?Hey, Kit. Ya miss me??
?Oh, yeah. Like a bullet in the head.?
There was nothing zen about the rooftop gardens at night, especially after a memorial service. Things felt too still, and far too quiet; not even latent fauna manifested in the evening?s chill with expectations of incarnation or new life, even in the absence of the most recent one. People normally found meaning in those things, usually because they couldn?t cope. They found solace in sentimental delusion. Darien Fenner found solace in silence.
It was unnerving yet reassuring to hear only his footsteps as he crossed to the garden?s edge. Where Riley's memorial had been set up was unmistakable; the gap in flowers before a large cherry tree was just about large enough to stand in. Riley?s likeness ? a statue or a photograph, perhaps ? had already been removed, leaving nothing behind. Silently. It had all been done silently, and without protest, like she?d simply blinked out of existence. That was what he?d muttered to his wife the night he?d found out about her death, and Collie had said kind and consoling things like she always did. But he didn?t need consolation. He needed an explanation.
The next few days Darien had gone through everything he had on the Los, which unsurprisingly took a good amount of time. He?d spent years honing his relationship with the former Minister, securing mutual cooperation through a steady diet of favors and blackmail. Buried in the material he?d accumulated over their lengthy arrangement of mutual distrust were pieces of information even Riley hadn?t known about ? ones he?d opted to save for insurance purposes, one way or another. When none of it satisfied him he delved deeper, tapped every resource and connection he had in RhyDin and on her version of Earth (which, when she was alive, he?d called by a profane name). Eventually he managed to get his hands on her medical charts from Riverview ? an obvious violation of HIPAA by any standards, but a technician there owed him a favor ? but everything in them was surprisingly ordinary. The sheets displayed all matters of Riley?s demise: the state of her admission, her neuro consults, and the lack of her recovery all measured meticulously in each successive failed assessment. Lack of peripheral response moved to lack of pain stimulus. Lack of pain stimulus moved to lack of pupillary response. Her code status was eventually revoked and she was placed on terminal wean, which was how she died. Silently, without protest, and completely ordinarily.
Riley had probably spent her whole life craving something ordinary. He?d known it from the moment he sat across from her for the first time. She had a comfortable way about her ? a sexy, predatory air that he?d never admit he found tempting, but there were moments he?d noted, when she thought no one was watching, where she got a caged look like she was about to leap out of her own skin. Once or twice she?d caught him and glared and he just smiled, knowing full well she knew exactly what he did: She could masquerade all she wanted, but she was anything but ordinary.
But here he was, in the aftermath of Riley Lo?s memorial service, standing a few inches from where her very own shrine had been. It was somewhere people had put mix tapes and origami sakura blossoms and ballet slippers, had told the usual stories about how good a friend she was, how special she was, and had sung the usual songs people sing at funerals. He squatted there, balancing on the balls of his feet. She was special to each person who?d been present, and it couldn?t be trivialized, but when it came down to it every bit of it ? the house with the picket fence, the dog as a jogging partner, the ballet class, the hospital, Lo holding her hand as she passed?
He smirked. ?You got what you wanted, didn?t you, you brat??
Breath fogged in front of Darien as he tugged a leather glove off and reached into his coat pocket. From it he withdrew a paperback book with Riley?s portrait on the cover. The idea had begun as an article when he had initially run a search through expletive-deleted-Earth?s databases. Words had poured out more quickly than he?d expected, and twenty-six hours and one hundred and four pages later the realization finally hit he was not even halfway finished. Lots of it was true, some of it wasn?t, but mostly he wrote because he needed to. He began with what he knew about her life before RhyDin, pulling facts and rumors and third-hand accounts from legitimate sources and not-so-legitimate ones. From there he led into her relationship with her parents, her career in law, the cases she had undertaken, and the consequences they often reaped. The jump to RhyDin and the evolution of her politics consumed the greatest number of pages in the smallest amount of time, as did her retirement and unpopular choices made in and out of office and the opinions ? both public and private ? they brought. Every biography had a sentimental chapter, but save for the scant collection of quotes he unearthed from storage by close friends Darien had chosen to leave that out, along with a great many things from the stack Riley had either asked him to keep to himself or had not known about. He wrote very little about David Lo and his past, not because he owed the man anything, but because even though he?d never be able to cash it in, he?d granted Riley that favor. Of her death he produced less than half a page, ending the book instead with a candid photo of her taken at the Hanami party two years ago. He?d chosen that one in particular not because the sakura blossoms signified rebirth or because she was surrounded by friends, but because sake shots had been going around that night and by the careless grin on her face she had obviously had a few.
