Free Undertow by Elizabeth Bear

are playing in the big leagues now. He spun the cylinder, closing his eyes while he listened to it whir, picturing the chamber with the single cartridge dropping to the bottom, away from the hammer, pausing there as the cylinder ratcheted to a halt.
    If Kroc knew about Spivak, the weapon was bait. The fix was in, this was no test, and accepting the challenge would mean his death. If Kroc didn’t know—if Cricket had spoken to him about André—then this was André’s chance. He might be able to affect the spin of the cylinder. He might just—get lucky.
    Unlike the cat in the box, he did
not
know if he was dead.
    The gun might be archaic, but the antitampering lock was not. The diamond-tipped drill
zinged
into metal as the cylinder stopped. The weapon shuddered as the bolt slipped home, a delicate warble alerting him to the activation of the transmitter. Kroc would know if he cheated.
    The question being asked had a yes or no answer. Did he want to conjure enough to die for it?
    André slid the room-temperature barrel into his mouth, tasting gun oil, sleek and unpleasantly aromatic. He pictured
misfire
. He pictured a misaligned chamber, a hammer bent enough to miss contacting the primer. A revolver was a primitive machine, an effective machine. Not much could go wrong.
    He was dead or he wasn’t. A closed box.
About time,
he thought, and opened his eyes for one long look at the screen across from his desk, the one that showed the endless blue expanse of bay, the contrail of another lighter towing its string-of-pearls cargo pods toward the spaceport after splashdown. Up and down, up and down, never getting anywhere.
    The wake hit; his office rose and dropped, the stylus rolling across his interface stopped by the lip on the desk.
    His finger convulsed.
             
    It was the best damned coffee André had ever tasted.
    He gulped the first cup in three painful, searing swallows, then poured another and soaked broken bites of doughnut. It was a ritual, a discipline, and he didn’t pick up the envelope until he’d tossed back the crumb-laden dregs and poured himself a third cup, oily and black. By then, his hands were shaking too badly to drink and
machismo
was satisfied, so he set it aside and picked up the envelope in its stead.
    Hand-addressed, as he’d noticed. The writing was smooth and controlled, not jerky the way most people’s was when they were forced to use archaic tools. He knew before he opened it that the note inside, like the envelope, would be real paper, dead trees and cloth fiber, rather than epaper. There would be no data trail.
    André read over the address and the invitation and drank his third cup of coffee while memorizing both. Wet memory, not hard.
    No etrails.
    The fourth cup of coffee was the last one in the pot. It steamed thickly into the humid air while André tapped the last few droplets free and then unscrewed the element from the bottom of the pot. It wasn’t hot enough to glow when he laid the insulated cap down on the tray, but it was hot enough to blacken paper, and—when he bent forward and blew softly on the thin ember—to set it brilliantly aflame.
    The invitation burned the envelope, and both scorched André’s fingertips before he dropped them in the recycler and poured half the last cup of coffee on top. What remained was bitter, and there were grounds in it. André could afford the real, imported bean. Not a stunning expense—coffee went through a transmitter just fine—but supplies were limited and that made it a not insignificant one.
    He savored those last swallows. Then he stood, and set the cup aside on the painted tin tray, and summoned his weapons and his coat. He walked past Maryanne on his way out; she caught his wrist so he turned and met her gaze. She shook her head so her earrings rattled on her earpiece, lips pressed tight, conservative bleached dreadlocks caught back in a bun.
    “Thank God,” she said, and squeezed tight enough to leave nail cuts in