Life Within Parole Read online

  “I should know this,” Jay continued, half-listening. “I mean, Danae has to know who I am, right? So that means Evelyn knows. So Rose—no, assuming anything is a mistake. Or should we tell her the standard story, I’m in the top ten Syndicate members? That might be safer…”

  “It’s all right, they know who you are,” Stefanos said, deep voice level and calming. “And no, they haven’t told a soul. They know the score, believe me. I made sure of it. They’re safe. But if you get there and something feels off, we can bail.”

  “Okay, good.” Jay spun on his heel three-sixty degrees to look around the entire street. Stefanos kept his catching arm ready, just in case. “Just making sure.”

  “We’re not being followed. You can relax.” He wasn’t dramatically taller but he was much more substantially built, broad shoulders and thick muscles dwarfing Jay’s thin frame. Long, thick, curly black hair fell down his back, and his equally thick beard fell almost as far down to his chest. Like Jay, he wore loose, dark-gray and neutral clothes that were easy to move and easier to hide in—but he would have had trouble blending in no matter where he went. It wasn’t because he had scales or wings or anything one might expect in Parole; his difference was both more subtle, and more significant. It had been ten years since UV light had filtered through the barrier, and most people who lived in Parole tended to be unhealthily pale and develop vitamin D deficiencies without the use of personal sun lamps. His visible skin was a healthy tanned bronze, as if he’d been out in full, unobscured sunlight recently.

  “Oh, you relax, you’re the one looking at me like I’m about to fall over! I’m not about to—okay, thank you for that. I think it’s these shoes. They’re outside shoes. I’m outside. Anyway, I know, I’ve got like thir… sixteen checks and failsafes in place right now, but I just wanna make sure. Nothing beats my plain old eyeballs. I mean, maybe except for yours.”

  “I doubt it,” Stefanos chuckled. “I might have spectral scans and infrared, but you see the strings that control the system. And those are tougher to pick out.”

  When Stefanos smiled, his eyes glittered in a quite literal sense. They were golden, metallic, obviously synthetic, with several rotating rings around the pupils’ exteriors that spun as he focused near and far like telescopic camera lenses. Occasionally, other rings or metallic shutters would flicker in front of his gleaming metal eyes, switching the lenses into a new mode or rotating them in a different direction. The gyroscopic optical implants were wonders of engineering, and even if he didn’t quite seem to belong in Parole, it was clear where his eyes had come from.

  “Feel better?”

  “Mm.” Jay still looked nervous despite the empty street, but he nodded. “Parole will just have to get by without my watchful eyes and guiding hands for a few hours.”

  “It’ll be fine. They know you’re very busy and in high demand,” Stefanos assured him. “They’re honored you emerged just for one day.”

  “Hey, they should be.” Jay stopped walking and flicked his sunglasses down to look over their lenses for a moment, raising his eyebrows. “That sounded snarky but I mean it, I don’t leave my darkness and keyboards for just anybody. Only for emergencies, and family occasions.”

  “And which one is this?” Stefanos’ tone wasn’t as quick or energetic, but just as dry.

  “Well, if it was anyone else throwing the party, I’d say emergency.” Jay shrugged with a slightly embarrassed smile. “Actually, I wouldn’t say anything at all, I’d already be running. But… your family is mine.”

  “Yes, they are.” Stefanos reached out to pull Jay close, wrapping one arm around his shoulder and giving him a squeeze. As he did, his sleeve slipped up and his hand caught the light of a pale streetlamp. It gleamed dully metallic, artificial but in effortless motion, made of as many intricately articulated working parts as his optical implants’ myriad gyroscopic rings. “Danae’s been looking forward to seeing you again as much as me.”

  “See, that’s not even fair, we both got genius sisters, but yours actually likes you.” Jay dropped his head and pulled his hood a little bit tighter to hide his rising blush. “And me. Dunno how I got that lucky. And, okay, Maureen would definitely like you, so there’s that. And not just in a ‘wow look at your cool eyes and arm and leg’ way—I mean, she would, the nerd—but like, as a person and junk. Ha, after ten years, we might even get along a little better.”

