of an opening to scoop up Agamjot and leap for the fire escape. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jennifer pivot to grab me. Her nails raked through the jacket, so sharp they cut through to my skin. I didn’t care because I was too busy pushing aside the flower pots filled with petunias and cannabis.

Jennifer roared, and I clung to the fire escape as the ceiling came down on her. The rest of the building began to collapse in on itself, and the coral steel platform creaked away. I tried to climb down, but ironwork trellis moved too fast for me to do anything else but hang on to Agamjot. The fire escape smashed into the koa tree, and the branches jabbed at us as we came to a gentle halt. I looked down at my neighbors, who looked back at me.

Rohit Patil called up, “You put your foot on that branch to climb down!” He waved in the direction of my left foot. Below was a well-worn spot in the bark. I clambered to the ground, where Mustache Man and his crew had gathered with everyone else. I handed Agamjot to her father. She was still out, but breathing.

A small explosion blew out the windows on the second floor, and the whole building rumbled. I grabbed Mustache Man by the shoulder. “Can you and your crew make sure this fire doesn’t spread?”

He whisked ashes out of his facial hair and grinned. “Like I said, we’re the best in the biz.”

I rolled my eyes. “Don’t bullshit me, man. Can you keep this under control?”

He nodded. “We’ll need help.”

“You’ll get it.” I climbed into the lowest branches of the tree and yelled, “LISTEN UP!”

The crowd stopped talking.

I pointed at Mustache Man. “This right here is…’ I leaned over and hissed, “What’s your name?”

“Onanefe.”

I nodded, then looked back at the crowd. “Onanefe and his crew are going to keep this blaze under control until the pros get here. He’ll need your help. Our building’s a goner, but that doesn’t mean anyone else has to lose their home tonight. Can I count on you?”

Silence.

“Oh, come
on
, people,” I said. “I know I’ve been busy, but are you really gonna tell me that you’re not going to work together to keep the rest of this block from going up in smoke?”

“Who put you in charge?” said Millicent, clutching the lone surviving pot of sativa close to her chest.

“No one,” I said. “I have absolutely no authority here. I’m just a regular schmoe like the rest of you. But I’m still a schmoe who believes in this.” I pointed at the fist on my right cheek. “I still believe in working together to fight anything that threatens us. And right now, this fire is threatening our block, and maybe our neighborhood. Onanefe and his crew work in the cane fields. They know how to shut down fires. Their livelihoods depend on that. And I
think
, Millie, that they might be the most qualified people here to fix our common problem. Don’t you?”

Millicent sniffed and cradled the plant. “I was just checking.”

“I thank you for that,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound too sarcastic. “Does anyone else have any further objections?”

The people looked at each other and shrugged.

“Good. Shall we?”

Onanefe and his crew divided the crowd up into teams and directed them to work.

An ambulance finally made an appearance. Its bubble lights splashed color across everyone’s faces. I ran to the driver’s side and banged on the window. “Look, you gotta call Search and Rescue or someone. There’s a woman trapped in there–”

The driver looked up. It was the woman I’d seen earlier today at the Co-Op, the one who’d asked me about the Mutual Fund. Her face was cold and hard, and I realized she was the spitting image of Jennifer.

I took a step back, right into someone that felt as solid as a brick wall. I turned. It was Jennifer, her clothes torn and burnt and her face screwed up in a look that said she was going to kick my spine out the top of my head. “Get in,” she said, pointing to the back. I was too stunned to protest.

The ambo’s back doors opened, and, this time, I let out a yelp. Letty sat on the bench, an O
₂
mask to her face. She took a deep breath and offered me the mask. “Need a hit?”

The recently on-fire Jennifer pushed me into the back and pulled the doors shut behind her. She sat down next to me and clamped a hand around my upper arm. With a
whoop-whoop
, the ambo reversed and eased its way onto Samarkand Road. The back bay of the ambo opened up into the driver’s seat, so I could see out the windshield. We edged through the crowd, the younger Jennifer pulling her hat down lower on her face. “Do I get to know what’s going on?” Letty just chuckled. I tried blinking up video, but, of course, I got an eyeful of static. All three of them probably had scramblers.

