Tor.com Short Fiction September – October 2022 by Various Authors

Author:Various Authors [Various Authors]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Tom Doherty Associates Book
Published: 2022-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

It turns out they already know each other, sort of. When the butterfly man claps eyes on her baba’s disembodied head, it rattles off a street address in Chilean Spanish, which her baba confirms was the location of the darkmarket warlab in Vitacura before it burned down. Quandary wonders just how many faces are imprinted in the butterfly man’s quantum-organic brain, and how many of them are still alive.

This is unhinged, Dree.

“You love it.”

Going to get yourself killed. Me, too, by proxy.

“Not if you help me come up with a good plan, Baba.”

They’re parked in a north-side tunnel, lights dimmed, engine off. The autocab is more than happy to keep nibbling at her bank account in silence, and she has enough to spare since she never actually paid for the drugs. The butterfly man is flexing its wrists and ankles on the seat beside her—that was a dicey moment, taking the zip ties off, but so far it’s made no attempts at revenge.

How’d you get into this in the first place? Full story, not summary.

Quandary pulls a grimace. The conversation outside the bar with Timo, Timo-who-is-now-dead, seems like it happened weeks instead of hours ago. “The harbor job,” she says. “The fucking harbor job.”

I don’t got newsfeed in here, Dree.

“Ten days ago,” Quandary says. “Or eleven, now, actually. Jokić wanted heat and muscle for this delivery coming in. Was worried the Siberians might try to fuck with him. I took the job because I needed some money—for your transplant.”

You pause for gravity, there?

She sets his head on her knees, glances sideways to check on the butterfly man. It’s now tapping away at the backseat screen, sallow face shifting colors in the glow of some animated netgame, fully enraptured.

“Some of it was for your transplant,” Quandary says. “Swear to fuck it was.” She purses her lips. “I got all strapped and amped, wore my tac boots and everything, but the Siberians played nice. Looked like it was going to be money for nothing.”

Poli interrupted, you said.

“In a big way.” Quandary folds her hands under her armpits. “Full swoop. Drones and boats and body armor. Was a whole mess, and would’ve been even worse except I fragged a hydrogen tank, set one of the poli boats burning pretty good. While they was pulling back, about half of us hit the water and got away.”

I’m the one who taught you to swim, you know. Never thanked me even once.

“You pushed me off a fucking cliff.”

Overhang, and I was coming right down after you. Did the Siberians get away?

“They were well clear by the time the poli showed up. Yeah.” Quandary untucks one hand and uses it to rub her temple. “But Jokić lost all the new product right then and there, and two of his regular guns, Markus and Vola, they got pinched. And he’s blaming me for it, even though I’ve never talked to the poli in my whole life. Just because I’m the outside hire.”

Her fone stays blank for a moment, and she sees a minute think-wrinkle furrow her baba’s slimy forehead.

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