  “We’ll all find out one day. Soon.” Stefanos shut his golden eyes for a moment to the sound of a clearly audible whir. “But for tonight, don’t worry, we won’t stay the whole time. And if you start to need some air, let me know. They’ll understand too.”

  “Oh, I know they will, they’re all good ladies. But maybe…” His confident tone faltered for the first time. “I mean, I’m who-I-am, that’s a handy excuse right there. The city always needs saving from the clutches of evil. I’d just—I don’t want ‘em to think I don’t want to be there. I do. But if I start to feel zidgy, I’ll—I don’t know, tug my ear or something, so you’ll know…”

  “Urgent cyber-revolutionary business. I’ll excuse us, politely.”

  “Awesome. I’ll definitely say some awkward, anxious nerd bullshit the second I open my mouth—so thanks for doing the talking.”

  “Any time. I do appreciate you coming with me, Jay.” Stefanos’ tone dropped slightly, and Jay looked up, attention caught by the change. “Evelyn Calliope deserves one good day. More. Not just because of all the good days she’s given Parole. And not just because she’s my sister-in-law. But just living her life, right in the spotlight? On the stage, off it? Being herself, here of all places?””

  “Yeah, I gotcha.” Jay said in an uncommonly serious voice, though one now free of nervousness. “It’s… important, isn’t it?”

  “Very.” Stefanos smiled, metallic eyes flashing like the sun nobody in Parole had seen clearly in ten years. “Seeing somebody like yourself not only walk through fire and keep walking—and come out the other side a superhero, bulletproof, the person they were always meant to be? Not just transition, and not just survive, but live and conquer? Makes you think maybe you can too. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without that woman.”

  “Best domino effect ever.” Jay was smiling. “Guess I owe her a lot too.”

  “And one happy birthday doesn’t begin to cover it, but we can at least make an appearance. I’ll give her my present and you can give her your…” Stefanos shot a glance at Jay’s oddly-shaped gift. “Whatever it is you have there.”

  “Excuse me. It's called a key-tar.” Jay reached back to tap the end of the oblong package sticking out of his backpack. “An iconic instrument. Seminal. This one can do a cool holographic light show effect—well, it couldn’t, but I messed with it, now it can.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She’ll understand its musical importance, unlike other people.”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “Well, it’s more creative than a new microphone. You realize she probably has like six million microphones, right? And if she doesn’t, the Emerald Bar does. I’m not trying to criticize your gift, I’m just saying it’s not too late to put both of our names on—”

  “Grappling hook.”

  “What?”

  “When you twist the base, it fires off a grappling hook.” Stefanos didn’t look down, but gave a slow, satisfied nod and kept walking. “Took me a while to find one. Took longer to find one that didn’t curve off to the left.”

  “I… of course.” Jay nodded after a second. “Because every girl needs a good grappling hook, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Might come in handy at her second job. Being a superheroine.” Now he looked down. “No, you’re not putting your name on it.”

  “Mine’s still more fun.”

  They walked in a comfortable silence for a few steps. Jay’s brief flare of anxiety from a moment before had faded, but after a moment, so did his smile.

  “So when do you ship back out?” he
asked, voice light, but the kind of studied lightness that covered something else. “Out to the great big outside world?”

  “Next week. This run’s upwards of a month. Turret’s up to something big out there, and it’s going to take a little longer than usual to scope out exactly what.”

  “You got any kind of hint? Or a plan? At all?”

  “The world’s almost as big a mess outside Parole as it is inside. Turret’s to blame. The plan is damage control, that hasn’t changed.”

  “So you’re just walking out there into who-knows-what like usual?”

  Stefanos smiled at the combination of curiosity and frustration Jay made no effort to hide anymore. ““Lucky the FireRunner still has clearance to leave freely at all. I’m almost starting to get the feeling that man doesn’t trust the Captain and me anymore.”