The book ? the very first hardcopy, right off the press ? was set down where her shrine had been, and as he positioned the title of the cover upward ? Life and Lies of Riley Lo ? Darien could almost hear her voice calling him an ?Assh*le?? on the breeze. The subtext deliberately installed into the biography?s wording would doubtlessly stir up controversy or criticism, and not incidentally. If it were anything else, it wouldn?t sell. It would be boring, and ordinary. And Riley Lo was neither.
Just as Darien got up and turned, one last thought occurred to him. He removed his other glove and reached into his opposite pocket, which held a spare magazine for the pistol holstered at his waist. A hard press of his thumb ejected the topmost bullet, and he palmed it briefly before bending over and setting it beside the book.
He didn?t linger after that. He?d a meeting with his publicist and later probably a number of arguments to bother with once the biography went public. The roof's door closed itself on his way out, long enough for him to pocket the magazine and glove up again. Sentiment wasn't something he enjoyed, but because it was what people did in these situations, he afforded her one last moment to reminisce about the last time they'd spoken. Unless he was mistaken, his last words to her had been complimentary. They had been about her a**, of course, but complimentary nonetheless.
?More than a bullet, Kit."
He grinned in the empty stairwell, then left Zen for the last time.
?Oh, yeah. Like a bullet in the head.?
There was nothing zen about the rooftop gardens at night, especially after a memorial service. Things felt too still, and far too quiet; not even latent fauna manifested in the evening?s chill with expectations of incarnation or new life, even in the absence of the most recent one. People normally found meaning in those things, usually because they couldn?t cope. They found solace in sentimental delusion. Darien Fenner found solace in silence.
It was unnerving yet reassuring to hear only his footsteps as he crossed to the garden?s edge. Where Riley's memorial had been set up was unmistakable; the gap in flowers before a large cherry tree was just about large enough to stand in. Riley?s likeness ? a statue or a photograph, perhaps ? had already been removed, leaving nothing behind. Silently. It had all been done silently, and without protest, like she?d simply blinked out of existence. That was what he?d muttered to his wife the night he?d found out about her death, and Collie had said kind and consoling things like she always did. But he didn?t need consolation. He needed an explanation.
The next few days Darien had gone through everything he had on the Los, which unsurprisingly took a good amount of time. He?d spent years honing his relationship with the former Minister, securing mutual cooperation through a steady diet of favors and blackmail. Buried in the material he?d accumulated over their lengthy arrangement of mutual distrust were pieces of information even Riley hadn?t known about ? ones he?d opted to save for insurance purposes, one way or another. When none of it satisfied him he delved deeper, tapped every resource and connection he had in RhyDin and on her version of Earth (which, when she was alive, he?d called by a profane name). Eventually he managed to get his hands on her medical charts from Riverview ? an obvious violation of HIPAA by any standards, but a technician there owed him a favor ? but everything in them was surprisingly ordinary. The sheets displayed all matters of Riley?s demise: the state of her admission, her neuro consults, and the lack of her recovery all measured meticulously in each successive failed assessment. Lack of peripheral response moved to lack of pain stimulus. Lack of pain stimulus moved to lack of pupillary response. Her code status was eventually revoked and she was placed on terminal wean, which was how she died. Silently, without protest, and completely ordinarily.
