Страница 47 из 99
“Now!” Inéz broke away from Marianella and leapt across the roller coaster platform. She hit the asphalt and ran, faster than a human could. The men shouted.
“Split up!” the taller said. “Follow the other one.”
The shorter nodded and veered off into the tangle of vines, after Sofia. Inéz looped around the base of the roller coaster, the taller man following her.
Sofia.
Sofia was in danger.
This was enough to spur Marianella into action, and she leapt out of the path and raced across the platform, not thinking about anything but Sofia, and saving Sofia, and keeping the shorter man from hurting her—
A woman screamed.
The sound jarred Marianella out of her trance. Sofia didn’t need her help; Sofia had survived the cullings for years. But Marianella could not let either of these men see her face.
Another scream. It was close, and Marianella knew it belonged to Inéz. She dove into the vines, hiding in the shadows.
More screaming.
She peered through the vines, her breath coming short and fast. The taller man stood directly in her line of sight, his back to her. He was hunched over the fallen figure of Inéz. He wore a businessman’s gray suit. The fabric shone a little in the sun, and that meant the suit was expensive.
Marianella didn’t dare move, afraid of making noise. She didn’t understand why a man with an expensive suit would be culling robots in the park—hadn’t Sofia said they came from the city? No one ru
The man pulled a radio out of his pocket. “Echo to Swan. You got the other one?”
Marianella’s entire body turned to ice, but the radio crackled and the voice on the end said, “Negative. Lost her. Not sure where I am—the old hotels, maybe. Don’t see anything else, though. They’re smarter than we expected.”
The other end of the park from the workshop. Marianella closed her eyes. Luciano was safe. Sofia too. But Inéz—
The man shifted his weight. “Too bad. I got one andie. Not sure how much use it’ll be. Spotted the third one, but I can’t see where it went.”
He kicked at Inéz’s body.
Horror spread through Marianella’s system. She clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. The man stepped away and tilted his head up at the sky. She still couldn’t see his face.
“Not seeing much of anything here. Where’d you say you are again, the hotels?”
Crackle. “Looks like it.”
The man didn’t say anything else. He slipped the radio back into his pocket and looked down at Inéz’s body. Walked around it in a circle, like he was appraising her for slaughter.
And, like that, Marianella recognized him.
She had seen him at parties before, galas she and Alejo Ortiz threw for their fund-raisers, for the agricultural domes. His name was Andres Costa. He was one of Alejo’s many political aides, young men in suits who petitioned the city and helped plan Alejo’s reelection campaigns.
He did not work for the city.
He should not be here, culling robots. That was not part of Alejo’s work.
Marianella felt like she was sinking into the soil. Andres walked around Inéz’s body; then he pulled out the radio and said “Halo Codex Marrow” and dropped it back into his pocket. Inéz didn’t move.
Inéz was dead.
Andres sca
She listened to his footsteps falling away. Tears streaked over her face and dropped onto her blouse. She folded her hands and whispered a death prayer: “Saints of God, come to her aid. Come to meet her, angels of the Lord.” It was probably heresy. She didn’t care. The Church was changing anyway, pulling itself into the modern world. Spanish masses and Protestant hymns. If God could accept that, then certainly He would accept a prayer for an android.
She finished the prayer and listened again for the sound of humans. But there was only silence.
Marianella crawled out of the vines, leaves sticking to her hair and dirt staining the hem of her skirt. Inéz lay in a crumpled heap on the asphalt. Her stomach had been split open, and wires spilled out, illuminated golden-white by the dome light. Marianella had seen the inside of a robot before—she had seen the inside of an android before, in fact. But this left her cold and afraid.
She knelt down beside Inéz. The wires were sliced in half. Severed. There was no way of repairing her.
Marianella leaned back on her heels. She was still crying, slowly and silently. She said the Memorare and an Our Father. Then she stood up, shaking. Andres might have ordered maintenance drones to come here, to collect Inéz in some way. Marianella wasn’t sure if the park drones could stop them. She shouldn’t be here if they arrived.
She stumbled away, sticking close to the vines in case she needed to dive into the shadows again. She could not escape the feeling, subtle and insidious, that Inéz was dead because she, Marianella, was a coward. Because she did not want to be discovered.
And yet it was one of Alejo’s men—
She was too terrified to sort out mysteries right now. But the mysteries came to her anyway, questions made to look like pieces of information. And there was one piece of information that kept coming to her, over and over.
The wires that had been severed in Inéz’s stomach were some of the most expensive and sophisticated technology in the world, despite their age. In fact, it was because of that age that they were irreplaceable. If someone were culling androids for parts, they would never cut them. Never.
Marianella stumbled her way toward the Ice Palace, a single question blazing in her head:
What the hell was Alejo doing?
* * * *
Marianella paced in her bedroom, her rosary wound around her wrists—Luciano had brought it back with her clothes and documents. She hadn’t asked for it, but he’d told her that he thought she might want it. Then he’d added, “And your house is quite secure,” although she hadn’t asked about that, either, and he hadn’t explained further.
Marianella rubbed at the beads thoughtlessly. She wasn’t praying. That had been her intention, when she’d pulled the rosary out of the top drawer of her vanity—to pray for Inéz. But her mind was too caught up in the possibility of Alejo’s involvement.
If he had sent Andres, he had known she would be here. But maybe he’d assumed she would hide when the cullers came in; maybe he’d wanted her to see.
But then, it could just be some city work, something unavoidable. He hadn’t meant to put her in danger.
Or maybe Andres had come here on his own, for reasons unrelated to Alejo.
Marianella kept moving, walking back and forth across the length of her room. Her motions were mechanical, rote. She was hardly aware she was doing it.
In her head, she replayed the moment of Inéz’s death. She thought of the scream, the wires glittering in the dome light. She thought of Andres kicking at the body.
Anger bubbled up inside her, startling in its intensity. She stopped. She was in front of the window, the curtain dragged back to reveal the view of the garden outside, ghosted over by her reflection. The rosary beads looked like stars twining around her wrists.
Marianella had stayed hidden in the vines long after Andres had left, too afraid to move. Sofia eventually found her and told her it was safe. When Marianella stepped out of the vines, the dome light was too bright. She couldn’t look at Inéz’s body. Sofia wouldn’t look anywhere else. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, staring down at the shining tangle of wires.
“We need to honor her,” she said, her voice very far away.