BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Do you think it’s likely that I have an appointment?” “This isn’t Sweden,” he observed.

“No. And I have no official standing here,” she admitted. He was a small man, a good six inches shorter than her and certainly younger and more fit. And he had a gun. She waited.

He pulled out a cell phone and made a call. “There’s someone here. She’s Swedish.” He considered his next words. “Swedish intelligence.”

There was quite a long wait then, during which Valquist and the Israeli looked at each other.

Finally, he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

Sixty seconds later Valquist stood dripping melting snow and offering her chilly hand to an old woman with a hard-looking face. The woman did not speak. Instead, she stood aside as though ushering Pia forward to the more important person in the room

“You’re here about the Doll Ship,” said a dark-haired girl with only one arm.

Pia Valquist had never heard or imagined the words, “Doll Ship.” But she looked the strange young woman in the eye and said, “Yes. I am.”

EIGHT

“You have fifty million dollars,” Keats said. They were walking down lower Broadway, having been dropped off by Caligula at a discreet distance from the safe house. If anyone was following them, Caligula would spot the tail. And he would, as he would have said, resent it.

“Actually, I have two billion dollars.” “I can’t think about numbers that big. No one should have two billion dollars.”

“You’re not going to be that way, are you?” she asked wearily. How strange was it that this familiar city, these familiar sidewalks seemed so alien? When had she last walked down a city street? She wore a hat and had the collar of her jacket turned up. She might still be recognized, but she doubted it: New Yorkers don’t look people in the eye.

“What the hell are you doing in this stupid game, in this stupid war?” Keats asked. “You could go anywhere.”

“And take my biots with me?”

“Yes, take your biots, yes.”

“And what about when they die of old age, or whatever it is that kills biots?”

She could see that this was not a new thought for Keats. “We don’t know how long they live. Maybe by then there will be some sort of answer. You could always spend a billion figuring it out.”

“When you say ‘billion’ there’s an edge to it,” she pointed out.

He didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t look at her.

Plath sighed.

“It’s ridiculous,” Keats said at last. “You and me. What would I be? Your butler? It’s Downton Abbey and you’re the duchess or whatever, and I’m the footman.”

“Keats, don’t do this, okay?”

/> “It’s why you could talk to them that way. With that whole I-getwhat-I-want, tone of voice. It’s the voice your class are born with.”

She stopped, and after a couple of steps, he stopped, too. “Listen, Keats, I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to have to defend myself from you. I have more than enough to deal with.”

“Yeah, well, saving your pennies so you can afford to take a girl to the movies isn’t one of them.”

He looked genuinely angry, and that fact made Plath genuinely angry. “Hey: I’m not responsible for you being poor. Or working class. Or whatever you call it.”

“I didn’t say you were,” he muttered. “We should keep walking. Caligula is certainly watching this. From somewhere.”

“I don’t care what he’s watching,” she snapped. “He killed Ophelia.”

They walked for a block in silence. Then he said, “We could just go, Sadie. If you don’t mind being with a footman, we could just go. Just go. Get on a plane to …to …Africa.”