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Marianella hesitated, but only for a moment. He didn’t sound nearly as confused as he was pretending.
“I don’t know,” she said. “But you don’t seem particularly shocked to hear that Andres was in the park at all.”
Alejo sighed, and Marianella knew she had him.
“That had nothing to do with you.”
“Then what did it have to do with?” She drew herself up with a harsh intake of breath. “You knew I was in the park, you knew I would find out—”
“Jesus, Marianella. I didn’t think it would matter so much to you. You nag me about my funding, you nag me about this—”
“Nag you!” Marianella dug her nails into the arms of her chair, deeper and deeper until the strength of her computer parts activated and her fingers dented the wood.
“What the hell?” Alejo leapt up, and Marianella’s thoughts snapped back into the present. She wrenched her hands away. The indentations stayed.
“Christ, you can’t come in here and destroy my furniture!” Alejo leaned down to inspect the chair’s arms. “How am I going to explain this?”
Marianella was dimly aware that he was trying to change the subject, but she felt sick every time she looked at the indentations. She flushed hot with shame. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry, but Andres killed someone—”
Alejo jerked his head up. “What? Who?”
For a moment he held an expression of dark menace. She’d seen it once or twice before, whenever he drank too much and talked about Independence. She’d seen it the night he’d told her about taking money from the AFF.
“Inéz,” Marianella said.
“Who the hell’s Inéz?”
“An android at the park. They thought it was a culling, but Andres didn’t take any—”
“An android?” Alejo slumped back down in his seat and rubbed at his forehead. “Oh God, Marianella, I thought you meant a person—”
“She is a person!” Marianella snapped. Her voice rebounded around the room, and she immediately straightened her spine, trying to recover herself. “Was a person, I mean. Now. Because of Andres.”
Alejo dropped his head back against the chair.
“Why would you do that?” Marianella asked.
“I didn’t.”
“But you knew about it. You sent Andres out there, didn’t you? Why?” She leaned forward and she heard the pleading whine in her voice. “Why, Alejo? The robots at the amusement park aren’t going to stop the ag domes—” She wasn’t certain about that. But Marianella knew when to lie.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the ag domes,” Alejo said. “Or the AFF. Or you, for that matter. It’s city business.”
“City business.”
“They’ve been culling from the parks for the last three—”
“It wasn’t a culling. Andres didn’t take anything from her.” Marianella’s throat tried to crush out her voice. “He just killed her and left her to lie out on the cobblestone.”
Alejo didn’t say anything. They stared at each other, only half a meter apart. Marianella had been much closer to him, and much farther away, but for the first time she felt as if there were something else that divided them. Not her nature and his humanity but something much more intrinsic than that. Something she couldn’t place.
“It was city business,” Alejo said. “They’d have my head if I talked about it with you. I’m sorry your friend died, but it wasn’t my fault.”
Marianella sat with her spine straight, her hands folded in her lap. The sad thing was that Inéz hadn’t been her friend, not really. “You aren’t involved with cullings,” she said.
“Which this wasn’t. But the city had their reasons. I can’t discuss them with you. Not yet.”
Marianella thought about the man who’d hired Eliana. Juan Gonzalez. He’d said he was a city man.
“And yes, I knew you were in the park, but I thought you’d have the good sense to go hide. I warned Andres not to give you away. That’s why I sent him, actually, to have a man on the inside.” Alejo smiled in a way that made Marianella feel cold.
“I thought you were different,” Marianella said.
“I am. That incident at the park is nothing I would have asked for myself. It’s the city. Mainland men, you know. Too much instability across the strait. Governments moving in, governments moving out. It turns them paranoid. Makes them monsters.”
Marianella wrapped her arms around herself. The radiator hissed in the background, a low and ominous noise. Alejo smiled at her, a warm smile this time. A comforting smile.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “about the way I reacted. Acting as if the android’s death shouldn’t mean anything—my old prejudices. You try to shake them, but sometimes they come back.”
Marianella sighed. “Yes,” she said, and she thought about Inéz ru
“That’s why you came, isn’t it?” Alejo said gently. “Why you risked coming out in the open? You thought I was trying to hurt you?”
Marianella didn’t answer right away, only stared at the blinds cutting dark lines across his office window. The dome light hazed at the edge of her vision.
“I was angry,” she said. “It made me stupid.”
“No,” Alejo said. “Not stupid. Kind. A better human than me.”
The word “human” buzzed in her ears.
“The ag dome,” she said. “Is it safe? Has Ignacio found out about it?”
“No. We haven’t had any problems.” Alejo pressed away from his desk and laid his ankle across the top of his knee. “I activated the higher security protocols for the drones, and I have some associates watching the feeds for signs of trouble.”
Associates. Marianella knew he meant AFF members, although he wouldn’t dare say that aloud in his office.
“I’m about ninety-five percent sure he doesn’t know we’ve built it yet.” Alejo nodded to himself, looking satisfied. “But still, it could be worth it to look into insurance on the matter.”
“Insurance?” Marianella frowned.
“We get him involved.”
“With the domes?”
“Sure. Just for the time being. Offer to let him ship in the tropical foods so he can keep ru
Marianella glared at Alejo. “You can’t possibly be serious.”
“Five minutes ago you said you were willing to pay him—”
“To stop him from getting me deported. I don’t want him involved with the domes. At all. That project needs to be honest. You have to see that—”
“Fine.” Alejo threw up his hands in defeat. “We’ll go ahead with the increased security protocols. But if Cabrera starts sniffing around too much, I’m willing to open my coffers. You’ve got to understand that.”
Marianella pressed her hand to her forehead. She hated the idea of paying off Ignacio for any reason, including protecting her nature—it reminded her of Hector, how those ties were never severed, how they kept haunting her even after his death.
“So how exactly do you plan on dealing with Cabrera?” Alejo asked. “Because you’ve got until the Midwinter Ball.”
“I know.” Marianella sighed.
“Hey, don’t get mad at me about it. You bring in the big donors! Without you there, they’re not going to want to hand anything over to me.”
Alejo gri
“Well, of course you don’t.” Alejo tilted his head and gave her a sympathetic look across the table. “I’ll tell you what. Stay in the park for now. I’ll start up some rumors about you not quite being over Hector’s death and how you tried to slip out to the ice and a drone picked you up before you froze to death. And I’ll tell people you’re staying with me for the time being, and not accepting visitors.”