She’d always liked machines, even back when she was little. She’d been so innocently excited whenever I brought one back to our place. At least it meant she had work, which meant she would never have to miss a meal.
It had never occurred to me that the toys my sister was fiddling around with were proper machines. Now her room was full of CRT monitors and devices of all kinds.
She’d become a telegraphist—and without her, my work would have been a hell of a lot harder. So many jobs and offers came in over the wires, including the previous day’s Janitorial job.
If I was honest, I wasn’t entirely thrilled about her work—but part of me thought it was a good thing. At least it was safer than running around with a gun; it was real, proper employment. If I was a top-class replaceable, then Metel was one of a kind.
—It’s my bad for not telling her to clean up.
“So who’s the client?” I asked.
“Someone from Organ.”
The KGB. The guys in black suits. I tried to stop myself from looking as unimpressed as I felt.
“It’s cheaper to put you on the job than to get the men in suits involved.”
The KGB. Organ. The national security forces. In short, the secret police. Fifteen-year-old Danila Kragin might not have known about them, but at twenty-four, he did.
“I’m from the building next to the toy shop” were words used to scare children straight, but they were like Baba Yaga: If you don’t behave, a scary witch will send a terrible monster to kidnap you.
Baba Yaga was made-up. She didn’t exist. Couldn’t.
But Organ—that was real.
The Western and Eastern bloc countries had spent the last two centuries staring each other down. You might think that would leave the KGB on pretty good footing, but you would be wrong. Why? Because our glorious motherland, the USSR, had another information arm.
Namely, the military intelligence bureau, GRU: Aquarium. The military elite who gathered in a glass building and controlled our most potent special forces, the spetsnaz.
They had separate jurisdictions from the KGB, of course. And in the USSR, budgets were tight.
I knew a Janitor once who had described the KGB and GRU as a two-headed dog whose heads fought with each other over a single food dish, always trying to rip each other apart. That Janitor had tried to befriend both heads, and they had promptly torn him in half.
“What’s the payout?” I asked.
Without a word, Mariya raised one finger: one bundle of rubles.
I didn’t know whether that was an appropriate reward for a top-class Janitor. Would Uchitel take the job at that price? I didn’t know; I’d never met her. But for me, it was a boatload of cash. Enough to risk my life over.
I could only speak for myself, not anyone else.
“If Organ is resorting to employing Janitors, the coffers must really be empty,” I said.
Mariya shook her head with a wan smile. “Oh, hardly. They’re overflowing. That’s why they have the luxury of using Janitors.”
“Gotcha.”
Still listening to the sweet voice of the woman named Jazz, I scanned the telex.
The job was to guard a woman. This wasn’t a phototelegraph, so there was no picture, but it said Ilyena Tachibana, twenty-nine years old.
“Tachibana?” I wondered about her surname aloud. “Tachyana?”
“Tachibana,” Mariya said. “I gather she’s of Japanese extraction.”
“Huh.”
Japan—that was farther away than even the last stop on the trans-Siberian railroad. An island country across the sea. I only knew one thing about it, which was that somewhere called Chiba was supposed to be cyborg mecca. And I knew some companies that were supposedly from Japan. Companies like Ono-Sendai in Hosaka, Toyota and Honda, Sony and Renraku, all mishmashes of foreign syllables to my ear.
Oh, and I had heard that the yakuza gangs were cloning ninjas to serve as their secret weapons.
That was all I knew about the place, though. I was more interested in one particular line of the telex.
“‘Member of the People’s Commissariat for Finance’? Nu, da <No way>…”
“Da.” Mariya remained merciless as a blizzard toward her wide-eyed older brother. “She’s not a politician, though, so I don’t think you have to worry too much.”
“Tebe povezlo.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Sarcasm wasn’t working, huh? My sister just smiled and sipped her coffee.
—And she never pulls on my sleeve anymore.
Nichego ne podelayesh’ <It is what it is>. I’ve always been a sucker for that face.
“Okay, I’m in. Labor is glorious.”
Sending one lone Janitor to look out for someone who was doing an observation tour for the budget commission, though?
—It means either the job is safe…or they don’t care if she dies.
I shook my head as I continued reading the telex. It was better not to think about whatever might be going on behind the scenes. Better for my health. Knowing wouldn’t change what I had to do.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said, folding the sheet neatly and tucking it into my body armor.
Places like this coffee shop were surprisingly good for secret conversations—the marketplace was an unyielding ruckus, as usual; no one would pay any attention to a brother and sister having coffee. How nice of Mariya to grow up so smart.
I drank the rest of the muddy liquid in my tin cup, knowing that in exchange I was going to have a stomachache.
“That reminds me,” Mariya said suddenly. It was a clumsy way of trying to pretend she’d just thought of whatever it was. “You’re still using that old thing? Why not order something from Monashina? The Nun?”
“You know I don’t like Kalashnikovs,” I said with a smile. It was nice, but silly, of her to worry about it. That was my job. “You could do with at least a pistol yourself, Mariya. Don’t come crying to me if some creeper tries to get to you—a beautiful girl all by her lonesome.”
“…Tsk. Keep it to yourself. You’re the one who was late.”
“That’s a bad habit. Stop it.”
“I will not.” She scowled and stuck her tongue out at me. I couldn’t resist smiling. Before she pouted even harder, I remembered the paper bag.
“Oh yeah. Speaking of being reminded of things…”
I thought briefly about Nora, but, well…ahhh, forget it. I still didn’t approve of the way she earned her pocket change.
“Give this to Valery. A little present.”
“All right. Sure.” Mariya took the bag with the sausage in it.
“One other thing,” I said. “Give him a message for me. Tell him to make some time for me.”
“I can do that, too…” She nodded, but she looked hesitant, cocking her head at me inquisitively. “But, Big Brother, couldn’t you tell him yourself when you come home?”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, and laughed. “You think I would act like I was buying off my own siblings?”