Siku looked off into the corner of the room, lips tight.“Are you implying that I don’t care about her?”
“Do you?”
“We were six, Sesi.”
“So, no.”
“No,” Siku drew a long breath.“This was a lot of trouble.For someone who’s been gone more than two decades.Someone I barely knew.Someonewebarely knew.And it won’t change a damn thing.”
“It’ll send a message,” Sesi argued.
“No, it won’t.He’s a nobody.”
Sesi huffed.“I’m going to bed.”
Siku nodded and let her leave.
Sesi’s room could be described asspartan.She kept no mementos or artwork on the walls.Only a bookshelf full of old books, files and magazines, all paper from before Hexcel had replaced everything made from wood.Even that was obsolete.Physical media of any type was a rarity now.
Sesi sat on her small, neatly made bed on the left, and opened her small Hexcel dresser next to it.Inside, under her folded shirts lay the only thing that had any real meaning.Her mother’s ulu.
She had left it in the corrugated aluminium MobilePod that had been their home since before Sesi and Siku were born.Qimmiq had looked after them when she worked in the city.Sesi still didn’t know what she did.Qimmiq might have, but he had never said.They had never asked.One day, she didn’t come back, and the knife was all they had to remember her.
Sesi thumbed the blade.Traditional ulus were more symmetrical, at least, according to the museum photos she had seen.She didn’t know when her mother’s had been made, but it had a sturdy resin handle that attached to the blade with a finger grip in the middle.
Sesi started taking it with her when she ran the trap lines.It was useful for skinning, trimming, and pretty much anything she could think of.If she could do it with her ulu, she did.
At first Qimmiq and Siku would tease her whenever she cut food at the table with it.Teasing turned into exchanged glances.Eventually, they stopped altogether.It was a part of her now.
Sesi put it back reverently and closed the drawer.After she did this, what would it be to her?Who would she be?Would her mother finally rest?Or would she be disappointed?
Sesi breathed a small laugh at all the things her mother had to be disappointed in her about.Her hair.Her lack of kids.Her inability to keep a girlfriend.Or that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t move on until this was done.
December 21 2267
“Fuck.”
Her face hurt from frowning.Even after her shower.The shower she had to take because she found herself overcome by need.For her ex.Again.Of course, it was pure fantasy.Sesi would never be hers again.
They had both known it was not going to work out for a while before it had happened.Not from the arguments about life or money – they were perfectly compatible in that regard.It was in private.In the bedroom.Sesi couldn’t be what she needed and she couldn’t be what Sesi needed.They partedamicably.
Which is how breakups were supposed to go, weren’t they?Mature adults coming to a mutual understanding?But that led to situations like this.Situations where fingers were coated.Where sheets needed changing.Showers needed to be taken.Alone.And she hated it.There was no catharsis in it.
She wanted her body to crave something else.She wanted to throw things.Start bar fights.Release the rage she felt at a betrayal or something, anything tangible.But, instead of a car crash, she got a medically assisted death.Measured and peaceful.That was no way to go.
She reasoned that she could create the seething hate she needed if she just focused hard enough.For months, she’d been collecting tiny grievances in the hopes that it would add up to something she could fixate on.Then she could cause some damage.Hate fuck someone.Something to give the relationship an honourable death.
Yesterday, she thought she’d had her chance.She’d learned they had caught the goon that Sesi had been chasing for years.The one that she had spent countless nights dreaming about taking down for her.She would have found him.His eyes, bloodshot and exhausted from running.The pupils would dilate when the epinephrine hit his system just a touch too late.He would catch a flash of her bright red hair just before he turned to run, and she would let him.
She could disable him from her Opti.A few lines of code, injected into his SA LFC port.But that would be no fun.Her knives had a taste for blood.She wouldn’t take it all, though.Just enough to savour.Sesi would never forgive her otherwise.The blade would fly, slicing through the air.Quietly.Discreet.Not like the IntelArms pistols with their SmartCartridge guided bullets.That would attract too much attention – despite her love for attention.
The barest nick along the Achilles tendon would send him careening to the pavement.And then she would drag the quisling fleshbag back with her to deposit at Sesi’s feet.She would be praised.And then later, Sesi would allow her to demonstrate exactly how she envisioned taking him apart.The night would end when she decided it would.
But Sesi didn’t do that anymore.Sesi was too much like her.They both relished control.They both needed to be the arbiters of punishments.They both wanted to be the ones who meted out violence.
And so, it ended.
And yet, she still wanted to bring him down.And she wanted to add that slight to her ball of grievances.But it was Siku who ordered the hit.Siku who sent complete unknowns after him.
