Three Hearts Exposed

The whiskey in my glass was older than Ashley. That’s what I was thinking when Alexis slid onto the barstool next to me. Not a profound thought. But it beat the alternative, which was thinking about the footage I’d shot that morning in the Fourth Sector. The bodies. The way the rain washed the blood into the gutters.

“You’re brooding,” Alexis said.

“I’m drinking. There’s a difference.”

She signaled the bartender for the same. Johnnie Walker Black, neat. She always ordered the same thing when she wanted something. When she wanted nothing, she ordered gin. I’d catalogued her tells over twelve years of marriage. The way she touched her temple implant when she was nervous. The way she bit her bottom lip when she was lying. The way she squared her shoulders when she’d made up her mind about something I wasn’t going to like.

Her shoulders were squared now.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“We are talking.”

“About something serious.”

I took a long drag of whiskey. Let it burn. “Alexis, I’ve spent the last decade watching people die for causes they couldn’t explain. Serious and I have a complicated relationship.”

She didn’t smile. That’s when I knew this was different.

The bar was called The Rust. It was a hole in the wall in the Docks district, where the neon from the towers above painted everything in shades of pink and blue. The air smelled like synth-booze and ozone and the particular metallic tang that hung over this whole goddamn city. My camera bag sat at my feet. Inside it, a memory card with images that would never see print. Couldn’t. The editor would call it too graphic. The public would call it propaganda. The truth was it was just too real.

“It’s about Ashley,” Alexis said.

I set my glass down. “What about her?”

“She’s in trouble.”

That got my attention. Ashley was Alexis’s sister. Half-sister, technically. Different fathers, same burned-out mother who’d died of an overdose when Ashley was sixteen. Alexis had raised her. More or less. As much as anyone could raise someone in this city.

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind that involves people who don’t like being hacked.”

I rubbed my face. The stubble was rough against my palm. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d shaved. Couldn’t remember the last time I’d cared. “She’s a big girl. She knows the risks.”

“She came to me this morning. She’s scared, Patrick. I haven’t seen her scared since she was twelve and the debt collectors broke down our door.”

The city hummed around us. The endless thrum of traffic, the distant wail of a siren, the bass from a club two blocks over. This place had a heartbeat. A sick one. But a heartbeat nonetheless.

“What does she need?” I asked.

“Protection. A place to lay low. And she needs to trust the people around her.”

“She trusts me.”

Alexis looked at me. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, the same eyes I’d fallen in love with in a war zone a decade ago. She’d been running supplies to a refugee camp. I’d been photographing the aftermath of a massacre. We’d found each other in the wreckage. Literally.

“She does,” Alexis said. “But there’s something else.”

I waited.

“She needs to feel safe. Completely safe. And I think… I think the only way she’s going to feel that is if she’s part of something. Part of us.”

The whiskey was warm in my stomach. The bar was warm around us. But something cold settled in my chest.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying she needs to be included. Fully. In everything.”

I stared at her. The neon light caught the implant at her temple, the faint blue glow that pulsed when she was thinking hard. She was thinking hard now.

“You want me to sleep with your sister.”

“I want her to feel like she belongs. Like she’s not a burden. Like she’s wanted.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It is to her.”

I finished my whiskey. The ice clinked against the glass. I set it down and signaled for another. The bartender, a man with cybernetic arms and dead eyes, poured without a word.

“This is insane,” I said.

“This is how she survives. You’ve seen what happens to people in this city who don’t have anyone. Who don’t have anything. She needs to know she’s not alone.”

“There are other ways.”

“Name one.”

I couldn’t. That was the problem. In this city, in this world, connection was currency. Trust was the only thing that kept you alive. And Ashley had been burned so many times she didn’t trust anyone except Alexis. And me. Maybe.

“You’d be there,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“I’d be in the room. I’d watch. I’d participate if she wanted me to.”

“Jesus, Alexis.”

“I’m not asking you to do something you don’t want to do. I’m asking you to consider it. To think about what it would mean for her. For us.”

The second whiskey arrived. I didn’t drink it. I just looked at it. The amber liquid. The way the light caught the edges of the glass. The way everything in this city was beautiful and broken at the same time.

“You’ve already talked to her about this,” I said.

“I’ve talked to her about what she needs. She told me.”

“And she wants me.”

“She trusts you. That’s more than she’s given anyone in years.”

I thought about Ashley. The pink hair. The dark roots. The way she always stood with her weight on her back foot, ready to run. The way she laughed when I told her a dark joke, a real laugh, not the hollow one she used for everyone else. The way she looked at me sometimes, like she was trying to solve a puzzle she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to.

“I need to think about this,” I said.

“I’m not asking for an answer tonight.”

“Good. Because you’re not getting one.”

She reached out and touched my hand. Her fingers were cool. The calluses from years of piloting ships, of handling cargo, of surviving. I knew those hands. I knew every scar, every line, every tremor.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know.”

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

“I know that too.”

She stood. Her jacket brushed against my arm. She smelled like synth-leather and engine oil and something floral she’d worn since the day we met. She leaned down and kissed my cheek.

“Come home when you’re ready. She’s there.”

Then she was gone. The door swung shut behind her. The neon light flickered. The city hummed its endless song.

I looked at the whiskey. I looked at the door. I thought about Ashley’s eyes. The way they held secrets. The way they held fear. The way they held something else, something I’d pretended not to see.

I picked up my camera bag and stood.

The night was waiting.