  Jay made a face, sticking out his tongue so his disgust was clearly visible even with his sunglasses and raised hood. “Great. I love waiting around not knowing if you’re dead or alive. Or anything else. That’s my favorite thing to do.”

  “You could come with me.” The simple offer wasn’t a casual one, or empty, or easily withdrawn. Stefanos never made them.

  “What, just sneak me out? I’m a little bit high-profile. Kinda a big deal.”

  “It’s been done a few times before.”

  “Okay, yeah, understatement. Ha, they think this thing’s so impenetrable.” Jay nodded up at the barrier arcing far over their heads. “But every firewall has a back door. Especially if your name’s… me." Jay was entirely still and quiet for a moment, a rarity that indicated some seriously deep thought. "But you really don’t think your friends would mind me hanging around? Could you even do it?”

  “Like I said, we’ve done it before. Many times. You’d just be on a more temporary basis than most, that’s all.” His shining eyes swiveled down; Jay found it hard to look away, and for a moment, harder to make up his mind. Neither one was something he experienced often. “And no. They wouldn’t mind. If they did, they wouldn’t be my friends for long.”

  For once, Jay didn’t answer right away. But after a couple seconds—for him, a very long period of silence indeed—he shook his head. His answer sounded casual, but that was all. “Nah. How would Parole survive without me? The man, the legend, the one they call… eh, you know what they call me.”

  “You’ve got a point there. Wouldn’t last five minutes. I’d bring you back and the place would be a smoking crater.”

  “A bigger one, you mean. It’s already pretty much a smoking crater.”

  “Mm. I couldn’t be responsible for that.” It wasn’t always easy to tell when the big man was smiling or not; his heavy, curly facial hair hid some of his more subtle expressions, and his synthetic eyes made a hell of a poker face. But his voice was another story; it softened and warmed, and Jay’s wide grin melted into something softer as well at the sound. “My heart valves haven’t been upgraded enough to handle that kind of guilt.”

  Suddenly, something zipped between them and kept going; something small and very low to the ground, with four legs and a tail. It zigzagged across the street, then slipped into a seemingly-impossibly tiny hole in the rubble of a fallen building, disappearing from view.

  “Was that a cat?” Stefanos’ golden optical lenses whirred as they rotated, focusing on the wreckage where he thought the animal had disappeared.

  “What? Where?” Jay whipped off his sunglasses and snapped instantly into the moment, as if the mere presence of a cat was much more exciting than their actual destination.

  “I don’t know. Probably nothing.” Stefanos shook his head, abandoning the search and silently hoping Jay would too. He’d only caught a glimpse, but it had really looked more like a cat skeleton—which told him it was either something they didn’t want to mess with, or his optical implants were malfunctioning.

  “Nothing? There’s a cat around here somewhere!” Jay, however, seemed much more optimistic about the idea. Stefanos couldn’t have been less surprised if he’d made a direct and concerted effort. “Somehow, one brave little stray managed to survive this hell city! Oh, that’s a good sign, maybe we’re not all doomed! You sure you didn’t see where it went?”

  “Sorry. But I’ll keep an eye out.” He couldn’t help it; Jay’s infectious enthusiasm won over common sense any day of the week, and today was no exception. He gave one gyroscope eye a whirl in a mechanical wink. “You know you can always play with the dogs at the library.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Jay closed his eyes for a moment, as if gravely disappointed. “I mean yeah, yes… Ash does good work, dogs are great, they all need good homes… but I’m a cat person, Stef. I mean, living in Parole for ten years, you get to miss a lot of things, right? Family. Home. Obviously. Mostly.” His eyes dropped to the sidewalk. “But growing up we had a ton of cats. Always like five at once. So…”

  “It’s okay.” Stefanos’ deep voice was gentle and his large flesh-and-blood hand on Jay’s back was warm. “You don’t have to explain.”

  He did anyway, and Stefanos wasn’t surprised. “Dogs just don’t—you can’t compare them, apples and oranges, HTML and CSS, Wars and Trek… you have no idea what I’m talking about right now, do you?”

