Iron Gold (Red Rising Saga 4)

“So I taught you something at least. But not how to mind your own business, you dumb giant.”

“You seemed sad….”

“Not your problem. You got enough of those, don’t make me one of them.”

“But we’re friends. Friends look out for each other.” She nods inside. “Who is that? Her cloak…”

“That’s none of your damn business.”

“But…”

“We’re not friends, Volga.” I push a finger in her chest and stare up at her bluff face. “We work together. Business associates. That is the totality of our relationship.” She stands there as if I’ve struck h

er. I sigh in annoyance. “Go home. And stop following me just because you don’t have your own life.” I don’t have to tell her twice. She hunches her shoulders against the rain and disappears up a flight of stairs to the taxi level above.

I head back inside, where Holiday has made some progress on the bottle, but her chair is shifted, like she’s just gotten out of it. Did she listen at the door?

“You know her?” she asks.

“No,” I snap.

“Right. Well…It’s good to see you, Eph.” She traces the rim of her glass with a callused finger. “To be honest, I’m surprised you came.”

“Ouch. Thought I wouldn’t care anymore?”

“Thought you wouldn’t remember Trigg’s birthday.”

“And I thought your messiah master wouldn’t let you off the leash for some R&R. Don’t you have a parade to attend?”

“That was yesterday. But you knew that.”

I shrug. “Well, this place has gone to shit.”

“Yut. I preferred the tiki torches to whatever this is…” She trails off and gestures to the green lighting and myriad lowlifes.

I snort. “Maybe we’re just getting too cultured. Still, has to be better than the Mercury sand belt.”

“Hell yes it is,” she says heavily. She’s never been a looker, but the latest tour has been hard on her. Still, most of the wear seems on the inside. She sits at the table with the weight of the planet pressing her down into the whiskey bottle.

“You fall in the Rain?” I ask. She nods. “Saw the newsreels. Looked like a shitshow. What’s one of those like? A Rain?”

She shrugs. “Good for weapons contractors. Hostile to the human experience for everyone else.”

“To the returning hero and her perspicacity.” I raise my glass.

She tips her glass to me. “To the malignant underachiever.”

We click our glasses together and down the liquor. It’s cheap enough I can taste the plastic of the bottle it came in, ration fare. My glass is refilled before it reaches the table. We do another. More after that. Drinking till it’s murdered proper. Holiday examines the remnants of her last glass, wondering how it came so soon. She reminds me of all soldiers who’ve come home from the war. Worlds unto themselves. Tense, eyes constantly assessing. She awkwardly tries to make conversation, because she knows she’s supposed to. “So…what’s new? You still contracting?”

“You know me. Kite in the wind.” I swish and swoosh my finger through the air.

“Which corp?”

“You wouldn’t know ’em.” She doesn’t smile. I wonder if it hurts her to see me as much as it hurts me to see her. I was afraid of this. Of coming here. Sliding back into it all.

“So, you’re living good and easy.”

“Only thing easy is entropy.”