Page 8 of Scion

Expensive. So expensive. The rest of the room is standard enough, for whatever top-fractional-percentage wealthy this woman is. Smaller than the cavernous space upstairs. Polished concrete pillars. Tastefully lit artwork in tastefully spaced alcoves along the walls. Chic and clean, even if it still smells faintly of old person.

The source of the smell comes to a halt in the centre of the room. Gazes distractedly down into the water. The bright lines shifting across her face make her wrinkles crawl. A foot-long fish swims torpidly along the glass below, gills pulsing, ignorant of our presence.

“Are they real?”

Old Woman frowns at me. “The fish? Yes. I just said that.”

“No, I mean are they actual fish? Or Dupes?”

“What’s the difference?” Weirdly defensive. “Does it matter?”

“I suppose not.” They’re Dupes, then. Cloned. Anyone who’d managed to source the real thing would be falling all over themselves to say so. I change the subject. “You said there were other ways in?”

She nods. Not taking her eyes from what’s below. “This is one.”

“The fish tank?”

“Aquarium,” she corrects sternly.

“Aquarium.” I join her. Crouch again and peer down. “Where?”

“East side of the house has an intake and outflow that goes to the river.” She makes a circular shape with her hands about a metre apart.

“Grates? Alarms?”

“Alarms on the intake purifiers, which would have to be removed for anyone to get through. Plenty of grates along the whole stretch.”

“How far to the river?”

“One and a half kilometres.”

I’m impressed. She’s right—someone like me could get in this way—but it’s not an ingress most people would think of. And she’s being precise. Surprisingly helpful. “How large is the… aquarium?”

“It spans most of the house.”

“How big’s that?”

“About forty thousand square metres. Give or take.”

Damn. Damn. “Alright. I’ll need you to show me exactly where those pipes are, later. But before that, where’s the other entrance?”

“Farther down.” She motions with her head for me to follow.

We walk down a long hallway, lit only by the two-metre-wide path of glass that ripples with the constant motion of aquatic life. A lot of rooms branch off it. Many are sleeping quarters. Lavish and enormous and still dominated by sleek, hovering mag-beds with black satin sheets. All are expectedly empty.

“So will the event be here, or off-site?”

“Pardon, dear?”

“You’ve contracted me for two weeks. When someone does that, it’s because something’s happening. They want to throw a party. Visit the city. Do something their regular security can’t account for.”

A wisp of frizzled white hair drifts over Old Woman’s eyes as she shakes her head. “No. No, that’s not why you’re here.”

“Alright.” I draw out the word. Make it a question, because it damned well is. I’m already uneasy enough about this job. Every time Old Woman opens her mouth, she manages to make me more so.

“Someone wants to kill me.”

“Broadly, I’d already assumed that much.”