  “I did about the family part.”

  “Thanks. Figured you would.”

  Stefanos opened his mouth but stopped before he got any words out, holding up his synthetic hand and giving Jay’s shoulder a slight squeeze. It was second nature by now, but he didn’t have to: they could both hear the strange and ominous noise coming from behind them. It was regular, fast, like someone running in heavy steel boots—and getting closer. He and Jay both immediately edged away from the middle of the sidewalk and into the shadow of the nearest building, listening closely as the footsteps got closer, but not turning around or otherwise drawing attention to themselves.

  They rounded the next corner. Then they held very still, pressed their backs against the wall, and held their breath. Jay shot Stefanos a quick glance and received a nod in return, confirming their next move. As soon as their pursuer passed them, they’d bolt the opposite direction, and if necessary, Stefanos would fire a disabling shot with his arm cannon—which he began to power up with a growing electrical hum. Together they held their breath, counting silently down from three, two, one…

  Someone sped past them in a flurry of clanking metal legs, loose natural black curls, flowers, and vines.

  “Was that Rose?” Stefanos held Jay gently back as he began to immediately rush off, one large hand across his chest. He looked slightly confused as he peered around the corner—though he was already powering down his arm.

  Jay’s sunglasses had come loose in his attempted dash, and now he flicked them back on. “Looks like the party’s starting early.”

  They did burst out of hiding together, but it wasn’t to fight back or run away.

  “Rose!” Stefanos called, trying to keep his voice level to avoid frightening her, but she’d be too far away in a second. “Hey there, Rose!”

  “What?” She whirled around, flowers flying and hands coming up defensively in a stance everyone who lived here picked up quickly—so they both stopped immediately, raising their own hands in a similar but much less aggressive one. As soon as she saw who stood several respectful feet behind her, she let her breath out and gave them a relieved smile, but kept her arms raised, letting them see the small forest of wickedly sharp thorns protruding through her skin. “Oh! Perfect!”

  “Sorry about that.” Jay gave her a sheepish grin and a wave as she stepped closer to them, arms still held at shoulder height so they could see the thorns recede. When they were fully withdrawn back into her skin, she gave her hands a shake and let her arms drop, sighing as she relaxed from her dash and startle. “Didn’t mean to scare you. We were just on our way, wh—hey,” he stopped, noticing the way she kept looking around, brow furrowed with worry and confusion. “You okay? Something going down, city in peril?�
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  “Not so far.” Rose looked back at him and laughed, a little breathless. “Just a minor birthday complication.”

  “Oh no, what happened? Maybe we can help.”

  “Missing cat.”

  “I told you!” Jay pounded Stefanos’ metal arm with his fist, to which the much bigger man barely reacted at all, except to hide a smile in his beard. “Wait. You have a cat? You never told me!”

  “It’s one of Danae’s works in progress,” Rose explained, frustration coming back into her eyes as she recalled that morning’s chaos. “Somebody left her workshop door open—”

  “Somebody.” Stefanos snorted.

  “Mm-hmm. Anyway, the cat’s not done, still being built and programmed and everything, but it can walk around—and run—and it still doesn’t have fur or all its working parts, but I guess it looks and smells enough like a cat that when it got out…”

  “Dandy.”

  “In about three seconds.” Rose shook her head, looking like she was caught between laughing and letting out an annoyed sigh. “We managed to catch him, but that thing was gone. Danae and Jack are home finishing Ev’s cake. I’m hoping there’s a chance I can find this cat at all, you know how things disappear in this place…” She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “This is Danae’s star project right now. And it’s Evelyn’s birthday, I just… it’d just be great if we could get everything back to normal and start over. It was going fine until now.”

  “Say no more,” Stefanos said in a soft, low voice. “We’ll help however we can. Right?”

  “Absolutely.” Jay nodded. “No job too small for Parole’s elite resistance. Battling the forces of evil by night, rescuing stray cats and delivering perfect birthdays by day, that’s what we’re here for.”