Free Finch by Jeff VanderMeer by Jeff VanderMeer Page B

back of her neck where she liked to be kissed. Soft brown hairs. Crisp
salt taste.
    "How was your work yesterday?" he asked her, holding her tightly to
him. Skin so warm against his body.
    "The same as always."
    What did that mean?
    "The same as always," Finch echoed. "That's good."
    "I guess," she said. She sounded distracted.
    Still didn't know what Sintra did, or even where she lived. Remnants
of the dogghe and nimblytod had carved out a defiant kingdom for
themselves in the ruined Religious Quarter. But Sintra might not
even think of herself as one of them, integrated into the city. He'd
never asked. Sometimes he daydreamed of her being a rebel agent.
Comforting. Utterly unreal. But that didn't matter.
    "I'm lonely. Even with you."
    "Someday, it will be different . . . "
    That she preferred him not knowing hurt him. Even though he
understood the sense of it. Even though they made a game out of it.
    "Where do you work?"

    "In the city."
    "And what do you do?"
    "Answer questions. Apparently."
    He'd known everything about his past girlfriends. But even in their
lovemaking Sintra seemed to change from week to week.
    Exhausting. Exciting. Dangerous.
    Still missed the normalcy of the one time she'd stayed long enough
to make breakfast. A surreal, sublime morning. They'd met at a black
market party the night before. Taken off his detective's badge, gone as
a civilian wanting some fun. Bumped into each other on the makeshift
dance floor. In someone's basement. Everyone there expecting the gray
caps to blast up through the tiles and send them to the work camps.
    "Your day wasn't as good, I can tell," she said now. Bringing him back.
    "I have a difficult case."
    "How difficult?"
    He sat on the chair and talked to me. The cat was as big as a pony and
the lizard was as big as a cat. And me, I was as tiny as a reflection in Feral's
eye. A perverse nursery rhyme.
    "Difficult enough. A gray cap cut in half. A dead man. In an
apartment. But they seem to have fallen from the sky ..."
    Sintra sat up, looked at him. "Where were they found?"
    Finch stared back at her. Surprised by her sudden interest. Sometimes
he shared details as an act of faith. But not on something that might
pull her down with him.
    "Down by the bay," he said. Waited.
    Sintra considered him as he'd considered her. Then changed the
subject. "Is that why you were crying? Because of what the memory
bulbs showed you?"
    "Yes." Propped himself up on an elbow. Shuddered, winced. An
aftershock? Pressure in his head. Like his brain had outgrown his
skull.
    Sintra hugged him. Kissed him. He laid his head against her chest.
She scared him sometimes. Both from her presence and her absence.
    "Maybe it was a bad reaction to a drug," she said. "Maybe you
inhaled a bad spore."
    Back before the Rising, Sintra said she had been a doctor's aide.

    "Unlikely." He and his fellow detectives got fed antidotes every few
months. One perk of working for the gray caps. He stole extras for Sintra
and Rathven. Sintra always took them with her. Never used them in
the apartment.
    "But it's over now."
    "Yes. It's over."
    He broke off the embrace. Feral was cleaning himself in a shaft
of light by the window. Sidle was motionless on the windowsill.
Drunk on the new sun.
    Sintra wrapped the sheets around her and stood up, walked toward
the window. Leaving Finch naked and exposed on the bed. Watching
her as he put his underwear back on. Remembering the first time they
had made love. How he'd checked the sheets, the pillows after she'd
left. Wanting to breathe in more of the smell of her. How there had
seemed to be no trace of their sex. Only his memory of the act. As if
he had entered a ghost.
    She turned to stare at him, framed by the window.
    "I'll come back in a night or two," Sintra said. "That's not long."
    "No, it's not long," Finch said. Thinking of the station. The other
detectives. Work fatigue washed over him.
    Memory holes and Wyte and Heretic and wanting to