Sister Cities

Part 99: Ekko

All my old nightmares are standing before me

And I lay on the carpet and sift through my reveries

Try on the ones that still bite

Sometimes I wonder where you are now

And if you ever found some happiness

Or just another way to kill the time

I don't owe you a thing

You were always just something that I could never save

________________________________________________________________________________

 "You shouldn't be doing this," Scar says, not for the first time.

"I'm the stealthiest person we have."

"Doesn't matter. We have plenty of members that are stealthy enough to handle it."

"I would be a shitty leader if I put it off on someone else."

"Uh, you aren't the leader," he says. "I'm the leader. You voluntarily relinquished the position to me."

I push off the door frame. "Yeah, well—"

"I'm not going. Am I a shitty leader?"

"You can't go because of the baby," I say. "I'm just—"

"You're just our councilor, directly going against what the Council voted for. If you're caught, you're off. That'd be a bad thing for everybody in the long run— Firelights, addicts, the whole Undercity. I agreed to take credit for the idea if it comes to it, but that won't stand if you're the one carrying it out."

Not that I ever asked him to take credit. "I'm not gonna get caught," I say.

He massages his forehead with a knuckle. "You need to examine this at some point. You know that, right?"

"Examine what?"

"This need to be involved in everything. I know it's worked out for you so far, but if you keep going on like you are, there'll come a day where it doesn't." He tilts his head at his cracked window, evening light and laughter filtering in. "All of us joined up expecting to risk ourselves sometimes. They want to be called on."

"I don't care."

"Then suppose I call on them for you. And suppose I order you to stay back."

I freeze, fingertips braced on the frame. Scar looks at me levelly and scrapes a claw across his desk.

"You wouldn't do that," I say.

"I don't want to. I can't promise I won't. I know it's harsh, but I'm not willing to put everyone else at risk just to ease your guilty conscience."

"Fuck off with that," I say unthinkingly. "Order whatever you want. It won't stop me."

He keeps scraping that claw, and I wince at the petulant words. He knows a lot about my guilty conscience, probably only second to Snake and maybe now Vi, and he's never said anything about it that my rational side can disagree with.

"Sorry," I mutter, dropping my hand to my side.

"I know I can't stop you if you're set on it, Ekko. That's not how we do things here. But I'm serious about your behavior— you need to stop being so reckless, or your luck is going to run out." He gets to his feet, a new gouge in the surface of his desk, and I make myself meet his eyes. "We've lost too many people," he says. "I don't want you to be one of them."