Neither Two nor Chan Yi slept. In the darkest hours of the night though, Chan Yi got out of bed, pulled a pair of pants on, and went back to stare out the window across the Skylines. They’d spent too much time getting Two’s memories back and Mariner was out there looking for them. Yi couldn’t relax, as much as he wanted to return to his lover’s arms and let the rest of the world disappear.
He heard movement behind him and turned to see Two leaning against the door frame in a robe with a small smile on his face. “I’ll admit that half the reason I picked this place was because I knew how stunning you would look against that backdrop.”
Yi let out a huff of laughter and buried the sob that wanted to follow. His emotions were all over the damn place. He could almost wish he could turn them off, except none of it was worth it without this. Without this all-encompassing pain and grief and terror and absolute joy of having Two with him again.
“What should I call you now?” Yi asked. “Two doesn’t seem right, but you’ve had so many names.”
“DaQi. He was … me. Without the memories. When it first started they tried to make me quite different. It just caused more problems. DaQi is me. But what about you?” he asked. “You kept Yi all this time.”
He didn’t want to talk about it but as many questions as Yi had about what had happened to DaQi, he was certain to have as many about the seven years for him. “The name you gave me was about the only thing I had left of you.”
DaQi’s shoulders fell slightly and Yi shook his head. “It’s not your fault.” He walked across the room and pulled DaQi into his arms. “I know if there had been any other way, you’d have found it. Hell, seven years later you were still trying to fight their control over your head. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
“So how do we protect it this time? How do we make sure we both get out of this alive?”
Yi stepped back and motioned for DaQi to sit at the table by the window. “You’ve heard of the Confessor in the Piles?”
“I’ve been trying to find him for …. well, years.”
“He’s an informant of mine. I think we need to talk to him and to Madame K.”
“I have an in with her,” DaQi admitted.
“How clean is it?”
“Mariner doesn’t know about her. She was the one I kept off the books.”
There were plenty of agents who kept informants off the books and they weren’t inventing the wheel here, but both had always kept their largest source of information hidden from the agency. Even before they had emotions. Too many informants got misused by people borrowing them or suddenly ended up dead.
“The Confessor was mine,” Yi said. “I know Mann Enterprises was gathering information in the Pile and they took one of Madame K’s baubles. She’s probably willing to help for some payback.”
DaQi nodded. “She doesn’t take too kindly to anyone hurting her people.”
“Can you get word to her that we’d like to speak?” DaQi nodded and Yi continued. “In the morning I’ll take you to meet the Confessor.”
“Until then, what do we know?” DaQi asked. He got up and started to pace back and forth in the room, a habit that used to fascinate Yi.
It still did, he realized.
“Mariner was using Mann Enterprises to babysit me. Make sure I wasn’t emerging again,” DaQi said. “And they started tracking you at some point. I got a case to check out merchandise that was stolen from Mariner and started showing up in Fulmer’s store. But Charity Fulmer was in on it the whole time.”
“Or did she convince him to do it in the first place?” Yi countered.
“Either way, the case ends on my desk. With my good ole’ partner, Bastian Jackson.”
“That sucks.” Yi didn’t try to hide his dislike of the man.
“It’s worse. He was always my partner. Seven years of the idiot,” DaQi complained.
Yi laughed because even before they’d had emotions Jackson had openly voiced his dislike of working with 532. It was nothing that DaQi could have done, other than being an efficient soldier, but Jackson’s reaction had been an emotional one. Yi had never understood why DaQi was the one that took the brunt of his dislike, but it was true.
“At least if they kept you from me, Jackson had to pay for it in some way.”
DaQi smiled at him, but continued pacing. “Jackson and I found stolen tech and followed it back to a delivery guy at Mariner. He saw a bunch of boxes marked defective and thought he could sell them, instead of taking them for demolition.”
“But it wasn’t defective.”
“No?”
“No,” Yi said. “I had Obuo check some of the goods. They weren’t damaged. They were meant for us.”
“Why would…” DaQi stopped. “She said they never stopped.”
“What?”
“I spoke with Madame K about Mariner. She said they lost all their contracts, but that they hadn’t stopped making their product. One of her girls was taken because she heard something about it.”
“Sandus is still making androids and trying to get them to market.” Chan Yi said.
“The question is are they still trying to recreate us, or have they started selling to other markets when they lost their contracts with our government?”
“Either way, we have to stop them.”
DaQi nodded, but he stopped pacing and walked around the table to Chan Yi. “But not tonight.”
When DaQi held his hand out, Chan Yi put his own hand in it. He was pulled out of his chair and DaQi began walking backwards towards the bedroom.
“What exactly did you have in mind for tonight?”
DaQi dropped his robe in the doorway and smiled. “Pretty sure you can figure that clue out.”