Riley had probably spent her whole life craving something ordinary. He?d known it from the moment he sat across from her for the first time. She had a comfortable way about her ? a sexy, predatory air that he?d never admit he found tempting, but there were moments he?d noted, when she thought no one was watching, where she got a caged look like she was about to leap out of her own skin. Once or twice she?d caught him and glared and he just smiled, knowing full well she knew exactly what he did: She could masquerade all she wanted, but she was anything but ordinary.
But here he was, in the aftermath of Riley Lo?s memorial service, standing a few inches from where her very own shrine had been. It was somewhere people had put mix tapes and origami sakura blossoms and ballet slippers, had told the usual stories about how good a friend she was, how special she was, and had sung the usual songs people sing at funerals. He squatted there, balancing on the balls of his feet. She was special to each person who?d been present, and it couldn?t be trivialized, but when it came down to it every bit of it ? the house with the picket fence, the dog as a jogging partner, the ballet class, the hospital, Lo holding her hand as she passed?
He smirked. ?You got what you wanted, didn?t you, you brat??
Breath fogged in front of Darien as he tugged a leather glove off and reached into his coat pocket. From it he withdrew a paperback book with Riley?s portrait on the cover. The idea had begun as an article when he had initially run a search through expletive-deleted-Earth?s databases. Words had poured out more quickly than he?d expected, and twenty-six hours and one hundred and four pages later the realization finally hit he was not even halfway finished. Lots of it was true, some of it wasn?t, but mostly he wrote because he needed to. He began with what he knew about her life before RhyDin, pulling facts and rumors and third-hand accounts from legitimate sources and not-so-legitimate ones. From there he led into her relationship with her parents, her career in law, the cases she had undertaken, and the consequences they often reaped. The jump to RhyDin and the evolution of her politics consumed the greatest number of pages in the smallest amount of time, as did her retirement and unpopular choices made in and out of office and the opinions ? both public and private ? they brought. Every biography had a sentimental chapter, but save for the scant collection of quotes he unearthed from storage by close friends Darien had chosen to leave that out, along with a great many things from the stack Riley had either asked him to keep to himself or had not known about. He wrote very little about David Lo and his past, not because he owed the man anything, but because even though he?d never be able to cash it in, he?d granted Riley that favor. Of her death he produced less than half a page, ending the book instead with a candid photo of her taken at the Hanami party two years ago. He?d chosen that one in particular not because the sakura blossoms signified rebirth or because she was surrounded by friends, but because sake shots had been going around that night and by the careless grin on her face she had obviously had a few.
The book ? the very first hardcopy, right off the press ? was set down where her shrine had been, and as he positioned the title of the cover upward ? Life and Lies of Riley Lo ? Darien could almost hear her voice calling him an ?Assh*le?? on the breeze. The subtext deliberately installed into the biography?s wording would doubtlessly stir up controversy or criticism, and not incidentally. If it were anything else, it wouldn?t sell. It would be boring, and ordinary. And Riley Lo was neither.
Just as Darien got up and turned, one last thought occurred to him. He removed his other glove and reached into his opposite pocket, which held a spare magazine for the pistol holstered at his waist. A hard press of his thumb ejected the topmost bullet, and he palmed it briefly before bending over and setting it beside the book.
He didn?t linger after that. He?d a meeting with his publicist and later probably a number of arguments to bother with once the biography went public. The roof's door closed itself on his way out, long enough for him to pocket the magazine and glove up again. Sentiment wasn't something he enjoyed, but because it was what people did in these situations, he afforded her one last moment to reminisce about the last time they'd spoken. Unless he was mistaken, his last words to her had been complimentary. They had been about her a**, of course, but complimentary nonetheless.
?More than a bullet, Kit."
He grinned in the empty stairwell, then left Zen for the last time.