By Victoria Shanks
Jane hunched over her desk, staring at myriad pieces of hardlight holocube projector core. Even through her shade visor, the world was headache-bright. That omnipresent, gritty burn seared the corners of her eyes.
She balanced half the core in her palm, slotted in another part. Tried to slot in another. Even this close, the holocube core swam before her eyes, and somehow she missed it altogether.
She’d listened to the manual a thousand times in the month since the accident. She could fix this. Come on, Jane.
A knock sounded a second before she could throw anything.
She didn’t look up. “Door’s open.”
Just an empty doorframe, in fact, but hey, she had a cubicle of her own. Of the perks of augmentation into a superhuman Guardian, privacy in the barracks was the biggest by far.
A shape moved into her peripheral vision. Lanky. Clad in a gray off-duty Guardian jumpsuit. Face was nothing but a wedge topped with a dark buzz, with black holes for eyes.
“You’re Jane Ward,” he said. “The Archangel.”
He sounded like he ate a bowl of gravel with liquid mercury every morning, but she’d heard that voice somewhere.
Jane turned to face him, lifting her shades and squinting. That didn’t make him any clearer. Just brighter, with a double-vision ghost beside him. “Do I know you?”
He shrugged. “We met in your first field op.”
Operation Irene, three years back. Killing a monster worm with tentacles stretching into the sky. It was a lifetime ago—her partner’s lifetime. She’d always thought she’d go first. Not Blazing Buck.
Her first op… there’d been Home Guard grunts tramping everywhere. That officer hidden head to toe in a hazmat suit. And the Shrike.
Wait.
No way.
The first Guardian to be synthesized from particles of the asteroid that brought the worms. The star of every propaganda film that convinced Jane to join up. The faceless black helmet not a soul—not one who shared about it, anyway—had seen without his armor.
She shoved her chair back, pushed herself to her feet, and saluted.
The Shrike only shook his head. “Wormblood burns’re nasty.” Accompanied by a gesture at her face.
As she sat, Jane swiped the back of one hand over her scaly, swollen eyelids. The touch stung. “I still have eyes. Can’t complain.”
A rasping laugh. The Shrike settled into a lean against the wall, arms folded. Based on the tilt of his head, he was studying her desk. “How’d you screw up your cube?”
“Worm landed on it.” The words came out clipped. “And it wasn’t mine.”
A gift from Buck’s kids. Something to keep Daddy busy on the long flights to worm sites. Solving the holo puzzle had turned into a competition between him and Jane.
The Shrike nodded. “Huh. I see.”
“I don’t.” Jane dropped her shades back into place, as if that would stop the fire building in her eyes. One eye began to dribble. She picked up the cube core and jammed another piece at it. Anything to keep him from looking at her face.
After too long, the Shrike shifted in a rustle of fabric. “How’s it going? With the, uh, cube?”
Yeah, he wasn’t really asking about the holocube, was he? Jane shrugged the shoulder that didn’t throb. “Hard to know what to do next.”
A grunt. “Lot to figure out, huh?”
Jane didn’t feel like saying anything.
“Wasn’t your fault.”
That second wormlet had come out of nowhere. No one could have saved Buck from being crushed. “It still broke.”
A whistling breath, like he let it out through his teeth. “Sometimes… cubes… just do that.”
Jane barked a laugh. “You’re not very good at this.”
“Guess practice doesn’t make perfect.”
Something about his tone made Jane put down the core. Turn. The man-shaped blob’s shoulders hunched.
Say something. Explain. Stop being rude. “Buck and I went through basic training together. His kids call me Aunt Janey.”
The Shrike pushed off from the wall, glanced toward the door.
Great. She’d whined enough to frighten off the Shrike. The heroes’ hero. As a grunt, she’d have done anything to get his autograph. Look at her now.
Only… instead of leaving, he walked over to her desk, hefted the core. “This’ll never work like it used to.”
A lump rose in Jane’s throat. No kidding. Neither would she. “So?”
“But it’ll get the job done.” He shrugged.
It would. She would. She’d make sure Buck’s kids knew their dad didn’t die for nothing. “Yeah.”
The blur of the Shrike wobbled when he nodded. “Don’t have to put it together alone.”
Her therapist’s mantra since the hospital let her out. Make new friends. Call her parents. Talk about her feelings. “I know,” she muttered.
“Ain’t what I mean.” He picked up the chip she’d missed slotting so spectacularly earlier, slid it in with ease. “My last partner bit it in Operation Geronimo.”
A decade ago. They never could kill the worm; Geronimo ended up a quarantine zone. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s the job.” He cleared his throat. Sounded like he’d swallowed sandpaper. “Never wanted another partner. Not ’til about two minutes ago.”
Oh.
Partnering with the Shrike? Buck would tell her to jump at an offer like this. Shoot, he’d kill her if she didn’t.
Slowly Jane pushed another metal piece the Shrike’s direction. “All right,” she murmured. “Let’s give it a shot.”
Even with her burned eyes, she saw his smile.
It took time, reassembling that holocube. Afterward it still never moved quite right. It clicked when twisted. But in the end, it worked.
Buck would have been proud.
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