The Jennifer driving the ambo stepped on the gas. We peeled through the few boulevards free of marchers until we were on the bumpy road to the kampong. I lost track of time, what with the terrible road conditions and the human vise grip on my arm. We eased to a halt, and the older Jennifer let go. I gasped at the ice-fire that zipped up and down my arm. She had left marks in my skin. She might have even left fingerprints.

The older Jennifer wiped the soot off her face with a towel. She tossed aside the dirty cloth, and her skin
glowed
, like she had swallowed a searchlight.

Letty took one last puff of O
₂
. “They make ’em a lot tougher than when you were an Indenture.”

I eyed Jennifer and realized she had no pores. Her skin was a smooth, continuous surface, as if she’d been glazed and fired like a ceramic statue.

Letty smiled. “Carbon silicates in her skin, five times the hemoglobin, funky muscle fibers. She could tear an entire goon squad apart before you could blink.”

“And it looks like she comes in pairs.”

The older Jennifer nodded. “Triplets, actually.”

“So is the third the maiden or the crone?”

The Jennifer nearest me narrowed her eyes. “She’s none of your business.”

“Let’s talk,” said Letty. She climbed past me and opened the doors.

The smell of caramelized sugar and burnt ironpalm barrels hit me, and I didn’t have to climb out to see we were parked in front of the Old Windswept Distillery. I eyeballed Letty. “What, you weren’t satisfied with torching my house? You gonna do the same to my distillery, too?”

Letty grunted as she climbed out. “Seeing how there’s no fire response out here, that would be pointless. Besides, I like your rum. You coming?” The Jennifer in the EMT outfit appeared at her side, and the Jennifer in the ambo gave me a jab with her finger.

I sat back and crossed my arms. “I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what the fuck is going on. Starting with why she” – I pointed at the Jennifer who’d tried to kill me – “tried to kill me.”

“Nonsense,” said Letty. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“Are you gaslighting me, Letty? It’s bad enough you’re packing scramblers. Now you’re going to tell me that your bodyguard didn’t try to kill me?”

Letty gave the older Jennifer a glare. “We’ve talked. Things got a little more heated than they were supposed to.”

“Not the best choice of words, considering you
burned my building down
.”

“Oh, please.” Letty dug around in her pockets until she found her stogie and a matchbox. She took out an actual match and lit her cigar. A few toxic puffs later, she smiled. “Your whole block is a dump. Once this all blows over, it’s going to get rebuilt.”

“What whole thing? You mean this strike?” I vaulted out of the ambulance, clearing the distance between us in a few steps. Both Jennifers leaped to Letty, their hands loose at their sides. I didn’t care. I got in Letty’s face. “Did you let this whole thing happen on
purpose
?”

She took a puff on her cigar and blew the smoke out the side of her mouth. “You are sharp, Padma. I shouldn’t have let you take that crap job. You’d be a lot better off working for me.”

“Thanks, but I’m not a fan of arson.” I sniffed at Letty. “I don’t smell any alcohol. Were you even drunk?”

She smiled, took another puff.

I looked at the two Jennifers and wondered if I could take a swing before they could react. Their slate-gray eyes turned to me, their neck muscles flexing. They could probably knock my head off my shoulders before I twitched. If Letty could set my building on fire, then she could easily have these two kill me and make my body disappear. Hell, I was still sure she
did
try to have me killed. For now, I would have to use my words.

“I have no idea how to help you here, Letty. I really don’t. I went to another one of Saarien’s churches, and – oh, that’s right. You’ve already seen everywhere I’ve been and reviewed everything I said. Why rehash it for you?”

Letty ground the cigar out on her sole of her boot and put it back in her coat pocket. “But I don’t know what you’re thinking, Padma. It’s not enough to know where you’ve been. I don’t know what your gut is telling you about the strike.”

“That it’s stupid and wrongheaded and that you should end it right away.”

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“Give the strikers what they want.”

“Which is?”

“What, you don’t know?”

She shook her head. “I have yet to get a list of formal demands from anyone. All I’ve seen is the city flooded with angry Freeborn and a whole lot of Union people walking alongside them.”

“Then maybe you can hack into all those pais and find out for yourself.”

“I can’t.”

“Bullshit.”

She shrugged and showed me her open hands. “It’s the truth, Padma. Hacking into your pai was a one-time trick. I start getting into everyone’s heads, I’m going to leave fingerprints, and then it’s all over for me.”

“Ah. So it’s perfectly acceptable for you to violate only
my
head. Got it.”

Letty bit her lip. “You think this is easy for me? You think I
like
having to go to these measures? We are up against the wall, Padma. Not just the Executive Committee, but
everyone
on this planet, Union and Freeborn alike.” She looked away, her mouth turning into a sour frown. “I told you about the Big Three cutting back on the amount of cane they’re going to buy from us, right?”

“You have, though I don’t see why you haven’t told everyone else about it.”

“Because I didn’t want a full-blown panic.”

“Instead you’ve got a full-blown strike. Great move.”

“And we can still stop it!” Letty put her hands on my shoulders.

I tensed, ready to pop her one if she tried to hug me. I was so not in the mood for a hug from this woman. “You keep saying
we
, but I really think you mean
you
. As in
me
.”

“Because you can still move around in all the circles that matter. I can’t go out into the streets without worrying about getting assaulted.”

“You’re the President of the Union!” I flicked her hands off me. “It’s your
job
to talk to everyone, especially when they’re unhappy and pissed off. That’s why we elected you.”

She smiled. “Good to know I had your vote.”

“You’re not getting it again,” I said, walking toward my distillery.

“Come on, Padma! What about our deal?”

“It went up in smoke with my building.”

“I don’t remember those terms.”

“Well, gee, Letty, maybe if you hadn’t insisted on all this cloak-and-dagger bullshit, we could have come to actual terms. I should have sussed this before. You’re using me as a proxy, even though I’ve been out of any serious Union work for almost two years. You talked about the strike as if it were something on the horizon when it was ready to explode
today
. Not even Saarien could motivate that many people to march on short notice. He’s been out for three months, and that tells me he’s been
building
his movement for three months. And there is no way someone in your position couldn’t have seen this coming. You’re too wired in, Letty.”

She shrugged. “Even I can get things wrong.”

“Not like this. You got me wrapped up in this for some reason. You burned my building down for some reason. And you know what? I have no desire to figure those reasons out. I’ve got rum to make.” I walked up the crushed shell path to the press house.

As I approached the front door, Letty called out: “What are you going to do when you run out of cane, Padma?”

I gave her the finger before slamming the door behind me. My office chair had never felt more comfortable.

It was still dark when I woke up, and I didn’t bother to blink up the time. The camp bed squeaked, and I shivered as I wrapped the blanket tighter around me. My office was the designated hurricane shelter for the distillery, which meant all the survival gear lived in my desk. I figured it had nothing to do with how Old Windswept was made, so I had splurged for good stuff. Even though it was great not having to worry about making Six O’Clock, a week of living on canned food and sleeping on a bed made of pipes and canvas had taken its toll. I wanted to do
something
.

I was still half-asleep when the idea hit me: I should fire up the whole operation and make a batch of rum all on my own. I got as far as loading cane onto the press when I realized I was working with the wrong batch. Tonggow had created a complicated curing process, with some stalks sitting in sunlight while others hid in the shadows. I had loaded the sunlight bundles first instead of the shady ones.
There’s a lot of biochemistry involved
, she had told me, and, no matter how many times I watched the footage I’d shot of our talks, I could never get a handle on just
why
she had done these things. I only know that she had, so I had to, too.